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 "A little less than a year after Nathaniel Hawthorne assumed his post as American Consul to Liverpool, the celebrated author made the first of three weekend tours into neighboring North Wales. First with his young British friend, Henry Bright, in July 1854, and then some two months later with his family—wife Sophia, and children Una, Julian and Rose—Hawthorne saw the celebrated sites and landscapes of this ancient home of Druids, Britons, and Celts. Terming the first visit with Bright a ‘very delightful tour,’ Hawthorne found the mountain scenery and sea vistas ‘picturesque,’ while medieval castles like Beaumaris ‘quite [came] up to my idea of what an old castle should be’. Later, he would rhapsodize of Conway Castle that ‘nothing ever can have been so perfect in its own style, and for its own purposes, when it was first built; and now nothing else can be so perfect as a picture of ivy-grown, peaceful ruin.’" |
