"We reached The Wayside, where Hawthorne, who had no doubt been expecting visitors, met us at the door. I was introduced to him as being the only stranger of the party, and was greeted warmly, more so than I had dared to hope, remembering the stories I had heard of his unconquerable shyness. He threw open the door of the room on the left, and, telling us to make ourselves at home, disappeared with Colonel Whipple and his budget of biographical memoranda. We made ourselves at home, as he had desired, in what I suppose was the parlor--a cosy but plainly furnished room, with nothing to distinguish it from a thousand other "best rooms" in New England, except a fine engraving on the wall of one of Raphael's Madonnas. We chatted a few moments, and then, as he did not return, we took a stroll over the grounds, under the direction of Mr. Fields. "We had ascended the hill, and from its outlook were taking in the historic country about, when we were rejoined by Hawthorne in the old rustic summer-house. As I was the stranger, he talked with me more than with the others, largely about myself and my verse-work, which he seemed to have followed with considerable attention; and he mentioned an architectural poem of mine and compared it with his own modest mansion. "'If I could build like you,' he said, 'I, too, would have a castle in the air.' "'Give me The Wayside,' I replied, 'and you shall have all the air castles I can build.' "As we rambled and talked, my heart went out towards this famous man, who did not look down upon me, as he might well have done, but took me up to himself as an equal and a friend. Dinner was announced and eaten, a plain country dinner, with a bottle or two of _vin ordinaire_, and we started back to Boston." Pierce having become President-Elect, Mr. Stoddard made another trip to Concord, in the winter of 1852-3, to ask Hawthorne's advice about getting a place in the Custom House. He was taken into the study (at that time in the southeast corner, on the ground-floor and facing the road), where there was a blazing wood-fire. The announcement of dinner cut short their conversation, but after dinner they again retired to the study, where, as Mr. Stoddard says, Hawthorne brought out some cigars, "which we smoked with a will and which I found stronger than I liked. Custom House matters were scarcely touched upon, and I was not sorry, for while they were my ostensible errand there, they were not half so interesting as the discursive talk of Hawthorne. He manifested a good deal of curiosity in regard to some old Brook Farmers whom I knew in a literary way, and I told him what they were doing, and gave him my impressions of the individuality of each. He listened, with an occasional twinkle of the eye, and I can see now that he was amused by my out-spoken detestation of certain literary Philistines. He was out-spoken, too, for he told me plainly that a volume of fairy stories I had just published was not simple enough for the young.