am tired and disgusted with all the undesirable
likenesses as yet presented of me. Don't you think I might sell my
head to some photographer who would be willing to return me the
value in small change; that is to say, in a dozen or two of cards?"

The first part of Chapter I. of "The Dolliver Romance" came to me from
the Wayside on the 1st of December. Hawthorne was very anxious to see it
in type as soon as possible, in order that he might compose the rest in
a similar strain, and so conclude the preliminary phase of Dr. Dolliver.
He was constantly imploring me to send him a good pen, complaining all
the while that everything had failed him in that line. In one of his
notes begging me to hunt him up something that he could write with, he
says:--

"Nobody ever suffered more from pens than I have, and I am glad that
my labor with the abominable little tool is drawing to a close."

In the month of December Hawthorne attended the funeral of Mrs. Franklin
Pierce, and, after the ceremony, came to stay with us. He seemed ill and
more nervous than usual. He said he found General Pierce greatly needing
his companionship, for he was overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his
wife. I well remember the sadness of Hawthorne's face when he told us he
felt obliged to look on the dead. "It was," said he, "like a carven
image laid in its richly embossed enclosure, and there was a remote
expression about it as if the whole had nothing to do with things
present." He told us, as an instance of the ever-constant courtesy of
his friend General Pierce, that while they were standing at the grave,
the General, though completely overcome with his own sorrow, turned and
drew up the collar of Hawthorne's coat to shield him from the bitter
cold.

The same day, as the sunset deepened and we sat together, Hawthorne
began to talk in an autobiographical vein, and gave us the story of his
early life, of which I have already written somewhat. He said at an
early age he accompanied his mother and sister to the township in Maine,
which his grandfather had purchased. That, he continued, was the
happiest period of his life, and it lasted through several years, when
he was sent to school in Salem. "I lived in Maine," he said, "like a
bird of the air, so perfect was the freedom I enjoyed. But it was there
I first got my cursed habits of solitude." During the moonlight nights
of winter he would skate until midnight all alone upon Sebago L