Morning journal and courier., 1891-09-19

Given" He states that he has two sums of ten and three pounds in your hands belonging to din, and requests me to write you for it. I am
 '0''s fe'pe''' By B hJ.H%Sihddih h. J. %idisg.
 The next letter is dated August 18th, and has Hawthorne's neat autograph ap- pended. The entire series comprises ref erence to such details of consulate duty as the hunting up of estayed Americans, the identification of dead sailors and the seal ing or disposal of their effects, the trial of masters or seamen for misdemesnors, and the like. Among them all but one recalls historic fact or an incident of national concern. This one is dated September 1, 1854. It is an application to the bishop of Chester, in behalf of Kentuckian named A J. Barry, who had come from America to secure the remains of his father, for the removal of the body of General Jsckson's former postmaster-general and Kentucky's chief justice, Hon. William Taylor Barry, who had died in Liverpool, and was in- tered in St. James cemetery, in August, 1885, while en route to Madrid to repre- sent the United States as minister to Spain.
 The musty old record-book has a won drous fascination. l pored over it for hours, unconscious of the temporarily great who called, the certifcation of in- voices, or the interpretation of the govern mental arm in behalf of the ever coatless, always innocent and eternally unfortunate American sailor. One feature of all these letters was impressive. Their brevity and straightforwardness were remarkable. There was no prolixity, no proffer of opin- ion, no assertion of their authors person aity. They marched straight to their ob- jective point and stopped short there. And yet there was thread of the mellow est humor through them all, with here and there hard and hideous facts unpreten- tiously marshalled, all the sterner for their gentle phrasing.
 Of course there was a tradition st our Liverpool consulate that the veritsble con- sular offices occupied by Hawthorne had been located somewhere in Liverpool Of ficial caution would not permit a decided expression of opinion as to where that somewhere was. No Liverpool business men knew. The antiquarians have not recorded it. Literators and journalists have forgotten, if they ever knew. You cannot find it in any of the Hawthorne bi- ographies. But this vague tradition point ed to the old 'Washington building, 6 venerable pile, the lower story of the riv- erward side of which forms a huge Moor ish piazza, giving the name "Goree Piazza" to trsfhc-deafening portion of Liver pools chief shipping thoroughfare.
 To this erumbling relic of Liverpoors old commercial days hastened with many misgivings. l groped through antique railways, wainscotted with mahogany and black with age; and climbed curious old staircsses, foot-worn foot deep in grooves, dangerous with sudden turns and half landings, and decorated with strangely carved ornaments and slender, twisted bal ustrades. Huge knockers were set in low, wide doors. Narrow, barred transoms let slivers of light through above them. These disclosed many quaint metal relief or intaglio of rude design, set with unin- telligible purpose, in corners, above doors, upon beams, or in the yellow and cracked ceilings. Wonderful old stuccoes still cling in unexpected angles and spaces; and huge brackets, like those supporting the sign-posts of ancient inns, or for lamps and cumbrous chandeliers of later, though still ancient, time, projected here and there as tokens of the structures hale old age. Thus up, up, up, l scrambled, making hesitant inquiries in bare bleak offices, where the oldest men I ever saw seemed but wraiths, ghostlily pantomimic of humans and affairs in some far, forgot ten time; away into the attic, to the care takers grinning wife; and then, with no clue to what I sought, down again through the labyrinth of halls and over the ruin ous stairways to the roaring of the 'Ior- ries" in the street below. Halting in bit ter disappointment on the first landing, a door I had not previously seen stood open. Some vagrant impulse bsde me enter. found within it one desk, two chairs and 8 | bluff, hearty, weather-beaten Englishman, the sole furnishings. But I also saw over the ancient fireplace an almost effaced symbol of my own loved land, which had escaped all other eyes for thirty-five years To me something like a sudden glory en- veloped lonely desk, chairs, weather beat en Englishman and ancient fireplace; for 1 stood where Nathaniel Hawthorne had l struggled with official life in England for | four mortal years.
 EDGAR T., WAKEuAS