The highway
once passed its door, but the location of the road has been changed;
and now the old house stands solitarily apart from the busy world.
Longer than I can remember, and I have never learned how long, this
house has stood untenanted and wholly unused, except, for a few
years, as a place of public worship; but, for myself, and for all
who know its earlier history, it will ever have the deepest
interest, for it was _the early home of Nathaniel Hawthorne_.
"Often have I, when passing through that town, turned aside to study
the features of that landscape, and to reflect upon the influence
which his surroundings had upon the development of this author's
genius. A few rods to the north runs a little mill-stream, its
sloping bank once covered with grass, now so worn and washed by the
rains as to show but little except yellow sand. Less than half a
mile to the west, this stream empties into an arm of Sebago Lake.
Doubtless, at the time the house was built, the forest was so much
cut away in that direction as to bring into view the waters of the
lake, for a mill was built upon the brook about half-way down the
valley, and it is reasonable to suppose that a clearing was made
from the mill to the landing upon the shore of the pond; but the
pines have so far regained their old dominion as completely to shut
out the whole prospect in that direction.
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