many years he had grown weary of the monotony of his success, or
had realized that it would take too long a time to prove himself in
the right, and rather than see the thing through he allowed himself to
depart. The old structure, in its original state, consisted of a big,
brick chimney surrounded by four rooms and an attic, with a kitchen
tacked on at the rear. It stood almost flush with the side-path along
the highway; behind it rose a steep hill-side to a height of about one
hundred feet; in front, on the other side of the road, stretched broad
meadows with a brook flowing through the midst of them. Such conditions
would not seem altogether to favor a man wedded to seclusion.

But the thing was not at this juncture quite so bad as it had been. Mr.
Alcott, whose unselfish devotion to the welfare of the human race made
it incumbent upon his friends to supply him with the means of earthly
subsistence, had been recently domiciled in the house by Mr. Emerson
(how the latter came into possession of it I have forgotten, if ever
I knew), and he had at once proceeded to wreak upon it his unique
architectural talent. At any rate, either he himself or somebody in his
behalf had set up a small gable in the midst of the front, thrown out a
double bow-window, and added a room on the west side. This interrupted
the deadly, four-square uniformity, and suggested further improvements.
Mr. Alcott certainly built the summer-house on the hill-side, and
terraced the hill, which was also planted with apple-trees. Another
summer-house arose in the meadow opposite, which went with the property,
and rustic fences separated the domain from the road. The dwelling was
now fully as commodious as the red house at Lenox, though it had no
Monument Mountain and Stockbridge Bowl to look out upon.

[IMAGE: THE WAYSIDE (Showing Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife)]

The estate, comprising, I think, forty-two acres, all told, including
upward of twenty acres of second-growth woodland above the hill,
perfectly useless except for kindling-wood and for the sea-music which
the pine-trees made, was offered to my father at a reasonable enough
figure, to be his own and his heirs' forever. He came over and looked
at the place, thought "The Wayside" would be a good name for it, and
was perhaps helped to decide upon taking it by the felicity of this
appellation. It was close upon the highway, undeniably; but then the
highway was so little travelled that it might al