took more out of him than formerly. He admitted to his
sister Louisa that he was "a little worn down with constant work," and
added that he could not afford any idle time now, being evidently of the
opinion that his popularity would be short-lived, and that it behooved
him, therefore, to make the most of it. But "the pen is so constantly
in my fingers that I abominate the sight of it!" he exclaimed. This was
after he had transgressed his custom of never writing in the hot months.
He began in June and finished in forty days the whole volume of The
Wonder-Book. He also read the tales to his domestic audience as fast as
they were written, and benefited, perhaps, by the expert criticism of
the small people. Many passages in the intercalated chapters, describing
the adventures of Eustace Bright and the Tangle-wood children, are based
on facts well known to his own two youngsters. And when Eustace tells
his hearers that if the dark-haired man dwelling in the cottage yonder
were simply to put some sheets of writing-paper in the fire, all of them
and Tangle-wood itself would turn into cinders and vanish in smoke up
the chimney--even the present chronicler saw the point; though, at
the same time, he somehow could not help believing in the reality of
Primrose, Buttercup, Dandelion, Squash-blossom, and the rest. Thus early
did he begin to grasp the philosophy of the truth of fiction.

The House of the Seven Gables and The Wonder-Book were a fair
eighteen-months' work, and in addition to them Hawthorne had, before
leaving Lenox, planned out the story of The Blithedale Romance; so
that after we got to West Newton--our half-way station on the road to
Concord--he was prepared to sit down and write it. Long before we left
Concord for England he had published Tangle-wood Tales, not to mention
the biography of Franklin Pierce. Una and her brother knew nothing about
the romances; they knew and approved the fairy tales; but their feeling
about all their father's writings was, that he was being wasted in his
study, when he might be with them, and there could be nothing in any
books, whether his own or other authors', that could for a moment bear
comparison with his actual companionship. What he set down upon the page
was but a less free and rich version of the things that came from his
living mouth in our heedless playtimes. "If only papa wouldn't write,
how nice it would be!" And, indeed, a book is but a poor substitute for
the mind and hea