He himself, in his outward bearing, perhaps gathered to his
person something the look of both the seaport lads and the sturdy
mountaineers and woodsmen. He was large and strong (in a letter to his
uncle Robert, just before entering college, he gives the measure of his
foot, for some new shoes that are to be sent; it is ten inches), but an
interior and ruling grace removed all suspicion of heaviness. Being a
sea-captain's son, he would naturally make his connections at college
with men who had the out-of-doors glow about them; the simple and severe
life at Raymond, too, had put him in sympathy with the people rather
than with the patricians (although I see that the reminiscences of some
of the old dwellers near Raymond describe the widow and her brother
Richard as being exclusive and what was there thought "aristocratic").
Hawthorne, Pierce, and Bridge came together in the Athenaean Society,
the newer club of the two college literary unions, and the more
democratic; and the trio preserved their cordial relations intact for
forty years, sometimes amid confusions and misconstructions, or between
cross-fires of troublous counter-considerations, with a rare fidelity.
Hawthorne held eminent scholarship easily within his grasp, but he and
his two cronies seem to have taken their curriculum very easily, though
they all came off well in the graduation. Hawthorne was a good Latinist.
The venerable Professor Packard has said that his Latin compositions,
even in the Freshman year, were remarkable; and Mr.
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