[Manchester—Saturday, 18 August 1866]
Saturday. Clear morning with west wind. The seas washed gently up the beach. Jamie and I crossed the sands and wandered through the pasture soon after breakfast for the dews were slight—then we dressed unwillingly to go to the Burley Farm, to the house of Mr J.S. Cabot to pass the day. We drove thither, leaving here about 12 a.m. The sky was still clear but a faint warm mist began to gather as we went. We stopped a moment in Beverly to speak to Lucy Larcom whom we found well. She carried us into her homely pleasant garden—showed us little Harry’s seat among the lilacs—and a flowering gourd, doubtless like the one under which Jonah sat over the arbor—then we took up our quiet way inland. We found Burley Farm about three miles from Beverly, a place of 500 acres belonging to the Howes family of Salem. Only Mrs Cabot and Miss Howes were there to receive us, two ladies nearly middle age who pass the summer in retirement upon this old family estate. They seem neither very fond of flowers or country things but appear to occupy themselves during many hours with reading English 3 volumes novels—at least if one might judge from the number they asked us about receiving usually a tame reply since we really knew nothing of the subjects in hand. They are intelligent women however for the most part, something above the average, and their father and his family were at one time almost the only friends Hawthorne had in Salem. Miss Howes told me that Mr Hawthorne was blamed most unjustly as they knew well because of his introduction to the Scarlet Letter about Salem. The old man whom he showed up was a dishonest fellow who had defrauded government but as the matter was hushed up few knew how much in the right Hawthorne was. They said Judge Pyncheon was doubtless Mr Hyde—who was no exalted character either and who was shown in his true colors under that name.
After an excellent dinner we sat on the piazza of their beautiful house half sheltered by vines with a lovely Austrian Pine and a remarkable oak-tree in view until near evening, when we made an early adieu and returned home before night. As we came over the Beverly road the light-house gleamed out with a dusky-red fervor and streamed across the motionless violet-colored sea.
