THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art,
and Politics.
VOL. XVII.—JANUARY, 1866.—NO. XCIX.
PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
I.
[Mr. Hawthorne's note-books, comprising several volumes of closely written memoranda, were found in his study after his decease. Extracts from these interesting pages will from time to time be printed in this magazine, just as he left them. They are the records of his every-day life, and as such will be welcome to all who appreciate his genius and love his memory.]
Salem, June 15, 1835.—A walk down to the Juniper. The shore of the coves strewn with bunches of sea-weed, driven in by recent winds. Eel-grass, rolled and bundled up, and entangled with it,—large marine vegetables, of an olive color, with round, slender, snake-like stalks, four or five feet long, and nearly two feet broad: these are the herbage of the deep sea. Shoals of fishes, at a little distance from the shore, discernible by their fins out of water. Among the heaps of sea-weed there were sometimes small pieces of painted wood, bark, and other driftage. On the shore, with pebbles of granite, there were round or oval pieces of brick, which the waves had rolled about, till they resembled a natural mineral. Huge stones tossed about, in every variety of confusion, some shagged all over with sea-weed, others only partly covered, others bare. The old ten-gun battery, at the outer angle of the Juniper, very verdant, and besprinkled with white-weed, clover, and buttercups. The juniper-trees are very aged and decayed and moss-grown. The grass about the hospital is rank, being trodden, probably, by nobody but myself. There is a representation of a vessel under sail, cut with a penknife, on the corner of the house.
Returning by the almshouse, I stopped a good while to look at the pigs,—a great herd,—who seemed to be just finishing their suppers. They certainly are types of unmitigated sensuality,—some standing in the trough, in the midst of their own and others' victuals,—some thrusting their noses deep into the food,—some rubbing their backs against a post,—some huddled together between sleeping and waking, breathing hard,—all wallowing about; a great boar swaggering round, and a big sow waddling along
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by Ticknor and Fields, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
vol. xvii.—no. 99.
