Morning journal and courier., 1891-09-19

 1y and superior personality, contrived to escape his duties long enough to secure Hawthorne admission to the ancient church, and to show him other antiquities in the quaint old town.
 On departing the novelist had gratefully given his guide half sovereign, and had also said to him in his kind, quiet way: 'Save your earnings, my good man, and become Independent for your old days" with tender delight. He has all of Flaw thorne's works. They are as moldy and mussy as the old town itself. But the man who wrote them, the books them selves, the tiny bit of gold which is one of the most prized things in England, and the hours companionship which I could not but envy him, had made this one hum ble Englishman conscious of a new world about him in which to live. A halo of glory always lit up that old church when he looked upon it.
 The magic of it all came to me some thing as it had come to this old man. My purpose was at once changed I felt a glowing desire to follow in his footsteps; to loiter in the places he had known; to hunt for his haunts here; and to recover what might still be gathered, if meager that should be, of the incident, locale, ha- vor and personality from those years he passed in official life in England, so little of which had ever been revealed, and so much of which was rapidly and irrevoca- ply passing into the sealed silences of Tor getfulness.
 So I took the road over which Flaw thorne had come from Southport. Four teen miles he walked, but the pleasure of it all made the distance seem but an hour s tramp to me. There was first the pleas ant hilly country and then the low lying lands by the sea; ancient Scarisbrick Hall with its fine gateway and lodge; the old bridge where he lounged on the parapet; the aged stone houses, "built merely for respectable occupsnts;n the canal with its lazy boats; the little girls, now as then, still watching the cows lest they should go astray; the Msypole inn at the little village where Hawthorne "asked for some cold meat and ale" and got instead a royal dinner with home-brewed ale, ''not very mighty, but good to quench thirst" to wash it down with; and, all the way, the hsrvesters gathering their crops;-were just as his eyes had seen them, until roofs of the gay watering-pla showed above the sand dunes and verdure of merry Southport.
 Here the wrath I had followed from Ormskirk seemed obscured for 8 little in the modern brightness of the pretty and populous resort. Once before during the year, when lettering at Southport, the for mer presence of the man had seemed to involuntarily crowd into every picture of the place which came through eyes and heart to the pencil for shaping. Under it's friendly influence at that time I wrote: Perhaps it is largely fanciful association of person and place, but somehow with Hawthorne in one's mind, the lovely, leafy city as it is to-day, takes on the garb of our own delicious Salem. The trim, pret- ty yards recall it. The long, elm-shsded avenues, with glint and shimmer of the sea through their narrowing vistas, bring it lovingly to the memory. The wide, clean, sunshine-dappled yards, backed by prim, precise houses, hint of it. Hun dreds of "hfpped" roofs, quaint gables and ivy-haunted formers reproduce its sweet old hooks.
 By dint of patient hunting among the old, old folk, kindly receptions which came to naught, suspicious rebuffs com prising strong intimations of the powers of the constabulary, and coaxings togeth- CT of vagrant waifs of others memory, this one, that one and another one, had many pleasant little things to say worth treasuring: Of Brunswick Terrace, where the Hawthornes lived, from September, 1856, to April, 1857, still standing near the glorious Southport foreshore, prim, pretentious and faded, and still the resort of respectable dodgers" desperate enough to love any place away from Liverpool; of the perky but faithful maid, Fanny, al ways sort of back-door out of every do mestic difficulty to the Hawthornes in England; of the pale but cheery wife and mother who seemed to diffuse tender sunshine wherever she went; of the three lovely children, Una, the boy Julian (now the novelist and lacking but seven years of his fathers then age) and baby Rosa, upon whom all smiled a greeting as they passed; and finally, of the plain, dark, quiet man who came from the Liverpool station SC promptly each afternoon, and walked straight to Brunswick Terrace, speaking to no one, turning not to the right or the left, looking almost sad in his absorption but who suddenly reappeared with his | joyous tiny brood-the most boyish man l that ever strolled long miles with children | on this endless, level, golden beach, oI | played hide-and-seek with them among the | outlying dreary dunes of sand.
 No one here had ever known him per | sonally The nearest was one venerable | Densioner, an old-time myrmidon of tho | law, who had aided in bringing to justice two ttripling burglars that had ransacke6 | the Hawthorne apartments, and, being disturbed, had gotten away with few ar cles of no great value, including Flaw thorne's boots and top coat; said pension CT regarding the novelist as "proper soft | for his evident secret desire that the dep redators should escape punishment. Bu all of these kindly old voices had broker bar or two to sing for the man whose mer
 retired few months presence had left nor
 responsive chords than could all of som | great and vigorous mens' lives.
 l This and much else made me impatien to arrive at the American consulate, at 2t
 Chapel street, Liverpool. Here, I sur
 missed, would be found veritable store o
 reminiscence. From this one could reacl
 out in all directions and gather, feast ant
 enjoy.
 It is a very fine and stately place, ou
 Liverpool consulate, as befits the agenc,
 of our government in one of the greates
 of foreign ports. It has in profusion plat
 glass, ground glass and stained glass
 nickel furnishing, brass knobs, soft-tone
 silver call-bells, fine old furniture, wis
 faces, frilled shirts, gray hairs and an unc
 tious cathedral air of cautious and t-sine'
 repose about it. One instinctively re
 moves his hat and clears his throat wei
 before attempting penetrative efforts; an | speaks in @ low tone of voice and step
 softly, on being ushered into the wide
 high, pleasant private apartments of ou
 consul He is glad, too. he has done d
 this when he has met that official; for n
 deference is too great when a real gentle
 man is at the objective end of it.
 The transcendent luster of Hawthorne
 personal identification with the LiverpoC
 consulate must be sought either in book or outside Liverpool in the hearts of mer
 Consul Sherman is sure he admires th
 genius or Hawthorne as much as anybod,
 Sometimes when he is not too busy he
 going to look up something about the maI
 After ones first shock this interest an
 enthusiasm are gratifying. Moncure l Conway, when preparing his pleasant an
 wonderfully analytic book, Hawthorne, , just published in the English ''Great WIT
 ters" series, had written to the consulst
 for Hawthorne "reminiscences, which Col way, like myself, had innocently believe must be positively exuding from every O
 ficial pore of the place. Now had con
 along glowing with expectancy regardin
 this very same Hawthorne matter. Frol
 business standpoint it was quite remarl , able Indeed the matter must really I , looked into.
 You would have to travel in many fo countries to find a more kindly or court ous consul than this one at Liverpool br } our consulate here, which, in the paltriei I racoonition of the plOrious distinctiO