Show admirers of nathaniel hawthorne s works are shortly to revive the move to collect funds tor the purchase of 9 monument to mark the bite of his residence in lenox mass A few years ago the movement gain ed some headway but was bleci ed by interference by the owner of the property where the house stood who was cot in sympathy with the plan recently it was announced that the plan was again to be suggested to berkshire lovers cf the novelist and that the site ct the shrine to which worshipers of genius rade their sum and au until the house was burned june 29 1890 is to be marked by a suitable shaft its sight is almost is nuch sought for the ev from it remains as lobely as i they s and renovated after hours of intense labor on tl e of seven gables and tales tangier is there yet and so is his memory hawthorne s b ogra pher says of the cottage that it vas far brou frou a corn fordable for table residence resi deice but he had no means of obtaining a better one meantime he ild do what he was sent into the world to do so ion as le had the mere wherewithal to live lie himself says of it this is certain ly the most wretched and incon veni ent 1 atle that I 1 ever put my bead in there was much however to qi a afy these gloomy statements the house stood on the north shore of the beautiful lake which mrs sig bourney christened the bowl it was within the territorial limits of stockbridge but near the tillage of lenot so that he received mall and dated his letters there en all bis biographies lenox is spoken ef as his home in berkshire the room in which he did his literary work was the front room on the left of the picture and commanded one of the most exquisite views of the lal e the desk upon which he wrote has tor some ears been the relic first inquired for in the h st orical section ot the berkshire athenaeum at pitts field it is of plain design but its material is mahogany richly colored by age it Is not very large buthis eo compact in its construction hat a novelist would find complete room for all machinery and material ex capt of course books of reference within short arm s length when mi hawthorne came to the little red cottage by the stockbridge lake in the early summer of 1850 the scarlet letter had been published eight months the art frt ed tion of copies ft as sold in ten das Us fame was ringing through england and america and the rap d sale con tinned before the cation of the great work he ass by no means an obscure author or unappreciated by the best publishers and critics although his tales were not of a class to w n the paying faor of a sensation ensa tion craving andret 01 er educated pubic even the scarlet letter did not do that to the extent that vastly in farlor works of others did but it ed him in the judgment of the arbi orators of 1 ferary fame in europe and america with the front rank of the world s men of genius mr Hav study could boast of nothing except his presence in the morning and the p out of the window in the evening but that was surely something os he pronounced this view b far the finest in all beri shire moreover for furniture it had mrs I 1 cawthorne aw thorne s long otto man newl cohered ith red and an antique berter tab e which lost one i leg in its to salem and the 1 secretary row in tie berkshire athe the ab e apartment was the guest chamber which she describes as having a very bugl bare floor full of 1 bots nots and a bedstead full of con fusion such was the home in which nathaniel haftl orne lived the early summer of 1850 until the early hawthorne s grave sleepy hollow concord winter of 1851 wr ting at that inter al the house of the seven ga bles which took him five months the wonder book and the tangle brood tales As is ell known mr hawthorne did not possess the happy tempera ment of his wife and the manner of his leaving beri shire was abrupt in july he ote to his sister I 1 ouise I 1 ate hall remove to mrs cot ige in the course of the autumn for this Is certa aly the most and retched little hovel I 1 have ever put my head in mrs kemble has not more rooms but they are larger and perfectly con she offers it to me for the same rent I 1 pay here last year she offered it for nothing but I 1 declined the terms I 1 shall regret the prospect from the windows of this house for it Is the most beautiful in berkshire but nothing ele the change a a have been a most bappe one for the I 1 emble cottage was perfect but only eighteen days after ward he records in his diary bis determination to leave berkshire he scolds about the weather but it must bavo been bad to ca e him to leave the country athos sr nery he had enjoyed h was the home ither or in sum mer of some of his truest and warm est friends in commenting on the change h son julian wr tes in fact after freeing h melt of salem he neier found any permanent perm aBent rest anywhere but soon we ned of any particular local ty would say that he binl edited the roving dispo ton of h s eaf r rg ancestor but when his rest leness came on at lenox in the of 1851 it w worse little red cottage that phoebe was not there to cheer and soothe him being with his two daughters on a series of visits to friends in various towns at the east among them west newton there he determined to spend the winter pending negotiations for the purchase of a i ome in concord therefore on the of november 1851 the family with their trunks got into a large farmer s wagon and were driven to pittsfield Pitt ffield leaving the little red house empty behind them it was a bleak day but one of the party remembers that the five cats which for five months had been fel low inmates with tl em selves vacated the premises in a bod and scampered after the wagon tor a quarter of a mile here on the ridge of a hill they gave up the chase and a storm coming on soon after the kind heart ed family had much tender solicitude solicit ide as to their fate the party reached west newton in the eveking and there hawthorne passed the winter in writing the romance his son by ay of compliment to the place writes thus A more dismal and unlovely little suburb than eat was in the winter of could not ex 1st outside of new england |