Memories of Hawthorne

Excerpt

It will be seen that this volume is really written by Sophia
Hawthorne; whose letters from earliest girlhood are so expressed, and
so profound in thought and loveliness, that some will of sterner
quality than a daughter’s must cast them aside.  I have tried to weed
out those written records of hers (even from 1820) reaching to her
last year in 1871, that could give no especial pleasure to any
descendant who might come upon them; and I have been astonished to
find that there was scarcely one such page.  This is the explanation of
my return, in the company of the friends of my father and mother, to
an old garden, a familiar discourse, and a circle of life that
embraced so much beauty.