Here is what Hawthorne himself says of this time:—
"My wife is in the strictest sense my sole companion, and I need no other; there is no vacancy in my mind any more than in my heart. In truth, I have spent so many years in total seclusion from all human society that it is no wonder if now I feel all my desires satisfied by this sole intercourse. But she has come to me from the midst of many friends and acquaintances; yet she lives from day to day in this solitude, seeing nobody but myself and our Molly, while the snow of our avenue is untrodden for weeks by any footstep save mine. Yet she is always cheerful. Thank God that I suffice for her boundless heart."
And, again, to her he writes:—
"Dear Little Wife,—After finishing my record in the journal, I sat a long time in grandmother's chair thinking of many things; but the thought of thee, the great thought of thee, was among all other thoughts, like the pervading sunshine falling through the boughs and branches of a tree and tinging every separate leaf. And surely thou shouldst not have deserted me without manufacturing a sufficient quantity of sunshine to last till thy return. Art thou not ashamed?"
Concord was never the same to them after their return from Rome. The shadow of the coming separation was already around them. He writes, after the appearance of Longfellow's poem: "I, too, am weary, and look forward to the Wayside Inn." And, spite of the most loving ministrations of family and friends, he was soon brought to the rest which awaited him there. None could really regret that he had found the peace he sought; but the world seemed more thinly populated when it was known that the hand which had written "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Marble Faun" would write no more. "We carried him," said Fields, "through the blossoming orchards of Concord, and laid him down under a group of pines on a hill-side overlooking historic fields; the unfinished romance which had cost him such anxiety laid upon his coffin." And there, upon that Concord height which he has rendered world-famous, made a Delphian vale or a Mecca to so many pilgrims from his own land and from over sea, he sleeps well. There the sweet spring flowers of dear old New England bloom for him; there the Mayflower pierces the melting snow, and the shy, sweet violet gems the earliest green; there the dandelion glows in golden splendor, and the snowy daisies star the grass, and all the sweet succession of summer flowers troop in orderly array, until Autumn waves her torch, and the sumach and the goldenrod blaze out in wild magnificence, and the blue-fringed gentian hides in secret coverts. These are the fitting decorations of that grave. Piled marble or towering granite would lie too heavy on the heart of this child of Nature. And as the years shall pass, still will the humble grave continue to be visited. "Forgotten" will never be written upon the tombstone of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Still through the clear brilliance of New England winter nights will the stars look down tenderly upon it. Arcturus will stand guard over it, golden-belted Orion will send down quivering lances of light to illumine it, the pomp of blazing Jupiter shall envelop it, and the first radiance of the dawn shall silver its sacred slopes forever.
