The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-17

From the New York-Mail.
 Old Salem showed a.-certain proud eager. ness to begin the celebration of the cen tenary of Nathaniel Hawthornes birth which was not surprising in view of what Hawthorne did for Salem. Hawthorne Vvas horn. or rathert Hathorne was born for the man achieved the ''w'' instead of tnheriting ton the Fourth of July, 1894. in a little, old wooden house that still stands in IJninnastreet, in a.rather squalid nart of the town. The century is there fore not yet quite completed, and yet several meetings in honor of the event have already been held. And more are still to come.
 In a way-paut way-Salem accounted for Hawthorne. If you allow a very quiet little stream ito pile up against tall dam, and permit not one drop of the water to escape through the dam, the water is bound to pdur over the dam at last in a very pretty cascade; and if, at the same time, the accumulated force Of the water breaks the dam down. great deal of noise will be made in the world by that quiet stream. Salem Puritanism was the dam; all the torrance, all the fire all the literary and artistic genius of generations of simple but strong and tense people were piling mp against the obstruction for centuries; land at last all this pent-up force burstA forth in Ma thaniel Hawthorne
 Salem is, moreover, inherentlysromantic There are few more fascinating places in
 4 f A,., ,.,A Salems to burn. I like the late George Parsons Lathrops picture of the town, as seen from Witch Hill, where the reign of terror of 1892 had it's awful cllmina- ton in the putting to death of twenty innocent people: Looking down from here you behold the ancient city spread out before you, rich in chimneys and overshadowed by soft elms. At one point, a dark, strong steeple lifts itself like a huge grayestone above the surround ing houses, terminating in d square top or blunt dome; and wonder is another, more ideal in It's look, rising slight and fine, and with many ascents and alter hating pauses, to reach a delicate pin- naee at a great height Of beyond the gray and sober-tinted town is the sea, which in this perspective seems to dom mate the place with it's dim, half-threat-
 
 opens and falls away again in a barren tract, known from the earliest period as the Great Pastures, where a solitude reigns almost as complete as that-of the primitive settlement"
 At this moment, the moment being early July, the Great Pastures seem made of pure gold, for the yellow wood wax, or gorse (genista tinctoria), some times called by the people the witch's curse, is in bloom. The legend runs that one of the witches who were hung on the lone and dismal hill at Salem stamped her foot upon the sward, and that on the spot plant sprung up which. so soon as it gained hold anywhere, exterminated all other vegetation. This is the wood wax; 1t blooms in rich gold every year 1t covers the ground so thickly that not blade of grass can grow between it's stems; 1t even spreads itself upon the rocks
 But it Is beautiful. It illumines the barren landscape for miles with sheets. masses. oceans of golden gloom. It grows nowhere in America except as it has spread from Salem, and even yet 1t has not moved in it's march more than a few Srnies Into the next county. But 1t was introduced by the early settlers from England for use In the process of dye making. Nothing is more characteristic of SaNem than it's prodigal, useless bloom