In 1853 Hawthorne was appointed American Consul at Liverpool by his old friend and school-mate Franklin Pierce, then President of the United States. He remained abroad seven years, spending the last four on the continent. The results of this experience are found in the celebrated _Marble Faun_, published in Europe under the title _Transformation_. It was written in Rome, and it is interesting to know that the story was partly suggested to Hawthorne by an old villa near Florence which he occupied with his family. This old villa possessed a moss-covered tower, "haunted," as Hawthorne said in a letter to a friend, "by owls and by the ghost of a monk who was confined there in the thirteenth century, previous to being burnt at the stake in the principal square of Florence." He also states in the same letter that he meant to put the old castle bodily in a romance that was then in his head, and he carried out this threat by making the villa the old family castle of Donatello. After Hawthorne returned to America he began two other novels, one founded upon the old legend of the elixir of life. This story was probably suggested to him by Thoreau, who spoke of the house in which Hawthorne lived at Concord, after leaving the old Manse, as having been the abode, a century or two before, of a man who believed that he should never die. This subject was a charming one for Hawthorne's peculiar genius, but the story, with another--the _Dolliver Romance_--was never completed, the death of Hawthorne in 1864 leaving the work unfinished. [Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB] This Department is conducted in the interest of Amateur Photographers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Camera Club Department. HOW TO DEVELOP CLOUD PICTURES. Pictures taken simply of clouds, without special attention to the landscape, should be developed very slowly in order to bring out all the soft shadows, which are lost if the development is hurried. Where clouds and landscape have been taken in one picture, the printing quality of the negative may be made uniform by careful development of the plate. Place the plate in a rather weak developer, and as soon as the outlines of the landscape begin to appear take it out and place in a dish of clean water so as to arrest the development. Pour off the developer, put the plate back in the tray, and finish the plate with brush development. To do this take a soft camel's-hair brush or a small wad of surgeon's cotton, dip into the developer, and brush over the part of the plate which develops more slowly, which will be the landscape. As soon as this part is nearly developed flood the plate with a weak solution of developer, increasing it in strength till the sky is fully developed. Brush development requires a careful hand, but, like any other part of photography, becomes easy by repeated trials.