The Portland daily press., 1882-12-12
The illuminate.
Some Plessan Gossip About Concord
Celebrities, by NJ. D. Conway.

Some Plea SAINT Gossip About Concord |
Celebrities, by M. D. Conway.
Somewhere about the year 1916 George w.
Curtis found his way TO Concord. He was
fresh from Cambridge, of high family, and
with fair fortune; but thinking he had not had
sufficient contact with the rough side of life,
he, with his brother, hired himself as a farm
laborer near Concord The whimsical youths
worked we'll for fair wages and reserved
enough leisure to enjoy the society of the
village notabilities. He gives some amusing
pictures of the Concord circle as it was then.
Towards the end of the autumn, he writes,
Emerson suggested that they should meet
every Monday evening through The winter at
bis library. 1 went the first Monday evening
very much as Ixion may have gone to his ban
quet. The philosophers sat dignifed and
erect. There was constrained but very
amiable silence, which had the impertinence
Of tacit inquiry, seeming to ask, "Who will
now proceed to say the finest thing that has
ever teen said?" 1t was quite involuntary
and uuavoidable for the members lacked that
fluent SOFA genius without which club is
impossible. 1t was a congress OF oracles on
the one hand, and of curious listeners on the
other. 1 vaguely remember that the Orphic
Alcott invaded the desert of silence with SOL
saying, to which. after due pause, the
,norable member for blackberry pastures
(Thoreau, tho naturalisD responded by some
zen and graphic observ ton, while the Olym-
pan host, anxons that so much good material
should be spun into something, beamed snil-
Ing a a Ruf ha
conversation became more and more staccato
Miles Coverdale (Nalhaniel Hawthorne) a
statue Of Night and Silence, sat a little re-
moved under a portrait.of Dante, gazing inn
perturaby upon the group, and as he was in
the shadow, his dark hair and eyes, and suit of
sable made him in that society, the black
thread of mystery which he weaves into his
stories; while the shifting presence OF the
Brook Farmer (Mr. Pratt) played like heat
lightning around the room. recall little else
but grave eating of russell apples by the erect
philosophers and solemn disappearance into
night.
The cldb struggled through three Monday
evenings Plato was perpetually putting APP.
Piles of gold in pictures OF silver; for such was
the rich ore of his thought, and the deep melo-
dy of his voice. Orson charmed us with the
secrets won from his interviews with Pan in
the Walden Woods; but still in vain: the orac-
| ular sayings were the unallosed saccharine
| element, aud every chemist knows how much
| else goes TO practical food, how much coarse,
| rough, woody fibre is essential The club
| struggled vallantly, discoursing ceestially,
| caring apples and disappearing into the dark,
untl the third evening it vanished altogeth-
| en-"
At the other end of the village from the res
| idehce OF Emerson stands the somewhat his
| toric house known as the Old Manse, about
| which were gathered Hawthorne's .'Mosses
| from an Old Manse." In this Old Manse came
| Nathaniel Hawthorne to dwell in those DAYS
when as he afterwards wrote with cerrain
| grim satisfaction, he was the most unknown
| author in America" AS q phantom he Came
/ and as a phantom be dwelt there; and after
| several years was still to the villagers a dark
sombre stranger He was silent looker-ou,
| aud noted down with the interest of an artist
the movements which were going on around
| tim, aud entering with an artists interest.
even the community of Brook Farm-ou of
| experience grew his "Blithedale Romance
| IN which all the enthusiasts of that experiment
| appear. It was much the same with the life
| Of Hawthorne, in whose works real events and
| characters are worked up more than in those
| Of any author with whom / am acquainted
| Many will remember the thrilling termination
TO the story Of zenobia (Margaret Fuller in
| the "Bithedae Romance" The terrible de-
tails OF the dragging for the corpse of the sni-
| eide were made with a singular fidelity from
| an actual event which cast a deep shadow over
| the village. About mile from the residence
| OF Mr.. Hawthorne lived a farmer of humble
! fortunes, who had much struggle to obtain
| competence for his large family. Among
| these was daughter of precocious talent who
had Interested Emerson and others BY her
studies and eafnestness. But as she got older
| the hard duties OF life and poverty wore upon
her delicate organization, and she was not vet
| twenty years of age when she disappeared
Through the night she was sought in every
| direction. At length one Of the neighbors
found some article of her clothing upon the
| riverside; and as MIR. Hawthorne's was the
nearest house, he went there to get a boat and
some assistance. 1t was after midnight. and
| Hawthorne went in his boat with the other:
| together they sat in the moonlight, q mile
| from the city, and silently dragged for the
corpse. At last it was drawn up. Silently
| Hawthorne went home to spend the rest of the
| night in writing that chapter, which for tragic
ROVER IS perhaps unsurpassed in the literature
| OF the horrible.
| Unfortunately Hawthorne had been college
| classmate OF Franklin Pierce and when the
latter was nominated by the Democrats for the
Presidency, tue novelist wrote biography of
| Pierce For this, bis most remarkable work of
notion, be was, on the election of Mr.. Pierce,
made consul at Liverpool. Upon entering
room where company had assembled, Haw-
tnorne was very sure to make for the darkest
| corner, and it would have taken more than
| forty-dowager power 10 draw him out of it,
| AT an evening company in Boston, at which
was present and where he was the chief guest
he was found to have disappeared at about
nine, and being sought for by the host was
| discovered in a remote room of the house read
ing Defoe's "Ghost Stories"
One day tall, slender, blonde and white