AT SUNDOWN That darker grows the shortening day, The wrecks of passion and desire, May fitly feed my drift-wood fire, And warm the hands that age has chilled. I know the solemn monotone Of waters calling unto me; I know from whence the airs have blown As low my fires of drift-wood burn, Nathaniel Hawthorne A HIS LIFE MONG the passengers in the ship which brought Winthrop and Dudley to the New World was William Hathorne, the ancestor of the novelist. A man of character, versatile, naturally eloquent, and a born leader, he rose to a position of influence in the colony. One of his sons, John Hathorne, was destined to sinister renown as a judge at the trials for witchcraft held at Salem in 1691. Daniel Hathorne, a grandson of the old witch judge, took to the sea, and during the Revolutionary War served as a privateersman. He had seven children. Nathaniel, his third son, also a sea-captain, married Elizabeth Clarke Manning, and became the father of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Julian Hawthorne: Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife, second edition, 1885. Horatio Bridge: Personal Recollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1893. G. E. Woodberry: Nathaniel Hawthorne, American Men of Letters,' 1902. |