Nathaniel Hawthorne believed idleness was essential for the soul
The author of The Scarlet Letter argued that wandering through forests and daydreaming were not wasted hours, but necessary periods for the spirit to ferment ideas.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was so intensely introverted that he was known to duck behind rocks and trees to avoid making small talk with his neighbors. Despite this social anxiety, or perhaps because of it, he became one of the most prolific diarists of the Transcendentalist movement. His voluminous notebooks reveal a man deeply preoccupied with the brevity of life and the fear of looking back on what he called life's wasted sunshine.
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