Today in 1735 Samuel Johnson married Elizabeth Jervis Porter, a widow older -- and wealthier -- than he -- she said he was "the most sensible man I ever saw in my life."
Today in 1842 Nathaniel Hawthorne and his new wife, Sophia Peabody, moved into the Old Manse in Concord (Massachusetts) -- and found that their friend Henry David Thoreau had already prepared their vegetable garden for planting! Actually, according to some he also planted it -- and that this was also actually the wedding day. The Hawthornes actually etched love poems to each other on the windows here! Hmm. They lived here for 3 years until its owner wanted to move back in; later Hawthorne wrote, "In fairy-land, there is no measurement of time; and, in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life's ocean, three years hastened away with a noiseless flight."
I'd love to visit this Old Manse place sometime -- think of all the cool things in this home which is now a museum: "Inside, you’ll find rooms filled with antiques and memorabilia reflecting the tastes of writers, philosophers, politicians, poets, and artists who helped to shape a distinctive American culture."
http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/greater-boston/old-manse.html
Louisa May Alcott's dad used to meet with friends there...Ralph Waldo Emerson used to live there too...Later Hawthorne wrote about it in his collection of rather spooky short stories "Mosses from an Old Manse"; if you'd like you can read the (long) part "in which the author makes the reader acquainted with his abode" at
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/nh/tom.html -- my favorite bits are "There was, in the rear of the house, the most delightful little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a scholar....When I first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad angels....A cheerful coat of paint, and golden-tinted paper-hangings, lighted up the small apartment....In place of the grim prints, there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael's Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room....A part of my predecessor's library was stored in the garret....Autographs of famous names were to be seen, in faded ink, on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations, or interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript, in illegible short-hand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom....A dissertation on the book of Job--which only Job himself could have had patience to read--filled at least a score of small, thickset quartos, at the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter....Volumes...dated back two hundred years, or more, and were generally bound in black leather, exhibiting precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books of enchantment. Others, equally antique, were of a size proper to be carried in the large waistcoat-pockets of old times; diminutive, but as black as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly interfused with Greek and Latin quotations....It was as if I had found bits of magic looking-glass among the books, with the images of a vanished century in them."
And on his vegetable garden: "My garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. But I used to visit and re-visit it, a dozen times a day, and stand gratified by deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny, with a love that nobody could share nor conceive of, who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world, to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas, just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. Later in the season, the humming-birds were attracted by the blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me, those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep satisfaction; although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, they flew away to some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in requital of what my garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze, with the certainty that somebody must profit by it, and that there would be a little more honey in the world, to allay the sourness and bitterness which mankind is always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that honey."
...This is also the anniversary of A Return to Civilization. My loved people know what I mean.
