Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1904-09-01

Admirers of Nathaniel Hawthorne's
works are shortly to revive the move
to collect funds for the purchase of
monument to mark the site of his
residence in Lenox, Mass
A few years ago the movement gain.
ed some Roadway, but was blocked
by interference by the owner of the
property where the house stood, who
was not in sympathy with the plan
Recently 1t was announced that the
plan was again to be suggested to
Berkshire lovers OF the novelist. and
that the site of the shrine to which
worshipers OF genius made their sum-
mer and autumn pilgrimage until the
house was burned June %, 1890, is
to be marked by suitable shaft.
Its sight is almost as much sought,
for the view from il remains as lovely
as when they soothed and renovated
him, after hours OF intense labor on
The House of Seven Gables" and
"Tanglewood Tales" Tanglewood is
there yet and so is his memory Mr.
Hawthorne's biographer says of the
cottage that "it was far from a com
Portable residence; but he had no
means of obtaining better one.
Meantime he could do what he was
sent into the world to do. so long as
he had the mere wherewithal to live"
He himself says of it, this is certain
ly the most wretched and iaconveni-
ent little hovel that | ever put my
head in" There was much. however,
to qualify these gloomy statements.
The house stood on the north shore
of the beautiful lake which Mrs. Sig
Quincy christened The Stockbridge
Bowl" 1t was within the territorial
limits of Stockbridge, but near the
village of Lenox, so that he received
mis- mail and dated his letters there.
in all his biographies Lenox is spoken
Of as his home in Berkshire. The
room in which he did his literary
work was the front room on the left
of the picture and commanded one of
the most exquisite views of the lake.
The desk upon which he wrote has
for some years been the relic first
inquired for in the historical section
OF the Berkshire athenaeum at Pitts
field. 1t is of plain design, but it's
material is mahogany. richly colored
by age. 1t is not very large. but is
SO compact in its construction that a
novelist would find complete room for
all his machinery and material, ex-
cept, of course, books of reference
within short arms length.
When MIR. Hawthorne came to the
little red cottage by the Stockbridge
lake, in the early summer of 1850. the
Scarlet Letter" had been published
eight months, The first edition of
5000 copies was sold in ten days; its
fame was ringing through England
and America, and the rapid sale CON
tinued
Before the publication of the great
work he was by no means an obscure
author or unappreciated by the best
publishers and critics. although his
tales were not of class to win the
paying favor of sensation-craving
and not over-educated public.
Even THE Scarlet Letter" did not
do that to the extent that vastly in
ferior works of others did; but ii plac-
ed him, in The judgment of the arbi-
traitors Of literary fame in Europe and
America, with the front rank of the
worlds men of genius
Mr.. Hawthorne's study could boast
of nothing except his presence in the
morning and the picture out of the
window in the evening"" but that was
surely something. as he pronounced
this view by far the finest in all
Berkshire. Moreover, for furniture,
it had Mrs. Hawthorne's long otto.
man, newly covered with red. and an
antique center table which lost one
leg in its journey TO Salem, and the
secretary now in the Berkshire athe-
naeum.
The objectionable apartment was the
guest chamber, which she describes as
having "a very ugly bare floor, fun of
knots, and a bedstead full of con
fusion" Such was the home in which
Nathaniel Hawthorne lived from the
early summer of 1850 until the early