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Hawthorne (HILDEGARDE an American writer)

HILDEGARDE, an American writer, born in New York, the daughter of Julian Hawthorne. She was educated privately and abroad. Her published writings include "A Country Interlude" (1904); "Poems" (1904); "Essays" (1907); "Old Seaport Towns of New England" (1916); HAWTHORNE seventeen he entered Bowdoin, where he made only an average record, his main interests ests being not in his studies but in the reading in all fields of literature that he carried on by himself. For twelve years after he left college (1825-1837) he lived in the utmost seclusion, reading much and writing much, but destroying the greater part of his compositions. He saw little of his mother and sisters during this time, had no intimate friends, and published little. It was a period of self-training not unlike that of Milton at Horton. He sent a collection of seven tales to various publishers, who promptly returned them. Largely with his own funds he published "Fanshawe" in 1828, but afterward destroyed the greater part of the edition. "The Gentle Boy," and three other tales appeared in an annual in 1832, anonymously, and a few other tales appeared in the same way in succeeding years. Thus he prepared the way for "Twice-Told Tales," in 1838.

Though its circulation was favorable comments it called forth and small, Hawthorne was encouraged by the came out of his hermit-like seclusion, House, fell in love with Sophia Peabody, got a position in the Boston Custom and and in 1841 joined a communistic experiment at Brook Farm. In 1847 he married and went to live, for three Here he came to know Emerson, Alcott, years, in the Old Manse at Concord. community of authors. A second series Thoreau, and helped to make Concord a of "Twice-Told Tales," appeared in 1842; "Mosses from an Old Manse," in 1846, and "The Scarlet Letter" in 1850.

Meantime, President Polk appointed him to the custom house at Salem, 1846. 1851 he had moved again, this time to the Berkshires, where he wrote "The House of the Seven Gables," (1851), and two collections of tales for children, "The Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales."

President Pierce, who had been his classmate at Bowdoin, appointed him consul at Liverpool, and before his return to America he spent some time on the continent. In Italy he planned "The Marble Faun," which was written while American writer, born in Salem, Mass., he was still abroad and appeared in July 4, 1804, from a long New Eng- 1860.

July 4, 1804, from a long New Eng- 1860. Various other romances were written, but his "Rambles Through College Towns" (1917); and "Girls in Bookland" (1917). She was a frequent contributor to magazines and in 1918-1919 was engaged in war work in France for the Y. M. C. A. and the American Red Cross.