When Herman Met Nathaniel
The Guardian opines: “Melville, who was just 31, had never met Hawthorne. But it’s no exaggeration to say that, after a day of open-air larks, a quantity of Heidsieck champagne, several impromptu toasts and a sudden downpour, the younger man was enraptured with his new friend who had, he wrote, ‘dropped germinous seeds into my soul.'” Only into his soul?
