The Selected Letters of Nathaniel Hawthorne Book

"I wish I could give all my time to the thing, instead of a few hours each evening when I am often physically and mentally dull. It takes me so long to get the day out of my mind and to focus myself on what I am eager to do. It takes a great deal of thought to come to the points that concern me." (340)

Great insight into the mind of a idiosyncratic poet (idiosyncratic for several reasons, the one that most interests me being the fact that he had a demanding full-time job). Wanted to know how his relationship with his wife sustained him (or didn't). Probably should've read a biography first. Without her responses to his letters (she burned them), Elsie comes off as a rather inscrutable presence. But the narrative helpfully supplies that Stevens first idealized her, then gradually drifted towards other influences (at which point his letters taper off into--kind of fascinating--banalities about movers and the purchase of a grand piano). Lots of detail about New York City as it was at the beginning of the 20th century. Hard to imagine so much nature! Also being able to walk from Van Cortlandt Park to Connecticut...