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| Egg Rock, Nahant, near Swampscott from Hawthorne's Country by Helen Archibald Clarke, The Baker and Taylor Co., 1910, opposite p. 19 | |
Elizabeth Hawthorne told Julian that around 1833, after a visit of several weeks to nearby Swampscott, Hawthorne "came home captivated in his fanciful way with a mermaid, as he called her. He would not tell us her name, but said she was of the aristocracy of the village, the keeper of a little shop. She gave him a sugar heart, a pink one, which he kept a great whle, and then (how boyish and how like him!) he ate it. You will find her, I suspect, in 'The Village Uncle.' She is Susan. He said she had a great deal of what the French call espieglerie. At that time he had fancies like this whenever he went from home" (qtd. in Clark, 38). |
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| (courtesy of Terri Whitney) | |
| citation: http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/images/image.php?name=MMD2485 |