house, passing four of the most susceptible years of his life in the society of his sorrowful mother. He became a shy boy, and avoided the company of other children. His health began to suffer from the effects of such an unnatural state of affairs, and at the age of ten he was sent to live on a farm belonging to the family, on the shore of Sebago Lake, in Maine. The active out-door life which he led here entirely restored his health, which was naturally strong and vigorous; here, also, he acquired that fondness for boating which was his chief amusement in after years. Returning to Salem, he completed his studies in the preparatory schools, after which he entered Bowdoin College, where he graduated in 1825, at the age of twenty-one. He was a classmate of Longfellow and George B. Cheever, with whom he was only slightly acquainted; and he formed a warm and lasting friendship with Franklin Pierce, who was in the class next before him. Longfellow has preserved a recollection of him in his student days as "a shy youth in a bright-buttoned coat, flitting across the college grounds."
After graduating, he went back to his home in Salem, where he resided for many years, leading a life of seclusion, which he passed in meditation and study. His strong literary inclination now vented itself in efforts which were in every way characteristic of the man. He wrote numerous wild tales, the most of which he burned, but a few of which found their way into the newspapers and magazines of the country. They were full of a wild gloominess, and were told with a power which proved that their author was no ordinary man. Few, however, dreamed that they were the work of the pale recluse of Salem, for he led a life of such strict seclusion that not even the members of his own family could tell with certainty what he did. His days were passed in his chamber, and at night he took long walks alone on the sea-shore or into the woods. He shunned all society, and seemed to find companionship only in nature, and in the creations of his fancy. Yet he was not a morose or unhappy man. On the contrary, he seems to have been a very happy one, full of generous and kindly feelings, and finding only a strange pleasure where others would