Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a college mate and intimate friend of Pierce, was anxious to see something of Europe, but had not the means to gratify his desire; so Pierce appointed him consul at Liverpool, where he was able to live in comfort on his pay and save enough for a sojourn on the Continent. To this experience American literature owes most of his later work, including “The Marble Faun” and “Our Old Home.” In Washington still linger stories of a visit Hawthorne paid the city about the time of his appointment. Pierce tried to show him some informal attentions; but Hawthorne’s shyness, which went to such an extreme that he could not say anything to the lady next him at table without trembling and blushing, prevented his making much headway socially. All through Pierce’s term, political conditions were working up to the point which caused the irruption of a few years later. The habit of carrying deadly weapons on the person became so common in Washington, especially in Congress, that scarcely an altercation occurred between two men without the exposure, if not the use, of a pistol or a dirk. The newspapers in their serious columns treated such incidents severely, while the comic paragraphers satirized them; and Preston Brooks, a Representative from South Carolina, in a half-earnest, half-cynical vein, gave notice one day of his intention to offer this amendment to the rules of the House: “Any member who shall bring into the House a concealed weapon, shall be expelled by a vote of two-thirds. The Sergeant-at-Arms shall cause a suitable rack to be erected in the rotunda, where members who are addicted to carrying concealed weapons shall be required to place them for the inspection of the curious, so long as the owners are employed in legislation.” Senator Sumner of Massachusetts having, a few days later, in a speech on slavery, spoken disparagingly of a South Carolina Senator who was absent, Brooks, on the twenty-second of May, 1856, entered the Senate chamber when it was nearly deserted, and, with a heavy gutta-percha cane, rained blows with all his strength upon the head of Sumner, who was quietly writing at his desk. Sumner fell to the floor and for some days thereafter hovered between life and death. He was three or four years in recovering from the direct effects of the assault, and never was entirely restored to health and strength. The incident excited bitter feeling throughout both North and South. For denouncing the assault as paralleling that of Cain upon Abel, Representative Anson Burlingame of New York was challenged by Brooks; he accepted the challenge, naming date, place, and weapons, but Brooks failed to appear on the field.