Nathaniel Hawthorne, American writer, was born in Salem, Mass., July 4, 1804. His earliest boyhood days were spent in Salem, but when he was 14 years old, the family moved to Maine. Here the young lad continued the solitary walks of which he was so fond, but in the wilderness, instead of the narrow streets of Salem. Even at this early date he had acquired a taste for writing, and carried a little blank book in which he jotted down his notes.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, 1804-1864.

       After a year in Maine, Hawthorne returned to Salem to prepare for college. He amused himself by publishing a manuscript periodical, and at times speculated upon the profession he would follow in the future. He wrote to his mother, "I do not want to be a doctor, and live by men's diseases, nor a minister to live by their sins, nor a lawyer to live by their quarrels. So I don't see that there is anything left for me but to be an author. How would you like, some day, to see a whole shelf full of books written by your son with 'Hawthorne's Works' printed on their backs?"

       For some years Hawthorne lived in Concord, Mass., in the old Manse, and wrote "Mosses from an Old Manse," "Twice Told Tales" and "Grandfather's Chair." He joined the Brook farm colony at West Roxbury, but found that the conditions there suited neither his taste or his temperament, and he remained but one year.

       On a European visit he spent some time in Italy, and during his stay there he sketched out one elaborate work, and prepared it for the press while living in Leamington, England. This was "The Marble Faun," the English edition of which was known as "Transformation, or the Romance of Monte Beni."

       The sole idea of the "Marble Faun" is to illustrate the intellectually and morally awakening power of a sudden, impulsive sin committed by a simple, joyous instinctive "natural man." The whole group of characters is imagined with a view to the development of this idea.

       Some other stories of Hawthorne are "The Blithedale Romance," "The Wonder Book," "The Snow Image," "Septimus Felton" and "The Dolliver Romance" were left unfinished at the author's death. He died at Plymouth, N. H., on the 19th of May, 1864, and five days later was buried at Sleepy Hollow, a beautiful cemetery at Concord where he used to walk under the pines when living at the old Manse. Over his grave is a simple stone, inscribed with the single word, "Hawthorne."

       Four individuals, were standing in the sculpture gallery of the capitol at Rome. Three of them were artists, and they had been simultaneously struck by a resemblance between one of the antique statues and a young Italian, the fourth member of their party.

       "You must confess, Kenyon," said a dark-eyed young woman, whom her friends called Miriam, "that you never chiselled out of the marble a more vivid likeness than this. Our friend Donatello is the very Faun of Praxiteles. Is it net true, Hilda?"

       "Not quite — almost — yes, I really think so," replied Hilda, a slender New England girl whose perception of form was singularly clear.

       "Donatello," said Miriam, "you are a veritable Faun. Shake aside those brown curls and let us see whether this resemblance includes furry ears."

       "No, no! dearest Signorina," answered Donatello, "you must take my ears for granted," and he lightly tripped beyond the reach of her extended hand, only a moment later to come close to her and look into her face with appealing affection.

       "You have bewitched the poor lad," said the sculptor laughing. "That is a way of yours. I see another of your followers behind yon pillar, and his presence has aroused Donatello's wrath."

       They had emerged from the palace, and there, partly concealed by a pillar in the portico, stood the wild figure of a bearded man.

       "Miriam," whispered Hilda, "it is your model."

       Miriam's model, as Hilda called him, had suddenly appeared a few weeks previously when the four friends were visiting one of the catacombs. In the dark depths of the earth, amid the labyrinth of passageways, Miriam had been lost. Guided by the shouts of the others she had finally reappeared accompanied by this strange and uncouth creature. And from that time on he continued constantly to haunt her footsteps, disappearing perhaps for days only to return and glide like a shadow into her life. What hold he had on her or she on him remained unknown, enhancing the mystery, already deep, which hung about this beautiful woman.

       One of Miriam's friends took the matter sadly to heart. This was the light-hearted, faun-like Italian count, who seemed such a child of nature. He cherished against the mysterious stranger one of those instinctive antipathies which the lower animals sometimes display.

       In the Medici gardens the unwelcome creature had appeared among the trees just as Donatello was declaring his love for Miriam. "I hate him," muttered Donatello as he caught sight of the sinister figure. "Be satisfied; I hate him too," said Miriam. Whereupon Donatello had offered to clutch him by the throat, that they might be rid of him forever; and the woman had difficulty in restraining the gentle youth, whose hitherto light-hearted nature seemed suddenly suffused with rage.

       But it was otherwise a few nights later on a moonlight ramble that a company of artists were enjoying among the ruins of old Rome. The four friends were of the party, which, after visiting many places, climbed the Capitoline Hill and stood on the Tarpeian Rock. It was bordered by a low parapet. They all bent over the railing and looked down. Miriam and Donatello stood together gazing into the moonlit depths. They were so absorbed with the scene and with each other that they did not notice the departure of their friends. Hilda had gone off with Kenyon, who had drawn her quietly away, and the others had departed in twos and threes, leaving Miriam behind alone with the Italian. But not entirely alone. Hilda had gone but a short way with the sculptor when she missed her friend and turned back. She reached the paved courtyard with the parapet just in time to witness unnoticed a tragic scene. Out of the shadows the familiar figure of Miriam's persecutor had appeared and approached her. There was a struggle beginning and ending in one breathless instant. Along with it was a loud, fearful cry which quivered upward through the air and sank quivering downward to the earth. Then a silence! Poor Hilda saw the whole quick passage of a deed which took but that little time to grave itself in the eternal adamant. She turned and fled unseen, and the lovers were indeed alone.

       "What have you done?" said Miriam in a horror-stricken whisper.

       "I did what ought to be done to a traitor," Donatello replied; "what your eyes bade me do as I held the wretch over the precipice."

       The last words struck Miriam like a bullet. Had her eyes indeed provoked, or assented to this deed? She had not known it. But, alas! thinking back she could not deny that a wild joy had flamed up in her heart when she saw her persecutor in mortal peril. Yes, Donatello's had been the hand; but hers had been the look, except for which the hand had not been lifted.

       She turned to her fellow-criminal, the youth so lately innocent, whom she had drawn into her doom, and pressed him close, close to her bosom, with a clinging embrace that brought their hearts together. "Yes, Donatello, you speak the truth," said she. "My heart consented. The deed knots us together like the coil of a serpent." They threw one glance at the heap of death below to assure themselves that it was not all a dream then turned from the fatal precipice and made their way back into the city arm in arm and heart in heart.

       An agreement had been entered into before the moonlight tragedy had taken place that the four friends should meet next morning in the Church of the Capuchins to study together Guido's famous picture of St. Michael and Satan. Thither at the hour agreed upon Miriam and Donatello turned their steps. Conscious of secret guilt, they were the more anxious to keep a casual engagement. But, when they drew near the church. Kenyon alone was waiting for them. Hilda had promised to be of the party, but she was not there. The three pushed back the heavy curtain and entered the nave, only to have their gaze arrested at once by a conspicuous object. On a slightly elevated bier lay the body of a dead monk, tall candles burning at his head and feet. The rigid figure was clad in the brown woolen frock of the Capuchins, with the hood drawn over the head, but so as to leave the features uncovered. Something seemed to act like a magnet upon Miriam. She passed between two of the lighted candles and looked down. "My God!" she murmured, "What is this?" She grasped Donatello's hand and felt him give a convulsive shudder. No wonder that their blood curdled. The dead face or the monk gazing at them beneath its half-closed eyelids was the same visage that had glared upon their naked souls the night before as Donatello had flung him over the precipice. What did it mean? Kenyon drew near, perceived their agitation, and started to say something. But Miriam laid her fingers to her lips and quietly said, "Hush." From the shadowy church the three emerged into the Roman sunlight, Kenyon to go in search of Hilda, but leaving a darker shadow still to settle down upon the lovers. The young Italian was petrified with horror. Miriam tried to cheer him, assuring him of her undying love. But she met with no response. They parted, almost as strangers, it being agreed that Donatello should seek his castle in the mountains.

       Thither, in the summer, Kenyon went to pay a long-planned visit. He found the poor faun sadly changed. The idea of a life-long penance had taken firm possession of Donatello. He was intent on finding some method of self-torture. Kenyon, knowing now something of what had happened, arranged with Miriam that she should be in the public square of Perugia on a specified day, near the statue of Pope Julius. There the lovers met again. The sense of their mutual crime had stunned, but not destroyed the youth's affection. They needed one another. Kenyon cheered and encouraged them. Their two lives flowed together and the great bronze statue of the pope, his hand outreached in a papal benediction, beneath which they had met, appeared to impart a blessing on their marriage.

       So Kenyon went back to Rome to woo the gentle Hilda, whose sensitive soul was burdened by the knowledge of the awful guilt of her friends. The secret weighed upon her heavily. She sought the seclusion of great churches, and at last, Protestant though she was, she found relief by pouring out in the confessional at St. Peter's the story of the crime that she had witnessed.

       But for Miriam and Donatello the end was not yet reached. The sense of sin had awakened in the faun-like youth what human love could not assuage. Miriam could not rid him of the idea that he must surrender himself to justice. Kenyon had glimpses of the pair, now taking part in revelries, but again concealed behind habiliments of woe. In a desolate spot in the Campagna Miriam at last disclosed the mystery surrounding her own past. It was the story of a marriage to be forced upon her from which her soul revolted. She escaped, though not without unjust suspicions of a crime. Concealing her identity she gave herself to art. Then in the Catacombs, the man whom she loathed, half brute and half religious maniac, had reappeared, dogging her steps and threatening to disclose her to the world — with what catastrophe the sculptor knew.

       As for Hilda and Kenyon, they went forward into happiness, their pure love consecrating all they did. But even as they plighted their troth to one another in the Pantheon before the tomb of Raphael, upon turning around they saw a kneeling figure on the pavement. It was Miriam, who reached out her hands in a blessing, but a blessing which seemed also to repel. As for Donatello, remorse eventually worked its way and when heard of last he was in a dungeon as deep as that beneath the Castle of St. Angelo.

       Copyright, 1919, by Post Publishing Co. (The Boston Post.) Printed by permission of, and arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., authorized publishers.

       Published by special arrangement with the McClure Newspaper Syndicate. All rights reserved.