Hawthorne
came there by way of the Brook Farm experiment. How, with his reserved
and solitary mode of life, he should have embarked in such a gregarious
enterprise is not very clear; but the election of General Harrison had
deprived him of a small government office--it seems as if Webster might
have interfered in his behalf--his writings brought him very little, and
perhaps he hardly knew what to do with himself.
All accounts agree that he joined the West Roxbury association of his
own free-will, and without solicitation of any kind. He not only threw
himself into this hazardous scheme with an energy that astounded his
friends but he embarked in it all the money he had in the world, which
was nearly a thousand dollars. He has left no explanation from which we
might infer what his hopes or his motives were.
Since three wise men went to sea in a bowl, or the army of German
children set out for the Holy Land in the twelfth century, there was
never a more hare-brained or chimerical undertaking. I once knew of a
boy who after much reading of Robinson Crusoe, started for the woods at
five o'clock of a summer afternoon, with the full intention of spending
the night there alone. He took with him a light fowling-piece, and some
crackers in his jacket pocket. He gathered some berries and shot some
small birds, and cooked them after the Indian fashion. When it grew
dark, however, he became frightened and climbed into a tree; but he
could not sleep there, and finally returned home about one o'clock in
the morning to find his family in great agitation.
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