The cool
and collected style of the early journal is not improbable in a boy like
Hawthorne, who had read many books and lived much in the companionship
of older persons. Indeed, it is very much like the style of "The
Spectator" of 1820. A noticeable coincidence is, that the pedler,
Dominicus Jordan, should be mentioned in both the journal and "The
Spectator." The circumstance that the dates should all have been said to
be missing from the manuscript book is suspicious. Yet the last extract
has the month and year appended, August, 1819. What is more important
is, that the date of the initial inscription is given as 1816; and at
the time when this was announced it had not been ascertained even by
Hawthorne's own family and relatives that he had been at Raymond so
early. But since the publications in the "Transcript," some letters have
come to light of which I have made use; and one of these, bearing date
July 21, 1818, to which I have alluded in another connection, speaks of
Raymond from actual recollection. "Does the Pond look the same as when I
was there? It is almost as pleasant at Nahant as at Raymond. I thought
there was no place that I should say so much of." The furnisher of the
notes, if he was disingenuous, might indeed have remembered that
Hawthorne was in Maine about 1816; he may also have relied on a
statement in the "Transcript's" editorial, to the effect that Hawthorne
was taken to Raymond in 1814. In that editorial, it is also observed:
"Hawthorne was then a lad of ten years.
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