原文开头
Like many American men, Nathaniel Hawthorne spent his twenties unemployed and living with his mother. In 1825, after graduating from Bowdoin College, he returned home to Salem and immured himself in his childhood bedroom. As his college chums settled into respectable professions, Hawthorne shrank from the grim prospect of free enterprise. He read old books, played with his cats, had his meals sent to his room, and perfected a certain “coldness of intercourse” with his mother, a longtime widow and something of a shut-in herself. The family abode became his fastness: he dubbed it Castle Dismal. …
摘自《哈泼斯杂志》(Harper's Magazine)第2117期 · 2026年10月1日,By Dan Piepenbring。仅引用开头一小段供了解文章,版权归原刊所有,全文请阅读原刊。