PORTSMOUTH, September, 1860.
MR. HAWTHORNE.
MY DEAR SIR:—There are no Mosses on our "Old Manse," there is no Romance at our Blithedale; and this is no "Scarlet Letter." But you can give us a "Twice-Told Tale," if you will for the second time be our guest to-morrow at dinner, at half past two o'clock.
Very truly yours,
CHARLES BURROUGHS.
But, at present, Hawthorne's decision led him to Berkshire.
VIII.
LENOX AND CONCORD: PRODUCTIVE PERIOD.
1850-1853.
In the early summer, after the publication of "The Scarlet Letter," Hawthorne removed from Salem to Lenox, in Berkshire, where himself and his family were ensconced in a small red house near the Stockbridge Bowl. It was far from a comfortable residence; but he had no means of obtaining a better one. Meantime, he could do what he was sent into the world to do, so long as he had the mere wherewithal to live.