At any rate (and though the
intercourse with these persons to whom I refer with daring comment was
received most gratefully and cordially as generally the best to be
found) Mary Porter was never forgotten.
That my mother and father enjoyed their next home at The Wayside there
are immediate letters to prove; but if they had not feasted their eyes
upon a vision of beautiful spaces, it might have been less delightful
to return to the haunts of friends, and a hollow among hills. One
grandeur of the distance they did not leave behind at Lenox: the
sunsets to be seen over the meadows between The Wayside and the west
are spaciously revealed and splendidly rich. Economy had a restless
manner of drifting them from place to place. Now, however, a home was
to be bought (the title-deed exists, with Mr. Emerson's name, and that
of his wife, attached); so that the drifting appeared to be at an end.
I have reserved until now several letters from Concord friends, of an
earlier date, in order to show to what the Hawthornes looked forward
in the matter of personalities, when re-establishing themselves in the
distinguished village.
Mr. Alcott was prominent. In her girlhood, Mrs. Hawthorne, hearing
from Miss Peabody that Mr. James Freeman Clarke had talked with some
amusement of the school prophet's ideas, etc., had written:--
"Mr. Alcott's sublime simplicity and depth of soul would make it
impossible for me to make jest of him. I cannot imagine why persons
should not do themselves justice and yet be humble as a little child.
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