The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1897-10-21
Hawthorne's Boyhood.
Mr.. s. 7. PIckard Supplies Charming BIographl-
cal Chapter.

mr. Ss L. flck8FQ supplies NnormIHS blOSF8pnl-
cal Chapter.
Hawthorne's children, in their almost
too tireless collaboration of ali materials
left concerning the life of their illustrious
father, have missed priceless biographi-
! cal chapter which is supplied by Mr.. Sam
uel T. Packard in the little book entitled
"Hawthorne's First Diary which comes
soon from the Riverside Press. From ad-
vance pages we are enabled to offer a
charming glance into the mind and habits
of the young genius of romance in those
formative days Of boyhood, which all
psychologists now recognize with increas-
ing clearness as most delicately and per-
manently important in the development of
human faculty. Imaginative literature
about childhood has been increasingly
plentiful of late; there has been deepen
ing appreciation of beauty in the youth
of the soul in this body Of mortal life.
Hawthorne lived during almost the
whole Of the period of his "teens' Gin
a little hamlet in a peculiarly isolated
region in Maine, surrounded by prime
val forests and in a lake country then
little known to the outside world He has
himself said that he came to the shore of
Lake Sebago when only eight or nine
years old. He certainly had there home,
one of his homes, until he was about
twenty one. His fitting for college nee
essitated his coming out of this seclusion,
and he prosecuted his preliminary studies
for the most part in Salem, his native city.
But during his vacations he came back
every year. says Mr.. Pickard, "to his
home in the wilderness. He went back
and forth between Salem and Raymond
from 1913 to 1925, when he graduated at
Bowdoin college"
Raymond, the little wilderness hamlet
! where nature was "cherishing mother of
| the boy Hawthorne, y is in the same Maine
county with Bowdoin, his other alma
mater. He has himself told of his de-
light in the woods in summer or in win
ter, when he was accustomed to skate all
alone ION Sebago lake, with the deep
shadows of icy hills on either hand, and
when weary would sometime take refuge
in log cabin where half tree would be
burning on the broad HEARTH There
the boy Hawthorne ''would sit in the am
pie chimney and look at the stars through
the great aperture through which the
flames went roaring up.
The "First Diary OF Hawthorne, de-
scribed in Mr. Pickard's book, is the lost
QUO WHICH, Cdlut lulO tLC pOSSGSSiUh VI
William Symmes, the mulatto playmate
OF his boyhood, who COPIED pages from it
and sent them over his initials to Mr..
Pickard's paper, the Portland Transcript.
Symmes' battling of the pursuit of infor-
nation as to identity was kept up until he
died, and led many persons (among them
the not always too discriminating and
penetrative son Of HAWTHORNE to believe
the whole affair an attempt to perpetrate
a literary hoax. The account of Symmes'
detective service and his possession of the
early Hawthorn diary is of great interest.
Mr.. Pickard's book must be read in all
precious Representatives, to understand
Symmes' story. All lovers of literature
and of personalla must hope for the re-
covery of the rest of the diary. One rea-
son for Symmes jealous guarding Of the
original Of the boy Hawthorne's diary
was undoubtedly the great and lifelong af-
lection Of the mulatto boy for the only
human being in the world except his play
mate William Pitt Fessenden, who never
by word OF look offended him in the mat
ter of his color. The mulatto was the
son OF the Maine lawyer, VIM. Symmes,
and man of superior mind and fair edu-
cation.
bnt infinitely greater than the curious
interest III his personality is that which
Mr.. Pickard' S book affords of the boy fol
whom MATS Rock on Thomas pond
was named Here is an extract from the
diary, kept at the request Of Hawthorne S
uncle, Robert Manning Of Salem, who
paid for his education. After a day on
Sebago the boy wrote:
1--WE landed on one of the small islands
that Captain Dingley cleared for a sheep
pasture when he first came to Raymond.
Mr.. Ring said he had to do it to keep his
sheep from bears and wolves. A growth
of trees has started on the island and
makes a grove so fine and pleasant that
| | almost wish that our house was there.
| On the way from the island to the images
/ (high pictured rocks painted by the In
dians) Mr.. Ring caught black spotted
| trout that was almosta whale, and weigh
! ed before it was cut open, after we got
| back to Uncle Richards store, Is -
pounds. The men said that if it had
been weighed as soon as it came out Of
the water it would have been nineteen
pounds This trout had drol- looking
hooked nose and they tried to make me
believe that if the line had been in III :
hands | should have been obliged to let 90
or have been pulled out of the boat. They
were men and had right to say SO.
am boy and have right to think differ
emily. We landed at the Images, when
crept into the cave and GOT drink Of
cool water. In coming home we sailed
over a place, not far from the Images,
where Mr.. White has at some time let
| down a line four hundred feet without
finding bottom. This seems strange, for
he told us, too, that his boat, as it tloated
was only $50 feet higher than the boats in
Portland harbor, and that if the Great
Pond We're pumped dry, a man standing
on its bottom just under where we then
were would be more than $50 feet lower
| than the surface of the water at the Port
land wharves. Coming up the Ding
ley bay, we had good view of Rattle
snake mountain and it seemed to me
wonderfully beautiful as the almost set
ting sun threw over its western crags
streams OF fiery light. If the Indians
were very fond of this part of the country,
it is easy to see why. Beavers, offers
and the finest fish were abundant, and
the hills and streams furnished constant
variety. | should have made a good
Indian if | had been born in wigwam."
Here is charming sentence from an
other date: 81 can from my chamber
window look across into Aunt Manning S
garden this morning and see little Betscy
Tarbox fitting among the rose bushes and
out of the arbor like tiny witch" There