and we often find traces of them in his works. He also had
read Scott, Voltaire and Rousseau. That he early showed
a tendency toward literature is shown by his boyish journals
and "The Spectator," which exhibit careful observation . and
a clear style. "He was, so far as any one could see, nothing
more than a healthy, handsome, intelligent, mischievous
boy, who deserved some credit for not letting himself be
seriously spoiled by the admiration of his mother and sis
ters. "
His stay in Maine was a short one, being there only a
year and returning to Salem in 1819 to prepare for College
under the tutorage of a lawyer, Benj. L. Oliver. In 1821 he
entered Bowdoin College at Brunswick, Maine, and was in
the same class as Longfellow, and the class below Franklin
Pierce who was his life long friend: He had hi college the
reputation of being au excellent writer, and his poetic trans
lations were unusually good. But he was, as he says, "an
idle student, negligent of college rules and the Procrustean
details of Academic life, rather choosing to nurse my own
fancies than to dig into Greek roots and be numbered among
the learned Thebans." It was to Pierce that Hawthorne
owed his consul-ship at Liverpool. Horatio Bridge, later
an officer in the United States Navy, and Jonathan Cilley,
were college mates and steadfast friends.
Graduating in 1825, from that time till 1838, he lived
mostly in Salem, presumably in the Herbert street house
which seems to have had a face toward Union street. It
was in a chamber in this house that fame was won. Here
lie wrote many tales,—some burned, • others published.
"If ever I should have a biographer," he writes, "he ought
to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, be
cause so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here
my mind and character were formed."
As has been said, there is a mystery enveloping his early
life. was endowed with a. strong, social instinct; he had