Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-09-27

the side wall It extends from the floor to
the ceiling. In the top are few close
shelves. In the bottom is a cubbyhole,
formerly used as a temporary safe. just
! above this are several secret drawers, their
outer edges made in imitation of narrow,
moldng-ribbed paneling. Above these is a
! complex series of ledger racks, protected by
| little falling doors. And still above are
| sliding panels concealing marvellous nest
of pigeonholes. This was the author Haw-
| thorne's repository of manuscripts, of per-
sonal correspondence, of his quaint, genial
| and often grimly satiric English Notes."
| and of countless odds and ends of half
created imageries, observations and literary
| suggestions and skeleton plots; all secret,
sacred and priceless to a writer as to a
| maiden are the sweet, trifiing tokens of a
first romantic love. This rare old cupboard
is now receptacle for Office sweepings,
and an ignOble but useful coal bin.
Innumerable pictures of Hawthorne in
his changeful II GODS, as he sat at his desk
beneath the windows of this little office.
come involuntarily into the visitors mind.
Whether at work upon many of the most
characteristic personal letters he ever
penned romping with his children, who
often descended like three uproarious in
FAINT Graces upon him, in charge of the
bright-faced wife or the uncompronising,
but ever faithful maid, Fanny; listening de-
murely to shipmasters' yarns, OF pretend
ing to solemnly inspect sailors broken
heads when his own was turned away;
Quarreling in kindly rivalry of objurgation
with his loyal friend. Bright, over the
merits and dement's of the people, policies
and institutions of their respective coun-
tries-fOr Hawthorne was American to the
core and back again-or still breeding alone
with vagarOus fancieS; the light from the
strange old window-top must have played
about his head there with an actual Rem
brandt effect, bright as when the spiritual
windows of memory open upon the mali
Hawthorne, his tender life aud his surpass-
ing worth and work
Hawthorne's genuine hannts in England
were few, and he travelled over old ground
with the fondest tread. ST. Nicholas
churchyard; the rare bakers shop, where
such excellent bread and butter and cheese
could be eaten standing; Sanuheys, where
he went to visit Bright; old Ormskirk, but
few miles away; Southport and the out
lying sand dunes between it and Blundell-
sands, nearer the city; the ancient Liver
pool market, still standing; Chester, which
he revisited frequently ;Dingle, "a pleasant
domain on the banks of the Mersey;" East
ham, but a few miles distant and recorded
by him as 1.-The finest old English village
he had seen; and particularly the venerable
church of st. Andrews, at Bennington.
built in 100; were his most familiar haunts
for the four years of his consularship in
tnSldnu. Va COURSE IN ttllS tl1lle ue visited
the lake district, Wales. the Isle of Man,
Scotland and London spariugly. But he
seemed to write of them all as though
merely to refresh his mind when he should
finally get a good ready to write. In all
the English Notes. the really charming
bits are chiefly where he speaks of him
self, and not of the thing he has come to
see. The little hooks near Liverpool, when
he stole away to them alone, or when he
had his family on foot for an outing with
him, are where we find the man at his
happiest and best.
Undoubtedly Hawthorne's chief haunt in
Liverpool was the then and at present new
and old book store, noted among bibli-
ographers and owned by Mr.. Henry Young,
at II South Castle street. Mr.. Young, now
a very old man, gave me some interesting
recollectiOns of the novelist:
'sMy first recollection of Mr.. Hawthorne
is of dark-haired, retiring and most gen
tlemanly looking man, who walked into my
shop and, without word to anybody or
from anyone to him, proceeded to investi-
gate the books. In little time he took
from a shelf an uncut copy of Don Quixote,'
in two volumes, illustrated by Tony johann
not, asked me the price, paid the money
and requested that the books be sent to
Mr.. Hawthorne, at the American con-
sulate'
Then he began coming almost daily.
after long time growing somewhat IA
miliar. He would inquire much about
books, but usually more for information
Bright OF Liverpool. q wealthy dilletant,
author of ''The English Flower Garden
and the intimate friend Of the late Lord
Houghton Orchard Monckton Milnes), to
whom he introduced Hawthorne, was his
single warm friend and confidant in Eng