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.