The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-07-17
HAWTHORNE AND SALEM.
upon the exhausted pastures and worn

l upon the exhausted pastures and worn- out fields.
 But there is little of 1t on or near the bleak, desolate summit of With Hill. Worn granite rocks cover the whole space, and rise to the top-great rocks that form strange, smooth shapes, like petrihed hearts. on at one side there Is a chasm. shallow now, but which, they say. was deep once; and out of il. if local story tells truly, the sorrowing, shamed hnsmen of the executed witches had to drag the bodies of the slain.
 Around three sides of the hill live he Irish population, or a part of it, of Salem. You have to enter the yard of one of them and let down a pair of bars to get to the top of the hill These Irish are cheerful people, quite antithetical to the morose sentiment of the hill. But they build none of their cabins on the hiil top itself. They seem to fear curse there.
 Yet Salem itself, down below, Is as blithe a place now as any. There are beautiful and sunny old streets, with houses old and new embowered in gar dens. The social life of the town is of the ripest and most chering. Evident ly young Hawthorne got little of that, if 1t existed, as it must have existed, in his day. His mother, whom he resem- bled, was a recluse from society all through his young years. Her grandson. Julian Hawthorne, says, in speaking of her long seclusion, that fit was held to be good form, in that age and place. to observe such Hindu rites after the death of a husband; hers had died in his 34th year at Surinam She had also insensibly fallen into the habit of isolating her self from her own family; they were all of cd tO of ba du
 1t will be vain for the Salem people to spend any time discussing their great nation. for that place is definitely fixed, and fixed near the pinnacle of the struc- ture. Human nature will have to change radically before Hawthorne's power wanes. He has moved and held every sort of people, from such poets and critics as Richard Henry Stoddard whose ad- miration and affection for him knew no bounds, and such realists as Mary E. Wilkins, whom he profoundly moved and whose ideals he may be said to have formed. to the poorest farmers. herds men and miners, and the humbleest and simplest maids who though they could scarcely read have read him again and again, with the spell of his subtle genius
 
 Letter. anew every ten years and find that 1t keeps up with the times; and there are problems still unbroached that will. when they come up. at least seem to find themselves stated. if not answered, in it's pages
 He has made the early history of New England a theme of ardent interest to many a little American born Mennonite of the western plains, and even to Chi nese and Japanese children in the public schools of Hawaii. He understood the molding influences in the life of any peo- pie of a legendary literature and in lay ing well the foundations of such a liter ature he performed a service which en- titles him to the nobest of national monu- ments. Needless to say, he has no such monument. Those who are celebrating his glory at Salem could not do better than call attention to this great omission. His grave as Sleepy Hollow is marked by stone that is sublime only in its mean ness.
 Hawthorne's personality is naturally the theme of the orators and the essayists | of his centennial. It ss an attractive l subject. He was man of noble appear 1 ance. and of real beauty of visage Ii 1 Is curious that most people rnfnk or him l as dark man He was really light In an exceedingly interesting and undoubt- edly In the main faithful, account of