Among the recesses of the great attic of the Manse we may still see the "Saints' Chamber," with its fireplace and single window; but it is tenanted by sprouting clergymen no longer. The atmosphere of theological twilight and mustiness--acquired from generations of clerical inhabitants--which pervaded the place in Hawthorne's time has been dissipated by the larger and happier home-life of Mrs. Samuel Ripley and the blithe and brilliant company that gathered about her here. Dismayed by these beneficent influences, the ghosts have indignantly deserted the mansion: even the persistive clerical, who sighed in Hawthorne's parlor and noisily turned his sermon-leaves in the upper hall, has not disturbed the later occupants of the Manse.
One might muse and linger long about the old place which, as his "Mosses" and journals show, Hawthorne made a part of his very life. Its air of antiquity, its traditional associations, its seclusion, and all its peaceful environment were pleasing to the shy and susceptible nature of the subtle romancer, and accorded well with his introspective habit. Besides, it was "the first home he ever had," and it was shared with his "new Eve." No wonder is it that he could here declare, "I had rather be on earth than in the seventh heaven, just now."
It is saddening to remember that, from this paradise, poverty drove him forth.
_Where Zenobia Drowned--Where Embattled Farmers Fought--Thoreau's Hemlocks--Haunts of Hawthorne--Channing--Thoreau--Emerson, etc._
Behind Hawthorne's "Old Manse"--its course so tortuous that Thoreau suggested for Concord's escutcheon "a field verdant with the river circling nine times round," so noiseless that he likened it to the "moccasined tread" of an Indian, so sluggish that Hawthorne had dwelt some weeks beside it before he determined which way its current lies--flows the Concord, "river of peace." This placid stream is the aboriginal "Musketaquid" of Emerson's poem,--sung of Thoreau, Channing, and many another bard, beloved of Hawthorne and pictured in rapturous phrase in his "Note-Books" and "Mosses from an Old Manse." It was the delightful haunt of Hawthorne's leisure, the scene of the occurrence which inspired the most thrilling and high-wrought chapter of his romance.