“I give you these hints of my plan, because you will perhaps think it advisable to employ Billings to prepare some illustrations.  There is a good scope in the above subjects for fanciful designs.  Bellerophon and the Chimera, for instance:  the Chimera a fantastic monster with three heads, and Bellerophon fighting him, mounted on Pegasus; Pandora opening the box; Hercules talking with Atlas, an enormous giant who holds the sky on his shoulders, or sailing across the sea in an immense bowl; Perseus transforming a king and all his subjects to stone, by exhibiting the Gorgon’s head.  No particular accuracy in costume need be aimed at.  My stories will bear out the artist in any liberties he may be inclined to take.  Billings would do these things well enough, though his characteristics are grace and delicacy rather than wildness of fancy.  The book, if it comes out of my mind as I see it now, ought to have pretty wide success amongst young people; and, of course, I shall purge out all the old heathen wickedness, and put in a moral wherever practicable.  For a title how would this do:  ‘A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys’; or, ‘The Wonder-Book of Old Stories’?  I prefer the former.  Or ’Myths Modernized for my Children’; that won’t do.

    “I need a little change of scene, and meant to have come to Boston
    and elsewhere before writing this book; but I cannot leave home at
    present.”

Throughout the summer Hawthorne was constantly worried by people who insisted that they, or their families in the present or past generations, had been deeply wronged in “The House of the Seven Gables.”  In a note, received from him on the 5th of June, he says:—­

“I have just received a letter from still another claimant of the Pyncheon estate.  I wonder if ever, and how soon, I shall get a just estimate of how many jackasses there are in this ridiculous world.  My correspondent, by the way, estimates the number of these Pyncheon jackasses at about twenty; I am doubtless to by remonstrated with by each individual.  After exchanging shots with all of them, I shall get you to publish the whole correspondence, in a style to match that of my other works, and I anticipate a great run for the volume.

“P.S.  My last correspondent demands that another name be substituted, instead of that of the family; to which I assent, in case the publishers can be prevailed on to cancel the stereotype plates.  Of course you will consent!  Pray do!”

Praise now poured in upon him from all quarters.  Hosts of critics, both in England and America, gallantly came forward to do him service, and his fame was assured.  On the 15th of July he sends me a jubilant letter from Lenox, from which I will copy several passages:—­