bad fortune as ever again being appointed to me." Previous to this, he had written: "I long to get into the country, for my health latterly is not quite what it has been for many years past. I should not long stand such a life of bodily inactivity and mental exertion as I have led for the last few months. An hour or two of daily labor in a garden, and a daily ramble in country air or on the sea-shore, would keep me all right. Here I hardly go out once a week.... I detest this town so much, that I hate to go into the streets, or to have the people see me. Anywhere else I should at once be another man." It was not a very comfortable home, that small red wooden house at Lenox, overlooking the beautiful valley of the Housatonic and surrounded by mountains; but both Hawthorne and his wife bravely made the best of it. Mrs. Hawthorne ornamented an entire set of plain furniture, painted a dull yellow, with copies from Flaxman's outlines, executed with great perfection; and, poor as the place was, it soon became invested by its occupants with something of a poetic atmosphere. After a summer's rest, Hawthorne began "The House of the Seven Gables;" writing to Bridge in October:-- "I am getting so deep into my own book, that I am afraid it will be impossible for me to attend properly to my editorial duties" (connected with a new edition of Lieutenant Bridge's "Journal of an African Cruiser").... "Una and Julian grow apace, and so do our chickens, of which we have two broods. There is one difficulty about these chickens, as well as about the older fowls. We have become so intimately acquainted with every individual of them, that it really seems like cannibalism to think of eating them. What is to be done?" [Illustration: Letter to Mr. Fields. Lenox, January 27. 1851 Dear Fields, I intend to put the House of the Seven Gables into the express man's hands to-day; so that, if you do not soon receive it, you may conclude that it has miscarried--in which case, I shall not consent to the Universe existing a moment longer. I have no copy of it, except the wildest scribble of a first draught; so that it could never be restored. It has met with extraordinary success from that portion of the public to whose judgement it has been submitted, viz. from my wife. I likewise prefer it to the Scarlet Letter; but an author's opinion of his book, just after completing it, is worth little or nothing; he being then in the hot or cold fit of a fever, and certain to rate it too high or too low. * * * * * I had something else to say, but have forgotten what. Truly Yours, Nath. Hawthorne.] His task occupied him all winter. To Mr. Fields at length, on the 27th of January, 1851, he sent the following message:--