In 1828 he paid one
hundred dollars for the publication of _Fanshawe_, an unsuccessful short
romance. In mortification he burned the unsold copies, and his rejected
short stories often shared the same fate. He was so depressed that in 1836
his friend Bridge went quietly to a publisher and by guaranteeing him
against loss induced him to bring out Hawthorne's volume entitled
_Twice--Told Tales_.
[Illustration: MISS PEABODYS DRAWING FOR "THE GENTLE BOY"]
The Peabodys of Salem then invited the author to their home, where he met
the artistic Miss Sophia Peabody, who made an illustration for his fine
historical story, _The Gentle Boy_. Of her he wrote, "She is a flower to be
worn in no man's bosom, but was lent from Heaven to show the possibilities
of the human soul." We find that not long after he wrote in his _American
Note-Books_:--
"All that seems most real about us is but the thinnest substance of a
dream,--till the heart be touched. That touch creates us,--then we begin
to be,--thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of eternity."
He was thinking of Sophia Peabody's creative touch, for he had become
engaged to her.
[Illustration: 'THE OLD MANSE,' HAWTHORNE'S FIRST CONCORD HOME]
Fired with the ambition of making enough money to enable him to marry, he
secured a subordinate position in the Boston customhouse, from which the
spoils system was soon responsible for his discharge.
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