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diff --git a/old/7170-h.htm.2021-01-26 b/old/7170-h.htm.2021-01-26 new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07dbe1c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/7170-h.htm.2021-01-26 @@ -0,0 +1,12402 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by Frank Preston Stearns + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + .side { float: right; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; + border-left: dashed thin; margin-left: 0.8em; text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; + font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by +Frank Preston Stearns + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Author: Frank Preston Stearns + + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7170] +This file was first posted on March 20, 2003 +Last Updated: December 14, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE *** + + + + +Text file produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + + + +</pre> + + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + </h1> + <h2> + By Frank Preston Stearns + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <div class="middle"> + <p> + Author Of “The Real And Ideal In Literature,” “Life Of Tintoretto,” + “Life Of Bismarck,” “True Republicanism,” “Cambridge Sketches,” Etc. + </p> + </div> + <h4> + INSCRIBED <br /> <br /> TO <br /> <br /> EMILIA MACIEL STEARNS + </h4> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “In the elder days of art + Builders wrought with greatest care + Each minute and unseen part,— + For the gods see everywhere.” + —Longfellow + + “Oh, happy dreams of such a soul have I, + And softly to myself of him I sing, + Whose seraph pride all pride doth overwing; + Who stoops to greatness, matches low with high, + And as in grand equalities of sky, + Stands level with the beggar and the king.” + —Wasson + </pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + The simple events of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s life have long been before the + public. From 1835 onward they may easily be traced in the various + Note-books, which have been edited from his diary, and previous to that + time we are indebted for them chiefly to the recollections of his two + faithful friends, Horatio Bridge and Elizabeth Peabody. These were first + systematised and published by George P. Lathrop in 1872, but a more + complete and authoritative biography was issued by Julian Hawthorne twelve + years later, in which, however, the writer has modestly refrained from + expressing an opinion as to the quality of his father’s genius, or from + attempting any critical examination of his father’s literary work. It is + in order to supply in some measure this deficiency, that the present + volume has been written. At the same time, I trust to have given credit + where it was due to my predecessors, in the good work of making known the + true character of so rare a genius and so exceptional a personality. + </p> + <p> + The publication of Horatio Bridge’s memoirs and of Elizabeth Manning’s + account of the boyhood of Hawthorne have placed before the world much that + is new and valuable concerning the earlier portion of Hawthorne’s life, of + which previous biographers could not very well reap the advantage. I have + made thorough researches in regard to Hawthorne’s American ancestry, but + have been able to find no ground for the statements of Conway and Lathrop, + that William Hathorne, their first ancestor on this side of the ocean, was + directly connected with the Quaker persecution. Some other mistakes, like + Hawthorne’s supposed connection with the duel between Cilley and Graves, + have also been corrected. + </p> + <p> + F. P. S. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + <b>CONTENTS</b> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE</b> + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. — SALEM AND THE HATHORNES: + 1630-1800 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. — BOYHOOD OF HAWTHORNE: + 1804-1821 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. — BOWDOIN COLLEGE: 1821-1825. + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. — LITTLE MISERY: 1825-1835 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. — EOS AND EROS: 1835-1839 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. — PEGASUS AT THE CART: + 1839-1841 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII. — HAWTHORNE AS A SOCIALIST: + 1841-1842 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII. — CONCORD AND THE OLD MANSE: + 1842-1845 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. — “MOSSES PROM AN OLD MANSE”: + 1845 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. — FROM CONCORD TO LENOX: + 1845-1849 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI. — PEGASUS IS FREE: 1850-1852 + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII. — THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: + 1852-1854 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. — HAWTHORNE IN ENGLAND: + 1854-1858 </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. — ITALY </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. — HAWTHORNE AS ART CRITIC: 1858 + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. — “THE MARBLE FAUN”: 1859-1860 + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. — HOMEWARD BOUND: 1860-1862 + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII. — IMMORTALITY </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_APPE"> APPENDICES </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_APPE2"> APPENDIX A </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_APPE3"> APPENDIX B </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_APPE4"> APPENDIX C </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> INDEX </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + </h1> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER I. — SALEM AND THE HATHORNES: 1630-1800 + </h2> + <p> + The three earliest settlements on the New England coast were Plymouth, + Boston, and Salem; but Boston soon proved its superior advantages to the + two others, not only from its more capacious harbor, but also from the + convenient waterway which the Charles River afforded to the interior of + the Colony. We find that a number of English families, and among them the + ancestors of Gen. Joseph Warren and Wendell Phillips, who crossed the + ocean in 1640 in the “good ship Arbella,” soon afterward migrated to + Watertown on Charles River for the sake of the excellent farming lands + which they found there. Salem, however, maintained its ascendency over + Plymouth and other neighboring harbors on the coast, and soon grew to be + the second city of importance in the Colony during the eighteenth century, + when the only sources of wealth were fishing, shipbuilding, and commerce. + Salem nourished remarkably. Its leading citizens became wealthy and + developed a social aristocracy as cultivated, as well educated, and, it + may also be added, as fastidious as that of Boston itself. In this respect + it differed widely from the other small cities of New England, and the + exclusiveness of its first families was more strongly marked on account of + the limited size of the place. Thus it continued down to the middle of the + last century, when railroads and the tendency to centralization began to + draw away its financial prosperity, and left the city to small + manufactures and its traditional respectability. + </p> + <p> + The finest examples of American eighteenth century architecture are + supposed to exist in and about the city of Salem, and they have the + advantage, which American architecture lacks so painfully at the present + time, of possessing a definite style and character—edifices which + are not of a single type, like most of the houses in Fifth Avenue, but + which, while differing in many respects, have a certain general + resemblance, that places them all in the same category. The small old + country churches of Essex County are not distinguished for fine carving or + other ornamentation, and still less by the costliness of their material, + for they are mostly built of white pine, but they have an indefinable air + of pleasantness about them, as if they graced the ground they stand on, + and their steeples seem to float in the air above us. If we enter them on + a Sunday forenoon—for on week-days they are like a sheepfold without + its occupants—we meet with much the same kind of pleasantness in the + assemblage there. We do not find the deep religious twilight of past ages, + or the noonday glare of a fashionable synagogue, but a neatly attired + congregation of weather-beaten farmers and mariners, and their sensible + looking wives, with something of the original Puritan hardness in their + faces, much ameliorated by the liberalism and free thinking of the past + fifty years. Among them too you will see some remarkably pretty young + women; and young men like those who dug the trenches on Breed’s Hill in + the afternoon of June 16, 1775. There may be veterans in the audience who + helped Grant to go to Richmond. Withal there is much of the spirit of the + early Christians among them, and virtue enough to save their country in + any emergency. + </p> + <p> + These old churches have mostly disappeared from Salem city and have been + replaced by more aristocratic edifices, whose square or octagonal towers + are typical of their leading parishioners,—a dignified class, if + somewhat haughty and reserved; but they too will soon belong to the past, + drawn off to the great social centres in and about Boston. In the midst of + Salem there is a triangular common, “with its never-failing elms,” where + the boys large and small formerly played cricket—married men too—as + they do still on the village greens of good old England, and around this + enclosure the successful merchants and navigators of the city built their + mansion houses; not half houses like those in the larger cities, but with + spacious halls and rooms on either side going up three stories. It is in + the gracefully ornamented doorways and the delicate interior wood-work, + the carving of wainscots, mantels and cornices, the skilful adaptations of + classic forms to a soft and delicate material that the charm of this + architecture chiefly consists,—especially in the staircases, with + their carved spiral posts and slender railings, rising upward in the + centre of the front hall, and turning right and left on the story above. + It is said that after the year eighteen hundred the quality of this + decoration sensibly declined; it was soon replaced by more prosaic forms, + and now the tools no longer exist that can make it. Sir Christopher Wren + and Inigo Jones would have admired it. America, excepting in New York + City, escaped the false rococo taste of the eighteenth century. + </p> + <p> + The Salem sea-captains of old times were among the boldest of our early + navigators; sailing among the pirates of the Persian Gulf and trading with + the cannibals of Polynesia, and the trophies which they brought home from + those strange regions, savage implements of war and domestic use, clubs, + spears, boomerangs, various cooking utensils, all carved with infinite + pains from stone, ebony and iron-wood, cloth from the bark of the tapa + tree, are now deposited in the Peabody Academy, where they form one of the + largest collections of the kind extant. Even more interesting is the sword + of a sword-fish, pierced through the oak planking of a Salem vessel for + six inches or more. No human force could do that even with a spear of the + sharpest steel. Was the sword-fish roused to anger when the ship came upon + him sleeping in the water; or did he mistake it for a strange species of + whale? + </p> + <p> + There is a court-house on Federal Street, built in Webster’s time, of hard + cold granite in the Grecian fashion of the day, not of the white + translucent marble with which the Greeks would have built it. Is it the + court-house where Webster made his celebrated argument in the White murder + case, or was that court-house torn down and a plough run through the + ground where it stood, as Webster affirmed that it ought to be? Salem + people were curiously reticent in regard to that trial, and fashionable + society there did not like Webster the better for having the two Knapps + convicted. + </p> + <p> + Much more valuable than such associations is William Hunt’s full-length + portrait of Chief Justice Shaw, which hangs over the judge’s bench in the + front court-room. “When I look at your honor I see that you are homely, + but when I think of you I know that you are great.” it is this combination + of an unprepossessing physique with rare dignity of character which Hunt + has represented in what many consider the best of American portraits. It + is perhaps too much in the sketchy style of Velasquez, but admirable for + all that. + </p> + <p> + Time has dealt kindly with Salem, in effacing all memorials of the + witchcraft persecution, except a picturesque old house at the corner of + North and Essex Streets, where there are said to have been preliminary + examinations for witchcraft,—a matter which concerns us now but + slightly. The youthful associations of a genius are valuable to us on + account of the influence which they may be supposed to have had on his + early life, but associations which have no determining consequences may as + well be neglected. The hill where those poor martyrs to superstition were + executed may be easily seen on the left of the city, as you roll in on the + train from Boston. It is part of a ridge which rises between the Concord + and Charles Rivers and extends to Cape Ann, where it dives into the ocean, + to reappear again like a school of krakens, or other marine monsters, in + the Isles of Shoals. + </p> + <p> + New England has not the fertile soil of many sections of the United + States, and its racking climate is proverbial, but it is blessed with the + two decided advantages of pure water and fine scenery. There is no more + beautiful section of its coast than that between Salem Harbor and + Salisbury Beach, long stretches of smooth sand alternating with bold rocky + promontories. A summer drive from Swampscott to Marblehead reminds one + even of the Bay of Naples (without Vesuvius), and the wilder coast of Cape + Ann, with its dark pines, red-roofed cottages, and sparkling surf, is + quite as delightful. William Hunt went there in the last sad years of his + life to paint “sunshine,” as he said; and Whittier has given us poetic + touches of the inland scenery in elevated verse: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Fleecy clouds casting their shadows + Over uplands and meadows; + And country roads winding as roads will, + Here to a ferry, there to a mill.” + </pre> + <p> + Poets arise where there is poetic nourishment, internal and external, for + them to feed on; and it is not surprising that a Whittier and a Hawthorne + should have been evolved from the environment in which they grew to + manhood. + </p> + <p> + It is a common saying with old Boston families that their ancestors came + to America in the “Arbella” with Governor Winthrop, but as a matter of + fact there were at least fifteen vessels that brought colonists to + Massachusetts in 1630, and I cannot discover that any lists of their + passengers have been preserved. The statement that certain persons came + over at the same time with Governor Winthrop might soon become a tradition + that they came in the same ship with him; but all that we know certainly + is that Governor Winthrop landed about the middle of June, 1630, and that + his son arrived two weeks later in the “Talbot,” and was drowned July 2, + while attempting to cross one of the tide rivers at Salem. Who arrived in + the thirteen other vessels that year we know not. Ten years later Sir + Richard Saltonstall emigrated to Boston with the Phillips and Warren + families in the “Arbella” (or “Arabella”), and there is no telling how + much longer she sailed the ocean. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne himself states that his ancestors came from Wig Castle in Wigton + in Warwickshire, {Footnote: Diary, August 22, 1837.} but no such castle + has been discovered, and the only Wigton in England appears to be located + in Cumberland. {Footnote: Lathrop’s “Study of Hawthorne,” 46.} He does not + tell us where he obtained this information, and it certainly could not + have been from authentic documents,—more likely from conversation + with an English traveller. Hawthorne never troubled himself much + concerning his ancestry, English or American; while he was consul at + Liverpool, he had exceptional advantages for investigating the subject, + but whatever attempt he made there resulted in nothing. It is only + recently that Mr. Henry F. Waters, who spent fifteen years in England + searching out the records of old New England families, succeeded in + discovering the connecting link between the first American Hawthornes and + their relatives in the old country. It was a bill of exchange for one + hundred pounds drawn by William Hathorne, of Salem, payable to Robert + Hathorne in London, and dated October 19, 1651, which first gave Mr. + Waters the clue to his discovery. Robert not only accepted his brother’s + draft, but wrote him this simple and business-like but truly affectionate + epistle in return: + </p> + <p> + “GOOD BROTHER: Remember my love to my sister, my brother John and sister, + my brother Davenport and sister and the rest of our friends. + </p> + <p> + “In haste I rest + </p> + <p> + “Your loving brother, + </p> + <p> + “From Bray this 1 April, 1653. + </p> + <p> + “ROBERT HATHORNE.” + </p> + <p> + From this it appears that Major William Hathorne not only had a brother + John, who established himself in Lynn, but a sister Elizabeth, who married + Richard Davenport, of Salem. Concerning Robert Hathorne we only know + further that he died in 1689; but in the probate records of Berkshire, + England, there is a will proved May 2, 1651, of William Hathorne, of + Binfield, who left all his lands, buildings and tenements in that county + to his son Robert, on condition that Robert should pay to his father’s + eldest son, William, one hundred pounds, and to his son John twenty pounds + sterling. He also left to another son, Edmund, thirty acres of land in + Bray, and there are other legacies; but it cannot be doubted that the + hundred pounds mentioned in this will is the same that Major William + Hathorne drew for five months later, and that we have identified here the + last English ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne. His wife’s given name was + Sarah, but her maiden name still remains unknown. The family resided + chiefly at Binfield, on the borders of Windsor Park, and evidently were in + comfortable circumstances at that time. From William Hathorne, senior, + their genealogy has been traced back to John Hathorne (spelled at that + time Hothorne), who died in 1520, but little is known of their affairs, or + how they sustained themselves during the strenuous vicissitudes of the + Reformation. {Footnote: “Hawthorne Centenary at Salem,” 81.} + </p> + <p> + Emmerton and Waters {Footnote: “English Records about New England + Families."} state that William Hathorne came to Massachusetts Bay in 1630, + and this is probable enough, though by no means certain, for they give no + authority for it. We first hear of him definitely as a freeholder in the + settlement of Dorchester in 1634, but his name is not on the list of the + first twenty-four Dorchester citizens, dated October 19, 1630. All + accounts agree that he moved to Salem in 1636, or the year following, and + Nathaniel Hawthorne believed that he came to America at that time. Upham, + the historian of Salem witchcraft, who has made the most thorough + researches in the archives of old Salem families, says of William + Hathorne: + </p> + <p> + “William Hathorne appears on the church records as early as 1636. He died + in June, 1681, seventy-four years of age. No one in our annals fills a + larger space. As soldier, commanding important and difficult expeditions, + as counsel in cases before the courts, as judge on the bench, and + innumerable other positions requiring talent and intelligence, he was + constantly called to serve the public. He was distinguished as a public + speaker, and is the only person, I believe, of that period, whose + reputation as an orator has come down to us. He was an Assistant, that is, + in the upper branch of the Legislature, seventeen years. He was a deputy + twenty years. When the deputies, who before sat with the assistants, were + separated into a distinct body, and the House of Representatives thus came + into existence, in 1644, Hathorne was their first Speaker. He occupied the + chair, with intermediate services on the floor from time to time, until + raised to the other House. He was an inhabitant of Salem Village, having + his farm there, and a dwelling-house, in which he resided when his + legislative, military, and other official duties permitted. His son John, + who succeeded him in all his public honors, also lived on his own farm in + the village a great part of the time.” {Footnote: “Salem Witchcraft,” i. + 99.} + </p> + <p> + Evidently he was the most important person in the colony, next to Governor + Winthrop, and unequalled by any of his descendants, except Nathaniel + Hawthorne, and by him in a wholly different manner; for it is in vain that + we seek for traits similar to those of the great romance writer among his + ancestors. We can only say that they both possessed exceptional mental + ability, and there the comparison ends. + </p> + <p> + The attempt has been made to connect William Hathorne with the persecution + of the Quakers, {Footnote: Conway’s “Life of Hawthorne,” 15.} and it is + true that he was a member of the Colonial Assembly during the period of + the persecution; it is likely that his vote supported the measures in + favor of it, but this is not absolutely certain. We do not learn that he + acted at any time in the capacity of sheriff; the most diligent researches + in the archives of the State House at Boston have failed to discover any + direct connection on the part of William Hathorne with that movement; and + the best authorities in regard to the events of that time make no mention + of him. {Footnote: Sewel, Hallowell, Ellis.} It was the clergy who aroused + public opinion and instigated the prosecutions against both the Quakers + and the supposed witches of Salem, and the civil authorities were little + more than passive instruments in their hands. Hathorne’s work was + essentially a legislative one,—a highly important work in that wild, + unsettled country,—to adapt English statutes and legal procedures to + new and strange conditions. He was twice Speaker of the House between 1660 + and 1671, and as presiding officer he could exert less influence on + measures of expediency than any other person present, as he could not + argue either for or against them. And yet, after Charles II. had + interfered in behalf of the Quakers, William Hathorne wrote an elaborate + and rather circuitous letter to the British Ministry, arguing for + non-intervention in the affairs of the colony, which might have possessed + greater efficacy if he had not signed it with an assumed name. {Footnote: + J. Hawthorne’s “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” i. 24.} However strong a Puritan he + may have been, William Hathorne evidently had no intention of becoming a + martyr to the cause of colonial independence. Yet it may be stated in his + favor, and in that of the colonists generally, that the fault was not + wholly on one side, for the Quakers evidently sought persecution, and + would have it, cost what it might. {Footnote: Hallowell’s “Quaker Invasion + of New England."} Much the same may be affirmed of his son John, who had + the singular misfortune to be judge in Salem at the time of the witchcraft + epidemic. The belief in witchcraft has always had its stronghold among the + fogs and gloomy fiords of the North. James I. brought it with him from + Scotland to England, and in due course it was transplanted to America. + Judge Hathorne appears to have been at the top of affairs at Salem in his + time, and it is more than probable that another in his place would have + found himself obliged to act as he did. Law is, after all, in exceptional + cases little more than a reflex of public opinion. “The common law,” said + Webster, “is common-sense,” which simply means the common opinion of the + most influential people. Much more to blame than John Hathorne were those + infatuated persons who deceived themselves into thinking that the pains of + rheumatism, neuralgia, or some similar malady were caused by the + malevolent influence of a neighbor against whom they had perhaps long + harbored a grudge. <i>They</i> were the true witches and goblins of that + epoch, and the only ones, if any, who ought to have been hanged for it. + </p> + <p> + What never has been reasoned up cannot be reasoned down. It seems + incredible in this enlightened era, as the newspapers call it, that any + woman should be at once so inhuman and so frivolous as to swear away the + life of a fellow-creature upon an idle fancy; and yet, even in regard to + this, there were slightly mitigating conditions. Consider only the + position of that handful of Europeans in this vast wilderness, as it then + was. The forests came down to the sea-shore, and brought with them all the + weird fancies, terrors and awful forebodings which the human mind could + conjure up. They feared the Indians, the wild beasts, and most of all one + another, for society was not yet sufficiently organized to afford that + repose and contentment of spirit which they had left behind in the Old + World. They had come to America to escape despotism, but they had brought + despotism in their own hearts. They could escape from the Stuarts, but + there was no escape from human nature. + </p> + <p> + It is likely that their immediate progenitors would not have carried the + witchcraft craze to such an extreme. The emigrating Puritans were a fairly + well-educated class of men and women, but their children did not enjoy + equal opportunities. The new continent had to be subdued physically and + reorganized before any mental growth could be raised there. Levelling the + forest was a small matter beside clearing the land of stumps and stones. + All hands were obliged to work hard, and there was little opportunity for + intellectual development or social culture. As a logical consequence, an + era ensued not unlike the dark ages of Europe. But this was essential to + the evolution of a new type of man, and for the foundation of American + nationality; and it was thus that the various nationalities of Europe + arose out of the ruins of the Roman Empire. + </p> + <p> + The scenes that took place in Judge Hathorne’s court-room have never been + equalled since in American jurisprudence. Powerful forces came into play + there, and the reports that have been preserved read like scenes from + Shakespeare. In the case of Rebecca Nurse, the Judge said to the + defendant: + </p> + <p> + “‘You do know whether you are guilty, and have familiarity with the Devil; + and now when you are here present to see such a thing as these testify,—and + a black man whispering in your ear, and devils about you,—what do + you say to it?’” + </p> + <p> + To which she replied: + </p> + <p> + “‘It is all false. I am clear.’ Whereupon Mrs. Pope, one of the witnesses, + fell into a grievous fit.” {Footnote: Upham’s “Salem Witchcraft,” ii. 64.} + </p> + <p> + Alas, poor beleaguered soul! And one may well say, “What imaginations + those women had!” Tituba, the West Indian Aztec who appears in this + social-religious explosion as the chief and original incendiary,—verily + the root of all evil,—gave the following testimony: + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘The man brought her to me, and made me pinch her.’ + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘Why did you go to Thomas Putnam’s last night and hurt his child?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘They pull and haul me, and make me go.’ + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘And what would they have you do?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘Kill her with a knife.’ + </p> + <p> + “(Lieutenant Fuller and others said at this time, when the child saw these + persons, and was tormented by them, that she did complain of a knife,—that + they would have her cut her head off with a knife.) + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘How did you go?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘We ride upon sticks, and are there presently.’ + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘Do you go through the trees or over them?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘We see nothing, but are there presently.’ + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘Why did you not tell your master?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘I was afraid. They said they would cut off my head if I told.’ + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘Would you not have hurt others, if you could?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘They said they would hurt others, but they could not.’ + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘What attendants hath Sarah Good?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘A yellow-bird, and she would have given me one.’ + </p> + <p> + “Q. ‘What meat did she give it?’ + </p> + <p> + “A. ‘It did suck her between her fingers.’”. + </p> + <p> + This might serve as an epilogue to “Macbeth,” and the wonder is that an + unlettered Indian should have had the wit to make such apt and subtle + replies. It is also noteworthy that these strange proceedings took place + after the expulsion of the royal governor, and previous to the provincial + government of William III. If Sir Edmund Andros had remained, the tragedy + might have been changed into a farce. + </p> + <p> + After all, it appears that John Hathorne was not a lawyer, for he + describes himself in his last will, dated June 27, 1717, as a merchant, + and it is quite possible that his legal education was no better than that + of the average English squire in Fielding’s time. It is evident, however, + from the testimony given above, that he was a strong believer in the + supernatural, and here if anywhere we find a relationship between him and + his more celebrated descendant. Nathaniel Hawthorne was too clear-sighted + to place confidence in the pretended revelations of trance mediums, and he + was not in the least superstitious; but he was remarkably fond of reading + ghost stories, and would have liked to believe them, if he could have done + so in all sincerity. He sometimes felt as if he were a ghost himself, + gliding noiselessly in the walks of men, and wondered that the sun should + cast a shadow from him. However, we cannot imagine him as seated in + jurisdiction at a criminal tribunal. His gentle nature would have recoiled + from that, as it might from a serpent. + </p> + <p> + In the Charter Street burial-ground there is a slate gravestone, + artistically carved about its edges, with the name, “Col. John Hathorne + Esq.,” upon it. It is somewhat sunken into the earth, and leans forward as + if wishing to hide the inscription upon it from the gaze of mankind. The + grass about it and the moss upon the stone assist in doing this, although + repeatedly cut and cleaned away. It seems as if Nature wished to draw a + kind of veil over the memory of the witch’s judge, himself the sorrowful + victim of a theocratic oligarchy. The lesson we learn from his errors is, + to trust our own hearts and not to believe too fixedly in the doctrines of + Church and State. It must be a dull sensibility that can look on this old + slate-stone without a feeling of pathos and a larger charity for the + errors of human nature. + </p> + <p> + It is said that one of the convicted witches cursed Judge Hathorne,—himself + and his descendants forever; but it is more than likely that they all + cursed him bitterly enough, and this curse took effect in a very natural + and direct manner. Every extravagant political or social movement is + followed by a corresponding reaction, even if the movement be on the whole + a salutary one, and retribution is sure to fall in one shape or another on + the leaders of it. After this time the Hathornes ceased to be conspicuous + in Salem affairs. The family was not in favor, and the avenues of + prosperity were closed to them, as commonly happens in such cases. Neither + does the family appear to have multiplied and extended itself like most of + the old New England families, who can now count from a dozen to twenty + branches in various places. Of John Hathorne’s three sons only one appears + to have left children. The name has wholly disappeared from among Salem + families, and thus in a manner has the witch’s curse been fulfilled. + </p> + <p> + Joseph Hathorne, the son of the Judge, was mostly a farmer, and that is + all that we now know of him. His son Daniel, however, showed a more + adventurous spirit, becoming a shipmaster quite early in life. It has also + been intimated that he was something of a smuggler, which was no great + discredit to him in a time when the unfair and even prohibitory measures + of the British Parliament in regard to American commerce made smuggling a + practical necessity. Even as the captain of a trading vessel, however, + Daniel Hathorne was not likely to advance the social interests of his + family. It is significant that he should have left the central portion of + Salem, where his ancestors had lived, and have built a house for himself + close to the city wharves,—a house well built and commodious enough, + but not in a fashionable location. + </p> + <p> + But Daniel Hathorne had the advantage over fashionable society in Salem, + in being a thorough patriot. Boston and Salem were the two strongholds of + Toryism during the war for Independence, which was natural enough, as + their wealthy citizens were in close mercantile relations with English + houses, and sent their children to England to be educated. Daniel + Hathorne, however, as soon as hostilities had begun, fitted out his bark + as a privateer, and spent the following six years in preying upon British + merchantmen. How successful he was in this line of business we have not + been informed, but he certainly did not grow rich by it; although he is + credited with one engagement with the enemy, in which his ship came off + with honor, though perhaps not with a decisive victory. This exploit was + celebrated in a rude ballad of the time, which has been preserved in + “Griswold’s Curiosities of American Literature,” and has at least the + merit of plain unvarnished language. {Footnote: Also in Lathrop’s + “Hawthorne."} + </p> + <p> + There is a miniature portrait of Daniel Hathorne, such as was common in + Copley’s time, still in the possession of the Hawthorne family, and it + represents him as rather a bullet-headed man, with a bright, open, cheery + face, a broad English chin and strongly marked brows,—an excellent + physiognomy for a sea-captain. He appears besides to have had light brown + or sandy hair, a ruddy complexion and bright blue eyes; but we cannot + determine how truthful the miniature may be in respect to coloring. At all + events, he was of a very different appearance from Nathaniel Hawthorne, + and if he resembled his grandson in any external respect, it was in his + large eyes and their overshadowing brows. He has not the look of a + dare-devil. One might suppose that he was a person of rather an obstinate + disposition, but it is always difficult to draw the line between obstinacy + and determination. + </p> + <p> + A similar miniature of his son Nathaniel, born in 1775, and who died at + Surinam in his thirty-fourth year, gives us the impression of a person + somewhat like his father, and also somewhat like his son Nathaniel. He has + a long face instead of a round one, and his features are more delicate and + refined than those of the bold Daniel. The expression is gentle, dreamy + and pensive, and unless the portrait belies him, he could not have been + the stern, domineering captain that he has been represented. He had rather + a slender figure, and was probably much more like his mother, who was a + Miss Phelps, than the race of Judge Hathorne. He may have been a reticent + man, but never a bold one, and we find in him a new departure. His face is + more amiable and attractive than his father’s, but not so strong. In 1799 + he was married to Miss Elizabeth Clarke Manning, the daughter of Richard + Manning, and then only nineteen years of age. She appears to have been an + exceptionally sensitive and rather shy young woman—such as would be + likely to attract the attention of a chivalrous young mariner—but + with fine traits of intellect and character. + </p> + <p> + The maternal ancestry of a distinguished man is quite as important as the + paternal, but in the present instance it is much more difficult to obtain + information concerning it. The increasing fame of Hawthorne has been like + a calcium-light, illuminating for the past fifty years everything to which + that name attaches, and leaving the Manning family in a shadow so much the + deeper. All we can learn of them now is, that they were descended from + Richard Manning, of Dartmouth in Devonshire, England, whose son Thomas + emigrated to Salem with his widowed mother in 1679, but afterwards removed + to Ipswich, ten miles to the north, whence the family has since extended + itself far and wide,—the Reverend Jacob M. Manning, of the Old South + Church, the fearless champion of practical anti-slaveryism, having been + among them. It appears that Thomas’s grandson Richard started in life as a + blacksmith, which was no strange thing in those primitive times; but, + being a thrifty and enterprising man, he lived to establish a line of + stage-coaches between Salem and Boston, and this continued in the + possession of his family until it was superseded by the Eastern Railway. + After this catastrophe, Robert Manning, the son of Richard and brother of + Mrs. Nathaniel Hathorne, became noted as a fruit-grower (a business in + which Essex County people have always taken an active interest), and was + one of the founders of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The + Mannings were always respected in Salem, although they never came to + affluent circumstances, nor did they own a house about the city common. + Robert Manning, Jr., was Secretary of the Horticultural Society in Boston + for a long term of years, a pleasant, kindly man, with an aspect of + general culture. Hawthorne’s maternal grandmother was Miriam Lord, of + Ipswich, and his paternal grandmother was Rachel Phelps, of Salem. His + father was only thirty-three when he died at Surinam. + </p> + <p> + In regard to the family name, there are at present Hawthornes and + Hathornes in England, and although the two names may have been identical + originally, they have long since become as distinct as Smith and Smythe. I + have discovered only two instances in which the first William Hathorne + wrote his own name, and in the various documents at the State House in + which it appears written by others, it is variously spelled Hathorn, + Hathorne, Hawthorn, Haythorne, and Harthorne,—from which we can only + conclude that the a was pronounced broadly. It was not until the reign of + Queen Anne, when books first became cheap and popular, that there was any + decided spelling of either proper or common names. Then the printers took + the matter into their own hands and made witch-work enough of it. The word + “sovereign,” for instance, which is derived from the old French <i>souvrain</i>, + and which Milton spelled “sovran,” they tortured into its present form,—much + as the clerks of Massachusetts Colony tortured the name of William + Hathorne. This, however, was spelled Hathorne oftener than in other ways, + and it was so spelled in the two signatures above referred to, one of + which was attached as witness to a deed for the settlement of the boundary + between Lynn and Salem, {Footnote: Also in Lathrop’s “Hawthorne."} and the + other to a report of the commissioners for the investigation of the French + vessels coming to Salem and Boston in 1651, the two other commissioners + being Samuel Bradstreet and David Denison. {Footnote: Massachusetts + Archives, x. 171.}The name was undoubtedly Hathorne, and so it continued + with one or two slight variations during the eighteenth century down to + the time of Nathaniel Hathorne, Jr., who entered and graduated at Bowdoin + College under that name, but who soon afterward changed it to Hawthorne, + for reasons that have never been explained. + </p> + <p> + All cognomens would seem to have been derived originally from some + personal peculiarity, although it is no longer possible to trace this back + to its source, which probably lies far away in the Dark Ages,—the + formative period of languages and of families. Sometimes, however, we meet + with individuals whose peculiarities suggest the origin of their names: a + tall, slender, long-necked man named Crane; or a timid, retiring student + named Leverett; or an over-confident, supercilious person called Godkin In + the name of Hawthorne also we may imagine a curious significance: “When + the may is on the thorn,” says Tennyson. The English country people call + the flowering of the hawthorn “the may.” It is a beautiful tree when in + full bloom. How sweet-scented and delicately colored are its blossoms! But + it seems to say to us, “Do not come too close to me.” + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER II. — BOYHOOD OF HAWTHORNE: 1804-1821 + </h2> + <p> + Salem treasures the memory of Hawthorne, and preserves everything tangible + relating to him. The house in which he was born, No. 27 Union Street, is + in much the same style and probably of the same age as the Old Manse at + Concord, but somewhat smaller, with only a single window on either side of + the doorway—five windows in all on the front, one large chimney in + the centre, and the roof not exactly a gambrel, for the true gambrel has a + curve first inward and then outward, but something like it. A modest, cosy + and rather picturesque dwelling, which if placed on a green knoll with a + few trees about it might become a subject for a sketching class. It did + not belong to Hawthorne’s father, after all, but to the widow of the bold + Daniel, It was the cradle of genius, and is now a shrine for many + pilgrims. Long may it survive, so that our grandchildren may gaze upon it. + </p> + <p> + Here Nathaniel Hawthorne first saw daylight one hundred years ago + {Footnote: 1804.} on the Fourth of July, as if to make a protest against + Chauvinistic patriotism; here his mother sat at the window to see her + husband’s bark sail out of the harbor on his last voyage; and here she + watched day after day for its return, only to bring a life-long sorrow + with it. The life of a sea-captain’s wife is always a half-widowhood, but + Mrs. Hathorne was left at twenty-eight with three small children, + including a daughter, Elizabeth, older than Nathaniel, and another, + Louisa, the youngest. The shadow of a heavy misfortune had come upon them, + and from this shadow they never wholly escaped. + </p> + <p> + Lowell criticised a letter which John Brown wrote concerning his boyhood + to Henry L. Stearns, as the finest bit of autobiography of the nineteenth + century.{Footnote: <i>North American Review</i>, April 1860.} It is in + fact almost the only literature of the kind that we possess. A frequent + difficulty that parents find in dealing with their children is, that they + have wholly forgotten the sensations and impressions of their own + childhood. The instructor cannot place himself in the position of the + pupil. A naturalist will spend years with a microscope studying the + development of a plant from the seed, but no one has ever applied a + similar process to the budding of genius or even of ordinary intellect. We + have the autobiography of one of the greatest geniuses, written in the + calm and stillness of old age, when youthful memories come back to us + involuntarily; yet he barely lifts the veil from his own childhood, and + has much more to say of external events and older people than of himself + and his young companions. How valuable is the story of George Washington + and his hatchet, hackneyed as it has become! What do we know of the + boyhood of Franklin, Webster, Seward and Longfellow? Nothing, or next to + nothing. + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: WINDOW OF THIS CHAMBER} + </p> + <p> + Goethe says that the admirable woman is she who, when her husband dies, + becomes a father to his children; but in the case of Hawthorne’s mother, + this did not happen to be necessary. Her brother, Robert Manning, a + thrifty and fairly prosperous young man, immediately took Mrs. Hathorne + and her three children into his house on Herbert Street, and made it + essentially a home for them afterward. To the fatherless boy he was more + than his own father, away from home ten months of the year, ever could + have been; and though young Nathaniel must have missed that tenderness of + feeling which a man can only entertain toward his own child, there was no + lack of kindness or consideration on Robert Manning’s part, to either the + boy or his sisters. + </p> + <p> + It was Mrs. Hathorne who chiefly suffered from this change of domicile. + She would seem to have been always on good terms with her brother’s wife, + and on the whole they formed a remarkably harmonious family,—at + least we hear nothing to the contrary,—but she was no longer + mistress of her own household. She had her daughters to instruct, and to + train up in domestic ways, and she could be helpful in various matters, + large and small; but the mental occupation which comes from the oversight + and direction of household affairs, and which might have served to divert + her mind from sorrowful memories, was now gone from her. Her widowhood + separated her from the outside world and from all society, excepting a few + devoted friends, {Footnote: <i>Wide Awake</i>, xxxiii. 502.} so that under + these conditions it is not surprising that her life became continually + more secluded and reserved. It is probable that her temperament was very + similar to her son’s; but the impression which has gone forth, that she + indulged her melancholy to an excess, is by no means a just one. The + circumstances of her case should be taken into consideration. + </p> + <p> + Rebecca Manning says: + </p> + <p> + “I remember aunt Hawthorne as busy about the house, attending to various + matters. Her cooking was excellent, and she was noted for a certain kind + of sauce, which nobody else knew how to make. We always enjoyed going to + see her when we were children, for she took great pains to please us and + to give us nice things to eat. Her daughter Elizabeth resembled her in + that respect. In old letters and in the journal of another aunt, which has + come into our possession, we read of her going about making visits, taking + drives, and sometimes going on a journey. In later years she was not well, + and I do not remember that she ever came here, but her friends always + received a cordial welcome when they visited her.” + </p> + <p> + This refers to a late period of Madam Hathorne’s life, and if she absented + herself from the table, as Elizabeth Peabody states, {Footnote: Lathrop’s + “Study of Hawthorne."} there was good reason for it. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne himself has left no word concerning his mother, of favorable or + unfavorable import, but it seems probable that he owed his genius to her, + if he can be said to have owed it to any of his ancestors. In after life + he affirmed that his sister Elizabeth, who appears to have been her mother + over again, could have written as well as he did, and although we have no + palpable evidence of this—and the letter which she wrote Elizabeth + Peabody does not indicate it,—we are willing to take his word for + it. With the shyness and proud reserve which he inherited from his mother, + there also came that exquisite refinement and feminine grace of style + which forms the chief charm of his writing. The same refinement of feeling + is noticeable in the letters of other members of the Manning family. Where + his imagination came from, it would be useless to speculate; but there is + no good art without delicacy. + </p> + <p> + Doctor Nathaniel Peabody lived near the house on Herbert Street, and his + daughter Elizabeth (who afterward became a woman of prodigious learning) + soon made acquaintance with the Hathorne children. She remembers the boy + Nathaniel jumping about his uncle’s yard, and this is the first picture + that we have of him. When we consider what a beautiful boy he must have + been, with his wavy brown hair, large wistful eyes and vigorous figure, + without doubt he was a pleasure to look upon. We do not hear of him again + until November 10, 1813, when he injured his foot in some unknown manner + while at play, and was made lame by it more or less for the three years + succeeding. After being laid up for a month, he wrote this pathetic little + letter to his uncle, Robert Manning, then in Maine, which I have + punctuated properly so that the excellence of its composition may appeal + more plainly to the reader. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “SALEM, Thursday, December, 1813. + + “DEAR UNCLE: +</pre> + <p> + “I hope you are well, and I hope Richard is too. My foot is no better. + Louisa has got so well that she has begun to go to school, but she did not + go this forenoon because it snowed. Mama is going to send for Doctor + Kitridge to-day, when William Cross comes home at 12 o’clock, and maybe he + will do some good, for Doctor Barstow has not, and I don’t know as Doctor + Kitridge will. It is about 4 weeks yesterday since I have been to school, + and I don’t know but it will be 4 weeks longer before I go again. I have + been out of the office two or three times and have set down on the step of + the door, and once I hopped out into the street. Yesterday I went out in + the office and had 4 cakes. Hannah carried me out once, but not then. + Elizabeth and Louisa send their love to you. I hope you will write to me + soon, but I have nothing more to write; so good-bye, dear Uncle. + </p> + <p> + “Your affectionate Nephew, + </p> + <p> + “NATHANIEL HATHORNE.” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: Elizabeth Manning in <i>Wide Awake</i>, Nov. 1891.} + </p> + <p> + This is not so precocious as Mozart’s musical compositions at the same + age, but how could the boy Hawthorne have given a clearer account of + himself and his situation at the time, without one word of complaint? It + is worth noting also that his prediction in regard to Doctor Kitridge + proved to be correct and even more. + </p> + <p> + It is evident that neither of his doctors treated him in a physio-logical + manner. Kitridge was a water-cure physician, and his method of treatment + deserves to be recorded for its novelty. He directed Nathaniel to project + his naked foot out of a sitting-room window, while he poured cold water on + it from the story above. This, however, does not appear to have helped the + case, and the infirmity continued so long that it was generally feared + that his lameness would be permanent. + </p> + <p> + Horatio Bridge considered this a fortunate accident for Nathaniel, since + it prevented him from being spoiled by his female relatives, as there is + always danger that an only son with two or more sisters will be spoiled. + But it was an advantage to the boy in a different manner from this. He + learned from it the lesson of suffering and endurance, which we all have + to learn sooner or later; and it compelled him, perhaps too young, to seek + the comfort of life from internal sources. There were excellent books in + the house,—Shakespeare and Milton, of course, but also Pope’s + “Iliad,” Thomson’s “Seasons,” the “Spectator,” “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and + the “Faerie Queene,” and the time had now come when these would be + serviceable to him. He was not the only boy that has enjoyed Shakespeare + at the age of ten, but that he should have found interest in Spenser’s + “Faerie Queene” is somewhat exceptional. Even among professed <i>littérateurs</i> + there are few that read that long allegory, and still fewer who enjoy it; + and yet Miss Manning assures us that Hawthorne would muse over it for + hours. Its influence may be perceptible in some of his shorter stories, + but “Pilgrim’s Progress” evidently had an effect upon him; and so had + Scott’s novels, as we may judge from the first romance that he published. + </p> + <p> + At the age of twelve years and seven months he composed a short poem, so + perfect in form and mature in judgment that it is difficult to believe + that so young a person could have written it. Not so poetic as it is + philosophical, it is valuable as indicating that the boy had already + formed a moral axis for himself,—a life principle from which he + never afterward deviated; and it is given herewith: {Footnote: A facsimile + of the original can be found in <i>Wide Awake</i>, November, 1891.} + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “MODERATE VIEWS. + + “With passions unruffled, untainted by pride, + By reason my life let me square; + The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied, + And the rest are but folly and care. + How vainly through infinite trouble and strife, + The many their labours employ, + Since all, that is truly delightful in life, + Is what all if they please may enjoy. + + “NATHANIEL HATHORNE. + + “SALEM, February 13, 1817.” + </pre> + <p> + He wrote this with the greatest nicety, framing it in broad black lines, + and ornamenting the capitals in a manner that recalls the decoration of + John Hathorne’s gravestone. He composed a number of poems between his + thirteenth and seventeenth years, quite as good as those of Longfellow at + the same age; but after he entered Bowdoin College he dropped the practice + altogether and never resumed it, although one would suppose that + Longfellow’s example would have stimulated him to better efforts. Neither + does he appear to have tried his hand in writing tales, as boys who have + no thought of literary distinction frequently do. During the years of his + lameness he sometimes invented extemporaneous stories, which invariably + commenced with a voyage to some foreign country, from which his hero never + returned. This shows how continually his father’s fate was in his mind, + although he said nothing of it. + </p> + <p> + Robert Manning’s interest in the stage-company afforded the boy fine + opportunities for free rides, and he probably also frequented the stables; + although neither as youth nor as man did he take much interest in driving + or riding. He was more fond of playing upon the wharves, a good healthy + place,—and watching the great ships sailing forth to far-off lands, + and returning with their strange cargoes,—enough to stimulate any + boy’s imagination, if he has it in him. It is likely that if Nathaniel’s + father had lived, he would also have followed a seafaring life, and would + never have become useful to the world in the way that he did. + </p> + <p> + Somewhere about the close of the eighteenth century, Richard Manning, the + father of Mrs. Hathorne, purchased a large tract of land in Cumberland + County, Maine, between Lake Sebago and the town of Casco; and in 1813 + Robert Manning built a house near the lake, in the township of Raymond, + and his brother Richard, who had become much of an invalid, went to live + there, partly for his health and partly to keep an oversight on the + property. In 1817 Mrs. Hathorne also went there, taking her children with + her, and remaining, with some intermissions, until 1822. Meanwhile the + Mannings sold some thousands of acres of land, although not, as we may + suppose, at very good prices, and the name of Elizabeth Hathorne was + repeatedly attached to the deeds of conveyance. The house that Robert + built was the plainest sort of structure, of only two stories, and with no + appearance of having been painted; but the farmers in the vicinity + criticised it as “Manning’s folly,”—exactly why, does not appear + clearly, unless they foresaw what actually happened, that the house could + be neither sold nor rented after the Mannings had left it. For many years, + it served as a meeting-house,—one could not call it a church,—and + now it has become a Hawthorne museum, the town of Raymond very laudably + keeping it in repair. + </p> + <p> + Although none of the events in the early life of Hawthorne ought to be + considered positive misfortunes, as they all contributed to make him what + he was, yet upon general principles it is much to be regretted that he + should have passed the best years of his boyhood in this out-of-the-way + place. His good uncle supplied him with a boat and a gun, and he enjoyed + the small shooting, fishing, sailing and skating that the place afforded; + but in later years he wrote to Bridge, “It was at Sebago that I learned my + cursed habit of solitude,” and this pursued him through life like an evil + genius, placing him continually at a disadvantage with his fellow-men. It + has been supposed that this mode of life assisted in developing his + individuality, but quite as strong individualities have been developed in + the midst of large cities. “Speech is more refreshing than light.” + </p> + <p> + When will parents learn wisdom in regard to their children? A + conscientious, tender-hearted boy will be sent to a rough country school, + to be scoffed at and maltreated there, before he is twelve years old; + while another of a coarser and harder nature will be kept at home, to be + petted and pampered until all the vigor and manliness are sapped out of + him. Parents who prefer to live in a modest, humble manner, in order that + their children may have better advantages, deserve the highest + commendation, but in this respect good instruction is less important than + favorable associations. From fourteen to twenty-one is the formative + period of character, and the influences which may be brought to bear on + the growing mind are of the highest importance. Lake Sebago served as an + excellent gymnasium for young Hawthorne, and may have helped to develop + his sense of the beautiful, but he found few companions there, and those + not of the most suitable kind. He was exceedingly fond of skating—so + much so that when the ice was smooth he sometimes remained on the lake far + into the night. This we can envy him, for skating is the poetry of motion. + </p> + <p> + The captain of the “Hawthorne,” which plies back and forth across the lake + in summer, regularly points out to his passengers the house where the + Hathornes lived. It is easily seen from the steamer,—a severely + plain, unpainted building, in appearance much like the Manning house on + Herbert Street. Nearly in line with it a great cliff-like rock juts out + from the centre of the lake, on which the Indians centuries ago etched and + painted great warlike figures, whose significance is now known to no one. + It is said that Hawthorne frequently sailed or rowed to Indian Rock, and + to a sort of grotto there which was large enough for his boat to enter. + Both the rock and the Manning house are now difficult of access. + Longfellow wrote a pretty descriptive poem of a voyage on Sebago, and it + is remarkable how he has made use of every feature of the landscape, every + incident of the excursion, to fill his verses. The lake has much the shape + of an hour-glass, the northern and southern portions being connected by a + winding strait, so crooked that it requires the constant effort of the + pilot to prevent the little steamer from running aground. There used to be + fine fishing in it,—large perch, bass, and a species of fresh-water + salmon often weighing from six to eight pounds. + </p> + <p> + Strangely enough, one of Hawthorne’s acquaintances on the shores of Sebago + was a mulatto boy named William Symmes, the son of a Virginia slave, + foisted by his father upon a Maine sea-captain named Britton, who lived in + the half-wilderness around Raymond. Symmes afterwards became a sailor, and + continued in that vocation until the Civil War, when he went to live in + Alexandria, Va. In 1870 he published in the Portland <i>Transcript</i> + what pretended to be a series of extracts from a diary which young + Hawthorne had kept while at Raymond, and which was found there, after the + departure of the Manning family, by a man named Small, while moving a load + of furniture which had been sold to another party. Small preserved it + until 1864, and then made a present of it to Symmes. + </p> + <p> + Doubts have been cast on the genuineness of this diary, as was natural + enough under the circumstances; for the original manuscript was never + produced by Symmes, who died the following year, and no one knows what has + become of it. It may also be asked, why should Small have disposed so + readily of this manuscript to Symmes after preserving it sedulously for + more than forty years? Why did he not return it to its rightful owner; or, + if he felt ashamed of his original abstraction, why did not Symmes restore + it to the Hawthorne family after Hawthorne’s death, when every newspaper + in the country was celebrating Hawthorne’s genius? It also might have + occurred to one of them that such property would have a marketable value, + and could be disposed of at a high price to some collector of literary + curiosities; but Symmes did not even ask to be remunerated for the portion + that he contributed to the Portland Transcript. Neither did he harbor the + slightest ill feeling toward Hawthorne, whom he claimed to have met + several times in the course of his wanderings,—once at Salem, and + again at Liverpool,—and was always treated by him with exceptional + kindness and civility. + </p> + <p> + The only answer that can be made to these queries is, that men in Symmes’s + position in life do not act according to any method that can be previously + calculated. In a case like the present, there could be no predicting it; + and it is possible that this mulatto valued the diary above all price, as + a souvenir of the one white man who had ever been kind and good to him. + Who knows what a heart there may have been in William Symmes? + </p> + <p> + The internal evidence of this diary is so strongly in its favor as to be + almost conclusive. Lathrop, who made a special study of it, says: + </p> + <p> + “The fabrication of the journal by a person possessed of some literary + skill and familiar with the localities mentioned, at dates so long ago as + 1816 to 1819, might not be an impossible feat, but it is an extremely + improbable one.” + </p> + <p> + To which it might be added, that it could be only a Hawthorne that could + accomplish such a fabrication. Few things in literature are more difficult + than to make a boy talk <i>like</i> a boy, and the tone of this Sebago + journal is not only boyish, but sweet and pleasant to the ear, such as we + might imagine the talk of the youthful Hawthorne. Not only this, but there + is a gradated improvement of intelligence in the course of it,—rather + too much so for entire credibility. It is quite possible that there is + more of it than Hawthorne ever wrote, but that does not prevent us from + having faith in the larger portion of it. The purity of its diction, the + nice adaptation of each word to its purpose, and the accuracy of detail + are much in its favor; besides which, the personal reflections in it are + exactly like Hawthorne. The published portion of the diary in Mr. + Pickard’s book makes about fifty rather small pages, but no dates are + given except at the close, and that is August, 1818; and as Hawthorne went + to Sebago for the first time the preceding year, we may presume that this + note-book represents a winter and summer vacation, during which he would + seem to have enjoyed himself in a healthy boyish fashion. We have only + space for a few extracts from this publication, which serve both to + exemplify Hawthorne’s mode of life at Raymond and to illustrate the + preceding statement concerning the book. + </p> + <p> + The first observation in the diary is quoted by Lathrop, and has a + decidedly youthful tone. + </p> + <p> + “Two kingbirds have built their nest between our house and the mill-pond. + The male is more courageous than any creature that I know about. He seems + to have taken possession of the territory from the great pond to the small + one, and goes out to war with every fish-hawk that flies from one to the + other over his dominion. The fish-hawks must be miserable cowards to be + driven by such a speck of a bird. I have not yet seen one turn to defend + himself.” + </p> + <p> + Kingbirds are the knights-errant of the feathered tribes. They never + attack another bird unless it is three times their own size; but when a + few years older, the boy Hawthorne would probably have noticed that the + kingbirds’ powers of flight are so superior that all other birds are + practically at their mercy. This fixes the date of the entry in the early + summer of 1817, for kingbirds are not belligerent except during the + nesting season. Somewhat later in the year he writes: + </p> + <p> + “Went yesterday in a sail-boat on the Great Pond with Mr. Peter White, of + Windham. He sailed up here from White’s Bridge to see Captain Dingley, and + invited Joseph Dingley and Mr. Ring to take a boat-ride out to the Dingley + Islands and to the Images. He was also kind enough to say that I might go, + with my mother’s consent, which she gave after much coaxing. Since the + loss of my father, she dreads to have any one belonging to her go upon the + water. It is strange that this beautiful body of water is called a ‘pond.’ + The geography tells of many in Scotland and Ireland, not near so large, + that are called ‘Lakes.’” + </p> + <p> + Notice his objection to bad nomenclature, and his school-boy argument + against it. In his account of this excursion he says further: + </p> + <p> + “After we got ashore, Mr. White allowed me to fire his long gun at a mark. + I did not hit the mark, and am not sure that I saw it at the time the gun + went off, but believe rather that I was watching for the noise that I was + about to make. + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Ring said that with practice I could be a gunner, and that now, with + a very heavy charge, he thought I could kill a horse at eight paces!” + </p> + <p> + Here or nowhere do we recognize the budding of Hawthorne’s genius. This + clear introspective analysis is the foundation of all true mental power, + and Hawthorne might have become a Platonic philosopher, if he had not + preferred to be a story-teller. + </p> + <p> + These sports came to an end in the autumn when he was sent to study with + the Reverend Caleb Bradley, a somewhat eccentric graduate of Harvard, who + resided at Stroudwater, Maine, and with whom he remained during the + winter. {Footnote: S. T. Pickard’s “Hawthorne’s First Diary."}He refers to + this period of tuition in the short story of “The Vision of the Fountain,” + and whether or no any such vision appeared to him, we can fairly believe + that the tale was suggested by some pretty school-girl who made an + impression on him, only to disappear in a tantalizing manner. It is to be + presumed that he returned to his mother at Raymond, for Christmas; and at + that time he heard a story of how an Otisfield man named Henry Turner had + killed three hibernating bears which he discovered in a cave near Moose + Pond, not a difficult feat when one comes upon them in that torpid + condition. This would place the killing of the bears at about the first of + December, which would be probable enough, and the fact itself has been + substantiated by Samuel Pickard. The next succeeding entry relates to the + drowning of a boy while swimming, which could only have happened the + following June. Mrs. Hathorne was greatly alarmed, and objected to + Nathaniel’s going in bathing with the other boys. He did not like the + restriction, but writes that he shall obey his mother. + </p> + <p> + There is a ghost story in the diary, quite original, and told with an air + of excellent credibility; and also a short anthropomorphic romance + concerning a badly treated horse, full of genuine pathos and kindly + sympathy,—more sympathetic, in fact, than Hawthorne’s later stories, + in which he is sometimes almost too reserved and unemotional: + </p> + <p> + “‘Good morning, Mr. Horse, how are you to-day?’ ‘Good morning, youngster,’ + said he, just as plain as a horse can speak, and then said, ‘I am almost + dead, and I wish I was quite. I am hungry, have had no breakfast and stand + here tied by the head while they are grinding the corn, and until master + drinks two or three glasses of rum at the store, and then drag him and the + meal up the Ben Ham hill, and home, and am now so weak that I can hardly + stand. Oh, dear, I am in a bad way,’ and the old creature cried,—I + almost cried myself.” + </p> + <p> + The only difficulty in believing this diary to be genuine is the question: + If Hawthorne could write with such perspicuity at fourteen, why are there + no evidences of it during his college years? But it sometimes happens so. + </p> + <p> + We cannot refrain from quoting one more extract from the last entry in the + Sebago diary, so beautifully tender and considerate as it is of his + mother’s position toward her only son. He had been invited by a party of + their neighbors to go on an all-day excursion, and though his mother + grants his request to be allowed to join them, he feels the reluctance + with which she does so and he writes: + </p> + <p> + “She said ‘Yes,’ but I was almost sorry, knowing that my day’s pleasure + would cost <i>her</i> one of anxiety. However, I gathered up my hooks and + lines, with some white salted pork for bait, and with a fabulous number of + biscuit, split in the middle, the insides well buttered, then skilfully + put together again, and all stowed in sister’s large work-bag, and slung + over my shoulder, I started, making a wager with Enoch White, as we walked + down to the boat, as to which could catch the largest number of fish.” + {Footnote: Appendix A.} + </p> + <p> + This is the only entry that is dated (August, 1818), and as it was on this + same occasion that the black ducks were shot, it must have been on one of + the last days of August. We may presume that Nathaniel returned to his + studies at Stroudwater the following month, for we do not hear of him + again at Raymond—or in Salem, either—until March 24, when he + writes to his uncle, Robert Manning, who has evidently just returned from + Raymond to Salem, and speaks of expecting to go to Portland with a Mr. + Linch for the day. On May 16, 1819, he writes to his uncle Robert again: + </p> + <p> + “The grass and trees are green, the fences finished and the garden + planted. Two of the goats are on the island and the other kept for the + milk. I have shot a partridge and a hen-hawk and caught eighteen large + trout {probably Sebago salmon}. I am sorry that my uncle intends sending + me to school again, for my mother can hardly spare me.” + </p> + <p> + From which it is easy to infer that he had not attended school very + regularly of late, and Uncle Robert would seem to have concluded that it + would be better to have his fine nephew where he could personally + supervise his goings and comings. Accordingly, on July 26 we find + Nathaniel attending school in Salem,—a most unusual season for it,—and + although his mother remained at Raymond two years longer, he was not + permitted to return there again, except possibly for short periods. + </p> + <p> + Emerson once pointed out to me on Sudbury Street, Boston, an extremely old + man with long white locks and the face of a devoted scholar, advancing + toward us with slow and cautious steps. “That,” said he, “is Doctor + Worcester, the lexicographer.” Hawthorne’s early education remains much of + a mystery. In 1819 he complains in a letter to his mother that he has to + go to a cheap school,—a good indication that he did not intend to + trust to fortune for his future welfare; soon after this we hear that + dictionary Worcester is his chief instructor. He could not have found a + more amiable or painstaking pedagogue; nor is it likely that the fine + qualities of his teacher were ever better appreciated. Hawthorne himself + says nothing of this, for it was not his way to express admiration for man + or woman, but we can believe that he felt the same affection for the + doctor that well-behaved boys commonly do for their old masters. It was + from Worcester that he derived his excellent knowledge of Latin, the + single study of which he was fond; and it is his preference for words + derived from the Latin which gives grace and flexibility to Hawthorne’s + style, as the force and severity of Emerson’s style come from his + partiality for Saxon words. During his last year at school, Hawthorne took + private lessons of a Salem lawyer, Benjamin Oliver, and perhaps studied + with him altogether at the finish. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s life had been so irregular for years that it is creditable to + him that he should have succeeded in entering college at all. We hear of + him at Sebago in winter and at Salem in July. He writes to his Uncle + Robert to look out for the shot-gun which he left in a closet at Sebago, + and which has a rather heavy charge of powder in it. He appears to have + found as little companionship in Salem as he did in that wilderness,—the + natural effect of such a life. He may have been acquainted with half the + boys in Salem, but he did not make any warm friends among them. His sister + Louisa, who was a more vivacious person than Elizabeth, was his chief + companion and comfort. Seated at the window with her on summer evenings, + he elaborated the plan of an imaginary society, a club of two, called the + “Pin Society,” to which all fees, assessments and fines were paid in pins,—then + made by hand and much more expensive than now. He constituted himself its + secretary, and wrote imaginary reports of its proceedings, in which Louisa + is frequently fined for absence from meetings. We do not hear of their + going to parties or dances with other children. + </p> + <p> + In August, 1820, he started an imaginary newspaper called the <i>Spectator</i>, + which he wrote himself with some help from Louisa, and of which there was + only one copy of each number. He continued this through five successive + issues, and we trace in its pages the commencement of Hawthorne’s peculiar + humor,—too quiet and gentle to make us laugh, but with a penetrating + tinge of pathos. Take for instance the following: + </p> + <p> + “There is no situation in life more irksome than that of an editor who is + obliged to find amusement for his Readers, from a head which is too often + (as is the present predicament with our own) filled with emptiness. Since + commencing this paper, we have received no communication of any kind, so + that the whole weight of the business devolves upon our own shoulders, a + load far too great for them to bear. We hope the Public will reflect on + these grievances.” + </p> + <p> + This is true fiction, and Nathaniel was not the first or the last editor + to whom the statement has applied. His difficulties are imaginary, but he + realizes what they might be in reality. + </p> + <p> + In another number he says: + </p> + <p> + “We know of no news, either domestic or foreign, and we hope our readers + will excuse our not inserting any. The law which prohibits paying debts + when a person has no money will apply in this case.” + </p> + <p> + Then he makes this quiet hit against the people of Maine for having + separated themselves and their territory from Massachusetts: + </p> + <p> + “By a gentleman in the state of Maine, we learn that a famine is seriously + apprehended owing to the want of rain. Potatoes could not be procured in + some places. When children break their leading strings, and run away from + their Parent, (as Maine has done) they may expect sometimes to suffer + hunger.” {Footnote: <i>Wide Awake</i>, xxxiii. 512.} + </p> + <p> + Of his religious instruction we hear nothing; but church-going in New + England during the first forty years of the nineteenth century was + wellnigh universal, and it makes little difference now to which of the + various forms of Calvinistic worship the Manning family subscribed. That + young Hawthorne was seriously impressed in this way is evident from the + following ode, which he may have composed as early as his fifteenth year: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Oh, I have roamed in rapture wild + Where the majestic rocks are piled + In lonely, stern, magnificence around + The troubled ocean’s steadfast bound; + And I have seen the storms arise + And darkness veil from mortal eyes + The Heavens that shine so fair and bright, + And all was solemn, silent night. + Then I have seen the storm disperse, + And Mercy hush the whirlwind fierce, + And all my soul in transport owned + There is a God, in Heaven enthroned.” + </pre> + <p> + There is more of a rhetorical flourish than of serious religious feeling + in this; but genuine piety is hardly to be expected, and not greatly to be + desired, in a boy of that age. It represents the desire to be religious, + and to express something, he knows not what. + </p> + <p> + Nathaniel Hawthorne had already decided on his vocation in life before he + entered Bowdoin College,—a decision which he afterwards adhered to + with inflexible determination, in spite of the most discouraging + obstacles. In a memorable letter to his mother, written March 13, 1821, he + says: + </p> + <p> + “I am quite reconciled to going to college, since I am to spend my + vacations with you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a great + deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what profession I shall have. + The being a minister is of course out of the question. I shall not think + that even you could desire me to choose so dull a way of life. Oh, no, + mother, I was not born to vegetate forever in one place, and to live and + die as tranquil as—a puddle of water. As to lawyers, there are so + many of them already that one-half of them (upon a moderate calculation) + are in a state of actual starvation. A physician, then, seems to be + ‘Hobson’s choice’; but yet I should not like to live by the diseases and + infirmities of my fellow-creatures. And it would weigh very hardly on my + conscience, in the course of my practice, if I should chance to send any + unlucky patient ‘<i>ad infernum</i>,’ which, being interpreted, is ‘to the + realms below.’ Oh that I was rich enough to live without profession! What + do you think of my becoming an author, and relying for support upon my + pen? Indeed, I think the illegibility of my hand is very author-like.” + {Footnote: Conway, 24.} + </p> + <p> + Such were the Ides of March for Hawthorne. It was no boyish ambition for + public distinction, nor a vain grasping at the laurel wreath, but a calmly + considered and clear-sighted judgment. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER III. — BOWDOIN COLLEGE: 1821-1825. + </h2> + <p> + The life of man is not like a game of chess, in which the two players + start upon equal terms and can deliberate sufficiently over every move; + but more like whist, in which the cards we hold represent our fortunes at + the beginning, but the result of the game depends also on the skill with + which we play it. Life also resembles whist in this, that we are obliged + to follow suit in a general way to those who happen to have the lead. + </p> + <p> + Why Hawthorne should have entered Bowdoin College instead of Harvard has + not been explained, nor is it easily explained. The standard of + scholarship maintained at Harvard and Yale has always been higher than + that at what Doctor Holmes designated as the “freshwater colleges,” and + this may have proved an unfavorable difference to the mind of a young man + who was not greatly inclined to his studies; but Harvard College is only + eighteen miles from Salem, and he could have returned to his home once a + week if he had chosen to do so, and this is a decided moral and social + advantage to a young man in those risky years. If Hawthorne had entered + Harvard in the next class to Emerson, he could not well have escaped the + latter’s attention, and would have come in contact with other vigorous and + stimulating minds; but it is of little use to speculate on what might have + been. + </p> + <p> + Boys are encouraged to study for college by accounts of the rare enjoyment + of university life, but they commonly find the first term of Freshman year + both dismal and discouraging. Their class is a medley of strangers, their + studies are a dry routine, and if they are not hazed by the Sophomores, + they are at least treated by them with haughtiness and contempt. It is + still summer when they arrive, but the leaves soon fall from the trees, + and their spirits fall with them. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne may have felt this more acutely than any other member of his + class, and in addition to the prevailing sense of discomfort he was seized + early in November with that disgusting malady, the measles, which boys + usually go through with before they are old enough to realize how + disagreeable it is. It appears to have been a light attack, however, and + in three weeks he was able to attend recitations again. He made no + complaint of it, only writing to his uncle for ten dollars with which to + pay the doctor. He likes his chum, Mason, of Portsmouth, and does not find + his studies so arduous as at Salem before entering. Neither are the + college laws so strict as he anticipated. + </p> + <p> + In the following May he received the present of his first watch, + presumably from Uncle Robert, and he writes to his mother, who is still at + Sebago, that he is mightily pleased with it, and that it enables him “to + cut a great dash” at college. His letters to his relatives are not + brilliant, but they indicate a healthful and contented mind. + </p> + <p> + We will now consider some of the distinguished personages who were + Hawthorne’s friends and associates during these four years of his + apprenticeship to actual life; and there were rare characters among them. + </p> + <p> + In the same coach in which Hawthorne left Portland for Brunswick, in the + summer of 1821, were Franklin Pierce and Jonathan Cilley. {Footnote: + Bridge’s Memoir of Hawthorne, 3.} Two men seated together in a modern + railway-carriage will often become better acquainted in three hours than + they might as next-door neighbors in three years; and this was still more + likely to happen in the old days of coach journeys, when the very tedium + of the occasion served as an inducement to frank and friendly + conversation. Pierce was the right man to bring Hawthorne out of his hard + shell of Sebago seclusion. He had already been one year at Bowdoin, and at + that time there was not the same caste feeling between Sophomores and + Freshmen—or at least very little of it—that has since arisen + in American colleges. He was amiable and kindly, and possessed the rare + gift of personal magnetism. Nature sometimes endows men and women with + this quality in lieu of all other advantages, and such would seem to have + been the case with Franklin Pierce. He was not much above the average in + intellect, and, as Hawthorne afterward confessed, not particularly + attractive in appearance; with a stiff military neck, features strong but + small, and opaque gray eyes,—a rather unimpressive face, and one + hardly capable of a decided expression. Yet with such abilities as he had, + aided by personal magnetism and the lack of conspicuous faults, he became + United States Senator at the age of thirty-five, and President fifteen + years later. The best we can say of him is, that he was always Hawthorne’s + friend. From the first day that they met he became Hawthorne’s patron and + protector—so far as he may have required the latter. There must have + been some fine quality in the man which is not easily discernible from his + outward acts; a narrow-minded man, but of a refined nature. + </p> + <p> + Jonathan Cilley was an abler man than Pierce, and a bold party-leader, but + not so attractive personally. He always remained Hawthorne’s friend, but + the latter saw little of him and rarely heard from him after they had + graduated. The one letter of his which has been published gives the + impression of an impulsive, rough-and-tumble sort of person, always ready + to take a hand in whatever might turn up. + </p> + <p> + On the same day, Horatio Bridge, who lived at Augusta, was coming down the + Kennebec River to Brunswick. Hawthorne did not make his acquaintance until + some weeks later, but he proved to be the best friend of them all, and + Hawthorne’s most constant companion during the four years they remained + together. Pierce, Cilley and Bridge were all born politicians, and it was + this class of men with whom it would seem that Hawthorne naturally + assimilated. + </p> + <p> + On the same day, or the one previous, another boy set out from Portland + for Brunswick, only fourteen years old, named Henry W. Longfellow,—a + name that is now known to thousands who never heard of Franklin Pierce. + Would it have made a difference in the warp and woof of Hawthorne’s life, + if he had happened to ride that day in the same coach with Longfellow? Who + can tell? Was there any one in the breadth of the land with whom he might + have felt an equal sympathy, with whom he could have matured a more + enduring fellowship? It might have been a friendship like that of Beaumont + and Fletcher, or, better still, like that of Goethe and Schiller,—but + it was not written in the book of Fate. Longfellow also had tried his hand + on the Sebago region, and was fond of the woods and of a gun; but he was + too precocious to adapt himself easily to persons of his own age, or even + somewhat older. He had no sooner arrived at Bowdoin than he became the + associate and favorite of the professors. In this way he missed altogether + the storm-and-stress period of youthful life, which is a useful experience + of its kind; and if we notice in his poetry a certain lack, the absence of + a close contact with reality,—as if he looked at his subject through + a glass casement,—this may be assigned as the reason for it. + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: HORATIO BRIDGE. FROM THE PORTRAIT BY EASTMAN JOHNSON} + </p> + <p> + During the four years they went back and forth to their instruction + together, Hawthorne and Longfellow never became cordially acquainted. They + also belonged to rival societies. There were only two principal societies + at Bowdoin, which continued through the college course—the Peucinian + and the Athenæan, and the difference between them might be described by + the words “citified” and “countrified,” without taking either of those + terms in an objectionable sense. Pierce was already a leading character in + the Athenæan, and was soon followed by Cilley, Bridge and Hawthorne. The + Peucinian suffered from the disadvantage of having members of the college + faculty on its active list, and this must have given a rather constrained + and academic character to its meetings. There was much more of the true + college spirit and classmate feeling in the Athenæan. + </p> + <p> + Horatio Bridge is our single authority in regard to Bowdoin College at + this time, and his off-hand sketches of Hawthorne, Pierce and Longfellow + are invaluable. Never has such a group of distinguished young men been + gathered together at an American college. He says of Hawthorne: + </p> + <p> + “Hawthorne was a slender lad, having a massive head, with dark, brilliant, + and most expressive eyes, heavy eyebrows, and a profusion of dark hair. + For his appearance at that time the inquirers must rely wholly upon the + testimony of friends; for, I think, no portrait of him as a lad is extant. + On one occasion, in our senior years, the class wished to have their + profiles cut in silhouette by a wandering artist of the scissors, and + interchanged by all the thirty-eight. Hawthorne disapproved the proposed + plan, and steadily refused to go into the Class Golgotha, as he styled the + dismal collection. I joined him in this freak, and so our places were left + vacant. I now regret the whim, since even a moderately correct outline of + his features as a youth would, at this day, be interesting. + </p> + <p> + “Hawthorne’s figure was somewhat singular, owing to his carrying his head + a little on one side; but his walk was square and firm, and his manner + self-respecting and reserved. A fashionable boy of the present day might + have seen something to amuse him in the new student’s appearance; but had + he indicated this he would have rued it, for Hawthorne’s clear + appreciation of the social proprieties and his great physical courage + would have made it as unsafe to treat him with discourtesy then as at any + later time. + </p> + <p> + “Though quiet and most amiable, he had great pluck and determination. I + remember that in one of our convivial meetings we had the laugh upon him + for some cause, an occurrence so rare that the bantering was carried too + far. After bearing it awhile, Hawthorne singled out the one among us who + had the reputation of being the best pugilist, and in a few words quietly + told him that he would not permit the rallying to go farther. His bearing + was so resolute, and there was so much of danger in his eye, that no one + afterward alluded to the offensive subject in his presence.” {Footnote: + Horatio Bridge, 5.} + </p> + <p> + Horatio Bridge is a veracious witness, but we have to consider that he was + nearly ninety years of age at the time his memoirs were given to the + public. It is difficult to imagine Hawthorne as a slender youth, for his + whole figure was in keeping with the structure of his head. It is more + likely that he had a spare figure. Persons of a lively imagination have + always been apt to hold their heads on one side, but not commonly while + they are walking. It is for this reason that phrenologists have supposed + that the organ of ideality is located on the side of the head,—if + there really is any such organ. + </p> + <p> + Bridge says of Longfellow precisely what one might expect: + </p> + <p> + “He had decided personal beauty and most attractive manners. He was frank, + courteous, and affable, while morally he was proof against the temptations + that beset lads on first leaving the salutary restraints of home. He was + diligent, conscientious, and most attentive to all his college duties, + whether in the recitation-room, the lecture-hall, or the chapel. The word + ‘student’ best expresses his literary habit, and in his intercourse with + all he was conspicuously the gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + In addition to those already mentioned, James W. Bradbury of Portland, + afterwards United States Senator, and the Reverend Dr. George B. Cheever, + the vigorous anti-slavery preacher, were members of this class. Three + others, Cilley, Benson and Sawtelle, were afterward members of the United + States House of Representatives. Surely there must have been quite a + fermentation of youthful intellect at Bowdoin between 1821 and 1825. + </p> + <p> + Franklin Pierce was so deeply interested in military affairs that it was a + pity he should not have had a West Point cadetship. He was captain of the + college militia company, in which Hawthorne and Bridge drilled and + marched; a healthy and profitable exercise, and better than a gymnasium, + if rather monotonous. Pierce was the popular hero and <i>magnus Apollo</i> + of his class, as distinguished foot-ball players are now; but just at this + time he was neglecting his studies so badly that at the close of his + second year he found himself at the very foot of the rank list. The fact + became known through the college, and Pierce was so chagrined that he + concluded to withdraw from Bowdoin altogether, and it was only by the + urgent persuasion of his friends that he was induced to continue his + course. “If I remain, however,” he said, “you will witness a change in + me.” For months together he burned midnight oil in order to recover lost + ground. During his last two years at college, he only missed two + recitations, both for sufficient reasons. His conduct was unexceptionable, + he incurred no deductions, and finally graduated third in his class. It is + an uncommon character that can play fast-and-loose with itself in this + manner. The boy Franklin had departed, and Pierce the man had taken his + place. {Footnote: Professor Packard’s “History of Bowdoin College."} + Horatio Bridge gives a rather more idealized portrait of him than he does + of Hawthorne. He says: + </p> + <p> + “In person Pierce was slender, of medium height, with fair complexion and + light hair, erect, with a military bearing, active, and always bright and + cheerful. In character he was impulsive, not rash; generous, not lavish; + chivalric, courteous, manly, and warm-hearted,—and he was one of the + most popular students in the whole college.” + </p> + <p> + The instruction in American colleges during the first half of the + nineteenth century was excellent for Greek, Latin and mathematics,—always + the groundwork of a good education,—but the modern languages were + indifferently taught by French and German exiles, and other subjects were + treated still more indifferently. The two noble studies of history and + philosophy were presented to the young aspiring soul in narrow, prejudiced + text-books, which have long since been consigned to that bourn from which + no literary work ever returns. As already stated, Hawthorne’s best study + was Latin, and in that he acquired good proficiency; but he was slow in + mathematics, as artistic minds usually are, and in his other studies he + only exerted himself sufficiently to pass his examinations in a creditable + manner. We may presume that he took the juice and left the rind; which was + the sensible thing to do. As might be expected, his themes and forensics + were beautifully written, although the arguments in them were not always + logical; but it is significant that he never could be prevailed upon to + make a declamation. There have been sensitive men, like Sumner and George + W. Curtis, who were not at all afraid of the platform, but they were not, + like Hawthorne, bashful men. The college faculty would seem to have + realized the true difficulty in his case, and treated him in a kindly and + lenient manner. No doubt he suffered enough in his own mind on account of + this deficiency, and it may have occurred to him what difficulties he + might have to encounter in after-life by reason of it. If a student at + college cannot bring himself to make a declamation, how can the mature man + face an audience in a lecture-room, command a ship, or administer any + important office? Such thoughts must have caused Hawthorne no slight + anxiety, at that sensitive age. + </p> + <p> + The out-door sports of the students did not attract Hawthorne greatly. He + was a fast runner and a good leaper, but seemed to dislike violent + exercise. He much preferred walking in the woods with a single companion, + or by the banks of the great river on which Brunswick is situated. There + were fine trout-brooks in the neighborhood, and formerly the woods of + Maine were traversed by vast flocks of passenger pigeons, which with the + large gray squirrels afforded excellent shooting. How skilful Hawthorne + became with his fowling-piece we have not been informed, but it is evident + from passages in “Fanshawe” that he learned something of trout-fishing; + and on the whole he enjoyed advantages at Bowdoin which the present + student at Harvard or Oxford might well envy, him. The fish we catch in + the streams and lakes of Maine only represent a portion of our enjoyment + there. Horatio Bridge says: + </p> + <p> + “There was one favorite spot in a little ravine, where a copious spring of + clear, cold water gushed out from the sandy bank, and joined the larger + stream. This was the Paradise Spring, which deserves much more than its + present celebrity for the absolute purity of its waters. Of late years the + brook has been better known as a favorite haunt of the great romance + writer, and it is now often called the Hawthorne Brook. + </p> + <p> + “Another locality, above the bridge, afforded an occasional stroll through + the fields and by the river. There, in spring, we used to linger for hours + to watch the giant pine-logs (for there were giants in those days) from + the far-off forests, floating by hundreds in the stream until they came to + the falls; then, balancing for a moment on the brink, they plunged into + the foamy pool below.” + </p> + <p> + At the lower end of the town there was an old weather-beaten cot, where + the railroad track now runs, inhabited by a lone woman nearly as old and + time-worn as the dwelling itself. She pretended to be a fortune-teller, + and to her Hawthorne and Bridge sometimes had recourse, to lift the veil + of their future prospects; which she always succeeded in doing to their + good entertainment. The old crone knew her business well, especially the + art of giving sufficient variety of detail to the same old story. For a + nine-pence she would predict a beautiful blond wife for Hawthorne, and an + equally handsome dark-complexioned one for Bridge. Riches were of course + thrown in by the handful; and Bridge remarks that although these never + came to pass they both happened to be blessed with excellent wives. It is + not surprising that the handsome Hawthorne and his tall, elegant-looking + companion should have stimulated the old woman’s imagination in a + favorable manner. The small coin they gave her may have been the least + happiness that their visits brought into her life. + </p> + <p> + Close by the college grounds there was a miserable little inn, which went + by the name of Ward’s Tavern, and thither the more uproarious class of + students consorted at intervals for the purpose of keeping care at a + distance, and singing, “Landlord, fill your flowing bowls.” Strange to + say, the reserved, thoughtful Hawthorne was often to be found among them. + It does not seem quite consistent with the gravity of his customary + demeanor, but youth has its period of reckless ebullition. Punch-bowl + societies exist in all our colleges, and many who disapprove of them join + them for the sake of popularity. Hawthorne may have been as grave and + well-behaved on these occasions as he was customarily. We have Bridge’s + word for this; and the matter would hardly be worth mentioning if it had + not led to more serious proceedings. May 29, 1822, President Allen wrote + to Mrs. Hathorne at Salem that her son had been fined fifty cents for + gaming at cards. {Footnote: In 1864 a Harvard student was fined three + dollars for writing on the woodwork with a lead-pencil—erased with a + sponge.} Certainly this was not very severe treatment; and if the Bowdoin + faculty, being on the spot, concluded that young Hawthorne had only + injured his moral nature fifty cents’ worth, I think we shall do well to + agree with their decision. At the same time Nathaniel wrote his mother the + following manly letter: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “BRUNSWICK, May 30th, 1822. +</pre> + <p> + “MY DEAR MOTHER:—I hope you have safely arrived in Salem. I have + nothing particular to inform you of, except that all the card-players in + college have been found out, and my unfortunate self among the number. One + has been dismissed from college, two suspended, and the rest, with myself, + have been fined fifty cents each. I believe the President intends to write + to the friends of all the delinquents. Should that be the case, you must + show the letter to nobody. If I am again detected, I shall have the honor + of being suspended. When the President asked what we played for, I thought + it proper to inform him it was fifty cents, although it happened to be a + quart of wine; but if I had told him of that, he would probably have fined + me for having a blow. There was no untruth in the case, as the wine cost + fifty cents. I have not played at all this term. I have not drank any kind + of spirits or wine this term, and shall not till the last week.” + {Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 118.} + </p> + <p> + The clemency with which the college authorities treated Bridge and + Hawthorne is a plain indication of the confidence which they felt in them, + and speaks more highly for their respective characters than if they had + been patterns of good behavior. Some of the others were not so fortunate. + One young man, whose name is properly withheld from us, was expelled from + the institution. He was supposed to have been the ringleader in this + dubious business, but Hawthorne manfully resented the supposition that any + one could have influenced him, or did influence him, in this matter. It is + more likely that he was influenced by the spirit of investigation, and + wished to know what the sensation was like from personal experience. + </p> + <p> + “Letters home” from college are not commonly interesting to the general + public, and those which Hawthorne wrote to his mother and sisters do not + differ essentially from such as other young men write under similar + conditions. At the age when it is so difficult to decide whether we have + become men or are still boys, all our actions partake of a similar + uncertainty, and the result of what we do and say is likely to be a rather + confused impression. Though college students appear different enough to + one another, they all seem alike to the outside world. + </p> + <p> + University towns always contain more or less cultivated society, and young + Hawthorne might have been welcome to the best of it if he had felt so + inclined; but he was as shy of the fair sex as Goldsmith’s bashful lover. + M. D. Conway, who knew him, doubts if he ever became well acquainted with + a young lady until his engagement to Miss Peabody. Considering this, it + seems as if Jonathan Cilley made rather a hazardous wager with Hawthorne, + before leaving Bowdoin,—a wager of a cask of Madeira, that Hawthorne + would become a married man within the next twelve years. Papers to that + effect were duly signed by the respective parties, sealed, and delivered + for safe-keeping to Horatio Bridge, who preserved them faithfully until + the appointed time arrived. Under ordinary conditions the chances of this + bet were in Cilley’s favor, for in those primitive days it was much easier + for educated young men to obtain a start in life than it is at present, + and early marriages were in consequence much more common.{Footnote: + Horatio Bridge, 47. The contract was dated November 14, 1824.} + </p> + <p> + The year 1824 was a serious one in American politics. The + Republican-Democratic party, having become omnipotent, broke to pieces of + its own weight. The eastern interest nominated John Quincy Adams for the + Presidency; the western interest nominated Henry Clay; and the frontier + interest nominated Andrew Jackson. Unfortunately the frontier interest + included all the unsettled and continually shifting elements in the + country, so that Jackson had nearly as strong a support in the East as in + the West. Bridge says, “We were all enthusiastic supporters of old + Hickory.” It was evidently Pierce who led them into this, and although it + proved in a material sense for Hawthorne’s benefit, it separated him + permanently from the class to which he properly belonged—the + enlightened men of culture of his time; and Cilley’s tragical fate can be + directly traced to it. The Jackson movement was in its essence a revolt + against <i>civility</i>,—and it seems as if Hawthorne and Bridge + might have recognized this. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne was well liked in his class in spite of his reserved manners, + but he held no class offices that we hear of, except a place on a + committee of the Athenæan Society with Franklin Pierce. Class days and + class suppers, so prolific of small honors, were not introduced at Bowdoin + until some years later. He graduated eighteenth in a class of + thirty-eight, but this was not sufficient to give him a part in the + commencement exercises. {Footnote: The President informed him that his + rank in the class would have entitled him to a part if it had not been for + his neglect of declamations; and Hawthorne wrote to his mother that he was + perfectly satisfied with this, for it saved him the mortification of + appearing in public.} Accordingly Hawthorne, Bridge, and others who were + in a like predicament, organized a mock Commencement celebration at Ward’s + Tavern, where they elected officers of a comical sort, such as boatswain + and sea-cook, and concluded their celebration in a manner suitable to the + occasion. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne was commonly known among his classmates, as “Hath,” and his + friends addressed him in this manner long after he had graduated. His + degree was made out in the name of Nathaniel Hathorne, above which he + subsequently wrote “Hawthorne,” in bold letters. + </p> + <p> + The question may well be raised here, how it happened that America + produced so many men of remarkable intellect with such slight + opportunities for education in former times, while our greatly improved + universities have not graduated an orator like Webster, a poet like + Longfellow, or a prose-writer equal to Hawthorne during the past forty + years. There have been few enough who have risen above mediocrity. + </p> + <p> + It is the same, more or less, all over the civilized world. We have + entered into a mechanical age, which is natural enough considering the + rapid advances of science and the numerous mechanical inventions, but + which is decidedly unfavorable to the development of art and literature. + Everything now goes by machinery, from Harvard University to Ohio politics + and the gigantic United States Steel Company; and every man has to find + his place in some machine or other, or he is thrown out of line. + Individual effort, as well as independence of thought and action, is + everywhere frowned upon; but without freedom of thought and action there + can be no great individualities, which is the same as saying that there + can be no poets like Longfellow, or writers like Hawthorne and Emerson. + Spontaneity is the life of the true artist, and in a mechanical + civilization there can be neither spontaneity nor the poetic material + which is essential to artistic work of a high order. There can be no great + orators, for masses of men are no longer influenced by oratory, but by + newspapers. Genius is like a plant of slow growth, which requires sunshine + and Mother Earth to nourish it, not chemicals and electric lights. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IV. — LITTLE MISERY: 1825-1835 + </h2> + <p> + During the War of the American Revolution, the officers of the French + fleet, which was stationed at Newport, invented a game of cards, called + “Boston,” of which one peculiarity was, that under certain conditions, + whoever held the lowest hand would win the count. This was called “Little + Misery,” and this was the kind of hand which Nathaniel Hawthorne had to + play for fifteen years after leaving Bowdoin College. Only his indomitable + will could have carried him through it. + </p> + <p> + A college graduate who lacks the means to study a profession, and who has + no influential relative to make a place for him in the world, finds + himself in a most discouraging position. The only thing that his education + has fitted him to do is, to teach school, and he may not be adapted to + this, on account of some personal peculiarity. There was, and I suppose is + still, a prejudice among mercantile men against college graduates, as a + class of proud, indolent, neglectful persons, very difficult to instruct. + Undoubtedly there are many such, but the innocent have to suffer with the + guilty. It is natural that a man who has not had a liberal education + should object to employing a subordinate who knows Latin and Greek. + Whether Hawthorne’s Uncle Robert, who had thus far proved to be his + guardian genius, would have educated him for a profession, we have no + means of knowing. This would mean of course a partial support for years + afterward, and it is quite possible that Mr. Manning considered his duties + to his own children paramount to it. What he did for Nathaniel may have + been the best he could, to give him the position of book-keeper for the + stage-company. This was of course Pegasus in harness (or rather at the + hitching-post), but it is excellent experience for every young man; + although the compensation in Hawthorne’s case was small and there could be + no expectation of future advancement. + </p> + <p> + In this dilemma he decided to do the one thing for which Nature intended + him,—to become a writer of fiction,—and he held fast to this + determination in the face of most discouraging obstacles. He composed a + series of short stories,—echoes of his academic years,—which + he proposed to publish under the title of Wordsworth’s popular poem, “We + Are Seven.” One of these is said to have been based on the witchcraft + delusion, and it is a pity that it should not have been preserved, but + their feminine titles afford no indication of their character. He carried + them to a publisher, who received him politely and promised to examine + them, but one month passed after another without Hawthorne’s hearing from + him, so that he concluded at length to make inquiries. {Footnote: J. + Hawthorne, i. 124.} The publisher confessed that he had not even + undertaken to read them, and Nathaniel carried them back, with a sinking + heart, to his little chamber in the house on Herbert Street,—where + he may have had melancholy thoughts enough for the next few weeks. + </p> + <p> + Youth, however, soon outgrows its chagrins. In less than two years + Hawthorne was prepared to enter the literary lists, equipped with a + novelette, called “Fanshawe”; but here again he was destined to meet with + a rebuff. After tendering it to a number of publishers without + encouragement, he concluded to take the risk of publishing it himself. + This only cost him a few hundred dollars, but the result was + unsatisfactory, and he afterward destroyed all the copies that he could + regain possession of. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s genius was of slow development. He was only twenty-four when + he published this rather immature work, and it might have been better if + he had waited longer. It was to him what the “Sorrows of Werther” was to + Goethe, but while the “Sorrows of Werther” made Goethe famous in many + countries, “Fanshawe” fell still-born. The latter was not more imitative + of Scott than the “Sorrows of Werther” is of Rousseau, and now that we + consider it in the cool critical light of the twentieth century, we cannot + but wonder that the “Sorrows of Werther” ever produced such enthusiasm. It + is quite as difficult to see why “Fanshawe” should not have proved a + success. It lacks the grace and dignity of Hawthorne’s mature style, but + it has an ingenious plot, a lively action, and is written in sufficiently + good English. One would suppose that its faults would have helped to make + it popular, for portions of it are so exciting as to border closely on the + sensational. It may be affirmed that when a novel becomes so exciting that + we wish to turn over the pages and anticipate the conclusion, either the + action of the story is too heated or its incidents are too highly colored. + The introduction of pirates in a work of fiction is decidely sensational, + from Walter Scott downward, and, though Hawthorne never fell into this + error, he approaches closely to it in “Fanshawe.” There is some dark + secret between the two villains of the piece, which he leaves to the + reader as an exercise for the imagination. This is a characteristic of all + his longer stories. There is an unknown quantity, an insoluble point, in + them, which tantalizes the reader. + </p> + <p> + What we especially feel in “Fanshawe” is the author’s lack of social + experience. His heroine at times behaves in a truly feminine manner, and + at others her performances make us shiver. Her leaving her guardian’s + house at midnight to go off with an unknown man, whom her maidenly + instinct should have taught her to distrust, even if Fanshawe had not + warned her against him, might have been characteristic of the Middle Ages, + but is certainly not of modern life. Bowdoin College evidently served + Hawthorne as a background to his plot, although removed some distance into + the country, and it is likely that the portrait of the kindly professor + might have been recognized there. Ward’s Tavern serves for the + public-house where the various characters congregate, and there is a high + rocky ledge in the woods, or what used to be woods at Brunswick, where the + students often tried their skill in climbing, and which Hawthorne has + idealized into the cliff where the would-be abductor met his timely fate. + The trout-brook where Bridge and Hawthorne used to fish is also + introduced. + </p> + <p> + Fanshawe himself seems like a house of which only two sides have been + built. There are such persons, and it is no wonder if they prove to be + short-lived. Yet the scene in which he makes his noble renunciation of the + woman who is devoted to him, purely from a sense of gratitude, is finely + and tenderly drawn, and worthy of Hawthorne in his best years. The story + was republished after its author’s death, and fully deserves its position + in his works. + </p> + <p> + It was about this time (1827) that Nathaniel Hathorne changed his name to + Hawthorne. No reason has ever been assigned for his doing so, and he had + no legal right to do it without an act of the Legislature, but he took a + revolutionary right, and as his family and fellow-citizens acquiesced in + this, it became an established fact. His living relatives in the Manning + family are unable to explain his reason for it. It may have been for the + sake of euphony, or he may have had a fanciful notion, that such a change + would break the spell which seemed to be dragging his family down with + him. Conway’s theory that it was intended to serve him as an incognito is + quite untenable. His name first appears with a <i>w</i> in the Bowdoin + Triennial Catalogue of 1828. + </p> + <p> + There are very few data existing as to Hawthorne’s life during his first + ten years of manhood, but it must have been a hard, dreary period for him. + The Manning children, Robert, Elizabeth and Rebecca, were now growing up, + and must have been a source of entertainment in their way, and his sister + Louisa was always a comfort; but Horatio Bridge, who made a number of + flying visits to him, states that he never saw the elder sister, even at + table,—a fact from which we may draw our own conclusions. Hawthorne + had no friends at this time, except his college associates, and they were + all at a distance,—Pierce and Cilley both flourishing young lawyers, + one at Concord, New Hampshire, and the other at Thomaston, Maine,—while + Longfellow was teaching modern languages at Bowdoin. He had no lady + friends to brighten his evenings for him, and if he went into society, it + was only to be stared at for his personal beauty, like a jaguar in a + menagerie. He had no fund of the small conversation which serves like oil + to make the social machinery run smoothly. Like all deep natures, he found + it difficult to adapt himself to minds of a different calibre. Salem + people noticed this, and his apparent lack of an object in life,—for + he maintained a profound secrecy in regard to his literary efforts,—and + concluded that he was an indolent young man without any faculty for + business, and would never come to good in this world. No doubt elderly + females admonished him for neglecting his opportunities, and small wits + buzzed about him as they have about many another under similar conditions. + It was Hans Andersen’s story of the ugly duck that proved to be a swan. + </p> + <p> + No wonder that Hawthorne betook himself to the solitude of his own + chamber, and consoled himself like the philosopher who said, “When I am + alone, then I am least alone.” He had an internal life with which only his + most intimate friends were acquainted, and he could people his room with + forms from his own fancy, much more real to him than the palpable <i>ignota</i> + whom he passed in the street. Beautiful visions came to him, instead of + sermonizing ladies, patronizing money-changers, aggressive upstarts, + grimacing wiseacres, and that large class of amiable, well-meaning persons + that makes up the bulk of society. We should not be surprised if angels + sometimes came to hover round him, for to the pure in heart heaven + descends upon earth. + </p> + <p> + There is a passage in Hawthorne’s diary under date of October 4, 1840, + which has often been quoted; but it will have to be quoted again, for it + cannot be read too often, and no biography of him would be adequate + without it. He says: + </p> + <p> + “Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber where I used to sit in days gone + by....This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands upon + thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of them have + become visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he ought + to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so much of my + lonely youth was wasted here, and here my mind and character were formed; + and here I have been glad and hopeful, and here I have been despondent. + And here I sat a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know + me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it + would ever know me at all,—at least, till I were in my grave. And + sometimes it seemed as if I were already in the grave, with only life + enough to be chilled and benumbed. But oftener I was happy,—at least + as happy as I then knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of + being. By and by, the world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called + me forth,—not indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather + with a still, small voice,—and forth I went, but found nothing in + the world that I thought preferable to my solitude till now ... and now I + begin to understand why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely + chamber, and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; + for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown + hard and rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might + have become callous by rude encounters with the multitude.... But living + in solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my + youth, and the freshness of my heart.” + </p> + <p> + During these dismal years Horatio Bridge was Hawthorne’s good genius. The + letters that Hawthorne wrote to him have not been preserved, but we may + judge of their character by Bridge’s replies to him—always frank, + manly, sympathetic and encouraging. Hawthorne evidently confided his + troubles and difficulties to Bridge, as he would to an elder brother. + Bridge finally destroyed Hawthorne’s letters, not so much on account of + their complaining tone as for the personalities they contained; {Footnote: + Horatio Bridge, 69.} and this suggests to us that there was still another + side to Hawthorne’s life at this epoch concerning which we shall never be + enlightened. A man could not have had a better friend than Horatio Bridge. + He was to Hawthorne what Edward Irving was to Carlyle; and the world is + more indebted to them both than it often realizes. + </p> + <p> + There is in fact a decided similarity between the lives of Carlyle and + Hawthorne, in spite of radical differences in their work and characters. + Both started at the foot of the ladder, and met with a hard, long struggle + for recognition; both found it equally difficult to earn their living by + their pens; both were assisted by most devoted friends, and both finally + achieved a reputation among the highest in their own time. If there is + sometimes a melancholy tinge in their writings, may we wonder at it? + Pericles said, “We need the theatre to chase away the sadness of life,” + and it might have benefited the whole Hawthorne family to have gone to the + theatre once a fortnight; but there were few entertainments in Salem, + except of the stiff conventional sort, or in the shape of public dances + open to firemen and shop-girls. Long afterward, Elizabeth Hawthorne wrote + of her brother: + </p> + <p> + “His habits were as regular as possible. In the evening after tea he went + out for about an hour, whatever the weather was; and in winter, after his + return, he ate a pint bowl of thick chocolate—(not cocoa, but the + old-fashioned chocolate) crumbed full of bread: eating never hurt him + then, and he liked good things. In summer he ate something equivalent, + finishing with fruit in the season of it. In the evening we discussed + political affairs, upon which we differed in opinion; he being a Democrat, + and I of the opposite party. In reality, his interest in such things was + so slight that I think nothing would have kept it alive but my contentious + spirit. Sometimes, when he had a book that he particularly liked, he would + not talk. He read a great many novels.” {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 125.} + </p> + <p> + If Elizabeth possessed the genius which her brother supposed, she + certainly does not indicate it in this letter; but genius in the ore is + very different from genius smelted and refined by effort and experience. + The one important fact in her statement is that Hawthorne was in the habit + of taking solitary rambles after dark,—an owlish practice, but very + attractive to romantic minds. Human nature appears in a more pictorial + guise by lamplight, after the day’s work is over. The groups at the street + corners, the glittering display in the watchmaker’s windows, the carriages + flashing by and disappearing in the darkness, the mysterious errands of + foot-passengers, all served as object-lessons for this student of his own + kind. + </p> + <p> + Jonathan Cilley once said: + </p> + <p> + “I love Hawthorne; I admire him; but I do not know him. He lives in a + mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never permits me to + enter.” {Footnote: Packard’s “Bowdoin College,” 306.} + </p> + <p> + Long-continued thinking is sure to take effect at last, either in words or + in action, and Hawthorne’s mind had to disburden itself in some manner. + So, after the failure of “Fanshawe,” he returned to his original plan of + writing short stories, and this time with success. In January, 1830, the + well-known tale of “The Gentle Boy” was accepted by S. G. Goodrich, the + editor of a Boston publication called the <i>Token</i>, who was himself + better known in those days under the <i>nom de plume</i> of “Peter + Parley.” “The Wives of the Dead,” “Roger Malvin’s Burial,” and “Major + Molineaux” soon followed. In 1833 he published the “Seven Vagabonds,” and + some others. The New York <i>Knickerbocker</i> published the “Fountain of + Youth” and “Edward Fayne’s Rosebud.” After 1833 the <i>Token</i> and the + <i>New England Magazine</i> {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 175.} stood ready + to accept all the short pieces that Hawthorne could give them, but they + did not encourage him to write serial stories. However, it was not the + custom then for writers to sign their names to magazine articles, so that + Hawthorne gained nothing in reputation by this. Some of his earliest + pieces were printed over the signature of “Oberon.” + </p> + <p> + An autumn expedition to the White Mountains, Lake Champlain and Lake + Ontario, and Niagara Falls, in 1832, raised Hawthorne’s spirits and + stimulated his ambition. He wrote to his mother from Burlington, Vermont, + September 16: + </p> + <p> + “I have arrived in safety, having passed through the White Hills, stopping + at Ethan Crawford’s house, and climbing Mt. Washington. I have not decided + as to my future course. I have no intention of going into Canada. I have + heard that cholera is prevalent in Boston.” + </p> + <p> + It was something to have stood on the highest summit east of the Rocky + Mountains, and to have seen all New England lying at his feet. A hard wind + in the Crawford Notch, which he describes in his story of “The Ambitious + Guest,” must have been in his own experience, and as he passed the + monument of the ill-fated Willey family he may have thought that he too + might become celebrated after his death, even as they were from their + poetic catastrophe. This expedition provided him with the materials for a + number of small plots. + </p> + <p> + The ice was now broken; but a new class of difficulties arose before him. + American literature was then in the bud and promised a beautiful + blossoming, but the public was not prepared for it. Monthly magazines had + a precarious existence, and their uncertainty of remuneration reacted on + the contributors. Hawthorne was poorly paid, often obliged to wait a long + time for his pay, and occasionally lost it altogether. For his story of + “The Gentle Boy,” one of the gems of literature, which ought to be read + aloud every year in the public schools, he received the paltry sum of + thirty-five dollars. Evidently he could not earn even a modest maintenance + on such terms, and his letters to Bridge became more despondent than ever. + </p> + <p> + Goodrich, who was a writer of the Andrews Norton class, soon perceived + that Hawthorne could make better sentences than his own, and engaged him + to write historical abstracts for his pitiful Peter Parley books, paying + him a hundred dollars for the whole work, and securing for himself all the + credit that appertained to it. Everybody knew who Peter Parley was, but it + has only recently been discovered that much of the literature which passed + under his name was the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne. + </p> + <p> + The editor of a New York magazine to which Hawthorne contributed a number + of sketches repeatedly deferred the payment for them, and finally + confessed his inability to make it,—which he probably knew or + intended beforehand. Then, with true metropolitan assurance, he begged of + Hawthorne the use of certain unpublished manuscripts, which he still had + in his possession. Hawthorne with unlimited contempt told the fellow that + he might keep them, and then wrote to Bridge: + </p> + <p> + “Thus has this man, who would be considered a Mæcenas, taken from a + penniless writer material incomparably better than any his own brain can + supply.” {Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 68, 69.} + </p> + <p> + Whether this New York periodical was the <i>Knickerbocker</i> or some + other, we are not informed; neither do we know what Bridge replied to + Hawthorne, who had closed his letter with a malediction, on the aforesaid + editor, but elsewhere in his memoirs he remarks: + </p> + <p> + “Hawthorne received but small compensation for any of this literary work, + for he lacked the knowledge of business and the self-assertion necessary + to obtain even the moderate remuneration vouchsafed to writers fifty years + ago.” {Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 77.} + </p> + <p> + If Horatio Bridge had been an author himself, he would not have written + this statement concerning his friend. Magazine editors are like men in + other professions: some of them are honorable and others are less so; but + an author who offers a manuscript to the editor of a magazine is wholly at + his mercy, so far as that small piece of property is concerned. The author + cannot make a bargain with the editor as he can with the publisher of his + book, and is obliged to accept whatever the latter chooses to give him. + Instances have been known where an editor has destroyed a valuable + manuscript, without compensation or explanation of any kind. Hawthorne was + doing the best that a human being could under the conditions that were + given him. Above all things, he was true to himself; no man could be more + so. + </p> + <p> + Yet Bridge wrote to him on Christmas Day, 1836: + </p> + <p> + “The bane of your life has been self-distrust. This has kept you back for + many years; which, if you had improved by publishing, would long ago have + given you what you must now wait a long time for. It may be for the best, + but I doubt it.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing is more trying in misfortune than the ill-judged advice of + well-meaning friends. There is no nettle that stings like it. To expect + Hawthorne to become a literary genius, and at the same time to develop the + peculiar faculties of a commercial traveller or a curb-stone broker, was + unreasonable. In the phraseology of Sir William Hamilton, the two + vocations are “non-compossible.” Bridge himself was undertaking a grandly + unpractical project about this time: nothing less than an attempt to dam + the Androscoggin, a river liable to devastating floods; and in this + enterprise he was obliged to trust to a class of men who were much more + uncertain in their ways and methods than those with whom Hawthorne dealt. + Horatio Bridge had not studied civil engineering, and the result was that + before two years had elapsed the floods on the Androscoggin swept the dam + away, and his fortune with it. + </p> + <p> + In the same letter we also notice this paragraph concerning another + Bowdoin friend: + </p> + <p> + “And so Frank Pierce is elected Senator. There is an instance of what a + man can do by trying. With no very remarkable talents, he at the age of + thirty-four fills one of the highest stations in the nation. He is a good + fellow, and I rejoice at his success.” {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 148.} + </p> + <p> + Pierce certainly possessed the cap of Fortunatus, and it seems as if there + must have been some magic faculty in the man, which enabled him to win + high positions so easily; and he continued to do this, although he had not + distinguished himself particularly as a member of Congress, and he + appeared to still less advantage among the great party leaders in the + United States Senate. He illustrated the faculty for “getting elected.” + </p> + <p> + In October, 1836, the time arrived for settling the matrimonial wager + between Hawthorne and Jonathan Cilley, which they had made at college + twelve years before. Bridge accordingly examined the documents which they + had deposited with him, and notified Cilley that he was under obligation + to provide Hawthorne with an octavo of Madeira. + </p> + <p> + Cilley’s letter to Hawthorne on this occasion does not impress one + favorably. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 144.} It is familiar and jocose, + without being either witty or friendly, and he gives no intimation in it + of an intention to fulfil his promise. Hawthorne appears to have sent the + letter to Bridge, who replied: + </p> + <p> + “I doubt whether you ever get your wine from Cilley. His inquiring of you + whether he had really lost the bet is suspicious; and he has written me in + a manner inconsistent with an intention of paying promptly; and if a bet + grows old it grows cold. He wished me to propose to you to have it paid at + Brunswick next Commencement, and to have as many of our classmates as + could be mustered to drink it. It may be Cilley’s idea to pay over the + balance after taking a strong pull at it; if so, it is well enough. But + still it should be tendered within the month.” + </p> + <p> + In short, Cilley behaved in this matter much in the style of a tricky Van + Buren politician, making a great bluster of words, and privately intending + to do nothing. He was running for Congress at the time on the Van Buren + ticket, and it is quite likely that the expenses of the campaign had + exhausted his funds. That he should never have paid the bet was less to + Hawthorne’s disadvantage than his own. + </p> + <p> + It was now that Horatio Bridge proved himself a true friend, and equally a + man. In the spring of 1836 Goodrich had obtained for Hawthorne the + editorship of the <i>American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining + Knowledge</i>, with a salary of five hundred dollars; {Footnote: Conway, + 45.}but he soon discovered that he had embarked on a ship with a rotten + hulk. He started off heroically, writing the whole of the first number + with the help of his sister Elizabeth; but by midsummer the concern was + bankrupt, and he retired to his lonely cell, more gloomy and despondent + than before. There are few sadder spectacles then that of a man seeking + work without being able to obtain it; and this applies to the man of + genius as well as to the day laborer. + </p> + <p> + Horatio Bridge now realized that the time had come for him to interfere. + He recognized that Hawthorne was gradually lapsing into a hypochondria + that might terminate fatally; that he was Goethe’s oak planted in a + flowerpot, and that unless the flower-pot could be broken, the oak would + die. He also saw that Hawthorne would never receive the public recognition + that was due to his ability, so long as he published magazine articles + under an assumed name. He accordingly wrote to Goodrich—fortunately + before his mill-dam gave way—suggesting the publication of a volume + of Hawthorne’s stories, and offered to guarantee the publisher against + loss. This proposition was readily accepted, but Bridge might have made a + much better bargain. What it amounted to was, the half-profit system + without the half-profit. The necessary papers were exchanged and Hawthorne + gladly acceded to Goodrich’s terms. Bridge, however, had cautioned + Goodrich not to inform Hawthorne of his share in the enterprise, and the + consequence of this was that he shortly received a letter from Hawthorne, + informing him of the good news—which he knew already—and + praising Goodrich, to whom he proposed to dedicate his new volume. + Bridge’s generosity had come back to him, dried and salted,—as it + has to many another. + </p> + <p> + What could Bridge do, in the premises? Goodrich had written to Hawthorne + that the publisher, Mr. Howes, was confident of making a favorable + arrangement <i>with a man of capital who would edit the book</i>; but + Bridge did not know this, and he suspected Goodrich of sailing into + Hawthorne’s favor under a false flag. He therefore wrote to Hawthorne, + November 17, 1836: + </p> + <p> + “I fear you will hurt yourself by puffing Goodrich <i>undeservedly</i>,—for + there is no doubt in my mind of his selfishness in regard to your work and + yourself. I am perfectly aware that he has taken a good deal of interest + in you, but when did he ever do anything for you without a <i>quid pro quo</i>? + The magazine was given to you for $100 less than it should have been. The + <i>Token</i> was saved by your writing. Unless you are already committed, + do not mar the prospects of your <i>first</i> book by hoisting Goodrich + into favor.” + </p> + <p> + This prevented the dedication, for which Hawthorne was afterward thankful + enough. The book, which was the first volume of “Twice Told Tales” came + from the press the following spring, and proved an immediate success, + although not a highly lucrative one for its author. With the help of + Longfellow’s cordial review of it in the <i>North American</i> it + established Hawthorne’s reputation on a firm and irrefragable basis. All + honor to Horatio. + </p> + <p> + As if Hawthorne had not seen a sufficiently long “winter of discontent” + already, his friends now proposed to obtain the position of secretary and + chronicler for him on Commodore Jones’s exploring expedition to the South + Pole! Franklin Pierce was the first to think of this, but Bridge + interceded with Cilley to give it his support, and there can be no doubt + that they would have succeeded in obtaining the position for Hawthorne, + but the expedition itself failed, for lack of a Congressional + appropriation. The following year, 1838, the project was again brought + forward by the administration, and Congress being in a more amiable frame + of mind granted the requisite funds; but Hawthorne had now contracted new + ties in his native city, bound, as it were, by an inseparable cord + stronger than a Manila hawser, and Doctor Nathaniel Peabody’s hospitable + parlors were more attractive to him than anything the Antarctic regions + could offer. + </p> + <p> + We have now entered upon the period where Hawthorne’s own diary commences, + the autobiography of a pure-minded, closely observing man; an invaluable + record, which began apparently in 1835, and was continued nearly until the + close of his life; now published in a succession of American, English and + Italian note-books. In it we find records of what he saw and thought; + descriptive passages, afterward made serviceable in his works of fiction, + and perhaps written with that object in view; fanciful notions, jotted + down on the impulse of the moment; records of his social life; but little + critical writing or personal confessions,—although the latter may + have been reserved; from publication by his different editors. It is known + that much of his diary has not yet been given to the public, and perhaps + never will be. + </p> + <p> + In July, 1837, Hawthorne went to Augusta, to spend a month with his friend + Horatio Bridge; went fishing with him, for what they called white perch, + probably the saibling; {Footnote: The American saibling, or golden trout, + is only indigenous to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, and to a small lake + near Augusta.} and was greatly entertained with the peculiarities of an + idiomatic Frenchman, an itinerant teacher of that language, whom Bridge, + in the kindness of his heart, had taken into his own house. The last of + July, Cilley also made his appearance, but did not bring the Madeira with + him, and Hawthorne has left this rather critical portrait of him in his + diary: + </p> + <p> + “Friday, July 28th.—Saw my classmate and formerly intimate friend, + ——, for the first time since we graduated. He has met with + good success in life, in spite of circumstances, having struggled upward + against bitter opposition, by the force of his abilities, to be a member + of Congress, after having been for some time the leader of his party in + the State Legislature. We met like old friends, and conversed almost as + freely as we used to do in college days, twelve years ago and more. He is + a singular person, shrewd, crafty, insinuating, with wonderful tact, + seizing on each man by his manageable point, and using him for his own + purpose, often without the man’s suspecting that he is made a tool of; and + yet, artificial as his character would seem to be, his conversation, at + least to myself, was full of natural feeling, the expression of which can + hardly be mistaken, and his revelations with regard to himself had really + a great deal of frankness. A man of the most open nature might well have + been more reserved to a friend, after twelve years separation, than + —— was to me. Nevertheless, he is really a crafty man, + concealing, like a murder-secret, anything that it is not good for him to + have known. He by no means feigns the good feeling that he professes, nor + is there anything affected in the frankness of his conversation; and it is + this that makes him so fascinating. There is such a quantity of truth and + kindliness and warm affections, that a man’s heart opens to him, in spite + of himself. He deceives by truth. And not only is he crafty, but, when + occasion demands, bold and fierce like a tiger, determined, and even + straightforward and undisguised in his measures,—a daring fellow as + well as a sly one.” + </p> + <p> + This can be no other than Jonathan Cilley; like many of his class, a man + of great good humor but not over-scrupulous, so far as the means he might + make use of were concerned. He did not, however, prove to be as skilful a + diplomat as Hawthorne seems to have supposed him. The duel between Cilley + and Graves, of Kentucky, has been so variously misrepresented that the + present occasion would seem a fitting opportunity to tell the plain truth + concerning it. + </p> + <p> + President Jackson was an honest man, in the customary sense of the term, + and he would have scorned to take a dollar that was not his own; but he + suffered greatly from parasites, who pilfered the nation’s money,—the + natural consequence of the spoils-of-office system. The exposure of these + peculations gave the Whigs a decided advantage, and Cilley, who had + quickly proved his ability in debate, attempted to set a back-fire by + accusing Watson Webb, the editor of the <i>Courier and Enquirer</i>, of + having been bribed to change the politics of his paper. The true facts of + the case were, that the paper had been purchased by the Whigs, and Webb, + of course, had a right to change his politics if he chose to; and the net + result of Cilley’s attack was a challenge to mortal combat, carried by + Representative Graves, of Kentucky. Cilley, although a man of courage, + declined this, on the ground that members of Congress ought not to be + called to account outside of the Capitol, for words spoken in debate. + “Then,” said Graves, “you will at least admit that my friend is a + gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + This was a fair offer toward conciliation, and if Cilley had been + peaceably inclined he would certainly have accepted it; but he obstinately + refused to acknowledge that General Webb was a gentleman, and in + consequence of this he received a second challenge the next day from + Graves, brought by Henry A. Wise, afterward Governor of Virginia. Cilley + still objected to fighting, but members of his party urged him into it: + the duel took place, and Cilley was killed. + </p> + <p> + It may be said in favor of the “code of honor” that it discourages + blackguardism and instructs a man to keep a civil tongue; but it is not + always possible to prevent outbursts of temper, especially in hot + climates, and a man’s wife and children should also be considered. Andrew + Jackson said at the close of his life, that there was nothing he regretted + so much as having killed a human being in a duel. Man rises by humility, + and angels fall from pride. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne wrote a kindly and regretful notice of the death of his old + acquaintance, which was published in the <i>Democratic Review</i>, and + which closed with this significant passage: + </p> + <p> + “Alas, that over the grave of a dear friend, my sorrow for the bereavement + must be mingled with another grief—that he threw away such a life in + so miserable a cause! Why, as he was true to the Northern character in all + things else, did he swerve from his Northern principles in this final + scene?” {Footnote: Conway, 63.} + </p> + <p> + It will be well to bear this in mind in connection with a somewhat similar + incident, which we have now to consider. + </p> + <p> + An anecdote has been repeated in all the books about Hawthorne published + since 1880, which would do him little credit if it could be proved,—a + story that he challenged one of his friends to a duel, at the instigation + of a vulgar and unprincipled young woman. Horatio Bridge says in reference + to it: + </p> + <p> + “This characteristic was notably displayed several years later, when a + lady incited him to quarrel with one of his best friends on account of a + groundless pique of hers. He went to Washington for the purpose of + challenging the gentleman, and it was only after ample explanation had + been made, showing that his friend had behaved with entire honor, that + Pierce and Cilley, who were his advisers, could persuade him to be + satisfied without a fight.” {Footnote: Bridge, 5.} + </p> + <p> + How the good Horatio could have fallen into this pit is unimaginable, for + a double contradiction is contained in his statement. “Some time after + this,” that is after leaving college, would give the impression that the + affair took place about 1830, whereas Pierce and Cilley were not in + Washington together till five or six years later—probably seven + years later. Moreover, Hawthorne states in a letter to Pierce’s friend + O’Sullivan, on April 1, 1853, that he had never been in Washington up to + that time. The Manning family and Mrs. Hawthorne’s relatives never heard + of the story previous to its publication. + </p> + <p> + The internal evidence is equally strong against it. What New England girl + would behave in the manner that Hawthorne’s son represents this one to + have done? What young gentleman would have listened to such a + communication as he supposes, and especially the reserved and modest + Hawthorne? One can even imagine the aspect of horror on his face at such + an unlady-like proceeding. The story would be an ignominious one for + Hawthorne, if it were credible, but there is no occasion for our believing + it until some tangible evidence is adduced in its support. There was no + element of Quixotism in his composition, and it is quite as impossible to + locate the identity of the person whom Hawthorne is supposed to have + challenged. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER V. — EOS AND EROS: 1835-1839 + </h2> + <p> + It was fortunate for Hawthorne that there was at this time a periodical in + the United States, the <i>North American Review</i>, which was generally + looked upon as an authority in literature, and which in most instances + deserved the confidence that was placed in it, for its reviews were + written by men of distinguished ability. It was the <i>North American + Review</i> which made the reputation of L. Maria Child, and which enrolled + Hawthorne in the order of geniuses. + </p> + <p> + There is not much literary criticism in Longfellow’s review, and he does + not “rise to the level of the accomplished essayist” of our own time, + {Footnote: Who writes so correctly and says so little to the purpose.} but + he goes to the main point with the single-mindness of the true poet. “A + new star,” he says, “has appeared in the skies”—a veritable + prediction. “Others will gaze at it with telescopes, and decide whether it + is in the constellation of Orion or the Great Bear. It is enough for us to + gaze at it, to admire it, and welcome it.” + </p> + <p> + “Although Hawthorne writes in prose, he belongs among the poets. To every + subject he touches he gives a poetic personality which emanates from the + man himself. His sympathies extend to all things living, and even to the + inanimates. Another characteristic is the exceeding beauty of his style. + It is as clear as running waters are. Indeed he uses words as mere + stepping-stones, upon which, with a free and youthful bound, his spirit + crosses and re-crosses the bright and rushing stream of thought.” + </p> + <p> + Again he says: + </p> + <p> + “A calm, thoughtful face seems to be looking at you from every page; with + now a pleasant smile, and now a shade of sadness stealing over its + features. Sometimes, though not often, it glares wildly at you, with a + strange and painful expression, as, in the German romance, the bronze + knocker of the Archivarius Lindhorst makes up faces at the Student + Anselmus.” + </p> + <p> + Here we have a portrait of Hawthorne, by one who knew him, in a few simple + words; and behind a calm thoughtful face there is that mysterious unknown + quantity which puzzles Longfellow here, and always perplexed Hawthorne’s + friends. It may have been the nucleus or tap-root of his genius. + </p> + <p> + Longfellow seems to have felt it as a dividing line between them. He + probably felt so at college; and this brings us back to an old subject. + Hawthorne’s superiority to Longfellow as an artist consisted essentially + in this, that he was never an optimist. Puritanism looked upon human + nature with a hostile eye, and was inclined to see evil in it where none + existed; and Doctor Channing, who inaugurated the great moral movement + which swept Puritanism away in this country, tended, as all reformers do, + to the opposite extreme,—to that scepticism of evil which, as George + Brandes says, is greatly to the advantage of hypocrites and sharpers. This + was justifiable in Doctor Channing, but among his followers it has often + degenerated into an inverted or homoeopathic kind of Puritanism,—a + habit of excusing the faults of others, or of themselves, on the score of + good intentions—a habit of self-justification, and even to the + perverse belief that, as everything is for the best, whatever we do in + this world must be for good. To this class of sentimentalists the most + serious evil is truth-seeing and truth-speaking. It is an excellent plan + to look upon the bright side of things, but one should not do this to the + extent of blinding oneself to facts. Doctor Johnson once said to Boswell, + “Beware, my friend, of mixing up virtue and vice;” but there is something + worse than that, and it is, to stigmatize a writer as a pessimist or a + hypochondriac for refusing to take rainbow-colored views. This, however, + would never apply to Longfellow. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne, with his eye ever on the mark, pursued a middle course. He + separated himself from the Puritans without joining their opponents, and + thus attained the most independent stand-point of any American writer of + his time; and if this alienated him from the various humanitarian + movements that were going forward, it was nevertheless a decided advantage + for the work he was intended to do. In this respect he resembled Scott, + Thackeray and George Eliot. + </p> + <p> + What we call evil or sin is merely the negative of civilization,—a + tendency to return to the original savage condition. In the light of + history, there is always progress or improvement, but in individual cases + there is often the reverse, and so far as the individual is concerned evil + is no imaginary metaphor, but as real and absolute as what we call good. + The Bulgarian massacres of 1877 were a historical necessity, and we + console ourselves in thinking of them by the fact that they may have + assisted the Bulgarians in obtaining their independence; but this was no + consolation to the twenty or thirty thousand human beings who were ground + to powder there. To them there was no comfort, no hope,—only the + terrible reality. Neither can we cast the responsibility of such events on + the mysterious ways of Providence. The ways of Providence are not so + mysterious to those who have eyes to read with. Take for instance one of + the most notable cases of depravity, that of Nero. If we consider the + conditions under which he was born and brought up, the necessity of that + form of government to hold a vast empire together, and the course of + history for a hundred years previous, it is not difficult to trace the + genesis of Nero’s crimes to the greed of the Roman people (especially of + its merchants) for conquest and plunder; and Nero was the price which they + were finally called on to pay for this. Marcus Aurelius, a noble nature + reared under favorable conditions for its development, became the + Washington of his time. + </p> + <p> + It is the same in private life. In many families there are evil + tendencies, which if they are permitted to increase will take permanent + hold, like a bad demon, of some weak individual, and make of him a terror + and a torment to his relatives—fortunate if he is not in a position + of authority. He may serve as a warning to the general public, but in the + domestic circle he is an unmitigated evil,—he or she, though it is + not so likely to be a woman. When a crime is committed within the + precincts of good society, we are greatly shocked; but we do not often + notice the debasement of character which leads down to it, and still more + rarely notice the instances in which fear or some other motive arrests + demoralization before the final step, and leaves the delinquent as it were + in a condition of moral suspense. + </p> + <p> + It was in such tragic situations that Hawthorne found the material which + was best suited to the bent of his genius. + </p> + <p> + In the two volumes, however, of “Twice Told Tales,”—the second + published two years later,—the tragical element only appears as an + undercurrent of pathos in such stories as “The Gentle Boy,” “Wakefield,” + “The Maypole of Merry-mount,” and “The Haunted Mind,” but reaches a climax + in “The Ambitious Guest” and “Lady Eleanor’s Mantle.” There are others, + like “Lights from a Steeple,” and “Little Annie’s Ramble,” that are of a + more cheerful cast, but are also much less serious in their composition. + “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Great Carbuncle,” and “The Ambitious + Guest,” are Dantean allegories. We notice that each volume begins with a + highly patriotic tale, the “Gray Champion,” and “Howe’s Masquerade,” but + the patriotism is genuine and almost fervid. + </p> + <p> + When I first looked upon the house in which Hawthorne lived at Sebago, I + was immediately reminded of these earlier studies in human nature, which + are of so simple and quiet a diction, so wholly devoid of rhetoric, that + Elizabeth Peabody thought they must be the work of his sister, and others + supposed them to have been written by a Quaker. They resemble Dürer’s + wood-cuts,—gentle and tender in line, but unswerving in their + fidelity. We sometimes wish that they were not so quiet and evenly + composed, and then repent of our wish that anything so perfect should be + different from what it is. His “Twice Told Tales” are a picture-gallery + that may be owned in any house-hold. They stand alone in English, and + there is not their like in any other language. + </p> + <p> + Yet Hawthorne is not a word-painter like Browning and Carlyle, but obtains + his pictorial effect by simple accuracy of description, a more difficult + process than the other, but also more satisfactory. His eyes penetrate the + masks and wrappings which cover human nature, as the Röntgen rays + penetrate the human body. He sees a man’s heart through the flesh and + bones, and knows what is concealed in it. He ascends a church-steeple, and + looking down from the belfry the whole life of the town is spread out + before him. Men and women come and go—Hawthorne knows the errands + they are on. He sees a militia company parading below, and they remind him + from that elevation of the toy soldiers in a shop-window,—which they + turned out to be, pretty much, at Bull Run. A fashionable young man comes + along the street escorting two young ladies, and suddenly at a crossing + encounters their father, who takes them away from him; but one of them + gives him a sweet parting look, which amply compensates him in its presage + of future opportunities. How plainly that consolatory look appears between + our eyes and the printed page! Then Hawthorne describes the grand march of + a thunder-storm,—as in Rembrandt’s “Three Trees,”—with its + rolling masses of dark vapor, preceded by a skirmish-line of white + feathery clouds. The militia company is defeated at the first onset of + this, its meteoric enemy, and driven under cover. The artillery of the + skies booms and flashes about Hawthorne himself, until finally: “A little + speck of azure has widened in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a + passage and go rejoicing through the tempest, and on yonder darkest cloud, + born like hallowed hopes of the glory of another world and the trouble and + tears of this, brightens forth the rainbow.” All this may have happened + just as it is set down. + </p> + <p> + “Lady Eleanor’s Mantle” exemplifies the old proverb, “Pride goeth before + destruction,” in almost too severe a manner, but the tale is said to have + a legendary foundation; and “The Minister’s Black Veil” is an equally + awful symbolism for that barrier between man and man, which we construct + through suspicion and our lack of frankness in our dealings with one + another. We all hide ourselves behind veils, and, as Emerson says, “Man + crouches and blushes, absconds and conceals.” + </p> + <p> + “The Ambitious Guest” allegorizes a vain imagination, and is the most + important of these three. A young man suffers from a craving for + distinction, which he believes will only come to him after this life is + ended. He is walking through the White Mountains, and stops overnight at + the house of the ill-fated Willey family. He talks freely on the subject + of his vain expectations, when Destiny, in the shape of an avalanche, + suddenly overtakes him, and buries him so deeply that neither his body nor + his name has ever been recovered. Hawthorne might have drawn another + allegory from the same source, for if the Willey family had trusted to + Providence, and remained in their house, instead of rushing out into the + dark, they would not have lost their lives. + </p> + <p> + In the <i>Democratic Review</i> for 1834, Hawthorne published the account + of a visit to Niagara Falls, one of the fruits of his expedition thither + in September, 1832, by way of the White Mountains and Burlington, the + journey from Salem to Niagara in those days being fully equal to going + from New York to the cataracts of the Nile in our own time. “The Ambitious + Guest” was published in the same volume with it, and “The Ontario + Steamboat” first appeared in the <i>American Magazine of Useful and + Entertaining Knowledge</i>, in 1836. Hawthorne may have made other + expeditions to the White Mountains, but we do not hear of them. + </p> + <p> + In addition to the three studies already mentioned, Hawthorne drew from + this source the two finest of his allegories, “The Great Carbuncle” and + “The Great Stone Face.” + </p> + <p> + “The Great Carbuncle” is not only one of the most beautiful of Hawthorne’s + tales, but the most far-reaching in its significance. The idea of it must + have originated in the Alpine glow, an effect of the rising or setting sun + on the icy peaks of a mountain, which looks at a distance like a burning + coal; an appearance only visible in the White Mountains during the winter, + and there is no reason why Hawthorne should not have seen it at that + season from Lake Sebago. At a distance of twenty miles or more it blazes + wonderfully, but on a nearer approach it entirely disappears. Hawthorne + could not have found a more fascinating subject, and he imagines it for us + as a great carbuncle located in the upper recesses of the mountains. + </p> + <p> + A number of explorers for this wonderful gem meet together at the foot of + the mountain beyond the confines of civilization, and build a hut in which + to pass the night. They are recognizable, from Hawthorne’s description, as + the man of one idea, who has spent his whole life seeking the gem; a + scientific experimenter who wishes to grind it up for the benefit of his + crucible; a cynical sceptic who has come to disprove the existence of the + great gem; a greedy speculator who seeks the carbuncle as he would + prospect for a silver-mine; an English lord who wishes to add it to his + hereditary possessions; and finally a young married couple who want to + obtain it for an ornament to their new cottage. The interest of the reader + immediately centres on these last two, and we care much more concerning + their fortunes and adventures than we do about the carbuncle. + </p> + <p> + The conversation that evening between these ill-assorted companions is in + Hawthorne’s most subtle vein of irony, and would have delighted old + Socrates himself. Meanwhile the young bride weaves a screen of twigs and + leaves, to protect herself and her husband from the gaze of the curious. + </p> + <p> + The following morning they all set out by different paths in search of the + carbuncle; but our thoughts accompany the steps of the young bride, as she + makes one toilsome ascent after another until she feels ready to sink to + the ground with fatigue and discouragement. They have already decided to + return, when the rosy light of the carbuncle bursts upon them from beneath + the lifting clouds; but they now feel instinctively that it is too great a + prize for their possession. The man of one idea also sees it, and his life + goes out in the exultation over his final success. The skeptic appears, + but cannot discover it, although his face is illumined by its light, until + he takes off his large spectacles; whereupon, he instantly becomes blind. + The English nobleman and the American speculator fail to discover it; the + former returns to his ancestral halls, as wise as he was before; and the + latter is captured by a party of Indians and obliged to pay a heavy ransom + to regain freedom. The scientific pedant finds a rare specimen of primeval + granite, which serves his purpose quite as well as the carbuncle; and the + two young doves return to their cot, having learned the lesson of + contentment. + </p> + <p> + How fortunate was Hawthorne at the age of thirty thus to anatomize the + chief illusions of life, which so many others follow until old age! + </p> + <p> + It is an erroneous notion that Hawthorne found the chief material for his + work in old New England traditions. There are some half-dozen sketches of + this sort, but they are more formally written than the others, and remind + one of those portraits by Titian which were painted from other portraits,—better + than the originals, but not equal to those which he painted from Nature. + </p> + <p> + In the “Sights from a Steeple” Hawthorne exposes his methods of study and + betrays the active principle of his existence. He says: + </p> + <p> + “The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized + Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, + searching into their hearths, borrowing brightness from their felicity and + shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself.” + </p> + <p> + There are those who would dislike this busybody occupation, and others, + such as Emerson perhaps, might not consider it justifiable; but Hawthorne + is not to be censured for it, for his motive was an elevated one, and + without this close scrutiny of human nature we should have had neither a + Hawthorne nor a Shakespeare. There is no quality more conspicuous in + “Twice Told Tales” than the calm, evenly balanced mental condition of the + author, who seems to look down on human life not so much from a church + steeple as from the blue firmament itself. + </p> + <p> + Such was the <i>Eos</i> or dawn of Hawthorne’s literary art. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne returned thanks to Longfellow in a gracefully humorous letter, + to which Longfellow replied with a cordial wish to see Hawthorne in + Cambridge, and by advising him to dive into deeper water and write a + history of the Acadians before and after their expulsion from Nova Scotia; + but this was not practicable for minds like Hawthorne’s, surcharged with + poetic images, and the attempt might have proved a disturbing influence + for him. He had already contributed the substance to Longfellow of + “Evangeline,” and he now wrote a eulogium on the poem for a Salem + newspaper, which it must be confessed did not differ essentially from + other reviews of the same order. He does not give us any clear idea of how + the poem actually impressed him, which is after all the best that one can + do in such cases. Poetry is not like a problem in mathematics, which can + be marked right or wrong according to its solution. + </p> + <p> + When a young man obtains a substantial footing in his profession or + business, he looks about him for a wife—unless he happens to be + already pledged in that particular; and Hawthorne was not an exception to + this rule. He was not obliged to look very far, and yet the chance came to + him in such an exceptional manner that it seems as if some special + providence were connected with it. His position in this respect was a + peculiar one. He does not appear to have been much acquainted in Salem + even now; and the only son of a widow with two unmarried sisters may be + said to have rather a slim chance for escaping from those strong ties + which have grown up between them from childhood. Many a mother has + prevented her son from getting married until it has become too late for + him to change his bachelor habits. His mother and his sisters realize that + he ought to be married, and that he has a right to a home of his own; but + in their heart of hearts they combat the idea, and their opposition takes + the form of an unsparing criticism of any young lady whom he follows with + his eyes. This frequently happens also in a family of girls: they all + remain unmarried because, if one of them shows an inclination in that + direction, the others unite in a conspiracy against her. On the other + hand, a family of four or five boys will marry early, if they can obtain + the means of doing so, simply from the need of feminine cheer and + sympathy. A devoted female friend will sometimes prevent a young woman + from being married. Love affairs are soft earth for an intriguing and + unprincipled woman to work in, but, fortunately, Mrs. Hawthorne did not + belong in that category. + </p> + <p> + It was stout, large-hearted Elizabeth Peabody who broke the spell of the + enchanted castle in which Hawthorne was confined. The Peabodys were a + cultivated family in Salem, who lived pretty much by themselves, as the + Hawthornes and Mannings did. Doctor Nathaniel Peabody was a respectable + practitioner, but he had not succeeded in curing the headaches of his + daughter Sophia, which came upon her at the close of her girlhood and + still continued intermittently until this time. The Graces had not been + bountiful the Peabody family, so, to compensate for this, they all + cultivated the Muses, in whose society they ascended no little distance on + the way to Parnassus. Elizabeth Peabody was quite a feminine pundit. She + learned French and German, and studied history and archaeology; she taught + history on a large scale at Sanborn’s Concord School and at many others; + she had a method of painting dates on squares, which fixed them indelibly + in the minds of her pupils; she talked at Margaret Fuller’s transcendental + club, and was an active member of the Radical or Chestnut Street Club, + thirty years later; but her chief distinction was the introduction of + Froebel’s Kindergarten teaching, by which she well-nigh revolutionized + primary instruction in America. She was a most self-forgetful person, and + her scholars became devotedly attached to her. + </p> + <p> + Her sister Mary was as much like Elizabeth mentally as she differed from + her in figure and general appearance, but soon after this she was married + to Horace Mann and her public activity became merged in that of her + husband, who was the first educator of his time. Sophia Peabody read + poetry and other fine writings, and acquired a fair proficiency in drawing + and painting. They lived what was then called the “higher life,” and it + certainly led them to excellent results. + </p> + <p> + Shortly before the publication of “Twice Told Tales,” Elizabeth Peabody + learned that the author of “The Gentle Boy,” and other stories which she + had enjoyed in the <i>Token</i>, lived in Salem, and that the name was + Hawthorne. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were the + work of Miss Elizabeth Hawthorne, whom she had known somewhat in earlier + days, and she concluded to call upon her and offer her congratulations. + When informed by Louisa Hawthorne, who came to her in the parlor, instead + of the elder sister, that “The Gentle Boy” was written by Nathaniel, Miss + Peabody made the significant remark, “If your brother can do work like + that, he has no right to be idle” {Footnote: Lathrop, 168. Miss Peabody + would seem to have narrated this to him.}—to which Miss Louisa + retorted, it is to be hoped with some indignation, that her brother never + was idle. + </p> + <p> + It is only too evident from this that public opinion in Salem had already + decided that Hawthorne was an idle fellow, who was living on his female + relatives. That is the way the world judges—from external facts + without any consideration of internal causes or conditions. It gratifies + the vanity of those who are fortunate and prosperous, to believe that all + men have an equal chance in the race of life. Emerson once blamed two + young men for idleness, who were struggling against obstacles such as he + could have had no conception of. Those who have been fortunate from the + cradle never learn what life is really like. + </p> + <p> + The spell, however, was broken and the friendliness of Elizabeth Peabody + found a deeply sympathetic response in the Hawthorne household. Nathaniel + at last found a person who expressed a genuine and heartfelt appreciation + of his work, and it was like the return of the sun to the Arctic explorer + after his long winter night. Rather to Miss Peabody’s surprise he and his + sisters soon returned her call, and visits between the two families + thereafter became frequent. + </p> + <p> + Sophia Peabody belonged to the class of young women for whom Shakespeare’s + Ophelia serves as a typical example. She was gentle, affectionate, + refined, and amiable to a fault,—much too tender-hearted for this + rough world, if her sister Elizabeth had not always stood like a barrier + between her and it. + </p> + <p> + How Hawthorne might have acted in Hamlet’s place it is useless to surmise, + but in his true nature he was quite the opposite of Hamlet,—slow and + cautious, but driven onward by an inexorable will. If Hamlet had possessed + half of Hawthorne’s determination, he might have broken through the + network of evil conditions which surrounded him, and lived to make Ophelia + a happy woman. It was only necessary to come into Hawthorne’s presence in + order to recognize the force that was in him. + </p> + <p> + Sophia Amelia Peabody was born September 21, 1811, so that at the time of + which we are now writing she was twenty-five years of age. Hawthorne was + then thirty-two, when a man is more attractive to the fair sex than at any + other time of life, for then he unites the freshness and vigor of youth + with sufficient maturity of judgment to inspire confidence and trust. Yet + her sister Elizabeth found it difficult to persuade her to come into the + parlor and meet the handsomest man in Salem. When she did come she + evidently attracted Nathaniel Hawthorne’s attention, for, although she + said little, he looked at her repeatedly while conversing with her sister. + It may not have been an instance of love at first sight,—which may + happen to any young man at a dancing party, and be forgotten two days + later,—but it was something more than a casual interest. On his + second or third call she showed him a sketch she had made of “the gentle + boy,” according to her idea of him, and the subdued tone with which he + received it plainly indicated that he was already somewhat under her + influence. Julian Hawthorne writes of this: {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. + 179.} + </p> + <p> + “It may be remarked here, that Mrs. Hawthorne in telling her children, + many years afterwards, of these first meetings with their father, used to + say that his presence, from the very beginning, exercised so strong a + magnetic attraction upon her, that instinctively, and in self-defence as + it were, she drew back and repelled him. The power which she felt in him + alarmed her; she did not understand what it meant, and was only able to + feel that she must resist.” + </p> + <p> + Every true woman feels this reluctance at first toward a suitor for her + hand, but a sensitive young lady might well have a sense of awe on finding + that she had attracted to herself such a mundane force as Hawthorne, and + it is no wonder that this first impression was recollected throughout her + life. There are many who would have refused Hawthorne’s suit, because they + felt that he was too great and strong for them, and it is to the honor of + Sophia Peabody that she was not only attracted by the magnetism of + Hawthorne, but finally had the courage to unite herself to such an + enigmatical person. + </p> + <p> + We also obtain a glimpse of Hawthorne’s side of this courtship from a + letter which he wrote to Longfellow in June, 1837, and in which he says, + “I have now, or shall soon have a sharper spur to exertion, which I lacked + at an earlier period;” {Footnote: Conway, 75.} and this is all the + information he has vouchsafed us on the subject. If there is anything more + in his diary, it has not been given to the public, and probably never will + be. A number of letters which he wrote to Miss Sophia from Boston, or + Brook Farm, have been published by his son, but it would be neither right + nor judicious to introduce them here. + </p> + <p> + It is, however, evident from the above that Hawthorne was already engaged + in June, 1837, but his engagement long remained a secret, for three + excellent reasons; viz., his slender means of support, the delicate health + of his betrothed, and the disturbance which it might create in the + Hawthorne family. The last did not prove so serious a difficulty as he + seems to have imagined; but his apprehensiveness on that point many + another could justify from personal experience. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, + i. 196.} + </p> + <p> + From this time also the health of Sophia Peabody steadily improved, nor is + it necessary to account for it by any magical influence on the part of her + lover. Her trouble was plainly some recondite difficulty of the + circulation. The heart is supposed to be the seat of the affections + because mental emotion stimulates the nervous system and acts upon the + heart as the centre of all organic functions. A healthy natural excitement + will cause the heart to vibrate more firmly and evenly; but an unhealthy + excitement, like fear or anger, will cause it to beat in a rapid and + uneven manner. Contrarily, despondency, or a lethargic state of mind, + causes the movement of the blood to slacken. The happiness of love is thus + the best of all stimulants and correctives for a torpid circulation, and + it expands the whole being of a woman like the blossoming of a flower in + the sunshine. From the time of her betrothal, Sophia Peabody’s headaches + became less and less frequent, until they ceased altogether. The true seat + of the affections is in the mind. The first consideration proved to be a + more serious matter. If Hawthorne had not succeeded in earning his own + livelihood by literature so far, what prospect was there of supporting a + wife and family in that manner? What should he do; whither should he turn? + He continually turned the subject over in his mind, without, however, + reaching any definite conclusion. Nor is this to be wondered at. If the + ordinary avenues of human industry were not available to him as a college + graduate, they were now permanently closed. A man in his predicament at + the present time might obtain the position of librarian in one of our + inland cities; but such places are few and the applications are many. + Bronson Alcott once offered his services as teacher of a primary school, a + position he might have filled better than most, for its one requisite is + kindliness, but the Concord school committee would not hear of it. If + Hawthorne had attempted to turn pedagogue he might have met with a similar + experience. + </p> + <p> + Conway remarks very justly that an American author could not be expected + to earn his own living in a country where foreign books could be pirated + as they were in the United States until 1890, and this was especially true + during the popularity of Dickens and George Eliot. Dickens was the great + humanitarian writer of the nineteenth century, but he was also a + caricaturist and a bohemian. He did not represent life as it is, but with + a certain comical oddity. As an author he is to Hawthorne what a peony is + to a rose, or a garnet is to a ruby; but ten, persons would purchase a + novel of Dickens when one would select the “Twice Told Tales.” Scott and + Tennyson are exceptional instances of a high order of literary work which + also proved fairly remunerative; but they do not equal Hawthorne in grace + of diction and in the rare quality of his thought,—whatever + advantages they may possess in other respects. Thackeray earned his living + by his pen, but it was only in England that he could have done this. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VI. — PEGASUS AT THE CART: 1839-1841 + </h2> + <p> + Horatio Bridge’s dam was washed away in the spring of 1837, by a sudden + and unprecedented rising of the Androscoggin River. Bridge was financially + ruined, but like a brave and generous young man he did not permit this + stroke of evil fortune, severe as it was, to oppress him heavily, and + Hawthorne seems to have felt no shadow of it during his visit to Augusta + the following summer. He returned to Salem in August with pleasanter + anticipations than ever before,—to enjoy the society of his <i>fiancée</i>, + and to prepare the second volume of “Twice Told Tales.” + </p> + <p> + The course of Hawthorne’s life during the next twenty months is mostly a + blank to us. He would seem to have exerted himself to escape from the + monotone in which he had been living so long, but of his efforts, + disappointments, and struggles against the giant coils of Fate, there is + no report. He wrote the four Province House tales as a send-off to his + second volume, as well as “The Toll-Gatherer’s Day,” “Footprints on the + Seashore,” “Snow-Flakes,” and “Chippings with a Chisel,” which are to be + found in it. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, 176.} There is a long blank in + Hawthorne’s diary during the winter of 1837-38 which may be owing to his + indifference to the outer world at that time, but more likely because its + contents have not yet been revealed to us. It was the period of Cilley’s + duel, and what Hawthorne’s reflections were on that subject, aside from + the account which he wrote for the <i>Democratic Review</i>, would be + highly interesting now, but the absence of any reference to it is + significant, and there is no published entry in his diary between December + 6, 1837, and May 11, 1838. + </p> + <p> + Horatio Bridge obtained the position of paymaster on the United States + warship “Cyane,” which arrived at Boston early in June, and on the 16th of + the month Hawthorne went to call on his friend in his new quarters, which + he found to be pleasant enough in their narrow and limited way. Bridge + returned with him to Boston, and they dined together at the Tremont House, + drinking iced champagne and claret in pitchers,—which latter would + seem to have been a fashion of the place. Hawthorne’s description of the + day is purely external, and he tells us nothing of his friend,—concerning + whom we were anxious to hear,—or of the new life on which he had + entered. + </p> + <p> + On July 4, his thirty-fifth birthday, he wrote a microscopic account of + the proceedings on Salem Common, which is interesting now, but will become + more valuable as time goes on and the customs of the American people + change with it. The object of these detailed pictorial studies, which not + only remind one of Dürer’s drawings but of Carlyle’s local descriptions + (when he uses simple English and does not fly off into recondite + comparisons), is not clearly apparent; but the artist has instincts of his + own, like a vine which swings in the wind and seizes upon the first tree + that its tendrils come into contact with. We sometimes wish that, as in + the case of Bridge and his warship, they were not so objective and + external, and that, like Carlyle, he would throw more of himself into + them. + </p> + <p> + On July 27, Hawthorne started on an expedition to the Berkshire Hills, by + way of Worcester, remaining there nearly till the first of September, and + describing the scenery, the people he met by the way, and the commencement + at Williams College, which then took place in the middle of August, in his + customary accurate manner. He has given a full and connected account of + his travels; so full that we wonder how he found time to write to Miss + Sophia Peabody. He would seem to have been entirely alone, and to have + travelled mainly by stage. On the route from Pittsfield to North Adams he + notices the sunset, and describes it in these simple terms: {Footnote: + American Note-book, 130.} + </p> + <p> + “After or about sunset there was a heavy shower, the thunder rumbling + round and round the mountain wall, and the clouds stretching from rampart + to rampart. When it abated the clouds in all parts of the visible heavens + were tinged with glory from the west; some that hung low being purple and + gold, while the higher ones were gray. The slender curve of the new moon + was also visible, brightening amidst the fading brightness of the sunny + part of the sky.” + </p> + <p> + At North Adams he takes notice of one of the Select-men, and gives this + account of him: {Footnote: American Note-book, 153.} + </p> + <p> + “One of the most sensible men in this village is a plain, tall, elderly + person, who is overseeing the mending of a road,—humorous, + intelligent, with much thought about matters and things; and while at work + he had a sort of dignity in handling the hoe or crow-bar, which shows him + to be the chief. In the evening he sits under the stoop, silent and + observant from under the brim of his hat; but, occasion suiting, he holds + an argument about the benefit or otherwise of manufactories or other + things. A simplicity characterizes him more than appertains to most + Yankees.” + </p> + <p> + He did not return to Salem until September 24. A month later he was at the + Tremont House in Boston, looking out of the windows toward Beacon Street, + which may have served him for an idea in “The Blithedale Romance.” After + this there are no entries published from his diary till the following + spring, so that the manner in which he occupied himself during the winter + of 1838-39 will have to be left to the imagination. On April 27, 1839, he + wrote a letter to Miss Sophia Peabody from Boston, in which he says: + </p> + <p> + “I feel pretty secure against intruders, for the bad weather will defend + me from foreign invasion; and as to Cousin Haley, he and I had a bitter + political dispute last evening, at the close of which he went to bed in + high dudgeon, and probably will not speak to me these three days. Thus you + perceive that strife and wrangling, as well as east winds and rain, are + the methods of a kind Providence to promote my comfort,—which would + not have been so well secured in any other way. Six or seven hours of + cheerful solitude! But I will not be alone. I invite your spirit to be + with me,—at any hour and as many hours as you please, but especially + at the twilight hour before I light my lamp. I bid you at that particular + time, because I can see visions more vividly in the dusky glow of + firelight than either by daylight or lamplight. Come, and let me renew my + spell against headache and other direful effects of the east wind. How I + wish I could give you a portion of my insensibility! and yet I should be + almost afraid of some radical transformation, were I to produce a change + in that respect. If you cannot grow plump and rosy and tough and vigorous + without being changed into another nature, then I do think, for this short + life, you had better remain just what you are. Yes; but you will be the + same to me, because we have met in eternity, and there our intimacy was + formed. So get well as soon as you possibly can.” + </p> + <p> + This statement deserves consideration under two headings; and the last + shall be first, and the first shall be last. + </p> + <p> + It will be noticed that the accounts in Hawthorne’s diary are for the most + part of a dispassionate objective character, as if he had come down from + the moon to take an observation of mundane affairs. His letters to Miss + Peabody were also dispassionate, but strongly subjective, and, like the + one just quoted, mainly evolved from his imagination, like orchids living + in the air. It was also about this time that Carlyle wrote to Emerson + concerning the <i>Dial</i> that it seemed “like an unborn human soul.” The + orchid imagination was an influence of the time, penetrating everywhere + like an ether. + </p> + <p> + In the opening sentences in this letter, Hawthorne comes within an inch of + disclosing his political opinions, and yet provokingly fails to do so. + There is nothing about the man concerning which we are so much in the + dark, and which we should so much like to know, as this; and it is certain + from this letter that he held very decided opinions on political subjects + and could defend them with a good deal of energy. On one occasion when + Hawthorne was asked why he was a Democrat, he replied, “Because I live in + a democratic country,” which was, of course, simply an evasion; and such + were the answers which he commonly gave to all interrogatories. His + proclivities were certainly not democratic; but the greater the tenacity + with which a man holds his opinions, the less inclined he feels to discuss + them with others. The Boston aristocracy now vote the Democratic ticket + out of opposition to the dominant party in Massachusetts, and Hawthorne + may have done so for a similar reason. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne was now a weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, one of + the most laborious positions in the government service. The defalcation of + Swartwout with over a million dollars from the New York customs’ receipts + had forced upon President Van Buren the importance of filling such posts + with honorable men, instead of political shysters, and Bancroft, though a + rather narrow historian, was a gentleman and a scholar. He was the right + man to appreciate Hawthorne, but whether he bestowed this place upon him + of his own accord, or through the ulterior agency of Franklin Pierce, we + are not informed. It is quite possible that Elizabeth Peabody had a hand + in the case, for she was always an indefatigable petitioner for the + benefit of the needy, and had opportunities for meeting Bancroft in Boston + society. His kindness to Hawthorne was at least some compensation for + having originated the most ill-favored looking public building in the + city. {Footnote: The present Boston Custom House. George S. Hillard called + it an architectural monstrosity.} + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s salary was twelve hundred dollars a year,—fully equal to + eighteen hundred at the present time,—and his position appears to + have been what is now called a store-keeper. He fully earned his salary. + He had charge and oversight of all the dutiable imports that came to Long + Wharf, the most important in the city, and was obliged to keep an account + of all dutiable articles which were received there. He had to superintend + personally the unloading of vessels, and although in some instances this + was not unpleasant, he was constantly receiving shiploads of soft coal,—Sidney + or Pictou coal,—which is the dirtiest stuff in the world; it cannot + be touched without raising a dusty vapor which settles in the eyes, nose, + and mouth, and inside the shirt-collar. He counted every basketful that + was brought ashore, and his position on such occasions was to be envied + only by the sooty laborers who handled that commodity. We wonder what the + frequenters of Long Wharf thought of this handsome, poetic-looking man + occupied in such a business. + </p> + <p> + Yet he appreciated the value of this Spartan discipline,—the + inestimable value of being for once in his life brought down to hard-pan + and the plain necessities of life. The juice of wormwood is bitter, but it + is also strengthening. On July 3, 1839, he wrote: {Footnote: American + Note-book.} + </p> + <p> + “I do not mean to imply that I am unhappy or discontented, for this is not + the case. My life only is a burden in the same way that it is to every + toilsome man, and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only a + night’s sleep to remove it. But from henceforth forever I shall be + entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall know how to + sympathize with them, seeing that I likewise have risen at the dawn, and + borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps homeward + till eventide. Years hence, perhaps, the experience that my heart is + acquiring now will flow out in truth and wisdom.” + </p> + <p> + This is one of the noblest passages in his writings. + </p> + <p> + On August 27 he notices the intense heat in the centre of the city, + although it is somewhat cooler on the wharves. At this time Emerson may + have been composing his “Wood Notes” or “Threnody” in the cool pine groves + of Concord. Such is the difference between inheriting twenty thousand + dollars and two thousand. Hawthorne lived in Boston at such a + boarding-place as Doctor Holmes describes in the “Autocrat of the + Breakfast Table,” and for all we know it may have been the same one. He + lived economically, reading and writing to Miss Peabody in the evening, + and rarely going to the theatre or other entertainments,—a life like + that of a store clerk whose salary only suffices for his board and + clothing. George Bancroft was kindly disposed toward him, and would have + introduced Hawthorne into any society that he could have wished to enter; + but Hawthorne, then and always, declined to be lionized. Hawthorne made + but one friend in Boston during this time, and that one, George S. + Hillard, a most faithful and serviceable friend,—not only to + Hawthorne during his life, but afterwards as a trustee for his family, and + equally kind and helpful to them in their bereavement, which is more than + could be said of all his friends,—especially of Pierce. Hillard + belonged to the brilliant coterie of Cambridge literary men, which + included Longfellow, Sumner and Felton. He was a lawyer, politician, + editor, orator and author; at this time, or shortly afterward, Sumner’s + law partner; one of the most kindly sympathetic men, with a keen + appreciation of all that is finest in art and literature, but somewhat + lacking in firmness and independence of character. His “Six Months in + Italy,” written in the purest English, long served as a standard work for + American travellers in that ideal land, and his rather unsymmetrical + figure only made the graces of his oratory more conspicuous. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne kept at his work through summer’s heat and winter’s cold. On + February 11, 1840, he wrote to his fiancée: + </p> + <p> + “I have been measuring coal all day, on board of a black little British + schooner, in a dismal dock at the north end of the city. Most of the time + I paced the deck to keep myself warm.... + </p> + <p> + “... Sometimes I descended into the dirty little cabin of the schooner, + and warmed myself by a red-hot stove among biscuit barrels, pots and + kettles, sea chests, and innumerable lumber of all sorts,—my + olfactories, meanwhile, being greatly refreshed by the odor of a pipe, + which the captain or some of his crew was smoking.” + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: HAWTHORNE. FROM THE PORTRAIT BY CHARLES OSGOOD IN 1840. IN + THE POSSESSION OF MRS. RICHARD C. MANNING, SALEM, MASS. FROM NEGATIVE IN + POSSESSION OF AND OWNED BY FRANK COUSIN, SALEM} + </p> + <p> + One would have to go to Dante’s “Inferno” to realize a situation more + thoroughly disagreeable; yet the very pathos of Hawthorne’s employment + served to inspire him with elevated thoughts and beautiful reflections. + His letters are full of aërial fancies. He notices what a beautiful day it + was on April 18, 1840, and regrets that he cannot “fling himself on a + gentle breeze and be blown away into the country.” April 30 is another + beautiful day,—“a real happiness to live; if he had been a mere + vegetable, a hawthorn bush, he would have felt its influence.” He goes to + a picture gallery in the Athenaeum, but only mentions seeing two paintings + by Sarah Clarke. He returns to Salem in October, and writes in his own + chamber the passage already quoted, in which he mourns the lonely years of + his youth, and the long, long waiting for appreciation, “while he felt the + life chilling in his veins and sometimes it seemed as if he were already + in the grave;” but an early return to his post gives him brighter + thoughts. He takes notice of the magnificent black and yellow butterflies + that have strangely come to Long Wharf, as if seeking to sail to other + climes since the last flower had faded. Mr. Bancroft has appointed him to + suppress an insurrection among the government laborers, and he writes to + Miss Sophia Peabody: + </p> + <p> + “I was not at the end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region,—my + authority having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the + captain and ‘gang’ of shovellers aboard a coal-vessel. I would you could + have beheld the awful sternness of my visage and demeanor in the execution + of this momentous duty. Well,—I have conquered the rebels, and + proclaimed an amnesty; so to-morrow I shall return to that paradise of + measurers, the end of Long Wharf,—not to my former salt-ship, she + being now discharged, but to another, which will probably employ me + well-nigh a fortnight longer.” + </p> + <p> + A month later we meet with this ominous remark in his diary: + </p> + <p> + “I was invited to dine at Mr. Bancroft’s yesterday with Miss Margaret + Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do, for which I was + very thankful.” + </p> + <p> + Had Hawthorne already encountered this remarkable woman with the feminine + heart and masculine mind, and had he already conceived that aversion for + her which is almost painfully apparent in his Italian diary? Certainly in + many respects they were antipodes. + </p> + <p> + The Whig party came into power on March 4, 1841, with “Tippecanoe” for a + figure-head and Daniel Webster as its conductor of the “grand orchestra.” + A month later Bancroft was removed, and Hawthorne went with him, not at + all regretful to depart. In fact, he had come to feel that he could not + endure the Custom House, or at least his particular share of it, any + longer. One object he had in view in accepting the position was, to obtain + practical experience, and this he certainly did in a rough and unpleasant + manner. The experience of a routine office, however, is not like that of a + broker who has goods to sell and who must dispose of them to the best + advantage, in order to keep his reputation at high-water mark; nor is it + like the experience of a young doctor or a lawyer struggling to obtain a + practice. Those are the men who know what life actually is; and it is this + thoroughness of experience which makes the chief difference between a + Dante and a Tennyson. + </p> + <p> + These reflections lead directly to Hawthorne’s casual and oft-repeated + commentary on American politicians. He wrote March 15: + </p> + <p> + “I do detest all offices—all, at least, that are held on a political + tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither + away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to + india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will + stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have gained by my custom-house + experience,—to know a politician.” {Footnote: American Notebook, i. + 220.} + </p> + <p> + This seems rather severe, but at the time when Hawthorne wrote it, + American politics were on the lowest plane of demagogism. It was the + inevitable result of the spoils-of-office system, and the meanest species + of the class were the ward politicians who received small government + offices in return for services in canvassing ignorant foreign voters. They + were naturally coarse, hardened adventurers, and it was such that + Hawthorne chiefly came in contact with in his official business. Cleon, + the brawling tanner of Athens, has reappeared in every representative + government since his time, and plays his clownish part with multifarious + variations; but it is to little purpose that we deride the men who govern + us, for they are what we and our institutions have made them. If we want + better representatives, we must mend our own ways and especially purge + ourselves of political cant and national vanity,—which is the food + that ward politicians grow fat on. The profession of a politician is based + on instability, and he cannot acquire, as matters now stand, the solidity + of character that we look for in other professions. + </p> + <p> + So far, however, was Hawthorne at this juncture from considering men and + things critically, that he closes the account of his first government + experience in this rather optimistic manner: + </p> + <p> + “Old Father Time has gone onward somewhat less heavily than is his wont + when I am imprisoned within the walls of the Custom-house. My breath had + never belonged to anybody but me. It came fresh from the ocean.... + </p> + <p> + “... It was exhilarating to see the vessels, how they bounded over the + waves, while a sheet of foam broke out around them. I found a good deal of + enjoyment, too, in the busy scene around me. It pleased me to think that I + also had a part to act in the material and tangible business of this life, + and that a portion of all this industry could not have gone on without my + presence.” {Footnote: American Note-book, i. 230.} + </p> + <p> + When Hawthorne philosophizes it is not in old threadbare proverbs or + Orphic generalities, but always specifically and to the point. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VII. — HAWTHORNE AS A SOCIALIST: 1841-1842 + </h2> + <p> + Who can compute the amount of mischief that Fourier has done, and those + well-meaning but inexperienced dreamers who have followed after him? A + Fourth-of-July firecracker once consumed the half of a large city. The boy + who exploded it had no evil intentions; neither did Fourier and other + speculators in philanthropy contemplate what might be the effect of their + doctrines on minds actuated by the lowest and most inevitable wants. + Wendell Phillips, in the most brilliant of his orations, said: “The track + of God’s lightning is a straight line from justice to iniquity,” and one + might have said to Phillips, in his later years, that there is in the + affairs of men a straight line from infatuation to destruction. In what + degree Fourier was responsible for the effusion of blood in Paris in the + spring of 1871 it is not possible to determine; but the relation of + Rousseau to the first French revolution is not more certain. <i>Fate</i> + is the spoken word which cannot be recalled, and who can tell the good and + evil consequences that lie hidden in it? The proper cure for socialism, in + educated minds, would be a study of the law. There we discover what a + wonderful mechanism is the present organization of society, and how + difficult it would be to reconstruct this, if it once were overturned. + </p> + <p> + As society is constituted at present, the honest and industrious are + always more or less at the mercy of the vicious and indolent, and the only + protection against this lies in the right of individual ownership. In a + general community of goods, there might be some means of preventing or + punishing flagrant misdemeanors, but what protection could there be + against indolence? Those who were ready and willing to work would have to + bear all the burdens of society. + </p> + <p> + In order that an idea should take external or concrete form it has to be + married, as it were, to some desire or tendency in the individual. + Reverend George Ripley had become imbued with Fourierism through his + studies of French philosophy, but he had also been brought up on a farm, + and preferred the fresh air and vigorous exercise of that mode of life to + city preaching. He was endowed with a strong constitution and possessed of + an independent fortune, and his aristocratic wife, more devoted than women + of that class are usually, sympathized with his plans, and was prepared to + follow him to the ends of the earth. He not only felt great enthusiasm for + the project but was capable of inspiring others with it. There were many + socialistic experiments undertaken about that time, but George Ripley’s + was the only one that has acquired a historical value. It is much to his + credit that he gave the scheme a thorough trial, and by carrying it out to + a logical conclusion proved its radical impracticability. + </p> + <p> + Such a failure is more valuable than the successes of a hundred men who + merely make their own fortunes and leave no legacy of experience that can + benefit the human race. + </p> + <p> + It must have been Elizabeth Peabody who persuaded Hawthorne to enlist in + the Brook Farm enterprise. She wrote a paper for the <i>Dial</i> + {Footnote: <i>Dial</i>, ii. 361.} on the subject, explaining the object of + the West Roxbury community and holding forth the prospect of the “higher + life” which could be enjoyed there. Hawthorne was in himself the very + antipodes of socialism, and it was part of the irony of his life that he + should have embarked in such an experiment; but he invested a thousand + dollars in it, which he had saved from his Custom House salary, and was + one of the first on the ground. What he really hoped for from it—as + we learn by his letters to Miss Sophia Peabody—was a means of + gaining his daily bread, with leisure to accomplish a fair amount of + writing, and at the same time to enter into such society as might be + congenial to his future consort. It seemed reasonable to presume this, and + yet the result did not correspond to it. He went to West Roxbury on April + 12, 1841, and as it happened in a driving northeast snowstorm,—an + unpropitious beginning, of which he has given a graphic account in “The + Blithedale Romance.” + </p> + <p> + At first he liked his work at the Farm. The novelty of it proved + attractive to him. On May 3 he wrote a letter to his sister Louisa, which + reflects the practical nature of his new surroundings; and it must be + confessed that this is a refreshing change from the sublunary + considerations at his Boston boarding-house. He has already “learned to + plant potatoes, to milk cows, and to cut straw and hay for the cattle, and + does various other mighty works.” He has gained strength wonderfully, and + can do a day’s work without the slightest inconvenience; wears a + tremendous pair of cowhide boots. He goes to bed at nine, and gets up at + half-past four to sound the rising-horn,—much too early for a + socialistic paradise, where human nature is supposed to find a pleasant as + well as a salutary existence. George Ripley would seem to be driving the + wedge in by the larger end. Hawthorne is delighted with the topographical + aspect, and writes: + </p> + <p> + “This is one of the most beautiful places I ever saw in my life, and as + secluded as if it were a hundred miles from any city or village. There are + woods, in which we can ramble all day without meeting anybody or scarcely + seeing a house. Our house stands apart from the main road, so that we are + not troubled even with passengers looking at us. Once in a while we have a + transcendental visitor, such as Mr. Alcott; but generally we pass whole + days without seeing a single face save those of the brethren. The whole + fraternity eat together; and such a delectable way of life has never been + seen on earth since the days of the early Christians.” {Footnote: J. + Hawthorne, i. 228.} + </p> + <p> + From Louisa Hawthorne’s reply, it may be surmised that his family did not + altogether approve of the Brook Farm venture, perhaps because it withdrew + him from his own home at a time when they had looked with fond expectation + for his return; and here we have a glimpse into the beautiful soul of this + younger sister, otherwise so little known to us. Elizabeth is skeptical of + its ultimate success, but Louisa is fearful that he may work too hard and + wants him to take good care of himself. She is delighted with the + miniature of him, which they have lately received: “It has one advantage + over the original,—I can make it go with me where I choose!” + </p> + <p> + Louisa wrote another warm and beautiful letter on June 11, recalling the + days when they used to go fishing together on Lake Sebago, and adds: + </p> + <p> + “Elizabeth Cleveland says she saw Mr. George Bradford in Lowell last + winter, and he told her he was going to be associated with you; but they + say his mind misgave him terribly when the time came for him to go to + Roxbury, and whether to make such a desperate step or not he could not + tell.” {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 232.} + </p> + <p> + George P. Bradford was the masculine complement to Elizabeth Peabody—flitting + across the paths of Emerson and Hawthorne throughout their lives. His name + appears continually in the biographies of that time, but future + generations would never know the sort of man he was, but for Louisa’s + amiable commentary. He appeared at Brook Farm a few days later, and became + one of George Ripley’s strongest and most faithful adherents. He is the + historian of the West Roxbury community, and late in life the editor of + the <i>Century</i> asked him to write a special account of it for that + periodical. Bradford did so, and received one hundred dollars in return + for his manuscript; but it never was published, presumably because it was + too original for the editor’s purpose. + </p> + <p> + Is it possible that Hawthorne put on a good face for this letter to his + sister, in order to keep up appearances; or was it like the common + experience of music and drawing teachers that the first lessons are the + best performed; or did he really have some disagreement with Ripley, like + that which he represents in “The Blithedale Romance”? The last is the more + probable, although we do not hear of it otherwise. Spring is the least + agreeable season for farming, with its muddy soil, its dressing the + ground, its weeds to be kept down and its insects to be kept off. After + the first week of June, the work becomes much pleasanter; and the + harvesting is delightful,—stacking the grain, picking the fruit,—with + the cheery wood fires, so restful to mind and body. Yet we find on August + 12 that Hawthorne had become thoroughly disenchanted with his Arcadian + life, although he admits that the labors of the farm were not so pressing + as they had been. Ten days later, he refers to having spent the better + part of a night with one of his co-workers, “who was quite out of his + wits” and left the community next day. He then continues in his diary: + {Footnote: American Notebook, ii. 15.} + </p> + <p> + “It is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Ripley will succeed in locating his + community on the farm. He can bring Mr. E—— to no terms, and + the more they talk about the matter, the further they appear to be from a + settlement. We must form other plans for ourselves; for I can see few or + no signs that Providence purposes to give us a home here. I am weary, + weary, thrice weary, of waiting so many ages. Whatever may be my gifts, I + have not hitherto shown a single one that may avail to gather gold.” + </p> + <p> + Here are already three disaffected personages, desirous of escaping from + an earthly paradise. Mr. Ripley has by no means an easy row to hoe. Yet he + keeps on ploughing steadily through his difficulties, as he did through + the soil of his meadows. In September we find Hawthorne at Salem, and on + the third he writes: {Footnote: American Notebook, ii. 16.} + </p> + <p> + “But really I should judge it to be twenty years since I left Brook Farm; + and I take this to be one proof that my life there was unnatural and + unsuitable, and therefore an unreal one. It already looks like a dream + behind me. The real Me was never an associate of the community: there has + been a spectral appearance there, sounding the horn at daybreak, and + milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes, and raking hay, toiling in the sun, + and doing me the honor to assume my name. But this spectre was not + myself.” + </p> + <p> + This idea of himself as a spectre seems to have accompanied him much in + the way that the daemon did Socrates, and to have served in a similar + manner as a warning to him. He left Brook Farm almost exactly as he + describes himself doing, in “The Blithedale Romance,” and he returned + again on the twenty-second, but the brilliant woodland carnival which he + describes, both in his “Note-book” and in “The Blithedale Romance,” did + not take place there until September 28. It was a masquerade in which + Margaret Fuller and Emerson appeared as invited guests, and held a meeting + of the Transcendental club “<i>sub tegmine fagi</i>.” As Hawthorne + remarks, “Much conversation followed,”—in which he evidently found + little to interest him. Margaret Fuller also made a present of a heifer to + the live-stock of the Farm, of whose unruly gambols Hawthorne seems to + have taken more particular notice. He would seem in fact to have + attributed the same characteristics to the animal and its owner. + </p> + <p> + Having more time at his own disposal, he now attempted to write another + volume of history for Peter Parley’s library, but, although this was + rather a childish affair, he found himself unequal to it. “I have not,” he + said, “the sense of perfect seclusion here, which has always been + essential to my power of producing anything. It is true, nobody intrudes + into my room; but still I cannot be quiet. Nothing here is settled; and my + mind will not be abstracted.” During the whole of October he went on long + woodland walks, sometimes alone and at others with a single companion. He + tried, like Emerson, courting Nature in her solitudes, and made the + acquaintance of her denizens as if he were the original Adam taking an + account of his animal kingdom. He picks up a terrapin, the <i>Emys picta</i>, + which attempts to hide itself from him in a stone wall, and carries it + considerately to a pond of water; but there is not much to be found in the + woods, and one can travel a whole day in the forest primeval without + coming across anything better than a few squirrels and small birds. In + fact, two young sportsmen once rode on horseback with their guns from the + Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean without meeting any larger game than + prairie-chickens. + </p> + <p> + It was all in vain. Hawthorne’s nature was not like Emerson’s, and what + stimulated the latter mentally made comparatively little impression on the + former. Hawthorne found, then as always, that in order to practice his + art, he must devote himself to it, wholly and completely, leaving side + issues to go astern. In order to create an ideal world of his own, he was + obliged to separate himself from all existing conditions, as Beethoven did + when composing his symphonies. Composition for Hawthorne meant a severe + mental strain. Those sentences, pellucid as a mountain spring, were not + clarified without an effort. The faculty on which Hawthorne depended for + this, as every artist does, was his imagination, and imagination is as + easily disturbed as the electric needle. There is no fine art without + sensitiveness. We see it in the portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, a man who + could bend horseshoes in his hands; and Bismarck, who was also an artist + in his way, confessed to the same mental disturbance from noise and + general conversation, which Hawthorne felt at Brook Farm. It was the + mental sensitiveness of Carlyle and Bismarck which caused their insomnia, + and much other suffering besides. + </p> + <p> + George Ripley published an essay in the <i>Dial</i>, in which he heralded + Fourier as the great man who was destined to regenerate society; but + Fourier has passed away, and society continues in its old course. What he + left out of his calculations, or perhaps did not understand, was the + principle of population. If food and raiment were as common as air and + water, mankind would double its numbers every twelve or fifteen years, and + the tendency to do so produces a pressure on poor human nature, which is + almost like the scourge of a whip, driving it into all kinds of ways and + means in order to obtain sufficient sustenance. Most notable among the + methods thus employed is, and always has been, the division of labor, and + it will be readily seen that a community like Brook Farm, where skilled + labor, properly speaking, was unknown, and all men were all things by + turns, could never sustain so large a population relatively as a community + where a strict division of industries existed. If a nation like France, + for instance, where the population is nearly stationary, were to adopt + Fourier’s plan of social organization, it would prove a more severe + restriction on human life than the wars of Napoleon. This is the reason + why the attempt to plant a colony of Englishmen in Tennessee failed so + badly. There was a kind of division of labor among them, but it was purely + a local and a foreign division and not adapted to the region about them. + Ripley’s method of allowing work to be counted by the hour instead of by + the day or half-day, was of itself sufficient to prevent the enterprise + from being a financial success. Farming everywhere except on the Western + prairies requires the closest thrift and economy, and all hands have to + work hard. + </p> + <p> + Neither could such an experiment prove a success from a moral point of + view. Emerson said of it: “The women did not object so much to a common + table as they did to a common nursery.” In truth one might expect that a + common nursery would finally result in a free fight. The tendency of all + such institutions would be to destroy the sanctity of family life; and it + would also include a tendency to the deterioration of manliness. One of + the professed objects of the Brook Farm association was, to escape from + the evils of the great world,—from the trickery of trade, the + pedantry of colleges, the flunkyism of office, and the arrogant + pretensions of wealth. Every honest man must feel a sympathy with this; + there are times when we all feel that the struggle of life is an unequal + conflict, from which it would be a permanent blessing to escape; yet he + who turns his back upon it, is like a soldier who runs away from the + battle-field. It is the conflict with evil in the great world, and in + ourselves, that constitutes virtue and develops character. It is <i>good</i> + to learn the trickery of knaves and to expose it, to contend against + pedantry and set a better example, to administer offices with a modest + impartiality, and to treat the gilded fool with a dignified contempt. But + if the wings of the archangel are torn and soiled in his conflict with + sin, does it not add to the honor of the victory? The man who left his + wife and children, because he found that he could not live with them + without occasionally losing his temper, committed a grievous wrong; and it + is equally true that hypocrisy, the meanest of vices, may sometimes become + a virtue. + </p> + <p> + George P. Bradford, and a few others, enjoyed the life at Brook Farm, and + would have liked to remain there longer. John S. Dwight, the translator of + Goethe’s and Schiller’s ballads, {Footnote: One of the most musical + translations in any language.} said in his old age that if he were a young + man, he would be only too glad to return there; and it is undeniable that + such a place is suited to a certain class of persons, both men and women. + It cannot be repeated too often, however, that the true object of life is + not happiness, but development. It is our special business on this planet, + to improve the human race as our progenitors improved it, and developed it + out of we know not what. By doing this, we also improve ourselves and + happiness comes to us incidentally; but if we pursue happiness directly, + we soon become pleasure-seekers, and, like Faust, join company with + Mephistopheles. Happiness comes to a philosopher, perhaps while he is + picking berries; to a judge, watching the approach of a thunder-storm; to + a merchant, teaching his boy to skate. It came to Napoleon listening to a + prayer-bell, and to Hawthorne playing games with his children. {Footnote: + Perhaps also in his kindliness to the terrapin.} Happiness flies when we + seek it, and steals upon us unawares. + </p> + <p> + George P. Bradford’s account of Brook Farm in the “Memorial History of + Boston” {Footnote: Vol. iv. 330.} is not so satisfactory as it might have + been if he had given more specific details in regard to its management. + The general supposition has been that there was an annual deficit in the + accounts of the association, which could only be met by Mr. Ripley + himself, who ultimately lost the larger portion of his investment. It is + difficult to imagine how such an experiment could end otherwise, and the + final conflagration of the principal building, or “The Hive,” as it was + called, served as a fitting consummation of the whole enterprise,—a + truly dramatic climax. George Ripley went to New York to become literary + editor of the <i>Tribune</i>, and was as distinguished there for the + excellence of his reviews, and the elegance of his turnout in Central Park + as he had been for the use of the spade and pitchfork at West Roxbury. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Bradford returned to the instruction of young ladies in French and + Latin; and John S. Dwight became one of the civilizing forces of his time, + by editing the Boston <i>Journal of Music</i>. None of them were the worse + for their agrarian experiment. + </p> + <p> + Even if the West Roxbury <i>commune</i> had proved a success for two or + three generations, it would not have sufficed for a test of Fourier’s + theory for it would have been a republic within a republic, protected by + the laws and government of the United States, without being subjected to + the inconvenience of its own political machinery. The only fair trial for + such a system would be to introduce it in some tract of country especially + set apart and made independent for the purpose; but the chances are ten to + one that a community organized in this manner would soon be driven into + the same process of formation that other colonies have passed through + under similar conditions. The true socialism is the present organization + of society, and although it might be improved in detail, to revolutionize + it would be dangerous. Yet the interest that has been aroused at various + times by discussions of the Brook Farm project, shows how strong the + undercurrent is setting against the present order of things; and this is + my chief excuse for making such a long digression on the subject. + </p> + <p> + During these last months of his bachelorhood, Hawthorne appears to us + somewhat in the light of a hibernating bear; for we hear nothing of him at + that season at all. Between the last of October, 1841, and July, 1842, + there are a large number of odd fancies, themes for romances, and the + like, published from his diary, but no entries of a personal character. We + hear incidentally that he was at Brook Farm during a portion of the + spring, which is not surprising in view of the fact that Doctor Nathaniel + Peabody had removed from Salem to Boston in the mean time. One conclusion + Hawthorne had evidently arrived at during the winter months, and it was + that his engagement to Miss Sophia Peabody ought to be terminated in the + way all such affairs should be; viz., by matrimony. Their prospects in + life were not brilliant, but it was difficult to foresee any advantage in + waiting longer, and there were decided disadvantages in doing so. It was + accordingly agreed that they should be married at, or near, the summer + solstice, the most suitable of all times for weddings—or + engagements. On June 20, he wrote to his <i>fiancée</i> from Salem, + reminding her that within ten days they were to become man and wife, and + added this significant reflection: “Nothing can part us now; for God + himself hath ordained that we shall be one. So nothing remains but to + reconcile yourself to your destiny. Year by year we shall grow closer to + each other; and a thousand years hence, we shall be only in the honeymoon + of our marriage.” + </p> + <p> + Yet we find him writing again the tenderest and most graceful of + love-letters on June 30. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 241.} The wedding has + evidently been postponed; but two days later he is in Boston, and finds a + pleasant recreation watching the boys sail their toy boats on the Frog + Pond. The ceremony finally was performed on July 9, and it was only the + day previous that Hawthorne wrote the following letter, which is dated + from 54 Pinckney Street: + </p> + <p> + “MY DEAR SIR: + </p> + <p> + “Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to request of you the + greatest favor which I can receive from any man. I am to be married to + Miss Sophia Peabody to-morrow, and it is our mutual desire that you should + perform the ceremony. Unless it should be decidedly a rainy day, a + carriage will call for you at half-past eleven o’clock in the forenoon. + </p> + <p> + “Very respectfully yours, + </p> + <p> + “NATH. HAWTHORNE. + </p> + <p> + “REV. JAMES F. CLARKE, + </p> + <p> + “Chestnut St.” + </p> + <p> + George S. Hillard lived on Pinckney Street, and Hawthorne may have been + visiting him at the moment. The Peabodys attended service at Mr. Clarke’s + church in Indiana Place, where Hawthorne may also have gone with them. He + could not have made a more judicious choice; but, singularly enough, + although Mr. Clarke became Elizabeth Peabody’s life-long friend, and even + went to Concord to lecture, he and Hawthorne never met again after this + occasion. + </p> + <p> + The ceremony was performed at the house of Sophia Peabody’s father, No. 13 + West Street, a building of which not one stone now rests upon another. It + was a quiet family wedding (such as oftenest leads to future happiness), + and most deeply impressive to those concerned in it. What must it have + been to Hawthorne, who had known so much loneliness, and had waited so + long for the comfort and sympathy which only a devoted wife can give? + </p> + <p> + Time has drawn a veil over Hawthorne’s honeymoon, but exactly four weeks + after the wedding, we find him and his wife installed in the house at + Concord, owned by the descendants of Reverend Dr. Ripley. It will be + remembered that Hawthorne had invested his only thousand dollars in the + West Roxbury Utopia, whence it was no longer possible to recover it. He + had, however, an unsubstantial Utopian sort of claim for it, against the + Association, which he placed in the hands of George S. Hillard, and + subsequent negotiation would seem to have resulted in giving Hawthorne a + lease of the Ripley house, or “Old Manse,” in return for it. It was + already classic ground, for Emerson had occupied the house for a time and + had written his first book there; and thither Hawthorne went to locate + himself, determined to try once more if he could earn his living by his + pen. + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY} + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER VIII. — CONCORD AND THE OLD MANSE: 1842-1845 + </h2> + <p> + The Ripley house dates back to the times of Captain Daniel Hathorne, or + even before him, and at Concord Fight the British left wing must have + extended close to it. Old and unpainted as it is, it gives a distinct + impression of refinement and good taste. Alone, I believe, among the + Concord houses of former times, it is set back far enough from the + country-road to have an avenue leading to it, lined with balm of Gilead + trees, and guarded at the entrance by two tall granite posts somewhat like + obelisks. On the further side of the house, Dr. Ripley had planted an + apple orchard, which included some rare varieties, especially the blue + pearmain, a dark-red autumn apple with a purple bloom upon it like the + bloom upon the rye. A high rounded hill on the northeast partially + shelters the house from the storms in that direction; and on the opposite + side the river sweeps by in a magnificent curve, with broad meadows and + rugged hills, leading up to the pale-blue outline of Mount Wachusett on + the western horizon. The Musketequid or Concord River has not been praised + too highly. Its clear, gently flowing current, margined by bulrushes and + grassy banks, produces an effect of mental peacefulness, very different + from the rushing turbulent waters and rocky banks of Maine and New + Hampshire rivers. From whatever point you approach the Old Manse, it + becomes the central object in a charming country scene, and it does not + require the peculiar effect of mouldering walls to make it picturesque. It + has stood there long, and may it long remain. + </p> + <p> + There was formerly an Indian encampment on the same ground,—a + well-chosen position both strategically and for its southern exposure. Old + Mrs. Ripley had a large collection of stone arrow-heads, corn-mortars, and + other relics of the aborigines, which she used to show to the young people + who came to call on her grandchildren; and there were among them pieces of + a dark-bluish porphyry which she said was not to be found in + Massachusetts, but must have been brought from northern New England. There + was no reason why they should not have been. The Indians could go from + Concord in their canoes to the White Mountains or the Maine lakes, and + shoot the deer that came down to drink from the banks of the river; but + the deer disappeared before the advance of the American farmer, and the + Indians went with them. Now a grandson of Madam Ripley, in the bronze + likeness of a minuteman of 1775, stands sentinel at “The Old North + Bridge.” + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne ascended the hill opposite his house and wrote of the view from + it: + </p> + <p> + “The scenery of Concord, as I beheld it from the summit of the hill, has + no very marked characteristics, but has a great deal of quiet beauty, in + keeping with the river. There are broad and peaceful meadows, which, I + think, are among the most satisfying objects in natural scenery. The heart + reposes on them with a feeling that few things else can give, because + almost all other objects are abrupt and clearly defined; but a meadow + stretches out like a small infinity, yet with a secure homeliness which we + do not find either in an expanse of water or air.” + </p> + <p> + The great cranberry meadows below the north bridge are sometimes a + wonderful place in winter, when the river overflows its banks and they + become a broad sheet of ice extending for miles. There one can have a + little skating, an exercise of which Hawthorne was always fond. + </p> + <p> + It was now, and not at Brook Farm, that he found his true Arcadia, and we + have his wife’s testimony that for the first eighteen months or more at + the Old Manse, they were supremely happy. Every morning after breakfast he + donned the blue frock, which he had worn at West Roxbury, and went to the + woodshed to saw and split wood for the daily consumption. After that he + ascended to his study in the second story, where he wrote and pondered + until dinner-time. It appears also that he sometimes assisted in washing + the dishes—like a helpful mate. After dinner he usually walked to + the post-office and to a reading-room in the centre of the town, where he + looked over the Boston <i>Post</i> for half an hour. Later in the + afternoon, he went rowing or fishing on the river, but his wife does not + seem to have accompanied him in these excursions, for Judge Keyes, who + often met him in his boat, does not mention seeing her with him. In the + evenings he read Shakespeare with Mrs. Hawthorne, commencing with the + first volume, and going straight through to the end, “Titus Andronicus” + and all,—and this must have occupied them a large portion of the + winter. How can a man fail to be happy in such a mode of life! + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne also went swimming in the river when the weather suited—rather + exceptional in Concord for a middle-aged gentleman; but there were two + very attractive bathing places near the Old Manse, one, a little above on + the opposite side of the river, and the other, afterwards known as + Simmons’s Landing, where there was a row of tall elms a short distance + below the bridge. It is probable that Hawthorne frequented the latter + place, as being more remote from human habitations. He did not take to his + gun again, although he could see the wild ducks in autumn, flying past his + house. There were grouse and quail in the woods, and woodcock were to be + found along the brook which ran through Emerson’s pasture; but perhaps + Hawthorne had become too tenderhearted for field-sports. + </p> + <p> + If Boston is the hub of the universe, Concord might be considered as the + linchpin which holds it on. Its population was originally derived from + Boston, and it must be admitted that it retains more Bostonian + peculiarities than most other New England towns. It does not assimilate + readily to the outside world. Nor is it surprising that few local visitors + called upon the Hawthornes at the Old Manse. Emerson, always hospitable + and public-spirited, went to call on them at once; and John Keyes, also a + liberal-minded man, introduced Hawthorne at the reading-club. Margaret + Fuller came and left a book for Hawthorne to read, which may have annoyed + him more than anything she could have said. Elizabeth Hoar, a woman of + exalted character, to whose judgment Emerson sometimes applied for a + criticism of his verses, also came sometimes; but the Old Manse was nearly + a mile away from Emerson’s house, and also from what might be called the + “court end” of the town. Hawthorne’s nearest neighbor was a milk-farmer + named George L. Prescott, afterward Colonel of the Thirty-second + Massachusetts Volunteers. He not only brought them milk, but also + occasionally a bouquet culled out of his own fine nature, as a tribute to + genius. A slightly educated man, he was nevertheless one of Nature’s + gentlemen, and his death in Grant’s advance on Richmond was a universal + cause of mourning at a time when so many brave lives were lost. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne, as usual, was on the lookout for ghosts, and there could not + have been a more suitable abode for those airy nothings, than the Old + Manse. Mysterious sounds were heard in it repeatedly, especially in the + nighttime, when the change of temperature produces a kind of settlement in + the affairs of old woodwork. Under date of August 8 he writes in his + diary: + </p> + <p> + “We have seen no apparitions as yet,—but we hear strange noises, + especially in the kitchen, and last night, while sitting in the parlor, we + heard a thumping and pounding as of somebody at work in my study. Nay, if + I mistake not (for I was half asleep), there was a sound as of some person + crumpling paper in his hand in our very bedchamber. This must have been + old Dr. Ripley with one of his sermons.” + </p> + <p> + Evidently he would have preferred seeing a ghost to receiving an honorary + degree from Bowdoin College, and if the shade of Doctor Ripley had + appeared to him in a dissolving light, like the Röntgen rays, Hawthorne + would certainly have welcomed him as a kindred spirit and have expressed + his pleasure at the manifestation. + </p> + <p> + Another idiosyncrasy of his, which seems like the idiom in a language, was + his total indifference to distinguished persons, simply as such. It was + not that he considered all men on a level, for no one recognized more + clearly the profound inequalities of human nature; but he was quite as + likely to take an interest in a store clerk as in a famous writer. It is + not necessary to suppose that a man is a parasite of fame because he goes + to a President’s reception, or wishes to meet a celebrated English + lecturer. It is natural that we should desire to know how such people + appear—their expression, their tone of voice, their general + behavior; but Hawthorne did not care for this. At the time of which we + write, Doctor Samuel G. Howe, the hero of Greek independence and the + mental liberator of Laura Bridgman, was a more famous man than Emerson or + Longfellow. He came to Concord with his brilliant wife, and they called at + the Old Manse, where Mrs. Hawthorne received them very cordially, but they + saw nothing of her husband, except a dark figure gliding through the entry + with his hat over his eyes. One can only explain this by one of those fits + of exceeding bashfulness that sometimes overtake supersensitive natures. + School-girls just budding into womanhood often behave in a similar manner; + and they are no more to be censured for it than Hawthorne,—to whom + it may have caused moments of poignant self-reproach in his daily + reflections. But Doctor Howe was the man of all men whom Hawthorne ought + to have known, and half an hour’s conversation might have made them + friends for life. + </p> + <p> + George William Curtis was a remarkably brilliant young man, and gave even + better promise for the future than he afterwards fulfilled,—as the + editor of a weekly newspaper. He was at Brook Farm with Hawthorne, and + afterward followed him to Concord, but is only referred to by Hawthorne + once, and then in the briefest manner. Neither has Hawthorne much to say + of Emerson; but Thoreau and Ellery Channing evidently attracted his + attention, for he refers to them repeatedly in his diary, and he has left + the one life-like portrait of Thoreau—better than a photograph—that + now exists. He surveys them both in rather a critical manner, and takes + note that Thoreau is the more substantial and original of the two; and he + is also rather sceptical as to Channing’s poetry, which Emerson valued at + a high rate; yet he narrowly missed making a friend of Channing, with whom + he afterward corresponded in a desultory way. + </p> + <p> + We should not have known of Hawthorne’s skating at Concord, but for Mrs. + Hawthorne’s “Memoirs,” from which we learn that he frequently skated on + the overflowed meadows, where the Lowell railway station now stands. She + writes: “Wrapped in his cloak, he moved like a self-impelled Greek statue, + stately and grave.” This is the manner in which we should imagine + Hawthorne to have skated; but all others were a foil to her husband in the + eyes of his wife. {Footnote: “Memories of Hawthorne,” 52.} He was + evidently a fine skater, gliding over the ice in long sweeping curves. + Emerson was also a dignified skater, but with a shorter stroke, and + stopping occasionally to take breath, or look about him, as he did in his + lectures. Thoreau came sometimes and performed rare glacial exploits, + interesting to watch, but rather in the line of the professional acrobat. + What a transfiguration of Hawthorne, to think of him skating alone amid + the reflections of a brilliant winter sunset! + </p> + <p> + When winter came Emerson arranged a course of evening receptions at his + house for the intellectual people of Concord, with apples and gingerbread + for refreshments. Curtis attended these, and has told us how Hawthorne + always sat apart with an expression on his face like a distant + thunder-cloud, saying little, and not only listening to but watching the + others. Curtis noticed a certain external and internal resemblance in him + to Webster, who was at times a thunderous-looking person—denoting, I + suppose, the electric concentration in his cranium. Emerson also watched + Hawthorne, and the whole company felt his silent presence, and missed him + greatly once or twice when he failed to come. Miss Elizabeth Hoar said: + </p> + <p> + “The people about Emerson, Channing, Thoreau and the rest, echo his manner + so much that it is a relief to him to meet a man like Hawthorne, on whom + his own personality makes no impression.” Neither did Mrs. Emerson echo + her husband. + </p> + <p> + The greater a man is, intellectually, the more distinct his difference + from a general type and also from other men of genius. No two + personalities could be more unlike than Hawthorne and Emerson. + </p> + <p> + It would seem to be part of the irony of Fate that they should have lived + on the same street, and, have been obliged to meet and speak with each + other. One was like sunshine, the other shadow. Emerson was transparent, + and wished to be so; he had nothing to conceal from friend or enemy. + Hawthorne was simply impenetrable. Emerson was cordial and moderately + sympathetic. Hawthorne was reserved, but his sympathies were as profound + as the human soul itself. To study human nature as Hawthorne and + Shakespeare did, and to make models of their acquaintances for works of + fiction, Emerson would have considered a sin; while the evolution of sin + and its effect on character was the principal study of Hawthorne’s life. + One was an optimist, and the other what is sometimes unjustly called a + pessimist; that is, one who looks facts in the face and sees people as + they are. + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: “Sketches from Concord and Appledore."} + </p> + <p> + While Emerson’s mind was essentially analytic, Hawthorne’s was synthetic, + and, as Conway says, he did not receive the world into his intellect, but + into his heart, or soul, where it was mirrored in a magical completeness. + The notion that the artist requires merely an observing eye is a + superficial delusion. Observation is worth little without reflection, and + everything depends on the manner in which the observer deals with his + facts. Emerson looked at life in order to penetrate it; Hawthorne, in + order to comprehend it, and assimilate it to his own nature. The one + talked heroism and the other lived it. Not but that Emerson’s life was a + stoical one, but Hawthorne’s was still more so, and only his wife and + children knew what a heart there was in him. + </p> + <p> + The world will never know what these two great men thought of one another. + Hawthorne has left some fragmentary sentences concerning Emerson, such as, + “that everlasting rejecter of all that is, and seeker for he knows not + what,” and “Emerson the mystic, stretching his hand out of cloud-land in + vain search for something real;” but he likes Emerson’s ingenuous way of + interrogating people, “as if every man had something to give him.” + However, he makes no attempt at a general estimate; although this + expression should also be remembered: “Clergymen, whose creed had become + like an iron band about their brows, came to Emerson to obtain relief,”—a + sincere recognition of his spiritual influence. + </p> + <p> + Several witnesses have testified that Emerson had no high opinion of + Hawthorne’s writing,—that he preferred Reade’s “Christie Johnstone” + to “The Scarlet Letter,” but Emerson never manifested much interest in + art, simply for its own sake. Like Bismarck, whom he also resembled in his + enormous self-confidence, he cared little for anything that had not a + practical value. He read Shakespeare and Goethe, not so much for the + poetry as for the “fine thoughts” he found in them. George Bradford stated + more than once that Emerson showed little interest in the pictorial art; + and after walking through the sculpture-gallery of the Vatican, he + remarked that the statues seemed to him like toys. His essay on Michel + Angelo is little more than a catalogue of great achievements; he + recognizes the moral impressiveness of the man, but not the value of his + sublime conceptions. Music, neither he nor Hawthorne cared for, for it + belongs to emotional natures. + </p> + <p> + In his “Society and Solitude” Emerson has drawn a picture of Hawthorne as + the lover of a hermitical life; a picture only representing that side of + his character, and developed after Emerson’s fashion to an artistic + extreme. “Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled + himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number of places + where he was not,” and “He had a remorse running to despair, of his social + <i>gaucheries</i>, and walked miles and miles to get the twitching out of + his face, the starts and shrugs out of his shoulders.” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: “Society and Solitude,” 4, 5.} + </p> + <p> + There is a touch of arrogance in this, and it merely marks the difference + between the modest author of the “Essays,” and the proud, censorious + Emerson of 1870; but his love of absolute statements ofttimes led him into + strange contradictions, and the injustice which results from judging our + fellow-mortals by an inflexible standard was the final outcome of his + optimism. Hawthorne was more charitable when he remarked that without + Byron’s faults we should not have had his virtues; but the truth lies + between the two. + </p> + <p> + There have been many instances of genius as sensitive as Hawthorne’s in + various branches of art: Shelley and Southey, Schubert and Chopin, + Correggio and Corot. Southey not only blushed red but blushed blue—as + if the life were going out of him; and in Chopin and Correggio at least we + feel that they could not have been what they were without it. Napoleon, + whose nerves were like steel wires, suffered nevertheless from a peculiar + kind of physical sensitiveness. He could not take medicines like other + men,—a small dose had a terrible effect on him,—and it was + much the same with respect to changes of food, climate, and the like. + </p> + <p> + What Hawthorne required was sympathetic company. Do not we all require it? + The hypercritical morality of the Emersonians, especially in Concord, + could not have been favorable to his mental ease and comfort. How could a + man in a happily married condition feel anything but repugnance to + Thoreau’s idea of marriage as a necessary evil; or Alcott’s theory that + eating animal food tended directly to the commission of crime? + </p> + <p> + On the first anniversary of Hawthorne’s wedding, a tragical drama was + enacted in Concord, in which he was called upon to perform a subordinate + part. One Miss Hunt, a school-teacher and the daughter of a Concord + farmer, drowned herself in the river nearly opposite the place where + Hawthorne was accustomed to bathe. The cause of her suicide has never been + adequately explained, but as she was a transcendentalist, or considered + herself so, there were those who believed that in some occult way that was + the occasion of it. However, as one of her sisters afterward followed her + example, it would seem more likely to have come from the development of + some family trait. She was seen walking upon the bank for a long time, + before she took the final plunge; but the catastrophe was not discovered + until near evening. + </p> + <p> + Ellery Channing came with a man named Buttrick to borrow Hawthorne’s boat + for the search, and Hawthorne went with them. As it happened, they were + the ones who found the corpse, and Hawthorne’s account in his diary of its + recovery is a terribly accurate description,—softened down and + poetized in the rewritten statement of “The Blithedale Romance.” There is + in fact no description of a death in Homer or Shakespeare so appalling as + this literal transcript of the veritable fact. + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 300.} + </p> + <p> + What concerns us here, however, are the comments he set down on the + dolorous event. Concerning her appearance, he says: + </p> + <p> + “If she could have foreseen while she stood, at five o’clock that morning + on the bank of the river, how her maiden corpse would have looked eighteen + hours afterwards, and how coarse men would strive with hand and foot to + reduce it to a decent aspect, and all in vain,—it would surely have + saved her from the deed.” + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + “I suppose one friend would have saved her; but she died for want of + sympathy—a severe penalty for having cultivated and refined herself + out of the sphere of her natural connections.” + </p> + <p> + The first remark has often been misunderstood. It is not the vanity of + women, which is after all only a reflection (or the reflective + consequence) of the admiration of man, which Hawthorne intends, but that + delicacy of feeling which Nature requires of woman for her own protection; + and he may not have been far wrong in supposing that if Miss Hunt had + foreseen the exact consequences of her fatal act she would not have + committed it. Hawthorne’s remark that her death was a consequence of + having refined and cultivated herself beyond the reach of her relatives, + seems a rather hard judgment. The latter often happens in American life, + and although it commonly results in more or less family discord, are we to + condemn it for that reason? If she died as Hawthorne imagines, from the + lack of intellectual sympathy, we may well inquire if there was no one in + Concord who might have given aid and encouragement to this young aspiring + soul. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Take her up tenderly; + Lift her with care, + Fashioned so slenderly, + Young and so fair.” + </pre> + <p> + And one is also tempted to add: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Alas! for the rarity + Of Christian charity.” + </pre> + <p> + Hawthorne’s earthly paradise only endured until the autumn of 1843. When + cool weather arrived, want and care came also. On November 26 he wrote to + George S. Hillard: + </p> + <p> + “I wish at some leisure moment you would give yourself the trouble to call + into Munroe’s book-store and inquire about the state of my ‘Twice-told + Tales.’ At the last accounts (now about a year since) the sales had not + been enough to pay expenses; but it may be otherwise now—else I + shall be forced to consider myself a writer for posterity; or at all + events not for the present generation. Surely the book was puffed enough + to meet with a sale.” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: London Athenæum, August 10, 1889.} + </p> + <p> + The interpretation of this is that Longfellow, Hillard and Bridge could + appreciate Hawthorne’s art, but the solid men of Boston (with some rare + exceptions) could not. Even Webster preferred the grotesque art of Dickens + to Hawthorne’s “wells of English undefiled.” Recently, one of the few + surviving original copies of “Fanshawe” was sold at auction for six + hundred dollars. Such is the difference between genius and celebrity. + </p> + <p> + The trouble then and now is that wealthy Americans as a class feel no + genuine interest in art or literature. They do not form a true + aristocracy, but a plutocracy, and are for the most part very poorly + educated. It was formerly the brag of the Winthrops and Otises that they + could go through college and learn their lessons in the recitation-room. + Now they go to row, and play foot-ball, and after they graduate, they + leave the best portion of their lives behind them. Then if they have a + talent for business they become absorbed in commercial affairs; or if not, + they travel from one country to another, picking up a smattering of + everything, but not resting long enough in any one place for their + impressions to develop and bear good fruit. They are not like the + aristocratic classes of England, France and Germany, who become cultivated + men and women, and serve to maintain a high standard of art and literature + in those countries. + </p> + <p> + The captain of a Cunard steamship, who owned quite a library, said in + 1869: “I have bought some very interesting books in New York, especially + by a writer named Hawthorne, but the type and paper are so poor that they + are not worth binding.” The reason why American publishers do not bring + out books in such good form as foreign publishers—is that there is + no demand for a first-rate article. Thus do the fine arts languish. When + rich young Americans take as much interest in painting and sculpture as + they do in foot-ball and yachting, we shall have our Vandycks and + Murillos,—if nothing better. + </p> + <p> + Discouraged with the ill success of “Fanshawe,” Hawthorne had limited + himself since then to the writing of short sketches, such as would be + acceptable to the magazine editors, and now that he had formed this habit, + he found it difficult to escape from it. He informs us in the preface to + “Mosses from an Old Manse” that he had hoped a more serious and extended + plot would come to him on the banks of Concord River, but his imagination + did not prove equal to the occasion. Most of the stories in “Mosses” must + have been composed at Concord, but “Mrs. Bull-Frog’” and “Monsieur du + Miroir” must have been written previously, for he refers to them in a + letter at Brook Farm. A few were published in the <i>Democratic Review</i>, + and others may have been elsewhere; but the proceeds he derived from them + would not have supported a day-laborer, and toward the close of his second + year at the Manse, Hawthorne found himself running in debt for the + necessaries of life. He endured this with his usual stoical reticence, + although there is nothing like debt to sicken a man’s heart,—unless + he be a decidedly light-minded man. Better fortune, however, was on its + way to him in the shape of a political revolution. + </p> + <p> + On March 3, 1844, a daughter was born to the Hawthornes, whom they named + Una, in spite of Hillard’s objection that the name was too poetic or too + fanciful for the prosaic practicalities of real life. The name was an + excellent one for a poet’s daughter, and did not seem out of place in + Arcadian Concord. Miss Una grew up into a graceful, fair and poetic young + lady,—in all respects worthy of her name. She had an uncommonly fine + figure, and, as often happens with first-born children, resembled her + father much more than her mother. Her name also suggests the early + influence of Spenser in her father’s style and mode of thought. + </p> + <p> + Soon after this fortunate event Hawthorne wrote a letter to Hillard, in + which he said: + </p> + <p> + “I find it a very sober and serious kind of happiness that springs from + the birth of a child. It ought not come too early in a man’s life—not + till he has fully enjoyed his youth—for methinks the spirit can + never be thoroughly gay and careless again, after this great event. We + gain infinitely by the exchange; but we do give up something nevertheless. + As for myself who have been a trifler preposterously long, I find it + necessary to come out of my cloud-region, and allow myself to be woven + into the sombre texture of humanity.” + </p> + <p> + It seems then that his conscience sometimes reproached him, but this only + proves that his moral nature was in a healthy normal condition. There was + a certain kind of indolence in him, a love of the <i>dolce far niente</i>, + and an inclination to general inactivity which he may have inherited from + his seafaring ancestors. Much better so, than to suffer from the nervous + restlessness, which is the rule rather than the exception in New England + life. + </p> + <p> + In the same letter he mentions having forwarded a story to <i>Graham’s + Magazine</i>, which was accepted but not yet published after many months. + He also anticipates an amelioration of his affairs from a Democratic + victory in the fall elections. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, Horatio Bridge had been traversing the high seas in the + “Cyane,” which was finally detailed to watch for slavers and to protect + American commerce on the African coast. He had kept a journal of his + various experiences and observations, which he sent to Hawthorne with a + rather diffident interrogation as to whether it might be worth publishing. + Hawthorne was decidedly of the opinion that it ought to be published,—in + which we cordially agree with him,—and was well pleased to edit it + for his friend; and, although it has now shared the fate of most of the + books of its class, it is excellent reading for those who chance to find a + copy of it. Bridge was a good observer, and a candid writer. + </p> + <p> + The election of 1844 was the most momentous that had yet taken place in + American history. It decided the annexation of Texas, and the acquisition + of California, with a coast-line on the Pacific Ocean nearly equal to that + on the Atlantic; but it also brought with it an unjust war of greed and + spoliation, and other evil consequences of which we are only now begining + to reach the end. The slaveholders and the Democratic leaders desired + Texas in order to perpetuate their control of the government, and it was + precisely through this measure that they lost it,—as happens so + often in human affairs. It was the gold discoveries in California that + upset their calculations. California would <i>not</i> come into the Union + as a slave state. Enraged at this failure, the Southern politicians made a + desperate attempt to recover lost ground, by seizing on the fertile + prairies in the Northwest; but there they came into conflict with the + industrial classes of the North, who fought them on their own ground and + abolished slavery. Never had public injustice been followed by so swift + and terrible a retribution. + </p> + <p> + In regard to the candidates of 1844, it was hardly possible to compare + them. Polk possessed the ability to preside over the House of + Representatives, but he did not rise above this; while Clay could be + fairly compared on some points with Washington himself, and united with + this a persuasive eloquence second only to Webster’s. He was practically + defeated by fifteen or twenty thousand abolitionists who preferred to + throw away their votes rather than to cast them for a slave-holder. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne, in the quiet seclusion of his country home, did not realize + this danger to the Republic. He only knew that his friends were + victorious, and was happy in the expectation of escaping from his debts, + and of providing more favorably for his little family. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER IX. — “MOSSES PROM AN OLD MANSE”: 1845 + </h2> + <p> + There is no evidence in the Hawthorne documents or publications to show + exactly when the first edition of “Mosses from an Old Manse” made its + appearance, and copies of it are now exceedingly rare, but we find the + Hawthorne family in Salem reading the book in the autumn of 1845, so that + it was probably brought out at that time and helped to maintain its author + during his last days at Concord. + </p> + <p> + There must have been some magical influence in the Old Manse or in its + surrounding scenery, to have stimulated both Emerson’s and Hawthorne’s + love of Nature to such a degree. Emerson’s eye dilates as he looks upon + the sunshine gilding the trunks of the balm of Gilead trees on his avenue; + and Hawthorne dwells with equal delight on the luxuriant squash vines + which spread over his vegetable garden. Discoursing on this he says: + </p> + <p> + “Speaking of summer squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and + varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, + shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, molded in patterns which a sculptor + would do well to copy, since art has never invented anything more + graceful.” + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + “A cabbage, too—especially the early Dutch cabbage, which swells to + a monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart often bursts asunder—is + a matter to be proud of when we can claim a share with the earth and sky + in producing it.” + </p> + <p> + It would seem as if no one before Hawthorne had rightly observed these + common vegetables, whose external appearance is always before our eyes. He + not only humanizes whatever attracts his attention, but he looks through a + refining medium of his own personality. He has the gift of Midas to bring + back the Golden Age for us. Who besides Homer has been able to describe a + chariot-race, and who but Hawthorne could extract such poetry from a + farmer’s garden? + </p> + <p> + If we compare this introductory chapter with such earlier sketches as “The + Vision at the Fountain” and “The Toll-Gatherer’s Day,” we recognize the + progress that Hawthorne has made since the first volume of “Twice Told + Tales.” We are no longer reminded of the plain unpainted house on Lake + Sebago. His style is not only more graceful, but has acquired greater + fulness of expression, and he is evidently working in a deeper and richer + vein of thought. Purity of expression is still his polar star, and his + writing is nowhere overloaded, but it has a warmer tone, a deeper + perspective, and an atmospheric quality which painters call <i>chi-aroscuro</i>. + He charms with pleasing fancies, while he penetrates to the soul. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne rarely repeats himself in details, and never in designs. Two of + Dickens’s most interesting novels, “Oliver Twist” and “David Copperfield,” + are constructed on the same theme, but each of the studies in this + collection has a distinct individuality which appeals to the reader after + a fashion of its own. Each has its moral, or rather central, idea to which + all its component parts are related, and teaches a lesson of its own, so + unobtrusively that we become possessed of it almost unawares. Some are + intensely, even tragically, serious; others so light and airy that they + seem as if woven out of gossamer. + </p> + <p> + There are a few, however, that do not harmonize with the general tone and + character of the rest,—especially “Mrs. Bull-Frog,” which Hawthorne + himself confessed to having been an experiment, and which strangely enough + is much more in the style of his son Julian. “Monsieur du Miroir” and + “Sketches from Memory” are relics of his earlier writings; perhaps also + “Feather-Top” and “The Procession of Life.” It would have been better + perhaps if “Young Goodman Brown” had been used to light a fire at the Old + Manse. + </p> + <p> + “Monsieur du Miroir” is chiefly interesting as an example of Hawthorne’s + faculty for elaborating the most simple subject until every possible phase + of it has been exhausted. It may also throw some light scientifically on + the origin of consciousness. We see ourselves reflected not only in the + mirror, but on the blade of a knife, or a puddle in the road; and, if we + look sharply enough, in the eyes of other men—even in the expression + of their faces. In such manner does Nature force upon us a recognition of + our various personalities—the nucleus of self-knowledge, and + self-respect. + </p> + <p> + Whittier once spoke of “Young Goodman Brown” as indicating a mental + peculiarity in Hawthorne, which like the cuttle-fish rarely rises to the + surface. The plot is cynical, and largely enigmatical. The very name of it + (in the way Hawthorne develops the story) is a fearful satire on human + nature. He may have intended this for an exposure of the inconsistency, + and consequent hypocrisy, of Puritanism; but the name of Goodman Brown’s + wife is Faith, and this suggests that Brown may have been himself intended + for an incarnation of <i>doubt</i>, or <i>disbelief</i> carried to a + logical extreme. Whatever may have been Hawthorne’s design, the effect is + decidedly unpleasant. + </p> + <p> + Emerson talked in proverbs, and Hawthorne in parables. The finest sketches + in this collection are parables. “The Birth Mark,” “Rappacini’s Daughter,” + “A Select Party,” “Egotism,” and “The Artist of the Beautiful.” “The + Celestial Railroad” is an allegory, a variation on “Pilgrim’s Progress.” + </p> + <p> + “The Birth Mark” and “Rappacini’s Daughter” are like divergent lines, + which originate at an single point; and that point is the radical + viciousness of trying experiments on human beings. It is bad enough, + although excusable, to vivisect dogs and rabbits; but why should we + attempt the same course of procedure with those that are nearest and + dearest to us? Such parables were not required in the time of Tiberius + Cæsar and men and women grew up in a natural, vigorous manner; but now we + have become so scientific that we continually attempt to improve on + Nature,—like the artist who left the rainbow out of his picture of + Niagara because its colors did not harmonize with the background. + </p> + <p> + The line of divergence in “The Birth Mark” is indicated by its name. We + all have our birth-marks,—traits of character, which may be + temporarily suppressed, or relegated to the background, but which cannot + be eradicated and are certain to reappear at unguarded moments, or on + exceptional occasions. Education and culture can do much to soften and + temper the disposition, but the original material remains the same. The + father who attempts to force his son into a mode of life for which Nature + did not intend him, or the mother who quarrels with her daughter’s + friends, commits an error similar to that of Hawthorne’s alchemist, who + endeavors to remove the birthmark from the otherwise beautiful face of his + wife, but only succeeds in effecting this together with her death. The + tragical termination of the alchemist’s experiments, the pathetic yielding + up of life by his sweet “Clytie,” is described with an impressive + tenderness. She sinks to her last sleep without a murmur of reproach. + </p> + <p> + “Rappacini’s Daughter” might serve as a protest against bringing up + children in an exceptional and abnormal manner. I once knew an excellent + lady, who, with the best possible intentions, brought up her daughter to + be different from all other girls. As a consequence, she <i>was</i> + different,—could not assimilate herself to others. She had no + admirers, or young friends of her own sex, for there were few points of + contact between herself and general society. Her mother was her only + friend. She aged rapidly and died early. Similarly, a boy brought up in a + secluded condition of purity and ignorance, finally developed into one of + the most vicious of men. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne has prefigured this by a bright colored flower which sparkles + like a gem, very attractive at a distance, but exhaling a deadly perfume. + He may not have been aware that the opium poppy has so brilliant a flower + that it can be seen at a distance from which all other flowers are + invisible. The scene of his story is placed in Italy,—the land of + beauty, but also the country of poisoners. Rappacini, an old botanist and + necromancer, has trained up his daughter in the solitary companionship of + this flower, from which she has acquired its peculiar properties. A + handsome young student is induced to enter the garden, partly from + curiosity and partly through the legerdemain of Rappacini. The student + soon falls under the daughter’s influence and finds himself being + gradually poisoned. A watchful apothecary, who has penetrated the + necromancer’s secret, provides the young man with an antidote which saves + him, but deprives the maiden of life. She crosses the barrier which + separated her from a healthy existence, and the poison reacts upon her + system and kills her. The old apothecary looks out from his window, and + cries, “O Rappacini! Is this the consummation of your experiment?” + </p> + <p> + The underlying agreement between this story and “The Birth Mark” becomes + apparent when we observe that the termination of one is simply a variation + upon the last scene of the other. In one instance a beautiful daughter is + sacrificed by her father, and in the other a lovely wife is victimized by + her husband. There have been thousands, if not millions, of such cases. + </p> + <p> + There is no other writer but Shakespeare who has portrayed the absolute + devotion of a woman’s love with such delicacy of feeling and depth of + sympathy as Hawthorne. In the two stories we have just considered, and + also in “The Bosom Serpent,” this element serves, like the refrain of a + Greek chorus, to give a sweet, penetrating undertone which reconciles us + to much that would otherwise seem intolerable. The heroines in these + pieces have such a close spiritual relationship that one suspects them of + having been studied from the same model, and who could this have been so + likely as Hawthorne’s own wife. {Footnote: Notice also the similar + character of Sophia in J. Hawthorne’s “Bressant."} + </p> + <p> + The theme of “The Bosom Serpent” is a husband’s jealousy; and it is the + self-forgetful devotion of his wife that finally cures his malady and + relieves him of his unpleasant companion. The tale ends with one of those + mystifying passages which Hawthorne weaves so skilfully, so that it is + difficult to determine from the text whether there was a real serpent + secreted under the man’s clothing, or only an imaginary one,—although + we presume the latter. Francis of Verulam says, “the best fortune for a + husband is for his wife to consider him wise, which she will never do if + she find him jealous”; and with good reason, for if he is unreasonably + jealous, it shows a lack of confidence in her; but mutal confidence is the + well-spring from which love flows, and if the well dries up, there is an + end of it. + </p> + <p> + “The Select Party” is quite a relief, after this tragical trilogy. It is + easy to believe that Hawthorne imagined this dream of a summer evening, + while watching the great cumulus clouds, tinted with rose and lavender + like aerial snow-mountains, floating toward the horizon. Here were true + castles in the air, which he could people with shapes according to his + fancy; but he chose the most common abstract conceptions, such as, the + Clerk of the Weather, the Beau Ideal, Mr. So-they-say, the Coming Man, and + other ubiquitous personages, whom we continually hear of, but never see. + The Man of Fancy invites these and many others to a banquet in his + cloud-castle, where they all converse and behave according to their + special characters. A ripple of delicate humor, like the ripple made by a + light summer breeze upon the calm surface of a lake, runs through the + piece from the first sentence to the last; and the scene is brought to a + close by the approach of a thunder-storm, which spreads consternation + among these unsubstantial guests, much like that which takes place at a + picnic under similar circumstances; and Hawthorne, with his customary + mystification, leaves us in doubt as to whether they ever reached <i>terra + firma</i> again. + </p> + <p> + There is one proverbial character, however, whom Hawthorne has omitted + from this account; namely, Mr. Everybody. “What Everybody says, must be + true;” but unfortunately Everybody’s information is none of the best, and + his judgment does not rise above his information. His self-confidence, + however, is enormous. He understands law better than the lawyer, and + medicine better than the physicians. He is never tired of settling the + affairs of the country, and of proposing constitutional amendments. Is it + not perfectly natural that Everybody should understand Everybody’s + business as well as or better than his own? He is continually predicting + future events, and if they fail to take place he predicts them again. He + is omnipresent, but if you seek him he is nowhere to be found,—which + we may presume to be the reason why he did not appear at the entertainment + given by the Man of Fancy. + </p> + <p> + That which gives the elevated character to Raphael’s faces—as in the + “Sistine Madonna” and other paintings—is not their drawing, though + that is always refined, but the expression of the eyes, which are truly + the windows of the soul. It was the same in Hawthorne’s face, and may be + observed in all good portraits of him. An immutable calmness overspread + his features, but in and about his eyes there was a spring-like + mirthfulness; while down in the shadowy depth of those luminous orbs was + concealed the pathos that formed the undercurrent of his life. So it is + that high comedy, as Plato long ago observed, lies very close to tragedy. + </p> + <p> + A well-known French writer compares English humor, in a general way, to + beer-drinking, and this is more particularly applicable to Dickens’s + characters. The very name of Mark Tapley suggests ale bottles. Thackeray’s + humor is of a more refined quality, but a trifle sharp and satirical. It + is, however, pure and healthful and might be compared to Rhine-wine. + Hawthorne’s humor at its best is more refined than Thackeray’s, as well as + of a more amiable quality, and reminds one (on Taine’s principle) of those + delicate Italian wines which have very little body, but a delightful + bouquet. As a humorist, however, Hawthorne varies in different times and + places more than in any other respect. He adapts himself to his subject; + is light and playful in “The Select Party”; takes on a more serious vein + in “The Celestial Railroad”; in his resuscitation of Byron, in the letter + from a lunatic called “P’s Correspondence” he is simply sardonic; and “The + Virtuoso’s Collection” has all the effect, although he does not anywhere + descend to low comedy, of a roaring farce. In “Mrs. Bull-Frog,” as the + title intimates, he approaches closely to the grotesque. + </p> + <p> + In “The Virtuoso’s Collection” we have the humor of impossibility. Nothing + is more common than this, but Hawthorne gives it a peculiar value of his + own. A procession of mythological objects, strange historical relics, and + the odd creations of fiction passes before our eyes. The abruptness of + their juxtaposition excites continuous laughter in us. It would be an + extremely phlegmatic person who could read it with a serious face. Don + Quixote’s Rosinante, Doctor Johnson’s cat, Shelley’s skylark, a live + phoenix, Prospero’s magic wand, the hard-ridden Pegasus, the dove which + brought the olive branch, and many others appear in such rapid succession + that the reader has no time to take breath, or to consider what will turn + up next. Like an accomplished showman, Hawthorne enlivens the performance + here and there with original reflections on life, which are perfectly + dignified, but become humorous from contrast with their surroundings. In + spite of its comical effect, the piece has a very genteel air, for its + material is taken from that general stock of information that passes + current in cultivated families. The young man of fashion who had never + heard of Elijah, or of Poe’s “Raven,” would not have understood it. + </p> + <p> + In “The Hall of Fantasy,” we catch some glimpses of Hawthorne’s favorite + authors: + </p> + <p> + “The grand old countenance of Homer, the shrunken and decrepit form, but + vivid face, of Æsop, the dark presence of Dante, the wild Ariosto, + Rabelais’s smile of deep-wrought mirth, the profound, pathetic humor of + Cervantes, the all glorious Shakespeare, Spenser, meet guest for an + allegoric structure, the severe divinity of Milton and Bunyan, molded of + the homeliest clay, but instinct with celestial fire—were those that + chiefly attracted my eye. Fielding, Richardson, and Scott occupied + conspicuous pedestals.” + </p> + <p> + He also adds Goethe and Swedenborg, and remarks of them: + </p> + <p> + “Were ever two men of transcendent imagination more unlike?” + </p> + <p> + It is evident that Byron was not a favorite with Hawthorne. In addition to + his severe treatment of that poet, in “P’s Correspondence,” he says in + “Earth’s Holocaust,” where he imagines the works of various authors to be + consumed in a bonfire: + </p> + <p> + “Speaking of the properties of flame, me-thought Shelley’s poetry emitted + a purer light than almost any other productions of his day, contrasting + beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of black vapor + that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron.” + </p> + <p> + This seems like rather puritanical treatment. If there are false lines in + Byron, there are quite as many weak lines in Shelley. If sincerity were to + give out a pure flame, Byron would stand that test equal to any. His real + fault is to be found in his somewhat glaring diction, like the <i>voix + blanc</i> in singing, and in an occasional stroke of <i>persiflage</i>. + This increases his attractiveness to youthful minds, but to a nature like + Hawthorne’s anything of an exhibitory character must always be unpleasant. + </p> + <p> + Emerson and Hawthorne only knew Goethe through the translations of Dwight, + Carlyle and Margaret Fuller, and yet his poetry made a deeper impression + on them than on Lowell and Longfellow, who read it in the original. + Hawthorne appears to have taken lessons in German while at Brook Farm, for + we find him studying a German book at the Old Manse, with a grammar and + lexicon; but, as he confesses in his diary, without making satisfactory + progress. + </p> + <p> + “The Artist of the Beautiful” is a Dantean allegory, and a poetic gem. A + young watchmaker, imbued with a spirit above his calling, neglects the + profits of his business in order to construct an artificial butterfly,—at + once the type of useless beauty and the symbol of immortality, and he + perseveres in spite of the difficulties of the undertaking and the + contemptuous opposition of his acquaintances. He finally succeeds in + making one which seems to be almost endowed with life, but only to be + informed that it is no better than a toy, and that he has wasted his time + on a thing which has no practical value. A child (who represents the + thoughtlessness of the great world) crushes the exquisite piece of + workmanship in his little hand; but the watch-maker does not repine at + this, for he realizes that after having achieved the beautiful, in his own + spirit, the outward symbol of it has comparatively little value. The + Artist of the Beautiful is Hawthorne himself; and in this exquisite fable + he has not only unfolded the secret of all high art, but his own + life-secret as well. + </p> + <p> + HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM + </p> + <p> + The French and English scepticism of the eighteenth century, produced a + reaction in the more contemplative German nature, which took the form of a + strong assertion of spirit or mind as an entity in itself, and distinct + from matter. This movement was more like a national impulse than the + proselytism of a sect, but the individual in whom this spiritual impulse + of the German people manifested itself at that time was Immanuel Kant. + Without discrediting the revelations of Hebrew tradition, he taught the + doctrine that instead of looking for evidence of a Supreme Being in the + external world, we should seek him in our own hearts; that every man could + find a revelation in his own conscience,—in the consciousness of + good and evil, by which man improves his condition on earth; that the + ideas of a Supreme Being, or of immortality and freedom of will, are + inherent in the human mind, and are not to be acquired from experience; + but that, as the finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite, we cannot + know God in the same sense that we know our own earthly fathers, or as + Goethe afterwards expressed it,—- + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Who can say I know Him; + Who can say, I know Him not;” + </pre> + <p> + and that it is in this aspiration for the unattainable, in this reverence + for absolute purity, wisdom and love, that the spirit of true religion + consists. + </p> + <p> + The new philosophy was named “Transcendentalism” by Kant’s followers, + because it included ideas which were beyond the range of experience. It + became popular in Germany, as Platonism, to which it is closely related, + became popular in ancient Greece. It has never been accepted in France, + where scepticism still predominates, though we hear of it in Taine and a + few other writers; but in Great Britain, although the English universities + repudiated it, Transcendentalism became so influential that Gladstone has + spoken of it, in his Romanes lecture, as the dominant philosophy of the + nineteenth century. Every notable English writer of that period, with the + exception of Macaulay, Mill, and Spencer, became largely imbued with it. + In America its influence did not extend much beyond New England, but in + that section at least its proselytes were numbered by thousands, and it + effected an intellectual revolution which has since influenced the whole + country. + </p> + <p> + The Concord group of transcendentalists did not accept the teaching of + Kant in its original purity; but mixed with it a number of other imported + products, that in no way appertain to it. Thoreau was an American <i>sansculotte</i>, + a believer in the natural man; Ripley was mainly a socialist; Margaret + Fuller was one of the earliest leaders in woman’s rights; Alcott was a + Neo-Platonist, a vegetarian, and a non-resistant; while Emerson + sympathized largely with Thoreau, and from his poetic exaltation of Nature + was looked upon as a pantheist by those who were not accustomed to nice + discriminations. Thus it happened that Transcendentalism came to be + associated in the public mind with any exceptional mode or theory of life. + Its best representatives in America, like Professor Hedge of Harvard, + Reverend David A. Wasson and Doctor William T. Harris (so long Chief of + the National Bureau of Education), were much abler men than Emerson’s + followers, but did not attract so much attention, simply because they + lived according to the customs of good society. + </p> + <p> + Sleepy Hollow, before it was converted into a cemetery, was one of the + most attractive sylvan resorts in the environs of Concord. It was a sort + of natural amphitheatre, a small oval plane, more than half surrounded by + a low wooded ridge; a sheltered and sequestered spot, cool in summer, but + also warm and sunny in spring, where the wild flowers bloomed and the + birds sang earlier than in other places. + </p> + <p> + There, on August 22, 1842, a notable meeting took place, between + Hawthorne, Emerson, and Margaret Fuller, who came that afternoon to enjoy + the inspiration of the place, without preconcerted agreement. Margaret + Fuller was first on the ground, and Hawthorne found her seated on the + hill-side—his gravestone now overlooks the spot—reading a book + with a peculiar name, which he “did not understand, and could not + afterward recollect.” Such a description could only apply to Kant’s + “Critique of Pure Reason,” the original fountain-head and gospel of + Transcendentalism. + </p> + <p> + It does not appear that Nathaniel Hawthorne ever studied “The Critique of + Pure Reason.” His mind was wholly of the artistic order,—the most + perfect type of an artist, one might say, living at that time,—and a + scientific analysis of the mental faculties would have been as distasteful + to him as the dissection of a human body. History, biography, fiction, did + not appear to him as a logical chain of cause and effect, but as a + succession of pictures illustrating an ideal determination of the human + race. He could not even look at a group of turkeys without seeing a + dramatic situation in them. In addition to this, as a true artist, he was + possessed of a strong dislike for everything eccentric and abnormal; he + wished for symmetry in all things, and above all in human actions; and + those restless, unbalanced spirits, who attached themselves to the + transcendental movement and the anti-slavery cause, were particularly + objectionable to him. It has been rightly affirmed that no revolutionary + movement could be carried through without the support of that + ill-regulated class of persons who are always seeking they know not what, + and they have their value in the community, like the rest of us; but + Hawthorne was not a revolutionary character, and to his mind they appeared + like so many obstacles to the peaceable enjoyment of life. His motto was, + “Live and let live.” There are passages in his Concord diary in which he + refers to the itinerant transcendentalist in no very sympathetic manner. + </p> + <p> + His experience at Brook Farm may have helped to deepen this feeling. There + is no necessary connection between such an idyllic-socialistic experiment + and a belief in the direct perception of a great First Clause; but Brook + Farm was popularly supposed at that time to be an emanation of + Transcendentalism, and is still largely so considered. He was wearied at + Brook Farm by the philosophical discussions of George Ripley and his + friends, and took to walking in the country lanes, where he could + contemplate and philosophize in his own fashion,—which after all + proved to be more fruitful than theirs. Having exchanged his interest in + the West Roxbury Association for the Old Manse at Concord (truly a poetic + bargain), he wrote the most keenly humorous of his shorter sketches, his + “The Celestial Railroad,” and in it represented the dismal cavern where + Bunyan located the two great enemies of true religion, the Pope and the + Pagan, as now occupied by a German giant, the Transcendentalist, who + “makes it his business to seize upon honest travellers and fat them for + his table with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, + and sawdust.” + </p> + <p> + That Transcendentalism was largely associated in Hawthorne’s mind with the + unnecessary discomforts and hardships of his West Roxbury life is evident + from a remark which he lets fall in “The Virtuoso’s Collection.” The + Virtuoso calls his attention to the seven-league boots of childhood + mythology, and Hawthorne replies, “I could show you quite as curious a + pair of cowhide boots at the transcendental community of Brook Farm.” Yet + there could have been no malice in his satire, for Mrs. Hawthorne’s two + sisters, Mrs. Mann and Miss Peabody, were both transcendentalists; and so + was Horace Mann himself, so far as we know definitely in regard to his + metaphysical creed. Do not we all feel at times that the search for + abstract truth is like a diet of sawdust or Scotch mist,—a “chimera + buzzing in a vacuum”? + </p> + <p> + James Russell Lowell similarly attacked Emerson in his Class Day poem, and + afterward became converted to Emerson’s views through the influence of + Maria White. It is possible that a similar change took place in + Hawthorne’s consciousness; although his consciousness was so profound and + his nature so reticent that what happened in the depths of it was never + indicated by more than a few bubbles at the surface. He was emphatically + an idealist, as every truly great artist must be, and Transcendentalism + was the local costume which ideality wore in Hawthorne’s time. He was a + philosopher after a way of his own, and his reflections on life and + manners often have the highest value. It was inevitable that he should + feel and assimilate something from the wave of German thought which was + sweeping over England and America, and if he did this unconsciously it was + so much the better for the quality of his art. + </p> + <p> + There are evidences of this even among his earliest sketches. In his + account of “Sunday at Home” he says: “Time—where a man lives not—what + is it but Eternity?” Does he not recognize in this condensed statement + Kant’s theorem that time is a mental condition, which only exists in man, + and for man, and has no place in the external world? In fact, it only + exists by divisions of time, and it is <i>man</i> who makes the divisions. + The rising of the sun does not constitute time; for the sun is always + rising—somewhere. The positivists and Herbert Spencer deny this, and + argue to prove that time is an external entity—independent of man—like + electricity; but Hawthorne did not agree with them. He evidently trusted + the validity of his consciousness. In that exquisite pastoral, “The Vision + at the Fountain,” he says: + </p> + <p> + “We were aware of each other’s presence, not by sight or sound or touch, + but by an inward consciousness. Would it not be so among the dead?” + </p> + <p> + You have probably heard of the German who attempted to evolve a camel out + of his inner consciousness. That and similar jibes are common among those + persons of whom the Scriptures tell us that they are in the habit of + straining at gnats; but Hawthorne believed consciousness to be a + trustworthy guide. Why should he not? It was the consciousness of <i>self</i> + that raised man above the level of the brute. This was the rock from which + Moses struck forth the fountain of everlasting life. + </p> + <p> + Again, in “Fancy’s Show-Box” we meet with the following: + </p> + <p> + “Or, while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly + tribunal, will guilty thoughts,—of which guilty deeds are no more + than shadows,—will these draw down the full weight of a condemning + sentence in the supreme court of eternity?” + </p> + <p> + Is this not an induction from or corollary to the preceding? If it is not + Kantian philosophy, it is certainly Goethean. Margaret Fuller was the + first American critic, if not the first of all critics, to point out that + Goethe in writing “Elective Affinities” designed to show that an evil + thought may have consequences as serious and irremediable as an evil + action—in addition to the well-known homily that evil thoughts lead + to evil actions. In his “Hall of Fantasy” Hawthorne mentions Goethe and + Swedenborg as two literary idols of the present time who may be expected + to endure through all time. Emerson makes the same prediction in one of + his poems. + </p> + <p> + In “Rappacini’s Daughter” Hawthorne says: “There is something truer and + more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch with the finger.” + </p> + <p> + And in “The Select Party” he remarks: “To such beholders it was unreal + because they lacked the imaginative faith. Had they been worthy to pass + within its portals, they would have recognized the truth that the + dominions which the spirit conquers for itself among unrealities become a + thousand times more real than the earth whereon they stamp their feet, + saying, ‘This is solid and substantial! This may be called a fact!’” + </p> + <p> + The essence of Transcendentalism is the assertion of the indestructibility + of spirit, that mind is more real than matter, and the unseen than the + seen. “The visible has value only,” says Carlyle, “when it is based on the + invisible.” No writer of the nineteenth century affirms this more + persistently than Hawthorne, and in none of his romances is the principle + so conspicuous as in “The House of the Seven Gables.” It is a sister’s + love which, like a cord stronger than steel, binds together the various + incidents of the story, while the avaricious Judge Pyncheon, “with his + landed estate, public honors, offices of trust and other solid <i>un</i>realities,” + has after all only succeeded in building a card castle for himself, which + may be dissipated by a single breath. Holgrave, the daguerreotypist, who + serves as a contrast to the factitious judge, is a genuine character, and + may stand for a type of the young New England liberal of 1850: a + freethinker, and so much of a transcendentalist that we suspect + Hawthorne’s model for him to have been one of the younger associates of + the Brook Farm experiment. He is evidently studied from life, and + Hawthorne says of him: + </p> + <p> + “Altogether, in his culture and want of culture, in his crude, wild, and + misty philosophy, and the practical experience that counteracted some of + its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for man’s welfare, and his + recklessness of whatever the ages had established in man’s behalf; in his + faith, and in his infidelity; in what he had, and in what he lacked, the + artist might fitly enough stand forth as the representative of many + compeers in his native land.” + </p> + <p> + This is a fairly sympathetic portrait, and it largely represents the class + of young men who went to hear Emerson and supported Charles Sumner. In the + story, Holgrave achieves the reward of a veracious nature by winning the + heart of the purest and loveliest young woman in American fiction. + </p> + <p> + If Hawthorne were still living he might object to the foregoing argument + as a misrepresentation; nor could he be blamed for this, for Ripley, + Thoreau, Alcott and other like visionary spirits have so vitiated the + significance of Transcendentalism that it ought now to be classed among + words of doubtful and uncertain meaning. + </p> + <p> + Students of German philosophy are now chiefly known as Kantists or + Hegelians, and outside of the universities they are commonly classed as + Emersonians. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER X. — FROM CONCORD TO LENOX: 1845-1849 + </h2> + <p> + In May, 1845, Paymaster Bridge found himself again on the American coast. + Meeting with Franklin Pierce in Boston, they agreed to go to Concord + together, and look into Hawthorne’s affairs. Soon after breakfast, Mrs. + Hawthorne espied them coming through the gateway. She had never met + Pierce, but she recognized Bridge’s tall, elegant figure, when he waved + his hat to her in the distance. Hawthorne himself was sawing and splitting + in the wood-shed, and thither she directed his friends—to his no + slight astonishment when they appeared before him. Pierce had his arm + across Hawthorne’s broad shoulders when they reappeared. There is one + pleasure, indeed, which young people cannot know, and that is, the meeting + of old friends. Mrs. Hawthorne was favorably impressed with Franklin + Pierce’s personality; while Horatio Bridge danced about and acted an + impromptu pantomime, making up faces like an owl. They assured Hawthorne + that something should be done to relieve his financial + embarrassment.{Footnote: J. Hawthorne, 281.} + </p> + <p> + All those whose attention Hawthorne attracted out of the rush and hurry of + the world were sure to become interested in his welfare. O’Sullivan, the + editor of the <i>Democratic Review</i>, had already exerted himself in + Hawthorne’s behalf; but President Polk evidently did not know who + Hawthorne was, so that O’Sullivan was obliged to have a puff inserted in + his review for the President’s better information. George Bancroft was now + in the Cabinet, and could easily have obtained a lucrative post for + Hawthorne, but it is plain that Bancroft was not over-friendly to him and + that Hawthorne was fully aware of this. Hawthorne had suggested the Salem + postmastership, but when O’Sullivan mentioned this, Bancroft objected on + the ground that the present incumbent was too good a man to be displaced, + and proposed the consulates of Genoa and Marseilles, two deplorable + positions and quite out of the question for Hawthorne, in the condition of + his family at that time. Perhaps it would have been better for him in a + material sense, if he had accepted the invitation to dine with Margaret + Fuller. + </p> + <p> + The summer wore away, but nothing was acomplished; and late in the autumn + Hawthorne left the Old Manse to return to his Uncle Robert Manning’s house + in Salem, where he could always count on a warm welcome. There he spent + the winter with his wife and child, until suddenly, in March, 1846, he was + appointed Surveyor of the Port, or, as it is now more properly called, + Collector of Customs. + </p> + <p> + This was, in truth, worth waiting for. The salary was not large, but it + was a dignified position and allowed Hawthorne sufficient leisure for + other pursuits,—the leisure of the merchant or banker. Salem had + already begun to lose its foreign trade, and for days together it + sometimes happened that there was nothing to do. Hawthorne’s chief + business was to prevent the government from being cheated, either by the + importers or by his own subordinates; and it required a pretty sharp eye + to do this. All the appointments, even to his own clerks, were made by + outside politicians, and when a reduction of employees was necessary, + Hawthorne consulted with the local Democratic Committee, and followed + their advice. Such a method was not to the advantage of the public + service, but it saved Hawthorne from an annoying responsibility. His + strictness and impartiality, however, soon brought him into conflict with + his more self-important subordinates, who were by no means accustomed to + exactness in their dealings, and this finally produced a good deal of + official unpleasantness; and the unfavorable reports which were afterward + circulated concerning Hawthorne’s life during this period, probably + originated in that quarter. + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE, SALEM, MASS., WHERE HAWTHORNE WAS + EMPLOYED AS SURVEYOR OF THE FORT OF SALEM, AT THE TIME OF HIS WRITING “THE + SCARLET LETTER"} + </p> + <p> + All the poetry that Hawthorne could extract from his occupation at the + Custom House is to be found in his preface to “The Scarlet Letter,” but he + withholds from us the prosaic side of it,—as he well might. At times + he comes close to caricature, especially in his descriptions of “those + venerable incumbents who hibernated during the winter season, and then + crawled out during the warm days of spring to draw their pay and perform + those pretended duties, for which they were engaged.” There were formerly + large numbers of moss-grown loafers in the government service, with + whiskey-reddened noses and greasy old clothing, who would sun themselves + on the door-steps, and tell anecdotes of General Jackson, Senator Benton, + and other popular heroes, with whom they would intimate a good + acquaintance at some remote period of their lives. If removed from office, + they were quite as likely to turn up in a neighboring jail as in any other + location. This is no satire, but serious truth; and instances of it can be + given. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s life during the next three years was essentially domestic. In + June, 1846, his son Julian was born—a remarkably vigorous baby—at + Doctor Peabody’s house in West Street, Boston; Mrs. Hawthorne wisely + preferring to be with her own mother during her confinement. {Footnote: At + the age of thirty-five, Julian resembled his father so closely that + Nathaniel Hawthorne’s old friends were sometimes startled by him, as if + they had seen an apparition. He was, however, of a stouter build, and his + eyes were different.} With two small children on her hands, Mrs. Hawthorne + had slight opportunity to enjoy general society, fashionable or otherwise. + Rebecca Manning says, however: + </p> + <p> + “Neither Hawthorne nor his wife could be said to be ‘in society’ in the + technical sense. When the Peabody family lived in Salem, they were, I have + been told, somewhat straitened pecuniarily. After Hawthorne’s marriage, I + think I remember hearing of his wife going to parties and dinners + occasionally. Dr. Loring’s wife was her cousin. Other friends were the + Misses Howes, one of whom is now Mrs. Cabot of Boston. Mrs. Foote, who was + a daughter of Judge White, was a friend, and I remember some Silsbees who + were also her friends. Hawthorne’s wife knew how to cultivate her friends + and make the most of them far better than either Hawthorne or his sisters + did. I have been told that when Hawthorne was a young man, before his + marriage, if he had chosen to enter Salem’s ‘first circle’ he would have + been welcome there.” + </p> + <p> + During this last sojourn in his native city Hawthorne was chosen on the + committee for the lyceum lecture course, and proved instrumental in + bringing Webster to Salem,—where he had not been popular since the + trial of the two Knapps,—to deliver an oration on the Constitution; + of which Mrs. Hawthorne has given a graphic description in a letter to her + mother on November 19, 1848: + </p> + <p> + “The old Lion walked the stage with a sort of repressed rage, when he + referred to those persons who cried out, ‘Down with the Constitution!’ + ‘Madmen! Or most wicked if not mad!’ said he with a glare of fire.” + </p> + <p> + A pure piece of acting. The national Constitution was not even endangered + by the Southern rebellion,—much less by the small band of original + abolitionists; and Webster was too sensible not to be aware of this. + </p> + <p> + While Hawthorne was at the Salem Custom House, he made at least two + valuable friends: Doctor George B. Loring, who had married a cousin of + Mrs. Hawthorne, and William B. Pike, who occupied a subordinate position + in the Custom House, but whom Hawthorne valued for moral and intellectual + qualities of which he would seem to have been the first discoverer. They + were not friends who would be likely to affect Hawthorne’s political + views, except to encourage him in the direction to which he had always + tended. Four years earlier, Doctor Loring had been on cordial terms with + Longfellow and Sumner, being a refined and intellectual sort of man, but + like Hillard, had withdrawn from them on account of political differences. + He was an able public speaker, and became a Democratic politician, until + 1862, when he went over to the Republicans; but after that he was looked + upon with a good deal of suspicion by both parties. The governorship was + supposed to have been the object of his ambition, but he never could + obtain the nomination. Late in life he was appointed Commissioner of + Agriculture, a post for which he was eminently fitted, and finally went to + Portugal as United States Minister. + </p> + <p> + William B. Pike either lacked the opportunity or the necessary + concentration to develop his genius in the larger world, but Hawthorne + continued to communicate with him irregularly until the close of his life. + He invited him to Lenox when he resided there, and Mrs. Lathrop recollects + seeing him at the Wayside in Concord, after Hawthorne’s return from + Europe. She discribes him as a “short, sturdy, phlegmatic and plebeian + looking man,” but with a gentle step and a finely modulated voice. It may + have been as well for him that he never became distinguished. {Footnote: + Mrs. Lathrop, “Memories of Hawthorne,” 154.} + </p> + <p> + The war with Mexico was now fairly afield, and Franklin Pierce, who left + the United States Senate on account of his wife’s health, was organizing a + regiment of New Hampshire volunteers, as a “patriotic duty.” Salem people + thought differently, and party feeling there soon rose to the + boiling-point. There is no other community where political excitement is + so likely to become virulent as in a small city. In a country town, like + Concord, every man feels the necessity for conciliating his neighbor, but + the moneyed class in Salem was sufficient for its own purposes, and was + opposed to the war in a solid body. The Whigs looked upon the invasion of + Mexico as a piratical attempt of the Democratic leaders to secure the + permanent ascendency of their party, and this was probably the true reason + for Franklin Pierce’s joining it. In their eyes, Hawthorne was the + representative of a corrupt administration, and they would have been more + than human if they had not wished him to feel this. The Salem gentry could + not draw him into an argument very well, but they could look daggers at + him on the street and exhibit their coldness toward him when they went on + business to the Custom House. It is evident that he was made to suffer in + some such manner, and to a tenderhearted man with a clear conscience, it + must have seemed unkind and unjust. {Footnote: When the engagement between + the “Chesapeake” and the “Shannon” took place off Salem harbor in August, + 1813, and Captain Lawrence was killed in the action, the anti-war + sentiment ran so high that it was difficult to find a respectable mansion + where his funeral would be permitted.} In his Custom House preface, + Hawthorne compares the Whigs rather unfavorably with the Democrats, and + this is not to be wondered at; but he should have remembered that it was + his own party which first introduced the spoils-of-office system. + </p> + <p> + The first use that Hawthorne made of his government salary was to cancel + his obligations to the Concord tradespeople, and the next was to provide a + home for his wife and mother. They first moved to 18 Chestnut Street, in + June, 1846; and thence to a larger house, 14 Mall Street, in September, + 1847, in which “The Snow Image” was prepared for publication, and “The + Scarlet Letter” was written. Hawthorne’s study or workshop was the front + room in the third story, an apartment of some width but with a ceiling in + direct contradiction to the elevated thoughts of the writer. There is an + ominous silence in the American Note-book between 1846 and 1850, which is + rather increased than diminished by the publication from his diary of a + number of extracts concerning the children. The babies of geniuses do not + differ essentially from those of other people, and it is not supposable + that Hawthorne’s reflections during this period were wholly confined to + his own family. It is to be hoped that fuller information will yet be + given to the public concerning their affairs in Salem; for the truth + deserves to be told. + </p> + <p> + In January, 1846, Mrs. Hawthorne wrote to her mother: + </p> + <p> + “No one, I think, has a right to break the will of a child, but God; and + if the child is taught to submit to Him through love, all other submission + will follow with heavenly effect upon the character. God never drives even + the most desperate sinner, but only invites or suggests through the events + of His providence.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing is more unfortunate than to break the will of a child, for all + manliness and womanliness is grounded in the will; but it is often + necessary to control the desires and humors of children for their + self-preservation. Hawthorne himself was not troubled with such fancies. + Alcott, who was his nearest neighbor at the Wayside, once remarked that + there was only one will in the Hawthorne family, and that was Nathaniel’s. + His will was law and no one thought of disputing it. Yet what he writes + concerning children is always sweet, tender, and beautiful, with the + single exception of a criticism of his own daughter, which was published + long after his death and could not have been intended for the public eye. + </p> + <p> + The war with Mexico was wonderfully successful from a military point of + view, but its political effects were equally confounding to the + politicians who projected it. The American people resemble the French, + quite as much perhaps as they do the English, and the admiration of + military glory is one of their Gallic traits. It happened that the two + highest positions in the army were both held by Whig generals, and the + victory of Buena Vista carried Zachary Taylor into the White House, in + spite of the opposition of Webster and Clay, as well as that of the + Democrats and the Free Soilers. Polk, Bancroft, and Pierce had all + contributed to the defeat of their own party. The war proved their + political terminus to the two former; but, <i>mirabile dictu</i>, it + became the cap of Fortunatus to Pierce and Hawthorne. + </p> + <p> + This, however, could not have been foreseen at the time, and the election + of Taylor in November, 1848, had a sufficiently chilling effect on the + little family in Mall Street. Hawthorne entertained the hope that he might + be spared in the general out-turning, as a distinguished writer and an + inoffensive partisan, and this indicates how loath he was to relinquish + his comfortable position. Let us place ourselves in his situation and we + shall not wonder at it. He was now forty-five, with a wife and two + children, and destitution was staring him in the face. For ten years he + had struggled bravely, and this was the net result of all his endeavors. + Never had the future looked so gloomy to him. + </p> + <p> + The railroad had superseded his Uncle Manning’s business, as it had that + of half the mercantile class in the city, and his father-in-law was in a + somewhat similar predicament. At this time Elizabeth Peabody was keeping a + small foreign book-store in a room of her father’s house on West Street. + One has to realize these conditions, in order to appreciate the mood in + which Hawthorne’s Custom House preface was written. + </p> + <p> + There is one passage in it, however, that is always likely to be + misunderstood. It is where he says: + </p> + <p> + “I thought my own prospects of retaining office, to be better than those + of my Democratic brethren; but who can see an inch into futurity, beyond + his nose? My own head was the first that fell!” + </p> + <p> + It is clear that some kind of an effort was made to prevent his removal, + presumably by George S. Hillard, who was a Whig in good favor; but the + conclusion which one would naturally draw from the above, that Hawthorne + was turned out of office in a summary and ungracious manner, is not + justified by the evidence. He was not relieved from duty until June 14, + 1849; that is, he was given a hundred days of grace, which is much more + than officeholders commonly are favored with, in such cases. We may + consider it morally certain that Hillard did what he could in Hawthorne’s + behalf. He was well acquainted with Webster, but unfortunately Webster had + opposed the nomination of General Taylor, and was so imprudent as to + characterize it as a nomination not fit to be made. This was echoed all + over the country, and left Webster without influence at Washington. For + the time being Seward was everything, and Webster was nothing. + </p> + <p> + In a letter to Horace Mann, shortly after his removal, Hawthorne refers to + two distinct calumnies which had been circulated concerning him in Salem, + and only too widely credited. The most important of these—for it has + seriously compromised a number of Salem gentlemen—was never + explained until the publication of Mrs. Lathrop’s “Memories of Hawthorne” + in 1897; where we find a letter from Mrs. Hawthorne to her mother, dated + June 10, 1849, and containing the following passage: + </p> + <p> + “Here is a pretty business, discovered in an unexpected manner to Mr. + Hawthorne by a friendly and honorable Whig. Perhaps you know that the + President said before he took the chair that he should make no removals + except for dishonesty and unfaithfulness. It is very plain that neither of + these charges could be brought against Mr. Hawthorne. Therefore a most + base and incredible falsehood has been told—written down and signed + and sent to the Cabinet in secret. This infamous paper certifies among + other things (of which we have not heard)—that Mr. Hawthorne has + been in the habit of writing political articles in magazines and + newspapers!” So it appears that the gutta-percha formula {Footnote: By + which eighty-eight per cent, of the classified service were removed.} of + President Cleveland in regard to “offensive partisanship” was really + invented forty years before his time, and had as much value in one case as + in the other. It is possible that such a document as Mrs. Hawthorne + describes was circulated, signed, and sent to Washington, to make the way + easy for President Taylor’s advisers, and if so it was a highly + contemptible proceeding; but the statement rests wholly on the affirmation + of a single witness, whose name has always been withheld, and even if it + were true that Hawthorne had written political articles for Democratic + papers the fact would have in no wise been injurious to his reputation. + The result must have been the same in any case. General Taylor was an + honorable man, and no doubt intended to keep his word, as other Presidents + have intended since; but what could even a brave general effect against + the army of hungry office-seekers who were besieging the White House,—a + more formidable army than the Mexicans whom he had defeated at Buena + Vista? In all probability he knew nothing of Hawthorne and never heard of + his case. + </p> + <p> + The second calumny which Hawthorne refers to was decidedly second-rate, + and closely resembles a servant’s intrigue. The Department at Washington, + in a temporary fit of economy, had requested him to discharge two of his + supervisors. He did not like to take the men’s bread away from them, and + made a mild protest against the order. At the same time he consulted his + chief clerk as to what it might be best to do, and they agreed upon + suspending two of the supervisors who might suffer less from it than some + others. As it happened, the Department considered Hawthorne’s report + favorably, and no suspension took place; but his clerk betrayed the secret + to the two men concerned, who hated Hawthorne in consequence, and + afterward circulated a report that he had threatened to discharge them + unless they contributed to the Democratic campaign fund. This return of + evil for good appears to have been a new experience for Hawthorne, but + those who are much concerned in the affairs of the world soon become + accustomed to it, and pay little attention to either the malice or the + mendacity of mankind. + </p> + <p> + Twenty years later one of Hawthorne’s clerks, who had prudently shifted + from the Democratic to the Republican ranks, held a small office in the + Boston Navy Yard, and was much given to bragging of his intimacy with + “Nat,” and of the sprees they went on together; but the style and + description of the man were sufficient to discredit his statements without + further evidence. There were, however, several old shipmasters in the + Salem Custom House who had seen Calcutta, Canton, and even a hurricane or + two; men who had lived close to reality, with a vein of true heroism in + them, moreover; and if Hawthorne preferred their conversation to that of + the shipowners, who had spent their lives in calculating the profits of + commercial adventures, there are many among the well educated who would + agree with him. He refers particularly to one aged inspector of imports, + whose remarkable adventures by flood and field were an almost daily + recreation to him; and if the narratives of this ancient mariner were + somewhat mixed with romance, assuredly Hawthorne should have been the last + person to complain of them on that account. + </p> + <p> + At first he was wholly unnerved by his dismissal. He returned to Mall + Street and said to his wife: “I have lost my place. What shall we now do + for bread?” But Mrs. Hawthorne replied: “Never fear. You will now have + leisure to finish your novel. Meanwhile, I will earn bread for us with my + pencil and paint-brush.” {Footnote: Mrs. George S. Hillard.} Besides this, + she brought forward two or three hundred dollars, which she had saved from + his salary unbeknown to him; but who would not have been encouraged by + such a brave wife? Fortunately her pencil and paint-brush were not put to + the test; at least so far as we know. Already on June 8, her husband had + written a long letter to Hillard, explaining the state of his affairs and + containing this pathetic appeal: + </p> + <p> + “If you could do anything in the way of procuring me some stated literary + employment, in connection with a newspaper, or as corrector of the press + to some printing establishment, etc., it could not come at a better time. + Perhaps Epes Sargent, who is a friend of mine, would know of something. I + shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of itself. Perhaps + there may be some subordinate office connected with the Boston Athenæum + (Literary). Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to me.” + {Footnote: Conway, 113.} + </p> + <p> + There have been many tragical episodes in the history of literature, but + since “Paradise Lost” was sold for five pounds and a contingent interest, + there has been nothing more simply pathetic than this,—that an + immortal writer should feel obliged to apply for a subordinate position in + a counting-room, a description of work which nobody likes too well, and + which to Hawthorne would have been little less than a death in life. “Do + not think anything too humble to be mentioned to me”! + </p> + <p> + What Hillard attempted to do at this time is uncertain, but he was not the + man to allow the shrine of genius to be converted into a gas-burner, if he + could possibly prevent it. We may presume that he went to Salem and + encouraged Hawthorne in his amiable, half-eloquent manner. But we do not + hear of him again until the new year. Meanwhile Madam Hawthorne fell into + her last illness and departed this life on July 31; a solemn event even to + a hard-hearted son—how much more to such a man as she had brought + into the world. Three days before her death, he writes in his diary of + “her heart beating its funeral march,” and diverts his mind from the awful + <i>finale</i> by an accurate description of his two children playing a + serio-comic game of doctor and patient, in the adjoining room. + </p> + <p> + It was under such tragical conditions, well suited to the subject, that he + continued his work on “The Scarlet Letter,” and his painfully contracted + brow seemed to indicate that he suffered as much in imagination, as the + characters in that romance are represented to have suffered. In addition + he wrote “The Great Stone Pace,” one of the most impressive of his shorter + pieces (published, alas! in a Washington newspaper), and the sketch called + “Main Street,” both afterward included in the volume of “The Snow Image.” + On January 17, 1850, he was greatly surprised to receive a letter from + George S. Hillard with a large check in it,—more than half-way to a + thousand dollars,—which the writer with all possible delicacy begged + him to accept from a few of his Boston admirers. It was only from such a + good friend as Hillard that Hawthorne would have accepted assistance in + this form; but he always considered it in the character of a loan, and + afterward insisted on repaying it to the original subscribers,—Professor + Ticknor, Judge Curtis, and others. Hillard also persuaded James T. Fields, + the younger partner of Ticknor & Company, to take an interest in + Hawthorne as an author who required to be encouraged, and perhaps coaxed a + little, in order to bring out the best that was in him. Fields accordingly + went to Salem soon afterward, and has given an account of his first + interview with Hawthorne in “Yesterdays with Authors,” which seems rather + melodramatic: “found him cowering over a stove,” and altogether in a + woe-begone condition. The main point of discussion between them, however, + was whether “The Scarlet Letter” should be published separately or in + conjunction with other subjects. Hawthorne feared that such a serious + plot, continued with so little diversity of motive, would not be likely to + produce a favorable impression unless it were leavened with material of a + different kind. Fields, on the contrary, thought it better that the work + should stand by itself, in solitary grandeur, and feared that it would + only be dwarfed by any additions of a different kind. He predicted a good + sale for the book, and succeeded in disillusionizing Hawthorne from the + notions he had acquired from the failure of “Fanshawe.” + </p> + <p> + As it was late in the season, Fields would not even wait for the romance + to be finished, but sent it to the press at once; and on February 4, + Hawthorne wrote to Horatio Bridge: + </p> + <p> + “I finished my book only yesterday; one end being in the press at Boston, + while the other was in my head here at Salem; so that, as you see, the + story is at least fourteen miles long.” + </p> + <p> + The time of publication was a propitious one: the gold was flowing in from + California, and every man and woman had a dollar to spend. The first + edition of five thousand copies was taken up within a month, and after + this Hawthorne suffered no more financial embarrassments. The succeeding + twelve years of his life were as prosperous and cheerful as his friends + and readers could desire for him; although the sombre past still seemed to + cast a ghostly shadow across his way, which even the sunshine of Italy + could not entirely dissipate. + </p> + <p> + “THE SCARLET LETTER” + </p> + <p> + The germ of this romance is to be found in the tale of “Endicott and the + Red Cross,” published in the <i>Token</i> in 1838, so that it must have + been at least ten years sprouting and developing in Hawthorne’s mind. In + that story he gives a tragically comic description of the Puritan + penitentiary,—in the public square,—where, among others, a + good-looking young woman was exposed with a red letter A on her breast, + which she had embroidered herself, so elegantly that it seemed as if it + was rather intended for a badge of distinction than as a mark of infamy. + Hawthorne did not conjure this up wholly out of his imagination, for in + 1704 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay passed the following law, + which he was no doubt aware of: + </p> + <p> + “Convicted before the Justice of Assize,—both Man and Woman to be + set on the Gallows an Hour with a Rope about their Necks and the other end + cast over the Gallowses. And in the way from thence to the common Gaol, to + be Scourged not exceeding Forty Stripes. And forever after to wear a + Capital A of two inches long, of a contrary colour to their cloathes, + sewed on their upper Garments, on the Back or Arm, in open view. And as + often as they appear without it, openly to be Scourged, not exceeding + Fifteen Stripes.” {Footnote: Boston, Timothy Green, 1704.} + </p> + <p> + The most diligent investigation, however, has failed to discover an + instance in which punishment was inflicted under this law, so that we must + conclude that Hawthorne invented that portion of his statement. In fact, + nothing that Hawthorne published himself is to be considered of historical + or biographical value. It is all fiction. He sported with historical facts + and traditions, as poets and painters always have done, and the manuscript + which he pretends to have discovered in his office at the Custom House, + written by one of his predecessors there, is a piece of pure imagination, + which serves to give additional credibility to his narrative. He knew well + enough how large a portion of what is called history is fiction after all, + and the extent to which professed historians deal in romance. He felt that + he was justified so long as he did not depart from the truth of human + nature. We may thank him that he did not dispel the illusion of his poetic + imagery by the introduction of well-known historical characters. This is + permissible in a certain class of novels, but its effect is always more or + less prosaic. + </p> + <p> + Our Puritan ancestors evidently did not realize the evil effects of their + law against faithless wives,—its glaring indelicacy, and brutalizing + influence on the minds of the young; but it was of a piece with their + exclusion of church-music and other amenities of civilization. Was it + through a natural attraction for the primeval granite that they landed on + the New England coast? Their severe self-discipline was certainly well + adapted to their situation, but, while it built up their social edifice on + an enduring foundation, its tendency was to crush out the gentler and more + sympathetic qualities in human nature. In no other community would the + story of Hester Prynne acquire an equal cogency and significance. A German + might, perhaps, understand it; but a Frenchman or an Italian not at all. + </p> + <p> + The same subject has been treated in its most venial form by Shakespeare + in “Measure for Measure,” and in its most condemnable form in Goethe’s + “Faust.” “The Scarlet Letter” lies midway between these two. Hester Prynne + has married a man of morose, vindictive disposition, such as no woman + could be happy with. He is, moreover, much older than herself, and has + gone off on a wild expedition in pursuit of objects which he evidently + cares for, more than for his wife. She has not heard from him for over a + year, and knows not whether he has deserted her, or if he is no longer + living. She is alone in a strange wild country, and it is natural that she + should seek counsel and encouragement from the young clergyman, who is + worthy of her love, but, unfortunately, not a strong character. Lightning + is not swifter than the transition in our minds from good to evil, and in + an unguarded moment he brings ruin upon himself, and a life-long penance + on Hester Prynne. Hawthorne tells this story with such purity and delicacy + of feeling that a maiden of sixteen can read it without offence. + </p> + <p> + “The Scarlet Letter” is at once the most poetic and the most powerful of + Hawthorne’s larger works, much more powerful than “The Vicar of + Wakefield,” which has been accepted as the type of a romance in all + languages. Goldsmith’s tale will always be more popular than “The Scarlet + Letter,” owing to its blithesome spirit, its amusing incidents and bright + effects of light and shade; but “The Scarlet Letter” strikes a more + penetrating chord in the human breast, and adheres more closely to the + truth of life. There are certain highly improbable circumstances woven in + the tissue of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” which a prudent, reflective reader + finds it difficult to surmount. It is rather surprising that the Vicar + should not have discovered the true social position of his friend Mr. + Burchell, which must have been known to every farmer in the vicinity; and + still more so that Mr. Burchell should have permitted the father of a + young woman in whom he was deeply interested, to be carried to prison for + debt without making an inquiry into his case. “The Scarlet Letter” is, as + Hawthorne noticed, a continual variation on a single theme, and that a + decidedly solemn one; but its different incidents form a dynamic sequence, + leading onward to the final catastrophe, and if its progress is slow—the + narrative extends over a period of seven years—this is as inevitable + as the march of Fate. From the first scene in the drama, we are lifted + above ourselves, and sustained so by Hawthorne’s genius, until the close. + </p> + <p> + This sense of power arises from dealing with a subject which demanded the + whole force and intensity of Hawthorne’s nature. Hester Prynne herself is + a strong character, and her errors are those of strength and independence + rather than of weakness. She says to Mr. Dimmesdale that what they did + “had a consecration of its own,” and it is this belief which supports her + under a weight of obloquy that would have crushed a more fragile spirit. + She does not collapse into a pitiful nonentity, like Scott’s Effie Deans, + nor is she maddened to crime like George Eliot’s “Hetty Sorrel”; + {Footnote: A name apparently compounded from Hester Prynne and Schiller’s + Agnes Sorrel.} but from the outset she forms definite resolutions,—first + to rehabilitate her own character, and next to protect the partner of her + shame. This last may seem to be a mistaken devotion, and contrary to his + true interest, for the first step in the regeneration from sin is to + acknowledge manfully the responsibility of it; but to give the repentance + even the appearance of sincerity, the confession must be a voluntary one, + and not be forced upon the delinquent person by external pressure. We + cannot withhold our admiration for Hester’s unswerving fidelity to this + twofold purpose. We may condemn her in our minds, but we cannot refuse her + a measure of sympathy in our hearts. + </p> + <p> + I believe this to be the explanation of her apparent inconsistency at the + close of the book. Many of Hawthorne’s commentators have been puzzled by + the fact that Hester, after so many years of contrition, should advise + Dimmesdale to fly to England, and even offered to accompany him. Women + have not the same idea of law that men have. In their ideas of right and + wrong they depend chiefly on their sense of purity; and it is very + difficult to persuade a woman that she could be wrong in obeying the + dictates of her heart. Hester perceives that her former lover is being + tortured to death by the silent tyranny of Chillingworth; the tide of + affection so long restrained flows back into her soul; and her own + reputation is as nothing compared with the life of the man she hopes to + save. There is no other passage in American fiction so pathetic as that + woodland meeting, at which their mutual hopes of happiness blaze up like + the momentary brightness of a dying flame. Hester’s innocent child, + however, representing the spirit of truthfulness, is suddenly seized with + an aversion to her father and refuses to join their company,—an + unfavorable omen and dark presage of the minister’s doom. + </p> + <p> + Pearl’s behavior, on this occasion, may be supposed to represent the + author’s own judgment. How far shall we agree with him? The past + generation witnessed one of the noblest of women uniting herself, for life + and death, to a man whom she could not marry on account of purely legal + objections. Whether Hester’s position in the last act of this drama is + comparable with that of Marian Evans every one must decide according to + his or her conscience. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne certainly proves himself a good Puritan when he says, “And be + the stern and sad truth spoken that the breach which guilt has once made + into the human soul, is never in this mortal state repaired.” The + magnitude of the evil of course makes a difference; but do we not all live + in a continual state of sinning, and self-correction? That is the road to + self-improvement, and those who adhere most closely to inflexible rules of + conduct discover at length that the rules themselves have become an evil. + Mankind has not yet fully decided as to what things are evil, and what are + good; and neither Hawthorne nor the Puritan lawmakers would seem to have + remembered Christ’s admonition on a similar occasion: “Let him who is + without sin among you, cast the first stone.” + </p> + <p> + A writer in the <i>Andover Review</i>, some twenty years ago, criticised + the impersonation of Pearl as a fable—“a golden wreck.” He quoted + Emerson to the effect that in all the ages that man has been upon the + earth, no communication has been established between him and the lower + animals, and he affirmed that we know quite as little of the thoughts and + motives of our own children. Both conclusions are wide of the mark. There + is much more communication between man and the domestic animals than + between animals of the same species. The understanding between an Arab and + his horse is almost perfect, and so is that between a sportsman and his + setters. Even the sluggish ox knows the word of command. Then what shall + we say of the sympathetic relation between a mother and her child? Who can + describe it—that clairvoyant sensibility, intangible, too swift for + words? Who has depicted it, except Hawthorne and Raphael? Pearl is like a + pure spirit in “The Scarlet Letter,” reconciling us to its gloomy scenes. + She is like the sunshine in a dark forest, breaking through the tree-tops + and dancing in our pathway. It is true that Hawthorne has carried her + clairvoyant insight to its furthest limits, but this is in accordance with + the ideal character of his work. She has no rival except Goethe’s Mignon. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s method of developing his stories resembled closely that of the + historical painter; and it was only in this way that he could produce such + vivid effects. He selected models for his principal characters and studied + them as his work progressed. The original of Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was + quickly recognized in Salem as an amiable inoffensive person, of whom no + one suspected any evil,—and that was, no doubt, the reason why + Hawthorne selected him for his purpose. It was no discredit to the man + himself, although tongues were not wanting to blame Hawthorne for it. Who + Hester may have been still remains a mystery; but it was evidently some + one with whom the author was well acquainted,—perhaps his younger + sister. So Rubens painted his own wife at one time an angel, and at + another in the likeness of Herodias. It is still more probable that Pearl + is a picture of Hawthorne’s own daughter, who was of the right age for + such a study, and whose sprightly, fitful, and impulsive actions + correspond to those of Hester’s child. This would also explain why her + father gave Una so much space in his Note-book. He may have noticed the + antagonism between her and the Whig children of the neighborhood and have + applied it to Pearl’s case. It was also his custom, as appears from his + last unfinished work, to leave blank spaces in his manuscript while in the + heat of composition, which, like a painter’s background, were afterwards + filled in with descriptions of scenery or some subsidiary narrative. + </p> + <p> + The models of the novelist cannot be hired for the purpose, like those + used by the painter or sculptor, but have to be studied when and where + they can be found, for the least self-consciousness spoils the effect. + Hawthorne in this only followed the example of the best authors and + dramatists; and those who think that good fiction or dramatic poetry can + be written wholly out of a man’s or a woman’s imagination, would do well + to make the experiment themselves. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XI. — PEGASUS IS FREE: 1850-1852 + </h2> + <p> + Frederick W. Loring, that bright young poet who was so soon lost to us, + once remarked: “Appreciation is to the artist what sunshine is to flowers. + He cannot expand without it.” The success of “The Scarlet Letter” proved + that all Hawthorne’s genius required was a little moderate encouragement,—not + industry but opportunity. His pen, no longer slow and hesitating, moved + freer and easier; the long pent-up flood of thoughts, emotions, and + experiences had at length found an outlet; and the next three years were + the most productive of his life. + </p> + <p> + His first impulse, however, was to escape from Salem. Although his removal + from office had been a foregone conclusion, Hawthorne felt a certain + degree of chagrin connected with it, and also imagined a certain amount of + animosity toward himself which made the place uncomfortable to him. He was + informed that the old Sparhawk mansion, close to the Portsmouth Navy Yard, + was for sale or to rent, and the first of May, Hawthorne went thither to + consider whether it would serve him for a home. {Footnote: Lathrop, 225.} + One would suppose that sedate old Portsmouth, with its courteous society + and its dash of military life, would have suited Hawthorne even better + than Concord; but he decided differently, and he returned to meet his + family in Boston, where he made the acquaintance of Professor Ticknor, who + introduced him at the Athenaeum Library. He saw Hildreth at the Athenæum + working on his history of the United States; sat for his portrait to C. E. + Thompson; went to the theatre; studied human nature in the smoking-room at + Parker’s; and relaxed himself generally. He must have stayed with his + family at Doctor Peabody’s on West Street, for he speaks of the incessant + noise from Washington Street, and of looking out from the back windows on + Temple Place. This locates the house very nearly. + </p> + <p> + Two months later, July 5, 1850, he was at Lenox, in the Berkshire + Mountains. Mrs. Caroline Sturgis Tappan, a brilliant Boston lady, equally + poetic and sensible, owned a small red cottage there, which she was ready + to lease to Hawthorne for a nominal rent. Lowell was going there on + account of his wife, a delicate flower-like nature already beginning to + droop. Doctor Holmes was going on account of Lowell, and perhaps with the + expectation of seeing a rattlesnake; Fields was going on account of Lowell + and Holmes. Mrs. Frances Kemble, already the most distinguished of + Shakespearian readers, had a summer cottage there; and it was hoped that + in such company Hawthorne would at last find the element to which he + properly belonged. + </p> + <p> + Unfortunately Hawthorne took to raising chickens, and that seems to have + interested him more than anything else at Lenox. He fell in cordially with + the plans of his friends; ascended Monument Mountain, and went on other + excursions with them; but it may be more than suspected that Lowell and + Holmes did most of the talking. He assimilated himself more to Holmes + perhaps than to any of the others. His meeting with Mrs. Kemble must have + been like a collision of the centrifugal and centripetal forces; and for + once, Hawthorne may be said to have met his antipodes. They could + sincerely admire one another as we all do, in their respective spheres; + but such a chasm as yawned between them in difference of temperament, + character, and mode of living, could not have been bridged over by Captain + Eads. + </p> + <p> + Fannie Kemble, as she was universally called, had by long and sympathetic + reading of Shakespeare transformed herself into a woman of the Elizabethan + era, and could barely be said to belong to the nineteenth century. Among + other Elizabethan traits she had acquired an unconsciousness of self, + together with an enormous self-confidence, and no idea of what people + thought of her in polite society ever seems to have occurred to her. She + had the heart of a woman, but mentally she was like a composite picture of + Shakespeare’s <i>dramatis personae</i>, and that Emerson should have + spoken of her as “a great exaggerated creature” is not to be wondered at. + In her own department she was marvellous. + </p> + <p> + The severity of a mountain winter and the disagreeableness of its thawing + out in spring, is atoned for by its summer,—that fine exhilarating + ether, which seems to bring elevated thoughts, by virtue of its own + nature. Hawthorne enjoyed this with his children and his chickens; and his + wife enjoyed it with him. It is evident from her letters that she had not + been so happy since their first year at the Old Manse. She had now an + opportunity to indulge her love of artistic decoration, in adorning the + walls of their little red cottage, which has since unfortunately been + destroyed by fire. She even began to give her daughter, who was only six + years old, some instruction in drawing. The following extract concerning + her husband, from a letter written to her mother, is charmingly + significant of her state of mind at this time. + </p> + <p> + “Beauty and the love of it, in him, are the true culmination of the good + and true, and there is no beauty to him without these bases. He has + perfect dominion over himself in every respect, so that to do the highest, + wisest, loveliest thing is not the least effort to him, any more than it + is to a baby to be innocent. It is his spontaneous act, and a baby is not + more unconscious in its innocence. I never knew such loftiness, so simply + borne. I have never known him to stoop from it in the most trivial + household matter, any more than in a larger or more public one.” + {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 373.} + </p> + <p> + Truly this gives us a beautiful insight into their home-life, and + Hawthorne himself could not have written a more accurate eulogium. As + intimated in the last chapter, we all make our way through life by + correcting our daily trespasses, and Hawthorne was no exception to it; but + as a mental analysis of this man at his best Mrs. Hawthorne’s statement + deserves a lasting recognition. + </p> + <p> + “THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES” + </p> + <p> + It was not until early frosts and shortening days drove Hawthorne within + doors that he again took up his writing, but who can tell how long he had + been dreaming over his subject? Within five months, or by the last week of + January, “The House of the Seven Gables” was ready for the press. There is + no such house in Salem, exactly as he describes it; but an odd, + antiquated-looking structure at No. 54 Turner Street is supposed to have + served him for the suggestion of it. The name is picturesque and well + suited to introduce the reader to a homely suburban romance. + </p> + <p> + The subject of the story goes back to the witchcraft period, and its + active principle is a wizard’s curse, which descends from one generation + to another, until it is finally removed by the marriage of a descendant of + the injured party to a descendant of the guilty one. Woven together with + this, there is an exposition of mesmerism, or, as it is now called, + Christian Science, with its good and evil features. + </p> + <p> + Each of Hawthorne’s larger romances has a distinct style and quality of + its own, apart from the fine individualized style of the author. Lathrop + makes an excellent remark in regard to “The House of the Seven Gables,” + that the perfection of its art seems to stand between the reader and his + subject. It resembles in this respect those Dutch paintings whose + enamelled surface seems like a barrier to prevent the spectator from + entering the scenes which they represent. It would be a mistake to + consider this a fault, but one cannot help noticing the accuracy with + which the subordinate details of the plot are elaborated. Is it possible + that this is connected in a way with the rarefied atmosphere of Lenox, in + which distant objects appear so sharply defined? + </p> + <p> + “The House of the Seven Gables” might be symbolized by two paintings, in + the first of which Hepzibah Pyncheon stands as the central figure, her + face turned upward in a silent prayer for justice, her brother Clifford, + with his head bowed helplessly, at one side, and the judge, with his + chronic smile of satisfaction, behind Clifford; on the other side the + keen-eyed Holgrave would appear, sympathetically watching the progress of + events, with Phoebe Pyncheon at his left hand. Old Uncle Banner and little + Ned Higgins might fill in the background. In the second picture the + stricken judge would be found in a large old-fashioned arm-chair, with + Clifford and Hepzibah flying through a doorway to the right, while Phoebe + and Holgrave, the one happy and the other startled, enter on the left. + </p> + <p> + Hepzibah, not Phoebe, is the true heroine of the romance,—or at + least its central figure. Nowhere do we look more deeply into Hawthorne’s + nature than through this sympathetic portrait of the cross-looking old + maid, whose only inheritance is the House of the Seven Gables, in which + she has lived many years, poor, solitary, friendless, with a disgrace upon + her family, only sustained by the hope that she may yet be a help and + comfort to her unfortunate brother. The jury before whom Clifford was + tried believed him to be guilty, but his sister never would believe it. + She lives for him and suffers with him. Hawthorne does not mitigate the + unpleasantness of her appearance, but he instructs us that there is a + divine spark glowing within. Very pitiful is her attempt to support the + enfeebled brother by keeping a candy store; but noble and heroic is her + resistance to the designs of her tyrannical cousin. It is her intrepidity + that effects the crisis of the drama. + </p> + <p> + Both Hepzibah and Clifford Pyncheon are examples of what fine portraiture + Hawthorne could accomplish in exceptional or abnormal personalities, + without ever descending to caricature. Judge Pyncheon has been criticised + as being too much of a stage villain, but the same might be alleged of + Shakespeare’s (or Fletcher’s) Richard III. What is he, in effect, but a + Richard III. reduced to private life? Moreover, his habit of smiling is an + individual trait which gives him a certain distinction of his own. + Usually, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Faces ever blandly smiling + Are victims of their own beguiling. +</pre> + <p> + But Judge Pyncheon is a candidate for the governorship, and among the more + mercenary class of politicians smiling often becomes a habit for the sake + of popularity. Hawthorne might have added something to the judge’s <i>personale</i> + by representing him with a droll wit, like James Fiske, Jr., or some + others that we have known, and he might have exposed more of his internal + reflections; but he serves as a fair example of the hard, grasping, + hypocritical type of Yankee. We see only one side of him, but there are + men, and women too, who only have one side to their characters. + </p> + <p> + It has been affirmed that Hawthorne made use of the Honorable Mr. Upham, + the excellent historian of Salem witchcraft, as a model for Judge + Pyncheon, and that this was done in revenge for Mr. Upham’s inimical + influence in regard to the Salem surveyorship. It is impossible, at this + date, to disentangle the snarl of Hawthorne’s political relations in + regard to that office, but Upham had been a member of Congress and was + perhaps as influential a Whig as any in the city. If Hawthorne was removed + through his instrumentality, he performed our author a service, which + neither of them could have realized at the time. Hawthorne, however, had a + strong precedent in his favor in this instance; namely, Shakespeare’s + caricature of Sir Thomas Luce, as Justice Shallow in “The Merry Wives of + Windsor”; but there is no reason why we should think better or worse of + Mr. Upham on this account. + </p> + <p> + Phoebe Pyncheon is an ideal character, the type of youthful New England + womanhood, and the most charming of all Hawthorne’s feminine creations. + Protected by the shield of her own innocence, she leaves her country home + from the same undefined impulse by which birds fly north in spring, and + accomplishes her destiny where she might have least expected to meet with + it. She fills the whole book with her sunny brightness, and like many a + young woman at her age she seems more like a spirit than a character. Her + maidenly dignity repels analysis, and Hawthorne himself extends a wise + deference to his own creation. + </p> + <p> + The future of a great nation depends more on its young women than upon its + laws or its statesmen. + </p> + <p> + In regard to Holgrave, we have already said somewhat; but he is so + lifelike that it seems as if he must have been studied from one of the + younger members of the Brook Farm association; perhaps the one of whom + Emerson tells us, {Footnote: Lecture on Brook Farm.} that he spent his + leisure hours in playing with the children, but had “so subtle a mind” + that he was always consulted whenever important business was on foot. He + is visible to our mental perspective as a rather slender man, above medium + height, with keen hazel eyes, a long nose, and long legs, and quick and + lively in his movements. Phoebe has a more symmetrical figure, bluish-gray + eyes, a complexion slightly browned from going without her hat, luxuriant + chestnut-brown hair, always quiet and graceful. We have no doubt that + Holgrave made a worthy husband for her, and that he occasionally took a + hand in public affairs. + </p> + <p> + Judge Pyncheon’s duplicity is revealed to Holgrave by the medium of a + daguerreotype. Men or women who are actors in real life should avoid being + photographed, for the camera is pretty sure to penetrate their hypocrisy, + and expose them to the world as they actually are. Every photograph album + is to a certain extent a rogues’ gallery, in which our faults, + peculiarities, and perhaps vices are ruthlessly portrayed for the student + of human nature. If a merchant were to have all his customers + photographed, he would soon learn to distinguish those who were not much + to be trusted. + </p> + <p> + Notice also Hawthorne’s eye for color. When Clifford, Hepzibah, and Phoebe + are about to leave the seven-gabled house for the last time, “A plain, but + handsome dark-green barouche” is drawn to the door. This is evidently his + idea of a fine equipage; and it happens that the background of Raphael’s + “Pope Julius” is of this same half-invisible green, and harmonizes so well + with the Pope’s figure that few realize its coloring. + </p> + <p> + The plot of this picturesque story is the most ingenious of Hawthorne’s + life, but sufficiently probable throughout to answer the purpose of a + romance, and it is the only one of Hawthorne’s larger works which ends + happily. It was brought out by Ticknor & Company at Easter 1850,—less + than ten weeks after it was finished; but we think of the House of the + Seven Gables as standing empty, deserted and forlorn. + </p> + <p> + In December Emerson had written to Hawthorne concerning a new magazine in + which he and Lowell were interested, and if Hawthorne would only give it + his support its success could not be questioned. What Hawthorne replied to + this invitation has never been discovered, but he had seen too many such + periodicals go to wreck to feel much confidence in this enterprise. + {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 381.} It is of more importance now that + Emerson should have addressed him as “My dear Hawthorne,” for such cordial + friendliness was rare in “the poet of the pines.” Mrs. Alcott once + remarked that Emerson never spoke to her husband otherwise than as “Mr. + Alcott,” and it is far from likely that he ever spoke to Hawthorne + differently from this. The conventionalities of letter-writing run back to + a period when gentlemen addressed one another—and perhaps felt so + too—in a more friendly manner than they do at present. + </p> + <p> + Works of fiction and sentimental poetry stir up a class of readers which + no other literature seems to reach, and Hawthorne was soon inundated with + letters from unknown, and perhaps unknowable, admirers; but the most + remarkable came from a man named Pyncheon, who asserted that his + grandfather had been a judge in Salem, and who was highly indignant at the + use which Hawthorne had made of his name. {Footnote: Conway, 135.} This + shows how difficult it is for a writer of fiction or a biographer to + escape giving offence. The lightning is sure to strike somewhere. + </p> + <p> + “THE SNOW IMAGE” + </p> + <p> + The question now was, what next? As it happened, the next important event + in the Hawthorne family was the advent of their younger daughter, born + like Agassiz, “in the lovely month of May,” and amid scenery as beautiful + as the Pays de Vaud. Her father named her Rose, in defiance of Hillard’s + objection to idyllic nomenclature; and as a child she seemed much like the + spirit of that almost fabulous flower, the wild orange-rose. Ten years + later, she was the most graceful girl in the Concord dancing-school, and + resembled her elder sister so closely that they could not have been + mistaken for anything but sisters. As she grew older she came more and + more to resemble her mother. + </p> + <p> + It was said that Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book” originated in his telling free + versions of the Greek myths to his children on winter evenings; and also + that Horace Mann’s boys, who were almost exactly of the same age as Una + and Julian, participated in the entertainment. This may have happened the + following winter at Newton, but could hardly have taken place at Lenox; + and otherwise it is quite impossible to identify all the children with + botanical names in Hawthorne’s introduction. Julian once remarked, at + school, that he believed that he was the original of Squash-blossom, and + that is as near as we can get to it. Some of them may have been as + imaginary as the ingenious Mr. Eustace Bright, and might serve as well to + represent one group of children as another. + </p> + <p> + The book was written very rapidly, at an average of ten pages a day, and + it has Hawthorne’s grace and purity of style, but it does not belong to + the legitimate series of his works. It is an excellent book for the young, + for they learn from it much that every one ought to know; but to mature + minds the original fables, even in a translation, are more satisfactory + than these Anglo-Saxon versions in the “Wonder Book.” + </p> + <p> + The collection of tales which passes by the name of “The Snow Image” is a + much more serious work. “The Great Stone Face” and one or two others in + the collection were prepared at Salem for the same volume as “The Scarlet + Letter,” but judiciously excluded by Mr. Fields. “The Snow Image” itself, + however, is plainly derived from Hawthorne’s own experience during the + winter at Lenox. The common-sensible farmer and his poetic wife could not + be mistaken for Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne, but the two sportive children are + easily identified as Una and Julian. They are not only of the same age, + but the “slight graceful girl” and “chubby red-cheeked boy” describes them + exactly. The idea has been derived from the fable of the Greek sculptor + Pygmalion whose statue came to life. That seems far enough off to be + pleasantly credible, but to have such a transubstantiation take place in + the front yard of a white-fenced American residence, is rather startling. + Yet Hawthorne, with the help of the twilight, carries us through on the + broad wings of his imagination, even to the melting of the little + snow-sister before an airtight stove in a close New England parlor. The + moral that Hawthorne draws from this fable might be summed up in the old + adage, “What is one man’s meat is another man’s poison”; but it has a + deeper significance, which the author does not seem to have perceived. The + key-note of the fable is the same as that in Goethe’s celebrated ballad, + “The Erl King”; namely, that those things which children imagine, are as + real to them as the facts of the external world. Nor do we altogether + escape from this so long as we live. + </p> + <p> + The origin of “The Great Stone Face” is readily traced to the profile face + in the Franconia Mountains,—which has not only a strangely human + appearance, but a grave dignified expression, and, as a natural + phenomenon, ranks next to Niagara Falls. The value of the fable, however, + has perhaps been over-estimated. It is an old story in a modern garb, the + saying so often repeated in the Book of Isaiah: “The last shall be first, + and the first shall be last.” The man Ernest, who is much in his ways like + Hawthorne himself, spends his leisure in contemplating the Great Stone + Face, and thus acquires a similar expression in his own. The wealthy + merchant, the famous general, the great party leader, and the popular + poet, all come upon the scene; but not one of them appears to advantage + before the tranquil countenance of the Great Stone Face. Finally, Ernest + in his old age carries off the laurel; and in this Hawthorne hits the + mark, for it is only through earnestness that man becomes immortal. Yet, + one would suppose that constantly gazing at a face of stone, would give + one a rather stony expression; as sculptors are liable to become + statuesque from their occupation. + </p> + <p> + Another Dantean allegory, and fully equal in power to any Canto in Dante’s + “Inferno,” is the story of “Ethan Brandt,” or “The Unpardonable Sin.” We + have a clew to its origin in the statement that it was part of an + unfinished romance; presumably commenced at Concord, but afterward + discarded, owing to the author’s dissatisfaction with his work—an + illustration of Hawthorne’s severe criticism of his own writing. The scene + is laid at a limekiln in a dark and gloomy wood, where a lime-burner, far + from human habitations, is watching his fires at night. To him Ethan + Brandt appears, a strange personage, long known for his quest after the + unpardonable sin, and the solitude echoes back the gloominess of their + conversation. Finally, the lime-burner fixes his fires for the night, + rolls himself up in his blanket, and goes to sleep. When he awakes in the + morning, the stranger is gone, but, on ascending the kiln to look at his + caldron, he finds there the skeleton of a man, and between its ribs a + heart of white marble. This is the unpardonable sin, for which there is + neither dispensation nor repentance. Ethan Brandt has committed suicide + because life had become intolerable on such conditions. + </p> + <p> + The summer of 1851 in Lenox was by no means brilliant. It had not yet + become the tip end of fashion, and Hawthorne’s chief entertainment seems + to have been the congratulatory letters he received from distinguished + people. Mrs. Frances Kemble wrote to him from England, announcing the + success of his book there, and offering him the use of her cottage, a more + palatial affair than Mrs. Tappan’s, for the ensuing winter. Mrs. + Hawthorne, however, felt the distance between herself and her relatives, + and perhaps they both felt it. Mrs. Hawthorne’s sister Mary, now Mrs. + Horace Mann, was living in West Newton, and the last of June Mrs. + Hawthorne went to her for a long summer visit, taking her two daughters + with her and leaving Julian in charge of his father, with whom it may be + affirmed he was sufficiently safe. It rarely happens that a father and son + are so much together as these two were, and they must have become very + strongly attached. + </p> + <p> + For older company he had Hermann Melville, and G. P. R. James, whose + society he may have found as interesting as that of more distinguished + writers, and also Mr. Tappan, whom Hawthorne had learned to respect for + his good sense and conciliatory disposition—a true peace-maker among + men and women. Burill Curtis, the amateur brother of George W. Curtis, + came to sketch the lake from Hawthorne’s porch, and Doctor Holmes turned + up once or twice. On July 24 Hawthorne wrote to his friend Pike at Salem: + {Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 151.} + </p> + <p> + “By the way, if I continue to prosper as heretofore in the literary line, + I shall soon be in a condition to buy a place; and if you should hear of + one, say worth from $1500 to $2000, I wish you would keep your eye on it + for me. I should wish it to be on the seacoast, or at all events with easy + access to the sea.” + </p> + <p> + The evident meaning of this is that the Hawthornes had no desire to spend + a second winter in the Berkshire hills. The world was large, but he knew + not where to rest his head. Mrs. Hawthorne solved the problem on her + return to Lenox, and it was decided to remove to West Newton when cold + weather came. Thither they went November 21 in a driving storm of snow and + sleet,—a parting salute from old Berkshire,—and reached Horace + Mann’s house the same evening. + </p> + <p> + Nobody knows where the Hawthornes lived in Newton. The oldest survivors of + both families were only five years of age at that time. Mrs. Hawthorne’s + father also resided in Newton that winter, and it is more than likely that + they made their residence with him. Julian Hawthorne has a distinct + recollection of the long freight-trains with their clouds of black smoke + blowing across his father’s ground during the winter; so they could not + have lived very far from the Worcester railroad. Horace Mann’s house is + still standing, opposite a school-house on the road from the station, + where a by-way meets it at an acute angle. The freight-trains and their + anthracite smoke must have had a disturbing influence on Hawthorne’s + sensibility. + </p> + <p> + The long-extended town of Newton, which is now a populous city, has much + the best situation of any of the Boston suburbs—on a moderately high + range of hills, skirted by the Charles River, both healthful and + picturesque. It is not as hot in summer nor so chilly at other seasons as + Concord, and enjoys the advantage of a closer proximity to the city. Its + society is, and always has been, more liberal and progressive than Salem + society in Hawthorne’s time. Its citizens, mainly professional and + mercantile men, are active, intelligent, and sensible, without being too + fastidious. It was a healthful change for Hawthorne, and we are not + surprised to find that his literary work was affected by it. Mrs. L. Maria + Child lived there at the time, and so did Celia Thaxter, although not yet + known to fame. The sound, penetrating intelligence of Horace Mann may have + also had its salutary effect. + </p> + <p> + “THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE” + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book” and “The Snow Image” were expressed to Ticknor + & Company before leaving Lenox, and “The Blithedale Romance” may also + have been commenced before that change of base. We only know, from his + diary, that it was finished on the last day of April, 1852, and that he + received the first proof-sheets of it two weeks later—which shows + what expedition publishers can make, when they feel inclined. + </p> + <p> + The name itself is somewhat satirical, for Hawthorne did not find the life + at Brook Farm very blithesome, and in the story, with the exception of the + sylvan masquerade, there is much more rue than heart’s-ease, as commonly + happens in his stories. The tale ends tragically, and without the gleam of + distant happiness which lights up the last scenes of “The Scarlet Letter.” + It commences with a severe April snowstorm, an unfavorable omen; the same + in which Hawthorne set out to join the West Roxbury community. + </p> + <p> + And yet the name is not without a serious meaning—a stern, sad moral + significance. The earth is not naturally beautiful, for rank Nature ever + runs to an excess. It is only beautiful when man controls and remodels it; + but what man makes physically, he can unmake spiritually. We pass by a + handsome estate, a grand arcade of elms over its avenue, spacious lawns, + an elegant mansion, a luxurious flower-garden; but we are informed that + happiness does not dwell there, that its owner is a misanthropic person, + whose nature has been perverted by the selfishness of luxury; that there + are no pleasant parties on the lawn, no happy wooing in that garden, no + marriage festivals in those halls; and those possessions, which might have + proved a blessing to generations yet unborn, are no better than a curse + and a whited sepulchre. How many such instances could be named. + </p> + <p> + It may have occurred to Hawthorne, that, if George Ripley, instead of + following after a will-o’-the-wisp notion, which could only lead him into + a bog, had used the means at his disposal to cultivate Brook Farm in a + rational manner, and had made it a hospitable rendezvous for intellectual + and progressive people,—an oasis of culture amid the wide waste of + commercialism,—the place might well have been called Blithedale, and + Mr. Ripley would have inaugurated a movement as rare as it was beneficial. + It was only at a city like Boston, whose suburbs were pleasant and easily + accessible, that such a plan could be carried out; and it was only a man + of Mr. Ripley’s scholarship and intellectual acumen who could have drawn + together the requisite elements for it. It looks as if he missed an + opportunity. + </p> + <p> + We should avoid, however, confounding George Ripley with Hawthorne’s + Hollingsworth. It is quite possible that Hawthorne made use of certain + traits in Ripley’s character for this purpose, and also that he may have + had some slight collision with him, such as he represents in “The + Blithedale Romance;” but Ripley was an essentially veracious nature, who, + as already remarked, carried out his experiment to its logical conclusion. + Hollingsworth, on the contrary, proposes to pervert the trust confided to + him, in order to establish at Blithedale an institution for the + reformation of criminals, by which proceeding he would, after a fashion, + become a criminal himself. At the same time, he plays fast and loose with + the affections of Zenobia and Priscilla, who are both in love with him, + designing to marry the one who would make the most favorable match for his + purpose. It is through the junction of these two streams of evil that the + catastrophe is brought about. + </p> + <p> + Priscilla is evidently taken from the little seamstress whom Hawthorne + mentions in his diary for October 9, 1841, and if she ever discovered + this, she could hardly have been displeased, for she is one of his most + lovable creations; not so much of an ideal as Phoebe Pyncheon, for she is + older and has already seen hard fortune. Her quiet, almost submissive ways + at first excite pity rather than admiration, but at length we discover + that there is a spirit within her, which shines through its earthly + envelope, like the twinkling of a star. + </p> + <p> + Zenobia has a larger nature and a more gifted mind than Priscilla, but + also a more mixed character. Her name suggests a queenly presence and she + is fully conscious of this. She does not acquire an equal influence over + the other sex, for she is evidently in love with herself. She is described + as handsome and attractive, but no sooner had “Blithedale” been published + than people said, “Margaret Fuller” {Footnote: the name of Zenobia is not + very remotely significant of Margaret Fuller. Palmyra was the centre of + Greek philosophy in Zenobia’s time, and she also resembled Margaret in her + tragical fate.}—although Margaret Fuller was rather plain looking, + and never joined the Brook Farm association. + </p> + <p> + If this surmise be correct, it leads to a curious consideration. After + painting a portrait of Zenobia in Chapter VI of “Blithedale,” quite worthy + of Rubens or Titian, he remarks, through the incognito of Miles Coverdale, + in the first part of Chapter VII, that Priscilla reminds him of Margaret + Fuller, and says this to Priscilla herself. Now it proves in the sequel + that Priscilla and Zenobia are half-sisters, but it would be as difficult + to imagine this from anything that is said in the story about them, as it + is to understand how the shy, undemonstrative Priscilla could have + reminded Coverdale of the brilliant and aggressive leader of the + Transcendentalists. + </p> + <p> + The introduction of Margaret Fuller’s name in that place comes abruptly on + the reader, and momentarily dispels the illusion of the tale. Was + Hawthorne conscious of the undercurrent of relationship, which he had + already formulated in his mind, between Priscilla and Zenobia; or what is + more likely, did he make the comparison in order to lead his readers away + from any conceptions they might have formed in regard to the original of + his heroine? If the latter supposition be true, he certainly was not very + successful, for in either case it is evident that Margaret Fuller was + prominent in his thoughts at the time he wrote those two chapters. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s idea of her, however, should not be accepted as a finality. + What Emerson and other friends have said concerning her should also be + considered in order to obtain a just impression of a woman who combined + more varied qualities than perhaps any other person of that time. + Hawthorne says of Zenobia, that she was naturally a stump oratoress,—rather + an awkward expression for him—and that “her mind was full of weeds.” + Margaret Fuller was a natural orator, and her mind was full of many + subjects in which Hawthorne could take little interest. She was a + revolutionary character, a sort of female Garibaldi, who attacked old + Puritan traditions with a two-edged sword; she won victories for + liberalism, but left confusion behind her. Like all such characters, she + made friends and enemies wherever she went. She sometimes gave offence by + hasty impulsive utterances, but more frequently by keenly penetrating + arguments for the various causes which she espoused. Only a woman could + deliver such telling shots. + </p> + <p> + Lowell, who was fond of an argument himself, did not like her better than + Hawthorne did. There may be some truth in what he says in “The Fable for + Critics,” that the expression of her face seemed to suggest a life-long + familiarity with the “infinite soul”; but Margaret Fuller was sound at + heart, and when she talked on those subjects which interested her, no one + could be more self-forgetful or thoroughly in earnest. At times, she + seemed like an inspired prophetess, and if she had lived two thousand + years earlier, she might have been remembered as a sibyl. {Footnote: See + Appendix B.} + </p> + <p> + “The Blithedale Romance” is written with a freer pen and less carefully + than “The House of the Seven Gables,” and is so much the better; for the + author’s state of mind in which he is writing will always affect the + reader more or less, and if the former feels under a slight constraint the + latter will also. A writer cannot be too exact in ascertaining the truth,—Macaulay + to the contrary,—but he can trouble himself too much as to the + expression of it. At the same time, “The Blithedale Romance” is the least + poetic of Hawthorne’s more serious works (which is the same as saying that + it is more like a novel), for the reason that Hawthorne in this instance + was closer to his subject. It is also more of a personal reminiscence, and + less an effort of the imagination. He has included in it a number of + descriptive passages taken from his Brook Farm diary; most notably the + account of that sylvan masquerade, in which Coverdale finds his former + associates engaged on his return to Blithedale in the autumn. Perhaps this + is the reason why the book has so pleasant a flavor—a mellow + after-thought of old associations. + </p> + <p> + An air of mystery adds an enchantment to a work of art, whether in poetry, + painting, or sculpture,—perhaps also in music; but there is a + difference in kind between mystery and uncertainty. We do not like to be + left half in the dark, in regard to things which we think we ought to + know. There is a break in Hawthorne’s chain of evidence against + Hollingsworth and Zenobia, which might possibly have been filled to + advantage. He would certainly have been non-suited, if his case had been + carried into court. We are permitted to suppose that Zenobia, in order to + clear her path of a successful rival, assists the mountebank, Westervelt, + to entrap Priscilla, over whom he possesses a kind hypnotic power, and to + carry her off for the benefit of his mountebank exhibitions; but it + remains a supposition and nothing more. We cannot but feel rejoiced, when + Hollingsworth steps onto the platform and releases Priscilla from the + psychological net-work in which she is involved, and from which she has + not sufficient will-power to free herself. He certainly deserves her hand + and fortune; but, as to his condemnatory charges against Zenobia, which + led directly to her suicide,—what could they have been? Was there + nothing more than the trick she had attempted upon Priscilla? And if he + accused her of that only, why should he suffer perpetual remorse on + account of her death? Surely there was need of further explanation here, + for the catastrophe and its consequences are out of all proportion to the + apparent cause. + </p> + <p> + His account of the recovery of Zenobia’s body is a close transcript of the + search for that unfortunate school-mistress, who drowned herself in + Concord River; and it is possible that, if Hawthorne had not been present + on that occasion, the plot might have terminated in some other manner. + </p> + <p> + The story closes without a ray of hope for Hollingsworth; but the reader + can perceive one in the generous devotion of his single-minded wife, even + if Hawthorne did not. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XII. — THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: 1852-1854 + </h2> + <p> + Why Hawthorne returned to Concord in 1852 is more of a mystery than the + suicide of Zenobia. Horace Mann also left Newton, to be President of + Antioch College (and to die there in the cause of feminine education), in + the autumn of that year; but this could hardly have been expected six + months earlier. Hawthorne was not very favorably situated at Newton, being + rather too near the railroad; but there was plenty of land on the top of + the hill, where he might have built himself a house, and in the course of + twelve years his property would have quadrupled in value. A poet will not + be less of a poet, but more so, for understanding the practical affairs of + life. Or he might have removed to Cambridge, where Longfellow, always + foremost in kind offices, would have been like a guardian angel to him, + and where he could have made friends like Felton and Agassiz, who would + have been much more in harmony with his political views. Ellery Channing + was the only friend he appears to have retained in Concord, and it was not + altogether a favorable place to bring up his children; but the natural + topography of Concord is unusually attractive, and it may be suspected + that he was drawn thither more from the love of its pine solitudes and + shimmering waters, than from any other motive. + </p> + <p> + The house he purchased was nearly a mile from the centre of the town, and + has ever since been known by the name of the Wayside. After Hawthorne’s + return from Europe in 1860, he remodelled it somewhat, so that it has a + more dignified aspect than when he first took possession of it. Alcott, + who occupied it for some years previously, had adorned it with that + species of rustic architecture in which he was so skilful. The house was + half surrounded by a group of locust trees, much in fashion seventy years + ago, and had been set so close against the hill-side, that a thicket of + stunted pines and other wild growth rose above the roof like a crest. + Bronson Alcott was his next-door neighbor,—almost too strong a + contrast to him,—and Emerson’s house was half a mile away; so that + these three families formed a group by themselves in that portion of + Concord. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, describing his new + acquisition, and expressing satisfaction in it. It was the first house + that he had ever owned; and it is no small comfort to a man to live under + his own roof, even though it be a humble one. At this time, however, he + did not remain at the Wayside but a single year. After that, the house + stood empty until the untimely death of Horace Mann, August 2, 1859, when + Mrs. Mann came to Concord with her three boys, and occupied it until + Hawthorne’s return from Europe. + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: THE WAYSIDE} + </p> + <p> + It may as well be noticed here, that, during the eight years which + Hawthorne spent altogether in Concord, he accomplished little literary + work, and none of any real importance. It is impossible to account for + this, except upon those psychological conditions which sometimes affect + delicately balanced minds. Whether the trouble was in the social + atmosphere of the place, or in its climatic conditions, perhaps Hawthorne + himself could not have decided; but there must have been a reason for it + of some description. Julian Hawthorne states that his father had a plan at + this time of writing another romance, of a more cheerful tone than “The + Blithedale Romance,” but the full current of his poetic activity was + suddenly brought to a standstill by an event that nobody would have + dreamed of. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne had hardly established himself in his new abode, when Franklin + Pierce was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic party. The whole + country was astonished, for no such nomination had ever been made before, + and it is probable that Pierce himself shared largely in this. The New + Hampshire delegation had presented his name to the convention, in order to + procure him distinction in his own State, but without expectation that he + would become a serious candidate. Like the nomination of Hayes in 1876, it + resulted from the jealousy of the great party leaders,—always an + unfortunate position for a public man to be placed in. Theodore Parker + said, “Any one is now in danger of becoming President.” + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne evidently felt this, for he wrote to Bridge, “I do not consider + Pierce the brightest man in the country, for there are twenty more so.” It + would have been a mild statement if he had said two hundred. Pierce wanted + him, of course, to write a campaign biography, and communicated with him + to that effect; but Hawthorne disliked meddling in such matters, and at + first declined to do it, although it was expected to be highly + remunerative. Pierce, however, insisted, for Hawthorne’s reputation was + now much beyond his own, and he felt that a biography by so distinguished + a writer would confer upon him great dignity in the eyes of the world; and + as Hawthorne felt already much indebted to Pierce, he finally consented,—although + a cheap spread-eagle affair would have served the purpose of his party + quite as well. The book had to be written in haste, and just at the time + when Hawthorne wished to take a little leisure. There were so few salient + points in Pierce’s life, that it was almost like making a biography out of + nothing, and as for describing him as a hero, that was quite impossible. + It was fortunate that he knew so much of Pierce’s early life, and also + that Pierce had kept a diary during the Mexican War, which formed a + considerable portion of the biography. + </p> + <p> + The book is worth reading, although written in this prosaic manner. + Hawthorne states in the preface, frankly and manfully, that he objected to + writing it, and this ought to be an excuse sufficient for his doing so—if + excuse be needed. He does not attempt to represent his friend as a great + statesman, but rather as a patriotic country gentleman, who is interested + in public affairs, and who rises from one honorable position to another + through a well-deserved popularity. This would seem to have been the + truth; and yet there was a decided inconsistency in Franklin Pierce’s + life, which Hawthorne represents plainly enough, although he makes no + comment thereon. + </p> + <p> + Franklin Pierce’s father was captain of a militia company in 1798, when + war was declared against the French Directory, for seizing and + confiscating American merchant ships, contrary to the law of nations. + There could not have been a more just occasion for war, but Captain Pierce + resigned his commission, because he considered it wrong to fight against a + republic; and Hawthorne approves of him for this. Franklin Pierce, + however, resigned his seat in the Senate in 1842, on account of the + interests of his family, alleging that “he would never enter public life + again, unless the needs of his country imperatively demanded it,” yet four + years later he organized a regiment for the invasion of Mexico,—not + only for making war upon a republic, but an unjust and indefensible war. + General Grant’s opinion ought to be conclusive on this latter point, for + he belonged to the same political party as Pierce and Hawthorne. + Certainly, Pierce’s services were not required for the defence of his + native land. + </p> + <p> + To do Hawthorne justice, there can be no doubt that in his heart he + disapproved of this; for in one of his sketches written at the Old Manse, + he speaks censoriously of “those adventurous spirits who leave their homes + to emigrate to Texas.” He evidently foresaw that trouble would arise in + that direction, and perhaps Ellery Channing assisted him in penetrating + the true inwardness of the movement. + </p> + <p> + It will be remembered that in Franklin Pierce’s youth, he was + exceptionally interested in military manoeuvres, and this may have been + one of the inducements which led him into the Mexican War; but young men + who are fond of holiday epaulets do not, for obvious reasons, make the + best fighters. Pierce’s military career was not a distinguished one; for, + whether he was thrown from his horse in his first engagement, or, as the + Whigs alleged, fell from it as soon as he came under fire, it is certain + that he did not cover himself with glory, as the phrase was at that time. + But we can believe Hawthorne, when he tells us that Pierce took good + charge of the troops under his command, and that he was kind and + considerate to sick and wounded soldiers. That was in accordance with his + natural character. + </p> + <p> + It was impossible at that time to avoid the slavery question in dealing + with political subjects, and what Hawthorne said on this point, in the + life of General Pierce, attracted more attention than the book itself. + Like Webster he considered slavery an evil, but he believed it to be one + of those evils which the human race outgrows, by progress in civilization,—like + the human sacrifices of the Gauls perhaps,—and he greatly deprecated + the anti-slavery agitation, which only served to inflame men’s minds and + make them unreasonable. + </p> + <p> + There were many sensible persons in the Northern States at that time, like + Hawthorne and Hillard, who sincerely believed in this doctrine, but they + do not seem to have been aware that there was a pro-slavery agitation at + the South which antedated Garrison’s <i>Liberator</i> and which was much + more aggressive and vehement than the anti-slavery movement, because there + were large pecuniary interests connected with it. The desperate grasping + of the slave-holders for new territory, first in the Northwest and then in + the Southwest, was not because they were in any need of land, but because + new slave States increased their political power. Horatio Bridge says, + relatively to this subject: + </p> + <p> + “No Northern man had better means for knowing the dangers impending, + previous to the outbreak of the war, than had General Pierce. Intimately + associated—as he was—with the strong men of the South, in his + Cabinet and in Congress, he saw that the Southerners were determined, at + all hazards, to defend their peculiar institution of slavery, which was + imperilled by the abolitionists.” + </p> + <p> + If Franklin Pierce was desirous of preserving the Union, why did he give + Jefferson Davis a place in his Cabinet, and take him for his chief + adviser? Davis was already a pronounced secessionist, and had been + defeated in his own State on that issue. In subserviency to Southern + interests, no other Northern man ever went so far as Franklin Pierce, nor + did Garrison himself accomplish so much toward the dissolution of the + Union. He was an instance in real life of Goldsmith’s “good-natured man,” + and the same qualities which assisted him to the position of President + prevented his administration from being a success. Presidents ought to be + made of firmer and sterner material. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne had barely finished with the proofs of this volume, when he + received the saddest, most harrowing news that ever came to him. After her + mother’s death, in 1849, Louisa Hawthorne had gone to live with her aunt, + Mrs. John Dike; and in July, 1852, Mr. Dike went with her on an excursion + to Saratoga and New York City. On the morning of July 27, they left Albany + on the steamboat “Henry Clay,” which, as is well known, never reached its + destination. When nearing Yonkers, a fire broke out near the engines, + where the wood-work was saturated with oil, and instantly the centre of + the vessel was in a bright blaze. Mr. Dike happened to be on the forward + deck at the moment, but Louisa Hawthorne was in the ladies’ cabin, and it + was impossible to reach her. The captain of the Henry Clay immediately ran + the vessel on shore, so that Mr. Dike and those who were with him escaped + to land, but Louisa and more than seventy others, who threw themselves + into the water, were drowned. It would seem to have been impossible to + save her. + </p> + <p> + The death of Hawthorne’s mother may be said to have come in the course of + Nature, and his mind was prepared for it; but Louisa had been the playmate + of his childhood, and her death seemed as unnecessary as it was sharp and + sudden. It happened almost on the third anniversary of his mother’s death, + and these were the only two occasions in Hawthorne’s life, when the Dark + Angel hovered about his door. + </p> + <p> + Rebecca Manning says: “Louisa Hawthorne was a most delightful, lovable, + interesting woman—not at all ‘commonplace,’ as has been stated. Her + death was a great sorrow to all her friends. Her name was Maria Louisa, + and she was often called Maria by her mother and sister and aunts.” + </p> + <p> + Depressed and unnerved, in the most trying season of the year, Hawthorne + went in the latter part of August to visit Franklin Pierce at Concord, New + Hampshire; but there a severe torrid wave came on, so that Pierce advised + him to go at once to the Isles of Shoals, promising to follow in a few + days, if his numerous engagements would permit him. + </p> + <p> + The Isles of Shoals have the finest summer climate on the Atlantic Ocean; + an atmosphere at once quieting and strengthening, and always at its best + when it is hottest on the main-land. Hawthorne found a pair of friends + ready-made there, and prepared to receive him,—Levi Thaxter, + afterwards widely known as the apostle of Browning in America, and his + wife, Celia, a poetess in the bud, only sixteen, but very bright, + original, and pleasant. They admired Hawthorne above all living men, and + his sudden advent on their barren island seemed, as Thaxter afterward + expressed it, like a supernatural presence. They became good companions in + the next two weeks; climbing the rocks, rowing from one island to another,—bald + pieces of rock, like the summits of mountains rising above the surface of + the sea,—visiting the light-house, the monument to Captain John + Smith, Betty Moody’s Cave, the graves of the Spanish sailors, the trap + dikes of ancient lava, and much else. Every day Hawthorne wrote a minute + account in his diary of his various proceedings there, including the + observation of a live shark, which came into the cove by the hotel, a rare + spectacle on that coast. General Pierce did not make his appearance, + however, and on September 15, Hawthorne returned to his own home. + </p> + <p> + The election of Pierce to the presidency was as remarkable as his + nomination. In 1848, General Taylor, the victor of a single battle, but a + man of little education, was nominated for the presidency over the heads + of the finest orators and ablest statesmen in America, and was + enthusiastically elected. General Scott, Franklin Pierce’s opponent, + defeated the Mexicans in four decisive battles, captured the capital of + the country, and conducted one of the most skilful military expeditions of + the past century. He was a man of rare administrative ability, and there + is no substantial argument against his character. We have Grant’s + testimony that it was pleasant to serve under him. Yet he was + overwhelmingly defeated at the polls by a militia general without + distinction, military or civil. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne was naturally delighted at the result of the election; + unfortunate as it afterwards proved for his country. He derived a + threefold satisfaction from it, in the success of his friend, in the + defeat of the Whigs, and in the happy prospects which it opened for + himself. He could now return to the Salem Custom House in triumph,—as + the wisest man might be tempted to do,—but he looked forward to + something that would be more advantageous to his family. He had already + written on October 18 to Horatio Bridge: + </p> + <p> + “Before undertaking it {the biography} I made an inward resolution, that I + should accept no office from him; but, to say the truth, I doubt whether + it would not be rather folly than heroism to adhere to this purpose, in + case he should offer me anything particularly good. We shall see. A + foreign mission I could not afford to take. The consulship at Liverpool, I + might.” {Footnote: Bridge 130} + </p> + <p> + We may conclude from this, that Pierce had already intimated the Liverpool + consulate, which at that time was supposed to be worth twenty-five + thousand dollars a year in fees. It was an excellent plan for the + President of the United States to have such a gift at his disposal, to + reward some individual like Hawthorne, to whom the whole nation was + indebted to an extent that could never be repaid; but it is a question + whether it would not have been as well, in this particular case, for + Hawthorne to have remained in his own country. If he could have written + five or six romances more, this would have secured him a good competency, + and would have assured a sufficient income for his family after his death. + As it happened, the Liverpool consulate did not prove so profitable as was + anticipated. + </p> + <p> + With such “great expectations” before him, Hawthorne could do no serious + work that winter, so he occupied himself leisurely enough, with writing a + sequel to his “Wonder Book,” which he called “Tanglewood Tales,” + apparently after the thicket which surmounted the hill above his + residence. This was finished early in March, and given to Ticknor & + Company to publish when they saw fit. As it is a book intended for + children, the consideration of it need not detain us. + </p> + <p> + Early in April, 1853, Hawthorne was appointed and confirmed to the + Liverpool consulate, and on the 14th he went to Washington, as he tells + us, for the first time, to thank the President in person. Otherwise he has + divulged nothing concerning this journey, except that he was introduced to + a larger number of persons than he could remember the names or faces of, + and received ten times as many invitations as he could accept. If Charles + V. honored himself with posterity by picking up the paint-brush which + Titian had dropped on the floor, President Pierce might have done himself + equal credit by making Hawthorne his guest at the White House; but if he + did not go so far as this, it cannot be doubted that he treated Hawthorne + handsomely. There were giants at Washington in those days. Webster and + Clay were gone, but Seward was the Charles Fox and Sumner the Edmund Burke + of America; Chase and Marcy were not much less in intellectual stature. + Hawthorne must have met them, but we hear nothing of them from him. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne delayed his departure for England, until the most favorable + season arrived, for his fragile wife and infant children to cross the + “rolling forties.” At length, on July 6, two days after his forty-ninth + birthday, he sailed from Boston in the “Niagara,” and with <i>placida onda + prospero il vento</i>, in about twelve days they all arrived safely at + their destination. + </p> + <p> + The great stone docks of Liverpool, extending along its whole water-front, + give one a strong impression of the power and solidity of England. + Otherwise the city is almost devoid of interest, and travellers + customarily pass through it, to take the next train for Oxford or London, + without further observation, unless it be to give a look at the + conventional statue of Prince Albert on an Arab horse. Liverpool is not so + foggy a place as London, but it has a damper and less pleasant climate, + without those varied attractions and substantial enjoyments which make + London one of the most pleasant residences and most interesting of cities. + </p> + <p> + London fog is composed of soft-coal smoke, which, ascending from + innumerable chimneys, is filtered in the upper skies, and then, mixed with + vapor, is cast back upon the city by every change of wind. It is not + unpleasant to the taste, and seems to be rather healthful than otherwise; + but all the vapors which sail down the Gulf Stream, and which are not + condensed on the Irish coast in the form of rain, collect about the mouth + of the Mersey, so that the adjacent country is the best watered portion of + all England, Cornwall possibly excepted. There is plenty of wealth in + Liverpool, and all kinds of private entertainments, but in no other city + of its size are there so few public entertainments, and the only + interesting occupation that a stranger might find there, would be to watch + the strange and curious characters in the lower classes, faces and figures + that cannot be caricatured, emerging from cellar-ways or disappearing + through side-doors. Go into an alehouse in the evening and, beside the + pretty barmaid, who deserves consideration as much for her good behavior + as for her looks, you will see plainly enough where Dickens obtained his + <i>dramatis personae</i> for “Barnaby Rudge” and “The Old Curiosity Shop.” + Either in Liverpool or in London you can see more grotesque comedy + characters in a day, than you could meet with in a year in America. These + poor creatures are pressed down, and squeezed out into what they are, + under the superincumbent weight of an enormous leisure class. + </p> + <p> + Such was the environment in which Hawthorne was obliged to spend the + ensuing four years. He soon, however, discovered a means to escape from + the monotonous and labyrinthine streets of the city, by renting an + imitation castle at Rock Ferry,—a very pretty place, much like Dobbs + Ferry, on the Hudson, although the river is not so fine,—where his + wife and children enjoyed fresh air, green grass, and all the sunshine + attainable, and whence he could reach the consulate every morning by the + Mersey boat. We find them located there before September 1. + </p> + <p> + Of the consulate itself, Hawthorne has given a minute pictorial + description in “Our Old Home,” from which the following extract is + especially pertinent to our present inquiry: + </p> + <p> + “The Consulate of the United States in my day, was located in Washington + Buildings (a shabby and smoke-stained edifice of four stories high, thus + illustriously named in honor of our national establishment), at the lower + corner of Brunswick Street, contiguous to the Goree Arcade, and in the + neighborhood of some of the oldest docks. This was by no means a polite or + elegant portion of England’s great commercial city, nor were the + apartments of the American official so splendid as to indicate the + assumption of much consular pomp on his part. A narrow and ill-lighted + staircase gave access to an equally narrow and ill-lighted passage-way on + the first floor, at the extremity of which, surmounting a door frame, + appeared an exceedingly stiff pictorial representation of the Goose and + Gridiron, according to the English idea of those ever-to-be-honored + symbols. The staircase and passage-way were often thronged of a morning, + with a set of beggarly and piratical-looking scoundrels (I do no wrong to + our countrymen in styling them so, for not one in twenty was a genuine + American), purporting to belong to our mercantile marine, and chiefly + composed of Liverpool Blackballers, and the scum of every maritime nation + on earth; such being the seamen by whose assistance we then disputed the + navigation of the world with England. These specimens of a most + unfortunate class of people were shipwrecked crews in quest of bed, board, + and clothing, invalids asking permits for the hospital, bruised and bloody + wretches complaining of ill-treatment by their officers, drunkards, + desperadoes, vagabonds, and cheats, perplexingly intermingled with an + uncertain proportion of reasonably honest men. All of them (save here and + there a poor devil of a kidnapped landsman in his shore-going rags) wore + red flannel shirts, in which they had sweltered or shivered throughout the + voyage, and all required consular assistance in one form or another.” + </p> + <p> + The position of an American consul in a large foreign seaport, especially + at Liverpool, is anything but a sinecure, and in fact requires a continual + exercise of judgment much beyond the average duties of a foreign minister. + The difficulty also of being continually obliged to distinguish between + true and false applications for charity, especially when the false are + greatly in excess of the true, and among a class of persons notably given + to mendacious tricks, is one of the most unpleasant conditions in which a + tender-hearted man can find himself. As curious studies in low life, the + rascality of these nautical mendicants may often have been interesting, + and even amusing, to Hawthorne, but as a steady pull they must have worn + hard on his nerves, even though his experienced clerk served as a + breakwater to a considerable portion. It has already been noticed that + Hawthorne was a conscientious office-holder, and he never trusted to + others any duties which he was able to attend to in person. Moreover, + although he was a man of reserved manners, there was an exceptionally + tender, sympathetic heart behind this impenetrable exterior, and it may be + suspected that he relieved many instances of actual distress, which could + not be brought within the government regulations. He may have suffered + like the ghost in Dickens’s “Haunted Man,” on account of those whom he + could not assist. It is certain that he aged more, in appearance at least, + during these four years, than at any similar period of his life. + </p> + <p> + It is no wonder, therefore, that, after a visit to the English lakes, the + following summer, Hawthorne wrote to his friend, Henry Bright, from + Liverpool: + </p> + <p> + “I have come back only for a day or two to this black and miserable hole. + I do not mean to apply these two adjectives to my consulate, but to the + whole of Liverpool.” + </p> + <p> + Yet it should be recollected that there were nearly a million of persons + in Liverpool, who were obliged to spend their lives there, for good and + evil fortune; and, as Emerson says, we can never think too lightly of our + own difficulties. + </p> + <p> + Neither did Hawthorne find the news from America particularly interesting. + On March 30, 1854, he wrote to Bridge: + </p> + <p> + “I like my office well enough, but my official duties and obligations are + irksome to me beyond expression. Nevertheless, the emoluments will be a + sufficient inducement to keep me here, though they are not above a quarter + part what some people suppose them. + </p> + <p> + “It sickens me to look back to America. I am sick to death of the + continual fuss and tumult and excitement and bad blood which we keep up + about political topics. If it were not for my children, I should probably + never return, but—after quitting office—should go to Italy, + and live and die there. If Mrs. Bridge and you would go too, we might form + a little colony amongst ourselves, and see our children grow up together. + But it will never do to deprive them of their native land, which I hope + will be a more comfortable and happy residence in their day than it has + been in ours.” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 65.} + </p> + <p> + The last sentence in this ought to be printed in italics, for it is the + essence of patriotism. The “fuss and tumult” in America were due, for the + time being, to the apple of discord which Douglas had cast into the + Senate, by his Kansas-Nebraska bill. Hawthorne was too far away to + distinguish the full force and insidious character of that measure, but if + he had been in Concord, we believe he would have recognized (as so many + did who never had before) the imminent danger to the Union, from the + repeated concessions to the slave power. After he had become disenthralled + from his allegiance to party, we find him in his letters to Bridge, taking + broad views on political subjects. + </p> + <p> + An event was soon to happen, well calculated to disenthrall him. The + Congress of 1854, after passing the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resolved, in + order to prove its democratic spirit, to economize in the representation + of our government to foreign powers. On April 14, the good-hearted, + theoretical O’Sullivan arrived in Liverpool, on his way to be minister to + Portugal, and warned Hawthorne that there was a bill before Congress to + reduce the consulate there to a salaried position. This was a terrible + damper on Hawthorne’s great expectations, and on April 17 he wrote again + to Bridge, protesting against the change: {Footnote: Bridge, 135, 136.} + </p> + <p> + “I trust, in Heaven’s mercy, that no change will be made as regards the + emoluments of the Liverpool consulate—unless indeed a salary is to + be given in addition to the fees, in which case I should receive it very + thankfully. This, however, is not to be expected; and if Liverpool is + touched at all, it will be to limit its emoluments by a fixed salary—which + will render the office not worth any man’s holding. It is impossible + (especially for a man with a family and keeping any kind of an + establishment) not to spend a vast deal of money here. The office, + unfortunately, is regarded as one of great dignity, and puts the holder on + a level with the highest society, and compels him to associate on equal + terms with men who spend more than my whole income on the mere + entertainments and other trimmings and embroidery of their lives. Then I + feel bound to exercise some hospitality towards my own countrymen. I keep + out of society as much as I decently can, and really practice as stern an + economy as I ever did in my life; but, nevertheless, I have spent many + thousands of dollars in the few months of my residence here, and cannot + reasonably hope to spend less than six thousand per annum, even after all + the expenditure of setting up an establishment is defrayed.” + </p> + <p> + In addition to this, he states that his predecessor in office, John J. + Crittenden, never received above fifteen thousand dollars in fees, of + which he saved less than half. + </p> + <p> + We can trust this to be the plain truth in regard to the Liverpool + consulate, and if twenty-five thousand a year was ever obtained from it, + there must have been some kind of deviltry in the business. Congress + proved inexorable,—as it might not have been, had Hawthorne + possessed the influence of a prominent politician like Crittenden. It was + a direct affront to the President from his own party, and Pierce did not + dare to veto the bill. + </p> + <p> + What O’Sullivan said to Hawthorne on other subjects may be readily + inferred from Hawthorne’s next letter to Bridge, in which he begs him to + remain in Washington for Pierce’s sake, and says: + </p> + <p> + “I feel a sorrowful sympathy for the poor fellow (for God’s sake don’t + show him this), and hate to have him left without one true friend, or one + man, who will speak a single honest word to him.” + </p> + <p> + It is not very clear how Horatio Bridge could counteract the influence of + Jefferson Davis and Caleb Cushing, but this shows that Franklin Pierce’s + weakness as an administrator was already painfully apparent to his + friends, and that even Hawthorne could no longer disguise it to himself. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIII. — HAWTHORNE IN ENGLAND: 1854-1858 + </h2> + <p> + Hawthorne’s life in England was too generally monotonous to afford many + salient points to his biographer. It was monotonous in his official + duties, in his pleasure-trips, and in his social experiences. He found one + good friend in Liverpool, Mr. Henry Bright, to whom he had already been + introduced in America, and he soon made another in Mr. Francis Bennoch, + who lived near the same city. They were both excellent men, and belonged + to that fine class of Englishmen who possess a comfortable income, but + live moderately, and prefer cultivating their minds and the society of + their friends, to clubs, yachting, horse-racing, and other forms of + external show. They were not distinguished, and were too sensible to + desire distinction. Henry Bright may have been the more highly favored in + Hawthorne’s esteem, but they both possessed that tact and delicacy of + feeling which is rare among Englishmen, and by accepting Hawthorne simply + as a man like themselves, instead of as a celebrity, they won that place + in his confidence from which so many had been excluded. + </p> + <p> + Otherwise, Hawthorne contracted no friendships among distinguished + Englishmen of letters, like that between Emerson and Carlyle; and from + first to last he saw little of them. He had no sooner landed than he was + greeted with a number of epistles from sentimental ladies, or authors of a + single publication, who claimed a spiritual kinship with him, because of + their admiration for his writings. One of them even addressed him as “My + dear brother.” These he filed away with a mental reservation to give the + writers as wide a circuit as he possibly could. He attended a respectable + number of dinner parties in both Liverpool and London, at which he + remained for the most part a silent and unobtrusive guest. He was not + favored with an invitation to Holland House, although he met Lady Holland + on one occasion, and has left a description of her, not more flattering + than others that have been preserved for us. He also met Macaulay and the + Brownings at Lord Houghton’s; but for once Macaulay would not talk. Mrs. + Browning evidently pleased Hawthorne very much. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, + ii. 129.} + </p> + <p> + The great lights of English literature besides these,—Tennyson, + Carlyle, Ruskin, Thackeray, Dickens,—he was never introduced to, + although he saw Tennyson in a picture-gallery at Manchester, and has left + a description of him, such as might endure to the end of time. Neither did + he make the acquaintance of those three luminaries, Froude, Marian Evans, + and Max Muller, who rose above the horizon, previous to his return to + America. That he was not presented at Court was a matter of course. There + was nothing which he could have cared for less. + </p> + <p> + After his return he published a volume of English sketches, which he + entitled “Our Old Home,” but he seems to have felt actually less at home + in England than in any other country that he visited. In that book, and + also in his diary, the even tenor of his discourse is interrupted here and + there by fits of irritability which disclose themselves in the use of + epithets such as one would hardly expect from the pen of Hawthorne. If we + apply to him the well-known proverb with respect to the Russians, we can + imagine that under similar conditions an inherited sailor-like tendency in + him came to the surface. We only remember one such instance in his + American Note-book, that in which he speaks of Thoreau’s having a face “as + homely as sin.” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: The general effect of Thoreau’s face was by no means + unpleasant.} + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne did not carry with him to Europe that narrow provincialism, + which asserts itself in either condemning or ridiculing everything that + differs essentially from American ways and methods. On the contrary, when + he compares the old country with the new,—for instance, the English + scenery with that of New England,—Hawthorne is usually as fair, + discriminating, and dispassionate as any one could wish, and perhaps more + so than some would desire. His judgment cannot be questioned in preferring + the American elm, with its wine-glass shape, to the rotund European + species; but he admires the English lake country above anything that he + has seen like it in his own land. “Centuries of cultivation have given the + English oak a domestic character,” while American trees are still to be + classed with the wild flowers which bloom beneath their outstretched arms. + </p> + <p> + Matthew Arnold spoke of his commentaries on England as the writing of a + man chagrined; but what could have chagrined Hawthorne there? The socially + ambitious man may become chagrined, if he finds that doors are closed to + him, and so may an unappreciated would-be genius. But Hawthorne’s position + as an author was already more firmly established than Matthew Arnold’s + ever could be; and as for social ambition, no writer since Shakespeare has + been so free from it. It seems more probable that the difficulty with + Hawthorne in this respect was due to his old position on the slavery + question, which now began to bear bitter fruit for him. All Englishmen at + that time, with the exception of Carlyle, Froude, and the nobility, were + very strongly anti-slavery,—the more so, as it cost them nothing to + have other men’s slaves liberated,—and the English are particularly + blunt, not to say <i>gauche</i>, in introducing topics of conversation + which are liable to become a matter of controversy. At the first + dinner-party I attended in London some thirty-odd years ago, I had + scarcely tasted the soup, before a gentleman opposite asked me: “What + progress are you making in the United States toward free trade? Can you + tell me, sir?” He might as well have asked me what progress we were making + in the direction of monarchy. Fortunately for Hawthorne, his good taste + prevented him from introducing the slavery question in his publications, + excepting in the life of Pierce, but for this same reason his English + acquaintances in various places were obliged to discover his opinions at + first hand, nor is it very likely that they were slow to do this. Phillips + and Garrison had been to England and through England, and their dignified + speeches had made an excellent impression. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell and + Whittier had spoken with no uncertain sound, protesting against what they + considered a great national evil. How did it happen that Hawthorne was an + exception? + </p> + <p> + Through his kind friend Mr. Bennoch, he fell in with a worthy whom it + would have been just as well to have avoided—the + proverbial-philosophy poet, Martin Farquhar Tupper; not a genuine poet, + nor considered as such by trustworthy critics, but such a good imitation, + that he persuaded himself and a large portion of the British public, + including Queen Victoria, that he was one. Hawthorne has given an account + of his visit to this man, {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 114.} second only + in value to his description of Tennyson; for it is quite as important for + us to recognize the deficiencies of the one, as it is to know the true + appearance of the other. It is an unsparing study of human nature, but if + a man places himself on a pedestal for all people to gaze at, it is just + this and nothing more that he has to expect. Hawthorne represents him as a + kindly, domestic, affectionate, bustling little man, who kept on bustling + with his hands and tongue, even while he was seated—a man of no + dignity of character or perception of his deficiency of it. This all does + well enough, but when Hawthorne says, “I liked him, and laughed in my + sleeve at him, and was utterly weary of him; for certainly he is the ass + of asses,” we feel that he has gone too far, and suspect that there was + some unpleasantness connected with the occasion, of which we are not + informed. The word “ass,” as applied to a human being, is not current in + good literature, unless low comedy be entitled to that position, and + coming from Hawthorne, of all writers, it seems like an oath from the + mouth of a woman. Tupper, who was quite proud of his philanthropy, was + also much of an abolitionist, and he may have trodden on Hawthorne’s + metaphysical toes half a dozen times, without being aware of what he was + doing. Altogether, it seems like rather an ill return for Tupper’s + hospitality; but Hawthorne himself did not intend it for publication, and + on the whole one does not regret that it has been given to the public. We + have been, however, anticipating the order of events. + </p> + <p> + During the summer of 1854, the Hawthorne family made a number of + unimportant expeditions, visiting mediaeval abbeys and ruinous castles,—especially + one to Chester and Eton Hall, which was not quite worth the fees they paid + to the janitors. An ancient walled city is much of a novelty to an + American for the first time, but, having seen one, you have seen them all, + and Chester Cathedral does not stand high in English architecture. On + September 14, O’Sullivan appeared again, and they all went into the Welsh + mountains, where they examined the old fortresses of Rhyl and Conway, + which were built by Edward Longshanks to hold the Welshmen in check. Those + relics of the feudal system are very impressive, not only on account of + their solidity and the great human forces which they represent, but from a + peculiar beauty of their own, which modern fortifications do not possess + at all. They seem to belong to the ground they stand on, and the people + who live about them look upon them as cherished landmarks. They are the + monuments of an heroic age, and Hawthorne’s interest in them was + characteristic of his nature. + </p> + <p> + O’Sullivan returned to Lisbon early in October, and on the 5th of that + month, Hawthorne found himself obliged to make a speech at an + entertainment on board a merchant vessel called the “James Barnes,” which + had been built in Boston for a Liverpool firm of ship-owners. He + considered this the most serious portion of his official duty,—the + necessity of making after-dinner speeches at the Mayor’s or other public + tables. He writes several pages on the subject in a humorously complainant + tone, congratulating himself that on the present occasion he has succeeded + admirably, for he has really said nothing, and that is precisely what he + intended to do. After-dinner speeches are like soap-bubbles: they are made + of nothing, signify nothing, float for a moment in the air, attract a + momentary attention, and then disappear. But the difficulty is, to make an + apparent something out of nothing, to say nothing that will offend + anybody, and to say something that will be different from what others say. + It is truly a hard situation in which to place even a very talented man, + and, as Longfellow once remarked, those were most fortunate who made their + speeches first, and could then enjoy their dinner, while their successors + were writhing in agony. However, there are those who like it, and having + practised it to perfection, can do it better than anything else. Hawthorne + analyzes his sensations, after finishing his speech, with rare + self-perception. “After sitting down, I was conscious of an enjoyment in + speaking to a public assembly, and felt as if I should like to rise again. + It is something like being under fire,—a sort of excitement, not + exactly pleasure, but more piquant than most pleasures.” Was it President + Jackson, or Senator Benton, who said that fighting a duel was very much + like making one’s maiden speech? + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Hawthorne thus describes the residence of the President of the + Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool: {Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 238.} “We were + ushered into the drawing-room, which looked more like a brilliant + apartment in Versailles than what I had expected to see. The panels were + richly gilt, with mirrors in the centre, and hangings of gilded paper; and + the broad windows were hung with golden-colored damask; the furniture was + all of the same hue; with a carpet of superb flowers; and vases of living + flowers standing everywhere; and a chandelier of diamonds (as to + indefatigable and vivid shining), and candlesticks of the same,—not + the long prisms like those on Mary’s astral, but a network of crystals + diamond-cut.” + </p> + <p> + This was the coarse commercial taste of the time, previous to the reforms + of Ruskin and Eastlake. The same might be said of Versailles. There is no + true elegance in gilding and glass-work, including mirrors, unless they be + sparingly used. + </p> + <p> + The Hawthornes were equally overpowered by a dinner-party given by a + millionaire and country squire of Liscard Vale; “two enormous silver + dish-covers, with the gleam of Damascus blades, putting out all the rest + of the light;” and after the fish, these were replaced by two other + enormous dishes of equal brilliancy. The table was shortly covered with an + array of silver dishes, reflecting the lights above in dazzling splendor. + At one end of the table was a roast goose and at the other a boiled + turkey; while “cutlets, fricassees, ragouts, tongue, chicken-pies,” and + much else, filled the intermediate spaces, and the sideboard groaned under + a round of beef “like the dome of St. Peter’s.” It was fortunate that the + American consul came to this Herculean repast with an excellent appetite. + </p> + <p> + Henry Bright was their chief refuge from this flummery, as Hawthorne + called it; “an extremely interesting, sincere, earnest, independent, warm + and generous hearted man; not at all dogmatic; full of questions, and with + ready answers. He is highly cultivated, and writes for the <i>Westminster</i>,”—a + man who respected formalities and could preserve decorum in his own + household, but liked a simple, unostentatious mode of living—in + brief, he was a true English gentleman. Mrs. Hawthorne has drawn his + portrait with only less skill than her husband: + </p> + <p> + “His eyes are large, bright, and prominent, rather indicating great + facility of language, which he has. He is an Oxford scholar, and has + decided literary tastes. He is delicately strung, and is as + transparent-minded and pure-hearted as a child, with great enthusiasm and + earnestness of character; and, though a Liberal, very loyal to his Queen + and very admiring of the aristocracy.” + </p> + <p> + He appears to have been engaged in the Australian carrying trade, and + owned the largest sailing vessel afloat. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne went to an exhibition of English landscape paintings, and he + remarked that Turner’s seemed too ethereal to have been painted by mortal + hands,—the finest compliment that Turner could have received, for in + delicate effects of light and shade,—in painting the atmosphere + itself,—he has no rival. + </p> + <p> + In January, James Buchanan, who was then minister to England, came to + visit Hawthorne, and talked with him about the presidency,—for which + he considered himself altogether too old; but at the same time he did not + suggest the renomination of Franklin Pierce. This, of course, disclosed + his own ambition, and as Hawthorne’s impartial pen-and-ink sketch of him + may not be recognized by many readers, on account of the form in which it + appears in the note-books, we append it here, with the regret that + Hawthorne could not have treated his friend Pierce in an equally candid + manner. + </p> + <p> + “I like Mr.—. He cannot exactly be called gentlemanly in his + manners, there being a sort of rusticity about him; moreover, he has a + habit of squinting one eye, and an awkward carriage of his head; but, + withal, a dignity in his large person, and a consciousness of high + position and importance, which give him ease and freedom. Very simple and + frank in his address, he may be as crafty as other diplomatists are said + to be; but I see only good sense and plainness of speech,—appreciative, + too, and genial enough to make himself conversable. He talked very freely + of himself and of other public people, and of American and English + affairs. He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires + forever from public life.” + </p> + <p> + A certain amount of rusticity would seem to have been essential to a + presidential candidate during the middle of the past century. + </p> + <p> + During this dismal winter Hawthorne was beset more than ever, by nautical + mendicants of all countries,—Hungarians, Poles, Cubans, Spanish + Americans, and French Republicans, who, unhappily for him, had discovered + that the American consul was a tender-hearted man. He had, beside, to deal + with a number of difficult cases of maltreated American sailors,—the + more difficult, because both parties to the suits were greatly given to + lying, even on occasions when it would have been more expedient for them + to tell the truth. He has recorded one such in his diary, that deserves + more than a superficial consideration. + </p> + <p> + An American bark was on the point of sailing, when the captain cast ashore + a bruised and battered-looking man, who made his way painfully to the + consulate, and begged Hawthorne for a permit to be placed in the hospital. + He called himself the son of a South Carolina farmer, and stated that he + had gone on board this vessel with a load of farm products, but had been + impressed by the captain for the voyage, and had been so maltreated, that + he thought he would die,—and so he did, not long afterward, at the + hospital. Letters were found upon him, substantiating the statement + concerning his father, but it was discovered, from the same source, that + he was a jail-bird, and the tattooed figures upon his arms showed that he + had been a sailor of many years’ standing, although he had denied this to + the consul. Hawthorne speaks of him as an innocent man, the victim of + criminal brutality little less than murder; it is certainly difficult to + account for such severe ill-treatment, but the man was clearly a bad + character, and it is also true that sea-captains do not interfere with + their deck-hands without some kind of provocation. The man clung + desperately to life up to the last moment, and the letters he carried with + him indicated that he was more intelligent than the average of the + nautical fraternity. + </p> + <p> + In June, Hawthorne went with his family to Leamington, of which he + afterward published an account in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, criticised + at the time for the manner in which he referred to English ladies, as + “covering a large area of Nature’s foot-stool”; but this element in + Hawthorne’s English writing has already been considered. From Leamington + he went, early in July, to the English lakes, especially Windermere, and + fortunately found time to thoroughly enjoy them. He enjoyed them not only + for their scenery, which he preferred to that of New England, but also as + illustrations to many descriptive passages in Wordsworth’s poetry, which + serves the same purpose in the guidebook of that region, as “Childe + Harold” serves in the guidebooks for Italy and Greece. Hawthorne also was + interested in such places for the sake of their associations. He describes + Wordsworth’s house, the grounds about it, and the cemetery where he lies, + with the accuracy of a scientific report. He finds the grass growing too + high about the head-stone of Wordsworth’s grave, and plucks it away with + his own hands, reflecting that it may have drawn its nourishment from his + mortal remains. We may suppose that he preserved this grass, and it is + only from such incidental circumstances that we discover who were + Hawthorne’s favorites among poets and other distinguished writers. He + twice visited Wordsworth’s grave. + </p> + <p> + Their first two winters in Liverpool had not proved favorable to Mrs. + Hawthorne’s health She had contracted a disorder in her throat from the + prevailing dampness, which threatened to become chronic, and her husband + felt that it would not be prudent for her to remain there another winter. + He thought of resigning and returning to America. Then he thought of + exchanging his consulship for one in southern Europe, although the + salaries of the more southern consulates were hardly sufficient to support + a married man. Then he thought of exchanging places with O’Sullivan, but + he hardly knew languages well enough for an ambassador. The doctors, + however, had advised Mrs. Hawthorne to spend a winter at Madeira, and she + courageously solved the problem by proposing to go there alone with her + daughters, for which Lisbon and O’Sullivan would serve as a stepping-stone + by the way. There are wives who would prefer such an expedition to + spending a winter in England with their husbands, but Mrs. Hawthorne was + not of that mould, and in her case it was a brave thing to do. + </p> + <p> + Accordingly, on the second Monday in October, Mrs. Hawthorne and her two + daughters sailed for Lisbon. She was presented at court there; concerning + which occasion she wrote a lengthy and very interesting account to her + husband, published in her son’s biography. The King of Portugal held a + long conversation with her and Minister O’Sullivan, and she describes him + as dressed in a flamboyant manner,—a scarlet uniform, lavishly + ornamented with diamonds. With how much better taste did the Empress of + Austria receive the President of the French Republic,—in a simple + robe of black velvet, fastened at her throat with a diamond brooch. One + can envy Mrs. Hawthorne a winter at Madeira, for there is no place in + Europe pleasanter for that purpose, unless it be Rome. Meanwhile, her + husband spent the winter with his son (who was now old enough to be + trusted safely about the streets), at a sea-captains’ boarding-house in + Liverpool. There, as in Salem, he felt himself most companionable in such + company, as he had been accustomed to it from boyhood; and it appears that + at this time he was in the habit of composing fables for the entertainment + of Julian, not unlike the yarns which sailors often spin to beguile + landsmen. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 75.} + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne found his third winter in Liverpool dismal enough without his + wife and the two little girls, and this feeling was considerably increased + by his dislike for the sea-captains’ boarding-house keeper, {Footnote: + English Note-book, November 28, 1855.}with whom he was living, and + concerning whom he remarks, that a woman in England “is either decidedly a + lady or decidedly not.” She would not have annoyed him so much, had it not + been for “her bustle, affectation, intensity, and pretension of literary + taste.” The race of landladies contains curious specimens, although we + have met with some who were real ladies nevertheless. Thackeray’s + description of a French boarding-house keeper in “The Adventures of + Philip” goes to every heart. Hawthorne writes much in his diary, at this + juncture, of his friend Francis Bennoch, who clearly did the best he + could, as a man and a brother, to make life cheerful for his American + friend; a true, sturdy, warm-hearted Englishman. + </p> + <p> + Christmas was celebrated at Mrs. Blodgett’s, after the fashion of a + second-rate English house of entertainment. The servants hung mistletoe + about in various places, and woe to the unlucky wight that was caught + under it. Hawthorne presents an amusing picture of his boy Julian, nine + years old, struggling against the endearments of a chamber-maid, and + believes that he himself was the only male person in the house that + escaped. {Footnote: English Note-book, December, 1855.}If any man would be + sure to escape that benediction, he would have been the one; for no one + could be more averse to public demonstrations of affection. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne was witness to a curious strategic manoeuvre between President + Pierce and Minister Buchanan, which, however, he was not sufficiently + familiar with practical politics to perceive the full meaning of. On the + way to Southampton with his wife in October, they called on Buchanan in + London, and were not only civilly but kindly received. Mrs. Hawthorne + wished to view the Houses of Parliament while they were in session, and + the ambassador made a knot in his handkerchief, so as to be sure to + remember his promise to her. He informed Hawthorne at that time of his + desire to return to America, but stated that the President had just + written to him, requesting him to remain until April, although he was + determined not to do so. He excused himself on the plea of old age, and + Hawthorne seems to have had a suspicion of the insincerity of this, but + concluded on reflection not to harbor it. Pierce knew already that + Buchanan was his most dangerous rival for renomination, and desired that + he should remain as far off as possible; while Buchanan was aware that, if + he intended to be on the ground, he must not return so late as to attract + public attention. There were so many presidential aspirants that Pierce + may have found it difficult to supply Buchanan’s place, for the time + being. + </p> + <p> + Buchanan delayed a respectful length of time, and then handed in his + resignation. His successor, George M. Dallas, arrived at Liverpool during + the second week of March, and Hawthorne who does not mention him by name, + called upon him at once, and gives us this valuable portrait of him. + </p> + <p> + “The ambassador is a venerable old gentleman, with a full head of + perfectly white hair, looking not unlike an old-fashioned wig; and this, + together with his collarless white neckcloth and his brown coat, gave him + precisely such an aspect as one would expect in a respectable person of + pre-revolutionary days. There was a formal simplicity, too, in his + manners, that might have belonged to the same era. He must have been a + very handsome man in his youthful days, and is now comely, very erect, + moderately tall, not overburdened with flesh; of benign and agreeable + address, with a pleasant smile; but his eyes, which are not very large, + impressed me as sharp and cold. He did not at all stamp himself upon me as + a man of much intellectual or characteristic vigor. I found no such matter + in his conversation, nor did I feel it in the indefinable way by which + strength always makes itself acknowledged. Buchanan, though somehow plain + and uncouth, yet vindicates himself as a large man of the world, able, + experienced, fit to handle difficult circumstances of life, dignified, + too, and able to hold his own in any society.” {Footnote: English + Note-book, March, 1856.} + </p> + <p> + Morton McMichael, whose statue now stands in Fairmount Park, once related + this incident concerning Dallas, at a meeting of the Philadelphia Hock + Club. Somewhere about 1850 Dallas was invited to deliver a 4th of July + oration at Harrisburg, where McMichael was also requested to read the + Declaration of Independence. McMichael performed his part of the ceremony, + and sat down; then Dallas arose and thanked the assembly for honoring him + with such an invitation, but confessed to some difficulty in considering + what he should say, for an occasion which had been celebrated by so many + famous orators; but that a few nights since, while he was lying awake, it + occurred to him what he should say to them. After this he proceeded to + read his address from a newspaper printed in 1841, which the audience + could not see, but which McMichael, from his position on the platform, + could see perfectly well. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s description suggests a man somewhat like this; but the opinion + of the Hock Club was that Dallas was not greatly to blame; for how could + any man make two distinct and original 4th of July orations? + </p> + <p> + The 1st of April 1856, Hawthorne and Bennoch set off on a bachelor + expedition of their own, first to visit Tupper at Albany, as has been + already related, and then going to view a muster of British troops at + Aldershot; thence to Battle Abbey, which Hawthorne greatly admired, and + the field of Hastings, where England’s greatness began in defeat. He does + not mention the battle, however, in his diary, and it may be remarked + that, generally, Hawthorne felt little interest in historical subjects. + After this, they went to London, where Bennoch introduced Hawthorne at the + Milton Club and the Reform Club. At the former, he again encountered + Martin F. Tupper, and became acquainted with Tom Taylor, the editor of <i>Punch</i>, + as well as other writers and editors, of whom he had not previously heard. + The Club was by no means Miltonic, and one would suppose not exactly the + place where Hawthorne would find himself much at home. Neither were the + proceedings altogether in good taste. Bennoch opened the ball with a + highly eulogistic speech about Hawthorne, and was followed by some fifty + others in a similar strain, so that the unfortunate incumbent must have + wished that the earth would open and let him down to the shades of night + below. On such an occasion, even a feather weight becomes a burden. Oh, + for a boy, with a tin horn! + </p> + <p> + Neither did Hawthorne apparently find his peers at the Reform Club. + Douglas Jerrold, who reminded him somewhat of Ellery Channing, was the + most notable writer he met there. There was, however, very little + speech-making, and plenty of good conversation. Unfortunately, he offended + Jerrold, by using the word “acrid” as applied to his writing, instead of + some other word, which he could not think of at the moment. The + difficulty, however, was made up over a fresh bottle of Burgundy, and with + the help of Hawthorne’s unlimited good-will, so that they parted excellent + friends, and much the better for having known each other. Either Jerrold + or some other present told Hawthorne that the English aristocracy, for the + most part hated, despised, and feared men of literary genius. Is it not + much the same in America? + </p> + <p> + After these two celebrations, and attending the Lord Mayor’s banquet, + where he admired the beautiful Jewess whom he has described as Miriam in + “The Marble Faun,” Hawthorne returned to Liverpool; and early in May took + another recess, with a Mr. Bowman, to York, Edinburgh, the Trossachs, + Abbotsford, and all the haunts of Scott and Burns; with his account of + which a large portion of the second volume of English Note-books is + filled; so that, if Scotland should sink into the sea, as a portion is + already supposed to have done in antediluvian times, all those places + could be reconstructed through Hawthorne’s description of them. + </p> + <p> + This expedition lasted nearly three weeks, and on June 12 Hawthorne + received word that his wife, with Una and Rose, had already landed at + Southampton. He hastened at once to meet them, greatly rejoiced to find + Mrs. Hawthorne entirely restored to health. They had been separated for + more than seven months. + </p> + <p> + They first proceeded to Salisbury, to see the cathedral and Stonehenge,—the + former, very impressive externally, but not so satisfactory within; and + the latter, a work of man emerging out of Nature. Then they went to + London, to enjoy the June season, and see the regular course of sights in + that huge metropolis. They visited St. Paul’s, the Tower, Guildhall, the + National Gallery, the British Museum, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of + Parliament, apparently finding as much satisfaction in this conventional + occupation as they did in the social entertainments of London. At the + house of Mr. S. C. Hall, a noted entertainer of those days, Hawthorne + became acquainted with the most celebrated singer of her time, or perhaps + of all time; namely, Jenny Lind. No modern orator has held such a sway + over the hearts of men and women, as that Swedish nightingale,—for + the purity of her voice seemed no more than the emanation of her lofty + nature. Hawthorne describes her as a frank, sincere person, rather tall,—certainly + no beauty, but with sense and self-reliance in her aspect and manners. She + immediately gave Hawthorne an illustration of her frankness by complaining + of the unhealthy manner in which Americans, and especially American women, + lived. This seems like a prosaic subject for such a person, but it was + natural enough; for a concert singer has to live like a race-horse, and + this would be what would constantly strike her attention in a foreign + country. Hawthorne rallied to the support of his countrywomen, and + believed that they were, on the whole, as healthy and long-lived as + Europeans. This may be so now, but there has been great improvement in the + American mode of living, during the past fifty years, and we can imagine + that Jenny Lind often found it difficult to obtain such food as she + required. + </p> + <p> + That she should have requested an introduction to Hawthorne is significant + of her interest in American literature, and suggests a taste as refined + and elevated as her music. + </p> + <p> + It was on Hawthorne’s wedding-day this happened, and a few days later he + was invited to a select company at Monckton Milnes’s, which included + Macaulay, the Brownings, and Professor Ticknor. He found both the + Brownings exceedingly pleasant and accessible, but was somewhat startled + to find that Mrs. Browning was a believer in spiritism—not such a + sound and healthy intelligence as the author of “Middle-march,” and he + might have been still more so, if he had known that she and her husband + were ardent admirers of Louis Napoleon. That was something which an + American in those days could not quite understand. However, he found her + an exceedingly pleasant companion. After dinner they looked over several + volumes of autographs, in which Oliver Cromwell’s was the only one that + would to-day be more valuable than Hawthorne’s own. + </p> + <p> + A breakfast at Monckton Milnes’s usually included the reading of a copy of + verses of his own composition, but perhaps he had not yet reached that + stage on the present occasion. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne heard such varied and conflicting accounts of Charles Dickens + that he hardly knew whether he would like to meet him or not. He wanted to + see Tennyson when he was at the Isle of Wight, but feared that his visit + might be looked on as an intrusion, by a person who lived so retired a + life,—judging perhaps from his own experience. While at Windermere + he paused for a moment in front of Harriet Martineau’s cottage, but on + second thought he concluded to leave the good deaf lady in peace. + </p> + <p> + Conway speaks of Hawthorne’s social life in England as a failure; but + failure suggests an effort in some direction or other, and Hawthorne made + no social efforts. Being lionized was not his business. He had seen enough + of it during the London season of 1856, and after that he retired into his + domestic shell, cultivating the acquaintance of his wife and children more + assiduously than ever, so that even his two faithful allies, Bright and + Bennoch, found it difficult to withdraw him from it. Watching the + development of a fine child is much more satisfactory than any course of + fashionable entertainments—even than Lowell’s twenty-nine + dinner-parties in the month of June. Nothing becomes more tedious than + long-continued pleasure-seeking, with post-prandial speeches and a + constant effort to be agreeable. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne remained in England fully seventeen months after this, and made + a number of excursions; especially one to Oxford, where he and his family + were dined by a former mayor of the city, and where he greatly admired the + broad verdant grounds and Gothic architecture of the colleges; and also a + second journey to Edinburgh and the Trossachs, undertaken for the benefit + of Mrs. Hawthorne and Una. But we hear no more of him in London society, + and it only remains for us to chronicle his exceptional kindness to an + unfortunate American woman. + </p> + <p> + It seems strange that the first doubt in regard to the authorship of + Shakespeare should have originated on this side of the Atlantic. If Dante + was a self-educated poet, there seems no good reason why Shakespeare + should not have been; and if the greatest of French writers earned his + living as an actor, why should not the greatest of English writers have + done the same? That would seem to be much more in harmony with the central + idea of American life—the principle of self-helpfulness; but this is + a skeptical epoch, and the tendency of our political institutions is + toward skepticism of character and distrust of tradition. Hence we have + Delia Bacon, Holmes, and Donnelly. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne has given future generations an account of Delia Bacon, which + will endure as the portrait of a gifted and interesting woman, diverted + from the normal channels of feminine activity by the force of a single + idea; but he makes no mention of his efforts in her behalf. He found her + in the lodgings of a London tradesman, and although she received him in a + pleasant and lady-like manner, he quickly perceived that her mind was in + an abnormal condition, and that it was positively dangerous to discuss her + favorite topic in a rational manner. He had a feeling that the least + opposition on his part to the Baconian theory would result in his + expulsion from the room, yet he found her conversation interesting, and + recognized that if her conclusions were erroneous she had nevertheless + unearthed valuable historic material, which ought to be given to the + world. He loaned her money, which he did not expect to be repaid, and + exerted himself to find a publisher for her, recollecting perhaps the vows + he had made to the gods in the days of his own obscurity. He mentions in + his diary calling on the Rutledges for this purpose—where he saw + Charles Reade, a tall, strong-looking man, just leaving the office. He + also wrote to Ticknor & Fields, and finally did get Miss Bacon’s + volume brought out in London. The critics treated it in a contemptuous + manner, as a desecration of Shakespeare’s memory; and Hawthorne was + prepared for this, but it opened a new era in English bibliography. + Shortly after the publication of her book Miss Bacon became insane. + </p> + <p> + To many this appeared like a Quixotic adventure, but now we can see that + it was not, and that it was necessary in its way to prove the generosity + of Hawthorne. We can readily infer from it what he might have done with + ampler means, and what he must often have wished to do. To be sure, the + truest kindness to Delia Bacon would have been to have purchased a ticket + on a Cunard steamer for her, after her own funds had given out, and to + have persuaded her to return to her own country; but those who have dealt + with persons whose whole vitality is absorbed in a single idea, can + testify how difficult, if not impossible, this would have been. It + redounds the more to Hawthorne’s credit that although Elizabeth Peabody + was converted to Delia Bacon’s theory, Hawthorne himself never entertained + misgivings as to the reality of Shakespeare as a poet and a dramatist. + </p> + <p> + He had doubts, however, and I felt the same in regard to the authenticity + of the verses on Shakespeare’s marble slab. It is fortunate that Miss + Bacon’s purpose of opening the tomb at Stratford was not carried out, but + that is no reason why it should not be opened in a properly conducted + manner, for scientific purposes—in order to discover all that is + possible concerning so remarkable and mysterious a personality. Raphael’s + tomb has been opened, and why should not Shakespeare’s be also? + </p> + <p> + At the Democratic convention in 1856 the Southern delegates wished to + renominate Franklin Pierce, but the Northern delegates refused their + agreement to this, because they knew that in such a case they would be + liable to defeat in their own districts. James Buchanan was accordingly + nominated, and Pierce’s fears in regard to him were fully realized. He was + elected in November, and the following June appointed Beverly Tucker to + succeed Hawthorne as consul at Liverpool. Hawthorne resigned his office on + July 1, 1857, and went with his family on a long tour in Scotland. Two + weeks earlier he had written a memorial to the Secretary of State + concerning the maltreatment of a special class of seamen, which deserved + more consideration than it received from the government at Washington. + </p> + <p> + The gold discoveries in California had induced a large immigration to + America from the British Isles, and many who went thither in hopes of + bettering their fortunes became destitute from lack of employment, and + attempted to work their passage back to Liverpool in American sailing + vessels. It is likely that they often represented themselves as more + experienced mariners than they actually were, and there were also a good + many stowaways who might expect little mercy; but there was no court in + England that could take cognizance of their wrongs,—in order to + obtain justice they would have to return to America,—and it cannot + be doubted that the more brutal sort of officers took advantage of this + fact. The evil became so notorious that the British minister at Washington + requested Pierce’s administration to have legislation enacted that would + cover this class of cases, but the President declined to interfere. This + may have been prudent policy, but Hawthorne felt for the sufferers, and + the memorial that he submitted to our government on their account has a + dignity, a clearness and cogency of statement, worthy of Blackstone or + Marshall. It is in marked contrast to the evasive reply of Secretary Cass, + both for its fine English and for the directness of its logic. It is + published at length in Julian Hawthorne’s biography of his father, and is + unique for the insight which it affords as to Hawthorne’s mental ability + in this direction. We may infer from it that if he had made a study of + jurisprudence, he might have risen to the highest position as a writer on + law. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s English Note-books are the least interesting of that series, + on account of the literal descriptions of castles, abbeys, scenery and + palaces, with which they abound. The perfectly cultivated condition of + England and Scotland, so far as he went in the latter country, is not + stimulating to the imagination; for, as he says somewhere, even the trees + seemed to be thoroughly domesticated. They are excellent reading for + Americans who have never been to England, or for those who wish to renew + their memories in regard to certain places there—perhaps better for + the latter than for the former; and there are fine passages in them, + especially his descriptions of the old abbeys and Gothic cathedrals, which + seem to have delighted him more than the gardens at Blenheim and Eton, and + to have brought to the surface a rare quality in his nature, or otherwise + hidden in its depths,—his enthusiasm. Never before did words fail + him until he attempted to describe the effect of a Gothic cathedral,—the + time-honored mystery of its arches, the sober radiance of its stained + windows, and the solemn aspiration of its lofty vault. As Schiller says, + they are the monuments of a mighty civilization of which we know only too + little. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s object in writing these detailed accounts of his various + expeditions becomes apparent from a passage in his Note-book, of the date + of August 21, 1856, in which he says: “In my English romance, an American + might bring a certain tradition from over the sea, and so discover the + cross which had been long since forgotten.” It may have been his intention + from the first to write a romance based on English soil, but that soil was + no longer productive of such intellectual fruit, except in the form in + which Dickens dug it up, like peat, out of the lower classes. We find + Francis Bennoch writing to Hawthorne after his return to America, + {Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 310.} hoping to encourage him in this direction, + but without apparent effect. Instead of a romance, he made a collection of + essays from those portions of his diary which were most closely connected + together, enlarging them and rounding them out, which he published after + his return to America, in the volume we have often referred to as “Our Old + Home.” But as truthful studies of English life and manners Mrs. + Hawthorne’s letters, though not always sensible, are much more interesting + than her husband’s diary. + </p> + <p> + When Doctor Johnson was inquired of by a lady why he defined “pastern” in + his Dictionary as the knee of a horse, he replied, “Ignorance, madam, pure + ignorance;” and if Hawthorne had been asked a year afterwards why he went + to Scotland in the summer of 1857, instead of to the Rhine and + Switzerland, he might have given a similar excuse. In this way he missed + the grandest and some of the most beautiful scenery in Europe. He could + not, however, have been ignorant of the attractions of Paris, and yet he + lingered in England until the following January, and then went over to + that metropolis of fashion at a most unseasonable time. He had, indeed, + planned to leave England in October, {Footnote: English Note-book, + December, 1857.} and does not explain why he remained longer. He made a + last visit to London in November, where he became reconciled to his + fellow-townsmen of Salem, in the person of Edward Silsbee, of whom he + writes as “a man of great intelligence and true feeling, absolutely + brimming over with ideas.” Mr. Silsbee was an amateur art critic and + connoisseur, who often made himself serviceable to American travellers in + the way of a gentleman-cicerone. He went with the Hawthorne family to the + Crystal Palace, where there were casts of all famous statues, models of + architecture, and the like, and gave Hawthorne his first lesson in art + criticism. Hawthorne indicated a preference for Michel Angelo’s statue of + Giuliano dé Medici, called “Il Pensero;” also for the “Perseus” of + Cellini, and the Gates of the Florentine Baptistery by Lorenzo Ghiberti. + If we except the other statues of Michel Angelo, these are the most + distinguished works in sculpture of the modern world. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XIV. — ITALY + </h2> + <p> + Hawthorne went to Italy as naturally as the salmon ascends the rivers in + spring. His artistic instinct drew him thither as the original home of + modern art and literature, and perhaps also his interest in the Latin + language, the single study which he cared for in boyhood. Does not romance + come originally from Roma,—as well as Romulus? He wished to stand + where Cæsar stood, to behold the snowy Soracte of Horace, and to read + Virgil’s description of an Italian night on Italian ground. It is + noticeable that he cared little or nothing for the splendors of Paris, the + glittering peaks of Switzerland, medical-musical Vienna, or the grand + scholarship and homely sweetness of old Germany. + </p> + <p> + Of all the Anglo-Saxon writers who have celebrated Italy, Byron, Shelley, + Rogers, Ruskin and the two Brownings, none were more admirably equipped + for it than Hawthorne. We cannot read “The Romance of Monte Beni” without + recognizing a decidedly Italian element in his composition,—not the + light-hearted, subtle, elastic, fiery Italian, such as we are accustomed + to think them, but the tenderly feeling, terribly earnest Tuscan, like + Dante and Savonarola. The myrtle and the cypress are both emblematic of + Italian character, and there was more of the latter than the former, + though something of either, in Hawthorne’s own make-up. + </p> + <p> + The Hawthornes left London on January 6, and, reaching Paris the following + day, they made themselves comfortable at the Hotel du Louvre. However, + they only remained there one week, during which it was so cold that they + saw little and enjoyed little. They went to Notre Dame, the Louvre, the + Madeleine, and the Champs Elysees, but without being greatly impressed by + what they beheld. Hawthorne does not mention a single painting or statue + among the art treasures of the Louvre, which if rivalled elsewhere are + certainly unsurpassed; but Hawthorne began his studies in this line by an + examination of the drawings of the old masters, and confesses that he was + afterward too much fatigued to appreciate their finished paintings. + </p> + <p> + On January 19 they reached Marseilles, and two days later they embarked on + that dreary winter voyage, so pleasant at an earlier season, for Civita + Vecchia; and on the 20th they rolled into the Eternal City, with such + sensations as one may imagine. On the 24th they located themselves for the + season in the Palazzo Larazani, Via Porta Pinciana. {Footnote. Italian + Note-book.} + </p> + <p> + <i>Nemo similis Homeri</i>.—There is nothing like the charm of a + first visit to Rome. The first sight of the Forum, with its single + pathetic column, brings us back to our school-days, to the study of Cæsar + and the reading of Plutarch; and the intervening period drops out of our + lives, taking all our care and anxiety with it. In England, France, + Germany, we feel the weight of the present, but in Rome the present is + like a glass window through which we view the grand procession of past + events. What <i>is</i>, becomes of less importance than what was, and for + the first time we feel the true sense of our indebtedness to the ages that + have gone before. We bathe deep in the spirit of classical antiquity, and + we come out refreshed, enlarged and purified. We return to the actualities + of to-day with a clearer understanding, and better prepared to act our + part in them. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne did not feel this at first. He arrived in inclement weather, and + it was some weeks before he became accustomed to the climatic conditions—so + different from any northern atmosphere. He hated the filth of the + much-neglected city, the squalor of its lower classes, the narrowness of + its streets, and the peculiar pavement, which, as he says makes walking in + Rome a penitential pilgrimage. He goes to the carnival, and his + penetrating glance proves it to be a sham entertainment. + </p> + <p> + But in due course he emerges from this mood; he rejoices in the + atmospheric immensity of St. Peter’s; he looks out from the Pincian hill, + and sees <i>Nivea Soracte</i> as Horace beheld it; and he is overawed (if + Hawthorne could be) by the Forum of Trajan and the Column of Antoninus. He + makes a great discovery, or rediscovery, that Phidias’s colossal statues + of Castor and Pollux on the Monte Cavallo are the finest figures in Rome. + They are late Roman copies, but probably from Phidias,—not by + Lysippus or Praxiteles; and he felt the presence of Michel Angelo in the + Baths of Diocletian. It is not long before he goes to the Pincian in the + afternoon to play at jack-stones with his youngest daughter. + </p> + <p> + William W. Story, the American sculptor, would seem to have been a former + acquaintance. His father, the famous law lecturer, lived in Salem during + Hawthorne’s youth, but afterward removed to Cambridge, where the younger + Story was educated, and there married an intimate friend of Mrs. James + Russell Lowell. This brought him into close relations with Lowell, + Longfellow, and their most intimate friends. He was something of a poet, + and more of a sculptor, but, inheriting an independent fortune and living + in the Barberini Palace, he soon became more of an Englishman than an + American, a tendency which was visibly increased by a patent of nobility + bestowed on him by the King of Naples. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne soon renewed William Story’s acquaintance, and found him + modelling the statue of Cleopatra, of which Hawthorne has given a somewhat + idealized description in “The Marble Faun.” This may have interested him + the more from the fact that he witnessed its development under the + sculptor’s hands, and saw that distinguished historical person emerge as + it were out of the clay, like a second Eve; but he makes a mental + reservation that it would be better if English and American sculptors + would make a freer use of their chisels—of which more hereafter. + Story was a light-hearted, discursive person, with a large amount of + bric-à -brac information, who could appreciate Hawthorne either as a genius + or as a celebrity. He soon became Hawthorne’s chief companion and social + mainstay in Rome, literally a <i>vade mecum</i>, and we may believe that + he exercised more or less influence over Hawthorne’s judgment in matters + of art. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne listened to Story, and read Mrs. Jameson, although Edward + Silsbee had warned him against her as an uncertain authority; but + Hawthorne depended chiefly on his own investigations. He and his wife + declined an invitation to Mrs. Story’s masquerade, and lived very quietly + during this first winter in Rome, making few acquaintances, but seeing a + good deal of the city. They went together to all the principal churches + and the princely galleries; and beside this Hawthorne traversed Rome from + one end to the other, and across in every direction, sometimes alone, or + in company with Julian, investigating everything from the Mamartine + prison, in which Jugurtha was starved, to the catacombs of St. Calixtus + and the buffaloes on the Campagna. The impression which Conway gives, that + he went about sight-seeing and drinking sour wine with Story and Lothrop + Motley, is not quite correct, for Motley did not come to Rome until the + following December, and then only met Hawthorne a few times, according to + his own confession. {Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 406.} We must not forget, + however, that excellent lady and skilful astronomer, Miss Maria Mitchell, + who joined the Hawthorne party in Paris, and became an indispensable + accompaniment to them the rest of the winter. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne also became acquainted with Buchanan Read, who afterward painted + that stirring picture of General Sheridan galloping to the battle of Cedar + Run; and on March 12 Mr. Read gave a party, at his Roman dwelling, of + painters and sculptors, which Hawthorne attended, and has entered in full, + with the moonlight excursion afterward, in “The Marble Faun.” There + Hawthorne met Gibson, to whom he refers as the most distinguished sculptor + of the time. So he was, in England, but there were much better sculptors + in France and in Germany. Gibson’s personality interested Hawthorne, as it + well might, but he saw clearly that Gibson was merely a skilful imitator + of the antique, or, as he calls him, a pagan idealist. He also made + acquaintance with two American sculptors, a Yankee and a girlish young + woman, whose names are prudently withheld; for he afterward visited their + studios, and readily discovered that they had no real talent for their + profession. + </p> + <p> + If we feel inclined to quarrel with Hawthorne anywhere, it is in his + disparagement of Crawford. There might be two opinions in regard to the + slavery question, but there never has been but one as to the greatest of + American artists. It was a pity that his friend Hillard could not have + been with Hawthorne at this time to counteract the jealous influences to + which he was exposed. He writes no word of regret at the untimely death of + Crawford, but goes into his studio after that sad event and condemns his + work. Only the <i>genre</i> figure of a boy playing marbles, gives him any + satisfaction there; although a plea of extenuation might be entered in + Hawthorne’s favor, for statues of heroic size could not be seen to greater + disadvantage than when packed together in a studio. The immense buttons on + the waistcoats of our revolutionary heroes seem to have startled him on + his first entrance, and this may be accepted as an indication of the rest. + Yet the tone of his criticism, both in the “Note-book” and in “The Marble + Faun,” is far from friendly to Crawford. He does not refer to the statue + of Beethoven, which was Crawford’s masterpiece, nor to the statue of + Liberty, which now poses on the lantern of the Capitol at Washington,—much + too beautiful, as Hartmann says, for its elevated position, and superior + in every respect to the French statue of Liberty in New York harbor. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne had already come to the conclusion that there was a certain + degree of poison in the Roman atmosphere, and in April he found the + climate decidedly languid, but he had fallen in love with this pagan + capital and he hated to leave it. Mrs. Anna Jameson arrived late in April; + a sturdy, warm-hearted Englishwoman greatly devoted to art, for which her + books served as elementary treatises and pioneers to the English and + Americans of those days. She was so anxious to meet Hawthorne that she + persuaded William Story to bring him and his wife to her lodgings when she + was too ill to go forth. They had read each other’s writings and could + compliment each other in all sincerity, for Mrs. Jameson had also an + excellent narrative style; but Hawthorne found her rather didactic, and + although she professed to be able “to read a picture like a book,” her + conversation was by no means brilliant. She had contracted an unhappy + marriage early in life, and found an escape from her sorrows and regrets + in this elevated interest. + </p> + <p> + It was just before leaving Rome that Hawthorne conceived the idea of a + romance in which the “Faun” of Praxiteles should come to life, and play a + characteristic part in the modern world; the catastrophe naturally + resulting from his coming into conflict with a social organization for + which he was unfitted. This portion of Hawthorne’s diary is intensely + interesting to those who have walked on classic ground. + </p> + <p> + On May 24 Hawthorne commenced his journey to Florence with a <i>vetturino</i> + by easy stages, and one can cordially envy him this portion of his Italian + sojourn; with his devoted wife and three happy children; travelling + through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world,—nearly if + not quite equal to the Rhineland—without even the smallest cloud of + care and anxiety upon his sky, his mind stored with mighty memories, and + looking forward with equal expectations to the prospect before him,—<i>bella + Firenze</i>, the treasure-house of Italian cities; through sunny valleys, + with their streams and hill-sides winding seaward; up the precipitous + spurs of the Apennines, with their old baronial castles perched like + vultures’ nests on inaccessible crags; passing through gloomy, tortuous + defiles, guarded by Roman strongholds; and then drawn up by white bullocks + over Monte Somma, and to the mountain cities of Assisi and Perugia, older + than Rome itself; by Lake Trasimenus, still ominous of the name of + Hannibal; over hill-sides silver-gray with olive orchards; always a fresh + view and a new panorama, bounded by the purple peaks on the horizon; and + over all, the tender blue of the Italian sky. Hawthorne may have felt that + his whole previous life, all he had struggled, lived and suffered for, was + but a preparation for this one week of perfectly harmonious existence. + Such vacations from earthly troubles come but rarely in the most fortunate + lives, and are never of long duration. + </p> + <p> + When they reached Florence, they found it, as Rose Hawthorne says, very + hot—much too hot to enjoy the city as it should be enjoyed. Her + reminiscences of their life at Florence, and especially of the Villa + Manteüto, have a charming freshness and virginal simplicity, although + written in a somewhat high-flown manner. She succeeds, in spite of her + peculiar style, in giving a distinct impression of the old chateau, its + surroundings, the life her family led there, and of the wonderful view + from Bellosguardo. One feels that beneath the disguise of a fashionable + dress there is an innocent, sympathetic, and pure-spirited nature. + </p> + <p> + The Hawthornes arrived in Florence on the afternoon of June 3, and spent + the first night at the Albergo della Fontano, and the next day obtained + apartments in the Casa del Bello, opposite Hiram Powers’ studio, and just + outside of the Porta Romana. Hawthorne made Mr. Powers’ acquaintance even + before he entered the city, and Powers soon became to him what Story had + been in Rome. The Brownings were already at Casa Guidi,—still noted + in the annals of English poesy,—and called upon the Hawthornes at + the first notice of their arrival. Alacrity or readiness would seem to + have been one of Robert Browning’s prominent characteristics. Elizabeth + Browning’s mind was as much occupied with spiritism as when Hawthorne met + her two years previously at Monckton Milnes’s breakfast; an unfortunate + proclivity for a person of frail physique and delicate nerves. Neither did + she live very long after this. Her husband and Hawthorne both cordially + disapproved of these mesmeric practices; but Mrs. Browning could not be + prevented from talking on the subject, and this evidently produced an + ecstatic and febrile condition of mind in her, very wearing to a poetic + temperament. Hawthorne heartily liked Browning himself, and always speaks + well of him; but there must also have been an undercurrent of disagreement + between him and so ardent an admirer of Louis Napoleon, and he recalls + little or nothing of what Browning said to him. This continued till the + last of June, when Robert and Elizabeth left Florence for cooler regions. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Hawthorne occupied himself seriously with seeing Florence and + studying art, like a man who intends to get at the root of the matter. + Florence afforded better advantages than Rome for the study of art, not + only from the superiority of its collections, but because there the + development of mediaeval art can be traced to its fountain-source. He had + no textbooks to guide him,—at least he does not refer to any,—and + his investigations were consequently of rather an irregular kind, but it + was evidently the subject which interested him most deeply at this time. + His Note-book is full of it, and also of discussions on sculpture with + Hiram Powers, in which Hawthorne has frequently the best of the argument. + </p> + <p> + In fact Powers looked upon his art from much too literal a stand-point. He + agreed with Hawthorne as to the fine expression of the face of Michel + Angelo’s “Giuliano dé Medici,” {Footnote: As Hawthorne did not prepare his + diary for publication, it would not be fair to hold him responsible for + the many instances of bad Italian in the Note-book, which ought to have + been edited by some one who knew the language.} but affirmed that it was + owing to a trick of overshadowing the face by the projecting visor of + Giuliano’s helmet. Hawthorne did not see why such a device did not come + within the range of legitimate art, the truth of the matter being that + Michel Angelo left the face unfinished; but the expression of the statue + is not in its face, but in the inclination of the head, the position of + the arms, the heavy droop of the armor, and in fact in the whole figure. + Powers’ “Greek Slave,” on the contrary, though finely modelled and + sufficiently modern in type, has no definite expression whatever. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne found an exceptional interest in the “Venus dé Medici,” now + supposed to have been the work of one of the sons of Praxiteles, and its + wonderful symmetry gives it a radiance like that of the sun behind a + summer cloud; but Powers cooled down his enthusiasm by objecting to the + position of the ears, the vacancy of the face, the misrepresentation of + the inner surface of the lips, and by condemning particularly the + structure of the eyes, which he declared were such as no human being could + see with. {Footnote: Italian Note-book, June 13, 1858.} Hawthorne was + somewhat puzzled by these subtleties of criticism, which he did not know + very well how to answer, but he still held fast to the opinion that he was + fundamentally right, and retaliated by criticising Powers’ own statues in + his diary. + </p> + <p> + The Greeks, in the best period of their favorite art, never attempted a + literal reproduction of the human figure. Certain features, like the + nostrils, were merely indicated; others, like the eyelashes, often so + expressive in woman, were omitted altogether; hair and drapery were + treated in a schematic manner. In order to give an expression to the eyes, + various devices were resorted to. The eyelids of the bust of Pericles on + the Acropolis had bevelled edges, and the eyeballs of the “Apollo + Belvedere” are exceptionally convex, to produce the effect of looking to a + distance, although the human eye when gazing afar off becomes slightly + contracted. The head of the “Venus dé Medici” is finely shaped, but small, + and her features are pretty, rather than beautiful; but her eyes are + exceptional among all feminine statues for their tenderness of expression—swimming, + as it were, with love; and it is the manner in which this effect is + produced that Powers mistook for bad sculpture. Hiram Powers’ most + exceptional proposition was to the effect that the busts of the Roman + emperors were not characteristic portraits. Hawthorne strongly dissented + from this; and he was in the right, for if the character of a man can be + read from marble, it is from those old blocks. Hawthorne has some + admirable remarks on this point. + </p> + <p> + Such was Hawthorne’s internal life during his first month at Florence. He + was full of admiration for the cathedral, the equestrian statue of Cosmo + dé Medici, the “David” of Michel Angelo, the Loggia dé Lanzi, Raphael’s + portrait of Julius II., the “Fates” of Michel Angelo, and many others; yet + he confesses that the Dutch, French, and English paintings gave him a more + simple, natural pleasure,—probably because their subjects came + closer to his own experience. + </p> + <p> + A strange figure of an old man, with “a Palmer-like beard,” continually + crossed Hawthorne’s path, both in Rome and in Florence, where he dines + with him at the Brownings’. His name is withheld, but Hawthorne informs us + that he is an American editor, a poet; that he voted for Buchanan, and was + rejoicing in the defeat of the Free-soilers,—“a man to whom the + world lacks substance because he has not sufficiently cultivated his + emotional nature;” and “his personal intercourse, though kindly, does not + stir one’s blood in the least.” Yet Hawthorne finds him to be + good-hearted, intelligent, and sensible. This can be no other than William + Cullen Bryant. {Footnote: Italian Note-book, ii. 15.} + </p> + <p> + In the evening of June 27 the Hawthornes went to call on a Miss Blagden, + who occupied a villa on Bellosguardo, and where they met the Brownings, + and a Mr. Trollope, a brother of the novelist. It could not have been the + Villa Manteüto, which Miss Blagden rented, for we hear of her at + Bellosguardo again in August, when Hawthorne was living there himself; and + after this we do not hear of the Brownings again. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s remark on Browning’s poetry is one of the rare instances in + which he criticises a contemporary author: + </p> + <p> + “I am rather surprised that Browning’s conversation should be so clear, + and so much to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom + proceed far, without running into the high grass of latent meanings and + obscure allusions.” + </p> + <p> + It is precisely this which has prevented Browning from achieving the + reputation that his genius deserves. We wish that Hawthorne could have + favored us with as much literary criticism as he has given us of art + criticism, and we almost lose patience with him for his repeated + canonization of General Jackson—St. Hickory—united with a + disparagement of Washington and Sumner; but although Hawthorne’s insight + into human nature was wonderful in its way, it would seem to have been + confined within narrow boundaries. At least he seems to have possessed + little insight into grand characters and magnanimous natures. He wishes + now that Raphael could have painted Jackson’s portrait. So, conversely, + Shakespeare belittles Cæsar in order to suit the purpose of his play. + Which of Shakespeare’s male characters can be measured beside George + Washington? There is not one of them, unless Kent in “King Lear.” Strong, + resolute natures, like Washington, Hamilton, Sumner, are not adapted to + dramatic fiction, either in prose or in verse. + </p> + <p> + A Florentine summer is about equal to one in South Carolina, and now, when + Switzerland can be reached by rail in twenty-four hours, no American or + Englishman thinks of spending July and August there; but in Hawthorne’s + time it was a long and expensive journey over the Pennine Alps; + Hawthorne’s physique was as well attempered to heat as to cold; and he + continued to frequent the picture-galleries and museums after all others + had ceased to do so; although he complains in his diary that he had never + known it so hot before, and that the flagstones in the street reflect the + sun’s rays upon him like the open doors of a furnace. + </p> + <p> + At length, in an entry of July 27, he says: + </p> + <p> + “I seldom go out nowadays, having already seen Florence tolerably well, + and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in + sketching out a romance, {Footnote: “The Marble Faun."} which whether it + will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. At any rate, it + leaves me little heart for journalizing, and describing new things; and + six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable to me just + now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties.” + </p> + <p> + This is the second instance in which we hear of a romance based on the + “Faun” of Praxiteles, and now at last he appears to be in earnest. + </p> + <p> + It may be suspected that his entertaining friend, Hiram Powers, was the + chief obstacle to the progress of his new plot, and it is rather amusing + to believe that it was through the agency of Mr. Powers, who cared for + nothing so much as Hawthorne’s welfare, that this impediment was removed. + Five days later, Hawthorne and his household gods, which were chiefly his + wife and children, left the Casa del Bello for the Villa Manteüto where + they remained in peaceful retirement until the first of October. + </p> + <p> + On the tower of the Villa he could enjoy whatever enlivening breezes came + across to Florence from the mountains to the north and east. When the <i>tramontana</i> + blew, he was comfortable enough. Thunder-storms also came frequently, with + the roar of heaven’s artillery reverberating from peak to peak, and + enveloping Bellosguardo in a dense vapor, like the smoke from Napoleon’s + cannon; after which they would career down the valley of the Arno to Pisa, + flashing and cannonading like a victorious army in pursuit of the enemy. + </p> + <p> + The beauty of the summer nights at Florence amply compensates for the + sultriness of the days,—especially if they be moonlight nights,—and + the bright starlight of the Mediterranean is little less beautiful. + Travellers who only see Italy in winter, know not what they miss. + Hawthorne noticed that the Italian sky had a softer blue than that of + England and America, and that there was a peculiar luminous quality in the + atmosphere, as well as a more decided difference between sunshine and + shadow, than in countries north of the Alps. The atmosphere of Italy, + Spain, and Greece is not like any American air that I am acquainted with. + During the summer season, all Italians whose occupation will permit them, + sleep at noon,—the laborers in the shadows of the walls,—and + sit up late at night, enjoying the fine air and the pleasant conversation + which it inspires. Hawthorne found the atmosphere of Tuscany favorable for + literary work, even in August. + </p> + <p> + On the 4th of that month he looked out from his castle wall late at night + and noticed the brilliancy of the stars,—also that the Great Dipper + exactly overhung the valley of the Arno. At that same hour the astronomer + Donati was sweeping the heavens with his telescope at the Florentine + observatory, and it may have been ten days later that he discovered in the + handle of the Dipper the great comet which will always bear his name,—the + most magnificent comet of modern times, only excepting that of 1680, which + could be seen at noonday. It first became visible to the naked eye during + the last week of August, as a small star with a smaller tail, near the + second star from the end of the handle of the Dipper; after which it grew + apace until it extended nearly from the horizon to the zenith, with a tail + millions of miles in length. This, however, did not take place until near + the time of Hawthorne’s departure from Florence. In his case it proved + sorrowfully enough a harbinger of calamity. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne blocked out his sketch of “The Romance of Monte Beni” in a + single month, and then returned to the churches and picture-galleries. He + could not expect to revisit Italy in this life, and prudently concluded to + make the most of it while the opportunity lasted. He notices the peculiar + fatigue which sight-seeing causes in deep natures, and becomes unspeakably + weary of it, yet returns to it again next day with an interest as fresh as + before. + </p> + <p> + Neither did he lack for society. William Story came over to see him from + Siena, where he was spending the summer, exactly as Hawthorne describes + the visit of Kenyon to Donatello in his romance. Mr. and Mrs. Powers came + frequently up the hill in the cool of the evening, and Miss Blagden also + proved an excellent neighbor. Early in September the “spirits” appeared + again in great force. Mrs. Hawthorne discovered a medium in her English + governess; table-rappings and table-tippings were the order of the + evening; and some rather surprising results were obtained through Miss + Shepard’s fingers. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 31.} Powers related a still + more surprising performance {Footnote: Italian Note-book.} that he had + witnessed, which was conducted by D. D. Home, an American mountebank, who + hoaxed more crowned heads, princes, princesses, and especially English + duchesses than Cagliostro himself. Hawthorne felt the repugnance of the + true artist to this uncanny business, and his thorough detestation of the + subject commends itself to every sensible reader. He came to the + conclusion that the supposed revelations of spirits were nothing more than + the mental vagaries of persons in the same room, conveyed in some occult + manner to the brain of the medium. The governess, Miss Shepard, agreed + with him in this, but she could give no explanation as to the manner in + which the response came to her. Twenty years of scientific investigations + have added little or nothing to this diagnosis of Hawthorne’s, nor are we + any nearer to an explanation of the simple fact; which is wonderful enough + in its way. Hawthorne compares the revelations of mediums to dreams, but + they are not exactly like them, for they are at the same time more + rational and less original or spontaneous than dreams. In my dreams my old + friends often come back to me and speak in their characteristic manner,—more + characteristic perhaps than I could represent them when awake,—but + the responses of mediums are either evasive or too highly generalized to + be of any particular value. The story of Mary Runnel, or Rondel, which + Julian Hawthorne narrates, is an excellent case in point. Hawthorne had + probably heard of that flirtation of his grandfather some time in his + youth, and the fact was unconsciously latent in his mind; but nothing that + Mary divulged at Bellosguardo was of real interest to him or to the others + concerned. The practice of spiritism, hypnotism, or Christian Science + opens a wide door for superstition and imposture to walk in and seat + themselves by our firesides. + </p> + <p> + About a year before this, Congress had given Hiram Powers a commission to + model a colossal statue of <i>America</i> for the Capitol at Washington. + This he had done, and the committee in charge accepted his design,—Hawthorne + also writes admiringly of it,—but it was also necessary to receive + the approval of the President, and this Buchanan with his peculiar + obstinacy refused to give. Powers was left without compensation for a + whole year of arduous labor, and Hawthorne for once was thoroughly + indignant. He wrote in his diary: + </p> + <p> + “I wish our great Republic had the spirit to do as much, according to its + vast means, as Florence did for sculpture and architecture when it was a + republic.... And yet the less we attempt to do for art the better, if our + future attempts are to have no better result than such brazen troopers as + the equestrian statue of General Jackson, or even such naked + respectabilities as Greeneough’s Washington.” + </p> + <p> + Perhaps Powers’ “America” was a fortunate escape, and yet it does not seem + right that any enlightened government should set such a pitfall for honest + men to stumble into. There certainly ought to be some compensation in such + cases. The experience of history hitherto has been that, whereas painting + and literature have nourished under all forms of government, sculpture has + only attained its highest excellence in republics like Athens, Rhodes, + Florence, and Nuremberg; so that upon this line of argument there is good + hope for America in the future. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XV. — HAWTHORNE AS ART CRITIC: 1858 + </h2> + <p> + Nearly one-third of the Italian Note-book is devoted to the criticisms or + descriptions of paintings, statues, and architecture, for which we can be + only too thankful as coming from such a bright, penetrating, and ingenious + intelligence. It is much in their favor that Hawthorne had not previously + undertaken a course of instruction in art; that he wrote for his own + benefit, and not for publication; and that he was not biased by + preconceived opinions. It cannot be doubted that he was sometimes + influenced by the opinions of Story, Powers, and other artists with whom + he came in contact; but this could have happened only in particular cases, + and more especially in respect to modern works of art. When Hawthorne + visited the galleries he usually went alone, or only accompanied by his + wife. + </p> + <p> + The only opportunities for the study of aesthetics or art criticism, fifty + years ago, were to be found in German universities. Kugler’s handbook of + painting was the chief authority in use, rather academic, but correct + enough in a general way. Ruskin, a more eloquent and discriminating + writer, had devoted himself chiefly to celebrating the merits of Turner + and Tintoretto, but was never quite just to Florentine art. Mrs. Jameson + followed closely after Kugler, and was the only one of these that + Hawthorne appears to have consulted. Winckelmann’s history of Greek + sculpture, which was not a history in the proper sense of the word, had + been translated by Lodge, but Hawthorne does not mention it, and it would + not have been much assistance to him if he had read it. Like Winckelmann + and Lessing, however, he admired the “Laocoön,”—an admiration now + somewhat out of fashion. + </p> + <p> + There can be no final authority in art, for the most experienced critics + still continue to differ in their estimates of the same painting or + statue. More than this, it is safe to affirm that any one writer who makes + a statement concerning a certain work of art at a given time, would have + made a somewhat different statement at another time. In fact, this not + unfrequently happens in actual practice; for all that any of us can do is, + to reproduce the impression made on us at the moment, and this depends as + much on our own state of mind, and on our peculiarities, as on the + peculiarities of the picture or statue that we criticise. It is the same + in art itself. If Raphael had not painted the “Sistine Madonna” at the + time he did, he would have produced a different work. It was the + concentration of that particular occasion, and if any accident had + happened to prevent it, that pious and beautiful vision would have been + lost to the world. + </p> + <p> + It requires years of study and observation of the best masters to become a + trustworthy art critic, and then everything depends of course upon the + genius of the individual. It has happened more than once that a wealthy + American, with a certain kind of enthusiasm for art, has prepared himself + at a German university, has studied the science of connoisseurship, and + has become associate member of a number of foreign societies, only to + discover at length that he had no talent for the profession. Hawthorne + enjoyed no such advantages, nor did he even think of becoming a + connoisseur. His whole experience in the art of design might be included + within twelve months, and his original basis was nothing better than his + wife’s water-color painting and the mediocre pictures in the Boston + Athenaeum; but he brought to his subject an eye that was trained to the + closest observation of Nature and a mind experienced beyond all others + {Footnote: At least at that time.} in the mysteries of human life. He + begins tentatively, and as might be expected makes a number of errors, but + quite as often he hits the nail, where others have missed it. He learns by + his mistakes, and steadily improves in critical faculty. Hawthorne’s + Italian Note-book is a unique record, in which the development of a highly + organized mind has advanced from small beginnings to exceptional skill in + a fresh department of activity. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne brought with him to Italy the Yankee preference for newness and + nicety, which our forefathers themselves derived from their residence in + Holland, and there is no city in Europe where this sentiment could have + troubled him so much as in Rome. He disliked the dingy picture-frames, the + uncleanly canvases, the earth-stains and broken noses of the antique + statues, the smoked-up walls of the Sistine Chapel, and the cracks in + Raphael’s frescos. He condemns everything as rubbish which has not an + external perfection; forgetting that, as in human nature, the most + precious treasures are sometimes allied with an ungainly exterior. Yet in + this he only echoes the impressions of thousands of others who have gone + to the Vatican and returned disconsolate, because amid a perplexing + multitude of objects they knew not where to look for consummate art. One + can imagine if an experienced friend had accompanied Hawthorne to the + Raphael stanza, and had pointed out the figures of the Pope, the cardinal, + and the angelic boys in the “Mass at Bolsena,” he would have admired them + without limitation. He quickly discovered Raphael’s “Transfiguration,” and + considered it the greatest painting that the world contains. + </p> + <p> + The paintings in the princely collections in Rome are, with the exception + of those in the Borghese gallery, far removed from princely. A large + proportion of their best paintings had long since been sold to the royal + collections of northern Europe, and had been replaced either by copies or + by works of inferior masters. In the Barberini palace there are not more + than three or four paintings such as might reasonably detain a traveller, + and it is about the same in the Ludovisi gallery. There was not a grain of + affectation in Hawthorne; he never pretended to admire what he did not + like, nor did he strain himself into liking anything that his inner nature + rebelled against. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s taste in art was much in advance of his time. His quick + appreciation of the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux on the Quirinal + is the best proof of this. Ten years later it was the fashion in Rome to + deride those statues, as a late work of the empire and greatly lacking in + artistic style. Brunn, in his history of ancient sculpture, attributes + them to the school of Lysippus, a contemporary of Alexander, which Brunn + certainly would not have done if he had possessed a good eye for form. + Vasari, on the contrary, a surer critic, considered them worthy to be + placed beside Michel Angelo’s “David”; but it remained for Furtwängler to + restore them to their true position as a work of the Periclean age, + although copied by Italian sculptors. They must have been the product of a + single mind, {Footnote: On the base of one is <i>Opus Phidiae</i>, and on + that of the other, <i>Opus Praxitelis.</i>} either Phidias, Alcameres, or + the elder Praxiteles—if there ever was such a person; and they have + the finest figures of any statues in Rome (much finer than the dandified + “Apollo Belvedere”) and also the most spirited action. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne went to the Villa Ludovisi to see the much-vaunted bas-relief of + Antinous, which fifty years ago was considered one of the art treasures of + the city; but a more refined taste has since discovered that in spite of + the rare technical skill, its hard glassy finish gives it a cold and + conventional effect. Hawthorne returned from it disappointed, and wrote in + his diary: + </p> + <p> + “This Antinous is said to be the finest relic of antiquity next to the + Apollo and the Laocoön; but I could not feel it to be so, partly, I + suppose, because the features of Antinous do not seem to me beautiful in + themselves; and that heavy, downward look is repeated till I am more weary + of it than of anything else in sculpture.” + </p> + <p> + The Greek artist of Adrian’s time attempted to give the face a pensive + expression, but only succeeded in this heavy downward look. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne felt the same disappointment after his first visit to the + sculpture-gallery of the Vatican. “I must confess,” he wrote, “taking such + transient glimpses as I did, I was more impressed with the extent of the + Vatican, and the beautiful order in which it is kept and its great sunny, + open courts, with fountains, grass, and shrubs ... than with the + statuary.” The Vatican collection has great archaeological value, but, + with the exception of the “Laocoön,” the “Meleager,” the “Apollo,” and a + few others, little or no artistic value. The vast majority of the statues + there are either late Roman works or cheap Roman copies of second-rate + Hellenic statues. Some of them are positively bad and others are archaic, + and Hawthorne was fully justified in his disatisfaction with them. He + noticed, however, a decided difference between the original “Apollo” and + the casts of it with which he was familiar. On a subsequent visit he fails + to observe the numerous faults in Canova’s “Perseus,” and afterwards + writes this original statement concerning the “Laocoön”: + </p> + <p> + “I felt the Laocoön very powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal + agony with a strange calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles + the vast age of the sea, calm on account of its immensity; as the tumult + of Niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps pouring on + forever and ever.” + </p> + <p> + Professor E. A. Gardner and the more fastidious school of critics have + recently decided that the action of the “Laocoön” is too violent to be + contained within the proper boundaries of sculpture; but Hawthorne + controverts this view in a single sentence. The action is violent, it is + true, but the <i>impression</i> which the statue makes on him is not a + violent one; for the greatness of the art sublimates the motive. It is a + tragedy in marble, and Pliny, who had seen the works of Phidias and + Praxiteles, placed Agesander’s “Laocoön” above them all. This, however, is + a Roman view. What Hawthorne wrote in his diary should not always be taken + literally. When he declares that he would like to have every artist that + perpetrates an allegory put to death, he merely expresses the puzzling + effects which such compositions frequently exercise on the weary-minded + traveller; and when he wishes that all the frescos on Italian walls could + be obliterated, he only repeats a sentiment of similar strain. Perhaps we + should class in the same category Hawthorne’s remark concerning the Elgin + marbles in the British Museum, that “it would be well if they were + converted into paving-stones.” There are no grander monuments of ancient + art than those battered and headless statues from the pediment of the + Parthenon (the figures of the so-called “Three Fates” surpass the “Venus + of Melos”), and archaeologists are still in dispute as to what they may + have represented; but the significance of the subject before him was + always the point in which Hawthorne was interested. Julian Hawthorne says + of his father, in regard to a similar instance: + </p> + <p> + “Of technicalities,—difficulties overcome, harmony of lines, and so + forth,—he had no explicit knowledge; they produced their effect upon + him of course, but without his recognizing the manner of it. All that + concerned him was the sentiment which the artist had meant to express; the + means and method were comparatively unimportant.” {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, + ii. 193.} + </p> + <p> + The technicalities of art differ with every clime and every generation. + They belong chiefly to the connoisseur, and have their value, but the less + a critic thinks of them in making a general estimate of a painting or + statue, the more likely he is to render an impartial judgment. Hawthorne’s + analysis of Praxiteles’s “Faun,” in his “Romance of Monte Beni,” being a + subject in which he was particularly interested, is almost without a rival + in the literature of its kind; and this is the more remarkable since the + copy of the “Faun” in the museum of the Capitol is not one of the best, at + least it is inferior to the one in the Glyptothek at Munich. It seems as + if Hawthorne had penetrated to the first conception of it in the mind of + Praxiteles. + </p> + <p> + The Sistine Chapel, like the Italian scenery, only unfolds its beauties on + a bright day, and Hawthorne happened to go there when the sky was full of + drifting clouds, a time when it is difficult to see any object as it + really is. It may have been on this account that he entirely mistook the + action of the Saviour in Michel Angelo’s “Last Judgment.” Christ has + raised his arm above his head in order to display the mark where he was + nailed to the cross, and Hawthorne presumed this, as many others have + done, to be an angry threatening gesture of condemnation, which would not + accord with his merciful spirit. He appreciated the symmetrical figure of + Adam, and the majestic forms of the prophets and sibyls encircling the + ceiling, and if he had seen the face of the Saviour in a fair light, he + might have recognized that such divine calmness of expression could not + coexist with a vindictive motive. This, however, can be seen to better + advantage in a Braun photograph than in the painting itself. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne goes to the Church of San Pietro in Vincolo to see Michel + Angelo’s “Moses,” but he does not moralize before it, like a certain + Concord artist, on “the weakness of exaggeration;” nor does he consider, + like Ruskin, that its conventional horns are a serious detriment. On the + contrary he finds it “grand and sublime, with a beard flowing down like a + cataract; a truly majestic figure, but not so benign as it were desirable + that such strength should hold.” An Englishman present remarked that the + “Moses” had very fine features,—“a compliment,” says Hawthorne, “for + which the colossal Hebrew ought to have made the Englishman a bow.” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: Italian Note-book, p. 164.} + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the Englishman really meant that the face had a noble expression. + The somewhat satyr-like features of the “Moses” would seem to have been + unconsciously adopted, together with the horns, from a statue of the god + Pan, which thus serves as an intermediate link between the “Moses” and the + “Faun” of Praxiteles; but he who cannot appreciate Michel Angelo’s “Moses” + in spite of this, knows nothing of the Alpine heights of human nature. + </p> + <p> + Of all the paintings that Hawthorne saw in Rome none impressed him so + deeply as Guido’s portrait of Beatrice Cenci, and none more justly. If the + “Laocoön” is the type of an old Greek tragedy, a strong man strangled in + the coils of Fate, the portrait of Beatrice represents the tragedy of + mediaeval Italy, a beautiful woman crushed by the downfall of a splendid + civilization. The fate of Joan of Arc or of Madame Roland was merciful + compared to that of poor Beatrice. Religion is no consolation to her, for + it is the Pope himself who signs her death-warrant. She is massacred to + gratify the avarice of the Holy See. Yet in this last evening of her + tragical life, she does find strength and consolation in her dignity as a + woman. Never was art consecrated to a higher purpose; Guido rose above + himself; and, as Hawthorne says, it seems as if mortal man could not have + wrought such an effect. It has always been the most popular painting in + Rome, but Hawthorne was the first to celebrate its unique superiority in + writing, and his discourse upon it in various places leaves little for + those that follow. + </p> + <p> + It may have been long since discovered that Hawthorne’s single weakness + was a weakness for his friends; certainly an amiable weakness, but + nevertheless that is the proper name for it. When Phocion was Archon of + Athens, he said that a chief magistrate should know no friends; and the + same should be true of an authoritative writer. Hawthorne has not gone so + far in this direction as many others have who had less reason to speak + with authority than he; but he has indicated his partiality for Franklin + Pierce plainly enough, and his over-praise of Hiram Powers and William + Story, as well as his under-praise of Crawford, will go down to future + generations as something of an injustice to those three artists. + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: GUIDO RENI’S PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI, PAINTED WHILE SHE + WAS IN PRISON, WHICH SUGGESTED TO HAWTHORNE THE PLOT OF “THE MARBLE FAUN"} + </p> + <p> + It is not necessary to repeat here what Hawthorne wrote concerning Powers’ + Webster. The statue stands in front of the State House at Boston, and + serves as a good likeness of the famous orator, but more than that one + cannot say for it. The face has no definable expression, and those who + have looked for a central motive in the figure will be pleased to learn + what it is by reading Hawthorne’s description of it, as he saw it in + Powers’ studio at Florence. A sculptor of the present day can find no + better study for his art than the attitudes and changes of countenance in + an eloquent speaker; but which of them can be said to have taken advantage + of this? Story made an attempt in his statue of Everett, but even his most + indulgent friends did not consider it a success. His “George Peabody,” + opposite the Bank of England, could not perhaps have been altogether + different from what it is. + </p> + <p> + What chiefly interested Story in his profession seems to have been the + modelling of unhappy women in various attitudes of reflection. He made a + number of these, of which his “Cleopatra” is the only one known to fame, + and in the expression of her face he has certainly achieved a high degree + of excellence. Neither has Hawthorne valued it too highly,—the + expression of worldly splendor incarnated in a beautiful woman on the + tragical verge of an abyss. If she only were beautiful! Here the + limitations of the statue commence. Hawthorne says, “The sculptor had not + shunned to give the full, Nubian lips and other characteristics of the + Egyptian physiognomy.” + </p> + <p> + Here he follows the sculptor himself, and it is remarkable that a college + graduate like William Story should have made so transparent a mistake. + Cleopatra was not an Egyptian at all. The Ptolemies were Greeks, and it is + simply impossible to believe that they would have allied themselves with a + subject and alien race. This kind of small pedantry has often led artists + astray, and was peculiarly virulent during the middle of the past century. + The whole figure of Story’s “Cleopatra” suffers from it. Hawthorne says + again, “She was draped from head to foot in a costume minutely and + scrupulously studied from that of ancient Egypt.” In fact, the body and + limbs of the statue are so closely shrouded as to deprive the work of that + sense of freedom of action and royal abandon which greets us in + Shakespeare’s and Plutarch’s “Cleopatra.” Story might have taken a lesson + from Titian’s matchless “Cleopatra” in the Cassel gallery, or from Marc + Antonio’s small woodcut of Raphael’s “Cleopatra.” + </p> + <p> + Perhaps it is not too much to say of Crawford that he was the finest + plastic genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. His technique may not have been + equal to Flaxman’s or St. Gaudens’, but his designs have more of grandeur + than the former, and he is more original than the latter. There are faults + of modelling in his “Orpheus,” and its attitude resembles that of the + eldest son of Niobe in the Florentine gallery,—although the Niobe + youth looks upward and Orpheus is peering into darkness,—its + features are rather too pretty; but the statue has exactly what Powers’ + “Greek Slave” lacks, a definite motive,—that of an earnest seeker,—which + pervades it from head to foot; and it is no imaginary pathos that we feel + in its presence. There is, at least, no imitation of the antique in + Crawford’s “Beethoven,” for its conception, the listening to internal + harmonies, would never have occurred to a Greek or a Roman. Even Hawthorne + admits Crawford’s skill in the treatment of drapery; and this is very + important, for it is in his drapery quite as much as in the nude that we + recognize the superiority of Michel Angelo to Raphael; and the folds of + Beethoven’s mantle are as rhythmical as his own harmonies. The features + lack something of firmness, but it is altogether a statue in the grand + manner. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne is rather too exacting in his requirements of modern sculptors. + Warrington Wood, who commenced life as a marble-worker, always employed + Italian workmen to carve his statues, although he was perfectly able to do + it himself, and always put on the finishing touches,—as I presume + they all do. Bronze statues are finished with a file, and of course do not + require any knowledge of the chisel. + </p> + <p> + In regard to the imitation of antique attitudes, there has certainly been + too much of it, as Hawthorne supposes; but the Greeks themselves were + given to this form of plagiarism, and even Praxiteles sometimes adopted + the motives of his predecessors; but Hawthorne praises Powers, Story, and + Harriet Hosmer above their merits. + </p> + <p> + The whole brotherhood of artists and their critical friends might rise up + against me, if I were to support Hawthorne’s condemnation of modern + Venuses, and “the guilty glimpses stolen at hired models.” They are not + necessarily guilty glimpses. To an experienced artist the customary study + from a naked figure, male or female, is little more than what a low-necked + dress at a party would be to many others. Yet the instinct of the age + shrinks from this exposure. We can make pretty good Venuses, but we cannot + look at them through the same mental and moral atmosphere as the + contemporaries of Scopas, or even with the same eyes that Michel Angelo + saw them. We feel the difference between a modern Venus and an ancient + one. There is a statue in the Vatican of a Roman emperor, of which every + one says that it ought to wear clothes; and the reason is because the face + has such a modern look. A raving Bacchante may be a good acquisition to an + art museum, but it is out of place in a public library. A female statue + requires more or less drapery to set off the outlines of the figure and to + give it dignity. We feel this even in the finest Greek work—like the + “Venus of Cnidos.” + </p> + <p> + In this matter Hawthorne certainly exposes his Puritanic education, and he + also places too high a value on the carving of button-holes and + shoestrings by Italian workmen. Such things are the fag-ends of statuary. + </p> + <p> + His judgment, however, is clear and convincing in regard to the tinted + Eves and Venuses of Gibson. Whatever may have been the ancient practice in + this respect, Gibson’s experiment proved a failure. Nobody likes those + statues; and no other sculptor has since followed Gibson’s example. The + tinting of statues by the Greeks did not commence until the time of + Aristotle, and does not seem to have been very general. Their object + evidently was, not so much to imitate flesh as to tone down the + crystalline glare of the new marble. Pausanias speaks of a statue in + Arcadia, the drapery of which was painted with vermilion, “so as to look + very gay.” This was of course the consequence of a late and degraded + taste. That traces of paint should have been discovered on Greek temples + is no evidence that the marble was painted when they were first built. + </p> + <p> + It may be suspected that Hawthorne was one of the very few who have seen + the “Venus dé Medici” and recognized the true significance of the statue. + The vast majority of visitors to the Uffizi only see in it the type of a + perfectly symmetrical woman bashfully posing for her likeness in marble, + but Hawthorne’s perception in it went much beyond that, and the fact that + he attempts no explanation of its motive is in accordance with the present + theory. He also noticed that statues had sometimes exercised a potent + spell over him, and at others a very slight influence. + </p> + <p> + Froude says that a man’s modesty is the best part of him. Notice that, ye + strugglers for preferment, and how beautifully modest Hawthorne is, when + he writes in his Florentine diary: + </p> + <p> + “In a year’s time, with the advantage of access to this magnificent + gallery, I think I might come to have some little knowledge of pictures. + At present I still know nothing; but am glad to find myself capable, at + least, of loving one picture better than another. I am sensible, however, + that a process is going on, and has been ever since I came to Italy, that + puts me in a state to see pictures with less toil, and more pleasure, and + makes me more fastidious, yet more sensible of beauty where I saw none + before.” + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne belongs to the same class of amateur critics as Shelley and + Goethe, who, even if their opinions cannot always be accepted as final, + illuminate the subject with the radiance of genius and have an equal value + with the most experienced connoisseurs. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + The return of the Hawthornes to Rome through Tuscany was even more + interesting than their journey to Florence in the spring, and they enjoyed + the inestimable advantage of a <i>vetturino</i> who would seem to have + been the Sir Philip Sidney of his profession, a compendium of human + excellences. There are such men, though rarely met with, and we may trust + Hawthorne’s word that Constantino Bacci was one of them; not only a + skilful driver, but a generous provider, honest, courteous, kindly, and + agreeable. They went first to Siena, where they were entertained for a + week or more by the versatile Mr. Story, and where Hawthorne wrote an + eloquent description of the cathedral; then over the mountain pass where + Radicofani nestles among the iron-browed crags above the clouds; past the + malarious Lake of Bolsena, scene of the miracle which Raphael has + commemorated in the Vatican; through Viterbo and <i>Sette Vene</i>; and + finally, on October 16, into Rome, through the Porta’ del Popolo, designed + by Michel Angelo in his massive style,—Donati’s comet flaming before + them every night. Thompson, the portrait painter, had already secured a + furnished house, No. 68 Piazza Poli, for the Hawthornes, to which they + went immediately. + </p> + <p> + Since the death of Julius Cæsar, comets have always been looked upon as + the forerunners of pestilence and war, but wars are sometimes blessings, + and Donati’s discovery proved a harbinger of good to Italy,—but to + the Hawthornes, a prediction of evil. Continually in Hawthorne’s Italian + journal we meet with references to the Roman malaria, as if it were a + subject that occupied his thoughts, and nowhere is this more common than + during the return-journey from Florence. Did it occur to him that the + lightning might strike in his own house? No sensible American now would + take his children to Rome unless for a very brief visit; and yet William + Story brought up his family there with excellent success, so far as health + was concerned. + </p> + <p> + We can believe that Hawthorne took every possible precaution, so far as he + knew, but in spite of that on November 1 his eldest daughter was seized + with Roman fever, and for six weeks thereafter lay trembling between life + and death, so that it seemed as if a feather might turn the balance. + </p> + <p> + She does not appear to have been imprudent. Her father believed that the + “old hag” breathed upon her while she was with her mother, who was + sketching in the Palace of the Cæsars; but the Palatine Hill is on high + ground, with a foundation of solid masonry, and was guarded by French + soldiers, and it would have been difficult to find a more cleanly spot in + the city. A German count, who lived in a villa on the Cælian Hill, close + by, considered his residence one of the most healthful in Rome. Miss Una + had a passionate attachment for the capital of the ancient world; and it + seems as if the evil spirit of the place had seized upon her, as the Ice + Maiden is supposed to entrap chamois hunters in the Alps. + </p> + <p> + One of the evils attendant on sickness in a foreign country is, the + uncertainty in regard to a doctor, and this naturally leads to a distrust + and suspicion of the one that is employed. Even so shrewd a man as + Bismarck fell into the hands of a charlatan at St. Petersburg and suffered + severely in consequence. Hawthorne either had a similar experience, or, + what came to the same thing, believed that he did. He considered himself + obliged to change doctors for his daughter, and this added to his care and + anxiety. During the next four months he wrote not a word in his journal + (or elsewhere, so far as we know), and he visibly aged before his wife’s + eyes. He went to walk on occasion with Story or Thompson, but it was + merely for the preservation of his own health. His thoughts were always in + his daughter’s chamber, and this was so strongly marked upon his face that + any one could read it. Toward the Ides of March, Miss Una was sufficiently + improved to take a short look at the carnival, but it was two months later + before she was in a condition to travel, and neither she nor her father + ever wholly recovered from the effects of this sad experience. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVI. — “THE MARBLE FAUN”: 1859-1860 + </h2> + <p> + What the Roman carnival was a hundred and fifty years ago, when the + Italian princes poured out their wealth upon it, and when it served as a + medium for the communication of lovers as well as for social and political + intrigue, which sometimes resulted in conflicts like those of the + Montagues and Capulets, can only be imagined. Goethe witnessed it from a + balcony in the Corso, and his carnival in the second part of “Faust” was + worked up from notes taken on that occasion; but it is so highly poetized + that little can be determined from it, except as a portion of the drama. + By Hawthorne’s time the aristocratic Italians had long since given up + their favorite holiday to English and American travellers,—crowded + out, as it were, by the superiority of money; and since the advent of + Victor Emmanuel, the carnival has become so democratic that you are more + likely to encounter your landlady’s daughter there than any more + distinguished person. Hawthorne’s description of it in “The Marble Faun” + is not overdrawn, and is one of the happiest passages in the book. + </p> + <p> + The carnival of 1859 was an exceptionally brilliant one. The Prince of + Wales attended it with a suite of young English nobles, who, always + decorous and polite on public occasions, nevertheless infused great spirit + into the proceedings. Sumner and Motley were there, and Motley rented a + balcony in a palace, to which the Hawthornes received general and repeated + invitations. On March 7, Miss Una was driven through the Corso in a + barouche, and the Prince of Wales threw her a bouquet, probably + recognizing her father, who was with her; and to prove his good intentions + he threw her another, when her carriage returned from the Piazza, del + Popolo. The present English sovereign has always been noted for a sort of + journalistic interest in prominent men of letters, science, and public + affairs, and it is likely that he was better informed in regard to the + Hawthornes than they imagined. Hawthorne himself was too much subdued by + his recent trial to enter into the spirit of the carnival, even with a + heart much relieved from anxiety, but he sometimes appeared in the + Motleys’ balcony, and sometimes went along the narrow sidewalk of the + Corso, “for an hour or so among the people, just on the edges of the fun.” + Sumner invited Mrs. Hawthorne to take a stroll and see pictures with him, + from which she returned delighted with his criticisms and erudition. + </p> + <p> + A few days later Franklin Pierce suddenly appeared at No. 68 Piazza Poli, + with that shadow on his face which was never wholly to leave it. The man + who fears God and keeps his commandments will never feel quite alone in + the world; but for the man who lives on popularity, what will there be + left when that forsakes him? Hawthorne was almost shocked at the change in + his friend’s appearance; not only at his gray hair and wrinkled brow, but + at the change in his voice, and at a certain lack of substance in him, as + if the personal magnetism had gone out of him. Hawthorne went to walk with + him, and tried to encourage him by suggesting another term of the + presidency, but this did not help much, for even Pierce’s own State had + deserted him,—a fact of which Hawthorne may not have been aware. The + companionship of his old friend, however, and the manifold novelty of Rome + itself, somewhat revived the ex-President, as may be imagined; and a month + later he left for Venice, in better spirits than he came. + </p> + <p> + They celebrated the Ides of March by going to see Harriet Hosmer’s statue + of Zenobia, which was afterward exhibited in America. Hawthorne + immediately detected its resemblance to the antique,—the figure was + in fact a pure plagiarism from the smaller statue of Ceres in the Vatican,—but + Miss Hosmer succeeded in giving the face an expression of injured and + sorrowing majesty, which Hawthorne was equally ready to appreciate. + </p> + <p> + On this second visit to Rome he became acquainted with a sculptor, whose + name is not given, but who criticised Hiram Powers with a rather + suspicious severity. He would not allow Powers “to be an artist at all, or + to know anything of the laws of art,” although acknowledging him to be a + great bust-maker, and to have put together the “Greek Slave” and the + “Fisher-Boy” very ingeniously. “The latter, however (he says), is copied + from the Spinario in the <i>Tribune</i> of the Uffizi; and the former made + up of beauties that had no reference to one another; and he affirms that + Powers is ready to sell, and has actually sold, the ‘Greek Slave,’ limb by + limb, dismembering it by reversing the process of putting it together. + Powers knows nothing scientifically of the human frame, and only succeeds + in representing it, as a natural bone-doctor succeeds in setting a + dislocated limb, by a happy accident or special providence.” {Footnote: + Italian Note-book, 483.} + </p> + <p> + We may judge, from “the style, the matter, and the drift” of this + discourse, that it emanated from the same sculptor who is mentioned, in + “Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife,” as having traduced Margaret Fuller and + her husband Count Ossoli. As Tennyson says, “A lie that is half a truth is + ever the blackest of lies,” and this fellow would seem to have been an + adept in unveracious exaggeration. It is remarkable that Hawthorne should + have given serious attention to such a man; but an English critic said in + regard to this same incident that if Hawthorne had been a more + communicative person, if he had talked freely to a larger number of + people, he would not have been so easily prejudiced by those few with whom + he was chiefly intimate. To which it could be added, that he might also + have taken broader views in regard to public affairs. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne was fortunate to have been present at the discovery of the St. + Petersburg “Venus,” the twin sister of the “Venus dé Medici,” which was + dug up in a vineyard outside the Porta Portese. The proprietor of the + vineyard, who made his fortune at a stroke by the discovery, happened to + select the site for a new building over the buried ruins of an ancient + villa, and the “Venus” was discovered in what appeared to Hawthorne as an + old Roman bath-room. The statue was in more perfect preservation than the + “Venus dé Medici,” both of whose arms have been restored, and Hawthorne + noticed that the head was larger and the face more characteristic, with + wide-open eyes and a more confident expression. He was one of the very few + who saw it before it was transported to St. Petersburg, and a thorough + artistic analysis of it is still one of the <i>desiderata</i>. The + difference in expression, however, would seem to be in favor of the “Venus + dé Medici,” as more in accordance with the ruling motive of the figure. + </p> + <p> + Miss Una Hawthorne had not sufficiently recovered to travel until the last + of May, when they all set forth northward by way of Genoa and Marseilles, + in which latter place we find them on the 28th, enjoying the comfort and + elegance of a good French hotel. Thence they proceeded to Avignon, but did + not find much to admire there except the Rhone; so they continued to + Geneva, the most pleasant, homelike resting place in Europe, but quite + deficient in other attractions. + </p> + <p> + It seems as if Hawthorne’s Roman friends were somewhat remiss in not + giving him better advice in regard to European travelling. At Geneva he + was within a stone’s throw of Chamounix, and hardly more than that of + Strasburg Cathedral, and yet he visited neither. Why did he go out of his + way to see so little and to miss so much? He went across the lake to visit + Lausanne and the Castle of Chillon, and he was more than astonished at the + view of the Pennine Alps from the deck of the steamer. He had never + imagined anything like it; and he might have said the same if he had + visited Cologne Cathedral. Instead of that, however, he hurried through + France again, with the intention of sailing for America the middle of + July; but after reaching London he concluded to remain another year in + England, to write his “Romance of Monte Beni,” and obtain an English + copyright for it. + </p> + <p> + He left Geneva on June 15, and as he turned his face northward, he felt + that Henry Bright and Francis Bennoch were his only real friends in Great + Britain. There could hardly have been a stronger contrast than these two. + Bright was tall, slender, rather pale for an Englishman, grave and + philosophical. Bennoch was short, plump, lively and jovial, with a ready + fund of humor much in the style of Dickens, with whom he was personally + acquainted. Yet Hawthorne recognized that Bright and Bennoch liked him for + what he was, in and of himself, and not for his celebrity alone. + </p> + <p> + Bright was in London when Hawthorne reached there, and proposed that they + should go together to call on Sumner, {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 223.} + who had been cured from the effects of Brooks’s assault by an equally + heroic treatment; but Hawthorne objected that as neither of them was Lord + Chancellor, Sumner would not be likely to pay them much attention; to + which Bright replied, that Sumner had been very kind to him in America, + and they accordingly went. Sumner was kind to thousands,—the kindest + as well as the most upright man of his time,—and no one in America, + except Longfellow, appreciated Hawthorne so well; but he was the champion + of the anti-slavery movement and the inveterate opponent of President + Pierce. I suppose a man’s mind cannot help being colored somewhat by such + conditions and influences. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne wished for a quiet, healthful place, where he could write his + romance without the disturbances that are incident to celebrity, and his + friends recommended Redcar, on the eastern coast of Yorkshire, a town that + otherwise Americans would not have heard of. He went there about the + middle of July, remaining until the 5th of October, but of his life there + we know nothing except that he must have worked assiduously, for in that + space of time he nearly finished a book containing almost twice as many + pages as “The Scarlet Letter.” Meanwhile Mrs. Hawthorne entertained the + children and kept them from interfering with their father (in his small + cottage), by making a collection of sea-mosses, which Una and Julian + gathered at low tides, and which their mother afterward dried and + preserved on paper. On October 4th Una Hawthorne wrote to her aunt, + Elizabeth Peabody: + </p> + <p> + “Our last day in Redcar, and a most lovely one it is. The sea seems to + reproach us for leaving it. But I am glad we are going, for I feel so + homesick that I want constant change to divert my thoughts. How + troublesome feelings and affections are.” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 35 a.} + </p> + <p> + One can see that it was a pleasant place even after the days had begun to + shorten, which they do very rapidly in northern England. From Redcar, + Hawthorne went to Leamington, where he finished his romance about the + first of December, and remained until some time in March, living quietly + and making occasional pedestrian tours to neighboring towns. He was + particularly fond of the walk to Warwick Castle, and of standing on the + bridge which crosses the Avon, and gazing at the walls of the Castle, as + they rise above the trees—“as fine a piece of English scenery as + exists anywhere; the gray towers and long line of windows of the lordly + castle, with a picturesquely varied outline; ancient strength, a little + softened by decay.” It is a view that has often been sketched, painted and + engraved. + </p> + <p> + The romance was written, but had to be revised, the least pleasant portion + of an author’s duties,—unless he chooses to make the index himself. + This required five or six weeks longer, after which Hawthorne went to + London and arranged for its publication with Smith & Elder, who agreed + to bring it out in three volumes—although two would have been quite + sufficient; but according to English ideas, the length of a work of + fiction adds to its importance. Unfortunately, Smith & Elder also + desired to cater to the more prosaic class of readers by changing the name + of the romance from “The Marble Faun” to “Transformation,” and they appear + to have done this without consulting Hawthorne’s wishes in the matter. It + was simply squeezing the title dry of all poetic suggestions; and it would + have been quite as appropriate to change the name of “The Scarlet Letter” + to “The Clergyman’s Penance,” or to call “The Blithedale Romance” “The + Suicide of a Jilt.” If Smith & Elder considered “The Marble Faun” too + recondite a title for the English public, what better name could they have + hit upon than “The Romance of Monte Beni”? Would not the Count of Monte + Beni be a cousin Italian, as it were, to the Count of Monte Cristo? We are + thankful to observe that when Hawthorne published the book in America, he + had his own way in regard to this point. + </p> + <p> + It was now that a new star was rising in the literary firmament, not of + the “shooting” or transitory species, and the genius of Marian Evans + (George Eliot) was casting its genial penetrating radiance over Great + Britain and the United States. She was as difficult a person to meet with + as Hawthorne himself, and they never saw one another; but a friend of Mr. + Bennoch, who lived at Coventry, invited the Hawthornes there in the first + week of February to meet Bennoch and others, and Marian Evans would seem + to have been the chief subject of conversation at the table that evening. + What Hawthorne gathered concerning her on that occasion he has preserved + in this compact and discriminating statement: + </p> + <p> + “Miss Evans (who wrote ‘Adam Bede’) was the daughter of a steward, and + gained her exact knowledge of English rural life by the connection with + which this origin brought her with the farmers. She was entirely + self-educated, and has made herself an admirable scholar in classical as + well as in modern languages. Those who knew her had always recognized her + wonderful endowments, and only watched to see in what way they would + develop themselves. She is a person of the simplest manners and character, + amiable and unpretending, and Mrs. B—— spoke of her with great + affection and respect.” + </p> + <p> + There is actually more of the real George Eliot in this summary than in + the three volumes of her biography by Mr. Cross. + </p> + <p> + Thorwaldsen’s well-known simile in regard to the three stages of + sculpture, the life, the death and the resurrection, also has its + application to literature. The manuscript is the birth of an author’s + work, and its revision always seems like taking the life out of it; but + when the proof comes, it is like a new birth, and he sees his design for + the first time in its true proportions. Then he goes over it as the + sculptor does his newly-cast bronze, smoothing the rough places and giving + it those final touches which serve to make its expression clearer. + Hawthorne was never more to be envied than while correcting the proof of + “The Marble Faun” at Leamington. The book was given to the public at + Easter-time; and there seems to have been only one person in England that + appreciated it, even as a work of art—John Lothrop Motley. The most + distinguished reviewers wholly failed to catch the significance of it; and + even Henry Bright, while warmly admiring the story, expressed a + dissatisfaction at the conclusion of it,—although he could have + found a notable precedent for that in Goethe’s “Wilhelm Meister.” The <i>Saturday + Review</i>, a publication similar in tone to the New York <i>Nation</i>, + said of “Transformation:” + </p> + <p> + {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 250.} + </p> + <p> + “A mystery is set before us to unriddle; at the end the author turns round + and asks us what is the good of solving it. That the impression of + emptiness and un-meaningness thus produced is in itself a blemish to the + work no one can deny. Mr. Hawthorne really trades upon the honesty of + other writers. We feel a sort of interest in the story, slightly and + sketchily as it is told, because our experience of other novels leads us + to assume that, when an author pretends to have a plot, he has one.” + </p> + <p> + The <i>Art Journal</i> said of it: {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 249.} + </p> + <p> + “We are not to accept this book as a story; in that respect it is + grievously deficient. The characters are utterly untrue to nature and to + fact; they speak, all and always, the sentiments of the author; their + words also are his; there is no one of them for which the world has + furnished a model.” + </p> + <p> + And the London <i>Athenaeum</i> said: {Footnote: Ibid., ii. 244.} + </p> + <p> + “To Mr. Hawthorne truth always seems to arrive through the medium of the + imagination.... His hero, the Count of Monte Beni, would never have lived + had not the Faun of Praxiteles stirred the author’s admiration.... The + other characters, Mr. Hawthorne must bear to be told, are not new to a + tale of his. Miriam, the mysterious, with her hideous tormentor, was + indicated in the Zenobia of ‘The Blithedale Romance.’ Hilda, the pure and + innocent, is own cousin to Phoebe in ‘The House of the Seven Gables’.” + </p> + <p> + If the reviewer is to be reviewed, it is not too much to designate these + criticisms as miserable failures. They are not even well written. Henry + Bright seemed to be thankful that they were no worse, for he wrote to + Hawthorne: “I am glad that sulky <i>Athenaeum</i> was so civil; for they + are equally powerful and unprincipled.” The writer in the <i>Athenaeum</i> + evidently belonged to that class of domineering critics who have no + literary standing, but who, like bankers’ clerks, arrogate to themselves + all the importance of the establishment with which they are connected. + Fortunately, there are few such in America. No keen-witted reader would + ever confound the active, rosy, domestic Phoebe Pyncheon with the dreamy, + sensitive, and strongly subjective Hilda of “The Marble Faun;” and + Hawthorne might have sent a communication to the <i>Athenaeum</i> to + refresh the reviewer’s memory, for it was not Zenobia in “The Blithedale + Romance” who was dogged by a mysterious persecutor, but her half-sister—Priscilla. + Shakespeare’s Beatrice and his Rosalind are more alike (for Brandes + supposes them to have been taken from the same model) than Zenobia and + Miriam; and the difference between the persecutors of Priscilla and + Miriam, as well as their respective methods, is world-wide; but there are + none so blind as those who are enveloped in the turbid medium of their + self-conceit. + </p> + <p> + The pure-hearted, chivalrous Motley read these reviews, and wrote to + Hawthorne a vindication of his work, which must have seemed to him like a + broad belt of New England sunshine in the midst of the London fog. In + reference to its disparagement by so-called authorities, Motley said: + {Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 408.} + </p> + <p> + “I have said a dozen times that nobody can write English but you. With + regard to the story which has been slightingly criticised, I can only say + that to me it is quite satisfactory. I like those shadowy, weird, + fantastic, Hawthornesque shapes flitting through the golden gloom which is + the atmosphere of the book. I like the misty way in which the story is + indicated rather than revealed. The outlines are quite definite enough, + from the beginning to the end, to those who have imagination enough to + follow you in your airy flights; and to those who complain—- + </p> + <p> + “I beg your pardon for such profanation, but it really moves my spleen + that people should wish to bring down the volatile figures of your romance + to the level of an everyday novel. It is exactly the romantic atmosphere + of the book in which I revel.” + </p> + <p> + The calm face of Motley, with his classic features, rises before us as we + read this, illumined as it were by “the mild radiance of a hidden sun.” He + also had known what it was to be disparaged by English periodicals; and if + it had not been for Froude’s spirited assertion in his behalf, his history + of the Dutch Republic might not have met with the celebrity it deserved. + He was aware of the difference between a Hawthorne and a Reade or a + Trollope, and knew how unfair it would be to judge Hawthorne even by the + same standard as Thackeray. He does not touch in this letter on the + philosophical character of the work, although that must have been evident + to him, for he had said enough without it; but one could wish that he had + printed the above statement over his own name, in some English journal. + </p> + <p> + American reviewers were equally puzzled by “The Marble Faun,” and, + although it was generally praised here, the literary critics treated it in + rather a cautious manner, as if it contained material of a dangerous + nature. The <i>North American</i>, which should have devoted five or six + pages to it, gave it less than one; praising it in a conventional and + rather unsympathetic tone. Longfellow read it, and wrote in his diary, “A + wonderful book; but with the old, dull pain in it that runs through all + Hawthorne’s writings.” There was always something of this dull pain in the + expression of Hawthorne’s face. + </p> + <p> + ANALYSIS OF “THE MARBLE FAUN” + </p> + <p> + It is like a picture, or a succession of pictures, painted in what the + Italians call the <i>sfumato</i>, or “smoky” manner. The book is pervaded + with the spirit of a dreamy pathos, such as constitutes the mental + atmosphere of modern Rome; not unlike the haze of an Indian summer day, + which we only half enjoy from a foreboding of the approach of winter. All + outlines are softened and partially blurred in it, as time and decay have + softened the outlines of the old Roman ruins. We recognize the same style + with which we are familiar in “The Scarlet Letter,” but influenced by a + change in Hawthorne’s external impressions. + </p> + <p> + It is a rare opportunity when the work of a great writer can be traced + back to its first nebulous conception, as we trace the design of a + pictorial artist to the first drawing that he made for his subject. + Although we cannot witness the development of the plot of this romance in + Hawthorne’s mind, it is much to see in what manner the different elements + of which it is composed, first presented themselves to him, and how he + adapted them to his purpose. + </p> + <p> + The first of these in order of time was the beautiful Jewess, whom he met + at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in London; who attracted him by her <i>tout + ensemble</i>, but at the same time repelled him by an indefinable + impression, a mysterious something, that he could not analyze. There would + seem, however, to have been another Jewess connected with the character of + Miriam; for I once heard Mrs. Hawthorne narrating a story in which she + stated that she and her husband were driving through London in a cab, and + passing close to the sidewalk in a crowded street they saw a beautiful + woman, with black hair and a ruddy complexion, walking with the most + ill-favored and disagreeable looking Jew that could be imagined; and on + the woman’s face there was an expression of such deep-seated unhappiness + that Hawthorne and his wife turned to each other, and he said, “I think + that woman’s face will always haunt me.” I did not hear the beginning of + Mrs. Hawthorne’s tale, but I always supposed that it related to “The + Marble Faun,” and it would seem as if the character of Miriam was a + composite of these two daughters of Israel, uniting the enigmatical + quality of one with the unfortunate companionship of the other, and the + beauty of both. + </p> + <p> + As previously noticed, the portrait of Beatrice Cenci excited a deeply + penetrating interest in Hawthorne, and his reflections on it day after day + would naturally lead him to a similar design in regard to the romance + which he was contemplating. The attribution of a catastrophe like + Beatrice’s to either of the two Jewesses, would of course be adventitious, + and should be considered in the light of an artistic privilege. + </p> + <p> + The “Faun” of Praxiteles in the museum of the Capitol next attracted his + attention. This is but a poor copy of the original; but he penetrated the + motive of the sculptor with those deep-seeing eyes of his, and there is no + analysis of an ancient statue by Brunn or Furtwängler that equals + Hawthorne’s description of this one. It seems as if he must have looked + backward across the centuries into the very mind of Praxiteles, and he + was, in fact, the first critic to appreciate its high value. The perfect + ease and simple beauty of the figure belong to a higher grade of art than + the Apollo Belvedere, and Hawthorne discovered what Winckelmann had + overlooked. He immediately conceived the idea of bringing the faun to + life, and seeing how he would behave and comport himself in the modern + world—in brief, to use the design of Praxiteles as the mainspring of + a romance. In the evening of April 22, 1858, he wrote in his journal: + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: STATUE OF PRAXITELES’ RESTING FAUN, WHICH HAWTHORNE HAS + DESCRIBED AND BROUGHT TO LIFE IN THE CHARACTER OF DONATELLO} + </p> + <p> + “I looked at the Faun of Praxiteles, and was sensible of a peculiar charm + in it; a sylvan beauty and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. It seems + to me that a story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, might be + contrived on the idea of their species having become intermingled with the + human race; a family with the faun blood in them, having prolonged itself + from the classic era till our own days. The tail might have disappeared, + by dint of constant intermarriages with ordinary mortals; but the pretty + hairy ears should occasionally reappear in members of the family; and the + moral instincts and intellectual characteristics of the faun might be most + picturesquely brought out, without detriment to the human interest of the + story.” + </p> + <p> + This statue served to concentrate the various speculative objects which + had been hovering before Hawthorne’s imagination during the past winter, + and when he reached Florence six weeks later, the chief details of the + plot were already developed in his mind. + </p> + <p> + Hilda and Kenyon are, of course, subordinate characters, like the first + walking lady and the first walking gentleman on the stage. They are the + sympathetic friends who watch the progress of the drama, continually + hoping to be of service, but still finding themselves powerless to prevent + the catastrophe. It was perhaps their unselfish interest in their mutual + friends that at length taught them to know each other’s worth, so that + they finally became more than friends to one another. True love, to be + firmly based, requires such a mutual interest or common ground on which + the parties can meet,—something in addition to the usual attraction + of the sexes. Mrs. Hawthorne has been supposed by some to have been the + original of Hilda; and by others her daughter Una. + </p> + <p> + Conway holds an exceptional opinion, that Hilda was the feminine + counterpart of Hawthorne himself; but Hilda is only too transparent a + character, while Hawthorne always was, and still remains, impenetrable; + and there was enough of her father in Miss Una, to render the same + objection applicable in her case. Hilda seems to me very much like Mrs. + Hawthorne, as one may imagine her in her younger days; like her in her + mental purity, her conscientiousness, her devotion to her art,—which + we trust afterwards was transformed into a devotion to her husband,—her + tendency to self-seclusion, her sensitiveness and her lack of decisive + resolution. She is essentially what they call on the stage an <i>ingenue</i> + character; that is, one that remains inexperienced in the midst of + experience; and it is in this character that she contributes to the + catastrophe of the drama. + </p> + <p> + If Hawthorne appears anywhere in his own fiction, it is not in “The + Blithedale Romance,” but in the rôle of Kenyon. Although Kenyon’s + profession is that of a sculptor, he is not to be confounded with the gay + and versatile Story. Neither is he statuesque, as the English reviewer + criticised him. He is rather a shadowy character, as Hawthorne himself was + shadowy, and as an author always must be shadowy to his readers; but + Kenyon is to Hawthorne what Prospero is to Shakespeare, and if he does not + make use of magic arts, it is because they no longer serve their purpose + in human affairs. He is a wise, all-seeing, sympathetic mind, and his + active influence in the play is less conspicuous because it is always so + quiet, and so correct. + </p> + <p> + It will be noticed that the first chapter and the last chapter of this + romance have the same title: “Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello.” This is + according to their respective ages and sexes; but it is also the terms of + a proportion,—as Miriam is to Hilda, so is Kenyon to Donatello. As + the experienced woman is to the inexperienced woman, so is the experienced + man to the inexperienced man. This seems simple enough, but it has + momentous consequences in the story. Donatello, who is a type of natural + but untried virtue, falls in love with Miriam, not only for her beauty, + but because she has acquired that worldly experience which he lacks. + Hilda, suddenly aroused to a sense of her danger in the isolated life she + is leading, accepts Kenyon as a protector. The means in this proportion + come together and unite, because they are the mean terms, and pursue a + medium course. The extremes fly apart and are separated, simply because + they are extremes. But there is a spiritual bond between them, invisible, + but stronger than steel, which will bring them together again—at the + Day of Judgment, if not sooner. + </p> + <p> + All tragedy is an investigation or exemplification of that form of human + error which we call sin; a catastrophe of nature or a simple error of + judgment may be tragical, but will not constitute a tragedy without the + moral or poetic element. + </p> + <p> + In “The Scarlet Letter,” we have the sin of concealment and its + consequences. The first step toward reformation is confession, and without + that, repentance is little more than a good intention. + </p> + <p> + In “The House of the Seven Gables,” Hawthorne has treated the sin of + hypocrisy—a smiling politician who courts popularity and pretends to + be everybody’s friend, and agrees with everybody,—only with a slight + reservation. There may be occasions on which hypocrisy is a virtue; but + the habit of hypocrisy for personal ends is like a dry rot in the heart of + man. + </p> + <p> + In “The Blithedale Romance,” we find the sin of moral affectation. Neither + Hollingsworth nor Zenobia is really what they pretend themselves to be. + Their morality is a hollow shell, and gives way to the first effective + temptation. Zenobia betrays Priscilla; and is betrayed in turn by + Hollingsworth,—as well as the interests of the association which had + been committed to his charge. + </p> + <p> + The kernel of “The Marble Faun” is <i>original sin</i>. It is a story of + the fall of man, told again in the light of modern science. It is a + wonderful coincidence that almost in the same months that Hawthorne was + writing this romance, Charles Darwin was also finishing his work on the + “Origin of Species;” for one is the moral counterpart of the other. + Hawthorne did not read scientific and philosophical books, but he may have + heard something of Darwin’s undertaking in England, as well as Napoleon’s + prophetic statement at St. Helena, that all the animals form an ascending + series, leading up to man. {Footnote: Dr. O’Meara’s “A Voice from St. + Helena."} The skeleton of a prehistoric man discovered in the Neanderthal + cave, which was supposed to have proved the Darwinian theory, does not + suggest a figure similar to the “Faun” of Praxiteles, but the followers of + Darwin have frequently adverted to the Hellenic traditions of fauns and + satyrs in support of their theory. Hawthorne, however, has made a long + stride beyond Darwin, for he has endeavored to reconcile this view of + creation with the Mosaic cosmogony; and it must be admitted that he has + been fairly successful. The lesson that Hawthorne teaches is, that evil + does not reside in error, but in neglecting to be instructed by our + errors. It is this which makes the difference between a St. Paul and a + Nero. The fall of man was only apparent; it was really a rise in life. The + Garden of Eden prefigures the childhood of the human race. Do we not all + go through this idyllic moral condition in childhood, learning through our + errors that the only true happiness consists in self-control? Do not all + judicious parents protect their children from a knowledge of the world’s + wickedness, so long as it is possible to prevent it,—and yet not too + long, for then they would become unfitted for their struggle with the + world, and in order to avoid the pitfalls of mature life they must know + where the pitfalls are. It is no longer essential for the individual to + pass through the Cain and Abel experience—that has been accomplished + by the race as a whole; but it is quite possible to imagine an incipient + condition of society in which the distinction of justifiable homicide in + self-defence (which is really the justification of war between nations) + has not yet obtained. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s Donatello is supposed to belong, in theory at least, to that + primitive era; but it is not necessary to go back further than the feudal + period to look for a man who never has known a will above his own. + Donatello seizes Miriam’s tormentor and casts him down the Tarpeian Rock,—from + the same instinct, or clairvoyant perception, that a hound springs at the + throat of his master’s enemy. When the deed is done he recognizes that the + punishment is out of all proportion to the offence,—which is in + itself the primary recognition of a penal code,—and more especially + that the judgment of man is against him. He realizes for the first time + the fearful possibilities of his nature, and begins to reflect. He is a + changed person; and if not changed for the better yet with a possibility + of great improvement in the future. His act was at least an unselfish one, + and it might serve as the argument for a debate, whether Donatello did not + do society a service in ridding the earth of such a human monstrosity. + Hawthorne has adjusted the moral balance of his case so nicely, that a + single scruple would turn the scales. + </p> + <p> + The tradition among the Greeks and Romans, of a Golden Age, corresponds in + a manner to the Garden of Eden of Semitic belief. There may be some truth + in it. Captain Speke, while exploring the sources of the Nile, discovered + in central Africa a negro tribe uncontaminated by European traders, and as + innocent of guile as the antelopes upon their own plains; and this + suggests to us that all families and races of men may have passed through + the Donatello stage of existence. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s master-stroke in the romance is his description or analysis of + the effect produced by this homicide on the different members of the group + to which he has introduced us. The experienced and worldly-wise Kenyon is + not informed of the deed until his engagement to Hilda, but he has + sufficient reason to suspect something of the kind from the simultaneous + disappearance of Donatello and the model, as well as from the sudden + change in Miriam’s behavior. Yet he does not treat Donatello with any lack + of confidence. He visits him at his castle of Monte Beni, which is simply + the Villa Manteuto somewhat idealized and removed into the recesses of the + Apennines; he consoles him in his melancholy humor; tries to divert him + from gloomy thoughts; and meanwhile watches with a keen eye and friendly + solicitude for the <i>denouement</i> of this mysterious drama. If he had + seen what Hilda saw, he would probably have left Rome as quickly as + possible, never to return; and Donatello’s fate might have been different. + </p> + <p> + The effect on the sensitive and inexperienced Hilda was like a horrible + nightmare. She cannot believe her senses, and yet she has to believe them. + It seems to her as if the fiery pit has yawned between her and the rest of + the human race. Her position is much like that of Hamlet, and the effect + on her is somewhat similar. She thrusts Miriam from her with bitterness; + yet forms no definite resolutions, and does she knows not what; until, + overburdened by the consciousness of her fatal secret, she discloses the + affair to an unknown priest in the church of St. Peter. Neither does she + seem to be aware at any time of the serious consequences of this action. + </p> + <p> + Miriam, more experienced even than Kenyon, is not affected by the death of + her tormentor so much directly as she is by its influence on Donatello. + Hitherto she had been indifferently pleased by his admiration for her; now + the tables are turned and she conceives the very strongest attachment for + him. She follows him to his castle in disguise, dogs his footsteps on the + excursion which he and Kenyon make together, shadows his presence again in + Rome, and is with him at the moment of his arrest. This is all that we + know of her from the time of her last unhappy interview with Hilda. Her + crime consisted merely in a look,—the expression of her eyes,—and + the whole world is free to her; but her heart is imprisoned in the same + cell with Donatello. There is not a more powerful ethical effect in Dante + or Sophocles. + </p> + <p> + A certain French writer {Footnote: Name forgotten, but the fact is + indelible.} blames Hilda severely for her betrayal of Miriam (who was at + least her best friend in Rome), and furthermore designates her as an + immoral character. This, we may suppose, is intended for a hit at New + England Puritanism; and from the French stand-point, it is not unfair. + Hilda represents Puritanism in its weakness and in its strength. It is + true, what Hamlet says, that “conscience makes cowards of us all,” but + only true under conditions like those of Hamlet,—desperate + emergencies, which require exceptional expedients. On the contrary, in + carrying out a great reform like the abolition of slavery, the education + of the blind, or the foundation of national unity, a man’s conscience + becomes a tower of strength to him. As already intimated, what Hilda ought + to have done was, to leave Rome at once, and forever; but she is no more + capable of forming such a resolution, than Hamlet was of organizing a + conspiracy against his usurping uncle. When, however, the priest steps out + from the confessional-box and attempts to make a convert of Hilda,—for + which indeed she has given him a fair opening,—she asserts herself + and her New England training, with true feminine dignity, and in fact has + decidedly the best of the argument. It is a trying situation, in which she + develops unexpected resources. Hawthorne’s genius never shone forth more + brilliantly than in this scene at St. Peter’s. It is Shakespearian. + </p> + <p> + Much dissatisfaction was expressed when “The Marble Faun” was first + published, at the general vagueness of its conclusion. Hawthorne’s + admirers wished especially for some clearer explanation of Miriam’s + earlier life, and of her relation to the strange apparition of the + catacombs. He answered these interrogatories in a supplementary chapter + which practically left the subject where it was before—an additional + piece of mystification. In a letter to Henry Bright he admitted that he + had no very definite scheme in his mind in regard to Miriam’s previous + history, and this is probably the reason why his readers feel this vague + sense of dissatisfaction with the plot. I have myself often tried to think + out a prelude to the story, but without any definite result. Miriam’s + persecuting model was evidently a husband who had been forced upon her by + her parents, and would not that be sufficient to account for her moods of + gloom and despondency? Yet Hawthorne repeatedly intimates that there was + something more than this. Let us not think of it. If the tale was not + framed in mystery, Donatello would not seem so real to us. Do not the + characters in “Don Quixote” and “Wilhelm Meister” spring up as it were out + of the ground? They come we know not whence, and they go we know not + whither. It is with these that “The Marble Faun” should be classed and + compared, and not with “Middle-march,” “Henry Esmond,” or “The Heart of + Midlothian.” + </p> + <p> + {Illustration: TORRE MEDIAVALLE DELLA SCIMMIA (HILDA’S TOWER), OF THE VIA + PORTOGHESE AT ROME, WHERE HAWTHORNE REPRESENTS HILDA TO HAVE LIVED AND + TENDED THE LAMP AT THE VIRGIN’S SHRINE ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER} + </p> + <p> + Goethe said, while looking at the group of the “Laocoön,” “I think that + young fellow on the right will escape the serpents.” This was not + according to the story Virgil tells, but it is true to natural history. + Similarly, it is pleasant to think that the Pope’s mercy may ultimately + have been extended to Donatello. We can imagine an aged couple living a + serious, retired life in the castle of Monte Beni, childless, and to a + certain extent joyless, but taking comfort in their mutual affection, and + in acts of kindness to their fellow-mortals. + </p> + <p> + In order to see Hilda’s tower in Rome, go straight down from the Spanish + Steps to the Corso, turn to the right, and you will soon come to the Via + Portoghese (on the opposite side), where you will easily recognize the + tower on the right hand. The tower is five stories in height, set in the + front of the palace, and would seem to be older than the building about + it; the relic, perhaps, of some distinguished mediaeval structure. The odd + little shrine to the Virgin, a toy-like affair, still surmounts it; but + its lamp is no longer burning. It was fine imagination to place Hilda in + this lofty abode. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVII. — HOMEWARD BOUND: 1860-1862 + </h2> + <p> + There is no portion of Hawthorne’s life concerning which we know less than + the four years after his return from England to his native land. He was so + celebrated that every eye was upon him; boys stopped their games to see + him pass by, and farmers stood still in the road to stare at him. He was + Hawthorne the famous, and every movement he made was remembered, every + word spoken by him was recorded or related, and yet altogether it amounts + to little enough. Letters have been preserved in number,—many of his + own and others from his English friends, and those from his wife to her + relatives; but they do not add much to the picture we have already formed + in our minds of the man. As he said somewhere, fame had come too late to + be a satisfaction to him, but on the contrary more of an annoyance. + Hawthorne left Leamington the last of March, and transferred his family to + Bath, which he soon discovered to be the pleasantest English city he had + lived in yet,—symmetrically laid out, like a Continental city, and + built for the most part of a yellowish sandstone; not unlike in appearance + the travertine of which St. Peter’s at Rome is built. The older portion of + the city lies in a hollow among the hills, like an amphitheatre, and the + more recent additions rise upon the hill-sides above it to a considerable + height. This is the last note of enthusiasm in his writings; and in the + next entry in his diary, which was written at Lothrop Motley’s house, + Hertford Street, London, May 16, he makes this ominous confession: “I + would gladly journalize some of my proceedings, and describe things and + people, but I find the same coldness and stiffness in my pen as always + since our return to England.” It is only too evident that from this time + literary composition, which had been the chief recreation of his youth, + and in which he had always found satisfaction until now, was no longer a + pleasure to him. It is the last entry in his journal, at least for more + than two years, and whatever writing he accomplished in the mean time was + done for the sake of his wife and children. Dickens had a similar + experience the last year of his life. Clearly, Hawthorne’s nervous force + was waning. + </p> + <p> + On May 15, Hawthorne and Motley were invited to dine by Earl Dufferin, + that admirable diplomat and one of the pleasantest of men. In fact, if + there was a person living who could make Hawthorne feel perfectly at his + ease, it was Dufferin. Motley provided some entertainment or other for his + guest every day, and Hawthorne confessed that the stir and activity of + London life were doing him “a wonderful deal of good.” What he seems to + have needed at this time was a vigorous, objective employment that would + give his circulation a start in the right direction; but how was he to + obtain that? + </p> + <p> + He enjoyed one last stroll with Henry Bright through Hyde Park and along + the Strand, and found time to say a long farewell to Francis Bennoch: the + last time he was to meet either of them on this side of eternity. + </p> + <p> + He returned to Bath the 1st of June, and ten days later they all embarked + for Boston,—as it happened, by a pleasant coincidence, with the same + captain with whom they had left America seven years before. Mrs. + Hawthorne’s sister, Mrs. Horace Mann, prepared their house at Concord for + their reception, and there they arrived at the summer solstice. + </p> + <p> + The good people of Concord had been mightily stirred up that spring, by an + attempt to arrest Frank B. Sanborn and carry him forcibly to Washington,—contrary + to law, as the Supreme Court of the State decided the following day. The + marshal who arrested him certainly proceeded more after the manner of a + burglar than of a civil officer, hiding himself with his <i>posse + comitatus</i> in a barn close to Sanborn’s school-house, watching his + proceedings through the cracks in the boards, and finally arresting him at + night, just as he was going to bed; but the alarm was quickly sounded, and + the whole male population of the place, including Emerson, turned out like + a swarm of angry hornets, and the marshal and his posse were soon thankful + to escape with their bones in a normal condition. A few nights later, the + barn, which was owned by a prominent official in the Boston Custom House, + was burned to the ground (the fire-company assisting), as a sacrifice on + the altar of personal liberty. + </p> + <p> + The excitement of this event had not yet subsided when the arrival of the + Hawthorne family produced a milder and more amiable, but no less profound, + sensation in the old settlement; and this was considerably increased by + the fact that for the first month nothing was seen of them, except a + sturdy-looking boy fishing from a rock in Concord River, opposite the spot + where his father and Channing had discovered the unfortunate + school-mistress. Old friends made their calls and were cordially received, + but Hawthorne himself did not appear in public places; and it was soon + noticed that he did not take the long walks which formerly carried him to + the outer limits of the town. He was sometimes met on the way to Walden + Pond, either alone or in company with his son; but Bronson Alcott more + frequently noticed him gliding along in a ghost-like manner by the rustic + fence which separated their two estates, or on the way to Sleepy Hollow. + When the weather became cooler he formed a habit of walking back and forth + on the hill-side above his house, where the bank descends sharply like a + railroad-cut, with dwarf pines and shrub oaks on the further side of it. + He wore a path there, which is described in “Septimius Felton,” and it is + quite possible that the first inception of that story entered his mind + while looking down upon the Lexington road beneath him, and imagining how + it appeared while filled with marching British soldiers. + </p> + <p> + About July 10, 1860, the scholars of Mr. Sanborn’s school, male and + female, gave an entertainment in the Town Hall, not unlike Harvard Class + Day. Mrs. Hawthorne and her eldest daughter appeared among the guests, and + attracted much attention from the quiet grace and dignity of their + manners; but there was an expression of weariness on Miss Una’s face, + which contrasted strangely with the happy, blithesome looks of the + school-girls. Some idea of the occasion may be derived from a passing + remark of Mrs. Hawthorne to a Harvard student present: “My daughter will + be happy to dance with you, sir, if I can only find her.” + </p> + <p> + In September Hawthorne wrote to James T. Fields: {Footnote: Mrs. J. T. + Fields, 118.} + </p> + <p> + “We are in great trouble on account of our poor Una, in whom the bitter + dregs of that Roman fever are still rankling, and have now developed + themselves in a way which the physicians foreboded. I do not like to write + about it, but will tell you when we meet. Say nothing.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Una was evidently far from well, and her father’s anxiety for her + sensibly affected his mental tone. + </p> + <p> + He was invited at once to join the Saturday Club, popularly known at that + time as the Atlantic Club, because its most conspicuous members were + contributors to that periodical. Hawthorne did not return in season to + take part in the Club’s expedition to the Adirondack Mountains, concerning + which Doctor Holmes remarked that, considering the number of rifles they + carried, it was fortunate that they all returned alive. The meetings of + the Club came but once a month, and as the last train to Concord was not a + very late one, Judge Hoar had his carryall taken down to Waltham on such + occasions, and thence he, with Hawthorne and Emerson, drove back to + Concord through the woods in the darkness or moonlight; and Hawthorne may + have enjoyed this as much as any portion of the entertainment. + </p> + <p> + A club whose membership is based upon celebrity reminds one rather of a + congregation of stags, all with antlers of seven tines. There was every + shade of opinion, political, philosophical and religious, represented in + the Saturday Club, and if they never fought over such subjects it was + certainly much to their credit. Very little has been divulged of what took + place at their meetings; but it is generally known that in the winter of + 1861 Longfellow was obliged to warn his associates that if they persisted + in abusing Sumner he should be obliged to leave their company; Sumner + being looked upon by the Democrats and more timid Republicans as the chief + obstacle to pacification; as if any one man could prop a house up when it + was about to fall. After the War began, this naturally came to an end, and + Sumner was afterwards invited to join the Club, with what satisfaction to + Hoar, Lowell, and Holmes it might be considering rather curiously to + inquire. We can at least feel confident that Hawthorne had no share in + this. He did not believe in fighting shadows, and he at least respected + Sumner for his frankness and disinterestedness. + </p> + <p> + Such differences of opinion, however, are not conducive to freedom of + discussion. Henry James, Sr., lifts the veil for a moment in a letter to + Emerson, written about this time, {Footnote: Memoir of Bronson Alcott; + also the “Hawthorne Centenary."} and affords us a picture of Hawthorne at + the Saturday Club, which might bear the designation of a highly-flavored + caricature. According to Mr. James, John M. Forbes, the Canton + millionaire, preserved the balance at one end of the table, while + Hawthorne, an oasis in a desert, served as the nearest approach to a human + being, at the other. “How he buried his eyes in his plate and ate with + such a voracity! that no one should dare to ask him a question.” + </p> + <p> + We do not realize the caricaturist in Henry James, Jr., so readily, on + account of his elastic power of expression; but the relationship is plain + and apparent. Both father and son ought to have been baptized in the + Castalian Fount. There are those who have been at table with both + Hawthorne and the elder James, and without the slightest reflection on Mr. + James, have confessed their preference for the quiet composure and simple + dignity of Hawthorne. In truth Hawthorne’s manners were above those of the + polished courtier or the accomplished man of fashion: they were poetic + manners, and in this respect Longfellow most nearly resembled him of all + members of the Club; although Emerson also had admirable manners and they + were largely the cause of his success. It would have done no harm if + Emerson had burned this letter after its first perusal, but since it is + out of the bag we must even consider it as it deserves. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne must have enjoyed the meetings of the Club or he would not have + attended them so regularly. He wrote an account of the first occasion on + which he was present, giving an accurate description of the dinner itself + and enclosing a diagram of the manner in which the guests were seated, but + without any commentary on the proceedings of the day. It was, after all, + one of the nerve-centres of the great world, and an agreeable change from + the domestic monotony of the Wayside. Thackeray would have descried rich + material for his pen in it, but Hawthorne’s studies lay in another + direction. Great men were not his line in literature. + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile Mrs. Hawthorne and her daughter were transforming their Concord + home into a small repository of the fine arts. Without much that would + pass by the title of elegance, they succeeded in giving it an + unpretentious air of refinement, and one could not enter it without + realizing that the materials of a world-wide culture had been brought + together there. Hawthorne soon found the dimensions of the house too + narrow for the enlarged views which he had brought with him from abroad, + and he designed a tower to be constructed at one corner of it, similar to, + if not so lofty as that of the Villa Manteuto. This occupied him and the + dilatory Concord carpenter for nearly half a year; and meanwhile chaos and + confusion reigned supreme. There was no one whose ears could be more + severely offended by the music of the carpenter’s box and the mason’s + trowel than Hawthorne, and he knew not whether to fly his home or remain + in it. Not until all this was over could he think seriously of a new + romance. + </p> + <p> + He made his study in the upper room of the tower; a room exactly twenty + feet square, with a square vaulted ceiling and five windows,—too + many, one would suppose, to produce a pleasant effect of light,—and + walls papered light yellow. There he could be as quiet and retired as in + the attic of his Uncle Robert Manning’s house in Salem. Conway states that + he wrote at a high desk, like Longfellow, and walked back and forth in the + room while thinking out what he was going to say. The view from his + windows extended across the meadows to Walden woods and the Fitchburg + railroad track, and it also commanded the Alcott house and the road to + Concord village. It was in this work-shop that he prepared “Our Old Home” + for the press and wrote the greater part of “Septimius Felton” and “The + Dolliver Romance.” + </p> + <p> + The War was a new source of distraction. It broke out before the tower was + finished, stimulating Hawthorne’s nerves, but disturbing that delicate + mental equilibrium upon which satisfactory procedure of his writing + depended. On May 26, 1861, he wrote to Horatio Bridge: + </p> + <p> + “The war, strange to say, has had a beneficial effect upon my spirits, + which were flagging wofully before it broke out. But it was delightful to + share in the heroic sentiment of the time, and to feel that I had a + country,—a consciousness which seemed to make me young again. One + thing as regards this matter I regret, and one thing I am glad of. The + regrettable thing is that I am too old to shoulder a musket myself, and + the joyful thing is that Julian is too young.” {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, + ii. 276.} + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s patriotism was genuine and deep-seated. He was not the only + American whom the bombardment of Fort Sumter had awakened to the fact that + he had a country. What we have always enjoyed, we do not think of until + there is danger of losing it. In the same letter, he confesses that he + does not quite understand “what we are fighting for, or what definite + result can be expected. If we pummel the South ever so hard, they will + love us none the better for it; and even if we subjugate them, our next + step should be to cut them adrift.” + </p> + <p> + There were many in those times who thought and felt as Hawthorne did. + Douglas said in the Senate, “Even if you coerce the Southern States and + bring them back by force, it will not be the same Union.” A <i>people</i> + does not necessarily mean a <i>nation</i>; for the idea of nationality is + of slow growth, and is in a manner opposed to the idea of democracy; for + if the right of government depends on the consent of the governed, the + primary right of the governed must be to abrogate that government whenever + they choose to do so. Hawthorne was simply a consistent democrat; but time + has proved the fallacy of Douglas’s statement, and that a forcible + restoration of the Union was entirely compatible with friendliness and + mutal good-will between the different sections of the country,—after + slavery, which was the real obstacle to this, had been eliminated. If the + States east of the Alleghanies should attempt to separate from the rest of + the nation, it would inevitably produce a war similar to that of 1861. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne even went to the length at this time of proposing to arm the + negroes, and preparing them “for future citizenship by allowing them to + fight for their own liberties, and educating them through heroic + influences.” {Footnote: The “Hawthorne Centenary,” 197.} When George L. + Stearns was organizing the colored regiments in Tennessee in 1863 he wrote + concerning his work, in almost exactly these terms; and the inference is + plain that Hawthorne might have been more of a humanitarian if his early + associations had been different. + </p> + <p> + Such an original character as Bronson Alcott for a next-door neighbor + could not long escape Hawthorne’s penetrating glance. Alcott was an + interesting personality, perfectly genuine, frank, kindly and + imperturbably good-humored. He had a benevolent aspect, and in general + appearance so much resembled the portraits of Benjamin Franklin that his + ingenious daughters made use of him in charades and theatricals for that + purpose. Hawthorne had known him many years earlier, and had spoken very + pleasantly of him in his first publication of “The Hall of Fantasy.” He + even said, “So calm and gentle was he, so quiet in the utterance of what + his soul brooded upon, that one might readily conceive his Orphic Sayings + to well up from a fountain in his breast, which communicated with the + infinite abyss of thought,”—rather an optimistic view for Hawthorne. + Alcott’s philosophy had the decided merit, which Herbert Spencer’s has + not, of a strong affirmation of a Great First Cause, and our direct + responsibility thereto: but it was chiefly the philosophy of Plotinus; and + his constant reiteration of a “lapse” in human nature from divine + perfection (which was simply the Donatello phase expressed in logic), with + the various corollaries deduced from it, finally became as wearisome as + the harp with a single string. Whether he troubled Hawthorne in that way, + is rather doubtful, for even as a hobby-rider, Alcott was a man of Yankee + shrewdness and considerable tact. Rose Hawthorne says that “he once + brought a particularly long poem to read, aloud to my mother and father; a + seemingly harmless thing from which they never recovered.” What poem this + could have been I have no idea, but in his later years Alcott wrote some + excellent poetry, and those who ought to know do not think that he bored + Hawthorne very severely. They frequently went to walk together, taking + Julian for a make-weight, and Hawthorne could easily have avoided this if + he had chosen. There are times for all of us when our next-door neighbors + prove a burden; and it cannot be doubted that in most instances this is + reciprocal. {Footnote: Rose Hawthorne, however, writes charmingly of the + Alcotts. Take this swift sketch, among others: “I imagine his slightly + stooping, yet tall and well-grown figure, clothed in black, and with a + picturesque straw hat, twining itself in and out of forest aisles, or + craftily returning home with gargoyle-like stems over his shoulders."} + </p> + <p> + Alcott was a romance character of exceptional value, and Hawthorne + recognized this, but did not succeed in inventing a plot that would suit + the subject. The only one of Hawthorne’s preparatory sketches given to the + public—in which we see his genius in the “midmost heat of + composition”—supposes a household in which an old man keeps a + crab-spider for a pet, a deadly poisonous creature; and in the same family + there is a boy whose fortunes will be mysteriously affected in some manner + by this dangerous insect. He did not proceed sufficiently to indicate for + us how this would turn out, but he closes the sketch with the significant + remark, “In person and figure Mr. Alcott”; from which it may be inferred + that the crab-spider was intended to symbolize Alcott’s philosophy, and + the catastrophe of the romance would naturally result from the unhealthy + mental atmosphere in which the boy grew up,—a catastrophe which in + Alcott’s family was averted by the practical sagacity of his daughters. + The idea, however, became modified in its application. + </p> + <p> + It is with regret that we do not allot a larger space to this important + sketch, for it is clearly an original study (like an artist’s drawing) of + the unfinished romance which was published in 1883 under the title of + “Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret.” Long lost sight of in the mass of Hawthorne’s + manuscripts, this last of his posthumous works was reviewed by the critics + with some incredulity, and Lathrop had the hardihood to publicly assert + that no such romance by Hawthorne’s pen existed, thereby casting a + gratuitous slander on his own brother-in-law. We may have our doubts in + regard to the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, for we have no absolute + standard by which to judge of Shakespeare’s style, but the “style, the + matter, and the drift” of “Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret” are so essentially + Hawthornish that a person experienced in judging of such matters should + not hesitate long in deciding that it belongs in the same category with + “Fanshawe” and “The Dolliver Romance.” It is even possible to determine, + from certain peculiarities in its style, the exact period at which it was + written; which must have been shortly after Hawthorne’s return from + Europe. In addition to this, if further evidence were required, its close + relationship to the aforementioned sketch is a fact which no sophistry can + reason away. {Footnote: This sketch was published in the <i>Century</i>, + January, 1883.} + </p> + <p> + The bloody footstep suggested to Hawthorne by the antediluvian print in + the stone step at Smithell’s Hall, in Lancashire, serves as the key-note + of this romance; but the eccentric recluse, the big crab-spider, the + orphaned grandchild, and even Bronson Alcott also appear in it. Alcott, + however,—and his identity cannot be mistaken,—does not play + the leading part in the piece, but comes in at the fifth chapter, only to + disappear mysteriously in the eighth; the orphan boy is companioned by a + girl of equal age, and these two bright spirits, mutually sustaining each + other, cast a radiance over the old Doctor in his dusty, frowsy, cobwebby + study, which brings out the external appearance and internal peculiarities + of the man, in the most vivid manner. The dispositions and appearances of + the two children are also contrasted, as Raphael might have drawn and + contrasted them, if he had painted a picture on a similar subject. + </p> + <p> + The crab-spider is one of the most horrible of Nature’s creations. + Hawthorne saw one in the British Museum and it seems to have haunted his + imagination ever afterward. Why the creature should have been introduced + into this romance is not very clear, for it plays no part in the + development of the plot. The spider hangs suspended over the old Doctor’s + head like the sword of Damocles, and one would expect it to descend at the + proper moment in the narrative, and make an end of him with its nippers; + but Doctor Grimshawe dies a comparatively natural death, and the + desiccated body of the spider is found still clinging to the web above + him. The man and the insect were too closely akin in the modes and + purposes of their lives for either to outlast the other. There is nothing + abnormal in the fact of Doctor Grimshawe’s possessing this dangerous pet; + for all kinds of poisonous creatures have a well-known fascination for the + medical profession. Doctor Holmes amused himself with a rattlesnake. + </p> + <p> + In spite of its unpleasant associations with spiders and blood-stains, + “Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret” is one of the most interesting of Hawthorne’s + works, containing much of his finest thought and most characteristic + description. The portrait of the grouty old Doctor himself has a solidity + of impast like Shakespeare’s Falstaff, and the grave-digger, who has + survived from colonial times, carries us back involuntarily to the burial + scene in “Hamlet.” Alcott, whose name is changed to Colcord, is not + treated realistically, but rather idealized in such kindly sympathetic + manner as might prevent all possibility of offence at the artistic theft + of his personality. The plot, too, is a most ingenious one, turning and + winding like a hare, and even diving out of sight for a time; but only to + reappear again, as the school-master Colcord does, with a full and + satisfactory explanation of its mysterious course. To judge from the + appearance of the manuscript, this romance was written very rapidly, and + there are places in the text which intimate this; but it vies in power + with “The Scarlet Letter,” and why Hawthorne should have become + dissatisfied with it,—why he should have failed to complete, revise, + and publish it—can only be accounted for by the mental or nervous + depression which was now fastening itself upon him. + </p> + <p> + It is noticeable, however, that where the plot is transferred to English + ground Hawthorne’s writing has much the same tone and quality that we find + in “Our Old Home.” External appearances seem to impede his insight there; + but this is additional proof of the authenticity of the work. {Footnote: + There are many other evidences; such as, “after-dinner speeches on the + necessity of friendly relations between England and the United States,” + and “the whistling of the railway train, <i>two</i> or <i>three</i> times + a day."} + </p> + <p> + Shortly after the battle of Bull Run Hawthorne went with his boy to + recuperate at Beverly Farms, leaving his wife and daughters at the + Wayside, and the letters which passed between these two divisions of the + family, during his absence, give some very pretty glimpses of their + idyllic summer life. Mrs. Hawthorne “cultivated her garden,” and gave + drawing lessons to the neighbors’ children, while her husband, forty miles + away, was fishing and bathing. The Beverly shore has not a stimulating + climate, but is very attractive in summer to those who do not mind a few + sultry nights from land breezes. It was near enough to Salem for Hawthorne + to revive the reminiscences of his youth (which become more and more + precious after the age of fifty), without obtruding himself on the gaze of + his former townsmen or of the young lady “who wished she could poison + him.” {Footnote: W. D. Howells’ Memoirs.} It is to be hoped that he saw + something of his sister Elizabeth again, the last remnant of his mother’s + household, who for some inscrutable reason had never visited him at + Concord. + </p> + <p> + We note here a curious circumstance; namely, that Hawthorne appears to + have lost the art of writing short sketches. It will be recollected that + twenty years earlier he did not feel equal to anything beyond this, and + that it cost him a strenuous effort to escape from the habit. Now when he + would have liked to return to that class of composition he could not do + so. Fields would have welcomed anything from his pen (so severe a critic + he was of himself), but his name does not appear in the <i>Atlantic + Monthly</i> from July, 1861, to June, 1862, and it cannot be doubted that + with the education of his son before him, the remuneration would have been + welcome. It was not until nearly a year later that he conceived the idea + of cutting his English Note-book into sections, and publishing them as + magazine articles. + </p> + <p> + From this time forth, one discouragement followed another. In the autumn + of 1861 the illness of his daughter, which he had expected and predicted, + came to pass in a violent form. The old Roman virus, kept under in her + blood, for a time, by continual changes of air and climate, at last gained + the mastery, and brought her once more in danger of her life. She had to + be removed to the house of her aunt, Mrs. Mann, who lived in the centre of + the town, on account of her father’s nerves, so that the Concord doctor + could attend her at night when necessary. It was the severest and most + protracted case of fever that the physician had ever known to be followed + by a recovery. Miss Una did recover, but the mental strain upon her father + was even more exhausting than that which her previous illness had caused, + and he was not in an equal condition to bear it. + </p> + <p> + “Septimius Felton” may have been written about this time (perhaps during + his daughter’s convalescence), but his family knew nothing of it, until + they discovered the manuscript after his death. When it was published ten + years later, the poet Whittier spoke of it as a failure, and Hawthorne + would seem to have considered it so; for he left it in an unfinished + condition, and immediately began a different story on the same theme,—the + elixir of life. It has no connection with the sketch already mentioned, in + which Alcott’s personality becomes the mainspring, but with another + abortive romance, called “The Ancestral Footstep,” which Hawthorne + commenced while he was in England. It is invaluable for the light it + throws on his method of working. Descriptive passages are mentioned in it + “to be inserted” at a later time, meanwhile concentrating his energy on + more important portions of the narrative. Half way through the story he + changed his original plan, transforming the young woman who previously had + been Septimius’s sweetheart to Septimius’s sister; and it may have been + the difficulty of adjusting this change to the portion previously written, + that discouraged Hawthorne from completing the romance. But the work + suffers also from a tendency to exaggeration. The name of Hagburn is + unpleasantly realistic, and Doctor Portsoaken, with his canopy of + spider-webs hanging in noisome festoons above his head, is closely akin to + the repulsive. The amateur critic who averred that he could not read + Hawthorne without feeling a sensation as if cobwebs were drawn across his + face, must have had “Septimius Felton” in mind. Yet there are refreshing + passages in it, and the youthful English officer who kisses Septimius’s + sweetheart before his eyes, and afterward fights an impromptu duel with + him, dying as cheerfully as he had lived, is an original and charming + character. The scene of the story has a peculiar interest, from the fact + that it is laid at Hawthorne’s own door; the Feltons are supposed to have + lived at the Wayside and the Hagburns in the Alcott house. + </p> + <p> + The firm of Ticknor & Fields now began to feel anxious on Hawthorne’s + account, and the last of the winter the senior partner proposed a journey + to Washington, which was accordingly accomplished in the second week of + March. Horatio Bridge was now chief of a bureau in the Navy Department, + and was well qualified to obtain for his veteran friend an inside position + for whatever happened to be going on. In the midst of the turmoil and + excitement of war, Hawthorne attracted as much attention as the arrival of + a new ambassador from Great Britain. Secretary Stanton appointed him on a + civil commission to report concerning the condition of the Army of the + Potomac. He was introduced to President Lincoln, and made excursions to + Harper’s Ferry and Fortress Monroe. Concerning General McClellan, he wrote + to his daughter on March 16: + </p> + <p> + “The outcry opened against Gen. McClellan, since the enemy’s retreat from + Manassas, is really terrible, and almost universal; because it is found + that we might have taken their fortifications with perfect ease six months + ago, they being defended chiefly by wooden guns. Unless he achieves + something wonderful within a week, he will be removed from command, at + least I hope so; I never did more than half believe in him. By a message + from the State Department, I have reason to think that there is money + enough due me from the government to pay the expenses of my journey. I + think the public buildings are as fine, if not finer, than anything we saw + in Europe.” {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 309.} + </p> + <p> + General McClellan was not a great man, and Hawthorne’s opinion of him is + more significant from the fact that at that time McClellan was expected to + be the Joshua who would lead the Democratic party out of its wilderness. + On his return to Concord, Hawthorne prepared a commentary on what he had + seen and heard at the seat of war, and sent it to the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>; + but, although patriotic enough, his melancholy humor was prominent in it, + and Fields particularly protested against his referring to President + Lincoln as “Old Abe,” although the President was almost universally called + so in Washington; and the consequence of this was that Hawthorne + eliminated everything that he had written about Lincoln in his account,—which + might be called “dehamletizing” the subject. In addition to this he wrote + a number of foot-notes purporting to come from the editor, but really + intended to counteract the unpopularity of certain statements in the text. + This was not done with any intention to deceive, but, with the exception + of Emerson and a few others who could always recognize Hawthorne’s style, + the readers of the <i>Atlantic</i> supposed that these foot-notes were + written by either James T. Fields or James Russell Lowell, who had been + until recently the editor of the Magazine,—a practical joke which + Hawthorne enjoyed immensely when it was discovered to him. + </p> + <p> + This contribution, essay, or whatever it may be called, had only a + temporary value, but it contained a prediction, which has been often + recollected in Hawthorne’s favor; namely, that after the war was over “one + bullet-headed general after another would succeed to the presidential + chair.” In fact, five generals, whether bullet-headed or not, followed + after Lincoln and Johnson; and then the sequence came to an end apparently + because the supply of politician generals was exhausted. Certainly the + Anglo-Saxon race yields to no other in admiration for military glory. + </p> + <p> + Fields afterward published Hawthorne’s monograph on President Lincoln, + and, although it is rather an unsympathetic statement of the man, it + remains the only authentic pen-and-ink sketch that we have of him. Most + important is his recognition of Lincoln as “essentially a Yankee” in + appearance and character; for it has only recently been discovered that + Lincoln was descended from an old New England family, and that his + ancestors first emigrated to Virginia and afterward to Kentucky. + {Footnote: Essay on Lincoln in “True Republicanism."} Hawthorne says of + him: + </p> + <p> + “If put to guess his calling and livelihood, I should have taken him for a + country schoolmaster as soon as anything else. {Footnote: The country + school-master of that time.—Ed.} He was dressed in a rusty black + frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that the suit + had adapted itself to the curves and angularities of his figure, and had + grown to be the outer skin of the man. He had shabby slippers on his feet. + His hair was black, still unmixed with gray, stiff, somewhat bushy, and + had apparently been acquainted with neither brush nor comb that morning, + after the disarrangement of the pillow; and as to a nightcap, Uncle Abe + probably knows nothing of such effeminacies. His complexion is dark and + sallow, betokening, I fear, an insalubrious atmosphere around the White + House; he has thick black eyebrows and impending brow; his nose is large, + and the lines about his mouth are very strongly denned. + </p> + <p> + “The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in + the length and breadth of the States; but, withal, it is redeemed, + illuminated, softened, and brightened by a kindly though serious look out + of his eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity, that seems weighted + with rich results of village experience. A great deal of native sense; no + bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly so, + and yet, in some sort, sly,—at least, endowed with a sort of tact + and wisdom that are akin to craft.... But on the whole, I liked this + sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human sympathies that + warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would as lief have Uncle + Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been practicable to put in + his place.” {Footnote: “Yesterdays with Authors,” 99.} + </p> + <p> + This is not a flattered portrait, like those by Lincoln’s political + biographers; neither is it an idealized likeness, such as we may imagine + him delivering his Gettysburg Address. It is rather an external + description of the man, but it is, after all, Lincoln as he appeared in + the White House to the innumerable visitors, who, as sovereign American + citizens, believed they had a right to an interview with the people’s + distinguished servant. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s European letter-bag in 1862 is chiefly interesting for Henry + Bright’s statement that the English people might have more sympathy with + the Union cause in the War if they could understand clearly what the + national government was fighting for; and that Lord Houghton and Thomas + Hughes were the only two men he had met who heartily supported the + Northern side. Perhaps Mr. Bright would have found it equally as difficult + to explain why the British Government should have made war upon Napoleon + for twelve consecutive years. + </p> + <p> + Henry Bright, moreover, seemed to be quite as much interested in a new + American poet, named J. G. Holland, and his poem called “Bitter-Sweet.” + Lord Houghton agreed with him that it was a very remarkable poem, and they + wished to know what Hawthorne could tell them about its author. As Holland + was not recognized as a poet by the Saturday Club, Hawthorne’s answer on + this point would be very valuable if we could only obtain a sight of it. + Holland was in certain respects the counterpart of Martin F. Tupper. + </p> + <p> + In the summer of this year Hawthorne went to West Goldsboro’, Maine, an + unimportant place opposite Mount Desert Island, taking Julian with him; a + place with a stimulating climate but a rather foggy atmosphere. He must + have gone there for his health, and it is pathetic to see how the change + of climate braced him up at first, so that he even made the commencement + of a new diary, and then, as always happens in such cases, it let him down + again to where he was before. He did not complain, but he felt that + something was wrong with him and he could not tell what it was. + </p> + <p> + Wherever he went in passing through the civilized portion of Maine, he + found the country astir with recruits who had volunteered for the war, so + that it seemed as if that were the only subject which occupied men’s + minds. He says of this in his journal: + </p> + <p> + “I doubt whether any people was ever actuated by a more genuine and + disinterested public spirit; though, of course, it is not unalloyed with + baser motives and tendencies. We met a train of cars with a regiment or + two just starting for the South, and apparently in high spirits. + Everywhere some insignia of soldiership were to be seen,—bright + buttons, a red stripe down the trousers, a military cap, and sometimes a + round-shouldered bumpkin in the entire uniform. They require a great deal + to give them the aspect of soldiers; indeed, it seems as if they needed to + have a good deal taken away and added, like the rough clay of a sculptor + as it grows to be a model.” + </p> + <p> + Such is the last entry in his journal. Hawthorne was not carried off his + feet by the excitement of the time, but looked calmly on while others + expended their patriotism in hurrahing for the Union. What he remarks + concerning the volunteers was perfectly true Men cannot change their + profession in a day, and soldiers are not to be made out of farmers’ boys + and store clerks simply by clothing them in uniform, no matter how much + courage they may have. War is a profession like other professions, and + requires the severest training of them all. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER XVIII. — IMMORTALITY + </h2> + <p> + In the autumn of 1862 there was great excitement in Massachusetts. + President Lincoln had issued his premonitory proclamation of emancipation, + and Harvard College was stirred to its academic depths. Professor Joel + Parker, of the Law School, pronounced Lincoln’s action unconstitutional, + subversive of the rights of property, and a most dangerous precedent. With + Charles Eliot Norton and other American Tories, Parker headed a movement + for the organization of a People’s Party, which had for its immediate + object the defeat of Andrew for Governor and the relegation of Sumner to + private life. The first they could hardly expect to accomplish, but it was + hoped that a sufficient number of conservative representatives would be + elected to the Legislature to replace Sumner by a Republican, who would be + more to their own minds; and they would be willing to compromise on such a + candidate as Honorable E. R. Hoar,—although Judge Hoar was innocent + of this himself and was quite as strongly anti-slavery as Sumner. The + movement came to nothing, as commonly happens with political movements + that originate in universities, but for the time being it caused a great + commotion and nowhere more so than in the town of Concord. Emerson was + never more emphatic than in demanding the re-election of Andrew and + Sumner. + </p> + <p> + How Hawthorne felt about this and how he voted in November, can only be + conjectured by certain indications, slight, it is true, but all pointing + in one direction. As long since explained, he entertained no very friendly + feeling toward the Cotton Whigs; his letter to his daughter concerning + Gen. McClellan, who set himself against the proclamation and was removed + in consequence, should be taken into consideration; and still more + significant is the letter to Horatio Bridge, in which Hawthorne proposed + the enlistment of negro soldiers. Doctor George B. Loring, of Salem, + always a loyal friend to the Hawthorne family, came to Concord in + September to deliver an address at the annual cattle-show, and visited at + the Wayside. He had left the Democratic party and become a member of the + Bird Club, which was then the centre of political influence in the State. + As a matter of course he explained his new position to Hawthorne. He had + long felt attracted to the Republican party, and but for his influential + position among his fellow-Democrats, he would have joined it sooner. + Parties were being reconstructed. Half the Democrats had become + Republicans; and a considerable portion of the Whigs had joined the + Democratic party. The interests of the Republic were in the hands of the + Republican party and it ought to be supported. We can believe that + Hawthorne listened to him with close attention. + </p> + <p> + It was in the spring of 1862 that I first became well acquainted with the + Hawthorne family, which seemed to exist in an atmosphere of purity and + refinement derived from the man’s own genius. Julian visited me at our + house in Medford during the early summer, where he made great havoc among + the small fruits of the season. We boxed, fenced, skated, played cricket + and studied Cicero together. As my father was one of the most + revolutionary of the Free-Soilers, this may have amused Hawthorne as an + instance of the Montagues and Capulets; but I found much sympathy with my + political notions in his household. When the first of January came there + was a grand celebration of the Emancipation in Boston Music Hall. Mrs. + Hawthorne and Una were very desirous to attend it, and I believe they both + did so—Miss Una at all events. If Mrs. Hawthorne’s opinions could be + taken in any sense as a reflection of her husband’s mind, he was certainly + drifting away from his old associations. + </p> + <p> + In October, 1862, Hawthorne published the first of a series of studies + from English life and scenery, taken chiefly from his Note-book, and he + continued this at intervals until the following summer, when Ticknor & + Fields brought them out with some additions in book form as “Our Old + Home;” a volume which has already been considered in these pages. It was + not a favorable time for the publication of classic literature, for the + whole population of the United States was in a ferment; and moreover the + unfriendly attitude of the English educated classes toward the cause of + the Union, was beginning to have its effect with us. In truth it seemed + rather inconsistent that the philanthropic Gladstone, who had always + professed himself the friend of freedom, should glorify Jefferson Davis as + the founder of a new nation—a republic of slaveholders. In addition + to this, Hawthorne insisted on dedicating the volume to President Pierce, + and when his publishers protested that this would tend to make the book + unpopular, he replied in a spirited manner, that if that was the case it + was all the more reason why Pierce’s friends should signify their + continued confidence in him. This may have made little difference, + however, for comparatively few readers notice the dedication of a book + until after they have purchased it; and we like Hawthorne for his firmness + in this instance. + </p> + <p> + In England the book produced a sensation of the unfavorable sort. + Hawthorne’s attack on the rotundity of the English ladies, whatever may + have been his reason for it, was, to speak reservedly, somewhat lacking in + delicacy. It stirred up a swarm of newspaper enemies against him; and + proved a severe strain to the attachment of his friends there. Henry + Bright wrote to him: + </p> + <p> + “It really was too bad, some of the things you say. You talk like a + cannibal. Mrs. Heywood says to my mother, ‘I really believe you and I were + the only ladies he knew in Liverpool, and we are not like beefsteaks.’ So + all the ladies are furious.” {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 280. Good Mrs. + Alcott also objected stoutly to the reflections on her sex.} + </p> + <p> + But Hawthorne was no longer what he had been, and allowance should be made + for this. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne’s chief interest at this time, however, lay in the preparation + of his son for Harvard College. Julian was sixteen in August and, + considering the itinerant life he had lived, well advanced in his studies. + He was the best-behaved boy in Concord, in school or out, and an + industrious though not ambitious scholar. He was strong, vigorous and + manly; and his parents had sufficient reason to be proud of him. To expect + him, however, to enter Harvard College at the age of seventeen was + somewhat unreasonable. His father had entered Bowdoin at that age, but the + requirements at Harvard were much more severe than at Bowdoin; enough to + make a difference of at least one year in the age of the applicant. For a + boy to enter college in a half-fitted condition is simply to make a false + start in life, for he is only too likely to become discouraged, and either + to drag along at the foot of the class or to lose his place in it + altogether. Hawthorne may have felt that the end of earthly affairs was + close upon him, and wished to see his son started on the right road before + that came; but Emerson also had an interest in having Julian go to college + at exactly this time; namely, to obtain him as a chum for his wife’s + nephew, with the advantage of a tutor’s room thrown in as an extra + inducement. He advised Hawthorne to place Julian in charge of a Harvard + professor who was supposed to have a sleight-of-hand faculty for getting + his pupils through the examinations. Julian worked bravely, and succeeded + in entering Harvard the following July; but he was nine months (or a good + school year), younger than the average of his class. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne did not leave home this summer (1863), and the only letter we + have of his was the one to James T. Fields concerning the dedication of + “Our Old Home,” which was published in the autumn. Julian states that his + father spent much of his time standing or walking in his narrow garden + before the house, and looking wistfully across the meadows to Walden + woods. His strength was evidently failing him, yet he could not explain + why—nor has it ever been explained. + </p> + <p> + One bright day in November two of us walked up from Cambridge with Julian + and lunched at his father’s. Mr. Hawthorne received us cordially, but in a + tremulous manner that betrayed the weakness of his nerves. As soon as + Julian had left the room, he said to us, “I suppose it would be of little + use to ask you young gentlemen what sort of a scholar Julian is.” H—— + replied to this, that we were neither of us in the division with him, but + that he had heard nothing unfavorable in regard to his recitations; and I + told him that Julian went to the gymnasium with me every evening, and + appeared to live a very regular kind of life. This seemed to please Mr. + Hawthorne very much, and he soon produced a decanter of port, and, his son + having entered the room again, he said, “I want to teach Julian the taste + of good wine, so that he will learn to avoid those horrible punches, which + I am told you have at Harvard.” We all laughed greatly at this, which was + afterward increased by Julian’s saying that the only punches he had yet + seen were those which the sophomores gave us in the foot-ball fight,—or + some such statement. It was a bright occasion for all of us, and when Mrs. + Hawthorne and her daughters entered the room, such a beautiful group as + they all formed together! And Hawthorne himself seemed ten years younger + than when he first greeted us. + </p> + <p> + He was the most distinguished-looking man that I ever beheld, and no + sensible person could meet him without instantly recognizing his superior + mental endowment. His features were not only classic but grandly classic; + and his eyes large, dark, luminous, unfathomable—looking into them + was like looking into a deep well. His face seemed to give a pictorial + reflection of whatever was taking place about him; and again became like a + transparency through which one could see dim vistas of beautiful objects. + The changes of expression on it were like the sunshine and clouds of a + summer day—perhaps thunder clouds sometimes, with flashes of + lightning, which his son may still remember; for where there is a great + heart there will always be great heat. + </p> + <p> + “THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE” + </p> + <p> + According to James T. Fields, the ground-plan of this work was laid the + preceding winter, but Hawthorne became dissatisfied with the way in which + the subject developed itself and so set the manuscript aside until he + could come to it again with fresh inspiration. With the more bracing + weather of September he commenced on it again, and wrote during the next + two months that portion which we now have. On December 1 he forwarded two + chapters to Ticknor & Fields, requesting to have them set up so that + he could see them in print and obtain a retrospective view of his work + before he proceeded further. Yet on December 15 he wrote again, saying + that he had not yet found courage to attack the proofs, and that all + mental exertion had become hateful to him. {Footnote: “Yesterdays with + Authors,” 115.} He was evidently feeling badly, and for the first time + Mrs. Hawthorne was seriously anxious for him. Four days later she wrote to + Una, who was visiting in Beverly: + </p> + <p> + “Papa is comfortable to-day, but very thin and pale and weak. I give him + oysters now. Hitherto he has had only toasted crackers and lamb and beef + tea. I am very impatient that he should see Dr. Vanderseude, but he wants + to go to him himself, and he cannot go till it be good weather.... The + splendor and pride of strength in him have succumbed; but they can be + restored, I am sure. Meanwhile he is very nervous and delicate; he cannot + bear anything, and he must be handled like the airiest Venetian glass.” + {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 333.} + </p> + <p> + He divided his time between lying on a sofa and sitting in an arm-chair; + and he did not seem very comfortable in either position. It was long since + he had attended meetings of the Saturday Club. + </p> + <p> + It is clear from this that Hawthorne had not recently consulted a doctor + concerning his condition, and perhaps not at all. He may have been right + enough in supposing that no common practitioner could give him help, but + there was at that time one of the finest of physiologists in Boston, Dr. + Edward H. Clark, who cured hundreds of sick people every year, as quietly + and unostentatiously as Dame Nature herself. He was a graduate of the + University of Pennsylvania, and as such not generally looked upon with + favor by the Boston medical profession, but when Agassiz’s large brain + gave way in 1868, Dr. Brown-Séquard telegraphed to him from Europe to + consult Edward Clark, and Doctor Clark so improved his health that Agassiz + afterward enjoyed a number of years of useful work. Perhaps he might have + accomplished as much for Hawthorne; but how was Hawthorne in his retired + and uncommunicative life to know of him? There are decided advantages in + living in the great world, and in knowing what goes on there,—if one + only can. + </p> + <p> + It is doubtful if Hawthorne ever opened the proof of “The Dolliver + Romance.” In February he wrote to Fields that he could not possibly go on + with it, and as it had already been advertised for the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, + a notification had to be published concerning the matter, which startled + Longfellow, Whittier and other old friends of Hawthorne, who were not in + the way of knowing much about him. The fragment that we now have of it was + printed in the <i>Atlantic</i> many years after his death. + </p> + <p> + It was the last expiring ember of Hawthorne’s genius, blazing up fitfully + and momentarily with the same brightness as of old, and then disappearing + like Hawthorne himself into the unknown and the unknowable. It is a + fragment, and yet it seems complete, for it is impossible to imagine how + the story could have been continued beyond its present limits; and + Hawthorne left no word from which we can conjecture his further intentions + in regard to it. + </p> + <p> + There was an old apothecary in Concord, named Reynolds, a similar man to, + but not so aged as, Hawthorne’s Doctor Dolliver; and he also had a son, a + bright enterprising boy,—too bright and spirited to suit Boston + commercialism,—who went westward in 1858 to seek his fortune, nor + have I ever heard of his return. The child Pansie, frisking with her + kitten—a more simple, ingenuous, and self-centred, but also less + sympathetic nature than the Pearl of Hester Prynne—may have been + studied from Hawthorne’s daughter Rose. There also lived at Concord in + Hawthorne’s time a man with the title of Colonel, a pretentious, + self-satisfied person, who corresponded fairly to his description of + Colonel Dabney, in “The Dolliver Romance.” Neither is it singular that the + apothecary’s garden should have bordered on a grave-yard, for there are + two old cemeteries in Concord in the very centre of the town. + </p> + <p> + I know of no such portrait of an old man as Doctor Dolliver in art or + literature,—except perhaps Tintoretto’s portrait of his aged self, + in the Louvre. We not only see the customary marks of age upon him, but we + feel them so that it seems as if we grew old and stiff and infirm as we + read of him; and the internal life of old age is revealed to us, not by + confessions of the man himself, but by every word he speaks and every act + he does as if the writer were a skilful tragedian upon the stage. It seems + as if Hawthorne must have felt all this himself during the last year of + his life, to describe it so vividly; but he ascends by these infirm steps + to loftier heights than ever before, and the scene in which he represents + Doctor Dolliver seated at night before the fire in his chamber after + Pansie had been put to bed, is the noblest passage in the whole cycle of + Hawthorne’s art; one of those rare passages written in moments of gifted + insight, when it seems as if a higher power guided the writer’s hand. It + is given here entire, for to subtract a word from it would be an + irreparable injury. + </p> + <p> + “While that music lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there were + seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had been kissed + and put to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside gazing in among + the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those cavernous abysses + with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or fiends into our + twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them in by-gone years. + Over our friend’s face, in the rosy flicker of the fire-gleam, stole an + expression of repose and perfect trust that made him as beautiful to look + at, in his high-backed chair, as the child Pansie on her pillow; and + sometimes the spirits that were watching him beheld a calm surprise draw + slowly over his features and brighten into joy, yet not so vividly as to + break his evening quietude. The gate of heaven had been kindly left ajar, + that this forlorn old creature might catch a glimpse within. All the night + afterwards, he would be semi-conscious of an intangible bliss diffused + through the fitful lapses of an old man’s slumber, and would awake, at + early dawn, with a faint thrilling of the heart-strings, as if there had + been music just now wandering over them.” + </p> + <p> + So Jacob in the desert saw angels descending and ascending on a ladder + from Heaven. Discouraged, depressed, the door closed upon his earthly + hopes, not only for himself, but for those whom he loves much better than + himself, so far as he could ever be a help and a providence to them, + Hawthorne finds a purer joy and a higher hope in the depths of his own + spirit. + </p> + <p> + In the second chapter, or fragment, of this romance, Doctor Dolliver, + followed by Pansie, goes out into the garden one frosty October morning, + and while the apothecary is digging at his herbs, the imitative child, + with an instinctive repulsion for everything strange and morbid, pulls up + the fatal plant from which the elixir of life was distilled, and + frightened at her grandfather’s chiding, runs with it into the cemetery + where it is lost among the graves and never seen again. This account + stands by itself, having no direct connection with what precedes or + follows; but the delineation is so vivid, the poetic element in it so + strong, that it may be said to stand without assistance, and does not + require the name of Hawthorne to give it value. + </p> + <p> + In the conclusion, the elixir of life proves to be an elixir of death; + extremes meet and are reconciled. As he says in “The Marble Faun,” joy + changes to sorrow and sorrow is laughed away; the experience of both being + that which is really valuable. Doctor Dolliver and Pansie are figures for + the end and the beginning of life; the Old Year and the New. Such is the + sum of Hawthorne’s philosophy—the ultimate goal of his thought. + There could have been no more fitting consummation of his work. The cycle + of his art is complete, and death binds the laurel round his brow. + </p> + <p> + A HERO’S END + </p> + <p> + After Hawthorne’s letter of February 25, Fields felt that he ought to make + an effort in his behalf. Fields’s partner, W. D. Ticknor, was also ailing, + and it was arranged that he and Hawthorne should go on a journey southward + as soon as the weather permitted. Doctor Holmes was consulted, and the + last of March Hawthorne came to Boston and met Holmes at Fields’s house. + Holmes made an examination, which was anything but satisfactory to his own + mind; in fact, he was appalled at the condition in which he found his + former companion of the Saturday Club. “He was very gentle,” Holmes says; + “very willing to answer questions, very docile to such counsel as I + offered him, but evidently had no hope of recovering his health. He spoke + as if his work were done, and he should write no more.” {Footnote: <i>Atlantic + Monthly</i>, July, 1864.} The doctor, however, must have been mistaken in + supposing that Hawthorne was suffering from the same malady that carried + off General Grant, for no human being could die in that manner without + suffering greater pain than Hawthorne gave any indication of; and the + sedatives which Holmes prescribed for him could only have resulted in a + weakening of the nerves. He even warned Hawthorne against the use of + alcoholic stimulants, to which for some time he had been more or less + accustomed. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne and Ticknor went to New York, and two days later Ticknor was + able to write to Mrs. Hawthorne that her husband appeared to be much + improved. How cruelly disappointing to meet him at their own door four + days later, haggard, weary and more dispirited than when he had left the + Wayside on March 26! He had proceeded to Philadelphia with Ticknor, and + there at the Continental Hotel Ticknor was suddenly seized with a mortal + malady and died almost in Hawthorne’s arms, before the latter could notify + his family in Boston that he was ill. What a severe ordeal for a man who + was strong and well, but to a person in Hawthorne’s condition it was like + a thunderbolt. Ticknor’s son came to him at once, and together they + performed the necessary duties of the occasion, and made their melancholy + way homeward. Nothing, perhaps, except a death in his own family, could + have had so unfavorable an effect upon Hawthorne’s condition. + </p> + <p> + Some good angel now notified Franklin Pierce of the serious posture of + affairs, and he came at once to Concord to offer his services in + Hawthorne’s behalf. However, he could propose nothing more hopeful than a + journey in the uplands of New Hampshire, and for this it would be + necessary to wait for settled weather. So Hawthorne remained at home for + the next month without his condition becoming apparently either better or + worse. At length, on May 13, the ex-President returned and they went + together the following day. + </p> + <p> + We will not linger over that leave-taking on the porch of the Wayside; so + pathetic, so full of tenderness, even of despair, and yet with a slender + ray of hope beneath the leaden cloud of anxiety. To Hawthorne it must have + seemed even more discouraging than to his wife and children, though none + of them could have suspected that the end would be so soon. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + On the morning of May 20, I had just returned from my first recitation + when Julian Hawthorne appeared at my room in the Massachusetts dormitory, + and said, like a man gasping for breath, “My father is dead, and I want + you to come with me.” Fields had sent him word through Professor Gurney, + who knew how to deliver such a message in the kindliest manner. We went at + once to Fields’s house on Charles Street, where Mrs. Fields gave Julian + the little information already known to them through a dispatch from + Franklin Pierce,—that his father died during his sleep in the night + of May 18, at the Pemmigewasset House, Plymouth, New Hampshire. After this + we wandered about Boston, silent and aimless, until the afternoon train + carried him to Concord. He greatly dreaded meeting the gaze of his + fellow-townsmen, and confessed that he wanted to hide himself in the woods + like a wounded deer. {Footnote: The passage in “A Fool of Nature,” in + which he describes Murgatroyd’s discovery of his father’s death, must have + been a reminiscence of this time—a passage of the finest genius.} + </p> + <p> + On Wednesday, May 18, Hawthorne and Pierce drove from Centre Harbor to + Plymouth, a long and rather rough journey to be taken in a carriage. + Hawthorne, however, did not make much complaint of this, nor did he seem + to be unusually fatigued. He retired to his room soon after nine o’clock, + and was sleeping comfortably an hour later. Pierce was evidently nervous + about him, for he went in to look at him at two in the morning, and again + at four; and the last time he discovered that life was extinct. Hawthorne + had died in his sleep as quietly and peacefully as he had lived. There is + the same mystery in his death that there was in his life, and it is + difficult to assign either an immediate or a proximate cause for it. With + such a physique, and his simple, regular habits of life, he ought to have + reached the age of ninety. General Pierce believed that he died of + paralysis, and that is the most probable explanation; but it was not like + the usual cases of paralysis at Hawthorne’s age; for, as we have seen, the + process of disintegration and failure of his powers had been going on for + years. Nor did this follow, as commonly happens, a protracted period of + adversity, but it came upon him during the most prosperous portion of his + life. The first ten years following upon his marriage were years of + anxiety, self-denial and even hardship; but other men, Alcott, for + example, have suffered as much and yet lived to a good old age. It may + have been “the old dull pain” which Longfellow associated with him, filing + perpetually on the vital cord. It was part of the enigmatic side of his + nature. + </p> + <p> + The last ceremonies of respect to the earthly remains of Hawthorne were + performed at Concord on May 23, 1864, in the Unitarian Church, a + commodious building, {Footnote: In 1899 this building was burned to the + ground, and a new church has been erected on the same spot.} well adapted + to the great concourse of mourners who gathered there on this occasion. + Reverend James Freeman Clarke, who had united Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody + in marriage twenty-two years before, was now called upon to preside over + the last act in their married life. The simple eloquence of his address + penetrated to the heart of every person present. “Hawthorne had achieved a + twofold immortality,—and his immortality on earth would be a + comforting presence to all who mourned him. The noblest men of the age had + gathered there, to testify to his worth as a man as well as to his genius + as a writer.” Faces were to be seen in that assembly that were never + beheld in Concord before. Among these was the soldierly figure and + flashing eye of the poet Whittier. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Agassiz, + Alcott and Hillard were present; and ex-President Pierce shook hands with + Judge Hoar over Hawthorne’s bier. After the services the assembly of + mourners proceeded to Sleepy Hollow cemetery, and there the mortal remains + of Hawthorne were buried under the pine trees on the same hill-side where + he and Emerson and Margaret Fuller conversed together on the summer + afternoon twenty years before. He needs no monument, for he has found a + place in the universal pantheon of art and literature. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + It would seem advisable at this parting of the ways to say something of + Hawthorne’s religious convictions. He went as a boy with his mother and + sisters to the East Church in Salem, a society of liberal tendencies and + then on the verge of Unitarianism. All the Manning family attended service + there, but at a later time Robert Manning separated from it and joined an + orthodox society. Hawthorne’s mother and his sister Louisa became + Unitarians, and at Madam Hawthorne’s death in 1848 the funeral services + were conducted by Reverend Thomas T. Stone, of the First Salem Church. It + is presumable that Nathaniel Hawthorne also became a Unitarian, so far as + he can be considered a sectarian at all; but certain elements of the older + faith still remained in his mental composition. It cannot be questioned + that the strong optimism in Emerson’s philosophy was derived from Doctor + Channing’s instruction, and it is equally certain that Hawthorne could + never agree to this. Whatever might be the origin of evil or its abstract + value, he found it too potent an element in human affairs to be quietly + reasoned out of existence. Whatever might be the ultimate purpose of + Divine Providence, the witchcraft prosecutions were an awful calamity to + those who were concerned in them. In this respect he resembled David A. + Wasson, one of the most devout religious minds, who left the church of + Calvin (as it was in his time), without ever becoming a Unitarian or a + radical. Miss Rebecca Manning says: + </p> + <p> + “I never knew of Hawthorne’s going to church at all, after I remember + about him, and do not think he was ever in the habit of going. I think he + may have gone sometimes when he was in England, but I do not know about + it. Somewhere in Julian or Rose Hawthorne’s reminiscences, there is + mention made of his reading family prayers, when he was in England. He, as + also his mother and sisters were people of deeply religious natures, + though not always showing it by outward observances.” + </p> + <p> + A Concord judge and an old Free-Soil politician once attended a religious + convention, and after the business of the day was over they went to walk + together. The politician confessed to the judge that he had no very + definite religious belief, for which the judge thought he did himself + great injustice; but is not that the most advanced and intelligent + condition of a man’s religious faith? How can we possess clear and + definite ideas of the grand mystery of Creation? Consider only this simple + metaphysical fact, that space has no limit, and that we can neither + conceive a beginning of time nor imagine time without a beginning. What is + there outside of the universe? The brain reels as we think of it. The time + has gone by when a man can say to himself definitely, I believe this or I + believe that; but we know at least that we, “the creature of a day,” + cannot be the highest form of intelligence in this wonderful world. We + thought that we lived in solid bodies, but electric rays have been + discovered by which the skeletons inside of us become visible. The + correlation and conservation of forces brings us very close to the origin + of all force; and yet in another sense we are as far off as ever from the + perception of it. + </p> + <p> + This would seem to have been also Hawthorne’s position in regard to + religious faith. What do we know of the religious belief of Michel Angelo, + of Shakespeare, or of Beethoven? We cannot doubt that they were sincerely + and purely religious men; but neither of them made any confession of their + faith. Vittoria Colonna may have known something of Michel Angelo’s + belief, but Vasari does not mention it; and Beethoven confessed it was a + subject that he did not like to talk about. The deeper a man’s sense of + the awe and mystery which underlies Nature, the less he feels inclined to + expose it to the public gaze. Hawthorne’s own family did not know what his + religious opinions were—only that he was religious. One may imagine + that the reticent man would be more reticent on this subject than on any + other; but we can feel confident that at least he was not a sceptic, for + the confirmed sceptic inevitably becomes a chatterer. He walks to Walden + Pond with Hillard and Emerson on Sunday, and confesses his doubts as to + the utility of the Church (in its condition at that time), for spiritual + enlightenment; but in regard to the great omnipresent fact of spirituality + he has no doubt. In “The Snow Image” he makes a statue come to life, and + says in conclusion that if a new miracle is ever wrought in this world it + will be in some such simple manner as he has described. + </p> + <p> + To the poetic mind, which is after all the highest form of intellect, the + grand fact of existence is a sufficient miracle. The rising of the sun, + the changes of the seasons, the blooming of flowers and the ripening of + the grain, were all miracles to Hawthorne, and none the less so because + they are continually being repeated. The scientists tell us that all these + happen according to natural laws: perfectly true, but WHO was it that made + those laws? WHO is it that keeps the universe running? Laws made for the + regulation of human affairs by the wisest of men often prove ineffective, + and inadequate to the purpose for which they were intended; but the laws + of Nature work with unfailing accuracy. The boy solves his problem in + algebra, finding out the unknown quantity by those values which are given + him; and can we not also infer something of the <i>unknown</i> from the + great panorama that passes unceasingly before us? The one thing that + Hawthorne could not have understood was, how gifted minds like Lucretius + and Auguste Comte could recognize only the evidence of their senses, and + deliberately blind themselves to the evidence of their intellects. He who + denies the existence of mind as a reality resembles a person looking for + his spectacles when they are on his nose; but it is the imagination of the + poet that leads civilization onward to its goal. + </p> + <p> + College life is rather generally followed by a period of scepticism, + partly owing in former times to the enforced attendance at morning + prayers, and still more perhaps to the study of Greek and Latin authors. + During what might be called Hawthorne’s period of despair, he could not + very well have obtained consolation from the traditional forms of divine + worship; at least, such has been the experience of all those who have + passed through the Wertherian stage, so far as we know of them. It is a + time when every man has to strike the fountain of spiritual life out of + the hard rock of his own existence; and those are fortunate who, like + Moses and Hawthorne, strike forcibly enough to accomplish this. It is the + “new birth from above,” in the light of which religious forms seem of + least importance. + </p> + <p> + One effect of matrimony is commonly a deepening of religious feeling, but + it is not surprising that Hawthorne should not have attended church after + his marriage. His wife had not been accustomed to church-going, on account + of the uncertainty of her health; the Old Manse was a long distance from + the Concord tabernacle; Hawthorne’s associates in Concord, with the + exception of Judge Keyes, were not in the habit of going to church; and + the officiating minister, both at that time and during his later sojourn, + was not a person who could have been intellectually attractive to him. + Somewhat similar reasons may have interfered with his attendance after his + return to Salem; and during the last fifteen years of his life, he was too + much of a wanderer to take a serious interest in the local affairs of the + various places he inhabited; but he was desirous that his children should + go to church and should be brought up in honest Christian ways. + </p> + <p> + Little more need to be said concerning Hawthorne’s character as a man. It + was not so perfect as Longfellow’s, to whom all other American authors + should bow the head in this respect—the Washington of poets; and yet + it was a rare example of purity, refinement, and patient endurance. His + faults were insignificant in comparison with his virtues, and the most + conspicuous of them, his tendency to revenge himself for real or fancied + injuries, is but a part of the natural instinct in us to return the blows + we receive in self-defence. Wantonly, and of his own accord, he never + injured human being. His domestic life was as pure and innocent as that + which appeared before the world; and Mrs. Hawthorne once said of him in my + presence that she did not believe he ever committed an act that could + properly be considered wrong. It was like his writing, and his “wells of + English undefiled” were but as a synonym for the clear current of his + daily existence. + </p> + <p> + The ideality in Hawthorne’s face was so conspicuous that it is + recognizable in every portrait of him. It was not the cold visionary + expression of the abstract thinker, but a human poetic intelligence, which + resolved all things into a spiritual alembic of its own. It is this which + elevates him above all writers who only deal with the outer world as they + find it, and add nothing to it from their own natures. + </p> + <p> + George Brandes, the Danish critic and essayist, speaks of Hawthorne + somewhere as “the baby poet;” but we suspect that if he had ever met the + living Hawthorne, he would have stood very much in awe of him. It would + not have been like meeting Ernest Rénan or John Stuart Mill. Although + Hawthorne was not splenetic or rash, there was an occasional look in his + eye which a prudent person might beware of. He was emphatically a man of + courage. + </p> + <p> + The wide and liberal interest which German scholars and writers have so + long taken in the literature of other nations, has resulted in founding an + informal literary tribunal in Germany, to which the rest of the world is + accustomed to appeal. A. E. Schönbach, one of the most recent German + writers on universal literature, gives his impression of Hawthorne in the + following statement: + </p> + <p> + “I find the distinguishing excellence of Hawthorne’s imaginative writings + in the union of profound, keen, psychological development of characters + and problems with the most lucid objectivity and a joyous modern realism. + Occasionally there appears a light and delicate humor, sometimes hidden in + a mere adjective, or little phrase which lights up the gloomiest situation + with a gentle ray of hope. Far from unimportant do I rate the charm of his + language, its purity, its melody, its graceful flexibility, the wealth of + vocabulary, the polish which rarely betrays the touch of the file. After, + or with George Eliot, Hawthorne is the first English prose writer of our + century. At the same time he sacrifices nothing of his peculiar American + quality. Not only does he penetrate into the most secret inner movements + of the old colonial life, as no one else has done, and reproduces the + spirit of his forefathers with a power of intuition which no historical + work could equal; but in all his other works, from the biography of + General Pierce, to the ‘Marble Faun,’ Hawthorne shows the freshness and + keenness, the precision and lucidity, and other qualities not easy to + describe, which belong to American literature. He is its chief + representative.” {Footnote: “Gesammelte Aufsatze zur neueren Litteratur,” + p. 346.} + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne has always been accorded a high position in literature, and as + time goes on I believe this will be increased rather than diminished. In + beauty of diction he is the first of American writers, and there are few + that equal him in this respect in other languages. It is a pleasure to + read him, simply for his form of expression, and apart from the meaning + which he conveys in his sentences. It is like the grace of the Latin + races,—like Dante and Chateaubriand; and the adaptation of his words + is so perfect that we never have to think twice for his meaning. In those + editions called the Elzevirs, which are so much prized by book collectors, + the clearness and legibility of the type result from such a fine + proportion of space and line that no other printer has succeeded in + imitating it; and there is something similar to this in the construction + of Hawthorne’s sentences. + </p> + <p> + He is the romance writer of the English language; and there is no form of + literature which the human race prizes more. How many translations there + have been of “The Vicar of Wakefield,” and of “The Sorrows of Werther”! + The latter is not one of Goethe’s best, and yet it made him famous at the + age of twenty-eight. The novel deals with what is new and surprising; the + romance with what is old and universal. In “The Vicar of Wakefield” we + have the old story of virtue outwitted by evil, which is in its turn + outwitted by wisdom. There is nothing new in it except the charming + exposition which Goldsmith’s genius has given to the subject. Thackeray + ridiculed “The Sorrows of Werther,” and in the light of matured judgment + the tale appears ridiculous; but it strikes home to the heart, because we + all learn wisdom through such experiences, of which young Werther’s is an + extreme instance. It was only another example of the close relation that + subsists between comedy and tragedy. + </p> + <p> + It cannot be questioned that “The Scarlet Letter” ranks above “The Sorrows + of Werther;” nor is it less evident that “The Marble Faun” falls short of + “Wilhelm Meister” and “Don Quixote.” {Footnote: See “Cervantes” in <i>North + American Review</i>, May, 1905} Hawthorne’s position, therefore, lies + between these two—nearer perhaps to “Werther” than to “Wilhelm + Meister.” In certain respects he is surpassed by the great English + novelists: Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, Dickens and Marian Evans; but he in + turn surpasses them all in the perfection and poetic quality of his art. + There is much poetry in Scott and Dickens, a little also in Thackeray and + Miss Evans, but Hawthorne’s poetic vein has a more penetrating tone, and + appeals more deeply than Scott’s verses. If power and versatility of + characterization were to be the test of imaginative writing, Dickens would + push closely on to Shakespeare; but we do not go to Shakespeare to read + about Hamlet or Falstaff, or for the sake of the story, or even for his + wisdom, but for the <i>tout ensemble</i>—to read Shakespeare. + Raphael painted a dozen or more pictures on the same subject, but they are + all original, interesting and valuable, because Raphael painted them. If + it were not for the odd characters and variety of incident in Dickens’s + novels they would hardly be worth reading. Hawthorne’s <i>dramatis personæ</i> + is not a long one, for his plots do not admit of it, but his characters + are finely drawn, and the fact that they have not become popular types is + rather in their favor. There are Dombeys and Shylocks in plenty, but who + has ever met a Hamlet or a Rosalind in real life? + </p> + <p> + A certain English writer promulgated a list of the hundred superior + authors of all times and countries. There were no Americans in his + catalogue, but he admitted that if the number was increased to one hundred + and eighteen Hawthorne and Emerson might be included in it. Doubtless he + had not heard of Webster or Alexander Hamilton, and many of his countrymen + would be inclined to place Longfellow before Emerson. + </p> + <p> + I have myself frequently counted over the great writers of all times and + languages, weighing their respective values carefully in my mind, but I + have never been able to discover more than thirty-five authors who seem to + me decidedly superior to Hawthorne, nor above forty others who might be + placed on an equality with him. {Footnote: Appendix C.} This, of course, + is only an individual opinion, and should be accepted for what it is + worth; but there are many ancient writers, like Hesiod, Xenophon, and + Catullus, whose chief value resides in their antiquity, and a much larger + number of modern authors, such as Balzac, Victor Hugo, Freytag, and + Ruskin, who have been over-estimated in their own time. Petrarch, and the + author of “Gil Bias,” might be placed on a level with Hawthorne, but + certainly not above him. Those whom he most closely resembles in style and + subject matter are Goldsmith, Manzoni, and Auerbach. + </p> + <p> + Yet Hawthorne is essentially a domestic writer,—a poetizer of the + hearth-stone. Social life is always the proper subject for works of + fiction, and political life should never enter into them, except as a + subordinate element; but there is a border-land between the two, in which + politics and society act and react on each other, and it is from this + field that the great subjects for epic and dramatic poetry have always + been reaped. Hawthorne only knew of this by hearsay. Of the strenuous + conflict that continually goes on in political centres like London and New + York, a struggle for wealth, for honor, and precedence; of plots and + counterplots, of foiled ambition and ruined reputations,—with all + this Hawthorne had but slight acquaintance. We miss in him the masculine + vigor of Fielding, the humanity of Dickens, and the trenchant criticism of + Thackeray; but he knew that the true poetry of life (at the present time) + was to be found in quiet nooks and in places far off from the turbulent + maelstrom of humanity, and in his own line he remains unrivalled. + </p> + <p> + PORTRAITS OF HAWTHORNE + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne had no more vanity in his nature than is requisite to preserve a + good appearance in public, but he always sat for his portrait when asked + to do so, and this was undoubtedly the most sensible way. He was first + painted by Charles Osgood in 1840, a portrait which has at least the merit + of a fine poetic expression. He was afterward painted by Thompson, Healy, + and Emanuel Leutze, and drawn in crayon by Rowse and Eastman Johnson. + Frances Osborne also painted a portrait of him from photographs in 1893, + an excellent likeness, and notable especially for its far-off gaze. Of all + these, Rowse’s portrait is the finest work of art, for Rowse was a man of + genius, but there is a slight tendency to exaggeration in it, and it does + not afford so clear an idea of Hawthorne as he was, as the Osborne + portrait. Healy was not very successful with Hawthorne, and Miss Lander’s + bust has no merit whatever. The following list contains most of the + portraits and photographs of Hawthorne now known to exist, with their + respective ownerships and locations. + </p> + <p> + Oil portrait painted by Charles Osgood, in 1840. Owned by Mrs. Richard C. + Manning. + </p> + <p> + Crayon portrait drawn by Eastman H. Johnson, in 1846. Owned by Miss Alice + M. Longfellow. + </p> + <p> + Oil portrait painted by George P. A. Healy, in 1850. Now in the possession + of Kirk Pierce, Esq. + </p> + <p> + Oil portrait by Miss H. Frances Osborne, after a photograph by Silsbee, + Case & Co., Boston. + </p> + <p> + Crayon portrait drawn by Samuel W. Rowse, in 1866. Owned by Mrs. Annie + Fields. + </p> + <p> + Engraving after the portrait painted in 1850 by Cephas G. Thompson. Owned + by Hon. Henry C. Leach. + </p> + <p> + The Grolier Club bronze medallion, made in 1892, by Ringel d’Illzach. + Owned by B. W. Pierson. + </p> + <p> + Cabinet photograph, bust, by Elliott & Fry, London. Owned by Mrs. + Richard C. Manning. + </p> + <p> + Card photograph, full length, seated, with book in right hand, by Black + & Case, Boston. + </p> + <p> + Cabinet photograph, three-quarter length, standing beside a pillar, copy + by Mackintire of the original photograph. + </p> + <p> + Card photograph, three-quarter length, seated, from Warren’s Photographic + Studio, Boston. + </p> + <p> + Card photograph, bust, by Brady, New York, with autographic signature. + Owned by Hon. Henry C. Leach. + </p> + <p> + Bust in the Concord (Massachusetts) Public Library, by Miss Louise Lander. + </p> + <p> + Card photograph, bust, from Warren’s Photographic Studio, Boston. Owned by + Mrs. Richard C. Manning. + </p> + <p> + Oil portrait by Emanuel Leutze, painted in April, 1852. Owned by Julian + Hawthorne. + </p> + <p> + Photograph by Mayall, London. The so-called “Motley photograph.” + </p> + <p> + Two photographs by Brady, full length; one seated, the other standing. + </p> + <p> + Photograph showing Hawthorne, Ticknor and Fields standing together. + </p> + <p> + <i>Editions of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Books published under his own + Direction</i> + </p> + <p> + Fanshawe: A Tale, Boston, 1828. Twice-Told Tales, Boston, 1837. Another + edition, Boston, 1842. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +Peter Parley’s Universal History, Boston, 1837. The Gentle Boy: A +Thrice-Told Tale, Boston, 1839. Grandfather’s Chair: A History for +Youth, Boston, 1841. Famous Old People: or Grandfather’s Chair II, +Boston, 1841. Liberty Tree: The Last Words of Grandfather’s Chair, +Boston, 1841. Biographical Stories for Children, Boston, 1842. +Historical Tales for Youth, Boston, 1842. The Celestial Railroad, +Boston, 1843. Mosses from an Old Manse, New York, 1846, 1851. The +Scarlet Letter, Boston, 1850. True Stories from History and Biography, +Boston, 1851. The House of the Seven Gables, Boston, 1852. A Wonder-Book +for Girls and Boys, Boston, 1851. Another edition, Boston, 1857. +The Snow-Image and Other Tales, Boston, 1852. Another edition, Boston + The Blithedale Romance, Boston, 1852. Life of Franklin Pierce, Boston, +1852. Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys, Boston, 1853. Transformation, +or the Romance of Monte Beni, Smith & Elder, London, 1860. The Marble +Faun, or the Romance of Monte Beni, Boston, 1860. Our Old Home, Boston, +1863. +</pre> + <p> + <i>A complete list of Hawthorne’s contributions to American magazines will + be found in the appendix to Conway’s “Life of Hawthorne.”</i> + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Hawthorne {Footnote: Read at the Emerson Club, at + Boston, January 2, 1906} + </p> + <p> + In 1892, when I was constructing the volume known as “Sketches from + Concord and Appledore,” I said in comparing Emerson with Hawthorne that + one was like <i>day</i>, and the other like <i>night</i>. I was not aware + that four years earlier M. D. Conway had made a similar statement in his + Life of Hawthorne, which was published in London. Miss Rebecca Manning, + Hawthorne’s own cousin, still living at the age of eighty and an admirable + old lady, distinctly confirms my statement, that “wherever Hawthorne went + he carried twilight with him.” Emerson, on the contrary, was of a sanguine + temperament and an essentially sunny nature. His writings are full of good + cheer, and the opening of his Divinity School Address is as full of summer + sunshine as the finest July day. It was only necessary to see him look at + the sunshine from his own porch to recognize how it penetrated into the + depths of his nature. + </p> + <p> + It would seem consistent with the rational order of things, that <i>day</i> + should be supplemented by <i>night</i>, and <i>night</i> again by <i>day</i>; + and here we are almost startled by the completeness of our allegory. We + sometimes come across faces in the streets of a large city, which show by + their expression that they are more accustomed to artificial light than to + the light of the sun. Mrs. Emerson was one of these. She never seemed to + be fully herself, until the lamps were lighted. Her pale face seemed to + give forth moonlight, and its habitual expression was much like that of a + Sister of Charity. It was said of her that she was the last in the house + to retire at night, always reading or busying herself with household + affairs, until twelve or one o’clock; but this mode of life would appear + to have been suited to her organization, for in spite of her colorless + look she lived to be over ninety. + </p> + <p> + So far I can tread upon firm earth, without drawing upon my imagination, + but in regard to Mrs. Hawthorne I cannot speak with the same assurance, + for I only became acquainted with her after her husband’s health had begun + to fail, and the anxiety in her face was strongly marked; yet I have + reason to believe that her temperament was originally sanguine and + optimistic, and that she alternated from dreamy, pensive moods to bright + vivacious ones. She certainly was very different from her husband. Her + sister, Elizabeth Peabody, was the most sanguine person of her time, and + her introduction of the kindergarten into America was accomplished through + her unbounded hopefulness. The Wayside, where Mrs. Hawthorne lived, has an + extended southern exposure. The house was always full of light, which is + not often the case with New England country houses; and when she lived at + Liverpool, where sunshine is a rare commodity, she became unwell, so that + Mr. Hawthorne was obliged to send her to Madeira in order to avert a + dangerous illness. + </p> + <p> + These two estimable ladies were alike in the excellence of their + housekeeping, the purity of their manners, their universal kindliness, and + their devotion to the welfare of their husbands and children. It was a + pleasure to pass them on the road-side; the fare at their tables was + always of the nicest, even if it happened to be frugal; and people of all + classes could have testified to their helpful liberality. In these + respects they might almost have served as models, but otherwise they were + as different as possible. Mrs. Emerson was of a tall, slender, and + somewhat angular figure (like her husband), but she presided at table with + a grace and dignity that quite justified his favorite epithet of + “Queenie.” There was even more of the Puritan left in her than there was + in him, and although she encouraged the liberal movements and tendencies + of her time, one always felt in her mental attitude the inflexibility of + the moral law. To her mind there was no shady border-land between right + and wrong, but the two were separated by a sharply defined line, which was + never to be crossed, and she lived up to this herself, and, in theory at + least, she had but little mercy for sinners. On one occasion I was telling + Mr. Emerson of a fraudulent manufacturing company, which had failed, as it + deserved to, and which was found on investigation to have kept two sets of + books, one for themselves, and another for their creditors. Mrs. Emerson + listened to this narrative with evident impatience, and at the close of it + she exclaimed, “This world has become so wicked that if I were the maker + of it, I should blow it up at once.” Emerson himself did not like such + stories; and although he once said that “all deaf children ought to be put + in the water with their faces downward,” he was not always willing to + accept human nature for what it really is. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Emerson did not agree with her husband’s religious views; neither did + she adopt the transcendental faith, that the idea of God is innate in the + human mind, so that we cannot be dispossessed of it. She belonged to the + conservative branch of the Unitarian Church, which was represented by + Reverend James Freeman Clarke and Doctor Andrew P. Peabody. The subject + was one which was permitted to remain in abeyance between them, but Mrs. + Emerson was naturally suspicious of those reverend gentlemen who called + upon her husband, and this may have been the reason why he did not + encourage the visits of clergymen like Samuel Johnson, Samuel Longfellow, + and Professor Hedge, whom he greatly respected, and who should have been + by good rights his chosen companions. I suppose all husbands are obliged + to make these domestic compromises. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Emerson had also something of the spirit-militant in her. When David + A. Wasson came to dine at Mr. Emerson’s invitation, she said to him, by + way of grace before meat: “I see you have been carrying on a controversy + with Reverend Mr. Sears, of Wayland, and you will excuse me for expressing + my opinion that Mr. Sears had the best of it.” But after sounding this + little nourish of trumpets, she was as kindly and hospitable as any one + could desire. She was one of the earliest recruits to the anti-slavery + cause,—not only a volunteer, but a recruiting officer as well,—and + she made this decision entirely of her own mind, without any special + encouragement from her husband or relatives. At the time of John Brown’s + execution she wanted to have the bells tolled in Concord, and urged her + husband energetically to see that it was done. Mrs. Emerson was always + thoroughly herself. There never was the shadow of an affectation upon her; + nor more than a shadow of self-consciousness—very rare among + conscientious persons. One of her fine traits was her fondness for + flowers, which she cultivated in the little garden between her house and + the mill-brook, with a loving assiduity. She is supposed to have inspired + Emerson’s poem, beginning: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “O fair and stately maid, whose eyes + Were kindled in the upper skies + At the same torch that lighted mine: + For so I must interpret still + Thy sweet dominion o’er my will, + A sympathy divine.” + </pre> + <p> + There are other references to her in his published writings, which only + those who were personally acquainted with her would recognize. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Hawthorne belonged to the class of womankind which Shakespeare has + typified in Ophelia, a tender-hearted, affectionate nature, too sensitive + for the rough strains of life, and too innocent to recognize the guile in + others. This was at once her strength and her weakness; but it was united, + as often happens, with a fine artistic nature, and superior intelligence. + Her face and manners both gave the impression of a wide and elevated + culture. One could see that although she lived by the wayside, she had + been accustomed to enter palaces. Her long residence in England, her + Italian experience, her visit to the Court of Portugal, her enjoyment of + fine pictures, poetry, and architecture, the acquaintance of distinguished + men and women in different countries, had all left their impress upon her, + combined in a quiet and lady-like harmony. Her conversation was + cosmopolitan, and though she did not quite possess the narrative gift of + her sister Elizabeth, it was often exceedingly interesting. + </p> + <p> + Hawthorne has been looked upon as the necrologist of the Puritans, and yet + a certain coloring of Puritanism adhered to him to the last. It was his + wife who had entirely escaped from the old New England conventicle. + Severity was at the opposite pole from her moral nature. Tolerant and + charitable to the faults of others, her only fault was the lack of + severity. She believed in the law of love, and when kind words did not + serve her purpose she let matters take what course they would, trusting + that good might fall, “At last far off at last to all.” + </p> + <p> + I suspect her pathway was by no means a flowery one. Mrs. Emerson’s life + had to be as stoical as her husband’s, and Mrs. Hawthorne’s, previous to + the Liverpool consulate,—the consulship of Hawthorne,—was even + more difficult. No one knew better than she the meaning of that heroism + which each day requires. A writer in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, + reviewing Julian Hawthorne’s biography of his father, emphasizes, “the + dual selfishness of Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne.” Insensate words! There was no + room for selfishness in the lives they led. In a certain sense they lived + almost wholly for one another and for their children; but Hawthorne + himself lived for all time and for all mankind, and his wife lived through + him to the same purpose. The especial form of their material life was as + essential to its spiritual outgrowth as the rose-bush is to the rose; and + it would be a cankered selfishness to complain of them for it. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_APPE" id="link2H_APPE"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + APPENDICES + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_APPE2" id="link2H_APPE2"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + APPENDIX A + </h2> + <p> + There is at least one error in the Symmes diary, which is however + explainable, and need not vitiate the whole of it. It has been ascertained + that the drowning of Henry Jackson in Songo River by being kicked in the + mouth by another boy while swimming, took place in 1828, so that the + statement to that effect in the diary, must have been interpolated. As it + happened, however, another Henry Jackson was drowned in the Songo River, + so Mr. Pickard says, more than twenty years before that, and it is quite + possible that young Hawthorne overheard some talk about that catastrophe, + and mistook it for a recent event; and that Symmes afterwards confounding + the two Jacksons and the difference in time, amended Hawthorne’s statement + as we now have it. Mr. Pickard says in a recent letter: + </p> + <p> + “This item alone led me to doubt. But I cannot doubt, the more I reflect + upon it, that H. himself had a hand in most, if not all, the other items. + Who but his uncle could have written that inscription? The negro Symmes + could not have composed that—only a man of culture.”... “The sketch + of the sail on Sebago Lake surely was written by some one who was in that + party. Symmes <i>might</i> have been there, but he was a genius deserving + the fame of a Chatterton if he really did this. Three of that party I + personally knew—one (Sawyer) was a cousin of my grandfather. His + sleight of hand, his skill with rifle, his being a ‘votary of chance,’ are + traditions in my family.” + </p> + <p> + This does not differ essentially from the opinion I have already expressed + in Chapter II. F. B. Sanborn, who is one of the best-informed of living + men in regard to Hawthorne, takes a similar view. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_APPE3" id="link2H_APPE3"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + APPENDIX B + </h2> + <p> + In February, 1883, a review of “Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife” was + published in the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, evidently written by a person + with no good-will toward the family. Editors ought to beware of such + reviews, for their character is easily recognized, and the effect they + produce often reacts upon the publication that contains them. In the + present instance, the ill-humor of the writer had evidently been bottled + up for many years. + </p> + <p> + To place typographical errors to the debit of an author’s account—not + very numerous for a work of eight hundred pages—suggests either an + inexperienced or a strongly prejudiced critic. This is what the <i>Atlantic</i> + writer begins with, and he (or she) next proceeds to complain that the + book does not contain a complete bibliography of Hawthorne’s works; + although many excellent biographies have been published without this, and + it is quite possible that Hawthorne’s son preferred not to insert it. No + notice is taken of the many fine passages in the book, like the apostrophe + upon Hawthorne’s marriage, {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 242,} and that + excellent description of the performances of a trance medium at Florence, + but continues in an ascending climax of fault-finding until he (or she) + reaches the passage from Hawthorne’s Roman diary concerning Margaret + Fuller. {Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 30-35.} + </p> + <p> + If public opinion has any value, this passage concerning Margaret Fuller’s + marriage ought not to have been published; but what can Margaret Fuller’s + friends and admirers expect? Do they think that a young American woman can + go to a foreign country, and live with a foreign gentleman, in defiance of + the customs of modern society, without subjecting herself to the severest + criticism? It is true that she married Count d’Ossoli before her child was + born, and her friends, who were certainly an enlightened class, always + believed that she acted throughout from the most honorable motives (my own + opinion is, that she acted in imitation of Goethe), but how can they + expect the great mass of mankind to think so? Hawthorne had a right to his + opinion, as well as Emerson and Channing, and although it was certainly + not a very charitable opinion, we cannot doubt that it was an honest one. + In regard to the marriage tie, Hawthorne was always strict and + conservative. + </p> + <p> + This is the climax of the <i>Atlantic</i> critique, and its anti-climax is + an excoriation of Hawthorne’s son for neglecting to do equal and exact + justice to James T. Fields. This truly is a grievous accusation. Fields + was Hawthorne’s publisher and would seem to have taken a personal and + friendly interest in him besides, but we cannot look on it as a wholly + unselfish interest. It was not like Hillard’s, Pierce’s, and Bridge’s + interest in Hawthorne. If Fields had not been his publisher, it is not + probable that Hawthorne would have made his acquaintance; and if his son + has not enlarged on Fields’s good offices in bringing “The Scarlet Letter” + before the public, there is an excellent reason for it, in the fact that + Fields had already done so for himself in his “Yesterdays with Authors.” + That Fields’s name should have been omitted in the index to “Nathaniel + Hawthorne and his Wife,” may have been an oversight; but, at all events, + it is too microscopic a matter to deserve consideration in a first-class + review. + </p> + <p> + Are we become such babies, that it is no longer possible for a writer to + tell the plain, ostensible truth concerning human nature, without having a + storm raised about his head for it? George P. Bradford and Martin F. + Tupper are similar instances, and like Boswell have suffered the penalty + which accrues to men of small stature for associating with giants. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_APPE4" id="link2H_APPE4"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + APPENDIX C + </h2> + <p> + The great poets and other writers of all nations whom I conceive to be + superior to Hawthorne, may be found in the following list: Homer, + Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, + Demosthenes, Theocritus, Plutarch; Horace, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus; Dante, + Tasso, Petrarch; Cervantes, Calderon, Camoens; Molière, Racine, Descartes, + Voltaire; Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kant; Swedenborg; Chaucer, + Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and perhaps Burns and Byron; Alexander + Hamilton, Napoleon. + </p> + <p> + These also may be placed more on an equality with Hawthorne, although + there will of course always be wide differences of opinion on that point: + Hesiod, Herodotus, Menander, Aristophases; Livy, Cæsar, Lucretius, + Juvenal; Ariosto, Macchiavelli, Manzoni, Lope de Vega, Buthas Pato; + Corneille, Pascal, Rousseau; Wieland, Klopstock, Heine, Auerbach; Spenser, + Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Fielding, Pope, Scott, Wordsworth, Shelley, Carlyle, + Browning, Tennyson, Froude; Webster, Emerson, Wasson. Sappho, Bion, + Moschus, and Cleanthes were certainly poets of a high order, but only some + fragments of their poetry have survived. Gottfried of Strassburg, the + Minnesinger, might be included, and some of the finest English poetry was + written by unknown geniuses of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. + Ballads like “Chevy Chace” and the “Child of Elle” deserve a high place in + the rank of poetry; and the German “Reineke Fuchs” is in its way without a + rival. There may be other French, German, and Spanish writers of + exceptional excellence with whom I am unacquainted, but I do not feel that + any French or German novelists of the last century ought to be placed on a + level with Hawthorne—only excepting Auerbach. Victor Hugo is + grandiloquent, and the others all have some serious fault or limitation. I + suppose that not one in ten of Emerson’s readers has ever heard of Wasson, + but he was the better prose writer of the two, and little inferior as a + poet. More elevated he could not be, but more profound, just, logical and + humane—that is, more like Hawthorne. Emerson could not have filled + his place on the <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> and the <i>North American Review</i>. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Index + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Adams, John Quincy + After-dinner speeches + Alcott, A. Bronson + “Ambitious Guest, The,” + “Ancestral Footstep, The,” + <i>Antinous</i> of the villa Ludovisi + “Arabella,” the ship + Arnold, Matthew + “Artist of the Beautiful, The,” + Athenæan Society + Atlantic Club + Aurelius, Marcus + + Bacon’s, Miss, volume published + Balzac + Bancroft, George + Beethoven + Bennoch, Francis + “Blithedale Romance” + Blodgett’s boarding-house + “Bloody Footstep” + “Birth Mark, The,” + “Bosom Serpent, The,” + Bradford, George P + Brandes, Danish critic + Bridge, Horatio, + Bright, Henry A. + Brook Farm + Brown, John + Browning and Carlyle + Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett + Browning, Robert + Buchanan, President + + Carlyle and Hawthorne + Castor and Pollux, statues of + “Celestial Railroad, The” + Cenci, Beatrice, portrait of + Channing, Ellery + Channing, William H. + Cilley and Graves duel + Cilley, Jonathan + description of + Clarke, Edward H. + Clarke, Rev. Dr. James F. + “Code of Honor,” the + College skepticism + Columbia, statue of + Concord River + Conway, Rev. M. D. + Crab spider, the + Crawford, sculptor + “Critique of Pure Reason, The” + Curtis, George William + + Dallas, George M. + Dante’s <i>Inferno</i> + Dickens + “Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret” + Dolliver, Dr. + “Dolliver Romance, The” + Donatello’s crime + Dwight, John S., musical critic + + Elgin marbles + Eliot, George + Emerson + essays + Emerson, Mrs. R. W. + her figure + religious views + English lakes + “English Note-book” + English scenery + Essex County people + Evans, Marian + + “Fancy’s Show Box” + “Fanshawe” + “Faun of Praxiteles” + “Felton, Septimius,” + Fielding + Fields, James T + Florentine art + Fourier + Fuller, Margaret + as Zenobia + her marriage + + Gardner, E. A., Prof + Genius, its growth + “Gentle Boy, The,” + Ghosts + Gibson, sculptor + his tinted Eves and Venuses + Gladstone, William E., on transcendentalism + Godkin, E. L. + Goethe + Golden Age, A + Goodrich, S. G., editor + “Great Carbuncle, The,” + “Great Stone Face, The,” + Guilty glimpses at hired models + Gurney, Prof. E. W. + + “Hall of Fantasy, The,” + Harris, Dr. William T. + Harvard Law School + Hathorne, Daniel + Hathorne, John + witches’ judge + his last will + his gravestone + Hathorne, Joseph + Hathorne, Nathaniel + Hathorne, William + Letter to British Ministry + Hawthorne, Elizabeth + Hawthorne, Julian + Hawthorne, Louisa + her death + Hawthorne, Mrs. Sophia Peabody + becomes engaged to Hawthorne + writes to her mother + encourages her husband + praises her husband + is out of health + goes to Madeira + is presented at court + the original of Hilda + at Concord + her opinions + character and style + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, + his English ancestors + family name + birthplace + his lameness + early poetry + life at Sebago + his first diary + the budding of his genius + fits for college + “Pin Society” + religious instruction + decides on his vocation + has the measles + his life at Bowdoin + outdoor sports + is fined for gambling + graduates at Bowdoin + decides his profession + publishes “Fanshawe” + changes his name + despondency + goes to Lake Champlain + wins his bet with Cilley + commences his diary + his supposed challenge + thanks Longfellow + goes to Berkshire Hills + character of his diary + his engagement + enters Custom House + goes to Brook Farm + his marriage + his true Arcadia + his skating + opinion of Emerson + birth of a daughter + his indolence + style as an author + returns to Robert Manning’s house + is appointed Surveyor of the Port + son Julian is born + occupies house on Mall street + is removed from office + publishes “Scarlet Letter” + method of development + sits for his portrait; goes to Lenox + publishes “House of Seven Gables” + birth of his daughter Rose + leaves Lenox for Newton + returns to Concord + writes the “Life of Pierce” + the Liverpool consulate + sails for England + as an office-holder + his life in England + makes a speech + kindness to Delia Bacon + resigns the Consulate + as a law writer + goes to Paris + arrives at Rome + journeys to Florence + goes to the Vatican + on modern sculpture + returns to Rome + visits Geneva + summer at Redcar + publishes the “Marble Faun + Hawthorne the famous + begins to dislike writing + returns to Concord + method of writing + patriotism + proposes to arm negroes + preparatory sketches + sojourns at Beverly Farms + last entry in his journal + dedicates book to President Pierce + at home + personal appearance + seriously ill + Hawthorne’s philosophy + his death + his funeral + religious convictions + his position in literature + Hawthorne, Rose, her birth + her memoirs + Hawthorne’s mother + her character + her death + Hawthorne, Una, her birth + severe illness of + Hilda, character of + her tower + Hillard, George S. + Hoar, Miss Elizabeth + Holiday epauletes + Holmes, Oliver Wendell + Hosmer, Harriet + Houghton, Lord + “House of the Seven Gables, The” + Howe, Dr. Samuel G. + Hunt, suicide of Miss + + Italian Note-book + + Jackson, Andrew + James, Henry, Jr. + James, Henry, Sr. + Jameson, Mrs. Anna + Jerrold, Douglas + + Kansas-Nebraska Bill + Kant, Immanuel + Kemble, Frances + Kitridge, Doctor + + “Lady Eleanor’s Mantle” + <i>Laocoön</i> + Lathrop, George P. + Leamington + Lincoln, President + Liverpool Consulate + Longfellow, Henry W. + reviews Hawthorne + Loring, Frederick W. + Loring, Dr. George B. + Lowell, James Russell + + Mann, Horace + Mann, Mrs. Horace + Manning family + Manning, Rebecca + Manning, Richard + Manning, Robert + “Marble Faun, The,” English reviews of + analysis of + its original + McClellan, General George B. + McMichael, Morton + Melville, Hermann + Mexican War + Michel Angelo + his <i>Last Judgment and Moses</i> + “Miroir, Monsieur du” + “Mosses from an Old Manse” + Motley’s opinions + “Mrs. Bullfrog” + + Niagara Falls, visit to + <i>North American Review</i> + Nurse, Rebecca, a witch + + Offensive partisanship + “Old Manse,” the + “Ontario Steamboat, The” + O’Sullivan, an editor + “Our Old Home” + + Parker, Theodore + Peabody, Elizabeth + Peabody, Sophia Amelia + Philadelphia Hock Club + Pickard, Samuel T. + Pierce, Franklin + elected Senator + goes to the war + nominated for President + his father + various + Pike, William B. + Poetic mind, the + Politicians, opinion of + Portraits of Hawthorne by Osgood, Healy, Rowse, and + others + Positivists + Powers, Hiram + his <i>America</i> + Prescott, George L + Prince of Wales + Pyncheon, Clifford + + Quakers, persecution of + + Raphael’s <i>Transfiguration</i> + “Rappacini’s Daughter” + Reform Club of London + Ripley, George + Rock Ferry + Roman Carnival + Runnel, Mary, sweetheart of Daniel Hathorne + Ruskin + + Sailors maltreated + Salem architecture + Salem, situation of + Salem society + Salem’s sea-captains + Sanborn, Frank B., attempt to kidnap + “Scarlet Letter, The,” + Schönbach, A. E., German critic + “Select Party, The,” + Shakespeare, authorship of + Epitaph + Shaw, Chief Justice + Shelley + Sheridan’s Ride + “Sights from a Steeple” + Silsbee, Edward + Sistine Chapel + Skepticism of evil + Slavery Question + “Snow Image” + Spartan discipline + Story, William W. + St. Petersburg <i>Venus</i> + Sumner and Motley + Sumner, Charles + Swartwout’s defalcation + Symms, William, a mulatto + + “Tanglewood Tales” + Taylor, President + Thoreau + of marriage + Ticknor, W. D., death of + Tituba, the Aztec + Tragedy, character of + Trance medium, a + Transcendentalism + essence of + Tupper, Martin Farquhar + Turner, J. M. W. + “Twice Told Tales” + + “Unpardonable Sin, The,” + Upham, the historian + + Vanity of Women + Vasari + <i>Venus dé Medici</i> + “Vicar of Wakefield” + Victor Hugo + Villa Manteüto + “Virtuoso’s Collection, The,” + “Vision at the Fountain, The,” + + Ward’s Tavern + Warwick Castle + Wasson, David A + Waters, Henry F., researches of + Wayside, The + Webster, Daniel + West Roxbury commune + Whittier, the poet + Wig Castle in Wigton + Witchcraft persecution + Wood, Warrington + Worcester, Doctor, the lexicographer + + “Young Goodman Brown” + </pre> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Genius of Nathaniel +Hawthorne, by Frank Preston Stearns + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE *** + +***** This file should be named 7170-h.htm or 7170-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/7/1/7/7170/ + + +Text file produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +HTML file produced by David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Author: Frank Preston Stearns + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7170] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE/GENIUS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + +THE +LIFE AND GENIUS +OF +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + +BY +FRANK PRESTON STEARNS + +AUTHOR OF "THE REAL AND IDEAL IN LITERATURE," "LIFE OF +TINTORETTO," "LIFE OF BISMARCK," "TRUE REPUBLICANISM," "CAMBRIDGE +SKETCHES," ETC. + + + +[Illustration: Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Frances Osborne Portrait: by +permission of the Essex Institute.] + +INSCRIBED + +TO +EMILIA MACIEL STEARNS + + "In the elder days of art + Builders wrought with greatest care + Each minute and unseen part,-- + For the gods see everywhere." + --_Longfellow_ + + "Oh, happy dreams of such a soul have I, + And softly to myself of him I sing, + Whose seraph pride all pride doth overwing; + Who stoops to greatness, matches low with high, + And as in grand equalities of sky, + Stands level with the beggar and the king." + --_Wasson_ + + + + +Preface + + +The simple events of Nathaniel Hawthorne's life have long been before +the public. From 1835 onward they may easily be traced in the various +Note-books, which have been edited from his diary, and previous to that +time we are indebted for them chiefly to the recollections of his two +faithful friends, Horatio Bridge and Elizabeth Peabody. These were +first systematised and published by George P. Lathrop in 1872, but a +more complete and authoritative biography was issued by Julian +Hawthorne twelve years later, in which, however, the writer has +modestly refrained from expressing an opinion as to the quality of his +father's genius, or from attempting any critical examination of his +father's literary work. It is in order to supply in some measure this +deficiency, that the present volume has been written. At the same time, +I trust to have given credit where it was due to my predecessors, in +the good work of making known the true character of so rare a genius +and so exceptional a personality. + +The publication of Horatio Bridge's memoirs and of Elizabeth Manning's +account of the boyhood of Hawthorne have placed before the world much +that is new and valuable concerning the earlier portion of Hawthorne's +life, of which previous biographers could not very well reap the +advantage. I have made thorough researches in regard to Hawthorne's +American ancestry, but have been able to find no ground for the +statements of Conway and Lathrop, that William Hathorne, their first +ancestor on this side of the ocean, was directly connected with the +Quaker persecution. Some other mistakes, like Hawthorne's supposed +connection with the duel between Cilley and Graves, have also been +corrected. + + F. P. S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. SALEM AND THE HATHORNES: 1630-1800 + II. BOYHOOD OF HAWTHORNE: 1804-1821 + III. BOWDOIN COLLEGE: 1821-1825 + IV. LITTLE MISERY: 1825-1835 + V. EOS AND EROS: 1835-1839 + VI. PEGASUS AT THE CART: 1839-1841 + VII. HAWTHORNE AS A SOCIALIST: 1841-1842 + VIII. CONCORD AND THE OLD MANSE: 1842-1845 + IX. "MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE": 1845 + X. FROM CONCORD TO LENOX: 1845-1849 + XI. PEGASUS IS FREE: 1850-1852 + XII. THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: 1852-1854 + XIII. HAWTHORNE IN ENGLAND: 1854-1858 + XIV. ITALY + XV. HAWTHORNE AS ART CRITIC: 1858 + XVI. "THE MARBLE FAUN": 1859-1860 + XVII. HOMEWARD BOUND: 1860-1862 +XVIII. IMMORTALITY + + PORTRAITS OF HAWTHORNE + EDITIONS OF HAWTHORNE'S BOOKS PUBLISHED UNDER HIS OWN DIRECTION. + MRS. EMERSON AND MRS. HAWTHORNE + APPENDICES + + +List of Illustrations + +PORTRAIT OF HAWTHORNE, BY FRANCES OSBORNE IN 1893 +HAWTHORNE'S BIRTHPLACE +HORATIO BRIDGE, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY EASTMAN JOHNSON +HAWTHORNE, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY CHARLES OSGOOD IN 1840 +THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY +THE CUSTOM HOUSE, SALEM, MASS +THE WAYSIDE +GUIDO RENI'S PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI +STATUE OF PRAXITELES' RESTING FAUN +TORRE MEDIAVALLE DELLA SCIMMIA (HILDA'S TOWER) IN ROME + + + + +THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SALEM AND THE HATHORNES: 1630-1800 + + +The three earliest settlements on the New England coast were Plymouth, +Boston, and Salem; but Boston soon proved its superior advantages to +the two others, not only from its more capacious harbor, but also from +the convenient waterway which the Charles River afforded to the +interior of the Colony. We find that a number of English families, and +among them the ancestors of Gen. Joseph Warren and Wendell Phillips, +who crossed the ocean in 1640 in the "good ship Arbella," soon +afterward migrated to Watertown on Charles River for the sake of the +excellent farming lands which they found there. Salem, however, +maintained its ascendency over Plymouth and other neighboring harbors +on the coast, and soon grew to be the second city of importance in the +Colony during the eighteenth century, when the only sources of wealth +were fishing, shipbuilding, and commerce. Salem nourished remarkably. +Its leading citizens became wealthy and developed a social aristocracy +as cultivated, as well educated, and, it may also be added, as +fastidious as that of Boston itself. In this respect it differed widely +from the other small cities of New England, and the exclusiveness of +its first families was more strongly marked on account of the limited +size of the place. Thus it continued down to the middle of the last +century, when railroads and the tendency to centralization began to +draw away its financial prosperity, and left the city to small +manufactures and its traditional respectability. + +The finest examples of American eighteenth century architecture are +supposed to exist in and about the city of Salem, and they have the +advantage, which American architecture lacks so painfully at the +present time, of possessing a definite style and character--edifices +which are not of a single type, like most of the houses in Fifth +Avenue, but which, while differing in many respects, have a certain +general resemblance, that places them all in the same category. The +small old country churches of Essex County are not distinguished for +fine carving or other ornamentation, and still less by the costliness +of their material, for they are mostly built of white pine, but they +have an indefinable air of pleasantness about them, as if they graced +the ground they stand on, and their steeples seem to float in the air +above us. If we enter them on a Sunday forenoon--for on week-days they +are like a sheepfold without its occupants--we meet with much the same +kind of pleasantness in the assemblage there. We do not find the deep +religious twilight of past ages, or the noonday glare of a fashionable +synagogue, but a neatly attired congregation of weather-beaten farmers +and mariners, and their sensible looking wives, with something of the +original Puritan hardness in their faces, much ameliorated by the +liberalism and free thinking of the past fifty years. Among them too +you will see some remarkably pretty young women; and young men like +those who dug the trenches on Breed's Hill in the afternoon of June 16, +1775. There may be veterans in the audience who helped Grant to go to +Richmond. Withal there is much of the spirit of the early Christians +among them, and virtue enough to save their country in any emergency. + +These old churches have mostly disappeared from Salem city and have +been replaced by more aristocratic edifices, whose square or octagonal +towers are typical of their leading parishioners,--a dignified class, +if somewhat haughty and reserved; but they too will soon belong to the +past, drawn off to the great social centres in and about Boston. In the +midst of Salem there is a triangular common, "with its never-failing +elms," where the boys large and small formerly played cricket--married +men too--as they do still on the village greens of good old England, +and around this enclosure the successful merchants and navigators of +the city built their mansion houses; not half houses like those in the +larger cities, but with spacious halls and rooms on either side going +up three stories. It is in the gracefully ornamented doorways and the +delicate interior wood-work, the carving of wainscots, mantels and +cornices, the skilful adaptations of classic forms to a soft and +delicate material that the charm of this architecture chiefly +consists,--especially in the staircases, with their carved spiral posts +and slender railings, rising upward in the centre of the front hall, +and turning right and left on the story above. It is said that after +the year eighteen hundred the quality of this decoration sensibly +declined; it was soon replaced by more prosaic forms, and now the tools +no longer exist that can make it. Sir Christopher Wren and Inigo Jones +would have admired it. America, excepting in New York City, escaped the +false rococo taste of the eighteenth century. + +The Salem sea-captains of old times were among the boldest of our early +navigators; sailing among the pirates of the Persian Gulf and trading +with the cannibals of Polynesia, and the trophies which they brought +home from those strange regions, savage implements of war and domestic +use, clubs, spears, boomerangs, various cooking utensils, all carved +with infinite pains from stone, ebony and iron-wood, cloth from the +bark of the tapa tree, are now deposited in the Peabody Academy, where +they form one of the largest collections of the kind extant. Even more +interesting is the sword of a sword-fish, pierced through the oak +planking of a Salem vessel for six inches or more. No human force could +do that even with a spear of the sharpest steel. Was the sword-fish +roused to anger when the ship came upon him sleeping in the water; or +did he mistake it for a strange species of whale? + +There is a court-house on Federal Street, built in Webster's time, of +hard cold granite in the Grecian fashion of the day, not of the white +translucent marble with which the Greeks would have built it. Is it the +court-house where Webster made his celebrated argument in the White +murder case, or was that court-house torn down and a plough run through +the ground where it stood, as Webster affirmed that it ought to be? +Salem people were curiously reticent in regard to that trial, and +fashionable society there did not like Webster the better for having +the two Knapps convicted. + +Much more valuable than such associations is William Hunt's full-length +portrait of Chief Justice Shaw, which hangs over the judge's bench in +the front court-room. "When I look at your honor I see that you are +homely, but when I think of you I know that you are great." it is this +combination of an unprepossessing physique with rare dignity of +character which Hunt has represented in what many consider the best of +American portraits. It is perhaps too much in the sketchy style of +Velasquez, but admirable for all that. + +Time has dealt kindly with Salem, in effacing all memorials of the +witchcraft persecution, except a picturesque old house at the corner of +North and Essex Streets, where there are said to have been preliminary +examinations for witchcraft,--a matter which concerns us now but +slightly. The youthful associations of a genius are valuable to us on +account of the influence which they may be supposed to have had on his +early life, but associations which have no determining consequences may +as well be neglected. The hill where those poor martyrs to superstition +were executed may be easily seen on the left of the city, as you roll +in on the train from Boston. It is part of a ridge which rises between +the Concord and Charles Rivers and extends to Cape Ann, where it dives +into the ocean, to reappear again like a school of krakens, or other +marine monsters, in the Isles of Shoals. + +New England has not the fertile soil of many sections of the United +States, and its racking climate is proverbial, but it is blessed with +the two decided advantages of pure water and fine scenery. There is no +more beautiful section of its coast than that between Salem Harbor and +Salisbury Beach, long stretches of smooth sand alternating with bold +rocky promontories. A summer drive from Swampscott to Marblehead +reminds one even of the Bay of Naples (without Vesuvius), and the +wilder coast of Cape Ann, with its dark pines, red-roofed cottages, and +sparkling surf, is quite as delightful. William Hunt went there in the +last sad years of his life to paint "sunshine," as he said; and +Whittier has given us poetic touches of the inland scenery in elevated +verse: + + "Fleecy clouds casting their shadows + Over uplands and meadows; + And country roads winding as roads will, + Here to a ferry, there to a mill." + +Poets arise where there is poetic nourishment, internal and external, +for them to feed on; and it is not surprising that a Whittier and a +Hawthorne should have been evolved from the environment in which they +grew to manhood. + +It is a common saying with old Boston families that their ancestors +came to America in the "Arbella" with Governor Winthrop, but as a +matter of fact there were at least fifteen vessels that brought +colonists to Massachusetts in 1630, and I cannot discover that any +lists of their passengers have been preserved. The statement that +certain persons came over at the same time with Governor Winthrop might +soon become a tradition that they came in the same ship with him; but +all that we know certainly is that Governor Winthrop landed about the +middle of June, 1630, and that his son arrived two weeks later in the +"Talbot," and was drowned July 2, while attempting to cross one of the +tide rivers at Salem. Who arrived in the thirteen other vessels that +year we know not. Ten years later Sir Richard Saltonstall emigrated to +Boston with the Phillips and Warren families in the "Arbella" (or +"Arabella"), and there is no telling how much longer she sailed the +ocean. + +Hawthorne himself states that his ancestors came from Wig Castle in +Wigton in Warwickshire, [Footnote: Diary, August 22, 1837.] but no such +castle has been discovered, and the only Wigton in England appears to +be located in Cumberland. [Footnote: Lathrop's "Study of Hawthorne," +46.] He does not tell us where he obtained this information, and it +certainly could not have been from authentic documents,--more likely +from conversation with an English traveller. Hawthorne never troubled +himself much concerning his ancestry, English or American; while he was +consul at Liverpool, he had exceptional advantages for investigating +the subject, but whatever attempt he made there resulted in nothing. It +is only recently that Mr. Henry F. Waters, who spent fifteen years in +England searching out the records of old New England families, +succeeded in discovering the connecting link between the first American +Hawthornes and their relatives in the old country. It was a bill of +exchange for one hundred pounds drawn by William Hathorne, of Salem, +payable to Robert Hathorne in London, and dated October 19, 1651, which +first gave Mr. Waters the clue to his discovery. Robert not only +accepted his brother's draft, but wrote him this simple and business- +like but truly affectionate epistle in return: + + +"GOOD BROTHER: Remember my love to my sister, my brother John and +sister, my brother Davenport and sister and the rest of our friends. + + "In haste I rest + "Your loving brother, + +"From Bray this 1 April, 1653. ROBERT HATHORNE." + + +From this it appears that Major William Hathorne not only had a brother +John, who established himself in Lynn, but a sister Elizabeth, who +married Richard Davenport, of Salem. Concerning Robert Hathorne we only +know further that he died in 1689; but in the probate records of +Berkshire, England, there is a will proved May 2, 1651, of William +Hathorne, of Binfield, who left all his lands, buildings and tenements +in that county to his son Robert, on condition that Robert should pay +to his father's eldest son, William, one hundred pounds, and to his son +John twenty pounds sterling. He also left to another son, Edmund, +thirty acres of land in Bray, and there are other legacies; but it +cannot be doubted that the hundred pounds mentioned in this will is the +same that Major William Hathorne drew for five months later, and that +we have identified here the last English ancestor of Nathaniel +Hawthorne. His wife's given name was Sarah, but her maiden name still +remains unknown. The family resided chiefly at Binfield, on the borders +of Windsor Park, and evidently were in comfortable circumstances at +that time. From William Hathorne, senior, their genealogy has been +traced back to John Hathorne (spelled at that time Hothorne), who died +in 1520, but little is known of their affairs, or how they sustained +themselves during the strenuous vicissitudes of the Reformation. +[Footnote: "Hawthorne Centenary at Salem," 81.] + +Emmerton and Waters [Footnote: "English Records about New England +Families."] state that William Hathorne came to Massachusetts Bay in +1630, and this is probable enough, though by no means certain, for they +give no authority for it. We first hear of him definitely as a +freeholder in the settlement of Dorchester in 1634, but his name is not +on the list of the first twenty-four Dorchester citizens, dated October +19, 1630. All accounts agree that he moved to Salem in 1636, or the +year following, and Nathaniel Hawthorne believed that he came to +America at that time. Upham, the historian of Salem witchcraft, who has +made the most thorough researches in the archives of old Salem +families, says of William Hathorne: + +"William Hathorne appears on the church records as early as 1636. He +died in June, 1681, seventy-four years of age. No one in our annals +fills a larger space. As soldier, commanding important and difficult +expeditions, as counsel in cases before the courts, as judge on the +bench, and innumerable other positions requiring talent and +intelligence, he was constantly called to serve the public. He was +distinguished as a public speaker, and is the only person, I believe, +of that period, whose reputation as an orator has come down to us. He +was an Assistant, that is, in the upper branch of the Legislature, +seventeen years. He was a deputy twenty years. When the deputies, who +before sat with the assistants, were separated into a distinct body, +and the House of Representatives thus came into existence, in 1644, +Hathorne was their first Speaker. He occupied the chair, with +intermediate services on the floor from time to time, until raised to +the other House. He was an inhabitant of Salem Village, having his farm +there, and a dwelling-house, in which he resided when his legislative, +military, and other official duties permitted. His son John, who +succeeded him in all his public honors, also lived on his own farm in +the village a great part of the time." [Footnote: "Salem Witchcraft," +i. 99.] + +Evidently he was the most important person in the colony, next to +Governor Winthrop, and unequalled by any of his descendants, except +Nathaniel Hawthorne, and by him in a wholly different manner; for it is +in vain that we seek for traits similar to those of the great romance +writer among his ancestors. We can only say that they both possessed +exceptional mental ability, and there the comparison ends. + +The attempt has been made to connect William Hathorne with the +persecution of the Quakers, [Footnote: Conway's "Life of Hawthorne," +15.] and it is true that he was a member of the Colonial Assembly +during the period of the persecution; it is likely that his vote +supported the measures in favor of it, but this is not absolutely +certain. We do not learn that he acted at any time in the capacity of +sheriff; the most diligent researches in the archives of the State +House at Boston have failed to discover any direct connection on the +part of William Hathorne with that movement; and the best authorities +in regard to the events of that time make no mention of him. [Footnote: +Sewel, Hallowell, Ellis.] It was the clergy who aroused public opinion +and instigated the prosecutions against both the Quakers and the +supposed witches of Salem, and the civil authorities were little more +than passive instruments in their hands. Hathorne's work was +essentially a legislative one,--a highly important work in that wild, +unsettled country,--to adapt English statutes and legal procedures to +new and strange conditions. He was twice Speaker of the House between +1660 and 1671, and as presiding officer he could exert less influence +on measures of expediency than any other person present, as he could +not argue either for or against them. And yet, after Charles II. had +interfered in behalf of the Quakers, William Hathorne wrote an +elaborate and rather circuitous letter to the British Ministry, arguing +for non-intervention in the affairs of the colony, which might have +possessed greater efficacy if he had not signed it with an assumed +name. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne's "Nathaniel Hawthorne," i. 24.] However +strong a Puritan he may have been, William Hathorne evidently had no +intention of becoming a martyr to the cause of colonial independence. +Yet it may be stated in his favor, and in that of the colonists +generally, that the fault was not wholly on one side, for the Quakers +evidently sought persecution, and would have it, cost what it might. +[Footnote: Hallowell's "Quaker Invasion of New England."] Much the same +may be affirmed of his son John, who had the singular misfortune to be +judge in Salem at the time of the witchcraft epidemic. The belief in +witchcraft has always had its stronghold among the fogs and gloomy +fiords of the North. James I. brought it with him from Scotland to +England, and in due course it was transplanted to America. Judge +Hathorne appears to have been at the top of affairs at Salem in his +time, and it is more than probable that another in his place would have +found himself obliged to act as he did. Law is, after all, in +exceptional cases little more than a reflex of public opinion. "The +common law," said Webster, "is common-sense," which simply means the +common opinion of the most influential people. Much more to blame than +John Hathorne were those infatuated persons who deceived themselves +into thinking that the pains of rheumatism, neuralgia, or some similar +malady were caused by the malevolent influence of a neighbor against +whom they had perhaps long harbored a grudge. _They_ were the true +witches and goblins of that epoch, and the only ones, if any, who ought +to have been hanged for it. + +What never has been reasoned up cannot be reasoned down. It seems +incredible in this enlightened era, as the newspapers call it, that any +woman should be at once so inhuman and so frivolous as to swear away +the life of a fellow-creature upon an idle fancy; and yet, even in +regard to this, there were slightly mitigating conditions. Consider +only the position of that handful of Europeans in this vast wilderness, +as it then was. The forests came down to the sea-shore, and brought +with them all the weird fancies, terrors and awful forebodings which +the human mind could conjure up. They feared the Indians, the wild +beasts, and most of all one another, for society was not yet +sufficiently organized to afford that repose and contentment of spirit +which they had left behind in the Old World. They had come to America +to escape despotism, but they had brought despotism in their own +hearts. They could escape from the Stuarts, but there was no escape +from human nature. + +It is likely that their immediate progenitors would not have carried +the witchcraft craze to such an extreme. The emigrating Puritans were a +fairly well-educated class of men and women, but their children did not +enjoy equal opportunities. The new continent had to be subdued +physically and reorganized before any mental growth could be raised +there. Levelling the forest was a small matter beside clearing the land +of stumps and stones. All hands were obliged to work hard, and there +was little opportunity for intellectual development or social culture. +As a logical consequence, an era ensued not unlike the dark ages of +Europe. But this was essential to the evolution of a new type of man, +and for the foundation of American nationality; and it was thus that +the various nationalities of Europe arose out of the ruins of the Roman +Empire. + +The scenes that took place in Judge Hathorne's court-room have never +been equalled since in American jurisprudence. Powerful forces came +into play there, and the reports that have been preserved read like +scenes from Shakespeare. In the case of Rebecca Nurse, the Judge said +to the defendant: + +"'You do know whether you are guilty, and have familiarity with the +Devil; and now when you are here present to see such a thing as these +testify,--and a black man whispering in your ear, and devils about +you,--what do you say to it?'" + +To which she replied: + +"'It is all false. I am clear.' Whereupon Mrs. Pope, one of the +witnesses, fell into a grievous fit." [Footnote: Upham's "Salem +Witchcraft," ii. 64.] + +Alas, poor beleaguered soul! And one may well say, "What imaginations +those women had!" Tituba, the West Indian Aztec who appears in this +social-religious explosion as the chief and original incendiary,-- +verily the root of all evil,--gave the following testimony: + +"Q. 'Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning?' + +"A. 'The man brought her to me, and made me pinch her.' + +"Q. 'Why did you go to Thomas Putnam's last night and hurt his child?' + +"A. 'They pull and haul me, and make me go.' + +"Q. 'And what would they have you do?' + +"A. 'Kill her with a knife.' + +"(Lieutenant Fuller and others said at this time, when the child saw +these persons, and was tormented by them, that she did complain of a +knife,--that they would have her cut her head off with a knife.) + +"Q. 'How did you go?' + +"A. 'We ride upon sticks, and are there presently.' + +"Q. 'Do you go through the trees or over them?' + +"A. 'We see nothing, but are there presently.' + +"Q. 'Why did you not tell your master?' + +"A. 'I was afraid. They said they would cut off my head if I told.' + +"Q. 'Would you not have hurt others, if you could?' + +"A. 'They said they would hurt others, but they could not.' + +"Q. 'What attendants hath Sarah Good?' + +"A. 'A yellow-bird, and she would have given me one.' + +"Q. 'What meat did she give it?' + +"A. 'It did suck her between her fingers.'". + +This might serve as an epilogue to "Macbeth," and the wonder is that an +unlettered Indian should have had the wit to make such apt and subtle +replies. It is also noteworthy that these strange proceedings took +place after the expulsion of the royal governor, and previous to the +provincial government of William III. If Sir Edmund Andros had +remained, the tragedy might have been changed into a farce. + +After all, it appears that John Hathorne was not a lawyer, for he +describes himself in his last will, dated June 27, 1717, as a merchant, +and it is quite possible that his legal education was no better than +that of the average English squire in Fielding's time. It is evident, +however, from the testimony given above, that he was a strong believer +in the supernatural, and here if anywhere we find a relationship +between him and his more celebrated descendant. Nathaniel Hawthorne was +too clear-sighted to place confidence in the pretended revelations of +trance mediums, and he was not in the least superstitious; but he was +remarkably fond of reading ghost stories, and would have liked to +believe them, if he could have done so in all sincerity. He sometimes +felt as if he were a ghost himself, gliding noiselessly in the walks of +men, and wondered that the sun should cast a shadow from him. However, +we cannot imagine him as seated in jurisdiction at a criminal tribunal. +His gentle nature would have recoiled from that, as it might from a +serpent. + +In the Charter Street burial-ground there is a slate gravestone, +artistically carved about its edges, with the name, "Col. John Hathorne +Esq.," upon it. It is somewhat sunken into the earth, and leans forward +as if wishing to hide the inscription upon it from the gaze of mankind. +The grass about it and the moss upon the stone assist in doing this, +although repeatedly cut and cleaned away. It seems as if Nature wished +to draw a kind of veil over the memory of the witch's judge, himself +the sorrowful victim of a theocratic oligarchy. The lesson we learn +from his errors is, to trust our own hearts and not to believe too +fixedly in the doctrines of Church and State. It must be a dull +sensibility that can look on this old slate-stone without a feeling of +pathos and a larger charity for the errors of human nature. + +It is said that one of the convicted witches cursed Judge Hathorne,-- +himself and his descendants forever; but it is more than likely that +they all cursed him bitterly enough, and this curse took effect in a +very natural and direct manner. Every extravagant political or social +movement is followed by a corresponding reaction, even if the movement +be on the whole a salutary one, and retribution is sure to fall in one +shape or another on the leaders of it. After this time the Hathornes +ceased to be conspicuous in Salem affairs. The family was not in favor, +and the avenues of prosperity were closed to them, as commonly happens +in such cases. Neither does the family appear to have multiplied and +extended itself like most of the old New England families, who can now +count from a dozen to twenty branches in various places. Of John +Hathorne's three sons only one appears to have left children. The name +has wholly disappeared from among Salem families, and thus in a manner +has the witch's curse been fulfilled. + +Joseph Hathorne, the son of the Judge, was mostly a farmer, and that is +all that we now know of him. His son Daniel, however, showed a more +adventurous spirit, becoming a shipmaster quite early in life. It has +also been intimated that he was something of a smuggler, which was no +great discredit to him in a time when the unfair and even prohibitory +measures of the British Parliament in regard to American commerce made +smuggling a practical necessity. Even as the captain of a trading +vessel, however, Daniel Hathorne was not likely to advance the social +interests of his family. It is significant that he should have left the +central portion of Salem, where his ancestors had lived, and have built +a house for himself close to the city wharves,--a house well built and +commodious enough, but not in a fashionable location. + +But Daniel Hathorne had the advantage over fashionable society in +Salem, in being a thorough patriot. Boston and Salem were the two +strongholds of Toryism during the war for Independence, which was +natural enough, as their wealthy citizens were in close mercantile +relations with English houses, and sent their children to England to be +educated. Daniel Hathorne, however, as soon as hostilities had begun, +fitted out his bark as a privateer, and spent the following six years +in preying upon British merchantmen. How successful he was in this line +of business we have not been informed, but he certainly did not grow +rich by it; although he is credited with one engagement with the enemy, +in which his ship came off with honor, though perhaps not with a +decisive victory. This exploit was celebrated in a rude ballad of the +time, which has been preserved in "Griswold's Curiosities of American +Literature," and has at least the merit of plain unvarnished language. +[Footnote: Also in Lathrop's "Hawthorne."] + +There is a miniature portrait of Daniel Hathorne, such as was common in +Copley's time, still in the possession of the Hawthorne family, and it +represents him as rather a bullet-headed man, with a bright, open, +cheery face, a broad English chin and strongly marked brows,--an +excellent physiognomy for a sea-captain. He appears besides to have had +light brown or sandy hair, a ruddy complexion and bright blue eyes; but +we cannot determine how truthful the miniature may be in respect to +coloring. At all events, he was of a very different appearance from +Nathaniel Hawthorne, and if he resembled his grandson in any external +respect, it was in his large eyes and their overshadowing brows. He has +not the look of a dare-devil. One might suppose that he was a person of +rather an obstinate disposition, but it is always difficult to draw the +line between obstinacy and determination. + +A similar miniature of his son Nathaniel, born in 1775, and who died at +Surinam in his thirty-fourth year, gives us the impression of a person +somewhat like his father, and also somewhat like his son Nathaniel. He +has a long face instead of a round one, and his features are more +delicate and refined than those of the bold Daniel. The expression is +gentle, dreamy and pensive, and unless the portrait belies him, he +could not have been the stern, domineering captain that he has been +represented. He had rather a slender figure, and was probably much more +like his mother, who was a Miss Phelps, than the race of Judge +Hathorne. He may have been a reticent man, but never a bold one, and we +find in him a new departure. His face is more amiable and attractive +than his father's, but not so strong. In 1799 he was married to Miss +Elizabeth Clarke Manning, the daughter of Richard Manning, and then +only nineteen years of age. She appears to have been an exceptionally +sensitive and rather shy young woman--such as would be likely to +attract the attention of a chivalrous young mariner--but with fine +traits of intellect and character. + +The maternal ancestry of a distinguished man is quite as important as +the paternal, but in the present instance it is much more difficult to +obtain information concerning it. The increasing fame of Hawthorne has +been like a calcium-light, illuminating for the past fifty years +everything to which that name attaches, and leaving the Manning family +in a shadow so much the deeper. All we can learn of them now is, that +they were descended from Richard Manning, of Dartmouth in Devonshire, +England, whose son Thomas emigrated to Salem with his widowed mother in +1679, but afterwards removed to Ipswich, ten miles to the north, whence +the family has since extended itself far and wide,--the Reverend Jacob +M. Manning, of the Old South Church, the fearless champion of practical +anti-slaveryism, having been among them. It appears that Thomas's +grandson Richard started in life as a blacksmith, which was no strange +thing in those primitive times; but, being a thrifty and enterprising +man, he lived to establish a line of stage-coaches between Salem and +Boston, and this continued in the possession of his family until it was +superseded by the Eastern Railway. After this catastrophe, Robert +Manning, the son of Richard and brother of Mrs. Nathaniel Hathorne, +became noted as a fruit-grower (a business in which Essex County people +have always taken an active interest), and was one of the founders of +the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The Mannings were always +respected in Salem, although they never came to affluent circumstances, +nor did they own a house about the city common. Robert Manning, Jr., +was Secretary of the Horticultural Society in Boston for a long term of +years, a pleasant, kindly man, with an aspect of general culture. +Hawthorne's maternal grandmother was Miriam Lord, of Ipswich, and his +paternal grandmother was Rachel Phelps, of Salem. His father was only +thirty-three when he died at Surinam. + +In regard to the family name, there are at present Hawthornes and +Hathornes in England, and although the two names may have been +identical originally, they have long since become as distinct as Smith +and Smythe. I have discovered only two instances in which the first +William Hathorne wrote his own name, and in the various documents at +the State House in which it appears written by others, it is variously +spelled Hathorn, Hathorne, Hawthorn, Haythorne, and Harthorne,--from +which we can only conclude that the a was pronounced broadly. It was +not until the reign of Queen Anne, when books first became cheap and +popular, that there was any decided spelling of either proper or common +names. Then the printers took the matter into their own hands and made +witch-work enough of it. The word "sovereign," for instance, which is +derived from the old French _souvrain_, and which Milton spelled +"sovran," they tortured into its present form,--much as the clerks of +Massachusetts Colony tortured the name of William Hathorne. This, +however, was spelled Hathorne oftener than in other ways, and it was so +spelled in the two signatures above referred to, one of which was +attached as witness to a deed for the settlement of the boundary +between Lynn and Salem, [Footnote: Also in Lathrop's "Hawthorne."] and +the other to a report of the commissioners for the investigation of the +French vessels coming to Salem and Boston in 1651, the two other +commissioners being Samuel Bradstreet and David Denison. [Footnote: +Massachusetts Archives, x. 171.]The name was undoubtedly Hathorne, and +so it continued with one or two slight variations during the eighteenth +century down to the time of Nathaniel Hathorne, Jr., who entered and +graduated at Bowdoin College under that name, but who soon afterward +changed it to Hawthorne, for reasons that have never been explained. + +All cognomens would seem to have been derived originally from some +personal peculiarity, although it is no longer possible to trace this +back to its source, which probably lies far away in the Dark Ages,--the +formative period of languages and of families. Sometimes, however, we +meet with individuals whose peculiarities suggest the origin of their +names: a tall, slender, long-necked man named Crane; or a timid, +retiring student named Leverett; or an over-confident, supercilious +person called Godkin In the name of Hawthorne also we may imagine a +curious significance: "When the may is on the thorn," says Tennyson. +The English country people call the flowering of the hawthorn "the +may." It is a beautiful tree when in full bloom. How sweet-scented and +delicately colored are its blossoms! But it seems to say to us, "Do not +come too close to me." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +BOYHOOD OF HAWTHORNE: 1804-1821 + + +Salem treasures the memory of Hawthorne, and preserves everything +tangible relating to him. The house in which he was born, No. 27 Union +Street, is in much the same style and probably of the same age as the +Old Manse at Concord, but somewhat smaller, with only a single window +on either side of the doorway--five windows in all on the front, one +large chimney in the centre, and the roof not exactly a gambrel, for +the true gambrel has a curve first inward and then outward, but +something like it. A modest, cosy and rather picturesque dwelling, +which if placed on a green knoll with a few trees about it might become +a subject for a sketching class. It did not belong to Hawthorne's +father, after all, but to the widow of the bold Daniel, It was the +cradle of genius, and is now a shrine for many pilgrims. Long may it +survive, so that our grandchildren may gaze upon it. + +Here Nathaniel Hawthorne first saw daylight one hundred years ago +[Footnote: 1804.] on the Fourth of July, as if to make a protest +against Chauvinistic patriotism; here his mother sat at the window to +see her husband's bark sail out of the harbor on his last voyage; and +here she watched day after day for its return, only to bring a life- +long sorrow with it. The life of a sea-captain's wife is always a half- +widowhood, but Mrs. Hathorne was left at twenty-eight with three small +children, including a daughter, Elizabeth, older than Nathaniel, and +another, Louisa, the youngest. The shadow of a heavy misfortune had +come upon them, and from this shadow they never wholly escaped. + +Lowell criticised a letter which John Brown wrote concerning his +boyhood to Henry L. Stearns, as the finest bit of autobiography of the +nineteenth century.[Footnote: _North American Review_, April +1860.] It is in fact almost the only literature of the kind that we +possess. A frequent difficulty that parents find in dealing with their +children is, that they have wholly forgotten the sensations and +impressions of their own childhood. The instructor cannot place himself +in the position of the pupil. A naturalist will spend years with a +microscope studying the development of a plant from the seed, but no +one has ever applied a similar process to the budding of genius or even +of ordinary intellect. We have the autobiography of one of the greatest +geniuses, written in the calm and stillness of old age, when youthful +memories come back to us involuntarily; yet he barely lifts the veil +from his own childhood, and has much more to say of external events and +older people than of himself and his young companions. How valuable is +the story of George Washington and his hatchet, hackneyed as it has +become! What do we know of the boyhood of Franklin, Webster, Seward and +Longfellow? Nothing, or next to nothing. + +[Illustration: WINDOW OF THIS CHAMBER] + +Goethe says that the admirable woman is she who, when her husband dies, +becomes a father to his children; but in the case of Hawthorne's +mother, this did not happen to be necessary. Her brother, Robert +Manning, a thrifty and fairly prosperous young man, immediately took +Mrs. Hathorne and her three children into his house on Herbert Street, +and made it essentially a home for them afterward. To the fatherless +boy he was more than his own father, away from home ten months of the +year, ever could have been; and though young Nathaniel must have missed +that tenderness of feeling which a man can only entertain toward his +own child, there was no lack of kindness or consideration on Robert +Manning's part, to either the boy or his sisters. + +It was Mrs. Hathorne who chiefly suffered from this change of domicile. +She would seem to have been always on good terms with her brother's +wife, and on the whole they formed a remarkably harmonious family,--at +least we hear nothing to the contrary,--but she was no longer mistress +of her own household. She had her daughters to instruct, and to train +up in domestic ways, and she could be helpful in various matters, large +and small; but the mental occupation which comes from the oversight and +direction of household affairs, and which might have served to divert +her mind from sorrowful memories, was now gone from her. Her widowhood +separated her from the outside world and from all society, excepting a +few devoted friends, [Footnote: _Wide Awake_, xxxiii. 502.] so +that under these conditions it is not surprising that her life became +continually more secluded and reserved. It is probable that her +temperament was very similar to her son's; but the impression which has +gone forth, that she indulged her melancholy to an excess, is by no +means a just one. The circumstances of her case should be taken into +consideration. + +Rebecca Manning says: + +"I remember aunt Hawthorne as busy about the house, attending to +various matters. Her cooking was excellent, and she was noted for a +certain kind of sauce, which nobody else knew how to make. We always +enjoyed going to see her when we were children, for she took great +pains to please us and to give us nice things to eat. Her daughter +Elizabeth resembled her in that respect. In old letters and in the +journal of another aunt, which has come into our possession, we read of +her going about making visits, taking drives, and sometimes going on a +journey. In later years she was not well, and I do not remember that +she ever came here, but her friends always received a cordial welcome +when they visited her." + +This refers to a late period of Madam Hathorne's life, and if she +absented herself from the table, as Elizabeth Peabody states, +[Footnote: Lathrop's "Study of Hawthorne."] there was good reason for +it. + +Hawthorne himself has left no word concerning his mother, of favorable +or unfavorable import, but it seems probable that he owed his genius to +her, if he can be said to have owed it to any of his ancestors. In +after life he affirmed that his sister Elizabeth, who appears to have +been her mother over again, could have written as well as he did, and +although we have no palpable evidence of this--and the letter which she +wrote Elizabeth Peabody does not indicate it,--we are willing to take +his word for it. With the shyness and proud reserve which he inherited +from his mother, there also came that exquisite refinement and feminine +grace of style which forms the chief charm of his writing. The same +refinement of feeling is noticeable in the letters of other members of +the Manning family. Where his imagination came from, it would be +useless to speculate; but there is no good art without delicacy. + +Doctor Nathaniel Peabody lived near the house on Herbert Street, and +his daughter Elizabeth (who afterward became a woman of prodigious +learning) soon made acquaintance with the Hathorne children. She +remembers the boy Nathaniel jumping about his uncle's yard, and this is +the first picture that we have of him. When we consider what a +beautiful boy he must have been, with his wavy brown hair, large +wistful eyes and vigorous figure, without doubt he was a pleasure to +look upon. We do not hear of him again until November 10, 1813, when he +injured his foot in some unknown manner while at play, and was made +lame by it more or less for the three years succeeding. After being +laid up for a month, he wrote this pathetic little letter to his uncle, +Robert Manning, then in Maine, which I have punctuated properly so that +the excellence of its composition may appeal more plainly to the +reader. + + "SALEM, Thursday, December, 1813. + + "DEAR UNCLE: + +"I hope you are well, and I hope Richard is too. My foot is no better. +Louisa has got so well that she has begun to go to school, but she did +not go this forenoon because it snowed. Mama is going to send for +Doctor Kitridge to-day, when William Cross comes home at 12 o'clock, +and maybe he will do some good, for Doctor Barstow has not, and I don't +know as Doctor Kitridge will. It is about 4 weeks yesterday since I +have been to school, and I don't know but it will be 4 weeks longer +before I go again. I have been out of the office two or three times and +have set down on the step of the door, and once I hopped out into the +street. Yesterday I went out in the office and had 4 cakes. Hannah +carried me out once, but not then. Elizabeth and Louisa send their love +to you. I hope you will write to me soon, but I have nothing more to +write; so good-bye, dear Uncle. + + "Your affectionate Nephew, + "NATHANIEL HATHORNE." +[Footnote: Elizabeth Manning in _Wide Awake_, Nov. 1891.] + +This is not so precocious as Mozart's musical compositions at the same +age, but how could the boy Hawthorne have given a clearer account of +himself and his situation at the time, without one word of complaint? +It is worth noting also that his prediction in regard to Doctor +Kitridge proved to be correct and even more. + +It is evident that neither of his doctors treated him in a physio- +logical manner. Kitridge was a water-cure physician, and his method of +treatment deserves to be recorded for its novelty. He directed +Nathaniel to project his naked foot out of a sitting-room window, while +he poured cold water on it from the story above. This, however, does +not appear to have helped the case, and the infirmity continued so long +that it was generally feared that his lameness would be permanent. + +Horatio Bridge considered this a fortunate accident for Nathaniel, +since it prevented him from being spoiled by his female relatives, as +there is always danger that an only son with two or more sisters will +be spoiled. But it was an advantage to the boy in a different manner +from this. He learned from it the lesson of suffering and endurance, +which we all have to learn sooner or later; and it compelled him, +perhaps too young, to seek the comfort of life from internal sources. +There were excellent books in the house,--Shakespeare and Milton, of +course, but also Pope's "Iliad," Thomson's "Seasons," the "Spectator," +"Pilgrim's Progress," and the "Faerie Queene," and the time had now +come when these would be serviceable to him. He was not the only boy +that has enjoyed Shakespeare at the age of ten, but that he should have +found interest in Spenser's "Faerie Queene" is somewhat exceptional. +Even among professed _litterateurs_ there are few that read that +long allegory, and still fewer who enjoy it; and yet Miss Manning +assures us that Hawthorne would muse over it for hours. Its influence +may be perceptible in some of his shorter stories, but "Pilgrim's +Progress" evidently had an effect upon him; and so had Scott's novels, +as we may judge from the first romance that he published. + +At the age of twelve years and seven months he composed a short poem, +so perfect in form and mature in judgment that it is difficult to +believe that so young a person could have written it. Not so poetic as +it is philosophical, it is valuable as indicating that the boy had +already formed a moral axis for himself,--a life principle from which +he never afterward deviated; and it is given herewith: [Footnote: A +facsimile of the original can be found in _Wide Awake_, November, +1891.] + + + "MODERATE VIEWS. + + "With passions unruffled, untainted by pride, + By reason my life let me square; + The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied, + And the rest are but folly and care. + How vainly through infinite trouble and strife, + The many their labours employ, + Since all, that is truly delightful in life, + Is what all if they please may enjoy. + + "NATHANIEL HATHORNE. + "SALEM, February 13, 1817." + +He wrote this with the greatest nicety, framing it in broad black +lines, and ornamenting the capitals in a manner that recalls the +decoration of John Hathorne's gravestone. He composed a number of poems +between his thirteenth and seventeenth years, quite as good as those of +Longfellow at the same age; but after he entered Bowdoin College he +dropped the practice altogether and never resumed it, although one +would suppose that Longfellow's example would have stimulated him to +better efforts. Neither does he appear to have tried his hand in +writing tales, as boys who have no thought of literary distinction +frequently do. During the years of his lameness he sometimes invented +extemporaneous stories, which invariably commenced with a voyage to +some foreign country, from which his hero never returned. This shows +how continually his father's fate was in his mind, although he said +nothing of it. + +Robert Manning's interest in the stage-company afforded the boy fine +opportunities for free rides, and he probably also frequented the +stables; although neither as youth nor as man did he take much interest +in driving or riding. He was more fond of playing upon the wharves, a +good healthy place,--and watching the great ships sailing forth to far- +off lands, and returning with their strange cargoes,--enough to +stimulate any boy's imagination, if he has it in him. It is likely that +if Nathaniel's father had lived, he would also have followed a +seafaring life, and would never have become useful to the world in the +way that he did. + +Somewhere about the close of the eighteenth century, Richard Manning, +the father of Mrs. Hathorne, purchased a large tract of land in +Cumberland County, Maine, between Lake Sebago and the town of Casco; +and in 1813 Robert Manning built a house near the lake, in the township +of Raymond, and his brother Richard, who had become much of an invalid, +went to live there, partly for his health and partly to keep an +oversight on the property. In 1817 Mrs. Hathorne also went there, +taking her children with her, and remaining, with some intermissions, +until 1822. Meanwhile the Mannings sold some thousands of acres of +land, although not, as we may suppose, at very good prices, and the +name of Elizabeth Hathorne was repeatedly attached to the deeds of +conveyance. The house that Robert built was the plainest sort of +structure, of only two stories, and with no appearance of having been +painted; but the farmers in the vicinity criticised it as "Manning's +folly,"--exactly why, does not appear clearly, unless they foresaw what +actually happened, that the house could be neither sold nor rented +after the Mannings had left it. For many years, it served as a meeting- +house,--one could not call it a church,--and now it has become a +Hawthorne museum, the town of Raymond very laudably keeping it in +repair. + +Although none of the events in the early life of Hawthorne ought to be +considered positive misfortunes, as they all contributed to make him +what he was, yet upon general principles it is much to be regretted +that he should have passed the best years of his boyhood in this out- +of-the-way place. His good uncle supplied him with a boat and a gun, +and he enjoyed the small shooting, fishing, sailing and skating that +the place afforded; but in later years he wrote to Bridge, "It was at +Sebago that I learned my cursed habit of solitude," and this pursued +him through life like an evil genius, placing him continually at a +disadvantage with his fellow-men. It has been supposed that this mode +of life assisted in developing his individuality, but quite as strong +individualities have been developed in the midst of large cities. +"Speech is more refreshing than light." + +When will parents learn wisdom in regard to their children? A +conscientious, tender-hearted boy will be sent to a rough country +school, to be scoffed at and maltreated there, before he is twelve +years old; while another of a coarser and harder nature will be kept at +home, to be petted and pampered until all the vigor and manliness are +sapped out of him. Parents who prefer to live in a modest, humble +manner, in order that their children may have better advantages, +deserve the highest commendation, but in this respect good instruction +is less important than favorable associations. From fourteen to twenty- +one is the formative period of character, and the influences which may +be brought to bear on the growing mind are of the highest importance. +Lake Sebago served as an excellent gymnasium for young Hawthorne, and +may have helped to develop his sense of the beautiful, but he found few +companions there, and those not of the most suitable kind. He was +exceedingly fond of skating--so much so that when the ice was smooth he +sometimes remained on the lake far into the night. This we can envy +him, for skating is the poetry of motion. + +The captain of the "Hawthorne," which plies back and forth across the +lake in summer, regularly points out to his passengers the house where +the Hathornes lived. It is easily seen from the steamer,--a severely +plain, unpainted building, in appearance much like the Manning house on +Herbert Street. Nearly in line with it a great cliff-like rock juts out +from the centre of the lake, on which the Indians centuries ago etched +and painted great warlike figures, whose significance is now known to +no one. It is said that Hawthorne frequently sailed or rowed to Indian +Rock, and to a sort of grotto there which was large enough for his boat +to enter. Both the rock and the Manning house are now difficult of +access. Longfellow wrote a pretty descriptive poem of a voyage on +Sebago, and it is remarkable how he has made use of every feature of +the landscape, every incident of the excursion, to fill his verses. The +lake has much the shape of an hour-glass, the northern and southern +portions being connected by a winding strait, so crooked that it +requires the constant effort of the pilot to prevent the little steamer +from running aground. There used to be fine fishing in it,--large +perch, bass, and a species of fresh-water salmon often weighing from +six to eight pounds. + +Strangely enough, one of Hawthorne's acquaintances on the shores of +Sebago was a mulatto boy named William Symmes, the son of a Virginia +slave, foisted by his father upon a Maine sea-captain named Britton, +who lived in the half-wilderness around Raymond. Symmes afterwards +became a sailor, and continued in that vocation until the Civil War, +when he went to live in Alexandria, Va. In 1870 he published in the +Portland _Transcript_ what pretended to be a series of extracts +from a diary which young Hawthorne had kept while at Raymond, and which +was found there, after the departure of the Manning family, by a man +named Small, while moving a load of furniture which had been sold to +another party. Small preserved it until 1864, and then made a present +of it to Symmes. + +Doubts have been cast on the genuineness of this diary, as was natural +enough under the circumstances; for the original manuscript was never +produced by Symmes, who died the following year, and no one knows what +has become of it. It may also be asked, why should Small have disposed +so readily of this manuscript to Symmes after preserving it sedulously +for more than forty years? Why did he not return it to its rightful +owner; or, if he felt ashamed of his original abstraction, why did not +Symmes restore it to the Hawthorne family after Hawthorne's death, when +every newspaper in the country was celebrating Hawthorne's genius? It +also might have occurred to one of them that such property would have a +marketable value, and could be disposed of at a high price to some +collector of literary curiosities; but Symmes did not even ask to be +remunerated for the portion that he contributed to the Portland +Transcript. Neither did he harbor the slightest ill feeling toward +Hawthorne, whom he claimed to have met several times in the course of +his wanderings,--once at Salem, and again at Liverpool,--and was always +treated by him with exceptional kindness and civility. + +The only answer that can be made to these queries is, that men in +Symmes's position in life do not act according to any method that can +be previously calculated. In a case like the present, there could be no +predicting it; and it is possible that this mulatto valued the diary +above all price, as a souvenir of the one white man who had ever been +kind and good to him. Who knows what a heart there may have been in +William Symmes? + +The internal evidence of this diary is so strongly in its favor as to +be almost conclusive. Lathrop, who made a special study of it, says: + +"The fabrication of the journal by a person possessed of some literary +skill and familiar with the localities mentioned, at dates so long ago +as 1816 to 1819, might not be an impossible feat, but it is an +extremely improbable one." + +To which it might be added, that it could be only a Hawthorne that +could accomplish such a fabrication. Few things in literature are more +difficult than to make a boy talk _like_ a boy, and the tone of +this Sebago journal is not only boyish, but sweet and pleasant to the +ear, such as we might imagine the talk of the youthful Hawthorne. Not +only this, but there is a gradated improvement of intelligence in the +course of it,--rather too much so for entire credibility. It is quite +possible that there is more of it than Hawthorne ever wrote, but that +does not prevent us from having faith in the larger portion of it. The +purity of its diction, the nice adaptation of each word to its purpose, +and the accuracy of detail are much in its favor; besides which, the +personal reflections in it are exactly like Hawthorne. The published +portion of the diary in Mr. Pickard's book makes about fifty rather +small pages, but no dates are given except at the close, and that is +August, 1818; and as Hawthorne went to Sebago for the first time the +preceding year, we may presume that this note-book represents a winter +and summer vacation, during which he would seem to have enjoyed himself +in a healthy boyish fashion. We have only space for a few extracts from +this publication, which serve both to exemplify Hawthorne's mode of +life at Raymond and to illustrate the preceding statement concerning +the book. + +The first observation in the diary is quoted by Lathrop, and has a +decidedly youthful tone. + +"Two kingbirds have built their nest between our house and the mill- +pond. The male is more courageous than any creature that I know about. +He seems to have taken possession of the territory from the great pond +to the small one, and goes out to war with every fish-hawk that flies +from one to the other over his dominion. The fish-hawks must be +miserable cowards to be driven by such a speck of a bird. I have not +yet seen one turn to defend himself." + +Kingbirds are the knights-errant of the feathered tribes. They never +attack another bird unless it is three times their own size; but when a +few years older, the boy Hawthorne would probably have noticed that the +kingbirds' powers of flight are so superior that all other birds are +practically at their mercy. This fixes the date of the entry in the +early summer of 1817, for kingbirds are not belligerent except during +the nesting season. Somewhat later in the year he writes: + +"Went yesterday in a sail-boat on the Great Pond with Mr. Peter White, +of Windham. He sailed up here from White's Bridge to see Captain +Dingley, and invited Joseph Dingley and Mr. Ring to take a boat-ride +out to the Dingley Islands and to the Images. He was also kind enough +to say that I might go, with my mother's consent, which she gave after +much coaxing. Since the loss of my father, she dreads to have any one +belonging to her go upon the water. It is strange that this beautiful +body of water is called a 'pond.' The geography tells of many in +Scotland and Ireland, not near so large, that are called 'Lakes.'" + +Notice his objection to bad nomenclature, and his school-boy argument +against it. In his account of this excursion he says further: + +"After we got ashore, Mr. White allowed me to fire his long gun at a +mark. I did not hit the mark, and am not sure that I saw it at the time +the gun went off, but believe rather that I was watching for the noise +that I was about to make. + +"Mr. Ring said that with practice I could be a gunner, and that now, +with a very heavy charge, he thought I could kill a horse at eight +paces!" + +Here or nowhere do we recognize the budding of Hawthorne's genius. This +clear introspective analysis is the foundation of all true mental +power, and Hawthorne might have become a Platonic philosopher, if he +had not preferred to be a story-teller. + +These sports came to an end in the autumn when he was sent to study +with the Reverend Caleb Bradley, a somewhat eccentric graduate of +Harvard, who resided at Stroudwater, Maine, and with whom he remained +during the winter. [Footnote: S. T. Pickard's "Hawthorne's First +Diary."]He refers to this period of tuition in the short story of "The +Vision of the Fountain," and whether or no any such vision appeared to +him, we can fairly believe that the tale was suggested by some pretty +school-girl who made an impression on him, only to disappear in a +tantalizing manner. It is to be presumed that he returned to his mother +at Raymond, for Christmas; and at that time he heard a story of how an +Otisfield man named Henry Turner had killed three hibernating bears +which he discovered in a cave near Moose Pond, not a difficult feat +when one comes upon them in that torpid condition. This would place the +killing of the bears at about the first of December, which would be +probable enough, and the fact itself has been substantiated by Samuel +Pickard. The next succeeding entry relates to the drowning of a boy +while swimming, which could only have happened the following June. Mrs. +Hathorne was greatly alarmed, and objected to Nathaniel's going in +bathing with the other boys. He did not like the restriction, but +writes that he shall obey his mother. + +There is a ghost story in the diary, quite original, and told with an +air of excellent credibility; and also a short anthropomorphic romance +concerning a badly treated horse, full of genuine pathos and kindly +sympathy,--more sympathetic, in fact, than Hawthorne's later stories, +in which he is sometimes almost too reserved and unemotional: + +"'Good morning, Mr. Horse, how are you to-day?' 'Good morning, +youngster,' said he, just as plain as a horse can speak, and then said, +'I am almost dead, and I wish I was quite. I am hungry, have had no +breakfast and stand here tied by the head while they are grinding the +corn, and until master drinks two or three glasses of rum at the store, +and then drag him and the meal up the Ben Ham hill, and home, and am +now so weak that I can hardly stand. Oh, dear, I am in a bad way,' and +the old creature cried,--I almost cried myself." + +The only difficulty in believing this diary to be genuine is the +question: If Hawthorne could write with such perspicuity at fourteen, +why are there no evidences of it during his college years? But it +sometimes happens so. + +We cannot refrain from quoting one more extract from the last entry in +the Sebago diary, so beautifully tender and considerate as it is of his +mother's position toward her only son. He had been invited by a party +of their neighbors to go on an all-day excursion, and though his mother +grants his request to be allowed to join them, he feels the reluctance +with which she does so and he writes: + +"She said 'Yes,' but I was almost sorry, knowing that my day's pleasure +would cost _her_ one of anxiety. However, I gathered up my hooks +and lines, with some white salted pork for bait, and with a fabulous +number of biscuit, split in the middle, the insides well buttered, then +skilfully put together again, and all stowed in sister's large work- +bag, and slung over my shoulder, I started, making a wager with Enoch +White, as we walked down to the boat, as to which could catch the +largest number of fish." [Footnote: Appendix A.] + +This is the only entry that is dated (August, 1818), and as it was on +this same occasion that the black ducks were shot, it must have been on +one of the last days of August. We may presume that Nathaniel returned +to his studies at Stroudwater the following month, for we do not hear +of him again at Raymond--or in Salem, either--until March 24, when he +writes to his uncle, Robert Manning, who has evidently just returned +from Raymond to Salem, and speaks of expecting to go to Portland with a +Mr. Linch for the day. On May 16, 1819, he writes to his uncle Robert +again: + +"The grass and trees are green, the fences finished and the garden +planted. Two of the goats are on the island and the other kept for the +milk. I have shot a partridge and a hen-hawk and caught eighteen large +trout [probably Sebago salmon]. I am sorry that my uncle intends +sending me to school again, for my mother can hardly spare me." + +From which it is easy to infer that he had not attended school very +regularly of late, and Uncle Robert would seem to have concluded that +it would be better to have his fine nephew where he could personally +supervise his goings and comings. Accordingly, on July 26 we find +Nathaniel attending school in Salem,--a most unusual season for it,-- +and although his mother remained at Raymond two years longer, he was +not permitted to return there again, except possibly for short periods. + +Emerson once pointed out to me on Sudbury Street, Boston, an extremely +old man with long white locks and the face of a devoted scholar, +advancing toward us with slow and cautious steps. "That," said he, "is +Doctor Worcester, the lexicographer." Hawthorne's early education +remains much of a mystery. In 1819 he complains in a letter to his +mother that he has to go to a cheap school,--a good indication that he +did not intend to trust to fortune for his future welfare; soon after +this we hear that dictionary Worcester is his chief instructor. He +could not have found a more amiable or painstaking pedagogue; nor is it +likely that the fine qualities of his teacher were ever better +appreciated. Hawthorne himself says nothing of this, for it was not his +way to express admiration for man or woman, but we can believe that he +felt the same affection for the doctor that well-behaved boys commonly +do for their old masters. It was from Worcester that he derived his +excellent knowledge of Latin, the single study of which he was fond; +and it is his preference for words derived from the Latin which gives +grace and flexibility to Hawthorne's style, as the force and severity +of Emerson's style come from his partiality for Saxon words. During his +last year at school, Hawthorne took private lessons of a Salem lawyer, +Benjamin Oliver, and perhaps studied with him altogether at the finish. + +Hawthorne's life had been so irregular for years that it is creditable +to him that he should have succeeded in entering college at all. We +hear of him at Sebago in winter and at Salem in July. He writes to his +Uncle Robert to look out for the shot-gun which he left in a closet at +Sebago, and which has a rather heavy charge of powder in it. He appears +to have found as little companionship in Salem as he did in that +wilderness,--the natural effect of such a life. He may have been +acquainted with half the boys in Salem, but he did not make any warm +friends among them. His sister Louisa, who was a more vivacious person +than Elizabeth, was his chief companion and comfort. Seated at the +window with her on summer evenings, he elaborated the plan of an +imaginary society, a club of two, called the "Pin Society," to which +all fees, assessments and fines were paid in pins,--then made by hand +and much more expensive than now. He constituted himself its secretary, +and wrote imaginary reports of its proceedings, in which Louisa is +frequently fined for absence from meetings. We do not hear of their +going to parties or dances with other children. + +In August, 1820, he started an imaginary newspaper called the +_Spectator_, which he wrote himself with some help from Louisa, +and of which there was only one copy of each number. He continued this +through five successive issues, and we trace in its pages the +commencement of Hawthorne's peculiar humor,--too quiet and gentle to +make us laugh, but with a penetrating tinge of pathos. Take for +instance the following: + +"There is no situation in life more irksome than that of an editor who +is obliged to find amusement for his Readers, from a head which is too +often (as is the present predicament with our own) filled with +emptiness. Since commencing this paper, we have received no +communication of any kind, so that the whole weight of the business +devolves upon our own shoulders, a load far too great for them to bear. +We hope the Public will reflect on these grievances." + +This is true fiction, and Nathaniel was not the first or the last +editor to whom the statement has applied. His difficulties are +imaginary, but he realizes what they might be in reality. + +In another number he says: + +"We know of no news, either domestic or foreign, and we hope our +readers will excuse our not inserting any. The law which prohibits +paying debts when a person has no money will apply in this case." + +Then he makes this quiet hit against the people of Maine for having +separated themselves and their territory from Massachusetts: + +"By a gentleman in the state of Maine, we learn that a famine is +seriously apprehended owing to the want of rain. Potatoes could not be +procured in some places. When children break their leading strings, and +run away from their Parent, (as Maine has done) they may expect +sometimes to suffer hunger." [Footnote: _Wide Awake_, xxxiii. +512.] + +Of his religious instruction we hear nothing; but church-going in New +England during the first forty years of the nineteenth century was +wellnigh universal, and it makes little difference now to which of the +various forms of Calvinistic worship the Manning family subscribed. +That young Hawthorne was seriously impressed in this way is evident +from the following ode, which he may have composed as early as his +fifteenth year: + + "Oh, I have roamed in rapture wild + Where the majestic rocks are piled + In lonely, stern, magnificence around + The troubled ocean's steadfast bound; + And I have seen the storms arise + And darkness veil from mortal eyes + The Heavens that shine so fair and bright, + And all was solemn, silent night. + Then I have seen the storm disperse, + And Mercy hush the whirlwind fierce, + And all my soul in transport owned + There is a God, in Heaven enthroned." + +There is more of a rhetorical flourish than of serious religious +feeling in this; but genuine piety is hardly to be expected, and not +greatly to be desired, in a boy of that age. It represents the desire +to be religious, and to express something, he knows not what. + +Nathaniel Hawthorne had already decided on his vocation in life before +he entered Bowdoin College,--a decision which he afterwards adhered to +with inflexible determination, in spite of the most discouraging +obstacles. In a memorable letter to his mother, written March 13, 1821, +he says: + +"I am quite reconciled to going to college, since I am to spend my +vacations with you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a +great deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what profession I +shall have. The being a minister is of course out of the question. I +shall not think that even you could desire me to choose so dull a way +of life. Oh, no, mother, I was not born to vegetate forever in one +place, and to live and die as tranquil as--a puddle of water. As to +lawyers, there are so many of them already that one-half of them (upon +a moderate calculation) are in a state of actual starvation. A +physician, then, seems to be 'Hobson's choice'; but yet I should not +like to live by the diseases and infirmities of my fellow-creatures. +And it would weigh very hardly on my conscience, in the course of my +practice, if I should chance to send any unlucky patient '_ad +infernum_,' which, being interpreted, is 'to the realms below.' Oh +that I was rich enough to live without profession! What do you think of +my becoming an author, and relying for support upon my pen? Indeed, I +think the illegibility of my hand is very author-like." [Footnote: +Conway, 24.] + +Such were the Ides of March for Hawthorne. It was no boyish ambition +for public distinction, nor a vain grasping at the laurel wreath, but a +calmly considered and clear-sighted judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BOWDOIN COLLEGE: 1821-1825. + + +The life of man is not like a game of chess, in which the two players +start upon equal terms and can deliberate sufficiently over every move; +but more like whist, in which the cards we hold represent our fortunes +at the beginning, but the result of the game depends also on the skill +with which we play it. Life also resembles whist in this, that we are +obliged to follow suit in a general way to those who happen to have the +lead. + +Why Hawthorne should have entered Bowdoin College instead of Harvard +has not been explained, nor is it easily explained. The standard of +scholarship maintained at Harvard and Yale has always been higher than +that at what Doctor Holmes designated as the "freshwater colleges," and +this may have proved an unfavorable difference to the mind of a young +man who was not greatly inclined to his studies; but Harvard College is +only eighteen miles from Salem, and he could have returned to his home +once a week if he had chosen to do so, and this is a decided moral and +social advantage to a young man in those risky years. If Hawthorne had +entered Harvard in the next class to Emerson, he could not well have +escaped the latter's attention, and would have come in contact with +other vigorous and stimulating minds; but it is of little use to +speculate on what might have been. + +Boys are encouraged to study for college by accounts of the rare +enjoyment of university life, but they commonly find the first term of +Freshman year both dismal and discouraging. Their class is a medley of +strangers, their studies are a dry routine, and if they are not hazed +by the Sophomores, they are at least treated by them with haughtiness +and contempt. It is still summer when they arrive, but the leaves soon +fall from the trees, and their spirits fall with them. + +Hawthorne may have felt this more acutely than any other member of his +class, and in addition to the prevailing sense of discomfort he was +seized early in November with that disgusting malady, the measles, +which boys usually go through with before they are old enough to +realize how disagreeable it is. It appears to have been a light attack, +however, and in three weeks he was able to attend recitations again. He +made no complaint of it, only writing to his uncle for ten dollars with +which to pay the doctor. He likes his chum, Mason, of Portsmouth, and +does not find his studies so arduous as at Salem before entering. +Neither are the college laws so strict as he anticipated. + +In the following May he received the present of his first watch, +presumably from Uncle Robert, and he writes to his mother, who is still +at Sebago, that he is mightily pleased with it, and that it enables him +"to cut a great dash" at college. His letters to his relatives are not +brilliant, but they indicate a healthful and contented mind. + +We will now consider some of the distinguished personages who were +Hawthorne's friends and associates during these four years of his +apprenticeship to actual life; and there were rare characters among +them. + +In the same coach in which Hawthorne left Portland for Brunswick, in +the summer of 1821, were Franklin Pierce and Jonathan Cilley. +[Footnote: Bridge's Memoir of Hawthorne, 3.] Two men seated together in +a modern railway-carriage will often become better acquainted in three +hours than they might as next-door neighbors in three years; and this +was still more likely to happen in the old days of coach journeys, when +the very tedium of the occasion served as an inducement to frank and +friendly conversation. Pierce was the right man to bring Hawthorne out +of his hard shell of Sebago seclusion. He had already been one year at +Bowdoin, and at that time there was not the same caste feeling between +Sophomores and Freshmen--or at least very little of it--that has since +arisen in American colleges. He was amiable and kindly, and possessed +the rare gift of personal magnetism. Nature sometimes endows men and +women with this quality in lieu of all other advantages, and such would +seem to have been the case with Franklin Pierce. He was not much above +the average in intellect, and, as Hawthorne afterward confessed, not +particularly attractive in appearance; with a stiff military neck, +features strong but small, and opaque gray eyes,--a rather unimpressive +face, and one hardly capable of a decided expression. Yet with such +abilities as he had, aided by personal magnetism and the lack of +conspicuous faults, he became United States Senator at the age of +thirty-five, and President fifteen years later. The best we can say of +him is, that he was always Hawthorne's friend. From the first day that +they met he became Hawthorne's patron and protector--so far as he may +have required the latter. There must have been some fine quality in the +man which is not easily discernible from his outward acts; a narrow- +minded man, but of a refined nature. + +Jonathan Cilley was an abler man than Pierce, and a bold party-leader, +but not so attractive personally. He always remained Hawthorne's +friend, but the latter saw little of him and rarely heard from him +after they had graduated. The one letter of his which has been +published gives the impression of an impulsive, rough-and-tumble sort +of person, always ready to take a hand in whatever might turn up. + +On the same day, Horatio Bridge, who lived at Augusta, was coming down +the Kennebec River to Brunswick. Hawthorne did not make his +acquaintance until some weeks later, but he proved to be the best +friend of them all, and Hawthorne's most constant companion during the +four years they remained together. Pierce, Cilley and Bridge were all +born politicians, and it was this class of men with whom it would seem +that Hawthorne naturally assimilated. + +On the same day, or the one previous, another boy set out from Portland +for Brunswick, only fourteen years old, named Henry W. Longfellow,--a +name that is now known to thousands who never heard of Franklin Pierce. +Would it have made a difference in the warp and woof of Hawthorne's +life, if he had happened to ride that day in the same coach with +Longfellow? Who can tell? Was there any one in the breadth of the land +with whom he might have felt an equal sympathy, with whom he could have +matured a more enduring fellowship? It might have been a friendship +like that of Beaumont and Fletcher, or, better still, like that of +Goethe and Schiller,--but it was not written in the book of Fate. +Longfellow also had tried his hand on the Sebago region, and was fond +of the woods and of a gun; but he was too precocious to adapt himself +easily to persons of his own age, or even somewhat older. He had no +sooner arrived at Bowdoin than he became the associate and favorite of +the professors. In this way he missed altogether the storm-and-stress +period of youthful life, which is a useful experience of its kind; and +if we notice in his poetry a certain lack, the absence of a close +contact with reality,--as if he looked at his subject through a glass +casement,--this may be assigned as the reason for it. + +[Illustration: HORATIO BRIDGE. FROM THE PORTRAIT BY EASTMAN JOHNSON] + +During the four years they went back and forth to their instruction +together, Hawthorne and Longfellow never became cordially acquainted. +They also belonged to rival societies. There were only two principal +societies at Bowdoin, which continued through the college course--the +Peucinian and the Athenaan, and the difference between them might be +described by the words "citified" and "countrified," without taking +either of those terms in an objectionable sense. Pierce was already a +leading character in the Athenaan, and was soon followed by Cilley, +Bridge and Hawthorne. The Peucinian suffered from the disadvantage of +having members of the college faculty on its active list, and this must +have given a rather constrained and academic character to its meetings. +There was much more of the true college spirit and classmate feeling in +the Athenaan. + +Horatio Bridge is our single authority in regard to Bowdoin College at +this time, and his off-hand sketches of Hawthorne, Pierce and +Longfellow are invaluable. Never has such a group of distinguished +young men been gathered together at an American college. He says of +Hawthorne: + +"Hawthorne was a slender lad, having a massive head, with dark, +brilliant, and most expressive eyes, heavy eyebrows, and a profusion of +dark hair. For his appearance at that time the inquirers must rely +wholly upon the testimony of friends; for, I think, no portrait of him +as a lad is extant. On one occasion, in our senior years, the class +wished to have their profiles cut in silhouette by a wandering artist +of the scissors, and interchanged by all the thirty-eight. Hawthorne +disapproved the proposed plan, and steadily refused to go into the +Class Golgotha, as he styled the dismal collection. I joined him in +this freak, and so our places were left vacant. I now regret the whim, +since even a moderately correct outline of his features as a youth +would, at this day, be interesting. + +"Hawthorne's figure was somewhat singular, owing to his carrying his +head a little on one side; but his walk was square and firm, and his +manner self-respecting and reserved. A fashionable boy of the present +day might have seen something to amuse him in the new student's +appearance; but had he indicated this he would have rued it, for +Hawthorne's clear appreciation of the social proprieties and his great +physical courage would have made it as unsafe to treat him with +discourtesy then as at any later time. + +"Though quiet and most amiable, he had great pluck and determination. I +remember that in one of our convivial meetings we had the laugh upon +him for some cause, an occurrence so rare that the bantering was +carried too far. After bearing it awhile, Hawthorne singled out the one +among us who had the reputation of being the best pugilist, and in a +few words quietly told him that he would not permit the rallying to go +farther. His bearing was so resolute, and there was so much of danger +in his eye, that no one afterward alluded to the offensive subject in +his presence." [Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 5.] + +Horatio Bridge is a veracious witness, but we have to consider that he +was nearly ninety years of age at the time his memoirs were given to +the public. It is difficult to imagine Hawthorne as a slender youth, +for his whole figure was in keeping with the structure of his head. It +is more likely that he had a spare figure. Persons of a lively +imagination have always been apt to hold their heads on one side, but +not commonly while they are walking. It is for this reason that +phrenologists have supposed that the organ of ideality is located on +the side of the head,--if there really is any such organ. + +Bridge says of Longfellow precisely what one might expect: + +"He had decided personal beauty and most attractive manners. He was +frank, courteous, and affable, while morally he was proof against the +temptations that beset lads on first leaving the salutary restraints of +home. He was diligent, conscientious, and most attentive to all his +college duties, whether in the recitation-room, the lecture-hall, or +the chapel. The word 'student' best expresses his literary habit, and +in his intercourse with all he was conspicuously the gentleman." + +In addition to those already mentioned, James W. Bradbury of Portland, +afterwards United States Senator, and the Reverend Dr. George B. +Cheever, the vigorous anti-slavery preacher, were members of this +class. Three others, Cilley, Benson and Sawtelle, were afterward +members of the United States House of Representatives. Surely there +must have been quite a fermentation of youthful intellect at Bowdoin +between 1821 and 1825. + +Franklin Pierce was so deeply interested in military affairs that it +was a pity he should not have had a West Point cadetship. He was +captain of the college militia company, in which Hawthorne and Bridge +drilled and marched; a healthy and profitable exercise, and better than +a gymnasium, if rather monotonous. Pierce was the popular hero and +_magnus Apollo_ of his class, as distinguished foot-ball players +are now; but just at this time he was neglecting his studies so badly +that at the close of his second year he found himself at the very foot +of the rank list. The fact became known through the college, and Pierce +was so chagrined that he concluded to withdraw from Bowdoin altogether, +and it was only by the urgent persuasion of his friends that he was +induced to continue his course. "If I remain, however," he said, "you +will witness a change in me." For months together he burned midnight +oil in order to recover lost ground. During his last two years at +college, he only missed two recitations, both for sufficient reasons. +His conduct was unexceptionable, he incurred no deductions, and finally +graduated third in his class. It is an uncommon character that can play +fast-and-loose with itself in this manner. The boy Franklin had +departed, and Pierce the man had taken his place. [Footnote: Professor +Packard's "History of Bowdoin College."] Horatio Bridge gives a rather +more idealized portrait of him than he does of Hawthorne. He says: + +"In person Pierce was slender, of medium height, with fair complexion +and light hair, erect, with a military bearing, active, and always +bright and cheerful. In character he was impulsive, not rash; generous, +not lavish; chivalric, courteous, manly, and warm-hearted,--and he was +one of the most popular students in the whole college." + +The instruction in American colleges during the first half of the +nineteenth century was excellent for Greek, Latin and mathematics,-- +always the groundwork of a good education,--but the modern languages +were indifferently taught by French and German exiles, and other +subjects were treated still more indifferently. The two noble studies +of history and philosophy were presented to the young aspiring soul in +narrow, prejudiced text-books, which have long since been consigned to +that bourn from which no literary work ever returns. As already stated, +Hawthorne's best study was Latin, and in that he acquired good +proficiency; but he was slow in mathematics, as artistic minds usually +are, and in his other studies he only exerted himself sufficiently to +pass his examinations in a creditable manner. We may presume that he +took the juice and left the rind; which was the sensible thing to do. +As might be expected, his themes and forensics were beautifully +written, although the arguments in them were not always logical; but it +is significant that he never could be prevailed upon to make a +declamation. There have been sensitive men, like Sumner and George W. +Curtis, who were not at all afraid of the platform, but they were not, +like Hawthorne, bashful men. The college faculty would seem to have +realized the true difficulty in his case, and treated him in a kindly +and lenient manner. No doubt he suffered enough in his own mind on +account of this deficiency, and it may have occurred to him what +difficulties he might have to encounter in after-life by reason of it. +If a student at college cannot bring himself to make a declamation, how +can the mature man face an audience in a lecture-room, command a ship, +or administer any important office? Such thoughts must have caused +Hawthorne no slight anxiety, at that sensitive age. + +The out-door sports of the students did not attract Hawthorne greatly. +He was a fast runner and a good leaper, but seemed to dislike violent +exercise. He much preferred walking in the woods with a single +companion, or by the banks of the great river on which Brunswick is +situated. There were fine trout-brooks in the neighborhood, and +formerly the woods of Maine were traversed by vast flocks of passenger +pigeons, which with the large gray squirrels afforded excellent +shooting. How skilful Hawthorne became with his fowling-piece we have +not been informed, but it is evident from passages in "Fanshawe" that +he learned something of trout-fishing; and on the whole he enjoyed +advantages at Bowdoin which the present student at Harvard or Oxford +might well envy, him. The fish we catch in the streams and lakes of +Maine only represent a portion of our enjoyment there. Horatio Bridge +says: + +"There was one favorite spot in a little ravine, where a copious spring +of clear, cold water gushed out from the sandy bank, and joined the +larger stream. This was the Paradise Spring, which deserves much more +than its present celebrity for the absolute purity of its waters. Of +late years the brook has been better known as a favorite haunt of the +great romance writer, and it is now often called the Hawthorne Brook. + +"Another locality, above the bridge, afforded an occasional stroll +through the fields and by the river. There, in spring, we used to +linger for hours to watch the giant pine-logs (for there were giants in +those days) from the far-off forests, floating by hundreds in the +stream until they came to the falls; then, balancing for a moment on +the brink, they plunged into the foamy pool below." + +At the lower end of the town there was an old weather-beaten cot, where +the railroad track now runs, inhabited by a lone woman nearly as old +and time-worn as the dwelling itself. She pretended to be a fortune- +teller, and to her Hawthorne and Bridge sometimes had recourse, to lift +the veil of their future prospects; which she always succeeded in doing +to their good entertainment. The old crone knew her business well, +especially the art of giving sufficient variety of detail to the same +old story. For a nine-pence she would predict a beautiful blond wife +for Hawthorne, and an equally handsome dark-complexioned one for +Bridge. Riches were of course thrown in by the handful; and Bridge +remarks that although these never came to pass they both happened to be +blessed with excellent wives. It is not surprising that the handsome +Hawthorne and his tall, elegant-looking companion should have +stimulated the old woman's imagination in a favorable manner. The small +coin they gave her may have been the least happiness that their visits +brought into her life. + +Close by the college grounds there was a miserable little inn, which +went by the name of Ward's Tavern, and thither the more uproarious +class of students consorted at intervals for the purpose of keeping +care at a distance, and singing, "Landlord, fill your flowing bowls." +Strange to say, the reserved, thoughtful Hawthorne was often to be +found among them. It does not seem quite consistent with the gravity of +his customary demeanor, but youth has its period of reckless +ebullition. Punch-bowl societies exist in all our colleges, and many +who disapprove of them join them for the sake of popularity. Hawthorne +may have been as grave and well-behaved on these occasions as he was +customarily. We have Bridge's word for this; and the matter would +hardly be worth mentioning if it had not led to more serious +proceedings. May 29, 1822, President Allen wrote to Mrs. Hathorne at +Salem that her son had been fined fifty cents for gaming at cards. +[Footnote: In 1864 a Harvard student was fined three dollars for +writing on the woodwork with a lead-pencil--erased with a sponge.] +Certainly this was not very severe treatment; and if the Bowdoin +faculty, being on the spot, concluded that young Hawthorne had only +injured his moral nature fifty cents' worth, I think we shall do well +to agree with their decision. At the same time Nathaniel wrote his +mother the following manly letter: + + + "BRUNSWICK, May 30th, 1822. + +"MY DEAR MOTHER:--I hope you have safely arrived in Salem. I have +nothing particular to inform you of, except that all the card-players +in college have been found out, and my unfortunate self among the +number. One has been dismissed from college, two suspended, and the +rest, with myself, have been fined fifty cents each. I believe the +President intends to write to the friends of all the delinquents. +Should that be the case, you must show the letter to nobody. If I am +again detected, I shall have the honor of being suspended. When the +President asked what we played for, I thought it proper to inform him +it was fifty cents, although it happened to be a quart of wine; but if +I had told him of that, he would probably have fined me for having a +blow. There was no untruth in the case, as the wine cost fifty cents. I +have not played at all this term. I have not drank any kind of spirits +or wine this term, and shall not till the last week." [Footnote: +Horatio Bridge, 118.] + + +The clemency with which the college authorities treated Bridge and +Hawthorne is a plain indication of the confidence which they felt in +them, and speaks more highly for their respective characters than if +they had been patterns of good behavior. Some of the others were not so +fortunate. One young man, whose name is properly withheld from us, was +expelled from the institution. He was supposed to have been the +ringleader in this dubious business, but Hawthorne manfully resented +the supposition that any one could have influenced him, or did +influence him, in this matter. It is more likely that he was influenced +by the spirit of investigation, and wished to know what the sensation +was like from personal experience. + +"Letters home" from college are not commonly interesting to the general +public, and those which Hawthorne wrote to his mother and sisters do +not differ essentially from such as other young men write under similar +conditions. At the age when it is so difficult to decide whether we +have become men or are still boys, all our actions partake of a similar +uncertainty, and the result of what we do and say is likely to be a +rather confused impression. Though college students appear different +enough to one another, they all seem alike to the outside world. + +University towns always contain more or less cultivated society, and +young Hawthorne might have been welcome to the best of it if he had +felt so inclined; but he was as shy of the fair sex as Goldsmith's +bashful lover. M. D. Conway, who knew him, doubts if he ever became +well acquainted with a young lady until his engagement to Miss Peabody. +Considering this, it seems as if Jonathan Cilley made rather a +hazardous wager with Hawthorne, before leaving Bowdoin,--a wager of a +cask of Madeira, that Hawthorne would become a married man within the +next twelve years. Papers to that effect were duly signed by the +respective parties, sealed, and delivered for safe-keeping to Horatio +Bridge, who preserved them faithfully until the appointed time arrived. +Under ordinary conditions the chances of this bet were in Cilley's +favor, for in those primitive days it was much easier for educated +young men to obtain a start in life than it is at present, and early +marriages were in consequence much more common.[Footnote: Horatio +Bridge, 47. The contract was dated November 14, 1824.] + +The year 1824 was a serious one in American politics. The Republican- +Democratic party, having become omnipotent, broke to pieces of its own +weight. The eastern interest nominated John Quincy Adams for the +Presidency; the western interest nominated Henry Clay; and the frontier +interest nominated Andrew Jackson. Unfortunately the frontier interest +included all the unsettled and continually shifting elements in the +country, so that Jackson had nearly as strong a support in the East as +in the West. Bridge says, "We were all enthusiastic supporters of old +Hickory." It was evidently Pierce who led them into this, and although +it proved in a material sense for Hawthorne's benefit, it separated him +permanently from the class to which he properly belonged--the +enlightened men of culture of his time; and Cilley's tragical fate can +be directly traced to it. The Jackson movement was in its essence a +revolt against _civility_,--and it seems as if Hawthorne and +Bridge might have recognized this. + +Hawthorne was well liked in his class in spite of his reserved manners, +but he held no class offices that we hear of, except a place on a +committee of the Athenaan Society with Franklin Pierce. Class days and +class suppers, so prolific of small honors, were not introduced at +Bowdoin until some years later. He graduated eighteenth in a class of +thirty-eight, but this was not sufficient to give him a part in the +commencement exercises. [Footnote: The President informed him that his +rank in the class would have entitled him to a part if it had not been +for his neglect of declamations; and Hawthorne wrote to his mother that +he was perfectly satisfied with this, for it saved him the +mortification of appearing in public.] Accordingly Hawthorne, Bridge, +and others who were in a like predicament, organized a mock +Commencement celebration at Ward's Tavern, where they elected officers +of a comical sort, such as boatswain and sea-cook, and concluded their +celebration in a manner suitable to the occasion. + +Hawthorne was commonly known among his classmates, as "Hath," and his +friends addressed him in this manner long after he had graduated. His +degree was made out in the name of Nathaniel Hathorne, above which he +subsequently wrote "Hawthorne," in bold letters. + +The question may well be raised here, how it happened that America +produced so many men of remarkable intellect with such slight +opportunities for education in former times, while our greatly improved +universities have not graduated an orator like Webster, a poet like +Longfellow, or a prose-writer equal to Hawthorne during the past forty +years. There have been few enough who have risen above mediocrity. + +It is the same, more or less, all over the civilized world. We have +entered into a mechanical age, which is natural enough considering the +rapid advances of science and the numerous mechanical inventions, but +which is decidedly unfavorable to the development of art and +literature. Everything now goes by machinery, from Harvard University +to Ohio politics and the gigantic United States Steel Company; and +every man has to find his place in some machine or other, or he is +thrown out of line. Individual effort, as well as independence of +thought and action, is everywhere frowned upon; but without freedom of +thought and action there can be no great individualities, which is the +same as saying that there can be no poets like Longfellow, or writers +like Hawthorne and Emerson. Spontaneity is the life of the true artist, +and in a mechanical civilization there can be neither spontaneity nor +the poetic material which is essential to artistic work of a high +order. There can be no great orators, for masses of men are no longer +influenced by oratory, but by newspapers. Genius is like a plant of +slow growth, which requires sunshine and Mother Earth to nourish it, +not chemicals and electric lights. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LITTLE MISERY: 1825-1835 + + +During the War of the American Revolution, the officers of the French +fleet, which was stationed at Newport, invented a game of cards, called +"Boston," of which one peculiarity was, that under certain conditions, +whoever held the lowest hand would win the count. This was called +"Little Misery," and this was the kind of hand which Nathaniel +Hawthorne had to play for fifteen years after leaving Bowdoin College. +Only his indomitable will could have carried him through it. + +A college graduate who lacks the means to study a profession, and who +has no influential relative to make a place for him in the world, finds +himself in a most discouraging position. The only thing that his +education has fitted him to do is, to teach school, and he may not be +adapted to this, on account of some personal peculiarity. There was, +and I suppose is still, a prejudice among mercantile men against +college graduates, as a class of proud, indolent, neglectful persons, +very difficult to instruct. Undoubtedly there are many such, but the +innocent have to suffer with the guilty. It is natural that a man who +has not had a liberal education should object to employing a +subordinate who knows Latin and Greek. Whether Hawthorne's Uncle +Robert, who had thus far proved to be his guardian genius, would have +educated him for a profession, we have no means of knowing. This would +mean of course a partial support for years afterward, and it is quite +possible that Mr. Manning considered his duties to his own children +paramount to it. What he did for Nathaniel may have been the best he +could, to give him the position of book-keeper for the stage-company. +This was of course Pegasus in harness (or rather at the hitching-post), +but it is excellent experience for every young man; although the +compensation in Hawthorne's case was small and there could be no +expectation of future advancement. + +In this dilemma he decided to do the one thing for which Nature +intended him,--to become a writer of fiction,--and he held fast to this +determination in the face of most discouraging obstacles. He composed a +series of short stories,--echoes of his academic years,--which he +proposed to publish under the title of Wordsworth's popular poem, "We +Are Seven." One of these is said to have been based on the witchcraft +delusion, and it is a pity that it should not have been preserved, but +their feminine titles afford no indication of their character. He carried +them to a publisher, who received him politely and promised to examine +them, but one month passed after another without Hawthorne's hearing from +him, so that he concluded at length to make inquiries. [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, i. 124.] The publisher confessed that he had not even undertaken +to read them, and Nathaniel carried them back, with a sinking heart, to +his little chamber in the house on Herbert Street,--where he may have +had melancholy thoughts enough for the next few weeks. + +Youth, however, soon outgrows its chagrins. In less than two years +Hawthorne was prepared to enter the literary lists, equipped with a +novelette, called "Fanshawe"; but here again he was destined to meet +with a rebuff. After tendering it to a number of publishers without +encouragement, he concluded to take the risk of publishing it himself. +This only cost him a few hundred dollars, but the result was +unsatisfactory, and he afterward destroyed all the copies that he could +regain possession of. + +Hawthorne's genius was of slow development. He was only twenty-four +when he published this rather immature work, and it might have been +better if he had waited longer. It was to him what the "Sorrows of +Werther" was to Goethe, but while the "Sorrows of Werther" made Goethe +famous in many countries, "Fanshawe" fell still-born. The latter was +not more imitative of Scott than the "Sorrows of Werther" is of +Rousseau, and now that we consider it in the cool critical light of the +twentieth century, we cannot but wonder that the "Sorrows of Werther" +ever produced such enthusiasm. It is quite as difficult to see why +"Fanshawe" should not have proved a success. It lacks the grace and +dignity of Hawthorne's mature style, but it has an ingenious plot, a +lively action, and is written in sufficiently good English. One would +suppose that its faults would have helped to make it popular, for +portions of it are so exciting as to border closely on the sensational. +It may be affirmed that when a novel becomes so exciting that we wish +to turn over the pages and anticipate the conclusion, either the action +of the story is too heated or its incidents are too highly colored. The +introduction of pirates in a work of fiction is decidely sensational, +from Walter Scott downward, and, though Hawthorne never fell into this +error, he approaches closely to it in "Fanshawe." There is some dark +secret between the two villains of the piece, which he leaves to the +reader as an exercise for the imagination. This is a characteristic of +all his longer stories. There is an unknown quantity, an insoluble +point, in them, which tantalizes the reader. + +What we especially feel in "Fanshawe" is the author's lack of social +experience. His heroine at times behaves in a truly feminine manner, +and at others her performances make us shiver. Her leaving her +guardian's house at midnight to go off with an unknown man, whom her +maidenly instinct should have taught her to distrust, even if Fanshawe +had not warned her against him, might have been characteristic of the +Middle Ages, but is certainly not of modern life. Bowdoin College +evidently served Hawthorne as a background to his plot, although +removed some distance into the country, and it is likely that the +portrait of the kindly professor might have been recognized there. +Ward's Tavern serves for the public-house where the various characters +congregate, and there is a high rocky ledge in the woods, or what used +to be woods at Brunswick, where the students often tried their skill in +climbing, and which Hawthorne has idealized into the cliff where the +would-be abductor met his timely fate. The trout-brook where Bridge and +Hawthorne used to fish is also introduced. + +Fanshawe himself seems like a house of which only two sides have been +built. There are such persons, and it is no wonder if they prove to be +short-lived. Yet the scene in which he makes his noble renunciation of +the woman who is devoted to him, purely from a sense of gratitude, is +finely and tenderly drawn, and worthy of Hawthorne in his best years. +The story was republished after its author's death, and fully deserves +its position in his works. + +It was about this time (1827) that Nathaniel Hathorne changed his name +to Hawthorne. No reason has ever been assigned for his doing so, and he +had no legal right to do it without an act of the Legislature, but he +took a revolutionary right, and as his family and fellow-citizens +acquiesced in this, it became an established fact. His living relatives +in the Manning family are unable to explain his reason for it. It may +have been for the sake of euphony, or he may have had a fanciful +notion, that such a change would break the spell which seemed to be +dragging his family down with him. Conway's theory that it was intended +to serve him as an incognito is quite untenable. His name first appears +with a _w_ in the Bowdoin Triennial Catalogue of 1828. + +There are very few data existing as to Hawthorne's life during his +first ten years of manhood, but it must have been a hard, dreary period +for him. The Manning children, Robert, Elizabeth and Rebecca, were now +growing up, and must have been a source of entertainment in their way, +and his sister Louisa was always a comfort; but Horatio Bridge, who +made a number of flying visits to him, states that he never saw the +elder sister, even at table,--a fact from which we may draw our own +conclusions. Hawthorne had no friends at this time, except his college +associates, and they were all at a distance,--Pierce and Cilley both +flourishing young lawyers, one at Concord, New Hampshire, and the other +at Thomaston, Maine,--while Longfellow was teaching modern languages at +Bowdoin. He had no lady friends to brighten his evenings for him, and +if he went into society, it was only to be stared at for his personal +beauty, like a jaguar in a menagerie. He had no fund of the small +conversation which serves like oil to make the social machinery run +smoothly. Like all deep natures, he found it difficult to adapt himself +to minds of a different calibre. Salem people noticed this, and his +apparent lack of an object in life,--for he maintained a profound +secrecy in regard to his literary efforts,--and concluded that he was +an indolent young man without any faculty for business, and would never +come to good in this world. No doubt elderly females admonished him for +neglecting his opportunities, and small wits buzzed about him as they +have about many another under similar conditions. It was Hans +Andersen's story of the ugly duck that proved to be a swan. + +No wonder that Hawthorne betook himself to the solitude of his own +chamber, and consoled himself like the philosopher who said, "When I am +alone, then I am least alone." He had an internal life with which only +his most intimate friends were acquainted, and he could people his room +with forms from his own fancy, much more real to him than the palpable +_ignota_ whom he passed in the street. Beautiful visions came to +him, instead of sermonizing ladies, patronizing money-changers, +aggressive upstarts, grimacing wiseacres, and that large class of +amiable, well-meaning persons that makes up the bulk of society. We +should not be surprised if angels sometimes came to hover round him, +for to the pure in heart heaven descends upon earth. + +There is a passage in Hawthorne's diary under date of October 4, 1840, +which has often been quoted; but it will have to be quoted again, for +it cannot be read too often, and no biography of him would be adequate +without it. He says: + +"Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber where I used to sit in days +gone by....This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands +upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of +them have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a +biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my +memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here +my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and +hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat a long, long +time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes +wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know +me at all,--at least, till I were in my grave. And sometimes it seemed +as if I were already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled +and benumbed. But oftener I was happy,--at least as happy as I then +knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of being. By and by, +the world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called me forth,--not +indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather with a still, small +voice,--and forth I went, but found nothing in the world that I thought +preferable to my solitude till now ... and now I begin to understand +why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I +could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had +sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and +rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have +become callous by rude encounters with the multitude.... But living in +solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my +youth, and the freshness of my heart." + +During these dismal years Horatio Bridge was Hawthorne's good genius. +The letters that Hawthorne wrote to him have not been preserved, but we +may judge of their character by Bridge's replies to him--always frank, +manly, sympathetic and encouraging. Hawthorne evidently confided his +troubles and difficulties to Bridge, as he would to an elder brother. +Bridge finally destroyed Hawthorne's letters, not so much on account of +their complaining tone as for the personalities they contained; +[Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 69.] and this suggests to us that there was +still another side to Hawthorne's life at this epoch concerning which +we shall never be enlightened. A man could not have had a better friend +than Horatio Bridge. He was to Hawthorne what Edward Irving was to +Carlyle; and the world is more indebted to them both than it often +realizes. + +There is in fact a decided similarity between the lives of Carlyle and +Hawthorne, in spite of radical differences in their work and +characters. Both started at the foot of the ladder, and met with a +hard, long struggle for recognition; both found it equally difficult to +earn their living by their pens; both were assisted by most devoted +friends, and both finally achieved a reputation among the highest in +their own time. If there is sometimes a melancholy tinge in their +writings, may we wonder at it? Pericles said, "We need the theatre to +chase away the sadness of life," and it might have benefited the whole +Hawthorne family to have gone to the theatre once a fortnight; but +there were few entertainments in Salem, except of the stiff +conventional sort, or in the shape of public dances open to firemen and +shop-girls. Long afterward, Elizabeth Hawthorne wrote of her brother: + +"His habits were as regular as possible. In the evening after tea he +went out for about an hour, whatever the weather was; and in winter, +after his return, he ate a pint bowl of thick chocolate--(not cocoa, +but the old-fashioned chocolate) crumbed full of bread: eating never +hurt him then, and he liked good things. In summer he ate something +equivalent, finishing with fruit in the season of it. In the evening we +discussed political affairs, upon which we differed in opinion; he +being a Democrat, and I of the opposite party. In reality, his interest +in such things was so slight that I think nothing would have kept it +alive but my contentious spirit. Sometimes, when he had a book that he +particularly liked, he would not talk. He read a great many novels." +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 125.] + +If Elizabeth possessed the genius which her brother supposed, she +certainly does not indicate it in this letter; but genius in the ore is +very different from genius smelted and refined by effort and +experience. The one important fact in her statement is that Hawthorne +was in the habit of taking solitary rambles after dark,--an owlish +practice, but very attractive to romantic minds. Human nature appears +in a more pictorial guise by lamplight, after the day's work is over. +The groups at the street corners, the glittering display in the +watchmaker's windows, the carriages flashing by and disappearing in the +darkness, the mysterious errands of foot-passengers, all served as +object-lessons for this student of his own kind. + +Jonathan Cilley once said: + +"I love Hawthorne; I admire him; but I do not know him. He lives in a +mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never permits me +to enter." [Footnote: Packard's "Bowdoin College," 306.] + +Long-continued thinking is sure to take effect at last, either in words +or in action, and Hawthorne's mind had to disburden itself in some +manner. So, after the failure of "Fanshawe," he returned to his +original plan of writing short stories, and this time with success. In +January, 1830, the well-known tale of "The Gentle Boy" was accepted by +S. G. Goodrich, the editor of a Boston publication called the +_Token_, who was himself better known in those days under the +_nom de plume_ of "Peter Parley." "The Wives of the Dead," "Roger +Malvin's Burial," and "Major Molineaux" soon followed. In 1833 he +published the "Seven Vagabonds," and some others. The New York +_Knickerbocker_ published the "Fountain of Youth" and "Edward +Fayne's Rosebud." After 1833 the _Token_ and the _New England +Magazine_ [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 175.] stood ready to accept +all the short pieces that Hawthorne could give them, but they did not +encourage him to write serial stories. However, it was not the custom +then for writers to sign their names to magazine articles, so that +Hawthorne gained nothing in reputation by this. Some of his earliest +pieces were printed over the signature of "Oberon." + +An autumn expedition to the White Mountains, Lake Champlain and Lake +Ontario, and Niagara Falls, in 1832, raised Hawthorne's spirits and +stimulated his ambition. He wrote to his mother from Burlington, +Vermont, September 16: + +"I have arrived in safety, having passed through the White Hills, +stopping at Ethan Crawford's house, and climbing Mt. Washington. I have +not decided as to my future course. I have no intention of going into +Canada. I have heard that cholera is prevalent in Boston." + +It was something to have stood on the highest summit east of the Rocky +Mountains, and to have seen all New England lying at his feet. A hard +wind in the Crawford Notch, which he describes in his story of "The +Ambitious Guest," must have been in his own experience, and as he +passed the monument of the ill-fated Willey family he may have thought +that he too might become celebrated after his death, even as they were +from their poetic catastrophe. This expedition provided him with the +materials for a number of small plots. + +The ice was now broken; but a new class of difficulties arose before +him. American literature was then in the bud and promised a beautiful +blossoming, but the public was not prepared for it. Monthly magazines +had a precarious existence, and their uncertainty of remuneration +reacted on the contributors. Hawthorne was poorly paid, often obliged +to wait a long time for his pay, and occasionally lost it altogether. +For his story of "The Gentle Boy," one of the gems of literature, which +ought to be read aloud every year in the public schools, he received +the paltry sum of thirty-five dollars. Evidently he could not earn even +a modest maintenance on such terms, and his letters to Bridge became +more despondent than ever. + +Goodrich, who was a writer of the Andrews Norton class, soon perceived +that Hawthorne could make better sentences than his own, and engaged +him to write historical abstracts for his pitiful Peter Parley books, +paying him a hundred dollars for the whole work, and securing for +himself all the credit that appertained to it. Everybody knew who Peter +Parley was, but it has only recently been discovered that much of the +literature which passed under his name was the work of Nathaniel +Hawthorne. + +The editor of a New York magazine to which Hawthorne contributed a +number of sketches repeatedly deferred the payment for them, and +finally confessed his inability to make it,--which he probably knew or +intended beforehand. Then, with true metropolitan assurance, he begged +of Hawthorne the use of certain unpublished manuscripts, which he still +had in his possession. Hawthorne with unlimited contempt told the +fellow that he might keep them, and then wrote to Bridge: + +"Thus has this man, who would be considered a Macenas, taken from a +penniless writer material incomparably better than any his own brain +can supply." [Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 68, 69.] + +Whether this New York periodical was the _Knickerbocker_ or some +other, we are not informed; neither do we know what Bridge replied to +Hawthorne, who had closed his letter with a malediction, on the +aforesaid editor, but elsewhere in his memoirs he remarks: + +"Hawthorne received but small compensation for any of this literary +work, for he lacked the knowledge of business and the self-assertion +necessary to obtain even the moderate remuneration vouchsafed to +writers fifty years ago." [Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 77.] + +If Horatio Bridge had been an author himself, he would not have written +this statement concerning his friend. Magazine editors are like men in +other professions: some of them are honorable and others are less so; +but an author who offers a manuscript to the editor of a magazine is +wholly at his mercy, so far as that small piece of property is +concerned. The author cannot make a bargain with the editor as he can +with the publisher of his book, and is obliged to accept whatever the +latter chooses to give him. Instances have been known where an editor +has destroyed a valuable manuscript, without compensation or +explanation of any kind. Hawthorne was doing the best that a human +being could under the conditions that were given him. Above all things, +he was true to himself; no man could be more so. + +Yet Bridge wrote to him on Christmas Day, 1836: + +"The bane of your life has been self-distrust. This has kept you back +for many years; which, if you had improved by publishing, would long +ago have given you what you must now wait a long time for. It may be +for the best, but I doubt it." + +Nothing is more trying in misfortune than the ill-judged advice of +well-meaning friends. There is no nettle that stings like it. To expect +Hawthorne to become a literary genius, and at the same time to develop +the peculiar faculties of a commercial traveller or a curb-stone +broker, was unreasonable. In the phraseology of Sir William Hamilton, +the two vocations are "non-compossible." Bridge himself was undertaking +a grandly unpractical project about this time: nothing less than an +attempt to dam the Androscoggin, a river liable to devastating floods; +and in this enterprise he was obliged to trust to a class of men who +were much more uncertain in their ways and methods than those with whom +Hawthorne dealt. Horatio Bridge had not studied civil engineering, and +the result was that before two years had elapsed the floods on the +Androscoggin swept the dam away, and his fortune with it. + +In the same letter we also notice this paragraph concerning another +Bowdoin friend: + +"And so Frank Pierce is elected Senator. There is an instance of what a +man can do by trying. With no very remarkable talents, he at the age of +thirty-four fills one of the highest stations in the nation. He is a +good fellow, and I rejoice at his success." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. +148.] + +Pierce certainly possessed the cap of Fortunatus, and it seems as if +there must have been some magic faculty in the man, which enabled him +to win high positions so easily; and he continued to do this, although +he had not distinguished himself particularly as a member of Congress, +and he appeared to still less advantage among the great party leaders +in the United States Senate. He illustrated the faculty for "getting +elected." + +In October, 1836, the time arrived for settling the matrimonial wager +between Hawthorne and Jonathan Cilley, which they had made at college +twelve years before. Bridge accordingly examined the documents which +they had deposited with him, and notified Cilley that he was under +obligation to provide Hawthorne with an octavo of Madeira. + +Cilley's letter to Hawthorne on this occasion does not impress one +favorably. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 144.] It is familiar and jocose, +without being either witty or friendly, and he gives no intimation in +it of an intention to fulfil his promise. Hawthorne appears to have +sent the letter to Bridge, who replied: + +"I doubt whether you ever get your wine from Cilley. His inquiring of +you whether he had really lost the bet is suspicious; and he has +written me in a manner inconsistent with an intention of paying +promptly; and if a bet grows old it grows cold. He wished me to propose +to you to have it paid at Brunswick next Commencement, and to have as +many of our classmates as could be mustered to drink it. It may be +Cilley's idea to pay over the balance after taking a strong pull at it; +if so, it is well enough. But still it should be tendered within the +month." + +In short, Cilley behaved in this matter much in the style of a tricky +Van Buren politician, making a great bluster of words, and privately +intending to do nothing. He was running for Congress at the time on the +Van Buren ticket, and it is quite likely that the expenses of the +campaign had exhausted his funds. That he should never have paid the +bet was less to Hawthorne's disadvantage than his own. + +It was now that Horatio Bridge proved himself a true friend, and +equally a man. In the spring of 1836 Goodrich had obtained for +Hawthorne the editorship of the _American Magazine of Useful and +Entertaining Knowledge_, with a salary of five hundred dollars; +[Footnote: Conway, 45.]but he soon discovered that he had embarked on a +ship with a rotten hulk. He started off heroically, writing the whole +of the first number with the help of his sister Elizabeth; but by +midsummer the concern was bankrupt, and he retired to his lonely cell, +more gloomy and despondent than before. There are few sadder spectacles +then that of a man seeking work without being able to obtain it; and +this applies to the man of genius as well as to the day laborer. + +Horatio Bridge now realized that the time had come for him to +interfere. He recognized that Hawthorne was gradually lapsing into a +hypochondria that might terminate fatally; that he was Goethe's oak +planted in a flowerpot, and that unless the flower-pot could be broken, +the oak would die. He also saw that Hawthorne would never receive the +public recognition that was due to his ability, so long as he published +magazine articles under an assumed name. He accordingly wrote to +Goodrich--fortunately before his mill-dam gave way--suggesting the +publication of a volume of Hawthorne's stories, and offered to +guarantee the publisher against loss. This proposition was readily +accepted, but Bridge might have made a much better bargain. What it +amounted to was, the half-profit system without the half-profit. The +necessary papers were exchanged and Hawthorne gladly acceded to +Goodrich's terms. Bridge, however, had cautioned Goodrich not to inform +Hawthorne of his share in the enterprise, and the consequence of this +was that he shortly received a letter from Hawthorne, informing him of +the good news--which he knew already--and praising Goodrich, to whom he +proposed to dedicate his new volume. Bridge's generosity had come back +to him, dried and salted,--as it has to many another. + +What could Bridge do, in the premises? Goodrich had written to +Hawthorne that the publisher, Mr. Howes, was confident of making a +favorable arrangement _with a man of capital who would edit the +book_; but Bridge did not know this, and he suspected Goodrich of +sailing into Hawthorne's favor under a false flag. He therefore wrote +to Hawthorne, November 17, 1836: + +"I fear you will hurt yourself by puffing Goodrich +_undeservedly_,--for there is no doubt in my mind of his +selfishness in regard to your work and yourself. I am perfectly aware +that he has taken a good deal of interest in you, but when did he ever +do anything for you without a _quid pro quo_? The magazine was +given to you for $100 less than it should have been. The _Token_ +was saved by your writing. Unless you are already committed, do not mar +the prospects of your _first_ book by hoisting Goodrich into +favor." + +This prevented the dedication, for which Hawthorne was afterward +thankful enough. The book, which was the first volume of "Twice Told +Tales" came from the press the following spring, and proved an +immediate success, although not a highly lucrative one for its author. +With the help of Longfellow's cordial review of it in the <b>North +American</b> it established Hawthorne's reputation on a firm and +irrefragable basis. All honor to Horatio. + +As if Hawthorne had not seen a sufficiently long "winter of discontent" +already, his friends now proposed to obtain the position of secretary +and chronicler for him on Commodore Jones's exploring expedition to the +South Pole! Franklin Pierce was the first to think of this, but Bridge +interceded with Cilley to give it his support, and there can be no +doubt that they would have succeeded in obtaining the position for +Hawthorne, but the expedition itself failed, for lack of a +Congressional appropriation. The following year, 1838, the project was +again brought forward by the administration, and Congress being in a +more amiable frame of mind granted the requisite funds; but Hawthorne +had now contracted new ties in his native city, bound, as it were, by +an inseparable cord stronger than a Manila hawser, and Doctor Nathaniel +Peabody's hospitable parlors were more attractive to him than anything +the Antarctic regions could offer. + +We have now entered upon the period where Hawthorne's own diary +commences, the autobiography of a pure-minded, closely observing man; +an invaluable record, which began apparently in 1835, and was continued +nearly until the close of his life; now published in a succession of +American, English and Italian note-books. In it we find records of what +he saw and thought; descriptive passages, afterward made serviceable in +his works of fiction, and perhaps written with that object in view; +fanciful notions, jotted down on the impulse of the moment; records of +his social life; but little critical writing or personal confessions,-- +although the latter may have been reserved; from publication by his +different editors. It is known that much of his diary has not yet been +given to the public, and perhaps never will be. + +In July, 1837, Hawthorne went to Augusta, to spend a month with his +friend Horatio Bridge; went fishing with him, for what they called +white perch, probably the saibling; [Footnote: The American saibling, +or golden trout, is only indigenous to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, and +to a small lake near Augusta.] and was greatly entertained with the +peculiarities of an idiomatic Frenchman, an itinerant teacher of that +language, whom Bridge, in the kindness of his heart, had taken into his +own house. The last of July, Cilley also made his appearance, but did +not bring the Madeira with him, and Hawthorne has left this rather +critical portrait of him in his diary: + +"Friday, July 28th.--Saw my classmate and formerly intimate friend, ----, +for the first time since we graduated. He has met with good success +in life, in spite of circumstances, having struggled upward against +bitter opposition, by the force of his abilities, to be a member of +Congress, after having been for some time the leader of his party in +the State Legislature. We met like old friends, and conversed almost as +freely as we used to do in college days, twelve years ago and more. He +is a singular person, shrewd, crafty, insinuating, with wonderful tact, +seizing on each man by his manageable point, and using him for his own +purpose, often without the man's suspecting that he is made a tool of; +and yet, artificial as his character would seem to be, his +conversation, at least to myself, was full of natural feeling, the +expression of which can hardly be mistaken, and his revelations with +regard to himself had really a great deal of frankness. A man of the +most open nature might well have been more reserved to a friend, after +twelve years separation, than ---- was to me. Nevertheless, he is +really a crafty man, concealing, like a murder-secret, anything that it +is not good for him to have known. He by no means feigns the good +feeling that he professes, nor is there anything affected in the +frankness of his conversation; and it is this that makes him so +fascinating. There is such a quantity of truth and kindliness and warm +affections, that a man's heart opens to him, in spite of himself. He +deceives by truth. And not only is he crafty, but, when occasion +demands, bold and fierce like a tiger, determined, and even +straightforward and undisguised in his measures,--a daring fellow as +well as a sly one." + +This can be no other than Jonathan Cilley; like many of his class, a +man of great good humor but not over-scrupulous, so far as the means he +might make use of were concerned. He did not, however, prove to be as +skilful a diplomat as Hawthorne seems to have supposed him. The duel +between Cilley and Graves, of Kentucky, has been so variously +misrepresented that the present occasion would seem a fitting +opportunity to tell the plain truth concerning it. + +President Jackson was an honest man, in the customary sense of the +term, and he would have scorned to take a dollar that was not his own; +but he suffered greatly from parasites, who pilfered the nation's +money,--the natural consequence of the spoils-of-office system. The +exposure of these peculations gave the Whigs a decided advantage, and +Cilley, who had quickly proved his ability in debate, attempted to set +a back-fire by accusing Watson Webb, the editor of the _Courier and +Enquirer_, of having been bribed to change the politics of his +paper. The true facts of the case were, that the paper had been +purchased by the Whigs, and Webb, of course, had a right to change his +politics if he chose to; and the net result of Cilley's attack was a +challenge to mortal combat, carried by Representative Graves, of +Kentucky. Cilley, although a man of courage, declined this, on the +ground that members of Congress ought not to be called to account +outside of the Capitol, for words spoken in debate. "Then," said +Graves, "you will at least admit that my friend is a gentleman." + +This was a fair offer toward conciliation, and if Cilley had been +peaceably inclined he would certainly have accepted it; but he +obstinately refused to acknowledge that General Webb was a gentleman, +and in consequence of this he received a second challenge the next day +from Graves, brought by Henry A. Wise, afterward Governor of Virginia. +Cilley still objected to fighting, but members of his party urged him +into it: the duel took place, and Cilley was killed. + +It may be said in favor of the "code of honor" that it discourages +blackguardism and instructs a man to keep a civil tongue; but it is not +always possible to prevent outbursts of temper, especially in hot +climates, and a man's wife and children should also be considered. +Andrew Jackson said at the close of his life, that there was nothing he +regretted so much as having killed a human being in a duel. Man rises +by humility, and angels fall from pride. + +Hawthorne wrote a kindly and regretful notice of the death of his old +acquaintance, which was published in the _Democratic Review_, and +which closed with this significant passage: + +"Alas, that over the grave of a dear friend, my sorrow for the +bereavement must be mingled with another grief--that he threw away such +a life in so miserable a cause! Why, as he was true to the Northern +character in all things else, did he swerve from his Northern +principles in this final scene?" [Footnote: Conway, 63.] + +It will be well to bear this in mind in connection with a somewhat +similar incident, which we have now to consider. + +An anecdote has been repeated in all the books about Hawthorne +published since 1880, which would do him little credit if it could be +proved,--a story that he challenged one of his friends to a duel, at +the instigation of a vulgar and unprincipled young woman. Horatio +Bridge says in reference to it: + +"This characteristic was notably displayed several years later, when a +lady incited him to quarrel with one of his best friends on account of +a groundless pique of hers. He went to Washington for the purpose of +challenging the gentleman, and it was only after ample explanation had +been made, showing that his friend had behaved with entire honor, that +Pierce and Cilley, who were his advisers, could persuade him to be +satisfied without a fight." [Footnote: Bridge, 5.] + +How the good Horatio could have fallen into this pit is unimaginable, +for a double contradiction is contained in his statement. "Some time +after this," that is after leaving college, would give the impression +that the affair took place about 1830, whereas Pierce and Cilley were +not in Washington together till five or six years later--probably seven +years later. Moreover, Hawthorne states in a letter to Pierce's friend +O'Sullivan, on April 1, 1853, that he had never been in Washington up +to that time. The Manning family and Mrs. Hawthorne's relatives never +heard of the story previous to its publication. + +The internal evidence is equally strong against it. What New England +girl would behave in the manner that Hawthorne's son represents this +one to have done? What young gentleman would have listened to such a +communication as he supposes, and especially the reserved and modest +Hawthorne? One can even imagine the aspect of horror on his face at +such an unlady-like proceeding. The story would be an ignominious one +for Hawthorne, if it were credible, but there is no occasion for our +believing it until some tangible evidence is adduced in its support. +There was no element of Quixotism in his composition, and it is quite +as impossible to locate the identity of the person whom Hawthorne is +supposed to have challenged. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +EOS AND EROS: 1835-1839 + + +It was fortunate for Hawthorne that there was at this time a periodical +in the United States, the _North American Review_, which was +generally looked upon as an authority in literature, and which in most +instances deserved the confidence that was placed in it, for its +reviews were written by men of distinguished ability. It was the +_North American Review_ which made the reputation of L. Maria +Child, and which enrolled Hawthorne in the order of geniuses. + +There is not much literary criticism in Longfellow's review, and he +does not "rise to the level of the accomplished essayist" of our own +time, [Footnote: Who writes so correctly and says so little to the +purpose.] but he goes to the main point with the single-mindness of the +true poet. "A new star," he says, "has appeared in the skies"--a +veritable prediction. "Others will gaze at it with telescopes, and +decide whether it is in the constellation of Orion or the Great Bear. +It is enough for us to gaze at it, to admire it, and welcome it." + +"Although Hawthorne writes in prose, he belongs among the poets. To +every subject he touches he gives a poetic personality which emanates +from the man himself. His sympathies extend to all things living, and +even to the inanimates. Another characteristic is the exceeding beauty +of his style. It is as clear as running waters are. Indeed he uses +words as mere stepping-stones, upon which, with a free and youthful +bound, his spirit crosses and re-crosses the bright and rushing stream +of thought." + +Again he says: + +"A calm, thoughtful face seems to be looking at you from every page; +with now a pleasant smile, and now a shade of sadness stealing over its +features. Sometimes, though not often, it glares wildly at you, with a +strange and painful expression, as, in the German romance, the bronze +knocker of the Archivarius Lindhorst makes up faces at the Student +Anselmus." + +Here we have a portrait of Hawthorne, by one who knew him, in a few +simple words; and behind a calm thoughtful face there is that +mysterious unknown quantity which puzzles Longfellow here, and always +perplexed Hawthorne's friends. It may have been the nucleus or tap-root +of his genius. + +Longfellow seems to have felt it as a dividing line between them. He +probably felt so at college; and this brings us back to an old subject. +Hawthorne's superiority to Longfellow as an artist consisted +essentially in this, that he was never an optimist. Puritanism looked +upon human nature with a hostile eye, and was inclined to see evil in +it where none existed; and Doctor Channing, who inaugurated the great +moral movement which swept Puritanism away in this country, tended, as +all reformers do, to the opposite extreme,--to that scepticism of evil +which, as George Brandes says, is greatly to the advantage of +hypocrites and sharpers. This was justifiable in Doctor Channing, but +among his followers it has often degenerated into an inverted or +homoeopathic kind of Puritanism,--a habit of excusing the faults of +others, or of themselves, on the score of good intentions--a habit of +self-justification, and even to the perverse belief that, as everything +is for the best, whatever we do in this world must be for good. To this +class of sentimentalists the most serious evil is truth-seeing and +truth-speaking. It is an excellent plan to look upon the bright side of +things, but one should not do this to the extent of blinding oneself to +facts. Doctor Johnson once said to Boswell, "Beware, my friend, of +mixing up virtue and vice;" but there is something worse than that, and +it is, to stigmatize a writer as a pessimist or a hypochondriac for +refusing to take rainbow-colored views. This, however, would never +apply to Longfellow. + +Hawthorne, with his eye ever on the mark, pursued a middle course. He +separated himself from the Puritans without joining their opponents, +and thus attained the most independent stand-point of any American +writer of his time; and if this alienated him from the various +humanitarian movements that were going forward, it was nevertheless a +decided advantage for the work he was intended to do. In this respect +he resembled Scott, Thackeray and George Eliot. + +What we call evil or sin is merely the negative of civilization,--a +tendency to return to the original savage condition. In the light of +history, there is always progress or improvement, but in individual +cases there is often the reverse, and so far as the individual is +concerned evil is no imaginary metaphor, but as real and absolute as +what we call good. The Bulgarian massacres of 1877 were a historical +necessity, and we console ourselves in thinking of them by the fact +that they may have assisted the Bulgarians in obtaining their +independence; but this was no consolation to the twenty or thirty +thousand human beings who were ground to powder there. To them there +was no comfort, no hope,--only the terrible reality. Neither can we +cast the responsibility of such events on the mysterious ways of +Providence. The ways of Providence are not so mysterious to those who +have eyes to read with. Take for instance one of the most notable cases +of depravity, that of Nero. If we consider the conditions under which +he was born and brought up, the necessity of that form of government to +hold a vast empire together, and the course of history for a hundred +years previous, it is not difficult to trace the genesis of Nero's +crimes to the greed of the Roman people (especially of its merchants) +for conquest and plunder; and Nero was the price which they were +finally called on to pay for this. Marcus Aurelius, a noble nature +reared under favorable conditions for its development, became the +Washington of his time. + +It is the same in private life. In many families there are evil +tendencies, which if they are permitted to increase will take permanent +hold, like a bad demon, of some weak individual, and make of him a +terror and a torment to his relatives--fortunate if he is not in a +position of authority. He may serve as a warning to the general public, +but in the domestic circle he is an unmitigated evil,--he or she, +though it is not so likely to be a woman. When a crime is committed +within the precincts of good society, we are greatly shocked; but we do +not often notice the debasement of character which leads down to it, +and still more rarely notice the instances in which fear or some other +motive arrests demoralization before the final step, and leaves the +delinquent as it were in a condition of moral suspense. + +It was in such tragic situations that Hawthorne found the material +which was best suited to the bent of his genius. + +In the two volumes, however, of "Twice Told Tales,"--the second +published two years later,--the tragical element only appears as an +undercurrent of pathos in such stories as "The Gentle Boy," +"Wakefield," "The Maypole of Merry-mount," and "The Haunted Mind," but +reaches a climax in "The Ambitious Guest" and "Lady Eleanor's Mantle." +There are others, like "Lights from a Steeple," and "Little Annie's +Ramble," that are of a more cheerful cast, but are also much less +serious in their composition. "The Minister's Black Veil," "The Great +Carbuncle," and "The Ambitious Guest," are Dantean allegories. We +notice that each volume begins with a highly patriotic tale, the "Gray +Champion," and "Howe's Masquerade," but the patriotism is genuine and +almost fervid. + +When I first looked upon the house in which Hawthorne lived at Sebago, +I was immediately reminded of these earlier studies in human nature, +which are of so simple and quiet a diction, so wholly devoid of +rhetoric, that Elizabeth Peabody thought they must be the work of his +sister, and others supposed them to have been written by a Quaker. They +resemble Durer's wood-cuts,--gentle and tender in line, but unswerving +in their fidelity. We sometimes wish that they were not so quiet and +evenly composed, and then repent of our wish that anything so perfect +should be different from what it is. His "Twice Told Tales" are a +picture-gallery that may be owned in any house-hold. They stand alone +in English, and there is not their like in any other language. + +Yet Hawthorne is not a word-painter like Browning and Carlyle, but +obtains his pictorial effect by simple accuracy of description, a more +difficult process than the other, but also more satisfactory. His eyes +penetrate the masks and wrappings which cover human nature, as the +Rontgen rays penetrate the human body. He sees a man's heart through +the flesh and bones, and knows what is concealed in it. He ascends a +church-steeple, and looking down from the belfry the whole life of the +town is spread out before him. Men and women come and go--Hawthorne +knows the errands they are on. He sees a militia company parading +below, and they remind him from that elevation of the toy soldiers in a +shop-window,--which they turned out to be, pretty much, at Bull Run. A +fashionable young man comes along the street escorting two young +ladies, and suddenly at a crossing encounters their father, who takes +them away from him; but one of them gives him a sweet parting look, +which amply compensates him in its presage of future opportunities. How +plainly that consolatory look appears between our eyes and the printed +page! Then Hawthorne describes the grand march of a thunder-storm,--as +in Rembrandt's "Three Trees,"--with its rolling masses of dark vapor, +preceded by a skirmish-line of white feathery clouds. The militia +company is defeated at the first onset of this, its meteoric enemy, and +driven under cover. The artillery of the skies booms and flashes about +Hawthorne himself, until finally: "A little speck of azure has widened +in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage and go rejoicing +through the tempest, and on yonder darkest cloud, born like hallowed +hopes of the glory of another world and the trouble and tears of this, +brightens forth the rainbow." All this may have happened just as it is +set down. + +"Lady Eleanor's Mantle" exemplifies the old proverb, "Pride goeth +before destruction," in almost too severe a manner, but the tale is +said to have a legendary foundation; and "The Minister's Black Veil" is +an equally awful symbolism for that barrier between man and man, which +we construct through suspicion and our lack of frankness in our +dealings with one another. We all hide ourselves behind veils, and, as +Emerson says, "Man crouches and blushes, absconds and conceals." + +"The Ambitious Guest" allegorizes a vain imagination, and is the most +important of these three. A young man suffers from a craving for +distinction, which he believes will only come to him after this life is +ended. He is walking through the White Mountains, and stops overnight +at the house of the ill-fated Willey family. He talks freely on the +subject of his vain expectations, when Destiny, in the shape of an +avalanche, suddenly overtakes him, and buries him so deeply that +neither his body nor his name has ever been recovered. Hawthorne might +have drawn another allegory from the same source, for if the Willey +family had trusted to Providence, and remained in their house, instead +of rushing out into the dark, they would not have lost their lives. + +In the _Democratic Review_ for 1834, Hawthorne published the +account of a visit to Niagara Falls, one of the fruits of his +expedition thither in September, 1832, by way of the White Mountains +and Burlington, the journey from Salem to Niagara in those days being +fully equal to going from New York to the cataracts of the Nile in our +own time. "The Ambitious Guest" was published in the same volume with +it, and "The Ontario Steamboat" first appeared in the _American +Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge_, in 1836. Hawthorne +may have made other expeditions to the White Mountains, but we do not +hear of them. + +In addition to the three studies already mentioned, Hawthorne drew from +this source the two finest of his allegories, "The Great Carbuncle" and +"The Great Stone Face." + +"The Great Carbuncle" is not only one of the most beautiful of +Hawthorne's tales, but the most far-reaching in its significance. The +idea of it must have originated in the Alpine glow, an effect of the +rising or setting sun on the icy peaks of a mountain, which looks at a +distance like a burning coal; an appearance only visible in the White +Mountains during the winter, and there is no reason why Hawthorne +should not have seen it at that season from Lake Sebago. At a distance +of twenty miles or more it blazes wonderfully, but on a nearer approach +it entirely disappears. Hawthorne could not have found a more +fascinating subject, and he imagines it for us as a great carbuncle +located in the upper recesses of the mountains. + +A number of explorers for this wonderful gem meet together at the foot +of the mountain beyond the confines of civilization, and build a hut in +which to pass the night. They are recognizable, from Hawthorne's +description, as the man of one idea, who has spent his whole life +seeking the gem; a scientific experimenter who wishes to grind it up +for the benefit of his crucible; a cynical sceptic who has come to +disprove the existence of the great gem; a greedy speculator who seeks +the carbuncle as he would prospect for a silver-mine; an English lord +who wishes to add it to his hereditary possessions; and finally a young +married couple who want to obtain it for an ornament to their new +cottage. The interest of the reader immediately centres on these last +two, and we care much more concerning their fortunes and adventures +than we do about the carbuncle. + +The conversation that evening between these ill-assorted companions is +in Hawthorne's most subtle vein of irony, and would have delighted old +Socrates himself. Meanwhile the young bride weaves a screen of twigs +and leaves, to protect herself and her husband from the gaze of the +curious. + +The following morning they all set out by different paths in search of +the carbuncle; but our thoughts accompany the steps of the young bride, +as she makes one toilsome ascent after another until she feels ready to +sink to the ground with fatigue and discouragement. They have already +decided to return, when the rosy light of the carbuncle bursts upon +them from beneath the lifting clouds; but they now feel instinctively +that it is too great a prize for their possession. The man of one idea +also sees it, and his life goes out in the exultation over his final +success. The skeptic appears, but cannot discover it, although his face +is illumined by its light, until he takes off his large spectacles; +whereupon, he instantly becomes blind. The English nobleman and the +American speculator fail to discover it; the former returns to his +ancestral halls, as wise as he was before; and the latter is captured +by a party of Indians and obliged to pay a heavy ransom to regain +freedom. The scientific pedant finds a rare specimen of primeval +granite, which serves his purpose quite as well as the carbuncle; and +the two young doves return to their cot, having learned the lesson of +contentment. + +How fortunate was Hawthorne at the age of thirty thus to anatomize the +chief illusions of life, which so many others follow until old age! + +It is an erroneous notion that Hawthorne found the chief material for +his work in old New England traditions. There are some half-dozen +sketches of this sort, but they are more formally written than the +others, and remind one of those portraits by Titian which were painted +from other portraits,--better than the originals, but not equal to +those which he painted from Nature. + +In the "Sights from a Steeple" Hawthorne exposes his methods of study +and betrays the active principle of his existence. He says: + +"The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized +Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their +deeds, searching into their hearths, borrowing brightness from their +felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar +to himself." + +There are those who would dislike this busybody occupation, and others, +such as Emerson perhaps, might not consider it justifiable; but +Hawthorne is not to be censured for it, for his motive was an elevated +one, and without this close scrutiny of human nature we should have had +neither a Hawthorne nor a Shakespeare. There is no quality more +conspicuous in "Twice Told Tales" than the calm, evenly balanced mental +condition of the author, who seems to look down on human life not so +much from a church steeple as from the blue firmament itself. + +Such was the _Eos_ or dawn of Hawthorne's literary art. + +Hawthorne returned thanks to Longfellow in a gracefully humorous +letter, to which Longfellow replied with a cordial wish to see +Hawthorne in Cambridge, and by advising him to dive into deeper water +and write a history of the Acadians before and after their expulsion +from Nova Scotia; but this was not practicable for minds like +Hawthorne's, surcharged with poetic images, and the attempt might have +proved a disturbing influence for him. He had already contributed the +substance to Longfellow of "Evangeline," and he now wrote a eulogium on +the poem for a Salem newspaper, which it must be confessed did not +differ essentially from other reviews of the same order. He does not +give us any clear idea of how the poem actually impressed him, which is +after all the best that one can do in such cases. Poetry is not like a +problem in mathematics, which can be marked right or wrong according to +its solution. + +When a young man obtains a substantial footing in his profession or +business, he looks about him for a wife--unless he happens to be +already pledged in that particular; and Hawthorne was not an exception +to this rule. He was not obliged to look very far, and yet the chance +came to him in such an exceptional manner that it seems as if some +special providence were connected with it. His position in this respect +was a peculiar one. He does not appear to have been much acquainted in +Salem even now; and the only son of a widow with two unmarried sisters +may be said to have rather a slim chance for escaping from those strong +ties which have grown up between them from childhood. Many a mother has +prevented her son from getting married until it has become too late for +him to change his bachelor habits. His mother and his sisters realize +that he ought to be married, and that he has a right to a home of his +own; but in their heart of hearts they combat the idea, and their +opposition takes the form of an unsparing criticism of any young lady +whom he follows with his eyes. This frequently happens also in a family +of girls: they all remain unmarried because, if one of them shows an +inclination in that direction, the others unite in a conspiracy against +her. On the other hand, a family of four or five boys will marry early, +if they can obtain the means of doing so, simply from the need of +feminine cheer and sympathy. A devoted female friend will sometimes +prevent a young woman from being married. Love affairs are soft earth +for an intriguing and unprincipled woman to work in, but, fortunately, +Mrs. Hawthorne did not belong in that category. + +It was stout, large-hearted Elizabeth Peabody who broke the spell of +the enchanted castle in which Hawthorne was confined. The Peabodys were +a cultivated family in Salem, who lived pretty much by themselves, as +the Hawthornes and Mannings did. Doctor Nathaniel Peabody was a +respectable practitioner, but he had not succeeded in curing the +headaches of his daughter Sophia, which came upon her at the close of +her girlhood and still continued intermittently until this time. The +Graces had not been bountiful the Peabody family, so, to compensate for +this, they all cultivated the Muses, in whose society they ascended no +little distance on the way to Parnassus. Elizabeth Peabody was quite a +feminine pundit. She learned French and German, and studied history and +archaeology; she taught history on a large scale at Sanborn's Concord +School and at many others; she had a method of painting dates on +squares, which fixed them indelibly in the minds of her pupils; she +talked at Margaret Fuller's transcendental club, and was an active +member of the Radical or Chestnut Street Club, thirty years later; but +her chief distinction was the introduction of Froebel's Kindergarten +teaching, by which she well-nigh revolutionized primary instruction in +America. She was a most self-forgetful person, and her scholars became +devotedly attached to her. + +Her sister Mary was as much like Elizabeth mentally as she differed +from her in figure and general appearance, but soon after this she was +married to Horace Mann and her public activity became merged in that of +her husband, who was the first educator of his time. Sophia Peabody +read poetry and other fine writings, and acquired a fair proficiency in +drawing and painting. They lived what was then called the "higher +life," and it certainly led them to excellent results. + +Shortly before the publication of "Twice Told Tales," Elizabeth Peabody +learned that the author of "The Gentle Boy," and other stories which +she had enjoyed in the _Token_, lived in Salem, and that the name +was Hawthorne. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were +the work of Miss Elizabeth Hawthorne, whom she had known somewhat in +earlier days, and she concluded to call upon her and offer her +congratulations. When informed by Louisa Hawthorne, who came to her in +the parlor, instead of the elder sister, that "The Gentle Boy" was +written by Nathaniel, Miss Peabody made the significant remark, "If +your brother can do work like that, he has no right to be idle" +[Footnote: Lathrop, 168. Miss Peabody would seem to have narrated this +to him.]--to which Miss Louisa retorted, it is to be hoped with some +indignation, that her brother never was idle. + +It is only too evident from this that public opinion in Salem had +already decided that Hawthorne was an idle fellow, who was living on +his female relatives. That is the way the world judges--from external +facts without any consideration of internal causes or conditions. It +gratifies the vanity of those who are fortunate and prosperous, to +believe that all men have an equal chance in the race of life. Emerson +once blamed two young men for idleness, who were struggling against +obstacles such as he could have had no conception of. Those who have +been fortunate from the cradle never learn what life is really like. + +The spell, however, was broken and the friendliness of Elizabeth +Peabody found a deeply sympathetic response in the Hawthorne household. +Nathaniel at last found a person who expressed a genuine and heartfelt +appreciation of his work, and it was like the return of the sun to the +Arctic explorer after his long winter night. Rather to Miss Peabody's +surprise he and his sisters soon returned her call, and visits between +the two families thereafter became frequent. + +Sophia Peabody belonged to the class of young women for whom +Shakespeare's Ophelia serves as a typical example. She was gentle, +affectionate, refined, and amiable to a fault,--much too tender-hearted +for this rough world, if her sister Elizabeth had not always stood like +a barrier between her and it. + +How Hawthorne might have acted in Hamlet's place it is useless to +surmise, but in his true nature he was quite the opposite of Hamlet,-- +slow and cautious, but driven onward by an inexorable will. If Hamlet +had possessed half of Hawthorne's determination, he might have broken +through the network of evil conditions which surrounded him, and lived +to make Ophelia a happy woman. It was only necessary to come into +Hawthorne's presence in order to recognize the force that was in him. + +Sophia Amelia Peabody was born September 21, 1811, so that at the time +of which we are now writing she was twenty-five years of age. Hawthorne +was then thirty-two, when a man is more attractive to the fair sex than +at any other time of life, for then he unites the freshness and vigor +of youth with sufficient maturity of judgment to inspire confidence and +trust. Yet her sister Elizabeth found it difficult to persuade her to +come into the parlor and meet the handsomest man in Salem. When she did +come she evidently attracted Nathaniel Hawthorne's attention, for, +although she said little, he looked at her repeatedly while conversing +with her sister. It may not have been an instance of love at first +sight,--which may happen to any young man at a dancing party, and be +forgotten two days later,--but it was something more than a casual +interest. On his second or third call she showed him a sketch she had +made of "the gentle boy," according to her idea of him, and the subdued +tone with which he received it plainly indicated that he was already +somewhat under her influence. Julian Hawthorne writes of this: +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 179.] + +"It may be remarked here, that Mrs. Hawthorne in telling her children, +many years afterwards, of these first meetings with their father, used +to say that his presence, from the very beginning, exercised so strong +a magnetic attraction upon her, that instinctively, and in self-defence +as it were, she drew back and repelled him. The power which she felt in +him alarmed her; she did not understand what it meant, and was only +able to feel that she must resist." + +Every true woman feels this reluctance at first toward a suitor for her +hand, but a sensitive young lady might well have a sense of awe on +finding that she had attracted to herself such a mundane force as +Hawthorne, and it is no wonder that this first impression was +recollected throughout her life. There are many who would have refused +Hawthorne's suit, because they felt that he was too great and strong +for them, and it is to the honor of Sophia Peabody that she was not +only attracted by the magnetism of Hawthorne, but finally had the +courage to unite herself to such an enigmatical person. + +We also obtain a glimpse of Hawthorne's side of this courtship from a +letter which he wrote to Longfellow in June, 1837, and in which he +says, "I have now, or shall soon have a sharper spur to exertion, which +I lacked at an earlier period;" [Footnote: Conway, 75.] and this is all +the information he has vouchsafed us on the subject. If there is +anything more in his diary, it has not been given to the public, and +probably never will be. A number of letters which he wrote to Miss +Sophia from Boston, or Brook Farm, have been published by his son, but +it would be neither right nor judicious to introduce them here. + +It is, however, evident from the above that Hawthorne was already +engaged in June, 1837, but his engagement long remained a secret, for +three excellent reasons; viz., his slender means of support, the +delicate health of his betrothed, and the disturbance which it might +create in the Hawthorne family. The last did not prove so serious a +difficulty as he seems to have imagined; but his apprehensiveness on +that point many another could justify from personal experience. +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 196.] + +From this time also the health of Sophia Peabody steadily improved, nor +is it necessary to account for it by any magical influence on the part +of her lover. Her trouble was plainly some recondite difficulty of the +circulation. The heart is supposed to be the seat of the affections +because mental emotion stimulates the nervous system and acts upon the +heart as the centre of all organic functions. A healthy natural +excitement will cause the heart to vibrate more firmly and evenly; but +an unhealthy excitement, like fear or anger, will cause it to beat in a +rapid and uneven manner. Contrarily, despondency, or a lethargic state +of mind, causes the movement of the blood to slacken. The happiness of +love is thus the best of all stimulants and correctives for a torpid +circulation, and it expands the whole being of a woman like the +blossoming of a flower in the sunshine. From the time of her betrothal, +Sophia Peabody's headaches became less and less frequent, until they +ceased altogether. The true seat of the affections is in the mind. The +first consideration proved to be a more serious matter. If Hawthorne +had not succeeded in earning his own livelihood by literature so far, +what prospect was there of supporting a wife and family in that manner? +What should he do; whither should he turn? He continually turned the +subject over in his mind, without, however, reaching any definite +conclusion. Nor is this to be wondered at. If the ordinary avenues of +human industry were not available to him as a college graduate, they +were now permanently closed. A man in his predicament at the present +time might obtain the position of librarian in one of our inland +cities; but such places are few and the applications are many. Bronson +Alcott once offered his services as teacher of a primary school, a +position he might have filled better than most, for its one requisite +is kindliness, but the Concord school committee would not hear of it. +If Hawthorne had attempted to turn pedagogue he might have met with a +similar experience. + +Conway remarks very justly that an American author could not be +expected to earn his own living in a country where foreign books could +be pirated as they were in the United States until 1890, and this was +especially true during the popularity of Dickens and George Eliot. +Dickens was the great humanitarian writer of the nineteenth century, +but he was also a caricaturist and a bohemian. He did not represent +life as it is, but with a certain comical oddity. As an author he is to +Hawthorne what a peony is to a rose, or a garnet is to a ruby; but ten, +persons would purchase a novel of Dickens when one would select the +"Twice Told Tales." Scott and Tennyson are exceptional instances of a +high order of literary work which also proved fairly remunerative; but +they do not equal Hawthorne in grace of diction and in the rare quality +of his thought,--whatever advantages they may possess in other +respects. Thackeray earned his living by his pen, but it was only in +England that he could have done this. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +PEGASUS AT THE CART: 1839-1841 + + +Horatio Bridge's dam was washed away in the spring of 1837, by a sudden +and unprecedented rising of the Androscoggin River. Bridge was +financially ruined, but like a brave and generous young man he did not +permit this stroke of evil fortune, severe as it was, to oppress him +heavily, and Hawthorne seems to have felt no shadow of it during his +visit to Augusta the following summer. He returned to Salem in August +with pleasanter anticipations than ever before,--to enjoy the society +of his _fiancee_, and to prepare the second volume of "Twice Told +Tales." + +The course of Hawthorne's life during the next twenty months is mostly +a blank to us. He would seem to have exerted himself to escape from the +monotone in which he had been living so long, but of his efforts, +disappointments, and struggles against the giant coils of Fate, there +is no report. He wrote the four Province House tales as a send-off to +his second volume, as well as "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," "Footprints on +the Seashore," "Snow-Flakes," and "Chippings with a Chisel," which are +to be found in it. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, 176.] There is a long blank +in Hawthorne's diary during the winter of 1837-38 which may be owing to +his indifference to the outer world at that time, but more likely +because its contents have not yet been revealed to us. It was the +period of Cilley's duel, and what Hawthorne's reflections were on that +subject, aside from the account which he wrote for the _Democratic +Review_, would be highly interesting now, but the absence of any +reference to it is significant, and there is no published entry in his +diary between December 6, 1837, and May 11, 1838. + +Horatio Bridge obtained the position of paymaster on the United States +warship "Cyane," which arrived at Boston early in June, and on the 16th +of the month Hawthorne went to call on his friend in his new quarters, +which he found to be pleasant enough in their narrow and limited way. +Bridge returned with him to Boston, and they dined together at the +Tremont House, drinking iced champagne and claret in pitchers,--which +latter would seem to have been a fashion of the place. Hawthorne's +description of the day is purely external, and he tells us nothing of +his friend,--concerning whom we were anxious to hear,--or of the new +life on which he had entered. + +On July 4, his thirty-fifth birthday, he wrote a microscopic account of +the proceedings on Salem Common, which is interesting now, but will +become more valuable as time goes on and the customs of the American +people change with it. The object of these detailed pictorial studies, +which not only remind one of Durer's drawings but of Carlyle's local +descriptions (when he uses simple English and does not fly off into +recondite comparisons), is not clearly apparent; but the artist has +instincts of his own, like a vine which swings in the wind and seizes +upon the first tree that its tendrils come into contact with. We +sometimes wish that, as in the case of Bridge and his warship, they +were not so objective and external, and that, like Carlyle, he would +throw more of himself into them. + +On July 27, Hawthorne started on an expedition to the Berkshire Hills, +by way of Worcester, remaining there nearly till the first of +September, and describing the scenery, the people he met by the way, +and the commencement at Williams College, which then took place in the +middle of August, in his customary accurate manner. He has given a full +and connected account of his travels; so full that we wonder how he +found time to write to Miss Sophia Peabody. He would seem to have been +entirely alone, and to have travelled mainly by stage. On the route +from Pittsfield to North Adams he notices the sunset, and describes it +in these simple terms: [Footnote: American Note-book, 130.] + +"After or about sunset there was a heavy shower, the thunder rumbling +round and round the mountain wall, and the clouds stretching from +rampart to rampart. When it abated the clouds in all parts of the +visible heavens were tinged with glory from the west; some that hung +low being purple and gold, while the higher ones were gray. The slender +curve of the new moon was also visible, brightening amidst the fading +brightness of the sunny part of the sky." + +At North Adams he takes notice of one of the Select-men, and gives this +account of him: [Footnote: American Note-book, 153.] + +"One of the most sensible men in this village is a plain, tall, elderly +person, who is overseeing the mending of a road,--humorous, +intelligent, with much thought about matters and things; and while at +work he had a sort of dignity in handling the hoe or crow-bar, which +shows him to be the chief. In the evening he sits under the stoop, +silent and observant from under the brim of his hat; but, occasion +suiting, he holds an argument about the benefit or otherwise of +manufactories or other things. A simplicity characterizes him more than +appertains to most Yankees." + +He did not return to Salem until September 24. A month later he was at +the Tremont House in Boston, looking out of the windows toward Beacon +Street, which may have served him for an idea in "The Blithedale +Romance." After this there are no entries published from his diary till +the following spring, so that the manner in which he occupied himself +during the winter of 1838-39 will have to be left to the imagination. +On April 27, 1839, he wrote a letter to Miss Sophia Peabody from +Boston, in which he says: + +"I feel pretty secure against intruders, for the bad weather will +defend me from foreign invasion; and as to Cousin Haley, he and I had a +bitter political dispute last evening, at the close of which he went to +bed in high dudgeon, and probably will not speak to me these three +days. Thus you perceive that strife and wrangling, as well as east +winds and rain, are the methods of a kind Providence to promote my +comfort,--which would not have been so well secured in any other way. +Six or seven hours of cheerful solitude! But I will not be alone. I +invite your spirit to be with me,--at any hour and as many hours as you +please, but especially at the twilight hour before I light my lamp. I +bid you at that particular time, because I can see visions more vividly +in the dusky glow of firelight than either by daylight or lamplight. +Come, and let me renew my spell against headache and other direful +effects of the east wind. How I wish I could give you a portion of my +insensibility! and yet I should be almost afraid of some radical +transformation, were I to produce a change in that respect. If you +cannot grow plump and rosy and tough and vigorous without being changed +into another nature, then I do think, for this short life, you had +better remain just what you are. Yes; but you will be the same to me, +because we have met in eternity, and there our intimacy was formed. So +get well as soon as you possibly can." + +This statement deserves consideration under two headings; and the last +shall be first, and the first shall be last. + +It will be noticed that the accounts in Hawthorne's diary are for the +most part of a dispassionate objective character, as if he had come +down from the moon to take an observation of mundane affairs. His +letters to Miss Peabody were also dispassionate, but strongly +subjective, and, like the one just quoted, mainly evolved from his +imagination, like orchids living in the air. It was also about this +time that Carlyle wrote to Emerson concerning the _Dial_ that it +seemed "like an unborn human soul." The orchid imagination was an +influence of the time, penetrating everywhere like an ether. + +In the opening sentences in this letter, Hawthorne comes within an inch +of disclosing his political opinions, and yet provokingly fails to do +so. There is nothing about the man concerning which we are so much in +the dark, and which we should so much like to know, as this; and it is +certain from this letter that he held very decided opinions on +political subjects and could defend them with a good deal of energy. On +one occasion when Hawthorne was asked why he was a Democrat, he +replied, "Because I live in a democratic country," which was, of +course, simply an evasion; and such were the answers which he commonly +gave to all interrogatories. His proclivities were certainly not +democratic; but the greater the tenacity with which a man holds his +opinions, the less inclined he feels to discuss them with others. The +Boston aristocracy now vote the Democratic ticket out of opposition to +the dominant party in Massachusetts, and Hawthorne may have done so for +a similar reason. + +Hawthorne was now a weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, one +of the most laborious positions in the government service. The +defalcation of Swartwout with over a million dollars from the New York +customs' receipts had forced upon President Van Buren the importance of +filling such posts with honorable men, instead of political shysters, +and Bancroft, though a rather narrow historian, was a gentleman and a +scholar. He was the right man to appreciate Hawthorne, but whether he +bestowed this place upon him of his own accord, or through the ulterior +agency of Franklin Pierce, we are not informed. It is quite possible +that Elizabeth Peabody had a hand in the case, for she was always an +indefatigable petitioner for the benefit of the needy, and had +opportunities for meeting Bancroft in Boston society. His kindness to +Hawthorne was at least some compensation for having originated the most +ill-favored looking public building in the city. [Footnote: The present +Boston Custom House. George S. Hillard called it an architectural +monstrosity.] + +Hawthorne's salary was twelve hundred dollars a year,--fully equal to +eighteen hundred at the present time,--and his position appears to have +been what is now called a store-keeper. He fully earned his salary. He +had charge and oversight of all the dutiable imports that came to +Long Wharf, the most important in the city, and was obliged to keep an +account of all dutiable articles which were received there. He had to +superintend personally the unloading of vessels, and although in some +instances this was not unpleasant, he was constantly receiving +shiploads of soft coal,--Sidney or Pictou coal,--which is the dirtiest +stuff in the world; it cannot be touched without raising a dusty vapor +which settles in the eyes, nose, and mouth, and inside the shirt- +collar. He counted every basketful that was brought ashore, and his +position on such occasions was to be envied only by the sooty laborers +who handled that commodity. We wonder what the frequenters of Long +Wharf thought of this handsome, poetic-looking man occupied in such a +business. + +Yet he appreciated the value of this Spartan discipline,--the +inestimable value of being for once in his life brought down to hard- +pan and the plain necessities of life. The juice of wormwood is bitter, +but it is also strengthening. On July 3, 1839, he wrote: [Footnote: +American Note-book.] + +"I do not mean to imply that I am unhappy or discontented, for this is +not the case. My life only is a burden in the same way that it is to +every toilsome man, and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only +a night's sleep to remove it. But from henceforth forever I shall be +entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall know how to +sympathize with them, seeing that I likewise have risen at the dawn, +and borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps +homeward till eventide. Years hence, perhaps, the experience that my +heart is acquiring now will flow out in truth and wisdom." + +This is one of the noblest passages in his writings. + +On August 27 he notices the intense heat in the centre of the city, +although it is somewhat cooler on the wharves. At this time Emerson may +have been composing his "Wood Notes" or "Threnody" in the cool pine +groves of Concord. Such is the difference between inheriting twenty +thousand dollars and two thousand. Hawthorne lived in Boston at such a +boarding-place as Doctor Holmes describes in the "Autocrat of the +Breakfast Table," and for all we know it may have been the same one. He +lived economically, reading and writing to Miss Peabody in the evening, +and rarely going to the theatre or other entertainments,--a life like +that of a store clerk whose salary only suffices for his board and +clothing. George Bancroft was kindly disposed toward him, and would +have introduced Hawthorne into any society that he could have wished to +enter; but Hawthorne, then and always, declined to be lionized. +Hawthorne made but one friend in Boston during this time, and that one, +George S. Hillard, a most faithful and serviceable friend,--not only +to Hawthorne during his life, but afterwards as a trustee for his +family, and equally kind and helpful to them in their bereavement, +which is more than could be said of all his friends,--especially of +Pierce. Hillard belonged to the brilliant coterie of Cambridge literary +men, which included Longfellow, Sumner and Felton. He was a lawyer, +politician, editor, orator and author; at this time, or shortly +afterward, Sumner's law partner; one of the most kindly sympathetic +men, with a keen appreciation of all that is finest in art and +literature, but somewhat lacking in firmness and independence of +character. His "Six Months in Italy," written in the purest English, +long served as a standard work for American travellers in that ideal +land, and his rather unsymmetrical figure only made the graces of his +oratory more conspicuous. + +Hawthorne kept at his work through summer's heat and winter's cold. On +February 11, 1840, he wrote to his fiancee: + +"I have been measuring coal all day, on board of a black little British +schooner, in a dismal dock at the north end of the city. Most of the +time I paced the deck to keep myself warm.... + +"... Sometimes I descended into the dirty little cabin of the schooner, +and warmed myself by a red-hot stove among biscuit barrels, pots and +kettles, sea chests, and innumerable lumber of all sorts,--my +olfactories, meanwhile, being greatly refreshed by the odor of a pipe, +which the captain or some of his crew was smoking." + +[Illustration: HAWTHORNE. FROM THE PORTRAIT BY CHARLES OSGOOD IN 1840. +IN THE POSSESSION OF MRS. RICHARD C. MANNING, SALEM, MASS. FROM +NEGATIVE IN POSSESSION OF AND OWNED BY FRANK COUSIN, SALEM] + +One would have to go to Dante's "Inferno" to realize a situation more +thoroughly disagreeable; yet the very pathos of Hawthorne's employment +served to inspire him with elevated thoughts and beautiful reflections. +His letters are full of aerial fancies. He notices what a beautiful day +it was on April 18, 1840, and regrets that he cannot "fling himself on +a gentle breeze and be blown away into the country." April 30 is +another beautiful day,--"a real happiness to live; if he had been a +mere vegetable, a hawthorn bush, he would have felt its influence." He +goes to a picture gallery in the Athenaeum, but only mentions seeing +two paintings by Sarah Clarke. He returns to Salem in October, and +writes in his own chamber the passage already quoted, in which he +mourns the lonely years of his youth, and the long, long waiting for +appreciation, "while he felt the life chilling in his veins and +sometimes it seemed as if he were already in the grave;" but an early +return to his post gives him brighter thoughts. He takes notice of the +magnificent black and yellow butterflies that have strangely come to +Long Wharf, as if seeking to sail to other climes since the last flower +had faded. Mr. Bancroft has appointed him to suppress an insurrection +among the government laborers, and he writes to Miss Sophia Peabody: + +"I was not at the end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region,-- +my authority having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the +captain and 'gang' of shovellers aboard a coal-vessel. I would you +could have beheld the awful sternness of my visage and demeanor in the +execution of this momentous duty. Well,--I have conquered the rebels, +and proclaimed an amnesty; so to-morrow I shall return to that paradise +of measurers, the end of Long Wharf,--not to my former salt-ship, she +being now discharged, but to another, which will probably employ me +well-nigh a fortnight longer." + +A month later we meet with this ominous remark in his diary: + +"I was invited to dine at Mr. Bancroft's yesterday with Miss Margaret +Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do, for which I +was very thankful." + +Had Hawthorne already encountered this remarkable woman with the +feminine heart and masculine mind, and had he already conceived that +aversion for her which is almost painfully apparent in his Italian +diary? Certainly in many respects they were antipodes. + +The Whig party came into power on March 4, 1841, with "Tippecanoe" for +a figure-head and Daniel Webster as its conductor of the "grand +orchestra." A month later Bancroft was removed, and Hawthorne went with +him, not at all regretful to depart. In fact, he had come to feel that +he could not endure the Custom House, or at least his particular share +of it, any longer. One object he had in view in accepting the position +was, to obtain practical experience, and this he certainly did in a +rough and unpleasant manner. The experience of a routine office, +however, is not like that of a broker who has goods to sell and who +must dispose of them to the best advantage, in order to keep his +reputation at high-water mark; nor is it like the experience of a young +doctor or a lawyer struggling to obtain a practice. Those are the men +who know what life actually is; and it is this thoroughness of +experience which makes the chief difference between a Dante and a +Tennyson. + +These reflections lead directly to Hawthorne's casual and oft-repeated +commentary on American politicians. He wrote March 15: + +"I do detest all offices--all, at least, that are held on a political +tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither +away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to +india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will +stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have gained by my custom- +house experience,--to know a politician." [Footnote: American +Notebook, i. 220.] + +This seems rather severe, but at the time when Hawthorne wrote it, +American politics were on the lowest plane of demagogism. It was the +inevitable result of the spoils-of-office system, and the meanest +species of the class were the ward politicians who received small +government offices in return for services in canvassing ignorant +foreign voters. They were naturally coarse, hardened adventurers, and +it was such that Hawthorne chiefly came in contact with in his official +business. Cleon, the brawling tanner of Athens, has reappeared in every +representative government since his time, and plays his clownish part +with multifarious variations; but it is to little purpose that we +deride the men who govern us, for they are what we and our institutions +have made them. If we want better representatives, we must mend our own +ways and especially purge ourselves of political cant and national +vanity,--which is the food that ward politicians grow fat on. The +profession of a politician is based on instability, and he cannot +acquire, as matters now stand, the solidity of character that we look +for in other professions. + +So far, however, was Hawthorne at this juncture from considering men +and things critically, that he closes the account of his first +government experience in this rather optimistic manner: + +"Old Father Time has gone onward somewhat less heavily than is his wont +when I am imprisoned within the walls of the Custom-house. My breath +had never belonged to anybody but me. It came fresh from the ocean.... + +"... It was exhilarating to see the vessels, how they bounded over the +waves, while a sheet of foam broke out around them. I found a good deal +of enjoyment, too, in the busy scene around me. It pleased me to think +that I also had a part to act in the material and tangible business of +this life, and that a portion of all this industry could not have gone +on without my presence." [Footnote: American Note-book, i. 230.] + +When Hawthorne philosophizes it is not in old threadbare proverbs or +Orphic generalities, but always specifically and to the point. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HAWTHORNE AS A SOCIALIST: 1841-1842 + + +Who can compute the amount of mischief that Fourier has done, and those +well-meaning but inexperienced dreamers who have followed after him? A +Fourth-of-July firecracker once consumed the half of a large city. The +boy who exploded it had no evil intentions; neither did Fourier and +other speculators in philanthropy contemplate what might be the effect +of their doctrines on minds actuated by the lowest and most inevitable +wants. Wendell Phillips, in the most brilliant of his orations, said: +"The track of God's lightning is a straight line from justice to +iniquity," and one might have said to Phillips, in his later years, +that there is in the affairs of men a straight line from infatuation to +destruction. In what degree Fourier was responsible for the effusion of +blood in Paris in the spring of 1871 it is not possible to determine; +but the relation of Rousseau to the first French revolution is not more +certain. _Fate_ is the spoken word which cannot be recalled, and +who can tell the good and evil consequences that lie hidden in it? The +proper cure for socialism, in educated minds, would be a study of the +law. There we discover what a wonderful mechanism is the present +organization of society, and how difficult it would be to reconstruct +this, if it once were overturned. + +As society is constituted at present, the honest and industrious are +always more or less at the mercy of the vicious and indolent, and the +only protection against this lies in the right of individual ownership. +In a general community of goods, there might be some means of +preventing or punishing flagrant misdemeanors, but what protection +could there be against indolence? Those who were ready and willing to +work would have to bear all the burdens of society. + +In order that an idea should take external or concrete form it has to +be married, as it were, to some desire or tendency in the individual. +Reverend George Ripley had become imbued with Fourierism through his +studies of French philosophy, but he had also been brought up on a +farm, and preferred the fresh air and vigorous exercise of that mode of +life to city preaching. He was endowed with a strong constitution and +possessed of an independent fortune, and his aristocratic wife, more +devoted than women of that class are usually, sympathized with his +plans, and was prepared to follow him to the ends of the earth. He not +only felt great enthusiasm for the project but was capable of inspiring +others with it. There were many socialistic experiments undertaken +about that time, but George Ripley's was the only one that has acquired +a historical value. It is much to his credit that he gave the scheme a +thorough trial, and by carrying it out to a logical conclusion proved +its radical impracticability. + +Such a failure is more valuable than the successes of a hundred men who +merely make their own fortunes and leave no legacy of experience that +can benefit the human race. + +It must have been Elizabeth Peabody who persuaded Hawthorne to enlist +in the Brook Farm enterprise. She wrote a paper for the _Dial_ +[Footnote: _Dial_, ii. 361.] on the subject, explaining the object +of the West Roxbury community and holding forth the prospect of the +"higher life" which could be enjoyed there. Hawthorne was in himself +the very antipodes of socialism, and it was part of the irony of his +life that he should have embarked in such an experiment; but he +invested a thousand dollars in it, which he had saved from his Custom +House salary, and was one of the first on the ground. What he really +hoped for from it--as we learn by his letters to Miss Sophia Peabody-- +was a means of gaining his daily bread, with leisure to accomplish a +fair amount of writing, and at the same time to enter into such society +as might be congenial to his future consort. It seemed reasonable to +presume this, and yet the result did not correspond to it. He went to +West Roxbury on April 12, 1841, and as it happened in a driving +northeast snowstorm,--an unpropitious beginning, of which he has given +a graphic account in "The Blithedale Romance." + +At first he liked his work at the Farm. The novelty of it proved +attractive to him. On May 3 he wrote a letter to his sister Louisa, +which reflects the practical nature of his new surroundings; and it +must be confessed that this is a refreshing change from the sublunary +considerations at his Boston boarding-house. He has already "learned to +plant potatoes, to milk cows, and to cut straw and hay for the cattle, +and does various other mighty works." He has gained strength +wonderfully, and can do a day's work without the slightest +inconvenience; wears a tremendous pair of cowhide boots. He goes to bed +at nine, and gets up at half-past four to sound the rising-horn,--much +too early for a socialistic paradise, where human nature is supposed to +find a pleasant as well as a salutary existence. George Ripley would +seem to be driving the wedge in by the larger end. Hawthorne is +delighted with the topographical aspect, and writes: + +"This is one of the most beautiful places I ever saw in my life, and as +secluded as if it were a hundred miles from any city or village. There +are woods, in which we can ramble all day without meeting anybody or +scarcely seeing a house. Our house stands apart from the main road, so +that we are not troubled even with passengers looking at us. Once in a +while we have a transcendental visitor, such as Mr. Alcott; but +generally we pass whole days without seeing a single face save those of +the brethren. The whole fraternity eat together; and such a delectable +way of life has never been seen on earth since the days of the early +Christians." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 228.] + +From Louisa Hawthorne's reply, it may be surmised that his family did +not altogether approve of the Brook Farm venture, perhaps because it +withdrew him from his own home at a time when they had looked with fond +expectation for his return; and here we have a glimpse into the +beautiful soul of this younger sister, otherwise so little known to us. +Elizabeth is skeptical of its ultimate success, but Louisa is fearful +that he may work too hard and wants him to take good care of himself. +She is delighted with the miniature of him, which they have lately +received: "It has one advantage over the original,--I can make it go +with me where I choose!" + +Louisa wrote another warm and beautiful letter on June 11, recalling +the days when they used to go fishing together on Lake Sebago, and +adds: + +"Elizabeth Cleveland says she saw Mr. George Bradford in Lowell last +winter, and he told her he was going to be associated with you; but +they say his mind misgave him terribly when the time came for him to go +to Roxbury, and whether to make such a desperate step or not he could +not tell." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 232.] + +George P. Bradford was the masculine complement to Elizabeth Peabody-- +flitting across the paths of Emerson and Hawthorne throughout their +lives. His name appears continually in the biographies of that time, +but future generations would never know the sort of man he was, but for +Louisa's amiable commentary. He appeared at Brook Farm a few days +later, and became one of George Ripley's strongest and most faithful +adherents. He is the historian of the West Roxbury community, and late +in life the editor of the _Century_ asked him to write a special +account of it for that periodical. Bradford did so, and received one +hundred dollars in return for his manuscript; but it never was +published, presumably because it was too original for the editor's +purpose. + +Is it possible that Hawthorne put on a good face for this letter to his +sister, in order to keep up appearances; or was it like the common +experience of music and drawing teachers that the first lessons are the +best performed; or did he really have some disagreement with Ripley, +like that which he represents in "The Blithedale Romance"? The last is +the more probable, although we do not hear of it otherwise. Spring is +the least agreeable season for farming, with its muddy soil, its +dressing the ground, its weeds to be kept down and its insects to be +kept off. After the first week of June, the work becomes much +pleasanter; and the harvesting is delightful,--stacking the grain, +picking the fruit,--with the cheery wood fires, so restful to mind and +body. Yet we find on August 12 that Hawthorne had become thoroughly +disenchanted with his Arcadian life, although he admits that the labors +of the farm were not so pressing as they had been. Ten days later, he +refers to having spent the better part of a night with one of his co- +workers, "who was quite out of his wits" and left the community next +day. He then continues in his diary: [Footnote: American Notebook, ii. +15.] + +"It is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Ripley will succeed in locating +his community on the farm. He can bring Mr. E---- to no terms, and the +more they talk about the matter, the further they appear to be from a +settlement. We must form other plans for ourselves; for I can see few +or no signs that Providence purposes to give us a home here. I am +weary, weary, thrice weary, of waiting so many ages. Whatever may be my +gifts, I have not hitherto shown a single one that may avail to gather +gold." + +Here are already three disaffected personages, desirous of escaping +from an earthly paradise. Mr. Ripley has by no means an easy row to +hoe. Yet he keeps on ploughing steadily through his difficulties, as he +did through the soil of his meadows. In September we find Hawthorne at +Salem, and on the third he writes: [Footnote: American Notebook, ii. +16.] + +"But really I should judge it to be twenty years since I left Brook +Farm; and I take this to be one proof that my life there was unnatural +and unsuitable, and therefore an unreal one. It already looks like a +dream behind me. The real Me was never an associate of the community: +there has been a spectral appearance there, sounding the horn at +daybreak, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes, and raking hay, +toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to assume my name. But this +spectre was not myself." + +This idea of himself as a spectre seems to have accompanied him much in +the way that the daemon did Socrates, and to have served in a similar +manner as a warning to him. He left Brook Farm almost exactly as he +describes himself doing, in "The Blithedale Romance," and he returned +again on the twenty-second, but the brilliant woodland carnival which +he describes, both in his "Note-book" and in "The Blithedale Romance," +did not take place there until September 28. It was a masquerade in +which Margaret Fuller and Emerson appeared as invited guests, and held +a meeting of the Transcendental club "_sub tegmine fagi_." As +Hawthorne remarks, "Much conversation followed,"--in which he evidently +found little to interest him. Margaret Fuller also made a present of a +heifer to the live-stock of the Farm, of whose unruly gambols Hawthorne +seems to have taken more particular notice. He would seem in fact to +have attributed the same characteristics to the animal and its owner. + +Having more time at his own disposal, he now attempted to write another +volume of history for Peter Parley's library, but, although this was +rather a childish affair, he found himself unequal to it. "I have not," +he said, "the sense of perfect seclusion here, which has always been +essential to my power of producing anything. It is true, nobody +intrudes into my room; but still I cannot be quiet. Nothing here is +settled; and my mind will not be abstracted." During the whole of +October he went on long woodland walks, sometimes alone and at others +with a single companion. He tried, like Emerson, courting Nature in her +solitudes, and made the acquaintance of her denizens as if he were the +original Adam taking an account of his animal kingdom. He picks up a +terrapin, the _Emys picta_, which attempts to hide itself from +him in a stone wall, and carries it considerately to a pond of water; +but there is not much to be found in the woods, and one can travel a +whole day in the forest primeval without coming across anything better +than a few squirrels and small birds. In fact, two young sportsmen once +rode on horseback with their guns from the Missouri River to the +Pacific Ocean without meeting any larger game than prairie-chickens. + +It was all in vain. Hawthorne's nature was not like Emerson's, and what +stimulated the latter mentally made comparatively little impression on +the former. Hawthorne found, then as always, that in order to practice +his art, he must devote himself to it, wholly and completely, leaving +side issues to go astern. In order to create an ideal world of his own, +he was obliged to separate himself from all existing conditions, as +Beethoven did when composing his symphonies. Composition for Hawthorne +meant a severe mental strain. Those sentences, pellucid as a mountain +spring, were not clarified without an effort. The faculty on which +Hawthorne depended for this, as every artist does, was his imagination, +and imagination is as easily disturbed as the electric needle. There is +no fine art without sensitiveness. We see it in the portrait of +Leonardo da Vinci, a man who could bend horseshoes in his hands; and +Bismarck, who was also an artist in his way, confessed to the same +mental disturbance from noise and general conversation, which Hawthorne +felt at Brook Farm. It was the mental sensitiveness of Carlyle and +Bismarck which caused their insomnia, and much other suffering besides. + +George Ripley published an essay in the _Dial_, in which he +heralded Fourier as the great man who was destined to regenerate +society; but Fourier has passed away, and society continues in its old +course. What he left out of his calculations, or perhaps did not +understand, was the principle of population. If food and raiment were +as common as air and water, mankind would double its numbers every +twelve or fifteen years, and the tendency to do so produces a pressure +on poor human nature, which is almost like the scourge of a whip, +driving it into all kinds of ways and means in order to obtain +sufficient sustenance. Most notable among the methods thus employed is, +and always has been, the division of labor, and it will be readily seen +that a community like Brook Farm, where skilled labor, properly +speaking, was unknown, and all men were all things by turns, could +never sustain so large a population relatively as a community where a +strict division of industries existed. If a nation like France, for +instance, where the population is nearly stationary, were to adopt +Fourier's plan of social organization, it would prove a more severe +restriction on human life than the wars of Napoleon. This is the reason +why the attempt to plant a colony of Englishmen in Tennessee failed so +badly. There was a kind of division of labor among them, but it was +purely a local and a foreign division and not adapted to the region +about them. Ripley's method of allowing work to be counted by the hour +instead of by the day or half-day, was of itself sufficient to prevent +the enterprise from being a financial success. Farming everywhere +except on the Western prairies requires the closest thrift and economy, +and all hands have to work hard. + +Neither could such an experiment prove a success from a moral point of +view. Emerson said of it: "The women did not object so much to a common +table as they did to a common nursery." In truth one might expect that +a common nursery would finally result in a free fight. The tendency of +all such institutions would be to destroy the sanctity of family life; +and it would also include a tendency to the deterioration of manliness. +One of the professed objects of the Brook Farm association was, to +escape from the evils of the great world,--from the trickery of trade, +the pedantry of colleges, the flunkyism of office, and the arrogant +pretensions of wealth. Every honest man must feel a sympathy with this; +there are times when we all feel that the struggle of life is an +unequal conflict, from which it would be a permanent blessing to +escape; yet he who turns his back upon it, is like a soldier who runs +away from the battle-field. It is the conflict with evil in the great +world, and in ourselves, that constitutes virtue and develops +character. It is _good_ to learn the trickery of knaves and to +expose it, to contend against pedantry and set a better example, to +administer offices with a modest impartiality, and to treat the gilded +fool with a dignified contempt. But if the wings of the archangel are +torn and soiled in his conflict with sin, does it not add to the honor +of the victory? The man who left his wife and children, because he +found that he could not live with them without occasionally losing his +temper, committed a grievous wrong; and it is equally true that +hypocrisy, the meanest of vices, may sometimes become a virtue. + +George P. Bradford, and a few others, enjoyed the life at Brook Farm, +and would have liked to remain there longer. John S. Dwight, the +translator of Goethe's and Schiller's ballads, [Footnote: One of the +most musical translations in any language.] said in his old age that if +he were a young man, he would be only too glad to return there; and it +is undeniable that such a place is suited to a certain class of +persons, both men and women. It cannot be repeated too often, however, +that the true object of life is not happiness, but development. It is +our special business on this planet, to improve the human race as our +progenitors improved it, and developed it out of we know not what. By +doing this, we also improve ourselves and happiness comes to us +incidentally; but if we pursue happiness directly, we soon become +pleasure-seekers, and, like Faust, join company with Mephistopheles. +Happiness comes to a philosopher, perhaps while he is picking berries; +to a judge, watching the approach of a thunder-storm; to a merchant, +teaching his boy to skate. It came to Napoleon listening to a prayer- +bell, and to Hawthorne playing games with his children. [Footnote: +Perhaps also in his kindliness to the terrapin.] Happiness flies when +we seek it, and steals upon us unawares. + +George P. Bradford's account of Brook Farm in the "Memorial History of +Boston" [Footnote: Vol. iv. 330.] is not so satisfactory as it might +have been if he had given more specific details in regard to its +management. The general supposition has been that there was an annual +deficit in the accounts of the association, which could only be met by +Mr. Ripley himself, who ultimately lost the larger portion of his +investment. It is difficult to imagine how such an experiment could end +otherwise, and the final conflagration of the principal building, or +"The Hive," as it was called, served as a fitting consummation of the +whole enterprise,--a truly dramatic climax. George Ripley went to New +York to become literary editor of the _Tribune_, and was as +distinguished there for the excellence of his reviews, and the elegance +of his turnout in Central Park as he had been for the use of the spade +and pitchfork at West Roxbury. + +Mr. Bradford returned to the instruction of young ladies in French and +Latin; and John S. Dwight became one of the civilizing forces of his +time, by editing the Boston _Journal of Music_. None of them were +the worse for their agrarian experiment. + +Even if the West Roxbury _commune_ had proved a success for two or +three generations, it would not have sufficed for a test of Fourier's +theory for it would have been a republic within a republic, protected +by the laws and government of the United States, without being +subjected to the inconvenience of its own political machinery. The only +fair trial for such a system would be to introduce it in some tract of +country especially set apart and made independent for the purpose; but +the chances are ten to one that a community organized in this manner +would soon be driven into the same process of formation that other +colonies have passed through under similar conditions. The true +socialism is the present organization of society, and although it might +be improved in detail, to revolutionize it would be dangerous. Yet the +interest that has been aroused at various times by discussions of the +Brook Farm project, shows how strong the undercurrent is setting +against the present order of things; and this is my chief excuse for +making such a long digression on the subject. + +During these last months of his bachelorhood, Hawthorne appears to us +somewhat in the light of a hibernating bear; for we hear nothing of him +at that season at all. Between the last of October, 1841, and July, +1842, there are a large number of odd fancies, themes for romances, and +the like, published from his diary, but no entries of a personal +character. We hear incidentally that he was at Brook Farm during a +portion of the spring, which is not surprising in view of the fact that +Doctor Nathaniel Peabody had removed from Salem to Boston in the mean +time. One conclusion Hawthorne had evidently arrived at during the +winter months, and it was that his engagement to Miss Sophia Peabody +ought to be terminated in the way all such affairs should be; viz., by +matrimony. Their prospects in life were not brilliant, but it was +difficult to foresee any advantage in waiting longer, and there were +decided disadvantages in doing so. It was accordingly agreed that they +should be married at, or near, the summer solstice, the most suitable +of all times for weddings--or engagements. On June 20, he wrote to his +_fiancee_ from Salem, reminding her that within ten days they were +to become man and wife, and added this significant reflection: "Nothing +can part us now; for God himself hath ordained that we shall be one. So +nothing remains but to reconcile yourself to your destiny. Year by year +we shall grow closer to each other; and a thousand years hence, we +shall be only in the honeymoon of our marriage." + +Yet we find him writing again the tenderest and most graceful of love- +letters on June 30. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 241.] The wedding has +evidently been postponed; but two days later he is in Boston, and finds +a pleasant recreation watching the boys sail their toy boats on the +Frog Pond. The ceremony finally was performed on July 9, and it was +only the day previous that Hawthorne wrote the following letter, which +is dated from 54 Pinckney Street: + + +"MY DEAR SIR: + +"Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to request of you the +greatest favor which I can receive from any man. I am to be married to +Miss Sophia Peabody to-morrow, and it is our mutual desire that you +should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be decidedly a rainy day, +a carriage will call for you at half-past eleven o'clock in the +forenoon. + + "Very respectfully yours, + "NATH. HAWTHORNE. + +"REV. JAMES F. CLARKE, + "Chestnut St." + + +George S. Hillard lived on Pinckney Street, and Hawthorne may have been +visiting him at the moment. The Peabodys attended service at Mr. +Clarke's church in Indiana Place, where Hawthorne may also have gone +with them. He could not have made a more judicious choice; but, +singularly enough, although Mr. Clarke became Elizabeth Peabody's life- +long friend, and even went to Concord to lecture, he and Hawthorne +never met again after this occasion. + +The ceremony was performed at the house of Sophia Peabody's father, No. +13 West Street, a building of which not one stone now rests upon +another. It was a quiet family wedding (such as oftenest leads to +future happiness), and most deeply impressive to those concerned in it. +What must it have been to Hawthorne, who had known so much loneliness, +and had waited so long for the comfort and sympathy which only a +devoted wife can give? + +Time has drawn a veil over Hawthorne's honeymoon, but exactly four +weeks after the wedding, we find him and his wife installed in the +house at Concord, owned by the descendants of Reverend Dr. Ripley. It +will be remembered that Hawthorne had invested his only thousand +dollars in the West Roxbury Utopia, whence it was no longer possible to +recover it. He had, however, an unsubstantial Utopian sort of claim for +it, against the Association, which he placed in the hands of George S. +Hillard, and subsequent negotiation would seem to have resulted in +giving Hawthorne a lease of the Ripley house, or "Old Manse," in return +for it. It was already classic ground, for Emerson had occupied the +house for a time and had written his first book there; and thither +Hawthorne went to locate himself, determined to try once more if he +could earn his living by his pen. + +[Illustration: THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CONCORD AND THE OLD MANSE: 1842-1845 + + +The Ripley house dates back to the times of Captain Daniel Hathorne, or +even before him, and at Concord Fight the British left wing must have +extended close to it. Old and unpainted as it is, it gives a distinct +impression of refinement and good taste. Alone, I believe, among the +Concord houses of former times, it is set back far enough from the +country-road to have an avenue leading to it, lined with balm of Gilead +trees, and guarded at the entrance by two tall granite posts somewhat +like obelisks. On the further side of the house, Dr. Ripley had planted +an apple orchard, which included some rare varieties, especially the +blue pearmain, a dark-red autumn apple with a purple bloom upon it like +the bloom upon the rye. A high rounded hill on the northeast partially +shelters the house from the storms in that direction; and on the +opposite side the river sweeps by in a magnificent curve, with broad +meadows and rugged hills, leading up to the pale-blue outline of Mount +Wachusett on the western horizon. The Musketequid or Concord River has +not been praised too highly. Its clear, gently flowing current, +margined by bulrushes and grassy banks, produces an effect of mental +peacefulness, very different from the rushing turbulent waters and +rocky banks of Maine and New Hampshire rivers. From whatever point you +approach the Old Manse, it becomes the central object in a charming +country scene, and it does not require the peculiar effect of +mouldering walls to make it picturesque. It has stood there long, and +may it long remain. + +There was formerly an Indian encampment on the same ground,--a well- +chosen position both strategically and for its southern exposure. Old +Mrs. Ripley had a large collection of stone arrow-heads, corn-mortars, +and other relics of the aborigines, which she used to show to the young +people who came to call on her grandchildren; and there were among them +pieces of a dark-bluish porphyry which she said was not to be found in +Massachusetts, but must have been brought from northern New England. +There was no reason why they should not have been. The Indians could go +from Concord in their canoes to the White Mountains or the Maine lakes, +and shoot the deer that came down to drink from the banks of the river; +but the deer disappeared before the advance of the American farmer, and +the Indians went with them. Now a grandson of Madam Ripley, in the +bronze likeness of a minuteman of 1775, stands sentinel at "The Old +North Bridge." + +Hawthorne ascended the hill opposite his house and wrote of the view +from it: + +"The scenery of Concord, as I beheld it from the summit of the hill, +has no very marked characteristics, but has a great deal of quiet +beauty, in keeping with the river. There are broad and peaceful +meadows, which, I think, are among the most satisfying objects in +natural scenery. The heart reposes on them with a feeling that few +things else can give, because almost all other objects are abrupt and +clearly defined; but a meadow stretches out like a small infinity, yet +with a secure homeliness which we do not find either in an expanse of +water or air." + +The great cranberry meadows below the north bridge are sometimes a +wonderful place in winter, when the river overflows its banks and they +become a broad sheet of ice extending for miles. There one can have a +little skating, an exercise of which Hawthorne was always fond. + +It was now, and not at Brook Farm, that he found his true Arcadia, and +we have his wife's testimony that for the first eighteen months or more +at the Old Manse, they were supremely happy. Every morning after +breakfast he donned the blue frock, which he had worn at West Roxbury, +and went to the woodshed to saw and split wood for the daily +consumption. After that he ascended to his study in the second story, +where he wrote and pondered until dinner-time. It appears also that he +sometimes assisted in washing the dishes--like a helpful mate. After +dinner he usually walked to the post-office and to a reading-room in +the centre of the town, where he looked over the Boston _Post_ for +half an hour. Later in the afternoon, he went rowing or fishing on the +river, but his wife does not seem to have accompanied him in these +excursions, for Judge Keyes, who often met him in his boat, does not +mention seeing her with him. In the evenings he read Shakespeare with +Mrs. Hawthorne, commencing with the first volume, and going straight +through to the end, "Titus Andronicus" and all,--and this must have +occupied them a large portion of the winter. How can a man fail to be +happy in such a mode of life! + +Hawthorne also went swimming in the river when the weather suited-- +rather exceptional in Concord for a middle-aged gentleman; but there +were two very attractive bathing places near the Old Manse, one, a +little above on the opposite side of the river, and the other, +afterwards known as Simmons's Landing, where there was a row of tall +elms a short distance below the bridge. It is probable that Hawthorne +frequented the latter place, as being more remote from human +habitations. He did not take to his gun again, although he could see +the wild ducks in autumn, flying past his house. There were grouse and +quail in the woods, and woodcock were to be found along the brook which +ran through Emerson's pasture; but perhaps Hawthorne had become too +tenderhearted for field-sports. + +If Boston is the hub of the universe, Concord might be considered as +the linchpin which holds it on. Its population was originally derived +from Boston, and it must be admitted that it retains more Bostonian +peculiarities than most other New England towns. It does not assimilate +readily to the outside world. Nor is it surprising that few local +visitors called upon the Hawthornes at the Old Manse. Emerson, always +hospitable and public-spirited, went to call on them at once; and John +Keyes, also a liberal-minded man, introduced Hawthorne at the reading- +club. Margaret Fuller came and left a book for Hawthorne to read, which +may have annoyed him more than anything she could have said. Elizabeth +Hoar, a woman of exalted character, to whose judgment Emerson sometimes +applied for a criticism of his verses, also came sometimes; but the Old +Manse was nearly a mile away from Emerson's house, and also from what +might be called the "court end" of the town. Hawthorne's nearest +neighbor was a milk-farmer named George L. Prescott, afterward Colonel +of the Thirty-second Massachusetts Volunteers. He not only brought them +milk, but also occasionally a bouquet culled out of his own fine +nature, as a tribute to genius. A slightly educated man, he was +nevertheless one of Nature's gentlemen, and his death in Grant's +advance on Richmond was a universal cause of mourning at a time when so +many brave lives were lost. + +Hawthorne, as usual, was on the lookout for ghosts, and there could not +have been a more suitable abode for those airy nothings, than the Old +Manse. Mysterious sounds were heard in it repeatedly, especially in the +nighttime, when the change of temperature produces a kind of settlement +in the affairs of old woodwork. Under date of August 8 he writes in his +diary: + +"We have seen no apparitions as yet,--but we hear strange noises, +especially in the kitchen, and last night, while sitting in the parlor, +we heard a thumping and pounding as of somebody at work in my study. +Nay, if I mistake not (for I was half asleep), there was a sound as of +some person crumpling paper in his hand in our very bedchamber. This +must have been old Dr. Ripley with one of his sermons." + +Evidently he would have preferred seeing a ghost to receiving an +honorary degree from Bowdoin College, and if the shade of Doctor Ripley +had appeared to him in a dissolving light, like the Rontgen rays, +Hawthorne would certainly have welcomed him as a kindred spirit and +have expressed his pleasure at the manifestation. + +Another idiosyncrasy of his, which seems like the idiom in a language, +was his total indifference to distinguished persons, simply as such. It +was not that he considered all men on a level, for no one recognized +more clearly the profound inequalities of human nature; but he was +quite as likely to take an interest in a store clerk as in a famous +writer. It is not necessary to suppose that a man is a parasite of fame +because he goes to a President's reception, or wishes to meet a +celebrated English lecturer. It is natural that we should desire to +know how such people appear--their expression, their tone of voice, +their general behavior; but Hawthorne did not care for this. At the +time of which we write, Doctor Samuel G. Howe, the hero of Greek +independence and the mental liberator of Laura Bridgman, was a more +famous man than Emerson or Longfellow. He came to Concord with his +brilliant wife, and they called at the Old Manse, where Mrs. Hawthorne +received them very cordially, but they saw nothing of her husband, +except a dark figure gliding through the entry with his hat over his +eyes. One can only explain this by one of those fits of exceeding +bashfulness that sometimes overtake supersensitive natures. School- +girls just budding into womanhood often behave in a similar manner; and +they are no more to be censured for it than Hawthorne,--to whom it may +have caused moments of poignant self-reproach in his daily reflections. +But Doctor Howe was the man of all men whom Hawthorne ought to have +known, and half an hour's conversation might have made them friends for +life. + +George William Curtis was a remarkably brilliant young man, and gave +even better promise for the future than he afterwards fulfilled,--as +the editor of a weekly newspaper. He was at Brook Farm with Hawthorne, +and afterward followed him to Concord, but is only referred to by +Hawthorne once, and then in the briefest manner. Neither has Hawthorne +much to say of Emerson; but Thoreau and Ellery Channing evidently +attracted his attention, for he refers to them repeatedly in his diary, +and he has left the one life-like portrait of Thoreau--better than a +photograph--that now exists. He surveys them both in rather a critical +manner, and takes note that Thoreau is the more substantial and +original of the two; and he is also rather sceptical as to Channing's +poetry, which Emerson valued at a high rate; yet he narrowly missed +making a friend of Channing, with whom he afterward corresponded in a +desultory way. + +We should not have known of Hawthorne's skating at Concord, but for +Mrs. Hawthorne's "Memoirs," from which we learn that he frequently +skated on the overflowed meadows, where the Lowell railway station now +stands. She writes: "Wrapped in his cloak, he moved like a self- +impelled Greek statue, stately and grave." This is the manner in which +we should imagine Hawthorne to have skated; but all others were a foil +to her husband in the eyes of his wife. [Footnote: "Memories of +Hawthorne," 52.] He was evidently a fine skater, gliding over the ice +in long sweeping curves. Emerson was also a dignified skater, but with +a shorter stroke, and stopping occasionally to take breath, or look +about him, as he did in his lectures. Thoreau came sometimes and +performed rare glacial exploits, interesting to watch, but rather in +the line of the professional acrobat. What a transfiguration of +Hawthorne, to think of him skating alone amid the reflections of a +brilliant winter sunset! + +When winter came Emerson arranged a course of evening receptions at his +house for the intellectual people of Concord, with apples and +gingerbread for refreshments. Curtis attended these, and has told us +how Hawthorne always sat apart with an expression on his face like a +distant thunder-cloud, saying little, and not only listening to but +watching the others. Curtis noticed a certain external and internal +resemblance in him to Webster, who was at times a thunderous-looking +person--denoting, I suppose, the electric concentration in his +cranium. Emerson also watched Hawthorne, and the whole company felt his +silent presence, and missed him greatly once or twice when he failed to +come. Miss Elizabeth Hoar said: + +"The people about Emerson, Channing, Thoreau and the rest, echo his +manner so much that it is a relief to him to meet a man like Hawthorne, +on whom his own personality makes no impression." Neither did Mrs. +Emerson echo her husband. + +The greater a man is, intellectually, the more distinct his difference +from a general type and also from other men of genius. No two +personalities could be more unlike than Hawthorne and Emerson. + +It would seem to be part of the irony of Fate that they should have +lived on the same street, and, have been obliged to meet and speak with +each other. One was like sunshine, the other shadow. Emerson was +transparent, and wished to be so; he had nothing to conceal from friend +or enemy. Hawthorne was simply impenetrable. Emerson was cordial and +moderately sympathetic. Hawthorne was reserved, but his sympathies were +as profound as the human soul itself. To study human nature as +Hawthorne and Shakespeare did, and to make models of their +acquaintances for works of fiction, Emerson would have considered a +sin; while the evolution of sin and its effect on character was the +principal study of Hawthorne's life. One was an optimist, and the other +what is sometimes unjustly called a pessimist; that is, one who looks +facts in the face and sees people as they are. + +[Footnote: "Sketches from Concord and Appledore."] + +While Emerson's mind was essentially analytic, Hawthorne's was +synthetic, and, as Conway says, he did not receive the world into his +intellect, but into his heart, or soul, where it was mirrored in a +magical completeness. The notion that the artist requires merely an +observing eye is a superficial delusion. Observation is worth little +without reflection, and everything depends on the manner in which the +observer deals with his facts. Emerson looked at life in order to +penetrate it; Hawthorne, in order to comprehend it, and assimilate it +to his own nature. The one talked heroism and the other lived it. Not +but that Emerson's life was a stoical one, but Hawthorne's was still +more so, and only his wife and children knew what a heart there was in +him. + +The world will never know what these two great men thought of one +another. Hawthorne has left some fragmentary sentences concerning +Emerson, such as, "that everlasting rejecter of all that is, and seeker +for he knows not what," and "Emerson the mystic, stretching his hand +out of cloud-land in vain search for something real;" but he likes +Emerson's ingenuous way of interrogating people, "as if every man had +something to give him." However, he makes no attempt at a general +estimate; although this expression should also be remembered: +"Clergymen, whose creed had become like an iron band about their brows, +came to Emerson to obtain relief,"--a sincere recognition of his +spiritual influence. + +Several witnesses have testified that Emerson had no high opinion of +Hawthorne's writing,--that he preferred Reade's "Christie Johnstone" to +"The Scarlet Letter," but Emerson never manifested much interest in +art, simply for its own sake. Like Bismarck, whom he also resembled in +his enormous self-confidence, he cared little for anything that had not +a practical value. He read Shakespeare and Goethe, not so much for the +poetry as for the "fine thoughts" he found in them. George Bradford +stated more than once that Emerson showed little interest in the +pictorial art; and after walking through the sculpture-gallery of the +Vatican, he remarked that the statues seemed to him like toys. His +essay on Michel Angelo is little more than a catalogue of great +achievements; he recognizes the moral impressiveness of the man, but +not the value of his sublime conceptions. Music, neither he nor +Hawthorne cared for, for it belongs to emotional natures. + +In his "Society and Solitude" Emerson has drawn a picture of Hawthorne +as the lover of a hermitical life; a picture only representing that +side of his character, and developed after Emerson's fashion to an +artistic extreme. "Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he +consoled himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number +of places where he was not," and "He had a remorse running to despair, +of his social _gaucheries_, and walked miles and miles to get the +twitching out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his shoulders." + +[Footnote: "Society and Solitude," 4, 5.] + +There is a touch of arrogance in this, and it merely marks the +difference between the modest author of the "Essays," and the proud, +censorious Emerson of 1870; but his love of absolute statements +ofttimes led him into strange contradictions, and the injustice which +results from judging our fellow-mortals by an inflexible standard was +the final outcome of his optimism. Hawthorne was more charitable when +he remarked that without Byron's faults we should not have had his +virtues; but the truth lies between the two. + +There have been many instances of genius as sensitive as Hawthorne's in +various branches of art: Shelley and Southey, Schubert and Chopin, +Correggio and Corot. Southey not only blushed red but blushed blue--as +if the life were going out of him; and in Chopin and Correggio at least +we feel that they could not have been what they were without it. +Napoleon, whose nerves were like steel wires, suffered nevertheless +from a peculiar kind of physical sensitiveness. He could not take +medicines like other men,--a small dose had a terrible effect on him,-- +and it was much the same with respect to changes of food, climate, and +the like. + +What Hawthorne required was sympathetic company. Do not we all require +it? The hypercritical morality of the Emersonians, especially in +Concord, could not have been favorable to his mental ease and comfort. +How could a man in a happily married condition feel anything but +repugnance to Thoreau's idea of marriage as a necessary evil; or +Alcott's theory that eating animal food tended directly to the +commission of crime? + +On the first anniversary of Hawthorne's wedding, a tragical drama was +enacted in Concord, in which he was called upon to perform a +subordinate part. One Miss Hunt, a school-teacher and the daughter of a +Concord farmer, drowned herself in the river nearly opposite the place +where Hawthorne was accustomed to bathe. The cause of her suicide has +never been adequately explained, but as she was a transcendentalist, or +considered herself so, there were those who believed that in some +occult way that was the occasion of it. However, as one of her sisters +afterward followed her example, it would seem more likely to have come +from the development of some family trait. She was seen walking upon +the bank for a long time, before she took the final plunge; but the +catastrophe was not discovered until near evening. + +Ellery Channing came with a man named Buttrick to borrow Hawthorne's +boat for the search, and Hawthorne went with them. As it happened, they +were the ones who found the corpse, and Hawthorne's account in his +diary of its recovery is a terribly accurate description,--softened +down and poetized in the rewritten statement of "The Blithedale +Romance." There is in fact no description of a death in Homer or +Shakespeare so appalling as this literal transcript of the veritable +fact. + +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 300.] + +What concerns us here, however, are the comments he set down on the +dolorous event. Concerning her appearance, he says: + +"If she could have foreseen while she stood, at five o'clock that +morning on the bank of the river, how her maiden corpse would have +looked eighteen hours afterwards, and how coarse men would strive with +hand and foot to reduce it to a decent aspect, and all in vain,--it +would surely have saved her from the deed." + +And again: + +"I suppose one friend would have saved her; but she died for want of +sympathy--a severe penalty for having cultivated and refined herself +out of the sphere of her natural connections." + +The first remark has often been misunderstood. It is not the vanity of +women, which is after all only a reflection (or the reflective +consequence) of the admiration of man, which Hawthorne intends, but +that delicacy of feeling which Nature requires of woman for her own +protection; and he may not have been far wrong in supposing that if +Miss Hunt had foreseen the exact consequences of her fatal act she +would not have committed it. Hawthorne's remark that her death was a +consequence of having refined and cultivated herself beyond the reach +of her relatives, seems a rather hard judgment. The latter often +happens in American life, and although it commonly results in more or +less family discord, are we to condemn it for that reason? If she died +as Hawthorne imagines, from the lack of intellectual sympathy, we may +well inquire if there was no one in Concord who might have given aid +and encouragement to this young aspiring soul. + + "Take her up tenderly; + Lift her with care, + Fashioned so slenderly, + Young and so fair." + +And one is also tempted to add: + + "Alas! for the rarity + Of Christian charity." + +Hawthorne's earthly paradise only endured until the autumn of 1843. +When cool weather arrived, want and care came also. On November 26 he +wrote to George S. Hillard: + +"I wish at some leisure moment you would give yourself the trouble to +call into Munroe's book-store and inquire about the state of my 'Twice- +told Tales.' At the last accounts (now about a year since) the sales +had not been enough to pay expenses; but it may be otherwise now--else +I shall be forced to consider myself a writer for posterity; or at all +events not for the present generation. Surely the book was puffed +enough to meet with a sale." + +[Footnote: London Athenaum, August 10, 1889.] + +The interpretation of this is that Longfellow, Hillard and Bridge could +appreciate Hawthorne's art, but the solid men of Boston (with some rare +exceptions) could not. Even Webster preferred the grotesque art of +Dickens to Hawthorne's "wells of English undefiled." Recently, one of +the few surviving original copies of "Fanshawe" was sold at auction for +six hundred dollars. Such is the difference between genius and +celebrity. + +The trouble then and now is that wealthy Americans as a class feel no +genuine interest in art or literature. They do not form a true +aristocracy, but a plutocracy, and are for the most part very poorly +educated. It was formerly the brag of the Winthrops and Otises that +they could go through college and learn their lessons in the +recitation-room. Now they go to row, and play foot-ball, and after they +graduate, they leave the best portion of their lives behind them. Then +if they have a talent for business they become absorbed in commercial +affairs; or if not, they travel from one country to another, picking up +a smattering of everything, but not resting long enough in any one +place for their impressions to develop and bear good fruit. They are +not like the aristocratic classes of England, France and Germany, who +become cultivated men and women, and serve to maintain a high standard +of art and literature in those countries. + +The captain of a Cunard steamship, who owned quite a library, said in +1869: "I have bought some very interesting books in New York, +especially by a writer named Hawthorne, but the type and paper are so +poor that they are not worth binding." The reason why American +publishers do not bring out books in such good form as foreign +publishers--is that there is no demand for a first-rate article. Thus +do the fine arts languish. When rich young Americans take as much +interest in painting and sculpture as they do in foot-ball and +yachting, we shall have our Vandycks and Murillos,--if nothing better. + +Discouraged with the ill success of "Fanshawe," Hawthorne had limited +himself since then to the writing of short sketches, such as would be +acceptable to the magazine editors, and now that he had formed this +habit, he found it difficult to escape from it. He informs us in the +preface to "Mosses from an Old Manse" that he had hoped a more serious +and extended plot would come to him on the banks of Concord River, but +his imagination did not prove equal to the occasion. Most of the +stories in "Mosses" must have been composed at Concord, but "Mrs. Bull- +Frog'" and "Monsieur du Miroir" must have been written previously, for +he refers to them in a letter at Brook Farm. A few were published in +the _Democratic Review_, and others may have been elsewhere; but +the proceeds he derived from them would not have supported a day- +laborer, and toward the close of his second year at the Manse, +Hawthorne found himself running in debt for the necessaries of life. He +endured this with his usual stoical reticence, although there is +nothing like debt to sicken a man's heart,--unless he be a decidedly +light-minded man. Better fortune, however, was on its way to him in the +shape of a political revolution. + +On March 3, 1844, a daughter was born to the Hawthornes, whom they +named Una, in spite of Hillard's objection that the name was too poetic +or too fanciful for the prosaic practicalities of real life. The name +was an excellent one for a poet's daughter, and did not seem out of +place in Arcadian Concord. Miss Una grew up into a graceful, fair and +poetic young lady,--in all respects worthy of her name. She had an +uncommonly fine figure, and, as often happens with first-born children, +resembled her father much more than her mother. Her name also suggests +the early influence of Spenser in her father's style and mode of +thought. + +Soon after this fortunate event Hawthorne wrote a letter to Hillard, in +which he said: + +"I find it a very sober and serious kind of happiness that springs from +the birth of a child. It ought not come too early in a man's life--not +till he has fully enjoyed his youth--for methinks the spirit can never +be thoroughly gay and careless again, after this great event. We gain +infinitely by the exchange; but we do give up something nevertheless. +As for myself who have been a trifler preposterously long, I find it +necessary to come out of my cloud-region, and allow myself to be woven +into the sombre texture of humanity." + +It seems then that his conscience sometimes reproached him, but this +only proves that his moral nature was in a healthy normal condition. +There was a certain kind of indolence in him, a love of the _dolce +far niente_, and an inclination to general inactivity which he may +have inherited from his seafaring ancestors. Much better so, than to +suffer from the nervous restlessness, which is the rule rather than the +exception in New England life. + +In the same letter he mentions having forwarded a story to _Graham's +Magazine_, which was accepted but not yet published after many +months. He also anticipates an amelioration of his affairs from a +Democratic victory in the fall elections. + +Meanwhile, Horatio Bridge had been traversing the high seas in the +"Cyane," which was finally detailed to watch for slavers and to protect +American commerce on the African coast. He had kept a journal of his +various experiences and observations, which he sent to Hawthorne with a +rather diffident interrogation as to whether it might be worth +publishing. Hawthorne was decidedly of the opinion that it ought to be +published,--in which we cordially agree with him,--and was well pleased +to edit it for his friend; and, although it has now shared the fate of +most of the books of its class, it is excellent reading for those who +chance to find a copy of it. Bridge was a good observer, and a candid +writer. + +The election of 1844 was the most momentous that had yet taken place in +American history. It decided the annexation of Texas, and the +acquisition of California, with a coast-line on the Pacific Ocean +nearly equal to that on the Atlantic; but it also brought with it an +unjust war of greed and spoliation, and other evil consequences of +which we are only now begining to reach the end. The slaveholders and +the Democratic leaders desired Texas in order to perpetuate their +control of the government, and it was precisely through this measure +that they lost it,--as happens so often in human affairs. It was the +gold discoveries in California that upset their calculations. +California would _not_ come into the Union as a slave state. +Enraged at this failure, the Southern politicians made a desperate +attempt to recover lost ground, by seizing on the fertile prairies in +the Northwest; but there they came into conflict with the industrial +classes of the North, who fought them on their own ground and abolished +slavery. Never had public injustice been followed by so swift and +terrible a retribution. + +In regard to the candidates of 1844, it was hardly possible to compare +them. Polk possessed the ability to preside over the House of +Representatives, but he did not rise above this; while Clay could be +fairly compared on some points with Washington himself, and united with +this a persuasive eloquence second only to Webster's. He was +practically defeated by fifteen or twenty thousand abolitionists who +preferred to throw away their votes rather than to cast them for a +slave-holder. + +Hawthorne, in the quiet seclusion of his country home, did not realize +this danger to the Republic. He only knew that his friends were +victorious, and was happy in the expectation of escaping from his +debts, and of providing more favorably for his little family. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"MOSSES PROM AN OLD MANSE": 1845 + + +There is no evidence in the Hawthorne documents or publications to show +exactly when the first edition of "Mosses from an Old Manse" made its +appearance, and copies of it are now exceedingly rare, but we find the +Hawthorne family in Salem reading the book in the autumn of 1845, so +that it was probably brought out at that time and helped to maintain +its author during his last days at Concord. + +There must have been some magical influence in the Old Manse or in its +surrounding scenery, to have stimulated both Emerson's and Hawthorne's +love of Nature to such a degree. Emerson's eye dilates as he looks upon +the sunshine gilding the trunks of the balm of Gilead trees on his +avenue; and Hawthorne dwells with equal delight on the luxuriant squash +vines which spread over his vegetable garden. Discoursing on this he +says: + +"Speaking of summer squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and +varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, +shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, molded in patterns which a +sculptor would do well to copy, since art has never invented anything +more graceful." + +And again: + +"A cabbage, too--especially the early Dutch cabbage, which swells to a +monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart often bursts +asunder--is a matter to be proud of when we can claim a share with the +earth and sky in producing it." + +It would seem as if no one before Hawthorne had rightly observed these +common vegetables, whose external appearance is always before our eyes. +He not only humanizes whatever attracts his attention, but he looks +through a refining medium of his own personality. He has the gift of +Midas to bring back the Golden Age for us. Who besides Homer has been +able to describe a chariot-race, and who but Hawthorne could extract +such poetry from a farmer's garden? + +If we compare this introductory chapter with such earlier sketches as +"The Vision at the Fountain" and "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," we +recognize the progress that Hawthorne has made since the first volume +of "Twice Told Tales." We are no longer reminded of the plain unpainted +house on Lake Sebago. His style is not only more graceful, but has +acquired greater fulness of expression, and he is evidently working in +a deeper and richer vein of thought. Purity of expression is still his +polar star, and his writing is nowhere overloaded, but it has a warmer +tone, a deeper perspective, and an atmospheric quality which painters +call _chi-aroscuro_. He charms with pleasing fancies, while he +penetrates to the soul. + +Hawthorne rarely repeats himself in details, and never in designs. Two +of Dickens's most interesting novels, "Oliver Twist" and "David +Copperfield," are constructed on the same theme, but each of the +studies in this collection has a distinct individuality which appeals +to the reader after a fashion of its own. Each has its moral, or rather +central, idea to which all its component parts are related, and teaches +a lesson of its own, so unobtrusively that we become possessed of it +almost unawares. Some are intensely, even tragically, serious; others +so light and airy that they seem as if woven out of gossamer. + +There are a few, however, that do not harmonize with the general tone +and character of the rest,--especially "Mrs. Bull-Frog," which +Hawthorne himself confessed to having been an experiment, and which +strangely enough is much more in the style of his son Julian. "Monsieur +du Miroir" and "Sketches from Memory" are relics of his earlier +writings; perhaps also "Feather-Top" and "The Procession of Life." It +would have been better perhaps if "Young Goodman Brown" had been used +to light a fire at the Old Manse. + +"Monsieur du Miroir" is chiefly interesting as an example of +Hawthorne's faculty for elaborating the most simple subject until every +possible phase of it has been exhausted. It may also throw some light +scientifically on the origin of consciousness. We see ourselves +reflected not only in the mirror, but on the blade of a knife, or a +puddle in the road; and, if we look sharply enough, in the eyes of +other men--even in the expression of their faces. In such manner does +Nature force upon us a recognition of our various personalities--the +nucleus of self-knowledge, and self-respect. + +Whittier once spoke of "Young Goodman Brown" as indicating a mental +peculiarity in Hawthorne, which like the cuttle-fish rarely rises to +the surface. The plot is cynical, and largely enigmatical. The very +name of it (in the way Hawthorne develops the story) is a fearful +satire on human nature. He may have intended this for an exposure of +the inconsistency, and consequent hypocrisy, of Puritanism; but the +name of Goodman Brown's wife is Faith, and this suggests that Brown may +have been himself intended for an incarnation of _doubt_, or +_disbelief_ carried to a logical extreme. Whatever may have been +Hawthorne's design, the effect is decidedly unpleasant. + +Emerson talked in proverbs, and Hawthorne in parables. The finest +sketches in this collection are parables. "The Birth Mark," +"Rappacini's Daughter," "A Select Party," "Egotism," and "The Artist of +the Beautiful." "The Celestial Railroad" is an allegory, a variation on +"Pilgrim's Progress." + +"The Birth Mark" and "Rappacini's Daughter" are like divergent lines, +which originate at an single point; and that point is the radical +viciousness of trying experiments on human beings. It is bad enough, +although excusable, to vivisect dogs and rabbits; but why should we +attempt the same course of procedure with those that are nearest and +dearest to us? Such parables were not required in the time of Tiberius +Casar and men and women grew up in a natural, vigorous manner; but now +we have become so scientific that we continually attempt to improve on +Nature,--like the artist who left the rainbow out of his picture of +Niagara because its colors did not harmonize with the background. + +The line of divergence in "The Birth Mark" is indicated by its name. We +all have our birth-marks,--traits of character, which may be +temporarily suppressed, or relegated to the background, but which +cannot be eradicated and are certain to reappear at unguarded moments, +or on exceptional occasions. Education and culture can do much to +soften and temper the disposition, but the original material remains +the same. The father who attempts to force his son into a mode of life +for which Nature did not intend him, or the mother who quarrels with +her daughter's friends, commits an error similar to that of Hawthorne's +alchemist, who endeavors to remove the birthmark from the otherwise +beautiful face of his wife, but only succeeds in effecting this +together with her death. The tragical termination of the alchemist's +experiments, the pathetic yielding up of life by his sweet "Clytie," is +described with an impressive tenderness. She sinks to her last sleep +without a murmur of reproach. + +"Rappacini's Daughter" might serve as a protest against bringing up +children in an exceptional and abnormal manner. I once knew an +excellent lady, who, with the best possible intentions, brought up her +daughter to be different from all other girls. As a consequence, she +_was_ different,--could not assimilate herself to others. She had +no admirers, or young friends of her own sex, for there were few points +of contact between herself and general society. Her mother was her only +friend. She aged rapidly and died early. Similarly, a boy brought up in +a secluded condition of purity and ignorance, finally developed into +one of the most vicious of men. + +Hawthorne has prefigured this by a bright colored flower which sparkles +like a gem, very attractive at a distance, but exhaling a deadly +perfume. He may not have been aware that the opium poppy has so +brilliant a flower that it can be seen at a distance from which all +other flowers are invisible. The scene of his story is placed in +Italy,--the land of beauty, but also the country of poisoners. +Rappacini, an old botanist and necromancer, has trained up his daughter +in the solitary companionship of this flower, from which she has +acquired its peculiar properties. A handsome young student is induced +to enter the garden, partly from curiosity and partly through the +legerdemain of Rappacini. The student soon falls under the daughter's +influence and finds himself being gradually poisoned. A watchful +apothecary, who has penetrated the necromancer's secret, provides the +young man with an antidote which saves him, but deprives the maiden of +life. She crosses the barrier which separated her from a healthy +existence, and the poison reacts upon her system and kills her. The old +apothecary looks out from his window, and cries, "O Rappacini! Is this +the consummation of your experiment?" + +The underlying agreement between this story and "The Birth Mark" +becomes apparent when we observe that the termination of one is simply +a variation upon the last scene of the other. In one instance a +beautiful daughter is sacrificed by her father, and in the other a +lovely wife is victimized by her husband. There have been thousands, if +not millions, of such cases. + +There is no other writer but Shakespeare who has portrayed the absolute +devotion of a woman's love with such delicacy of feeling and depth of +sympathy as Hawthorne. In the two stories we have just considered, and +also in "The Bosom Serpent," this element serves, like the refrain of a +Greek chorus, to give a sweet, penetrating undertone which reconciles +us to much that would otherwise seem intolerable. The heroines in these +pieces have such a close spiritual relationship that one suspects them +of having been studied from the same model, and who could this have +been so likely as Hawthorne's own wife. [Footnote: Notice also the +similar character of Sophia in J. Hawthorne's "Bressant."] + +The theme of "The Bosom Serpent" is a husband's jealousy; and it is the +self-forgetful devotion of his wife that finally cures his malady and +relieves him of his unpleasant companion. The tale ends with one of +those mystifying passages which Hawthorne weaves so skilfully, so that +it is difficult to determine from the text whether there was a real +serpent secreted under the man's clothing, or only an imaginary one,-- +although we presume the latter. Francis of Verulam says, "the best +fortune for a husband is for his wife to consider him wise, which she +will never do if she find him jealous"; and with good reason, for if he +is unreasonably jealous, it shows a lack of confidence in her; but +mutal confidence is the well-spring from which love flows, and if the +well dries up, there is an end of it. + +"The Select Party" is quite a relief, after this tragical trilogy. It +is easy to believe that Hawthorne imagined this dream of a summer +evening, while watching the great cumulus clouds, tinted with rose and +lavender like aerial snow-mountains, floating toward the horizon. Here +were true castles in the air, which he could people with shapes +according to his fancy; but he chose the most common abstract +conceptions, such as, the Clerk of the Weather, the Beau Ideal, Mr. So- +they-say, the Coming Man, and other ubiquitous personages, whom we +continually hear of, but never see. The Man of Fancy invites these and +many others to a banquet in his cloud-castle, where they all converse +and behave according to their special characters. A ripple of delicate +humor, like the ripple made by a light summer breeze upon the calm +surface of a lake, runs through the piece from the first sentence to +the last; and the scene is brought to a close by the approach of a +thunder-storm, which spreads consternation among these unsubstantial +guests, much like that which takes place at a picnic under similar +circumstances; and Hawthorne, with his customary mystification, leaves +us in doubt as to whether they ever reached _terra firma_ again. + +There is one proverbial character, however, whom Hawthorne has omitted +from this account; namely, Mr. Everybody. "What Everybody says, must be +true;" but unfortunately Everybody's information is none of the best, +and his judgment does not rise above his information. His self- +confidence, however, is enormous. He understands law better than the +lawyer, and medicine better than the physicians. He is never tired of +settling the affairs of the country, and of proposing constitutional +amendments. Is it not perfectly natural that Everybody should +understand Everybody's business as well as or better than his own? He +is continually predicting future events, and if they fail to take place +he predicts them again. He is omnipresent, but if you seek him he is +nowhere to be found,--which we may presume to be the reason why he did +not appear at the entertainment given by the Man of Fancy. + +That which gives the elevated character to Raphael's faces--as in the +"Sistine Madonna" and other paintings--is not their drawing, though +that is always refined, but the expression of the eyes, which are truly +the windows of the soul. It was the same in Hawthorne's face, and may +be observed in all good portraits of him. An immutable calmness +overspread his features, but in and about his eyes there was a spring- +like mirthfulness; while down in the shadowy depth of those luminous +orbs was concealed the pathos that formed the undercurrent of his life. +So it is that high comedy, as Plato long ago observed, lies very close +to tragedy. + +A well-known French writer compares English humor, in a general way, to +beer-drinking, and this is more particularly applicable to Dickens's +characters. The very name of Mark Tapley suggests ale bottles. +Thackeray's humor is of a more refined quality, but a trifle sharp and +satirical. It is, however, pure and healthful and might be compared to +Rhine-wine. Hawthorne's humor at its best is more refined than +Thackeray's, as well as of a more amiable quality, and reminds one (on +Taine's principle) of those delicate Italian wines which have very +little body, but a delightful bouquet. As a humorist, however, +Hawthorne varies in different times and places more than in any other +respect. He adapts himself to his subject; is light and playful in "The +Select Party"; takes on a more serious vein in "The Celestial +Railroad"; in his resuscitation of Byron, in the letter from a lunatic +called "P's Correspondence" he is simply sardonic; and "The Virtuoso's +Collection" has all the effect, although he does not anywhere descend +to low comedy, of a roaring farce. In "Mrs. Bull-Frog," as the title +intimates, he approaches closely to the grotesque. + +In "The Virtuoso's Collection" we have the humor of impossibility. +Nothing is more common than this, but Hawthorne gives it a peculiar +value of his own. A procession of mythological objects, strange +historical relics, and the odd creations of fiction passes before our +eyes. The abruptness of their juxtaposition excites continuous laughter +in us. It would be an extremely phlegmatic person who could read it +with a serious face. Don Quixote's Rosinante, Doctor Johnson's cat, +Shelley's skylark, a live phonix, Prospero's magic wand, the hard- +ridden Pegasus, the dove which brought the olive branch, and many +others appear in such rapid succession that the reader has no time to +take breath, or to consider what will turn up next. Like an +accomplished showman, Hawthorne enlivens the performance here and there +with original reflections on life, which are perfectly dignified, but +become humorous from contrast with their surroundings. In spite of its +comical effect, the piece has a very genteel air, for its material is +taken from that general stock of information that passes current in +cultivated families. The young man of fashion who had never heard of +Elijah, or of Poe's "Raven," would not have understood it. + +In "The Hall of Fantasy," we catch some glimpses of Hawthorne's +favorite authors: + +"The grand old countenance of Homer, the shrunken and decrepit form, +but vivid face, of Asop, the dark presence of Dante, the wild Ariosto, +Rabelais's smile of deep-wrought mirth, the profound, pathetic humor of +Cervantes, the all glorious Shakespeare, Spenser, meet guest for an +allegoric structure, the severe divinity of Milton and Bunyan, molded +of the homeliest clay, but instinct with celestial fire--were those +that chiefly attracted my eye. Fielding, Richardson, and Scott occupied +conspicuous pedestals." + +He also adds Goethe and Swedenborg, and remarks of them: + +"Were ever two men of transcendent imagination more unlike?" + +It is evident that Byron was not a favorite with Hawthorne. In addition +to his severe treatment of that poet, in "P's Correspondence," he says +in "Earth's Holocaust," where he imagines the works of various authors +to be consumed in a bonfire: + +"Speaking of the properties of flame, me-thought Shelley's poetry +emitted a purer light than almost any other productions of his day, +contrasting beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of +black vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron." + +This seems like rather puritanical treatment. If there are false lines +in Byron, there are quite as many weak lines in Shelley. If sincerity +were to give out a pure flame, Byron would stand that test equal to +any. His real fault is to be found in his somewhat glaring diction, +like the _voix blanc_ in singing, and in an occasional stroke of +_persiflage_. This increases his attractiveness to youthful minds, +but to a nature like Hawthorne's anything of an exhibitory character +must always be unpleasant. + +Emerson and Hawthorne only knew Goethe through the translations of +Dwight, Carlyle and Margaret Fuller, and yet his poetry made a deeper +impression on them than on Lowell and Longfellow, who read it in the +original. Hawthorne appears to have taken lessons in German while at +Brook Farm, for we find him studying a German book at the Old Manse, +with a grammar and lexicon; but, as he confesses in his diary, without +making satisfactory progress. + +"The Artist of the Beautiful" is a Dantean allegory, and a poetic gem. +A young watchmaker, imbued with a spirit above his calling, neglects +the profits of his business in order to construct an artificial +butterfly,--at once the type of useless beauty and the symbol of +immortality, and he perseveres in spite of the difficulties of the +undertaking and the contemptuous opposition of his acquaintances. He +finally succeeds in making one which seems to be almost endowed with +life, but only to be informed that it is no better than a toy, and that +he has wasted his time on a thing which has no practical value. A child +(who represents the thoughtlessness of the great world) crushes the +exquisite piece of workmanship in his little hand; but the watch-maker +does not repine at this, for he realizes that after having achieved the +beautiful, in his own spirit, the outward symbol of it has +comparatively little value. The Artist of the Beautiful is Hawthorne +himself; and in this exquisite fable he has not only unfolded the +secret of all high art, but his own life-secret as well. + + +HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM + +The French and English scepticism of the eighteenth century, produced a +reaction in the more contemplative German nature, which took the form +of a strong assertion of spirit or mind as an entity in itself, and +distinct from matter. This movement was more like a national impulse +than the proselytism of a sect, but the individual in whom this +spiritual impulse of the German people manifested itself at that time +was Immanuel Kant. Without discrediting the revelations of Hebrew +tradition, he taught the doctrine that instead of looking for evidence +of a Supreme Being in the external world, we should seek him in our own +hearts; that every man could find a revelation in his own conscience,-- +in the consciousness of good and evil, by which man improves his +condition on earth; that the ideas of a Supreme Being, or of +immortality and freedom of will, are inherent in the human mind, and +are not to be acquired from experience; but that, as the finite mind +cannot comprehend the infinite, we cannot know God in the same sense +that we know our own earthly fathers, or as Goethe afterwards expressed +it,--- + + "Who can say I know Him; + Who can say, I know Him not;" + +and that it is in this aspiration for the unattainable, in this +reverence for absolute purity, wisdom and love, that the spirit of true +religion consists. + +The new philosophy was named "Transcendentalism" by Kant's followers, +because it included ideas which were beyond the range of experience. It +became popular in Germany, as Platonism, to which it is closely +related, became popular in ancient Greece. It has never been accepted +in France, where scepticism still predominates, though we hear of it in +Taine and a few other writers; but in Great Britain, although the +English universities repudiated it, Transcendentalism became so +influential that Gladstone has spoken of it, in his Romanes lecture, as +the dominant philosophy of the nineteenth century. Every notable +English writer of that period, with the exception of Macaulay, Mill, +and Spencer, became largely imbued with it. In America its influence +did not extend much beyond New England, but in that section at least +its proselytes were numbered by thousands, and it effected an +intellectual revolution which has since influenced the whole country. + +The Concord group of transcendentalists did not accept the teaching of +Kant in its original purity; but mixed with it a number of other +imported products, that in no way appertain to it. Thoreau was an +American _sansculotte_, a believer in the natural man; Ripley was +mainly a socialist; Margaret Fuller was one of the earliest leaders in +woman's rights; Alcott was a Neo-Platonist, a vegetarian, and a non- +resistant; while Emerson sympathized largely with Thoreau, and from his +poetic exaltation of Nature was looked upon as a pantheist by those who +were not accustomed to nice discriminations. Thus it happened that +Transcendentalism came to be associated in the public mind with any +exceptional mode or theory of life. Its best representatives in +America, like Professor Hedge of Harvard, Reverend David A. Wasson and +Doctor William T. Harris (so long Chief of the National Bureau of +Education), were much abler men than Emerson's followers, but did not +attract so much attention, simply because they lived according to the +customs of good society. + +Sleepy Hollow, before it was converted into a cemetery, was one of the +most attractive sylvan resorts in the environs of Concord. It was a +sort of natural amphitheatre, a small oval plane, more than half +surrounded by a low wooded ridge; a sheltered and sequestered spot, +cool in summer, but also warm and sunny in spring, where the wild +flowers bloomed and the birds sang earlier than in other places. + +There, on August 22, 1842, a notable meeting took place, between +Hawthorne, Emerson, and Margaret Fuller, who came that afternoon to +enjoy the inspiration of the place, without preconcerted agreement. +Margaret Fuller was first on the ground, and Hawthorne found her seated +on the hill-side--his gravestone now overlooks the spot--reading a book +with a peculiar name, which he "did not understand, and could not +afterward recollect." Such a description could only apply to Kant's +"Critique of Pure Reason," the original fountain-head and gospel of +Transcendentalism. + +It does not appear that Nathaniel Hawthorne ever studied "The Critique +of Pure Reason." His mind was wholly of the artistic order,--the most +perfect type of an artist, one might say, living at that time,--and a +scientific analysis of the mental faculties would have been as +distasteful to him as the dissection of a human body. History, +biography, fiction, did not appear to him as a logical chain of cause +and effect, but as a succession of pictures illustrating an ideal +determination of the human race. He could not even look at a group of +turkeys without seeing a dramatic situation in them. In addition to +this, as a true artist, he was possessed of a strong dislike for +everything eccentric and abnormal; he wished for symmetry in all +things, and above all in human actions; and those restless, unbalanced +spirits, who attached themselves to the transcendental movement and the +anti-slavery cause, were particularly objectionable to him. It has been +rightly affirmed that no revolutionary movement could be carried +through without the support of that ill-regulated class of persons who +are always seeking they know not what, and they have their value in the +community, like the rest of us; but Hawthorne was not a revolutionary +character, and to his mind they appeared like so many obstacles to the +peaceable enjoyment of life. His motto was, "Live and let live." There +are passages in his Concord diary in which he refers to the itinerant +transcendentalist in no very sympathetic manner. + +His experience at Brook Farm may have helped to deepen this feeling. +There is no necessary connection between such an idyllic-socialistic +experiment and a belief in the direct perception of a great First +Clause; but Brook Farm was popularly supposed at that time to be an +emanation of Transcendentalism, and is still largely so considered. He +was wearied at Brook Farm by the philosophical discussions of George +Ripley and his friends, and took to walking in the country lanes, where +he could contemplate and philosophize in his own fashion,--which after +all proved to be more fruitful than theirs. Having exchanged his +interest in the West Roxbury Association for the Old Manse at Concord +(truly a poetic bargain), he wrote the most keenly humorous of his +shorter sketches, his "The Celestial Railroad," and in it represented +the dismal cavern where Bunyan located the two great enemies of true +religion, the Pope and the Pagan, as now occupied by a German giant, +the Transcendentalist, who "makes it his business to seize upon honest +travellers and fat them for his table with plentiful meals of smoke, +mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and sawdust." + +That Transcendentalism was largely associated in Hawthorne's mind with +the unnecessary discomforts and hardships of his West Roxbury life is +evident from a remark which he lets fall in "The Virtuoso's +Collection." The Virtuoso calls his attention to the seven-league boots +of childhood mythology, and Hawthorne replies, "I could show you quite +as curious a pair of cowhide boots at the transcendental community of +Brook Farm." Yet there could have been no malice in his satire, for +Mrs. Hawthorne's two sisters, Mrs. Mann and Miss Peabody, were both +transcendentalists; and so was Horace Mann himself, so far as we know +definitely in regard to his metaphysical creed. Do not we all feel at +times that the search for abstract truth is like a diet of sawdust or +Scotch mist,--a "chimera buzzing in a vacuum"? + +James Russell Lowell similarly attacked Emerson in his Class Day poem, +and afterward became converted to Emerson's views through the influence +of Maria White. It is possible that a similar change took place in +Hawthorne's consciousness; although his consciousness was so profound +and his nature so reticent that what happened in the depths of it was +never indicated by more than a few bubbles at the surface. He was +emphatically an idealist, as every truly great artist must be, and +Transcendentalism was the local costume which ideality wore in +Hawthorne's time. He was a philosopher after a way of his own, and his +reflections on life and manners often have the highest value. It was +inevitable that he should feel and assimilate something from the wave +of German thought which was sweeping over England and America, and if +he did this unconsciously it was so much the better for the quality of +his art. + +There are evidences of this even among his earliest sketches. In his +account of "Sunday at Home" he says: "Time--where a man lives not--what +is it but Eternity?" Does he not recognize in this condensed statement +Kant's theorem that time is a mental condition, which only exists in +man, and for man, and has no place in the external world? In fact, it +only exists by divisions of time, and it is _man_ who makes the +divisions. The rising of the sun does not constitute time; for the sun +is always rising--somewhere. The positivists and Herbert Spencer deny +this, and argue to prove that time is an external entity--independent +of man--like electricity; but Hawthorne did not agree with them. He +evidently trusted the validity of his consciousness. In that exquisite +pastoral, "The Vision at the Fountain," he says: + +"We were aware of each other's presence, not by sight or sound or +touch, but by an inward consciousness. Would it not be so among the +dead?" + +You have probably heard of the German who attempted to evolve a camel +out of his inner consciousness. That and similar jibes are common among +those persons of whom the Scriptures tell us that they are in the habit +of straining at gnats; but Hawthorne believed consciousness to be a +trustworthy guide. Why should he not? It was the consciousness of +_self_ that raised man above the level of the brute. This was the +rock from which Moses struck forth the fountain of everlasting life. + +Again, in "Fancy's Show-Box" we meet with the following: + +"Or, while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly +tribunal, will guilty thoughts,--of which guilty deeds are no more than +shadows,--will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence +in the supreme court of eternity?" + +Is this not an induction from or corollary to the preceding? If it is +not Kantian philosophy, it is certainly Goethean. Margaret Fuller was +the first American critic, if not the first of all critics, to point +out that Goethe in writing "Elective Affinities" designed to show that +an evil thought may have consequences as serious and irremediable as an +evil action--in addition to the well-known homily that evil thoughts +lead to evil actions. In his "Hall of Fantasy" Hawthorne mentions +Goethe and Swedenborg as two literary idols of the present time who may +be expected to endure through all time. Emerson makes the same +prediction in one of his poems. + +In "Rappacini's Daughter" Hawthorne says: "There is something truer and +more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch with the +finger." + +And in "The Select Party" he remarks: "To such beholders it was unreal +because they lacked the imaginative faith. Had they been worthy to pass +within its portals, they would have recognized the truth that the +dominions which the spirit conquers for itself among unrealities become +a thousand times more real than the earth whereon they stamp their +feet, saying, 'This is solid and substantial! This may be called a +fact!'" + +The essence of Transcendentalism is the assertion of the +indestructibility of spirit, that mind is more real than matter, and +the unseen than the seen. "The visible has value only," says Carlyle, +"when it is based on the invisible." No writer of the nineteenth +century affirms this more persistently than Hawthorne, and in none of +his romances is the principle so conspicuous as in "The House of the +Seven Gables." It is a sister's love which, like a cord stronger than +steel, binds together the various incidents of the story, while the +avaricious Judge Pyncheon, "with his landed estate, public honors, +offices of trust and other solid _un_realities," has after all +only succeeded in building a card castle for himself, which may be +dissipated by a single breath. Holgrave, the daguerreotypist, who +serves as a contrast to the factitious judge, is a genuine character, +and may stand for a type of the young New England liberal of 1850: a +freethinker, and so much of a transcendentalist that we suspect +Hawthorne's model for him to have been one of the younger associates of +the Brook Farm experiment. He is evidently studied from life, and +Hawthorne says of him: + +"Altogether, in his culture and want of culture, in his crude, wild, +and misty philosophy, and the practical experience that counteracted +some of its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for man's welfare, and +his recklessness of whatever the ages had established in man's behalf; +in his faith, and in his infidelity; in what he had, and in what he +lacked, the artist might fitly enough stand forth as the representative +of many compeers in his native land." + +This is a fairly sympathetic portrait, and it largely represents the +class of young men who went to hear Emerson and supported Charles +Sumner. In the story, Holgrave achieves the reward of a veracious +nature by winning the heart of the purest and loveliest young woman in +American fiction. + +If Hawthorne were still living he might object to the foregoing +argument as a misrepresentation; nor could he be blamed for this, for +Ripley, Thoreau, Alcott and other like visionary spirits have so +vitiated the significance of Transcendentalism that it ought now to be +classed among words of doubtful and uncertain meaning. + +Students of German philosophy are now chiefly known as Kantists or +Hegelians, and outside of the universities they are commonly classed as +Emersonians. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +FROM CONCORD TO LENOX: 1845-1849 + + +In May, 1845, Paymaster Bridge found himself again on the American +coast. Meeting with Franklin Pierce in Boston, they agreed to go to +Concord together, and look into Hawthorne's affairs. Soon after +breakfast, Mrs. Hawthorne espied them coming through the gateway. She +had never met Pierce, but she recognized Bridge's tall, elegant figure, +when he waved his hat to her in the distance. Hawthorne himself was +sawing and splitting in the wood-shed, and thither she directed his +friends--to his no slight astonishment when they appeared before him. +Pierce had his arm across Hawthorne's broad shoulders when they +reappeared. There is one pleasure, indeed, which young people cannot +know, and that is, the meeting of old friends. Mrs. Hawthorne was +favorably impressed with Franklin Pierce's personality; while Horatio +Bridge danced about and acted an impromptu pantomime, making up faces +like an owl. They assured Hawthorne that something should be done to +relieve his financial embarrassment.[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, 281.] + +All those whose attention Hawthorne attracted out of the rush and hurry +of the world were sure to become interested in his welfare. O'Sullivan, +the editor of the _Democratic Review_, had already exerted himself +in Hawthorne's behalf; but President Polk evidently did not know who +Hawthorne was, so that O'Sullivan was obliged to have a puff inserted +in his review for the President's better information. George Bancroft +was now in the Cabinet, and could easily have obtained a lucrative post +for Hawthorne, but it is plain that Bancroft was not over-friendly to +him and that Hawthorne was fully aware of this. Hawthorne had suggested +the Salem postmastership, but when O'Sullivan mentioned this, Bancroft +objected on the ground that the present incumbent was too good a man to +be displaced, and proposed the consulates of Genoa and Marseilles, two +deplorable positions and quite out of the question for Hawthorne, in +the condition of his family at that time. Perhaps it would have been +better for him in a material sense, if he had accepted the invitation +to dine with Margaret Fuller. + +The summer wore away, but nothing was acomplished; and late in the +autumn Hawthorne left the Old Manse to return to his Uncle Robert +Manning's house in Salem, where he could always count on a warm +welcome. There he spent the winter with his wife and child, until +suddenly, in March, 1846, he was appointed Surveyor of the Port, or, as +it is now more properly called, Collector of Customs. + +This was, in truth, worth waiting for. The salary was not large, but it +was a dignified position and allowed Hawthorne sufficient leisure for +other pursuits,--the leisure of the merchant or banker. Salem had +already begun to lose its foreign trade, and for days together it +sometimes happened that there was nothing to do. Hawthorne's chief +business was to prevent the government from being cheated, either by +the importers or by his own subordinates; and it required a pretty +sharp eye to do this. All the appointments, even to his own clerks, +were made by outside politicians, and when a reduction of employees was +necessary, Hawthorne consulted with the local Democratic Committee, and +followed their advice. Such a method was not to the advantage of the +public service, but it saved Hawthorne from an annoying responsibility. +His strictness and impartiality, however, soon brought him into +conflict with his more self-important subordinates, who were by no +means accustomed to exactness in their dealings, and this finally +produced a good deal of official unpleasantness; and the unfavorable +reports which were afterward circulated concerning Hawthorne's life +during this period, probably originated in that quarter. + +[Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE, SALEM, MASS., WHERE HAWTHORNE WAS +EMPLOYED AS SURVEYOR OF THE FORT OF SALEM, AT THE TIME OF HIS WRITING +"THE SCARLET LETTER"] + +All the poetry that Hawthorne could extract from his occupation at the +Custom House is to be found in his preface to "The Scarlet Letter," but +he withholds from us the prosaic side of it,--as he well might. At +times he comes close to caricature, especially in his descriptions of +"those venerable incumbents who hibernated during the winter season, +and then crawled out during the warm days of spring to draw their pay +and perform those pretended duties, for which they were engaged." There +were formerly large numbers of moss-grown loafers in the government +service, with whiskey-reddened noses and greasy old clothing, who would +sun themselves on the door-steps, and tell anecdotes of General +Jackson, Senator Benton, and other popular heroes, with whom they would +intimate a good acquaintance at some remote period of their lives. If +removed from office, they were quite as likely to turn up in a +neighboring jail as in any other location. This is no satire, but +serious truth; and instances of it can be given. + +Hawthorne's life during the next three years was essentially domestic. +In June, 1846, his son Julian was born--a remarkably vigorous baby--at +Doctor Peabody's house in West Street, Boston; Mrs. Hawthorne wisely +preferring to be with her own mother during her confinement. [Footnote: +At the age of thirty-five, Julian resembled his father so closely that +Nathaniel Hawthorne's old friends were sometimes startled by him, as if +they had seen an apparition. He was, however, of a stouter build, and +his eyes were different.] With two small children on her hands, Mrs. +Hawthorne had slight opportunity to enjoy general society, fashionable +or otherwise. Rebecca Manning says, however: + +"Neither Hawthorne nor his wife could be said to be 'in society' in the +technical sense. When the Peabody family lived in Salem, they were, I +have been told, somewhat straitened pecuniarily. After Hawthorne's +marriage, I think I remember hearing of his wife going to parties and +dinners occasionally. Dr. Loring's wife was her cousin. Other friends +were the Misses Howes, one of whom is now Mrs. Cabot of Boston. Mrs. +Foote, who was a daughter of Judge White, was a friend, and I remember +some Silsbees who were also her friends. Hawthorne's wife knew how to +cultivate her friends and make the most of them far better than either +Hawthorne or his sisters did. I have been told that when Hawthorne was +a young man, before his marriage, if he had chosen to enter Salem's +'first circle' he would have been welcome there." + +During this last sojourn in his native city Hawthorne was chosen on the +committee for the lyceum lecture course, and proved instrumental in +bringing Webster to Salem,--where he had not been popular since the +trial of the two Knapps,--to deliver an oration on the Constitution; of +which Mrs. Hawthorne has given a graphic description in a letter to her +mother on November 19, 1848: + +"The old Lion walked the stage with a sort of repressed rage, when he +referred to those persons who cried out, 'Down with the Constitution!' +'Madmen! Or most wicked if not mad!' said he with a glare of fire." + +A pure piece of acting. The national Constitution was not even +endangered by the Southern rebellion,--much less by the small band of +original abolitionists; and Webster was too sensible not to be aware of +this. + +While Hawthorne was at the Salem Custom House, he made at least two +valuable friends: Doctor George B. Loring, who had married a cousin of +Mrs. Hawthorne, and William B. Pike, who occupied a subordinate +position in the Custom House, but whom Hawthorne valued for moral and +intellectual qualities of which he would seem to have been the first +discoverer. They were not friends who would be likely to affect +Hawthorne's political views, except to encourage him in the direction +to which he had always tended. Four years earlier, Doctor Loring had +been on cordial terms with Longfellow and Sumner, being a refined and +intellectual sort of man, but like Hillard, had withdrawn from them on +account of political differences. He was an able public speaker, and +became a Democratic politician, until 1862, when he went over to the +Republicans; but after that he was looked upon with a good deal of +suspicion by both parties. The governorship was supposed to have been +the object of his ambition, but he never could obtain the nomination. +Late in life he was appointed Commissioner of Agriculture, a post for +which he was eminently fitted, and finally went to Portugal as United +States Minister. + +William B. Pike either lacked the opportunity or the necessary +concentration to develop his genius in the larger world, but Hawthorne +continued to communicate with him irregularly until the close of his +life. He invited him to Lenox when he resided there, and Mrs. Lathrop +recollects seeing him at the Wayside in Concord, after Hawthorne's +return from Europe. She discribes him as a "short, sturdy, phlegmatic +and plebeian looking man," but with a gentle step and a finely +modulated voice. It may have been as well for him that he never became +distinguished. [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, "Memories of Hawthorne," 154.] + +The war with Mexico was now fairly afield, and Franklin Pierce, who +left the United States Senate on account of his wife's health, was +organizing a regiment of New Hampshire volunteers, as a "patriotic +duty." Salem people thought differently, and party feeling there soon +rose to the boiling-point. There is no other community where political +excitement is so likely to become virulent as in a small city. In a +country town, like Concord, every man feels the necessity for +conciliating his neighbor, but the moneyed class in Salem was +sufficient for its own purposes, and was opposed to the war in a solid +body. The Whigs looked upon the invasion of Mexico as a piratical +attempt of the Democratic leaders to secure the permanent ascendency of +their party, and this was probably the true reason for Franklin +Pierce's joining it. In their eyes, Hawthorne was the representative of +a corrupt administration, and they would have been more than human if +they had not wished him to feel this. The Salem gentry could not draw +him into an argument very well, but they could look daggers at him on +the street and exhibit their coldness toward him when they went on +business to the Custom House. It is evident that he was made to suffer +in some such manner, and to a tenderhearted man with a clear +conscience, it must have seemed unkind and unjust. [Footnote: When the +engagement between the "Chesapeake" and the "Shannon" took place off +Salem harbor in August, 1813, and Captain Lawrence was killed in the +action, the anti-war sentiment ran so high that it was difficult to +find a respectable mansion where his funeral would be permitted.] In +his Custom House preface, Hawthorne compares the Whigs rather +unfavorably with the Democrats, and this is not to be wondered at; but +he should have remembered that it was his own party which first +introduced the spoils-of-office system. + +The first use that Hawthorne made of his government salary was to +cancel his obligations to the Concord tradespeople, and the next was to +provide a home for his wife and mother. They first moved to 18 Chestnut +Street, in June, 1846; and thence to a larger house, 14 Mall Street, in +September, 1847, in which "The Snow Image" was prepared for +publication, and "The Scarlet Letter" was written. Hawthorne's study or +workshop was the front room in the third story, an apartment of some +width but with a ceiling in direct contradiction to the elevated +thoughts of the writer. There is an ominous silence in the American +Note-book between 1846 and 1850, which is rather increased than +diminished by the publication from his diary of a number of extracts +concerning the children. The babies of geniuses do not differ +essentially from those of other people, and it is not supposable that +Hawthorne's reflections during this period were wholly confined to his +own family. It is to be hoped that fuller information will yet be given +to the public concerning their affairs in Salem; for the truth deserves +to be told. + +In January, 1846, Mrs. Hawthorne wrote to her mother: + +"No one, I think, has a right to break the will of a child, but God; +and if the child is taught to submit to Him through love, all other +submission will follow with heavenly effect upon the character. God +never drives even the most desperate sinner, but only invites or +suggests through the events of His providence." + +Nothing is more unfortunate than to break the will of a child, for all +manliness and womanliness is grounded in the will; but it is often +necessary to control the desires and humors of children for their self- +preservation. Hawthorne himself was not troubled with such fancies. +Alcott, who was his nearest neighbor at the Wayside, once remarked that +there was only one will in the Hawthorne family, and that was +Nathaniel's. His will was law and no one thought of disputing it. Yet +what he writes concerning children is always sweet, tender, and +beautiful, with the single exception of a criticism of his own +daughter, which was published long after his death and could not have +been intended for the public eye. + +The war with Mexico was wonderfully successful from a military point of +view, but its political effects were equally confounding to the +politicians who projected it. The American people resemble the French, +quite as much perhaps as they do the English, and the admiration of +military glory is one of their Gallic traits. It happened that the two +highest positions in the army were both held by Whig generals, and the +victory of Buena Vista carried Zachary Taylor into the White House, in +spite of the opposition of Webster and Clay, as well as that of the +Democrats and the Free Soilers. Polk, Bancroft, and Pierce had all +contributed to the defeat of their own party. The war proved their +political terminus to the two former; but, _mirabile dictu_, it +became the cap of Fortunatus to Pierce and Hawthorne. + +This, however, could not have been foreseen at the time, and the +election of Taylor in November, 1848, had a sufficiently chilling +effect on the little family in Mall Street. Hawthorne entertained the +hope that he might be spared in the general out-turning, as a +distinguished writer and an inoffensive partisan, and this indicates +how loath he was to relinquish his comfortable position. Let us place +ourselves in his situation and we shall not wonder at it. He was now +forty-five, with a wife and two children, and destitution was staring +him in the face. For ten years he had struggled bravely, and this was +the net result of all his endeavors. Never had the future looked so +gloomy to him. + +The railroad had superseded his Uncle Manning's business, as it had +that of half the mercantile class in the city, and his father-in-law +was in a somewhat similar predicament. At this time Elizabeth Peabody +was keeping a small foreign book-store in a room of her father's house +on West Street. One has to realize these conditions, in order to +appreciate the mood in which Hawthorne's Custom House preface was +written. + +There is one passage in it, however, that is always likely to be +misunderstood. It is where he says: + +"I thought my own prospects of retaining office, to be better than +those of my Democratic brethren; but who can see an inch into futurity, +beyond his nose? My own head was the first that fell!" + +It is clear that some kind of an effort was made to prevent his +removal, presumably by George S. Hillard, who was a Whig in good favor; +but the conclusion which one would naturally draw from the above, that +Hawthorne was turned out of office in a summary and ungracious manner, +is not justified by the evidence. He was not relieved from duty until +June 14, 1849; that is, he was given a hundred days of grace, which is +much more than officeholders commonly are favored with, in such cases. +We may consider it morally certain that Hillard did what he could in +Hawthorne's behalf. He was well acquainted with Webster, but +unfortunately Webster had opposed the nomination of General Taylor, and +was so imprudent as to characterize it as a nomination not fit to be +made. This was echoed all over the country, and left Webster without +influence at Washington. For the time being Seward was everything, and +Webster was nothing. + +In a letter to Horace Mann, shortly after his removal, Hawthorne refers +to two distinct calumnies which had been circulated concerning him in +Salem, and only too widely credited. The most important of these--for +it has seriously compromised a number of Salem gentlemen--was never +explained until the publication of Mrs. Lathrop's "Memories of +Hawthorne" in 1897; where we find a letter from Mrs. Hawthorne to her +mother, dated June 10, 1849, and containing the following passage: + +"Here is a pretty business, discovered in an unexpected manner to Mr. +Hawthorne by a friendly and honorable Whig. Perhaps you know that the +President said before he took the chair that he should make no removals +except for dishonesty and unfaithfulness. It is very plain that neither +of these charges could be brought against Mr. Hawthorne. Therefore a +most base and incredible falsehood has been told--written down and +signed and sent to the Cabinet in secret. This infamous paper certifies +among other things (of which we have not heard)--that Mr. Hawthorne has +been in the habit of writing political articles in magazines and +newspapers!" So it appears that the gutta-percha formula [Footnote: By +which eighty-eight per cent, of the classified service were removed.] +of President Cleveland in regard to "offensive partisanship" was really +invented forty years before his time, and had as much value in one case +as in the other. It is possible that such a document as Mrs. Hawthorne +describes was circulated, signed, and sent to Washington, to make the +way easy for President Taylor's advisers, and if so it was a highly +contemptible proceeding; but the statement rests wholly on the +affirmation of a single witness, whose name has always been withheld, +and even if it were true that Hawthorne had written political articles +for Democratic papers the fact would have in no wise been injurious to +his reputation. The result must have been the same in any case. General +Taylor was an honorable man, and no doubt intended to keep his word, as +other Presidents have intended since; but what could even a brave +general effect against the army of hungry office-seekers who were +besieging the White House,--a more formidable army than the Mexicans +whom he had defeated at Buena Vista? In all probability he knew nothing +of Hawthorne and never heard of his case. + +The second calumny which Hawthorne refers to was decidedly second-rate, +and closely resembles a servant's intrigue. The Department at +Washington, in a temporary fit of economy, had requested him to +discharge two of his supervisors. He did not like to take the men's +bread away from them, and made a mild protest against the order. At the +same time he consulted his chief clerk as to what it might be best to +do, and they agreed upon suspending two of the supervisors who might +suffer less from it than some others. As it happened, the Department +considered Hawthorne's report favorably, and no suspension took place; +but his clerk betrayed the secret to the two men concerned, who hated +Hawthorne in consequence, and afterward circulated a report that he had +threatened to discharge them unless they contributed to the Democratic +campaign fund. This return of evil for good appears to have been a new +experience for Hawthorne, but those who are much concerned in the +affairs of the world soon become accustomed to it, and pay little +attention to either the malice or the mendacity of mankind. + +Twenty years later one of Hawthorne's clerks, who had prudently shifted +from the Democratic to the Republican ranks, held a small office in the +Boston Navy Yard, and was much given to bragging of his intimacy with +"Nat," and of the sprees they went on together; but the style and +description of the man were sufficient to discredit his statements +without further evidence. There were, however, several old shipmasters +in the Salem Custom House who had seen Calcutta, Canton, and even a +hurricane or two; men who had lived close to reality, with a vein of +true heroism in them, moreover; and if Hawthorne preferred their +conversation to that of the shipowners, who had spent their lives in +calculating the profits of commercial adventures, there are many among +the well educated who would agree with him. He refers particularly to +one aged inspector of imports, whose remarkable adventures by flood and +field were an almost daily recreation to him; and if the narratives of +this ancient mariner were somewhat mixed with romance, assuredly +Hawthorne should have been the last person to complain of them on that +account. + +At first he was wholly unnerved by his dismissal. He returned to Mall +Street and said to his wife: "I have lost my place. What shall we now +do for bread?" But Mrs. Hawthorne replied: "Never fear. You will now +have leisure to finish your novel. Meanwhile, I will earn bread for us +with my pencil and paint-brush." [Footnote: Mrs. George S. Hillard.] +Besides this, she brought forward two or three hundred dollars, which +she had saved from his salary unbeknown to him; but who would not have +been encouraged by such a brave wife? Fortunately her pencil and paint- +brush were not put to the test; at least so far as we know. Already on +June 8, her husband had written a long letter to Hillard, explaining +the state of his affairs and containing this pathetic appeal: + +"If you could do anything in the way of procuring me some stated +literary employment, in connection with a newspaper, or as corrector of +the press to some printing establishment, etc., it could not come at a +better time. Perhaps Epes Sargent, who is a friend of mine, would know +of something. I shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of +itself. Perhaps there may be some subordinate office connected with the +Boston Athenaum (Literary). Do not think anything too humble to be +mentioned to me." [Footnote: Conway, 113.] + +There have been many tragical episodes in the history of literature, +but since "Paradise Lost" was sold for five pounds and a contingent +interest, there has been nothing more simply pathetic than this,--that +an immortal writer should feel obliged to apply for a subordinate +position in a counting-room, a description of work which nobody likes +too well, and which to Hawthorne would have been little less than a +death in life. "Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to +me"! + +What Hillard attempted to do at this time is uncertain, but he was not +the man to allow the shrine of genius to be converted into a gas- +burner, if he could possibly prevent it. We may presume that he went to +Salem and encouraged Hawthorne in his amiable, half-eloquent manner. +But we do not hear of him again until the new year. Meanwhile Madam +Hawthorne fell into her last illness and departed this life on July 31; +a solemn event even to a hard-hearted son--how much more to such a man +as she had brought into the world. Three days before her death, he +writes in his diary of "her heart beating its funeral march," and +diverts his mind from the awful _finale_ by an accurate description of +his two children playing a serio-comic game of doctor and patient, in the +adjoining room. + +It was under such tragical conditions, well suited to the subject, that +he continued his work on "The Scarlet Letter," and his painfully +contracted brow seemed to indicate that he suffered as much in +imagination, as the characters in that romance are represented to have +suffered. In addition he wrote "The Great Stone Pace," one of the most +impressive of his shorter pieces (published, alas! in a Washington +newspaper), and the sketch called "Main Street," both afterward +included in the volume of "The Snow Image." On January 17, 1850, he was +greatly surprised to receive a letter from George S. Hillard with a +large check in it,--more than half-way to a thousand dollars,--which +the writer with all possible delicacy begged him to accept from a few +of his Boston admirers. It was only from such a good friend as Hillard +that Hawthorne would have accepted assistance in this form; but he +always considered it in the character of a loan, and afterward insisted +on repaying it to the original subscribers,--Professor Ticknor, Judge +Curtis, and others. Hillard also persuaded James T. Fields, the younger +partner of Ticknor & Company, to take an interest in Hawthorne as an +author who required to be encouraged, and perhaps coaxed a little, in +order to bring out the best that was in him. Fields accordingly went to +Salem soon afterward, and has given an account of his first interview +with Hawthorne in "Yesterdays with Authors," which seems rather +melodramatic: "found him cowering over a stove," and altogether in a +woe-begone condition. The main point of discussion between them, +however, was whether "The Scarlet Letter" should be published +separately or in conjunction with other subjects. Hawthorne feared that +such a serious plot, continued with so little diversity of motive, +would not be likely to produce a favorable impression unless it were +leavened with material of a different kind. Fields, on the contrary, +thought it better that the work should stand by itself, in solitary +grandeur, and feared that it would only be dwarfed by any additions of +a different kind. He predicted a good sale for the book, and succeeded +in disillusionizing Hawthorne from the notions he had acquired from the +failure of "Fanshawe." + +As it was late in the season, Fields would not even wait for the +romance to be finished, but sent it to the press at once; and on +February 4, Hawthorne wrote to Horatio Bridge: + +"I finished my book only yesterday; one end being in the press at +Boston, while the other was in my head here at Salem; so that, as you +see, the story is at least fourteen miles long." + +The time of publication was a propitious one: the gold was flowing in +from California, and every man and woman had a dollar to spend. The +first edition of five thousand copies was taken up within a month, and +after this Hawthorne suffered no more financial embarrassments. The +succeeding twelve years of his life were as prosperous and cheerful as +his friends and readers could desire for him; although the sombre past +still seemed to cast a ghostly shadow across his way, which even the +sunshine of Italy could not entirely dissipate. + + +"THE SCARLET LETTER" + +The germ of this romance is to be found in the tale of "Endicott and +the Red Cross," published in the _Token_ in 1838, so that it must +have been at least ten years sprouting and developing in Hawthorne's +mind. In that story he gives a tragically comic description of the +Puritan penitentiary,--in the public square,--where, among others, a +good-looking young woman was exposed with a red letter A on her breast, +which she had embroidered herself, so elegantly that it seemed as if it +was rather intended for a badge of distinction than as a mark of +infamy. Hawthorne did not conjure this up wholly out of his +imagination, for in 1704 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay passed +the following law, which he was no doubt aware of: + +"Convicted before the Justice of Assize,--both Man and Woman to be set +on the Gallows an Hour with a Rope about their Necks and the other end +cast over the Gallowses. And in the way from thence to the common Gaol, +to he Scourged not exceeding Forty Stripes. And forever after to wear a +Capital A of two inches long, of a contrary colour to their cloathes, +sewed on their upper Garments, on the Back or Arm, in open view. And as +often as they appear without it, openly to be Scourged, not exceeding +Fifteen Stripes." [Footnote: Boston, Timothy Green, 1704.] + +The most diligent investigation, however, has failed to discover an +instance in which punishment was inflicted under this law, so that we +must conclude that Hawthorne invented that portion of his statement. In +fact, nothing that Hawthorne published himself is to be considered of +historical or biographical value. It is all fiction. He sported with +historical facts and traditions, as poets and painters always have +done, and the manuscript which he pretends to have discovered in his +office at the Custom House, written by one of his predecessors there, +is a piece of pure imagination, which serves to give additional +credibility to his narrative. He knew well enough how large a portion +of what is called history is fiction after all, and the extent to which +professed historians deal in romance. He felt that he was justified so +long as he did not depart from the truth of human nature. We may thank +him that he did not dispel the illusion of his poetic imagery by the +introduction of well-known historical characters. This is permissible +in a certain class of novels, but its effect is always more or less +prosaic. + +Our Puritan ancestors evidently did not realize the evil effects of +their law against faithless wives,--its glaring indelicacy, and +brutalizing influence on the minds of the young; but it was of a piece +with their exclusion of church-music and other amenities of +civilization. Was it through a natural attraction for the primeval +granite that they landed on the New England coast? Their severe self- +discipline was certainly well adapted to their situation, but, while it +built up their social edifice on an enduring foundation, its tendency +was to crush out the gentler and more sympathetic qualities in human +nature. In no other community would the story of Hester Prynne acquire +an equal cogency and significance. A German might, perhaps, understand +it; but a Frenchman or an Italian not at all. + +The same subject has been treated in its most venial form by +Shakespeare in "Measure for Measure," and in its most condemnable form +in Goethe's "Faust." "The Scarlet Letter" lies midway between these +two. Hester Prynne has married a man of morose, vindictive disposition, +such as no woman could be happy with. He is, moreover, much older than +herself, and has gone off on a wild expedition in pursuit of objects +which he evidently cares for, more than for his wife. She has not heard +from him for over a year, and knows not whether he has deserted her, or +if he is no longer living. She is alone in a strange wild country, and +it is natural that she should seek counsel and encouragement from the +young clergyman, who is worthy of her love, but, unfortunately, not a +strong character. Lightning is not swifter than the transition in our +minds from good to evil, and in an unguarded moment he brings ruin upon +himself, and a life-long penance on Hester Prynne. Hawthorne tells this +story with such purity and delicacy of feeling that a maiden of sixteen +can read it without offence. + +"The Scarlet Letter" is at once the most poetic and the most powerful +of Hawthorne's larger works, much more powerful than "The Vicar of +Wakefield," which has been accepted as the type of a romance in all +languages. Goldsmith's tale will always be more popular than "The +Scarlet Letter," owing to its blithesome spirit, its amusing incidents +and bright effects of light and shade; but "The Scarlet Letter" strikes +a more penetrating chord in the human breast, and adheres more closely +to the truth of life. There are certain highly improbable circumstances +woven in the tissue of "The Vicar of Wakefield," which a prudent, +reflective reader finds it difficult to surmount. It is rather +surprising that the Vicar should not have discovered the true social +position of his friend Mr. Burchell, which must have been known to +every farmer in the vicinity; and still more so that Mr. Burchell +should have permitted the father of a young woman in whom he was deeply +interested, to be carried to prison for debt without making an inquiry +into his case. "The Scarlet Letter" is, as Hawthorne noticed, a +continual variation on a single theme, and that a decidedly solemn one; +but its different incidents form a dynamic sequence, leading onward to +the final catastrophe, and if its progress is slow--the narrative +extends over a period of seven years--this is as inevitable as the +march of Fate. From the first scene in the drama, we are lifted above +ourselves, and sustained so by Hawthorne's genius, until the close. + +This sense of power arises from dealing with a subject which demanded +the whole force and intensity of Hawthorne's nature. Hester Prynne +herself is a strong character, and her errors are those of strength and +independence rather than of weakness. She says to Mr. Dimmesdale that +what they did "had a consecration of its own," and it is this belief +which supports her under a weight of obloquy that would have crushed a +more fragile spirit. She does not collapse into a pitiful nonentity, +like Scott's Effie Deans, nor is she maddened to crime like George +Eliot's "Hetty Sorrel"; [Footnote: A name apparently compounded from +Hester Prynne and Schiller's Agnes Sorrel.] but from the outset she +forms definite resolutions,--first to rehabilitate her own character, +and next to protect the partner of her shame. This last may seem to be +a mistaken devotion, and contrary to his true interest, for the first +step in the regeneration from sin is to acknowledge manfully the +responsibility of it; but to give the repentance even the appearance of +sincerity, the confession must be a voluntary one, and not be forced +upon the delinquent person by external pressure. We cannot withhold our +admiration for Hester's unswerving fidelity to this twofold purpose. We +may condemn her in our minds, but we cannot refuse her a measure of +sympathy in our hearts. + +I believe this to be the explanation of her apparent inconsistency at +the close of the book. Many of Hawthorne's commentators have been +puzzled by the fact that Hester, after so many years of contrition, +should advise Dimmesdale to fly to England, and even offered to +accompany him. Women have not the same idea of law that men have. In +their ideas of right and wrong they depend chiefly on their sense of +purity; and it is very difficult to persuade a woman that she could be +wrong in obeying the dictates of her heart. Hester perceives that her +former lover is being tortured to death by the silent tyranny of +Chillingworth; the tide of affection so long restrained flows back into +her soul; and her own reputation is as nothing compared with the life +of the man she hopes to save. There is no other passage in American +fiction so pathetic as that woodland meeting, at which their mutual +hopes of happiness blaze up like the momentary brightness of a dying +flame. Hester's innocent child, however, representing the spirit of +truthfulness, is suddenly seized with an aversion to her father and +refuses to join their company,--an unfavorable omen and dark presage of +the minister's doom. + +Pearl's behavior, on this occasion, may be supposed to represent the +author's own judgment. How far shall we agree with him? The past +generation witnessed one of the noblest of women uniting herself, for +life and death, to a man whom she could not marry on account of purely +legal objections. Whether Hester's position in the last act of this +drama is comparable with that of Marian Evans every one must decide +according to his or her conscience. + +Hawthorne certainly proves himself a good Puritan when he says, "And be +the stern and sad truth spoken that the breach which guilt has once +made into the human soul, is never in this mortal state repaired." The +magnitude of the evil of course makes a difference; but do we not all +live in a continual state of sinning, and self-correction? That is the +road to self-improvement, and those who adhere most closely to +inflexible rules of conduct discover at length that the rules +themselves have become an evil. Mankind has not yet fully decided as to +what things are evil, and what are good; and neither Hawthorne nor the +Puritan lawmakers would seem to have remembered Christ's admonition on +a similar occasion: "Let him who is without sin among you, cast the +first stone." + +A writer in the _Andover Review_, some twenty years ago, +criticised the impersonation of Pearl as a fable--"a golden wreck." He +quoted Emerson to the effect that in all the ages that man has been +upon the earth, no communication has been established between him and +the lower animals, and he affirmed that we know quite as little of the +thoughts and motives of our own children. Both conclusions are wide of +the mark. There is much more communication between man and the domestic +animals than between animals of the same species. The understanding +between an Arab and his horse is almost perfect, and so is that between +a sportsman and his setters. Even the sluggish ox knows the word of +command. Then what shall we say of the sympathetic relation between a +mother and her child? Who can describe it--that clairvoyant +sensibility, intangible, too swift for words? Who has depicted it, +except Hawthorne and Raphael? Pearl is like a pure spirit in "The +Scarlet Letter," reconciling us to its gloomy scenes. She is like the +sunshine in a dark forest, breaking through the tree-tops and dancing +in our pathway. It is true that Hawthorne has carried her clairvoyant +insight to its furthest limits, but this is in accordance with the +ideal character of his work. She has no rival except Goethe's Mignon. + +Hawthorne's method of developing his stories resembled closely that of +the historical painter; and it was only in this way that he could +produce such vivid effects. He selected models for his principal +characters and studied them as his work progressed. The original of +Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was quickly recognized in Salem as an amiable +inoffensive person, of whom no one suspected any evil,--and that was, +no doubt, the reason why Hawthorne selected him for his purpose. It was +no discredit to the man himself, although tongues were not wanting to +blame Hawthorne for it. Who Hester may have been still remains a +mystery; but it was evidently some one with whom the author was well +acquainted,--perhaps his younger sister. So Rubens painted his own wife +at one time an angel, and at another in the likeness of Herodias. It is +still more probable that Pearl is a picture of Hawthorne's own +daughter, who was of the right age for such a study, and whose +sprightly, fitful, and impulsive actions correspond to those of +Hester's child. This would also explain why her father gave Una so much +space in his Note-book. He may have noticed the antagonism between her +and the Whig children of the neighborhood and have applied it to +Pearl's case. It was also his custom, as appears from his last +unfinished work, to leave blank spaces in his manuscript while in the +heat of composition, which, like a painter's background, were +afterwards filled in with descriptions of scenery or some subsidiary +narrative. + +The models of the novelist cannot be hired for the purpose, like those +used by the painter or sculptor, but have to be studied when and where +they can be found, for the least self-consciousness spoils the effect. +Hawthorne in this only followed the example of the best authors and +dramatists; and those who think that good fiction or dramatic poetry +can be written wholly out of a man's or a woman's imagination, would do +well to make the experiment themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +PEGASUS IS FREE: 1850-1852 + + +Frederick W. Loring, that bright young poet who was so soon lost to us, +once remarked: "Appreciation is to the artist what sunshine is to +flowers. He cannot expand without it." The success of "The Scarlet +Letter" proved that all Hawthorne's genius required was a little +moderate encouragement,--not industry but opportunity. His pen, no +longer slow and hesitating, moved freer and easier; the long pent-up +flood of thoughts, emotions, and experiences had at length found an +outlet; and the next three years were the most productive of his life. + +His first impulse, however, was to escape from Salem. Although his +removal from office had been a foregone conclusion, Hawthorne felt a +certain degree of chagrin connected with it, and also imagined a +certain amount of animosity toward himself which made the place +uncomfortable to him. He was informed that the old Sparhawk mansion, +close to the Portsmouth Navy Yard, was for sale or to rent, and the +first of May, Hawthorne went thither to consider whether it would serve +him for a home. [Footnote: Lathrop, 225.] One would suppose that sedate +old Portsmouth, with its courteous society and its dash of military +life, would have suited Hawthorne even better than Concord; but he +decided differently, and he returned to meet his family in Boston, +where he made the acquaintance of Professor Ticknor, who introduced him +at the Athenaeum Library. He saw Hildreth at the Athenaum working on +his history of the United States; sat for his portrait to C. E. +Thompson; went to the theatre; studied human nature in the smoking-room +at Parker's; and relaxed himself generally. He must have stayed with +his family at Doctor Peabody's on West Street, for he speaks of the +incessant noise from Washington Street, and of looking out from the +back windows on Temple Place. This locates the house very nearly. + +Two months later, July 5, 1850, he was at Lenox, in the Berkshire +Mountains. Mrs. Caroline Sturgis Tappan, a brilliant Boston lady, +equally poetic and sensible, owned a small red cottage there, which she +was ready to lease to Hawthorne for a nominal rent. Lowell was going +there on account of his wife, a delicate flower-like nature already +beginning to droop. Doctor Holmes was going on account of Lowell, and +perhaps with the expectation of seeing a rattlesnake; Fields was going +on account of Lowell and Holmes. Mrs. Frances Kemble, already the most +distinguished of Shakespearian readers, had a summer cottage there; and +it was hoped that in such company Hawthorne would at last find the +element to which he properly belonged. + +Unfortunately Hawthorne took to raising chickens, and that seems to +have interested him more than anything else at Lenox. He fell in +cordially with the plans of his friends; ascended Monument Mountain, +and went on other excursions with them; but it may be more than +suspected that Lowell and Holmes did most of the talking. He +assimilated himself more to Holmes perhaps than to any of the others. +His meeting with Mrs. Kemble must have been like a collision of the +centrifugal and centripetal forces; and for once, Hawthorne may be said +to have met his antipodes. They could sincerely admire one another as +we all do, in their respective spheres; but such a chasm as yawned +between them in difference of temperament, character, and mode of +living, could not have been bridged over by Captain Eads. + +Fannie Kemble, as she was universally called, had by long and +sympathetic reading of Shakespeare transformed herself into a woman of +the Elizabethan era, and could barely be said to belong to the +nineteenth century. Among other Elizabethan traits she had acquired an +unconsciousness of self, together with an enormous self-confidence, and +no idea of what people thought of her in polite society ever seems to +have occurred to her. She had the heart of a woman, but mentally she +was like a composite picture of Shakespeare's _dramatis personae_, +and that Emerson should have spoken of her as "a great exaggerated +creature" is not to be wondered at. In her own department she was +marvellous. + +The severity of a mountain winter and the disagreeableness of its +thawing out in spring, is atoned for by its summer,--that fine +exhilarating ether, which seems to bring elevated thoughts, by virtue +of its own nature. Hawthorne enjoyed this with his children and his +chickens; and his wife enjoyed it with him. It is evident from her +letters that she had not been so happy since their first year at the +Old Manse. She had now an opportunity to indulge her love of artistic +decoration, in adorning the walls of their little red cottage, which +has since unfortunately been destroyed by fire. She even began to give +her daughter, who was only six years old, some instruction in drawing. +The following extract concerning her husband, from a letter written to +her mother, is charmingly significant of her state of mind at this +time. + +"Beauty and the love of it, in him, are the true culmination of the +good and true, and there is no beauty to him without these bases. He +has perfect dominion over himself in every respect, so that to do the +highest, wisest, loveliest thing is not the least effort to him, any +more than it is to a baby to be innocent. It is his spontaneous act, +and a baby is not more unconscious in its innocence. I never knew such +loftiness, so simply borne. I have never known him to stoop from it in +the most trivial household matter, any more than in a larger or more +public one." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 373.] + +Truly this gives us a beautiful insight into their home-life, and +Hawthorne himself could not have written a more accurate eulogium. As +intimated in the last chapter, we all make our way through life by +correcting our daily trespasses, and Hawthorne was no exception to it; +but as a mental analysis of this man at his best Mrs. Hawthorne's +statement deserves a lasting recognition. + + +"THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES" + +It was not until early frosts and shortening days drove Hawthorne +within doors that he again took up his writing, but who can tell how +long he had been dreaming over his subject? Within five months, or by +the last week of January, "The House of the Seven Gables" was ready for +the press. There is no such house in Salem, exactly as he describes it; +but an odd, antiquated-looking structure at No. 54 Turner Street is +supposed to have served him for the suggestion of it. The name is +picturesque and well suited to introduce the reader to a homely +suburban romance. + +The subject of the story goes back to the witchcraft period, and its +active principle is a wizard's curse, which descends from one +generation to another, until it is finally removed by the marriage of a +descendant of the injured party to a descendant of the guilty one. +Woven together with this, there is an exposition of mesmerism, or, as +it is now called, Christian Science, with its good and evil features. + +Each of Hawthorne's larger romances has a distinct style and quality of +its own, apart from the fine individualized style of the author. +Lathrop makes an excellent remark in regard to "The House of the Seven +Gables," that the perfection of its art seems to stand between the +reader and his subject. It resembles in this respect those Dutch +paintings whose enamelled surface seems like a barrier to prevent the +spectator from entering the scenes which they represent. It would be a +mistake to consider this a fault, but one cannot help noticing the +accuracy with which the subordinate details of the plot are elaborated. +Is it possible that this is connected in a way with the rarefied +atmosphere of Lenox, in which distant objects appear so sharply +defined? + +"The House of the Seven Gables" might be symbolized by two paintings, +in the first of which Hepzibah Pyncheon stands as the central figure, +her face turned upward in a silent prayer for justice, her brother +Clifford, with his head bowed helplessly, at one side, and the judge, +with his chronic smile of satisfaction, behind Clifford; on the other +side the keen-eyed Holgrave would appear, sympathetically watching the +progress of events, with Phoebe Pyncheon at his left hand. Old Uncle +Banner and little Ned Higgins might fill in the background. In the +second picture the stricken judge would be found in a large old- +fashioned arm-chair, with Clifford and Hepzibah flying through a +doorway to the right, while Phoebe and Holgrave, the one happy and the +other startled, enter on the left. + +Hepzibah, not Phoebe, is the true heroine of the romance,--or at least +its central figure. Nowhere do we look more deeply into Hawthorne's +nature than through this sympathetic portrait of the cross-looking old +maid, whose only inheritance is the House of the Seven Gables, in which +she has lived many years, poor, solitary, friendless, with a disgrace +upon her family, only sustained by the hope that she may yet be a help +and comfort to her unfortunate brother. The jury before whom Clifford +was tried believed him to be guilty, but his sister never would believe +it. She lives for him and suffers with him. Hawthorne does not mitigate +the unpleasantness of her appearance, but he instructs us that there is +a divine spark glowing within. Very pitiful is her attempt to support +the enfeebled brother by keeping a candy store; but noble and heroic is +her resistance to the designs of her tyrannical cousin. It is her +intrepidity that effects the crisis of the drama. + +Both Hepzibah and Clifford Pyncheon are examples of what fine +portraiture Hawthorne could accomplish in exceptional or abnormal +personalities, without ever descending to caricature. Judge Pyncheon +has been criticised as being too much of a stage villain, but the same +might be alleged of Shakespeare's (or Fletcher's) Richard III. What is +he, in effect, but a Richard III. reduced to private life? Moreover, +his habit of smiling is an individual trait which gives him a certain +distinction of his own. Usually, + + Faces ever blandly smiling + Are victims of their own beguiling. + +But Judge Pyncheon is a candidate for the governorship, and among the +more mercenary class of politicians smiling often becomes a habit for +the sake of popularity. Hawthorne might have added something to the +judge's _personale_ by representing him with a droll wit, like +James Fiske, Jr., or some others that we have known, and he might have +exposed more of his internal reflections; but he serves as a fair +example of the hard, grasping, hypocritical type of Yankee. We see only +one side of him, but there are men, and women too, who only have one +side to their characters. + +It has been affirmed that Hawthorne made use of the Honorable Mr. +Upham, the excellent historian of Salem witchcraft, as a model for +Judge Pyncheon, and that this was done in revenge for Mr. Upham's +inimical influence in regard to the Salem surveyorship. It is +impossible, at this date, to disentangle the snarl of Hawthorne's +political relations in regard to that office, but Upham had been a +member of Congress and was perhaps as influential a Whig as any in the +city. If Hawthorne was removed through his instrumentality, he +performed our author a service, which neither of them could have +realized at the time. Hawthorne, however, had a strong precedent in his +favor in this instance; namely, Shakespeare's caricature of Sir Thomas +Luce, as Justice Shallow in "The Merry Wives of Windsor"; but there is +no reason why we should think better or worse of Mr. Upham on this +account. + +Phoebe Pyncheon is an ideal character, the type of youthful New England +womanhood, and the most charming of all Hawthorne's feminine creations. +Protected by the shield of her own innocence, she leaves her country +home from the same undefined impulse by which birds fly north in +spring, and accomplishes her destiny where she might have least +expected to meet with it. She fills the whole book with her sunny +brightness, and like many a young woman at her age she seems more like +a spirit than a character. Her maidenly dignity repels analysis, and +Hawthorne himself extends a wise deference to his own creation. + +The future of a great nation depends more on its young women than upon +its laws or its statesmen. + +In regard to Holgrave, we have already said somewhat; but he is so +lifelike that it seems as if he must have been studied from one of the +younger members of the Brook Farm association; perhaps the one of whom +Emerson tells us, [Footnote: Lecture on Brook Farm.] that he spent his +leisure hours in playing with the children, but had "so subtle a mind" +that he was always consulted whenever important business was on foot. +He is visible to our mental perspective as a rather slender man, above +medium height, with keen hazel eyes, a long nose, and long legs, and +quick and lively in his movements. Phoebe has a more symmetrical +figure, bluish-gray eyes, a complexion slightly browned from going +without her hat, luxuriant chestnut-brown hair, always quiet and +graceful. We have no doubt that Holgrave made a worthy husband for her, +and that he occasionally took a hand in public affairs. + +Judge Pyncheon's duplicity is revealed to Holgrave by the medium of a +daguerreotype. Men or women who are actors in real life should avoid +being photographed, for the camera is pretty sure to penetrate their +hypocrisy, and expose them to the world as they actually are. Every +photograph album is to a certain extent a rogues' gallery, in which our +faults, peculiarities, and perhaps vices are ruthlessly portrayed for +the student of human nature. If a merchant were to have all his +customers photographed, he would soon learn to distinguish those who +were not much to be trusted. + +Notice also Hawthorne's eye for color. When Clifford, Hepzibah, and +Phoebe are about to leave the seven-gabled house for the last time, "A +plain, but handsome dark-green barouche" is drawn to the door. This is +evidently his idea of a fine equipage; and it happens that the +background of Raphael's "Pope Julius" is of this same half-invisible +green, and harmonizes so well with the Pope's figure that few realize +its coloring. + +The plot of this picturesque story is the most ingenious of Hawthorne's +life, but sufficiently probable throughout to answer the purpose of a +romance, and it is the only one of Hawthorne's larger works which ends +happily. It was brought out by Ticknor & Company at Easter 1850,--less +than ten weeks after it was finished; but we think of the House of the +Seven Gables as standing empty, deserted and forlorn. + +In December Emerson had written to Hawthorne concerning a new magazine +in which he and Lowell were interested, and if Hawthorne would only +give it his support its success could not be questioned. What Hawthorne +replied to this invitation has never been discovered, but he had seen +too many such periodicals go to wreck to feel much confidence in this +enterprise. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 381.] It is of more importance +now that Emerson should have addressed him as "My dear Hawthorne," for +such cordial friendliness was rare in "the poet of the pines." Mrs. +Alcott once remarked that Emerson never spoke to her husband otherwise +than as "Mr. Alcott," and it is far from likely that he ever spoke to +Hawthorne differently from this. The conventionalities of letter- +writing run back to a period when gentlemen addressed one another--and +perhaps felt so too--in a more friendly manner than they do at present. + +Works of fiction and sentimental poetry stir up a class of readers +which no other literature seems to reach, and Hawthorne was soon +inundated with letters from unknown, and perhaps unknowable, admirers; +but the most remarkable came from a man named Pyncheon, who asserted +that his grandfather had been a judge in Salem, and who was highly +indignant at the use which Hawthorne had made of his name. [Footnote: +Conway, 135.] This shows how difficult it is for a writer of fiction or +a biographer to escape giving offence. The lightning is sure to strike +somewhere. + + +"THE SNOW IMAGE" + + +The question now was, what next? As it happened, the next important +event in the Hawthorne family was the advent of their younger daughter, +born like Agassiz, "in the lovely month of May," and amid scenery as +beautiful as the Pays de Vaud. Her father named her Rose, in defiance +of Hillard's objection to idyllic nomenclature; and as a child she +seemed much like the spirit of that almost fabulous flower, the wild +orange-rose. Ten years later, she was the most graceful girl in the +Concord dancing-school, and resembled her elder sister so closely that +they could not have been mistaken for anything but sisters. As she grew +older she came more and more to resemble her mother. + +It was said that Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" originated in his telling +free versions of the Greek myths to his children on winter evenings; +and also that Horace Mann's boys, who were almost exactly of the same +age as Una and Julian, participated in the entertainment. This may have +happened the following winter at Newton, but could hardly have taken +place at Lenox; and otherwise it is quite impossible to identify all +the children with botanical names in Hawthorne's introduction. Julian +once remarked, at school, that he believed that he was the original of +Squash-blossom, and that is as near as we can get to it. Some of them +may have been as imaginary as the ingenious Mr. Eustace Bright, and +might serve as well to represent one group of children as another. + +The book was written very rapidly, at an average of ten pages a day, +and it has Hawthorne's grace and purity of style, but it does not +belong to the legitimate series of his works. It is an excellent book +for the young, for they learn from it much that every one ought to +know; but to mature minds the original fables, even in a translation, +are more satisfactory than these Anglo-Saxon versions in the "Wonder +Book." + +The collection of tales which passes by the name of "The Snow Image" is +a much more serious work. "The Great Stone Face" and one or two others +in the collection were prepared at Salem for the same volume as "The +Scarlet Letter," but judiciously excluded by Mr. Fields. "The Snow +Image" itself, however, is plainly derived from Hawthorne's own +experience during the winter at Lenox. The common-sensible farmer and +his poetic wife could not be mistaken for Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne, but +the two sportive children are easily identified as Una and Julian. They +are not only of the same age, but the "slight graceful girl" and +"chubby red-cheeked boy" describes them exactly. The idea has been +derived from the fable of the Greek sculptor Pygmalion whose statue +came to life. That seems far enough off to be pleasantly credible, but +to have such a transubstantiation take place in the front yard of a +white-fenced American residence, is rather startling. Yet Hawthorne, +with the help of the twilight, carries us through on the broad wings of +his imagination, even to the melting of the little snow-sister before +an airtight stove in a close New England parlor. The moral that +Hawthorne draws from this fable might be summed up in the old adage, +"What is one man's meat is another man's poison"; but it has a deeper +significance, which the author does not seem to have perceived. The +key-note of the fable is the same as that in Goethe's celebrated +ballad, "The Erl King"; namely, that those things which children +imagine, are as real to them as the facts of the external world. Nor do +we altogether escape from this so long as we live. + +The origin of "The Great Stone Face" is readily traced to the profile +face in the Franconia Mountains,--which has not only a strangely human +appearance, but a grave dignified expression, and, as a natural +phenomenon, ranks next to Niagara Falls. The value of the fable, +however, has perhaps been over-estimated. It is an old story in a +modern garb, the saying so often repeated in the Book of Isaiah: "The +last shall be first, and the first shall be last." The man Ernest, who +is much in his ways like Hawthorne himself, spends his leisure in +contemplating the Great Stone Face, and thus acquires a similar +expression in his own. The wealthy merchant, the famous general, the +great party leader, and the popular poet, all come upon the scene; but +not one of them appears to advantage before the tranquil countenance of +the Great Stone Face. Finally, Ernest in his old age carries off the +laurel; and in this Hawthorne hits the mark, for it is only through +earnestness that man becomes immortal. Yet, one would suppose that +constantly gazing at a face of stone, would give one a rather stony +expression; as sculptors are liable to become statuesque from their +occupation. + +Another Dantean allegory, and fully equal in power to any Canto in +Dante's "Inferno," is the story of "Ethan Brandt," or "The Unpardonable +Sin." We have a clew to its origin in the statement that it was part of +an unfinished romance; presumably commenced at Concord, but afterward +discarded, owing to the author's dissatisfaction with his work--an +illustration of Hawthorne's severe criticism of his own writing. The +scene is laid at a limekiln in a dark and gloomy wood, where a lime- +burner, far from human habitations, is watching his fires at night. To +him Ethan Brandt appears, a strange personage, long known for his quest +after the unpardonable sin, and the solitude echoes back the gloominess +of their conversation. Finally, the lime-burner fixes his fires for the +night, rolls himself up in his blanket, and goes to sleep. When he +awakes in the morning, the stranger is gone, but, on ascending the kiln +to look at his caldron, he finds there the skeleton of a man, and +between its ribs a heart of white marble. This is the unpardonable sin, +for which there is neither dispensation nor repentance. Ethan Brandt +has committed suicide because life had become intolerable on such +conditions. + +The summer of 1851 in Lenox was by no means brilliant. It had not yet +become the tip end of fashion, and Hawthorne's chief entertainment +seems to have been the congratulatory letters he received from +distinguished people. Mrs. Frances Kemble wrote to him from England, +announcing the success of his book there, and offering him the use of +her cottage, a more palatial affair than Mrs. Tappan's, for the ensuing +winter. Mrs. Hawthorne, however, felt the distance between herself and +her relatives, and perhaps they both felt it. Mrs. Hawthorne's sister +Mary, now Mrs. Horace Mann, was living in West Newton, and the last of +June Mrs. Hawthorne went to her for a long summer visit, taking her two +daughters with her and leaving Julian in charge of his father, with +whom it may be affirmed he was sufficiently safe. It rarely happens +that a father and son are so much together as these two were, and they +must have become very strongly attached. + +For older company he had Hermann Melville, and G. P. R. James, whose +society he may have found as interesting as that of more distinguished +writers, and also Mr. Tappan, whom Hawthorne had learned to respect for +his good sense and conciliatory disposition--a true peace-maker among +men and women. Burill Curtis, the amateur brother of George W. Curtis, +came to sketch the lake from Hawthorne's porch, and Doctor Holmes +turned up once or twice. On July 24 Hawthorne wrote to his friend Pike +at Salem: [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 151.] + +"By the way, if I continue to prosper as heretofore in the literary +line, I shall soon be in a condition to buy a place; and if you should +hear of one, say worth from $1500 to $2000, I wish you would keep your +eye on it for me. I should wish it to be on the seacoast, or at all +events with easy access to the sea." + +The evident meaning of this is that the Hawthornes had no desire to +spend a second winter in the Berkshire hills. The world was large, but +he knew not where to rest his head. Mrs. Hawthorne solved the problem +on her return to Lenox, and it was decided to remove to West Newton +when cold weather came. Thither they went November 21 in a driving +storm of snow and sleet,--a parting salute from old Berkshire,--and +reached Horace Mann's house the same evening. + +Nobody knows where the Hawthornes lived in Newton. The oldest survivors +of both families were only five years of age at that time. Mrs. +Hawthorne's father also resided in Newton that winter, and it is more +than likely that they made their residence with him. Julian Hawthorne +has a distinct recollection of the long freight-trains with their +clouds of black smoke blowing across his father's ground during the +winter; so they could not have lived very far from the Worcester +railroad. Horace Mann's house is still standing, opposite a school- +house on the road from the station, where a by-way meets it at an acute +angle. The freight-trains and their anthracite smoke must have had a +disturbing influence on Hawthorne's sensibility. + +The long-extended town of Newton, which is now a populous city, has +much the best situation of any of the Boston suburbs--on a moderately +high range of hills, skirted by the Charles River, both healthful and +picturesque. It is not as hot in summer nor so chilly at other seasons +as Concord, and enjoys the advantage of a closer proximity to the city. +Its society is, and always has been, more liberal and progressive than +Salem society in Hawthorne's time. Its citizens, mainly professional +and mercantile men, are active, intelligent, and sensible, without +being too fastidious. It was a healthful change for Hawthorne, and we +are not surprised to find that his literary work was affected by it. +Mrs. L. Maria Child lived there at the time, and so did Celia Thaxter, +although not yet known to fame. The sound, penetrating intelligence of +Horace Mann may have also had its salutary effect. + + +"THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE" + +Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "The Snow Image" were expressed to +Ticknor & Company before leaving Lenox, and "The Blithedale Romance" +may also have been commenced before that change of base. We only know, +from his diary, that it was finished on the last day of April, 1852, +and that he received the first proof-sheets of it two weeks later-- +which shows what expedition publishers can make, when they feel +inclined. + +The name itself is somewhat satirical, for Hawthorne did not find the +life at Brook Farm very blithesome, and in the story, with the +exception of the sylvan masquerade, there is much more rue than +heart's-ease, as commonly happens in his stories. The tale ends +tragically, and without the gleam of distant happiness which lights up +the last scenes of "The Scarlet Letter." It commences with a severe +April snowstorm, an unfavorable omen; the same in which Hawthorne set +out to join the West Roxbury community. + +And yet the name is not without a serious meaning--a stern, sad moral +significance. The earth is not naturally beautiful, for rank Nature +ever runs to an excess. It is only beautiful when man controls and +remodels it; but what man makes physically, he can unmake spiritually. +We pass by a handsome estate, a grand arcade of elms over its avenue, +spacious lawns, an elegant mansion, a luxurious flower-garden; but we +are informed that happiness does not dwell there, that its owner is a +misanthropic person, whose nature has been perverted by the selfishness +of luxury; that there are no pleasant parties on the lawn, no happy +wooing in that garden, no marriage festivals in those halls; and those +possessions, which might have proved a blessing to generations yet +unborn, are no better than a curse and a whited sepulchre. How many +such instances could be named. + +It may have occurred to Hawthorne, that, if George Ripley, instead of +following after a will-o'-the-wisp notion, which could only lead him +into a bog, had used the means at his disposal to cultivate Brook Farm +in a rational manner, and had made it a hospitable rendezvous for +intellectual and progressive people,--an oasis of culture amid the wide +waste of commercialism,--the place might well have been called +Blithedale, and Mr. Ripley would have inaugurated a movement as rare as +it was beneficial. It was only at a city like Boston, whose suburbs +were pleasant and easily accessible, that such a plan could be carried +out; and it was only a man of Mr. Ripley's scholarship and intellectual +acumen who could have drawn together the requisite elements for it. It +looks as if he missed an opportunity. + +We should avoid, however, confounding George Ripley with Hawthorne's +Hollingsworth. It is quite possible that Hawthorne made use of certain +traits in Ripley's character for this purpose, and also that he may +have had some slight collision with him, such as he represents in "The +Blithedale Romance;" but Ripley was an essentially veracious nature, +who, as already remarked, carried out his experiment to its logical +conclusion. Hollingsworth, on the contrary, proposes to pervert the +trust confided to him, in order to establish at Blithedale an +institution for the reformation of criminals, by which proceeding he +would, after a fashion, become a criminal himself. At the same time, he +plays fast and loose with the affections of Zenobia and Priscilla, who +are both in love with him, designing to marry the one who would make +the most favorable match for his purpose. It is through the junction of +these two streams of evil that the catastrophe is brought about. + +Priscilla is evidently taken from the little seamstress whom Hawthorne +mentions in his diary for October 9, 1841, and if she ever discovered +this, she could hardly have been displeased, for she is one of his most +lovable creations; not so much of an ideal as Phoebe Pyncheon, for she +is older and has already seen hard fortune. Her quiet, almost +submissive ways at first excite pity rather than admiration, but at +length we discover that there is a spirit within her, which shines +through its earthly envelope, like the twinkling of a star. + +Zenobia has a larger nature and a more gifted mind than Priscilla, but +also a more mixed character. Her name suggests a queenly presence and +she is fully conscious of this. She does not acquire an equal influence +over the other sex, for she is evidently in love with herself. She is +described as handsome and attractive, but no sooner had "Blithedale" +been published than people said, "Margaret Fuller" [Footnote: the name +of Zenobia is not very remotely significant of Margaret Fuller. Palmyra +was the centre of Greek philosophy in Zenobia's time, and she also +resembled Margaret in her tragical fate.]--although Margaret Fuller +was rather plain looking, and never joined the Brook Farm association. + +If this surmise be correct, it leads to a curious consideration. After +painting a portrait of Zenobia in Chapter VI of "Blithedale," quite +worthy of Rubens or Titian, he remarks, through the incognito of Miles +Coverdale, in the first part of Chapter VII, that Priscilla reminds him +of Margaret Fuller, and says this to Priscilla herself. Now it proves +in the sequel that Priscilla and Zenobia are half-sisters, but it would +be as difficult to imagine this from anything that is said in the story +about them, as it is to understand how the shy, undemonstrative +Priscilla could have reminded Coverdale of the brilliant and aggressive +leader of the Transcendentalists. + +The introduction of Margaret Fuller's name in that place comes abruptly +on the reader, and momentarily dispels the illusion of the tale. Was +Hawthorne conscious of the undercurrent of relationship, which he had +already formulated in his mind, between Priscilla and Zenobia; or what +is more likely, did he make the comparison in order to lead his readers +away from any conceptions they might have formed in regard to the +original of his heroine? If the latter supposition be true, he +certainly was not very successful, for in either case it is evident +that Margaret Fuller was prominent in his thoughts at the time he wrote +those two chapters. + +Hawthorne's idea of her, however, should not be accepted as a finality. +What Emerson and other friends have said concerning her should also be +considered in order to obtain a just impression of a woman who combined +more varied qualities than perhaps any other person of that time. +Hawthorne says of Zenobia, that she was naturally a stump oratoress,-- +rather an awkward expression for him--and that "her mind was full of +weeds." Margaret Fuller was a natural orator, and her mind was full of +many subjects in which Hawthorne could take little interest. She was a +revolutionary character, a sort of female Garibaldi, who attacked old +Puritan traditions with a two-edged sword; she won victories for +liberalism, but left confusion behind her. Like all such characters, +she made friends and enemies wherever she went. She sometimes gave +offence by hasty impulsive utterances, but more frequently by keenly +penetrating arguments for the various causes which she espoused. Only a +woman could deliver such telling shots. + +Lowell, who was fond of an argument himself, did not like her better +than Hawthorne did. There may be some truth in what he says in "The +Fable for Critics," that the expression of her face seemed to suggest a +life-long familiarity with the "infinite soul"; but Margaret Fuller was +sound at heart, and when she talked on those subjects which interested +her, no one could be more self-forgetful or thoroughly in earnest. At +times, she seemed like an inspired prophetess, and if she had lived two +thousand years earlier, she might have been remembered as a sibyl. +[Footnote: See Appendix B.] + +"The Blithedale Romance" is written with a freer pen and less carefully +than "The House of the Seven Gables," and is so much the better; for +the author's state of mind in which he is writing will always affect +the reader more or less, and if the former feels under a slight +constraint the latter will also. A writer cannot be too exact in +ascertaining the truth,--Macaulay to the contrary,--but he can trouble +himself too much as to the expression of it. At the same time, "The +Blithedale Romance" is the least poetic of Hawthorne's more serious +works (which is the same as saying that it is more like a novel), for +the reason that Hawthorne in this instance was closer to his subject. +It is also more of a personal reminiscence, and less an effort of the +imagination. He has included in it a number of descriptive passages +taken from his Brook Farm diary; most notably the account of that +sylvan masquerade, in which Coverdale finds his former associates +engaged on his return to Blithedale in the autumn. Perhaps this is the +reason why the book has so pleasant a flavor--a mellow after-thought of +old associations. + +An air of mystery adds an enchantment to a work of art, whether in +poetry, painting, or sculpture,--perhaps also in music; but there is a +difference in kind between mystery and uncertainty. We do not like to +be left half in the dark, in regard to things which we think we ought +to know. There is a break in Hawthorne's chain of evidence against +Hollingsworth and Zenobia, which might possibly have been filled to +advantage. He would certainly have been non-suited, if his case had +been carried into court. We are permitted to suppose that Zenobia, in +order to clear her path of a successful rival, assists the mountebank, +Westervelt, to entrap Priscilla, over whom he possesses a kind hypnotic +power, and to carry her off for the benefit of his mountebank +exhibitions; but it remains a supposition and nothing more. We cannot +but feel rejoiced, when Hollingsworth steps onto the platform and +releases Priscilla from the psychological net-work in which she is +involved, and from which she has not sufficient will-power to free +herself. He certainly deserves her hand and fortune; but, as to his +condemnatory charges against Zenobia, which led directly to her +suicide,--what could they have been? Was there nothing more than the +trick she had attempted upon Priscilla? And if he accused her of that +only, why should he suffer perpetual remorse on account of her death? +Surely there was need of further explanation here, for the catastrophe +and its consequences are out of all proportion to the apparent cause. + +His account of the recovery of Zenobia's body is a close transcript of +the search for that unfortunate school-mistress, who drowned herself in +Concord River; and it is possible that, if Hawthorne had not been +present on that occasion, the plot might have terminated in some other +manner. + +The story closes without a ray of hope for Hollingsworth; but the +reader can perceive one in the generous devotion of his single-minded +wife, even if Hawthorne did not. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: 1852-1854 + + +Why Hawthorne returned to Concord in 1852 is more of a mystery than the +suicide of Zenobia. Horace Mann also left Newton, to be President of +Antioch College (and to die there in the cause of feminine education), +in the autumn of that year; but this could hardly have been expected +six months earlier. Hawthorne was not very favorably situated at +Newton, being rather too near the railroad; but there was plenty of +land on the top of the hill, where he might have built himself a house, +and in the course of twelve years his property would have quadrupled in +value. A poet will not be less of a poet, but more so, for +understanding the practical affairs of life. Or he might have removed +to Cambridge, where Longfellow, always foremost in kind offices, would +have been like a guardian angel to him, and where he could have made +friends like Felton and Agassiz, who would have been much more in +harmony with his political views. Ellery Channing was the only friend +he appears to have retained in Concord, and it was not altogether a +favorable place to bring up his children; but the natural topography of +Concord is unusually attractive, and it may be suspected that he was +drawn thither more from the love of its pine solitudes and shimmering +waters, than from any other motive. + +The house he purchased was nearly a mile from the centre of the town, +and has ever since been known by the name of the Wayside. After +Hawthorne's return from Europe in 1860, he remodelled it somewhat, so +that it has a more dignified aspect than when he first took possession +of it. Alcott, who occupied it for some years previously, had adorned +it with that species of rustic architecture in which he was so skilful. +The house was half surrounded by a group of locust trees, much in +fashion seventy years ago, and had been set so close against the hill- +side, that a thicket of stunted pines and other wild growth rose above +the roof like a crest. Bronson Alcott was his next-door neighbor,-- +almost too strong a contrast to him,--and Emerson's house was half a +mile away; so that these three families formed a group by themselves in +that portion of Concord. + +Hawthorne wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, describing his new +acquisition, and expressing satisfaction in it. It was the first house +that he had ever owned; and it is no small comfort to a man to live +under his own roof, even though it be a humble one. At this time, +however, he did not remain at the Wayside but a single year. After +that, the house stood empty until the untimely death of Horace Mann, +August 2, 1859, when Mrs. Mann came to Concord with her three boys, and +occupied it until Hawthorne's return from Europe. + +[Illustration: THE WAYSIDE] + +It may as well be noticed here, that, during the eight years which +Hawthorne spent altogether in Concord, he accomplished little literary +work, and none of any real importance. It is impossible to account for +this, except upon those psychological conditions which sometimes affect +delicately balanced minds. Whether the trouble was in the social +atmosphere of the place, or in its climatic conditions, perhaps +Hawthorne himself could not have decided; but there must have been a +reason for it of some description. Julian Hawthorne states that his +father had a plan at this time of writing another romance, of a more +cheerful tone than "The Blithedale Romance," but the full current of +his poetic activity was suddenly brought to a standstill by an event +that nobody would have dreamed of. + +Hawthorne had hardly established himself in his new abode, when +Franklin Pierce was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic +party. The whole country was astonished, for no such nomination had +ever been made before, and it is probable that Pierce himself shared +largely in this. The New Hampshire delegation had presented his name to +the convention, in order to procure him distinction in his own State, +but without expectation that he would become a serious candidate. Like +the nomination of Hayes in 1876, it resulted from the jealousy of the +great party leaders,--always an unfortunate position for a public man +to be placed in. Theodore Parker said, "Any one is now in danger of +becoming President." + +Hawthorne evidently felt this, for he wrote to Bridge, "I do not +consider Pierce the brightest man in the country, for there are twenty +more so." It would have been a mild statement if he had said two +hundred. Pierce wanted him, of course, to write a campaign biography, +and communicated with him to that effect; but Hawthorne disliked +meddling in such matters, and at first declined to do it, although it +was expected to be highly remunerative. Pierce, however, insisted, for +Hawthorne's reputation was now much beyond his own, and he felt that a +biography by so distinguished a writer would confer upon him great +dignity in the eyes of the world; and as Hawthorne felt already much +indebted to Pierce, he finally consented,--although a cheap spread- +eagle affair would have served the purpose of his party quite as well. +The book had to be written in haste, and just at the time when +Hawthorne wished to take a little leisure. There were so few salient +points in Pierce's life, that it was almost like making a biography out +of nothing, and as for describing him as a hero, that was quite +impossible. It was fortunate that he knew so much of Pierce's early +life, and also that Pierce had kept a diary during the Mexican War, +which formed a considerable portion of the biography. + +The book is worth reading, although written in this prosaic manner. +Hawthorne states in the preface, frankly and manfully, that he objected +to writing it, and this ought to be an excuse sufficient for his doing +so--if excuse be needed. He does not attempt to represent his friend as +a great statesman, but rather as a patriotic country gentleman, who is +interested in public affairs, and who rises from one honorable position +to another through a well-deserved popularity. This would seem to have +been the truth; and yet there was a decided inconsistency in Franklin +Pierce's life, which Hawthorne represents plainly enough, although he +makes no comment thereon. + +Franklin Pierce's father was captain of a militia company in 1798, when +war was declared against the French Directory, for seizing and +confiscating American merchant ships, contrary to the law of nations. +There could not have been a more just occasion for war, but Captain +Pierce resigned his commission, because he considered it wrong to fight +against a republic; and Hawthorne approves of him for this. Franklin +Pierce, however, resigned his seat in the Senate in 1842, on account of +the interests of his family, alleging that "he would never enter public +life again, unless the needs of his country imperatively demanded it," +yet four years later he organized a regiment for the invasion of +Mexico,--not only for making war upon a republic, but an unjust and +indefensible war. General Grant's opinion ought to be conclusive on +this latter point, for he belonged to the same political party as +Pierce and Hawthorne. Certainly, Pierce's services were not required +for the defence of his native land. + +To do Hawthorne justice, there can be no doubt that in his heart he +disapproved of this; for in one of his sketches written at the Old +Manse, he speaks censoriously of "those adventurous spirits who leave +their homes to emigrate to Texas." He evidently foresaw that trouble +would arise in that direction, and perhaps Ellery Channing assisted him +in penetrating the true inwardness of the movement. + +It will be remembered that in Franklin Pierce's youth, he was +exceptionally interested in military manouvres, and this may have been +one of the inducements which led him into the Mexican War; but young +men who are fond of holiday epaulets do not, for obvious reasons, make +the best fighters. Pierce's military career was not a distinguished +one; for, whether he was thrown from his horse in his first engagement, +or, as the Whigs alleged, fell from it as soon as he came under fire, +it is certain that he did not cover himself with glory, as the phrase +was at that time. But we can believe Hawthorne, when he tells us that +Pierce took good charge of the troops under his command, and that he +was kind and considerate to sick and wounded soldiers. That was in +accordance with his natural character. + +It was impossible at that time to avoid the slavery question in dealing +with political subjects, and what Hawthorne said on this point, in the +life of General Pierce, attracted more attention than the book itself. +Like Webster he considered slavery an evil, but he believed it to be +one of those evils which the human race outgrows, by progress in +civilization,--like the human sacrifices of the Gauls perhaps,--and he +greatly deprecated the anti-slavery agitation, which only served to +inflame men's minds and make them unreasonable. + +There were many sensible persons in the Northern States at that time, +like Hawthorne and Hillard, who sincerely believed in this doctrine, +but they do not seem to have been aware that there was a pro-slavery +agitation at the South which antedated Garrison's _Liberator_ and +which was much more aggressive and vehement than the anti-slavery +movement, because there were large pecuniary interests connected with +it. The desperate grasping of the slave-holders for new territory, +first in the Northwest and then in the Southwest, was not because they +were in any need of land, but because new slave States increased their +political power. Horatio Bridge says, relatively to this subject: + +"No Northern man had better means for knowing the dangers impending, +previous to the outbreak of the war, than had General Pierce. +Intimately associated--as he was--with the strong men of the South, in +his Cabinet and in Congress, he saw that the Southerners were +determined, at all hazards, to defend their peculiar institution of +slavery, which was imperilled by the abolitionists." + +If Franklin Pierce was desirous of preserving the Union, why did he +give Jefferson Davis a place in his Cabinet, and take him for his chief +adviser? Davis was already a pronounced secessionist, and had been +defeated in his own State on that issue. In subserviency to Southern +interests, no other Northern man ever went so far as Franklin Pierce, +nor did Garrison himself accomplish so much toward the dissolution of +the Union. He was an instance in real life of Goldsmith's "good-natured +man," and the same qualities which assisted him to the position of +President prevented his administration from being a success. Presidents +ought to be made of firmer and sterner material. + +Hawthorne had barely finished with the proofs of this volume, when he +received the saddest, most harrowing news that ever came to him. After +her mother's death, in 1849, Louisa Hawthorne had gone to live with her +aunt, Mrs. John Dike; and in July, 1852, Mr. Dike went with her on an +excursion to Saratoga and New York City. On the morning of July 27, +they left Albany on the steamboat "Henry Clay," which, as is well +known, never reached its destination. When nearing Yonkers, a fire +broke out near the engines, where the wood-work was saturated with oil, +and instantly the centre of the vessel was in a bright blaze. Mr. Dike +happened to be on the forward deck at the moment, but Louisa Hawthorne +was in the ladies' cabin, and it was impossible to reach her. The +captain of the Henry Clay immediately ran the vessel on shore, so that +Mr. Dike and those who were with him escaped to land, but Louisa and +more than seventy others, who threw themselves into the water, were +drowned. It would seem to have been impossible to save her. + +The death of Hawthorne's mother may be said to have come in the course +of Nature, and his mind was prepared for it; but Louisa had been the +playmate of his childhood, and her death seemed as unnecessary as it +was sharp and sudden. It happened almost on the third anniversary of +his mother's death, and these were the only two occasions in +Hawthorne's life, when the Dark Angel hovered about his door. + +Rebecca Manning says: "Louisa Hawthorne was a most delightful, lovable, +interesting woman--not at all 'commonplace,' as has been stated. Her +death was a great sorrow to all her friends. Her name was Maria Louisa, +and she was often called Maria by her mother and sister and aunts." + +Depressed and unnerved, in the most trying season of the year, +Hawthorne went in the latter part of August to visit Franklin Pierce at +Concord, New Hampshire; but there a severe torrid wave came on, so that +Pierce advised him to go at once to the Isles of Shoals, promising to +follow in a few days, if his numerous engagements would permit him. + +The Isles of Shoals have the finest summer climate on the Atlantic +Ocean; an atmosphere at once quieting and strengthening, and always at +its best when it is hottest on the main-land. Hawthorne found a pair of +friends ready-made there, and prepared to receive him,--Levi Thaxter, +afterwards widely known as the apostle of Browning in America, and his +wife, Celia, a poetess in the bud, only sixteen, but very bright, +original, and pleasant. They admired Hawthorne above all living men, +and his sudden advent on their barren island seemed, as Thaxter +afterward expressed it, like a supernatural presence. They became good +companions in the next two weeks; climbing the rocks, rowing from one +island to another,--bald pieces of rock, like the summits of mountains +rising above the surface of the sea,--visiting the light-house, the +monument to Captain John Smith, Betty Moody's Cave, the graves of the +Spanish sailors, the trap dikes of ancient lava, and much else. Every +day Hawthorne wrote a minute account in his diary of his various +proceedings there, including the observation of a live shark, which +came into the cove by the hotel, a rare spectacle on that coast. +General Pierce did not make his appearance, however, and on September +15, Hawthorne returned to his own home. + +The election of Pierce to the presidency was as remarkable as his +nomination. In 1848, General Taylor, the victor of a single battle, but +a man of little education, was nominated for the presidency over the +heads of the finest orators and ablest statesmen in America, and was +enthusiastically elected. General Scott, Franklin Pierce's opponent, +defeated the Mexicans in four decisive battles, captured the capital of +the country, and conducted one of the most skilful military expeditions +of the past century. He was a man of rare administrative ability, and +there is no substantial argument against his character. We have Grant's +testimony that it was pleasant to serve under him. Yet he was +overwhelmingly defeated at the polls by a militia general without +distinction, military or civil. + +Hawthorne was naturally delighted at the result of the election; +unfortunate as it afterwards proved for his country. He derived a +threefold satisfaction from it, in the success of his friend, in the +defeat of the Whigs, and in the happy prospects which it opened for +himself. He could now return to the Salem Custom House in triumph,--as +the wisest man might be tempted to do,--but he looked forward to +something that would be more advantageous to his family. He had already +written on October 18 to Horatio Bridge: + +"Before undertaking it [the biography] I made an inward resolution, +that I should accept no office from him; but, to say the truth, I doubt +whether it would not be rather folly than heroism to adhere to this +purpose, in case he should offer me anything particularly good. We +shall see. A foreign mission I could not afford to take. The consulship +at Liverpool, I might." [Footnote: Bridge 130] + +We may conclude from this, that Pierce had already intimated the +Liverpool consulate, which at that time was supposed to be worth +twenty-five thousand dollars a year in fees. It was an excellent plan +for the President of the United States to have such a gift at his +disposal, to reward some individual like Hawthorne, to whom the whole +nation was indebted to an extent that could never be repaid; but it is +a question whether it would not have been as well, in this particular +case, for Hawthorne to have remained in his own country. If he could +have written five or six romances more, this would have secured him a +good competency, and would have assured a sufficient income for his +family after his death. As it happened, the Liverpool consulate did not +prove so profitable as was anticipated. + +With such "great expectations" before him, Hawthorne could do no +serious work that winter, so he occupied himself leisurely enough, with +writing a sequel to his "Wonder Book," which he called "Tanglewood +Tales," apparently after the thicket which surmounted the hill above +his residence. This was finished early in March, and given to Ticknor & +Company to publish when they saw fit. As it is a book intended for +children, the consideration of it need not detain us. + +Early in April, 1853, Hawthorne was appointed and confirmed to the +Liverpool consulate, and on the 14th he went to Washington, as he tells +us, for the first time, to thank the President in person. Otherwise he +has divulged nothing concerning this journey, except that he was +introduced to a larger number of persons than he could remember the +names or faces of, and received ten times as many invitations as he +could accept. If Charles V. honored himself with posterity by picking +up the paint-brush which Titian had dropped on the floor, President +Pierce might have done himself equal credit by making Hawthorne his +guest at the White House; but if he did not go so far as this, it +cannot be doubted that he treated Hawthorne handsomely. There were +giants at Washington in those days. Webster and Clay were gone, but +Seward was the Charles Fox and Sumner the Edmund Burke of America; +Chase and Marcy were not much less in intellectual stature. Hawthorne +must have met them, but we hear nothing of them from him. + +Hawthorne delayed his departure for England, until the most favorable +season arrived, for his fragile wife and infant children to cross the +"rolling forties." At length, on July 6, two days after his forty-ninth +birthday, he sailed from Boston in the "Niagara," and with _placida +onda prospero il vento_, in about twelve days they all arrived +safely at their destination. + +The great stone docks of Liverpool, extending along its whole water- +front, give one a strong impression of the power and solidity of +England. Otherwise the city is almost devoid of interest, and +travellers customarily pass through it, to take the next train for +Oxford or London, without further observation, unless it be to give a +look at the conventional statue of Prince Albert on an Arab horse. +Liverpool is not so foggy a place as London, but it has a damper and +less pleasant climate, without those varied attractions and substantial +enjoyments which make London one of the most pleasant residences and +most interesting of cities. + +London fog is composed of soft-coal smoke, which, ascending from +innumerable chimneys, is filtered in the upper skies, and then, mixed +with vapor, is cast back upon the city by every change of wind. It is +not unpleasant to the taste, and seems to be rather healthful than +otherwise; but all the vapors which sail down the Gulf Stream, and +which are not condensed on the Irish coast in the form of rain, collect +about the mouth of the Mersey, so that the adjacent country is the best +watered portion of all England, Cornwall possibly excepted. There is +plenty of wealth in Liverpool, and all kinds of private entertainments, +but in no other city of its size are there so few public +entertainments, and the only interesting occupation that a stranger +might find there, would be to watch the strange and curious characters +in the lower classes, faces and figures that cannot be caricatured, +emerging from cellar-ways or disappearing through side-doors. Go into +an alehouse in the evening and, beside the pretty barmaid, who deserves +consideration as much for her good behavior as for her looks, you will +see plainly enough where Dickens obtained his _dramatis personae_ +for "Barnaby Rudge" and "The Old Curiosity Shop." Either in Liverpool +or in London you can see more grotesque comedy characters in a day, +than you could meet with in a year in America. These poor creatures are +pressed down, and squeezed out into what they are, under the +superincumbent weight of an enormous leisure class. + +Such was the environment in which Hawthorne was obliged to spend the +ensuing four years. He soon, however, discovered a means to escape from +the monotonous and labyrinthine streets of the city, by renting an +imitation castle at Rock Ferry,--a very pretty place, much like Dobbs +Ferry, on the Hudson, although the river is not so fine,--where his +wife and children enjoyed fresh air, green grass, and all the sunshine +attainable, and whence he could reach the consulate every morning by +the Mersey boat. We find them located there before September 1. + +Of the consulate itself, Hawthorne has given a minute pictorial +description in "Our Old Home," from which the following extract is +especially pertinent to our present inquiry: + +"The Consulate of the United States in my day, was located in +Washington Buildings (a shabby and smoke-stained edifice of four +stories high, thus illustriously named in honor of our national +establishment), at the lower corner of Brunswick Street, contiguous to +the Goree Arcade, and in the neighborhood of some of the oldest docks. +This was by no means a polite or elegant portion of England's great +commercial city, nor were the apartments of the American official so +splendid as to indicate the assumption of much consular pomp on his +part. A narrow and ill-lighted staircase gave access to an equally +narrow and ill-lighted passage-way on the first floor, at the extremity +of which, surmounting a door frame, appeared an exceedingly stiff +pictorial representation of the Goose and Gridiron, according to the +English idea of those ever-to-be-honored symbols. The staircase and +passage-way were often thronged of a morning, with a set of beggarly +and piratical-looking scoundrels (I do no wrong to our countrymen in +styling them so, for not one in twenty was a genuine American), +purporting to belong to our mercantile marine, and chiefly composed of +Liverpool Blackballers, and the scum of every maritime nation on earth; +such being the seamen by whose assistance we then disputed the +navigation of the world with England. These specimens of a most +unfortunate class of people were shipwrecked crews in quest of bed, +board, and clothing, invalids asking permits for the hospital, bruised +and bloody wretches complaining of ill-treatment by their officers, +drunkards, desperadoes, vagabonds, and cheats, perplexingly +intermingled with an uncertain proportion of reasonably honest men. All +of them (save here and there a poor devil of a kidnapped landsman in +his shore-going rags) wore red flannel shirts, in which they had +sweltered or shivered throughout the voyage, and all required consular +assistance in one form or another." + +The position of an American consul in a large foreign seaport, +especially at Liverpool, is anything but a sinecure, and in fact +requires a continual exercise of judgment much beyond the average +duties of a foreign minister. The difficulty also of being continually +obliged to distinguish between true and false applications for charity, +especially when the false are greatly in excess of the true, and among +a class of persons notably given to mendacious tricks, is one of the +most unpleasant conditions in which a tender-hearted man can find +himself. As curious studies in low life, the rascality of these +nautical mendicants may often have been interesting, and even amusing, +to Hawthorne, but as a steady pull they must have worn hard on his +nerves, even though his experienced clerk served as a breakwater to a +considerable portion. It has already been noticed that Hawthorne was a +conscientious office-holder, and he never trusted to others any duties +which he was able to attend to in person. Moreover, although he was a +man of reserved manners, there was an exceptionally tender, sympathetic +heart behind this impenetrable exterior, and it may be suspected that +he relieved many instances of actual distress, which could not be +brought within the government regulations. He may have suffered like +the ghost in Dickens's "Haunted Man," on account of those whom he could +not assist. It is certain that he aged more, in appearance at least, +during these four years, than at any similar period of his life. + +It is no wonder, therefore, that, after a visit to the English lakes, +the following summer, Hawthorne wrote to his friend, Henry Bright, from +Liverpool: + +"I have come back only for a day or two to this black and miserable +hole. I do not mean to apply these two adjectives to my consulate, but +to the whole of Liverpool." + +Yet it should be recollected that there were nearly a million of +persons in Liverpool, who were obliged to spend their lives there, for +good and evil fortune; and, as Emerson says, we can never think too +lightly of our own difficulties. + +Neither did Hawthorne find the news from America particularly +interesting. On March 30, 1854, he wrote to Bridge: + +"I like my office well enough, but my official duties and obligations +are irksome to me beyond expression. Nevertheless, the emoluments will +be a sufficient inducement to keep me here, though they are not above a +quarter part what some people suppose them. + +"It sickens me to look back to America. I am sick to death of the +continual fuss and tumult and excitement and bad blood which we keep up +about political topics. If it were not for my children, I should +probably never return, but--after quitting office--should go to Italy, +and live and die there. If Mrs. Bridge and you would go too, we might +form a little colony amongst ourselves, and see our children grow up +together. But it will never do to deprive them of their native land, +which I hope will be a more comfortable and happy residence in their +day than it has been in ours." + +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 65.] + +The last sentence in this ought to be printed in italics, for it is the +essence of patriotism. The "fuss and tumult" in America were due, for +the time being, to the apple of discord which Douglas had cast into the +Senate, by his Kansas-Nebraska bill. Hawthorne was too far away to +distinguish the full force and insidious character of that measure, but +if he had been in Concord, we believe he would have recognized (as so +many did who never had before) the imminent danger to the Union, from +the repeated concessions to the slave power. After he had become +disenthralled from his allegiance to party, we find him in his letters +to Bridge, taking broad views on political subjects. + +An event was soon to happen, well calculated to disenthrall him. The +Congress of 1854, after passing the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resolved, in +order to prove its democratic spirit, to economize in the +representation of our government to foreign powers. On April 14, the +good-hearted, theoretical O'Sullivan arrived in Liverpool, on his way +to be minister to Portugal, and warned Hawthorne that there was a bill +before Congress to reduce the consulate there to a salaried position. +This was a terrible damper on Hawthorne's great expectations, and on +April 17 he wrote again to Bridge, protesting against the change: +[Footnote: Bridge, 135, 136.] + +"I trust, in Heaven's mercy, that no change will be made as regards the +emoluments of the Liverpool consulate--unless indeed a salary is to be +given in addition to the fees, in which case I should receive it very +thankfully. This, however, is not to be expected; and if Liverpool is +touched at all, it will be to limit its emoluments by a fixed salary-- +which will render the office not worth any man's holding. It is +impossible (especially for a man with a family and keeping any kind of +an establishment) not to spend a vast deal of money here. The office, +unfortunately, is regarded as one of great dignity, and puts the holder +on a level with the highest society, and compels him to associate on +equal terms with men who spend more than my whole income on the mere +entertainments and other trimmings and embroidery of their lives. Then +I feel bound to exercise some hospitality towards my own countrymen. I +keep out of society as much as I decently can, and really practice as +stern an economy as I ever did in my life; but, nevertheless, I have +spent many thousands of dollars in the few months of my residence here, +and cannot reasonably hope to spend less than six thousand per annum, +even after all the expenditure of setting up an establishment is +defrayed." + +In addition to this, he states that his predecessor in office, John J. +Crittenden, never received above fifteen thousand dollars in fees, of +which he saved less than half. + +We can trust this to be the plain truth in regard to the Liverpool +consulate, and if twenty-five thousand a year was ever obtained from +it, there must have been some kind of deviltry in the business. +Congress proved inexorable,--as it might not have been, had Hawthorne +possessed the influence of a prominent politician like Crittenden. It +was a direct affront to the President from his own party, and Pierce +did not dare to veto the bill. + +What O'Sullivan said to Hawthorne on other subjects may be readily +inferred from Hawthorne's next letter to Bridge, in which he begs him +to remain in Washington for Pierce's sake, and says: + +"I feel a sorrowful sympathy for the poor fellow (for God's sake don't +show him this), and hate to have him left without one true friend, or +one man, who will speak a single honest word to him." + +It is not very clear how Horatio Bridge could counteract the influence +of Jefferson Davis and Caleb Cushing, but this shows that Franklin +Pierce's weakness as an administrator was already painfully apparent to +his friends, and that even Hawthorne could no longer disguise it to +himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HAWTHORNE IN ENGLAND: 1854-1858 + + +Hawthorne's life in England was too generally monotonous to afford many +salient points to his biographer. It was monotonous in his official +duties, in his pleasure-trips, and in his social experiences. He found +one good friend in Liverpool, Mr. Henry Bright, to whom he had already +been introduced in America, and he soon made another in Mr. Francis +Bennoch, who lived near the same city. They were both excellent men, +and belonged to that fine class of Englishmen who possess a comfortable +income, but live moderately, and prefer cultivating their minds and the +society of their friends, to clubs, yachting, horse-racing, and other +forms of external show. They were not distinguished, and were too +sensible to desire distinction. Henry Bright may have been the more +highly favored in Hawthorne's esteem, but they both possessed that tact +and delicacy of feeling which is rare among Englishmen, and by +accepting Hawthorne simply as a man like themselves, instead of as a +celebrity, they won that place in his confidence from which so many had +been excluded. + +Otherwise, Hawthorne contracted no friendships among distinguished +Englishmen of letters, like that between Emerson and Carlyle; and from +first to last he saw little of them. He had no sooner landed than he +was greeted with a number of epistles from sentimental ladies, or +authors of a single publication, who claimed a spiritual kinship with +him, because of their admiration for his writings. One of them even +addressed him as "My dear brother." These he filed away with a mental +reservation to give the writers as wide a circuit as he possibly could. +He attended a respectable number of dinner parties in both Liverpool +and London, at which he remained for the most part a silent and +unobtrusive guest. He was not favored with an invitation to Holland +House, although he met Lady Holland on one occasion, and has left a +description of her, not more flattering than others that have been +preserved for us. He also met Macaulay and the Brownings at Lord +Houghton's; but for once Macaulay would not talk. Mrs. Browning +evidently pleased Hawthorne very much. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. +129.] + +The great lights of English literature besides these,--Tennyson, +Carlyle, Ruskin, Thackeray, Dickens,--he was never introduced to, +although he saw Tennyson in a picture-gallery at Manchester, and has +left a description of him, such as might endure to the end of time. +Neither did he make the acquaintance of those three luminaries, Froude, +Marian Evans, and Max Muller, who rose above the horizon, previous to +his return to America. That he was not presented at Court was a matter +of course. There was nothing which he could have cared for less. + +After his return he published a volume of English sketches, which he +entitled "Our Old Home," but he seems to have felt actually less at +home in England than in any other country that he visited. In that +book, and also in his diary, the even tenor of his discourse is +interrupted here and there by fits of irritability which disclose +themselves in the use of epithets such as one would hardly expect from +the pen of Hawthorne. If we apply to him the well-known proverb with +respect to the Russians, we can imagine that under similar conditions +an inherited sailor-like tendency in him came to the surface. We only +remember one such instance in his American Note-book, that in which he +speaks of Thoreau's having a face "as homely as sin." + +[Footnote: The general effect of Thoreau's face was by no means +unpleasant.] + +Hawthorne did not carry with him to Europe that narrow provincialism, +which asserts itself in either condemning or ridiculing everything that +differs essentially from American ways and methods. On the contrary, +when he compares the old country with the new,--for instance, the +English scenery with that of New England,--Hawthorne is usually as +fair, discriminating, and dispassionate as any one could wish, and +perhaps more so than some would desire. His judgment cannot be +questioned in preferring the American elm, with its wine-glass shape, +to the rotund European species; but he admires the English lake country +above anything that he has seen like it in his own land. "Centuries of +cultivation have given the English oak a domestic character," while +American trees are still to be classed with the wild flowers which +bloom beneath their outstretched arms. + +Matthew Arnold spoke of his commentaries on England as the writing of a +man chagrined; but what could have chagrined Hawthorne there? The +socially ambitious man may become chagrined, if he finds that doors are +closed to him, and so may an unappreciated would-be genius. But +Hawthorne's position as an author was already more firmly established +than Matthew Arnold's ever could be; and as for social ambition, no +writer since Shakespeare has been so free from it. It seems more +probable that the difficulty with Hawthorne in this respect was due to +his old position on the slavery question, which now began to bear +bitter fruit for him. All Englishmen at that time, with the exception +of Carlyle, Froude, and the nobility, were very strongly anti-slavery, +--the more so, as it cost them nothing to have other men's slaves +liberated,--and the English are particularly blunt, not to say +_gauche_, in introducing topics of conversation which are liable +to become a matter of controversy. At the first dinner-party I attended +in London some thirty-odd years ago, I had scarcely tasted the soup, +before a gentleman opposite asked me: "What progress are you making in +the United States toward free trade? Can you tell me, sir?" He might as +well have asked me what progress we were making in the direction of +monarchy. Fortunately for Hawthorne, his good taste prevented him from +introducing the slavery question in his publications, excepting in the +life of Pierce, but for this same reason his English acquaintances in +various places were obliged to discover his opinions at first hand, nor +is it very likely that they were slow to do this. Phillips and Garrison +had been to England and through England, and their dignified speeches +had made an excellent impression. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell and +Whittier had spoken with no uncertain sound, protesting against what +they considered a great national evil. How did it happen that Hawthorne +was an exception? + +Through his kind friend Mr. Bennoch, he fell in with a worthy whom it +would have been just as well to have avoided--the proverbial-philosophy +poet, Martin Farquhar Tupper; not a genuine poet, nor considered as +such by trustworthy critics, but such a good imitation, that he +persuaded himself and a large portion of the British public, including +Queen Victoria, that he was one. Hawthorne has given an account of his +visit to this man, [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 114.] second only in +value to his description of Tennyson; for it is quite as important for +us to recognize the deficiencies of the one, as it is to know the true +appearance of the other. It is an unsparing study of human nature, but +if a man places himself on a pedestal for all people to gaze at, it is +just this and nothing more that he has to expect. Hawthorne represents +him as a kindly, domestic, affectionate, bustling little man, who kept +on bustling with his hands and tongue, even while he was seated--a man +of no dignity of character or perception of his deficiency of it. This +all does well enough, but when Hawthorne says, "I liked him, and +laughed in my sleeve at him, and was utterly weary of him; for +certainly he is the ass of asses," we feel that he has gone too far, +and suspect that there was some unpleasantness connected with the +occasion, of which we are not informed. The word "ass," as applied to a +human being, is not current in good literature, unless low comedy be +entitled to that position, and coming from Hawthorne, of all writers, +it seems like an oath from the mouth of a woman. Tupper, who was quite +proud of his philanthropy, was also much of an abolitionist, and he may +have trodden on Hawthorne's metaphysical toes half a dozen times, +without being aware of what he was doing. Altogether, it seems like +rather an ill return for Tupper's hospitality; but Hawthorne himself +did not intend it for publication, and on the whole one does not regret +that it has been given to the public. We have been, however, +anticipating the order of events. + +During the summer of 1854, the Hawthorne family made a number of +unimportant expeditions, visiting mediaeval abbeys and ruinous +castles,--especially one to Chester and Eton Hall, which was not quite +worth the fees they paid to the janitors. An ancient walled city is +much of a novelty to an American for the first time, but, having seen +one, you have seen them all, and Chester Cathedral does not stand high +in English architecture. On September 14, O'Sullivan appeared again, +and they all went into the Welsh mountains, where they examined the old +fortresses of Rhyl and Conway, which were built by Edward Longshanks to +hold the Welshmen in check. Those relics of the feudal system are very +impressive, not only on account of their solidity and the great human +forces which they represent, but from a peculiar beauty of their own, +which modern fortifications do not possess at all. They seem to belong +to the ground they stand on, and the people who live about them look +upon them as cherished landmarks. They are the monuments of an heroic +age, and Hawthorne's interest in them was characteristic of his nature. + +O'Sullivan returned to Lisbon early in October, and on the 5th of that +month, Hawthorne found himself obliged to make a speech at an +entertainment on board a merchant vessel called the "James Barnes," +which had been built in Boston for a Liverpool firm of ship-owners. He +considered this the most serious portion of his official duty,--the +necessity of making after-dinner speeches at the Mayor's or other +public tables. He writes several pages on the subject in a humorously +complainant tone, congratulating himself that on the present occasion +he has succeeded admirably, for he has really said nothing, and that is +precisely what he intended to do. After-dinner speeches are like soap- +bubbles: they are made of nothing, signify nothing, float for a moment +in the air, attract a momentary attention, and then disappear. But the +difficulty is, to make an apparent something out of nothing, to say +nothing that will offend anybody, and to say something that will be +different from what others say. It is truly a hard situation in which +to place even a very talented man, and, as Longfellow once remarked, +those were most fortunate who made their speeches first, and could then +enjoy their dinner, while their successors were writhing in agony. +However, there are those who like it, and having practised it to +perfection, can do it better than anything else. Hawthorne analyzes his +sensations, after finishing his speech, with rare self-perception. +"After sitting down, I was conscious of an enjoyment in speaking to a +public assembly, and felt as if I should like to rise again. It is +something like being under fire,--a sort of excitement, not exactly +pleasure, but more piquant than most pleasures." Was it President +Jackson, or Senator Benton, who said that fighting a duel was very much +like making one's maiden speech? + +Mrs. Hawthorne thus describes the residence of the President of the +Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool: [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 238.] "We +were ushered into the drawing-room, which looked more like a brilliant +apartment in Versailles than what I had expected to see. The panels +were richly gilt, with mirrors in the centre, and hangings of gilded +paper; and the broad windows were hung with golden-colored damask; the +furniture was all of the same hue; with a carpet of superb flowers; and +vases of living flowers standing everywhere; and a chandelier of +diamonds (as to indefatigable and vivid shining), and candlesticks of +the same,--not the long prisms like those on Mary's astral, but a +network of crystals diamond-cut." + +This was the coarse commercial taste of the time, previous to the +reforms of Ruskin and Eastlake. The same might be said of Versailles. +There is no true elegance in gilding and glass-work, including mirrors, +unless they be sparingly used. + +The Hawthornes were equally overpowered by a dinner-party given by a +millionaire and country squire of Liscard Vale; "two enormous silver +dish-covers, with the gleam of Damascus blades, putting out all the +rest of the light;" and after the fish, these were replaced by two +other enormous dishes of equal brilliancy. The table was shortly +covered with an array of silver dishes, reflecting the lights above in +dazzling splendor. At one end of the table was a roast goose and at the +other a boiled turkey; while "cutlets, fricassees, ragouts, tongue, +chicken-pies," and much else, filled the intermediate spaces, and the +sideboard groaned under a round of beef "like the dome of St. Peter's." +It was fortunate that the American consul came to this Herculean repast +with an excellent appetite. + +Henry Bright was their chief refuge from this flummery, as Hawthorne +called it; "an extremely interesting, sincere, earnest, independent, +warm and generous hearted man; not at all dogmatic; full of questions, +and with ready answers. He is highly cultivated, and writes for the +_Westminster_,"--a man who respected formalities and could +preserve decorum in his own household, but liked a simple, +unostentatious mode of living--in brief, he was a true English +gentleman. Mrs. Hawthorne has drawn his portrait with only less skill +than her husband: + +"His eyes are large, bright, and prominent, rather indicating great +facility of language, which he has. He is an Oxford scholar, and has +decided literary tastes. He is delicately strung, and is as +transparent-minded and pure-hearted as a child, with great enthusiasm +and earnestness of character; and, though a Liberal, very loyal to his +Queen and very admiring of the aristocracy." + +He appears to have been engaged in the Australian carrying trade, and +owned the largest sailing vessel afloat. + +Hawthorne went to an exhibition of English landscape paintings, and he +remarked that Turner's seemed too ethereal to have been painted by +mortal hands,--the finest compliment that Turner could have received, +for in delicate effects of light and shade,--in painting the atmosphere +itself,--he has no rival. + +In January, James Buchanan, who was then minister to England, came to +visit Hawthorne, and talked with him about the presidency,--for which +he considered himself altogether too old; but at the same time he did +not suggest the renomination of Franklin Pierce. This, of course, +disclosed his own ambition, and as Hawthorne's impartial pen-and-ink +sketch of him may not be recognized by many readers, on account of the +form in which it appears in the note-books, we append it here, with the +regret that Hawthorne could not have treated his friend Pierce in an +equally candid manner. + +"I like Mr.--. He cannot exactly be called gentlemanly in his manners, +there being a sort of rusticity about him; moreover, he has a habit of +squinting one eye, and an awkward carriage of his head; but, withal, a +dignity in his large person, and a consciousness of high position and +importance, which give him ease and freedom. Very simple and frank in +his address, he may be as crafty as other diplomatists are said to be; +but I see only good sense and plainness of speech,--appreciative, too, +and genial enough to make himself conversable. He talked very freely of +himself and of other public people, and of American and English +affairs. He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires +forever from public life." + +A certain amount of rusticity would seem to have been essential to a +presidential candidate during the middle of the past century. + +During this dismal winter Hawthorne was beset more than ever, by +nautical mendicants of all countries,--Hungarians, Poles, Cubans, +Spanish Americans, and French Republicans, who, unhappily for him, had +discovered that the American consul was a tender-hearted man. He had, +beside, to deal with a number of difficult cases of maltreated American +sailors,--the more difficult, because both parties to the suits were +greatly given to lying, even on occasions when it would have been more +expedient for them to tell the truth. He has recorded one such in his +diary, that deserves more than a superficial consideration. + +An American bark was on the point of sailing, when the captain cast +ashore a bruised and battered-looking man, who made his way painfully +to the consulate, and begged Hawthorne for a permit to be placed in the +hospital. He called himself the son of a South Carolina farmer, and +stated that he had gone on board this vessel with a load of farm +products, but had been impressed by the captain for the voyage, and had +been so maltreated, that he thought he would die,--and so he did, not +long afterward, at the hospital. Letters were found upon him, +substantiating the statement concerning his father, but it was +discovered, from the same source, that he was a jail-bird, and the +tattooed figures upon his arms showed that he had been a sailor of many +years' standing, although he had denied this to the consul. Hawthorne +speaks of him as an innocent man, the victim of criminal brutality +little less than murder; it is certainly difficult to account for such +severe ill-treatment, but the man was clearly a bad character, and it +is also true that sea-captains do not interfere with their deck-hands +without some kind of provocation. The man clung desperately to life up +to the last moment, and the letters he carried with him indicated that +he was more intelligent than the average of the nautical fraternity. + +In June, Hawthorne went with his family to Leamington, of which he +afterward published an account in the _Atlantic Monthly_, +criticised at the time for the manner in which he referred to English +ladies, as "covering a large area of Nature's foot-stool"; but this +element in Hawthorne's English writing has already been considered. +From Leamington he went, early in July, to the English lakes, +especially Windermere, and fortunately found time to thoroughly enjoy +them. He enjoyed them not only for their scenery, which he preferred to +that of New England, but also as illustrations to many descriptive +passages in Wordsworth's poetry, which serves the same purpose in the +guidebook of that region, as "Childe Harold" serves in the guidebooks +for Italy and Greece. Hawthorne also was interested in such places for +the sake of their associations. He describes Wordsworth's house, the +grounds about it, and the cemetery where he lies, with the accuracy of +a scientific report. He finds the grass growing too high about the +head-stone of Wordsworth's grave, and plucks it away with his own +hands, reflecting that it may have drawn its nourishment from his +mortal remains. We may suppose that he preserved this grass, and it is +only from such incidental circumstances that we discover who were +Hawthorne's favorites among poets and other distinguished writers. He +twice visited Wordsworth's grave. + +Their first two winters in Liverpool had not proved favorable to Mrs. +Hawthorne's health She had contracted a disorder in her throat from the +prevailing dampness, which threatened to become chronic, and her +husband felt that it would not be prudent for her to remain there +another winter. He thought of resigning and returning to America. Then +he thought of exchanging his consulship for one in southern Europe, +although the salaries of the more southern consulates were hardly +sufficient to support a married man. Then he thought of exchanging +places with O'Sullivan, but he hardly knew languages well enough for an +ambassador. The doctors, however, had advised Mrs. Hawthorne to spend a +winter at Madeira, and she courageously solved the problem by proposing +to go there alone with her daughters, for which Lisbon and O'Sullivan +would serve as a stepping-stone by the way. There are wives who would +prefer such an expedition to spending a winter in England with their +husbands, but Mrs. Hawthorne was not of that mould, and in her case it +was a brave thing to do. + +Accordingly, on the second Monday in October, Mrs. Hawthorne and her +two daughters sailed for Lisbon. She was presented at court there; +concerning which occasion she wrote a lengthy and very interesting +account to her husband, published in her son's biography. The King of +Portugal held a long conversation with her and Minister O'Sullivan, and +she describes him as dressed in a flamboyant manner,--a scarlet +uniform, lavishly ornamented with diamonds. With how much better taste +did the Empress of Austria receive the President of the French +Republic,--in a simple robe of black velvet, fastened at her throat +with a diamond brooch. One can envy Mrs. Hawthorne a winter at Madeira, +for there is no place in Europe pleasanter for that purpose, unless it +be Rome. Meanwhile, her husband spent the winter with his son (who was +now old enough to be trusted safely about the streets), at a sea- +captains' boarding-house in Liverpool. There, as in Salem, he felt +himself most companionable in such company, as he had been accustomed +to it from boyhood; and it appears that at this time he was in the +habit of composing fables for the entertainment of Julian, not unlike +the yarns which sailors often spin to beguile landsmen. [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, ii. 75.] + +Hawthorne found his third winter in Liverpool dismal enough without his +wife and the two little girls, and this feeling was considerably +increased by his dislike for the sea-captains' boarding-house keeper, +[Footnote: English Note-book, November 28, 1855.]with whom he was +living, and concerning whom he remarks, that a woman in England "is +either decidedly a lady or decidedly not." She would not have annoyed +him so much, had it not been for "her bustle, affectation, intensity, +and pretension of literary taste." The race of landladies contains +curious specimens, although we have met with some who were real ladies +nevertheless. Thackeray's description of a French boarding-house keeper +in "The Adventures of Philip" goes to every heart. Hawthorne writes +much in his diary, at this juncture, of his friend Francis Bennoch, who +clearly did the best he could, as a man and a brother, to make life +cheerful for his American friend; a true, sturdy, warm-hearted +Englishman. + +Christmas was celebrated at Mrs. Blodgett's, after the fashion of a +second-rate English house of entertainment. The servants hung mistletoe +about in various places, and woe to the unlucky wight that was caught +under it. Hawthorne presents an amusing picture of his boy Julian, nine +years old, struggling against the endearments of a chamber-maid, and +believes that he himself was the only male person in the house that +escaped. [Footnote: English Note-book, December, 1855.]If any man would +be sure to escape that benediction, he would have been the one; for no +one could be more averse to public demonstrations of affection. + +Hawthorne was witness to a curious strategic manouvre between President +Pierce and Minister Buchanan, which, however, he was not sufficiently +familiar with practical politics to perceive the full meaning of. On +the way to Southampton with his wife in October, they called on +Buchanan in London, and were not only civilly but kindly received. Mrs. +Hawthorne wished to view the Houses of Parliament while they were in +session, and the ambassador made a knot in his handkerchief, so as to +be sure to remember his promise to her. He informed Hawthorne at that +time of his desire to return to America, but stated that the President +had just written to him, requesting him to remain until April, although +he was determined not to do so. He excused himself on the plea of old +age, and Hawthorne seems to have had a suspicion of the insincerity of +this, but concluded on reflection not to harbor it. Pierce knew already +that Buchanan was his most dangerous rival for renomination, and +desired that he should remain as far off as possible; while Buchanan +was aware that, if he intended to be on the ground, he must not return +so late as to attract public attention. There were so many presidential +aspirants that Pierce may have found it difficult to supply Buchanan's +place, for the time being. + +Buchanan delayed a respectful length of time, and then handed in his +resignation. His successor, George M. Dallas, arrived at Liverpool +during the second week of March, and Hawthorne who does not mention him +by name, called upon him at once, and gives us this valuable portrait +of him. + +"The ambassador is a venerable old gentleman, with a full head of +perfectly white hair, looking not unlike an old-fashioned wig; and +this, together with his collarless white neckcloth and his brown coat, +gave him precisely such an aspect as one would expect in a respectable +person of pre-revolutionary days. There was a formal simplicity, too, +in his manners, that might have belonged to the same era. He must have +been a very handsome man in his youthful days, and is now comely, very +erect, moderately tall, not overburdened with flesh; of benign and +agreeable address, with a pleasant smile; but his eyes, which are not +very large, impressed me as sharp and cold. He did not at all stamp +himself upon me as a man of much intellectual or characteristic vigor. +I found no such matter in his conversation, nor did I feel it in the +indefinable way by which strength always makes itself acknowledged. +Buchanan, though somehow plain and uncouth, yet vindicates himself as a +large man of the world, able, experienced, fit to handle difficult +circumstances of life, dignified, too, and able to hold his own in any +society." [Footnote: English Note-book, March, 1856.] + +Morton McMichael, whose statue now stands in Fairmount Park, once +related this incident concerning Dallas, at a meeting of the +Philadelphia Hock Club. Somewhere about 1850 Dallas was invited to +deliver a 4th of July oration at Harrisburg, where McMichael was also +requested to read the Declaration of Independence. McMichael performed +his part of the ceremony, and sat down; then Dallas arose and thanked +the assembly for honoring him with such an invitation, but confessed to +some difficulty in considering what he should say, for an occasion +which had been celebrated by so many famous orators; but that a few +nights since, while he was lying awake, it occurred to him what he +should say to them. After this he proceeded to read his address from a +newspaper printed in 1841, which the audience could not see, but which +McMichael, from his position on the platform, could see perfectly well. + +Hawthorne's description suggests a man somewhat like this; but the +opinion of the Hock Club was that Dallas was not greatly to blame; for +how could any man make two distinct and original 4th of July orations? + +The 1st of April 1856, Hawthorne and Bennoch set off on a bachelor +expedition of their own, first to visit Tupper at Albany, as has been +already related, and then going to view a muster of British troops at +Aldershot; thence to Battle Abbey, which Hawthorne greatly admired, and +the field of Hastings, where England's greatness began in defeat. He +does not mention the battle, however, in his diary, and it may be +remarked that, generally, Hawthorne felt little interest in historical +subjects. After this, they went to London, where Bennoch introduced +Hawthorne at the Milton Club and the Reform Club. At the former, he +again encountered Martin F. Tupper, and became acquainted with Tom +Taylor, the editor of _Punch_, as well as other writers and +editors, of whom he had not previously heard. The Club was by no means +Miltonic, and one would suppose not exactly the place where Hawthorne +would find himself much at home. Neither were the proceedings +altogether in good taste. Bennoch opened the ball with a highly +eulogistic speech about Hawthorne, and was followed by some fifty +others in a similar strain, so that the unfortunate incumbent must have +wished that the earth would open and let him down to the shades of +night below. On such an occasion, even a feather weight becomes a +burden. Oh, for a boy, with a tin horn! + +Neither did Hawthorne apparently find his peers at the Reform Club. +Douglas Jerrold, who reminded him somewhat of Ellery Channing, was the +most notable writer he met there. There was, however, very little +speech-making, and plenty of good conversation. Unfortunately, he +offended Jerrold, by using the word "acrid" as applied to his writing, +instead of some other word, which he could not think of at the moment. +The difficulty, however, was made up over a fresh bottle of Burgundy, +and with the help of Hawthorne's unlimited good-will, so that they +parted excellent friends, and much the better for having known each +other. Either Jerrold or some other present told Hawthorne that the +English aristocracy, for the most part hated, despised, and feared men +of literary genius. Is it not much the same in America? + +After these two celebrations, and attending the Lord Mayor's banquet, +where he admired the beautiful Jewess whom he has described as Miriam +in "The Marble Faun," Hawthorne returned to Liverpool; and early in May +took another recess, with a Mr. Bowman, to York, Edinburgh, the +Trossachs, Abbotsford, and all the haunts of Scott and Burns; with his +account of which a large portion of the second volume of English Note- +books is filled; so that, if Scotland should sink into the sea, as a +portion is already supposed to have done in antediluvian times, all +those places could be reconstructed through Hawthorne's description of +them. + +This expedition lasted nearly three weeks, and on June 12 Hawthorne +received word that his wife, with Una and Rose, had already landed at +Southampton. He hastened at once to meet them, greatly rejoiced to find +Mrs. Hawthorne entirely restored to health. They had been separated for +more than seven months. + +They first proceeded to Salisbury, to see the cathedral and +Stonehenge,--the former, very impressive externally, but not so +satisfactory within; and the latter, a work of man emerging out of +Nature. Then they went to London, to enjoy the June season, and see the +regular course of sights in that huge metropolis. They visited St. +Paul's, the Tower, Guildhall, the National Gallery, the British Museum, +Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament, apparently finding as +much satisfaction in this conventional occupation as they did in the +social entertainments of London. At the house of Mr. S. C. Hall, a +noted entertainer of those days, Hawthorne became acquainted with the +most celebrated singer of her time, or perhaps of all time; namely, +Jenny Lind. No modern orator has held such a sway over the hearts of +men and women, as that Swedish nightingale,--for the purity of her +voice seemed no more than the emanation of her lofty nature. Hawthorne +describes her as a frank, sincere person, rather tall,--certainly no +beauty, but with sense and self-reliance in her aspect and manners. She +immediately gave Hawthorne an illustration of her frankness by +complaining of the unhealthy manner in which Americans, and especially +American women, lived. This seems like a prosaic subject for such a +person, but it was natural enough; for a concert singer has to live +like a race-horse, and this would be what would constantly strike her +attention in a foreign country. Hawthorne rallied to the support of his +countrywomen, and believed that they were, on the whole, as healthy and +long-lived as Europeans. This may be so now, but there has been great +improvement in the American mode of living, during the past fifty +years, and we can imagine that Jenny Lind often found it difficult to +obtain such food as she required. + +That she should have requested an introduction to Hawthorne is +significant of her interest in American literature, and suggests a +taste as refined and elevated as her music. + +It was on Hawthorne's wedding-day this happened, and a few days later +he was invited to a select company at Monckton Milnes's, which included +Macaulay, the Brownings, and Professor Ticknor. He found both the +Brownings exceedingly pleasant and accessible, but was somewhat +startled to find that Mrs. Browning was a believer in spiritism--not +such a sound and healthy intelligence as the author of "Middle-march," +and he might have been still more so, if he had known that she and her +husband were ardent admirers of Louis Napoleon. That was something +which an American in those days could not quite understand. However, he +found her an exceedingly pleasant companion. After dinner they looked +over several volumes of autographs, in which Oliver Cromwell's was the +only one that would to-day be more valuable than Hawthorne's own. + +A breakfast at Monckton Milnes's usually included the reading of a copy +of verses of his own composition, but perhaps he had not yet reached +that stage on the present occasion. + +Hawthorne heard such varied and conflicting accounts of Charles Dickens +that he hardly knew whether he would like to meet him or not. He wanted +to see Tennyson when he was at the Isle of Wight, but feared that his +visit might be looked on as an intrusion, by a person who lived so +retired a life,--judging perhaps from his own experience. While at +Windermere he paused for a moment in front of Harriet Martineau's +cottage, but on second thought he concluded to leave the good deaf lady +in peace. + +Conway speaks of Hawthorne's social life in England as a failure; but +failure suggests an effort in some direction or other, and Hawthorne +made no social efforts. Being lionized was not his business. He had +seen enough of it during the London season of 1856, and after that he +retired into his domestic shell, cultivating the acquaintance of his +wife and children more assiduously than ever, so that even his two +faithful allies, Bright and Bennoch, found it difficult to withdraw him +from it. Watching the development of a fine child is much more +satisfactory than any course of fashionable entertainments--even than +Lowell's twenty-nine dinner-parties in the month of June. Nothing +becomes more tedious than long-continued pleasure-seeking, with post- +prandial speeches and a constant effort to be agreeable. + +Hawthorne remained in England fully seventeen months after this, and +made a number of excursions; especially one to Oxford, where he and his +family were dined by a former mayor of the city, and where he greatly +admired the broad verdant grounds and Gothic architecture of the +colleges; and also a second journey to Edinburgh and the Trossachs, +undertaken for the benefit of Mrs. Hawthorne and Una. But we hear no +more of him in London society, and it only remains for us to chronicle +his exceptional kindness to an unfortunate American woman. + +It seems strange that the first doubt in regard to the authorship of +Shakespeare should have originated on this side of the Atlantic. If +Dante was a self-educated poet, there seems no good reason why +Shakespeare should not have been; and if the greatest of French writers +earned his living as an actor, why should not the greatest of English +writers have done the same? That would seem to be much more in harmony +with the central idea of American life--the principle of self- +helpfulness; but this is a skeptical epoch, and the tendency of our +political institutions is toward skepticism of character and distrust +of tradition. Hence we have Delia Bacon, Holmes, and Donnelly. + +Hawthorne has given future generations an account of Delia Bacon, which +will endure as the portrait of a gifted and interesting woman, diverted +from the normal channels of feminine activity by the force of a single +idea; but he makes no mention of his efforts in her behalf. He found +her in the lodgings of a London tradesman, and although she received +him in a pleasant and lady-like manner, he quickly perceived that her +mind was in an abnormal condition, and that it was positively dangerous +to discuss her favorite topic in a rational manner. He had a feeling +that the least opposition on his part to the Baconian theory would +result in his expulsion from the room, yet he found her conversation +interesting, and recognized that if her conclusions were erroneous she +had nevertheless unearthed valuable historic material, which ought to +be given to the world. He loaned her money, which he did not expect to +be repaid, and exerted himself to find a publisher for her, +recollecting perhaps the vows he had made to the gods in the days of +his own obscurity. He mentions in his diary calling on the Rutledges +for this purpose--where he saw Charles Reade, a tall, strong-looking +man, just leaving the office. He also wrote to Ticknor & Fields, and +finally did get Miss Bacon's volume brought out in London. The critics +treated it in a contemptuous manner, as a desecration of Shakespeare's +memory; and Hawthorne was prepared for this, but it opened a new era in +English bibliography. Shortly after the publication of her book Miss +Bacon became insane. + +To many this appeared like a Quixotic adventure, but now we can see +that it was not, and that it was necessary in its way to prove the +generosity of Hawthorne. We can readily infer from it what he might +have done with ampler means, and what he must often have wished to do. +To be sure, the truest kindness to Delia Bacon would have been to have +purchased a ticket on a Cunard steamer for her, after her own funds had +given out, and to have persuaded her to return to her own country; but +those who have dealt with persons whose whole vitality is absorbed in a +single idea, can testify how difficult, if not impossible, this would +have been. It redounds the more to Hawthorne's credit that although +Elizabeth Peabody was converted to Delia Bacon's theory, Hawthorne +himself never entertained misgivings as to the reality of Shakespeare +as a poet and a dramatist. + +He had doubts, however, and I felt the same in regard to the +authenticity of the verses on Shakespeare's marble slab. It is +fortunate that Miss Bacon's purpose of opening the tomb at Stratford +was not carried out, but that is no reason why it should not be opened +in a properly conducted manner, for scientific purposes--in order to +discover all that is possible concerning so remarkable and mysterious a +personality. Raphael's tomb has been opened, and why should not +Shakespeare's be also? + +At the Democratic convention in 1856 the Southern delegates wished to +renominate Franklin Pierce, but the Northern delegates refused their +agreement to this, because they knew that in such a case they would be +liable to defeat in their own districts. James Buchanan was accordingly +nominated, and Pierce's fears in regard to him were fully realized. He +was elected in November, and the following June appointed Beverly +Tucker to succeed Hawthorne as consul at Liverpool. Hawthorne resigned +his office on July 1, 1857, and went with his family on a long tour in +Scotland. Two weeks earlier he had written a memorial to the Secretary +of State concerning the maltreatment of a special class of seamen, +which deserved more consideration than it received from the government +at Washington. + +The gold discoveries in California had induced a large immigration to +America from the British Isles, and many who went thither in hopes of +bettering their fortunes became destitute from lack of employment, and +attempted to work their passage back to Liverpool in American sailing +vessels. It is likely that they often represented themselves as more +experienced mariners than they actually were, and there were also a +good many stowaways who might expect little mercy; but there was no +court in England that could take cognizance of their wrongs,--in order +to obtain justice they would have to return to America,--and it cannot +be doubted that the more brutal sort of officers took advantage of this +fact. The evil became so notorious that the British minister at +Washington requested Pierce's administration to have legislation +enacted that would cover this class of cases, but the President +declined to interfere. This may have been prudent policy, but Hawthorne +felt for the sufferers, and the memorial that he submitted to our +government on their account has a dignity, a clearness and cogency of +statement, worthy of Blackstone or Marshall. It is in marked contrast +to the evasive reply of Secretary Cass, both for its fine English and +for the directness of its logic. It is published at length in Julian +Hawthorne's biography of his father, and is unique for the insight +which it affords as to Hawthorne's mental ability in this direction. We +may infer from it that if he had made a study of jurisprudence, he +might have risen to the highest position as a writer on law. + +Hawthorne's English Note-books are the least interesting of that +series, on account of the literal descriptions of castles, abbeys, +scenery and palaces, with which they abound. The perfectly cultivated +condition of England and Scotland, so far as he went in the latter +country, is not stimulating to the imagination; for, as he says +somewhere, even the trees seemed to be thoroughly domesticated. They +are excellent reading for Americans who have never been to England, or +for those who wish to renew their memories in regard to certain places +there--perhaps better for the latter than for the former; and there are +fine passages in them, especially his descriptions of the old abbeys +and Gothic cathedrals, which seem to have delighted him more than the +gardens at Blenheim and Eton, and to have brought to the surface a rare +quality in his nature, or otherwise hidden in its depths,--his +enthusiasm. Never before did words fail him until he attempted to +describe the effect of a Gothic cathedral,--the time-honored mystery of +its arches, the sober radiance of its stained windows, and the solemn +aspiration of its lofty vault. As Schiller says, they are the monuments +of a mighty civilization of which we know only too little. + +Hawthorne's object in writing these detailed accounts of his various +expeditions becomes apparent from a passage in his Note-book, of the +date of August 21, 1856, in which he says: "In my English romance, an +American might bring a certain tradition from over the sea, and so +discover the cross which had been long since forgotten." It may have +been his intention from the first to write a romance based on English +soil, but that soil was no longer productive of such intellectual +fruit, except in the form in which Dickens dug it up, like peat, out of +the lower classes. We find Francis Bennoch writing to Hawthorne after +his return to America, [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 310.] hoping to +encourage him in this direction, but without apparent effect. Instead +of a romance, he made a collection of essays from those portions of his +diary which were most closely connected together, enlarging them and +rounding them out, which he published after his return to America, in +the volume we have often referred to as "Our Old Home." But as truthful +studies of English life and manners Mrs. Hawthorne's letters, though +not always sensible, are much more interesting than her husband's +diary. + +When Doctor Johnson was inquired of by a lady why he defined "pastern" +in his Dictionary as the knee of a horse, he replied, "Ignorance, +madam, pure ignorance;" and if Hawthorne had been asked a year +afterwards why he went to Scotland in the summer of 1857, instead of to +the Rhine and Switzerland, he might have given a similar excuse. In +this way he missed the grandest and some of the most beautiful scenery +in Europe. He could not, however, have been ignorant of the attractions +of Paris, and yet he lingered in England until the following January, +and then went over to that metropolis of fashion at a most unseasonable +time. He had, indeed, planned to leave England in October, [Footnote: +English Note-book, December, 1857.] and does not explain why he +remained longer. He made a last visit to London in November, where he +became reconciled to his fellow-townsmen of Salem, in the person of +Edward Silsbee, of whom he writes as "a man of great intelligence and +true feeling, absolutely brimming over with ideas." Mr. Silsbee was an +amateur art critic and connoisseur, who often made himself serviceable +to American travellers in the way of a gentleman-cicerone. He went with +the Hawthorne family to the Crystal Palace, where there were casts of +all famous statues, models of architecture, and the like, and gave +Hawthorne his first lesson in art criticism. Hawthorne indicated a +preference for Michel Angelo's statue of Giuliano de Medici, called "Il +Pensero;" also for the "Perseus" of Cellini, and the Gates of the +Florentine Baptistery by Lorenzo Ghiberti. If we except the other +statues of Michel Angelo, these are the most distinguished works in +sculpture of the modern world. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ITALY + + +Hawthorne went to Italy as naturally as the salmon ascends the rivers +in spring. His artistic instinct drew him thither as the original home +of modern art and literature, and perhaps also his interest in the +Latin language, the single study which he cared for in boyhood. Does +not romance come originally from Roma,--as well as Romulus? He wished +to stand where Casar stood, to behold the snowy Soracte of Horace, and +to read Virgil's description of an Italian night on Italian ground. It +is noticeable that he cared little or nothing for the splendors of +Paris, the glittering peaks of Switzerland, medical-musical Vienna, or +the grand scholarship and homely sweetness of old Germany. + +Of all the Anglo-Saxon writers who have celebrated Italy, Byron, +Shelley, Rogers, Ruskin and the two Brownings, none were more admirably +equipped for it than Hawthorne. We cannot read "The Romance of Monte +Beni" without recognizing a decidedly Italian element in his +composition,--not the light-hearted, subtle, elastic, fiery Italian, +such as we are accustomed to think them, but the tenderly feeling, +terribly earnest Tuscan, like Dante and Savonarola. The myrtle and the +cypress are both emblematic of Italian character, and there was more of +the latter than the former, though something of either, in Hawthorne's +own make-up. + +The Hawthornes left London on January 6, and, reaching Paris the +following day, they made themselves comfortable at the Hotel du Louvre. +However, they only remained there one week, during which it was so cold +that they saw little and enjoyed little. They went to Notre Dame, the +Louvre, the Madeleine, and the Champs Elysees, but without being +greatly impressed by what they beheld. Hawthorne does not mention a +single painting or statue among the art treasures of the Louvre, which +if rivalled elsewhere are certainly unsurpassed; but Hawthorne began +his studies in this line by an examination of the drawings of the old +masters, and confesses that he was afterward too much fatigued to +appreciate their finished paintings. + +On January 19 they reached Marseilles, and two days later they embarked +on that dreary winter voyage, so pleasant at an earlier season, for +Civita Vecchia; and on the 20th they rolled into the Eternal City, with +such sensations as one may imagine. On the 24th they located themselves +for the season in the Palazzo Larazani, Via Porta Pinciana. [Footnote. +Italian Note-book.] + +_Nemo similis Homeri_.--There is nothing like the charm of a first +visit to Rome. The first sight of the Forum, with its single pathetic +column, brings us back to our school-days, to the study of Casar and +the reading of Plutarch; and the intervening period drops out of our +lives, taking all our care and anxiety with it. In England, France, +Germany, we feel the weight of the present, but in Rome the present is +like a glass window through which we view the grand procession of past +events. What _is_, becomes of less importance than what was, and +for the first time we feel the true sense of our indebtedness to the +ages that have gone before. We bathe deep in the spirit of classical +antiquity, and we come out refreshed, enlarged and purified. We return +to the actualities of to-day with a clearer understanding, and better +prepared to act our part in them. + +Hawthorne did not feel this at first. He arrived in inclement weather, +and it was some weeks before he became accustomed to the climatic +conditions--so different from any northern atmosphere. He hated the +filth of the much-neglected city, the squalor of its lower classes, the +narrowness of its streets, and the peculiar pavement, which, as he says +makes walking in Rome a penitential pilgrimage. He goes to the +carnival, and his penetrating glance proves it to be a sham +entertainment. + +But in due course he emerges from this mood; he rejoices in the +atmospheric immensity of St. Peter's; he looks out from the Pincian +hill, and sees _Nivea Soracte_ as Horace beheld it; and he is +overawed (if Hawthorne could be) by the Forum of Trajan and the Column +of Antoninus. He makes a great discovery, or rediscovery, that +Phidias's colossal statues of Castor and Pollux on the Monte Cavallo +are the finest figures in Rome. They are late Roman copies, but +probably from Phidias,--not by Lysippus or Praxiteles; and he felt the +presence of Michel Angelo in the Baths of Diocletian. It is not long +before he goes to the Pincian in the afternoon to play at jack-stones +with his youngest daughter. + +William W. Story, the American sculptor, would seem to have been a +former acquaintance. His father, the famous law lecturer, lived in +Salem during Hawthorne's youth, but afterward removed to Cambridge, +where the younger Story was educated, and there married an intimate +friend of Mrs. James Russell Lowell. This brought him into close +relations with Lowell, Longfellow, and their most intimate friends. He +was something of a poet, and more of a sculptor, but, inheriting an +independent fortune and living in the Barberini Palace, he soon became +more of an Englishman than an American, a tendency which was visibly +increased by a patent of nobility bestowed on him by the King of +Naples. + +Hawthorne soon renewed William Story's acquaintance, and found him +modelling the statue of Cleopatra, of which Hawthorne has given a +somewhat idealized description in "The Marble Faun." This may have +interested him the more from the fact that he witnessed its development +under the sculptor's hands, and saw that distinguished historical +person emerge as it were out of the clay, like a second Eve; but he +makes a mental reservation that it would be better if English and +American sculptors would make a freer use of their chisels--of which +more hereafter. Story was a light-hearted, discursive person, with a +large amount of bric-a-brac information, who could appreciate Hawthorne +either as a genius or as a celebrity. He soon became Hawthorne's chief +companion and social mainstay in Rome, literally a _vade mecum_, +and we may believe that he exercised more or less influence over +Hawthorne's judgment in matters of art. + +Hawthorne listened to Story, and read Mrs. Jameson, although Edward +Silsbee had warned him against her as an uncertain authority; but +Hawthorne depended chiefly on his own investigations. He and his wife +declined an invitation to Mrs. Story's masquerade, and lived very +quietly during this first winter in Rome, making few acquaintances, but +seeing a good deal of the city. They went together to all the principal +churches and the princely galleries; and beside this Hawthorne +traversed Rome from one end to the other, and across in every +direction, sometimes alone, or in company with Julian, investigating +everything from the Mamartine prison, in which Jugurtha was starved, to +the catacombs of St. Calixtus and the buffaloes on the Campagna. The +impression which Conway gives, that he went about sight-seeing and +drinking sour wine with Story and Lothrop Motley, is not quite correct, +for Motley did not come to Rome until the following December, and then +only met Hawthorne a few times, according to his own confession. +[Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 406.] We must not forget, however, that +excellent lady and skilful astronomer, Miss Maria Mitchell, who joined +the Hawthorne party in Paris, and became an indispensable accompaniment +to them the rest of the winter. + +Hawthorne also became acquainted with Buchanan Read, who afterward +painted that stirring picture of General Sheridan galloping to the +battle of Cedar Run; and on March 12 Mr. Read gave a party, at his +Roman dwelling, of painters and sculptors, which Hawthorne attended, +and has entered in full, with the moonlight excursion afterward, in +"The Marble Faun." There Hawthorne met Gibson, to whom he refers as the +most distinguished sculptor of the time. So he was, in England, but +there were much better sculptors in France and in Germany. Gibson's +personality interested Hawthorne, as it well might, but he saw clearly +that Gibson was merely a skilful imitator of the antique, or, as he +calls him, a pagan idealist. He also made acquaintance with two +American sculptors, a Yankee and a girlish young woman, whose names are +prudently withheld; for he afterward visited their studios, and readily +discovered that they had no real talent for their profession. + +If we feel inclined to quarrel with Hawthorne anywhere, it is in his +disparagement of Crawford. There might be two opinions in regard to the +slavery question, but there never has been but one as to the greatest +of American artists. It was a pity that his friend Hillard could not +have been with Hawthorne at this time to counteract the jealous +influences to which he was exposed. He writes no word of regret at the +untimely death of Crawford, but goes into his studio after that sad +event and condemns his work. Only the _genre_ figure of a boy +playing marbles, gives him any satisfaction there; although a plea of +extenuation might be entered in Hawthorne's favor, for statues of +heroic size could not be seen to greater disadvantage than when packed +together in a studio. The immense buttons on the waistcoats of our +revolutionary heroes seem to have startled him on his first entrance, +and this may be accepted as an indication of the rest. Yet the tone of +his criticism, both in the "Note-book" and in "The Marble Faun," is far +from friendly to Crawford. He does not refer to the statue of +Beethoven, which was Crawford's masterpiece, nor to the statue of +Liberty, which now poses on the lantern of the Capitol at Washington,-- +much too beautiful, as Hartmann says, for its elevated position, and +superior in every respect to the French statue of Liberty in New York +harbor. + +Hawthorne had already come to the conclusion that there was a certain +degree of poison in the Roman atmosphere, and in April he found the +climate decidedly languid, but he had fallen in love with this pagan +capital and he hated to leave it. Mrs. Anna Jameson arrived late in +April; a sturdy, warm-hearted Englishwoman greatly devoted to art, for +which her books served as elementary treatises and pioneers to the +English and Americans of those days. She was so anxious to meet +Hawthorne that she persuaded William Story to bring him and his wife to +her lodgings when she was too ill to go forth. They had read each +other's writings and could compliment each other in all sincerity, for +Mrs. Jameson had also an excellent narrative style; but Hawthorne found +her rather didactic, and although she professed to be able "to read a +picture like a book," her conversation was by no means brilliant. She +had contracted an unhappy marriage early in life, and found an escape +from her sorrows and regrets in this elevated interest. + +It was just before leaving Rome that Hawthorne conceived the idea of a +romance in which the "Faun" of Praxiteles should come to life, and play +a characteristic part in the modern world; the catastrophe naturally +resulting from his coming into conflict with a social organization for +which he was unfitted. This portion of Hawthorne's diary is intensely +interesting to those who have walked on classic ground. + +On May 24 Hawthorne commenced his journey to Florence with a +_vetturino_ by easy stages, and one can cordially envy him this +portion of his Italian sojourn; with his devoted wife and three happy +children; travelling through some of the most beautiful scenery in the +world,--nearly if not quite equal to the Rhineland--without even the +smallest cloud of care and anxiety upon his sky, his mind stored with +mighty memories, and looking forward with equal expectations to the +prospect before him,--_bella Firenze_, the treasure-house of +Italian cities; through sunny valleys, with their streams and hill- +sides winding seaward; up the precipitous spurs of the Apennines, with +their old baronial castles perched like vultures' nests on inaccessible +crags; passing through gloomy, tortuous defiles, guarded by Roman +strongholds; and then drawn up by white bullocks over Monte Somma, and +to the mountain cities of Assisi and Perugia, older than Rome itself; +by Lake Trasimenus, still ominous of the name of Hannibal; over hill- +sides silver-gray with olive orchards; always a fresh view and a new +panorama, bounded by the purple peaks on the horizon; and over all, the +tender blue of the Italian sky. Hawthorne may have felt that his whole +previous life, all he had struggled, lived and suffered for, was but a +preparation for this one week of perfectly harmonious existence. Such +vacations from earthly troubles come but rarely in the most fortunate +lives, and are never of long duration. + +When they reached Florence, they found it, as Rose Hawthorne says, very +hot--much too hot to enjoy the city as it should be enjoyed. Her +reminiscences of their life at Florence, and especially of the Villa +Manteuto, have a charming freshness and virginal simplicity, although +written in a somewhat high-flown manner. She succeeds, in spite of her +peculiar style, in giving a distinct impression of the old chateau, its +surroundings, the life her family led there, and of the wonderful view +from Bellosguardo. One feels that beneath the disguise of a fashionable +dress there is an innocent, sympathetic, and pure-spirited nature. + +The Hawthornes arrived in Florence on the afternoon of June 3, and +spent the first night at the Albergo della Fontano, and the next day +obtained apartments in the Casa del Bello, opposite Hiram Powers' +studio, and just outside of the Porta Romana. Hawthorne made Mr. +Powers' acquaintance even before he entered the city, and Powers soon +became to him what Story had been in Rome. The Brownings were already +at Casa Guidi,--still noted in the annals of English poesy,--and called +upon the Hawthornes at the first notice of their arrival. Alacrity or +readiness would seem to have been one of Robert Browning's prominent +characteristics. Elizabeth Browning's mind was as much occupied with +spiritism as when Hawthorne met her two years previously at Monckton +Milnes's breakfast; an unfortunate proclivity for a person of frail +physique and delicate nerves. Neither did she live very long after +this. Her husband and Hawthorne both cordially disapproved of these +mesmeric practices; but Mrs. Browning could not be prevented from +talking on the subject, and this evidently produced an ecstatic and +febrile condition of mind in her, very wearing to a poetic temperament. +Hawthorne heartily liked Browning himself, and always speaks well of +him; but there must also have been an undercurrent of disagreement +between him and so ardent an admirer of Louis Napoleon, and he recalls +little or nothing of what Browning said to him. This continued till the +last of June, when Robert and Elizabeth left Florence for cooler +regions. + +Meanwhile Hawthorne occupied himself seriously with seeing Florence and +studying art, like a man who intends to get at the root of the matter. +Florence afforded better advantages than Rome for the study of art, not +only from the superiority of its collections, but because there the +development of mediaeval art can be traced to its fountain-source. He +had no textbooks to guide him,--at least he does not refer to any,--and +his investigations were consequently of rather an irregular kind, but +it was evidently the subject which interested him most deeply at this +time. His Note-book is full of it, and also of discussions on sculpture +with Hiram Powers, in which Hawthorne has frequently the best of the +argument. + +In fact Powers looked upon his art from much too literal a stand-point. +He agreed with Hawthorne as to the fine expression of the face of +Michel Angelo's "Giuliano de Medici," [Footnote: As Hawthorne did not +prepare his diary for publication, it would not be fair to hold him +responsible for the many instances of bad Italian in the Note-book, +which ought to have been edited by some one who knew the language.] but +affirmed that it was owing to a trick of overshadowing the face by the +projecting visor of Giuliano's helmet. Hawthorne did not see why such a +device did not come within the range of legitimate art, the truth of +the matter being that Michel Angelo left the face unfinished; but the +expression of the statue is not in its face, but in the inclination of +the head, the position of the arms, the heavy droop of the armor, and +in fact in the whole figure. Powers' "Greek Slave," on the contrary, +though finely modelled and sufficiently modern in type, has no definite +expression whatever. + +Hawthorne found an exceptional interest in the "Venus de Medici," now +supposed to have been the work of one of the sons of Praxiteles, and +its wonderful symmetry gives it a radiance like that of the sun behind +a summer cloud; but Powers cooled down his enthusiasm by objecting to +the position of the ears, the vacancy of the face, the misrepresentation +of the inner surface of the lips, and by condemning particularly the +structure of the eyes, which he declared were such as no human being +could see with. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, June 13, 1858.] Hawthorne +was somewhat puzzled by these subtleties of criticism, which he did not +know very well how to answer, but he still held fast to the opinion that +he was fundamentally right, and retaliated by criticising Powers' own +statues in his diary. + +The Greeks, in the best period of their favorite art, never attempted a +literal reproduction of the human figure. Certain features, like the +nostrils, were merely indicated; others, like the eyelashes, often so +expressive in woman, were omitted altogether; hair and drapery were +treated in a schematic manner. In order to give an expression to the +eyes, various devices were resorted to. The eyelids of the bust of +Pericles on the Acropolis had bevelled edges, and the eyeballs of the +"Apollo Belvedere" are exceptionally convex, to produce the effect of +looking to a distance, although the human eye when gazing afar off +becomes slightly contracted. The head of the "Venus de Medici" is +finely shaped, but small, and her features are pretty, rather than +beautiful; but her eyes are exceptional among all feminine statues for +their tenderness of expression--swimming, as it were, with love; and it +is the manner in which this effect is produced that Powers mistook for +bad sculpture. Hiram Powers' most exceptional proposition was to the +effect that the busts of the Roman emperors were not characteristic +portraits. Hawthorne strongly dissented from this; and he was in the +right, for if the character of a man can be read from marble, it is +from those old blocks. Hawthorne has some admirable remarks on this +point. + +Such was Hawthorne's internal life during his first month at Florence. +He was full of admiration for the cathedral, the equestrian statue of +Cosmo de Medici, the "David" of Michel Angelo, the Loggia de Lanzi, +Raphael's portrait of Julius II., the "Fates" of Michel Angelo, and +many others; yet he confesses that the Dutch, French, and English +paintings gave him a more simple, natural pleasure,--probably because +their subjects came closer to his own experience. + +A strange figure of an old man, with "a Palmer-like beard," continually +crossed Hawthorne's path, both in Rome and in Florence, where he dines +with him at the Brownings'. His name is withheld, but Hawthorne informs +us that he is an American editor, a poet; that he voted for Buchanan, +and was rejoicing in the defeat of the Free-soilers,--"a man to whom +the world lacks substance because he has not sufficiently cultivated +his emotional nature;" and "his personal intercourse, though kindly, +does not stir one's blood in the least." Yet Hawthorne finds him to be +good-hearted, intelligent, and sensible. This can be no other than +William Cullen Bryant. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, ii. 15.] + +In the evening of June 27 the Hawthornes went to call on a Miss +Blagden, who occupied a villa on Bellosguardo, and where they met the +Brownings, and a Mr. Trollope, a brother of the novelist. It could not +have been the Villa Manteuto, which Miss Blagden rented, for we hear of +her at Bellosguardo again in August, when Hawthorne was living there +himself; and after this we do not hear of the Brownings again. + +Hawthorne's remark on Browning's poetry is one of the rare instances in +which he criticises a contemporary author: + +"I am rather surprised that Browning's conversation should be so clear, +and so much to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom +proceed far, without running into the high grass of latent meanings and +obscure allusions." + +It is precisely this which has prevented Browning from achieving the +reputation that his genius deserves. We wish that Hawthorne could have +favored us with as much literary criticism as he has given us of art +criticism, and we almost lose patience with him for his repeated +canonization of General Jackson--St. Hickory--united with a +disparagement of Washington and Sumner; but although Hawthorne's +insight into human nature was wonderful in its way, it would seem to +have been confined within narrow boundaries. At least he seems to have +possessed little insight into grand characters and magnanimous natures. +He wishes now that Raphael could have painted Jackson's portrait. So, +conversely, Shakespeare belittles Casar in order to suit the purpose of +his play. Which of Shakespeare's male characters can be measured beside +George Washington? There is not one of them, unless Kent in "King +Lear." Strong, resolute natures, like Washington, Hamilton, Sumner, are +not adapted to dramatic fiction, either in prose or in verse. + +A Florentine summer is about equal to one in South Carolina, and now, +when Switzerland can be reached by rail in twenty-four hours, no +American or Englishman thinks of spending July and August there; but in +Hawthorne's time it was a long and expensive journey over the Pennine +Alps; Hawthorne's physique was as well attempered to heat as to cold; +and he continued to frequent the picture-galleries and museums after +all others had ceased to do so; although he complains in his diary that +he had never known it so hot before, and that the flagstones in the +street reflect the sun's rays upon him like the open doors of a +furnace. + +At length, in an entry of July 27, he says: + +"I seldom go out nowadays, having already seen Florence tolerably well, +and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in +sketching out a romance, [Footnote: "The Marble Faun."] which whether +it will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. At any +rate, it leaves me little heart for journalizing, and describing new +things; and six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable +to me just now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties." + +This is the second instance in which we hear of a romance based on the +"Faun" of Praxiteles, and now at last he appears to be in earnest. + +It may be suspected that his entertaining friend, Hiram Powers, was the +chief obstacle to the progress of his new plot, and it is rather +amusing to believe that it was through the agency of Mr. Powers, who +cared for nothing so much as Hawthorne's welfare, that this impediment +was removed. Five days later, Hawthorne and his household gods, which +were chiefly his wife and children, left the Casa del Bello for the +Villa Manteuto where they remained in peaceful retirement until the +first of October. + +On the tower of the Villa he could enjoy whatever enlivening breezes +came across to Florence from the mountains to the north and east. When +the _tramontana_ blew, he was comfortable enough. Thunder-storms +also came frequently, with the roar of heaven's artillery reverberating +from peak to peak, and enveloping Bellosguardo in a dense vapor, like +the smoke from Napoleon's cannon; after which they would career down +the valley of the Arno to Pisa, flashing and cannonading like a +victorious army in pursuit of the enemy. + +The beauty of the summer nights at Florence amply compensates for the +sultriness of the days,--especially if they be moonlight nights,--and +the bright starlight of the Mediterranean is little less beautiful. +Travellers who only see Italy in winter, know not what they miss. +Hawthorne noticed that the Italian sky had a softer blue than that of +England and America, and that there was a peculiar luminous quality in +the atmosphere, as well as a more decided difference between sunshine +and shadow, than in countries north of the Alps. The atmosphere of +Italy, Spain, and Greece is not like any American air that I am +acquainted with. During the summer season, all Italians whose +occupation will permit them, sleep at noon,--the laborers in the +shadows of the walls,--and sit up late at night, enjoying the fine air +and the pleasant conversation which it inspires. Hawthorne found the +atmosphere of Tuscany favorable for literary work, even in August. + +On the 4th of that month he looked out from his castle wall late at +night and noticed the brilliancy of the stars,--also that the Great +Dipper exactly overhung the valley of the Arno. At that same hour the +astronomer Donati was sweeping the heavens with his telescope at the +Florentine observatory, and it may have been ten days later that he +discovered in the handle of the Dipper the great comet which will +always bear his name,--the most magnificent comet of modern times, only +excepting that of 1680, which could be seen at noonday. It first became +visible to the naked eye during the last week of August, as a small +star with a smaller tail, near the second star from the end of the +handle of the Dipper; after which it grew apace until it extended +nearly from the horizon to the zenith, with a tail millions of miles in +length. This, however, did not take place until near the time of +Hawthorne's departure from Florence. In his case it proved sorrowfully +enough a harbinger of calamity. + +Hawthorne blocked out his sketch of "The Romance of Monte Beni" in a +single month, and then returned to the churches and picture-galleries. +He could not expect to revisit Italy in this life, and prudently +concluded to make the most of it while the opportunity lasted. He +notices the peculiar fatigue which sight-seeing causes in deep natures, +and becomes unspeakably weary of it, yet returns to it again next day +with an interest as fresh as before. + +Neither did he lack for society. William Story came over to see him +from Siena, where he was spending the summer, exactly as Hawthorne +describes the visit of Kenyon to Donatello in his romance. Mr. and Mrs. +Powers came frequently up the hill in the cool of the evening, and Miss +Blagden also proved an excellent neighbor. Early in September the +"spirits" appeared again in great force. Mrs. Hawthorne discovered a +medium in her English governess; table-rappings and table-tippings were +the order of the evening; and some rather surprising results were +obtained through Miss Shepard's fingers. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. +31.] Powers related a still more surprising performance [Footnote: +Italian Note-book.] that he had witnessed, which was conducted by D. D. +Home, an American mountebank, who hoaxed more crowned heads, princes, +princesses, and especially English duchesses than Cagliostro himself. +Hawthorne felt the repugnance of the true artist to this uncanny +business, and his thorough detestation of the subject commends itself +to every sensible reader. He came to the conclusion that the supposed +revelations of spirits were nothing more than the mental vagaries of +persons in the same room, conveyed in some occult manner to the brain +of the medium. The governess, Miss Shepard, agreed with him in this, +but she could give no explanation as to the manner in which the +response came to her. Twenty years of scientific investigations have +added little or nothing to this diagnosis of Hawthorne's, nor are we +any nearer to an explanation of the simple fact; which is wonderful +enough in its way. Hawthorne compares the revelations of mediums to +dreams, but they are not exactly like them, for they are at the same +time more rational and less original or spontaneous than dreams. In my +dreams my old friends often come back to me and speak in their +characteristic manner,--more characteristic perhaps than I could +represent them when awake,--but the responses of mediums are either +evasive or too highly generalized to be of any particular value. The +story of Mary Runnel, or Rondel, which Julian Hawthorne narrates, is an +excellent case in point. Hawthorne had probably heard of that +flirtation of his grandfather some time in his youth, and the fact was +unconsciously latent in his mind; but nothing that Mary divulged at +Bellosguardo was of real interest to him or to the others concerned. +The practice of spiritism, hypnotism, or Christian Science opens a wide +door for superstition and imposture to walk in and seat themselves by +our firesides. + +About a year before this, Congress had given Hiram Powers a commission +to model a colossal statue of _America_ for the Capitol at +Washington. This he had done, and the committee in charge accepted his +design,--Hawthorne also writes admiringly of it,--but it was also +necessary to receive the approval of the President, and this Buchanan +with his peculiar obstinacy refused to give. Powers was left without +compensation for a whole year of arduous labor, and Hawthorne for once +was thoroughly indignant. He wrote in his diary: + +"I wish our great Republic had the spirit to do as much, according to +its vast means, as Florence did for sculpture and architecture when it +was a republic.... And yet the less we attempt to do for art the +better, if our future attempts are to have no better result than such +brazen troopers as the equestrian statue of General Jackson, or even +such naked respectabilities as Greeneough's Washington." + +Perhaps Powers' "America" was a fortunate escape, and yet it does not +seem right that any enlightened government should set such a pitfall +for honest men to stumble into. There certainly ought to be some +compensation in such cases. The experience of history hitherto has been +that, whereas painting and literature have nourished under all forms of +government, sculpture has only attained its highest excellence in +republics like Athens, Rhodes, Florence, and Nuremberg; so that upon +this line of argument there is good hope for America in the future. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HAWTHORNE AS ART CRITIC: 1858 + + +Nearly one-third of the Italian Note-book is devoted to the criticisms +or descriptions of paintings, statues, and architecture, for which we +can be only too thankful as coming from such a bright, penetrating, and +ingenious intelligence. It is much in their favor that Hawthorne had +not previously undertaken a course of instruction in art; that he wrote +for his own benefit, and not for publication; and that he was not +biased by preconceived opinions. It cannot be doubted that he was +sometimes influenced by the opinions of Story, Powers, and other +artists with whom he came in contact; but this could have happened only +in particular cases, and more especially in respect to modern works of +art. When Hawthorne visited the galleries he usually went alone, or +only accompanied by his wife. + +The only opportunities for the study of aesthetics or art criticism, +fifty years ago, were to be found in German universities. Kugler's +handbook of painting was the chief authority in use, rather academic, +but correct enough in a general way. Ruskin, a more eloquent and +discriminating writer, had devoted himself chiefly to celebrating the +merits of Turner and Tintoretto, but was never quite just to Florentine +art. Mrs. Jameson followed closely after Kugler, and was the only one +of these that Hawthorne appears to have consulted. Winckelmann's +history of Greek sculpture, which was not a history in the proper sense +of the word, had been translated by Lodge, but Hawthorne does not +mention it, and it would not have been much assistance to him if he had +read it. Like Winckelmann and Lessing, however, he admired the +"Laocoon,"--an admiration now somewhat out of fashion. + +There can be no final authority in art, for the most experienced +critics still continue to differ in their estimates of the same +painting or statue. More than this, it is safe to affirm that any one +writer who makes a statement concerning a certain work of art at a +given time, would have made a somewhat different statement at another +time. In fact, this not unfrequently happens in actual practice; for +all that any of us can do is, to reproduce the impression made on us at +the moment, and this depends as much on our own state of mind, and on +our peculiarities, as on the peculiarities of the picture or statue +that we criticise. It is the same in art itself. If Raphael had not +painted the "Sistine Madonna" at the time he did, he would have +produced a different work. It was the concentration of that particular +occasion, and if any accident had happened to prevent it, that pious +and beautiful vision would have been lost to the world. + +It requires years of study and observation of the best masters to +become a trustworthy art critic, and then everything depends of course +upon the genius of the individual. It has happened more than once that +a wealthy American, with a certain kind of enthusiasm for art, has +prepared himself at a German university, has studied the science of +connoisseurship, and has become associate member of a number of foreign +societies, only to discover at length that he had no talent for the +profession. Hawthorne enjoyed no such advantages, nor did he even think +of becoming a connoisseur. His whole experience in the art of design +might be included within twelve months, and his original basis was +nothing better than his wife's water-color painting and the mediocre +pictures in the Boston Athenaeum; but he brought to his subject an eye +that was trained to the closest observation of Nature and a mind +experienced beyond all others [Footnote: At least at that time.] in the +mysteries of human life. He begins tentatively, and as might be +expected makes a number of errors, but quite as often he hits the nail, +where others have missed it. He learns by his mistakes, and steadily +improves in critical faculty. Hawthorne's Italian Note-book is a unique +record, in which the development of a highly organized mind has +advanced from small beginnings to exceptional skill in a fresh +department of activity. + +Hawthorne brought with him to Italy the Yankee preference for newness +and nicety, which our forefathers themselves derived from their +residence in Holland, and there is no city in Europe where this +sentiment could have troubled him so much as in Rome. He disliked the +dingy picture-frames, the uncleanly canvases, the earth-stains and +broken noses of the antique statues, the smoked-up walls of the Sistine +Chapel, and the cracks in Raphael's frescos. He condemns everything as +rubbish which has not an external perfection; forgetting that, as in +human nature, the most precious treasures are sometimes allied with an +ungainly exterior. Yet in this he only echoes the impressions of +thousands of others who have gone to the Vatican and returned +disconsolate, because amid a perplexing multitude of objects they knew +not where to look for consummate art. One can imagine if an experienced +friend had accompanied Hawthorne to the Raphael stanza, and had pointed +out the figures of the Pope, the cardinal, and the angelic boys in the +"Mass at Bolsena," he would have admired them without limitation. He +quickly discovered Raphael's "Transfiguration," and considered it the +greatest painting that the world contains. + +The paintings in the princely collections in Rome are, with the +exception of those in the Borghese gallery, far removed from princely. +A large proportion of their best paintings had long since been sold to +the royal collections of northern Europe, and had been replaced either +by copies or by works of inferior masters. In the Barberini palace +there are not more than three or four paintings such as might +reasonably detain a traveller, and it is about the same in the Ludovisi +gallery. There was not a grain of affectation in Hawthorne; he never +pretended to admire what he did not like, nor did he strain himself +into liking anything that his inner nature rebelled against. + +Hawthorne's taste in art was much in advance of his time. His quick +appreciation of the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux on the +Quirinal is the best proof of this. Ten years later it was the fashion +in Rome to deride those statues, as a late work of the empire and +greatly lacking in artistic style. Brunn, in his history of ancient +sculpture, attributes them to the school of Lysippus, a contemporary of +Alexander, which Brunn certainly would not have done if he had +possessed a good eye for form. Vasari, on the contrary, a surer critic, +considered them worthy to be placed beside Michel Angelo's "David"; but +it remained for Furtwangler to restore them to their true position as a +work of the Periclean age, although copied by Italian sculptors. They +must have been the product of a single mind, [Footnote: On the base of +one is _Opus Phidiae_, and on that of the other, _Opus Praxitelis._] +either Phidias, Alcameres, or the elder Praxiteles--if there ever was +such a person; and they have the finest figures of any statues in Rome +(much finer than the dandified "Apollo Belvedere") and also the most +spirited action. + +Hawthorne went to the Villa Ludovisi to see the much-vaunted bas-relief +of Antinous, which fifty years ago was considered one of the art +treasures of the city; but a more refined taste has since discovered +that in spite of the rare technical skill, its hard glassy finish gives +it a cold and conventional effect. Hawthorne returned from it +disappointed, and wrote in his diary: + +"This Antinous is said to be the finest relic of antiquity next to the +Apollo and the Laocoon; but I could not feel it to be so, partly, I +suppose, because the features of Antinous do not seem to me beautiful +in themselves; and that heavy, downward look is repeated till I am more +weary of it than of anything else in sculpture." + +The Greek artist of Adrian's time attempted to give the face a pensive +expression, but only succeeded in this heavy downward look. + +Hawthorne felt the same disappointment after his first visit to the +sculpture-gallery of the Vatican. "I must confess," he wrote, "taking +such transient glimpses as I did, I was more impressed with the extent +of the Vatican, and the beautiful order in which it is kept and its +great sunny, open courts, with fountains, grass, and shrubs ... than +with the statuary." The Vatican collection has great archaeological +value, but, with the exception of the "Laocoon," the "Meleager," the +"Apollo," and a few others, little or no artistic value. The vast +majority of the statues there are either late Roman works or cheap +Roman copies of second-rate Hellenic statues. Some of them are +positively bad and others are archaic, and Hawthorne was fully +justified in his disatisfaction with them. He noticed, however, a +decided difference between the original "Apollo" and the casts of it +with which he was familiar. On a subsequent visit he fails to observe +the numerous faults in Canova's "Perseus," and afterwards writes this +original statement concerning the "Laocoon": + +"I felt the Laocoon very powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal +agony with a strange calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles +the vast age of the sea, calm on account of its immensity; as the +tumult of Niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps +pouring on forever and ever." + +Professor E. A. Gardner and the more fastidious school of critics have +recently decided that the action of the "Laocoon" is too violent to be +contained within the proper boundaries of sculpture; but Hawthorne +controverts this view in a single sentence. The action is violent, it +is true, but the _impression_ which the statue makes on him is not +a violent one; for the greatness of the art sublimates the motive. It +is a tragedy in marble, and Pliny, who had seen the works of Phidias +and Praxiteles, placed Agesander's "Laocoon" above them all. This, +however, is a Roman view. What Hawthorne wrote in his diary should not +always be taken literally. When he declares that he would like to have +every artist that perpetrates an allegory put to death, he merely +expresses the puzzling effects which such compositions frequently +exercise on the weary-minded traveller; and when he wishes that all the +frescos on Italian walls could be obliterated, he only repeats a +sentiment of similar strain. Perhaps we should class in the same +category Hawthorne's remark concerning the Elgin marbles in the British +Museum, that "it would be well if they were converted into paving- +stones." There are no grander monuments of ancient art than those +battered and headless statues from the pediment of the Parthenon (the +figures of the so-called "Three Fates" surpass the "Venus of Melos"), +and archaeologists are still in dispute as to what they may have +represented; but the significance of the subject before him was always +the point in which Hawthorne was interested. Julian Hawthorne says of +his father, in regard to a similar instance: + +"Of technicalities,--difficulties overcome, harmony of lines, and so +forth,--he had no explicit knowledge; they produced their effect upon +him of course, but without his recognizing the manner of it. All that +concerned him was the sentiment which the artist had meant to express; +the means and method were comparatively unimportant." [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, ii. 193.] + +The technicalities of art differ with every clime and every generation. +They belong chiefly to the connoisseur, and have their value, but the +less a critic thinks of them in making a general estimate of a painting +or statue, the more likely he is to render an impartial judgment. +Hawthorne's analysis of Praxiteles's "Faun," in his "Romance of Monte +Beni," being a subject in which he was particularly interested, is +almost without a rival in the literature of its kind; and this is the +more remarkable since the copy of the "Faun" in the museum of the +Capitol is not one of the best, at least it is inferior to the one in +the Glyptothek at Munich. It seems as if Hawthorne had penetrated to +the first conception of it in the mind of Praxiteles. + +The Sistine Chapel, like the Italian scenery, only unfolds its beauties +on a bright day, and Hawthorne happened to go there when the sky was +full of drifting clouds, a time when it is difficult to see any object +as it really is. It may have been on this account that he entirely +mistook the action of the Saviour in Michel Angelo's "Last Judgment." +Christ has raised his arm above his head in order to display the mark +where he was nailed to the cross, and Hawthorne presumed this, as many +others have done, to be an angry threatening gesture of condemnation, +which would not accord with his merciful spirit. He appreciated the +symmetrical figure of Adam, and the majestic forms of the prophets and +sibyls encircling the ceiling, and if he had seen the face of the +Saviour in a fair light, he might have recognized that such divine +calmness of expression could not coexist with a vindictive motive. +This, however, can be seen to better advantage in a Braun photograph +than in the painting itself. + +Hawthorne goes to the Church of San Pietro in Vincolo to see Michel +Angelo's "Moses," but he does not moralize before it, like a certain +Concord artist, on "the weakness of exaggeration;" nor does he +consider, like Ruskin, that its conventional horns are a serious +detriment. On the contrary he finds it "grand and sublime, with a beard +flowing down like a cataract; a truly majestic figure, but not so +benign as it were desirable that such strength should hold." An +Englishman present remarked that the "Moses" had very fine features,-- +"a compliment," says Hawthorne, "for which the colossal Hebrew ought to +have made the Englishman a bow." + +[Footnote: Italian Note-book, p. 164.] + +Perhaps the Englishman really meant that the face had a noble +expression. The somewhat satyr-like features of the "Moses" would seem +to have been unconsciously adopted, together with the horns, from a +statue of the god Pan, which thus serves as an intermediate link +between the "Moses" and the "Faun" of Praxiteles; but he who cannot +appreciate Michel Angelo's "Moses" in spite of this, knows nothing of +the Alpine heights of human nature. + +Of all the paintings that Hawthorne saw in Rome none impressed him so +deeply as Guido's portrait of Beatrice Cenci, and none more justly. If +the "Laocoon" is the type of an old Greek tragedy, a strong man +strangled in the coils of Fate, the portrait of Beatrice represents the +tragedy of mediaeval Italy, a beautiful woman crushed by the downfall +of a splendid civilization. The fate of Joan of Arc or of Madame Roland +was merciful compared to that of poor Beatrice. Religion is no +consolation to her, for it is the Pope himself who signs her death- +warrant. She is massacred to gratify the avarice of the Holy See. Yet +in this last evening of her tragical life, she does find strength and +consolation in her dignity as a woman. Never was art consecrated to a +higher purpose; Guido rose above himself; and, as Hawthorne says, it +seems as if mortal man could not have wrought such an effect. It has +always been the most popular painting in Rome, but Hawthorne was the +first to celebrate its unique superiority in writing, and his discourse +upon it in various places leaves little for those that follow. + +It may have been long since discovered that Hawthorne's single weakness +was a weakness for his friends; certainly an amiable weakness, but +nevertheless that is the proper name for it. When Phocion was Archon of +Athens, he said that a chief magistrate should know no friends; and the +same should be true of an authoritative writer. Hawthorne has not gone +so far in this direction as many others have who had less reason to +speak with authority than he; but he has indicated his partiality for +Franklin Pierce plainly enough, and his over-praise of Hiram Powers and +William Story, as well as his under-praise of Crawford, will go down to +future generations as something of an injustice to those three artists. + +[Illustration: GUIDO RENI'S PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI, PAINTED WHILE +SHE WAS IN PRISON, WHICH SUGGESTED TO HAWTHORNE THE PLOT OF "THE MARBLE +FAUN"] + +It is not necessary to repeat here what Hawthorne wrote concerning +Powers' Webster. The statue stands in front of the State House at +Boston, and serves as a good likeness of the famous orator, but more +than that one cannot say for it. The face has no definable expression, +and those who have looked for a central motive in the figure will be +pleased to learn what it is by reading Hawthorne's description of it, +as he saw it in Powers' studio at Florence. A sculptor of the present +day can find no better study for his art than the attitudes and changes +of countenance in an eloquent speaker; but which of them can be said to +have taken advantage of this? Story made an attempt in his statue of +Everett, but even his most indulgent friends did not consider it a +success. His "George Peabody," opposite the Bank of England, could not +perhaps have been altogether different from what it is. + +What chiefly interested Story in his profession seems to have been the +modelling of unhappy women in various attitudes of reflection. He made +a number of these, of which his "Cleopatra" is the only one known to +fame, and in the expression of her face he has certainly achieved a +high degree of excellence. Neither has Hawthorne valued it too highly, +--the expression of worldly splendor incarnated in a beautiful woman on +the tragical verge of an abyss. If she only were beautiful! Here the +limitations of the statue commence. Hawthorne says, "The sculptor had +not shunned to give the full, Nubian lips and other characteristics of +the Egyptian physiognomy." + +Here he follows the sculptor himself, and it is remarkable that a +college graduate like William Story should have made so transparent a +mistake. Cleopatra was not an Egyptian at all. The Ptolemies were +Greeks, and it is simply impossible to believe that they would have +allied themselves with a subject and alien race. This kind of small +pedantry has often led artists astray, and was peculiarly virulent +during the middle of the past century. The whole figure of Story's +"Cleopatra" suffers from it. Hawthorne says again, "She was draped from +head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously studied from that +of ancient Egypt." In fact, the body and limbs of the statue are so +closely shrouded as to deprive the work of that sense of freedom of +action and royal abandon which greets us in Shakespeare's and +Plutarch's "Cleopatra." Story might have taken a lesson from Titian's +matchless "Cleopatra" in the Cassel gallery, or from Marc Antonio's +small woodcut of Raphael's "Cleopatra." + +Perhaps it is not too much to say of Crawford that he was the finest +plastic genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. His technique may not have been +equal to Flaxman's or St. Gaudens', but his designs have more of +grandeur than the former, and he is more original than the latter. +There are faults of modelling in his "Orpheus," and its attitude +resembles that of the eldest son of Niobe in the Florentine gallery,-- +although the Niobe youth looks upward and Orpheus is peering into +darkness,--its features are rather too pretty; but the statue has +exactly what Powers' "Greek Slave" lacks, a definite motive,--that of +an earnest seeker,--which pervades it from head to foot; and it is no +imaginary pathos that we feel in its presence. There is, at least, no +imitation of the antique in Crawford's "Beethoven," for its conception, +the listening to internal harmonies, would never have occurred to a +Greek or a Roman. Even Hawthorne admits Crawford's skill in the +treatment of drapery; and this is very important, for it is in his +drapery quite as much as in the nude that we recognize the superiority +of Michel Angelo to Raphael; and the folds of Beethoven's mantle are as +rhythmical as his own harmonies. The features lack something of +firmness, but it is altogether a statue in the grand manner. + +Hawthorne is rather too exacting in his requirements of modern +sculptors. Warrington Wood, who commenced life as a marble-worker, +always employed Italian workmen to carve his statues, although he was +perfectly able to do it himself, and always put on the finishing +touches,--as I presume they all do. Bronze statues are finished with a +file, and of course do not require any knowledge of the chisel. + +In regard to the imitation of antique attitudes, there has certainly +been too much of it, as Hawthorne supposes; but the Greeks themselves +were given to this form of plagiarism, and even Praxiteles sometimes +adopted the motives of his predecessors; but Hawthorne praises Powers, +Story, and Harriet Hosmer above their merits. + +The whole brotherhood of artists and their critical friends might rise +up against me, if I were to support Hawthorne's condemnation of modern +Venuses, and "the guilty glimpses stolen at hired models." They are not +necessarily guilty glimpses. To an experienced artist the customary +study from a naked figure, male or female, is little more than what a +low-necked dress at a party would be to many others. Yet the instinct +of the age shrinks from this exposure. We can make pretty good Venuses, +but we cannot look at them through the same mental and moral atmosphere +as the contemporaries of Scopas, or even with the same eyes that Michel +Angelo saw them. We feel the difference between a modern Venus and an +ancient one. There is a statue in the Vatican of a Roman emperor, of +which every one says that it ought to wear clothes; and the reason is +because the face has such a modern look. A raving Bacchante may be a +good acquisition to an art museum, but it is out of place in a public +library. A female statue requires more or less drapery to set off the +outlines of the figure and to give it dignity. We feel this even in the +finest Greek work--like the "Venus of Cnidos." + +In this matter Hawthorne certainly exposes his Puritanic education, and +he also places too high a value on the carving of button-holes and +shoestrings by Italian workmen. Such things are the fag-ends of +statuary. + +His judgment, however, is clear and convincing in regard to the tinted +Eves and Venuses of Gibson. Whatever may have been the ancient practice +in this respect, Gibson's experiment proved a failure. Nobody likes +those statues; and no other sculptor has since followed Gibson's +example. The tinting of statues by the Greeks did not commence until +the time of Aristotle, and does not seem to have been very general. +Their object evidently was, not so much to imitate flesh as to tone +down the crystalline glare of the new marble. Pausanias speaks of a +statue in Arcadia, the drapery of which was painted with vermilion, "so +as to look very gay." This was of course the consequence of a late and +degraded taste. That traces of paint should have been discovered on +Greek temples is no evidence that the marble was painted when they were +first built. + +It may be suspected that Hawthorne was one of the very few who have +seen the "Venus de Medici" and recognized the true significance of the +statue. The vast majority of visitors to the Uffizi only see in it the +type of a perfectly symmetrical woman bashfully posing for her likeness +in marble, but Hawthorne's perception in it went much beyond that, and +the fact that he attempts no explanation of its motive is in accordance +with the present theory. He also noticed that statues had sometimes +exercised a potent spell over him, and at others a very slight +influence. + +Froude says that a man's modesty is the best part of him. Notice that, +ye strugglers for preferment, and how beautifully modest Hawthorne is, +when he writes in his Florentine diary: + +"In a year's time, with the advantage of access to this magnificent +gallery, I think I might come to have some little knowledge of +pictures. At present I still know nothing; but am glad to find myself +capable, at least, of loving one picture better than another. I am +sensible, however, that a process is going on, and has been ever since +I came to Italy, that puts me in a state to see pictures with less +toil, and more pleasure, and makes me more fastidious, yet more +sensible of beauty where I saw none before." + +Hawthorne belongs to the same class of amateur critics as Shelley and +Goethe, who, even if their opinions cannot always be accepted as final, +illuminate the subject with the radiance of genius and have an equal +value with the most experienced connoisseurs. + + * * * * * + +The return of the Hawthornes to Rome through Tuscany was even more +interesting than their journey to Florence in the spring, and they +enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a _vetturino_ who would seem +to have been the Sir Philip Sidney of his profession, a compendium of +human excellences. There are such men, though rarely met with, and we +may trust Hawthorne's word that Constantino Bacci was one of them; not +only a skilful driver, but a generous provider, honest, courteous, +kindly, and agreeable. They went first to Siena, where they were +entertained for a week or more by the versatile Mr. Story, and where +Hawthorne wrote an eloquent description of the cathedral; then over the +mountain pass where Radicofani nestles among the iron-browed crags +above the clouds; past the malarious Lake of Bolsena, scene of the +miracle which Raphael has commemorated in the Vatican; through Viterbo +and _Sette Vene_; and finally, on October 16, into Rome, through +the Porta' del Popolo, designed by Michel Angelo in his massive style, +--Donati's comet flaming before them every night. Thompson, the portrait +painter, had already secured a furnished house, No. 68 Piazza Poli, for +the Hawthornes, to which they went immediately. + +Since the death of Julius Casar, comets have always been looked upon as +the forerunners of pestilence and war, but wars are sometimes +blessings, and Donati's discovery proved a harbinger of good to Italy, +--but to the Hawthornes, a prediction of evil. Continually in +Hawthorne's Italian journal we meet with references to the Roman +malaria, as if it were a subject that occupied his thoughts, and +nowhere is this more common than during the return-journey from +Florence. Did it occur to him that the lightning might strike in his +own house? No sensible American now would take his children to Rome +unless for a very brief visit; and yet William Story brought up his +family there with excellent success, so far as health was concerned. + +We can believe that Hawthorne took every possible precaution, so far as +he knew, but in spite of that on November 1 his eldest daughter was +seized with Roman fever, and for six weeks thereafter lay trembling +between life and death, so that it seemed as if a feather might turn +the balance. + +She does not appear to have been imprudent. Her father believed that +the "old hag" breathed upon her while she was with her mother, who was +sketching in the Palace of the Casars; but the Palatine Hill is on high +ground, with a foundation of solid masonry, and was guarded by French +soldiers, and it would have been difficult to find a more cleanly spot +in the city. A German count, who lived in a villa on the Calian Hill, +close by, considered his residence one of the most healthful in Rome. +Miss Una had a passionate attachment for the capital of the ancient +world; and it seems as if the evil spirit of the place had seized upon +her, as the Ice Maiden is supposed to entrap chamois hunters in the +Alps. + +One of the evils attendant on sickness in a foreign country is, the +uncertainty in regard to a doctor, and this naturally leads to a +distrust and suspicion of the one that is employed. Even so shrewd a +man as Bismarck fell into the hands of a charlatan at St. Petersburg +and suffered severely in consequence. Hawthorne either had a similar +experience, or, what came to the same thing, believed that he did. He +considered himself obliged to change doctors for his daughter, and this +added to his care and anxiety. During the next four months he wrote not +a word in his journal (or elsewhere, so far as we know), and he visibly +aged before his wife's eyes. He went to walk on occasion with Story or +Thompson, but it was merely for the preservation of his own health. His +thoughts were always in his daughter's chamber, and this was so +strongly marked upon his face that any one could read it. Toward the +Ides of March, Miss Una was sufficiently improved to take a short look +at the carnival, but it was two months later before she was in a +condition to travel, and neither she nor her father ever wholly +recovered from the effects of this sad experience. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +"THE MARBLE FAUN": 1859-1860 + + +What the Roman carnival was a hundred and fifty years ago, when the +Italian princes poured out their wealth upon it, and when it served as +a medium for the communication of lovers as well as for social and +political intrigue, which sometimes resulted in conflicts like those of +the Montagues and Capulets, can only be imagined. Goethe witnessed it +from a balcony in the Corso, and his carnival in the second part of +"Faust" was worked up from notes taken on that occasion; but it is so +highly poetized that little can be determined from it, except as a +portion of the drama. By Hawthorne's time the aristocratic Italians had +long since given up their favorite holiday to English and American +travellers,--crowded out, as it were, by the superiority of money; and +since the advent of Victor Emmanuel, the carnival has become so +democratic that you are more likely to encounter your landlady's +daughter there than any more distinguished person. Hawthorne's +description of it in "The Marble Faun" is not overdrawn, and is one of +the happiest passages in the book. + +The carnival of 1859 was an exceptionally brilliant one. The Prince of +Wales attended it with a suite of young English nobles, who, always +decorous and polite on public occasions, nevertheless infused great +spirit into the proceedings. Sumner and Motley were there, and Motley +rented a balcony in a palace, to which the Hawthornes received general +and repeated invitations. On March 7, Miss Una was driven through the +Corso in a barouche, and the Prince of Wales threw her a bouquet, +probably recognizing her father, who was with her; and to prove his +good intentions he threw her another, when her carriage returned from +the Piazza, del Popolo. The present English sovereign has always been +noted for a sort of journalistic interest in prominent men of letters, +science, and public affairs, and it is likely that he was better +informed in regard to the Hawthornes than they imagined. Hawthorne +himself was too much subdued by his recent trial to enter into the +spirit of the carnival, even with a heart much relieved from anxiety, +but he sometimes appeared in the Motleys' balcony, and sometimes went +along the narrow sidewalk of the Corso, "for an hour or so among the +people, just on the edges of the fun." Sumner invited Mrs. Hawthorne to +take a stroll and see pictures with him, from which she returned +delighted with his criticisms and erudition. + +A few days later Franklin Pierce suddenly appeared at No. 68 Piazza +Poli, with that shadow on his face which was never wholly to leave it. +The man who fears God and keeps his commandments will never feel quite +alone in the world; but for the man who lives on popularity, what will +there be left when that forsakes him? Hawthorne was almost shocked at +the change in his friend's appearance; not only at his gray hair and +wrinkled brow, but at the change in his voice, and at a certain lack of +substance in him, as if the personal magnetism had gone out of him. +Hawthorne went to walk with him, and tried to encourage him by +suggesting another term of the presidency, but this did not help much, +for even Pierce's own State had deserted him,--a fact of which +Hawthorne may not have been aware. The companionship of his old friend, +however, and the manifold novelty of Rome itself, somewhat revived the +ex-President, as may be imagined; and a month later he left for Venice, +in better spirits than he came. + +They celebrated the Ides of March by going to see Harriet Hosmer's +statue of Zenobia, which was afterward exhibited in America. Hawthorne +immediately detected its resemblance to the antique,--the figure was in +fact a pure plagiarism from the smaller statue of Ceres in the +Vatican,--but Miss Hosmer succeeded in giving the face an expression of +injured and sorrowing majesty, which Hawthorne was equally ready to +appreciate. + +On this second visit to Rome he became acquainted with a sculptor, +whose name is not given, but who criticised Hiram Powers with a rather +suspicious severity. He would not allow Powers "to be an artist at all, +or to know anything of the laws of art," although acknowledging him to +be a great bust-maker, and to have put together the "Greek Slave" and +the "Fisher-Boy" very ingeniously. "The latter, however (he says), is +copied from the Spinario in the _Tribune_ of the Uffizi; and the +former made up of beauties that had no reference to one another; and he +affirms that Powers is ready to sell, and has actually sold, the 'Greek +Slave,' limb by limb, dismembering it by reversing the process of +putting it together. Powers knows nothing scientifically of the human +frame, and only succeeds in representing it, as a natural bone-doctor +succeeds in setting a dislocated limb, by a happy accident or special +providence." [Footnote: Italian Note-book, 483.] + +We may judge, from "the style, the matter, and the drift" of this +discourse, that it emanated from the same sculptor who is mentioned, in +"Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife," as having traduced Margaret Fuller +and her husband Count Ossoli. As Tennyson says, "A lie that is half a +truth is ever the blackest of lies," and this fellow would seem to have +been an adept in unveracious exaggeration. It is remarkable that +Hawthorne should have given serious attention to such a man; but an +English critic said in regard to this same incident that if Hawthorne +had been a more communicative person, if he had talked freely to a +larger number of people, he would not have been so easily prejudiced by +those few with whom he was chiefly intimate. To which it could be +added, that he might also have taken broader views in regard to public +affairs. + +Hawthorne was fortunate to have been present at the discovery of the +St. Petersburg "Venus," the twin sister of the "Venus de Medici," which +was dug up in a vineyard outside the Porta Portese. The proprietor of +the vineyard, who made his fortune at a stroke by the discovery, +happened to select the site for a new building over the buried ruins of +an ancient villa, and the "Venus" was discovered in what appeared to +Hawthorne as an old Roman bath-room. The statue was in more perfect +preservation than the "Venus de Medici," both of whose arms have been +restored, and Hawthorne noticed that the head was larger and the face +more characteristic, with wide-open eyes and a more confident +expression. He was one of the very few who saw it before it was +transported to St. Petersburg, and a thorough artistic analysis of it +is still one of the _desiderata_. The difference in expression, +however, would seem to be in favor of the "Venus de Medici," as more in +accordance with the ruling motive of the figure. + +Miss Una Hawthorne had not sufficiently recovered to travel until the +last of May, when they all set forth northward by way of Genoa and +Marseilles, in which latter place we find them on the 28th, enjoying +the comfort and elegance of a good French hotel. Thence they proceeded +to Avignon, but did not find much to admire there except the Rhone; so +they continued to Geneva, the most pleasant, homelike resting place in +Europe, but quite deficient in other attractions. + +It seems as if Hawthorne's Roman friends were somewhat remiss in not +giving him better advice in regard to European travelling. At Geneva he +was within a stone's throw of Chamounix, and hardly more than that of +Strasburg Cathedral, and yet he visited neither. Why did he go out of +his way to see so little and to miss so much? He went across the lake +to visit Lausanne and the Castle of Chillon, and he was more than +astonished at the view of the Pennine Alps from the deck of the +steamer. He had never imagined anything like it; and he might have said +the same if he had visited Cologne Cathedral. Instead of that, however, +he hurried through France again, with the intention of sailing for +America the middle of July; but after reaching London he concluded to +remain another year in England, to write his "Romance of Monte Beni," +and obtain an English copyright for it. + +He left Geneva on June 15, and as he turned his face northward, he felt +that Henry Bright and Francis Bennoch were his only real friends in +Great Britain. There could hardly have been a stronger contrast than +these two. Bright was tall, slender, rather pale for an Englishman, +grave and philosophical. Bennoch was short, plump, lively and jovial, +with a ready fund of humor much in the style of Dickens, with whom he +was personally acquainted. Yet Hawthorne recognized that Bright and +Bennoch liked him for what he was, in and of himself, and not for his +celebrity alone. + +Bright was in London when Hawthorne reached there, and proposed that +they should go together to call on Sumner, [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. +223.] who had been cured from the effects of Brooks's assault by an +equally heroic treatment; but Hawthorne objected that as neither of +them was Lord Chancellor, Sumner would not be likely to pay them much +attention; to which Bright replied, that Sumner had been very kind to +him in America, and they accordingly went. Sumner was kind to +thousands,--the kindest as well as the most upright man of his time,-- +and no one in America, except Longfellow, appreciated Hawthorne so +well; but he was the champion of the anti-slavery movement and the +inveterate opponent of President Pierce. I suppose a man's mind cannot +help being colored somewhat by such conditions and influences. + +Hawthorne wished for a quiet, healthful place, where he could write his +romance without the disturbances that are incident to celebrity, and +his friends recommended Redcar, on the eastern coast of Yorkshire, a +town that otherwise Americans would not have heard of. He went there +about the middle of July, remaining until the 5th of October, but of +his life there we know nothing except that he must have worked +assiduously, for in that space of time he nearly finished a book +containing almost twice as many pages as "The Scarlet Letter." +Meanwhile Mrs. Hawthorne entertained the children and kept them from +interfering with their father (in his small cottage), by making a +collection of sea-mosses, which Una and Julian gathered at low tides, +and which their mother afterward dried and preserved on paper. On +October 4th Una Hawthorne wrote to her aunt, Elizabeth Peabody: + +"Our last day in Redcar, and a most lovely one it is. The sea seems to +reproach us for leaving it. But I am glad we are going, for I feel so +homesick that I want constant change to divert my thoughts. How +troublesome feelings and affections are." + +[Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 35 a.] + +One can see that it was a pleasant place even after the days had begun +to shorten, which they do very rapidly in northern England. From +Redcar, Hawthorne went to Leamington, where he finished his romance +about the first of December, and remained until some time in March, +living quietly and making occasional pedestrian tours to neighboring +towns. He was particularly fond of the walk to Warwick Castle, and of +standing on the bridge which crosses the Avon, and gazing at the walls +of the Castle, as they rise above the trees--"as fine a piece of +English scenery as exists anywhere; the gray towers and long line of +windows of the lordly castle, with a picturesquely varied outline; +ancient strength, a little softened by decay." It is a view that has +often been sketched, painted and engraved. + +The romance was written, but had to be revised, the least pleasant +portion of an author's duties,--unless he chooses to make the index +himself. This required five or six weeks longer, after which Hawthorne +went to London and arranged for its publication with Smith & Elder, who +agreed to bring it out in three volumes--although two would have been +quite sufficient; but according to English ideas, the length of a work +of fiction adds to its importance. Unfortunately, Smith & Elder also +desired to cater to the more prosaic class of readers by changing the +name of the romance from "The Marble Faun" to "Transformation," and +they appear to have done this without consulting Hawthorne's wishes in +the matter. It was simply squeezing the title dry of all poetic +suggestions; and it would have been quite as appropriate to change the +name of "The Scarlet Letter" to "The Clergyman's Penance," or to call +"The Blithedale Romance" "The Suicide of a Jilt." If Smith & Elder +considered "The Marble Faun" too recondite a title for the English +public, what better name could they have hit upon than "The Romance of +Monte Beni"? Would not the Count of Monte Beni be a cousin Italian, as +it were, to the Count of Monte Cristo? We are thankful to observe that +when Hawthorne published the book in America, he had his own way in +regard to this point. + +It was now that a new star was rising in the literary firmament, not of +the "shooting" or transitory species, and the genius of Marian Evans +(George Eliot) was casting its genial penetrating radiance over Great +Britain and the United States. She was as difficult a person to meet +with as Hawthorne himself, and they never saw one another; but a friend +of Mr. Bennoch, who lived at Coventry, invited the Hawthornes there in +the first week of February to meet Bennoch and others, and Marian Evans +would seem to have been the chief subject of conversation at the table +that evening. What Hawthorne gathered concerning her on that occasion +he has preserved in this compact and discriminating statement: + +"Miss Evans (who wrote 'Adam Bede') was the daughter of a steward, and +gained her exact knowledge of English rural life by the connection with +which this origin brought her with the farmers. She was entirely self- +educated, and has made herself an admirable scholar in classical as +well as in modern languages. Those who knew her had always recognized +her wonderful endowments, and only watched to see in what way they +would develop themselves. She is a person of the simplest manners and +character, amiable and unpretending, and Mrs. B---- spoke of her with +great affection and respect." + +There is actually more of the real George Eliot in this summary than in +the three volumes of her biography by Mr. Cross. + +Thorwaldsen's well-known simile in regard to the three stages of +sculpture, the life, the death and the resurrection, also has its +application to literature. The manuscript is the birth of an author's +work, and its revision always seems like taking the life out of it; but +when the proof comes, it is like a new birth, and he sees his design +for the first time in its true proportions. Then he goes over it as the +sculptor does his newly-cast bronze, smoothing the rough places and +giving it those final touches which serve to make its expression +clearer. Hawthorne was never more to be envied than while correcting +the proof of "The Marble Faun" at Leamington. The book was given to the +public at Easter-time; and there seems to have been only one person in +England that appreciated it, even as a work of art--John Lothrop +Motley. The most distinguished reviewers wholly failed to catch the +significance of it; and even Henry Bright, while warmly admiring the +story, expressed a dissatisfaction at the conclusion of it,--although +he could have found a notable precedent for that in Goethe's "Wilhelm +Meister." The _Saturday Review_, a publication similar in tone to +the New York _Nation_, said of "Transformation:" + +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 250.] + +"A mystery is set before us to unriddle; at the end the author turns +round and asks us what is the good of solving it. That the impression +of emptiness and un-meaningness thus produced is in itself a blemish to +the work no one can deny. Mr. Hawthorne really trades upon the honesty +of other writers. We feel a sort of interest in the story, slightly and +sketchily as it is told, because our experience of other novels leads +us to assume that, when an author pretends to have a plot, he has one." + +The _Art Journal_ said of it: [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 249.] + +"We are not to accept this book as a story; in that respect it is +grievously deficient. The characters are utterly untrue to nature and +to fact; they speak, all and always, the sentiments of the author; +their words also are his; there is no one of them for which the world +has furnished a model." + +And the London _Athenaeum_ said: [Footnote: Ibid., ii. 244.] + +"To Mr. Hawthorne truth always seems to arrive through the medium of +the imagination.... His hero, the Count of Monte Beni, would never have +lived had not the Faun of Praxiteles stirred the author's +admiration.... The other characters, Mr. Hawthorne must bear to be +told, are not new to a tale of his. Miriam, the mysterious, with her +hideous tormentor, was indicated in the Zenobia of 'The Blithedale +Romance.' Hilda, the pure and innocent, is own cousin to Phoebe in 'The +House of the Seven Gables'." + +If the reviewer is to be reviewed, it is not too much to designate +these criticisms as miserable failures. They are not even well written. +Henry Bright seemed to be thankful that they were no worse, for he +wrote to Hawthorne: "I am glad that sulky _Athenaeum_ was so +civil; for they are equally powerful and unprincipled." The writer in +the _Athenaeum_ evidently belonged to that class of domineering +critics who have no literary standing, but who, like bankers' clerks, +arrogate to themselves all the importance of the establishment with +which they are connected. Fortunately, there are few such in America. +No keen-witted reader would ever confound the active, rosy, domestic +Phoebe Pyncheon with the dreamy, sensitive, and strongly subjective +Hilda of "The Marble Faun;" and Hawthorne might have sent a +communication to the _Athenaeum_ to refresh the reviewer's memory, +for it was not Zenobia in "The Blithedale Romance" who was dogged by a +mysterious persecutor, but her half-sister--Priscilla. Shakespeare's +Beatrice and his Rosalind are more alike (for Brandes supposes them to +have been taken from the same model) than Zenobia and Miriam; and the +difference between the persecutors of Priscilla and Miriam, as well as +their respective methods, is world-wide; but there are none so blind as +those who are enveloped in the turbid medium of their self-conceit. + +The pure-hearted, chivalrous Motley read these reviews, and wrote to +Hawthorne a vindication of his work, which must have seemed to him like +a broad belt of New England sunshine in the midst of the London fog. In +reference to its disparagement by so-called authorities, Motley said: +[Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 408.] + +"I have said a dozen times that nobody can write English but you. With +regard to the story which has been slightingly criticised, I can only +say that to me it is quite satisfactory. I like those shadowy, weird, +fantastic, Hawthornesque shapes flitting through the golden gloom which +is the atmosphere of the book. I like the misty way in which the story +is indicated rather than revealed. The outlines are quite definite +enough, from the beginning to the end, to those who have imagination +enough to follow you in your airy flights; and to those who complain--- + +"I beg your pardon for such profanation, but it really moves my spleen +that people should wish to bring down the volatile figures of your +romance to the level of an everyday novel. It is exactly the romantic +atmosphere of the book in which I revel." + +The calm face of Motley, with his classic features, rises before us as +we read this, illumined as it were by "the mild radiance of a hidden +sun." He also had known what it was to be disparaged by English +periodicals; and if it had not been for Froude's spirited assertion in +his behalf, his history of the Dutch Republic might not have met with +the celebrity it deserved. He was aware of the difference between a +Hawthorne and a Reade or a Trollope, and knew how unfair it would be to +judge Hawthorne even by the same standard as Thackeray. He does not +touch in this letter on the philosophical character of the work, +although that must have been evident to him, for he had said enough +without it; but one could wish that he had printed the above statement +over his own name, in some English journal. + +American reviewers were equally puzzled by "The Marble Faun," and, +although it was generally praised here, the literary critics treated it +in rather a cautious manner, as if it contained material of a dangerous +nature. The _North American_, which should have devoted five or +six pages to it, gave it less than one; praising it in a conventional +and rather unsympathetic tone. Longfellow read it, and wrote in his +diary, "A wonderful book; but with the old, dull pain in it that runs +through all Hawthorne's writings." There was always something of this +dull pain in the expression of Hawthorne's face. + + +ANALYSIS OF "THE MARBLE FAUN" + +It is like a picture, or a succession of pictures, painted in what the +Italians call the _sfumato_, or "smoky" manner. The book is +pervaded with the spirit of a dreamy pathos, such as constitutes the +mental atmosphere of modern Rome; not unlike the haze of an Indian +summer day, which we only half enjoy from a foreboding of the approach +of winter. All outlines are softened and partially blurred in it, as +time and decay have softened the outlines of the old Roman ruins. We +recognize the same style with which we are familiar in "The Scarlet +Letter," but influenced by a change in Hawthorne's external +impressions. + +It is a rare opportunity when the work of a great writer can be traced +back to its first nebulous conception, as we trace the design of a +pictorial artist to the first drawing that he made for his subject. +Although we cannot witness the development of the plot of this romance +in Hawthorne's mind, it is much to see in what manner the different +elements of which it is composed, first presented themselves to him, +and how he adapted them to his purpose. + +The first of these in order of time was the beautiful Jewess, whom he +met at the Lord Mayor's banquet in London; who attracted him by her +_tout ensemble_, but at the same time repelled him by an indefinable +impression, a mysterious something, that he could not analyze. There would +seem, however, to have been another Jewess connected with the character +of Miriam; for I once heard Mrs. Hawthorne narrating a story in which she +stated that she and her husband were driving through London in a cab, +and passing close to the sidewalk in a crowded street they saw a beautiful +woman, with black hair and a ruddy complexion, walking with the most ill- +favored and disagreeable looking Jew that could be imagined; and on the +woman's face there was an expression of such deep-seated unhappiness that +Hawthorne and his wife turned to each other, and he said, "I think that +woman's face will always haunt me." I did not hear the beginning of Mrs. +Hawthorne's tale, but I always supposed that it related to "The Marble +Faun," and it would seem as if the character of Miriam was a composite +of these two daughters of Israel, uniting the enigmatical quality of one +with the unfortunate companionship of the other, and the beauty of both. + +As previously noticed, the portrait of Beatrice Cenci excited a deeply +penetrating interest in Hawthorne, and his reflections on it day after +day would naturally lead him to a similar design in regard to the +romance which he was contemplating. The attribution of a catastrophe +like Beatrice's to either of the two Jewesses, would of course be +adventitious, and should be considered in the light of an artistic +privilege. + +The "Faun" of Praxiteles in the museum of the Capitol next attracted +his attention. This is but a poor copy of the original; but he +penetrated the motive of the sculptor with those deep-seeing eyes of +his, and there is no analysis of an ancient statue by Brunn or +Furtwangler that equals Hawthorne's description of this one. It seems +as if he must have looked backward across the centuries into the very +mind of Praxiteles, and he was, in fact, the first critic to appreciate +its high value. The perfect ease and simple beauty of the figure belong +to a higher grade of art than the Apollo Belvedere, and Hawthorne +discovered what Winckelmann had overlooked. He immediately conceived +the idea of bringing the faun to life, and seeing how he would behave +and comport himself in the modern world--in brief, to use the design of +Praxiteles as the mainspring of a romance. In the evening of April 22, +1858, he wrote in his journal: + +[Illustration: STATUE OF PRAXITELES' RESTING FAUN, WHICH HAWTHORNE HAS +DESCRIBED AND BROUGHT TO LIFE IN THE CHARACTER OF DONATELLO] + +"I looked at the Faun of Praxiteles, and was sensible of a peculiar +charm in it; a sylvan beauty and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. +It seems to me that a story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, +might be contrived on the idea of their species having become +intermingled with the human race; a family with the faun blood in them, +having prolonged itself from the classic era till our own days. The +tail might have disappeared, by dint of constant intermarriages with +ordinary mortals; but the pretty hairy ears should occasionally +reappear in members of the family; and the moral instincts and +intellectual characteristics of the faun might be most picturesquely +brought out, without detriment to the human interest of the story." + +This statue served to concentrate the various speculative objects which +had been hovering before Hawthorne's imagination during the past +winter, and when he reached Florence six weeks later, the chief details +of the plot were already developed in his mind. + +Hilda and Kenyon are, of course, subordinate characters, like the first +walking lady and the first walking gentleman on the stage. They are the +sympathetic friends who watch the progress of the drama, continually +hoping to be of service, but still finding themselves powerless to +prevent the catastrophe. It was perhaps their unselfish interest in +their mutual friends that at length taught them to know each other's +worth, so that they finally became more than friends to one another. +True love, to be firmly based, requires such a mutual interest or +common ground on which the parties can meet,--something in addition to +the usual attraction of the sexes. Mrs. Hawthorne has been supposed by +some to have been the original of Hilda; and by others her daughter +Una. + +Conway holds an exceptional opinion, that Hilda was the feminine +counterpart of Hawthorne himself; but Hilda is only too transparent a +character, while Hawthorne always was, and still remains, impenetrable; +and there was enough of her father in Miss Una, to render the same +objection applicable in her case. Hilda seems to me very much like Mrs. +Hawthorne, as one may imagine her in her younger days; like her in her +mental purity, her conscientiousness, her devotion to her art,--which +we trust afterwards was transformed into a devotion to her husband,-- +her tendency to self-seclusion, her sensitiveness and her lack of +decisive resolution. She is essentially what they call on the stage an +_ingenue_ character; that is, one that remains inexperienced in +the midst of experience; and it is in this character that she +contributes to the catastrophe of the drama. + +If Hawthorne appears anywhere in his own fiction, it is not in "The +Blithedale Romance," but in the role of Kenyon. Although Kenyon's +profession is that of a sculptor, he is not to be confounded with the +gay and versatile Story. Neither is he statuesque, as the English +reviewer criticised him. He is rather a shadowy character, as Hawthorne +himself was shadowy, and as an author always must be shadowy to his +readers; but Kenyon is to Hawthorne what Prospero is to Shakespeare, +and if he does not make use of magic arts, it is because they no longer +serve their purpose in human affairs. He is a wise, all-seeing, +sympathetic mind, and his active influence in the play is less +conspicuous because it is always so quiet, and so correct. + +It will be noticed that the first chapter and the last chapter of this +romance have the same title: "Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello." This +is according to their respective ages and sexes; but it is also the +terms of a proportion,--as Miriam is to Hilda, so is Kenyon to +Donatello. As the experienced woman is to the inexperienced woman, so +is the experienced man to the inexperienced man. This seems simple +enough, but it has momentous consequences in the story. Donatello, who +is a type of natural but untried virtue, falls in love with Miriam, not +only for her beauty, but because she has acquired that worldly +experience which he lacks. Hilda, suddenly aroused to a sense of her +danger in the isolated life she is leading, accepts Kenyon as a +protector. The means in this proportion come together and unite, +because they are the mean terms, and pursue a medium course. The +extremes fly apart and are separated, simply because they are extremes. +But there is a spiritual bond between them, invisible, but stronger +than steel, which will bring them together again--at the Day of +Judgment, if not sooner. + +All tragedy is an investigation or exemplification of that form of +human error which we call sin; a catastrophe of nature or a simple +error of judgment may be tragical, but will not constitute a tragedy +without the moral or poetic element. + +In "The Scarlet Letter," we have the sin of concealment and its +consequences. The first step toward reformation is confession, and +without that, repentance is little more than a good intention. + +In "The House of the Seven Gables," Hawthorne has treated the sin of +hypocrisy--a smiling politician who courts popularity and pretends to +be everybody's friend, and agrees with everybody,--only with a slight +reservation. There may be occasions on which hypocrisy is a virtue; but +the habit of hypocrisy for personal ends is like a dry rot in the heart +of man. + +In "The Blithedale Romance," we find the sin of moral affectation. +Neither Hollingsworth nor Zenobia is really what they pretend +themselves to be. Their morality is a hollow shell, and gives way to +the first effective temptation. Zenobia betrays Priscilla; and is +betrayed in turn by Hollingsworth,--as well as the interests of the +association which had been committed to his charge. + +The kernel of "The Marble Faun" is _original sin_. It is a story +of the fall of man, told again in the light of modern science. It is a +wonderful coincidence that almost in the same months that Hawthorne was +writing this romance, Charles Darwin was also finishing his work on the +"Origin of Species;" for one is the moral counterpart of the other. +Hawthorne did not read scientific and philosophical books, but he may +have heard something of Darwin's undertaking in England, as well as +Napoleon's prophetic statement at St. Helena, that all the animals form +an ascending series, leading up to man. [Footnote: Dr. O'Meara's "A +Voice from St. Helena."] The skeleton of a prehistoric man discovered +in the Neanderthal cave, which was supposed to have proved the +Darwinian theory, does not suggest a figure similar to the "Faun" of +Praxiteles, but the followers of Darwin have frequently adverted to the +Hellenic traditions of fauns and satyrs in support of their theory. +Hawthorne, however, has made a long stride beyond Darwin, for he has +endeavored to reconcile this view of creation with the Mosaic +cosmogony; and it must be admitted that he has been fairly successful. +The lesson that Hawthorne teaches is, that evil does not reside in +error, but in neglecting to be instructed by our errors. It is this +which makes the difference between a St. Paul and a Nero. The fall of +man was only apparent; it was really a rise in life. The Garden of Eden +prefigures the childhood of the human race. Do we not all go through +this idyllic moral condition in childhood, learning through our errors +that the only true happiness consists in self-control? Do not all +judicious parents protect their children from a knowledge of the +world's wickedness, so long as it is possible to prevent it,--and yet +not too long, for then they would become unfitted for their struggle +with the world, and in order to avoid the pitfalls of mature life they +must know where the pitfalls are. It is no longer essential for the +individual to pass through the Cain and Abel experience--that has been +accomplished by the race as a whole; but it is quite possible to +imagine an incipient condition of society in which the distinction of +justifiable homicide in self-defence (which is really the justification +of war between nations) has not yet obtained. + +Hawthorne's Donatello is supposed to belong, in theory at least, to +that primitive era; but it is not necessary to go back further than the +feudal period to look for a man who never has known a will above his +own. Donatello seizes Miriam's tormentor and casts him down the +Tarpeian Rock,--from the same instinct, or clairvoyant perception, that +a hound springs at the throat of his master's enemy. When the deed is +done he recognizes that the punishment is out of all proportion to the +offence,--which is in itself the primary recognition of a penal code,-- +and more especially that the judgment of man is against him. He +realizes for the first time the fearful possibilities of his nature, +and begins to reflect. He is a changed person; and if not changed for +the better yet with a possibility of great improvement in the future. +His act was at least an unselfish one, and it might serve as the +argument for a debate, whether Donatello did not do society a service +in ridding the earth of such a human monstrosity. Hawthorne has +adjusted the moral balance of his case so nicely, that a single scruple +would turn the scales. + +The tradition among the Greeks and Romans, of a Golden Age, corresponds +in a manner to the Garden of Eden of Semitic belief. There may be some +truth in it. Captain Speke, while exploring the sources of the Nile, +discovered in central Africa a negro tribe uncontaminated by European +traders, and as innocent of guile as the antelopes upon their own +plains; and this suggests to us that all families and races of men may +have passed through the Donatello stage of existence. + +Hawthorne's master-stroke in the romance is his description or analysis +of the effect produced by this homicide on the different members of the +group to which he has introduced us. The experienced and worldly-wise +Kenyon is not informed of the deed until his engagement to Hilda, but +he has sufficient reason to suspect something of the kind from the +simultaneous disappearance of Donatello and the model, as well as from +the sudden change in Miriam's behavior. Yet he does not treat Donatello +with any lack of confidence. He visits him at his castle of Monte Beni, +which is simply the Villa Manteuto somewhat idealized and removed into +the recesses of the Apennines; he consoles him in his melancholy humor; +tries to divert him from gloomy thoughts; and meanwhile watches with a +keen eye and friendly solicitude for the _denouement_ of this +mysterious drama. If he had seen what Hilda saw, he would probably have +left Rome as quickly as possible, never to return; and Donatello's fate +might have been different. + +The effect on the sensitive and inexperienced Hilda was like a horrible +nightmare. She cannot believe her senses, and yet she has to believe +them. It seems to her as if the fiery pit has yawned between her and +the rest of the human race. Her position is much like that of Hamlet, +and the effect on her is somewhat similar. She thrusts Miriam from her +with bitterness; yet forms no definite resolutions, and does she knows +not what; until, overburdened by the consciousness of her fatal secret, +she discloses the affair to an unknown priest in the church of St. +Peter. Neither does she seem to be aware at any time of the serious +consequences of this action. + +Miriam, more experienced even than Kenyon, is not affected by the death +of her tormentor so much directly as she is by its influence on +Donatello. Hitherto she had been indifferently pleased by his +admiration for her; now the tables are turned and she conceives the +very strongest attachment for him. She follows him to his castle in +disguise, dogs his footsteps on the excursion which he and Kenyon make +together, shadows his presence again in Rome, and is with him at the +moment of his arrest. This is all that we know of her from the time of +her last unhappy interview with Hilda. Her crime consisted merely in a +look,--the expression of her eyes,--and the whole world is free to her; +but her heart is imprisoned in the same cell with Donatello. There is +not a more powerful ethical effect in Dante or Sophocles. + +A certain French writer [Footnote: Name forgotten, but the fact is +indelible.] blames Hilda severely for her betrayal of Miriam (who was +at least her best friend in Rome), and furthermore designates her as an +immoral character. This, we may suppose, is intended for a hit at New +England Puritanism; and from the French stand-point, it is not unfair. +Hilda represents Puritanism in its weakness and in its strength. It is +true, what Hamlet says, that "conscience makes cowards of us all," but +only true under conditions like those of Hamlet,--desperate +emergencies, which require exceptional expedients. On the contrary, in +carrying out a great reform like the abolition of slavery, the +education of the blind, or the foundation of national unity, a man's +conscience becomes a tower of strength to him. As already intimated, +what Hilda ought to have done was, to leave Rome at once, and forever; +but she is no more capable of forming such a resolution, than Hamlet +was of organizing a conspiracy against his usurping uncle. When, +however, the priest steps out from the confessional-box and attempts to +make a convert of Hilda,--for which indeed she has given him a fair +opening,--she asserts herself and her New England training, with true +feminine dignity, and in fact has decidedly the best of the argument. +It is a trying situation, in which she develops unexpected resources. +Hawthorne's genius never shone forth more brilliantly than in this +scene at St. Peter's. It is Shakespearian. + +Much dissatisfaction was expressed when "The Marble Faun" was first +published, at the general vagueness of its conclusion. Hawthorne's +admirers wished especially for some clearer explanation of Miriam's +earlier life, and of her relation to the strange apparition of the +catacombs. He answered these interrogatories in a supplementary chapter +which practically left the subject where it was before--an additional +piece of mystification. In a letter to Henry Bright he admitted that he +had no very definite scheme in his mind in regard to Miriam's previous +history, and this is probably the reason why his readers feel this +vague sense of dissatisfaction with the plot. I have myself often tried +to think out a prelude to the story, but without any definite result. +Miriam's persecuting model was evidently a husband who had been forced +upon her by her parents, and would not that be sufficient to account +for her moods of gloom and despondency? Yet Hawthorne repeatedly +intimates that there was something more than this. Let us not think of +it. If the tale was not framed in mystery, Donatello would not seem so +real to us. Do not the characters in "Don Quixote" and "Wilhelm +Meister" spring up as it were out of the ground? They come we know not +whence, and they go we know not whither. It is with these that "The +Marble Faun" should be classed and compared, and not with "Middle- +march," "Henry Esmond," or "The Heart of Midlothian." + +[Illustration: TORRE MEDIAVALLE DELLA SCIMMIA (HILDA'S TOWER), OF THE +VIA PORTOGHESE AT ROME, WHERE HAWTHORNE REPRESENTS HILDA TO HAVE LIVED +AND TENDED THE LAMP AT THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER] + +Goethe said, while looking at the group of the "Laocoon," "I think that +young fellow on the right will escape the serpents." This was not +according to the story Virgil tells, but it is true to natural history. +Similarly, it is pleasant to think that the Pope's mercy may ultimately +have been extended to Donatello. We can imagine an aged couple living a +serious, retired life in the castle of Monte Beni, childless, and to a +certain extent joyless, but taking comfort in their mutual affection, +and in acts of kindness to their fellow-mortals. + +In order to see Hilda's tower in Rome, go straight down from the +Spanish Steps to the Corso, turn to the right, and you will soon come +to the Via Portoghese (on the opposite side), where you will easily +recognize the tower on the right hand. The tower is five stories in +height, set in the front of the palace, and would seem to be older than +the building about it; the relic, perhaps, of some distinguished +mediaeval structure. The odd little shrine to the Virgin, a toy-like +affair, still surmounts it; but its lamp is no longer burning. It was +fine imagination to place Hilda in this lofty abode. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HOMEWARD BOUND: 1860-1862 + + +There is no portion of Hawthorne's life concerning which we know less +than the four years after his return from England to his native land. +He was so celebrated that every eye was upon him; boys stopped their +games to see him pass by, and farmers stood still in the road to stare +at him. He was Hawthorne the famous, and every movement he made was +remembered, every word spoken by him was recorded or related, and yet +altogether it amounts to little enough. Letters have been preserved in +number,--many of his own and others from his English friends, and those +from his wife to her relatives; but they do not add much to the picture +we have already formed in our minds of the man. As he said somewhere, +fame had come too late to be a satisfaction to him, but on the contrary +more of an annoyance. Hawthorne left Leamington the last of March, and +transferred his family to Bath, which he soon discovered to be the +pleasantest English city he had lived in yet,--symmetrically laid out, +like a Continental city, and built for the most part of a yellowish +sandstone; not unlike in appearance the travertine of which St. Peter's +at Rome is built. The older portion of the city lies in a hollow among +the hills, like an amphitheatre, and the more recent additions rise +upon the hill-sides above it to a considerable height. This is the last +note of enthusiasm in his writings; and in the next entry in his diary, +which was written at Lothrop Motley's house, Hertford Street, London, +May 16, he makes this ominous confession: "I would gladly journalize +some of my proceedings, and describe things and people, but I find the +same coldness and stiffness in my pen as always since our return to +England." It is only too evident that from this time literary +composition, which had been the chief recreation of his youth, and in +which he had always found satisfaction until now, was no longer a +pleasure to him. It is the last entry in his journal, at least for more +than two years, and whatever writing he accomplished in the mean time +was done for the sake of his wife and children. Dickens had a similar +experience the last year of his life. Clearly, Hawthorne's nervous +force was waning. + +On May 15, Hawthorne and Motley were invited to dine by Earl Dufferin, +that admirable diplomat and one of the pleasantest of men. In fact, if +there was a person living who could make Hawthorne feel perfectly at +his ease, it was Dufferin. Motley provided some entertainment or other +for his guest every day, and Hawthorne confessed that the stir and +activity of London life were doing him "a wonderful deal of good." What +he seems to have needed at this time was a vigorous, objective +employment that would give his circulation a start in the right +direction; but how was he to obtain that? + +He enjoyed one last stroll with Henry Bright through Hyde Park and +along the Strand, and found time to say a long farewell to Francis +Bennoch: the last time he was to meet either of them on this side of +eternity. + +He returned to Bath the 1st of June, and ten days later they all +embarked for Boston,--as it happened, by a pleasant coincidence, with +the same captain with whom they had left America seven years before. +Mrs. Hawthorne's sister, Mrs. Horace Mann, prepared their house at +Concord for their reception, and there they arrived at the summer +solstice. + +The good people of Concord had been mightily stirred up that spring, by +an attempt to arrest Frank B. Sanborn and carry him forcibly to +Washington,--contrary to law, as the Supreme Court of the State decided +the following day. The marshal who arrested him certainly proceeded +more after the manner of a burglar than of a civil officer, hiding +himself with his _posse comitatus_ in a barn close to Sanborn's +school-house, watching his proceedings through the cracks in the +boards, and finally arresting him at night, just as he was going to +bed; but the alarm was quickly sounded, and the whole male population +of the place, including Emerson, turned out like a swarm of angry +hornets, and the marshal and his posse were soon thankful to escape +with their bones in a normal condition. A few nights later, the barn, +which was owned by a prominent official in the Boston Custom House, was +burned to the ground (the fire-company assisting), as a sacrifice on +the altar of personal liberty. + +The excitement of this event had not yet subsided when the arrival of +the Hawthorne family produced a milder and more amiable, but no less +profound, sensation in the old settlement; and this was considerably +increased by the fact that for the first month nothing was seen of +them, except a sturdy-looking boy fishing from a rock in Concord River, +opposite the spot where his father and Channing had discovered the +unfortunate school-mistress. Old friends made their calls and were +cordially received, but Hawthorne himself did not appear in public +places; and it was soon noticed that he did not take the long walks +which formerly carried him to the outer limits of the town. He was +sometimes met on the way to Walden Pond, either alone or in company +with his son; but Bronson Alcott more frequently noticed him gliding +along in a ghost-like manner by the rustic fence which separated their +two estates, or on the way to Sleepy Hollow. When the weather became +cooler he formed a habit of walking back and forth on the hill-side +above his house, where the bank descends sharply like a railroad-cut, +with dwarf pines and shrub oaks on the further side of it. He wore a +path there, which is described in "Septimius Felton," and it is quite +possible that the first inception of that story entered his mind while +looking down upon the Lexington road beneath him, and imagining how it +appeared while filled with marching British soldiers. + +About July 10, 1860, the scholars of Mr. Sanborn's school, male and +female, gave an entertainment in the Town Hall, not unlike Harvard +Class Day. Mrs. Hawthorne and her eldest daughter appeared among the +guests, and attracted much attention from the quiet grace and dignity +of their manners; but there was an expression of weariness on Miss +Una's face, which contrasted strangely with the happy, blithesome looks +of the school-girls. Some idea of the occasion may be derived from a +passing remark of Mrs. Hawthorne to a Harvard student present: "My +daughter will be happy to dance with you, sir, if I can only find her." + +In September Hawthorne wrote to James T. Fields: [Footnote: Mrs. J. T. +Fields, 118.] + +"We are in great trouble on account of our poor Una, in whom the bitter +dregs of that Roman fever are still rankling, and have now developed +themselves in a way which the physicians foreboded. I do not like to +write about it, but will tell you when we meet. Say nothing." + +Miss Una was evidently far from well, and her father's anxiety for her +sensibly affected his mental tone. + +He was invited at once to join the Saturday Club, popularly known at +that time as the Atlantic Club, because its most conspicuous members +were contributors to that periodical. Hawthorne did not return in +season to take part in the Club's expedition to the Adirondack +Mountains, concerning which Doctor Holmes remarked that, considering +the number of rifles they carried, it was fortunate that they all +returned alive. The meetings of the Club came but once a month, and as +the last train to Concord was not a very late one, Judge Hoar had his +carryall taken down to Waltham on such occasions, and thence he, with +Hawthorne and Emerson, drove back to Concord through the woods in the +darkness or moonlight; and Hawthorne may have enjoyed this as much as +any portion of the entertainment. + +A club whose membership is based upon celebrity reminds one rather of a +congregation of stags, all with antlers of seven tines. There was every +shade of opinion, political, philosophical and religious, represented +in the Saturday Club, and if they never fought over such subjects it +was certainly much to their credit. Very little has been divulged of +what took place at their meetings; but it is generally known that in +the winter of 1861 Longfellow was obliged to warn his associates that +if they persisted in abusing Sumner he should be obliged to leave their +company; Sumner being looked upon by the Democrats and more timid +Republicans as the chief obstacle to pacification; as if any one man +could prop a house up when it was about to fall. After the War began, +this naturally came to an end, and Sumner was afterwards invited to +join the Club, with what satisfaction to Hoar, Lowell, and Holmes it +might be considering rather curiously to inquire. We can at least feel +confident that Hawthorne had no share in this. He did not believe in +fighting shadows, and he at least respected Sumner for his frankness +and disinterestedness. + +Such differences of opinion, however, are not conducive to freedom of +discussion. Henry James, Sr., lifts the veil for a moment in a letter +to Emerson, written about this time, [Footnote: Memoir of Bronson +Alcott; also the "Hawthorne Centenary."] and affords us a picture of +Hawthorne at the Saturday Club, which might bear the designation of a +highly-flavored caricature. According to Mr. James, John M. Forbes, the +Canton millionaire, preserved the balance at one end of the table, +while Hawthorne, an oasis in a desert, served as the nearest approach +to a human being, at the other. "How he buried his eyes in his plate +and ate with such a voracity! that no one should dare to ask him a +question." + +We do not realize the caricaturist in Henry James, Jr., so readily, on +account of his elastic power of expression; but the relationship is +plain and apparent. Both father and son ought to have been baptized in +the Castalian Fount. There are those who have been at table with both +Hawthorne and the elder James, and without the slightest reflection on +Mr. James, have confessed their preference for the quiet composure and +simple dignity of Hawthorne. In truth Hawthorne's manners were above +those of the polished courtier or the accomplished man of fashion: they +were poetic manners, and in this respect Longfellow most nearly +resembled him of all members of the Club; although Emerson also had +admirable manners and they were largely the cause of his success. It +would have done no harm if Emerson had burned this letter after its +first perusal, but since it is out of the bag we must even consider it +as it deserves. + +Hawthorne must have enjoyed the meetings of the Club or he would not +have attended them so regularly. He wrote an account of the first +occasion on which he was present, giving an accurate description of the +dinner itself and enclosing a diagram of the manner in which the guests +were seated, but without any commentary on the proceedings of the day. +It was, after all, one of the nerve-centres of the great world, and an +agreeable change from the domestic monotony of the Wayside. Thackeray +would have descried rich material for his pen in it, but Hawthorne's +studies lay in another direction. Great men were not his line in +literature. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Hawthorne and her daughter were transforming their +Concord home into a small repository of the fine arts. Without much +that would pass by the title of elegance, they succeeded in giving it +an unpretentious air of refinement, and one could not enter it without +realizing that the materials of a world-wide culture had been brought +together there. Hawthorne soon found the dimensions of the house too +narrow for the enlarged views which he had brought with him from +abroad, and he designed a tower to be constructed at one corner of it, +similar to, if not so lofty as that of the Villa Manteuto. This +occupied him and the dilatory Concord carpenter for nearly half a year; +and meanwhile chaos and confusion reigned supreme. There was no one +whose ears could be more severely offended by the music of the +carpenter's box and the mason's trowel than Hawthorne, and he knew not +whether to fly his home or remain in it. Not until all this was over +could he think seriously of a new romance. + +He made his study in the upper room of the tower; a room exactly twenty +feet square, with a square vaulted ceiling and five windows,--too +many, one would suppose, to produce a pleasant effect of light,--and +walls papered light yellow. There he could be as quiet and retired as +in the attic of his Uncle Robert Manning's house in Salem. Conway +states that he wrote at a high desk, like Longfellow, and walked back +and forth in the room while thinking out what he was going to say. The +view from his windows extended across the meadows to Walden woods and +the Fitchburg railroad track, and it also commanded the Alcott house +and the road to Concord village. It was in this work-shop that he +prepared "Our Old Home" for the press and wrote the greater part of +"Septimius Felton" and "The Dolliver Romance." + +The War was a new source of distraction. It broke out before the tower +was finished, stimulating Hawthorne's nerves, but disturbing that +delicate mental equilibrium upon which satisfactory procedure of his +writing depended. On May 26, 1861, he wrote to Horatio Bridge: + +"The war, strange to say, has had a beneficial effect upon my spirits, +which were flagging wofully before it broke out. But it was delightful +to share in the heroic sentiment of the time, and to feel that I had a +country,--a consciousness which seemed to make me young again. One +thing as regards this matter I regret, and one thing I am glad of. The +regrettable thing is that I am too old to shoulder a musket myself, and +the joyful thing is that Julian is too young." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, +ii. 276.] + +Hawthorne's patriotism was genuine and deep-seated. He was not the only +American whom the bombardment of Fort Sumter had awakened to the fact +that he had a country. What we have always enjoyed, we do not think of +until there is danger of losing it. In the same letter, he confesses +that he does not quite understand "what we are fighting for, or what +definite result can be expected. If we pummel the South ever so hard, +they will love us none the better for it; and even if we subjugate +them, our next step should be to cut them adrift." + +There were many in those times who thought and felt as Hawthorne did. +Douglas said in the Senate, "Even if you coerce the Southern States and +bring them back by force, it will not be the same Union." A +_people_ does not necessarily mean a _nation_; for the idea +of nationality is of slow growth, and is in a manner opposed to the +idea of democracy; for if the right of government depends on the +consent of the governed, the primary right of the governed must be to +abrogate that government whenever they choose to do so. Hawthorne was +simply a consistent democrat; but time has proved the fallacy of +Douglas's statement, and that a forcible restoration of the Union was +entirely compatible with friendliness and mutal good-will between the +different sections of the country,--after slavery, which was the real +obstacle to this, had been eliminated. If the States east of the +Alleghanies should attempt to separate from the rest of the nation, it +would inevitably produce a war similar to that of 1861. + +Hawthorne even went to the length at this time of proposing to arm the +negroes, and preparing them "for future citizenship by allowing them to +fight for their own liberties, and educating them through heroic +influences." [Footnote: The "Hawthorne Centenary," 197.] When George L. +Stearns was organizing the colored regiments in Tennessee in 1863 he +wrote concerning his work, in almost exactly these terms; and the +inference is plain that Hawthorne might have been more of a +humanitarian if his early associations had been different. + +Such an original character as Bronson Alcott for a next-door neighbor +could not long escape Hawthorne's penetrating glance. Alcott was an +interesting personality, perfectly genuine, frank, kindly and +imperturbably good-humored. He had a benevolent aspect, and in general +appearance so much resembled the portraits of Benjamin Franklin that +his ingenious daughters made use of him in charades and theatricals for +that purpose. Hawthorne had known him many years earlier, and had +spoken very pleasantly of him in his first publication of "The Hall of +Fantasy." He even said, "So calm and gentle was he, so quiet in the +utterance of what his soul brooded upon, that one might readily +conceive his Orphic Sayings to well up from a fountain in his breast, +which communicated with the infinite abyss of thought,"--rather an +optimistic view for Hawthorne. Alcott's philosophy had the decided +merit, which Herbert Spencer's has not, of a strong affirmation of a +Great First Cause, and our direct responsibility thereto: but it was +chiefly the philosophy of Plotinus; and his constant reiteration of a +"lapse" in human nature from divine perfection (which was simply the +Donatello phase expressed in logic), with the various corollaries +deduced from it, finally became as wearisome as the harp with a single +string. Whether he troubled Hawthorne in that way, is rather doubtful, +for even as a hobby-rider, Alcott was a man of Yankee shrewdness and +considerable tact. Rose Hawthorne says that "he once brought a +particularly long poem to read, aloud to my mother and father; a +seemingly harmless thing from which they never recovered." What poem +this could have been I have no idea, but in his later years Alcott +wrote some excellent poetry, and those who ought to know do not think +that he bored Hawthorne very severely. They frequently went to walk +together, taking Julian for a make-weight, and Hawthorne could easily +have avoided this if he had chosen. There are times for all of us when +our next-door neighbors prove a burden; and it cannot be doubted that +in most instances this is reciprocal. [Footnote: Rose Hawthorne, +however, writes charmingly of the Alcotts. Take this swift sketch, +among others: "I imagine his slightly stooping, yet tall and well-grown +figure, clothed in black, and with a picturesque straw hat, twining +itself in and out of forest aisles, or craftily returning home with +gargoyle-like stems over his shoulders."] + +Alcott was a romance character of exceptional value, and Hawthorne +recognized this, but did not succeed in inventing a plot that would +suit the subject. The only one of Hawthorne's preparatory sketches +given to the public--in which we see his genius in the "midmost heat of +composition"--supposes a household in which an old man keeps a crab- +spider for a pet, a deadly poisonous creature; and in the same family +there is a boy whose fortunes will be mysteriously affected in some +manner by this dangerous insect. He did not proceed sufficiently to +indicate for us how this would turn out, but he closes the sketch with +the significant remark, "In person and figure Mr. Alcott"; from which +it may be inferred that the crab-spider was intended to symbolize +Alcott's philosophy, and the catastrophe of the romance would naturally +result from the unhealthy mental atmosphere in which the boy grew up,-- +a catastrophe which in Alcott's family was averted by the practical +sagacity of his daughters. The idea, however, became modified in its +application. + +It is with regret that we do not allot a larger space to this important +sketch, for it is clearly an original study (like an artist's drawing) +of the unfinished romance which was published in 1883 under the title +of "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret." Long lost sight of in the mass of +Hawthorne's manuscripts, this last of his posthumous works was reviewed +by the critics with some incredulity, and Lathrop had the hardihood to +publicly assert that no such romance by Hawthorne's pen existed, +thereby casting a gratuitous slander on his own brother-in-law. We may +have our doubts in regard to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, for +we have no absolute standard by which to judge of Shakespeare's style, +but the "style, the matter, and the drift" of "Doctor Grimshawe's +Secret" are so essentially Hawthornish that a person experienced in +judging of such matters should not hesitate long in deciding that it +belongs in the same category with "Fanshawe" and "The Dolliver +Romance." It is even possible to determine, from certain peculiarities +in its style, the exact period at which it was written; which must have +been shortly after Hawthorne's return from Europe. In addition to this, +if further evidence were required, its close relationship to the +aforementioned sketch is a fact which no sophistry can reason away. +[Footnote: This sketch was published in the _Century_, January, +1883.] + +The bloody footstep suggested to Hawthorne by the antediluvian print in +the stone step at Smithell's Hall, in Lancashire, serves as the key- +note of this romance; but the eccentric recluse, the big crab-spider, +the orphaned grandchild, and even Bronson Alcott also appear in it. +Alcott, however,--and his identity cannot be mistaken,--does not play +the leading part in the piece, but comes in at the fifth chapter, only +to disappear mysteriously in the eighth; the orphan boy is companioned +by a girl of equal age, and these two bright spirits, mutually +sustaining each other, cast a radiance over the old Doctor in his +dusty, frowsy, cobwebby study, which brings out the external appearance +and internal peculiarities of the man, in the most vivid manner. The +dispositions and appearances of the two children are also contrasted, +as Raphael might have drawn and contrasted them, if he had painted a +picture on a similar subject. + +The crab-spider is one of the most horrible of Nature's creations. +Hawthorne saw one in the British Museum and it seems to have haunted +his imagination ever afterward. Why the creature should have been +introduced into this romance is not very clear, for it plays no part in +the development of the plot. The spider hangs suspended over the old +Doctor's head like the sword of Damocles, and one would expect it to +descend at the proper moment in the narrative, and make an end of him +with its nippers; but Doctor Grimshawe dies a comparatively natural +death, and the desiccated body of the spider is found still clinging to +the web above him. The man and the insect were too closely akin in the +modes and purposes of their lives for either to outlast the other. +There is nothing abnormal in the fact of Doctor Grimshawe's possessing +this dangerous pet; for all kinds of poisonous creatures have a well- +known fascination for the medical profession. Doctor Holmes amused +himself with a rattlesnake. + +In spite of its unpleasant associations with spiders and blood-stains, +"Doctor Grimshawe's Secret" is one of the most interesting of +Hawthorne's works, containing much of his finest thought and most +characteristic description. The portrait of the grouty old Doctor +himself has a solidity of impast like Shakespeare's Falstaff, and the +grave-digger, who has survived from colonial times, carries us back +involuntarily to the burial scene in "Hamlet." Alcott, whose name is +changed to Colcord, is not treated realistically, but rather idealized +in such kindly sympathetic manner as might prevent all possibility of +offence at the artistic theft of his personality. The plot, too, is a +most ingenious one, turning and winding like a hare, and even diving +out of sight for a time; but only to reappear again, as the school- +master Colcord does, with a full and satisfactory explanation of its +mysterious course. To judge from the appearance of the manuscript, this +romance was written very rapidly, and there are places in the text +which intimate this; but it vies in power with "The Scarlet Letter," +and why Hawthorne should have become dissatisfied with it,--why he +should have failed to complete, revise, and publish it--can only be +accounted for by the mental or nervous depression which was now +fastening itself upon him. + +It is noticeable, however, that where the plot is transferred to +English ground Hawthorne's writing has much the same tone and quality +that we find in "Our Old Home." External appearances seem to impede his +insight there; but this is additional proof of the authenticity of the +work. [Footnote: There are many other evidences; such as, "after-dinner +speeches on the necessity of friendly relations between England and the +United States," and "the whistling of the railway train, _two_ or +_three_ times a day."] + +Shortly after the battle of Bull Run Hawthorne went with his boy to +recuperate at Beverly Farms, leaving his wife and daughters at the +Wayside, and the letters which passed between these two divisions of +the family, during his absence, give some very pretty glimpses of their +idyllic summer life. Mrs. Hawthorne "cultivated her garden," and gave +drawing lessons to the neighbors' children, while her husband, forty +miles away, was fishing and bathing. The Beverly shore has not a +stimulating climate, but is very attractive in summer to those who do +not mind a few sultry nights from land breezes. It was near enough to +Salem for Hawthorne to revive the reminiscences of his youth (which +become more and more precious after the age of fifty), without +obtruding himself on the gaze of his former townsmen or of the young +lady "who wished she could poison him." [Footnote: W. D. Howells' +Memoirs.] It is to be hoped that he saw something of his sister +Elizabeth again, the last remnant of his mother's household, who for +some inscrutable reason had never visited him at Concord. + +We note here a curious circumstance; namely, that Hawthorne appears to +have lost the art of writing short sketches. It will be recollected +that twenty years earlier he did not feel equal to anything beyond +this, and that it cost him a strenuous effort to escape from the habit. +Now when he would have liked to return to that class of composition he +could not do so. Fields would have welcomed anything from his pen (so +severe a critic he was of himself), but his name does not appear in the +_Atlantic Monthly_ from July, 1861, to June, 1862, and it cannot +be doubted that with the education of his son before him, the +remuneration would have been welcome. It was not until nearly a year +later that he conceived the idea of cutting his English Note-book into +sections, and publishing them as magazine articles. + +From this time forth, one discouragement followed another. In the +autumn of 1861 the illness of his daughter, which he had expected and +predicted, came to pass in a violent form. The old Roman virus, kept +under in her blood, for a time, by continual changes of air and +climate, at last gained the mastery, and brought her once more in +danger of her life. She had to be removed to the house of her aunt, +Mrs. Mann, who lived in the centre of the town, on account of her +father's nerves, so that the Concord doctor could attend her at night +when necessary. It was the severest and most protracted case of fever +that the physician had ever known to be followed by a recovery. Miss +Una did recover, but the mental strain upon her father was even more +exhausting than that which her previous illness had caused, and he was +not in an equal condition to bear it. + +"Septimius Felton" may have been written about this time (perhaps +during his daughter's convalescence), but his family knew nothing of +it, until they discovered the manuscript after his death. When it was +published ten years later, the poet Whittier spoke of it as a failure, +and Hawthorne would seem to have considered it so; for he left it in an +unfinished condition, and immediately began a different story on the +same theme,--the elixir of life. It has no connection with the sketch +already mentioned, in which Alcott's personality becomes the +mainspring, but with another abortive romance, called "The Ancestral +Footstep," which Hawthorne commenced while he was in England. It is +invaluable for the light it throws on his method of working. +Descriptive passages are mentioned in it "to be inserted" at a later +time, meanwhile concentrating his energy on more important portions of +the narrative. Half way through the story he changed his original plan, +transforming the young woman who previously had been Septimius's +sweetheart to Septimius's sister; and it may have been the difficulty +of adjusting this change to the portion previously written, that +discouraged Hawthorne from completing the romance. But the work suffers +also from a tendency to exaggeration. The name of Hagburn is +unpleasantly realistic, and Doctor Portsoaken, with his canopy of +spider-webs hanging in noisome festoons above his head, is closely akin +to the repulsive. The amateur critic who averred that he could not read +Hawthorne without feeling a sensation as if cobwebs were drawn across +his face, must have had "Septimius Felton" in mind. Yet there are +refreshing passages in it, and the youthful English officer who kisses +Septimius's sweetheart before his eyes, and afterward fights an +impromptu duel with him, dying as cheerfully as he had lived, is an +original and charming character. The scene of the story has a peculiar +interest, from the fact that it is laid at Hawthorne's own door; the +Feltons are supposed to have lived at the Wayside and the Hagburns in +the Alcott house. + +The firm of Ticknor & Fields now began to feel anxious on Hawthorne's +account, and the last of the winter the senior partner proposed a +journey to Washington, which was accordingly accomplished in the second +week of March. Horatio Bridge was now chief of a bureau in the Navy +Department, and was well qualified to obtain for his veteran friend an +inside position for whatever happened to be going on. In the midst of +the turmoil and excitement of war, Hawthorne attracted as much +attention as the arrival of a new ambassador from Great Britain. +Secretary Stanton appointed him on a civil commission to report +concerning the condition of the Army of the Potomac. He was introduced +to President Lincoln, and made excursions to Harper's Ferry and +Fortress Monroe. Concerning General McClellan, he wrote to his daughter +on March 16: + +"The outcry opened against Gen. McClellan, since the enemy's retreat +from Manassas, is really terrible, and almost universal; because it is +found that we might have taken their fortifications with perfect ease +six months ago, they being defended chiefly by wooden guns. Unless he +achieves something wonderful within a week, he will be removed from +command, at least I hope so; I never did more than half believe in him. +By a message from the State Department, I have reason to think that +there is money enough due me from the government to pay the expenses of +my journey. I think the public buildings are as fine, if not finer, +than anything we saw in Europe." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 309.] + +General McClellan was not a great man, and Hawthorne's opinion of him +is more significant from the fact that at that time McClellan was +expected to be the Joshua who would lead the Democratic party out of +its wilderness. On his return to Concord, Hawthorne prepared a +commentary on what he had seen and heard at the seat of war, and sent +it to the _Atlantic Monthly_; but, although patriotic enough, his +melancholy humor was prominent in it, and Fields particularly protested +against his referring to President Lincoln as "Old Abe," although the +President was almost universally called so in Washington; and the +consequence of this was that Hawthorne eliminated everything that he +had written about Lincoln in his account,--which might be called +"dehamletizing" the subject. In addition to this he wrote a number of +foot-notes purporting to come from the editor, but really intended to +counteract the unpopularity of certain statements in the text. This was +not done with any intention to deceive, but, with the exception of +Emerson and a few others who could always recognize Hawthorne's style, +the readers of the _Atlantic_ supposed that these foot-notes were +written by either James T. Fields or James Russell Lowell, who had been +until recently the editor of the Magazine,--a practical joke which +Hawthorne enjoyed immensely when it was discovered to him. + +This contribution, essay, or whatever it may be called, had only a +temporary value, but it contained a prediction, which has been often +recollected in Hawthorne's favor; namely, that after the war was over +"one bullet-headed general after another would succeed to the +presidential chair." In fact, five generals, whether bullet-headed or +not, followed after Lincoln and Johnson; and then the sequence came to +an end apparently because the supply of politician generals was +exhausted. Certainly the Anglo-Saxon race yields to no other in +admiration for military glory. + +Fields afterward published Hawthorne's monograph on President Lincoln, +and, although it is rather an unsympathetic statement of the man, it +remains the only authentic pen-and-ink sketch that we have of him. Most +important is his recognition of Lincoln as "essentially a Yankee" in +appearance and character; for it has only recently been discovered that +Lincoln was descended from an old New England family, and that his +ancestors first emigrated to Virginia and afterward to Kentucky. +[Footnote: Essay on Lincoln in "True Republicanism."] Hawthorne says of +him: + +"If put to guess his calling and livelihood, I should have taken him +for a country schoolmaster as soon as anything else. [Footnote: The +country school-master of that time.--Ed.] He was dressed in a rusty +black frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that +the suit had adapted itself to the curves and angularities of his +figure, and had grown to be the outer skin of the man. He had shabby +slippers on his feet. His hair was black, still unmixed with gray, +stiff, somewhat bushy, and had apparently been acquainted with neither +brush nor comb that morning, after the disarrangement of the pillow; +and as to a nightcap, Uncle Abe probably knows nothing of such +effeminacies. His complexion is dark and sallow, betokening, I fear, an +insalubrious atmosphere around the White House; he has thick black +eyebrows and impending brow; his nose is large, and the lines about his +mouth are very strongly denned. + +"The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in +the length and breadth of the States; but, withal, it is redeemed, +illuminated, softened, and brightened by a kindly though serious look +out of his eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity, that seems +weighted with rich results of village experience. A great deal of +native sense; no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, +and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly,--at least, endowed with +a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft.... But on the whole, +I liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human +sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would +as lief have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been +practicable to put in his place." [Footnote: "Yesterdays with Authors," +99.] + +This is not a flattered portrait, like those by Lincoln's political +biographers; neither is it an idealized likeness, such as we may +imagine him delivering his Gettysburg Address. It is rather an external +description of the man, but it is, after all, Lincoln as he appeared in +the White House to the innumerable visitors, who, as sovereign American +citizens, believed they had a right to an interview with the people's +distinguished servant. + +Hawthorne's European letter-bag in 1862 is chiefly interesting for +Henry Bright's statement that the English people might have more +sympathy with the Union cause in the War if they could understand +clearly what the national government was fighting for; and that Lord +Houghton and Thomas Hughes were the only two men he had met who +heartily supported the Northern side. Perhaps Mr. Bright would have +found it equally as difficult to explain why the British Government +should have made war upon Napoleon for twelve consecutive years. + +Henry Bright, moreover, seemed to be quite as much interested in a new +American poet, named J. G. Holland, and his poem called "Bitter-Sweet." +Lord Houghton agreed with him that it was a very remarkable poem, and +they wished to know what Hawthorne could tell them about its author. As +Holland was not recognized as a poet by the Saturday Club, Hawthorne's +answer on this point would be very valuable if we could only obtain a +sight of it. Holland was in certain respects the counterpart of Martin +F. Tupper. + +In the summer of this year Hawthorne went to West Goldsboro', Maine, an +unimportant place opposite Mount Desert Island, taking Julian with him; +a place with a stimulating climate but a rather foggy atmosphere. He +must have gone there for his health, and it is pathetic to see how the +change of climate braced him up at first, so that he even made the +commencement of a new diary, and then, as always happens in such cases, +it let him down again to where he was before. He did not complain, but +he felt that something was wrong with him and he could not tell what it +was. + +Wherever he went in passing through the civilized portion of Maine, he +found the country astir with recruits who had volunteered for the war, +so that it seemed as if that were the only subject which occupied men's +minds. He says of this in his journal: + +"I doubt whether any people was ever actuated by a more genuine and +disinterested public spirit; though, of course, it is not unalloyed +with baser motives and tendencies. We met a train of cars with a +regiment or two just starting for the South, and apparently in high +spirits. Everywhere some insignia of soldiership were to be seen,-- +bright buttons, a red stripe down the trousers, a military cap, and +sometimes a round-shouldered bumpkin in the entire uniform. They +require a great deal to give them the aspect of soldiers; indeed, it +seems as if they needed to have a good deal taken away and added, like +the rough clay of a sculptor as it grows to be a model." + +Such is the last entry in his journal. Hawthorne was not carried off +his feet by the excitement of the time, but looked calmly on while +others expended their patriotism in hurrahing for the Union. What he +remarks concerning the volunteers was perfectly true Men cannot change +their profession in a day, and soldiers are not to be made out of +farmers' boys and store clerks simply by clothing them in uniform, no +matter how much courage they may have. War is a profession like other +professions, and requires the severest training of them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IMMORTALITY + + +In the autumn of 1862 there was great excitement in Massachusetts. +President Lincoln had issued his premonitory proclamation of +emancipation, and Harvard College was stirred to its academic depths. +Professor Joel Parker, of the Law School, pronounced Lincoln's action +unconstitutional, subversive of the rights of property, and a most +dangerous precedent. With Charles Eliot Norton and other American +Tories, Parker headed a movement for the organization of a People's +Party, which had for its immediate object the defeat of Andrew for +Governor and the relegation of Sumner to private life. The first they +could hardly expect to accomplish, but it was hoped that a sufficient +number of conservative representatives would be elected to the +Legislature to replace Sumner by a Republican, who would be more to +their own minds; and they would be willing to compromise on such a +candidate as Honorable E. R. Hoar,--although Judge Hoar was innocent of +this himself and was quite as strongly anti-slavery as Sumner. The +movement came to nothing, as commonly happens with political movements +that originate in universities, but for the time being it caused a +great commotion and nowhere more so than in the town of Concord. +Emerson was never more emphatic than in demanding the re-election of +Andrew and Sumner. + +How Hawthorne felt about this and how he voted in November, can only be +conjectured by certain indications, slight, it is true, but all +pointing in one direction. As long since explained, he entertained no +very friendly feeling toward the Cotton Whigs; his letter to his +daughter concerning Gen. McClellan, who set himself against the +proclamation and was removed in consequence, should be taken into +consideration; and still more significant is the letter to Horatio +Bridge, in which Hawthorne proposed the enlistment of negro soldiers. +Doctor George B. Loring, of Salem, always a loyal friend to the +Hawthorne family, came to Concord in September to deliver an address at +the annual cattle-show, and visited at the Wayside. He had left the +Democratic party and become a member of the Bird Club, which was then +the centre of political influence in the State. As a matter of course +he explained his new position to Hawthorne. He had long felt attracted +to the Republican party, and but for his influential position among his +fellow-Democrats, he would have joined it sooner. Parties were being +reconstructed. Half the Democrats had become Republicans; and a +considerable portion of the Whigs had joined the Democratic party. The +interests of the Republic were in the hands of the Republican party and +it ought to be supported. We can believe that Hawthorne listened to him +with close attention. + +It was in the spring of 1862 that I first became well acquainted with +the Hawthorne family, which seemed to exist in an atmosphere of purity +and refinement derived from the man's own genius. Julian visited me at +our house in Medford during the early summer, where he made great havoc +among the small fruits of the season. We boxed, fenced, skated, played +cricket and studied Cicero together. As my father was one of the most +revolutionary of the Free-Soilers, this may have amused Hawthorne as an +instance of the Montagues and Capulets; but I found much sympathy with +my political notions in his household. When the first of January came +there was a grand celebration of the Emancipation in Boston Music Hall. +Mrs. Hawthorne and Una were very desirous to attend it, and I believe +they both did so--Miss Una at all events. If Mrs. Hawthorne's opinions +could be taken in any sense as a reflection of her husband's mind, he +was certainly drifting away from his old associations. + +In October, 1862, Hawthorne published the first of a series of studies +from English life and scenery, taken chiefly from his Note-book, and he +continued this at intervals until the following summer, when Ticknor & +Fields brought them out with some additions in book form as "Our Old +Home;" a volume which has already been considered in these pages. It +was not a favorable time for the publication of classic literature, for +the whole population of the United States was in a ferment; and +moreover the unfriendly attitude of the English educated classes toward +the cause of the Union, was beginning to have its effect with us. In +truth it seemed rather inconsistent that the philanthropic Gladstone, +who had always professed himself the friend of freedom, should glorify +Jefferson Davis as the founder of a new nation--a republic of +slaveholders. In addition to this, Hawthorne insisted on dedicating the +volume to President Pierce, and when his publishers protested that this +would tend to make the book unpopular, he replied in a spirited manner, +that if that was the case it was all the more reason why Pierce's +friends should signify their continued confidence in him. This may have +made little difference, however, for comparatively few readers notice +the dedication of a book until after they have purchased it; and we +like Hawthorne for his firmness in this instance. + +In England the book produced a sensation of the unfavorable sort. +Hawthorne's attack on the rotundity of the English ladies, whatever may +have been his reason for it, was, to speak reservedly, somewhat lacking +in delicacy. It stirred up a swarm of newspaper enemies against him; +and proved a severe strain to the attachment of his friends there. +Henry Bright wrote to him: + +"It really was too bad, some of the things you say. You talk like a +cannibal. Mrs. Heywood says to my mother, 'I really believe you and I +were the only ladies he knew in Liverpool, and we are not like +beefsteaks.' So all the ladies are furious." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, +ii. 280. Good Mrs. Alcott also objected stoutly to the reflections on +her sex.] + +But Hawthorne was no longer what he had been, and allowance should be +made for this. + +Hawthorne's chief interest at this time, however, lay in the +preparation of his son for Harvard College. Julian was sixteen in +August and, considering the itinerant life he had lived, well advanced +in his studies. He was the best-behaved boy in Concord, in school or +out, and an industrious though not ambitious scholar. He was strong, +vigorous and manly; and his parents had sufficient reason to be proud +of him. To expect him, however, to enter Harvard College at the age of +seventeen was somewhat unreasonable. His father had entered Bowdoin at +that age, but the requirements at Harvard were much more severe than at +Bowdoin; enough to make a difference of at least one year in the age of +the applicant. For a boy to enter college in a half-fitted condition is +simply to make a false start in life, for he is only too likely to +become discouraged, and either to drag along at the foot of the class +or to lose his place in it altogether. Hawthorne may have felt that the +end of earthly affairs was close upon him, and wished to see his son +started on the right road before that came; but Emerson also had an +interest in having Julian go to college at exactly this time; namely, +to obtain him as a chum for his wife's nephew, with the advantage of a +tutor's room thrown in as an extra inducement. He advised Hawthorne to +place Julian in charge of a Harvard professor who was supposed to have +a sleight-of-hand faculty for getting his pupils through the +examinations. Julian worked bravely, and succeeded in entering Harvard +the following July; but he was nine months (or a good school year), +younger than the average of his class. + +Hawthorne did not leave home this summer (1863), and the only letter we +have of his was the one to James T. Fields concerning the dedication of +"Our Old Home," which was published in the autumn. Julian states that +his father spent much of his time standing or walking in his narrow +garden before the house, and looking wistfully across the meadows to +Walden woods. His strength was evidently failing him, yet he could not +explain why--nor has it ever been explained. + +One bright day in November two of us walked up from Cambridge with +Julian and lunched at his father's. Mr. Hawthorne received us +cordially, but in a tremulous manner that betrayed the weakness of his +nerves. As soon as Julian had left the room, he said to us, "I suppose +it would be of little use to ask you young gentlemen what sort of a +scholar Julian is." H---- replied to this, that we were neither of us +in the division with him, but that he had heard nothing unfavorable in +regard to his recitations; and I told him that Julian went to the +gymnasium with me every evening, and appeared to live a very regular +kind of life. This seemed to please Mr. Hawthorne very much, and he +soon produced a decanter of port, and, his son having entered the room +again, he said, "I want to teach Julian the taste of good wine, so that +he will learn to avoid those horrible punches, which I am told you have +at Harvard." We all laughed greatly at this, which was afterward +increased by Julian's saying that the only punches he had yet seen were +those which the sophomores gave us in the foot-ball fight,--or some +such statement. It was a bright occasion for all of us, and when Mrs. +Hawthorne and her daughters entered the room, such a beautiful group as +they all formed together! And Hawthorne himself seemed ten years +younger than when he first greeted us. + +He was the most distinguished-looking man that I ever beheld, and no +sensible person could meet him without instantly recognizing his +superior mental endowment. His features were not only classic but +grandly classic; and his eyes large, dark, luminous, unfathomable-- +looking into them was like looking into a deep well. His face seemed to +give a pictorial reflection of whatever was taking place about him; and +again became like a transparency through which one could see dim vistas +of beautiful objects. The changes of expression on it were like the +sunshine and clouds of a summer day--perhaps thunder clouds sometimes, +with flashes of lightning, which his son may still remember; for where +there is a great heart there will always be great heat. + + +"THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE" + +According to James T. Fields, the ground-plan of this work was laid the +preceding winter, but Hawthorne became dissatisfied with the way in +which the subject developed itself and so set the manuscript aside +until he could come to it again with fresh inspiration. With the more +bracing weather of September he commenced on it again, and wrote during +the next two months that portion which we now have. On December 1 he +forwarded two chapters to Ticknor & Fields, requesting to have them set +up so that he could see them in print and obtain a retrospective view +of his work before he proceeded further. Yet on December 15 he wrote +again, saying that he had not yet found courage to attack the proofs, +and that all mental exertion had become hateful to him. [Footnote: +"Yesterdays with Authors," 115.] He was evidently feeling badly, and +for the first time Mrs. Hawthorne was seriously anxious for him. Four +days later she wrote to Una, who was visiting in Beverly: + +"Papa is comfortable to-day, but very thin and pale and weak. I give +him oysters now. Hitherto he has had only toasted crackers and lamb and +beef tea. I am very impatient that he should see Dr. Vanderseude, but +he wants to go to him himself, and he cannot go till it be good +weather.... The splendor and pride of strength in him have succumbed; +but they can be restored, I am sure. Meanwhile he is very nervous and +delicate; he cannot bear anything, and he must be handled like the +airiest Venetian glass." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 333.] + +He divided his time between lying on a sofa and sitting in an arm- +chair; and he did not seem very comfortable in either position. It was +long since he had attended meetings of the Saturday Club. + +It is clear from this that Hawthorne had not recently consulted a +doctor concerning his condition, and perhaps not at all. He may have +been right enough in supposing that no common practitioner could give +him help, but there was at that time one of the finest of physiologists +in Boston, Dr. Edward H. Clark, who cured hundreds of sick people every +year, as quietly and unostentatiously as Dame Nature herself. He was a +graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and as such not generally +looked upon with favor by the Boston medical profession, but when +Agassiz's large brain gave way in 1868, Dr. Brown-Sequard telegraphed +to him from Europe to consult Edward Clark, and Doctor Clark so +improved his health that Agassiz afterward enjoyed a number of years of +useful work. Perhaps he might have accomplished as much for Hawthorne; +but how was Hawthorne in his retired and uncommunicative life to know +of him? There are decided advantages in living in the great world, and +in knowing what goes on there,--if one only can. + +It is doubtful if Hawthorne ever opened the proof of "The Dolliver +Romance." In February he wrote to Fields that he could not possibly go +on with it, and as it had already been advertised for the _Atlantic +Monthly_, a notification had to be published concerning the matter, +which startled Longfellow, Whittier and other old friends of Hawthorne, +who were not in the way of knowing much about him. The fragment that we +now have of it was printed in the _Atlantic_ many years after his +death. + +It was the last expiring ember of Hawthorne's genius, blazing up +fitfully and momentarily with the same brightness as of old, and then +disappearing like Hawthorne himself into the unknown and the +unknowable. It is a fragment, and yet it seems complete, for it is +impossible to imagine how the story could have been continued beyond +its present limits; and Hawthorne left no word from which we can +conjecture his further intentions in regard to it. + +There was an old apothecary in Concord, named Reynolds, a similar man +to, but not so aged as, Hawthorne's Doctor Dolliver; and he also had a +son, a bright enterprising boy,--too bright and spirited to suit Boston +commercialism,--who went westward in 1858 to seek his fortune, nor have +I ever heard of his return. The child Pansie, frisking with her kitten +--a more simple, ingenuous, and self-centred, but also less sympathetic +nature than the Pearl of Hester Prynne--may have been studied from +Hawthorne's daughter Rose. There also lived at Concord in Hawthorne's +time a man with the title of Colonel, a pretentious, self-satisfied +person, who corresponded fairly to his description of Colonel Dabney, +in "The Dolliver Romance." Neither is it singular that the apothecary's +garden should have bordered on a grave-yard, for there are two old +cemeteries in Concord in the very centre of the town. + +I know of no such portrait of an old man as Doctor Dolliver in art or +literature,--except perhaps Tintoretto's portrait of his aged self, in +the Louvre. We not only see the customary marks of age upon him, but we +feel them so that it seems as if we grew old and stiff and infirm as we +read of him; and the internal life of old age is revealed to us, not by +confessions of the man himself, but by every word he speaks and every +act he does as if the writer were a skilful tragedian upon the stage. +It seems as if Hawthorne must have felt all this himself during the +last year of his life, to describe it so vividly; but he ascends by +these infirm steps to loftier heights than ever before, and the scene +in which he represents Doctor Dolliver seated at night before the fire +in his chamber after Pansie had been put to bed, is the noblest passage +in the whole cycle of Hawthorne's art; one of those rare passages +written in moments of gifted insight, when it seems as if a higher +power guided the writer's hand. It is given here entire, for to +subtract a word from it would be an irreparable injury. + +"While that music lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there +were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had +been kissed and put to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside +gazing in among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those +cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or +fiends into our twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them +in by-gone years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the +fire-gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made +him as beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child +Pansie on her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him +beheld a calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into +joy, yet not so vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of +heaven had been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might +catch a glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi- +conscious of an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of +an old man's slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint +thrilling of the heart-strings, as if there had been music just now +wandering over them." + +So Jacob in the desert saw angels descending and ascending on a ladder +from Heaven. Discouraged, depressed, the door closed upon his earthly +hopes, not only for himself, but for those whom he loves much better +than himself, so far as he could ever be a help and a providence to +them, Hawthorne finds a purer joy and a higher hope in the depths of +his own spirit. + +In the second chapter, or fragment, of this romance, Doctor Dolliver, +followed by Pansie, goes out into the garden one frosty October +morning, and while the apothecary is digging at his herbs, the +imitative child, with an instinctive repulsion for everything strange +and morbid, pulls up the fatal plant from which the elixir of life was +distilled, and frightened at her grandfather's chiding, runs with it +into the cemetery where it is lost among the graves and never seen +again. This account stands by itself, having no direct connection with +what precedes or follows; but the delineation is so vivid, the poetic +element in it so strong, that it may be said to stand without +assistance, and does not require the name of Hawthorne to give it +value. + +In the conclusion, the elixir of life proves to be an elixir of death; +extremes meet and are reconciled. As he says in "The Marble Faun," joy +changes to sorrow and sorrow is laughed away; the experience of both +being that which is really valuable. Doctor Dolliver and Pansie are +figures for the end and the beginning of life; the Old Year and the +New. Such is the sum of Hawthorne's philosophy--the ultimate goal of +his thought. There could have been no more fitting consummation of his +work. The cycle of his art is complete, and death binds the laurel +round his brow. + + +A HERO'S END + +After Hawthorne's letter of February 25, Fields felt that he ought to +make an effort in his behalf. Fields's partner, W. D. Ticknor, was also +ailing, and it was arranged that he and Hawthorne should go on a +journey southward as soon as the weather permitted. Doctor Holmes was +consulted, and the last of March Hawthorne came to Boston and met +Holmes at Fields's house. Holmes made an examination, which was +anything but satisfactory to his own mind; in fact, he was appalled at +the condition in which he found his former companion of the Saturday +Club. "He was very gentle," Holmes says; "very willing to answer +questions, very docile to such counsel as I offered him, but evidently +had no hope of recovering his health. He spoke as if his work were +done, and he should write no more." [Footnote: _Atlantic Monthly_, +July, 1864.] The doctor, however, must have been mistaken in supposing +that Hawthorne was suffering from the same malady that carried off +General Grant, for no human being could die in that manner without +suffering greater pain than Hawthorne gave any indication of; and the +sedatives which Holmes prescribed for him could only have resulted in a +weakening of the nerves. He even warned Hawthorne against the use of +alcoholic stimulants, to which for some time he had been more or less +accustomed. + +Hawthorne and Ticknor went to New York, and two days later Ticknor was +able to write to Mrs. Hawthorne that her husband appeared to be much +improved. How cruelly disappointing to meet him at their own door four +days later, haggard, weary and more dispirited than when he had left +the Wayside on March 26! He had proceeded to Philadelphia with Ticknor, +and there at the Continental Hotel Ticknor was suddenly seized with a +mortal malady and died almost in Hawthorne's arms, before the latter +could notify his family in Boston that he was ill. What a severe ordeal +for a man who was strong and well, but to a person in Hawthorne's +condition it was like a thunderbolt. Ticknor's son came to him at once, +and together they performed the necessary duties of the occasion, and +made their melancholy way homeward. Nothing, perhaps, except a death in +his own family, could have had so unfavorable an effect upon +Hawthorne's condition. + +Some good angel now notified Franklin Pierce of the serious posture of +affairs, and he came at once to Concord to offer his services in +Hawthorne's behalf. However, he could propose nothing more hopeful than +a journey in the uplands of New Hampshire, and for this it would be +necessary to wait for settled weather. So Hawthorne remained at home +for the next month without his condition becoming apparently either +better or worse. At length, on May 13, the ex-President returned and +they went together the following day. + +We will not linger over that leave-taking on the porch of the Wayside; +so pathetic, so full of tenderness, even of despair, and yet with a +slender ray of hope beneath the leaden cloud of anxiety. To Hawthorne +it must have seemed even more discouraging than to his wife and +children, though none of them could have suspected that the end would +be so soon. + + * * * * * + +On the morning of May 20, I had just returned from my first recitation +when Julian Hawthorne appeared at my room in the Massachusetts +dormitory, and said, like a man gasping for breath, "My father is dead, +and I want you to come with me." Fields had sent him word through +Professor Gurney, who knew how to deliver such a message in the +kindliest manner. We went at once to Fields's house on Charles Street, +where Mrs. Fields gave Julian the little information already known to +them through a dispatch from Franklin Pierce,--that his father died +during his sleep in the night of May 18, at the Pemmigewasset House, +Plymouth, New Hampshire. After this we wandered about Boston, silent +and aimless, until the afternoon train carried him to Concord. He +greatly dreaded meeting the gaze of his fellow-townsmen, and confessed +that he wanted to hide himself in the woods like a wounded deer. +[Footnote: The passage in "A Fool of Nature," in which he describes +Murgatroyd's discovery of his father's death, must have been a +reminiscence of this time--a passage of the finest genius.] + +On Wednesday, May 18, Hawthorne and Pierce drove from Centre Harbor to +Plymouth, a long and rather rough journey to be taken in a carriage. +Hawthorne, however, did not make much complaint of this, nor did he +seem to be unusually fatigued. He retired to his room soon after nine +o'clock, and was sleeping comfortably an hour later. Pierce was +evidently nervous about him, for he went in to look at him at two in +the morning, and again at four; and the last time he discovered that +life was extinct. Hawthorne had died in his sleep as quietly and +peacefully as he had lived. There is the same mystery in his death that +there was in his life, and it is difficult to assign either an +immediate or a proximate cause for it. With such a physique, and his +simple, regular habits of life, he ought to have reached the age of +ninety. General Pierce believed that he died of paralysis, and that is +the most probable explanation; but it was not like the usual cases of +paralysis at Hawthorne's age; for, as we have seen, the process of +disintegration and failure of his powers had been going on for years. +Nor did this follow, as commonly happens, a protracted period of +adversity, but it came upon him during the most prosperous portion of +his life. The first ten years following upon his marriage were years of +anxiety, self-denial and even hardship; but other men, Alcott, for +example, have suffered as much and yet lived to a good old age. It may +have been "the old dull pain" which Longfellow associated with him, +filing perpetually on the vital cord. It was part of the enigmatic side +of his nature. + +The last ceremonies of respect to the earthly remains of Hawthorne were +performed at Concord on May 23, 1864, in the Unitarian Church, a +commodious building, [Footnote: In 1899 this building was burned to the +ground, and a new church has been erected on the same spot.] well +adapted to the great concourse of mourners who gathered there on this +occasion. Reverend James Freeman Clarke, who had united Hawthorne and +Sophia Peabody in marriage twenty-two years before, was now called upon +to preside over the last act in their married life. The simple +eloquence of his address penetrated to the heart of every person +present. "Hawthorne had achieved a twofold immortality,--and his +immortality on earth would be a comforting presence to all who mourned +him. The noblest men of the age had gathered there, to testify to his +worth as a man as well as to his genius as a writer." Faces were to be +seen in that assembly that were never beheld in Concord before. Among +these was the soldierly figure and flashing eye of the poet Whittier. +Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Agassiz, Alcott and Hillard were present; +and ex-President Pierce shook hands with Judge Hoar over Hawthorne's +bier. After the services the assembly of mourners proceeded to Sleepy +Hollow cemetery, and there the mortal remains of Hawthorne were buried +under the pine trees on the same hill-side where he and Emerson and +Margaret Fuller conversed together on the summer afternoon twenty years +before. He needs no monument, for he has found a place in the universal +pantheon of art and literature. + + * * * * * + +It would seem advisable at this parting of the ways to say something of +Hawthorne's religious convictions. He went as a boy with his mother and +sisters to the East Church in Salem, a society of liberal tendencies +and then on the verge of Unitarianism. All the Manning family attended +service there, but at a later time Robert Manning separated from it and +joined an orthodox society. Hawthorne's mother and his sister Louisa +became Unitarians, and at Madam Hawthorne's death in 1848 the funeral +services were conducted by Reverend Thomas T. Stone, of the First Salem +Church. It is presumable that Nathaniel Hawthorne also became a +Unitarian, so far as he can be considered a sectarian at all; but +certain elements of the older faith still remained in his mental +composition. It cannot be questioned that the strong optimism in +Emerson's philosophy was derived from Doctor Channing's instruction, +and it is equally certain that Hawthorne could never agree to this. +Whatever might be the origin of evil or its abstract value, he found it +too potent an element in human affairs to be quietly reasoned out of +existence. Whatever might be the ultimate purpose of Divine Providence, +the witchcraft prosecutions were an awful calamity to those who were +concerned in them. In this respect he resembled David A. Wasson, one of +the most devout religious minds, who left the church of Calvin (as it +was in his time), without ever becoming a Unitarian or a radical. Miss +Rebecca Manning says: + +"I never knew of Hawthorne's going to church at all, after I remember +about him, and do not think he was ever in the habit of going. I think +he may have gone sometimes when he was in England, but I do not know +about it. Somewhere in Julian or Rose Hawthorne's reminiscences, there +is mention made of his reading family prayers, when he was in England. +He, as also his mother and sisters were people of deeply religious +natures, though not always showing it by outward observances." + +A Concord judge and an old Free-Soil politician once attended a +religious convention, and after the business of the day was over they +went to walk together. The politician confessed to the judge that he +had no very definite religious belief, for which the judge thought he +did himself great injustice; but is not that the most advanced and +intelligent condition of a man's religious faith? How can we possess +clear and definite ideas of the grand mystery of Creation? Consider +only this simple metaphysical fact, that space has no limit, and that +we can neither conceive a beginning of time nor imagine time without a +beginning. What is there outside of the universe? The brain reels as we +think of it. The time has gone by when a man can say to himself +definitely, I believe this or I believe that; but we know at least that +we, "the creature of a day," cannot be the highest form of intelligence +in this wonderful world. We thought that we lived in solid bodies, but +electric rays have been discovered by which the skeletons inside of us +become visible. The correlation and conservation of forces brings us +very close to the origin of all force; and yet in another sense we are +as far off as ever from the perception of it. + +This would seem to have been also Hawthorne's position in regard to +religious faith. What do we know of the religious belief of Michel +Angelo, of Shakespeare, or of Beethoven? We cannot doubt that they were +sincerely and purely religious men; but neither of them made any +confession of their faith. Vittoria Colonna may have known something of +Michel Angelo's belief, but Vasari does not mention it; and Beethoven +confessed it was a subject that he did not like to talk about. The +deeper a man's sense of the awe and mystery which underlies Nature, the +less he feels inclined to expose it to the public gaze. Hawthorne's own +family did not know what his religious opinions were--only that he was +religious. One may imagine that the reticent man would be more reticent +on this subject than on any other; but we can feel confident that at +least he was not a sceptic, for the confirmed sceptic inevitably +becomes a chatterer. He walks to Walden Pond with Hillard and Emerson +on Sunday, and confesses his doubts as to the utility of the Church (in +its condition at that time), for spiritual enlightenment; but in regard +to the great omnipresent fact of spirituality he has no doubt. In "The +Snow Image" he makes a statue come to life, and says in conclusion that +if a new miracle is ever wrought in this world it will be in some such +simple manner as he has described. + +To the poetic mind, which is after all the highest form of intellect, +the grand fact of existence is a sufficient miracle. The rising of the +sun, the changes of the seasons, the blooming of flowers and the +ripening of the grain, were all miracles to Hawthorne, and none the +less so because they are continually being repeated. The scientists +tell us that all these happen according to natural laws: perfectly +true, but WHO was it that made those laws? WHO is it that keeps the +universe running? Laws made for the regulation of human affairs by the +wisest of men often prove ineffective, and inadequate to the purpose +for which they were intended; but the laws of Nature work with +unfailing accuracy. The boy solves his problem in algebra, finding out +the unknown quantity by those values which are given him; and can we +not also infer something of the _unknown_ from the great panorama +that passes unceasingly before us? The one thing that Hawthorne could +not have understood was, how gifted minds like Lucretius and Auguste +Comte could recognize only the evidence of their senses, and +deliberately blind themselves to the evidence of their intellects. He +who denies the existence of mind as a reality resembles a person +looking for his spectacles when they are on his nose; but it is the +imagination of the poet that leads civilization onward to its goal. + +College life is rather generally followed by a period of scepticism, +partly owing in former times to the enforced attendance at morning +prayers, and still more perhaps to the study of Greek and Latin +authors. During what might be called Hawthorne's period of despair, he +could not very well have obtained consolation from the traditional +forms of divine worship; at least, such has been the experience of all +those who have passed through the Wertherian stage, so far as we know +of them. It is a time when every man has to strike the fountain of +spiritual life out of the hard rock of his own existence; and those are +fortunate who, like Moses and Hawthorne, strike forcibly enough to +accomplish this. It is the "new birth from above," in the light of +which religious forms seem of least importance. + +One effect of matrimony is commonly a deepening of religious feeling, +but it is not surprising that Hawthorne should not have attended church +after his marriage. His wife had not been accustomed to church-going, +on account of the uncertainty of her health; the Old Manse was a long +distance from the Concord tabernacle; Hawthorne's associates in +Concord, with the exception of Judge Keyes, were not in the habit of +going to church; and the officiating minister, both at that time and +during his later sojourn, was not a person who could have been +intellectually attractive to him. Somewhat similar reasons may have +interfered with his attendance after his return to Salem; and during +the last fifteen years of his life, he was too much of a wanderer to +take a serious interest in the local affairs of the various places he +inhabited; but he was desirous that his children should go to church +and should be brought up in honest Christian ways. + +Little more need to be said concerning Hawthorne's character as a man. +It was not so perfect as Longfellow's, to whom all other American +authors should bow the head in this respect--the Washington of poets; +and yet it was a rare example of purity, refinement, and patient +endurance. His faults were insignificant in comparison with his +virtues, and the most conspicuous of them, his tendency to revenge +himself for real or fancied injuries, is but a part of the natural +instinct in us to return the blows we receive in self-defence. +Wantonly, and of his own accord, he never injured human being. His +domestic life was as pure and innocent as that which appeared before +the world; and Mrs. Hawthorne once said of him in my presence that she +did not believe he ever committed an act that could properly be +considered wrong. It was like his writing, and his "wells of English +undefiled" were but as a synonym for the clear current of his daily +existence. + +The ideality in Hawthorne's face was so conspicuous that it is +recognizable in every portrait of him. It was not the cold visionary +expression of the abstract thinker, but a human poetic intelligence, +which resolved all things into a spiritual alembic of its own. It is +this which elevates him above all writers who only deal with the outer +world as they find it, and add nothing to it from their own natures. + +George Brandes, the Danish critic and essayist, speaks of Hawthorne +somewhere as "the baby poet;" but we suspect that if he had ever met +the living Hawthorne, he would have stood very much in awe of him. It +would not have been like meeting Ernest Renan or John Stuart Mill. +Although Hawthorne was not splenetic or rash, there was an occasional +look in his eye which a prudent person might beware of. He was +emphatically a man of courage. + +The wide and liberal interest which German scholars and writers have so +long taken in the literature of other nations, has resulted in founding +an informal literary tribunal in Germany, to which the rest of the +world is accustomed to appeal. A. E. Schonbach, one of the most recent +German writers on universal literature, gives his impression of +Hawthorne in the following statement: + +"I find the distinguishing excellence of Hawthorne's imaginative +writings in the union of profound, keen, psychological development of +characters and problems with the most lucid objectivity and a joyous +modern realism. Occasionally there appears a light and delicate humor, +sometimes hidden in a mere adjective, or little phrase which lights up +the gloomiest situation with a gentle ray of hope. Far from unimportant +do I rate the charm of his language, its purity, its melody, its +graceful flexibility, the wealth of vocabulary, the polish which rarely +betrays the touch of the file. After, or with George Eliot, Hawthorne +is the first English prose writer of our century. At the same time he +sacrifices nothing of his peculiar American quality. Not only does he +penetrate into the most secret inner movements of the old colonial +life, as no one else has done, and reproduces the spirit of his +forefathers with a power of intuition which no historical work could +equal; but in all his other works, from the biography of General +Pierce, to the 'Marble Faun,' Hawthorne shows the freshness and +keenness, the precision and lucidity, and other qualities not easy to +describe, which belong to American literature. He is its chief +representative." [Footnote: "Gesammelte Aufsatze zur neueren +Litteratur," p. 346.] + +Hawthorne has always been accorded a high position in literature, and +as time goes on I believe this will be increased rather than +diminished. In beauty of diction he is the first of American writers, +and there are few that equal him in this respect in other languages. It +is a pleasure to read him, simply for his form of expression, and apart +from the meaning which he conveys in his sentences. It is like the +grace of the Latin races,--like Dante and Chateaubriand; and the +adaptation of his words is so perfect that we never have to think twice +for his meaning. In those editions called the Elzevirs, which are so +much prized by book collectors, the clearness and legibility of the +type result from such a fine proportion of space and line that no other +printer has succeeded in imitating it; and there is something similar +to this in the construction of Hawthorne's sentences. + +He is the romance writer of the English language; and there is no form +of literature which the human race prizes more. How many translations +there have been of "The Vicar of Wakefield," and of "The Sorrows of +Werther"! The latter is not one of Goethe's best, and yet it made him +famous at the age of twenty-eight. The novel deals with what is new and +surprising; the romance with what is old and universal. In "The Vicar +of Wakefield" we have the old story of virtue outwitted by evil, which +is in its turn outwitted by wisdom. There is nothing new in it except +the charming exposition which Goldsmith's genius has given to the +subject. Thackeray ridiculed "The Sorrows of Werther," and in the light +of matured judgment the tale appears ridiculous; but it strikes home to +the heart, because we all learn wisdom through such experiences, of +which young Werther's is an extreme instance. It was only another +example of the close relation that subsists between comedy and tragedy. + +It cannot be questioned that "The Scarlet Letter" ranks above "The +Sorrows of Werther;" nor is it less evident that "The Marble Faun" +falls short of "Wilhelm Meister" and "Don Quixote." [Footnote: See +"Cervantes" in _North American Review_, May, 1905] Hawthorne's +position, therefore, lies between these two--nearer perhaps to +"Werther" than to "Wilhelm Meister." In certain respects he is +surpassed by the great English novelists: Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, +Dickens and Marian Evans; but he in turn surpasses them all in the +perfection and poetic quality of his art. There is much poetry in Scott +and Dickens, a little also in Thackeray and Miss Evans, but Hawthorne's +poetic vein has a more penetrating tone, and appeals more deeply than +Scott's verses. If power and versatility of characterization were to be +the test of imaginative writing, Dickens would push closely on to +Shakespeare; but we do not go to Shakespeare to read about Hamlet or +Falstaff, or for the sake of the story, or even for his wisdom, but for +the _tout ensemble_--to read Shakespeare. Raphael painted a dozen +or more pictures on the same subject, but they are all original, +interesting and valuable, because Raphael painted them. If it were not +for the odd characters and variety of incident in Dickens's novels they +would hardly be worth reading. Hawthorne's _dramatis persona_ is +not a long one, for his plots do not admit of it, but his characters +are finely drawn, and the fact that they have not become popular types +is rather in their favor. There are Dombeys and Shylocks in plenty, but +who has ever met a Hamlet or a Rosalind in real life? + +A certain English writer promulgated a list of the hundred superior +authors of all times and countries. There were no Americans in his +catalogue, but he admitted that if the number was increased to one +hundred and eighteen Hawthorne and Emerson might be included in it. +Doubtless he had not heard of Webster or Alexander Hamilton, and many +of his countrymen would be inclined to place Longfellow before Emerson. + +I have myself frequently counted over the great writers of all times +and languages, weighing their respective values carefully in my mind, +but I have never been able to discover more than thirty-five authors +who seem to me decidedly superior to Hawthorne, nor above forty others +who might be placed on an equality with him. [Footnote: Appendix C.] +This, of course, is only an individual opinion, and should be accepted +for what it is worth; but there are many ancient writers, like Hesiod, +Xenophon, and Catullus, whose chief value resides in their antiquity, +and a much larger number of modern authors, such as Balzac, Victor +Hugo, Freytag, and Ruskin, who have been over-estimated in their own +time. Petrarch, and the author of "Gil Bias," might be placed on a +level with Hawthorne, but certainly not above him. Those whom he most +closely resembles in style and subject matter are Goldsmith, Manzoni, +and Auerbach. + +Yet Hawthorne is essentially a domestic writer,--a poetizer of the +hearth-stone. Social life is always the proper subject for works of +fiction, and political life should never enter into them, except as a +subordinate element; but there is a border-land between the two, in +which politics and society act and react on each other, and it is from +this field that the great subjects for epic and dramatic poetry have +always been reaped. Hawthorne only knew of this by hearsay. Of the +strenuous conflict that continually goes on in political centres like +London and New York, a struggle for wealth, for honor, and precedence; +of plots and counterplots, of foiled ambition and ruined reputations,-- +with all this Hawthorne had but slight acquaintance. We miss in him the +masculine vigor of Fielding, the humanity of Dickens, and the trenchant +criticism of Thackeray; but he knew that the true poetry of life (at +the present time) was to be found in quiet nooks and in places far off +from the turbulent maelstrom of humanity, and in his own line he +remains unrivalled. + + +PORTRAITS OF HAWTHORNE + +Hawthorne had no more vanity in his nature than is requisite to +preserve a good appearance in public, but he always sat for his +portrait when asked to do so, and this was undoubtedly the most +sensible way. He was first painted by Charles Osgood in 1840, a +portrait which has at least the merit of a fine poetic expression. He +was afterward painted by Thompson, Healy, and Emanuel Leutze, and drawn +in crayon by Rowse and Eastman Johnson. Frances Osborne also painted a +portrait of him from photographs in 1893, an excellent likeness, and +notable especially for its far-off gaze. Of all these, Rowse's portrait +is the finest work of art, for Rowse was a man of genius, but there is +a slight tendency to exaggeration in it, and it does not afford so +clear an idea of Hawthorne as he was, as the Osborne portrait. Healy +was not very successful with Hawthorne, and Miss Lander's bust has no +merit whatever. The following list contains most of the portraits and +photographs of Hawthorne now known to exist, with their respective +ownerships and locations. + +Oil portrait painted by Charles Osgood, in 1840. Owned by Mrs. Richard +C. Manning. + +Crayon portrait drawn by Eastman H. Johnson, in 1846. Owned by Miss +Alice M. Longfellow. + +Oil portrait painted by George P. A. Healy, in 1850. Now in the +possession of Kirk Pierce, Esq. + +Oil portrait by Miss H. Frances Osborne, after a photograph by Silsbee, +Case & Co., Boston. + +Crayon portrait drawn by Samuel W. Rowse, in 1866. Owned by Mrs. Annie +Fields. + +Engraving after the portrait painted in 1850 by Cephas G. Thompson. +Owned by Hon. Henry C. Leach. + +The Grolier Club bronze medallion, made in 1892, by Ringel d'Illzach. +Owned by B. W. Pierson. + +Cabinet photograph, bust, by Elliott & Fry, London. Owned by Mrs. +Richard C. Manning. + +Card photograph, full length, seated, with book in right hand, by Black +& Case, Boston. + +Cabinet photograph, three-quarter length, standing beside a pillar, +copy by Mackintire of the original photograph. + +Card photograph, three-quarter length, seated, from Warren's +Photographic Studio, Boston. + +Card photograph, bust, by Brady, New York, with autographic signature. +Owned by Hon. Henry C. Leach. + +Bust in the Concord (Massachusetts) Public Library, by Miss Louise +Lander. + +Card photograph, bust, from Warren's Photographic Studio, Boston. Owned +by Mrs. Richard C. Manning. + +Oil portrait by Emanuel Leutze, painted in April, 1852. Owned by Julian +Hawthorne. + +Photograph by Mayall, London. The so-called "Motley photograph." + +Two photographs by Brady, full length; one seated, the other standing. + +Photograph showing Hawthorne, Ticknor and Fields standing together. + + + + +Editions of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Books published under his own +Direction + +Fanshawe: A Tale, Boston, 1828. +Twice-Told Tales, Boston, 1837. + Another edition, Boston, 1842. +Peter Parley's Universal History, Boston, 1837. +The Gentle Boy: A Thrice-Told Tale, Boston, 1839. +Grandfather's Chair: A History for Youth, Boston, 1841. +Famous Old People: or Grandfather's Chair II, Boston, 1841. +Liberty Tree: The Last Words of Grandfather's Chair, Boston, 1841. +Biographical Stories for Children, Boston, 1842. +Historical Tales for Youth, Boston, 1842. +The Celestial Railroad, Boston, 1843. +Mosses from an Old Manse, New York, 1846, 1851. +The Scarlet Letter, Boston, 1850. +True Stories from History and Biography, Boston, 1851. +The House of the Seven Gables, Boston, 1852. +A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, Boston, 1851. + Another edition, Boston, 1857. +The Snow-Image and Other Tales, Boston, 1852. + Another edition, Boston, 1857. +The Blithedale Romance, Boston, 1852. +Life of Franklin Pierce, Boston, 1852. +Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys, Boston, 1853. +Transformation, or the Romance of Monte Beni, Smith & Elder, London, 1860. +The Marble Faun, or the Romance of Monte Beni, Boston, 1860. +Our Old Home, Boston, 1863. + +_A complete list of Hawthorne's contributions to American magazines +will be found in the appendix to Conway's "Life of Hawthorne." _ + + +Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Hawthorne [Footnote: Read at the Emerson Club, at +Boston, January 2, 1906] + +In 1892, when I was constructing the volume known as "Sketches from +Concord and Appledore," I said in comparing Emerson with Hawthorne that +one was like _day_, and the other like _night_. I was not aware that four years +earlier M. D. Conway had made a similar statement in his Life of Hawthorne, +which was published in London. Miss Rebecca Manning, Hawthorne's own +cousin, still living at the age of eighty and an admirable old lady, +distinctly confirms my statement, that "wherever Hawthorne went he +carried twilight with him." Emerson, on the contrary, was of a sanguine +temperament and an essentially sunny nature. His writings are full of +good cheer, and the opening of his Divinity School Address is as full of +summer sunshine as the finest July day. It was only necessary to see him +look at the sunshine from his own porch to recognize how it penetrated +into the depths of his nature. + +It would seem consistent with the rational order of things, that +_day_ should be supplemented by _night_, and _night_ again by _day_; +and here we are almost startled by the completeness of our allegory. We +sometimes come across faces in the streets of a large city, which show +by their expression that they are more accustomed to artificial light +than to the light of the sun. Mrs. Emerson was one of these. She never +seemed to be fully herself, until the lamps were lighted. Her pale face +seemed to give forth moonlight, and its habitual expression was much like +that of a Sister of Charity. It was said of her that she was the last +in the house to retire at night, always reading or busying herself with +household affairs, until twelve or one o'clock; but this mode of life +would appear to have been suited to her organization, for in spite of +her colorless look she lived to be over ninety. + +So far I can tread upon firm earth, without drawing upon my +imagination, but in regard to Mrs. Hawthorne I cannot speak with the +same assurance, for I only became acquainted with her after her +husband's health had begun to fail, and the anxiety in her face was +strongly marked; yet I have reason to believe that her temperament was +originally sanguine and optimistic, and that she alternated from +dreamy, pensive moods to bright vivacious ones. She certainly was very +different from her husband. Her sister, Elizabeth Peabody, was the most +sanguine person of her time, and her introduction of the kindergarten +into America was accomplished through her unbounded hopefulness. The +Wayside, where Mrs. Hawthorne lived, has an extended southern exposure. +The house was always full of light, which is not often the case with +New England country houses; and when she lived at Liverpool, where +sunshine is a rare commodity, she became unwell, so that Mr. Hawthorne +was obliged to send her to Madeira in order to avert a dangerous +illness. + +These two estimable ladies were alike in the excellence of their +housekeeping, the purity of their manners, their universal kindliness, +and their devotion to the welfare of their husbands and children. It +was a pleasure to pass them on the road-side; the fare at their tables +was always of the nicest, even if it happened to be frugal; and people +of all classes could have testified to their helpful liberality. In +these respects they might almost have served as models, but otherwise +they were as different as possible. Mrs. Emerson was of a tall, +slender, and somewhat angular figure (like her husband), but she +presided at table with a grace and dignity that quite justified his +favorite epithet of "Queenie." There was even more of the Puritan left +in her than there was in him, and although she encouraged the liberal +movements and tendencies of her time, one always felt in her mental +attitude the inflexibility of the moral law. To her mind there was no +shady border-land between right and wrong, but the two were separated +by a sharply defined line, which was never to be crossed, and she lived +up to this herself, and, in theory at least, she had but little mercy +for sinners. On one occasion I was telling Mr. Emerson of a fraudulent +manufacturing company, which had failed, as it deserved to, and which +was found on investigation to have kept two sets of books, one for +themselves, and another for their creditors. Mrs. Emerson listened to +this narrative with evident impatience, and at the close of it she +exclaimed, "This world has become so wicked that if I were the maker of +it, I should blow it up at once." Emerson himself did not like such +stories; and although he once said that "all deaf children ought to be +put in the water with their faces downward," he was not always willing +to accept human nature for what it really is. + +Mrs. Emerson did not agree with her husband's religious views; neither +did she adopt the transcendental faith, that the idea of God is innate +in the human mind, so that we cannot be dispossessed of it. She +belonged to the conservative branch of the Unitarian Church, which was +represented by Reverend James Freeman Clarke and Doctor Andrew P. +Peabody. The subject was one which was permitted to remain in abeyance +between them, but Mrs. Emerson was naturally suspicious of those +reverend gentlemen who called upon her husband, and this may have been +the reason why he did not encourage the visits of clergymen like Samuel +Johnson, Samuel Longfellow, and Professor Hedge, whom he greatly +respected, and who should have been by good rights his chosen +companions. I suppose all husbands are obliged to make these domestic +compromises. + +Mrs. Emerson had also something of the spirit-militant in her. When +David A. Wasson came to dine at Mr. Emerson's invitation, she said to +him, by way of grace before meat: "I see you have been carrying on a +controversy with Reverend Mr. Sears, of Wayland, and you will excuse me +for expressing my opinion that Mr. Sears had the best of it." But after +sounding this little nourish of trumpets, she was as kindly and +hospitable as any one could desire. She was one of the earliest +recruits to the anti-slavery cause,--not only a volunteer, but a +recruiting officer as well,--and she made this decision entirely of her +own mind, without any special encouragement from her husband or +relatives. At the time of John Brown's execution she wanted to have the +bells tolled in Concord, and urged her husband energetically to see +that it was done. Mrs. Emerson was always thoroughly herself. There +never was the shadow of an affectation upon her; nor more than a shadow +of self-consciousness--very rare among conscientious persons. One of +her fine traits was her fondness for flowers, which she cultivated in +the little garden between her house and the mill-brook, with a loving +assiduity. She is supposed to have inspired Emerson's poem, beginning: + + "O fair and stately maid, whose eyes + Were kindled in the upper skies + At the same torch that lighted mine: + For so I must interpret still + Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, + A sympathy divine." + +There are other references to her in his published writings, which only +those who were personally acquainted with her would recognize. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Hawthorne belonged to the class of womankind which Shakespeare has +typified in Ophelia, a tender-hearted, affectionate nature, too +sensitive for the rough strains of life, and too innocent to recognize +the guile in others. This was at once her strength and her weakness; +but it was united, as often happens, with a fine artistic nature, and +superior intelligence. Her face and manners both gave the impression of +a wide and elevated culture. One could see that although she lived by +the wayside, she had been accustomed to enter palaces. Her long +residence in England, her Italian experience, her visit to the Court of +Portugal, her enjoyment of fine pictures, poetry, and architecture, the +acquaintance of distinguished men and women in different countries, had +all left their impress upon her, combined in a quiet and lady-like +harmony. Her conversation was cosmopolitan, and though she did not +quite possess the narrative gift of her sister Elizabeth, it was often +exceedingly interesting. + +Hawthorne has been looked upon as the necrologist of the Puritans, and +yet a certain coloring of Puritanism adhered to him to the last. It was +his wife who had entirely escaped from the old New England conventicle. +Severity was at the opposite pole from her moral nature. Tolerant and +charitable to the faults of others, her only fault was the lack of +severity. She believed in the law of love, and when kind words did not +serve her purpose she let matters take what course they would, trusting +that good might fall, "At last far off at last to all." + +I suspect her pathway was by no means a flowery one. Mrs. Emerson's +life had to be as stoical as her husband's, and Mrs. Hawthorne's, +previous to the Liverpool consulate,--the consulship of Hawthorne,--was +even more difficult. No one knew better than she the meaning of that +heroism which each day requires. A writer in the _Atlantic +Monthly_, reviewing Julian Hawthorne's biography of his father, +emphasizes, "the dual selfishness of Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne." Insensate +words! There was no room for selfishness in the lives they led. In a +certain sense they lived almost wholly for one another and for their +children; but Hawthorne himself lived for all time and for all mankind, +and his wife lived through him to the same purpose. The especial form +of their material life was as essential to its spiritual outgrowth as +the rose-bush is to the rose; and it would be a cankered selfishness to +complain of them for it. + + + + +Appendices + +APPENDIX A + + +There is at least one error in the Symmes diary, which is however +explainable, and need not vitiate the whole of it. It has been +ascertained that the drowning of Henry Jackson in Songo River by being +kicked in the mouth by another boy while swimming, took place in 1828, +so that the statement to that effect in the diary, must have been +interpolated. As it happened, however, another Henry Jackson was +drowned in the Songo River, so Mr. Pickard says, more than twenty years +before that, and it is quite possible that young Hawthorne overheard +some talk about that catastrophe, and mistook it for a recent event; +and that Symmes afterwards confounding the two Jacksons and the +difference in time, amended Hawthorne's statement as we now have it. +Mr. Pickard says in a recent letter: + +"This item alone led me to doubt. But I cannot doubt, the more I +reflect upon it, that H. himself had a hand in most, if not all, the +other items. Who but his uncle could have written that inscription? The +negro Symmes could not have composed that--only a man of culture."... +"The sketch of the sail on Sebago Lake surely was written by some one +who was in that party. Symmes _might_ have been there, but he was +a genius deserving the fame of a Chatterton if he really did this. +Three of that party I personally knew--one (Sawyer) was a cousin of my +grandfather. His sleight of hand, his skill with rifle, his being a +'votary of chance,' are traditions in my family." + +This does not differ essentially from the opinion I have already +expressed in Chapter II. F. B. Sanborn, who is one of the best-informed +of living men in regard to Hawthorne, takes a similar view. + + + + +APPENDIX B + + +In February, 1883, a review of "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife" was +published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, evidently written by a person +with no good-will toward the family. Editors ought to beware of such +reviews, for their character is easily recognized, and the effect they +produce often reacts upon the publication that contains them. In the +present instance, the ill-humor of the writer had evidently been +bottled up for many years. + +To place typographical errors to the debit of an author's account--not +very numerous for a work of eight hundred pages--suggests either an +inexperienced or a strongly prejudiced critic. This is what the +_Atlantic_ writer begins with, and he (or she) next proceeds to +complain that the book does not contain a complete bibliography of +Hawthorne's works; although many excellent biographies have been +published without this, and it is quite possible that Hawthorne's son +preferred not to insert it. No notice is taken of the many fine +passages in the book, like the apostrophe upon Hawthorne's marriage, +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 242,] and that excellent description of the +performances of a trance medium at Florence, but continues in an +ascending climax of fault-finding until he (or she) reaches the passage +from Hawthorne's Roman diary concerning Margaret Fuller. [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, i. 30-35.] + +If public opinion has any value, this passage concerning Margaret +Fuller's marriage ought not to have been published; but what can +Margaret Fuller's friends and admirers expect? Do they think that a +young American woman can go to a foreign country, and live with a +foreign gentleman, in defiance of the customs of modern society, +without subjecting herself to the severest criticism? It is true that +she married Count d'Ossoli before her child was born, and her friends, +who were certainly an enlightened class, always believed that she acted +throughout from the most honorable motives (my own opinion is, that she +acted in imitation of Goethe), but how can they expect the great mass +of mankind to think so? Hawthorne had a right to his opinion, as well +as Emerson and Channing, and although it was certainly not a very +charitable opinion, we cannot doubt that it was an honest one. In +regard to the marriage tie, Hawthorne was always strict and +conservative. + +This is the climax of the _Atlantic_ critique, and its anti-climax +is an excoriation of Hawthorne's son for neglecting to do equal and +exact justice to James T. Fields. This truly is a grievous accusation. +Fields was Hawthorne's publisher and would seem to have taken a +personal and friendly interest in him besides, but we cannot look on it +as a wholly unselfish interest. It was not like Hillard's, Pierce's, +and Bridge's interest in Hawthorne. If Fields had not been his +publisher, it is not probable that Hawthorne would have made his +acquaintance; and if his son has not enlarged on Fields's good offices +in bringing "The Scarlet Letter" before the public, there is an +excellent reason for it, in the fact that Fields had already done so +for himself in his "Yesterdays with Authors." That Fields's name should +have been omitted in the index to "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife," +may have been an oversight; but, at all events, it is too microscopic a +matter to deserve consideration in a first-class review. + +Are we become such babies, that it is no longer possible for a writer +to tell the plain, ostensible truth concerning human nature, without +having a storm raised about his head for it? George P. Bradford and +Martin F. Tupper are similar instances, and like Boswell have suffered +the penalty which accrues to men of small stature for associating with +giants. + + + + +APPENDIX C + + +The great poets and other writers of all nations whom I conceive to be +superior to Hawthorne, may be found in the following list: Homer, +Aschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, +Demosthenes, Theocritus, Plutarch; Horace, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus; +Dante, Tasso, Petrarch; Cervantes, Calderon, Camoens; Moliere, Racine, +Descartes, Voltaire; Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kant; Swedenborg; +Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and perhaps Burns and Byron; +Alexander Hamilton, Napoleon. + +These also may be placed more on an equality with Hawthorne, although +there will of course always be wide differences of opinion on that +point: Hesiod, Herodotus, Menander, Aristophases; Livy, Casar, +Lucretius, Juvenal; Ariosto, Macchiavelli, Manzoni, Lope de Vega, +Buthas Pato; Corneille, Pascal, Rousseau; Wieland, Klopstock, Heine, +Auerbach; Spenser, Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Fielding, Pope, Scott, +Wordsworth, Shelley, Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson, Froude; Webster, +Emerson, Wasson. Sappho, Bion, Moschus, and Cleanthes were certainly +poets of a high order, but only some fragments of their poetry have +survived. Gottfried of Strassburg, the Minnesinger, might be included, +and some of the finest English poetry was written by unknown geniuses +of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Ballads like "Chevy Chace" +and the "Child of Elle" deserve a high place in the rank of poetry; and +the German "Reineke Fuchs" is in its way without a rival. There may be +other French, German, and Spanish writers of exceptional excellence +with whom I am unacquainted, but I do not feel that any French or +German novelists of the last century ought to be placed on a level with +Hawthorne--only excepting Auerbach. Victor Hugo is grandiloquent, and +the others all have some serious fault or limitation. I suppose that +not one in ten of Emerson's readers has ever heard of Wasson, but he +was the better prose writer of the two, and little inferior as a poet. +More elevated he could not be, but more profound, just, logical and +humane--that is, more like Hawthorne. Emerson could not have filled his +place on the _Atlantic Monthly_ and the _North American Review_. + + + + +Index + +Index + +Adams, John Quincy +After-dinner speeches +Alcott, A. Bronson +"Ambitious Guest, The," +"Ancestral Footstep, The," +_Antinous_ of the villa Ludovisi +"Arabella," the ship +Arnold, Matthew +"Artist of the Beautiful, The," +Athenaan Society +Atlantic Club +Aurelius, Marcus + +Bacon's, Miss, volume published +Balzac +Bancroft, George +Beethoven +Bennoch, Francis +"Blithedale Romance" +Blodgett's boarding-house +"Bloody Footstep" +"Birth Mark, The," +"Bosom Serpent, The," +Bradford, George P +Brandes, Danish critic +Bridge, Horatio, +Bright, Henry A. +Brook Farm +Brown, John +Browning and Carlyle +Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, Robert +Buchanan, President + +Carlyle and Hawthorne +Castor and Pollux, statues of +"Celestial Railroad, The" +Cenci, Beatrice, portrait of +Channing, Ellery +Channing, William H. +Cilley and Graves duel +Cilley, Jonathan + description of +Clarke, Edward H. +Clarke, Rev. Dr. James F. +"Code of Honor," the +College skepticism +Columbia, statue of +Concord River +Conway, Rev. M. D. +Crab spider, the +Crawford, sculptor +"Critique of Pure Reason, The" +Curtis, George William + +Dallas, George M. +Dante's _Inferno_ +Dickens +"Doctor Grimshawe's Secret" +Dolliver, Dr. +"Dolliver Romance, The" +Donatello's crime +Dwight, John S., musical critic + +Elgin marbles +Eliot, George +Emerson + essays +Emerson, Mrs. R. W. + her figure + religious views +English lakes +"English Note-book" +English scenery +Essex County people +Evans, Marian + +"Fancy's Show Box" +"Fanshawe" +"Faun of Praxiteles" +"Felton, Septimius," +Fielding +Fields, James T +Florentine art +Fourier +Fuller, Margaret + as Zenobia + her marriage + +Gardner, E. A., Prof +Genius, its growth +"Gentle Boy, The," +Ghosts +Gibson, sculptor + his tinted Eves and Venuses +Gladstone, William E., on transcendentalism +Godkin, E. L. +Goethe +Golden Age, A +Goodrich, S. G., editor +"Great Carbuncle, The," +"Great Stone Face, The," +Guilty glimpses at hired models +Gurney, Prof. E. W. + +"Hall of Fantasy, The," +Harris, Dr. William T. +Harvard Law School +Hathorne, Daniel +Hathorne, John + witches' judge + his last will + his gravestone +Hathorne, Joseph +Hathorne, Nathaniel +Hathorne, William + Letter to British Ministry +Hawthorne, Elizabeth +Hawthorne, Julian +Hawthorne, Louisa + her death +Hawthorne, Mrs. Sophia Peabody + becomes engaged to Hawthorne + writes to her mother + encourages her husband + praises her husband + is out of health + goes to Madeira + is presented at court + the original of Hilda + at Concord + her opinions + character and style +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, + his English ancestors + family name + birthplace + his lameness + early poetry + life at Sebago + his first diary + the budding of his genius + fits for college + "Pin Society" + religious instruction + decides on his vocation + has the measles + his life at Bowdoin + outdoor sports + is fined for gambling + graduates at Bowdoin + decides his profession + publishes "Fanshawe" + changes his name + despondency + goes to Lake Champlain + wins his bet with Cilley + commences his diary + his supposed challenge + thanks Longfellow + goes to Berkshire Hills + character of his diary + his engagement + enters Custom House + goes to Brook Farm + his marriage + his true Arcadia + his skating + opinion of Emerson + birth of a daughter + his indolence + style as an author + returns to Robert Manning's house + is appointed Surveyor of the Port + son Julian is born + occupies house on Mall street + is removed from office + publishes "Scarlet Letter" + method of development + sits for his portrait; goes to Lenox + publishes "House of Seven Gables" + birth of his daughter Rose + leaves Lenox for Newton + returns to Concord + writes the "Life of Pierce" + the Liverpool consulate + sails for England + as an office-holder + his life in England + makes a speech + kindness to Delia Bacon + resigns the Consulate + as a law writer + goes to Paris + arrives at Rome + journeys to Florence + goes to the Vatican + on modern sculpture + returns to Rome + visits Geneva + summer at Redcar + publishes the "Marble Faun + Hawthorne the famous + begins to dislike writing + returns to Concord + method of writing + patriotism + proposes to arm negroes + preparatory sketches + sojourns at Beverly Farms + last entry in his journal + dedicates book to President Pierce + at home + personal appearance + seriously ill + Hawthorne's philosophy + his death + his funeral + religious convictions + his position in literature +Hawthorne, Rose, her birth + her memoirs +Hawthorne's mother + her character + her death +Hawthorne, Una, her birth + severe illness of +Hilda, character of + her tower +Hillard, George S. +Hoar, Miss Elizabeth +Holiday epauletes +Holmes, Oliver Wendell +Hosmer, Harriet +Houghton, Lord +"House of the Seven Gables, The" +Howe, Dr. Samuel G. +Hunt, suicide of Miss + +Italian Note-book + +Jackson, Andrew +James, Henry, Jr. +James, Henry, Sr. +Jameson, Mrs. Anna +Jerrold, Douglas + +Kansas-Nebraska Bill +Kant, Immanuel +Kemble, Frances +Kitridge, Doctor + +"Lady Eleanor's Mantle" +_Laocoon_ +Lathrop, George P. +Leamington +Lincoln, President +Liverpool Consulate +Longfellow, Henry W. + reviews Hawthorne +Loring, Frederick W. +Loring, Dr. George B. +Lowell, James Russell + +Mann, Horace +Mann, Mrs. Horace +Manning family +Manning, Rebecca +Manning, Richard +Manning, Robert +"Marble Faun, The," English reviews of + analysis of + its original +McClellan, General George B. +McMichael, Morton +Melville, Hermann +Mexican War +Michel Angelo + his _Last Judgment and Moses_ +"Miroir, Monsieur du" +"Mosses from an Old Manse" +Motley's opinions +"Mrs. Bullfrog" + +Niagara Falls, visit to +_North American Review_ +Nurse, Rebecca, a witch + +Offensive partisanship +"Old Manse," the +"Ontario Steamboat, The" +O'Sullivan, an editor +"Our Old Home" + +Parker, Theodore +Peabody, Elizabeth +Peabody, Sophia Amelia +Philadelphia Hock Club +Pickard, Samuel T. +Pierce, Franklin + elected Senator + goes to the war + nominated for President + his father + various +Pike, William B. +Poetic mind, the +Politicians, opinion of +Portraits of Hawthorne by Osgood, Healy, Rowse, and + others +Positivists +Powers, Hiram + his _America_ +Prescott, George L +Prince of Wales +Pyncheon, Clifford + +Quakers, persecution of + +Raphael's _Transfiguration_ +"Rappacini's Daughter" +Reform Club of London +Ripley, George +Rock Ferry +Roman Carnival +Runnel, Mary, sweetheart of Daniel Hathorne +Ruskin + +Sailors maltreated +Salem architecture +Salem, situation of +Salem society +Salem's sea-captains +Sanborn, Frank B., attempt to kidnap +"Scarlet Letter, The," +Schonbach, A. E., German critic +"Select Party, The," +Shakespeare, authorship of + Epitaph +Shaw, Chief Justice +Shelley +Sheridan's Ride +"Sights from a Steeple" +Silsbee, Edward +Sistine Chapel +Skepticism of evil +Slavery Question +"Snow Image" +Spartan discipline +Story, William W. +St. Petersburg _Venus_ +Sumner and Motley +Sumner, Charles +Swartwout's defalcation +Symms, William, a mulatto + +"Tanglewood Tales" +Taylor, President +Thoreau + of marriage +Ticknor, W. D., death of +Tituba, the Aztec +Tragedy, character of +Trance medium, a +Transcendentalism + essence of +Tupper, Martin Farquhar +Turner, J. M. W. +"Twice Told Tales" + +"Unpardonable Sin, The," +Upham, the historian + +Vanity of Women +Vasari +_Venus de Medici_ +"Vicar of Wakefield" +Victor Hugo +Villa Manteuto +"Virtuoso's Collection, The," +"Vision at the Fountain, The," + +Ward's Tavern +Warwick Castle +Wasson, David A +Waters, Henry F., researches of +Wayside, The +Webster, Daniel +West Roxbury commune +Whittier, the poet +Wig Castle in Wigton +Witchcraft persecution +Wood, Warrington +Worcester, Doctor, the lexicographer + +"Young Goodman Brown" + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Genius of Nathaniel +Hawthorne, by Frank Preston Stearns + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE/GENIUS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE *** + +This file should be named 7lgnh10.txt or 7lgnh10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7lgnh11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7lgnh10a.txt + +This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Author: Frank Preston Stearns + +Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7170] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on March 20, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE/GENIUS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + +THE +LIFE AND GENIUS +OF +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + +BY +FRANK PRESTON STEARNS + +AUTHOR OF "THE REAL AND IDEAL IN LITERATURE," "LIFE OF +TINTORETTO," "LIFE OF BISMARCK," "TRUE REPUBLICANISM," "CAMBRIDGE +SKETCHES," ETC. + + + +[Illustration: Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Frances Osborne Portrait: by +permission of the Essex Institute.] + +INSCRIBED + +TO +EMILIA MACIEL STEARNS + + "In the elder days of art + Builders wrought with greatest care + Each minute and unseen part,-- + For the gods see everywhere." + --_Longfellow_ + + "Oh, happy dreams of such a soul have I, + And softly to myself of him I sing, + Whose seraph pride all pride doth overwing; + Who stoops to greatness, matches low with high, + And as in grand equalities of sky, + Stands level with the beggar and the king." + --_Wasson_ + + + + +Preface + + +The simple events of Nathaniel Hawthorne's life have long been before +the public. From 1835 onward they may easily be traced in the various +Note-books, which have been edited from his diary, and previous to that +time we are indebted for them chiefly to the recollections of his two +faithful friends, Horatio Bridge and Elizabeth Peabody. These were +first systematised and published by George P. Lathrop in 1872, but a +more complete and authoritative biography was issued by Julian +Hawthorne twelve years later, in which, however, the writer has +modestly refrained from expressing an opinion as to the quality of his +father's genius, or from attempting any critical examination of his +father's literary work. It is in order to supply in some measure this +deficiency, that the present volume has been written. At the same time, +I trust to have given credit where it was due to my predecessors, in +the good work of making known the true character of so rare a genius +and so exceptional a personality. + +The publication of Horatio Bridge's memoirs and of Elizabeth Manning's +account of the boyhood of Hawthorne have placed before the world much +that is new and valuable concerning the earlier portion of Hawthorne's +life, of which previous biographers could not very well reap the +advantage. I have made thorough researches in regard to Hawthorne's +American ancestry, but have been able to find no ground for the +statements of Conway and Lathrop, that William Hathorne, their first +ancestor on this side of the ocean, was directly connected with the +Quaker persecution. Some other mistakes, like Hawthorne's supposed +connection with the duel between Cilley and Graves, have also been +corrected. + + F. P. S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I. SALEM AND THE HATHORNES: 1630-1800 + II. BOYHOOD OF HAWTHORNE: 1804-1821 + III. BOWDOIN COLLEGE: 1821-1825 + IV. LITTLE MISERY: 1825-1835 + V. EOS AND EROS: 1835-1839 + VI. PEGASUS AT THE CART: 1839-1841 + VII. HAWTHORNE AS A SOCIALIST: 1841-1842 + VIII. CONCORD AND THE OLD MANSE: 1842-1845 + IX. "MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE": 1845 + X. FROM CONCORD TO LENOX: 1845-1849 + XI. PEGASUS IS FREE: 1850-1852 + XII. THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: 1852-1854 + XIII. HAWTHORNE IN ENGLAND: 1854-1858 + XIV. ITALY + XV. HAWTHORNE AS ART CRITIC: 1858 + XVI. "THE MARBLE FAUN": 1859-1860 + XVII. HOMEWARD BOUND: 1860-1862 +XVIII. IMMORTALITY + + PORTRAITS OF HAWTHORNE + EDITIONS OF HAWTHORNE'S BOOKS PUBLISHED UNDER HIS OWN DIRECTION. + MRS. EMERSON AND MRS. HAWTHORNE + APPENDICES + + +List of Illustrations + +PORTRAIT OF HAWTHORNE, BY FRANCES OSBORNE IN 1893 +HAWTHORNE'S BIRTHPLACE +HORATIO BRIDGE, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY EASTMAN JOHNSON +HAWTHORNE, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY CHARLES OSGOOD IN 1840 +THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY +THE CUSTOM HOUSE, SALEM, MASS +THE WAYSIDE +GUIDO RENI'S PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI +STATUE OF PRAXITELES' RESTING FAUN +TORRE MEDIAVALLE DELLA SCIMMIA (HILDA'S TOWER) IN ROME + + + + +THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SALEM AND THE HATHORNES: 1630-1800 + + +The three earliest settlements on the New England coast were Plymouth, +Boston, and Salem; but Boston soon proved its superior advantages to +the two others, not only from its more capacious harbor, but also from +the convenient waterway which the Charles River afforded to the +interior of the Colony. We find that a number of English families, and +among them the ancestors of Gen. Joseph Warren and Wendell Phillips, +who crossed the ocean in 1640 in the "good ship Arbella," soon +afterward migrated to Watertown on Charles River for the sake of the +excellent farming lands which they found there. Salem, however, +maintained its ascendency over Plymouth and other neighboring harbors +on the coast, and soon grew to be the second city of importance in the +Colony during the eighteenth century, when the only sources of wealth +were fishing, shipbuilding, and commerce. Salem nourished remarkably. +Its leading citizens became wealthy and developed a social aristocracy +as cultivated, as well educated, and, it may also be added, as +fastidious as that of Boston itself. In this respect it differed widely +from the other small cities of New England, and the exclusiveness of +its first families was more strongly marked on account of the limited +size of the place. Thus it continued down to the middle of the last +century, when railroads and the tendency to centralization began to +draw away its financial prosperity, and left the city to small +manufactures and its traditional respectability. + +The finest examples of American eighteenth century architecture are +supposed to exist in and about the city of Salem, and they have the +advantage, which American architecture lacks so painfully at the +present time, of possessing a definite style and character--edifices +which are not of a single type, like most of the houses in Fifth +Avenue, but which, while differing in many respects, have a certain +general resemblance, that places them all in the same category. The +small old country churches of Essex County are not distinguished for +fine carving or other ornamentation, and still less by the costliness +of their material, for they are mostly built of white pine, but they +have an indefinable air of pleasantness about them, as if they graced +the ground they stand on, and their steeples seem to float in the air +above us. If we enter them on a Sunday forenoon--for on week-days they +are like a sheepfold without its occupants--we meet with much the same +kind of pleasantness in the assemblage there. We do not find the deep +religious twilight of past ages, or the noonday glare of a fashionable +synagogue, but a neatly attired congregation of weather-beaten farmers +and mariners, and their sensible looking wives, with something of the +original Puritan hardness in their faces, much ameliorated by the +liberalism and free thinking of the past fifty years. Among them too +you will see some remarkably pretty young women; and young men like +those who dug the trenches on Breed's Hill in the afternoon of June 16, +1775. There may be veterans in the audience who helped Grant to go to +Richmond. Withal there is much of the spirit of the early Christians +among them, and virtue enough to save their country in any emergency. + +These old churches have mostly disappeared from Salem city and have +been replaced by more aristocratic edifices, whose square or octagonal +towers are typical of their leading parishioners,--a dignified class, +if somewhat haughty and reserved; but they too will soon belong to the +past, drawn off to the great social centres in and about Boston. In the +midst of Salem there is a triangular common, "with its never-failing +elms," where the boys large and small formerly played cricket--married +men too--as they do still on the village greens of good old England, +and around this enclosure the successful merchants and navigators of +the city built their mansion houses; not half houses like those in the +larger cities, but with spacious halls and rooms on either side going +up three stories. It is in the gracefully ornamented doorways and the +delicate interior wood-work, the carving of wainscots, mantels and +cornices, the skilful adaptations of classic forms to a soft and +delicate material that the charm of this architecture chiefly +consists,--especially in the staircases, with their carved spiral posts +and slender railings, rising upward in the centre of the front hall, +and turning right and left on the story above. It is said that after +the year eighteen hundred the quality of this decoration sensibly +declined; it was soon replaced by more prosaic forms, and now the tools +no longer exist that can make it. Sir Christopher Wren and Inigo Jones +would have admired it. America, excepting in New York City, escaped the +false rococo taste of the eighteenth century. + +The Salem sea-captains of old times were among the boldest of our early +navigators; sailing among the pirates of the Persian Gulf and trading +with the cannibals of Polynesia, and the trophies which they brought +home from those strange regions, savage implements of war and domestic +use, clubs, spears, boomerangs, various cooking utensils, all carved +with infinite pains from stone, ebony and iron-wood, cloth from the +bark of the tapa tree, are now deposited in the Peabody Academy, where +they form one of the largest collections of the kind extant. Even more +interesting is the sword of a sword-fish, pierced through the oak +planking of a Salem vessel for six inches or more. No human force could +do that even with a spear of the sharpest steel. Was the sword-fish +roused to anger when the ship came upon him sleeping in the water; or +did he mistake it for a strange species of whale? + +There is a court-house on Federal Street, built in Webster's time, of +hard cold granite in the Grecian fashion of the day, not of the white +translucent marble with which the Greeks would have built it. Is it the +court-house where Webster made his celebrated argument in the White +murder case, or was that court-house torn down and a plough run through +the ground where it stood, as Webster affirmed that it ought to be? +Salem people were curiously reticent in regard to that trial, and +fashionable society there did not like Webster the better for having +the two Knapps convicted. + +Much more valuable than such associations is William Hunt's full-length +portrait of Chief Justice Shaw, which hangs over the judge's bench in +the front court-room. "When I look at your honor I see that you are +homely, but when I think of you I know that you are great." it is this +combination of an unprepossessing physique with rare dignity of +character which Hunt has represented in what many consider the best of +American portraits. It is perhaps too much in the sketchy style of +Velasquez, but admirable for all that. + +Time has dealt kindly with Salem, in effacing all memorials of the +witchcraft persecution, except a picturesque old house at the corner of +North and Essex Streets, where there are said to have been preliminary +examinations for witchcraft,--a matter which concerns us now but +slightly. The youthful associations of a genius are valuable to us on +account of the influence which they may be supposed to have had on his +early life, but associations which have no determining consequences may +as well be neglected. The hill where those poor martyrs to superstition +were executed may be easily seen on the left of the city, as you roll +in on the train from Boston. It is part of a ridge which rises between +the Concord and Charles Rivers and extends to Cape Ann, where it dives +into the ocean, to reappear again like a school of krakens, or other +marine monsters, in the Isles of Shoals. + +New England has not the fertile soil of many sections of the United +States, and its racking climate is proverbial, but it is blessed with +the two decided advantages of pure water and fine scenery. There is no +more beautiful section of its coast than that between Salem Harbor and +Salisbury Beach, long stretches of smooth sand alternating with bold +rocky promontories. A summer drive from Swampscott to Marblehead +reminds one even of the Bay of Naples (without Vesuvius), and the +wilder coast of Cape Ann, with its dark pines, red-roofed cottages, and +sparkling surf, is quite as delightful. William Hunt went there in the +last sad years of his life to paint "sunshine," as he said; and +Whittier has given us poetic touches of the inland scenery in elevated +verse: + + "Fleecy clouds casting their shadows + Over uplands and meadows; + And country roads winding as roads will, + Here to a ferry, there to a mill." + +Poets arise where there is poetic nourishment, internal and external, +for them to feed on; and it is not surprising that a Whittier and a +Hawthorne should have been evolved from the environment in which they +grew to manhood. + +It is a common saying with old Boston families that their ancestors +came to America in the "Arbella" with Governor Winthrop, but as a +matter of fact there were at least fifteen vessels that brought +colonists to Massachusetts in 1630, and I cannot discover that any +lists of their passengers have been preserved. The statement that +certain persons came over at the same time with Governor Winthrop might +soon become a tradition that they came in the same ship with him; but +all that we know certainly is that Governor Winthrop landed about the +middle of June, 1630, and that his son arrived two weeks later in the +"Talbot," and was drowned July 2, while attempting to cross one of the +tide rivers at Salem. Who arrived in the thirteen other vessels that +year we know not. Ten years later Sir Richard Saltonstall emigrated to +Boston with the Phillips and Warren families in the "Arbella" (or +"Arabella"), and there is no telling how much longer she sailed the +ocean. + +Hawthorne himself states that his ancestors came from Wig Castle in +Wigton in Warwickshire, [Footnote: Diary, August 22, 1837.] but no such +castle has been discovered, and the only Wigton in England appears to +be located in Cumberland. [Footnote: Lathrop's "Study of Hawthorne," +46.] He does not tell us where he obtained this information, and it +certainly could not have been from authentic documents,--more likely +from conversation with an English traveller. Hawthorne never troubled +himself much concerning his ancestry, English or American; while he was +consul at Liverpool, he had exceptional advantages for investigating +the subject, but whatever attempt he made there resulted in nothing. It +is only recently that Mr. Henry F. Waters, who spent fifteen years in +England searching out the records of old New England families, +succeeded in discovering the connecting link between the first American +Hawthornes and their relatives in the old country. It was a bill of +exchange for one hundred pounds drawn by William Hathorne, of Salem, +payable to Robert Hathorne in London, and dated October 19, 1651, which +first gave Mr. Waters the clue to his discovery. Robert not only +accepted his brother's draft, but wrote him this simple and business- +like but truly affectionate epistle in return: + + +"GOOD BROTHER: Remember my love to my sister, my brother John and +sister, my brother Davenport and sister and the rest of our friends. + + "In haste I rest + "Your loving brother, + +"From Bray this 1 April, 1653. ROBERT HATHORNE." + + +From this it appears that Major William Hathorne not only had a brother +John, who established himself in Lynn, but a sister Elizabeth, who +married Richard Davenport, of Salem. Concerning Robert Hathorne we only +know further that he died in 1689; but in the probate records of +Berkshire, England, there is a will proved May 2, 1651, of William +Hathorne, of Binfield, who left all his lands, buildings and tenements +in that county to his son Robert, on condition that Robert should pay +to his father's eldest son, William, one hundred pounds, and to his son +John twenty pounds sterling. He also left to another son, Edmund, +thirty acres of land in Bray, and there are other legacies; but it +cannot be doubted that the hundred pounds mentioned in this will is the +same that Major William Hathorne drew for five months later, and that +we have identified here the last English ancestor of Nathaniel +Hawthorne. His wife's given name was Sarah, but her maiden name still +remains unknown. The family resided chiefly at Binfield, on the borders +of Windsor Park, and evidently were in comfortable circumstances at +that time. From William Hathorne, senior, their genealogy has been +traced back to John Hathorne (spelled at that time Hothorne), who died +in 1520, but little is known of their affairs, or how they sustained +themselves during the strenuous vicissitudes of the Reformation. +[Footnote: "Hawthorne Centenary at Salem," 81.] + +Emmerton and Waters [Footnote: "English Records about New England +Families."] state that William Hathorne came to Massachusetts Bay in +1630, and this is probable enough, though by no means certain, for they +give no authority for it. We first hear of him definitely as a +freeholder in the settlement of Dorchester in 1634, but his name is not +on the list of the first twenty-four Dorchester citizens, dated October +19, 1630. All accounts agree that he moved to Salem in 1636, or the +year following, and Nathaniel Hawthorne believed that he came to +America at that time. Upham, the historian of Salem witchcraft, who has +made the most thorough researches in the archives of old Salem +families, says of William Hathorne: + +"William Hathorne appears on the church records as early as 1636. He +died in June, 1681, seventy-four years of age. No one in our annals +fills a larger space. As soldier, commanding important and difficult +expeditions, as counsel in cases before the courts, as judge on the +bench, and innumerable other positions requiring talent and +intelligence, he was constantly called to serve the public. He was +distinguished as a public speaker, and is the only person, I believe, +of that period, whose reputation as an orator has come down to us. He +was an Assistant, that is, in the upper branch of the Legislature, +seventeen years. He was a deputy twenty years. When the deputies, who +before sat with the assistants, were separated into a distinct body, +and the House of Representatives thus came into existence, in 1644, +Hathorne was their first Speaker. He occupied the chair, with +intermediate services on the floor from time to time, until raised to +the other House. He was an inhabitant of Salem Village, having his farm +there, and a dwelling-house, in which he resided when his legislative, +military, and other official duties permitted. His son John, who +succeeded him in all his public honors, also lived on his own farm in +the village a great part of the time." [Footnote: "Salem Witchcraft," +i. 99.] + +Evidently he was the most important person in the colony, next to +Governor Winthrop, and unequalled by any of his descendants, except +Nathaniel Hawthorne, and by him in a wholly different manner; for it is +in vain that we seek for traits similar to those of the great romance +writer among his ancestors. We can only say that they both possessed +exceptional mental ability, and there the comparison ends. + +The attempt has been made to connect William Hathorne with the +persecution of the Quakers, [Footnote: Conway's "Life of Hawthorne," +15.] and it is true that he was a member of the Colonial Assembly +during the period of the persecution; it is likely that his vote +supported the measures in favor of it, but this is not absolutely +certain. We do not learn that he acted at any time in the capacity of +sheriff; the most diligent researches in the archives of the State +House at Boston have failed to discover any direct connection on the +part of William Hathorne with that movement; and the best authorities +in regard to the events of that time make no mention of him. [Footnote: +Sewel, Hallowell, Ellis.] It was the clergy who aroused public opinion +and instigated the prosecutions against both the Quakers and the +supposed witches of Salem, and the civil authorities were little more +than passive instruments in their hands. Hathorne's work was +essentially a legislative one,--a highly important work in that wild, +unsettled country,--to adapt English statutes and legal procedures to +new and strange conditions. He was twice Speaker of the House between +1660 and 1671, and as presiding officer he could exert less influence +on measures of expediency than any other person present, as he could +not argue either for or against them. And yet, after Charles II. had +interfered in behalf of the Quakers, William Hathorne wrote an +elaborate and rather circuitous letter to the British Ministry, arguing +for non-intervention in the affairs of the colony, which might have +possessed greater efficacy if he had not signed it with an assumed +name. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne's "Nathaniel Hawthorne," i. 24.] However +strong a Puritan he may have been, William Hathorne evidently had no +intention of becoming a martyr to the cause of colonial independence. +Yet it may be stated in his favor, and in that of the colonists +generally, that the fault was not wholly on one side, for the Quakers +evidently sought persecution, and would have it, cost what it might. +[Footnote: Hallowell's "Quaker Invasion of New England."] Much the same +may be affirmed of his son John, who had the singular misfortune to be +judge in Salem at the time of the witchcraft epidemic. The belief in +witchcraft has always had its stronghold among the fogs and gloomy +fiords of the North. James I. brought it with him from Scotland to +England, and in due course it was transplanted to America. Judge +Hathorne appears to have been at the top of affairs at Salem in his +time, and it is more than probable that another in his place would have +found himself obliged to act as he did. Law is, after all, in +exceptional cases little more than a reflex of public opinion. "The +common law," said Webster, "is common-sense," which simply means the +common opinion of the most influential people. Much more to blame than +John Hathorne were those infatuated persons who deceived themselves +into thinking that the pains of rheumatism, neuralgia, or some similar +malady were caused by the malevolent influence of a neighbor against +whom they had perhaps long harbored a grudge. _They_ were the true +witches and goblins of that epoch, and the only ones, if any, who ought +to have been hanged for it. + +What never has been reasoned up cannot be reasoned down. It seems +incredible in this enlightened era, as the newspapers call it, that any +woman should be at once so inhuman and so frivolous as to swear away +the life of a fellow-creature upon an idle fancy; and yet, even in +regard to this, there were slightly mitigating conditions. Consider +only the position of that handful of Europeans in this vast wilderness, +as it then was. The forests came down to the sea-shore, and brought +with them all the weird fancies, terrors and awful forebodings which +the human mind could conjure up. They feared the Indians, the wild +beasts, and most of all one another, for society was not yet +sufficiently organized to afford that repose and contentment of spirit +which they had left behind in the Old World. They had come to America +to escape despotism, but they had brought despotism in their own +hearts. They could escape from the Stuarts, but there was no escape +from human nature. + +It is likely that their immediate progenitors would not have carried +the witchcraft craze to such an extreme. The emigrating Puritans were a +fairly well-educated class of men and women, but their children did not +enjoy equal opportunities. The new continent had to be subdued +physically and reorganized before any mental growth could be raised +there. Levelling the forest was a small matter beside clearing the land +of stumps and stones. All hands were obliged to work hard, and there +was little opportunity for intellectual development or social culture. +As a logical consequence, an era ensued not unlike the dark ages of +Europe. But this was essential to the evolution of a new type of man, +and for the foundation of American nationality; and it was thus that +the various nationalities of Europe arose out of the ruins of the Roman +Empire. + +The scenes that took place in Judge Hathorne's court-room have never +been equalled since in American jurisprudence. Powerful forces came +into play there, and the reports that have been preserved read like +scenes from Shakespeare. In the case of Rebecca Nurse, the Judge said +to the defendant: + +"'You do know whether you are guilty, and have familiarity with the +Devil; and now when you are here present to see such a thing as these +testify,--and a black man whispering in your ear, and devils about +you,--what do you say to it?'" + +To which she replied: + +"'It is all false. I am clear.' Whereupon Mrs. Pope, one of the +witnesses, fell into a grievous fit." [Footnote: Upham's "Salem +Witchcraft," ii. 64.] + +Alas, poor beleaguered soul! And one may well say, "What imaginations +those women had!" Tituba, the West Indian Aztec who appears in this +social-religious explosion as the chief and original incendiary,-- +verily the root of all evil,--gave the following testimony: + +"Q. 'Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning?' + +"A. 'The man brought her to me, and made me pinch her.' + +"Q. 'Why did you go to Thomas Putnam's last night and hurt his child?' + +"A. 'They pull and haul me, and make me go.' + +"Q. 'And what would they have you do?' + +"A. 'Kill her with a knife.' + +"(Lieutenant Fuller and others said at this time, when the child saw +these persons, and was tormented by them, that she did complain of a +knife,--that they would have her cut her head off with a knife.) + +"Q. 'How did you go?' + +"A. 'We ride upon sticks, and are there presently.' + +"Q. 'Do you go through the trees or over them?' + +"A. 'We see nothing, but are there presently.' + +"Q. 'Why did you not tell your master?' + +"A. 'I was afraid. They said they would cut off my head if I told.' + +"Q. 'Would you not have hurt others, if you could?' + +"A. 'They said they would hurt others, but they could not.' + +"Q. 'What attendants hath Sarah Good?' + +"A. 'A yellow-bird, and she would have given me one.' + +"Q. 'What meat did she give it?' + +"A. 'It did suck her between her fingers.'". + +This might serve as an epilogue to "Macbeth," and the wonder is that an +unlettered Indian should have had the wit to make such apt and subtle +replies. It is also noteworthy that these strange proceedings took +place after the expulsion of the royal governor, and previous to the +provincial government of William III. If Sir Edmund Andros had +remained, the tragedy might have been changed into a farce. + +After all, it appears that John Hathorne was not a lawyer, for he +describes himself in his last will, dated June 27, 1717, as a merchant, +and it is quite possible that his legal education was no better than +that of the average English squire in Fielding's time. It is evident, +however, from the testimony given above, that he was a strong believer +in the supernatural, and here if anywhere we find a relationship +between him and his more celebrated descendant. Nathaniel Hawthorne was +too clear-sighted to place confidence in the pretended revelations of +trance mediums, and he was not in the least superstitious; but he was +remarkably fond of reading ghost stories, and would have liked to +believe them, if he could have done so in all sincerity. He sometimes +felt as if he were a ghost himself, gliding noiselessly in the walks of +men, and wondered that the sun should cast a shadow from him. However, +we cannot imagine him as seated in jurisdiction at a criminal tribunal. +His gentle nature would have recoiled from that, as it might from a +serpent. + +In the Charter Street burial-ground there is a slate gravestone, +artistically carved about its edges, with the name, "Col. John Hathorne +Esq.," upon it. It is somewhat sunken into the earth, and leans forward +as if wishing to hide the inscription upon it from the gaze of mankind. +The grass about it and the moss upon the stone assist in doing this, +although repeatedly cut and cleaned away. It seems as if Nature wished +to draw a kind of veil over the memory of the witch's judge, himself +the sorrowful victim of a theocratic oligarchy. The lesson we learn +from his errors is, to trust our own hearts and not to believe too +fixedly in the doctrines of Church and State. It must be a dull +sensibility that can look on this old slate-stone without a feeling of +pathos and a larger charity for the errors of human nature. + +It is said that one of the convicted witches cursed Judge Hathorne,-- +himself and his descendants forever; but it is more than likely that +they all cursed him bitterly enough, and this curse took effect in a +very natural and direct manner. Every extravagant political or social +movement is followed by a corresponding reaction, even if the movement +be on the whole a salutary one, and retribution is sure to fall in one +shape or another on the leaders of it. After this time the Hathornes +ceased to be conspicuous in Salem affairs. The family was not in favor, +and the avenues of prosperity were closed to them, as commonly happens +in such cases. Neither does the family appear to have multiplied and +extended itself like most of the old New England families, who can now +count from a dozen to twenty branches in various places. Of John +Hathorne's three sons only one appears to have left children. The name +has wholly disappeared from among Salem families, and thus in a manner +has the witch's curse been fulfilled. + +Joseph Hathorne, the son of the Judge, was mostly a farmer, and that is +all that we now know of him. His son Daniel, however, showed a more +adventurous spirit, becoming a shipmaster quite early in life. It has +also been intimated that he was something of a smuggler, which was no +great discredit to him in a time when the unfair and even prohibitory +measures of the British Parliament in regard to American commerce made +smuggling a practical necessity. Even as the captain of a trading +vessel, however, Daniel Hathorne was not likely to advance the social +interests of his family. It is significant that he should have left the +central portion of Salem, where his ancestors had lived, and have built +a house for himself close to the city wharves,--a house well built and +commodious enough, but not in a fashionable location. + +But Daniel Hathorne had the advantage over fashionable society in +Salem, in being a thorough patriot. Boston and Salem were the two +strongholds of Toryism during the war for Independence, which was +natural enough, as their wealthy citizens were in close mercantile +relations with English houses, and sent their children to England to be +educated. Daniel Hathorne, however, as soon as hostilities had begun, +fitted out his bark as a privateer, and spent the following six years +in preying upon British merchantmen. How successful he was in this line +of business we have not been informed, but he certainly did not grow +rich by it; although he is credited with one engagement with the enemy, +in which his ship came off with honor, though perhaps not with a +decisive victory. This exploit was celebrated in a rude ballad of the +time, which has been preserved in "Griswold's Curiosities of American +Literature," and has at least the merit of plain unvarnished language. +[Footnote: Also in Lathrop's "Hawthorne."] + +There is a miniature portrait of Daniel Hathorne, such as was common in +Copley's time, still in the possession of the Hawthorne family, and it +represents him as rather a bullet-headed man, with a bright, open, +cheery face, a broad English chin and strongly marked brows,--an +excellent physiognomy for a sea-captain. He appears besides to have had +light brown or sandy hair, a ruddy complexion and bright blue eyes; but +we cannot determine how truthful the miniature may be in respect to +coloring. At all events, he was of a very different appearance from +Nathaniel Hawthorne, and if he resembled his grandson in any external +respect, it was in his large eyes and their overshadowing brows. He has +not the look of a dare-devil. One might suppose that he was a person of +rather an obstinate disposition, but it is always difficult to draw the +line between obstinacy and determination. + +A similar miniature of his son Nathaniel, born in 1775, and who died at +Surinam in his thirty-fourth year, gives us the impression of a person +somewhat like his father, and also somewhat like his son Nathaniel. He +has a long face instead of a round one, and his features are more +delicate and refined than those of the bold Daniel. The expression is +gentle, dreamy and pensive, and unless the portrait belies him, he +could not have been the stern, domineering captain that he has been +represented. He had rather a slender figure, and was probably much more +like his mother, who was a Miss Phelps, than the race of Judge +Hathorne. He may have been a reticent man, but never a bold one, and we +find in him a new departure. His face is more amiable and attractive +than his father's, but not so strong. In 1799 he was married to Miss +Elizabeth Clarke Manning, the daughter of Richard Manning, and then +only nineteen years of age. She appears to have been an exceptionally +sensitive and rather shy young woman--such as would be likely to +attract the attention of a chivalrous young mariner--but with fine +traits of intellect and character. + +The maternal ancestry of a distinguished man is quite as important as +the paternal, but in the present instance it is much more difficult to +obtain information concerning it. The increasing fame of Hawthorne has +been like a calcium-light, illuminating for the past fifty years +everything to which that name attaches, and leaving the Manning family +in a shadow so much the deeper. All we can learn of them now is, that +they were descended from Richard Manning, of Dartmouth in Devonshire, +England, whose son Thomas emigrated to Salem with his widowed mother in +1679, but afterwards removed to Ipswich, ten miles to the north, whence +the family has since extended itself far and wide,--the Reverend Jacob +M. Manning, of the Old South Church, the fearless champion of practical +anti-slaveryism, having been among them. It appears that Thomas's +grandson Richard started in life as a blacksmith, which was no strange +thing in those primitive times; but, being a thrifty and enterprising +man, he lived to establish a line of stage-coaches between Salem and +Boston, and this continued in the possession of his family until it was +superseded by the Eastern Railway. After this catastrophe, Robert +Manning, the son of Richard and brother of Mrs. Nathaniel Hathorne, +became noted as a fruit-grower (a business in which Essex County people +have always taken an active interest), and was one of the founders of +the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The Mannings were always +respected in Salem, although they never came to affluent circumstances, +nor did they own a house about the city common. Robert Manning, Jr., +was Secretary of the Horticultural Society in Boston for a long term of +years, a pleasant, kindly man, with an aspect of general culture. +Hawthorne's maternal grandmother was Miriam Lord, of Ipswich, and his +paternal grandmother was Rachel Phelps, of Salem. His father was only +thirty-three when he died at Surinam. + +In regard to the family name, there are at present Hawthornes and +Hathornes in England, and although the two names may have been +identical originally, they have long since become as distinct as Smith +and Smythe. I have discovered only two instances in which the first +William Hathorne wrote his own name, and in the various documents at +the State House in which it appears written by others, it is variously +spelled Hathorn, Hathorne, Hawthorn, Haythorne, and Harthorne,--from +which we can only conclude that the a was pronounced broadly. It was +not until the reign of Queen Anne, when books first became cheap and +popular, that there was any decided spelling of either proper or common +names. Then the printers took the matter into their own hands and made +witch-work enough of it. The word "sovereign," for instance, which is +derived from the old French _souvrain_, and which Milton spelled +"sovran," they tortured into its present form,--much as the clerks of +Massachusetts Colony tortured the name of William Hathorne. This, +however, was spelled Hathorne oftener than in other ways, and it was so +spelled in the two signatures above referred to, one of which was +attached as witness to a deed for the settlement of the boundary +between Lynn and Salem, [Footnote: Also in Lathrop's "Hawthorne."] and +the other to a report of the commissioners for the investigation of the +French vessels coming to Salem and Boston in 1651, the two other +commissioners being Samuel Bradstreet and David Denison. [Footnote: +Massachusetts Archives, x. 171.]The name was undoubtedly Hathorne, and +so it continued with one or two slight variations during the eighteenth +century down to the time of Nathaniel Hathorne, Jr., who entered and +graduated at Bowdoin College under that name, but who soon afterward +changed it to Hawthorne, for reasons that have never been explained. + +All cognomens would seem to have been derived originally from some +personal peculiarity, although it is no longer possible to trace this +back to its source, which probably lies far away in the Dark Ages,--the +formative period of languages and of families. Sometimes, however, we +meet with individuals whose peculiarities suggest the origin of their +names: a tall, slender, long-necked man named Crane; or a timid, +retiring student named Leverett; or an over-confident, supercilious +person called Godkin In the name of Hawthorne also we may imagine a +curious significance: "When the may is on the thorn," says Tennyson. +The English country people call the flowering of the hawthorn "the +may." It is a beautiful tree when in full bloom. How sweet-scented and +delicately colored are its blossoms! But it seems to say to us, "Do not +come too close to me." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +BOYHOOD OF HAWTHORNE: 1804-1821 + + +Salem treasures the memory of Hawthorne, and preserves everything +tangible relating to him. The house in which he was born, No. 27 Union +Street, is in much the same style and probably of the same age as the +Old Manse at Concord, but somewhat smaller, with only a single window +on either side of the doorway--five windows in all on the front, one +large chimney in the centre, and the roof not exactly a gambrel, for +the true gambrel has a curve first inward and then outward, but +something like it. A modest, cosy and rather picturesque dwelling, +which if placed on a green knoll with a few trees about it might become +a subject for a sketching class. It did not belong to Hawthorne's +father, after all, but to the widow of the bold Daniel, It was the +cradle of genius, and is now a shrine for many pilgrims. Long may it +survive, so that our grandchildren may gaze upon it. + +Here Nathaniel Hawthorne first saw daylight one hundred years ago +[Footnote: 1804.] on the Fourth of July, as if to make a protest +against Chauvinistic patriotism; here his mother sat at the window to +see her husband's bark sail out of the harbor on his last voyage; and +here she watched day after day for its return, only to bring a life- +long sorrow with it. The life of a sea-captain's wife is always a half- +widowhood, but Mrs. Hathorne was left at twenty-eight with three small +children, including a daughter, Elizabeth, older than Nathaniel, and +another, Louisa, the youngest. The shadow of a heavy misfortune had +come upon them, and from this shadow they never wholly escaped. + +Lowell criticised a letter which John Brown wrote concerning his +boyhood to Henry L. Stearns, as the finest bit of autobiography of the +nineteenth century.[Footnote: _North American Review_, April +1860.] It is in fact almost the only literature of the kind that we +possess. A frequent difficulty that parents find in dealing with their +children is, that they have wholly forgotten the sensations and +impressions of their own childhood. The instructor cannot place himself +in the position of the pupil. A naturalist will spend years with a +microscope studying the development of a plant from the seed, but no +one has ever applied a similar process to the budding of genius or even +of ordinary intellect. We have the autobiography of one of the greatest +geniuses, written in the calm and stillness of old age, when youthful +memories come back to us involuntarily; yet he barely lifts the veil +from his own childhood, and has much more to say of external events and +older people than of himself and his young companions. How valuable is +the story of George Washington and his hatchet, hackneyed as it has +become! What do we know of the boyhood of Franklin, Webster, Seward and +Longfellow? Nothing, or next to nothing. + +[Illustration: WINDOW OF THIS CHAMBER] + +Goethe says that the admirable woman is she who, when her husband dies, +becomes a father to his children; but in the case of Hawthorne's +mother, this did not happen to be necessary. Her brother, Robert +Manning, a thrifty and fairly prosperous young man, immediately took +Mrs. Hathorne and her three children into his house on Herbert Street, +and made it essentially a home for them afterward. To the fatherless +boy he was more than his own father, away from home ten months of the +year, ever could have been; and though young Nathaniel must have missed +that tenderness of feeling which a man can only entertain toward his +own child, there was no lack of kindness or consideration on Robert +Manning's part, to either the boy or his sisters. + +It was Mrs. Hathorne who chiefly suffered from this change of domicile. +She would seem to have been always on good terms with her brother's +wife, and on the whole they formed a remarkably harmonious family,--at +least we hear nothing to the contrary,--but she was no longer mistress +of her own household. She had her daughters to instruct, and to train +up in domestic ways, and she could be helpful in various matters, large +and small; but the mental occupation which comes from the oversight and +direction of household affairs, and which might have served to divert +her mind from sorrowful memories, was now gone from her. Her widowhood +separated her from the outside world and from all society, excepting a +few devoted friends, [Footnote: _Wide Awake_, xxxiii. 502.] so +that under these conditions it is not surprising that her life became +continually more secluded and reserved. It is probable that her +temperament was very similar to her son's; but the impression which has +gone forth, that she indulged her melancholy to an excess, is by no +means a just one. The circumstances of her case should be taken into +consideration. + +Rebecca Manning says: + +"I remember aunt Hawthorne as busy about the house, attending to +various matters. Her cooking was excellent, and she was noted for a +certain kind of sauce, which nobody else knew how to make. We always +enjoyed going to see her when we were children, for she took great +pains to please us and to give us nice things to eat. Her daughter +Elizabeth resembled her in that respect. In old letters and in the +journal of another aunt, which has come into our possession, we read of +her going about making visits, taking drives, and sometimes going on a +journey. In later years she was not well, and I do not remember that +she ever came here, but her friends always received a cordial welcome +when they visited her." + +This refers to a late period of Madam Hathorne's life, and if she +absented herself from the table, as Elizabeth Peabody states, +[Footnote: Lathrop's "Study of Hawthorne."] there was good reason for +it. + +Hawthorne himself has left no word concerning his mother, of favorable +or unfavorable import, but it seems probable that he owed his genius to +her, if he can be said to have owed it to any of his ancestors. In +after life he affirmed that his sister Elizabeth, who appears to have +been her mother over again, could have written as well as he did, and +although we have no palpable evidence of this--and the letter which she +wrote Elizabeth Peabody does not indicate it,--we are willing to take +his word for it. With the shyness and proud reserve which he inherited +from his mother, there also came that exquisite refinement and feminine +grace of style which forms the chief charm of his writing. The same +refinement of feeling is noticeable in the letters of other members of +the Manning family. Where his imagination came from, it would be +useless to speculate; but there is no good art without delicacy. + +Doctor Nathaniel Peabody lived near the house on Herbert Street, and +his daughter Elizabeth (who afterward became a woman of prodigious +learning) soon made acquaintance with the Hathorne children. She +remembers the boy Nathaniel jumping about his uncle's yard, and this is +the first picture that we have of him. When we consider what a +beautiful boy he must have been, with his wavy brown hair, large +wistful eyes and vigorous figure, without doubt he was a pleasure to +look upon. We do not hear of him again until November 10, 1813, when he +injured his foot in some unknown manner while at play, and was made +lame by it more or less for the three years succeeding. After being +laid up for a month, he wrote this pathetic little letter to his uncle, +Robert Manning, then in Maine, which I have punctuated properly so that +the excellence of its composition may appeal more plainly to the +reader. + + "SALEM, Thursday, December, 1813. + + "DEAR UNCLE: + +"I hope you are well, and I hope Richard is too. My foot is no better. +Louisa has got so well that she has begun to go to school, but she did +not go this forenoon because it snowed. Mama is going to send for +Doctor Kitridge to-day, when William Cross comes home at 12 o'clock, +and maybe he will do some good, for Doctor Barstow has not, and I don't +know as Doctor Kitridge will. It is about 4 weeks yesterday since I +have been to school, and I don't know but it will be 4 weeks longer +before I go again. I have been out of the office two or three times and +have set down on the step of the door, and once I hopped out into the +street. Yesterday I went out in the office and had 4 cakes. Hannah +carried me out once, but not then. Elizabeth and Louisa send their love +to you. I hope you will write to me soon, but I have nothing more to +write; so good-bye, dear Uncle. + + "Your affectionate Nephew, + "NATHANIEL HATHORNE." +[Footnote: Elizabeth Manning in _Wide Awake_, Nov. 1891.] + +This is not so precocious as Mozart's musical compositions at the same +age, but how could the boy Hawthorne have given a clearer account of +himself and his situation at the time, without one word of complaint? +It is worth noting also that his prediction in regard to Doctor +Kitridge proved to be correct and even more. + +It is evident that neither of his doctors treated him in a physio- +logical manner. Kitridge was a water-cure physician, and his method of +treatment deserves to be recorded for its novelty. He directed +Nathaniel to project his naked foot out of a sitting-room window, while +he poured cold water on it from the story above. This, however, does +not appear to have helped the case, and the infirmity continued so long +that it was generally feared that his lameness would be permanent. + +Horatio Bridge considered this a fortunate accident for Nathaniel, +since it prevented him from being spoiled by his female relatives, as +there is always danger that an only son with two or more sisters will +be spoiled. But it was an advantage to the boy in a different manner +from this. He learned from it the lesson of suffering and endurance, +which we all have to learn sooner or later; and it compelled him, +perhaps too young, to seek the comfort of life from internal sources. +There were excellent books in the house,--Shakespeare and Milton, of +course, but also Pope's "Iliad," Thomson's "Seasons," the "Spectator," +"Pilgrim's Progress," and the "Faerie Queene," and the time had now +come when these would be serviceable to him. He was not the only boy +that has enjoyed Shakespeare at the age of ten, but that he should have +found interest in Spenser's "Faerie Queene" is somewhat exceptional. +Even among professed _littérateurs_ there are few that read that +long allegory, and still fewer who enjoy it; and yet Miss Manning +assures us that Hawthorne would muse over it for hours. Its influence +may be perceptible in some of his shorter stories, but "Pilgrim's +Progress" evidently had an effect upon him; and so had Scott's novels, +as we may judge from the first romance that he published. + +At the age of twelve years and seven months he composed a short poem, +so perfect in form and mature in judgment that it is difficult to +believe that so young a person could have written it. Not so poetic as +it is philosophical, it is valuable as indicating that the boy had +already formed a moral axis for himself,--a life principle from which +he never afterward deviated; and it is given herewith: [Footnote: A +facsimile of the original can be found in _Wide Awake_, November, +1891.] + + + "MODERATE VIEWS. + + "With passions unruffled, untainted by pride, + By reason my life let me square; + The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied, + And the rest are but folly and care. + How vainly through infinite trouble and strife, + The many their labours employ, + Since all, that is truly delightful in life, + Is what all if they please may enjoy. + + "NATHANIEL HATHORNE. + "SALEM, February 13, 1817." + +He wrote this with the greatest nicety, framing it in broad black +lines, and ornamenting the capitals in a manner that recalls the +decoration of John Hathorne's gravestone. He composed a number of poems +between his thirteenth and seventeenth years, quite as good as those of +Longfellow at the same age; but after he entered Bowdoin College he +dropped the practice altogether and never resumed it, although one +would suppose that Longfellow's example would have stimulated him to +better efforts. Neither does he appear to have tried his hand in +writing tales, as boys who have no thought of literary distinction +frequently do. During the years of his lameness he sometimes invented +extemporaneous stories, which invariably commenced with a voyage to +some foreign country, from which his hero never returned. This shows +how continually his father's fate was in his mind, although he said +nothing of it. + +Robert Manning's interest in the stage-company afforded the boy fine +opportunities for free rides, and he probably also frequented the +stables; although neither as youth nor as man did he take much interest +in driving or riding. He was more fond of playing upon the wharves, a +good healthy place,--and watching the great ships sailing forth to far- +off lands, and returning with their strange cargoes,--enough to +stimulate any boy's imagination, if he has it in him. It is likely that +if Nathaniel's father had lived, he would also have followed a +seafaring life, and would never have become useful to the world in the +way that he did. + +Somewhere about the close of the eighteenth century, Richard Manning, +the father of Mrs. Hathorne, purchased a large tract of land in +Cumberland County, Maine, between Lake Sebago and the town of Casco; +and in 1813 Robert Manning built a house near the lake, in the township +of Raymond, and his brother Richard, who had become much of an invalid, +went to live there, partly for his health and partly to keep an +oversight on the property. In 1817 Mrs. Hathorne also went there, +taking her children with her, and remaining, with some intermissions, +until 1822. Meanwhile the Mannings sold some thousands of acres of +land, although not, as we may suppose, at very good prices, and the +name of Elizabeth Hathorne was repeatedly attached to the deeds of +conveyance. The house that Robert built was the plainest sort of +structure, of only two stories, and with no appearance of having been +painted; but the farmers in the vicinity criticised it as "Manning's +folly,"--exactly why, does not appear clearly, unless they foresaw what +actually happened, that the house could be neither sold nor rented +after the Mannings had left it. For many years, it served as a meeting- +house,--one could not call it a church,--and now it has become a +Hawthorne museum, the town of Raymond very laudably keeping it in +repair. + +Although none of the events in the early life of Hawthorne ought to be +considered positive misfortunes, as they all contributed to make him +what he was, yet upon general principles it is much to be regretted +that he should have passed the best years of his boyhood in this out- +of-the-way place. His good uncle supplied him with a boat and a gun, +and he enjoyed the small shooting, fishing, sailing and skating that +the place afforded; but in later years he wrote to Bridge, "It was at +Sebago that I learned my cursed habit of solitude," and this pursued +him through life like an evil genius, placing him continually at a +disadvantage with his fellow-men. It has been supposed that this mode +of life assisted in developing his individuality, but quite as strong +individualities have been developed in the midst of large cities. +"Speech is more refreshing than light." + +When will parents learn wisdom in regard to their children? A +conscientious, tender-hearted boy will be sent to a rough country +school, to be scoffed at and maltreated there, before he is twelve +years old; while another of a coarser and harder nature will be kept at +home, to be petted and pampered until all the vigor and manliness are +sapped out of him. Parents who prefer to live in a modest, humble +manner, in order that their children may have better advantages, +deserve the highest commendation, but in this respect good instruction +is less important than favorable associations. From fourteen to twenty- +one is the formative period of character, and the influences which may +be brought to bear on the growing mind are of the highest importance. +Lake Sebago served as an excellent gymnasium for young Hawthorne, and +may have helped to develop his sense of the beautiful, but he found few +companions there, and those not of the most suitable kind. He was +exceedingly fond of skating--so much so that when the ice was smooth he +sometimes remained on the lake far into the night. This we can envy +him, for skating is the poetry of motion. + +The captain of the "Hawthorne," which plies back and forth across the +lake in summer, regularly points out to his passengers the house where +the Hathornes lived. It is easily seen from the steamer,--a severely +plain, unpainted building, in appearance much like the Manning house on +Herbert Street. Nearly in line with it a great cliff-like rock juts out +from the centre of the lake, on which the Indians centuries ago etched +and painted great warlike figures, whose significance is now known to +no one. It is said that Hawthorne frequently sailed or rowed to Indian +Rock, and to a sort of grotto there which was large enough for his boat +to enter. Both the rock and the Manning house are now difficult of +access. Longfellow wrote a pretty descriptive poem of a voyage on +Sebago, and it is remarkable how he has made use of every feature of +the landscape, every incident of the excursion, to fill his verses. The +lake has much the shape of an hour-glass, the northern and southern +portions being connected by a winding strait, so crooked that it +requires the constant effort of the pilot to prevent the little steamer +from running aground. There used to be fine fishing in it,--large +perch, bass, and a species of fresh-water salmon often weighing from +six to eight pounds. + +Strangely enough, one of Hawthorne's acquaintances on the shores of +Sebago was a mulatto boy named William Symmes, the son of a Virginia +slave, foisted by his father upon a Maine sea-captain named Britton, +who lived in the half-wilderness around Raymond. Symmes afterwards +became a sailor, and continued in that vocation until the Civil War, +when he went to live in Alexandria, Va. In 1870 he published in the +Portland _Transcript_ what pretended to be a series of extracts +from a diary which young Hawthorne had kept while at Raymond, and which +was found there, after the departure of the Manning family, by a man +named Small, while moving a load of furniture which had been sold to +another party. Small preserved it until 1864, and then made a present +of it to Symmes. + +Doubts have been cast on the genuineness of this diary, as was natural +enough under the circumstances; for the original manuscript was never +produced by Symmes, who died the following year, and no one knows what +has become of it. It may also be asked, why should Small have disposed +so readily of this manuscript to Symmes after preserving it sedulously +for more than forty years? Why did he not return it to its rightful +owner; or, if he felt ashamed of his original abstraction, why did not +Symmes restore it to the Hawthorne family after Hawthorne's death, when +every newspaper in the country was celebrating Hawthorne's genius? It +also might have occurred to one of them that such property would have a +marketable value, and could be disposed of at a high price to some +collector of literary curiosities; but Symmes did not even ask to be +remunerated for the portion that he contributed to the Portland +Transcript. Neither did he harbor the slightest ill feeling toward +Hawthorne, whom he claimed to have met several times in the course of +his wanderings,--once at Salem, and again at Liverpool,--and was always +treated by him with exceptional kindness and civility. + +The only answer that can be made to these queries is, that men in +Symmes's position in life do not act according to any method that can +be previously calculated. In a case like the present, there could be no +predicting it; and it is possible that this mulatto valued the diary +above all price, as a souvenir of the one white man who had ever been +kind and good to him. Who knows what a heart there may have been in +William Symmes? + +The internal evidence of this diary is so strongly in its favor as to +be almost conclusive. Lathrop, who made a special study of it, says: + +"The fabrication of the journal by a person possessed of some literary +skill and familiar with the localities mentioned, at dates so long ago +as 1816 to 1819, might not be an impossible feat, but it is an +extremely improbable one." + +To which it might be added, that it could be only a Hawthorne that +could accomplish such a fabrication. Few things in literature are more +difficult than to make a boy talk _like_ a boy, and the tone of +this Sebago journal is not only boyish, but sweet and pleasant to the +ear, such as we might imagine the talk of the youthful Hawthorne. Not +only this, but there is a gradated improvement of intelligence in the +course of it,--rather too much so for entire credibility. It is quite +possible that there is more of it than Hawthorne ever wrote, but that +does not prevent us from having faith in the larger portion of it. The +purity of its diction, the nice adaptation of each word to its purpose, +and the accuracy of detail are much in its favor; besides which, the +personal reflections in it are exactly like Hawthorne. The published +portion of the diary in Mr. Pickard's book makes about fifty rather +small pages, but no dates are given except at the close, and that is +August, 1818; and as Hawthorne went to Sebago for the first time the +preceding year, we may presume that this note-book represents a winter +and summer vacation, during which he would seem to have enjoyed himself +in a healthy boyish fashion. We have only space for a few extracts from +this publication, which serve both to exemplify Hawthorne's mode of +life at Raymond and to illustrate the preceding statement concerning +the book. + +The first observation in the diary is quoted by Lathrop, and has a +decidedly youthful tone. + +"Two kingbirds have built their nest between our house and the mill- +pond. The male is more courageous than any creature that I know about. +He seems to have taken possession of the territory from the great pond +to the small one, and goes out to war with every fish-hawk that flies +from one to the other over his dominion. The fish-hawks must be +miserable cowards to be driven by such a speck of a bird. I have not +yet seen one turn to defend himself." + +Kingbirds are the knights-errant of the feathered tribes. They never +attack another bird unless it is three times their own size; but when a +few years older, the boy Hawthorne would probably have noticed that the +kingbirds' powers of flight are so superior that all other birds are +practically at their mercy. This fixes the date of the entry in the +early summer of 1817, for kingbirds are not belligerent except during +the nesting season. Somewhat later in the year he writes: + +"Went yesterday in a sail-boat on the Great Pond with Mr. Peter White, +of Windham. He sailed up here from White's Bridge to see Captain +Dingley, and invited Joseph Dingley and Mr. Ring to take a boat-ride +out to the Dingley Islands and to the Images. He was also kind enough +to say that I might go, with my mother's consent, which she gave after +much coaxing. Since the loss of my father, she dreads to have any one +belonging to her go upon the water. It is strange that this beautiful +body of water is called a 'pond.' The geography tells of many in +Scotland and Ireland, not near so large, that are called 'Lakes.'" + +Notice his objection to bad nomenclature, and his school-boy argument +against it. In his account of this excursion he says further: + +"After we got ashore, Mr. White allowed me to fire his long gun at a +mark. I did not hit the mark, and am not sure that I saw it at the time +the gun went off, but believe rather that I was watching for the noise +that I was about to make. + +"Mr. Ring said that with practice I could be a gunner, and that now, +with a very heavy charge, he thought I could kill a horse at eight +paces!" + +Here or nowhere do we recognize the budding of Hawthorne's genius. This +clear introspective analysis is the foundation of all true mental +power, and Hawthorne might have become a Platonic philosopher, if he +had not preferred to be a story-teller. + +These sports came to an end in the autumn when he was sent to study +with the Reverend Caleb Bradley, a somewhat eccentric graduate of +Harvard, who resided at Stroudwater, Maine, and with whom he remained +during the winter. [Footnote: S. T. Pickard's "Hawthorne's First +Diary."]He refers to this period of tuition in the short story of "The +Vision of the Fountain," and whether or no any such vision appeared to +him, we can fairly believe that the tale was suggested by some pretty +school-girl who made an impression on him, only to disappear in a +tantalizing manner. It is to be presumed that he returned to his mother +at Raymond, for Christmas; and at that time he heard a story of how an +Otisfield man named Henry Turner had killed three hibernating bears +which he discovered in a cave near Moose Pond, not a difficult feat +when one comes upon them in that torpid condition. This would place the +killing of the bears at about the first of December, which would be +probable enough, and the fact itself has been substantiated by Samuel +Pickard. The next succeeding entry relates to the drowning of a boy +while swimming, which could only have happened the following June. Mrs. +Hathorne was greatly alarmed, and objected to Nathaniel's going in +bathing with the other boys. He did not like the restriction, but +writes that he shall obey his mother. + +There is a ghost story in the diary, quite original, and told with an +air of excellent credibility; and also a short anthropomorphic romance +concerning a badly treated horse, full of genuine pathos and kindly +sympathy,--more sympathetic, in fact, than Hawthorne's later stories, +in which he is sometimes almost too reserved and unemotional: + +"'Good morning, Mr. Horse, how are you to-day?' 'Good morning, +youngster,' said he, just as plain as a horse can speak, and then said, +'I am almost dead, and I wish I was quite. I am hungry, have had no +breakfast and stand here tied by the head while they are grinding the +corn, and until master drinks two or three glasses of rum at the store, +and then drag him and the meal up the Ben Ham hill, and home, and am +now so weak that I can hardly stand. Oh, dear, I am in a bad way,' and +the old creature cried,--I almost cried myself." + +The only difficulty in believing this diary to be genuine is the +question: If Hawthorne could write with such perspicuity at fourteen, +why are there no evidences of it during his college years? But it +sometimes happens so. + +We cannot refrain from quoting one more extract from the last entry in +the Sebago diary, so beautifully tender and considerate as it is of his +mother's position toward her only son. He had been invited by a party +of their neighbors to go on an all-day excursion, and though his mother +grants his request to be allowed to join them, he feels the reluctance +with which she does so and he writes: + +"She said 'Yes,' but I was almost sorry, knowing that my day's pleasure +would cost _her_ one of anxiety. However, I gathered up my hooks +and lines, with some white salted pork for bait, and with a fabulous +number of biscuit, split in the middle, the insides well buttered, then +skilfully put together again, and all stowed in sister's large work- +bag, and slung over my shoulder, I started, making a wager with Enoch +White, as we walked down to the boat, as to which could catch the +largest number of fish." [Footnote: Appendix A.] + +This is the only entry that is dated (August, 1818), and as it was on +this same occasion that the black ducks were shot, it must have been on +one of the last days of August. We may presume that Nathaniel returned +to his studies at Stroudwater the following month, for we do not hear +of him again at Raymond--or in Salem, either--until March 24, when he +writes to his uncle, Robert Manning, who has evidently just returned +from Raymond to Salem, and speaks of expecting to go to Portland with a +Mr. Linch for the day. On May 16, 1819, he writes to his uncle Robert +again: + +"The grass and trees are green, the fences finished and the garden +planted. Two of the goats are on the island and the other kept for the +milk. I have shot a partridge and a hen-hawk and caught eighteen large +trout [probably Sebago salmon]. I am sorry that my uncle intends +sending me to school again, for my mother can hardly spare me." + +From which it is easy to infer that he had not attended school very +regularly of late, and Uncle Robert would seem to have concluded that +it would be better to have his fine nephew where he could personally +supervise his goings and comings. Accordingly, on July 26 we find +Nathaniel attending school in Salem,--a most unusual season for it,-- +and although his mother remained at Raymond two years longer, he was +not permitted to return there again, except possibly for short periods. + +Emerson once pointed out to me on Sudbury Street, Boston, an extremely +old man with long white locks and the face of a devoted scholar, +advancing toward us with slow and cautious steps. "That," said he, "is +Doctor Worcester, the lexicographer." Hawthorne's early education +remains much of a mystery. In 1819 he complains in a letter to his +mother that he has to go to a cheap school,--a good indication that he +did not intend to trust to fortune for his future welfare; soon after +this we hear that dictionary Worcester is his chief instructor. He +could not have found a more amiable or painstaking pedagogue; nor is it +likely that the fine qualities of his teacher were ever better +appreciated. Hawthorne himself says nothing of this, for it was not his +way to express admiration for man or woman, but we can believe that he +felt the same affection for the doctor that well-behaved boys commonly +do for their old masters. It was from Worcester that he derived his +excellent knowledge of Latin, the single study of which he was fond; +and it is his preference for words derived from the Latin which gives +grace and flexibility to Hawthorne's style, as the force and severity +of Emerson's style come from his partiality for Saxon words. During his +last year at school, Hawthorne took private lessons of a Salem lawyer, +Benjamin Oliver, and perhaps studied with him altogether at the finish. + +Hawthorne's life had been so irregular for years that it is creditable +to him that he should have succeeded in entering college at all. We +hear of him at Sebago in winter and at Salem in July. He writes to his +Uncle Robert to look out for the shot-gun which he left in a closet at +Sebago, and which has a rather heavy charge of powder in it. He appears +to have found as little companionship in Salem as he did in that +wilderness,--the natural effect of such a life. He may have been +acquainted with half the boys in Salem, but he did not make any warm +friends among them. His sister Louisa, who was a more vivacious person +than Elizabeth, was his chief companion and comfort. Seated at the +window with her on summer evenings, he elaborated the plan of an +imaginary society, a club of two, called the "Pin Society," to which +all fees, assessments and fines were paid in pins,--then made by hand +and much more expensive than now. He constituted himself its secretary, +and wrote imaginary reports of its proceedings, in which Louisa is +frequently fined for absence from meetings. We do not hear of their +going to parties or dances with other children. + +In August, 1820, he started an imaginary newspaper called the +_Spectator_, which he wrote himself with some help from Louisa, +and of which there was only one copy of each number. He continued this +through five successive issues, and we trace in its pages the +commencement of Hawthorne's peculiar humor,--too quiet and gentle to +make us laugh, but with a penetrating tinge of pathos. Take for +instance the following: + +"There is no situation in life more irksome than that of an editor who +is obliged to find amusement for his Readers, from a head which is too +often (as is the present predicament with our own) filled with +emptiness. Since commencing this paper, we have received no +communication of any kind, so that the whole weight of the business +devolves upon our own shoulders, a load far too great for them to bear. +We hope the Public will reflect on these grievances." + +This is true fiction, and Nathaniel was not the first or the last +editor to whom the statement has applied. His difficulties are +imaginary, but he realizes what they might be in reality. + +In another number he says: + +"We know of no news, either domestic or foreign, and we hope our +readers will excuse our not inserting any. The law which prohibits +paying debts when a person has no money will apply in this case." + +Then he makes this quiet hit against the people of Maine for having +separated themselves and their territory from Massachusetts: + +"By a gentleman in the state of Maine, we learn that a famine is +seriously apprehended owing to the want of rain. Potatoes could not be +procured in some places. When children break their leading strings, and +run away from their Parent, (as Maine has done) they may expect +sometimes to suffer hunger." [Footnote: _Wide Awake_, xxxiii. +512.] + +Of his religious instruction we hear nothing; but church-going in New +England during the first forty years of the nineteenth century was +wellnigh universal, and it makes little difference now to which of the +various forms of Calvinistic worship the Manning family subscribed. +That young Hawthorne was seriously impressed in this way is evident +from the following ode, which he may have composed as early as his +fifteenth year: + + "Oh, I have roamed in rapture wild + Where the majestic rocks are piled + In lonely, stern, magnificence around + The troubled ocean's steadfast bound; + And I have seen the storms arise + And darkness veil from mortal eyes + The Heavens that shine so fair and bright, + And all was solemn, silent night. + Then I have seen the storm disperse, + And Mercy hush the whirlwind fierce, + And all my soul in transport owned + There is a God, in Heaven enthroned." + +There is more of a rhetorical flourish than of serious religious +feeling in this; but genuine piety is hardly to be expected, and not +greatly to be desired, in a boy of that age. It represents the desire +to be religious, and to express something, he knows not what. + +Nathaniel Hawthorne had already decided on his vocation in life before +he entered Bowdoin College,--a decision which he afterwards adhered to +with inflexible determination, in spite of the most discouraging +obstacles. In a memorable letter to his mother, written March 13, 1821, +he says: + +"I am quite reconciled to going to college, since I am to spend my +vacations with you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a +great deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what profession I +shall have. The being a minister is of course out of the question. I +shall not think that even you could desire me to choose so dull a way +of life. Oh, no, mother, I was not born to vegetate forever in one +place, and to live and die as tranquil as--a puddle of water. As to +lawyers, there are so many of them already that one-half of them (upon +a moderate calculation) are in a state of actual starvation. A +physician, then, seems to be 'Hobson's choice'; but yet I should not +like to live by the diseases and infirmities of my fellow-creatures. +And it would weigh very hardly on my conscience, in the course of my +practice, if I should chance to send any unlucky patient '_ad +infernum_,' which, being interpreted, is 'to the realms below.' Oh +that I was rich enough to live without profession! What do you think of +my becoming an author, and relying for support upon my pen? Indeed, I +think the illegibility of my hand is very author-like." [Footnote: +Conway, 24.] + +Such were the Ides of March for Hawthorne. It was no boyish ambition +for public distinction, nor a vain grasping at the laurel wreath, but a +calmly considered and clear-sighted judgment. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BOWDOIN COLLEGE: 1821-1825. + + +The life of man is not like a game of chess, in which the two players +start upon equal terms and can deliberate sufficiently over every move; +but more like whist, in which the cards we hold represent our fortunes +at the beginning, but the result of the game depends also on the skill +with which we play it. Life also resembles whist in this, that we are +obliged to follow suit in a general way to those who happen to have the +lead. + +Why Hawthorne should have entered Bowdoin College instead of Harvard +has not been explained, nor is it easily explained. The standard of +scholarship maintained at Harvard and Yale has always been higher than +that at what Doctor Holmes designated as the "freshwater colleges," and +this may have proved an unfavorable difference to the mind of a young +man who was not greatly inclined to his studies; but Harvard College is +only eighteen miles from Salem, and he could have returned to his home +once a week if he had chosen to do so, and this is a decided moral and +social advantage to a young man in those risky years. If Hawthorne had +entered Harvard in the next class to Emerson, he could not well have +escaped the latter's attention, and would have come in contact with +other vigorous and stimulating minds; but it is of little use to +speculate on what might have been. + +Boys are encouraged to study for college by accounts of the rare +enjoyment of university life, but they commonly find the first term of +Freshman year both dismal and discouraging. Their class is a medley of +strangers, their studies are a dry routine, and if they are not hazed +by the Sophomores, they are at least treated by them with haughtiness +and contempt. It is still summer when they arrive, but the leaves soon +fall from the trees, and their spirits fall with them. + +Hawthorne may have felt this more acutely than any other member of his +class, and in addition to the prevailing sense of discomfort he was +seized early in November with that disgusting malady, the measles, +which boys usually go through with before they are old enough to +realize how disagreeable it is. It appears to have been a light attack, +however, and in three weeks he was able to attend recitations again. He +made no complaint of it, only writing to his uncle for ten dollars with +which to pay the doctor. He likes his chum, Mason, of Portsmouth, and +does not find his studies so arduous as at Salem before entering. +Neither are the college laws so strict as he anticipated. + +In the following May he received the present of his first watch, +presumably from Uncle Robert, and he writes to his mother, who is still +at Sebago, that he is mightily pleased with it, and that it enables him +"to cut a great dash" at college. His letters to his relatives are not +brilliant, but they indicate a healthful and contented mind. + +We will now consider some of the distinguished personages who were +Hawthorne's friends and associates during these four years of his +apprenticeship to actual life; and there were rare characters among +them. + +In the same coach in which Hawthorne left Portland for Brunswick, in +the summer of 1821, were Franklin Pierce and Jonathan Cilley. +[Footnote: Bridge's Memoir of Hawthorne, 3.] Two men seated together in +a modern railway-carriage will often become better acquainted in three +hours than they might as next-door neighbors in three years; and this +was still more likely to happen in the old days of coach journeys, when +the very tedium of the occasion served as an inducement to frank and +friendly conversation. Pierce was the right man to bring Hawthorne out +of his hard shell of Sebago seclusion. He had already been one year at +Bowdoin, and at that time there was not the same caste feeling between +Sophomores and Freshmen--or at least very little of it--that has since +arisen in American colleges. He was amiable and kindly, and possessed +the rare gift of personal magnetism. Nature sometimes endows men and +women with this quality in lieu of all other advantages, and such would +seem to have been the case with Franklin Pierce. He was not much above +the average in intellect, and, as Hawthorne afterward confessed, not +particularly attractive in appearance; with a stiff military neck, +features strong but small, and opaque gray eyes,--a rather unimpressive +face, and one hardly capable of a decided expression. Yet with such +abilities as he had, aided by personal magnetism and the lack of +conspicuous faults, he became United States Senator at the age of +thirty-five, and President fifteen years later. The best we can say of +him is, that he was always Hawthorne's friend. From the first day that +they met he became Hawthorne's patron and protector--so far as he may +have required the latter. There must have been some fine quality in the +man which is not easily discernible from his outward acts; a narrow- +minded man, but of a refined nature. + +Jonathan Cilley was an abler man than Pierce, and a bold party-leader, +but not so attractive personally. He always remained Hawthorne's +friend, but the latter saw little of him and rarely heard from him +after they had graduated. The one letter of his which has been +published gives the impression of an impulsive, rough-and-tumble sort +of person, always ready to take a hand in whatever might turn up. + +On the same day, Horatio Bridge, who lived at Augusta, was coming down +the Kennebec River to Brunswick. Hawthorne did not make his +acquaintance until some weeks later, but he proved to be the best +friend of them all, and Hawthorne's most constant companion during the +four years they remained together. Pierce, Cilley and Bridge were all +born politicians, and it was this class of men with whom it would seem +that Hawthorne naturally assimilated. + +On the same day, or the one previous, another boy set out from Portland +for Brunswick, only fourteen years old, named Henry W. Longfellow,--a +name that is now known to thousands who never heard of Franklin Pierce. +Would it have made a difference in the warp and woof of Hawthorne's +life, if he had happened to ride that day in the same coach with +Longfellow? Who can tell? Was there any one in the breadth of the land +with whom he might have felt an equal sympathy, with whom he could have +matured a more enduring fellowship? It might have been a friendship +like that of Beaumont and Fletcher, or, better still, like that of +Goethe and Schiller,--but it was not written in the book of Fate. +Longfellow also had tried his hand on the Sebago region, and was fond +of the woods and of a gun; but he was too precocious to adapt himself +easily to persons of his own age, or even somewhat older. He had no +sooner arrived at Bowdoin than he became the associate and favorite of +the professors. In this way he missed altogether the storm-and-stress +period of youthful life, which is a useful experience of its kind; and +if we notice in his poetry a certain lack, the absence of a close +contact with reality,--as if he looked at his subject through a glass +casement,--this may be assigned as the reason for it. + +[Illustration: HORATIO BRIDGE. FROM THE PORTRAIT BY EASTMAN JOHNSON] + +During the four years they went back and forth to their instruction +together, Hawthorne and Longfellow never became cordially acquainted. +They also belonged to rival societies. There were only two principal +societies at Bowdoin, which continued through the college course--the +Peucinian and the Athenæan, and the difference between them might be +described by the words "citified" and "countrified," without taking +either of those terms in an objectionable sense. Pierce was already a +leading character in the Athenæan, and was soon followed by Cilley, +Bridge and Hawthorne. The Peucinian suffered from the disadvantage of +having members of the college faculty on its active list, and this must +have given a rather constrained and academic character to its meetings. +There was much more of the true college spirit and classmate feeling in +the Athenæan. + +Horatio Bridge is our single authority in regard to Bowdoin College at +this time, and his off-hand sketches of Hawthorne, Pierce and +Longfellow are invaluable. Never has such a group of distinguished +young men been gathered together at an American college. He says of +Hawthorne: + +"Hawthorne was a slender lad, having a massive head, with dark, +brilliant, and most expressive eyes, heavy eyebrows, and a profusion of +dark hair. For his appearance at that time the inquirers must rely +wholly upon the testimony of friends; for, I think, no portrait of him +as a lad is extant. On one occasion, in our senior years, the class +wished to have their profiles cut in silhouette by a wandering artist +of the scissors, and interchanged by all the thirty-eight. Hawthorne +disapproved the proposed plan, and steadily refused to go into the +Class Golgotha, as he styled the dismal collection. I joined him in +this freak, and so our places were left vacant. I now regret the whim, +since even a moderately correct outline of his features as a youth +would, at this day, be interesting. + +"Hawthorne's figure was somewhat singular, owing to his carrying his +head a little on one side; but his walk was square and firm, and his +manner self-respecting and reserved. A fashionable boy of the present +day might have seen something to amuse him in the new student's +appearance; but had he indicated this he would have rued it, for +Hawthorne's clear appreciation of the social proprieties and his great +physical courage would have made it as unsafe to treat him with +discourtesy then as at any later time. + +"Though quiet and most amiable, he had great pluck and determination. I +remember that in one of our convivial meetings we had the laugh upon +him for some cause, an occurrence so rare that the bantering was +carried too far. After bearing it awhile, Hawthorne singled out the one +among us who had the reputation of being the best pugilist, and in a +few words quietly told him that he would not permit the rallying to go +farther. His bearing was so resolute, and there was so much of danger +in his eye, that no one afterward alluded to the offensive subject in +his presence." [Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 5.] + +Horatio Bridge is a veracious witness, but we have to consider that he +was nearly ninety years of age at the time his memoirs were given to +the public. It is difficult to imagine Hawthorne as a slender youth, +for his whole figure was in keeping with the structure of his head. It +is more likely that he had a spare figure. Persons of a lively +imagination have always been apt to hold their heads on one side, but +not commonly while they are walking. It is for this reason that +phrenologists have supposed that the organ of ideality is located on +the side of the head,--if there really is any such organ. + +Bridge says of Longfellow precisely what one might expect: + +"He had decided personal beauty and most attractive manners. He was +frank, courteous, and affable, while morally he was proof against the +temptations that beset lads on first leaving the salutary restraints of +home. He was diligent, conscientious, and most attentive to all his +college duties, whether in the recitation-room, the lecture-hall, or +the chapel. The word 'student' best expresses his literary habit, and +in his intercourse with all he was conspicuously the gentleman." + +In addition to those already mentioned, James W. Bradbury of Portland, +afterwards United States Senator, and the Reverend Dr. George B. +Cheever, the vigorous anti-slavery preacher, were members of this +class. Three others, Cilley, Benson and Sawtelle, were afterward +members of the United States House of Representatives. Surely there +must have been quite a fermentation of youthful intellect at Bowdoin +between 1821 and 1825. + +Franklin Pierce was so deeply interested in military affairs that it +was a pity he should not have had a West Point cadetship. He was +captain of the college militia company, in which Hawthorne and Bridge +drilled and marched; a healthy and profitable exercise, and better than +a gymnasium, if rather monotonous. Pierce was the popular hero and +_magnus Apollo_ of his class, as distinguished foot-ball players +are now; but just at this time he was neglecting his studies so badly +that at the close of his second year he found himself at the very foot +of the rank list. The fact became known through the college, and Pierce +was so chagrined that he concluded to withdraw from Bowdoin altogether, +and it was only by the urgent persuasion of his friends that he was +induced to continue his course. "If I remain, however," he said, "you +will witness a change in me." For months together he burned midnight +oil in order to recover lost ground. During his last two years at +college, he only missed two recitations, both for sufficient reasons. +His conduct was unexceptionable, he incurred no deductions, and finally +graduated third in his class. It is an uncommon character that can play +fast-and-loose with itself in this manner. The boy Franklin had +departed, and Pierce the man had taken his place. [Footnote: Professor +Packard's "History of Bowdoin College."] Horatio Bridge gives a rather +more idealized portrait of him than he does of Hawthorne. He says: + +"In person Pierce was slender, of medium height, with fair complexion +and light hair, erect, with a military bearing, active, and always +bright and cheerful. In character he was impulsive, not rash; generous, +not lavish; chivalric, courteous, manly, and warm-hearted,--and he was +one of the most popular students in the whole college." + +The instruction in American colleges during the first half of the +nineteenth century was excellent for Greek, Latin and mathematics,-- +always the groundwork of a good education,--but the modern languages +were indifferently taught by French and German exiles, and other +subjects were treated still more indifferently. The two noble studies +of history and philosophy were presented to the young aspiring soul in +narrow, prejudiced text-books, which have long since been consigned to +that bourn from which no literary work ever returns. As already stated, +Hawthorne's best study was Latin, and in that he acquired good +proficiency; but he was slow in mathematics, as artistic minds usually +are, and in his other studies he only exerted himself sufficiently to +pass his examinations in a creditable manner. We may presume that he +took the juice and left the rind; which was the sensible thing to do. +As might be expected, his themes and forensics were beautifully +written, although the arguments in them were not always logical; but it +is significant that he never could be prevailed upon to make a +declamation. There have been sensitive men, like Sumner and George W. +Curtis, who were not at all afraid of the platform, but they were not, +like Hawthorne, bashful men. The college faculty would seem to have +realized the true difficulty in his case, and treated him in a kindly +and lenient manner. No doubt he suffered enough in his own mind on +account of this deficiency, and it may have occurred to him what +difficulties he might have to encounter in after-life by reason of it. +If a student at college cannot bring himself to make a declamation, how +can the mature man face an audience in a lecture-room, command a ship, +or administer any important office? Such thoughts must have caused +Hawthorne no slight anxiety, at that sensitive age. + +The out-door sports of the students did not attract Hawthorne greatly. +He was a fast runner and a good leaper, but seemed to dislike violent +exercise. He much preferred walking in the woods with a single +companion, or by the banks of the great river on which Brunswick is +situated. There were fine trout-brooks in the neighborhood, and +formerly the woods of Maine were traversed by vast flocks of passenger +pigeons, which with the large gray squirrels afforded excellent +shooting. How skilful Hawthorne became with his fowling-piece we have +not been informed, but it is evident from passages in "Fanshawe" that +he learned something of trout-fishing; and on the whole he enjoyed +advantages at Bowdoin which the present student at Harvard or Oxford +might well envy, him. The fish we catch in the streams and lakes of +Maine only represent a portion of our enjoyment there. Horatio Bridge +says: + +"There was one favorite spot in a little ravine, where a copious spring +of clear, cold water gushed out from the sandy bank, and joined the +larger stream. This was the Paradise Spring, which deserves much more +than its present celebrity for the absolute purity of its waters. Of +late years the brook has been better known as a favorite haunt of the +great romance writer, and it is now often called the Hawthorne Brook. + +"Another locality, above the bridge, afforded an occasional stroll +through the fields and by the river. There, in spring, we used to +linger for hours to watch the giant pine-logs (for there were giants in +those days) from the far-off forests, floating by hundreds in the +stream until they came to the falls; then, balancing for a moment on +the brink, they plunged into the foamy pool below." + +At the lower end of the town there was an old weather-beaten cot, where +the railroad track now runs, inhabited by a lone woman nearly as old +and time-worn as the dwelling itself. She pretended to be a fortune- +teller, and to her Hawthorne and Bridge sometimes had recourse, to lift +the veil of their future prospects; which she always succeeded in doing +to their good entertainment. The old crone knew her business well, +especially the art of giving sufficient variety of detail to the same +old story. For a nine-pence she would predict a beautiful blond wife +for Hawthorne, and an equally handsome dark-complexioned one for +Bridge. Riches were of course thrown in by the handful; and Bridge +remarks that although these never came to pass they both happened to be +blessed with excellent wives. It is not surprising that the handsome +Hawthorne and his tall, elegant-looking companion should have +stimulated the old woman's imagination in a favorable manner. The small +coin they gave her may have been the least happiness that their visits +brought into her life. + +Close by the college grounds there was a miserable little inn, which +went by the name of Ward's Tavern, and thither the more uproarious +class of students consorted at intervals for the purpose of keeping +care at a distance, and singing, "Landlord, fill your flowing bowls." +Strange to say, the reserved, thoughtful Hawthorne was often to be +found among them. It does not seem quite consistent with the gravity of +his customary demeanor, but youth has its period of reckless +ebullition. Punch-bowl societies exist in all our colleges, and many +who disapprove of them join them for the sake of popularity. Hawthorne +may have been as grave and well-behaved on these occasions as he was +customarily. We have Bridge's word for this; and the matter would +hardly be worth mentioning if it had not led to more serious +proceedings. May 29, 1822, President Allen wrote to Mrs. Hathorne at +Salem that her son had been fined fifty cents for gaming at cards. +[Footnote: In 1864 a Harvard student was fined three dollars for +writing on the woodwork with a lead-pencil--erased with a sponge.] +Certainly this was not very severe treatment; and if the Bowdoin +faculty, being on the spot, concluded that young Hawthorne had only +injured his moral nature fifty cents' worth, I think we shall do well +to agree with their decision. At the same time Nathaniel wrote his +mother the following manly letter: + + + "BRUNSWICK, May 30th, 1822. + +"MY DEAR MOTHER:--I hope you have safely arrived in Salem. I have +nothing particular to inform you of, except that all the card-players +in college have been found out, and my unfortunate self among the +number. One has been dismissed from college, two suspended, and the +rest, with myself, have been fined fifty cents each. I believe the +President intends to write to the friends of all the delinquents. +Should that be the case, you must show the letter to nobody. If I am +again detected, I shall have the honor of being suspended. When the +President asked what we played for, I thought it proper to inform him +it was fifty cents, although it happened to be a quart of wine; but if +I had told him of that, he would probably have fined me for having a +blow. There was no untruth in the case, as the wine cost fifty cents. I +have not played at all this term. I have not drank any kind of spirits +or wine this term, and shall not till the last week." [Footnote: +Horatio Bridge, 118.] + + +The clemency with which the college authorities treated Bridge and +Hawthorne is a plain indication of the confidence which they felt in +them, and speaks more highly for their respective characters than if +they had been patterns of good behavior. Some of the others were not so +fortunate. One young man, whose name is properly withheld from us, was +expelled from the institution. He was supposed to have been the +ringleader in this dubious business, but Hawthorne manfully resented +the supposition that any one could have influenced him, or did +influence him, in this matter. It is more likely that he was influenced +by the spirit of investigation, and wished to know what the sensation +was like from personal experience. + +"Letters home" from college are not commonly interesting to the general +public, and those which Hawthorne wrote to his mother and sisters do +not differ essentially from such as other young men write under similar +conditions. At the age when it is so difficult to decide whether we +have become men or are still boys, all our actions partake of a similar +uncertainty, and the result of what we do and say is likely to be a +rather confused impression. Though college students appear different +enough to one another, they all seem alike to the outside world. + +University towns always contain more or less cultivated society, and +young Hawthorne might have been welcome to the best of it if he had +felt so inclined; but he was as shy of the fair sex as Goldsmith's +bashful lover. M. D. Conway, who knew him, doubts if he ever became +well acquainted with a young lady until his engagement to Miss Peabody. +Considering this, it seems as if Jonathan Cilley made rather a +hazardous wager with Hawthorne, before leaving Bowdoin,--a wager of a +cask of Madeira, that Hawthorne would become a married man within the +next twelve years. Papers to that effect were duly signed by the +respective parties, sealed, and delivered for safe-keeping to Horatio +Bridge, who preserved them faithfully until the appointed time arrived. +Under ordinary conditions the chances of this bet were in Cilley's +favor, for in those primitive days it was much easier for educated +young men to obtain a start in life than it is at present, and early +marriages were in consequence much more common.[Footnote: Horatio +Bridge, 47. The contract was dated November 14, 1824.] + +The year 1824 was a serious one in American politics. The Republican- +Democratic party, having become omnipotent, broke to pieces of its own +weight. The eastern interest nominated John Quincy Adams for the +Presidency; the western interest nominated Henry Clay; and the frontier +interest nominated Andrew Jackson. Unfortunately the frontier interest +included all the unsettled and continually shifting elements in the +country, so that Jackson had nearly as strong a support in the East as +in the West. Bridge says, "We were all enthusiastic supporters of old +Hickory." It was evidently Pierce who led them into this, and although +it proved in a material sense for Hawthorne's benefit, it separated him +permanently from the class to which he properly belonged--the +enlightened men of culture of his time; and Cilley's tragical fate can +be directly traced to it. The Jackson movement was in its essence a +revolt against _civility_,--and it seems as if Hawthorne and +Bridge might have recognized this. + +Hawthorne was well liked in his class in spite of his reserved manners, +but he held no class offices that we hear of, except a place on a +committee of the Athenæan Society with Franklin Pierce. Class days and +class suppers, so prolific of small honors, were not introduced at +Bowdoin until some years later. He graduated eighteenth in a class of +thirty-eight, but this was not sufficient to give him a part in the +commencement exercises. [Footnote: The President informed him that his +rank in the class would have entitled him to a part if it had not been +for his neglect of declamations; and Hawthorne wrote to his mother that +he was perfectly satisfied with this, for it saved him the +mortification of appearing in public.] Accordingly Hawthorne, Bridge, +and others who were in a like predicament, organized a mock +Commencement celebration at Ward's Tavern, where they elected officers +of a comical sort, such as boatswain and sea-cook, and concluded their +celebration in a manner suitable to the occasion. + +Hawthorne was commonly known among his classmates, as "Hath," and his +friends addressed him in this manner long after he had graduated. His +degree was made out in the name of Nathaniel Hathorne, above which he +subsequently wrote "Hawthorne," in bold letters. + +The question may well be raised here, how it happened that America +produced so many men of remarkable intellect with such slight +opportunities for education in former times, while our greatly improved +universities have not graduated an orator like Webster, a poet like +Longfellow, or a prose-writer equal to Hawthorne during the past forty +years. There have been few enough who have risen above mediocrity. + +It is the same, more or less, all over the civilized world. We have +entered into a mechanical age, which is natural enough considering the +rapid advances of science and the numerous mechanical inventions, but +which is decidedly unfavorable to the development of art and +literature. Everything now goes by machinery, from Harvard University +to Ohio politics and the gigantic United States Steel Company; and +every man has to find his place in some machine or other, or he is +thrown out of line. Individual effort, as well as independence of +thought and action, is everywhere frowned upon; but without freedom of +thought and action there can be no great individualities, which is the +same as saying that there can be no poets like Longfellow, or writers +like Hawthorne and Emerson. Spontaneity is the life of the true artist, +and in a mechanical civilization there can be neither spontaneity nor +the poetic material which is essential to artistic work of a high +order. There can be no great orators, for masses of men are no longer +influenced by oratory, but by newspapers. Genius is like a plant of +slow growth, which requires sunshine and Mother Earth to nourish it, +not chemicals and electric lights. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +LITTLE MISERY: 1825-1835 + + +During the War of the American Revolution, the officers of the French +fleet, which was stationed at Newport, invented a game of cards, called +"Boston," of which one peculiarity was, that under certain conditions, +whoever held the lowest hand would win the count. This was called +"Little Misery," and this was the kind of hand which Nathaniel +Hawthorne had to play for fifteen years after leaving Bowdoin College. +Only his indomitable will could have carried him through it. + +A college graduate who lacks the means to study a profession, and who +has no influential relative to make a place for him in the world, finds +himself in a most discouraging position. The only thing that his +education has fitted him to do is, to teach school, and he may not be +adapted to this, on account of some personal peculiarity. There was, +and I suppose is still, a prejudice among mercantile men against +college graduates, as a class of proud, indolent, neglectful persons, +very difficult to instruct. Undoubtedly there are many such, but the +innocent have to suffer with the guilty. It is natural that a man who +has not had a liberal education should object to employing a +subordinate who knows Latin and Greek. Whether Hawthorne's Uncle +Robert, who had thus far proved to be his guardian genius, would have +educated him for a profession, we have no means of knowing. This would +mean of course a partial support for years afterward, and it is quite +possible that Mr. Manning considered his duties to his own children +paramount to it. What he did for Nathaniel may have been the best he +could, to give him the position of book-keeper for the stage-company. +This was of course Pegasus in harness (or rather at the hitching-post), +but it is excellent experience for every young man; although the +compensation in Hawthorne's case was small and there could be no +expectation of future advancement. + +In this dilemma he decided to do the one thing for which Nature +intended him,--to become a writer of fiction,--and he held fast to this +determination in the face of most discouraging obstacles. He composed a +series of short stories,--echoes of his academic years,--which he +proposed to publish under the title of Wordsworth's popular poem, "We +Are Seven." One of these is said to have been based on the witchcraft +delusion, and it is a pity that it should not have been preserved, but +their feminine titles afford no indication of their character. He carried +them to a publisher, who received him politely and promised to examine +them, but one month passed after another without Hawthorne's hearing from +him, so that he concluded at length to make inquiries. [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, i. 124.] The publisher confessed that he had not even undertaken +to read them, and Nathaniel carried them back, with a sinking heart, to +his little chamber in the house on Herbert Street,--where he may have +had melancholy thoughts enough for the next few weeks. + +Youth, however, soon outgrows its chagrins. In less than two years +Hawthorne was prepared to enter the literary lists, equipped with a +novelette, called "Fanshawe"; but here again he was destined to meet +with a rebuff. After tendering it to a number of publishers without +encouragement, he concluded to take the risk of publishing it himself. +This only cost him a few hundred dollars, but the result was +unsatisfactory, and he afterward destroyed all the copies that he could +regain possession of. + +Hawthorne's genius was of slow development. He was only twenty-four +when he published this rather immature work, and it might have been +better if he had waited longer. It was to him what the "Sorrows of +Werther" was to Goethe, but while the "Sorrows of Werther" made Goethe +famous in many countries, "Fanshawe" fell still-born. The latter was +not more imitative of Scott than the "Sorrows of Werther" is of +Rousseau, and now that we consider it in the cool critical light of the +twentieth century, we cannot but wonder that the "Sorrows of Werther" +ever produced such enthusiasm. It is quite as difficult to see why +"Fanshawe" should not have proved a success. It lacks the grace and +dignity of Hawthorne's mature style, but it has an ingenious plot, a +lively action, and is written in sufficiently good English. One would +suppose that its faults would have helped to make it popular, for +portions of it are so exciting as to border closely on the sensational. +It may be affirmed that when a novel becomes so exciting that we wish +to turn over the pages and anticipate the conclusion, either the action +of the story is too heated or its incidents are too highly colored. The +introduction of pirates in a work of fiction is decidely sensational, +from Walter Scott downward, and, though Hawthorne never fell into this +error, he approaches closely to it in "Fanshawe." There is some dark +secret between the two villains of the piece, which he leaves to the +reader as an exercise for the imagination. This is a characteristic of +all his longer stories. There is an unknown quantity, an insoluble +point, in them, which tantalizes the reader. + +What we especially feel in "Fanshawe" is the author's lack of social +experience. His heroine at times behaves in a truly feminine manner, +and at others her performances make us shiver. Her leaving her +guardian's house at midnight to go off with an unknown man, whom her +maidenly instinct should have taught her to distrust, even if Fanshawe +had not warned her against him, might have been characteristic of the +Middle Ages, but is certainly not of modern life. Bowdoin College +evidently served Hawthorne as a background to his plot, although +removed some distance into the country, and it is likely that the +portrait of the kindly professor might have been recognized there. +Ward's Tavern serves for the public-house where the various characters +congregate, and there is a high rocky ledge in the woods, or what used +to be woods at Brunswick, where the students often tried their skill in +climbing, and which Hawthorne has idealized into the cliff where the +would-be abductor met his timely fate. The trout-brook where Bridge and +Hawthorne used to fish is also introduced. + +Fanshawe himself seems like a house of which only two sides have been +built. There are such persons, and it is no wonder if they prove to be +short-lived. Yet the scene in which he makes his noble renunciation of +the woman who is devoted to him, purely from a sense of gratitude, is +finely and tenderly drawn, and worthy of Hawthorne in his best years. +The story was republished after its author's death, and fully deserves +its position in his works. + +It was about this time (1827) that Nathaniel Hathorne changed his name +to Hawthorne. No reason has ever been assigned for his doing so, and he +had no legal right to do it without an act of the Legislature, but he +took a revolutionary right, and as his family and fellow-citizens +acquiesced in this, it became an established fact. His living relatives +in the Manning family are unable to explain his reason for it. It may +have been for the sake of euphony, or he may have had a fanciful +notion, that such a change would break the spell which seemed to be +dragging his family down with him. Conway's theory that it was intended +to serve him as an incognito is quite untenable. His name first appears +with a _w_ in the Bowdoin Triennial Catalogue of 1828. + +There are very few data existing as to Hawthorne's life during his +first ten years of manhood, but it must have been a hard, dreary period +for him. The Manning children, Robert, Elizabeth and Rebecca, were now +growing up, and must have been a source of entertainment in their way, +and his sister Louisa was always a comfort; but Horatio Bridge, who +made a number of flying visits to him, states that he never saw the +elder sister, even at table,--a fact from which we may draw our own +conclusions. Hawthorne had no friends at this time, except his college +associates, and they were all at a distance,--Pierce and Cilley both +flourishing young lawyers, one at Concord, New Hampshire, and the other +at Thomaston, Maine,--while Longfellow was teaching modern languages at +Bowdoin. He had no lady friends to brighten his evenings for him, and +if he went into society, it was only to be stared at for his personal +beauty, like a jaguar in a menagerie. He had no fund of the small +conversation which serves like oil to make the social machinery run +smoothly. Like all deep natures, he found it difficult to adapt himself +to minds of a different calibre. Salem people noticed this, and his +apparent lack of an object in life,--for he maintained a profound +secrecy in regard to his literary efforts,--and concluded that he was +an indolent young man without any faculty for business, and would never +come to good in this world. No doubt elderly females admonished him for +neglecting his opportunities, and small wits buzzed about him as they +have about many another under similar conditions. It was Hans +Andersen's story of the ugly duck that proved to be a swan. + +No wonder that Hawthorne betook himself to the solitude of his own +chamber, and consoled himself like the philosopher who said, "When I am +alone, then I am least alone." He had an internal life with which only +his most intimate friends were acquainted, and he could people his room +with forms from his own fancy, much more real to him than the palpable +_ignota_ whom he passed in the street. Beautiful visions came to +him, instead of sermonizing ladies, patronizing money-changers, +aggressive upstarts, grimacing wiseacres, and that large class of +amiable, well-meaning persons that makes up the bulk of society. We +should not be surprised if angels sometimes came to hover round him, +for to the pure in heart heaven descends upon earth. + +There is a passage in Hawthorne's diary under date of October 4, 1840, +which has often been quoted; but it will have to be quoted again, for +it cannot be read too often, and no biography of him would be adequate +without it. He says: + +"Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber where I used to sit in days +gone by....This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands +upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of +them have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a +biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber in my +memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here +my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and +hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat a long, long +time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes +wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know +me at all,--at least, till I were in my grave. And sometimes it seemed +as if I were already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled +and benumbed. But oftener I was happy,--at least as happy as I then +knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of being. By and by, +the world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called me forth,--not +indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather with a still, small +voice,--and forth I went, but found nothing in the world that I thought +preferable to my solitude till now ... and now I begin to understand +why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber, and why I +could never break through the viewless bolts and bars; for if I had +sooner made my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and +rough, and been covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have +become callous by rude encounters with the multitude.... But living in +solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of my +youth, and the freshness of my heart." + +During these dismal years Horatio Bridge was Hawthorne's good genius. +The letters that Hawthorne wrote to him have not been preserved, but we +may judge of their character by Bridge's replies to him--always frank, +manly, sympathetic and encouraging. Hawthorne evidently confided his +troubles and difficulties to Bridge, as he would to an elder brother. +Bridge finally destroyed Hawthorne's letters, not so much on account of +their complaining tone as for the personalities they contained; +[Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 69.] and this suggests to us that there was +still another side to Hawthorne's life at this epoch concerning which +we shall never be enlightened. A man could not have had a better friend +than Horatio Bridge. He was to Hawthorne what Edward Irving was to +Carlyle; and the world is more indebted to them both than it often +realizes. + +There is in fact a decided similarity between the lives of Carlyle and +Hawthorne, in spite of radical differences in their work and +characters. Both started at the foot of the ladder, and met with a +hard, long struggle for recognition; both found it equally difficult to +earn their living by their pens; both were assisted by most devoted +friends, and both finally achieved a reputation among the highest in +their own time. If there is sometimes a melancholy tinge in their +writings, may we wonder at it? Pericles said, "We need the theatre to +chase away the sadness of life," and it might have benefited the whole +Hawthorne family to have gone to the theatre once a fortnight; but +there were few entertainments in Salem, except of the stiff +conventional sort, or in the shape of public dances open to firemen and +shop-girls. Long afterward, Elizabeth Hawthorne wrote of her brother: + +"His habits were as regular as possible. In the evening after tea he +went out for about an hour, whatever the weather was; and in winter, +after his return, he ate a pint bowl of thick chocolate--(not cocoa, +but the old-fashioned chocolate) crumbed full of bread: eating never +hurt him then, and he liked good things. In summer he ate something +equivalent, finishing with fruit in the season of it. In the evening we +discussed political affairs, upon which we differed in opinion; he +being a Democrat, and I of the opposite party. In reality, his interest +in such things was so slight that I think nothing would have kept it +alive but my contentious spirit. Sometimes, when he had a book that he +particularly liked, he would not talk. He read a great many novels." +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 125.] + +If Elizabeth possessed the genius which her brother supposed, she +certainly does not indicate it in this letter; but genius in the ore is +very different from genius smelted and refined by effort and +experience. The one important fact in her statement is that Hawthorne +was in the habit of taking solitary rambles after dark,--an owlish +practice, but very attractive to romantic minds. Human nature appears +in a more pictorial guise by lamplight, after the day's work is over. +The groups at the street corners, the glittering display in the +watchmaker's windows, the carriages flashing by and disappearing in the +darkness, the mysterious errands of foot-passengers, all served as +object-lessons for this student of his own kind. + +Jonathan Cilley once said: + +"I love Hawthorne; I admire him; but I do not know him. He lives in a +mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never permits me +to enter." [Footnote: Packard's "Bowdoin College," 306.] + +Long-continued thinking is sure to take effect at last, either in words +or in action, and Hawthorne's mind had to disburden itself in some +manner. So, after the failure of "Fanshawe," he returned to his +original plan of writing short stories, and this time with success. In +January, 1830, the well-known tale of "The Gentle Boy" was accepted by +S. G. Goodrich, the editor of a Boston publication called the +_Token_, who was himself better known in those days under the +_nom de plume_ of "Peter Parley." "The Wives of the Dead," "Roger +Malvin's Burial," and "Major Molineaux" soon followed. In 1833 he +published the "Seven Vagabonds," and some others. The New York +_Knickerbocker_ published the "Fountain of Youth" and "Edward +Fayne's Rosebud." After 1833 the _Token_ and the _New England +Magazine_ [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 175.] stood ready to accept +all the short pieces that Hawthorne could give them, but they did not +encourage him to write serial stories. However, it was not the custom +then for writers to sign their names to magazine articles, so that +Hawthorne gained nothing in reputation by this. Some of his earliest +pieces were printed over the signature of "Oberon." + +An autumn expedition to the White Mountains, Lake Champlain and Lake +Ontario, and Niagara Falls, in 1832, raised Hawthorne's spirits and +stimulated his ambition. He wrote to his mother from Burlington, +Vermont, September 16: + +"I have arrived in safety, having passed through the White Hills, +stopping at Ethan Crawford's house, and climbing Mt. Washington. I have +not decided as to my future course. I have no intention of going into +Canada. I have heard that cholera is prevalent in Boston." + +It was something to have stood on the highest summit east of the Rocky +Mountains, and to have seen all New England lying at his feet. A hard +wind in the Crawford Notch, which he describes in his story of "The +Ambitious Guest," must have been in his own experience, and as he +passed the monument of the ill-fated Willey family he may have thought +that he too might become celebrated after his death, even as they were +from their poetic catastrophe. This expedition provided him with the +materials for a number of small plots. + +The ice was now broken; but a new class of difficulties arose before +him. American literature was then in the bud and promised a beautiful +blossoming, but the public was not prepared for it. Monthly magazines +had a precarious existence, and their uncertainty of remuneration +reacted on the contributors. Hawthorne was poorly paid, often obliged +to wait a long time for his pay, and occasionally lost it altogether. +For his story of "The Gentle Boy," one of the gems of literature, which +ought to be read aloud every year in the public schools, he received +the paltry sum of thirty-five dollars. Evidently he could not earn even +a modest maintenance on such terms, and his letters to Bridge became +more despondent than ever. + +Goodrich, who was a writer of the Andrews Norton class, soon perceived +that Hawthorne could make better sentences than his own, and engaged +him to write historical abstracts for his pitiful Peter Parley books, +paying him a hundred dollars for the whole work, and securing for +himself all the credit that appertained to it. Everybody knew who Peter +Parley was, but it has only recently been discovered that much of the +literature which passed under his name was the work of Nathaniel +Hawthorne. + +The editor of a New York magazine to which Hawthorne contributed a +number of sketches repeatedly deferred the payment for them, and +finally confessed his inability to make it,--which he probably knew or +intended beforehand. Then, with true metropolitan assurance, he begged +of Hawthorne the use of certain unpublished manuscripts, which he still +had in his possession. Hawthorne with unlimited contempt told the +fellow that he might keep them, and then wrote to Bridge: + +"Thus has this man, who would be considered a Mæcenas, taken from a +penniless writer material incomparably better than any his own brain +can supply." [Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 68, 69.] + +Whether this New York periodical was the _Knickerbocker_ or some +other, we are not informed; neither do we know what Bridge replied to +Hawthorne, who had closed his letter with a malediction, on the +aforesaid editor, but elsewhere in his memoirs he remarks: + +"Hawthorne received but small compensation for any of this literary +work, for he lacked the knowledge of business and the self-assertion +necessary to obtain even the moderate remuneration vouchsafed to +writers fifty years ago." [Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 77.] + +If Horatio Bridge had been an author himself, he would not have written +this statement concerning his friend. Magazine editors are like men in +other professions: some of them are honorable and others are less so; +but an author who offers a manuscript to the editor of a magazine is +wholly at his mercy, so far as that small piece of property is +concerned. The author cannot make a bargain with the editor as he can +with the publisher of his book, and is obliged to accept whatever the +latter chooses to give him. Instances have been known where an editor +has destroyed a valuable manuscript, without compensation or +explanation of any kind. Hawthorne was doing the best that a human +being could under the conditions that were given him. Above all things, +he was true to himself; no man could be more so. + +Yet Bridge wrote to him on Christmas Day, 1836: + +"The bane of your life has been self-distrust. This has kept you back +for many years; which, if you had improved by publishing, would long +ago have given you what you must now wait a long time for. It may be +for the best, but I doubt it." + +Nothing is more trying in misfortune than the ill-judged advice of +well-meaning friends. There is no nettle that stings like it. To expect +Hawthorne to become a literary genius, and at the same time to develop +the peculiar faculties of a commercial traveller or a curb-stone +broker, was unreasonable. In the phraseology of Sir William Hamilton, +the two vocations are "non-compossible." Bridge himself was undertaking +a grandly unpractical project about this time: nothing less than an +attempt to dam the Androscoggin, a river liable to devastating floods; +and in this enterprise he was obliged to trust to a class of men who +were much more uncertain in their ways and methods than those with whom +Hawthorne dealt. Horatio Bridge had not studied civil engineering, and +the result was that before two years had elapsed the floods on the +Androscoggin swept the dam away, and his fortune with it. + +In the same letter we also notice this paragraph concerning another +Bowdoin friend: + +"And so Frank Pierce is elected Senator. There is an instance of what a +man can do by trying. With no very remarkable talents, he at the age of +thirty-four fills one of the highest stations in the nation. He is a +good fellow, and I rejoice at his success." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. +148.] + +Pierce certainly possessed the cap of Fortunatus, and it seems as if +there must have been some magic faculty in the man, which enabled him +to win high positions so easily; and he continued to do this, although +he had not distinguished himself particularly as a member of Congress, +and he appeared to still less advantage among the great party leaders +in the United States Senate. He illustrated the faculty for "getting +elected." + +In October, 1836, the time arrived for settling the matrimonial wager +between Hawthorne and Jonathan Cilley, which they had made at college +twelve years before. Bridge accordingly examined the documents which +they had deposited with him, and notified Cilley that he was under +obligation to provide Hawthorne with an octavo of Madeira. + +Cilley's letter to Hawthorne on this occasion does not impress one +favorably. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 144.] It is familiar and jocose, +without being either witty or friendly, and he gives no intimation in +it of an intention to fulfil his promise. Hawthorne appears to have +sent the letter to Bridge, who replied: + +"I doubt whether you ever get your wine from Cilley. His inquiring of +you whether he had really lost the bet is suspicious; and he has +written me in a manner inconsistent with an intention of paying +promptly; and if a bet grows old it grows cold. He wished me to propose +to you to have it paid at Brunswick next Commencement, and to have as +many of our classmates as could be mustered to drink it. It may be +Cilley's idea to pay over the balance after taking a strong pull at it; +if so, it is well enough. But still it should be tendered within the +month." + +In short, Cilley behaved in this matter much in the style of a tricky +Van Buren politician, making a great bluster of words, and privately +intending to do nothing. He was running for Congress at the time on the +Van Buren ticket, and it is quite likely that the expenses of the +campaign had exhausted his funds. That he should never have paid the +bet was less to Hawthorne's disadvantage than his own. + +It was now that Horatio Bridge proved himself a true friend, and +equally a man. In the spring of 1836 Goodrich had obtained for +Hawthorne the editorship of the _American Magazine of Useful and +Entertaining Knowledge_, with a salary of five hundred dollars; +[Footnote: Conway, 45.]but he soon discovered that he had embarked on a +ship with a rotten hulk. He started off heroically, writing the whole +of the first number with the help of his sister Elizabeth; but by +midsummer the concern was bankrupt, and he retired to his lonely cell, +more gloomy and despondent than before. There are few sadder spectacles +then that of a man seeking work without being able to obtain it; and +this applies to the man of genius as well as to the day laborer. + +Horatio Bridge now realized that the time had come for him to +interfere. He recognized that Hawthorne was gradually lapsing into a +hypochondria that might terminate fatally; that he was Goethe's oak +planted in a flowerpot, and that unless the flower-pot could be broken, +the oak would die. He also saw that Hawthorne would never receive the +public recognition that was due to his ability, so long as he published +magazine articles under an assumed name. He accordingly wrote to +Goodrich--fortunately before his mill-dam gave way--suggesting the +publication of a volume of Hawthorne's stories, and offered to +guarantee the publisher against loss. This proposition was readily +accepted, but Bridge might have made a much better bargain. What it +amounted to was, the half-profit system without the half-profit. The +necessary papers were exchanged and Hawthorne gladly acceded to +Goodrich's terms. Bridge, however, had cautioned Goodrich not to inform +Hawthorne of his share in the enterprise, and the consequence of this +was that he shortly received a letter from Hawthorne, informing him of +the good news--which he knew already--and praising Goodrich, to whom he +proposed to dedicate his new volume. Bridge's generosity had come back +to him, dried and salted,--as it has to many another. + +What could Bridge do, in the premises? Goodrich had written to +Hawthorne that the publisher, Mr. Howes, was confident of making a +favorable arrangement _with a man of capital who would edit the +book_; but Bridge did not know this, and he suspected Goodrich of +sailing into Hawthorne's favor under a false flag. He therefore wrote +to Hawthorne, November 17, 1836: + +"I fear you will hurt yourself by puffing Goodrich +_undeservedly_,--for there is no doubt in my mind of his +selfishness in regard to your work and yourself. I am perfectly aware +that he has taken a good deal of interest in you, but when did he ever +do anything for you without a _quid pro quo_? The magazine was +given to you for $100 less than it should have been. The _Token_ +was saved by your writing. Unless you are already committed, do not mar +the prospects of your _first_ book by hoisting Goodrich into +favor." + +This prevented the dedication, for which Hawthorne was afterward +thankful enough. The book, which was the first volume of "Twice Told +Tales" came from the press the following spring, and proved an +immediate success, although not a highly lucrative one for its author. +With the help of Longfellow's cordial review of it in the <b>North +American</b> it established Hawthorne's reputation on a firm and +irrefragable basis. All honor to Horatio. + +As if Hawthorne had not seen a sufficiently long "winter of discontent" +already, his friends now proposed to obtain the position of secretary +and chronicler for him on Commodore Jones's exploring expedition to the +South Pole! Franklin Pierce was the first to think of this, but Bridge +interceded with Cilley to give it his support, and there can be no +doubt that they would have succeeded in obtaining the position for +Hawthorne, but the expedition itself failed, for lack of a +Congressional appropriation. The following year, 1838, the project was +again brought forward by the administration, and Congress being in a +more amiable frame of mind granted the requisite funds; but Hawthorne +had now contracted new ties in his native city, bound, as it were, by +an inseparable cord stronger than a Manila hawser, and Doctor Nathaniel +Peabody's hospitable parlors were more attractive to him than anything +the Antarctic regions could offer. + +We have now entered upon the period where Hawthorne's own diary +commences, the autobiography of a pure-minded, closely observing man; +an invaluable record, which began apparently in 1835, and was continued +nearly until the close of his life; now published in a succession of +American, English and Italian note-books. In it we find records of what +he saw and thought; descriptive passages, afterward made serviceable in +his works of fiction, and perhaps written with that object in view; +fanciful notions, jotted down on the impulse of the moment; records of +his social life; but little critical writing or personal confessions,-- +although the latter may have been reserved; from publication by his +different editors. It is known that much of his diary has not yet been +given to the public, and perhaps never will be. + +In July, 1837, Hawthorne went to Augusta, to spend a month with his +friend Horatio Bridge; went fishing with him, for what they called +white perch, probably the saibling; [Footnote: The American saibling, +or golden trout, is only indigenous to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, and +to a small lake near Augusta.] and was greatly entertained with the +peculiarities of an idiomatic Frenchman, an itinerant teacher of that +language, whom Bridge, in the kindness of his heart, had taken into his +own house. The last of July, Cilley also made his appearance, but did +not bring the Madeira with him, and Hawthorne has left this rather +critical portrait of him in his diary: + +"Friday, July 28th.--Saw my classmate and formerly intimate friend, ----, +for the first time since we graduated. He has met with good success +in life, in spite of circumstances, having struggled upward against +bitter opposition, by the force of his abilities, to be a member of +Congress, after having been for some time the leader of his party in +the State Legislature. We met like old friends, and conversed almost as +freely as we used to do in college days, twelve years ago and more. He +is a singular person, shrewd, crafty, insinuating, with wonderful tact, +seizing on each man by his manageable point, and using him for his own +purpose, often without the man's suspecting that he is made a tool of; +and yet, artificial as his character would seem to be, his +conversation, at least to myself, was full of natural feeling, the +expression of which can hardly be mistaken, and his revelations with +regard to himself had really a great deal of frankness. A man of the +most open nature might well have been more reserved to a friend, after +twelve years separation, than ---- was to me. Nevertheless, he is +really a crafty man, concealing, like a murder-secret, anything that it +is not good for him to have known. He by no means feigns the good +feeling that he professes, nor is there anything affected in the +frankness of his conversation; and it is this that makes him so +fascinating. There is such a quantity of truth and kindliness and warm +affections, that a man's heart opens to him, in spite of himself. He +deceives by truth. And not only is he crafty, but, when occasion +demands, bold and fierce like a tiger, determined, and even +straightforward and undisguised in his measures,--a daring fellow as +well as a sly one." + +This can be no other than Jonathan Cilley; like many of his class, a +man of great good humor but not over-scrupulous, so far as the means he +might make use of were concerned. He did not, however, prove to be as +skilful a diplomat as Hawthorne seems to have supposed him. The duel +between Cilley and Graves, of Kentucky, has been so variously +misrepresented that the present occasion would seem a fitting +opportunity to tell the plain truth concerning it. + +President Jackson was an honest man, in the customary sense of the +term, and he would have scorned to take a dollar that was not his own; +but he suffered greatly from parasites, who pilfered the nation's +money,--the natural consequence of the spoils-of-office system. The +exposure of these peculations gave the Whigs a decided advantage, and +Cilley, who had quickly proved his ability in debate, attempted to set +a back-fire by accusing Watson Webb, the editor of the _Courier and +Enquirer_, of having been bribed to change the politics of his +paper. The true facts of the case were, that the paper had been +purchased by the Whigs, and Webb, of course, had a right to change his +politics if he chose to; and the net result of Cilley's attack was a +challenge to mortal combat, carried by Representative Graves, of +Kentucky. Cilley, although a man of courage, declined this, on the +ground that members of Congress ought not to be called to account +outside of the Capitol, for words spoken in debate. "Then," said +Graves, "you will at least admit that my friend is a gentleman." + +This was a fair offer toward conciliation, and if Cilley had been +peaceably inclined he would certainly have accepted it; but he +obstinately refused to acknowledge that General Webb was a gentleman, +and in consequence of this he received a second challenge the next day +from Graves, brought by Henry A. Wise, afterward Governor of Virginia. +Cilley still objected to fighting, but members of his party urged him +into it: the duel took place, and Cilley was killed. + +It may be said in favor of the "code of honor" that it discourages +blackguardism and instructs a man to keep a civil tongue; but it is not +always possible to prevent outbursts of temper, especially in hot +climates, and a man's wife and children should also be considered. +Andrew Jackson said at the close of his life, that there was nothing he +regretted so much as having killed a human being in a duel. Man rises +by humility, and angels fall from pride. + +Hawthorne wrote a kindly and regretful notice of the death of his old +acquaintance, which was published in the _Democratic Review_, and +which closed with this significant passage: + +"Alas, that over the grave of a dear friend, my sorrow for the +bereavement must be mingled with another grief--that he threw away such +a life in so miserable a cause! Why, as he was true to the Northern +character in all things else, did he swerve from his Northern +principles in this final scene?" [Footnote: Conway, 63.] + +It will be well to bear this in mind in connection with a somewhat +similar incident, which we have now to consider. + +An anecdote has been repeated in all the books about Hawthorne +published since 1880, which would do him little credit if it could be +proved,--a story that he challenged one of his friends to a duel, at +the instigation of a vulgar and unprincipled young woman. Horatio +Bridge says in reference to it: + +"This characteristic was notably displayed several years later, when a +lady incited him to quarrel with one of his best friends on account of +a groundless pique of hers. He went to Washington for the purpose of +challenging the gentleman, and it was only after ample explanation had +been made, showing that his friend had behaved with entire honor, that +Pierce and Cilley, who were his advisers, could persuade him to be +satisfied without a fight." [Footnote: Bridge, 5.] + +How the good Horatio could have fallen into this pit is unimaginable, +for a double contradiction is contained in his statement. "Some time +after this," that is after leaving college, would give the impression +that the affair took place about 1830, whereas Pierce and Cilley were +not in Washington together till five or six years later--probably seven +years later. Moreover, Hawthorne states in a letter to Pierce's friend +O'Sullivan, on April 1, 1853, that he had never been in Washington up +to that time. The Manning family and Mrs. Hawthorne's relatives never +heard of the story previous to its publication. + +The internal evidence is equally strong against it. What New England +girl would behave in the manner that Hawthorne's son represents this +one to have done? What young gentleman would have listened to such a +communication as he supposes, and especially the reserved and modest +Hawthorne? One can even imagine the aspect of horror on his face at +such an unlady-like proceeding. The story would be an ignominious one +for Hawthorne, if it were credible, but there is no occasion for our +believing it until some tangible evidence is adduced in its support. +There was no element of Quixotism in his composition, and it is quite +as impossible to locate the identity of the person whom Hawthorne is +supposed to have challenged. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +EOS AND EROS: 1835-1839 + + +It was fortunate for Hawthorne that there was at this time a periodical +in the United States, the _North American Review_, which was +generally looked upon as an authority in literature, and which in most +instances deserved the confidence that was placed in it, for its +reviews were written by men of distinguished ability. It was the +_North American Review_ which made the reputation of L. Maria +Child, and which enrolled Hawthorne in the order of geniuses. + +There is not much literary criticism in Longfellow's review, and he +does not "rise to the level of the accomplished essayist" of our own +time, [Footnote: Who writes so correctly and says so little to the +purpose.] but he goes to the main point with the single-mindness of the +true poet. "A new star," he says, "has appeared in the skies"--a +veritable prediction. "Others will gaze at it with telescopes, and +decide whether it is in the constellation of Orion or the Great Bear. +It is enough for us to gaze at it, to admire it, and welcome it." + +"Although Hawthorne writes in prose, he belongs among the poets. To +every subject he touches he gives a poetic personality which emanates +from the man himself. His sympathies extend to all things living, and +even to the inanimates. Another characteristic is the exceeding beauty +of his style. It is as clear as running waters are. Indeed he uses +words as mere stepping-stones, upon which, with a free and youthful +bound, his spirit crosses and re-crosses the bright and rushing stream +of thought." + +Again he says: + +"A calm, thoughtful face seems to be looking at you from every page; +with now a pleasant smile, and now a shade of sadness stealing over its +features. Sometimes, though not often, it glares wildly at you, with a +strange and painful expression, as, in the German romance, the bronze +knocker of the Archivarius Lindhorst makes up faces at the Student +Anselmus." + +Here we have a portrait of Hawthorne, by one who knew him, in a few +simple words; and behind a calm thoughtful face there is that +mysterious unknown quantity which puzzles Longfellow here, and always +perplexed Hawthorne's friends. It may have been the nucleus or tap-root +of his genius. + +Longfellow seems to have felt it as a dividing line between them. He +probably felt so at college; and this brings us back to an old subject. +Hawthorne's superiority to Longfellow as an artist consisted +essentially in this, that he was never an optimist. Puritanism looked +upon human nature with a hostile eye, and was inclined to see evil in +it where none existed; and Doctor Channing, who inaugurated the great +moral movement which swept Puritanism away in this country, tended, as +all reformers do, to the opposite extreme,--to that scepticism of evil +which, as George Brandes says, is greatly to the advantage of +hypocrites and sharpers. This was justifiable in Doctor Channing, but +among his followers it has often degenerated into an inverted or +homoeopathic kind of Puritanism,--a habit of excusing the faults of +others, or of themselves, on the score of good intentions--a habit of +self-justification, and even to the perverse belief that, as everything +is for the best, whatever we do in this world must be for good. To this +class of sentimentalists the most serious evil is truth-seeing and +truth-speaking. It is an excellent plan to look upon the bright side of +things, but one should not do this to the extent of blinding oneself to +facts. Doctor Johnson once said to Boswell, "Beware, my friend, of +mixing up virtue and vice;" but there is something worse than that, and +it is, to stigmatize a writer as a pessimist or a hypochondriac for +refusing to take rainbow-colored views. This, however, would never +apply to Longfellow. + +Hawthorne, with his eye ever on the mark, pursued a middle course. He +separated himself from the Puritans without joining their opponents, +and thus attained the most independent stand-point of any American +writer of his time; and if this alienated him from the various +humanitarian movements that were going forward, it was nevertheless a +decided advantage for the work he was intended to do. In this respect +he resembled Scott, Thackeray and George Eliot. + +What we call evil or sin is merely the negative of civilization,--a +tendency to return to the original savage condition. In the light of +history, there is always progress or improvement, but in individual +cases there is often the reverse, and so far as the individual is +concerned evil is no imaginary metaphor, but as real and absolute as +what we call good. The Bulgarian massacres of 1877 were a historical +necessity, and we console ourselves in thinking of them by the fact +that they may have assisted the Bulgarians in obtaining their +independence; but this was no consolation to the twenty or thirty +thousand human beings who were ground to powder there. To them there +was no comfort, no hope,--only the terrible reality. Neither can we +cast the responsibility of such events on the mysterious ways of +Providence. The ways of Providence are not so mysterious to those who +have eyes to read with. Take for instance one of the most notable cases +of depravity, that of Nero. If we consider the conditions under which +he was born and brought up, the necessity of that form of government to +hold a vast empire together, and the course of history for a hundred +years previous, it is not difficult to trace the genesis of Nero's +crimes to the greed of the Roman people (especially of its merchants) +for conquest and plunder; and Nero was the price which they were +finally called on to pay for this. Marcus Aurelius, a noble nature +reared under favorable conditions for its development, became the +Washington of his time. + +It is the same in private life. In many families there are evil +tendencies, which if they are permitted to increase will take permanent +hold, like a bad demon, of some weak individual, and make of him a +terror and a torment to his relatives--fortunate if he is not in a +position of authority. He may serve as a warning to the general public, +but in the domestic circle he is an unmitigated evil,--he or she, +though it is not so likely to be a woman. When a crime is committed +within the precincts of good society, we are greatly shocked; but we do +not often notice the debasement of character which leads down to it, +and still more rarely notice the instances in which fear or some other +motive arrests demoralization before the final step, and leaves the +delinquent as it were in a condition of moral suspense. + +It was in such tragic situations that Hawthorne found the material +which was best suited to the bent of his genius. + +In the two volumes, however, of "Twice Told Tales,"--the second +published two years later,--the tragical element only appears as an +undercurrent of pathos in such stories as "The Gentle Boy," +"Wakefield," "The Maypole of Merry-mount," and "The Haunted Mind," but +reaches a climax in "The Ambitious Guest" and "Lady Eleanor's Mantle." +There are others, like "Lights from a Steeple," and "Little Annie's +Ramble," that are of a more cheerful cast, but are also much less +serious in their composition. "The Minister's Black Veil," "The Great +Carbuncle," and "The Ambitious Guest," are Dantean allegories. We +notice that each volume begins with a highly patriotic tale, the "Gray +Champion," and "Howe's Masquerade," but the patriotism is genuine and +almost fervid. + +When I first looked upon the house in which Hawthorne lived at Sebago, +I was immediately reminded of these earlier studies in human nature, +which are of so simple and quiet a diction, so wholly devoid of +rhetoric, that Elizabeth Peabody thought they must be the work of his +sister, and others supposed them to have been written by a Quaker. They +resemble Dürer's wood-cuts,--gentle and tender in line, but unswerving +in their fidelity. We sometimes wish that they were not so quiet and +evenly composed, and then repent of our wish that anything so perfect +should be different from what it is. His "Twice Told Tales" are a +picture-gallery that may be owned in any house-hold. They stand alone +in English, and there is not their like in any other language. + +Yet Hawthorne is not a word-painter like Browning and Carlyle, but +obtains his pictorial effect by simple accuracy of description, a more +difficult process than the other, but also more satisfactory. His eyes +penetrate the masks and wrappings which cover human nature, as the +Röntgen rays penetrate the human body. He sees a man's heart through +the flesh and bones, and knows what is concealed in it. He ascends a +church-steeple, and looking down from the belfry the whole life of the +town is spread out before him. Men and women come and go--Hawthorne +knows the errands they are on. He sees a militia company parading +below, and they remind him from that elevation of the toy soldiers in a +shop-window,--which they turned out to be, pretty much, at Bull Run. A +fashionable young man comes along the street escorting two young +ladies, and suddenly at a crossing encounters their father, who takes +them away from him; but one of them gives him a sweet parting look, +which amply compensates him in its presage of future opportunities. How +plainly that consolatory look appears between our eyes and the printed +page! Then Hawthorne describes the grand march of a thunder-storm,--as +in Rembrandt's "Three Trees,"--with its rolling masses of dark vapor, +preceded by a skirmish-line of white feathery clouds. The militia +company is defeated at the first onset of this, its meteoric enemy, and +driven under cover. The artillery of the skies booms and flashes about +Hawthorne himself, until finally: "A little speck of azure has widened +in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage and go rejoicing +through the tempest, and on yonder darkest cloud, born like hallowed +hopes of the glory of another world and the trouble and tears of this, +brightens forth the rainbow." All this may have happened just as it is +set down. + +"Lady Eleanor's Mantle" exemplifies the old proverb, "Pride goeth +before destruction," in almost too severe a manner, but the tale is +said to have a legendary foundation; and "The Minister's Black Veil" is +an equally awful symbolism for that barrier between man and man, which +we construct through suspicion and our lack of frankness in our +dealings with one another. We all hide ourselves behind veils, and, as +Emerson says, "Man crouches and blushes, absconds and conceals." + +"The Ambitious Guest" allegorizes a vain imagination, and is the most +important of these three. A young man suffers from a craving for +distinction, which he believes will only come to him after this life is +ended. He is walking through the White Mountains, and stops overnight +at the house of the ill-fated Willey family. He talks freely on the +subject of his vain expectations, when Destiny, in the shape of an +avalanche, suddenly overtakes him, and buries him so deeply that +neither his body nor his name has ever been recovered. Hawthorne might +have drawn another allegory from the same source, for if the Willey +family had trusted to Providence, and remained in their house, instead +of rushing out into the dark, they would not have lost their lives. + +In the _Democratic Review_ for 1834, Hawthorne published the +account of a visit to Niagara Falls, one of the fruits of his +expedition thither in September, 1832, by way of the White Mountains +and Burlington, the journey from Salem to Niagara in those days being +fully equal to going from New York to the cataracts of the Nile in our +own time. "The Ambitious Guest" was published in the same volume with +it, and "The Ontario Steamboat" first appeared in the _American +Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge_, in 1836. Hawthorne +may have made other expeditions to the White Mountains, but we do not +hear of them. + +In addition to the three studies already mentioned, Hawthorne drew from +this source the two finest of his allegories, "The Great Carbuncle" and +"The Great Stone Face." + +"The Great Carbuncle" is not only one of the most beautiful of +Hawthorne's tales, but the most far-reaching in its significance. The +idea of it must have originated in the Alpine glow, an effect of the +rising or setting sun on the icy peaks of a mountain, which looks at a +distance like a burning coal; an appearance only visible in the White +Mountains during the winter, and there is no reason why Hawthorne +should not have seen it at that season from Lake Sebago. At a distance +of twenty miles or more it blazes wonderfully, but on a nearer approach +it entirely disappears. Hawthorne could not have found a more +fascinating subject, and he imagines it for us as a great carbuncle +located in the upper recesses of the mountains. + +A number of explorers for this wonderful gem meet together at the foot +of the mountain beyond the confines of civilization, and build a hut in +which to pass the night. They are recognizable, from Hawthorne's +description, as the man of one idea, who has spent his whole life +seeking the gem; a scientific experimenter who wishes to grind it up +for the benefit of his crucible; a cynical sceptic who has come to +disprove the existence of the great gem; a greedy speculator who seeks +the carbuncle as he would prospect for a silver-mine; an English lord +who wishes to add it to his hereditary possessions; and finally a young +married couple who want to obtain it for an ornament to their new +cottage. The interest of the reader immediately centres on these last +two, and we care much more concerning their fortunes and adventures +than we do about the carbuncle. + +The conversation that evening between these ill-assorted companions is +in Hawthorne's most subtle vein of irony, and would have delighted old +Socrates himself. Meanwhile the young bride weaves a screen of twigs +and leaves, to protect herself and her husband from the gaze of the +curious. + +The following morning they all set out by different paths in search of +the carbuncle; but our thoughts accompany the steps of the young bride, +as she makes one toilsome ascent after another until she feels ready to +sink to the ground with fatigue and discouragement. They have already +decided to return, when the rosy light of the carbuncle bursts upon +them from beneath the lifting clouds; but they now feel instinctively +that it is too great a prize for their possession. The man of one idea +also sees it, and his life goes out in the exultation over his final +success. The skeptic appears, but cannot discover it, although his face +is illumined by its light, until he takes off his large spectacles; +whereupon, he instantly becomes blind. The English nobleman and the +American speculator fail to discover it; the former returns to his +ancestral halls, as wise as he was before; and the latter is captured +by a party of Indians and obliged to pay a heavy ransom to regain +freedom. The scientific pedant finds a rare specimen of primeval +granite, which serves his purpose quite as well as the carbuncle; and +the two young doves return to their cot, having learned the lesson of +contentment. + +How fortunate was Hawthorne at the age of thirty thus to anatomize the +chief illusions of life, which so many others follow until old age! + +It is an erroneous notion that Hawthorne found the chief material for +his work in old New England traditions. There are some half-dozen +sketches of this sort, but they are more formally written than the +others, and remind one of those portraits by Titian which were painted +from other portraits,--better than the originals, but not equal to +those which he painted from Nature. + +In the "Sights from a Steeple" Hawthorne exposes his methods of study +and betrays the active principle of his existence. He says: + +"The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized +Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their +deeds, searching into their hearths, borrowing brightness from their +felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar +to himself." + +There are those who would dislike this busybody occupation, and others, +such as Emerson perhaps, might not consider it justifiable; but +Hawthorne is not to be censured for it, for his motive was an elevated +one, and without this close scrutiny of human nature we should have had +neither a Hawthorne nor a Shakespeare. There is no quality more +conspicuous in "Twice Told Tales" than the calm, evenly balanced mental +condition of the author, who seems to look down on human life not so +much from a church steeple as from the blue firmament itself. + +Such was the _Eos_ or dawn of Hawthorne's literary art. + +Hawthorne returned thanks to Longfellow in a gracefully humorous +letter, to which Longfellow replied with a cordial wish to see +Hawthorne in Cambridge, and by advising him to dive into deeper water +and write a history of the Acadians before and after their expulsion +from Nova Scotia; but this was not practicable for minds like +Hawthorne's, surcharged with poetic images, and the attempt might have +proved a disturbing influence for him. He had already contributed the +substance to Longfellow of "Evangeline," and he now wrote a eulogium on +the poem for a Salem newspaper, which it must be confessed did not +differ essentially from other reviews of the same order. He does not +give us any clear idea of how the poem actually impressed him, which is +after all the best that one can do in such cases. Poetry is not like a +problem in mathematics, which can be marked right or wrong according to +its solution. + +When a young man obtains a substantial footing in his profession or +business, he looks about him for a wife--unless he happens to be +already pledged in that particular; and Hawthorne was not an exception +to this rule. He was not obliged to look very far, and yet the chance +came to him in such an exceptional manner that it seems as if some +special providence were connected with it. His position in this respect +was a peculiar one. He does not appear to have been much acquainted in +Salem even now; and the only son of a widow with two unmarried sisters +may be said to have rather a slim chance for escaping from those strong +ties which have grown up between them from childhood. Many a mother has +prevented her son from getting married until it has become too late for +him to change his bachelor habits. His mother and his sisters realize +that he ought to be married, and that he has a right to a home of his +own; but in their heart of hearts they combat the idea, and their +opposition takes the form of an unsparing criticism of any young lady +whom he follows with his eyes. This frequently happens also in a family +of girls: they all remain unmarried because, if one of them shows an +inclination in that direction, the others unite in a conspiracy against +her. On the other hand, a family of four or five boys will marry early, +if they can obtain the means of doing so, simply from the need of +feminine cheer and sympathy. A devoted female friend will sometimes +prevent a young woman from being married. Love affairs are soft earth +for an intriguing and unprincipled woman to work in, but, fortunately, +Mrs. Hawthorne did not belong in that category. + +It was stout, large-hearted Elizabeth Peabody who broke the spell of +the enchanted castle in which Hawthorne was confined. The Peabodys were +a cultivated family in Salem, who lived pretty much by themselves, as +the Hawthornes and Mannings did. Doctor Nathaniel Peabody was a +respectable practitioner, but he had not succeeded in curing the +headaches of his daughter Sophia, which came upon her at the close of +her girlhood and still continued intermittently until this time. The +Graces had not been bountiful the Peabody family, so, to compensate for +this, they all cultivated the Muses, in whose society they ascended no +little distance on the way to Parnassus. Elizabeth Peabody was quite a +feminine pundit. She learned French and German, and studied history and +archaeology; she taught history on a large scale at Sanborn's Concord +School and at many others; she had a method of painting dates on +squares, which fixed them indelibly in the minds of her pupils; she +talked at Margaret Fuller's transcendental club, and was an active +member of the Radical or Chestnut Street Club, thirty years later; but +her chief distinction was the introduction of Froebel's Kindergarten +teaching, by which she well-nigh revolutionized primary instruction in +America. She was a most self-forgetful person, and her scholars became +devotedly attached to her. + +Her sister Mary was as much like Elizabeth mentally as she differed +from her in figure and general appearance, but soon after this she was +married to Horace Mann and her public activity became merged in that of +her husband, who was the first educator of his time. Sophia Peabody +read poetry and other fine writings, and acquired a fair proficiency in +drawing and painting. They lived what was then called the "higher +life," and it certainly led them to excellent results. + +Shortly before the publication of "Twice Told Tales," Elizabeth Peabody +learned that the author of "The Gentle Boy," and other stories which +she had enjoyed in the _Token_, lived in Salem, and that the name +was Hawthorne. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were +the work of Miss Elizabeth Hawthorne, whom she had known somewhat in +earlier days, and she concluded to call upon her and offer her +congratulations. When informed by Louisa Hawthorne, who came to her in +the parlor, instead of the elder sister, that "The Gentle Boy" was +written by Nathaniel, Miss Peabody made the significant remark, "If +your brother can do work like that, he has no right to be idle" +[Footnote: Lathrop, 168. Miss Peabody would seem to have narrated this +to him.]--to which Miss Louisa retorted, it is to be hoped with some +indignation, that her brother never was idle. + +It is only too evident from this that public opinion in Salem had +already decided that Hawthorne was an idle fellow, who was living on +his female relatives. That is the way the world judges--from external +facts without any consideration of internal causes or conditions. It +gratifies the vanity of those who are fortunate and prosperous, to +believe that all men have an equal chance in the race of life. Emerson +once blamed two young men for idleness, who were struggling against +obstacles such as he could have had no conception of. Those who have +been fortunate from the cradle never learn what life is really like. + +The spell, however, was broken and the friendliness of Elizabeth +Peabody found a deeply sympathetic response in the Hawthorne household. +Nathaniel at last found a person who expressed a genuine and heartfelt +appreciation of his work, and it was like the return of the sun to the +Arctic explorer after his long winter night. Rather to Miss Peabody's +surprise he and his sisters soon returned her call, and visits between +the two families thereafter became frequent. + +Sophia Peabody belonged to the class of young women for whom +Shakespeare's Ophelia serves as a typical example. She was gentle, +affectionate, refined, and amiable to a fault,--much too tender-hearted +for this rough world, if her sister Elizabeth had not always stood like +a barrier between her and it. + +How Hawthorne might have acted in Hamlet's place it is useless to +surmise, but in his true nature he was quite the opposite of Hamlet,-- +slow and cautious, but driven onward by an inexorable will. If Hamlet +had possessed half of Hawthorne's determination, he might have broken +through the network of evil conditions which surrounded him, and lived +to make Ophelia a happy woman. It was only necessary to come into +Hawthorne's presence in order to recognize the force that was in him. + +Sophia Amelia Peabody was born September 21, 1811, so that at the time +of which we are now writing she was twenty-five years of age. Hawthorne +was then thirty-two, when a man is more attractive to the fair sex than +at any other time of life, for then he unites the freshness and vigor +of youth with sufficient maturity of judgment to inspire confidence and +trust. Yet her sister Elizabeth found it difficult to persuade her to +come into the parlor and meet the handsomest man in Salem. When she did +come she evidently attracted Nathaniel Hawthorne's attention, for, +although she said little, he looked at her repeatedly while conversing +with her sister. It may not have been an instance of love at first +sight,--which may happen to any young man at a dancing party, and be +forgotten two days later,--but it was something more than a casual +interest. On his second or third call she showed him a sketch she had +made of "the gentle boy," according to her idea of him, and the subdued +tone with which he received it plainly indicated that he was already +somewhat under her influence. Julian Hawthorne writes of this: +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 179.] + +"It may be remarked here, that Mrs. Hawthorne in telling her children, +many years afterwards, of these first meetings with their father, used +to say that his presence, from the very beginning, exercised so strong +a magnetic attraction upon her, that instinctively, and in self-defence +as it were, she drew back and repelled him. The power which she felt in +him alarmed her; she did not understand what it meant, and was only +able to feel that she must resist." + +Every true woman feels this reluctance at first toward a suitor for her +hand, but a sensitive young lady might well have a sense of awe on +finding that she had attracted to herself such a mundane force as +Hawthorne, and it is no wonder that this first impression was +recollected throughout her life. There are many who would have refused +Hawthorne's suit, because they felt that he was too great and strong +for them, and it is to the honor of Sophia Peabody that she was not +only attracted by the magnetism of Hawthorne, but finally had the +courage to unite herself to such an enigmatical person. + +We also obtain a glimpse of Hawthorne's side of this courtship from a +letter which he wrote to Longfellow in June, 1837, and in which he +says, "I have now, or shall soon have a sharper spur to exertion, which +I lacked at an earlier period;" [Footnote: Conway, 75.] and this is all +the information he has vouchsafed us on the subject. If there is +anything more in his diary, it has not been given to the public, and +probably never will be. A number of letters which he wrote to Miss +Sophia from Boston, or Brook Farm, have been published by his son, but +it would be neither right nor judicious to introduce them here. + +It is, however, evident from the above that Hawthorne was already +engaged in June, 1837, but his engagement long remained a secret, for +three excellent reasons; viz., his slender means of support, the +delicate health of his betrothed, and the disturbance which it might +create in the Hawthorne family. The last did not prove so serious a +difficulty as he seems to have imagined; but his apprehensiveness on +that point many another could justify from personal experience. +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 196.] + +From this time also the health of Sophia Peabody steadily improved, nor +is it necessary to account for it by any magical influence on the part +of her lover. Her trouble was plainly some recondite difficulty of the +circulation. The heart is supposed to be the seat of the affections +because mental emotion stimulates the nervous system and acts upon the +heart as the centre of all organic functions. A healthy natural +excitement will cause the heart to vibrate more firmly and evenly; but +an unhealthy excitement, like fear or anger, will cause it to beat in a +rapid and uneven manner. Contrarily, despondency, or a lethargic state +of mind, causes the movement of the blood to slacken. The happiness of +love is thus the best of all stimulants and correctives for a torpid +circulation, and it expands the whole being of a woman like the +blossoming of a flower in the sunshine. From the time of her betrothal, +Sophia Peabody's headaches became less and less frequent, until they +ceased altogether. The true seat of the affections is in the mind. The +first consideration proved to be a more serious matter. If Hawthorne +had not succeeded in earning his own livelihood by literature so far, +what prospect was there of supporting a wife and family in that manner? +What should he do; whither should he turn? He continually turned the +subject over in his mind, without, however, reaching any definite +conclusion. Nor is this to be wondered at. If the ordinary avenues of +human industry were not available to him as a college graduate, they +were now permanently closed. A man in his predicament at the present +time might obtain the position of librarian in one of our inland +cities; but such places are few and the applications are many. Bronson +Alcott once offered his services as teacher of a primary school, a +position he might have filled better than most, for its one requisite +is kindliness, but the Concord school committee would not hear of it. +If Hawthorne had attempted to turn pedagogue he might have met with a +similar experience. + +Conway remarks very justly that an American author could not be +expected to earn his own living in a country where foreign books could +be pirated as they were in the United States until 1890, and this was +especially true during the popularity of Dickens and George Eliot. +Dickens was the great humanitarian writer of the nineteenth century, +but he was also a caricaturist and a bohemian. He did not represent +life as it is, but with a certain comical oddity. As an author he is to +Hawthorne what a peony is to a rose, or a garnet is to a ruby; but ten, +persons would purchase a novel of Dickens when one would select the +"Twice Told Tales." Scott and Tennyson are exceptional instances of a +high order of literary work which also proved fairly remunerative; but +they do not equal Hawthorne in grace of diction and in the rare quality +of his thought,--whatever advantages they may possess in other +respects. Thackeray earned his living by his pen, but it was only in +England that he could have done this. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +PEGASUS AT THE CART: 1839-1841 + + +Horatio Bridge's dam was washed away in the spring of 1837, by a sudden +and unprecedented rising of the Androscoggin River. Bridge was +financially ruined, but like a brave and generous young man he did not +permit this stroke of evil fortune, severe as it was, to oppress him +heavily, and Hawthorne seems to have felt no shadow of it during his +visit to Augusta the following summer. He returned to Salem in August +with pleasanter anticipations than ever before,--to enjoy the society +of his _fiancée_, and to prepare the second volume of "Twice Told +Tales." + +The course of Hawthorne's life during the next twenty months is mostly +a blank to us. He would seem to have exerted himself to escape from the +monotone in which he had been living so long, but of his efforts, +disappointments, and struggles against the giant coils of Fate, there +is no report. He wrote the four Province House tales as a send-off to +his second volume, as well as "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," "Footprints on +the Seashore," "Snow-Flakes," and "Chippings with a Chisel," which are +to be found in it. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, 176.] There is a long blank +in Hawthorne's diary during the winter of 1837-38 which may be owing to +his indifference to the outer world at that time, but more likely +because its contents have not yet been revealed to us. It was the +period of Cilley's duel, and what Hawthorne's reflections were on that +subject, aside from the account which he wrote for the _Democratic +Review_, would be highly interesting now, but the absence of any +reference to it is significant, and there is no published entry in his +diary between December 6, 1837, and May 11, 1838. + +Horatio Bridge obtained the position of paymaster on the United States +warship "Cyane," which arrived at Boston early in June, and on the 16th +of the month Hawthorne went to call on his friend in his new quarters, +which he found to be pleasant enough in their narrow and limited way. +Bridge returned with him to Boston, and they dined together at the +Tremont House, drinking iced champagne and claret in pitchers,--which +latter would seem to have been a fashion of the place. Hawthorne's +description of the day is purely external, and he tells us nothing of +his friend,--concerning whom we were anxious to hear,--or of the new +life on which he had entered. + +On July 4, his thirty-fifth birthday, he wrote a microscopic account of +the proceedings on Salem Common, which is interesting now, but will +become more valuable as time goes on and the customs of the American +people change with it. The object of these detailed pictorial studies, +which not only remind one of Dürer's drawings but of Carlyle's local +descriptions (when he uses simple English and does not fly off into +recondite comparisons), is not clearly apparent; but the artist has +instincts of his own, like a vine which swings in the wind and seizes +upon the first tree that its tendrils come into contact with. We +sometimes wish that, as in the case of Bridge and his warship, they +were not so objective and external, and that, like Carlyle, he would +throw more of himself into them. + +On July 27, Hawthorne started on an expedition to the Berkshire Hills, +by way of Worcester, remaining there nearly till the first of +September, and describing the scenery, the people he met by the way, +and the commencement at Williams College, which then took place in the +middle of August, in his customary accurate manner. He has given a full +and connected account of his travels; so full that we wonder how he +found time to write to Miss Sophia Peabody. He would seem to have been +entirely alone, and to have travelled mainly by stage. On the route +from Pittsfield to North Adams he notices the sunset, and describes it +in these simple terms: [Footnote: American Note-book, 130.] + +"After or about sunset there was a heavy shower, the thunder rumbling +round and round the mountain wall, and the clouds stretching from +rampart to rampart. When it abated the clouds in all parts of the +visible heavens were tinged with glory from the west; some that hung +low being purple and gold, while the higher ones were gray. The slender +curve of the new moon was also visible, brightening amidst the fading +brightness of the sunny part of the sky." + +At North Adams he takes notice of one of the Select-men, and gives this +account of him: [Footnote: American Note-book, 153.] + +"One of the most sensible men in this village is a plain, tall, elderly +person, who is overseeing the mending of a road,--humorous, +intelligent, with much thought about matters and things; and while at +work he had a sort of dignity in handling the hoe or crow-bar, which +shows him to be the chief. In the evening he sits under the stoop, +silent and observant from under the brim of his hat; but, occasion +suiting, he holds an argument about the benefit or otherwise of +manufactories or other things. A simplicity characterizes him more than +appertains to most Yankees." + +He did not return to Salem until September 24. A month later he was at +the Tremont House in Boston, looking out of the windows toward Beacon +Street, which may have served him for an idea in "The Blithedale +Romance." After this there are no entries published from his diary till +the following spring, so that the manner in which he occupied himself +during the winter of 1838-39 will have to be left to the imagination. +On April 27, 1839, he wrote a letter to Miss Sophia Peabody from +Boston, in which he says: + +"I feel pretty secure against intruders, for the bad weather will +defend me from foreign invasion; and as to Cousin Haley, he and I had a +bitter political dispute last evening, at the close of which he went to +bed in high dudgeon, and probably will not speak to me these three +days. Thus you perceive that strife and wrangling, as well as east +winds and rain, are the methods of a kind Providence to promote my +comfort,--which would not have been so well secured in any other way. +Six or seven hours of cheerful solitude! But I will not be alone. I +invite your spirit to be with me,--at any hour and as many hours as you +please, but especially at the twilight hour before I light my lamp. I +bid you at that particular time, because I can see visions more vividly +in the dusky glow of firelight than either by daylight or lamplight. +Come, and let me renew my spell against headache and other direful +effects of the east wind. How I wish I could give you a portion of my +insensibility! and yet I should be almost afraid of some radical +transformation, were I to produce a change in that respect. If you +cannot grow plump and rosy and tough and vigorous without being changed +into another nature, then I do think, for this short life, you had +better remain just what you are. Yes; but you will be the same to me, +because we have met in eternity, and there our intimacy was formed. So +get well as soon as you possibly can." + +This statement deserves consideration under two headings; and the last +shall be first, and the first shall be last. + +It will be noticed that the accounts in Hawthorne's diary are for the +most part of a dispassionate objective character, as if he had come +down from the moon to take an observation of mundane affairs. His +letters to Miss Peabody were also dispassionate, but strongly +subjective, and, like the one just quoted, mainly evolved from his +imagination, like orchids living in the air. It was also about this +time that Carlyle wrote to Emerson concerning the _Dial_ that it +seemed "like an unborn human soul." The orchid imagination was an +influence of the time, penetrating everywhere like an ether. + +In the opening sentences in this letter, Hawthorne comes within an inch +of disclosing his political opinions, and yet provokingly fails to do +so. There is nothing about the man concerning which we are so much in +the dark, and which we should so much like to know, as this; and it is +certain from this letter that he held very decided opinions on +political subjects and could defend them with a good deal of energy. On +one occasion when Hawthorne was asked why he was a Democrat, he +replied, "Because I live in a democratic country," which was, of +course, simply an evasion; and such were the answers which he commonly +gave to all interrogatories. His proclivities were certainly not +democratic; but the greater the tenacity with which a man holds his +opinions, the less inclined he feels to discuss them with others. The +Boston aristocracy now vote the Democratic ticket out of opposition to +the dominant party in Massachusetts, and Hawthorne may have done so for +a similar reason. + +Hawthorne was now a weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, one +of the most laborious positions in the government service. The +defalcation of Swartwout with over a million dollars from the New York +customs' receipts had forced upon President Van Buren the importance of +filling such posts with honorable men, instead of political shysters, +and Bancroft, though a rather narrow historian, was a gentleman and a +scholar. He was the right man to appreciate Hawthorne, but whether he +bestowed this place upon him of his own accord, or through the ulterior +agency of Franklin Pierce, we are not informed. It is quite possible +that Elizabeth Peabody had a hand in the case, for she was always an +indefatigable petitioner for the benefit of the needy, and had +opportunities for meeting Bancroft in Boston society. His kindness to +Hawthorne was at least some compensation for having originated the most +ill-favored looking public building in the city. [Footnote: The present +Boston Custom House. George S. Hillard called it an architectural +monstrosity.] + +Hawthorne's salary was twelve hundred dollars a year,--fully equal to +eighteen hundred at the present time,--and his position appears to have +been what is now called a store-keeper. He fully earned his salary. He +had charge and oversight of all the dutiable imports that came to +Long Wharf, the most important in the city, and was obliged to keep an +account of all dutiable articles which were received there. He had to +superintend personally the unloading of vessels, and although in some +instances this was not unpleasant, he was constantly receiving +shiploads of soft coal,--Sidney or Pictou coal,--which is the dirtiest +stuff in the world; it cannot be touched without raising a dusty vapor +which settles in the eyes, nose, and mouth, and inside the shirt- +collar. He counted every basketful that was brought ashore, and his +position on such occasions was to be envied only by the sooty laborers +who handled that commodity. We wonder what the frequenters of Long +Wharf thought of this handsome, poetic-looking man occupied in such a +business. + +Yet he appreciated the value of this Spartan discipline,--the +inestimable value of being for once in his life brought down to hard- +pan and the plain necessities of life. The juice of wormwood is bitter, +but it is also strengthening. On July 3, 1839, he wrote: [Footnote: +American Note-book.] + +"I do not mean to imply that I am unhappy or discontented, for this is +not the case. My life only is a burden in the same way that it is to +every toilsome man, and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only +a night's sleep to remove it. But from henceforth forever I shall be +entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall know how to +sympathize with them, seeing that I likewise have risen at the dawn, +and borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps +homeward till eventide. Years hence, perhaps, the experience that my +heart is acquiring now will flow out in truth and wisdom." + +This is one of the noblest passages in his writings. + +On August 27 he notices the intense heat in the centre of the city, +although it is somewhat cooler on the wharves. At this time Emerson may +have been composing his "Wood Notes" or "Threnody" in the cool pine +groves of Concord. Such is the difference between inheriting twenty +thousand dollars and two thousand. Hawthorne lived in Boston at such a +boarding-place as Doctor Holmes describes in the "Autocrat of the +Breakfast Table," and for all we know it may have been the same one. He +lived economically, reading and writing to Miss Peabody in the evening, +and rarely going to the theatre or other entertainments,--a life like +that of a store clerk whose salary only suffices for his board and +clothing. George Bancroft was kindly disposed toward him, and would +have introduced Hawthorne into any society that he could have wished to +enter; but Hawthorne, then and always, declined to be lionized. +Hawthorne made but one friend in Boston during this time, and that one, +George S. Hillard, a most faithful and serviceable friend,--not only +to Hawthorne during his life, but afterwards as a trustee for his +family, and equally kind and helpful to them in their bereavement, +which is more than could be said of all his friends,--especially of +Pierce. Hillard belonged to the brilliant coterie of Cambridge literary +men, which included Longfellow, Sumner and Felton. He was a lawyer, +politician, editor, orator and author; at this time, or shortly +afterward, Sumner's law partner; one of the most kindly sympathetic +men, with a keen appreciation of all that is finest in art and +literature, but somewhat lacking in firmness and independence of +character. His "Six Months in Italy," written in the purest English, +long served as a standard work for American travellers in that ideal +land, and his rather unsymmetrical figure only made the graces of his +oratory more conspicuous. + +Hawthorne kept at his work through summer's heat and winter's cold. On +February 11, 1840, he wrote to his fiancée: + +"I have been measuring coal all day, on board of a black little British +schooner, in a dismal dock at the north end of the city. Most of the +time I paced the deck to keep myself warm.... + +"... Sometimes I descended into the dirty little cabin of the schooner, +and warmed myself by a red-hot stove among biscuit barrels, pots and +kettles, sea chests, and innumerable lumber of all sorts,--my +olfactories, meanwhile, being greatly refreshed by the odor of a pipe, +which the captain or some of his crew was smoking." + +[Illustration: HAWTHORNE. FROM THE PORTRAIT BY CHARLES OSGOOD IN 1840. +IN THE POSSESSION OF MRS. RICHARD C. MANNING, SALEM, MASS. FROM +NEGATIVE IN POSSESSION OF AND OWNED BY FRANK COUSIN, SALEM] + +One would have to go to Dante's "Inferno" to realize a situation more +thoroughly disagreeable; yet the very pathos of Hawthorne's employment +served to inspire him with elevated thoughts and beautiful reflections. +His letters are full of aërial fancies. He notices what a beautiful day +it was on April 18, 1840, and regrets that he cannot "fling himself on +a gentle breeze and be blown away into the country." April 30 is +another beautiful day,--"a real happiness to live; if he had been a +mere vegetable, a hawthorn bush, he would have felt its influence." He +goes to a picture gallery in the Athenaeum, but only mentions seeing +two paintings by Sarah Clarke. He returns to Salem in October, and +writes in his own chamber the passage already quoted, in which he +mourns the lonely years of his youth, and the long, long waiting for +appreciation, "while he felt the life chilling in his veins and +sometimes it seemed as if he were already in the grave;" but an early +return to his post gives him brighter thoughts. He takes notice of the +magnificent black and yellow butterflies that have strangely come to +Long Wharf, as if seeking to sail to other climes since the last flower +had faded. Mr. Bancroft has appointed him to suppress an insurrection +among the government laborers, and he writes to Miss Sophia Peabody: + +"I was not at the end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region,-- +my authority having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the +captain and 'gang' of shovellers aboard a coal-vessel. I would you +could have beheld the awful sternness of my visage and demeanor in the +execution of this momentous duty. Well,--I have conquered the rebels, +and proclaimed an amnesty; so to-morrow I shall return to that paradise +of measurers, the end of Long Wharf,--not to my former salt-ship, she +being now discharged, but to another, which will probably employ me +well-nigh a fortnight longer." + +A month later we meet with this ominous remark in his diary: + +"I was invited to dine at Mr. Bancroft's yesterday with Miss Margaret +Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do, for which I +was very thankful." + +Had Hawthorne already encountered this remarkable woman with the +feminine heart and masculine mind, and had he already conceived that +aversion for her which is almost painfully apparent in his Italian +diary? Certainly in many respects they were antipodes. + +The Whig party came into power on March 4, 1841, with "Tippecanoe" for +a figure-head and Daniel Webster as its conductor of the "grand +orchestra." A month later Bancroft was removed, and Hawthorne went with +him, not at all regretful to depart. In fact, he had come to feel that +he could not endure the Custom House, or at least his particular share +of it, any longer. One object he had in view in accepting the position +was, to obtain practical experience, and this he certainly did in a +rough and unpleasant manner. The experience of a routine office, +however, is not like that of a broker who has goods to sell and who +must dispose of them to the best advantage, in order to keep his +reputation at high-water mark; nor is it like the experience of a young +doctor or a lawyer struggling to obtain a practice. Those are the men +who know what life actually is; and it is this thoroughness of +experience which makes the chief difference between a Dante and a +Tennyson. + +These reflections lead directly to Hawthorne's casual and oft-repeated +commentary on American politicians. He wrote March 15: + +"I do detest all offices--all, at least, that are held on a political +tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither +away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to +india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will +stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have gained by my custom- +house experience,--to know a politician." [Footnote: American +Notebook, i. 220.] + +This seems rather severe, but at the time when Hawthorne wrote it, +American politics were on the lowest plane of demagogism. It was the +inevitable result of the spoils-of-office system, and the meanest +species of the class were the ward politicians who received small +government offices in return for services in canvassing ignorant +foreign voters. They were naturally coarse, hardened adventurers, and +it was such that Hawthorne chiefly came in contact with in his official +business. Cleon, the brawling tanner of Athens, has reappeared in every +representative government since his time, and plays his clownish part +with multifarious variations; but it is to little purpose that we +deride the men who govern us, for they are what we and our institutions +have made them. If we want better representatives, we must mend our own +ways and especially purge ourselves of political cant and national +vanity,--which is the food that ward politicians grow fat on. The +profession of a politician is based on instability, and he cannot +acquire, as matters now stand, the solidity of character that we look +for in other professions. + +So far, however, was Hawthorne at this juncture from considering men +and things critically, that he closes the account of his first +government experience in this rather optimistic manner: + +"Old Father Time has gone onward somewhat less heavily than is his wont +when I am imprisoned within the walls of the Custom-house. My breath +had never belonged to anybody but me. It came fresh from the ocean.... + +"... It was exhilarating to see the vessels, how they bounded over the +waves, while a sheet of foam broke out around them. I found a good deal +of enjoyment, too, in the busy scene around me. It pleased me to think +that I also had a part to act in the material and tangible business of +this life, and that a portion of all this industry could not have gone +on without my presence." [Footnote: American Note-book, i. 230.] + +When Hawthorne philosophizes it is not in old threadbare proverbs or +Orphic generalities, but always specifically and to the point. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +HAWTHORNE AS A SOCIALIST: 1841-1842 + + +Who can compute the amount of mischief that Fourier has done, and those +well-meaning but inexperienced dreamers who have followed after him? A +Fourth-of-July firecracker once consumed the half of a large city. The +boy who exploded it had no evil intentions; neither did Fourier and +other speculators in philanthropy contemplate what might be the effect +of their doctrines on minds actuated by the lowest and most inevitable +wants. Wendell Phillips, in the most brilliant of his orations, said: +"The track of God's lightning is a straight line from justice to +iniquity," and one might have said to Phillips, in his later years, +that there is in the affairs of men a straight line from infatuation to +destruction. In what degree Fourier was responsible for the effusion of +blood in Paris in the spring of 1871 it is not possible to determine; +but the relation of Rousseau to the first French revolution is not more +certain. _Fate_ is the spoken word which cannot be recalled, and +who can tell the good and evil consequences that lie hidden in it? The +proper cure for socialism, in educated minds, would be a study of the +law. There we discover what a wonderful mechanism is the present +organization of society, and how difficult it would be to reconstruct +this, if it once were overturned. + +As society is constituted at present, the honest and industrious are +always more or less at the mercy of the vicious and indolent, and the +only protection against this lies in the right of individual ownership. +In a general community of goods, there might be some means of +preventing or punishing flagrant misdemeanors, but what protection +could there be against indolence? Those who were ready and willing to +work would have to bear all the burdens of society. + +In order that an idea should take external or concrete form it has to +be married, as it were, to some desire or tendency in the individual. +Reverend George Ripley had become imbued with Fourierism through his +studies of French philosophy, but he had also been brought up on a +farm, and preferred the fresh air and vigorous exercise of that mode of +life to city preaching. He was endowed with a strong constitution and +possessed of an independent fortune, and his aristocratic wife, more +devoted than women of that class are usually, sympathized with his +plans, and was prepared to follow him to the ends of the earth. He not +only felt great enthusiasm for the project but was capable of inspiring +others with it. There were many socialistic experiments undertaken +about that time, but George Ripley's was the only one that has acquired +a historical value. It is much to his credit that he gave the scheme a +thorough trial, and by carrying it out to a logical conclusion proved +its radical impracticability. + +Such a failure is more valuable than the successes of a hundred men who +merely make their own fortunes and leave no legacy of experience that +can benefit the human race. + +It must have been Elizabeth Peabody who persuaded Hawthorne to enlist +in the Brook Farm enterprise. She wrote a paper for the _Dial_ +[Footnote: _Dial_, ii. 361.] on the subject, explaining the object +of the West Roxbury community and holding forth the prospect of the +"higher life" which could be enjoyed there. Hawthorne was in himself +the very antipodes of socialism, and it was part of the irony of his +life that he should have embarked in such an experiment; but he +invested a thousand dollars in it, which he had saved from his Custom +House salary, and was one of the first on the ground. What he really +hoped for from it--as we learn by his letters to Miss Sophia Peabody-- +was a means of gaining his daily bread, with leisure to accomplish a +fair amount of writing, and at the same time to enter into such society +as might be congenial to his future consort. It seemed reasonable to +presume this, and yet the result did not correspond to it. He went to +West Roxbury on April 12, 1841, and as it happened in a driving +northeast snowstorm,--an unpropitious beginning, of which he has given +a graphic account in "The Blithedale Romance." + +At first he liked his work at the Farm. The novelty of it proved +attractive to him. On May 3 he wrote a letter to his sister Louisa, +which reflects the practical nature of his new surroundings; and it +must be confessed that this is a refreshing change from the sublunary +considerations at his Boston boarding-house. He has already "learned to +plant potatoes, to milk cows, and to cut straw and hay for the cattle, +and does various other mighty works." He has gained strength +wonderfully, and can do a day's work without the slightest +inconvenience; wears a tremendous pair of cowhide boots. He goes to bed +at nine, and gets up at half-past four to sound the rising-horn,--much +too early for a socialistic paradise, where human nature is supposed to +find a pleasant as well as a salutary existence. George Ripley would +seem to be driving the wedge in by the larger end. Hawthorne is +delighted with the topographical aspect, and writes: + +"This is one of the most beautiful places I ever saw in my life, and as +secluded as if it were a hundred miles from any city or village. There +are woods, in which we can ramble all day without meeting anybody or +scarcely seeing a house. Our house stands apart from the main road, so +that we are not troubled even with passengers looking at us. Once in a +while we have a transcendental visitor, such as Mr. Alcott; but +generally we pass whole days without seeing a single face save those of +the brethren. The whole fraternity eat together; and such a delectable +way of life has never been seen on earth since the days of the early +Christians." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 228.] + +From Louisa Hawthorne's reply, it may be surmised that his family did +not altogether approve of the Brook Farm venture, perhaps because it +withdrew him from his own home at a time when they had looked with fond +expectation for his return; and here we have a glimpse into the +beautiful soul of this younger sister, otherwise so little known to us. +Elizabeth is skeptical of its ultimate success, but Louisa is fearful +that he may work too hard and wants him to take good care of himself. +She is delighted with the miniature of him, which they have lately +received: "It has one advantage over the original,--I can make it go +with me where I choose!" + +Louisa wrote another warm and beautiful letter on June 11, recalling +the days when they used to go fishing together on Lake Sebago, and +adds: + +"Elizabeth Cleveland says she saw Mr. George Bradford in Lowell last +winter, and he told her he was going to be associated with you; but +they say his mind misgave him terribly when the time came for him to go +to Roxbury, and whether to make such a desperate step or not he could +not tell." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 232.] + +George P. Bradford was the masculine complement to Elizabeth Peabody-- +flitting across the paths of Emerson and Hawthorne throughout their +lives. His name appears continually in the biographies of that time, +but future generations would never know the sort of man he was, but for +Louisa's amiable commentary. He appeared at Brook Farm a few days +later, and became one of George Ripley's strongest and most faithful +adherents. He is the historian of the West Roxbury community, and late +in life the editor of the _Century_ asked him to write a special +account of it for that periodical. Bradford did so, and received one +hundred dollars in return for his manuscript; but it never was +published, presumably because it was too original for the editor's +purpose. + +Is it possible that Hawthorne put on a good face for this letter to his +sister, in order to keep up appearances; or was it like the common +experience of music and drawing teachers that the first lessons are the +best performed; or did he really have some disagreement with Ripley, +like that which he represents in "The Blithedale Romance"? The last is +the more probable, although we do not hear of it otherwise. Spring is +the least agreeable season for farming, with its muddy soil, its +dressing the ground, its weeds to be kept down and its insects to be +kept off. After the first week of June, the work becomes much +pleasanter; and the harvesting is delightful,--stacking the grain, +picking the fruit,--with the cheery wood fires, so restful to mind and +body. Yet we find on August 12 that Hawthorne had become thoroughly +disenchanted with his Arcadian life, although he admits that the labors +of the farm were not so pressing as they had been. Ten days later, he +refers to having spent the better part of a night with one of his co- +workers, "who was quite out of his wits" and left the community next +day. He then continues in his diary: [Footnote: American Notebook, ii. +15.] + +"It is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Ripley will succeed in locating +his community on the farm. He can bring Mr. E---- to no terms, and the +more they talk about the matter, the further they appear to be from a +settlement. We must form other plans for ourselves; for I can see few +or no signs that Providence purposes to give us a home here. I am +weary, weary, thrice weary, of waiting so many ages. Whatever may be my +gifts, I have not hitherto shown a single one that may avail to gather +gold." + +Here are already three disaffected personages, desirous of escaping +from an earthly paradise. Mr. Ripley has by no means an easy row to +hoe. Yet he keeps on ploughing steadily through his difficulties, as he +did through the soil of his meadows. In September we find Hawthorne at +Salem, and on the third he writes: [Footnote: American Notebook, ii. +16.] + +"But really I should judge it to be twenty years since I left Brook +Farm; and I take this to be one proof that my life there was unnatural +and unsuitable, and therefore an unreal one. It already looks like a +dream behind me. The real Me was never an associate of the community: +there has been a spectral appearance there, sounding the horn at +daybreak, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes, and raking hay, +toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to assume my name. But this +spectre was not myself." + +This idea of himself as a spectre seems to have accompanied him much in +the way that the daemon did Socrates, and to have served in a similar +manner as a warning to him. He left Brook Farm almost exactly as he +describes himself doing, in "The Blithedale Romance," and he returned +again on the twenty-second, but the brilliant woodland carnival which +he describes, both in his "Note-book" and in "The Blithedale Romance," +did not take place there until September 28. It was a masquerade in +which Margaret Fuller and Emerson appeared as invited guests, and held +a meeting of the Transcendental club "_sub tegmine fagi_." As +Hawthorne remarks, "Much conversation followed,"--in which he evidently +found little to interest him. Margaret Fuller also made a present of a +heifer to the live-stock of the Farm, of whose unruly gambols Hawthorne +seems to have taken more particular notice. He would seem in fact to +have attributed the same characteristics to the animal and its owner. + +Having more time at his own disposal, he now attempted to write another +volume of history for Peter Parley's library, but, although this was +rather a childish affair, he found himself unequal to it. "I have not," +he said, "the sense of perfect seclusion here, which has always been +essential to my power of producing anything. It is true, nobody +intrudes into my room; but still I cannot be quiet. Nothing here is +settled; and my mind will not be abstracted." During the whole of +October he went on long woodland walks, sometimes alone and at others +with a single companion. He tried, like Emerson, courting Nature in her +solitudes, and made the acquaintance of her denizens as if he were the +original Adam taking an account of his animal kingdom. He picks up a +terrapin, the _Emys picta_, which attempts to hide itself from +him in a stone wall, and carries it considerately to a pond of water; +but there is not much to be found in the woods, and one can travel a +whole day in the forest primeval without coming across anything better +than a few squirrels and small birds. In fact, two young sportsmen once +rode on horseback with their guns from the Missouri River to the +Pacific Ocean without meeting any larger game than prairie-chickens. + +It was all in vain. Hawthorne's nature was not like Emerson's, and what +stimulated the latter mentally made comparatively little impression on +the former. Hawthorne found, then as always, that in order to practice +his art, he must devote himself to it, wholly and completely, leaving +side issues to go astern. In order to create an ideal world of his own, +he was obliged to separate himself from all existing conditions, as +Beethoven did when composing his symphonies. Composition for Hawthorne +meant a severe mental strain. Those sentences, pellucid as a mountain +spring, were not clarified without an effort. The faculty on which +Hawthorne depended for this, as every artist does, was his imagination, +and imagination is as easily disturbed as the electric needle. There is +no fine art without sensitiveness. We see it in the portrait of +Leonardo da Vinci, a man who could bend horseshoes in his hands; and +Bismarck, who was also an artist in his way, confessed to the same +mental disturbance from noise and general conversation, which Hawthorne +felt at Brook Farm. It was the mental sensitiveness of Carlyle and +Bismarck which caused their insomnia, and much other suffering besides. + +George Ripley published an essay in the _Dial_, in which he +heralded Fourier as the great man who was destined to regenerate +society; but Fourier has passed away, and society continues in its old +course. What he left out of his calculations, or perhaps did not +understand, was the principle of population. If food and raiment were +as common as air and water, mankind would double its numbers every +twelve or fifteen years, and the tendency to do so produces a pressure +on poor human nature, which is almost like the scourge of a whip, +driving it into all kinds of ways and means in order to obtain +sufficient sustenance. Most notable among the methods thus employed is, +and always has been, the division of labor, and it will be readily seen +that a community like Brook Farm, where skilled labor, properly +speaking, was unknown, and all men were all things by turns, could +never sustain so large a population relatively as a community where a +strict division of industries existed. If a nation like France, for +instance, where the population is nearly stationary, were to adopt +Fourier's plan of social organization, it would prove a more severe +restriction on human life than the wars of Napoleon. This is the reason +why the attempt to plant a colony of Englishmen in Tennessee failed so +badly. There was a kind of division of labor among them, but it was +purely a local and a foreign division and not adapted to the region +about them. Ripley's method of allowing work to be counted by the hour +instead of by the day or half-day, was of itself sufficient to prevent +the enterprise from being a financial success. Farming everywhere +except on the Western prairies requires the closest thrift and economy, +and all hands have to work hard. + +Neither could such an experiment prove a success from a moral point of +view. Emerson said of it: "The women did not object so much to a common +table as they did to a common nursery." In truth one might expect that +a common nursery would finally result in a free fight. The tendency of +all such institutions would be to destroy the sanctity of family life; +and it would also include a tendency to the deterioration of manliness. +One of the professed objects of the Brook Farm association was, to +escape from the evils of the great world,--from the trickery of trade, +the pedantry of colleges, the flunkyism of office, and the arrogant +pretensions of wealth. Every honest man must feel a sympathy with this; +there are times when we all feel that the struggle of life is an +unequal conflict, from which it would be a permanent blessing to +escape; yet he who turns his back upon it, is like a soldier who runs +away from the battle-field. It is the conflict with evil in the great +world, and in ourselves, that constitutes virtue and develops +character. It is _good_ to learn the trickery of knaves and to +expose it, to contend against pedantry and set a better example, to +administer offices with a modest impartiality, and to treat the gilded +fool with a dignified contempt. But if the wings of the archangel are +torn and soiled in his conflict with sin, does it not add to the honor +of the victory? The man who left his wife and children, because he +found that he could not live with them without occasionally losing his +temper, committed a grievous wrong; and it is equally true that +hypocrisy, the meanest of vices, may sometimes become a virtue. + +George P. Bradford, and a few others, enjoyed the life at Brook Farm, +and would have liked to remain there longer. John S. Dwight, the +translator of Goethe's and Schiller's ballads, [Footnote: One of the +most musical translations in any language.] said in his old age that if +he were a young man, he would be only too glad to return there; and it +is undeniable that such a place is suited to a certain class of +persons, both men and women. It cannot be repeated too often, however, +that the true object of life is not happiness, but development. It is +our special business on this planet, to improve the human race as our +progenitors improved it, and developed it out of we know not what. By +doing this, we also improve ourselves and happiness comes to us +incidentally; but if we pursue happiness directly, we soon become +pleasure-seekers, and, like Faust, join company with Mephistopheles. +Happiness comes to a philosopher, perhaps while he is picking berries; +to a judge, watching the approach of a thunder-storm; to a merchant, +teaching his boy to skate. It came to Napoleon listening to a prayer- +bell, and to Hawthorne playing games with his children. [Footnote: +Perhaps also in his kindliness to the terrapin.] Happiness flies when +we seek it, and steals upon us unawares. + +George P. Bradford's account of Brook Farm in the "Memorial History of +Boston" [Footnote: Vol. iv. 330.] is not so satisfactory as it might +have been if he had given more specific details in regard to its +management. The general supposition has been that there was an annual +deficit in the accounts of the association, which could only be met by +Mr. Ripley himself, who ultimately lost the larger portion of his +investment. It is difficult to imagine how such an experiment could end +otherwise, and the final conflagration of the principal building, or +"The Hive," as it was called, served as a fitting consummation of the +whole enterprise,--a truly dramatic climax. George Ripley went to New +York to become literary editor of the _Tribune_, and was as +distinguished there for the excellence of his reviews, and the elegance +of his turnout in Central Park as he had been for the use of the spade +and pitchfork at West Roxbury. + +Mr. Bradford returned to the instruction of young ladies in French and +Latin; and John S. Dwight became one of the civilizing forces of his +time, by editing the Boston _Journal of Music_. None of them were +the worse for their agrarian experiment. + +Even if the West Roxbury _commune_ had proved a success for two or +three generations, it would not have sufficed for a test of Fourier's +theory for it would have been a republic within a republic, protected +by the laws and government of the United States, without being +subjected to the inconvenience of its own political machinery. The only +fair trial for such a system would be to introduce it in some tract of +country especially set apart and made independent for the purpose; but +the chances are ten to one that a community organized in this manner +would soon be driven into the same process of formation that other +colonies have passed through under similar conditions. The true +socialism is the present organization of society, and although it might +be improved in detail, to revolutionize it would be dangerous. Yet the +interest that has been aroused at various times by discussions of the +Brook Farm project, shows how strong the undercurrent is setting +against the present order of things; and this is my chief excuse for +making such a long digression on the subject. + +During these last months of his bachelorhood, Hawthorne appears to us +somewhat in the light of a hibernating bear; for we hear nothing of him +at that season at all. Between the last of October, 1841, and July, +1842, there are a large number of odd fancies, themes for romances, and +the like, published from his diary, but no entries of a personal +character. We hear incidentally that he was at Brook Farm during a +portion of the spring, which is not surprising in view of the fact that +Doctor Nathaniel Peabody had removed from Salem to Boston in the mean +time. One conclusion Hawthorne had evidently arrived at during the +winter months, and it was that his engagement to Miss Sophia Peabody +ought to be terminated in the way all such affairs should be; viz., by +matrimony. Their prospects in life were not brilliant, but it was +difficult to foresee any advantage in waiting longer, and there were +decided disadvantages in doing so. It was accordingly agreed that they +should be married at, or near, the summer solstice, the most suitable +of all times for weddings--or engagements. On June 20, he wrote to his +_fiancée_ from Salem, reminding her that within ten days they were +to become man and wife, and added this significant reflection: "Nothing +can part us now; for God himself hath ordained that we shall be one. So +nothing remains but to reconcile yourself to your destiny. Year by year +we shall grow closer to each other; and a thousand years hence, we +shall be only in the honeymoon of our marriage." + +Yet we find him writing again the tenderest and most graceful of love- +letters on June 30. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 241.] The wedding has +evidently been postponed; but two days later he is in Boston, and finds +a pleasant recreation watching the boys sail their toy boats on the +Frog Pond. The ceremony finally was performed on July 9, and it was +only the day previous that Hawthorne wrote the following letter, which +is dated from 54 Pinckney Street: + + +"MY DEAR SIR: + +"Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to request of you the +greatest favor which I can receive from any man. I am to be married to +Miss Sophia Peabody to-morrow, and it is our mutual desire that you +should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be decidedly a rainy day, +a carriage will call for you at half-past eleven o'clock in the +forenoon. + + "Very respectfully yours, + "NATH. HAWTHORNE. + +"REV. JAMES F. CLARKE, + "Chestnut St." + + +George S. Hillard lived on Pinckney Street, and Hawthorne may have been +visiting him at the moment. The Peabodys attended service at Mr. +Clarke's church in Indiana Place, where Hawthorne may also have gone +with them. He could not have made a more judicious choice; but, +singularly enough, although Mr. Clarke became Elizabeth Peabody's life- +long friend, and even went to Concord to lecture, he and Hawthorne +never met again after this occasion. + +The ceremony was performed at the house of Sophia Peabody's father, No. +13 West Street, a building of which not one stone now rests upon +another. It was a quiet family wedding (such as oftenest leads to +future happiness), and most deeply impressive to those concerned in it. +What must it have been to Hawthorne, who had known so much loneliness, +and had waited so long for the comfort and sympathy which only a +devoted wife can give? + +Time has drawn a veil over Hawthorne's honeymoon, but exactly four +weeks after the wedding, we find him and his wife installed in the +house at Concord, owned by the descendants of Reverend Dr. Ripley. It +will be remembered that Hawthorne had invested his only thousand +dollars in the West Roxbury Utopia, whence it was no longer possible to +recover it. He had, however, an unsubstantial Utopian sort of claim for +it, against the Association, which he placed in the hands of George S. +Hillard, and subsequent negotiation would seem to have resulted in +giving Hawthorne a lease of the Ripley house, or "Old Manse," in return +for it. It was already classic ground, for Emerson had occupied the +house for a time and had written his first book there; and thither +Hawthorne went to locate himself, determined to try once more if he +could earn his living by his pen. + +[Illustration: THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CONCORD AND THE OLD MANSE: 1842-1845 + + +The Ripley house dates back to the times of Captain Daniel Hathorne, or +even before him, and at Concord Fight the British left wing must have +extended close to it. Old and unpainted as it is, it gives a distinct +impression of refinement and good taste. Alone, I believe, among the +Concord houses of former times, it is set back far enough from the +country-road to have an avenue leading to it, lined with balm of Gilead +trees, and guarded at the entrance by two tall granite posts somewhat +like obelisks. On the further side of the house, Dr. Ripley had planted +an apple orchard, which included some rare varieties, especially the +blue pearmain, a dark-red autumn apple with a purple bloom upon it like +the bloom upon the rye. A high rounded hill on the northeast partially +shelters the house from the storms in that direction; and on the +opposite side the river sweeps by in a magnificent curve, with broad +meadows and rugged hills, leading up to the pale-blue outline of Mount +Wachusett on the western horizon. The Musketequid or Concord River has +not been praised too highly. Its clear, gently flowing current, +margined by bulrushes and grassy banks, produces an effect of mental +peacefulness, very different from the rushing turbulent waters and +rocky banks of Maine and New Hampshire rivers. From whatever point you +approach the Old Manse, it becomes the central object in a charming +country scene, and it does not require the peculiar effect of +mouldering walls to make it picturesque. It has stood there long, and +may it long remain. + +There was formerly an Indian encampment on the same ground,--a well- +chosen position both strategically and for its southern exposure. Old +Mrs. Ripley had a large collection of stone arrow-heads, corn-mortars, +and other relics of the aborigines, which she used to show to the young +people who came to call on her grandchildren; and there were among them +pieces of a dark-bluish porphyry which she said was not to be found in +Massachusetts, but must have been brought from northern New England. +There was no reason why they should not have been. The Indians could go +from Concord in their canoes to the White Mountains or the Maine lakes, +and shoot the deer that came down to drink from the banks of the river; +but the deer disappeared before the advance of the American farmer, and +the Indians went with them. Now a grandson of Madam Ripley, in the +bronze likeness of a minuteman of 1775, stands sentinel at "The Old +North Bridge." + +Hawthorne ascended the hill opposite his house and wrote of the view +from it: + +"The scenery of Concord, as I beheld it from the summit of the hill, +has no very marked characteristics, but has a great deal of quiet +beauty, in keeping with the river. There are broad and peaceful +meadows, which, I think, are among the most satisfying objects in +natural scenery. The heart reposes on them with a feeling that few +things else can give, because almost all other objects are abrupt and +clearly defined; but a meadow stretches out like a small infinity, yet +with a secure homeliness which we do not find either in an expanse of +water or air." + +The great cranberry meadows below the north bridge are sometimes a +wonderful place in winter, when the river overflows its banks and they +become a broad sheet of ice extending for miles. There one can have a +little skating, an exercise of which Hawthorne was always fond. + +It was now, and not at Brook Farm, that he found his true Arcadia, and +we have his wife's testimony that for the first eighteen months or more +at the Old Manse, they were supremely happy. Every morning after +breakfast he donned the blue frock, which he had worn at West Roxbury, +and went to the woodshed to saw and split wood for the daily +consumption. After that he ascended to his study in the second story, +where he wrote and pondered until dinner-time. It appears also that he +sometimes assisted in washing the dishes--like a helpful mate. After +dinner he usually walked to the post-office and to a reading-room in +the centre of the town, where he looked over the Boston _Post_ for +half an hour. Later in the afternoon, he went rowing or fishing on the +river, but his wife does not seem to have accompanied him in these +excursions, for Judge Keyes, who often met him in his boat, does not +mention seeing her with him. In the evenings he read Shakespeare with +Mrs. Hawthorne, commencing with the first volume, and going straight +through to the end, "Titus Andronicus" and all,--and this must have +occupied them a large portion of the winter. How can a man fail to be +happy in such a mode of life! + +Hawthorne also went swimming in the river when the weather suited-- +rather exceptional in Concord for a middle-aged gentleman; but there +were two very attractive bathing places near the Old Manse, one, a +little above on the opposite side of the river, and the other, +afterwards known as Simmons's Landing, where there was a row of tall +elms a short distance below the bridge. It is probable that Hawthorne +frequented the latter place, as being more remote from human +habitations. He did not take to his gun again, although he could see +the wild ducks in autumn, flying past his house. There were grouse and +quail in the woods, and woodcock were to be found along the brook which +ran through Emerson's pasture; but perhaps Hawthorne had become too +tenderhearted for field-sports. + +If Boston is the hub of the universe, Concord might be considered as +the linchpin which holds it on. Its population was originally derived +from Boston, and it must be admitted that it retains more Bostonian +peculiarities than most other New England towns. It does not assimilate +readily to the outside world. Nor is it surprising that few local +visitors called upon the Hawthornes at the Old Manse. Emerson, always +hospitable and public-spirited, went to call on them at once; and John +Keyes, also a liberal-minded man, introduced Hawthorne at the reading- +club. Margaret Fuller came and left a book for Hawthorne to read, which +may have annoyed him more than anything she could have said. Elizabeth +Hoar, a woman of exalted character, to whose judgment Emerson sometimes +applied for a criticism of his verses, also came sometimes; but the Old +Manse was nearly a mile away from Emerson's house, and also from what +might be called the "court end" of the town. Hawthorne's nearest +neighbor was a milk-farmer named George L. Prescott, afterward Colonel +of the Thirty-second Massachusetts Volunteers. He not only brought them +milk, but also occasionally a bouquet culled out of his own fine +nature, as a tribute to genius. A slightly educated man, he was +nevertheless one of Nature's gentlemen, and his death in Grant's +advance on Richmond was a universal cause of mourning at a time when so +many brave lives were lost. + +Hawthorne, as usual, was on the lookout for ghosts, and there could not +have been a more suitable abode for those airy nothings, than the Old +Manse. Mysterious sounds were heard in it repeatedly, especially in the +nighttime, when the change of temperature produces a kind of settlement +in the affairs of old woodwork. Under date of August 8 he writes in his +diary: + +"We have seen no apparitions as yet,--but we hear strange noises, +especially in the kitchen, and last night, while sitting in the parlor, +we heard a thumping and pounding as of somebody at work in my study. +Nay, if I mistake not (for I was half asleep), there was a sound as of +some person crumpling paper in his hand in our very bedchamber. This +must have been old Dr. Ripley with one of his sermons." + +Evidently he would have preferred seeing a ghost to receiving an +honorary degree from Bowdoin College, and if the shade of Doctor Ripley +had appeared to him in a dissolving light, like the Röntgen rays, +Hawthorne would certainly have welcomed him as a kindred spirit and +have expressed his pleasure at the manifestation. + +Another idiosyncrasy of his, which seems like the idiom in a language, +was his total indifference to distinguished persons, simply as such. It +was not that he considered all men on a level, for no one recognized +more clearly the profound inequalities of human nature; but he was +quite as likely to take an interest in a store clerk as in a famous +writer. It is not necessary to suppose that a man is a parasite of fame +because he goes to a President's reception, or wishes to meet a +celebrated English lecturer. It is natural that we should desire to +know how such people appear--their expression, their tone of voice, +their general behavior; but Hawthorne did not care for this. At the +time of which we write, Doctor Samuel G. Howe, the hero of Greek +independence and the mental liberator of Laura Bridgman, was a more +famous man than Emerson or Longfellow. He came to Concord with his +brilliant wife, and they called at the Old Manse, where Mrs. Hawthorne +received them very cordially, but they saw nothing of her husband, +except a dark figure gliding through the entry with his hat over his +eyes. One can only explain this by one of those fits of exceeding +bashfulness that sometimes overtake supersensitive natures. School- +girls just budding into womanhood often behave in a similar manner; and +they are no more to be censured for it than Hawthorne,--to whom it may +have caused moments of poignant self-reproach in his daily reflections. +But Doctor Howe was the man of all men whom Hawthorne ought to have +known, and half an hour's conversation might have made them friends for +life. + +George William Curtis was a remarkably brilliant young man, and gave +even better promise for the future than he afterwards fulfilled,--as +the editor of a weekly newspaper. He was at Brook Farm with Hawthorne, +and afterward followed him to Concord, but is only referred to by +Hawthorne once, and then in the briefest manner. Neither has Hawthorne +much to say of Emerson; but Thoreau and Ellery Channing evidently +attracted his attention, for he refers to them repeatedly in his diary, +and he has left the one life-like portrait of Thoreau--better than a +photograph--that now exists. He surveys them both in rather a critical +manner, and takes note that Thoreau is the more substantial and +original of the two; and he is also rather sceptical as to Channing's +poetry, which Emerson valued at a high rate; yet he narrowly missed +making a friend of Channing, with whom he afterward corresponded in a +desultory way. + +We should not have known of Hawthorne's skating at Concord, but for +Mrs. Hawthorne's "Memoirs," from which we learn that he frequently +skated on the overflowed meadows, where the Lowell railway station now +stands. She writes: "Wrapped in his cloak, he moved like a self- +impelled Greek statue, stately and grave." This is the manner in which +we should imagine Hawthorne to have skated; but all others were a foil +to her husband in the eyes of his wife. [Footnote: "Memories of +Hawthorne," 52.] He was evidently a fine skater, gliding over the ice +in long sweeping curves. Emerson was also a dignified skater, but with +a shorter stroke, and stopping occasionally to take breath, or look +about him, as he did in his lectures. Thoreau came sometimes and +performed rare glacial exploits, interesting to watch, but rather in +the line of the professional acrobat. What a transfiguration of +Hawthorne, to think of him skating alone amid the reflections of a +brilliant winter sunset! + +When winter came Emerson arranged a course of evening receptions at his +house for the intellectual people of Concord, with apples and +gingerbread for refreshments. Curtis attended these, and has told us +how Hawthorne always sat apart with an expression on his face like a +distant thunder-cloud, saying little, and not only listening to but +watching the others. Curtis noticed a certain external and internal +resemblance in him to Webster, who was at times a thunderous-looking +person--denoting, I suppose, the electric concentration in his +cranium. Emerson also watched Hawthorne, and the whole company felt his +silent presence, and missed him greatly once or twice when he failed to +come. Miss Elizabeth Hoar said: + +"The people about Emerson, Channing, Thoreau and the rest, echo his +manner so much that it is a relief to him to meet a man like Hawthorne, +on whom his own personality makes no impression." Neither did Mrs. +Emerson echo her husband. + +The greater a man is, intellectually, the more distinct his difference +from a general type and also from other men of genius. No two +personalities could be more unlike than Hawthorne and Emerson. + +It would seem to be part of the irony of Fate that they should have +lived on the same street, and, have been obliged to meet and speak with +each other. One was like sunshine, the other shadow. Emerson was +transparent, and wished to be so; he had nothing to conceal from friend +or enemy. Hawthorne was simply impenetrable. Emerson was cordial and +moderately sympathetic. Hawthorne was reserved, but his sympathies were +as profound as the human soul itself. To study human nature as +Hawthorne and Shakespeare did, and to make models of their +acquaintances for works of fiction, Emerson would have considered a +sin; while the evolution of sin and its effect on character was the +principal study of Hawthorne's life. One was an optimist, and the other +what is sometimes unjustly called a pessimist; that is, one who looks +facts in the face and sees people as they are. + +[Footnote: "Sketches from Concord and Appledore."] + +While Emerson's mind was essentially analytic, Hawthorne's was +synthetic, and, as Conway says, he did not receive the world into his +intellect, but into his heart, or soul, where it was mirrored in a +magical completeness. The notion that the artist requires merely an +observing eye is a superficial delusion. Observation is worth little +without reflection, and everything depends on the manner in which the +observer deals with his facts. Emerson looked at life in order to +penetrate it; Hawthorne, in order to comprehend it, and assimilate it +to his own nature. The one talked heroism and the other lived it. Not +but that Emerson's life was a stoical one, but Hawthorne's was still +more so, and only his wife and children knew what a heart there was in +him. + +The world will never know what these two great men thought of one +another. Hawthorne has left some fragmentary sentences concerning +Emerson, such as, "that everlasting rejecter of all that is, and seeker +for he knows not what," and "Emerson the mystic, stretching his hand +out of cloud-land in vain search for something real;" but he likes +Emerson's ingenuous way of interrogating people, "as if every man had +something to give him." However, he makes no attempt at a general +estimate; although this expression should also be remembered: +"Clergymen, whose creed had become like an iron band about their brows, +came to Emerson to obtain relief,"--a sincere recognition of his +spiritual influence. + +Several witnesses have testified that Emerson had no high opinion of +Hawthorne's writing,--that he preferred Reade's "Christie Johnstone" to +"The Scarlet Letter," but Emerson never manifested much interest in +art, simply for its own sake. Like Bismarck, whom he also resembled in +his enormous self-confidence, he cared little for anything that had not +a practical value. He read Shakespeare and Goethe, not so much for the +poetry as for the "fine thoughts" he found in them. George Bradford +stated more than once that Emerson showed little interest in the +pictorial art; and after walking through the sculpture-gallery of the +Vatican, he remarked that the statues seemed to him like toys. His +essay on Michel Angelo is little more than a catalogue of great +achievements; he recognizes the moral impressiveness of the man, but +not the value of his sublime conceptions. Music, neither he nor +Hawthorne cared for, for it belongs to emotional natures. + +In his "Society and Solitude" Emerson has drawn a picture of Hawthorne +as the lover of a hermitical life; a picture only representing that +side of his character, and developed after Emerson's fashion to an +artistic extreme. "Whilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he +consoled himself with the delicious thought of the inconceivable number +of places where he was not," and "He had a remorse running to despair, +of his social _gaucheries_, and walked miles and miles to get the +twitching out of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his shoulders." + +[Footnote: "Society and Solitude," 4, 5.] + +There is a touch of arrogance in this, and it merely marks the +difference between the modest author of the "Essays," and the proud, +censorious Emerson of 1870; but his love of absolute statements +ofttimes led him into strange contradictions, and the injustice which +results from judging our fellow-mortals by an inflexible standard was +the final outcome of his optimism. Hawthorne was more charitable when +he remarked that without Byron's faults we should not have had his +virtues; but the truth lies between the two. + +There have been many instances of genius as sensitive as Hawthorne's in +various branches of art: Shelley and Southey, Schubert and Chopin, +Correggio and Corot. Southey not only blushed red but blushed blue--as +if the life were going out of him; and in Chopin and Correggio at least +we feel that they could not have been what they were without it. +Napoleon, whose nerves were like steel wires, suffered nevertheless +from a peculiar kind of physical sensitiveness. He could not take +medicines like other men,--a small dose had a terrible effect on him,-- +and it was much the same with respect to changes of food, climate, and +the like. + +What Hawthorne required was sympathetic company. Do not we all require +it? The hypercritical morality of the Emersonians, especially in +Concord, could not have been favorable to his mental ease and comfort. +How could a man in a happily married condition feel anything but +repugnance to Thoreau's idea of marriage as a necessary evil; or +Alcott's theory that eating animal food tended directly to the +commission of crime? + +On the first anniversary of Hawthorne's wedding, a tragical drama was +enacted in Concord, in which he was called upon to perform a +subordinate part. One Miss Hunt, a school-teacher and the daughter of a +Concord farmer, drowned herself in the river nearly opposite the place +where Hawthorne was accustomed to bathe. The cause of her suicide has +never been adequately explained, but as she was a transcendentalist, or +considered herself so, there were those who believed that in some +occult way that was the occasion of it. However, as one of her sisters +afterward followed her example, it would seem more likely to have come +from the development of some family trait. She was seen walking upon +the bank for a long time, before she took the final plunge; but the +catastrophe was not discovered until near evening. + +Ellery Channing came with a man named Buttrick to borrow Hawthorne's +boat for the search, and Hawthorne went with them. As it happened, they +were the ones who found the corpse, and Hawthorne's account in his +diary of its recovery is a terribly accurate description,--softened +down and poetized in the rewritten statement of "The Blithedale +Romance." There is in fact no description of a death in Homer or +Shakespeare so appalling as this literal transcript of the veritable +fact. + +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 300.] + +What concerns us here, however, are the comments he set down on the +dolorous event. Concerning her appearance, he says: + +"If she could have foreseen while she stood, at five o'clock that +morning on the bank of the river, how her maiden corpse would have +looked eighteen hours afterwards, and how coarse men would strive with +hand and foot to reduce it to a decent aspect, and all in vain,--it +would surely have saved her from the deed." + +And again: + +"I suppose one friend would have saved her; but she died for want of +sympathy--a severe penalty for having cultivated and refined herself +out of the sphere of her natural connections." + +The first remark has often been misunderstood. It is not the vanity of +women, which is after all only a reflection (or the reflective +consequence) of the admiration of man, which Hawthorne intends, but +that delicacy of feeling which Nature requires of woman for her own +protection; and he may not have been far wrong in supposing that if +Miss Hunt had foreseen the exact consequences of her fatal act she +would not have committed it. Hawthorne's remark that her death was a +consequence of having refined and cultivated herself beyond the reach +of her relatives, seems a rather hard judgment. The latter often +happens in American life, and although it commonly results in more or +less family discord, are we to condemn it for that reason? If she died +as Hawthorne imagines, from the lack of intellectual sympathy, we may +well inquire if there was no one in Concord who might have given aid +and encouragement to this young aspiring soul. + + "Take her up tenderly; + Lift her with care, + Fashioned so slenderly, + Young and so fair." + +And one is also tempted to add: + + "Alas! for the rarity + Of Christian charity." + +Hawthorne's earthly paradise only endured until the autumn of 1843. +When cool weather arrived, want and care came also. On November 26 he +wrote to George S. Hillard: + +"I wish at some leisure moment you would give yourself the trouble to +call into Munroe's book-store and inquire about the state of my 'Twice- +told Tales.' At the last accounts (now about a year since) the sales +had not been enough to pay expenses; but it may be otherwise now--else +I shall be forced to consider myself a writer for posterity; or at all +events not for the present generation. Surely the book was puffed +enough to meet with a sale." + +[Footnote: London Athenæum, August 10, 1889.] + +The interpretation of this is that Longfellow, Hillard and Bridge could +appreciate Hawthorne's art, but the solid men of Boston (with some rare +exceptions) could not. Even Webster preferred the grotesque art of +Dickens to Hawthorne's "wells of English undefiled." Recently, one of +the few surviving original copies of "Fanshawe" was sold at auction for +six hundred dollars. Such is the difference between genius and +celebrity. + +The trouble then and now is that wealthy Americans as a class feel no +genuine interest in art or literature. They do not form a true +aristocracy, but a plutocracy, and are for the most part very poorly +educated. It was formerly the brag of the Winthrops and Otises that +they could go through college and learn their lessons in the +recitation-room. Now they go to row, and play foot-ball, and after they +graduate, they leave the best portion of their lives behind them. Then +if they have a talent for business they become absorbed in commercial +affairs; or if not, they travel from one country to another, picking up +a smattering of everything, but not resting long enough in any one +place for their impressions to develop and bear good fruit. They are +not like the aristocratic classes of England, France and Germany, who +become cultivated men and women, and serve to maintain a high standard +of art and literature in those countries. + +The captain of a Cunard steamship, who owned quite a library, said in +1869: "I have bought some very interesting books in New York, +especially by a writer named Hawthorne, but the type and paper are so +poor that they are not worth binding." The reason why American +publishers do not bring out books in such good form as foreign +publishers--is that there is no demand for a first-rate article. Thus +do the fine arts languish. When rich young Americans take as much +interest in painting and sculpture as they do in foot-ball and +yachting, we shall have our Vandycks and Murillos,--if nothing better. + +Discouraged with the ill success of "Fanshawe," Hawthorne had limited +himself since then to the writing of short sketches, such as would be +acceptable to the magazine editors, and now that he had formed this +habit, he found it difficult to escape from it. He informs us in the +preface to "Mosses from an Old Manse" that he had hoped a more serious +and extended plot would come to him on the banks of Concord River, but +his imagination did not prove equal to the occasion. Most of the +stories in "Mosses" must have been composed at Concord, but "Mrs. Bull- +Frog'" and "Monsieur du Miroir" must have been written previously, for +he refers to them in a letter at Brook Farm. A few were published in +the _Democratic Review_, and others may have been elsewhere; but +the proceeds he derived from them would not have supported a day- +laborer, and toward the close of his second year at the Manse, +Hawthorne found himself running in debt for the necessaries of life. He +endured this with his usual stoical reticence, although there is +nothing like debt to sicken a man's heart,--unless he be a decidedly +light-minded man. Better fortune, however, was on its way to him in the +shape of a political revolution. + +On March 3, 1844, a daughter was born to the Hawthornes, whom they +named Una, in spite of Hillard's objection that the name was too poetic +or too fanciful for the prosaic practicalities of real life. The name +was an excellent one for a poet's daughter, and did not seem out of +place in Arcadian Concord. Miss Una grew up into a graceful, fair and +poetic young lady,--in all respects worthy of her name. She had an +uncommonly fine figure, and, as often happens with first-born children, +resembled her father much more than her mother. Her name also suggests +the early influence of Spenser in her father's style and mode of +thought. + +Soon after this fortunate event Hawthorne wrote a letter to Hillard, in +which he said: + +"I find it a very sober and serious kind of happiness that springs from +the birth of a child. It ought not come too early in a man's life--not +till he has fully enjoyed his youth--for methinks the spirit can never +be thoroughly gay and careless again, after this great event. We gain +infinitely by the exchange; but we do give up something nevertheless. +As for myself who have been a trifler preposterously long, I find it +necessary to come out of my cloud-region, and allow myself to be woven +into the sombre texture of humanity." + +It seems then that his conscience sometimes reproached him, but this +only proves that his moral nature was in a healthy normal condition. +There was a certain kind of indolence in him, a love of the _dolce +far niente_, and an inclination to general inactivity which he may +have inherited from his seafaring ancestors. Much better so, than to +suffer from the nervous restlessness, which is the rule rather than the +exception in New England life. + +In the same letter he mentions having forwarded a story to _Graham's +Magazine_, which was accepted but not yet published after many +months. He also anticipates an amelioration of his affairs from a +Democratic victory in the fall elections. + +Meanwhile, Horatio Bridge had been traversing the high seas in the +"Cyane," which was finally detailed to watch for slavers and to protect +American commerce on the African coast. He had kept a journal of his +various experiences and observations, which he sent to Hawthorne with a +rather diffident interrogation as to whether it might be worth +publishing. Hawthorne was decidedly of the opinion that it ought to be +published,--in which we cordially agree with him,--and was well pleased +to edit it for his friend; and, although it has now shared the fate of +most of the books of its class, it is excellent reading for those who +chance to find a copy of it. Bridge was a good observer, and a candid +writer. + +The election of 1844 was the most momentous that had yet taken place in +American history. It decided the annexation of Texas, and the +acquisition of California, with a coast-line on the Pacific Ocean +nearly equal to that on the Atlantic; but it also brought with it an +unjust war of greed and spoliation, and other evil consequences of +which we are only now begining to reach the end. The slaveholders and +the Democratic leaders desired Texas in order to perpetuate their +control of the government, and it was precisely through this measure +that they lost it,--as happens so often in human affairs. It was the +gold discoveries in California that upset their calculations. +California would _not_ come into the Union as a slave state. +Enraged at this failure, the Southern politicians made a desperate +attempt to recover lost ground, by seizing on the fertile prairies in +the Northwest; but there they came into conflict with the industrial +classes of the North, who fought them on their own ground and abolished +slavery. Never had public injustice been followed by so swift and +terrible a retribution. + +In regard to the candidates of 1844, it was hardly possible to compare +them. Polk possessed the ability to preside over the House of +Representatives, but he did not rise above this; while Clay could be +fairly compared on some points with Washington himself, and united with +this a persuasive eloquence second only to Webster's. He was +practically defeated by fifteen or twenty thousand abolitionists who +preferred to throw away their votes rather than to cast them for a +slave-holder. + +Hawthorne, in the quiet seclusion of his country home, did not realize +this danger to the Republic. He only knew that his friends were +victorious, and was happy in the expectation of escaping from his +debts, and of providing more favorably for his little family. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +"MOSSES PROM AN OLD MANSE": 1845 + + +There is no evidence in the Hawthorne documents or publications to show +exactly when the first edition of "Mosses from an Old Manse" made its +appearance, and copies of it are now exceedingly rare, but we find the +Hawthorne family in Salem reading the book in the autumn of 1845, so +that it was probably brought out at that time and helped to maintain +its author during his last days at Concord. + +There must have been some magical influence in the Old Manse or in its +surrounding scenery, to have stimulated both Emerson's and Hawthorne's +love of Nature to such a degree. Emerson's eye dilates as he looks upon +the sunshine gilding the trunks of the balm of Gilead trees on his +avenue; and Hawthorne dwells with equal delight on the luxuriant squash +vines which spread over his vegetable garden. Discoursing on this he +says: + +"Speaking of summer squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and +varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, +shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, molded in patterns which a +sculptor would do well to copy, since art has never invented anything +more graceful." + +And again: + +"A cabbage, too--especially the early Dutch cabbage, which swells to a +monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart often bursts +asunder--is a matter to be proud of when we can claim a share with the +earth and sky in producing it." + +It would seem as if no one before Hawthorne had rightly observed these +common vegetables, whose external appearance is always before our eyes. +He not only humanizes whatever attracts his attention, but he looks +through a refining medium of his own personality. He has the gift of +Midas to bring back the Golden Age for us. Who besides Homer has been +able to describe a chariot-race, and who but Hawthorne could extract +such poetry from a farmer's garden? + +If we compare this introductory chapter with such earlier sketches as +"The Vision at the Fountain" and "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," we +recognize the progress that Hawthorne has made since the first volume +of "Twice Told Tales." We are no longer reminded of the plain unpainted +house on Lake Sebago. His style is not only more graceful, but has +acquired greater fulness of expression, and he is evidently working in +a deeper and richer vein of thought. Purity of expression is still his +polar star, and his writing is nowhere overloaded, but it has a warmer +tone, a deeper perspective, and an atmospheric quality which painters +call _chi-aroscuro_. He charms with pleasing fancies, while he +penetrates to the soul. + +Hawthorne rarely repeats himself in details, and never in designs. Two +of Dickens's most interesting novels, "Oliver Twist" and "David +Copperfield," are constructed on the same theme, but each of the +studies in this collection has a distinct individuality which appeals +to the reader after a fashion of its own. Each has its moral, or rather +central, idea to which all its component parts are related, and teaches +a lesson of its own, so unobtrusively that we become possessed of it +almost unawares. Some are intensely, even tragically, serious; others +so light and airy that they seem as if woven out of gossamer. + +There are a few, however, that do not harmonize with the general tone +and character of the rest,--especially "Mrs. Bull-Frog," which +Hawthorne himself confessed to having been an experiment, and which +strangely enough is much more in the style of his son Julian. "Monsieur +du Miroir" and "Sketches from Memory" are relics of his earlier +writings; perhaps also "Feather-Top" and "The Procession of Life." It +would have been better perhaps if "Young Goodman Brown" had been used +to light a fire at the Old Manse. + +"Monsieur du Miroir" is chiefly interesting as an example of +Hawthorne's faculty for elaborating the most simple subject until every +possible phase of it has been exhausted. It may also throw some light +scientifically on the origin of consciousness. We see ourselves +reflected not only in the mirror, but on the blade of a knife, or a +puddle in the road; and, if we look sharply enough, in the eyes of +other men--even in the expression of their faces. In such manner does +Nature force upon us a recognition of our various personalities--the +nucleus of self-knowledge, and self-respect. + +Whittier once spoke of "Young Goodman Brown" as indicating a mental +peculiarity in Hawthorne, which like the cuttle-fish rarely rises to +the surface. The plot is cynical, and largely enigmatical. The very +name of it (in the way Hawthorne develops the story) is a fearful +satire on human nature. He may have intended this for an exposure of +the inconsistency, and consequent hypocrisy, of Puritanism; but the +name of Goodman Brown's wife is Faith, and this suggests that Brown may +have been himself intended for an incarnation of _doubt_, or +_disbelief_ carried to a logical extreme. Whatever may have been +Hawthorne's design, the effect is decidedly unpleasant. + +Emerson talked in proverbs, and Hawthorne in parables. The finest +sketches in this collection are parables. "The Birth Mark," +"Rappacini's Daughter," "A Select Party," "Egotism," and "The Artist of +the Beautiful." "The Celestial Railroad" is an allegory, a variation on +"Pilgrim's Progress." + +"The Birth Mark" and "Rappacini's Daughter" are like divergent lines, +which originate at an single point; and that point is the radical +viciousness of trying experiments on human beings. It is bad enough, +although excusable, to vivisect dogs and rabbits; but why should we +attempt the same course of procedure with those that are nearest and +dearest to us? Such parables were not required in the time of Tiberius +Cæsar and men and women grew up in a natural, vigorous manner; but now +we have become so scientific that we continually attempt to improve on +Nature,--like the artist who left the rainbow out of his picture of +Niagara because its colors did not harmonize with the background. + +The line of divergence in "The Birth Mark" is indicated by its name. We +all have our birth-marks,--traits of character, which may be +temporarily suppressed, or relegated to the background, but which +cannot be eradicated and are certain to reappear at unguarded moments, +or on exceptional occasions. Education and culture can do much to +soften and temper the disposition, but the original material remains +the same. The father who attempts to force his son into a mode of life +for which Nature did not intend him, or the mother who quarrels with +her daughter's friends, commits an error similar to that of Hawthorne's +alchemist, who endeavors to remove the birthmark from the otherwise +beautiful face of his wife, but only succeeds in effecting this +together with her death. The tragical termination of the alchemist's +experiments, the pathetic yielding up of life by his sweet "Clytie," is +described with an impressive tenderness. She sinks to her last sleep +without a murmur of reproach. + +"Rappacini's Daughter" might serve as a protest against bringing up +children in an exceptional and abnormal manner. I once knew an +excellent lady, who, with the best possible intentions, brought up her +daughter to be different from all other girls. As a consequence, she +_was_ different,--could not assimilate herself to others. She had +no admirers, or young friends of her own sex, for there were few points +of contact between herself and general society. Her mother was her only +friend. She aged rapidly and died early. Similarly, a boy brought up in +a secluded condition of purity and ignorance, finally developed into +one of the most vicious of men. + +Hawthorne has prefigured this by a bright colored flower which sparkles +like a gem, very attractive at a distance, but exhaling a deadly +perfume. He may not have been aware that the opium poppy has so +brilliant a flower that it can be seen at a distance from which all +other flowers are invisible. The scene of his story is placed in +Italy,--the land of beauty, but also the country of poisoners. +Rappacini, an old botanist and necromancer, has trained up his daughter +in the solitary companionship of this flower, from which she has +acquired its peculiar properties. A handsome young student is induced +to enter the garden, partly from curiosity and partly through the +legerdemain of Rappacini. The student soon falls under the daughter's +influence and finds himself being gradually poisoned. A watchful +apothecary, who has penetrated the necromancer's secret, provides the +young man with an antidote which saves him, but deprives the maiden of +life. She crosses the barrier which separated her from a healthy +existence, and the poison reacts upon her system and kills her. The old +apothecary looks out from his window, and cries, "O Rappacini! Is this +the consummation of your experiment?" + +The underlying agreement between this story and "The Birth Mark" +becomes apparent when we observe that the termination of one is simply +a variation upon the last scene of the other. In one instance a +beautiful daughter is sacrificed by her father, and in the other a +lovely wife is victimized by her husband. There have been thousands, if +not millions, of such cases. + +There is no other writer but Shakespeare who has portrayed the absolute +devotion of a woman's love with such delicacy of feeling and depth of +sympathy as Hawthorne. In the two stories we have just considered, and +also in "The Bosom Serpent," this element serves, like the refrain of a +Greek chorus, to give a sweet, penetrating undertone which reconciles +us to much that would otherwise seem intolerable. The heroines in these +pieces have such a close spiritual relationship that one suspects them +of having been studied from the same model, and who could this have +been so likely as Hawthorne's own wife. [Footnote: Notice also the +similar character of Sophia in J. Hawthorne's "Bressant."] + +The theme of "The Bosom Serpent" is a husband's jealousy; and it is the +self-forgetful devotion of his wife that finally cures his malady and +relieves him of his unpleasant companion. The tale ends with one of +those mystifying passages which Hawthorne weaves so skilfully, so that +it is difficult to determine from the text whether there was a real +serpent secreted under the man's clothing, or only an imaginary one,-- +although we presume the latter. Francis of Verulam says, "the best +fortune for a husband is for his wife to consider him wise, which she +will never do if she find him jealous"; and with good reason, for if he +is unreasonably jealous, it shows a lack of confidence in her; but +mutal confidence is the well-spring from which love flows, and if the +well dries up, there is an end of it. + +"The Select Party" is quite a relief, after this tragical trilogy. It +is easy to believe that Hawthorne imagined this dream of a summer +evening, while watching the great cumulus clouds, tinted with rose and +lavender like aerial snow-mountains, floating toward the horizon. Here +were true castles in the air, which he could people with shapes +according to his fancy; but he chose the most common abstract +conceptions, such as, the Clerk of the Weather, the Beau Ideal, Mr. So- +they-say, the Coming Man, and other ubiquitous personages, whom we +continually hear of, but never see. The Man of Fancy invites these and +many others to a banquet in his cloud-castle, where they all converse +and behave according to their special characters. A ripple of delicate +humor, like the ripple made by a light summer breeze upon the calm +surface of a lake, runs through the piece from the first sentence to +the last; and the scene is brought to a close by the approach of a +thunder-storm, which spreads consternation among these unsubstantial +guests, much like that which takes place at a picnic under similar +circumstances; and Hawthorne, with his customary mystification, leaves +us in doubt as to whether they ever reached _terra firma_ again. + +There is one proverbial character, however, whom Hawthorne has omitted +from this account; namely, Mr. Everybody. "What Everybody says, must be +true;" but unfortunately Everybody's information is none of the best, +and his judgment does not rise above his information. His self- +confidence, however, is enormous. He understands law better than the +lawyer, and medicine better than the physicians. He is never tired of +settling the affairs of the country, and of proposing constitutional +amendments. Is it not perfectly natural that Everybody should +understand Everybody's business as well as or better than his own? He +is continually predicting future events, and if they fail to take place +he predicts them again. He is omnipresent, but if you seek him he is +nowhere to be found,--which we may presume to be the reason why he did +not appear at the entertainment given by the Man of Fancy. + +That which gives the elevated character to Raphael's faces--as in the +"Sistine Madonna" and other paintings--is not their drawing, though +that is always refined, but the expression of the eyes, which are truly +the windows of the soul. It was the same in Hawthorne's face, and may +be observed in all good portraits of him. An immutable calmness +overspread his features, but in and about his eyes there was a spring- +like mirthfulness; while down in the shadowy depth of those luminous +orbs was concealed the pathos that formed the undercurrent of his life. +So it is that high comedy, as Plato long ago observed, lies very close +to tragedy. + +A well-known French writer compares English humor, in a general way, to +beer-drinking, and this is more particularly applicable to Dickens's +characters. The very name of Mark Tapley suggests ale bottles. +Thackeray's humor is of a more refined quality, but a trifle sharp and +satirical. It is, however, pure and healthful and might be compared to +Rhine-wine. Hawthorne's humor at its best is more refined than +Thackeray's, as well as of a more amiable quality, and reminds one (on +Taine's principle) of those delicate Italian wines which have very +little body, but a delightful bouquet. As a humorist, however, +Hawthorne varies in different times and places more than in any other +respect. He adapts himself to his subject; is light and playful in "The +Select Party"; takes on a more serious vein in "The Celestial +Railroad"; in his resuscitation of Byron, in the letter from a lunatic +called "P's Correspondence" he is simply sardonic; and "The Virtuoso's +Collection" has all the effect, although he does not anywhere descend +to low comedy, of a roaring farce. In "Mrs. Bull-Frog," as the title +intimates, he approaches closely to the grotesque. + +In "The Virtuoso's Collection" we have the humor of impossibility. +Nothing is more common than this, but Hawthorne gives it a peculiar +value of his own. A procession of mythological objects, strange +historical relics, and the odd creations of fiction passes before our +eyes. The abruptness of their juxtaposition excites continuous laughter +in us. It would be an extremely phlegmatic person who could read it +with a serious face. Don Quixote's Rosinante, Doctor Johnson's cat, +Shelley's skylark, a live phœnix, Prospero's magic wand, the hard- +ridden Pegasus, the dove which brought the olive branch, and many +others appear in such rapid succession that the reader has no time to +take breath, or to consider what will turn up next. Like an +accomplished showman, Hawthorne enlivens the performance here and there +with original reflections on life, which are perfectly dignified, but +become humorous from contrast with their surroundings. In spite of its +comical effect, the piece has a very genteel air, for its material is +taken from that general stock of information that passes current in +cultivated families. The young man of fashion who had never heard of +Elijah, or of Poe's "Raven," would not have understood it. + +In "The Hall of Fantasy," we catch some glimpses of Hawthorne's +favorite authors: + +"The grand old countenance of Homer, the shrunken and decrepit form, +but vivid face, of Æsop, the dark presence of Dante, the wild Ariosto, +Rabelais's smile of deep-wrought mirth, the profound, pathetic humor of +Cervantes, the all glorious Shakespeare, Spenser, meet guest for an +allegoric structure, the severe divinity of Milton and Bunyan, molded +of the homeliest clay, but instinct with celestial fire--were those +that chiefly attracted my eye. Fielding, Richardson, and Scott occupied +conspicuous pedestals." + +He also adds Goethe and Swedenborg, and remarks of them: + +"Were ever two men of transcendent imagination more unlike?" + +It is evident that Byron was not a favorite with Hawthorne. In addition +to his severe treatment of that poet, in "P's Correspondence," he says +in "Earth's Holocaust," where he imagines the works of various authors +to be consumed in a bonfire: + +"Speaking of the properties of flame, me-thought Shelley's poetry +emitted a purer light than almost any other productions of his day, +contrasting beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of +black vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron." + +This seems like rather puritanical treatment. If there are false lines +in Byron, there are quite as many weak lines in Shelley. If sincerity +were to give out a pure flame, Byron would stand that test equal to +any. His real fault is to be found in his somewhat glaring diction, +like the _voix blanc_ in singing, and in an occasional stroke of +_persiflage_. This increases his attractiveness to youthful minds, +but to a nature like Hawthorne's anything of an exhibitory character +must always be unpleasant. + +Emerson and Hawthorne only knew Goethe through the translations of +Dwight, Carlyle and Margaret Fuller, and yet his poetry made a deeper +impression on them than on Lowell and Longfellow, who read it in the +original. Hawthorne appears to have taken lessons in German while at +Brook Farm, for we find him studying a German book at the Old Manse, +with a grammar and lexicon; but, as he confesses in his diary, without +making satisfactory progress. + +"The Artist of the Beautiful" is a Dantean allegory, and a poetic gem. +A young watchmaker, imbued with a spirit above his calling, neglects +the profits of his business in order to construct an artificial +butterfly,--at once the type of useless beauty and the symbol of +immortality, and he perseveres in spite of the difficulties of the +undertaking and the contemptuous opposition of his acquaintances. He +finally succeeds in making one which seems to be almost endowed with +life, but only to be informed that it is no better than a toy, and that +he has wasted his time on a thing which has no practical value. A child +(who represents the thoughtlessness of the great world) crushes the +exquisite piece of workmanship in his little hand; but the watch-maker +does not repine at this, for he realizes that after having achieved the +beautiful, in his own spirit, the outward symbol of it has +comparatively little value. The Artist of the Beautiful is Hawthorne +himself; and in this exquisite fable he has not only unfolded the +secret of all high art, but his own life-secret as well. + + +HAWTHORNE AND TRANSCENDENTALISM + +The French and English scepticism of the eighteenth century, produced a +reaction in the more contemplative German nature, which took the form +of a strong assertion of spirit or mind as an entity in itself, and +distinct from matter. This movement was more like a national impulse +than the proselytism of a sect, but the individual in whom this +spiritual impulse of the German people manifested itself at that time +was Immanuel Kant. Without discrediting the revelations of Hebrew +tradition, he taught the doctrine that instead of looking for evidence +of a Supreme Being in the external world, we should seek him in our own +hearts; that every man could find a revelation in his own conscience,-- +in the consciousness of good and evil, by which man improves his +condition on earth; that the ideas of a Supreme Being, or of +immortality and freedom of will, are inherent in the human mind, and +are not to be acquired from experience; but that, as the finite mind +cannot comprehend the infinite, we cannot know God in the same sense +that we know our own earthly fathers, or as Goethe afterwards expressed +it,--- + + "Who can say I know Him; + Who can say, I know Him not;" + +and that it is in this aspiration for the unattainable, in this +reverence for absolute purity, wisdom and love, that the spirit of true +religion consists. + +The new philosophy was named "Transcendentalism" by Kant's followers, +because it included ideas which were beyond the range of experience. It +became popular in Germany, as Platonism, to which it is closely +related, became popular in ancient Greece. It has never been accepted +in France, where scepticism still predominates, though we hear of it in +Taine and a few other writers; but in Great Britain, although the +English universities repudiated it, Transcendentalism became so +influential that Gladstone has spoken of it, in his Romanes lecture, as +the dominant philosophy of the nineteenth century. Every notable +English writer of that period, with the exception of Macaulay, Mill, +and Spencer, became largely imbued with it. In America its influence +did not extend much beyond New England, but in that section at least +its proselytes were numbered by thousands, and it effected an +intellectual revolution which has since influenced the whole country. + +The Concord group of transcendentalists did not accept the teaching of +Kant in its original purity; but mixed with it a number of other +imported products, that in no way appertain to it. Thoreau was an +American _sansculotte_, a believer in the natural man; Ripley was +mainly a socialist; Margaret Fuller was one of the earliest leaders in +woman's rights; Alcott was a Neo-Platonist, a vegetarian, and a non- +resistant; while Emerson sympathized largely with Thoreau, and from his +poetic exaltation of Nature was looked upon as a pantheist by those who +were not accustomed to nice discriminations. Thus it happened that +Transcendentalism came to be associated in the public mind with any +exceptional mode or theory of life. Its best representatives in +America, like Professor Hedge of Harvard, Reverend David A. Wasson and +Doctor William T. Harris (so long Chief of the National Bureau of +Education), were much abler men than Emerson's followers, but did not +attract so much attention, simply because they lived according to the +customs of good society. + +Sleepy Hollow, before it was converted into a cemetery, was one of the +most attractive sylvan resorts in the environs of Concord. It was a +sort of natural amphitheatre, a small oval plane, more than half +surrounded by a low wooded ridge; a sheltered and sequestered spot, +cool in summer, but also warm and sunny in spring, where the wild +flowers bloomed and the birds sang earlier than in other places. + +There, on August 22, 1842, a notable meeting took place, between +Hawthorne, Emerson, and Margaret Fuller, who came that afternoon to +enjoy the inspiration of the place, without preconcerted agreement. +Margaret Fuller was first on the ground, and Hawthorne found her seated +on the hill-side--his gravestone now overlooks the spot--reading a book +with a peculiar name, which he "did not understand, and could not +afterward recollect." Such a description could only apply to Kant's +"Critique of Pure Reason," the original fountain-head and gospel of +Transcendentalism. + +It does not appear that Nathaniel Hawthorne ever studied "The Critique +of Pure Reason." His mind was wholly of the artistic order,--the most +perfect type of an artist, one might say, living at that time,--and a +scientific analysis of the mental faculties would have been as +distasteful to him as the dissection of a human body. History, +biography, fiction, did not appear to him as a logical chain of cause +and effect, but as a succession of pictures illustrating an ideal +determination of the human race. He could not even look at a group of +turkeys without seeing a dramatic situation in them. In addition to +this, as a true artist, he was possessed of a strong dislike for +everything eccentric and abnormal; he wished for symmetry in all +things, and above all in human actions; and those restless, unbalanced +spirits, who attached themselves to the transcendental movement and the +anti-slavery cause, were particularly objectionable to him. It has been +rightly affirmed that no revolutionary movement could be carried +through without the support of that ill-regulated class of persons who +are always seeking they know not what, and they have their value in the +community, like the rest of us; but Hawthorne was not a revolutionary +character, and to his mind they appeared like so many obstacles to the +peaceable enjoyment of life. His motto was, "Live and let live." There +are passages in his Concord diary in which he refers to the itinerant +transcendentalist in no very sympathetic manner. + +His experience at Brook Farm may have helped to deepen this feeling. +There is no necessary connection between such an idyllic-socialistic +experiment and a belief in the direct perception of a great First +Clause; but Brook Farm was popularly supposed at that time to be an +emanation of Transcendentalism, and is still largely so considered. He +was wearied at Brook Farm by the philosophical discussions of George +Ripley and his friends, and took to walking in the country lanes, where +he could contemplate and philosophize in his own fashion,--which after +all proved to be more fruitful than theirs. Having exchanged his +interest in the West Roxbury Association for the Old Manse at Concord +(truly a poetic bargain), he wrote the most keenly humorous of his +shorter sketches, his "The Celestial Railroad," and in it represented +the dismal cavern where Bunyan located the two great enemies of true +religion, the Pope and the Pagan, as now occupied by a German giant, +the Transcendentalist, who "makes it his business to seize upon honest +travellers and fat them for his table with plentiful meals of smoke, +mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and sawdust." + +That Transcendentalism was largely associated in Hawthorne's mind with +the unnecessary discomforts and hardships of his West Roxbury life is +evident from a remark which he lets fall in "The Virtuoso's +Collection." The Virtuoso calls his attention to the seven-league boots +of childhood mythology, and Hawthorne replies, "I could show you quite +as curious a pair of cowhide boots at the transcendental community of +Brook Farm." Yet there could have been no malice in his satire, for +Mrs. Hawthorne's two sisters, Mrs. Mann and Miss Peabody, were both +transcendentalists; and so was Horace Mann himself, so far as we know +definitely in regard to his metaphysical creed. Do not we all feel at +times that the search for abstract truth is like a diet of sawdust or +Scotch mist,--a "chimera buzzing in a vacuum"? + +James Russell Lowell similarly attacked Emerson in his Class Day poem, +and afterward became converted to Emerson's views through the influence +of Maria White. It is possible that a similar change took place in +Hawthorne's consciousness; although his consciousness was so profound +and his nature so reticent that what happened in the depths of it was +never indicated by more than a few bubbles at the surface. He was +emphatically an idealist, as every truly great artist must be, and +Transcendentalism was the local costume which ideality wore in +Hawthorne's time. He was a philosopher after a way of his own, and his +reflections on life and manners often have the highest value. It was +inevitable that he should feel and assimilate something from the wave +of German thought which was sweeping over England and America, and if +he did this unconsciously it was so much the better for the quality of +his art. + +There are evidences of this even among his earliest sketches. In his +account of "Sunday at Home" he says: "Time--where a man lives not--what +is it but Eternity?" Does he not recognize in this condensed statement +Kant's theorem that time is a mental condition, which only exists in +man, and for man, and has no place in the external world? In fact, it +only exists by divisions of time, and it is _man_ who makes the +divisions. The rising of the sun does not constitute time; for the sun +is always rising--somewhere. The positivists and Herbert Spencer deny +this, and argue to prove that time is an external entity--independent +of man--like electricity; but Hawthorne did not agree with them. He +evidently trusted the validity of his consciousness. In that exquisite +pastoral, "The Vision at the Fountain," he says: + +"We were aware of each other's presence, not by sight or sound or +touch, but by an inward consciousness. Would it not be so among the +dead?" + +You have probably heard of the German who attempted to evolve a camel +out of his inner consciousness. That and similar jibes are common among +those persons of whom the Scriptures tell us that they are in the habit +of straining at gnats; but Hawthorne believed consciousness to be a +trustworthy guide. Why should he not? It was the consciousness of +_self_ that raised man above the level of the brute. This was the +rock from which Moses struck forth the fountain of everlasting life. + +Again, in "Fancy's Show-Box" we meet with the following: + +"Or, while none but crimes perpetrated are cognizable before an earthly +tribunal, will guilty thoughts,--of which guilty deeds are no more than +shadows,--will these draw down the full weight of a condemning sentence +in the supreme court of eternity?" + +Is this not an induction from or corollary to the preceding? If it is +not Kantian philosophy, it is certainly Goethean. Margaret Fuller was +the first American critic, if not the first of all critics, to point +out that Goethe in writing "Elective Affinities" designed to show that +an evil thought may have consequences as serious and irremediable as an +evil action--in addition to the well-known homily that evil thoughts +lead to evil actions. In his "Hall of Fantasy" Hawthorne mentions +Goethe and Swedenborg as two literary idols of the present time who may +be expected to endure through all time. Emerson makes the same +prediction in one of his poems. + +In "Rappacini's Daughter" Hawthorne says: "There is something truer and +more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch with the +finger." + +And in "The Select Party" he remarks: "To such beholders it was unreal +because they lacked the imaginative faith. Had they been worthy to pass +within its portals, they would have recognized the truth that the +dominions which the spirit conquers for itself among unrealities become +a thousand times more real than the earth whereon they stamp their +feet, saying, 'This is solid and substantial! This may be called a +fact!'" + +The essence of Transcendentalism is the assertion of the +indestructibility of spirit, that mind is more real than matter, and +the unseen than the seen. "The visible has value only," says Carlyle, +"when it is based on the invisible." No writer of the nineteenth +century affirms this more persistently than Hawthorne, and in none of +his romances is the principle so conspicuous as in "The House of the +Seven Gables." It is a sister's love which, like a cord stronger than +steel, binds together the various incidents of the story, while the +avaricious Judge Pyncheon, "with his landed estate, public honors, +offices of trust and other solid _un_realities," has after all +only succeeded in building a card castle for himself, which may be +dissipated by a single breath. Holgrave, the daguerreotypist, who +serves as a contrast to the factitious judge, is a genuine character, +and may stand for a type of the young New England liberal of 1850: a +freethinker, and so much of a transcendentalist that we suspect +Hawthorne's model for him to have been one of the younger associates of +the Brook Farm experiment. He is evidently studied from life, and +Hawthorne says of him: + +"Altogether, in his culture and want of culture, in his crude, wild, +and misty philosophy, and the practical experience that counteracted +some of its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for man's welfare, and +his recklessness of whatever the ages had established in man's behalf; +in his faith, and in his infidelity; in what he had, and in what he +lacked, the artist might fitly enough stand forth as the representative +of many compeers in his native land." + +This is a fairly sympathetic portrait, and it largely represents the +class of young men who went to hear Emerson and supported Charles +Sumner. In the story, Holgrave achieves the reward of a veracious +nature by winning the heart of the purest and loveliest young woman in +American fiction. + +If Hawthorne were still living he might object to the foregoing +argument as a misrepresentation; nor could he be blamed for this, for +Ripley, Thoreau, Alcott and other like visionary spirits have so +vitiated the significance of Transcendentalism that it ought now to be +classed among words of doubtful and uncertain meaning. + +Students of German philosophy are now chiefly known as Kantists or +Hegelians, and outside of the universities they are commonly classed as +Emersonians. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +FROM CONCORD TO LENOX: 1845-1849 + + +In May, 1845, Paymaster Bridge found himself again on the American +coast. Meeting with Franklin Pierce in Boston, they agreed to go to +Concord together, and look into Hawthorne's affairs. Soon after +breakfast, Mrs. Hawthorne espied them coming through the gateway. She +had never met Pierce, but she recognized Bridge's tall, elegant figure, +when he waved his hat to her in the distance. Hawthorne himself was +sawing and splitting in the wood-shed, and thither she directed his +friends--to his no slight astonishment when they appeared before him. +Pierce had his arm across Hawthorne's broad shoulders when they +reappeared. There is one pleasure, indeed, which young people cannot +know, and that is, the meeting of old friends. Mrs. Hawthorne was +favorably impressed with Franklin Pierce's personality; while Horatio +Bridge danced about and acted an impromptu pantomime, making up faces +like an owl. They assured Hawthorne that something should be done to +relieve his financial embarrassment.[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, 281.] + +All those whose attention Hawthorne attracted out of the rush and hurry +of the world were sure to become interested in his welfare. O'Sullivan, +the editor of the _Democratic Review_, had already exerted himself +in Hawthorne's behalf; but President Polk evidently did not know who +Hawthorne was, so that O'Sullivan was obliged to have a puff inserted +in his review for the President's better information. George Bancroft +was now in the Cabinet, and could easily have obtained a lucrative post +for Hawthorne, but it is plain that Bancroft was not over-friendly to +him and that Hawthorne was fully aware of this. Hawthorne had suggested +the Salem postmastership, but when O'Sullivan mentioned this, Bancroft +objected on the ground that the present incumbent was too good a man to +be displaced, and proposed the consulates of Genoa and Marseilles, two +deplorable positions and quite out of the question for Hawthorne, in +the condition of his family at that time. Perhaps it would have been +better for him in a material sense, if he had accepted the invitation +to dine with Margaret Fuller. + +The summer wore away, but nothing was acomplished; and late in the +autumn Hawthorne left the Old Manse to return to his Uncle Robert +Manning's house in Salem, where he could always count on a warm +welcome. There he spent the winter with his wife and child, until +suddenly, in March, 1846, he was appointed Surveyor of the Port, or, as +it is now more properly called, Collector of Customs. + +This was, in truth, worth waiting for. The salary was not large, but it +was a dignified position and allowed Hawthorne sufficient leisure for +other pursuits,--the leisure of the merchant or banker. Salem had +already begun to lose its foreign trade, and for days together it +sometimes happened that there was nothing to do. Hawthorne's chief +business was to prevent the government from being cheated, either by +the importers or by his own subordinates; and it required a pretty +sharp eye to do this. All the appointments, even to his own clerks, +were made by outside politicians, and when a reduction of employees was +necessary, Hawthorne consulted with the local Democratic Committee, and +followed their advice. Such a method was not to the advantage of the +public service, but it saved Hawthorne from an annoying responsibility. +His strictness and impartiality, however, soon brought him into +conflict with his more self-important subordinates, who were by no +means accustomed to exactness in their dealings, and this finally +produced a good deal of official unpleasantness; and the unfavorable +reports which were afterward circulated concerning Hawthorne's life +during this period, probably originated in that quarter. + +[Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE, SALEM, MASS., WHERE HAWTHORNE WAS +EMPLOYED AS SURVEYOR OF THE FORT OF SALEM, AT THE TIME OF HIS WRITING +"THE SCARLET LETTER"] + +All the poetry that Hawthorne could extract from his occupation at the +Custom House is to be found in his preface to "The Scarlet Letter," but +he withholds from us the prosaic side of it,--as he well might. At +times he comes close to caricature, especially in his descriptions of +"those venerable incumbents who hibernated during the winter season, +and then crawled out during the warm days of spring to draw their pay +and perform those pretended duties, for which they were engaged." There +were formerly large numbers of moss-grown loafers in the government +service, with whiskey-reddened noses and greasy old clothing, who would +sun themselves on the door-steps, and tell anecdotes of General +Jackson, Senator Benton, and other popular heroes, with whom they would +intimate a good acquaintance at some remote period of their lives. If +removed from office, they were quite as likely to turn up in a +neighboring jail as in any other location. This is no satire, but +serious truth; and instances of it can be given. + +Hawthorne's life during the next three years was essentially domestic. +In June, 1846, his son Julian was born--a remarkably vigorous baby--at +Doctor Peabody's house in West Street, Boston; Mrs. Hawthorne wisely +preferring to be with her own mother during her confinement. [Footnote: +At the age of thirty-five, Julian resembled his father so closely that +Nathaniel Hawthorne's old friends were sometimes startled by him, as if +they had seen an apparition. He was, however, of a stouter build, and +his eyes were different.] With two small children on her hands, Mrs. +Hawthorne had slight opportunity to enjoy general society, fashionable +or otherwise. Rebecca Manning says, however: + +"Neither Hawthorne nor his wife could be said to be 'in society' in the +technical sense. When the Peabody family lived in Salem, they were, I +have been told, somewhat straitened pecuniarily. After Hawthorne's +marriage, I think I remember hearing of his wife going to parties and +dinners occasionally. Dr. Loring's wife was her cousin. Other friends +were the Misses Howes, one of whom is now Mrs. Cabot of Boston. Mrs. +Foote, who was a daughter of Judge White, was a friend, and I remember +some Silsbees who were also her friends. Hawthorne's wife knew how to +cultivate her friends and make the most of them far better than either +Hawthorne or his sisters did. I have been told that when Hawthorne was +a young man, before his marriage, if he had chosen to enter Salem's +'first circle' he would have been welcome there." + +During this last sojourn in his native city Hawthorne was chosen on the +committee for the lyceum lecture course, and proved instrumental in +bringing Webster to Salem,--where he had not been popular since the +trial of the two Knapps,--to deliver an oration on the Constitution; of +which Mrs. Hawthorne has given a graphic description in a letter to her +mother on November 19, 1848: + +"The old Lion walked the stage with a sort of repressed rage, when he +referred to those persons who cried out, 'Down with the Constitution!' +'Madmen! Or most wicked if not mad!' said he with a glare of fire." + +A pure piece of acting. The national Constitution was not even +endangered by the Southern rebellion,--much less by the small band of +original abolitionists; and Webster was too sensible not to be aware of +this. + +While Hawthorne was at the Salem Custom House, he made at least two +valuable friends: Doctor George B. Loring, who had married a cousin of +Mrs. Hawthorne, and William B. Pike, who occupied a subordinate +position in the Custom House, but whom Hawthorne valued for moral and +intellectual qualities of which he would seem to have been the first +discoverer. They were not friends who would be likely to affect +Hawthorne's political views, except to encourage him in the direction +to which he had always tended. Four years earlier, Doctor Loring had +been on cordial terms with Longfellow and Sumner, being a refined and +intellectual sort of man, but like Hillard, had withdrawn from them on +account of political differences. He was an able public speaker, and +became a Democratic politician, until 1862, when he went over to the +Republicans; but after that he was looked upon with a good deal of +suspicion by both parties. The governorship was supposed to have been +the object of his ambition, but he never could obtain the nomination. +Late in life he was appointed Commissioner of Agriculture, a post for +which he was eminently fitted, and finally went to Portugal as United +States Minister. + +William B. Pike either lacked the opportunity or the necessary +concentration to develop his genius in the larger world, but Hawthorne +continued to communicate with him irregularly until the close of his +life. He invited him to Lenox when he resided there, and Mrs. Lathrop +recollects seeing him at the Wayside in Concord, after Hawthorne's +return from Europe. She discribes him as a "short, sturdy, phlegmatic +and plebeian looking man," but with a gentle step and a finely +modulated voice. It may have been as well for him that he never became +distinguished. [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, "Memories of Hawthorne," 154.] + +The war with Mexico was now fairly afield, and Franklin Pierce, who +left the United States Senate on account of his wife's health, was +organizing a regiment of New Hampshire volunteers, as a "patriotic +duty." Salem people thought differently, and party feeling there soon +rose to the boiling-point. There is no other community where political +excitement is so likely to become virulent as in a small city. In a +country town, like Concord, every man feels the necessity for +conciliating his neighbor, but the moneyed class in Salem was +sufficient for its own purposes, and was opposed to the war in a solid +body. The Whigs looked upon the invasion of Mexico as a piratical +attempt of the Democratic leaders to secure the permanent ascendency of +their party, and this was probably the true reason for Franklin +Pierce's joining it. In their eyes, Hawthorne was the representative of +a corrupt administration, and they would have been more than human if +they had not wished him to feel this. The Salem gentry could not draw +him into an argument very well, but they could look daggers at him on +the street and exhibit their coldness toward him when they went on +business to the Custom House. It is evident that he was made to suffer +in some such manner, and to a tenderhearted man with a clear +conscience, it must have seemed unkind and unjust. [Footnote: When the +engagement between the "Chesapeake" and the "Shannon" took place off +Salem harbor in August, 1813, and Captain Lawrence was killed in the +action, the anti-war sentiment ran so high that it was difficult to +find a respectable mansion where his funeral would be permitted.] In +his Custom House preface, Hawthorne compares the Whigs rather +unfavorably with the Democrats, and this is not to be wondered at; but +he should have remembered that it was his own party which first +introduced the spoils-of-office system. + +The first use that Hawthorne made of his government salary was to +cancel his obligations to the Concord tradespeople, and the next was to +provide a home for his wife and mother. They first moved to 18 Chestnut +Street, in June, 1846; and thence to a larger house, 14 Mall Street, in +September, 1847, in which "The Snow Image" was prepared for +publication, and "The Scarlet Letter" was written. Hawthorne's study or +workshop was the front room in the third story, an apartment of some +width but with a ceiling in direct contradiction to the elevated +thoughts of the writer. There is an ominous silence in the American +Note-book between 1846 and 1850, which is rather increased than +diminished by the publication from his diary of a number of extracts +concerning the children. The babies of geniuses do not differ +essentially from those of other people, and it is not supposable that +Hawthorne's reflections during this period were wholly confined to his +own family. It is to be hoped that fuller information will yet be given +to the public concerning their affairs in Salem; for the truth deserves +to be told. + +In January, 1846, Mrs. Hawthorne wrote to her mother: + +"No one, I think, has a right to break the will of a child, but God; +and if the child is taught to submit to Him through love, all other +submission will follow with heavenly effect upon the character. God +never drives even the most desperate sinner, but only invites or +suggests through the events of His providence." + +Nothing is more unfortunate than to break the will of a child, for all +manliness and womanliness is grounded in the will; but it is often +necessary to control the desires and humors of children for their self- +preservation. Hawthorne himself was not troubled with such fancies. +Alcott, who was his nearest neighbor at the Wayside, once remarked that +there was only one will in the Hawthorne family, and that was +Nathaniel's. His will was law and no one thought of disputing it. Yet +what he writes concerning children is always sweet, tender, and +beautiful, with the single exception of a criticism of his own +daughter, which was published long after his death and could not have +been intended for the public eye. + +The war with Mexico was wonderfully successful from a military point of +view, but its political effects were equally confounding to the +politicians who projected it. The American people resemble the French, +quite as much perhaps as they do the English, and the admiration of +military glory is one of their Gallic traits. It happened that the two +highest positions in the army were both held by Whig generals, and the +victory of Buena Vista carried Zachary Taylor into the White House, in +spite of the opposition of Webster and Clay, as well as that of the +Democrats and the Free Soilers. Polk, Bancroft, and Pierce had all +contributed to the defeat of their own party. The war proved their +political terminus to the two former; but, _mirabile dictu_, it +became the cap of Fortunatus to Pierce and Hawthorne. + +This, however, could not have been foreseen at the time, and the +election of Taylor in November, 1848, had a sufficiently chilling +effect on the little family in Mall Street. Hawthorne entertained the +hope that he might be spared in the general out-turning, as a +distinguished writer and an inoffensive partisan, and this indicates +how loath he was to relinquish his comfortable position. Let us place +ourselves in his situation and we shall not wonder at it. He was now +forty-five, with a wife and two children, and destitution was staring +him in the face. For ten years he had struggled bravely, and this was +the net result of all his endeavors. Never had the future looked so +gloomy to him. + +The railroad had superseded his Uncle Manning's business, as it had +that of half the mercantile class in the city, and his father-in-law +was in a somewhat similar predicament. At this time Elizabeth Peabody +was keeping a small foreign book-store in a room of her father's house +on West Street. One has to realize these conditions, in order to +appreciate the mood in which Hawthorne's Custom House preface was +written. + +There is one passage in it, however, that is always likely to be +misunderstood. It is where he says: + +"I thought my own prospects of retaining office, to be better than +those of my Democratic brethren; but who can see an inch into futurity, +beyond his nose? My own head was the first that fell!" + +It is clear that some kind of an effort was made to prevent his +removal, presumably by George S. Hillard, who was a Whig in good favor; +but the conclusion which one would naturally draw from the above, that +Hawthorne was turned out of office in a summary and ungracious manner, +is not justified by the evidence. He was not relieved from duty until +June 14, 1849; that is, he was given a hundred days of grace, which is +much more than officeholders commonly are favored with, in such cases. +We may consider it morally certain that Hillard did what he could in +Hawthorne's behalf. He was well acquainted with Webster, but +unfortunately Webster had opposed the nomination of General Taylor, and +was so imprudent as to characterize it as a nomination not fit to be +made. This was echoed all over the country, and left Webster without +influence at Washington. For the time being Seward was everything, and +Webster was nothing. + +In a letter to Horace Mann, shortly after his removal, Hawthorne refers +to two distinct calumnies which had been circulated concerning him in +Salem, and only too widely credited. The most important of these--for +it has seriously compromised a number of Salem gentlemen--was never +explained until the publication of Mrs. Lathrop's "Memories of +Hawthorne" in 1897; where we find a letter from Mrs. Hawthorne to her +mother, dated June 10, 1849, and containing the following passage: + +"Here is a pretty business, discovered in an unexpected manner to Mr. +Hawthorne by a friendly and honorable Whig. Perhaps you know that the +President said before he took the chair that he should make no removals +except for dishonesty and unfaithfulness. It is very plain that neither +of these charges could be brought against Mr. Hawthorne. Therefore a +most base and incredible falsehood has been told--written down and +signed and sent to the Cabinet in secret. This infamous paper certifies +among other things (of which we have not heard)--that Mr. Hawthorne has +been in the habit of writing political articles in magazines and +newspapers!" So it appears that the gutta-percha formula [Footnote: By +which eighty-eight per cent, of the classified service were removed.] +of President Cleveland in regard to "offensive partisanship" was really +invented forty years before his time, and had as much value in one case +as in the other. It is possible that such a document as Mrs. Hawthorne +describes was circulated, signed, and sent to Washington, to make the +way easy for President Taylor's advisers, and if so it was a highly +contemptible proceeding; but the statement rests wholly on the +affirmation of a single witness, whose name has always been withheld, +and even if it were true that Hawthorne had written political articles +for Democratic papers the fact would have in no wise been injurious to +his reputation. The result must have been the same in any case. General +Taylor was an honorable man, and no doubt intended to keep his word, as +other Presidents have intended since; but what could even a brave +general effect against the army of hungry office-seekers who were +besieging the White House,--a more formidable army than the Mexicans +whom he had defeated at Buena Vista? In all probability he knew nothing +of Hawthorne and never heard of his case. + +The second calumny which Hawthorne refers to was decidedly second-rate, +and closely resembles a servant's intrigue. The Department at +Washington, in a temporary fit of economy, had requested him to +discharge two of his supervisors. He did not like to take the men's +bread away from them, and made a mild protest against the order. At the +same time he consulted his chief clerk as to what it might be best to +do, and they agreed upon suspending two of the supervisors who might +suffer less from it than some others. As it happened, the Department +considered Hawthorne's report favorably, and no suspension took place; +but his clerk betrayed the secret to the two men concerned, who hated +Hawthorne in consequence, and afterward circulated a report that he had +threatened to discharge them unless they contributed to the Democratic +campaign fund. This return of evil for good appears to have been a new +experience for Hawthorne, but those who are much concerned in the +affairs of the world soon become accustomed to it, and pay little +attention to either the malice or the mendacity of mankind. + +Twenty years later one of Hawthorne's clerks, who had prudently shifted +from the Democratic to the Republican ranks, held a small office in the +Boston Navy Yard, and was much given to bragging of his intimacy with +"Nat," and of the sprees they went on together; but the style and +description of the man were sufficient to discredit his statements +without further evidence. There were, however, several old shipmasters +in the Salem Custom House who had seen Calcutta, Canton, and even a +hurricane or two; men who had lived close to reality, with a vein of +true heroism in them, moreover; and if Hawthorne preferred their +conversation to that of the shipowners, who had spent their lives in +calculating the profits of commercial adventures, there are many among +the well educated who would agree with him. He refers particularly to +one aged inspector of imports, whose remarkable adventures by flood and +field were an almost daily recreation to him; and if the narratives of +this ancient mariner were somewhat mixed with romance, assuredly +Hawthorne should have been the last person to complain of them on that +account. + +At first he was wholly unnerved by his dismissal. He returned to Mall +Street and said to his wife: "I have lost my place. What shall we now +do for bread?" But Mrs. Hawthorne replied: "Never fear. You will now +have leisure to finish your novel. Meanwhile, I will earn bread for us +with my pencil and paint-brush." [Footnote: Mrs. George S. Hillard.] +Besides this, she brought forward two or three hundred dollars, which +she had saved from his salary unbeknown to him; but who would not have +been encouraged by such a brave wife? Fortunately her pencil and paint- +brush were not put to the test; at least so far as we know. Already on +June 8, her husband had written a long letter to Hillard, explaining +the state of his affairs and containing this pathetic appeal: + +"If you could do anything in the way of procuring me some stated +literary employment, in connection with a newspaper, or as corrector of +the press to some printing establishment, etc., it could not come at a +better time. Perhaps Epes Sargent, who is a friend of mine, would know +of something. I shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of +itself. Perhaps there may be some subordinate office connected with the +Boston Athenæum (Literary). Do not think anything too humble to be +mentioned to me." [Footnote: Conway, 113.] + +There have been many tragical episodes in the history of literature, +but since "Paradise Lost" was sold for five pounds and a contingent +interest, there has been nothing more simply pathetic than this,--that +an immortal writer should feel obliged to apply for a subordinate +position in a counting-room, a description of work which nobody likes +too well, and which to Hawthorne would have been little less than a +death in life. "Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to +me"! + +What Hillard attempted to do at this time is uncertain, but he was not +the man to allow the shrine of genius to be converted into a gas- +burner, if he could possibly prevent it. We may presume that he went to +Salem and encouraged Hawthorne in his amiable, half-eloquent manner. +But we do not hear of him again until the new year. Meanwhile Madam +Hawthorne fell into her last illness and departed this life on July 31; +a solemn event even to a hard-hearted son--how much more to such a man +as she had brought into the world. Three days before her death, he +writes in his diary of "her heart beating its funeral march," and +diverts his mind from the awful _finale_ by an accurate description of +his two children playing a serio-comic game of doctor and patient, in the +adjoining room. + +It was under such tragical conditions, well suited to the subject, that +he continued his work on "The Scarlet Letter," and his painfully +contracted brow seemed to indicate that he suffered as much in +imagination, as the characters in that romance are represented to have +suffered. In addition he wrote "The Great Stone Pace," one of the most +impressive of his shorter pieces (published, alas! in a Washington +newspaper), and the sketch called "Main Street," both afterward +included in the volume of "The Snow Image." On January 17, 1850, he was +greatly surprised to receive a letter from George S. Hillard with a +large check in it,--more than half-way to a thousand dollars,--which +the writer with all possible delicacy begged him to accept from a few +of his Boston admirers. It was only from such a good friend as Hillard +that Hawthorne would have accepted assistance in this form; but he +always considered it in the character of a loan, and afterward insisted +on repaying it to the original subscribers,--Professor Ticknor, Judge +Curtis, and others. Hillard also persuaded James T. Fields, the younger +partner of Ticknor & Company, to take an interest in Hawthorne as an +author who required to be encouraged, and perhaps coaxed a little, in +order to bring out the best that was in him. Fields accordingly went to +Salem soon afterward, and has given an account of his first interview +with Hawthorne in "Yesterdays with Authors," which seems rather +melodramatic: "found him cowering over a stove," and altogether in a +woe-begone condition. The main point of discussion between them, +however, was whether "The Scarlet Letter" should be published +separately or in conjunction with other subjects. Hawthorne feared that +such a serious plot, continued with so little diversity of motive, +would not be likely to produce a favorable impression unless it were +leavened with material of a different kind. Fields, on the contrary, +thought it better that the work should stand by itself, in solitary +grandeur, and feared that it would only be dwarfed by any additions of +a different kind. He predicted a good sale for the book, and succeeded +in disillusionizing Hawthorne from the notions he had acquired from the +failure of "Fanshawe." + +As it was late in the season, Fields would not even wait for the +romance to be finished, but sent it to the press at once; and on +February 4, Hawthorne wrote to Horatio Bridge: + +"I finished my book only yesterday; one end being in the press at +Boston, while the other was in my head here at Salem; so that, as you +see, the story is at least fourteen miles long." + +The time of publication was a propitious one: the gold was flowing in +from California, and every man and woman had a dollar to spend. The +first edition of five thousand copies was taken up within a month, and +after this Hawthorne suffered no more financial embarrassments. The +succeeding twelve years of his life were as prosperous and cheerful as +his friends and readers could desire for him; although the sombre past +still seemed to cast a ghostly shadow across his way, which even the +sunshine of Italy could not entirely dissipate. + + +"THE SCARLET LETTER" + +The germ of this romance is to be found in the tale of "Endicott and +the Red Cross," published in the _Token_ in 1838, so that it must +have been at least ten years sprouting and developing in Hawthorne's +mind. In that story he gives a tragically comic description of the +Puritan penitentiary,--in the public square,--where, among others, a +good-looking young woman was exposed with a red letter A on her breast, +which she had embroidered herself, so elegantly that it seemed as if it +was rather intended for a badge of distinction than as a mark of +infamy. Hawthorne did not conjure this up wholly out of his +imagination, for in 1704 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay passed +the following law, which he was no doubt aware of: + +"Convicted before the Justice of Assize,--both Man and Woman to be set +on the Gallows an Hour with a Rope about their Necks and the other end +cast over the Gallowses. And in the way from thence to the common Gaol, +to he Scourged not exceeding Forty Stripes. And forever after to wear a +Capital A of two inches long, of a contrary colour to their cloathes, +sewed on their upper Garments, on the Back or Arm, in open view. And as +often as they appear without it, openly to be Scourged, not exceeding +Fifteen Stripes." [Footnote: Boston, Timothy Green, 1704.] + +The most diligent investigation, however, has failed to discover an +instance in which punishment was inflicted under this law, so that we +must conclude that Hawthorne invented that portion of his statement. In +fact, nothing that Hawthorne published himself is to be considered of +historical or biographical value. It is all fiction. He sported with +historical facts and traditions, as poets and painters always have +done, and the manuscript which he pretends to have discovered in his +office at the Custom House, written by one of his predecessors there, +is a piece of pure imagination, which serves to give additional +credibility to his narrative. He knew well enough how large a portion +of what is called history is fiction after all, and the extent to which +professed historians deal in romance. He felt that he was justified so +long as he did not depart from the truth of human nature. We may thank +him that he did not dispel the illusion of his poetic imagery by the +introduction of well-known historical characters. This is permissible +in a certain class of novels, but its effect is always more or less +prosaic. + +Our Puritan ancestors evidently did not realize the evil effects of +their law against faithless wives,--its glaring indelicacy, and +brutalizing influence on the minds of the young; but it was of a piece +with their exclusion of church-music and other amenities of +civilization. Was it through a natural attraction for the primeval +granite that they landed on the New England coast? Their severe self- +discipline was certainly well adapted to their situation, but, while it +built up their social edifice on an enduring foundation, its tendency +was to crush out the gentler and more sympathetic qualities in human +nature. In no other community would the story of Hester Prynne acquire +an equal cogency and significance. A German might, perhaps, understand +it; but a Frenchman or an Italian not at all. + +The same subject has been treated in its most venial form by +Shakespeare in "Measure for Measure," and in its most condemnable form +in Goethe's "Faust." "The Scarlet Letter" lies midway between these +two. Hester Prynne has married a man of morose, vindictive disposition, +such as no woman could be happy with. He is, moreover, much older than +herself, and has gone off on a wild expedition in pursuit of objects +which he evidently cares for, more than for his wife. She has not heard +from him for over a year, and knows not whether he has deserted her, or +if he is no longer living. She is alone in a strange wild country, and +it is natural that she should seek counsel and encouragement from the +young clergyman, who is worthy of her love, but, unfortunately, not a +strong character. Lightning is not swifter than the transition in our +minds from good to evil, and in an unguarded moment he brings ruin upon +himself, and a life-long penance on Hester Prynne. Hawthorne tells this +story with such purity and delicacy of feeling that a maiden of sixteen +can read it without offence. + +"The Scarlet Letter" is at once the most poetic and the most powerful +of Hawthorne's larger works, much more powerful than "The Vicar of +Wakefield," which has been accepted as the type of a romance in all +languages. Goldsmith's tale will always be more popular than "The +Scarlet Letter," owing to its blithesome spirit, its amusing incidents +and bright effects of light and shade; but "The Scarlet Letter" strikes +a more penetrating chord in the human breast, and adheres more closely +to the truth of life. There are certain highly improbable circumstances +woven in the tissue of "The Vicar of Wakefield," which a prudent, +reflective reader finds it difficult to surmount. It is rather +surprising that the Vicar should not have discovered the true social +position of his friend Mr. Burchell, which must have been known to +every farmer in the vicinity; and still more so that Mr. Burchell +should have permitted the father of a young woman in whom he was deeply +interested, to be carried to prison for debt without making an inquiry +into his case. "The Scarlet Letter" is, as Hawthorne noticed, a +continual variation on a single theme, and that a decidedly solemn one; +but its different incidents form a dynamic sequence, leading onward to +the final catastrophe, and if its progress is slow--the narrative +extends over a period of seven years--this is as inevitable as the +march of Fate. From the first scene in the drama, we are lifted above +ourselves, and sustained so by Hawthorne's genius, until the close. + +This sense of power arises from dealing with a subject which demanded +the whole force and intensity of Hawthorne's nature. Hester Prynne +herself is a strong character, and her errors are those of strength and +independence rather than of weakness. She says to Mr. Dimmesdale that +what they did "had a consecration of its own," and it is this belief +which supports her under a weight of obloquy that would have crushed a +more fragile spirit. She does not collapse into a pitiful nonentity, +like Scott's Effie Deans, nor is she maddened to crime like George +Eliot's "Hetty Sorrel"; [Footnote: A name apparently compounded from +Hester Prynne and Schiller's Agnes Sorrel.] but from the outset she +forms definite resolutions,--first to rehabilitate her own character, +and next to protect the partner of her shame. This last may seem to be +a mistaken devotion, and contrary to his true interest, for the first +step in the regeneration from sin is to acknowledge manfully the +responsibility of it; but to give the repentance even the appearance of +sincerity, the confession must be a voluntary one, and not be forced +upon the delinquent person by external pressure. We cannot withhold our +admiration for Hester's unswerving fidelity to this twofold purpose. We +may condemn her in our minds, but we cannot refuse her a measure of +sympathy in our hearts. + +I believe this to be the explanation of her apparent inconsistency at +the close of the book. Many of Hawthorne's commentators have been +puzzled by the fact that Hester, after so many years of contrition, +should advise Dimmesdale to fly to England, and even offered to +accompany him. Women have not the same idea of law that men have. In +their ideas of right and wrong they depend chiefly on their sense of +purity; and it is very difficult to persuade a woman that she could be +wrong in obeying the dictates of her heart. Hester perceives that her +former lover is being tortured to death by the silent tyranny of +Chillingworth; the tide of affection so long restrained flows back into +her soul; and her own reputation is as nothing compared with the life +of the man she hopes to save. There is no other passage in American +fiction so pathetic as that woodland meeting, at which their mutual +hopes of happiness blaze up like the momentary brightness of a dying +flame. Hester's innocent child, however, representing the spirit of +truthfulness, is suddenly seized with an aversion to her father and +refuses to join their company,--an unfavorable omen and dark presage of +the minister's doom. + +Pearl's behavior, on this occasion, may be supposed to represent the +author's own judgment. How far shall we agree with him? The past +generation witnessed one of the noblest of women uniting herself, for +life and death, to a man whom she could not marry on account of purely +legal objections. Whether Hester's position in the last act of this +drama is comparable with that of Marian Evans every one must decide +according to his or her conscience. + +Hawthorne certainly proves himself a good Puritan when he says, "And be +the stern and sad truth spoken that the breach which guilt has once +made into the human soul, is never in this mortal state repaired." The +magnitude of the evil of course makes a difference; but do we not all +live in a continual state of sinning, and self-correction? That is the +road to self-improvement, and those who adhere most closely to +inflexible rules of conduct discover at length that the rules +themselves have become an evil. Mankind has not yet fully decided as to +what things are evil, and what are good; and neither Hawthorne nor the +Puritan lawmakers would seem to have remembered Christ's admonition on +a similar occasion: "Let him who is without sin among you, cast the +first stone." + +A writer in the _Andover Review_, some twenty years ago, +criticised the impersonation of Pearl as a fable--"a golden wreck." He +quoted Emerson to the effect that in all the ages that man has been +upon the earth, no communication has been established between him and +the lower animals, and he affirmed that we know quite as little of the +thoughts and motives of our own children. Both conclusions are wide of +the mark. There is much more communication between man and the domestic +animals than between animals of the same species. The understanding +between an Arab and his horse is almost perfect, and so is that between +a sportsman and his setters. Even the sluggish ox knows the word of +command. Then what shall we say of the sympathetic relation between a +mother and her child? Who can describe it--that clairvoyant +sensibility, intangible, too swift for words? Who has depicted it, +except Hawthorne and Raphael? Pearl is like a pure spirit in "The +Scarlet Letter," reconciling us to its gloomy scenes. She is like the +sunshine in a dark forest, breaking through the tree-tops and dancing +in our pathway. It is true that Hawthorne has carried her clairvoyant +insight to its furthest limits, but this is in accordance with the +ideal character of his work. She has no rival except Goethe's Mignon. + +Hawthorne's method of developing his stories resembled closely that of +the historical painter; and it was only in this way that he could +produce such vivid effects. He selected models for his principal +characters and studied them as his work progressed. The original of +Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was quickly recognized in Salem as an amiable +inoffensive person, of whom no one suspected any evil,--and that was, +no doubt, the reason why Hawthorne selected him for his purpose. It was +no discredit to the man himself, although tongues were not wanting to +blame Hawthorne for it. Who Hester may have been still remains a +mystery; but it was evidently some one with whom the author was well +acquainted,--perhaps his younger sister. So Rubens painted his own wife +at one time an angel, and at another in the likeness of Herodias. It is +still more probable that Pearl is a picture of Hawthorne's own +daughter, who was of the right age for such a study, and whose +sprightly, fitful, and impulsive actions correspond to those of +Hester's child. This would also explain why her father gave Una so much +space in his Note-book. He may have noticed the antagonism between her +and the Whig children of the neighborhood and have applied it to +Pearl's case. It was also his custom, as appears from his last +unfinished work, to leave blank spaces in his manuscript while in the +heat of composition, which, like a painter's background, were +afterwards filled in with descriptions of scenery or some subsidiary +narrative. + +The models of the novelist cannot be hired for the purpose, like those +used by the painter or sculptor, but have to be studied when and where +they can be found, for the least self-consciousness spoils the effect. +Hawthorne in this only followed the example of the best authors and +dramatists; and those who think that good fiction or dramatic poetry +can be written wholly out of a man's or a woman's imagination, would do +well to make the experiment themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +PEGASUS IS FREE: 1850-1852 + + +Frederick W. Loring, that bright young poet who was so soon lost to us, +once remarked: "Appreciation is to the artist what sunshine is to +flowers. He cannot expand without it." The success of "The Scarlet +Letter" proved that all Hawthorne's genius required was a little +moderate encouragement,--not industry but opportunity. His pen, no +longer slow and hesitating, moved freer and easier; the long pent-up +flood of thoughts, emotions, and experiences had at length found an +outlet; and the next three years were the most productive of his life. + +His first impulse, however, was to escape from Salem. Although his +removal from office had been a foregone conclusion, Hawthorne felt a +certain degree of chagrin connected with it, and also imagined a +certain amount of animosity toward himself which made the place +uncomfortable to him. He was informed that the old Sparhawk mansion, +close to the Portsmouth Navy Yard, was for sale or to rent, and the +first of May, Hawthorne went thither to consider whether it would serve +him for a home. [Footnote: Lathrop, 225.] One would suppose that sedate +old Portsmouth, with its courteous society and its dash of military +life, would have suited Hawthorne even better than Concord; but he +decided differently, and he returned to meet his family in Boston, +where he made the acquaintance of Professor Ticknor, who introduced him +at the Athenaeum Library. He saw Hildreth at the Athenæum working on +his history of the United States; sat for his portrait to C. E. +Thompson; went to the theatre; studied human nature in the smoking-room +at Parker's; and relaxed himself generally. He must have stayed with +his family at Doctor Peabody's on West Street, for he speaks of the +incessant noise from Washington Street, and of looking out from the +back windows on Temple Place. This locates the house very nearly. + +Two months later, July 5, 1850, he was at Lenox, in the Berkshire +Mountains. Mrs. Caroline Sturgis Tappan, a brilliant Boston lady, +equally poetic and sensible, owned a small red cottage there, which she +was ready to lease to Hawthorne for a nominal rent. Lowell was going +there on account of his wife, a delicate flower-like nature already +beginning to droop. Doctor Holmes was going on account of Lowell, and +perhaps with the expectation of seeing a rattlesnake; Fields was going +on account of Lowell and Holmes. Mrs. Frances Kemble, already the most +distinguished of Shakespearian readers, had a summer cottage there; and +it was hoped that in such company Hawthorne would at last find the +element to which he properly belonged. + +Unfortunately Hawthorne took to raising chickens, and that seems to +have interested him more than anything else at Lenox. He fell in +cordially with the plans of his friends; ascended Monument Mountain, +and went on other excursions with them; but it may be more than +suspected that Lowell and Holmes did most of the talking. He +assimilated himself more to Holmes perhaps than to any of the others. +His meeting with Mrs. Kemble must have been like a collision of the +centrifugal and centripetal forces; and for once, Hawthorne may be said +to have met his antipodes. They could sincerely admire one another as +we all do, in their respective spheres; but such a chasm as yawned +between them in difference of temperament, character, and mode of +living, could not have been bridged over by Captain Eads. + +Fannie Kemble, as she was universally called, had by long and +sympathetic reading of Shakespeare transformed herself into a woman of +the Elizabethan era, and could barely be said to belong to the +nineteenth century. Among other Elizabethan traits she had acquired an +unconsciousness of self, together with an enormous self-confidence, and +no idea of what people thought of her in polite society ever seems to +have occurred to her. She had the heart of a woman, but mentally she +was like a composite picture of Shakespeare's _dramatis personae_, +and that Emerson should have spoken of her as "a great exaggerated +creature" is not to be wondered at. In her own department she was +marvellous. + +The severity of a mountain winter and the disagreeableness of its +thawing out in spring, is atoned for by its summer,--that fine +exhilarating ether, which seems to bring elevated thoughts, by virtue +of its own nature. Hawthorne enjoyed this with his children and his +chickens; and his wife enjoyed it with him. It is evident from her +letters that she had not been so happy since their first year at the +Old Manse. She had now an opportunity to indulge her love of artistic +decoration, in adorning the walls of their little red cottage, which +has since unfortunately been destroyed by fire. She even began to give +her daughter, who was only six years old, some instruction in drawing. +The following extract concerning her husband, from a letter written to +her mother, is charmingly significant of her state of mind at this +time. + +"Beauty and the love of it, in him, are the true culmination of the +good and true, and there is no beauty to him without these bases. He +has perfect dominion over himself in every respect, so that to do the +highest, wisest, loveliest thing is not the least effort to him, any +more than it is to a baby to be innocent. It is his spontaneous act, +and a baby is not more unconscious in its innocence. I never knew such +loftiness, so simply borne. I have never known him to stoop from it in +the most trivial household matter, any more than in a larger or more +public one." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 373.] + +Truly this gives us a beautiful insight into their home-life, and +Hawthorne himself could not have written a more accurate eulogium. As +intimated in the last chapter, we all make our way through life by +correcting our daily trespasses, and Hawthorne was no exception to it; +but as a mental analysis of this man at his best Mrs. Hawthorne's +statement deserves a lasting recognition. + + +"THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES" + +It was not until early frosts and shortening days drove Hawthorne +within doors that he again took up his writing, but who can tell how +long he had been dreaming over his subject? Within five months, or by +the last week of January, "The House of the Seven Gables" was ready for +the press. There is no such house in Salem, exactly as he describes it; +but an odd, antiquated-looking structure at No. 54 Turner Street is +supposed to have served him for the suggestion of it. The name is +picturesque and well suited to introduce the reader to a homely +suburban romance. + +The subject of the story goes back to the witchcraft period, and its +active principle is a wizard's curse, which descends from one +generation to another, until it is finally removed by the marriage of a +descendant of the injured party to a descendant of the guilty one. +Woven together with this, there is an exposition of mesmerism, or, as +it is now called, Christian Science, with its good and evil features. + +Each of Hawthorne's larger romances has a distinct style and quality of +its own, apart from the fine individualized style of the author. +Lathrop makes an excellent remark in regard to "The House of the Seven +Gables," that the perfection of its art seems to stand between the +reader and his subject. It resembles in this respect those Dutch +paintings whose enamelled surface seems like a barrier to prevent the +spectator from entering the scenes which they represent. It would be a +mistake to consider this a fault, but one cannot help noticing the +accuracy with which the subordinate details of the plot are elaborated. +Is it possible that this is connected in a way with the rarefied +atmosphere of Lenox, in which distant objects appear so sharply +defined? + +"The House of the Seven Gables" might be symbolized by two paintings, +in the first of which Hepzibah Pyncheon stands as the central figure, +her face turned upward in a silent prayer for justice, her brother +Clifford, with his head bowed helplessly, at one side, and the judge, +with his chronic smile of satisfaction, behind Clifford; on the other +side the keen-eyed Holgrave would appear, sympathetically watching the +progress of events, with Phoebe Pyncheon at his left hand. Old Uncle +Banner and little Ned Higgins might fill in the background. In the +second picture the stricken judge would be found in a large old- +fashioned arm-chair, with Clifford and Hepzibah flying through a +doorway to the right, while Phoebe and Holgrave, the one happy and the +other startled, enter on the left. + +Hepzibah, not Phoebe, is the true heroine of the romance,--or at least +its central figure. Nowhere do we look more deeply into Hawthorne's +nature than through this sympathetic portrait of the cross-looking old +maid, whose only inheritance is the House of the Seven Gables, in which +she has lived many years, poor, solitary, friendless, with a disgrace +upon her family, only sustained by the hope that she may yet be a help +and comfort to her unfortunate brother. The jury before whom Clifford +was tried believed him to be guilty, but his sister never would believe +it. She lives for him and suffers with him. Hawthorne does not mitigate +the unpleasantness of her appearance, but he instructs us that there is +a divine spark glowing within. Very pitiful is her attempt to support +the enfeebled brother by keeping a candy store; but noble and heroic is +her resistance to the designs of her tyrannical cousin. It is her +intrepidity that effects the crisis of the drama. + +Both Hepzibah and Clifford Pyncheon are examples of what fine +portraiture Hawthorne could accomplish in exceptional or abnormal +personalities, without ever descending to caricature. Judge Pyncheon +has been criticised as being too much of a stage villain, but the same +might be alleged of Shakespeare's (or Fletcher's) Richard III. What is +he, in effect, but a Richard III. reduced to private life? Moreover, +his habit of smiling is an individual trait which gives him a certain +distinction of his own. Usually, + + Faces ever blandly smiling + Are victims of their own beguiling. + +But Judge Pyncheon is a candidate for the governorship, and among the +more mercenary class of politicians smiling often becomes a habit for +the sake of popularity. Hawthorne might have added something to the +judge's _personale_ by representing him with a droll wit, like +James Fiske, Jr., or some others that we have known, and he might have +exposed more of his internal reflections; but he serves as a fair +example of the hard, grasping, hypocritical type of Yankee. We see only +one side of him, but there are men, and women too, who only have one +side to their characters. + +It has been affirmed that Hawthorne made use of the Honorable Mr. +Upham, the excellent historian of Salem witchcraft, as a model for +Judge Pyncheon, and that this was done in revenge for Mr. Upham's +inimical influence in regard to the Salem surveyorship. It is +impossible, at this date, to disentangle the snarl of Hawthorne's +political relations in regard to that office, but Upham had been a +member of Congress and was perhaps as influential a Whig as any in the +city. If Hawthorne was removed through his instrumentality, he +performed our author a service, which neither of them could have +realized at the time. Hawthorne, however, had a strong precedent in his +favor in this instance; namely, Shakespeare's caricature of Sir Thomas +Luce, as Justice Shallow in "The Merry Wives of Windsor"; but there is +no reason why we should think better or worse of Mr. Upham on this +account. + +Phoebe Pyncheon is an ideal character, the type of youthful New England +womanhood, and the most charming of all Hawthorne's feminine creations. +Protected by the shield of her own innocence, she leaves her country +home from the same undefined impulse by which birds fly north in +spring, and accomplishes her destiny where she might have least +expected to meet with it. She fills the whole book with her sunny +brightness, and like many a young woman at her age she seems more like +a spirit than a character. Her maidenly dignity repels analysis, and +Hawthorne himself extends a wise deference to his own creation. + +The future of a great nation depends more on its young women than upon +its laws or its statesmen. + +In regard to Holgrave, we have already said somewhat; but he is so +lifelike that it seems as if he must have been studied from one of the +younger members of the Brook Farm association; perhaps the one of whom +Emerson tells us, [Footnote: Lecture on Brook Farm.] that he spent his +leisure hours in playing with the children, but had "so subtle a mind" +that he was always consulted whenever important business was on foot. +He is visible to our mental perspective as a rather slender man, above +medium height, with keen hazel eyes, a long nose, and long legs, and +quick and lively in his movements. Phoebe has a more symmetrical +figure, bluish-gray eyes, a complexion slightly browned from going +without her hat, luxuriant chestnut-brown hair, always quiet and +graceful. We have no doubt that Holgrave made a worthy husband for her, +and that he occasionally took a hand in public affairs. + +Judge Pyncheon's duplicity is revealed to Holgrave by the medium of a +daguerreotype. Men or women who are actors in real life should avoid +being photographed, for the camera is pretty sure to penetrate their +hypocrisy, and expose them to the world as they actually are. Every +photograph album is to a certain extent a rogues' gallery, in which our +faults, peculiarities, and perhaps vices are ruthlessly portrayed for +the student of human nature. If a merchant were to have all his +customers photographed, he would soon learn to distinguish those who +were not much to be trusted. + +Notice also Hawthorne's eye for color. When Clifford, Hepzibah, and +Phoebe are about to leave the seven-gabled house for the last time, "A +plain, but handsome dark-green barouche" is drawn to the door. This is +evidently his idea of a fine equipage; and it happens that the +background of Raphael's "Pope Julius" is of this same half-invisible +green, and harmonizes so well with the Pope's figure that few realize +its coloring. + +The plot of this picturesque story is the most ingenious of Hawthorne's +life, but sufficiently probable throughout to answer the purpose of a +romance, and it is the only one of Hawthorne's larger works which ends +happily. It was brought out by Ticknor & Company at Easter 1850,--less +than ten weeks after it was finished; but we think of the House of the +Seven Gables as standing empty, deserted and forlorn. + +In December Emerson had written to Hawthorne concerning a new magazine +in which he and Lowell were interested, and if Hawthorne would only +give it his support its success could not be questioned. What Hawthorne +replied to this invitation has never been discovered, but he had seen +too many such periodicals go to wreck to feel much confidence in this +enterprise. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 381.] It is of more importance +now that Emerson should have addressed him as "My dear Hawthorne," for +such cordial friendliness was rare in "the poet of the pines." Mrs. +Alcott once remarked that Emerson never spoke to her husband otherwise +than as "Mr. Alcott," and it is far from likely that he ever spoke to +Hawthorne differently from this. The conventionalities of letter- +writing run back to a period when gentlemen addressed one another--and +perhaps felt so too--in a more friendly manner than they do at present. + +Works of fiction and sentimental poetry stir up a class of readers +which no other literature seems to reach, and Hawthorne was soon +inundated with letters from unknown, and perhaps unknowable, admirers; +but the most remarkable came from a man named Pyncheon, who asserted +that his grandfather had been a judge in Salem, and who was highly +indignant at the use which Hawthorne had made of his name. [Footnote: +Conway, 135.] This shows how difficult it is for a writer of fiction or +a biographer to escape giving offence. The lightning is sure to strike +somewhere. + + +"THE SNOW IMAGE" + + +The question now was, what next? As it happened, the next important +event in the Hawthorne family was the advent of their younger daughter, +born like Agassiz, "in the lovely month of May," and amid scenery as +beautiful as the Pays de Vaud. Her father named her Rose, in defiance +of Hillard's objection to idyllic nomenclature; and as a child she +seemed much like the spirit of that almost fabulous flower, the wild +orange-rose. Ten years later, she was the most graceful girl in the +Concord dancing-school, and resembled her elder sister so closely that +they could not have been mistaken for anything but sisters. As she grew +older she came more and more to resemble her mother. + +It was said that Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" originated in his telling +free versions of the Greek myths to his children on winter evenings; +and also that Horace Mann's boys, who were almost exactly of the same +age as Una and Julian, participated in the entertainment. This may have +happened the following winter at Newton, but could hardly have taken +place at Lenox; and otherwise it is quite impossible to identify all +the children with botanical names in Hawthorne's introduction. Julian +once remarked, at school, that he believed that he was the original of +Squash-blossom, and that is as near as we can get to it. Some of them +may have been as imaginary as the ingenious Mr. Eustace Bright, and +might serve as well to represent one group of children as another. + +The book was written very rapidly, at an average of ten pages a day, +and it has Hawthorne's grace and purity of style, but it does not +belong to the legitimate series of his works. It is an excellent book +for the young, for they learn from it much that every one ought to +know; but to mature minds the original fables, even in a translation, +are more satisfactory than these Anglo-Saxon versions in the "Wonder +Book." + +The collection of tales which passes by the name of "The Snow Image" is +a much more serious work. "The Great Stone Face" and one or two others +in the collection were prepared at Salem for the same volume as "The +Scarlet Letter," but judiciously excluded by Mr. Fields. "The Snow +Image" itself, however, is plainly derived from Hawthorne's own +experience during the winter at Lenox. The common-sensible farmer and +his poetic wife could not be mistaken for Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne, but +the two sportive children are easily identified as Una and Julian. They +are not only of the same age, but the "slight graceful girl" and +"chubby red-cheeked boy" describes them exactly. The idea has been +derived from the fable of the Greek sculptor Pygmalion whose statue +came to life. That seems far enough off to be pleasantly credible, but +to have such a transubstantiation take place in the front yard of a +white-fenced American residence, is rather startling. Yet Hawthorne, +with the help of the twilight, carries us through on the broad wings of +his imagination, even to the melting of the little snow-sister before +an airtight stove in a close New England parlor. The moral that +Hawthorne draws from this fable might be summed up in the old adage, +"What is one man's meat is another man's poison"; but it has a deeper +significance, which the author does not seem to have perceived. The +key-note of the fable is the same as that in Goethe's celebrated +ballad, "The Erl King"; namely, that those things which children +imagine, are as real to them as the facts of the external world. Nor do +we altogether escape from this so long as we live. + +The origin of "The Great Stone Face" is readily traced to the profile +face in the Franconia Mountains,--which has not only a strangely human +appearance, but a grave dignified expression, and, as a natural +phenomenon, ranks next to Niagara Falls. The value of the fable, +however, has perhaps been over-estimated. It is an old story in a +modern garb, the saying so often repeated in the Book of Isaiah: "The +last shall be first, and the first shall be last." The man Ernest, who +is much in his ways like Hawthorne himself, spends his leisure in +contemplating the Great Stone Face, and thus acquires a similar +expression in his own. The wealthy merchant, the famous general, the +great party leader, and the popular poet, all come upon the scene; but +not one of them appears to advantage before the tranquil countenance of +the Great Stone Face. Finally, Ernest in his old age carries off the +laurel; and in this Hawthorne hits the mark, for it is only through +earnestness that man becomes immortal. Yet, one would suppose that +constantly gazing at a face of stone, would give one a rather stony +expression; as sculptors are liable to become statuesque from their +occupation. + +Another Dantean allegory, and fully equal in power to any Canto in +Dante's "Inferno," is the story of "Ethan Brandt," or "The Unpardonable +Sin." We have a clew to its origin in the statement that it was part of +an unfinished romance; presumably commenced at Concord, but afterward +discarded, owing to the author's dissatisfaction with his work--an +illustration of Hawthorne's severe criticism of his own writing. The +scene is laid at a limekiln in a dark and gloomy wood, where a lime- +burner, far from human habitations, is watching his fires at night. To +him Ethan Brandt appears, a strange personage, long known for his quest +after the unpardonable sin, and the solitude echoes back the gloominess +of their conversation. Finally, the lime-burner fixes his fires for the +night, rolls himself up in his blanket, and goes to sleep. When he +awakes in the morning, the stranger is gone, but, on ascending the kiln +to look at his caldron, he finds there the skeleton of a man, and +between its ribs a heart of white marble. This is the unpardonable sin, +for which there is neither dispensation nor repentance. Ethan Brandt +has committed suicide because life had become intolerable on such +conditions. + +The summer of 1851 in Lenox was by no means brilliant. It had not yet +become the tip end of fashion, and Hawthorne's chief entertainment +seems to have been the congratulatory letters he received from +distinguished people. Mrs. Frances Kemble wrote to him from England, +announcing the success of his book there, and offering him the use of +her cottage, a more palatial affair than Mrs. Tappan's, for the ensuing +winter. Mrs. Hawthorne, however, felt the distance between herself and +her relatives, and perhaps they both felt it. Mrs. Hawthorne's sister +Mary, now Mrs. Horace Mann, was living in West Newton, and the last of +June Mrs. Hawthorne went to her for a long summer visit, taking her two +daughters with her and leaving Julian in charge of his father, with +whom it may be affirmed he was sufficiently safe. It rarely happens +that a father and son are so much together as these two were, and they +must have become very strongly attached. + +For older company he had Hermann Melville, and G. P. R. James, whose +society he may have found as interesting as that of more distinguished +writers, and also Mr. Tappan, whom Hawthorne had learned to respect for +his good sense and conciliatory disposition--a true peace-maker among +men and women. Burill Curtis, the amateur brother of George W. Curtis, +came to sketch the lake from Hawthorne's porch, and Doctor Holmes +turned up once or twice. On July 24 Hawthorne wrote to his friend Pike +at Salem: [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 151.] + +"By the way, if I continue to prosper as heretofore in the literary +line, I shall soon be in a condition to buy a place; and if you should +hear of one, say worth from $1500 to $2000, I wish you would keep your +eye on it for me. I should wish it to be on the seacoast, or at all +events with easy access to the sea." + +The evident meaning of this is that the Hawthornes had no desire to +spend a second winter in the Berkshire hills. The world was large, but +he knew not where to rest his head. Mrs. Hawthorne solved the problem +on her return to Lenox, and it was decided to remove to West Newton +when cold weather came. Thither they went November 21 in a driving +storm of snow and sleet,--a parting salute from old Berkshire,--and +reached Horace Mann's house the same evening. + +Nobody knows where the Hawthornes lived in Newton. The oldest survivors +of both families were only five years of age at that time. Mrs. +Hawthorne's father also resided in Newton that winter, and it is more +than likely that they made their residence with him. Julian Hawthorne +has a distinct recollection of the long freight-trains with their +clouds of black smoke blowing across his father's ground during the +winter; so they could not have lived very far from the Worcester +railroad. Horace Mann's house is still standing, opposite a school- +house on the road from the station, where a by-way meets it at an acute +angle. The freight-trains and their anthracite smoke must have had a +disturbing influence on Hawthorne's sensibility. + +The long-extended town of Newton, which is now a populous city, has +much the best situation of any of the Boston suburbs--on a moderately +high range of hills, skirted by the Charles River, both healthful and +picturesque. It is not as hot in summer nor so chilly at other seasons +as Concord, and enjoys the advantage of a closer proximity to the city. +Its society is, and always has been, more liberal and progressive than +Salem society in Hawthorne's time. Its citizens, mainly professional +and mercantile men, are active, intelligent, and sensible, without +being too fastidious. It was a healthful change for Hawthorne, and we +are not surprised to find that his literary work was affected by it. +Mrs. L. Maria Child lived there at the time, and so did Celia Thaxter, +although not yet known to fame. The sound, penetrating intelligence of +Horace Mann may have also had its salutary effect. + + +"THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE" + +Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "The Snow Image" were expressed to +Ticknor & Company before leaving Lenox, and "The Blithedale Romance" +may also have been commenced before that change of base. We only know, +from his diary, that it was finished on the last day of April, 1852, +and that he received the first proof-sheets of it two weeks later-- +which shows what expedition publishers can make, when they feel +inclined. + +The name itself is somewhat satirical, for Hawthorne did not find the +life at Brook Farm very blithesome, and in the story, with the +exception of the sylvan masquerade, there is much more rue than +heart's-ease, as commonly happens in his stories. The tale ends +tragically, and without the gleam of distant happiness which lights up +the last scenes of "The Scarlet Letter." It commences with a severe +April snowstorm, an unfavorable omen; the same in which Hawthorne set +out to join the West Roxbury community. + +And yet the name is not without a serious meaning--a stern, sad moral +significance. The earth is not naturally beautiful, for rank Nature +ever runs to an excess. It is only beautiful when man controls and +remodels it; but what man makes physically, he can unmake spiritually. +We pass by a handsome estate, a grand arcade of elms over its avenue, +spacious lawns, an elegant mansion, a luxurious flower-garden; but we +are informed that happiness does not dwell there, that its owner is a +misanthropic person, whose nature has been perverted by the selfishness +of luxury; that there are no pleasant parties on the lawn, no happy +wooing in that garden, no marriage festivals in those halls; and those +possessions, which might have proved a blessing to generations yet +unborn, are no better than a curse and a whited sepulchre. How many +such instances could be named. + +It may have occurred to Hawthorne, that, if George Ripley, instead of +following after a will-o'-the-wisp notion, which could only lead him +into a bog, had used the means at his disposal to cultivate Brook Farm +in a rational manner, and had made it a hospitable rendezvous for +intellectual and progressive people,--an oasis of culture amid the wide +waste of commercialism,--the place might well have been called +Blithedale, and Mr. Ripley would have inaugurated a movement as rare as +it was beneficial. It was only at a city like Boston, whose suburbs +were pleasant and easily accessible, that such a plan could be carried +out; and it was only a man of Mr. Ripley's scholarship and intellectual +acumen who could have drawn together the requisite elements for it. It +looks as if he missed an opportunity. + +We should avoid, however, confounding George Ripley with Hawthorne's +Hollingsworth. It is quite possible that Hawthorne made use of certain +traits in Ripley's character for this purpose, and also that he may +have had some slight collision with him, such as he represents in "The +Blithedale Romance;" but Ripley was an essentially veracious nature, +who, as already remarked, carried out his experiment to its logical +conclusion. Hollingsworth, on the contrary, proposes to pervert the +trust confided to him, in order to establish at Blithedale an +institution for the reformation of criminals, by which proceeding he +would, after a fashion, become a criminal himself. At the same time, he +plays fast and loose with the affections of Zenobia and Priscilla, who +are both in love with him, designing to marry the one who would make +the most favorable match for his purpose. It is through the junction of +these two streams of evil that the catastrophe is brought about. + +Priscilla is evidently taken from the little seamstress whom Hawthorne +mentions in his diary for October 9, 1841, and if she ever discovered +this, she could hardly have been displeased, for she is one of his most +lovable creations; not so much of an ideal as Phoebe Pyncheon, for she +is older and has already seen hard fortune. Her quiet, almost +submissive ways at first excite pity rather than admiration, but at +length we discover that there is a spirit within her, which shines +through its earthly envelope, like the twinkling of a star. + +Zenobia has a larger nature and a more gifted mind than Priscilla, but +also a more mixed character. Her name suggests a queenly presence and +she is fully conscious of this. She does not acquire an equal influence +over the other sex, for she is evidently in love with herself. She is +described as handsome and attractive, but no sooner had "Blithedale" +been published than people said, "Margaret Fuller" [Footnote: the name +of Zenobia is not very remotely significant of Margaret Fuller. Palmyra +was the centre of Greek philosophy in Zenobia's time, and she also +resembled Margaret in her tragical fate.]--although Margaret Fuller +was rather plain looking, and never joined the Brook Farm association. + +If this surmise be correct, it leads to a curious consideration. After +painting a portrait of Zenobia in Chapter VI of "Blithedale," quite +worthy of Rubens or Titian, he remarks, through the incognito of Miles +Coverdale, in the first part of Chapter VII, that Priscilla reminds him +of Margaret Fuller, and says this to Priscilla herself. Now it proves +in the sequel that Priscilla and Zenobia are half-sisters, but it would +be as difficult to imagine this from anything that is said in the story +about them, as it is to understand how the shy, undemonstrative +Priscilla could have reminded Coverdale of the brilliant and aggressive +leader of the Transcendentalists. + +The introduction of Margaret Fuller's name in that place comes abruptly +on the reader, and momentarily dispels the illusion of the tale. Was +Hawthorne conscious of the undercurrent of relationship, which he had +already formulated in his mind, between Priscilla and Zenobia; or what +is more likely, did he make the comparison in order to lead his readers +away from any conceptions they might have formed in regard to the +original of his heroine? If the latter supposition be true, he +certainly was not very successful, for in either case it is evident +that Margaret Fuller was prominent in his thoughts at the time he wrote +those two chapters. + +Hawthorne's idea of her, however, should not be accepted as a finality. +What Emerson and other friends have said concerning her should also be +considered in order to obtain a just impression of a woman who combined +more varied qualities than perhaps any other person of that time. +Hawthorne says of Zenobia, that she was naturally a stump oratoress,-- +rather an awkward expression for him--and that "her mind was full of +weeds." Margaret Fuller was a natural orator, and her mind was full of +many subjects in which Hawthorne could take little interest. She was a +revolutionary character, a sort of female Garibaldi, who attacked old +Puritan traditions with a two-edged sword; she won victories for +liberalism, but left confusion behind her. Like all such characters, +she made friends and enemies wherever she went. She sometimes gave +offence by hasty impulsive utterances, but more frequently by keenly +penetrating arguments for the various causes which she espoused. Only a +woman could deliver such telling shots. + +Lowell, who was fond of an argument himself, did not like her better +than Hawthorne did. There may be some truth in what he says in "The +Fable for Critics," that the expression of her face seemed to suggest a +life-long familiarity with the "infinite soul"; but Margaret Fuller was +sound at heart, and when she talked on those subjects which interested +her, no one could be more self-forgetful or thoroughly in earnest. At +times, she seemed like an inspired prophetess, and if she had lived two +thousand years earlier, she might have been remembered as a sibyl. +[Footnote: See Appendix B.] + +"The Blithedale Romance" is written with a freer pen and less carefully +than "The House of the Seven Gables," and is so much the better; for +the author's state of mind in which he is writing will always affect +the reader more or less, and if the former feels under a slight +constraint the latter will also. A writer cannot be too exact in +ascertaining the truth,--Macaulay to the contrary,--but he can trouble +himself too much as to the expression of it. At the same time, "The +Blithedale Romance" is the least poetic of Hawthorne's more serious +works (which is the same as saying that it is more like a novel), for +the reason that Hawthorne in this instance was closer to his subject. +It is also more of a personal reminiscence, and less an effort of the +imagination. He has included in it a number of descriptive passages +taken from his Brook Farm diary; most notably the account of that +sylvan masquerade, in which Coverdale finds his former associates +engaged on his return to Blithedale in the autumn. Perhaps this is the +reason why the book has so pleasant a flavor--a mellow after-thought of +old associations. + +An air of mystery adds an enchantment to a work of art, whether in +poetry, painting, or sculpture,--perhaps also in music; but there is a +difference in kind between mystery and uncertainty. We do not like to +be left half in the dark, in regard to things which we think we ought +to know. There is a break in Hawthorne's chain of evidence against +Hollingsworth and Zenobia, which might possibly have been filled to +advantage. He would certainly have been non-suited, if his case had +been carried into court. We are permitted to suppose that Zenobia, in +order to clear her path of a successful rival, assists the mountebank, +Westervelt, to entrap Priscilla, over whom he possesses a kind hypnotic +power, and to carry her off for the benefit of his mountebank +exhibitions; but it remains a supposition and nothing more. We cannot +but feel rejoiced, when Hollingsworth steps onto the platform and +releases Priscilla from the psychological net-work in which she is +involved, and from which she has not sufficient will-power to free +herself. He certainly deserves her hand and fortune; but, as to his +condemnatory charges against Zenobia, which led directly to her +suicide,--what could they have been? Was there nothing more than the +trick she had attempted upon Priscilla? And if he accused her of that +only, why should he suffer perpetual remorse on account of her death? +Surely there was need of further explanation here, for the catastrophe +and its consequences are out of all proportion to the apparent cause. + +His account of the recovery of Zenobia's body is a close transcript of +the search for that unfortunate school-mistress, who drowned herself in +Concord River; and it is possible that, if Hawthorne had not been +present on that occasion, the plot might have terminated in some other +manner. + +The story closes without a ray of hope for Hollingsworth; but the +reader can perceive one in the generous devotion of his single-minded +wife, even if Hawthorne did not. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: 1852-1854 + + +Why Hawthorne returned to Concord in 1852 is more of a mystery than the +suicide of Zenobia. Horace Mann also left Newton, to be President of +Antioch College (and to die there in the cause of feminine education), +in the autumn of that year; but this could hardly have been expected +six months earlier. Hawthorne was not very favorably situated at +Newton, being rather too near the railroad; but there was plenty of +land on the top of the hill, where he might have built himself a house, +and in the course of twelve years his property would have quadrupled in +value. A poet will not be less of a poet, but more so, for +understanding the practical affairs of life. Or he might have removed +to Cambridge, where Longfellow, always foremost in kind offices, would +have been like a guardian angel to him, and where he could have made +friends like Felton and Agassiz, who would have been much more in +harmony with his political views. Ellery Channing was the only friend +he appears to have retained in Concord, and it was not altogether a +favorable place to bring up his children; but the natural topography of +Concord is unusually attractive, and it may be suspected that he was +drawn thither more from the love of its pine solitudes and shimmering +waters, than from any other motive. + +The house he purchased was nearly a mile from the centre of the town, +and has ever since been known by the name of the Wayside. After +Hawthorne's return from Europe in 1860, he remodelled it somewhat, so +that it has a more dignified aspect than when he first took possession +of it. Alcott, who occupied it for some years previously, had adorned +it with that species of rustic architecture in which he was so skilful. +The house was half surrounded by a group of locust trees, much in +fashion seventy years ago, and had been set so close against the hill- +side, that a thicket of stunted pines and other wild growth rose above +the roof like a crest. Bronson Alcott was his next-door neighbor,-- +almost too strong a contrast to him,--and Emerson's house was half a +mile away; so that these three families formed a group by themselves in +that portion of Concord. + +Hawthorne wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, describing his new +acquisition, and expressing satisfaction in it. It was the first house +that he had ever owned; and it is no small comfort to a man to live +under his own roof, even though it be a humble one. At this time, +however, he did not remain at the Wayside but a single year. After +that, the house stood empty until the untimely death of Horace Mann, +August 2, 1859, when Mrs. Mann came to Concord with her three boys, and +occupied it until Hawthorne's return from Europe. + +[Illustration: THE WAYSIDE] + +It may as well be noticed here, that, during the eight years which +Hawthorne spent altogether in Concord, he accomplished little literary +work, and none of any real importance. It is impossible to account for +this, except upon those psychological conditions which sometimes affect +delicately balanced minds. Whether the trouble was in the social +atmosphere of the place, or in its climatic conditions, perhaps +Hawthorne himself could not have decided; but there must have been a +reason for it of some description. Julian Hawthorne states that his +father had a plan at this time of writing another romance, of a more +cheerful tone than "The Blithedale Romance," but the full current of +his poetic activity was suddenly brought to a standstill by an event +that nobody would have dreamed of. + +Hawthorne had hardly established himself in his new abode, when +Franklin Pierce was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic +party. The whole country was astonished, for no such nomination had +ever been made before, and it is probable that Pierce himself shared +largely in this. The New Hampshire delegation had presented his name to +the convention, in order to procure him distinction in his own State, +but without expectation that he would become a serious candidate. Like +the nomination of Hayes in 1876, it resulted from the jealousy of the +great party leaders,--always an unfortunate position for a public man +to be placed in. Theodore Parker said, "Any one is now in danger of +becoming President." + +Hawthorne evidently felt this, for he wrote to Bridge, "I do not +consider Pierce the brightest man in the country, for there are twenty +more so." It would have been a mild statement if he had said two +hundred. Pierce wanted him, of course, to write a campaign biography, +and communicated with him to that effect; but Hawthorne disliked +meddling in such matters, and at first declined to do it, although it +was expected to be highly remunerative. Pierce, however, insisted, for +Hawthorne's reputation was now much beyond his own, and he felt that a +biography by so distinguished a writer would confer upon him great +dignity in the eyes of the world; and as Hawthorne felt already much +indebted to Pierce, he finally consented,--although a cheap spread- +eagle affair would have served the purpose of his party quite as well. +The book had to be written in haste, and just at the time when +Hawthorne wished to take a little leisure. There were so few salient +points in Pierce's life, that it was almost like making a biography out +of nothing, and as for describing him as a hero, that was quite +impossible. It was fortunate that he knew so much of Pierce's early +life, and also that Pierce had kept a diary during the Mexican War, +which formed a considerable portion of the biography. + +The book is worth reading, although written in this prosaic manner. +Hawthorne states in the preface, frankly and manfully, that he objected +to writing it, and this ought to be an excuse sufficient for his doing +so--if excuse be needed. He does not attempt to represent his friend as +a great statesman, but rather as a patriotic country gentleman, who is +interested in public affairs, and who rises from one honorable position +to another through a well-deserved popularity. This would seem to have +been the truth; and yet there was a decided inconsistency in Franklin +Pierce's life, which Hawthorne represents plainly enough, although he +makes no comment thereon. + +Franklin Pierce's father was captain of a militia company in 1798, when +war was declared against the French Directory, for seizing and +confiscating American merchant ships, contrary to the law of nations. +There could not have been a more just occasion for war, but Captain +Pierce resigned his commission, because he considered it wrong to fight +against a republic; and Hawthorne approves of him for this. Franklin +Pierce, however, resigned his seat in the Senate in 1842, on account of +the interests of his family, alleging that "he would never enter public +life again, unless the needs of his country imperatively demanded it," +yet four years later he organized a regiment for the invasion of +Mexico,--not only for making war upon a republic, but an unjust and +indefensible war. General Grant's opinion ought to be conclusive on +this latter point, for he belonged to the same political party as +Pierce and Hawthorne. Certainly, Pierce's services were not required +for the defence of his native land. + +To do Hawthorne justice, there can be no doubt that in his heart he +disapproved of this; for in one of his sketches written at the Old +Manse, he speaks censoriously of "those adventurous spirits who leave +their homes to emigrate to Texas." He evidently foresaw that trouble +would arise in that direction, and perhaps Ellery Channing assisted him +in penetrating the true inwardness of the movement. + +It will be remembered that in Franklin Pierce's youth, he was +exceptionally interested in military manœuvres, and this may have been +one of the inducements which led him into the Mexican War; but young +men who are fond of holiday epaulets do not, for obvious reasons, make +the best fighters. Pierce's military career was not a distinguished +one; for, whether he was thrown from his horse in his first engagement, +or, as the Whigs alleged, fell from it as soon as he came under fire, +it is certain that he did not cover himself with glory, as the phrase +was at that time. But we can believe Hawthorne, when he tells us that +Pierce took good charge of the troops under his command, and that he +was kind and considerate to sick and wounded soldiers. That was in +accordance with his natural character. + +It was impossible at that time to avoid the slavery question in dealing +with political subjects, and what Hawthorne said on this point, in the +life of General Pierce, attracted more attention than the book itself. +Like Webster he considered slavery an evil, but he believed it to be +one of those evils which the human race outgrows, by progress in +civilization,--like the human sacrifices of the Gauls perhaps,--and he +greatly deprecated the anti-slavery agitation, which only served to +inflame men's minds and make them unreasonable. + +There were many sensible persons in the Northern States at that time, +like Hawthorne and Hillard, who sincerely believed in this doctrine, +but they do not seem to have been aware that there was a pro-slavery +agitation at the South which antedated Garrison's _Liberator_ and +which was much more aggressive and vehement than the anti-slavery +movement, because there were large pecuniary interests connected with +it. The desperate grasping of the slave-holders for new territory, +first in the Northwest and then in the Southwest, was not because they +were in any need of land, but because new slave States increased their +political power. Horatio Bridge says, relatively to this subject: + +"No Northern man had better means for knowing the dangers impending, +previous to the outbreak of the war, than had General Pierce. +Intimately associated--as he was--with the strong men of the South, in +his Cabinet and in Congress, he saw that the Southerners were +determined, at all hazards, to defend their peculiar institution of +slavery, which was imperilled by the abolitionists." + +If Franklin Pierce was desirous of preserving the Union, why did he +give Jefferson Davis a place in his Cabinet, and take him for his chief +adviser? Davis was already a pronounced secessionist, and had been +defeated in his own State on that issue. In subserviency to Southern +interests, no other Northern man ever went so far as Franklin Pierce, +nor did Garrison himself accomplish so much toward the dissolution of +the Union. He was an instance in real life of Goldsmith's "good-natured +man," and the same qualities which assisted him to the position of +President prevented his administration from being a success. Presidents +ought to be made of firmer and sterner material. + +Hawthorne had barely finished with the proofs of this volume, when he +received the saddest, most harrowing news that ever came to him. After +her mother's death, in 1849, Louisa Hawthorne had gone to live with her +aunt, Mrs. John Dike; and in July, 1852, Mr. Dike went with her on an +excursion to Saratoga and New York City. On the morning of July 27, +they left Albany on the steamboat "Henry Clay," which, as is well +known, never reached its destination. When nearing Yonkers, a fire +broke out near the engines, where the wood-work was saturated with oil, +and instantly the centre of the vessel was in a bright blaze. Mr. Dike +happened to be on the forward deck at the moment, but Louisa Hawthorne +was in the ladies' cabin, and it was impossible to reach her. The +captain of the Henry Clay immediately ran the vessel on shore, so that +Mr. Dike and those who were with him escaped to land, but Louisa and +more than seventy others, who threw themselves into the water, were +drowned. It would seem to have been impossible to save her. + +The death of Hawthorne's mother may be said to have come in the course +of Nature, and his mind was prepared for it; but Louisa had been the +playmate of his childhood, and her death seemed as unnecessary as it +was sharp and sudden. It happened almost on the third anniversary of +his mother's death, and these were the only two occasions in +Hawthorne's life, when the Dark Angel hovered about his door. + +Rebecca Manning says: "Louisa Hawthorne was a most delightful, lovable, +interesting woman--not at all 'commonplace,' as has been stated. Her +death was a great sorrow to all her friends. Her name was Maria Louisa, +and she was often called Maria by her mother and sister and aunts." + +Depressed and unnerved, in the most trying season of the year, +Hawthorne went in the latter part of August to visit Franklin Pierce at +Concord, New Hampshire; but there a severe torrid wave came on, so that +Pierce advised him to go at once to the Isles of Shoals, promising to +follow in a few days, if his numerous engagements would permit him. + +The Isles of Shoals have the finest summer climate on the Atlantic +Ocean; an atmosphere at once quieting and strengthening, and always at +its best when it is hottest on the main-land. Hawthorne found a pair of +friends ready-made there, and prepared to receive him,--Levi Thaxter, +afterwards widely known as the apostle of Browning in America, and his +wife, Celia, a poetess in the bud, only sixteen, but very bright, +original, and pleasant. They admired Hawthorne above all living men, +and his sudden advent on their barren island seemed, as Thaxter +afterward expressed it, like a supernatural presence. They became good +companions in the next two weeks; climbing the rocks, rowing from one +island to another,--bald pieces of rock, like the summits of mountains +rising above the surface of the sea,--visiting the light-house, the +monument to Captain John Smith, Betty Moody's Cave, the graves of the +Spanish sailors, the trap dikes of ancient lava, and much else. Every +day Hawthorne wrote a minute account in his diary of his various +proceedings there, including the observation of a live shark, which +came into the cove by the hotel, a rare spectacle on that coast. +General Pierce did not make his appearance, however, and on September +15, Hawthorne returned to his own home. + +The election of Pierce to the presidency was as remarkable as his +nomination. In 1848, General Taylor, the victor of a single battle, but +a man of little education, was nominated for the presidency over the +heads of the finest orators and ablest statesmen in America, and was +enthusiastically elected. General Scott, Franklin Pierce's opponent, +defeated the Mexicans in four decisive battles, captured the capital of +the country, and conducted one of the most skilful military expeditions +of the past century. He was a man of rare administrative ability, and +there is no substantial argument against his character. We have Grant's +testimony that it was pleasant to serve under him. Yet he was +overwhelmingly defeated at the polls by a militia general without +distinction, military or civil. + +Hawthorne was naturally delighted at the result of the election; +unfortunate as it afterwards proved for his country. He derived a +threefold satisfaction from it, in the success of his friend, in the +defeat of the Whigs, and in the happy prospects which it opened for +himself. He could now return to the Salem Custom House in triumph,--as +the wisest man might be tempted to do,--but he looked forward to +something that would be more advantageous to his family. He had already +written on October 18 to Horatio Bridge: + +"Before undertaking it [the biography] I made an inward resolution, +that I should accept no office from him; but, to say the truth, I doubt +whether it would not be rather folly than heroism to adhere to this +purpose, in case he should offer me anything particularly good. We +shall see. A foreign mission I could not afford to take. The consulship +at Liverpool, I might." [Footnote: Bridge 130] + +We may conclude from this, that Pierce had already intimated the +Liverpool consulate, which at that time was supposed to be worth +twenty-five thousand dollars a year in fees. It was an excellent plan +for the President of the United States to have such a gift at his +disposal, to reward some individual like Hawthorne, to whom the whole +nation was indebted to an extent that could never be repaid; but it is +a question whether it would not have been as well, in this particular +case, for Hawthorne to have remained in his own country. If he could +have written five or six romances more, this would have secured him a +good competency, and would have assured a sufficient income for his +family after his death. As it happened, the Liverpool consulate did not +prove so profitable as was anticipated. + +With such "great expectations" before him, Hawthorne could do no +serious work that winter, so he occupied himself leisurely enough, with +writing a sequel to his "Wonder Book," which he called "Tanglewood +Tales," apparently after the thicket which surmounted the hill above +his residence. This was finished early in March, and given to Ticknor & +Company to publish when they saw fit. As it is a book intended for +children, the consideration of it need not detain us. + +Early in April, 1853, Hawthorne was appointed and confirmed to the +Liverpool consulate, and on the 14th he went to Washington, as he tells +us, for the first time, to thank the President in person. Otherwise he +has divulged nothing concerning this journey, except that he was +introduced to a larger number of persons than he could remember the +names or faces of, and received ten times as many invitations as he +could accept. If Charles V. honored himself with posterity by picking +up the paint-brush which Titian had dropped on the floor, President +Pierce might have done himself equal credit by making Hawthorne his +guest at the White House; but if he did not go so far as this, it +cannot be doubted that he treated Hawthorne handsomely. There were +giants at Washington in those days. Webster and Clay were gone, but +Seward was the Charles Fox and Sumner the Edmund Burke of America; +Chase and Marcy were not much less in intellectual stature. Hawthorne +must have met them, but we hear nothing of them from him. + +Hawthorne delayed his departure for England, until the most favorable +season arrived, for his fragile wife and infant children to cross the +"rolling forties." At length, on July 6, two days after his forty-ninth +birthday, he sailed from Boston in the "Niagara," and with _placida +onda prospero il vento_, in about twelve days they all arrived +safely at their destination. + +The great stone docks of Liverpool, extending along its whole water- +front, give one a strong impression of the power and solidity of +England. Otherwise the city is almost devoid of interest, and +travellers customarily pass through it, to take the next train for +Oxford or London, without further observation, unless it be to give a +look at the conventional statue of Prince Albert on an Arab horse. +Liverpool is not so foggy a place as London, but it has a damper and +less pleasant climate, without those varied attractions and substantial +enjoyments which make London one of the most pleasant residences and +most interesting of cities. + +London fog is composed of soft-coal smoke, which, ascending from +innumerable chimneys, is filtered in the upper skies, and then, mixed +with vapor, is cast back upon the city by every change of wind. It is +not unpleasant to the taste, and seems to be rather healthful than +otherwise; but all the vapors which sail down the Gulf Stream, and +which are not condensed on the Irish coast in the form of rain, collect +about the mouth of the Mersey, so that the adjacent country is the best +watered portion of all England, Cornwall possibly excepted. There is +plenty of wealth in Liverpool, and all kinds of private entertainments, +but in no other city of its size are there so few public +entertainments, and the only interesting occupation that a stranger +might find there, would be to watch the strange and curious characters +in the lower classes, faces and figures that cannot be caricatured, +emerging from cellar-ways or disappearing through side-doors. Go into +an alehouse in the evening and, beside the pretty barmaid, who deserves +consideration as much for her good behavior as for her looks, you will +see plainly enough where Dickens obtained his _dramatis personae_ +for "Barnaby Rudge" and "The Old Curiosity Shop." Either in Liverpool +or in London you can see more grotesque comedy characters in a day, +than you could meet with in a year in America. These poor creatures are +pressed down, and squeezed out into what they are, under the +superincumbent weight of an enormous leisure class. + +Such was the environment in which Hawthorne was obliged to spend the +ensuing four years. He soon, however, discovered a means to escape from +the monotonous and labyrinthine streets of the city, by renting an +imitation castle at Rock Ferry,--a very pretty place, much like Dobbs +Ferry, on the Hudson, although the river is not so fine,--where his +wife and children enjoyed fresh air, green grass, and all the sunshine +attainable, and whence he could reach the consulate every morning by +the Mersey boat. We find them located there before September 1. + +Of the consulate itself, Hawthorne has given a minute pictorial +description in "Our Old Home," from which the following extract is +especially pertinent to our present inquiry: + +"The Consulate of the United States in my day, was located in +Washington Buildings (a shabby and smoke-stained edifice of four +stories high, thus illustriously named in honor of our national +establishment), at the lower corner of Brunswick Street, contiguous to +the Goree Arcade, and in the neighborhood of some of the oldest docks. +This was by no means a polite or elegant portion of England's great +commercial city, nor were the apartments of the American official so +splendid as to indicate the assumption of much consular pomp on his +part. A narrow and ill-lighted staircase gave access to an equally +narrow and ill-lighted passage-way on the first floor, at the extremity +of which, surmounting a door frame, appeared an exceedingly stiff +pictorial representation of the Goose and Gridiron, according to the +English idea of those ever-to-be-honored symbols. The staircase and +passage-way were often thronged of a morning, with a set of beggarly +and piratical-looking scoundrels (I do no wrong to our countrymen in +styling them so, for not one in twenty was a genuine American), +purporting to belong to our mercantile marine, and chiefly composed of +Liverpool Blackballers, and the scum of every maritime nation on earth; +such being the seamen by whose assistance we then disputed the +navigation of the world with England. These specimens of a most +unfortunate class of people were shipwrecked crews in quest of bed, +board, and clothing, invalids asking permits for the hospital, bruised +and bloody wretches complaining of ill-treatment by their officers, +drunkards, desperadoes, vagabonds, and cheats, perplexingly +intermingled with an uncertain proportion of reasonably honest men. All +of them (save here and there a poor devil of a kidnapped landsman in +his shore-going rags) wore red flannel shirts, in which they had +sweltered or shivered throughout the voyage, and all required consular +assistance in one form or another." + +The position of an American consul in a large foreign seaport, +especially at Liverpool, is anything but a sinecure, and in fact +requires a continual exercise of judgment much beyond the average +duties of a foreign minister. The difficulty also of being continually +obliged to distinguish between true and false applications for charity, +especially when the false are greatly in excess of the true, and among +a class of persons notably given to mendacious tricks, is one of the +most unpleasant conditions in which a tender-hearted man can find +himself. As curious studies in low life, the rascality of these +nautical mendicants may often have been interesting, and even amusing, +to Hawthorne, but as a steady pull they must have worn hard on his +nerves, even though his experienced clerk served as a breakwater to a +considerable portion. It has already been noticed that Hawthorne was a +conscientious office-holder, and he never trusted to others any duties +which he was able to attend to in person. Moreover, although he was a +man of reserved manners, there was an exceptionally tender, sympathetic +heart behind this impenetrable exterior, and it may be suspected that +he relieved many instances of actual distress, which could not be +brought within the government regulations. He may have suffered like +the ghost in Dickens's "Haunted Man," on account of those whom he could +not assist. It is certain that he aged more, in appearance at least, +during these four years, than at any similar period of his life. + +It is no wonder, therefore, that, after a visit to the English lakes, +the following summer, Hawthorne wrote to his friend, Henry Bright, from +Liverpool: + +"I have come back only for a day or two to this black and miserable +hole. I do not mean to apply these two adjectives to my consulate, but +to the whole of Liverpool." + +Yet it should be recollected that there were nearly a million of +persons in Liverpool, who were obliged to spend their lives there, for +good and evil fortune; and, as Emerson says, we can never think too +lightly of our own difficulties. + +Neither did Hawthorne find the news from America particularly +interesting. On March 30, 1854, he wrote to Bridge: + +"I like my office well enough, but my official duties and obligations +are irksome to me beyond expression. Nevertheless, the emoluments will +be a sufficient inducement to keep me here, though they are not above a +quarter part what some people suppose them. + +"It sickens me to look back to America. I am sick to death of the +continual fuss and tumult and excitement and bad blood which we keep up +about political topics. If it were not for my children, I should +probably never return, but--after quitting office--should go to Italy, +and live and die there. If Mrs. Bridge and you would go too, we might +form a little colony amongst ourselves, and see our children grow up +together. But it will never do to deprive them of their native land, +which I hope will be a more comfortable and happy residence in their +day than it has been in ours." + +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 65.] + +The last sentence in this ought to be printed in italics, for it is the +essence of patriotism. The "fuss and tumult" in America were due, for +the time being, to the apple of discord which Douglas had cast into the +Senate, by his Kansas-Nebraska bill. Hawthorne was too far away to +distinguish the full force and insidious character of that measure, but +if he had been in Concord, we believe he would have recognized (as so +many did who never had before) the imminent danger to the Union, from +the repeated concessions to the slave power. After he had become +disenthralled from his allegiance to party, we find him in his letters +to Bridge, taking broad views on political subjects. + +An event was soon to happen, well calculated to disenthrall him. The +Congress of 1854, after passing the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resolved, in +order to prove its democratic spirit, to economize in the +representation of our government to foreign powers. On April 14, the +good-hearted, theoretical O'Sullivan arrived in Liverpool, on his way +to be minister to Portugal, and warned Hawthorne that there was a bill +before Congress to reduce the consulate there to a salaried position. +This was a terrible damper on Hawthorne's great expectations, and on +April 17 he wrote again to Bridge, protesting against the change: +[Footnote: Bridge, 135, 136.] + +"I trust, in Heaven's mercy, that no change will be made as regards the +emoluments of the Liverpool consulate--unless indeed a salary is to be +given in addition to the fees, in which case I should receive it very +thankfully. This, however, is not to be expected; and if Liverpool is +touched at all, it will be to limit its emoluments by a fixed salary-- +which will render the office not worth any man's holding. It is +impossible (especially for a man with a family and keeping any kind of +an establishment) not to spend a vast deal of money here. The office, +unfortunately, is regarded as one of great dignity, and puts the holder +on a level with the highest society, and compels him to associate on +equal terms with men who spend more than my whole income on the mere +entertainments and other trimmings and embroidery of their lives. Then +I feel bound to exercise some hospitality towards my own countrymen. I +keep out of society as much as I decently can, and really practice as +stern an economy as I ever did in my life; but, nevertheless, I have +spent many thousands of dollars in the few months of my residence here, +and cannot reasonably hope to spend less than six thousand per annum, +even after all the expenditure of setting up an establishment is +defrayed." + +In addition to this, he states that his predecessor in office, John J. +Crittenden, never received above fifteen thousand dollars in fees, of +which he saved less than half. + +We can trust this to be the plain truth in regard to the Liverpool +consulate, and if twenty-five thousand a year was ever obtained from +it, there must have been some kind of deviltry in the business. +Congress proved inexorable,--as it might not have been, had Hawthorne +possessed the influence of a prominent politician like Crittenden. It +was a direct affront to the President from his own party, and Pierce +did not dare to veto the bill. + +What O'Sullivan said to Hawthorne on other subjects may be readily +inferred from Hawthorne's next letter to Bridge, in which he begs him +to remain in Washington for Pierce's sake, and says: + +"I feel a sorrowful sympathy for the poor fellow (for God's sake don't +show him this), and hate to have him left without one true friend, or +one man, who will speak a single honest word to him." + +It is not very clear how Horatio Bridge could counteract the influence +of Jefferson Davis and Caleb Cushing, but this shows that Franklin +Pierce's weakness as an administrator was already painfully apparent to +his friends, and that even Hawthorne could no longer disguise it to +himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +HAWTHORNE IN ENGLAND: 1854-1858 + + +Hawthorne's life in England was too generally monotonous to afford many +salient points to his biographer. It was monotonous in his official +duties, in his pleasure-trips, and in his social experiences. He found +one good friend in Liverpool, Mr. Henry Bright, to whom he had already +been introduced in America, and he soon made another in Mr. Francis +Bennoch, who lived near the same city. They were both excellent men, +and belonged to that fine class of Englishmen who possess a comfortable +income, but live moderately, and prefer cultivating their minds and the +society of their friends, to clubs, yachting, horse-racing, and other +forms of external show. They were not distinguished, and were too +sensible to desire distinction. Henry Bright may have been the more +highly favored in Hawthorne's esteem, but they both possessed that tact +and delicacy of feeling which is rare among Englishmen, and by +accepting Hawthorne simply as a man like themselves, instead of as a +celebrity, they won that place in his confidence from which so many had +been excluded. + +Otherwise, Hawthorne contracted no friendships among distinguished +Englishmen of letters, like that between Emerson and Carlyle; and from +first to last he saw little of them. He had no sooner landed than he +was greeted with a number of epistles from sentimental ladies, or +authors of a single publication, who claimed a spiritual kinship with +him, because of their admiration for his writings. One of them even +addressed him as "My dear brother." These he filed away with a mental +reservation to give the writers as wide a circuit as he possibly could. +He attended a respectable number of dinner parties in both Liverpool +and London, at which he remained for the most part a silent and +unobtrusive guest. He was not favored with an invitation to Holland +House, although he met Lady Holland on one occasion, and has left a +description of her, not more flattering than others that have been +preserved for us. He also met Macaulay and the Brownings at Lord +Houghton's; but for once Macaulay would not talk. Mrs. Browning +evidently pleased Hawthorne very much. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. +129.] + +The great lights of English literature besides these,--Tennyson, +Carlyle, Ruskin, Thackeray, Dickens,--he was never introduced to, +although he saw Tennyson in a picture-gallery at Manchester, and has +left a description of him, such as might endure to the end of time. +Neither did he make the acquaintance of those three luminaries, Froude, +Marian Evans, and Max Muller, who rose above the horizon, previous to +his return to America. That he was not presented at Court was a matter +of course. There was nothing which he could have cared for less. + +After his return he published a volume of English sketches, which he +entitled "Our Old Home," but he seems to have felt actually less at +home in England than in any other country that he visited. In that +book, and also in his diary, the even tenor of his discourse is +interrupted here and there by fits of irritability which disclose +themselves in the use of epithets such as one would hardly expect from +the pen of Hawthorne. If we apply to him the well-known proverb with +respect to the Russians, we can imagine that under similar conditions +an inherited sailor-like tendency in him came to the surface. We only +remember one such instance in his American Note-book, that in which he +speaks of Thoreau's having a face "as homely as sin." + +[Footnote: The general effect of Thoreau's face was by no means +unpleasant.] + +Hawthorne did not carry with him to Europe that narrow provincialism, +which asserts itself in either condemning or ridiculing everything that +differs essentially from American ways and methods. On the contrary, +when he compares the old country with the new,--for instance, the +English scenery with that of New England,--Hawthorne is usually as +fair, discriminating, and dispassionate as any one could wish, and +perhaps more so than some would desire. His judgment cannot be +questioned in preferring the American elm, with its wine-glass shape, +to the rotund European species; but he admires the English lake country +above anything that he has seen like it in his own land. "Centuries of +cultivation have given the English oak a domestic character," while +American trees are still to be classed with the wild flowers which +bloom beneath their outstretched arms. + +Matthew Arnold spoke of his commentaries on England as the writing of a +man chagrined; but what could have chagrined Hawthorne there? The +socially ambitious man may become chagrined, if he finds that doors are +closed to him, and so may an unappreciated would-be genius. But +Hawthorne's position as an author was already more firmly established +than Matthew Arnold's ever could be; and as for social ambition, no +writer since Shakespeare has been so free from it. It seems more +probable that the difficulty with Hawthorne in this respect was due to +his old position on the slavery question, which now began to bear +bitter fruit for him. All Englishmen at that time, with the exception +of Carlyle, Froude, and the nobility, were very strongly anti-slavery, +--the more so, as it cost them nothing to have other men's slaves +liberated,--and the English are particularly blunt, not to say +_gauche_, in introducing topics of conversation which are liable +to become a matter of controversy. At the first dinner-party I attended +in London some thirty-odd years ago, I had scarcely tasted the soup, +before a gentleman opposite asked me: "What progress are you making in +the United States toward free trade? Can you tell me, sir?" He might as +well have asked me what progress we were making in the direction of +monarchy. Fortunately for Hawthorne, his good taste prevented him from +introducing the slavery question in his publications, excepting in the +life of Pierce, but for this same reason his English acquaintances in +various places were obliged to discover his opinions at first hand, nor +is it very likely that they were slow to do this. Phillips and Garrison +had been to England and through England, and their dignified speeches +had made an excellent impression. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell and +Whittier had spoken with no uncertain sound, protesting against what +they considered a great national evil. How did it happen that Hawthorne +was an exception? + +Through his kind friend Mr. Bennoch, he fell in with a worthy whom it +would have been just as well to have avoided--the proverbial-philosophy +poet, Martin Farquhar Tupper; not a genuine poet, nor considered as +such by trustworthy critics, but such a good imitation, that he +persuaded himself and a large portion of the British public, including +Queen Victoria, that he was one. Hawthorne has given an account of his +visit to this man, [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 114.] second only in +value to his description of Tennyson; for it is quite as important for +us to recognize the deficiencies of the one, as it is to know the true +appearance of the other. It is an unsparing study of human nature, but +if a man places himself on a pedestal for all people to gaze at, it is +just this and nothing more that he has to expect. Hawthorne represents +him as a kindly, domestic, affectionate, bustling little man, who kept +on bustling with his hands and tongue, even while he was seated--a man +of no dignity of character or perception of his deficiency of it. This +all does well enough, but when Hawthorne says, "I liked him, and +laughed in my sleeve at him, and was utterly weary of him; for +certainly he is the ass of asses," we feel that he has gone too far, +and suspect that there was some unpleasantness connected with the +occasion, of which we are not informed. The word "ass," as applied to a +human being, is not current in good literature, unless low comedy be +entitled to that position, and coming from Hawthorne, of all writers, +it seems like an oath from the mouth of a woman. Tupper, who was quite +proud of his philanthropy, was also much of an abolitionist, and he may +have trodden on Hawthorne's metaphysical toes half a dozen times, +without being aware of what he was doing. Altogether, it seems like +rather an ill return for Tupper's hospitality; but Hawthorne himself +did not intend it for publication, and on the whole one does not regret +that it has been given to the public. We have been, however, +anticipating the order of events. + +During the summer of 1854, the Hawthorne family made a number of +unimportant expeditions, visiting mediaeval abbeys and ruinous +castles,--especially one to Chester and Eton Hall, which was not quite +worth the fees they paid to the janitors. An ancient walled city is +much of a novelty to an American for the first time, but, having seen +one, you have seen them all, and Chester Cathedral does not stand high +in English architecture. On September 14, O'Sullivan appeared again, +and they all went into the Welsh mountains, where they examined the old +fortresses of Rhyl and Conway, which were built by Edward Longshanks to +hold the Welshmen in check. Those relics of the feudal system are very +impressive, not only on account of their solidity and the great human +forces which they represent, but from a peculiar beauty of their own, +which modern fortifications do not possess at all. They seem to belong +to the ground they stand on, and the people who live about them look +upon them as cherished landmarks. They are the monuments of an heroic +age, and Hawthorne's interest in them was characteristic of his nature. + +O'Sullivan returned to Lisbon early in October, and on the 5th of that +month, Hawthorne found himself obliged to make a speech at an +entertainment on board a merchant vessel called the "James Barnes," +which had been built in Boston for a Liverpool firm of ship-owners. He +considered this the most serious portion of his official duty,--the +necessity of making after-dinner speeches at the Mayor's or other +public tables. He writes several pages on the subject in a humorously +complainant tone, congratulating himself that on the present occasion +he has succeeded admirably, for he has really said nothing, and that is +precisely what he intended to do. After-dinner speeches are like soap- +bubbles: they are made of nothing, signify nothing, float for a moment +in the air, attract a momentary attention, and then disappear. But the +difficulty is, to make an apparent something out of nothing, to say +nothing that will offend anybody, and to say something that will be +different from what others say. It is truly a hard situation in which +to place even a very talented man, and, as Longfellow once remarked, +those were most fortunate who made their speeches first, and could then +enjoy their dinner, while their successors were writhing in agony. +However, there are those who like it, and having practised it to +perfection, can do it better than anything else. Hawthorne analyzes his +sensations, after finishing his speech, with rare self-perception. +"After sitting down, I was conscious of an enjoyment in speaking to a +public assembly, and felt as if I should like to rise again. It is +something like being under fire,--a sort of excitement, not exactly +pleasure, but more piquant than most pleasures." Was it President +Jackson, or Senator Benton, who said that fighting a duel was very much +like making one's maiden speech? + +Mrs. Hawthorne thus describes the residence of the President of the +Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool: [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 238.] "We +were ushered into the drawing-room, which looked more like a brilliant +apartment in Versailles than what I had expected to see. The panels +were richly gilt, with mirrors in the centre, and hangings of gilded +paper; and the broad windows were hung with golden-colored damask; the +furniture was all of the same hue; with a carpet of superb flowers; and +vases of living flowers standing everywhere; and a chandelier of +diamonds (as to indefatigable and vivid shining), and candlesticks of +the same,--not the long prisms like those on Mary's astral, but a +network of crystals diamond-cut." + +This was the coarse commercial taste of the time, previous to the +reforms of Ruskin and Eastlake. The same might be said of Versailles. +There is no true elegance in gilding and glass-work, including mirrors, +unless they be sparingly used. + +The Hawthornes were equally overpowered by a dinner-party given by a +millionaire and country squire of Liscard Vale; "two enormous silver +dish-covers, with the gleam of Damascus blades, putting out all the +rest of the light;" and after the fish, these were replaced by two +other enormous dishes of equal brilliancy. The table was shortly +covered with an array of silver dishes, reflecting the lights above in +dazzling splendor. At one end of the table was a roast goose and at the +other a boiled turkey; while "cutlets, fricassees, ragouts, tongue, +chicken-pies," and much else, filled the intermediate spaces, and the +sideboard groaned under a round of beef "like the dome of St. Peter's." +It was fortunate that the American consul came to this Herculean repast +with an excellent appetite. + +Henry Bright was their chief refuge from this flummery, as Hawthorne +called it; "an extremely interesting, sincere, earnest, independent, +warm and generous hearted man; not at all dogmatic; full of questions, +and with ready answers. He is highly cultivated, and writes for the +_Westminster_,"--a man who respected formalities and could +preserve decorum in his own household, but liked a simple, +unostentatious mode of living--in brief, he was a true English +gentleman. Mrs. Hawthorne has drawn his portrait with only less skill +than her husband: + +"His eyes are large, bright, and prominent, rather indicating great +facility of language, which he has. He is an Oxford scholar, and has +decided literary tastes. He is delicately strung, and is as +transparent-minded and pure-hearted as a child, with great enthusiasm +and earnestness of character; and, though a Liberal, very loyal to his +Queen and very admiring of the aristocracy." + +He appears to have been engaged in the Australian carrying trade, and +owned the largest sailing vessel afloat. + +Hawthorne went to an exhibition of English landscape paintings, and he +remarked that Turner's seemed too ethereal to have been painted by +mortal hands,--the finest compliment that Turner could have received, +for in delicate effects of light and shade,--in painting the atmosphere +itself,--he has no rival. + +In January, James Buchanan, who was then minister to England, came to +visit Hawthorne, and talked with him about the presidency,--for which +he considered himself altogether too old; but at the same time he did +not suggest the renomination of Franklin Pierce. This, of course, +disclosed his own ambition, and as Hawthorne's impartial pen-and-ink +sketch of him may not be recognized by many readers, on account of the +form in which it appears in the note-books, we append it here, with the +regret that Hawthorne could not have treated his friend Pierce in an +equally candid manner. + +"I like Mr.--. He cannot exactly be called gentlemanly in his manners, +there being a sort of rusticity about him; moreover, he has a habit of +squinting one eye, and an awkward carriage of his head; but, withal, a +dignity in his large person, and a consciousness of high position and +importance, which give him ease and freedom. Very simple and frank in +his address, he may be as crafty as other diplomatists are said to be; +but I see only good sense and plainness of speech,--appreciative, too, +and genial enough to make himself conversable. He talked very freely of +himself and of other public people, and of American and English +affairs. He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires +forever from public life." + +A certain amount of rusticity would seem to have been essential to a +presidential candidate during the middle of the past century. + +During this dismal winter Hawthorne was beset more than ever, by +nautical mendicants of all countries,--Hungarians, Poles, Cubans, +Spanish Americans, and French Republicans, who, unhappily for him, had +discovered that the American consul was a tender-hearted man. He had, +beside, to deal with a number of difficult cases of maltreated American +sailors,--the more difficult, because both parties to the suits were +greatly given to lying, even on occasions when it would have been more +expedient for them to tell the truth. He has recorded one such in his +diary, that deserves more than a superficial consideration. + +An American bark was on the point of sailing, when the captain cast +ashore a bruised and battered-looking man, who made his way painfully +to the consulate, and begged Hawthorne for a permit to be placed in the +hospital. He called himself the son of a South Carolina farmer, and +stated that he had gone on board this vessel with a load of farm +products, but had been impressed by the captain for the voyage, and had +been so maltreated, that he thought he would die,--and so he did, not +long afterward, at the hospital. Letters were found upon him, +substantiating the statement concerning his father, but it was +discovered, from the same source, that he was a jail-bird, and the +tattooed figures upon his arms showed that he had been a sailor of many +years' standing, although he had denied this to the consul. Hawthorne +speaks of him as an innocent man, the victim of criminal brutality +little less than murder; it is certainly difficult to account for such +severe ill-treatment, but the man was clearly a bad character, and it +is also true that sea-captains do not interfere with their deck-hands +without some kind of provocation. The man clung desperately to life up +to the last moment, and the letters he carried with him indicated that +he was more intelligent than the average of the nautical fraternity. + +In June, Hawthorne went with his family to Leamington, of which he +afterward published an account in the _Atlantic Monthly_, +criticised at the time for the manner in which he referred to English +ladies, as "covering a large area of Nature's foot-stool"; but this +element in Hawthorne's English writing has already been considered. +From Leamington he went, early in July, to the English lakes, +especially Windermere, and fortunately found time to thoroughly enjoy +them. He enjoyed them not only for their scenery, which he preferred to +that of New England, but also as illustrations to many descriptive +passages in Wordsworth's poetry, which serves the same purpose in the +guidebook of that region, as "Childe Harold" serves in the guidebooks +for Italy and Greece. Hawthorne also was interested in such places for +the sake of their associations. He describes Wordsworth's house, the +grounds about it, and the cemetery where he lies, with the accuracy of +a scientific report. He finds the grass growing too high about the +head-stone of Wordsworth's grave, and plucks it away with his own +hands, reflecting that it may have drawn its nourishment from his +mortal remains. We may suppose that he preserved this grass, and it is +only from such incidental circumstances that we discover who were +Hawthorne's favorites among poets and other distinguished writers. He +twice visited Wordsworth's grave. + +Their first two winters in Liverpool had not proved favorable to Mrs. +Hawthorne's health She had contracted a disorder in her throat from the +prevailing dampness, which threatened to become chronic, and her +husband felt that it would not be prudent for her to remain there +another winter. He thought of resigning and returning to America. Then +he thought of exchanging his consulship for one in southern Europe, +although the salaries of the more southern consulates were hardly +sufficient to support a married man. Then he thought of exchanging +places with O'Sullivan, but he hardly knew languages well enough for an +ambassador. The doctors, however, had advised Mrs. Hawthorne to spend a +winter at Madeira, and she courageously solved the problem by proposing +to go there alone with her daughters, for which Lisbon and O'Sullivan +would serve as a stepping-stone by the way. There are wives who would +prefer such an expedition to spending a winter in England with their +husbands, but Mrs. Hawthorne was not of that mould, and in her case it +was a brave thing to do. + +Accordingly, on the second Monday in October, Mrs. Hawthorne and her +two daughters sailed for Lisbon. She was presented at court there; +concerning which occasion she wrote a lengthy and very interesting +account to her husband, published in her son's biography. The King of +Portugal held a long conversation with her and Minister O'Sullivan, and +she describes him as dressed in a flamboyant manner,--a scarlet +uniform, lavishly ornamented with diamonds. With how much better taste +did the Empress of Austria receive the President of the French +Republic,--in a simple robe of black velvet, fastened at her throat +with a diamond brooch. One can envy Mrs. Hawthorne a winter at Madeira, +for there is no place in Europe pleasanter for that purpose, unless it +be Rome. Meanwhile, her husband spent the winter with his son (who was +now old enough to be trusted safely about the streets), at a sea- +captains' boarding-house in Liverpool. There, as in Salem, he felt +himself most companionable in such company, as he had been accustomed +to it from boyhood; and it appears that at this time he was in the +habit of composing fables for the entertainment of Julian, not unlike +the yarns which sailors often spin to beguile landsmen. [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, ii. 75.] + +Hawthorne found his third winter in Liverpool dismal enough without his +wife and the two little girls, and this feeling was considerably +increased by his dislike for the sea-captains' boarding-house keeper, +[Footnote: English Note-book, November 28, 1855.]with whom he was +living, and concerning whom he remarks, that a woman in England "is +either decidedly a lady or decidedly not." She would not have annoyed +him so much, had it not been for "her bustle, affectation, intensity, +and pretension of literary taste." The race of landladies contains +curious specimens, although we have met with some who were real ladies +nevertheless. Thackeray's description of a French boarding-house keeper +in "The Adventures of Philip" goes to every heart. Hawthorne writes +much in his diary, at this juncture, of his friend Francis Bennoch, who +clearly did the best he could, as a man and a brother, to make life +cheerful for his American friend; a true, sturdy, warm-hearted +Englishman. + +Christmas was celebrated at Mrs. Blodgett's, after the fashion of a +second-rate English house of entertainment. The servants hung mistletoe +about in various places, and woe to the unlucky wight that was caught +under it. Hawthorne presents an amusing picture of his boy Julian, nine +years old, struggling against the endearments of a chamber-maid, and +believes that he himself was the only male person in the house that +escaped. [Footnote: English Note-book, December, 1855.]If any man would +be sure to escape that benediction, he would have been the one; for no +one could be more averse to public demonstrations of affection. + +Hawthorne was witness to a curious strategic manœuvre between President +Pierce and Minister Buchanan, which, however, he was not sufficiently +familiar with practical politics to perceive the full meaning of. On +the way to Southampton with his wife in October, they called on +Buchanan in London, and were not only civilly but kindly received. Mrs. +Hawthorne wished to view the Houses of Parliament while they were in +session, and the ambassador made a knot in his handkerchief, so as to +be sure to remember his promise to her. He informed Hawthorne at that +time of his desire to return to America, but stated that the President +had just written to him, requesting him to remain until April, although +he was determined not to do so. He excused himself on the plea of old +age, and Hawthorne seems to have had a suspicion of the insincerity of +this, but concluded on reflection not to harbor it. Pierce knew already +that Buchanan was his most dangerous rival for renomination, and +desired that he should remain as far off as possible; while Buchanan +was aware that, if he intended to be on the ground, he must not return +so late as to attract public attention. There were so many presidential +aspirants that Pierce may have found it difficult to supply Buchanan's +place, for the time being. + +Buchanan delayed a respectful length of time, and then handed in his +resignation. His successor, George M. Dallas, arrived at Liverpool +during the second week of March, and Hawthorne who does not mention him +by name, called upon him at once, and gives us this valuable portrait +of him. + +"The ambassador is a venerable old gentleman, with a full head of +perfectly white hair, looking not unlike an old-fashioned wig; and +this, together with his collarless white neckcloth and his brown coat, +gave him precisely such an aspect as one would expect in a respectable +person of pre-revolutionary days. There was a formal simplicity, too, +in his manners, that might have belonged to the same era. He must have +been a very handsome man in his youthful days, and is now comely, very +erect, moderately tall, not overburdened with flesh; of benign and +agreeable address, with a pleasant smile; but his eyes, which are not +very large, impressed me as sharp and cold. He did not at all stamp +himself upon me as a man of much intellectual or characteristic vigor. +I found no such matter in his conversation, nor did I feel it in the +indefinable way by which strength always makes itself acknowledged. +Buchanan, though somehow plain and uncouth, yet vindicates himself as a +large man of the world, able, experienced, fit to handle difficult +circumstances of life, dignified, too, and able to hold his own in any +society." [Footnote: English Note-book, March, 1856.] + +Morton McMichael, whose statue now stands in Fairmount Park, once +related this incident concerning Dallas, at a meeting of the +Philadelphia Hock Club. Somewhere about 1850 Dallas was invited to +deliver a 4th of July oration at Harrisburg, where McMichael was also +requested to read the Declaration of Independence. McMichael performed +his part of the ceremony, and sat down; then Dallas arose and thanked +the assembly for honoring him with such an invitation, but confessed to +some difficulty in considering what he should say, for an occasion +which had been celebrated by so many famous orators; but that a few +nights since, while he was lying awake, it occurred to him what he +should say to them. After this he proceeded to read his address from a +newspaper printed in 1841, which the audience could not see, but which +McMichael, from his position on the platform, could see perfectly well. + +Hawthorne's description suggests a man somewhat like this; but the +opinion of the Hock Club was that Dallas was not greatly to blame; for +how could any man make two distinct and original 4th of July orations? + +The 1st of April 1856, Hawthorne and Bennoch set off on a bachelor +expedition of their own, first to visit Tupper at Albany, as has been +already related, and then going to view a muster of British troops at +Aldershot; thence to Battle Abbey, which Hawthorne greatly admired, and +the field of Hastings, where England's greatness began in defeat. He +does not mention the battle, however, in his diary, and it may be +remarked that, generally, Hawthorne felt little interest in historical +subjects. After this, they went to London, where Bennoch introduced +Hawthorne at the Milton Club and the Reform Club. At the former, he +again encountered Martin F. Tupper, and became acquainted with Tom +Taylor, the editor of _Punch_, as well as other writers and +editors, of whom he had not previously heard. The Club was by no means +Miltonic, and one would suppose not exactly the place where Hawthorne +would find himself much at home. Neither were the proceedings +altogether in good taste. Bennoch opened the ball with a highly +eulogistic speech about Hawthorne, and was followed by some fifty +others in a similar strain, so that the unfortunate incumbent must have +wished that the earth would open and let him down to the shades of +night below. On such an occasion, even a feather weight becomes a +burden. Oh, for a boy, with a tin horn! + +Neither did Hawthorne apparently find his peers at the Reform Club. +Douglas Jerrold, who reminded him somewhat of Ellery Channing, was the +most notable writer he met there. There was, however, very little +speech-making, and plenty of good conversation. Unfortunately, he +offended Jerrold, by using the word "acrid" as applied to his writing, +instead of some other word, which he could not think of at the moment. +The difficulty, however, was made up over a fresh bottle of Burgundy, +and with the help of Hawthorne's unlimited good-will, so that they +parted excellent friends, and much the better for having known each +other. Either Jerrold or some other present told Hawthorne that the +English aristocracy, for the most part hated, despised, and feared men +of literary genius. Is it not much the same in America? + +After these two celebrations, and attending the Lord Mayor's banquet, +where he admired the beautiful Jewess whom he has described as Miriam +in "The Marble Faun," Hawthorne returned to Liverpool; and early in May +took another recess, with a Mr. Bowman, to York, Edinburgh, the +Trossachs, Abbotsford, and all the haunts of Scott and Burns; with his +account of which a large portion of the second volume of English Note- +books is filled; so that, if Scotland should sink into the sea, as a +portion is already supposed to have done in antediluvian times, all +those places could be reconstructed through Hawthorne's description of +them. + +This expedition lasted nearly three weeks, and on June 12 Hawthorne +received word that his wife, with Una and Rose, had already landed at +Southampton. He hastened at once to meet them, greatly rejoiced to find +Mrs. Hawthorne entirely restored to health. They had been separated for +more than seven months. + +They first proceeded to Salisbury, to see the cathedral and +Stonehenge,--the former, very impressive externally, but not so +satisfactory within; and the latter, a work of man emerging out of +Nature. Then they went to London, to enjoy the June season, and see the +regular course of sights in that huge metropolis. They visited St. +Paul's, the Tower, Guildhall, the National Gallery, the British Museum, +Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament, apparently finding as +much satisfaction in this conventional occupation as they did in the +social entertainments of London. At the house of Mr. S. C. Hall, a +noted entertainer of those days, Hawthorne became acquainted with the +most celebrated singer of her time, or perhaps of all time; namely, +Jenny Lind. No modern orator has held such a sway over the hearts of +men and women, as that Swedish nightingale,--for the purity of her +voice seemed no more than the emanation of her lofty nature. Hawthorne +describes her as a frank, sincere person, rather tall,--certainly no +beauty, but with sense and self-reliance in her aspect and manners. She +immediately gave Hawthorne an illustration of her frankness by +complaining of the unhealthy manner in which Americans, and especially +American women, lived. This seems like a prosaic subject for such a +person, but it was natural enough; for a concert singer has to live +like a race-horse, and this would be what would constantly strike her +attention in a foreign country. Hawthorne rallied to the support of his +countrywomen, and believed that they were, on the whole, as healthy and +long-lived as Europeans. This may be so now, but there has been great +improvement in the American mode of living, during the past fifty +years, and we can imagine that Jenny Lind often found it difficult to +obtain such food as she required. + +That she should have requested an introduction to Hawthorne is +significant of her interest in American literature, and suggests a +taste as refined and elevated as her music. + +It was on Hawthorne's wedding-day this happened, and a few days later +he was invited to a select company at Monckton Milnes's, which included +Macaulay, the Brownings, and Professor Ticknor. He found both the +Brownings exceedingly pleasant and accessible, but was somewhat +startled to find that Mrs. Browning was a believer in spiritism--not +such a sound and healthy intelligence as the author of "Middle-march," +and he might have been still more so, if he had known that she and her +husband were ardent admirers of Louis Napoleon. That was something +which an American in those days could not quite understand. However, he +found her an exceedingly pleasant companion. After dinner they looked +over several volumes of autographs, in which Oliver Cromwell's was the +only one that would to-day be more valuable than Hawthorne's own. + +A breakfast at Monckton Milnes's usually included the reading of a copy +of verses of his own composition, but perhaps he had not yet reached +that stage on the present occasion. + +Hawthorne heard such varied and conflicting accounts of Charles Dickens +that he hardly knew whether he would like to meet him or not. He wanted +to see Tennyson when he was at the Isle of Wight, but feared that his +visit might be looked on as an intrusion, by a person who lived so +retired a life,--judging perhaps from his own experience. While at +Windermere he paused for a moment in front of Harriet Martineau's +cottage, but on second thought he concluded to leave the good deaf lady +in peace. + +Conway speaks of Hawthorne's social life in England as a failure; but +failure suggests an effort in some direction or other, and Hawthorne +made no social efforts. Being lionized was not his business. He had +seen enough of it during the London season of 1856, and after that he +retired into his domestic shell, cultivating the acquaintance of his +wife and children more assiduously than ever, so that even his two +faithful allies, Bright and Bennoch, found it difficult to withdraw him +from it. Watching the development of a fine child is much more +satisfactory than any course of fashionable entertainments--even than +Lowell's twenty-nine dinner-parties in the month of June. Nothing +becomes more tedious than long-continued pleasure-seeking, with post- +prandial speeches and a constant effort to be agreeable. + +Hawthorne remained in England fully seventeen months after this, and +made a number of excursions; especially one to Oxford, where he and his +family were dined by a former mayor of the city, and where he greatly +admired the broad verdant grounds and Gothic architecture of the +colleges; and also a second journey to Edinburgh and the Trossachs, +undertaken for the benefit of Mrs. Hawthorne and Una. But we hear no +more of him in London society, and it only remains for us to chronicle +his exceptional kindness to an unfortunate American woman. + +It seems strange that the first doubt in regard to the authorship of +Shakespeare should have originated on this side of the Atlantic. If +Dante was a self-educated poet, there seems no good reason why +Shakespeare should not have been; and if the greatest of French writers +earned his living as an actor, why should not the greatest of English +writers have done the same? That would seem to be much more in harmony +with the central idea of American life--the principle of self- +helpfulness; but this is a skeptical epoch, and the tendency of our +political institutions is toward skepticism of character and distrust +of tradition. Hence we have Delia Bacon, Holmes, and Donnelly. + +Hawthorne has given future generations an account of Delia Bacon, which +will endure as the portrait of a gifted and interesting woman, diverted +from the normal channels of feminine activity by the force of a single +idea; but he makes no mention of his efforts in her behalf. He found +her in the lodgings of a London tradesman, and although she received +him in a pleasant and lady-like manner, he quickly perceived that her +mind was in an abnormal condition, and that it was positively dangerous +to discuss her favorite topic in a rational manner. He had a feeling +that the least opposition on his part to the Baconian theory would +result in his expulsion from the room, yet he found her conversation +interesting, and recognized that if her conclusions were erroneous she +had nevertheless unearthed valuable historic material, which ought to +be given to the world. He loaned her money, which he did not expect to +be repaid, and exerted himself to find a publisher for her, +recollecting perhaps the vows he had made to the gods in the days of +his own obscurity. He mentions in his diary calling on the Rutledges +for this purpose--where he saw Charles Reade, a tall, strong-looking +man, just leaving the office. He also wrote to Ticknor & Fields, and +finally did get Miss Bacon's volume brought out in London. The critics +treated it in a contemptuous manner, as a desecration of Shakespeare's +memory; and Hawthorne was prepared for this, but it opened a new era in +English bibliography. Shortly after the publication of her book Miss +Bacon became insane. + +To many this appeared like a Quixotic adventure, but now we can see +that it was not, and that it was necessary in its way to prove the +generosity of Hawthorne. We can readily infer from it what he might +have done with ampler means, and what he must often have wished to do. +To be sure, the truest kindness to Delia Bacon would have been to have +purchased a ticket on a Cunard steamer for her, after her own funds had +given out, and to have persuaded her to return to her own country; but +those who have dealt with persons whose whole vitality is absorbed in a +single idea, can testify how difficult, if not impossible, this would +have been. It redounds the more to Hawthorne's credit that although +Elizabeth Peabody was converted to Delia Bacon's theory, Hawthorne +himself never entertained misgivings as to the reality of Shakespeare +as a poet and a dramatist. + +He had doubts, however, and I felt the same in regard to the +authenticity of the verses on Shakespeare's marble slab. It is +fortunate that Miss Bacon's purpose of opening the tomb at Stratford +was not carried out, but that is no reason why it should not be opened +in a properly conducted manner, for scientific purposes--in order to +discover all that is possible concerning so remarkable and mysterious a +personality. Raphael's tomb has been opened, and why should not +Shakespeare's be also? + +At the Democratic convention in 1856 the Southern delegates wished to +renominate Franklin Pierce, but the Northern delegates refused their +agreement to this, because they knew that in such a case they would be +liable to defeat in their own districts. James Buchanan was accordingly +nominated, and Pierce's fears in regard to him were fully realized. He +was elected in November, and the following June appointed Beverly +Tucker to succeed Hawthorne as consul at Liverpool. Hawthorne resigned +his office on July 1, 1857, and went with his family on a long tour in +Scotland. Two weeks earlier he had written a memorial to the Secretary +of State concerning the maltreatment of a special class of seamen, +which deserved more consideration than it received from the government +at Washington. + +The gold discoveries in California had induced a large immigration to +America from the British Isles, and many who went thither in hopes of +bettering their fortunes became destitute from lack of employment, and +attempted to work their passage back to Liverpool in American sailing +vessels. It is likely that they often represented themselves as more +experienced mariners than they actually were, and there were also a +good many stowaways who might expect little mercy; but there was no +court in England that could take cognizance of their wrongs,--in order +to obtain justice they would have to return to America,--and it cannot +be doubted that the more brutal sort of officers took advantage of this +fact. The evil became so notorious that the British minister at +Washington requested Pierce's administration to have legislation +enacted that would cover this class of cases, but the President +declined to interfere. This may have been prudent policy, but Hawthorne +felt for the sufferers, and the memorial that he submitted to our +government on their account has a dignity, a clearness and cogency of +statement, worthy of Blackstone or Marshall. It is in marked contrast +to the evasive reply of Secretary Cass, both for its fine English and +for the directness of its logic. It is published at length in Julian +Hawthorne's biography of his father, and is unique for the insight +which it affords as to Hawthorne's mental ability in this direction. We +may infer from it that if he had made a study of jurisprudence, he +might have risen to the highest position as a writer on law. + +Hawthorne's English Note-books are the least interesting of that +series, on account of the literal descriptions of castles, abbeys, +scenery and palaces, with which they abound. The perfectly cultivated +condition of England and Scotland, so far as he went in the latter +country, is not stimulating to the imagination; for, as he says +somewhere, even the trees seemed to be thoroughly domesticated. They +are excellent reading for Americans who have never been to England, or +for those who wish to renew their memories in regard to certain places +there--perhaps better for the latter than for the former; and there are +fine passages in them, especially his descriptions of the old abbeys +and Gothic cathedrals, which seem to have delighted him more than the +gardens at Blenheim and Eton, and to have brought to the surface a rare +quality in his nature, or otherwise hidden in its depths,--his +enthusiasm. Never before did words fail him until he attempted to +describe the effect of a Gothic cathedral,--the time-honored mystery of +its arches, the sober radiance of its stained windows, and the solemn +aspiration of its lofty vault. As Schiller says, they are the monuments +of a mighty civilization of which we know only too little. + +Hawthorne's object in writing these detailed accounts of his various +expeditions becomes apparent from a passage in his Note-book, of the +date of August 21, 1856, in which he says: "In my English romance, an +American might bring a certain tradition from over the sea, and so +discover the cross which had been long since forgotten." It may have +been his intention from the first to write a romance based on English +soil, but that soil was no longer productive of such intellectual +fruit, except in the form in which Dickens dug it up, like peat, out of +the lower classes. We find Francis Bennoch writing to Hawthorne after +his return to America, [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 310.] hoping to +encourage him in this direction, but without apparent effect. Instead +of a romance, he made a collection of essays from those portions of his +diary which were most closely connected together, enlarging them and +rounding them out, which he published after his return to America, in +the volume we have often referred to as "Our Old Home." But as truthful +studies of English life and manners Mrs. Hawthorne's letters, though +not always sensible, are much more interesting than her husband's +diary. + +When Doctor Johnson was inquired of by a lady why he defined "pastern" +in his Dictionary as the knee of a horse, he replied, "Ignorance, +madam, pure ignorance;" and if Hawthorne had been asked a year +afterwards why he went to Scotland in the summer of 1857, instead of to +the Rhine and Switzerland, he might have given a similar excuse. In +this way he missed the grandest and some of the most beautiful scenery +in Europe. He could not, however, have been ignorant of the attractions +of Paris, and yet he lingered in England until the following January, +and then went over to that metropolis of fashion at a most unseasonable +time. He had, indeed, planned to leave England in October, [Footnote: +English Note-book, December, 1857.] and does not explain why he +remained longer. He made a last visit to London in November, where he +became reconciled to his fellow-townsmen of Salem, in the person of +Edward Silsbee, of whom he writes as "a man of great intelligence and +true feeling, absolutely brimming over with ideas." Mr. Silsbee was an +amateur art critic and connoisseur, who often made himself serviceable +to American travellers in the way of a gentleman-cicerone. He went with +the Hawthorne family to the Crystal Palace, where there were casts of +all famous statues, models of architecture, and the like, and gave +Hawthorne his first lesson in art criticism. Hawthorne indicated a +preference for Michel Angelo's statue of Giuliano dé Medici, called "Il +Pensero;" also for the "Perseus" of Cellini, and the Gates of the +Florentine Baptistery by Lorenzo Ghiberti. If we except the other +statues of Michel Angelo, these are the most distinguished works in +sculpture of the modern world. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +ITALY + + +Hawthorne went to Italy as naturally as the salmon ascends the rivers +in spring. His artistic instinct drew him thither as the original home +of modern art and literature, and perhaps also his interest in the +Latin language, the single study which he cared for in boyhood. Does +not romance come originally from Roma,--as well as Romulus? He wished +to stand where Cæsar stood, to behold the snowy Soracte of Horace, and +to read Virgil's description of an Italian night on Italian ground. It +is noticeable that he cared little or nothing for the splendors of +Paris, the glittering peaks of Switzerland, medical-musical Vienna, or +the grand scholarship and homely sweetness of old Germany. + +Of all the Anglo-Saxon writers who have celebrated Italy, Byron, +Shelley, Rogers, Ruskin and the two Brownings, none were more admirably +equipped for it than Hawthorne. We cannot read "The Romance of Monte +Beni" without recognizing a decidedly Italian element in his +composition,--not the light-hearted, subtle, elastic, fiery Italian, +such as we are accustomed to think them, but the tenderly feeling, +terribly earnest Tuscan, like Dante and Savonarola. The myrtle and the +cypress are both emblematic of Italian character, and there was more of +the latter than the former, though something of either, in Hawthorne's +own make-up. + +The Hawthornes left London on January 6, and, reaching Paris the +following day, they made themselves comfortable at the Hotel du Louvre. +However, they only remained there one week, during which it was so cold +that they saw little and enjoyed little. They went to Notre Dame, the +Louvre, the Madeleine, and the Champs Elysees, but without being +greatly impressed by what they beheld. Hawthorne does not mention a +single painting or statue among the art treasures of the Louvre, which +if rivalled elsewhere are certainly unsurpassed; but Hawthorne began +his studies in this line by an examination of the drawings of the old +masters, and confesses that he was afterward too much fatigued to +appreciate their finished paintings. + +On January 19 they reached Marseilles, and two days later they embarked +on that dreary winter voyage, so pleasant at an earlier season, for +Civita Vecchia; and on the 20th they rolled into the Eternal City, with +such sensations as one may imagine. On the 24th they located themselves +for the season in the Palazzo Larazani, Via Porta Pinciana. [Footnote. +Italian Note-book.] + +_Nemo similis Homeri_.--There is nothing like the charm of a first +visit to Rome. The first sight of the Forum, with its single pathetic +column, brings us back to our school-days, to the study of Cæsar and +the reading of Plutarch; and the intervening period drops out of our +lives, taking all our care and anxiety with it. In England, France, +Germany, we feel the weight of the present, but in Rome the present is +like a glass window through which we view the grand procession of past +events. What _is_, becomes of less importance than what was, and +for the first time we feel the true sense of our indebtedness to the +ages that have gone before. We bathe deep in the spirit of classical +antiquity, and we come out refreshed, enlarged and purified. We return +to the actualities of to-day with a clearer understanding, and better +prepared to act our part in them. + +Hawthorne did not feel this at first. He arrived in inclement weather, +and it was some weeks before he became accustomed to the climatic +conditions--so different from any northern atmosphere. He hated the +filth of the much-neglected city, the squalor of its lower classes, the +narrowness of its streets, and the peculiar pavement, which, as he says +makes walking in Rome a penitential pilgrimage. He goes to the +carnival, and his penetrating glance proves it to be a sham +entertainment. + +But in due course he emerges from this mood; he rejoices in the +atmospheric immensity of St. Peter's; he looks out from the Pincian +hill, and sees _Nivea Soracte_ as Horace beheld it; and he is +overawed (if Hawthorne could be) by the Forum of Trajan and the Column +of Antoninus. He makes a great discovery, or rediscovery, that +Phidias's colossal statues of Castor and Pollux on the Monte Cavallo +are the finest figures in Rome. They are late Roman copies, but +probably from Phidias,--not by Lysippus or Praxiteles; and he felt the +presence of Michel Angelo in the Baths of Diocletian. It is not long +before he goes to the Pincian in the afternoon to play at jack-stones +with his youngest daughter. + +William W. Story, the American sculptor, would seem to have been a +former acquaintance. His father, the famous law lecturer, lived in +Salem during Hawthorne's youth, but afterward removed to Cambridge, +where the younger Story was educated, and there married an intimate +friend of Mrs. James Russell Lowell. This brought him into close +relations with Lowell, Longfellow, and their most intimate friends. He +was something of a poet, and more of a sculptor, but, inheriting an +independent fortune and living in the Barberini Palace, he soon became +more of an Englishman than an American, a tendency which was visibly +increased by a patent of nobility bestowed on him by the King of +Naples. + +Hawthorne soon renewed William Story's acquaintance, and found him +modelling the statue of Cleopatra, of which Hawthorne has given a +somewhat idealized description in "The Marble Faun." This may have +interested him the more from the fact that he witnessed its development +under the sculptor's hands, and saw that distinguished historical +person emerge as it were out of the clay, like a second Eve; but he +makes a mental reservation that it would be better if English and +American sculptors would make a freer use of their chisels--of which +more hereafter. Story was a light-hearted, discursive person, with a +large amount of bric-à-brac information, who could appreciate Hawthorne +either as a genius or as a celebrity. He soon became Hawthorne's chief +companion and social mainstay in Rome, literally a _vade mecum_, +and we may believe that he exercised more or less influence over +Hawthorne's judgment in matters of art. + +Hawthorne listened to Story, and read Mrs. Jameson, although Edward +Silsbee had warned him against her as an uncertain authority; but +Hawthorne depended chiefly on his own investigations. He and his wife +declined an invitation to Mrs. Story's masquerade, and lived very +quietly during this first winter in Rome, making few acquaintances, but +seeing a good deal of the city. They went together to all the principal +churches and the princely galleries; and beside this Hawthorne +traversed Rome from one end to the other, and across in every +direction, sometimes alone, or in company with Julian, investigating +everything from the Mamartine prison, in which Jugurtha was starved, to +the catacombs of St. Calixtus and the buffaloes on the Campagna. The +impression which Conway gives, that he went about sight-seeing and +drinking sour wine with Story and Lothrop Motley, is not quite correct, +for Motley did not come to Rome until the following December, and then +only met Hawthorne a few times, according to his own confession. +[Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 406.] We must not forget, however, that +excellent lady and skilful astronomer, Miss Maria Mitchell, who joined +the Hawthorne party in Paris, and became an indispensable accompaniment +to them the rest of the winter. + +Hawthorne also became acquainted with Buchanan Read, who afterward +painted that stirring picture of General Sheridan galloping to the +battle of Cedar Run; and on March 12 Mr. Read gave a party, at his +Roman dwelling, of painters and sculptors, which Hawthorne attended, +and has entered in full, with the moonlight excursion afterward, in +"The Marble Faun." There Hawthorne met Gibson, to whom he refers as the +most distinguished sculptor of the time. So he was, in England, but +there were much better sculptors in France and in Germany. Gibson's +personality interested Hawthorne, as it well might, but he saw clearly +that Gibson was merely a skilful imitator of the antique, or, as he +calls him, a pagan idealist. He also made acquaintance with two +American sculptors, a Yankee and a girlish young woman, whose names are +prudently withheld; for he afterward visited their studios, and readily +discovered that they had no real talent for their profession. + +If we feel inclined to quarrel with Hawthorne anywhere, it is in his +disparagement of Crawford. There might be two opinions in regard to the +slavery question, but there never has been but one as to the greatest +of American artists. It was a pity that his friend Hillard could not +have been with Hawthorne at this time to counteract the jealous +influences to which he was exposed. He writes no word of regret at the +untimely death of Crawford, but goes into his studio after that sad +event and condemns his work. Only the _genre_ figure of a boy +playing marbles, gives him any satisfaction there; although a plea of +extenuation might be entered in Hawthorne's favor, for statues of +heroic size could not be seen to greater disadvantage than when packed +together in a studio. The immense buttons on the waistcoats of our +revolutionary heroes seem to have startled him on his first entrance, +and this may be accepted as an indication of the rest. Yet the tone of +his criticism, both in the "Note-book" and in "The Marble Faun," is far +from friendly to Crawford. He does not refer to the statue of +Beethoven, which was Crawford's masterpiece, nor to the statue of +Liberty, which now poses on the lantern of the Capitol at Washington,-- +much too beautiful, as Hartmann says, for its elevated position, and +superior in every respect to the French statue of Liberty in New York +harbor. + +Hawthorne had already come to the conclusion that there was a certain +degree of poison in the Roman atmosphere, and in April he found the +climate decidedly languid, but he had fallen in love with this pagan +capital and he hated to leave it. Mrs. Anna Jameson arrived late in +April; a sturdy, warm-hearted Englishwoman greatly devoted to art, for +which her books served as elementary treatises and pioneers to the +English and Americans of those days. She was so anxious to meet +Hawthorne that she persuaded William Story to bring him and his wife to +her lodgings when she was too ill to go forth. They had read each +other's writings and could compliment each other in all sincerity, for +Mrs. Jameson had also an excellent narrative style; but Hawthorne found +her rather didactic, and although she professed to be able "to read a +picture like a book," her conversation was by no means brilliant. She +had contracted an unhappy marriage early in life, and found an escape +from her sorrows and regrets in this elevated interest. + +It was just before leaving Rome that Hawthorne conceived the idea of a +romance in which the "Faun" of Praxiteles should come to life, and play +a characteristic part in the modern world; the catastrophe naturally +resulting from his coming into conflict with a social organization for +which he was unfitted. This portion of Hawthorne's diary is intensely +interesting to those who have walked on classic ground. + +On May 24 Hawthorne commenced his journey to Florence with a +_vetturino_ by easy stages, and one can cordially envy him this +portion of his Italian sojourn; with his devoted wife and three happy +children; travelling through some of the most beautiful scenery in the +world,--nearly if not quite equal to the Rhineland--without even the +smallest cloud of care and anxiety upon his sky, his mind stored with +mighty memories, and looking forward with equal expectations to the +prospect before him,--_bella Firenze_, the treasure-house of +Italian cities; through sunny valleys, with their streams and hill- +sides winding seaward; up the precipitous spurs of the Apennines, with +their old baronial castles perched like vultures' nests on inaccessible +crags; passing through gloomy, tortuous defiles, guarded by Roman +strongholds; and then drawn up by white bullocks over Monte Somma, and +to the mountain cities of Assisi and Perugia, older than Rome itself; +by Lake Trasimenus, still ominous of the name of Hannibal; over hill- +sides silver-gray with olive orchards; always a fresh view and a new +panorama, bounded by the purple peaks on the horizon; and over all, the +tender blue of the Italian sky. Hawthorne may have felt that his whole +previous life, all he had struggled, lived and suffered for, was but a +preparation for this one week of perfectly harmonious existence. Such +vacations from earthly troubles come but rarely in the most fortunate +lives, and are never of long duration. + +When they reached Florence, they found it, as Rose Hawthorne says, very +hot--much too hot to enjoy the city as it should be enjoyed. Her +reminiscences of their life at Florence, and especially of the Villa +Manteüto, have a charming freshness and virginal simplicity, although +written in a somewhat high-flown manner. She succeeds, in spite of her +peculiar style, in giving a distinct impression of the old chateau, its +surroundings, the life her family led there, and of the wonderful view +from Bellosguardo. One feels that beneath the disguise of a fashionable +dress there is an innocent, sympathetic, and pure-spirited nature. + +The Hawthornes arrived in Florence on the afternoon of June 3, and +spent the first night at the Albergo della Fontano, and the next day +obtained apartments in the Casa del Bello, opposite Hiram Powers' +studio, and just outside of the Porta Romana. Hawthorne made Mr. +Powers' acquaintance even before he entered the city, and Powers soon +became to him what Story had been in Rome. The Brownings were already +at Casa Guidi,--still noted in the annals of English poesy,--and called +upon the Hawthornes at the first notice of their arrival. Alacrity or +readiness would seem to have been one of Robert Browning's prominent +characteristics. Elizabeth Browning's mind was as much occupied with +spiritism as when Hawthorne met her two years previously at Monckton +Milnes's breakfast; an unfortunate proclivity for a person of frail +physique and delicate nerves. Neither did she live very long after +this. Her husband and Hawthorne both cordially disapproved of these +mesmeric practices; but Mrs. Browning could not be prevented from +talking on the subject, and this evidently produced an ecstatic and +febrile condition of mind in her, very wearing to a poetic temperament. +Hawthorne heartily liked Browning himself, and always speaks well of +him; but there must also have been an undercurrent of disagreement +between him and so ardent an admirer of Louis Napoleon, and he recalls +little or nothing of what Browning said to him. This continued till the +last of June, when Robert and Elizabeth left Florence for cooler +regions. + +Meanwhile Hawthorne occupied himself seriously with seeing Florence and +studying art, like a man who intends to get at the root of the matter. +Florence afforded better advantages than Rome for the study of art, not +only from the superiority of its collections, but because there the +development of mediaeval art can be traced to its fountain-source. He +had no textbooks to guide him,--at least he does not refer to any,--and +his investigations were consequently of rather an irregular kind, but +it was evidently the subject which interested him most deeply at this +time. His Note-book is full of it, and also of discussions on sculpture +with Hiram Powers, in which Hawthorne has frequently the best of the +argument. + +In fact Powers looked upon his art from much too literal a stand-point. +He agreed with Hawthorne as to the fine expression of the face of +Michel Angelo's "Giuliano dé Medici," [Footnote: As Hawthorne did not +prepare his diary for publication, it would not be fair to hold him +responsible for the many instances of bad Italian in the Note-book, +which ought to have been edited by some one who knew the language.] but +affirmed that it was owing to a trick of overshadowing the face by the +projecting visor of Giuliano's helmet. Hawthorne did not see why such a +device did not come within the range of legitimate art, the truth of +the matter being that Michel Angelo left the face unfinished; but the +expression of the statue is not in its face, but in the inclination of +the head, the position of the arms, the heavy droop of the armor, and +in fact in the whole figure. Powers' "Greek Slave," on the contrary, +though finely modelled and sufficiently modern in type, has no definite +expression whatever. + +Hawthorne found an exceptional interest in the "Venus dé Medici," now +supposed to have been the work of one of the sons of Praxiteles, and +its wonderful symmetry gives it a radiance like that of the sun behind +a summer cloud; but Powers cooled down his enthusiasm by objecting to +the position of the ears, the vacancy of the face, the misrepresentation +of the inner surface of the lips, and by condemning particularly the +structure of the eyes, which he declared were such as no human being +could see with. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, June 13, 1858.] Hawthorne +was somewhat puzzled by these subtleties of criticism, which he did not +know very well how to answer, but he still held fast to the opinion that +he was fundamentally right, and retaliated by criticising Powers' own +statues in his diary. + +The Greeks, in the best period of their favorite art, never attempted a +literal reproduction of the human figure. Certain features, like the +nostrils, were merely indicated; others, like the eyelashes, often so +expressive in woman, were omitted altogether; hair and drapery were +treated in a schematic manner. In order to give an expression to the +eyes, various devices were resorted to. The eyelids of the bust of +Pericles on the Acropolis had bevelled edges, and the eyeballs of the +"Apollo Belvedere" are exceptionally convex, to produce the effect of +looking to a distance, although the human eye when gazing afar off +becomes slightly contracted. The head of the "Venus dé Medici" is +finely shaped, but small, and her features are pretty, rather than +beautiful; but her eyes are exceptional among all feminine statues for +their tenderness of expression--swimming, as it were, with love; and it +is the manner in which this effect is produced that Powers mistook for +bad sculpture. Hiram Powers' most exceptional proposition was to the +effect that the busts of the Roman emperors were not characteristic +portraits. Hawthorne strongly dissented from this; and he was in the +right, for if the character of a man can be read from marble, it is +from those old blocks. Hawthorne has some admirable remarks on this +point. + +Such was Hawthorne's internal life during his first month at Florence. +He was full of admiration for the cathedral, the equestrian statue of +Cosmo dé Medici, the "David" of Michel Angelo, the Loggia dé Lanzi, +Raphael's portrait of Julius II., the "Fates" of Michel Angelo, and +many others; yet he confesses that the Dutch, French, and English +paintings gave him a more simple, natural pleasure,--probably because +their subjects came closer to his own experience. + +A strange figure of an old man, with "a Palmer-like beard," continually +crossed Hawthorne's path, both in Rome and in Florence, where he dines +with him at the Brownings'. His name is withheld, but Hawthorne informs +us that he is an American editor, a poet; that he voted for Buchanan, +and was rejoicing in the defeat of the Free-soilers,--"a man to whom +the world lacks substance because he has not sufficiently cultivated +his emotional nature;" and "his personal intercourse, though kindly, +does not stir one's blood in the least." Yet Hawthorne finds him to be +good-hearted, intelligent, and sensible. This can be no other than +William Cullen Bryant. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, ii. 15.] + +In the evening of June 27 the Hawthornes went to call on a Miss +Blagden, who occupied a villa on Bellosguardo, and where they met the +Brownings, and a Mr. Trollope, a brother of the novelist. It could not +have been the Villa Manteüto, which Miss Blagden rented, for we hear of +her at Bellosguardo again in August, when Hawthorne was living there +himself; and after this we do not hear of the Brownings again. + +Hawthorne's remark on Browning's poetry is one of the rare instances in +which he criticises a contemporary author: + +"I am rather surprised that Browning's conversation should be so clear, +and so much to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom +proceed far, without running into the high grass of latent meanings and +obscure allusions." + +It is precisely this which has prevented Browning from achieving the +reputation that his genius deserves. We wish that Hawthorne could have +favored us with as much literary criticism as he has given us of art +criticism, and we almost lose patience with him for his repeated +canonization of General Jackson--St. Hickory--united with a +disparagement of Washington and Sumner; but although Hawthorne's +insight into human nature was wonderful in its way, it would seem to +have been confined within narrow boundaries. At least he seems to have +possessed little insight into grand characters and magnanimous natures. +He wishes now that Raphael could have painted Jackson's portrait. So, +conversely, Shakespeare belittles Cæsar in order to suit the purpose of +his play. Which of Shakespeare's male characters can be measured beside +George Washington? There is not one of them, unless Kent in "King +Lear." Strong, resolute natures, like Washington, Hamilton, Sumner, are +not adapted to dramatic fiction, either in prose or in verse. + +A Florentine summer is about equal to one in South Carolina, and now, +when Switzerland can be reached by rail in twenty-four hours, no +American or Englishman thinks of spending July and August there; but in +Hawthorne's time it was a long and expensive journey over the Pennine +Alps; Hawthorne's physique was as well attempered to heat as to cold; +and he continued to frequent the picture-galleries and museums after +all others had ceased to do so; although he complains in his diary that +he had never known it so hot before, and that the flagstones in the +street reflect the sun's rays upon him like the open doors of a +furnace. + +At length, in an entry of July 27, he says: + +"I seldom go out nowadays, having already seen Florence tolerably well, +and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in +sketching out a romance, [Footnote: "The Marble Faun."] which whether +it will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. At any +rate, it leaves me little heart for journalizing, and describing new +things; and six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable +to me just now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties." + +This is the second instance in which we hear of a romance based on the +"Faun" of Praxiteles, and now at last he appears to be in earnest. + +It may be suspected that his entertaining friend, Hiram Powers, was the +chief obstacle to the progress of his new plot, and it is rather +amusing to believe that it was through the agency of Mr. Powers, who +cared for nothing so much as Hawthorne's welfare, that this impediment +was removed. Five days later, Hawthorne and his household gods, which +were chiefly his wife and children, left the Casa del Bello for the +Villa Manteüto where they remained in peaceful retirement until the +first of October. + +On the tower of the Villa he could enjoy whatever enlivening breezes +came across to Florence from the mountains to the north and east. When +the _tramontana_ blew, he was comfortable enough. Thunder-storms +also came frequently, with the roar of heaven's artillery reverberating +from peak to peak, and enveloping Bellosguardo in a dense vapor, like +the smoke from Napoleon's cannon; after which they would career down +the valley of the Arno to Pisa, flashing and cannonading like a +victorious army in pursuit of the enemy. + +The beauty of the summer nights at Florence amply compensates for the +sultriness of the days,--especially if they be moonlight nights,--and +the bright starlight of the Mediterranean is little less beautiful. +Travellers who only see Italy in winter, know not what they miss. +Hawthorne noticed that the Italian sky had a softer blue than that of +England and America, and that there was a peculiar luminous quality in +the atmosphere, as well as a more decided difference between sunshine +and shadow, than in countries north of the Alps. The atmosphere of +Italy, Spain, and Greece is not like any American air that I am +acquainted with. During the summer season, all Italians whose +occupation will permit them, sleep at noon,--the laborers in the +shadows of the walls,--and sit up late at night, enjoying the fine air +and the pleasant conversation which it inspires. Hawthorne found the +atmosphere of Tuscany favorable for literary work, even in August. + +On the 4th of that month he looked out from his castle wall late at +night and noticed the brilliancy of the stars,--also that the Great +Dipper exactly overhung the valley of the Arno. At that same hour the +astronomer Donati was sweeping the heavens with his telescope at the +Florentine observatory, and it may have been ten days later that he +discovered in the handle of the Dipper the great comet which will +always bear his name,--the most magnificent comet of modern times, only +excepting that of 1680, which could be seen at noonday. It first became +visible to the naked eye during the last week of August, as a small +star with a smaller tail, near the second star from the end of the +handle of the Dipper; after which it grew apace until it extended +nearly from the horizon to the zenith, with a tail millions of miles in +length. This, however, did not take place until near the time of +Hawthorne's departure from Florence. In his case it proved sorrowfully +enough a harbinger of calamity. + +Hawthorne blocked out his sketch of "The Romance of Monte Beni" in a +single month, and then returned to the churches and picture-galleries. +He could not expect to revisit Italy in this life, and prudently +concluded to make the most of it while the opportunity lasted. He +notices the peculiar fatigue which sight-seeing causes in deep natures, +and becomes unspeakably weary of it, yet returns to it again next day +with an interest as fresh as before. + +Neither did he lack for society. William Story came over to see him +from Siena, where he was spending the summer, exactly as Hawthorne +describes the visit of Kenyon to Donatello in his romance. Mr. and Mrs. +Powers came frequently up the hill in the cool of the evening, and Miss +Blagden also proved an excellent neighbor. Early in September the +"spirits" appeared again in great force. Mrs. Hawthorne discovered a +medium in her English governess; table-rappings and table-tippings were +the order of the evening; and some rather surprising results were +obtained through Miss Shepard's fingers. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. +31.] Powers related a still more surprising performance [Footnote: +Italian Note-book.] that he had witnessed, which was conducted by D. D. +Home, an American mountebank, who hoaxed more crowned heads, princes, +princesses, and especially English duchesses than Cagliostro himself. +Hawthorne felt the repugnance of the true artist to this uncanny +business, and his thorough detestation of the subject commends itself +to every sensible reader. He came to the conclusion that the supposed +revelations of spirits were nothing more than the mental vagaries of +persons in the same room, conveyed in some occult manner to the brain +of the medium. The governess, Miss Shepard, agreed with him in this, +but she could give no explanation as to the manner in which the +response came to her. Twenty years of scientific investigations have +added little or nothing to this diagnosis of Hawthorne's, nor are we +any nearer to an explanation of the simple fact; which is wonderful +enough in its way. Hawthorne compares the revelations of mediums to +dreams, but they are not exactly like them, for they are at the same +time more rational and less original or spontaneous than dreams. In my +dreams my old friends often come back to me and speak in their +characteristic manner,--more characteristic perhaps than I could +represent them when awake,--but the responses of mediums are either +evasive or too highly generalized to be of any particular value. The +story of Mary Runnel, or Rondel, which Julian Hawthorne narrates, is an +excellent case in point. Hawthorne had probably heard of that +flirtation of his grandfather some time in his youth, and the fact was +unconsciously latent in his mind; but nothing that Mary divulged at +Bellosguardo was of real interest to him or to the others concerned. +The practice of spiritism, hypnotism, or Christian Science opens a wide +door for superstition and imposture to walk in and seat themselves by +our firesides. + +About a year before this, Congress had given Hiram Powers a commission +to model a colossal statue of _America_ for the Capitol at +Washington. This he had done, and the committee in charge accepted his +design,--Hawthorne also writes admiringly of it,--but it was also +necessary to receive the approval of the President, and this Buchanan +with his peculiar obstinacy refused to give. Powers was left without +compensation for a whole year of arduous labor, and Hawthorne for once +was thoroughly indignant. He wrote in his diary: + +"I wish our great Republic had the spirit to do as much, according to +its vast means, as Florence did for sculpture and architecture when it +was a republic.... And yet the less we attempt to do for art the +better, if our future attempts are to have no better result than such +brazen troopers as the equestrian statue of General Jackson, or even +such naked respectabilities as Greeneough's Washington." + +Perhaps Powers' "America" was a fortunate escape, and yet it does not +seem right that any enlightened government should set such a pitfall +for honest men to stumble into. There certainly ought to be some +compensation in such cases. The experience of history hitherto has been +that, whereas painting and literature have nourished under all forms of +government, sculpture has only attained its highest excellence in +republics like Athens, Rhodes, Florence, and Nuremberg; so that upon +this line of argument there is good hope for America in the future. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HAWTHORNE AS ART CRITIC: 1858 + + +Nearly one-third of the Italian Note-book is devoted to the criticisms +or descriptions of paintings, statues, and architecture, for which we +can be only too thankful as coming from such a bright, penetrating, and +ingenious intelligence. It is much in their favor that Hawthorne had +not previously undertaken a course of instruction in art; that he wrote +for his own benefit, and not for publication; and that he was not +biased by preconceived opinions. It cannot be doubted that he was +sometimes influenced by the opinions of Story, Powers, and other +artists with whom he came in contact; but this could have happened only +in particular cases, and more especially in respect to modern works of +art. When Hawthorne visited the galleries he usually went alone, or +only accompanied by his wife. + +The only opportunities for the study of aesthetics or art criticism, +fifty years ago, were to be found in German universities. Kugler's +handbook of painting was the chief authority in use, rather academic, +but correct enough in a general way. Ruskin, a more eloquent and +discriminating writer, had devoted himself chiefly to celebrating the +merits of Turner and Tintoretto, but was never quite just to Florentine +art. Mrs. Jameson followed closely after Kugler, and was the only one +of these that Hawthorne appears to have consulted. Winckelmann's +history of Greek sculpture, which was not a history in the proper sense +of the word, had been translated by Lodge, but Hawthorne does not +mention it, and it would not have been much assistance to him if he had +read it. Like Winckelmann and Lessing, however, he admired the +"Laocoön,"--an admiration now somewhat out of fashion. + +There can be no final authority in art, for the most experienced +critics still continue to differ in their estimates of the same +painting or statue. More than this, it is safe to affirm that any one +writer who makes a statement concerning a certain work of art at a +given time, would have made a somewhat different statement at another +time. In fact, this not unfrequently happens in actual practice; for +all that any of us can do is, to reproduce the impression made on us at +the moment, and this depends as much on our own state of mind, and on +our peculiarities, as on the peculiarities of the picture or statue +that we criticise. It is the same in art itself. If Raphael had not +painted the "Sistine Madonna" at the time he did, he would have +produced a different work. It was the concentration of that particular +occasion, and if any accident had happened to prevent it, that pious +and beautiful vision would have been lost to the world. + +It requires years of study and observation of the best masters to +become a trustworthy art critic, and then everything depends of course +upon the genius of the individual. It has happened more than once that +a wealthy American, with a certain kind of enthusiasm for art, has +prepared himself at a German university, has studied the science of +connoisseurship, and has become associate member of a number of foreign +societies, only to discover at length that he had no talent for the +profession. Hawthorne enjoyed no such advantages, nor did he even think +of becoming a connoisseur. His whole experience in the art of design +might be included within twelve months, and his original basis was +nothing better than his wife's water-color painting and the mediocre +pictures in the Boston Athenaeum; but he brought to his subject an eye +that was trained to the closest observation of Nature and a mind +experienced beyond all others [Footnote: At least at that time.] in the +mysteries of human life. He begins tentatively, and as might be +expected makes a number of errors, but quite as often he hits the nail, +where others have missed it. He learns by his mistakes, and steadily +improves in critical faculty. Hawthorne's Italian Note-book is a unique +record, in which the development of a highly organized mind has +advanced from small beginnings to exceptional skill in a fresh +department of activity. + +Hawthorne brought with him to Italy the Yankee preference for newness +and nicety, which our forefathers themselves derived from their +residence in Holland, and there is no city in Europe where this +sentiment could have troubled him so much as in Rome. He disliked the +dingy picture-frames, the uncleanly canvases, the earth-stains and +broken noses of the antique statues, the smoked-up walls of the Sistine +Chapel, and the cracks in Raphael's frescos. He condemns everything as +rubbish which has not an external perfection; forgetting that, as in +human nature, the most precious treasures are sometimes allied with an +ungainly exterior. Yet in this he only echoes the impressions of +thousands of others who have gone to the Vatican and returned +disconsolate, because amid a perplexing multitude of objects they knew +not where to look for consummate art. One can imagine if an experienced +friend had accompanied Hawthorne to the Raphael stanza, and had pointed +out the figures of the Pope, the cardinal, and the angelic boys in the +"Mass at Bolsena," he would have admired them without limitation. He +quickly discovered Raphael's "Transfiguration," and considered it the +greatest painting that the world contains. + +The paintings in the princely collections in Rome are, with the +exception of those in the Borghese gallery, far removed from princely. +A large proportion of their best paintings had long since been sold to +the royal collections of northern Europe, and had been replaced either +by copies or by works of inferior masters. In the Barberini palace +there are not more than three or four paintings such as might +reasonably detain a traveller, and it is about the same in the Ludovisi +gallery. There was not a grain of affectation in Hawthorne; he never +pretended to admire what he did not like, nor did he strain himself +into liking anything that his inner nature rebelled against. + +Hawthorne's taste in art was much in advance of his time. His quick +appreciation of the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux on the +Quirinal is the best proof of this. Ten years later it was the fashion +in Rome to deride those statues, as a late work of the empire and +greatly lacking in artistic style. Brunn, in his history of ancient +sculpture, attributes them to the school of Lysippus, a contemporary of +Alexander, which Brunn certainly would not have done if he had +possessed a good eye for form. Vasari, on the contrary, a surer critic, +considered them worthy to be placed beside Michel Angelo's "David"; but +it remained for Furtwängler to restore them to their true position as a +work of the Periclean age, although copied by Italian sculptors. They +must have been the product of a single mind, [Footnote: On the base of +one is _Opus Phidiae_, and on that of the other, _Opus Praxitelis._] +either Phidias, Alcameres, or the elder Praxiteles--if there ever was +such a person; and they have the finest figures of any statues in Rome +(much finer than the dandified "Apollo Belvedere") and also the most +spirited action. + +Hawthorne went to the Villa Ludovisi to see the much-vaunted bas-relief +of Antinous, which fifty years ago was considered one of the art +treasures of the city; but a more refined taste has since discovered +that in spite of the rare technical skill, its hard glassy finish gives +it a cold and conventional effect. Hawthorne returned from it +disappointed, and wrote in his diary: + +"This Antinous is said to be the finest relic of antiquity next to the +Apollo and the Laocoön; but I could not feel it to be so, partly, I +suppose, because the features of Antinous do not seem to me beautiful +in themselves; and that heavy, downward look is repeated till I am more +weary of it than of anything else in sculpture." + +The Greek artist of Adrian's time attempted to give the face a pensive +expression, but only succeeded in this heavy downward look. + +Hawthorne felt the same disappointment after his first visit to the +sculpture-gallery of the Vatican. "I must confess," he wrote, "taking +such transient glimpses as I did, I was more impressed with the extent +of the Vatican, and the beautiful order in which it is kept and its +great sunny, open courts, with fountains, grass, and shrubs ... than +with the statuary." The Vatican collection has great archaeological +value, but, with the exception of the "Laocoön," the "Meleager," the +"Apollo," and a few others, little or no artistic value. The vast +majority of the statues there are either late Roman works or cheap +Roman copies of second-rate Hellenic statues. Some of them are +positively bad and others are archaic, and Hawthorne was fully +justified in his disatisfaction with them. He noticed, however, a +decided difference between the original "Apollo" and the casts of it +with which he was familiar. On a subsequent visit he fails to observe +the numerous faults in Canova's "Perseus," and afterwards writes this +original statement concerning the "Laocoön": + +"I felt the Laocoön very powerfully, though very quietly; an immortal +agony with a strange calmness diffused through it, so that it resembles +the vast age of the sea, calm on account of its immensity; as the +tumult of Niagara, which does not seem to be tumult, because it keeps +pouring on forever and ever." + +Professor E. A. Gardner and the more fastidious school of critics have +recently decided that the action of the "Laocoön" is too violent to be +contained within the proper boundaries of sculpture; but Hawthorne +controverts this view in a single sentence. The action is violent, it +is true, but the _impression_ which the statue makes on him is not +a violent one; for the greatness of the art sublimates the motive. It +is a tragedy in marble, and Pliny, who had seen the works of Phidias +and Praxiteles, placed Agesander's "Laocoön" above them all. This, +however, is a Roman view. What Hawthorne wrote in his diary should not +always be taken literally. When he declares that he would like to have +every artist that perpetrates an allegory put to death, he merely +expresses the puzzling effects which such compositions frequently +exercise on the weary-minded traveller; and when he wishes that all the +frescos on Italian walls could be obliterated, he only repeats a +sentiment of similar strain. Perhaps we should class in the same +category Hawthorne's remark concerning the Elgin marbles in the British +Museum, that "it would be well if they were converted into paving- +stones." There are no grander monuments of ancient art than those +battered and headless statues from the pediment of the Parthenon (the +figures of the so-called "Three Fates" surpass the "Venus of Melos"), +and archaeologists are still in dispute as to what they may have +represented; but the significance of the subject before him was always +the point in which Hawthorne was interested. Julian Hawthorne says of +his father, in regard to a similar instance: + +"Of technicalities,--difficulties overcome, harmony of lines, and so +forth,--he had no explicit knowledge; they produced their effect upon +him of course, but without his recognizing the manner of it. All that +concerned him was the sentiment which the artist had meant to express; +the means and method were comparatively unimportant." [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, ii. 193.] + +The technicalities of art differ with every clime and every generation. +They belong chiefly to the connoisseur, and have their value, but the +less a critic thinks of them in making a general estimate of a painting +or statue, the more likely he is to render an impartial judgment. +Hawthorne's analysis of Praxiteles's "Faun," in his "Romance of Monte +Beni," being a subject in which he was particularly interested, is +almost without a rival in the literature of its kind; and this is the +more remarkable since the copy of the "Faun" in the museum of the +Capitol is not one of the best, at least it is inferior to the one in +the Glyptothek at Munich. It seems as if Hawthorne had penetrated to +the first conception of it in the mind of Praxiteles. + +The Sistine Chapel, like the Italian scenery, only unfolds its beauties +on a bright day, and Hawthorne happened to go there when the sky was +full of drifting clouds, a time when it is difficult to see any object +as it really is. It may have been on this account that he entirely +mistook the action of the Saviour in Michel Angelo's "Last Judgment." +Christ has raised his arm above his head in order to display the mark +where he was nailed to the cross, and Hawthorne presumed this, as many +others have done, to be an angry threatening gesture of condemnation, +which would not accord with his merciful spirit. He appreciated the +symmetrical figure of Adam, and the majestic forms of the prophets and +sibyls encircling the ceiling, and if he had seen the face of the +Saviour in a fair light, he might have recognized that such divine +calmness of expression could not coexist with a vindictive motive. +This, however, can be seen to better advantage in a Braun photograph +than in the painting itself. + +Hawthorne goes to the Church of San Pietro in Vincolo to see Michel +Angelo's "Moses," but he does not moralize before it, like a certain +Concord artist, on "the weakness of exaggeration;" nor does he +consider, like Ruskin, that its conventional horns are a serious +detriment. On the contrary he finds it "grand and sublime, with a beard +flowing down like a cataract; a truly majestic figure, but not so +benign as it were desirable that such strength should hold." An +Englishman present remarked that the "Moses" had very fine features,-- +"a compliment," says Hawthorne, "for which the colossal Hebrew ought to +have made the Englishman a bow." + +[Footnote: Italian Note-book, p. 164.] + +Perhaps the Englishman really meant that the face had a noble +expression. The somewhat satyr-like features of the "Moses" would seem +to have been unconsciously adopted, together with the horns, from a +statue of the god Pan, which thus serves as an intermediate link +between the "Moses" and the "Faun" of Praxiteles; but he who cannot +appreciate Michel Angelo's "Moses" in spite of this, knows nothing of +the Alpine heights of human nature. + +Of all the paintings that Hawthorne saw in Rome none impressed him so +deeply as Guido's portrait of Beatrice Cenci, and none more justly. If +the "Laocoön" is the type of an old Greek tragedy, a strong man +strangled in the coils of Fate, the portrait of Beatrice represents the +tragedy of mediaeval Italy, a beautiful woman crushed by the downfall +of a splendid civilization. The fate of Joan of Arc or of Madame Roland +was merciful compared to that of poor Beatrice. Religion is no +consolation to her, for it is the Pope himself who signs her death- +warrant. She is massacred to gratify the avarice of the Holy See. Yet +in this last evening of her tragical life, she does find strength and +consolation in her dignity as a woman. Never was art consecrated to a +higher purpose; Guido rose above himself; and, as Hawthorne says, it +seems as if mortal man could not have wrought such an effect. It has +always been the most popular painting in Rome, but Hawthorne was the +first to celebrate its unique superiority in writing, and his discourse +upon it in various places leaves little for those that follow. + +It may have been long since discovered that Hawthorne's single weakness +was a weakness for his friends; certainly an amiable weakness, but +nevertheless that is the proper name for it. When Phocion was Archon of +Athens, he said that a chief magistrate should know no friends; and the +same should be true of an authoritative writer. Hawthorne has not gone +so far in this direction as many others have who had less reason to +speak with authority than he; but he has indicated his partiality for +Franklin Pierce plainly enough, and his over-praise of Hiram Powers and +William Story, as well as his under-praise of Crawford, will go down to +future generations as something of an injustice to those three artists. + +[Illustration: GUIDO RENI'S PORTRAIT OF BEATRICE CENCI, PAINTED WHILE +SHE WAS IN PRISON, WHICH SUGGESTED TO HAWTHORNE THE PLOT OF "THE MARBLE +FAUN"] + +It is not necessary to repeat here what Hawthorne wrote concerning +Powers' Webster. The statue stands in front of the State House at +Boston, and serves as a good likeness of the famous orator, but more +than that one cannot say for it. The face has no definable expression, +and those who have looked for a central motive in the figure will be +pleased to learn what it is by reading Hawthorne's description of it, +as he saw it in Powers' studio at Florence. A sculptor of the present +day can find no better study for his art than the attitudes and changes +of countenance in an eloquent speaker; but which of them can be said to +have taken advantage of this? Story made an attempt in his statue of +Everett, but even his most indulgent friends did not consider it a +success. His "George Peabody," opposite the Bank of England, could not +perhaps have been altogether different from what it is. + +What chiefly interested Story in his profession seems to have been the +modelling of unhappy women in various attitudes of reflection. He made +a number of these, of which his "Cleopatra" is the only one known to +fame, and in the expression of her face he has certainly achieved a +high degree of excellence. Neither has Hawthorne valued it too highly, +--the expression of worldly splendor incarnated in a beautiful woman on +the tragical verge of an abyss. If she only were beautiful! Here the +limitations of the statue commence. Hawthorne says, "The sculptor had +not shunned to give the full, Nubian lips and other characteristics of +the Egyptian physiognomy." + +Here he follows the sculptor himself, and it is remarkable that a +college graduate like William Story should have made so transparent a +mistake. Cleopatra was not an Egyptian at all. The Ptolemies were +Greeks, and it is simply impossible to believe that they would have +allied themselves with a subject and alien race. This kind of small +pedantry has often led artists astray, and was peculiarly virulent +during the middle of the past century. The whole figure of Story's +"Cleopatra" suffers from it. Hawthorne says again, "She was draped from +head to foot in a costume minutely and scrupulously studied from that +of ancient Egypt." In fact, the body and limbs of the statue are so +closely shrouded as to deprive the work of that sense of freedom of +action and royal abandon which greets us in Shakespeare's and +Plutarch's "Cleopatra." Story might have taken a lesson from Titian's +matchless "Cleopatra" in the Cassel gallery, or from Marc Antonio's +small woodcut of Raphael's "Cleopatra." + +Perhaps it is not too much to say of Crawford that he was the finest +plastic genius of the Anglo-Saxon race. His technique may not have been +equal to Flaxman's or St. Gaudens', but his designs have more of +grandeur than the former, and he is more original than the latter. +There are faults of modelling in his "Orpheus," and its attitude +resembles that of the eldest son of Niobe in the Florentine gallery,-- +although the Niobe youth looks upward and Orpheus is peering into +darkness,--its features are rather too pretty; but the statue has +exactly what Powers' "Greek Slave" lacks, a definite motive,--that of +an earnest seeker,--which pervades it from head to foot; and it is no +imaginary pathos that we feel in its presence. There is, at least, no +imitation of the antique in Crawford's "Beethoven," for its conception, +the listening to internal harmonies, would never have occurred to a +Greek or a Roman. Even Hawthorne admits Crawford's skill in the +treatment of drapery; and this is very important, for it is in his +drapery quite as much as in the nude that we recognize the superiority +of Michel Angelo to Raphael; and the folds of Beethoven's mantle are as +rhythmical as his own harmonies. The features lack something of +firmness, but it is altogether a statue in the grand manner. + +Hawthorne is rather too exacting in his requirements of modern +sculptors. Warrington Wood, who commenced life as a marble-worker, +always employed Italian workmen to carve his statues, although he was +perfectly able to do it himself, and always put on the finishing +touches,--as I presume they all do. Bronze statues are finished with a +file, and of course do not require any knowledge of the chisel. + +In regard to the imitation of antique attitudes, there has certainly +been too much of it, as Hawthorne supposes; but the Greeks themselves +were given to this form of plagiarism, and even Praxiteles sometimes +adopted the motives of his predecessors; but Hawthorne praises Powers, +Story, and Harriet Hosmer above their merits. + +The whole brotherhood of artists and their critical friends might rise +up against me, if I were to support Hawthorne's condemnation of modern +Venuses, and "the guilty glimpses stolen at hired models." They are not +necessarily guilty glimpses. To an experienced artist the customary +study from a naked figure, male or female, is little more than what a +low-necked dress at a party would be to many others. Yet the instinct +of the age shrinks from this exposure. We can make pretty good Venuses, +but we cannot look at them through the same mental and moral atmosphere +as the contemporaries of Scopas, or even with the same eyes that Michel +Angelo saw them. We feel the difference between a modern Venus and an +ancient one. There is a statue in the Vatican of a Roman emperor, of +which every one says that it ought to wear clothes; and the reason is +because the face has such a modern look. A raving Bacchante may be a +good acquisition to an art museum, but it is out of place in a public +library. A female statue requires more or less drapery to set off the +outlines of the figure and to give it dignity. We feel this even in the +finest Greek work--like the "Venus of Cnidos." + +In this matter Hawthorne certainly exposes his Puritanic education, and +he also places too high a value on the carving of button-holes and +shoestrings by Italian workmen. Such things are the fag-ends of +statuary. + +His judgment, however, is clear and convincing in regard to the tinted +Eves and Venuses of Gibson. Whatever may have been the ancient practice +in this respect, Gibson's experiment proved a failure. Nobody likes +those statues; and no other sculptor has since followed Gibson's +example. The tinting of statues by the Greeks did not commence until +the time of Aristotle, and does not seem to have been very general. +Their object evidently was, not so much to imitate flesh as to tone +down the crystalline glare of the new marble. Pausanias speaks of a +statue in Arcadia, the drapery of which was painted with vermilion, "so +as to look very gay." This was of course the consequence of a late and +degraded taste. That traces of paint should have been discovered on +Greek temples is no evidence that the marble was painted when they were +first built. + +It may be suspected that Hawthorne was one of the very few who have +seen the "Venus dé Medici" and recognized the true significance of the +statue. The vast majority of visitors to the Uffizi only see in it the +type of a perfectly symmetrical woman bashfully posing for her likeness +in marble, but Hawthorne's perception in it went much beyond that, and +the fact that he attempts no explanation of its motive is in accordance +with the present theory. He also noticed that statues had sometimes +exercised a potent spell over him, and at others a very slight +influence. + +Froude says that a man's modesty is the best part of him. Notice that, +ye strugglers for preferment, and how beautifully modest Hawthorne is, +when he writes in his Florentine diary: + +"In a year's time, with the advantage of access to this magnificent +gallery, I think I might come to have some little knowledge of +pictures. At present I still know nothing; but am glad to find myself +capable, at least, of loving one picture better than another. I am +sensible, however, that a process is going on, and has been ever since +I came to Italy, that puts me in a state to see pictures with less +toil, and more pleasure, and makes me more fastidious, yet more +sensible of beauty where I saw none before." + +Hawthorne belongs to the same class of amateur critics as Shelley and +Goethe, who, even if their opinions cannot always be accepted as final, +illuminate the subject with the radiance of genius and have an equal +value with the most experienced connoisseurs. + + * * * * * + +The return of the Hawthornes to Rome through Tuscany was even more +interesting than their journey to Florence in the spring, and they +enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a _vetturino_ who would seem +to have been the Sir Philip Sidney of his profession, a compendium of +human excellences. There are such men, though rarely met with, and we +may trust Hawthorne's word that Constantino Bacci was one of them; not +only a skilful driver, but a generous provider, honest, courteous, +kindly, and agreeable. They went first to Siena, where they were +entertained for a week or more by the versatile Mr. Story, and where +Hawthorne wrote an eloquent description of the cathedral; then over the +mountain pass where Radicofani nestles among the iron-browed crags +above the clouds; past the malarious Lake of Bolsena, scene of the +miracle which Raphael has commemorated in the Vatican; through Viterbo +and _Sette Vene_; and finally, on October 16, into Rome, through +the Porta' del Popolo, designed by Michel Angelo in his massive style, +--Donati's comet flaming before them every night. Thompson, the portrait +painter, had already secured a furnished house, No. 68 Piazza Poli, for +the Hawthornes, to which they went immediately. + +Since the death of Julius Cæsar, comets have always been looked upon as +the forerunners of pestilence and war, but wars are sometimes +blessings, and Donati's discovery proved a harbinger of good to Italy, +--but to the Hawthornes, a prediction of evil. Continually in +Hawthorne's Italian journal we meet with references to the Roman +malaria, as if it were a subject that occupied his thoughts, and +nowhere is this more common than during the return-journey from +Florence. Did it occur to him that the lightning might strike in his +own house? No sensible American now would take his children to Rome +unless for a very brief visit; and yet William Story brought up his +family there with excellent success, so far as health was concerned. + +We can believe that Hawthorne took every possible precaution, so far as +he knew, but in spite of that on November 1 his eldest daughter was +seized with Roman fever, and for six weeks thereafter lay trembling +between life and death, so that it seemed as if a feather might turn +the balance. + +She does not appear to have been imprudent. Her father believed that +the "old hag" breathed upon her while she was with her mother, who was +sketching in the Palace of the Cæsars; but the Palatine Hill is on high +ground, with a foundation of solid masonry, and was guarded by French +soldiers, and it would have been difficult to find a more cleanly spot +in the city. A German count, who lived in a villa on the Cælian Hill, +close by, considered his residence one of the most healthful in Rome. +Miss Una had a passionate attachment for the capital of the ancient +world; and it seems as if the evil spirit of the place had seized upon +her, as the Ice Maiden is supposed to entrap chamois hunters in the +Alps. + +One of the evils attendant on sickness in a foreign country is, the +uncertainty in regard to a doctor, and this naturally leads to a +distrust and suspicion of the one that is employed. Even so shrewd a +man as Bismarck fell into the hands of a charlatan at St. Petersburg +and suffered severely in consequence. Hawthorne either had a similar +experience, or, what came to the same thing, believed that he did. He +considered himself obliged to change doctors for his daughter, and this +added to his care and anxiety. During the next four months he wrote not +a word in his journal (or elsewhere, so far as we know), and he visibly +aged before his wife's eyes. He went to walk on occasion with Story or +Thompson, but it was merely for the preservation of his own health. His +thoughts were always in his daughter's chamber, and this was so +strongly marked upon his face that any one could read it. Toward the +Ides of March, Miss Una was sufficiently improved to take a short look +at the carnival, but it was two months later before she was in a +condition to travel, and neither she nor her father ever wholly +recovered from the effects of this sad experience. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +"THE MARBLE FAUN": 1859-1860 + + +What the Roman carnival was a hundred and fifty years ago, when the +Italian princes poured out their wealth upon it, and when it served as +a medium for the communication of lovers as well as for social and +political intrigue, which sometimes resulted in conflicts like those of +the Montagues and Capulets, can only be imagined. Goethe witnessed it +from a balcony in the Corso, and his carnival in the second part of +"Faust" was worked up from notes taken on that occasion; but it is so +highly poetized that little can be determined from it, except as a +portion of the drama. By Hawthorne's time the aristocratic Italians had +long since given up their favorite holiday to English and American +travellers,--crowded out, as it were, by the superiority of money; and +since the advent of Victor Emmanuel, the carnival has become so +democratic that you are more likely to encounter your landlady's +daughter there than any more distinguished person. Hawthorne's +description of it in "The Marble Faun" is not overdrawn, and is one of +the happiest passages in the book. + +The carnival of 1859 was an exceptionally brilliant one. The Prince of +Wales attended it with a suite of young English nobles, who, always +decorous and polite on public occasions, nevertheless infused great +spirit into the proceedings. Sumner and Motley were there, and Motley +rented a balcony in a palace, to which the Hawthornes received general +and repeated invitations. On March 7, Miss Una was driven through the +Corso in a barouche, and the Prince of Wales threw her a bouquet, +probably recognizing her father, who was with her; and to prove his +good intentions he threw her another, when her carriage returned from +the Piazza, del Popolo. The present English sovereign has always been +noted for a sort of journalistic interest in prominent men of letters, +science, and public affairs, and it is likely that he was better +informed in regard to the Hawthornes than they imagined. Hawthorne +himself was too much subdued by his recent trial to enter into the +spirit of the carnival, even with a heart much relieved from anxiety, +but he sometimes appeared in the Motleys' balcony, and sometimes went +along the narrow sidewalk of the Corso, "for an hour or so among the +people, just on the edges of the fun." Sumner invited Mrs. Hawthorne to +take a stroll and see pictures with him, from which she returned +delighted with his criticisms and erudition. + +A few days later Franklin Pierce suddenly appeared at No. 68 Piazza +Poli, with that shadow on his face which was never wholly to leave it. +The man who fears God and keeps his commandments will never feel quite +alone in the world; but for the man who lives on popularity, what will +there be left when that forsakes him? Hawthorne was almost shocked at +the change in his friend's appearance; not only at his gray hair and +wrinkled brow, but at the change in his voice, and at a certain lack of +substance in him, as if the personal magnetism had gone out of him. +Hawthorne went to walk with him, and tried to encourage him by +suggesting another term of the presidency, but this did not help much, +for even Pierce's own State had deserted him,--a fact of which +Hawthorne may not have been aware. The companionship of his old friend, +however, and the manifold novelty of Rome itself, somewhat revived the +ex-President, as may be imagined; and a month later he left for Venice, +in better spirits than he came. + +They celebrated the Ides of March by going to see Harriet Hosmer's +statue of Zenobia, which was afterward exhibited in America. Hawthorne +immediately detected its resemblance to the antique,--the figure was in +fact a pure plagiarism from the smaller statue of Ceres in the +Vatican,--but Miss Hosmer succeeded in giving the face an expression of +injured and sorrowing majesty, which Hawthorne was equally ready to +appreciate. + +On this second visit to Rome he became acquainted with a sculptor, +whose name is not given, but who criticised Hiram Powers with a rather +suspicious severity. He would not allow Powers "to be an artist at all, +or to know anything of the laws of art," although acknowledging him to +be a great bust-maker, and to have put together the "Greek Slave" and +the "Fisher-Boy" very ingeniously. "The latter, however (he says), is +copied from the Spinario in the _Tribune_ of the Uffizi; and the +former made up of beauties that had no reference to one another; and he +affirms that Powers is ready to sell, and has actually sold, the 'Greek +Slave,' limb by limb, dismembering it by reversing the process of +putting it together. Powers knows nothing scientifically of the human +frame, and only succeeds in representing it, as a natural bone-doctor +succeeds in setting a dislocated limb, by a happy accident or special +providence." [Footnote: Italian Note-book, 483.] + +We may judge, from "the style, the matter, and the drift" of this +discourse, that it emanated from the same sculptor who is mentioned, in +"Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife," as having traduced Margaret Fuller +and her husband Count Ossoli. As Tennyson says, "A lie that is half a +truth is ever the blackest of lies," and this fellow would seem to have +been an adept in unveracious exaggeration. It is remarkable that +Hawthorne should have given serious attention to such a man; but an +English critic said in regard to this same incident that if Hawthorne +had been a more communicative person, if he had talked freely to a +larger number of people, he would not have been so easily prejudiced by +those few with whom he was chiefly intimate. To which it could be +added, that he might also have taken broader views in regard to public +affairs. + +Hawthorne was fortunate to have been present at the discovery of the +St. Petersburg "Venus," the twin sister of the "Venus dé Medici," which +was dug up in a vineyard outside the Porta Portese. The proprietor of +the vineyard, who made his fortune at a stroke by the discovery, +happened to select the site for a new building over the buried ruins of +an ancient villa, and the "Venus" was discovered in what appeared to +Hawthorne as an old Roman bath-room. The statue was in more perfect +preservation than the "Venus dé Medici," both of whose arms have been +restored, and Hawthorne noticed that the head was larger and the face +more characteristic, with wide-open eyes and a more confident +expression. He was one of the very few who saw it before it was +transported to St. Petersburg, and a thorough artistic analysis of it +is still one of the _desiderata_. The difference in expression, +however, would seem to be in favor of the "Venus dé Medici," as more in +accordance with the ruling motive of the figure. + +Miss Una Hawthorne had not sufficiently recovered to travel until the +last of May, when they all set forth northward by way of Genoa and +Marseilles, in which latter place we find them on the 28th, enjoying +the comfort and elegance of a good French hotel. Thence they proceeded +to Avignon, but did not find much to admire there except the Rhone; so +they continued to Geneva, the most pleasant, homelike resting place in +Europe, but quite deficient in other attractions. + +It seems as if Hawthorne's Roman friends were somewhat remiss in not +giving him better advice in regard to European travelling. At Geneva he +was within a stone's throw of Chamounix, and hardly more than that of +Strasburg Cathedral, and yet he visited neither. Why did he go out of +his way to see so little and to miss so much? He went across the lake +to visit Lausanne and the Castle of Chillon, and he was more than +astonished at the view of the Pennine Alps from the deck of the +steamer. He had never imagined anything like it; and he might have said +the same if he had visited Cologne Cathedral. Instead of that, however, +he hurried through France again, with the intention of sailing for +America the middle of July; but after reaching London he concluded to +remain another year in England, to write his "Romance of Monte Beni," +and obtain an English copyright for it. + +He left Geneva on June 15, and as he turned his face northward, he felt +that Henry Bright and Francis Bennoch were his only real friends in +Great Britain. There could hardly have been a stronger contrast than +these two. Bright was tall, slender, rather pale for an Englishman, +grave and philosophical. Bennoch was short, plump, lively and jovial, +with a ready fund of humor much in the style of Dickens, with whom he +was personally acquainted. Yet Hawthorne recognized that Bright and +Bennoch liked him for what he was, in and of himself, and not for his +celebrity alone. + +Bright was in London when Hawthorne reached there, and proposed that +they should go together to call on Sumner, [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. +223.] who had been cured from the effects of Brooks's assault by an +equally heroic treatment; but Hawthorne objected that as neither of +them was Lord Chancellor, Sumner would not be likely to pay them much +attention; to which Bright replied, that Sumner had been very kind to +him in America, and they accordingly went. Sumner was kind to +thousands,--the kindest as well as the most upright man of his time,-- +and no one in America, except Longfellow, appreciated Hawthorne so +well; but he was the champion of the anti-slavery movement and the +inveterate opponent of President Pierce. I suppose a man's mind cannot +help being colored somewhat by such conditions and influences. + +Hawthorne wished for a quiet, healthful place, where he could write his +romance without the disturbances that are incident to celebrity, and +his friends recommended Redcar, on the eastern coast of Yorkshire, a +town that otherwise Americans would not have heard of. He went there +about the middle of July, remaining until the 5th of October, but of +his life there we know nothing except that he must have worked +assiduously, for in that space of time he nearly finished a book +containing almost twice as many pages as "The Scarlet Letter." +Meanwhile Mrs. Hawthorne entertained the children and kept them from +interfering with their father (in his small cottage), by making a +collection of sea-mosses, which Una and Julian gathered at low tides, +and which their mother afterward dried and preserved on paper. On +October 4th Una Hawthorne wrote to her aunt, Elizabeth Peabody: + +"Our last day in Redcar, and a most lovely one it is. The sea seems to +reproach us for leaving it. But I am glad we are going, for I feel so +homesick that I want constant change to divert my thoughts. How +troublesome feelings and affections are." + +[Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 35 a.] + +One can see that it was a pleasant place even after the days had begun +to shorten, which they do very rapidly in northern England. From +Redcar, Hawthorne went to Leamington, where he finished his romance +about the first of December, and remained until some time in March, +living quietly and making occasional pedestrian tours to neighboring +towns. He was particularly fond of the walk to Warwick Castle, and of +standing on the bridge which crosses the Avon, and gazing at the walls +of the Castle, as they rise above the trees--"as fine a piece of +English scenery as exists anywhere; the gray towers and long line of +windows of the lordly castle, with a picturesquely varied outline; +ancient strength, a little softened by decay." It is a view that has +often been sketched, painted and engraved. + +The romance was written, but had to be revised, the least pleasant +portion of an author's duties,--unless he chooses to make the index +himself. This required five or six weeks longer, after which Hawthorne +went to London and arranged for its publication with Smith & Elder, who +agreed to bring it out in three volumes--although two would have been +quite sufficient; but according to English ideas, the length of a work +of fiction adds to its importance. Unfortunately, Smith & Elder also +desired to cater to the more prosaic class of readers by changing the +name of the romance from "The Marble Faun" to "Transformation," and +they appear to have done this without consulting Hawthorne's wishes in +the matter. It was simply squeezing the title dry of all poetic +suggestions; and it would have been quite as appropriate to change the +name of "The Scarlet Letter" to "The Clergyman's Penance," or to call +"The Blithedale Romance" "The Suicide of a Jilt." If Smith & Elder +considered "The Marble Faun" too recondite a title for the English +public, what better name could they have hit upon than "The Romance of +Monte Beni"? Would not the Count of Monte Beni be a cousin Italian, as +it were, to the Count of Monte Cristo? We are thankful to observe that +when Hawthorne published the book in America, he had his own way in +regard to this point. + +It was now that a new star was rising in the literary firmament, not of +the "shooting" or transitory species, and the genius of Marian Evans +(George Eliot) was casting its genial penetrating radiance over Great +Britain and the United States. She was as difficult a person to meet +with as Hawthorne himself, and they never saw one another; but a friend +of Mr. Bennoch, who lived at Coventry, invited the Hawthornes there in +the first week of February to meet Bennoch and others, and Marian Evans +would seem to have been the chief subject of conversation at the table +that evening. What Hawthorne gathered concerning her on that occasion +he has preserved in this compact and discriminating statement: + +"Miss Evans (who wrote 'Adam Bede') was the daughter of a steward, and +gained her exact knowledge of English rural life by the connection with +which this origin brought her with the farmers. She was entirely self- +educated, and has made herself an admirable scholar in classical as +well as in modern languages. Those who knew her had always recognized +her wonderful endowments, and only watched to see in what way they +would develop themselves. She is a person of the simplest manners and +character, amiable and unpretending, and Mrs. B---- spoke of her with +great affection and respect." + +There is actually more of the real George Eliot in this summary than in +the three volumes of her biography by Mr. Cross. + +Thorwaldsen's well-known simile in regard to the three stages of +sculpture, the life, the death and the resurrection, also has its +application to literature. The manuscript is the birth of an author's +work, and its revision always seems like taking the life out of it; but +when the proof comes, it is like a new birth, and he sees his design +for the first time in its true proportions. Then he goes over it as the +sculptor does his newly-cast bronze, smoothing the rough places and +giving it those final touches which serve to make its expression +clearer. Hawthorne was never more to be envied than while correcting +the proof of "The Marble Faun" at Leamington. The book was given to the +public at Easter-time; and there seems to have been only one person in +England that appreciated it, even as a work of art--John Lothrop +Motley. The most distinguished reviewers wholly failed to catch the +significance of it; and even Henry Bright, while warmly admiring the +story, expressed a dissatisfaction at the conclusion of it,--although +he could have found a notable precedent for that in Goethe's "Wilhelm +Meister." The _Saturday Review_, a publication similar in tone to +the New York _Nation_, said of "Transformation:" + +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 250.] + +"A mystery is set before us to unriddle; at the end the author turns +round and asks us what is the good of solving it. That the impression +of emptiness and un-meaningness thus produced is in itself a blemish to +the work no one can deny. Mr. Hawthorne really trades upon the honesty +of other writers. We feel a sort of interest in the story, slightly and +sketchily as it is told, because our experience of other novels leads +us to assume that, when an author pretends to have a plot, he has one." + +The _Art Journal_ said of it: [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 249.] + +"We are not to accept this book as a story; in that respect it is +grievously deficient. The characters are utterly untrue to nature and +to fact; they speak, all and always, the sentiments of the author; +their words also are his; there is no one of them for which the world +has furnished a model." + +And the London _Athenaeum_ said: [Footnote: Ibid., ii. 244.] + +"To Mr. Hawthorne truth always seems to arrive through the medium of +the imagination.... His hero, the Count of Monte Beni, would never have +lived had not the Faun of Praxiteles stirred the author's +admiration.... The other characters, Mr. Hawthorne must bear to be +told, are not new to a tale of his. Miriam, the mysterious, with her +hideous tormentor, was indicated in the Zenobia of 'The Blithedale +Romance.' Hilda, the pure and innocent, is own cousin to Phoebe in 'The +House of the Seven Gables'." + +If the reviewer is to be reviewed, it is not too much to designate +these criticisms as miserable failures. They are not even well written. +Henry Bright seemed to be thankful that they were no worse, for he +wrote to Hawthorne: "I am glad that sulky _Athenaeum_ was so +civil; for they are equally powerful and unprincipled." The writer in +the _Athenaeum_ evidently belonged to that class of domineering +critics who have no literary standing, but who, like bankers' clerks, +arrogate to themselves all the importance of the establishment with +which they are connected. Fortunately, there are few such in America. +No keen-witted reader would ever confound the active, rosy, domestic +Phoebe Pyncheon with the dreamy, sensitive, and strongly subjective +Hilda of "The Marble Faun;" and Hawthorne might have sent a +communication to the _Athenaeum_ to refresh the reviewer's memory, +for it was not Zenobia in "The Blithedale Romance" who was dogged by a +mysterious persecutor, but her half-sister--Priscilla. Shakespeare's +Beatrice and his Rosalind are more alike (for Brandes supposes them to +have been taken from the same model) than Zenobia and Miriam; and the +difference between the persecutors of Priscilla and Miriam, as well as +their respective methods, is world-wide; but there are none so blind as +those who are enveloped in the turbid medium of their self-conceit. + +The pure-hearted, chivalrous Motley read these reviews, and wrote to +Hawthorne a vindication of his work, which must have seemed to him like +a broad belt of New England sunshine in the midst of the London fog. In +reference to its disparagement by so-called authorities, Motley said: +[Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 408.] + +"I have said a dozen times that nobody can write English but you. With +regard to the story which has been slightingly criticised, I can only +say that to me it is quite satisfactory. I like those shadowy, weird, +fantastic, Hawthornesque shapes flitting through the golden gloom which +is the atmosphere of the book. I like the misty way in which the story +is indicated rather than revealed. The outlines are quite definite +enough, from the beginning to the end, to those who have imagination +enough to follow you in your airy flights; and to those who complain--- + +"I beg your pardon for such profanation, but it really moves my spleen +that people should wish to bring down the volatile figures of your +romance to the level of an everyday novel. It is exactly the romantic +atmosphere of the book in which I revel." + +The calm face of Motley, with his classic features, rises before us as +we read this, illumined as it were by "the mild radiance of a hidden +sun." He also had known what it was to be disparaged by English +periodicals; and if it had not been for Froude's spirited assertion in +his behalf, his history of the Dutch Republic might not have met with +the celebrity it deserved. He was aware of the difference between a +Hawthorne and a Reade or a Trollope, and knew how unfair it would be to +judge Hawthorne even by the same standard as Thackeray. He does not +touch in this letter on the philosophical character of the work, +although that must have been evident to him, for he had said enough +without it; but one could wish that he had printed the above statement +over his own name, in some English journal. + +American reviewers were equally puzzled by "The Marble Faun," and, +although it was generally praised here, the literary critics treated it +in rather a cautious manner, as if it contained material of a dangerous +nature. The _North American_, which should have devoted five or +six pages to it, gave it less than one; praising it in a conventional +and rather unsympathetic tone. Longfellow read it, and wrote in his +diary, "A wonderful book; but with the old, dull pain in it that runs +through all Hawthorne's writings." There was always something of this +dull pain in the expression of Hawthorne's face. + + +ANALYSIS OF "THE MARBLE FAUN" + +It is like a picture, or a succession of pictures, painted in what the +Italians call the _sfumato_, or "smoky" manner. The book is +pervaded with the spirit of a dreamy pathos, such as constitutes the +mental atmosphere of modern Rome; not unlike the haze of an Indian +summer day, which we only half enjoy from a foreboding of the approach +of winter. All outlines are softened and partially blurred in it, as +time and decay have softened the outlines of the old Roman ruins. We +recognize the same style with which we are familiar in "The Scarlet +Letter," but influenced by a change in Hawthorne's external +impressions. + +It is a rare opportunity when the work of a great writer can be traced +back to its first nebulous conception, as we trace the design of a +pictorial artist to the first drawing that he made for his subject. +Although we cannot witness the development of the plot of this romance +in Hawthorne's mind, it is much to see in what manner the different +elements of which it is composed, first presented themselves to him, +and how he adapted them to his purpose. + +The first of these in order of time was the beautiful Jewess, whom he +met at the Lord Mayor's banquet in London; who attracted him by her +_tout ensemble_, but at the same time repelled him by an indefinable +impression, a mysterious something, that he could not analyze. There would +seem, however, to have been another Jewess connected with the character +of Miriam; for I once heard Mrs. Hawthorne narrating a story in which she +stated that she and her husband were driving through London in a cab, +and passing close to the sidewalk in a crowded street they saw a beautiful +woman, with black hair and a ruddy complexion, walking with the most ill- +favored and disagreeable looking Jew that could be imagined; and on the +woman's face there was an expression of such deep-seated unhappiness that +Hawthorne and his wife turned to each other, and he said, "I think that +woman's face will always haunt me." I did not hear the beginning of Mrs. +Hawthorne's tale, but I always supposed that it related to "The Marble +Faun," and it would seem as if the character of Miriam was a composite +of these two daughters of Israel, uniting the enigmatical quality of one +with the unfortunate companionship of the other, and the beauty of both. + +As previously noticed, the portrait of Beatrice Cenci excited a deeply +penetrating interest in Hawthorne, and his reflections on it day after +day would naturally lead him to a similar design in regard to the +romance which he was contemplating. The attribution of a catastrophe +like Beatrice's to either of the two Jewesses, would of course be +adventitious, and should be considered in the light of an artistic +privilege. + +The "Faun" of Praxiteles in the museum of the Capitol next attracted +his attention. This is but a poor copy of the original; but he +penetrated the motive of the sculptor with those deep-seeing eyes of +his, and there is no analysis of an ancient statue by Brunn or +Furtwängler that equals Hawthorne's description of this one. It seems +as if he must have looked backward across the centuries into the very +mind of Praxiteles, and he was, in fact, the first critic to appreciate +its high value. The perfect ease and simple beauty of the figure belong +to a higher grade of art than the Apollo Belvedere, and Hawthorne +discovered what Winckelmann had overlooked. He immediately conceived +the idea of bringing the faun to life, and seeing how he would behave +and comport himself in the modern world--in brief, to use the design of +Praxiteles as the mainspring of a romance. In the evening of April 22, +1858, he wrote in his journal: + +[Illustration: STATUE OF PRAXITELES' RESTING FAUN, WHICH HAWTHORNE HAS +DESCRIBED AND BROUGHT TO LIFE IN THE CHARACTER OF DONATELLO] + +"I looked at the Faun of Praxiteles, and was sensible of a peculiar +charm in it; a sylvan beauty and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. +It seems to me that a story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, +might be contrived on the idea of their species having become +intermingled with the human race; a family with the faun blood in them, +having prolonged itself from the classic era till our own days. The +tail might have disappeared, by dint of constant intermarriages with +ordinary mortals; but the pretty hairy ears should occasionally +reappear in members of the family; and the moral instincts and +intellectual characteristics of the faun might be most picturesquely +brought out, without detriment to the human interest of the story." + +This statue served to concentrate the various speculative objects which +had been hovering before Hawthorne's imagination during the past +winter, and when he reached Florence six weeks later, the chief details +of the plot were already developed in his mind. + +Hilda and Kenyon are, of course, subordinate characters, like the first +walking lady and the first walking gentleman on the stage. They are the +sympathetic friends who watch the progress of the drama, continually +hoping to be of service, but still finding themselves powerless to +prevent the catastrophe. It was perhaps their unselfish interest in +their mutual friends that at length taught them to know each other's +worth, so that they finally became more than friends to one another. +True love, to be firmly based, requires such a mutual interest or +common ground on which the parties can meet,--something in addition to +the usual attraction of the sexes. Mrs. Hawthorne has been supposed by +some to have been the original of Hilda; and by others her daughter +Una. + +Conway holds an exceptional opinion, that Hilda was the feminine +counterpart of Hawthorne himself; but Hilda is only too transparent a +character, while Hawthorne always was, and still remains, impenetrable; +and there was enough of her father in Miss Una, to render the same +objection applicable in her case. Hilda seems to me very much like Mrs. +Hawthorne, as one may imagine her in her younger days; like her in her +mental purity, her conscientiousness, her devotion to her art,--which +we trust afterwards was transformed into a devotion to her husband,-- +her tendency to self-seclusion, her sensitiveness and her lack of +decisive resolution. She is essentially what they call on the stage an +_ingenue_ character; that is, one that remains inexperienced in +the midst of experience; and it is in this character that she +contributes to the catastrophe of the drama. + +If Hawthorne appears anywhere in his own fiction, it is not in "The +Blithedale Romance," but in the rôle of Kenyon. Although Kenyon's +profession is that of a sculptor, he is not to be confounded with the +gay and versatile Story. Neither is he statuesque, as the English +reviewer criticised him. He is rather a shadowy character, as Hawthorne +himself was shadowy, and as an author always must be shadowy to his +readers; but Kenyon is to Hawthorne what Prospero is to Shakespeare, +and if he does not make use of magic arts, it is because they no longer +serve their purpose in human affairs. He is a wise, all-seeing, +sympathetic mind, and his active influence in the play is less +conspicuous because it is always so quiet, and so correct. + +It will be noticed that the first chapter and the last chapter of this +romance have the same title: "Miriam, Hilda, Kenyon, Donatello." This +is according to their respective ages and sexes; but it is also the +terms of a proportion,--as Miriam is to Hilda, so is Kenyon to +Donatello. As the experienced woman is to the inexperienced woman, so +is the experienced man to the inexperienced man. This seems simple +enough, but it has momentous consequences in the story. Donatello, who +is a type of natural but untried virtue, falls in love with Miriam, not +only for her beauty, but because she has acquired that worldly +experience which he lacks. Hilda, suddenly aroused to a sense of her +danger in the isolated life she is leading, accepts Kenyon as a +protector. The means in this proportion come together and unite, +because they are the mean terms, and pursue a medium course. The +extremes fly apart and are separated, simply because they are extremes. +But there is a spiritual bond between them, invisible, but stronger +than steel, which will bring them together again--at the Day of +Judgment, if not sooner. + +All tragedy is an investigation or exemplification of that form of +human error which we call sin; a catastrophe of nature or a simple +error of judgment may be tragical, but will not constitute a tragedy +without the moral or poetic element. + +In "The Scarlet Letter," we have the sin of concealment and its +consequences. The first step toward reformation is confession, and +without that, repentance is little more than a good intention. + +In "The House of the Seven Gables," Hawthorne has treated the sin of +hypocrisy--a smiling politician who courts popularity and pretends to +be everybody's friend, and agrees with everybody,--only with a slight +reservation. There may be occasions on which hypocrisy is a virtue; but +the habit of hypocrisy for personal ends is like a dry rot in the heart +of man. + +In "The Blithedale Romance," we find the sin of moral affectation. +Neither Hollingsworth nor Zenobia is really what they pretend +themselves to be. Their morality is a hollow shell, and gives way to +the first effective temptation. Zenobia betrays Priscilla; and is +betrayed in turn by Hollingsworth,--as well as the interests of the +association which had been committed to his charge. + +The kernel of "The Marble Faun" is _original sin_. It is a story +of the fall of man, told again in the light of modern science. It is a +wonderful coincidence that almost in the same months that Hawthorne was +writing this romance, Charles Darwin was also finishing his work on the +"Origin of Species;" for one is the moral counterpart of the other. +Hawthorne did not read scientific and philosophical books, but he may +have heard something of Darwin's undertaking in England, as well as +Napoleon's prophetic statement at St. Helena, that all the animals form +an ascending series, leading up to man. [Footnote: Dr. O'Meara's "A +Voice from St. Helena."] The skeleton of a prehistoric man discovered +in the Neanderthal cave, which was supposed to have proved the +Darwinian theory, does not suggest a figure similar to the "Faun" of +Praxiteles, but the followers of Darwin have frequently adverted to the +Hellenic traditions of fauns and satyrs in support of their theory. +Hawthorne, however, has made a long stride beyond Darwin, for he has +endeavored to reconcile this view of creation with the Mosaic +cosmogony; and it must be admitted that he has been fairly successful. +The lesson that Hawthorne teaches is, that evil does not reside in +error, but in neglecting to be instructed by our errors. It is this +which makes the difference between a St. Paul and a Nero. The fall of +man was only apparent; it was really a rise in life. The Garden of Eden +prefigures the childhood of the human race. Do we not all go through +this idyllic moral condition in childhood, learning through our errors +that the only true happiness consists in self-control? Do not all +judicious parents protect their children from a knowledge of the +world's wickedness, so long as it is possible to prevent it,--and yet +not too long, for then they would become unfitted for their struggle +with the world, and in order to avoid the pitfalls of mature life they +must know where the pitfalls are. It is no longer essential for the +individual to pass through the Cain and Abel experience--that has been +accomplished by the race as a whole; but it is quite possible to +imagine an incipient condition of society in which the distinction of +justifiable homicide in self-defence (which is really the justification +of war between nations) has not yet obtained. + +Hawthorne's Donatello is supposed to belong, in theory at least, to +that primitive era; but it is not necessary to go back further than the +feudal period to look for a man who never has known a will above his +own. Donatello seizes Miriam's tormentor and casts him down the +Tarpeian Rock,--from the same instinct, or clairvoyant perception, that +a hound springs at the throat of his master's enemy. When the deed is +done he recognizes that the punishment is out of all proportion to the +offence,--which is in itself the primary recognition of a penal code,-- +and more especially that the judgment of man is against him. He +realizes for the first time the fearful possibilities of his nature, +and begins to reflect. He is a changed person; and if not changed for +the better yet with a possibility of great improvement in the future. +His act was at least an unselfish one, and it might serve as the +argument for a debate, whether Donatello did not do society a service +in ridding the earth of such a human monstrosity. Hawthorne has +adjusted the moral balance of his case so nicely, that a single scruple +would turn the scales. + +The tradition among the Greeks and Romans, of a Golden Age, corresponds +in a manner to the Garden of Eden of Semitic belief. There may be some +truth in it. Captain Speke, while exploring the sources of the Nile, +discovered in central Africa a negro tribe uncontaminated by European +traders, and as innocent of guile as the antelopes upon their own +plains; and this suggests to us that all families and races of men may +have passed through the Donatello stage of existence. + +Hawthorne's master-stroke in the romance is his description or analysis +of the effect produced by this homicide on the different members of the +group to which he has introduced us. The experienced and worldly-wise +Kenyon is not informed of the deed until his engagement to Hilda, but +he has sufficient reason to suspect something of the kind from the +simultaneous disappearance of Donatello and the model, as well as from +the sudden change in Miriam's behavior. Yet he does not treat Donatello +with any lack of confidence. He visits him at his castle of Monte Beni, +which is simply the Villa Manteuto somewhat idealized and removed into +the recesses of the Apennines; he consoles him in his melancholy humor; +tries to divert him from gloomy thoughts; and meanwhile watches with a +keen eye and friendly solicitude for the _denouement_ of this +mysterious drama. If he had seen what Hilda saw, he would probably have +left Rome as quickly as possible, never to return; and Donatello's fate +might have been different. + +The effect on the sensitive and inexperienced Hilda was like a horrible +nightmare. She cannot believe her senses, and yet she has to believe +them. It seems to her as if the fiery pit has yawned between her and +the rest of the human race. Her position is much like that of Hamlet, +and the effect on her is somewhat similar. She thrusts Miriam from her +with bitterness; yet forms no definite resolutions, and does she knows +not what; until, overburdened by the consciousness of her fatal secret, +she discloses the affair to an unknown priest in the church of St. +Peter. Neither does she seem to be aware at any time of the serious +consequences of this action. + +Miriam, more experienced even than Kenyon, is not affected by the death +of her tormentor so much directly as she is by its influence on +Donatello. Hitherto she had been indifferently pleased by his +admiration for her; now the tables are turned and she conceives the +very strongest attachment for him. She follows him to his castle in +disguise, dogs his footsteps on the excursion which he and Kenyon make +together, shadows his presence again in Rome, and is with him at the +moment of his arrest. This is all that we know of her from the time of +her last unhappy interview with Hilda. Her crime consisted merely in a +look,--the expression of her eyes,--and the whole world is free to her; +but her heart is imprisoned in the same cell with Donatello. There is +not a more powerful ethical effect in Dante or Sophocles. + +A certain French writer [Footnote: Name forgotten, but the fact is +indelible.] blames Hilda severely for her betrayal of Miriam (who was +at least her best friend in Rome), and furthermore designates her as an +immoral character. This, we may suppose, is intended for a hit at New +England Puritanism; and from the French stand-point, it is not unfair. +Hilda represents Puritanism in its weakness and in its strength. It is +true, what Hamlet says, that "conscience makes cowards of us all," but +only true under conditions like those of Hamlet,--desperate +emergencies, which require exceptional expedients. On the contrary, in +carrying out a great reform like the abolition of slavery, the +education of the blind, or the foundation of national unity, a man's +conscience becomes a tower of strength to him. As already intimated, +what Hilda ought to have done was, to leave Rome at once, and forever; +but she is no more capable of forming such a resolution, than Hamlet +was of organizing a conspiracy against his usurping uncle. When, +however, the priest steps out from the confessional-box and attempts to +make a convert of Hilda,--for which indeed she has given him a fair +opening,--she asserts herself and her New England training, with true +feminine dignity, and in fact has decidedly the best of the argument. +It is a trying situation, in which she develops unexpected resources. +Hawthorne's genius never shone forth more brilliantly than in this +scene at St. Peter's. It is Shakespearian. + +Much dissatisfaction was expressed when "The Marble Faun" was first +published, at the general vagueness of its conclusion. Hawthorne's +admirers wished especially for some clearer explanation of Miriam's +earlier life, and of her relation to the strange apparition of the +catacombs. He answered these interrogatories in a supplementary chapter +which practically left the subject where it was before--an additional +piece of mystification. In a letter to Henry Bright he admitted that he +had no very definite scheme in his mind in regard to Miriam's previous +history, and this is probably the reason why his readers feel this +vague sense of dissatisfaction with the plot. I have myself often tried +to think out a prelude to the story, but without any definite result. +Miriam's persecuting model was evidently a husband who had been forced +upon her by her parents, and would not that be sufficient to account +for her moods of gloom and despondency? Yet Hawthorne repeatedly +intimates that there was something more than this. Let us not think of +it. If the tale was not framed in mystery, Donatello would not seem so +real to us. Do not the characters in "Don Quixote" and "Wilhelm +Meister" spring up as it were out of the ground? They come we know not +whence, and they go we know not whither. It is with these that "The +Marble Faun" should be classed and compared, and not with "Middle- +march," "Henry Esmond," or "The Heart of Midlothian." + +[Illustration: TORRE MEDIAVALLE DELLA SCIMMIA (HILDA'S TOWER), OF THE +VIA PORTOGHESE AT ROME, WHERE HAWTHORNE REPRESENTS HILDA TO HAVE LIVED +AND TENDED THE LAMP AT THE VIRGIN'S SHRINE ON THE TOP OF THE TOWER] + +Goethe said, while looking at the group of the "Laocoön," "I think that +young fellow on the right will escape the serpents." This was not +according to the story Virgil tells, but it is true to natural history. +Similarly, it is pleasant to think that the Pope's mercy may ultimately +have been extended to Donatello. We can imagine an aged couple living a +serious, retired life in the castle of Monte Beni, childless, and to a +certain extent joyless, but taking comfort in their mutual affection, +and in acts of kindness to their fellow-mortals. + +In order to see Hilda's tower in Rome, go straight down from the +Spanish Steps to the Corso, turn to the right, and you will soon come +to the Via Portoghese (on the opposite side), where you will easily +recognize the tower on the right hand. The tower is five stories in +height, set in the front of the palace, and would seem to be older than +the building about it; the relic, perhaps, of some distinguished +mediaeval structure. The odd little shrine to the Virgin, a toy-like +affair, still surmounts it; but its lamp is no longer burning. It was +fine imagination to place Hilda in this lofty abode. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HOMEWARD BOUND: 1860-1862 + + +There is no portion of Hawthorne's life concerning which we know less +than the four years after his return from England to his native land. +He was so celebrated that every eye was upon him; boys stopped their +games to see him pass by, and farmers stood still in the road to stare +at him. He was Hawthorne the famous, and every movement he made was +remembered, every word spoken by him was recorded or related, and yet +altogether it amounts to little enough. Letters have been preserved in +number,--many of his own and others from his English friends, and those +from his wife to her relatives; but they do not add much to the picture +we have already formed in our minds of the man. As he said somewhere, +fame had come too late to be a satisfaction to him, but on the contrary +more of an annoyance. Hawthorne left Leamington the last of March, and +transferred his family to Bath, which he soon discovered to be the +pleasantest English city he had lived in yet,--symmetrically laid out, +like a Continental city, and built for the most part of a yellowish +sandstone; not unlike in appearance the travertine of which St. Peter's +at Rome is built. The older portion of the city lies in a hollow among +the hills, like an amphitheatre, and the more recent additions rise +upon the hill-sides above it to a considerable height. This is the last +note of enthusiasm in his writings; and in the next entry in his diary, +which was written at Lothrop Motley's house, Hertford Street, London, +May 16, he makes this ominous confession: "I would gladly journalize +some of my proceedings, and describe things and people, but I find the +same coldness and stiffness in my pen as always since our return to +England." It is only too evident that from this time literary +composition, which had been the chief recreation of his youth, and in +which he had always found satisfaction until now, was no longer a +pleasure to him. It is the last entry in his journal, at least for more +than two years, and whatever writing he accomplished in the mean time +was done for the sake of his wife and children. Dickens had a similar +experience the last year of his life. Clearly, Hawthorne's nervous +force was waning. + +On May 15, Hawthorne and Motley were invited to dine by Earl Dufferin, +that admirable diplomat and one of the pleasantest of men. In fact, if +there was a person living who could make Hawthorne feel perfectly at +his ease, it was Dufferin. Motley provided some entertainment or other +for his guest every day, and Hawthorne confessed that the stir and +activity of London life were doing him "a wonderful deal of good." What +he seems to have needed at this time was a vigorous, objective +employment that would give his circulation a start in the right +direction; but how was he to obtain that? + +He enjoyed one last stroll with Henry Bright through Hyde Park and +along the Strand, and found time to say a long farewell to Francis +Bennoch: the last time he was to meet either of them on this side of +eternity. + +He returned to Bath the 1st of June, and ten days later they all +embarked for Boston,--as it happened, by a pleasant coincidence, with +the same captain with whom they had left America seven years before. +Mrs. Hawthorne's sister, Mrs. Horace Mann, prepared their house at +Concord for their reception, and there they arrived at the summer +solstice. + +The good people of Concord had been mightily stirred up that spring, by +an attempt to arrest Frank B. Sanborn and carry him forcibly to +Washington,--contrary to law, as the Supreme Court of the State decided +the following day. The marshal who arrested him certainly proceeded +more after the manner of a burglar than of a civil officer, hiding +himself with his _posse comitatus_ in a barn close to Sanborn's +school-house, watching his proceedings through the cracks in the +boards, and finally arresting him at night, just as he was going to +bed; but the alarm was quickly sounded, and the whole male population +of the place, including Emerson, turned out like a swarm of angry +hornets, and the marshal and his posse were soon thankful to escape +with their bones in a normal condition. A few nights later, the barn, +which was owned by a prominent official in the Boston Custom House, was +burned to the ground (the fire-company assisting), as a sacrifice on +the altar of personal liberty. + +The excitement of this event had not yet subsided when the arrival of +the Hawthorne family produced a milder and more amiable, but no less +profound, sensation in the old settlement; and this was considerably +increased by the fact that for the first month nothing was seen of +them, except a sturdy-looking boy fishing from a rock in Concord River, +opposite the spot where his father and Channing had discovered the +unfortunate school-mistress. Old friends made their calls and were +cordially received, but Hawthorne himself did not appear in public +places; and it was soon noticed that he did not take the long walks +which formerly carried him to the outer limits of the town. He was +sometimes met on the way to Walden Pond, either alone or in company +with his son; but Bronson Alcott more frequently noticed him gliding +along in a ghost-like manner by the rustic fence which separated their +two estates, or on the way to Sleepy Hollow. When the weather became +cooler he formed a habit of walking back and forth on the hill-side +above his house, where the bank descends sharply like a railroad-cut, +with dwarf pines and shrub oaks on the further side of it. He wore a +path there, which is described in "Septimius Felton," and it is quite +possible that the first inception of that story entered his mind while +looking down upon the Lexington road beneath him, and imagining how it +appeared while filled with marching British soldiers. + +About July 10, 1860, the scholars of Mr. Sanborn's school, male and +female, gave an entertainment in the Town Hall, not unlike Harvard +Class Day. Mrs. Hawthorne and her eldest daughter appeared among the +guests, and attracted much attention from the quiet grace and dignity +of their manners; but there was an expression of weariness on Miss +Una's face, which contrasted strangely with the happy, blithesome looks +of the school-girls. Some idea of the occasion may be derived from a +passing remark of Mrs. Hawthorne to a Harvard student present: "My +daughter will be happy to dance with you, sir, if I can only find her." + +In September Hawthorne wrote to James T. Fields: [Footnote: Mrs. J. T. +Fields, 118.] + +"We are in great trouble on account of our poor Una, in whom the bitter +dregs of that Roman fever are still rankling, and have now developed +themselves in a way which the physicians foreboded. I do not like to +write about it, but will tell you when we meet. Say nothing." + +Miss Una was evidently far from well, and her father's anxiety for her +sensibly affected his mental tone. + +He was invited at once to join the Saturday Club, popularly known at +that time as the Atlantic Club, because its most conspicuous members +were contributors to that periodical. Hawthorne did not return in +season to take part in the Club's expedition to the Adirondack +Mountains, concerning which Doctor Holmes remarked that, considering +the number of rifles they carried, it was fortunate that they all +returned alive. The meetings of the Club came but once a month, and as +the last train to Concord was not a very late one, Judge Hoar had his +carryall taken down to Waltham on such occasions, and thence he, with +Hawthorne and Emerson, drove back to Concord through the woods in the +darkness or moonlight; and Hawthorne may have enjoyed this as much as +any portion of the entertainment. + +A club whose membership is based upon celebrity reminds one rather of a +congregation of stags, all with antlers of seven tines. There was every +shade of opinion, political, philosophical and religious, represented +in the Saturday Club, and if they never fought over such subjects it +was certainly much to their credit. Very little has been divulged of +what took place at their meetings; but it is generally known that in +the winter of 1861 Longfellow was obliged to warn his associates that +if they persisted in abusing Sumner he should be obliged to leave their +company; Sumner being looked upon by the Democrats and more timid +Republicans as the chief obstacle to pacification; as if any one man +could prop a house up when it was about to fall. After the War began, +this naturally came to an end, and Sumner was afterwards invited to +join the Club, with what satisfaction to Hoar, Lowell, and Holmes it +might be considering rather curiously to inquire. We can at least feel +confident that Hawthorne had no share in this. He did not believe in +fighting shadows, and he at least respected Sumner for his frankness +and disinterestedness. + +Such differences of opinion, however, are not conducive to freedom of +discussion. Henry James, Sr., lifts the veil for a moment in a letter +to Emerson, written about this time, [Footnote: Memoir of Bronson +Alcott; also the "Hawthorne Centenary."] and affords us a picture of +Hawthorne at the Saturday Club, which might bear the designation of a +highly-flavored caricature. According to Mr. James, John M. Forbes, the +Canton millionaire, preserved the balance at one end of the table, +while Hawthorne, an oasis in a desert, served as the nearest approach +to a human being, at the other. "How he buried his eyes in his plate +and ate with such a voracity! that no one should dare to ask him a +question." + +We do not realize the caricaturist in Henry James, Jr., so readily, on +account of his elastic power of expression; but the relationship is +plain and apparent. Both father and son ought to have been baptized in +the Castalian Fount. There are those who have been at table with both +Hawthorne and the elder James, and without the slightest reflection on +Mr. James, have confessed their preference for the quiet composure and +simple dignity of Hawthorne. In truth Hawthorne's manners were above +those of the polished courtier or the accomplished man of fashion: they +were poetic manners, and in this respect Longfellow most nearly +resembled him of all members of the Club; although Emerson also had +admirable manners and they were largely the cause of his success. It +would have done no harm if Emerson had burned this letter after its +first perusal, but since it is out of the bag we must even consider it +as it deserves. + +Hawthorne must have enjoyed the meetings of the Club or he would not +have attended them so regularly. He wrote an account of the first +occasion on which he was present, giving an accurate description of the +dinner itself and enclosing a diagram of the manner in which the guests +were seated, but without any commentary on the proceedings of the day. +It was, after all, one of the nerve-centres of the great world, and an +agreeable change from the domestic monotony of the Wayside. Thackeray +would have descried rich material for his pen in it, but Hawthorne's +studies lay in another direction. Great men were not his line in +literature. + +Meanwhile Mrs. Hawthorne and her daughter were transforming their +Concord home into a small repository of the fine arts. Without much +that would pass by the title of elegance, they succeeded in giving it +an unpretentious air of refinement, and one could not enter it without +realizing that the materials of a world-wide culture had been brought +together there. Hawthorne soon found the dimensions of the house too +narrow for the enlarged views which he had brought with him from +abroad, and he designed a tower to be constructed at one corner of it, +similar to, if not so lofty as that of the Villa Manteuto. This +occupied him and the dilatory Concord carpenter for nearly half a year; +and meanwhile chaos and confusion reigned supreme. There was no one +whose ears could be more severely offended by the music of the +carpenter's box and the mason's trowel than Hawthorne, and he knew not +whether to fly his home or remain in it. Not until all this was over +could he think seriously of a new romance. + +He made his study in the upper room of the tower; a room exactly twenty +feet square, with a square vaulted ceiling and five windows,--too +many, one would suppose, to produce a pleasant effect of light,--and +walls papered light yellow. There he could be as quiet and retired as +in the attic of his Uncle Robert Manning's house in Salem. Conway +states that he wrote at a high desk, like Longfellow, and walked back +and forth in the room while thinking out what he was going to say. The +view from his windows extended across the meadows to Walden woods and +the Fitchburg railroad track, and it also commanded the Alcott house +and the road to Concord village. It was in this work-shop that he +prepared "Our Old Home" for the press and wrote the greater part of +"Septimius Felton" and "The Dolliver Romance." + +The War was a new source of distraction. It broke out before the tower +was finished, stimulating Hawthorne's nerves, but disturbing that +delicate mental equilibrium upon which satisfactory procedure of his +writing depended. On May 26, 1861, he wrote to Horatio Bridge: + +"The war, strange to say, has had a beneficial effect upon my spirits, +which were flagging wofully before it broke out. But it was delightful +to share in the heroic sentiment of the time, and to feel that I had a +country,--a consciousness which seemed to make me young again. One +thing as regards this matter I regret, and one thing I am glad of. The +regrettable thing is that I am too old to shoulder a musket myself, and +the joyful thing is that Julian is too young." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, +ii. 276.] + +Hawthorne's patriotism was genuine and deep-seated. He was not the only +American whom the bombardment of Fort Sumter had awakened to the fact +that he had a country. What we have always enjoyed, we do not think of +until there is danger of losing it. In the same letter, he confesses +that he does not quite understand "what we are fighting for, or what +definite result can be expected. If we pummel the South ever so hard, +they will love us none the better for it; and even if we subjugate +them, our next step should be to cut them adrift." + +There were many in those times who thought and felt as Hawthorne did. +Douglas said in the Senate, "Even if you coerce the Southern States and +bring them back by force, it will not be the same Union." A +_people_ does not necessarily mean a _nation_; for the idea +of nationality is of slow growth, and is in a manner opposed to the +idea of democracy; for if the right of government depends on the +consent of the governed, the primary right of the governed must be to +abrogate that government whenever they choose to do so. Hawthorne was +simply a consistent democrat; but time has proved the fallacy of +Douglas's statement, and that a forcible restoration of the Union was +entirely compatible with friendliness and mutal good-will between the +different sections of the country,--after slavery, which was the real +obstacle to this, had been eliminated. If the States east of the +Alleghanies should attempt to separate from the rest of the nation, it +would inevitably produce a war similar to that of 1861. + +Hawthorne even went to the length at this time of proposing to arm the +negroes, and preparing them "for future citizenship by allowing them to +fight for their own liberties, and educating them through heroic +influences." [Footnote: The "Hawthorne Centenary," 197.] When George L. +Stearns was organizing the colored regiments in Tennessee in 1863 he +wrote concerning his work, in almost exactly these terms; and the +inference is plain that Hawthorne might have been more of a +humanitarian if his early associations had been different. + +Such an original character as Bronson Alcott for a next-door neighbor +could not long escape Hawthorne's penetrating glance. Alcott was an +interesting personality, perfectly genuine, frank, kindly and +imperturbably good-humored. He had a benevolent aspect, and in general +appearance so much resembled the portraits of Benjamin Franklin that +his ingenious daughters made use of him in charades and theatricals for +that purpose. Hawthorne had known him many years earlier, and had +spoken very pleasantly of him in his first publication of "The Hall of +Fantasy." He even said, "So calm and gentle was he, so quiet in the +utterance of what his soul brooded upon, that one might readily +conceive his Orphic Sayings to well up from a fountain in his breast, +which communicated with the infinite abyss of thought,"--rather an +optimistic view for Hawthorne. Alcott's philosophy had the decided +merit, which Herbert Spencer's has not, of a strong affirmation of a +Great First Cause, and our direct responsibility thereto: but it was +chiefly the philosophy of Plotinus; and his constant reiteration of a +"lapse" in human nature from divine perfection (which was simply the +Donatello phase expressed in logic), with the various corollaries +deduced from it, finally became as wearisome as the harp with a single +string. Whether he troubled Hawthorne in that way, is rather doubtful, +for even as a hobby-rider, Alcott was a man of Yankee shrewdness and +considerable tact. Rose Hawthorne says that "he once brought a +particularly long poem to read, aloud to my mother and father; a +seemingly harmless thing from which they never recovered." What poem +this could have been I have no idea, but in his later years Alcott +wrote some excellent poetry, and those who ought to know do not think +that he bored Hawthorne very severely. They frequently went to walk +together, taking Julian for a make-weight, and Hawthorne could easily +have avoided this if he had chosen. There are times for all of us when +our next-door neighbors prove a burden; and it cannot be doubted that +in most instances this is reciprocal. [Footnote: Rose Hawthorne, +however, writes charmingly of the Alcotts. Take this swift sketch, +among others: "I imagine his slightly stooping, yet tall and well-grown +figure, clothed in black, and with a picturesque straw hat, twining +itself in and out of forest aisles, or craftily returning home with +gargoyle-like stems over his shoulders."] + +Alcott was a romance character of exceptional value, and Hawthorne +recognized this, but did not succeed in inventing a plot that would +suit the subject. The only one of Hawthorne's preparatory sketches +given to the public--in which we see his genius in the "midmost heat of +composition"--supposes a household in which an old man keeps a crab- +spider for a pet, a deadly poisonous creature; and in the same family +there is a boy whose fortunes will be mysteriously affected in some +manner by this dangerous insect. He did not proceed sufficiently to +indicate for us how this would turn out, but he closes the sketch with +the significant remark, "In person and figure Mr. Alcott"; from which +it may be inferred that the crab-spider was intended to symbolize +Alcott's philosophy, and the catastrophe of the romance would naturally +result from the unhealthy mental atmosphere in which the boy grew up,-- +a catastrophe which in Alcott's family was averted by the practical +sagacity of his daughters. The idea, however, became modified in its +application. + +It is with regret that we do not allot a larger space to this important +sketch, for it is clearly an original study (like an artist's drawing) +of the unfinished romance which was published in 1883 under the title +of "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret." Long lost sight of in the mass of +Hawthorne's manuscripts, this last of his posthumous works was reviewed +by the critics with some incredulity, and Lathrop had the hardihood to +publicly assert that no such romance by Hawthorne's pen existed, +thereby casting a gratuitous slander on his own brother-in-law. We may +have our doubts in regard to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays, for +we have no absolute standard by which to judge of Shakespeare's style, +but the "style, the matter, and the drift" of "Doctor Grimshawe's +Secret" are so essentially Hawthornish that a person experienced in +judging of such matters should not hesitate long in deciding that it +belongs in the same category with "Fanshawe" and "The Dolliver +Romance." It is even possible to determine, from certain peculiarities +in its style, the exact period at which it was written; which must have +been shortly after Hawthorne's return from Europe. In addition to this, +if further evidence were required, its close relationship to the +aforementioned sketch is a fact which no sophistry can reason away. +[Footnote: This sketch was published in the _Century_, January, +1883.] + +The bloody footstep suggested to Hawthorne by the antediluvian print in +the stone step at Smithell's Hall, in Lancashire, serves as the key- +note of this romance; but the eccentric recluse, the big crab-spider, +the orphaned grandchild, and even Bronson Alcott also appear in it. +Alcott, however,--and his identity cannot be mistaken,--does not play +the leading part in the piece, but comes in at the fifth chapter, only +to disappear mysteriously in the eighth; the orphan boy is companioned +by a girl of equal age, and these two bright spirits, mutually +sustaining each other, cast a radiance over the old Doctor in his +dusty, frowsy, cobwebby study, which brings out the external appearance +and internal peculiarities of the man, in the most vivid manner. The +dispositions and appearances of the two children are also contrasted, +as Raphael might have drawn and contrasted them, if he had painted a +picture on a similar subject. + +The crab-spider is one of the most horrible of Nature's creations. +Hawthorne saw one in the British Museum and it seems to have haunted +his imagination ever afterward. Why the creature should have been +introduced into this romance is not very clear, for it plays no part in +the development of the plot. The spider hangs suspended over the old +Doctor's head like the sword of Damocles, and one would expect it to +descend at the proper moment in the narrative, and make an end of him +with its nippers; but Doctor Grimshawe dies a comparatively natural +death, and the desiccated body of the spider is found still clinging to +the web above him. The man and the insect were too closely akin in the +modes and purposes of their lives for either to outlast the other. +There is nothing abnormal in the fact of Doctor Grimshawe's possessing +this dangerous pet; for all kinds of poisonous creatures have a well- +known fascination for the medical profession. Doctor Holmes amused +himself with a rattlesnake. + +In spite of its unpleasant associations with spiders and blood-stains, +"Doctor Grimshawe's Secret" is one of the most interesting of +Hawthorne's works, containing much of his finest thought and most +characteristic description. The portrait of the grouty old Doctor +himself has a solidity of impast like Shakespeare's Falstaff, and the +grave-digger, who has survived from colonial times, carries us back +involuntarily to the burial scene in "Hamlet." Alcott, whose name is +changed to Colcord, is not treated realistically, but rather idealized +in such kindly sympathetic manner as might prevent all possibility of +offence at the artistic theft of his personality. The plot, too, is a +most ingenious one, turning and winding like a hare, and even diving +out of sight for a time; but only to reappear again, as the school- +master Colcord does, with a full and satisfactory explanation of its +mysterious course. To judge from the appearance of the manuscript, this +romance was written very rapidly, and there are places in the text +which intimate this; but it vies in power with "The Scarlet Letter," +and why Hawthorne should have become dissatisfied with it,--why he +should have failed to complete, revise, and publish it--can only be +accounted for by the mental or nervous depression which was now +fastening itself upon him. + +It is noticeable, however, that where the plot is transferred to +English ground Hawthorne's writing has much the same tone and quality +that we find in "Our Old Home." External appearances seem to impede his +insight there; but this is additional proof of the authenticity of the +work. [Footnote: There are many other evidences; such as, "after-dinner +speeches on the necessity of friendly relations between England and the +United States," and "the whistling of the railway train, _two_ or +_three_ times a day."] + +Shortly after the battle of Bull Run Hawthorne went with his boy to +recuperate at Beverly Farms, leaving his wife and daughters at the +Wayside, and the letters which passed between these two divisions of +the family, during his absence, give some very pretty glimpses of their +idyllic summer life. Mrs. Hawthorne "cultivated her garden," and gave +drawing lessons to the neighbors' children, while her husband, forty +miles away, was fishing and bathing. The Beverly shore has not a +stimulating climate, but is very attractive in summer to those who do +not mind a few sultry nights from land breezes. It was near enough to +Salem for Hawthorne to revive the reminiscences of his youth (which +become more and more precious after the age of fifty), without +obtruding himself on the gaze of his former townsmen or of the young +lady "who wished she could poison him." [Footnote: W. D. Howells' +Memoirs.] It is to be hoped that he saw something of his sister +Elizabeth again, the last remnant of his mother's household, who for +some inscrutable reason had never visited him at Concord. + +We note here a curious circumstance; namely, that Hawthorne appears to +have lost the art of writing short sketches. It will be recollected +that twenty years earlier he did not feel equal to anything beyond +this, and that it cost him a strenuous effort to escape from the habit. +Now when he would have liked to return to that class of composition he +could not do so. Fields would have welcomed anything from his pen (so +severe a critic he was of himself), but his name does not appear in the +_Atlantic Monthly_ from July, 1861, to June, 1862, and it cannot +be doubted that with the education of his son before him, the +remuneration would have been welcome. It was not until nearly a year +later that he conceived the idea of cutting his English Note-book into +sections, and publishing them as magazine articles. + +From this time forth, one discouragement followed another. In the +autumn of 1861 the illness of his daughter, which he had expected and +predicted, came to pass in a violent form. The old Roman virus, kept +under in her blood, for a time, by continual changes of air and +climate, at last gained the mastery, and brought her once more in +danger of her life. She had to be removed to the house of her aunt, +Mrs. Mann, who lived in the centre of the town, on account of her +father's nerves, so that the Concord doctor could attend her at night +when necessary. It was the severest and most protracted case of fever +that the physician had ever known to be followed by a recovery. Miss +Una did recover, but the mental strain upon her father was even more +exhausting than that which her previous illness had caused, and he was +not in an equal condition to bear it. + +"Septimius Felton" may have been written about this time (perhaps +during his daughter's convalescence), but his family knew nothing of +it, until they discovered the manuscript after his death. When it was +published ten years later, the poet Whittier spoke of it as a failure, +and Hawthorne would seem to have considered it so; for he left it in an +unfinished condition, and immediately began a different story on the +same theme,--the elixir of life. It has no connection with the sketch +already mentioned, in which Alcott's personality becomes the +mainspring, but with another abortive romance, called "The Ancestral +Footstep," which Hawthorne commenced while he was in England. It is +invaluable for the light it throws on his method of working. +Descriptive passages are mentioned in it "to be inserted" at a later +time, meanwhile concentrating his energy on more important portions of +the narrative. Half way through the story he changed his original plan, +transforming the young woman who previously had been Septimius's +sweetheart to Septimius's sister; and it may have been the difficulty +of adjusting this change to the portion previously written, that +discouraged Hawthorne from completing the romance. But the work suffers +also from a tendency to exaggeration. The name of Hagburn is +unpleasantly realistic, and Doctor Portsoaken, with his canopy of +spider-webs hanging in noisome festoons above his head, is closely akin +to the repulsive. The amateur critic who averred that he could not read +Hawthorne without feeling a sensation as if cobwebs were drawn across +his face, must have had "Septimius Felton" in mind. Yet there are +refreshing passages in it, and the youthful English officer who kisses +Septimius's sweetheart before his eyes, and afterward fights an +impromptu duel with him, dying as cheerfully as he had lived, is an +original and charming character. The scene of the story has a peculiar +interest, from the fact that it is laid at Hawthorne's own door; the +Feltons are supposed to have lived at the Wayside and the Hagburns in +the Alcott house. + +The firm of Ticknor & Fields now began to feel anxious on Hawthorne's +account, and the last of the winter the senior partner proposed a +journey to Washington, which was accordingly accomplished in the second +week of March. Horatio Bridge was now chief of a bureau in the Navy +Department, and was well qualified to obtain for his veteran friend an +inside position for whatever happened to be going on. In the midst of +the turmoil and excitement of war, Hawthorne attracted as much +attention as the arrival of a new ambassador from Great Britain. +Secretary Stanton appointed him on a civil commission to report +concerning the condition of the Army of the Potomac. He was introduced +to President Lincoln, and made excursions to Harper's Ferry and +Fortress Monroe. Concerning General McClellan, he wrote to his daughter +on March 16: + +"The outcry opened against Gen. McClellan, since the enemy's retreat +from Manassas, is really terrible, and almost universal; because it is +found that we might have taken their fortifications with perfect ease +six months ago, they being defended chiefly by wooden guns. Unless he +achieves something wonderful within a week, he will be removed from +command, at least I hope so; I never did more than half believe in him. +By a message from the State Department, I have reason to think that +there is money enough due me from the government to pay the expenses of +my journey. I think the public buildings are as fine, if not finer, +than anything we saw in Europe." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 309.] + +General McClellan was not a great man, and Hawthorne's opinion of him +is more significant from the fact that at that time McClellan was +expected to be the Joshua who would lead the Democratic party out of +its wilderness. On his return to Concord, Hawthorne prepared a +commentary on what he had seen and heard at the seat of war, and sent +it to the _Atlantic Monthly_; but, although patriotic enough, his +melancholy humor was prominent in it, and Fields particularly protested +against his referring to President Lincoln as "Old Abe," although the +President was almost universally called so in Washington; and the +consequence of this was that Hawthorne eliminated everything that he +had written about Lincoln in his account,--which might be called +"dehamletizing" the subject. In addition to this he wrote a number of +foot-notes purporting to come from the editor, but really intended to +counteract the unpopularity of certain statements in the text. This was +not done with any intention to deceive, but, with the exception of +Emerson and a few others who could always recognize Hawthorne's style, +the readers of the _Atlantic_ supposed that these foot-notes were +written by either James T. Fields or James Russell Lowell, who had been +until recently the editor of the Magazine,--a practical joke which +Hawthorne enjoyed immensely when it was discovered to him. + +This contribution, essay, or whatever it may be called, had only a +temporary value, but it contained a prediction, which has been often +recollected in Hawthorne's favor; namely, that after the war was over +"one bullet-headed general after another would succeed to the +presidential chair." In fact, five generals, whether bullet-headed or +not, followed after Lincoln and Johnson; and then the sequence came to +an end apparently because the supply of politician generals was +exhausted. Certainly the Anglo-Saxon race yields to no other in +admiration for military glory. + +Fields afterward published Hawthorne's monograph on President Lincoln, +and, although it is rather an unsympathetic statement of the man, it +remains the only authentic pen-and-ink sketch that we have of him. Most +important is his recognition of Lincoln as "essentially a Yankee" in +appearance and character; for it has only recently been discovered that +Lincoln was descended from an old New England family, and that his +ancestors first emigrated to Virginia and afterward to Kentucky. +[Footnote: Essay on Lincoln in "True Republicanism."] Hawthorne says of +him: + +"If put to guess his calling and livelihood, I should have taken him +for a country schoolmaster as soon as anything else. [Footnote: The +country school-master of that time.--Ed.] He was dressed in a rusty +black frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that +the suit had adapted itself to the curves and angularities of his +figure, and had grown to be the outer skin of the man. He had shabby +slippers on his feet. His hair was black, still unmixed with gray, +stiff, somewhat bushy, and had apparently been acquainted with neither +brush nor comb that morning, after the disarrangement of the pillow; +and as to a nightcap, Uncle Abe probably knows nothing of such +effeminacies. His complexion is dark and sallow, betokening, I fear, an +insalubrious atmosphere around the White House; he has thick black +eyebrows and impending brow; his nose is large, and the lines about his +mouth are very strongly denned. + +"The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in +the length and breadth of the States; but, withal, it is redeemed, +illuminated, softened, and brightened by a kindly though serious look +out of his eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity, that seems +weighted with rich results of village experience. A great deal of +native sense; no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, +and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly,--at least, endowed with +a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft.... But on the whole, +I liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human +sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would +as lief have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been +practicable to put in his place." [Footnote: "Yesterdays with Authors," +99.] + +This is not a flattered portrait, like those by Lincoln's political +biographers; neither is it an idealized likeness, such as we may +imagine him delivering his Gettysburg Address. It is rather an external +description of the man, but it is, after all, Lincoln as he appeared in +the White House to the innumerable visitors, who, as sovereign American +citizens, believed they had a right to an interview with the people's +distinguished servant. + +Hawthorne's European letter-bag in 1862 is chiefly interesting for +Henry Bright's statement that the English people might have more +sympathy with the Union cause in the War if they could understand +clearly what the national government was fighting for; and that Lord +Houghton and Thomas Hughes were the only two men he had met who +heartily supported the Northern side. Perhaps Mr. Bright would have +found it equally as difficult to explain why the British Government +should have made war upon Napoleon for twelve consecutive years. + +Henry Bright, moreover, seemed to be quite as much interested in a new +American poet, named J. G. Holland, and his poem called "Bitter-Sweet." +Lord Houghton agreed with him that it was a very remarkable poem, and +they wished to know what Hawthorne could tell them about its author. As +Holland was not recognized as a poet by the Saturday Club, Hawthorne's +answer on this point would be very valuable if we could only obtain a +sight of it. Holland was in certain respects the counterpart of Martin +F. Tupper. + +In the summer of this year Hawthorne went to West Goldsboro', Maine, an +unimportant place opposite Mount Desert Island, taking Julian with him; +a place with a stimulating climate but a rather foggy atmosphere. He +must have gone there for his health, and it is pathetic to see how the +change of climate braced him up at first, so that he even made the +commencement of a new diary, and then, as always happens in such cases, +it let him down again to where he was before. He did not complain, but +he felt that something was wrong with him and he could not tell what it +was. + +Wherever he went in passing through the civilized portion of Maine, he +found the country astir with recruits who had volunteered for the war, +so that it seemed as if that were the only subject which occupied men's +minds. He says of this in his journal: + +"I doubt whether any people was ever actuated by a more genuine and +disinterested public spirit; though, of course, it is not unalloyed +with baser motives and tendencies. We met a train of cars with a +regiment or two just starting for the South, and apparently in high +spirits. Everywhere some insignia of soldiership were to be seen,-- +bright buttons, a red stripe down the trousers, a military cap, and +sometimes a round-shouldered bumpkin in the entire uniform. They +require a great deal to give them the aspect of soldiers; indeed, it +seems as if they needed to have a good deal taken away and added, like +the rough clay of a sculptor as it grows to be a model." + +Such is the last entry in his journal. Hawthorne was not carried off +his feet by the excitement of the time, but looked calmly on while +others expended their patriotism in hurrahing for the Union. What he +remarks concerning the volunteers was perfectly true Men cannot change +their profession in a day, and soldiers are not to be made out of +farmers' boys and store clerks simply by clothing them in uniform, no +matter how much courage they may have. War is a profession like other +professions, and requires the severest training of them all. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +IMMORTALITY + + +In the autumn of 1862 there was great excitement in Massachusetts. +President Lincoln had issued his premonitory proclamation of +emancipation, and Harvard College was stirred to its academic depths. +Professor Joel Parker, of the Law School, pronounced Lincoln's action +unconstitutional, subversive of the rights of property, and a most +dangerous precedent. With Charles Eliot Norton and other American +Tories, Parker headed a movement for the organization of a People's +Party, which had for its immediate object the defeat of Andrew for +Governor and the relegation of Sumner to private life. The first they +could hardly expect to accomplish, but it was hoped that a sufficient +number of conservative representatives would be elected to the +Legislature to replace Sumner by a Republican, who would be more to +their own minds; and they would be willing to compromise on such a +candidate as Honorable E. R. Hoar,--although Judge Hoar was innocent of +this himself and was quite as strongly anti-slavery as Sumner. The +movement came to nothing, as commonly happens with political movements +that originate in universities, but for the time being it caused a +great commotion and nowhere more so than in the town of Concord. +Emerson was never more emphatic than in demanding the re-election of +Andrew and Sumner. + +How Hawthorne felt about this and how he voted in November, can only be +conjectured by certain indications, slight, it is true, but all +pointing in one direction. As long since explained, he entertained no +very friendly feeling toward the Cotton Whigs; his letter to his +daughter concerning Gen. McClellan, who set himself against the +proclamation and was removed in consequence, should be taken into +consideration; and still more significant is the letter to Horatio +Bridge, in which Hawthorne proposed the enlistment of negro soldiers. +Doctor George B. Loring, of Salem, always a loyal friend to the +Hawthorne family, came to Concord in September to deliver an address at +the annual cattle-show, and visited at the Wayside. He had left the +Democratic party and become a member of the Bird Club, which was then +the centre of political influence in the State. As a matter of course +he explained his new position to Hawthorne. He had long felt attracted +to the Republican party, and but for his influential position among his +fellow-Democrats, he would have joined it sooner. Parties were being +reconstructed. Half the Democrats had become Republicans; and a +considerable portion of the Whigs had joined the Democratic party. The +interests of the Republic were in the hands of the Republican party and +it ought to be supported. We can believe that Hawthorne listened to him +with close attention. + +It was in the spring of 1862 that I first became well acquainted with +the Hawthorne family, which seemed to exist in an atmosphere of purity +and refinement derived from the man's own genius. Julian visited me at +our house in Medford during the early summer, where he made great havoc +among the small fruits of the season. We boxed, fenced, skated, played +cricket and studied Cicero together. As my father was one of the most +revolutionary of the Free-Soilers, this may have amused Hawthorne as an +instance of the Montagues and Capulets; but I found much sympathy with +my political notions in his household. When the first of January came +there was a grand celebration of the Emancipation in Boston Music Hall. +Mrs. Hawthorne and Una were very desirous to attend it, and I believe +they both did so--Miss Una at all events. If Mrs. Hawthorne's opinions +could be taken in any sense as a reflection of her husband's mind, he +was certainly drifting away from his old associations. + +In October, 1862, Hawthorne published the first of a series of studies +from English life and scenery, taken chiefly from his Note-book, and he +continued this at intervals until the following summer, when Ticknor & +Fields brought them out with some additions in book form as "Our Old +Home;" a volume which has already been considered in these pages. It +was not a favorable time for the publication of classic literature, for +the whole population of the United States was in a ferment; and +moreover the unfriendly attitude of the English educated classes toward +the cause of the Union, was beginning to have its effect with us. In +truth it seemed rather inconsistent that the philanthropic Gladstone, +who had always professed himself the friend of freedom, should glorify +Jefferson Davis as the founder of a new nation--a republic of +slaveholders. In addition to this, Hawthorne insisted on dedicating the +volume to President Pierce, and when his publishers protested that this +would tend to make the book unpopular, he replied in a spirited manner, +that if that was the case it was all the more reason why Pierce's +friends should signify their continued confidence in him. This may have +made little difference, however, for comparatively few readers notice +the dedication of a book until after they have purchased it; and we +like Hawthorne for his firmness in this instance. + +In England the book produced a sensation of the unfavorable sort. +Hawthorne's attack on the rotundity of the English ladies, whatever may +have been his reason for it, was, to speak reservedly, somewhat lacking +in delicacy. It stirred up a swarm of newspaper enemies against him; +and proved a severe strain to the attachment of his friends there. +Henry Bright wrote to him: + +"It really was too bad, some of the things you say. You talk like a +cannibal. Mrs. Heywood says to my mother, 'I really believe you and I +were the only ladies he knew in Liverpool, and we are not like +beefsteaks.' So all the ladies are furious." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, +ii. 280. Good Mrs. Alcott also objected stoutly to the reflections on +her sex.] + +But Hawthorne was no longer what he had been, and allowance should be +made for this. + +Hawthorne's chief interest at this time, however, lay in the +preparation of his son for Harvard College. Julian was sixteen in +August and, considering the itinerant life he had lived, well advanced +in his studies. He was the best-behaved boy in Concord, in school or +out, and an industrious though not ambitious scholar. He was strong, +vigorous and manly; and his parents had sufficient reason to be proud +of him. To expect him, however, to enter Harvard College at the age of +seventeen was somewhat unreasonable. His father had entered Bowdoin at +that age, but the requirements at Harvard were much more severe than at +Bowdoin; enough to make a difference of at least one year in the age of +the applicant. For a boy to enter college in a half-fitted condition is +simply to make a false start in life, for he is only too likely to +become discouraged, and either to drag along at the foot of the class +or to lose his place in it altogether. Hawthorne may have felt that the +end of earthly affairs was close upon him, and wished to see his son +started on the right road before that came; but Emerson also had an +interest in having Julian go to college at exactly this time; namely, +to obtain him as a chum for his wife's nephew, with the advantage of a +tutor's room thrown in as an extra inducement. He advised Hawthorne to +place Julian in charge of a Harvard professor who was supposed to have +a sleight-of-hand faculty for getting his pupils through the +examinations. Julian worked bravely, and succeeded in entering Harvard +the following July; but he was nine months (or a good school year), +younger than the average of his class. + +Hawthorne did not leave home this summer (1863), and the only letter we +have of his was the one to James T. Fields concerning the dedication of +"Our Old Home," which was published in the autumn. Julian states that +his father spent much of his time standing or walking in his narrow +garden before the house, and looking wistfully across the meadows to +Walden woods. His strength was evidently failing him, yet he could not +explain why--nor has it ever been explained. + +One bright day in November two of us walked up from Cambridge with +Julian and lunched at his father's. Mr. Hawthorne received us +cordially, but in a tremulous manner that betrayed the weakness of his +nerves. As soon as Julian had left the room, he said to us, "I suppose +it would be of little use to ask you young gentlemen what sort of a +scholar Julian is." H---- replied to this, that we were neither of us +in the division with him, but that he had heard nothing unfavorable in +regard to his recitations; and I told him that Julian went to the +gymnasium with me every evening, and appeared to live a very regular +kind of life. This seemed to please Mr. Hawthorne very much, and he +soon produced a decanter of port, and, his son having entered the room +again, he said, "I want to teach Julian the taste of good wine, so that +he will learn to avoid those horrible punches, which I am told you have +at Harvard." We all laughed greatly at this, which was afterward +increased by Julian's saying that the only punches he had yet seen were +those which the sophomores gave us in the foot-ball fight,--or some +such statement. It was a bright occasion for all of us, and when Mrs. +Hawthorne and her daughters entered the room, such a beautiful group as +they all formed together! And Hawthorne himself seemed ten years +younger than when he first greeted us. + +He was the most distinguished-looking man that I ever beheld, and no +sensible person could meet him without instantly recognizing his +superior mental endowment. His features were not only classic but +grandly classic; and his eyes large, dark, luminous, unfathomable-- +looking into them was like looking into a deep well. His face seemed to +give a pictorial reflection of whatever was taking place about him; and +again became like a transparency through which one could see dim vistas +of beautiful objects. The changes of expression on it were like the +sunshine and clouds of a summer day--perhaps thunder clouds sometimes, +with flashes of lightning, which his son may still remember; for where +there is a great heart there will always be great heat. + + +"THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE" + +According to James T. Fields, the ground-plan of this work was laid the +preceding winter, but Hawthorne became dissatisfied with the way in +which the subject developed itself and so set the manuscript aside +until he could come to it again with fresh inspiration. With the more +bracing weather of September he commenced on it again, and wrote during +the next two months that portion which we now have. On December 1 he +forwarded two chapters to Ticknor & Fields, requesting to have them set +up so that he could see them in print and obtain a retrospective view +of his work before he proceeded further. Yet on December 15 he wrote +again, saying that he had not yet found courage to attack the proofs, +and that all mental exertion had become hateful to him. [Footnote: +"Yesterdays with Authors," 115.] He was evidently feeling badly, and +for the first time Mrs. Hawthorne was seriously anxious for him. Four +days later she wrote to Una, who was visiting in Beverly: + +"Papa is comfortable to-day, but very thin and pale and weak. I give +him oysters now. Hitherto he has had only toasted crackers and lamb and +beef tea. I am very impatient that he should see Dr. Vanderseude, but +he wants to go to him himself, and he cannot go till it be good +weather.... The splendor and pride of strength in him have succumbed; +but they can be restored, I am sure. Meanwhile he is very nervous and +delicate; he cannot bear anything, and he must be handled like the +airiest Venetian glass." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 333.] + +He divided his time between lying on a sofa and sitting in an arm- +chair; and he did not seem very comfortable in either position. It was +long since he had attended meetings of the Saturday Club. + +It is clear from this that Hawthorne had not recently consulted a +doctor concerning his condition, and perhaps not at all. He may have +been right enough in supposing that no common practitioner could give +him help, but there was at that time one of the finest of physiologists +in Boston, Dr. Edward H. Clark, who cured hundreds of sick people every +year, as quietly and unostentatiously as Dame Nature herself. He was a +graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and as such not generally +looked upon with favor by the Boston medical profession, but when +Agassiz's large brain gave way in 1868, Dr. Brown-Séquard telegraphed +to him from Europe to consult Edward Clark, and Doctor Clark so +improved his health that Agassiz afterward enjoyed a number of years of +useful work. Perhaps he might have accomplished as much for Hawthorne; +but how was Hawthorne in his retired and uncommunicative life to know +of him? There are decided advantages in living in the great world, and +in knowing what goes on there,--if one only can. + +It is doubtful if Hawthorne ever opened the proof of "The Dolliver +Romance." In February he wrote to Fields that he could not possibly go +on with it, and as it had already been advertised for the _Atlantic +Monthly_, a notification had to be published concerning the matter, +which startled Longfellow, Whittier and other old friends of Hawthorne, +who were not in the way of knowing much about him. The fragment that we +now have of it was printed in the _Atlantic_ many years after his +death. + +It was the last expiring ember of Hawthorne's genius, blazing up +fitfully and momentarily with the same brightness as of old, and then +disappearing like Hawthorne himself into the unknown and the +unknowable. It is a fragment, and yet it seems complete, for it is +impossible to imagine how the story could have been continued beyond +its present limits; and Hawthorne left no word from which we can +conjecture his further intentions in regard to it. + +There was an old apothecary in Concord, named Reynolds, a similar man +to, but not so aged as, Hawthorne's Doctor Dolliver; and he also had a +son, a bright enterprising boy,--too bright and spirited to suit Boston +commercialism,--who went westward in 1858 to seek his fortune, nor have +I ever heard of his return. The child Pansie, frisking with her kitten +--a more simple, ingenuous, and self-centred, but also less sympathetic +nature than the Pearl of Hester Prynne--may have been studied from +Hawthorne's daughter Rose. There also lived at Concord in Hawthorne's +time a man with the title of Colonel, a pretentious, self-satisfied +person, who corresponded fairly to his description of Colonel Dabney, +in "The Dolliver Romance." Neither is it singular that the apothecary's +garden should have bordered on a grave-yard, for there are two old +cemeteries in Concord in the very centre of the town. + +I know of no such portrait of an old man as Doctor Dolliver in art or +literature,--except perhaps Tintoretto's portrait of his aged self, in +the Louvre. We not only see the customary marks of age upon him, but we +feel them so that it seems as if we grew old and stiff and infirm as we +read of him; and the internal life of old age is revealed to us, not by +confessions of the man himself, but by every word he speaks and every +act he does as if the writer were a skilful tragedian upon the stage. +It seems as if Hawthorne must have felt all this himself during the +last year of his life, to describe it so vividly; but he ascends by +these infirm steps to loftier heights than ever before, and the scene +in which he represents Doctor Dolliver seated at night before the fire +in his chamber after Pansie had been put to bed, is the noblest passage +in the whole cycle of Hawthorne's art; one of those rare passages +written in moments of gifted insight, when it seems as if a higher +power guided the writer's hand. It is given here entire, for to +subtract a word from it would be an irreparable injury. + +"While that music lasted, the old man was alive and happy. And there +were seasons, it might be, happier than even these, when Pansie had +been kissed and put to bed, and Grandsir Dolliver sat by his fireside +gazing in among the massive coals, and absorbing their glow into those +cavernous abysses with which all men communicate. Hence come angels or +fiends into our twilight musings, according as we may have peopled them +in by-gone years. Over our friend's face, in the rosy flicker of the +fire-gleam, stole an expression of repose and perfect trust that made +him as beautiful to look at, in his high-backed chair, as the child +Pansie on her pillow; and sometimes the spirits that were watching him +beheld a calm surprise draw slowly over his features and brighten into +joy, yet not so vividly as to break his evening quietude. The gate of +heaven had been kindly left ajar, that this forlorn old creature might +catch a glimpse within. All the night afterwards, he would be semi- +conscious of an intangible bliss diffused through the fitful lapses of +an old man's slumber, and would awake, at early dawn, with a faint +thrilling of the heart-strings, as if there had been music just now +wandering over them." + +So Jacob in the desert saw angels descending and ascending on a ladder +from Heaven. Discouraged, depressed, the door closed upon his earthly +hopes, not only for himself, but for those whom he loves much better +than himself, so far as he could ever be a help and a providence to +them, Hawthorne finds a purer joy and a higher hope in the depths of +his own spirit. + +In the second chapter, or fragment, of this romance, Doctor Dolliver, +followed by Pansie, goes out into the garden one frosty October +morning, and while the apothecary is digging at his herbs, the +imitative child, with an instinctive repulsion for everything strange +and morbid, pulls up the fatal plant from which the elixir of life was +distilled, and frightened at her grandfather's chiding, runs with it +into the cemetery where it is lost among the graves and never seen +again. This account stands by itself, having no direct connection with +what precedes or follows; but the delineation is so vivid, the poetic +element in it so strong, that it may be said to stand without +assistance, and does not require the name of Hawthorne to give it +value. + +In the conclusion, the elixir of life proves to be an elixir of death; +extremes meet and are reconciled. As he says in "The Marble Faun," joy +changes to sorrow and sorrow is laughed away; the experience of both +being that which is really valuable. Doctor Dolliver and Pansie are +figures for the end and the beginning of life; the Old Year and the +New. Such is the sum of Hawthorne's philosophy--the ultimate goal of +his thought. There could have been no more fitting consummation of his +work. The cycle of his art is complete, and death binds the laurel +round his brow. + + +A HERO'S END + +After Hawthorne's letter of February 25, Fields felt that he ought to +make an effort in his behalf. Fields's partner, W. D. Ticknor, was also +ailing, and it was arranged that he and Hawthorne should go on a +journey southward as soon as the weather permitted. Doctor Holmes was +consulted, and the last of March Hawthorne came to Boston and met +Holmes at Fields's house. Holmes made an examination, which was +anything but satisfactory to his own mind; in fact, he was appalled at +the condition in which he found his former companion of the Saturday +Club. "He was very gentle," Holmes says; "very willing to answer +questions, very docile to such counsel as I offered him, but evidently +had no hope of recovering his health. He spoke as if his work were +done, and he should write no more." [Footnote: _Atlantic Monthly_, +July, 1864.] The doctor, however, must have been mistaken in supposing +that Hawthorne was suffering from the same malady that carried off +General Grant, for no human being could die in that manner without +suffering greater pain than Hawthorne gave any indication of; and the +sedatives which Holmes prescribed for him could only have resulted in a +weakening of the nerves. He even warned Hawthorne against the use of +alcoholic stimulants, to which for some time he had been more or less +accustomed. + +Hawthorne and Ticknor went to New York, and two days later Ticknor was +able to write to Mrs. Hawthorne that her husband appeared to be much +improved. How cruelly disappointing to meet him at their own door four +days later, haggard, weary and more dispirited than when he had left +the Wayside on March 26! He had proceeded to Philadelphia with Ticknor, +and there at the Continental Hotel Ticknor was suddenly seized with a +mortal malady and died almost in Hawthorne's arms, before the latter +could notify his family in Boston that he was ill. What a severe ordeal +for a man who was strong and well, but to a person in Hawthorne's +condition it was like a thunderbolt. Ticknor's son came to him at once, +and together they performed the necessary duties of the occasion, and +made their melancholy way homeward. Nothing, perhaps, except a death in +his own family, could have had so unfavorable an effect upon +Hawthorne's condition. + +Some good angel now notified Franklin Pierce of the serious posture of +affairs, and he came at once to Concord to offer his services in +Hawthorne's behalf. However, he could propose nothing more hopeful than +a journey in the uplands of New Hampshire, and for this it would be +necessary to wait for settled weather. So Hawthorne remained at home +for the next month without his condition becoming apparently either +better or worse. At length, on May 13, the ex-President returned and +they went together the following day. + +We will not linger over that leave-taking on the porch of the Wayside; +so pathetic, so full of tenderness, even of despair, and yet with a +slender ray of hope beneath the leaden cloud of anxiety. To Hawthorne +it must have seemed even more discouraging than to his wife and +children, though none of them could have suspected that the end would +be so soon. + + * * * * * + +On the morning of May 20, I had just returned from my first recitation +when Julian Hawthorne appeared at my room in the Massachusetts +dormitory, and said, like a man gasping for breath, "My father is dead, +and I want you to come with me." Fields had sent him word through +Professor Gurney, who knew how to deliver such a message in the +kindliest manner. We went at once to Fields's house on Charles Street, +where Mrs. Fields gave Julian the little information already known to +them through a dispatch from Franklin Pierce,--that his father died +during his sleep in the night of May 18, at the Pemmigewasset House, +Plymouth, New Hampshire. After this we wandered about Boston, silent +and aimless, until the afternoon train carried him to Concord. He +greatly dreaded meeting the gaze of his fellow-townsmen, and confessed +that he wanted to hide himself in the woods like a wounded deer. +[Footnote: The passage in "A Fool of Nature," in which he describes +Murgatroyd's discovery of his father's death, must have been a +reminiscence of this time--a passage of the finest genius.] + +On Wednesday, May 18, Hawthorne and Pierce drove from Centre Harbor to +Plymouth, a long and rather rough journey to be taken in a carriage. +Hawthorne, however, did not make much complaint of this, nor did he +seem to be unusually fatigued. He retired to his room soon after nine +o'clock, and was sleeping comfortably an hour later. Pierce was +evidently nervous about him, for he went in to look at him at two in +the morning, and again at four; and the last time he discovered that +life was extinct. Hawthorne had died in his sleep as quietly and +peacefully as he had lived. There is the same mystery in his death that +there was in his life, and it is difficult to assign either an +immediate or a proximate cause for it. With such a physique, and his +simple, regular habits of life, he ought to have reached the age of +ninety. General Pierce believed that he died of paralysis, and that is +the most probable explanation; but it was not like the usual cases of +paralysis at Hawthorne's age; for, as we have seen, the process of +disintegration and failure of his powers had been going on for years. +Nor did this follow, as commonly happens, a protracted period of +adversity, but it came upon him during the most prosperous portion of +his life. The first ten years following upon his marriage were years of +anxiety, self-denial and even hardship; but other men, Alcott, for +example, have suffered as much and yet lived to a good old age. It may +have been "the old dull pain" which Longfellow associated with him, +filing perpetually on the vital cord. It was part of the enigmatic side +of his nature. + +The last ceremonies of respect to the earthly remains of Hawthorne were +performed at Concord on May 23, 1864, in the Unitarian Church, a +commodious building, [Footnote: In 1899 this building was burned to the +ground, and a new church has been erected on the same spot.] well +adapted to the great concourse of mourners who gathered there on this +occasion. Reverend James Freeman Clarke, who had united Hawthorne and +Sophia Peabody in marriage twenty-two years before, was now called upon +to preside over the last act in their married life. The simple +eloquence of his address penetrated to the heart of every person +present. "Hawthorne had achieved a twofold immortality,--and his +immortality on earth would be a comforting presence to all who mourned +him. The noblest men of the age had gathered there, to testify to his +worth as a man as well as to his genius as a writer." Faces were to be +seen in that assembly that were never beheld in Concord before. Among +these was the soldierly figure and flashing eye of the poet Whittier. +Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, Agassiz, Alcott and Hillard were present; +and ex-President Pierce shook hands with Judge Hoar over Hawthorne's +bier. After the services the assembly of mourners proceeded to Sleepy +Hollow cemetery, and there the mortal remains of Hawthorne were buried +under the pine trees on the same hill-side where he and Emerson and +Margaret Fuller conversed together on the summer afternoon twenty years +before. He needs no monument, for he has found a place in the universal +pantheon of art and literature. + + * * * * * + +It would seem advisable at this parting of the ways to say something of +Hawthorne's religious convictions. He went as a boy with his mother and +sisters to the East Church in Salem, a society of liberal tendencies +and then on the verge of Unitarianism. All the Manning family attended +service there, but at a later time Robert Manning separated from it and +joined an orthodox society. Hawthorne's mother and his sister Louisa +became Unitarians, and at Madam Hawthorne's death in 1848 the funeral +services were conducted by Reverend Thomas T. Stone, of the First Salem +Church. It is presumable that Nathaniel Hawthorne also became a +Unitarian, so far as he can be considered a sectarian at all; but +certain elements of the older faith still remained in his mental +composition. It cannot be questioned that the strong optimism in +Emerson's philosophy was derived from Doctor Channing's instruction, +and it is equally certain that Hawthorne could never agree to this. +Whatever might be the origin of evil or its abstract value, he found it +too potent an element in human affairs to be quietly reasoned out of +existence. Whatever might be the ultimate purpose of Divine Providence, +the witchcraft prosecutions were an awful calamity to those who were +concerned in them. In this respect he resembled David A. Wasson, one of +the most devout religious minds, who left the church of Calvin (as it +was in his time), without ever becoming a Unitarian or a radical. Miss +Rebecca Manning says: + +"I never knew of Hawthorne's going to church at all, after I remember +about him, and do not think he was ever in the habit of going. I think +he may have gone sometimes when he was in England, but I do not know +about it. Somewhere in Julian or Rose Hawthorne's reminiscences, there +is mention made of his reading family prayers, when he was in England. +He, as also his mother and sisters were people of deeply religious +natures, though not always showing it by outward observances." + +A Concord judge and an old Free-Soil politician once attended a +religious convention, and after the business of the day was over they +went to walk together. The politician confessed to the judge that he +had no very definite religious belief, for which the judge thought he +did himself great injustice; but is not that the most advanced and +intelligent condition of a man's religious faith? How can we possess +clear and definite ideas of the grand mystery of Creation? Consider +only this simple metaphysical fact, that space has no limit, and that +we can neither conceive a beginning of time nor imagine time without a +beginning. What is there outside of the universe? The brain reels as we +think of it. The time has gone by when a man can say to himself +definitely, I believe this or I believe that; but we know at least that +we, "the creature of a day," cannot be the highest form of intelligence +in this wonderful world. We thought that we lived in solid bodies, but +electric rays have been discovered by which the skeletons inside of us +become visible. The correlation and conservation of forces brings us +very close to the origin of all force; and yet in another sense we are +as far off as ever from the perception of it. + +This would seem to have been also Hawthorne's position in regard to +religious faith. What do we know of the religious belief of Michel +Angelo, of Shakespeare, or of Beethoven? We cannot doubt that they were +sincerely and purely religious men; but neither of them made any +confession of their faith. Vittoria Colonna may have known something of +Michel Angelo's belief, but Vasari does not mention it; and Beethoven +confessed it was a subject that he did not like to talk about. The +deeper a man's sense of the awe and mystery which underlies Nature, the +less he feels inclined to expose it to the public gaze. Hawthorne's own +family did not know what his religious opinions were--only that he was +religious. One may imagine that the reticent man would be more reticent +on this subject than on any other; but we can feel confident that at +least he was not a sceptic, for the confirmed sceptic inevitably +becomes a chatterer. He walks to Walden Pond with Hillard and Emerson +on Sunday, and confesses his doubts as to the utility of the Church (in +its condition at that time), for spiritual enlightenment; but in regard +to the great omnipresent fact of spirituality he has no doubt. In "The +Snow Image" he makes a statue come to life, and says in conclusion that +if a new miracle is ever wrought in this world it will be in some such +simple manner as he has described. + +To the poetic mind, which is after all the highest form of intellect, +the grand fact of existence is a sufficient miracle. The rising of the +sun, the changes of the seasons, the blooming of flowers and the +ripening of the grain, were all miracles to Hawthorne, and none the +less so because they are continually being repeated. The scientists +tell us that all these happen according to natural laws: perfectly +true, but WHO was it that made those laws? WHO is it that keeps the +universe running? Laws made for the regulation of human affairs by the +wisest of men often prove ineffective, and inadequate to the purpose +for which they were intended; but the laws of Nature work with +unfailing accuracy. The boy solves his problem in algebra, finding out +the unknown quantity by those values which are given him; and can we +not also infer something of the _unknown_ from the great panorama +that passes unceasingly before us? The one thing that Hawthorne could +not have understood was, how gifted minds like Lucretius and Auguste +Comte could recognize only the evidence of their senses, and +deliberately blind themselves to the evidence of their intellects. He +who denies the existence of mind as a reality resembles a person +looking for his spectacles when they are on his nose; but it is the +imagination of the poet that leads civilization onward to its goal. + +College life is rather generally followed by a period of scepticism, +partly owing in former times to the enforced attendance at morning +prayers, and still more perhaps to the study of Greek and Latin +authors. During what might be called Hawthorne's period of despair, he +could not very well have obtained consolation from the traditional +forms of divine worship; at least, such has been the experience of all +those who have passed through the Wertherian stage, so far as we know +of them. It is a time when every man has to strike the fountain of +spiritual life out of the hard rock of his own existence; and those are +fortunate who, like Moses and Hawthorne, strike forcibly enough to +accomplish this. It is the "new birth from above," in the light of +which religious forms seem of least importance. + +One effect of matrimony is commonly a deepening of religious feeling, +but it is not surprising that Hawthorne should not have attended church +after his marriage. His wife had not been accustomed to church-going, +on account of the uncertainty of her health; the Old Manse was a long +distance from the Concord tabernacle; Hawthorne's associates in +Concord, with the exception of Judge Keyes, were not in the habit of +going to church; and the officiating minister, both at that time and +during his later sojourn, was not a person who could have been +intellectually attractive to him. Somewhat similar reasons may have +interfered with his attendance after his return to Salem; and during +the last fifteen years of his life, he was too much of a wanderer to +take a serious interest in the local affairs of the various places he +inhabited; but he was desirous that his children should go to church +and should be brought up in honest Christian ways. + +Little more need to be said concerning Hawthorne's character as a man. +It was not so perfect as Longfellow's, to whom all other American +authors should bow the head in this respect--the Washington of poets; +and yet it was a rare example of purity, refinement, and patient +endurance. His faults were insignificant in comparison with his +virtues, and the most conspicuous of them, his tendency to revenge +himself for real or fancied injuries, is but a part of the natural +instinct in us to return the blows we receive in self-defence. +Wantonly, and of his own accord, he never injured human being. His +domestic life was as pure and innocent as that which appeared before +the world; and Mrs. Hawthorne once said of him in my presence that she +did not believe he ever committed an act that could properly be +considered wrong. It was like his writing, and his "wells of English +undefiled" were but as a synonym for the clear current of his daily +existence. + +The ideality in Hawthorne's face was so conspicuous that it is +recognizable in every portrait of him. It was not the cold visionary +expression of the abstract thinker, but a human poetic intelligence, +which resolved all things into a spiritual alembic of its own. It is +this which elevates him above all writers who only deal with the outer +world as they find it, and add nothing to it from their own natures. + +George Brandes, the Danish critic and essayist, speaks of Hawthorne +somewhere as "the baby poet;" but we suspect that if he had ever met +the living Hawthorne, he would have stood very much in awe of him. It +would not have been like meeting Ernest Rénan or John Stuart Mill. +Although Hawthorne was not splenetic or rash, there was an occasional +look in his eye which a prudent person might beware of. He was +emphatically a man of courage. + +The wide and liberal interest which German scholars and writers have so +long taken in the literature of other nations, has resulted in founding +an informal literary tribunal in Germany, to which the rest of the +world is accustomed to appeal. A. E. Schönbach, one of the most recent +German writers on universal literature, gives his impression of +Hawthorne in the following statement: + +"I find the distinguishing excellence of Hawthorne's imaginative +writings in the union of profound, keen, psychological development of +characters and problems with the most lucid objectivity and a joyous +modern realism. Occasionally there appears a light and delicate humor, +sometimes hidden in a mere adjective, or little phrase which lights up +the gloomiest situation with a gentle ray of hope. Far from unimportant +do I rate the charm of his language, its purity, its melody, its +graceful flexibility, the wealth of vocabulary, the polish which rarely +betrays the touch of the file. After, or with George Eliot, Hawthorne +is the first English prose writer of our century. At the same time he +sacrifices nothing of his peculiar American quality. Not only does he +penetrate into the most secret inner movements of the old colonial +life, as no one else has done, and reproduces the spirit of his +forefathers with a power of intuition which no historical work could +equal; but in all his other works, from the biography of General +Pierce, to the 'Marble Faun,' Hawthorne shows the freshness and +keenness, the precision and lucidity, and other qualities not easy to +describe, which belong to American literature. He is its chief +representative." [Footnote: "Gesammelte Aufsatze zur neueren +Litteratur," p. 346.] + +Hawthorne has always been accorded a high position in literature, and +as time goes on I believe this will be increased rather than +diminished. In beauty of diction he is the first of American writers, +and there are few that equal him in this respect in other languages. It +is a pleasure to read him, simply for his form of expression, and apart +from the meaning which he conveys in his sentences. It is like the +grace of the Latin races,--like Dante and Chateaubriand; and the +adaptation of his words is so perfect that we never have to think twice +for his meaning. In those editions called the Elzevirs, which are so +much prized by book collectors, the clearness and legibility of the +type result from such a fine proportion of space and line that no other +printer has succeeded in imitating it; and there is something similar +to this in the construction of Hawthorne's sentences. + +He is the romance writer of the English language; and there is no form +of literature which the human race prizes more. How many translations +there have been of "The Vicar of Wakefield," and of "The Sorrows of +Werther"! The latter is not one of Goethe's best, and yet it made him +famous at the age of twenty-eight. The novel deals with what is new and +surprising; the romance with what is old and universal. In "The Vicar +of Wakefield" we have the old story of virtue outwitted by evil, which +is in its turn outwitted by wisdom. There is nothing new in it except +the charming exposition which Goldsmith's genius has given to the +subject. Thackeray ridiculed "The Sorrows of Werther," and in the light +of matured judgment the tale appears ridiculous; but it strikes home to +the heart, because we all learn wisdom through such experiences, of +which young Werther's is an extreme instance. It was only another +example of the close relation that subsists between comedy and tragedy. + +It cannot be questioned that "The Scarlet Letter" ranks above "The +Sorrows of Werther;" nor is it less evident that "The Marble Faun" +falls short of "Wilhelm Meister" and "Don Quixote." [Footnote: See +"Cervantes" in _North American Review_, May, 1905] Hawthorne's +position, therefore, lies between these two--nearer perhaps to +"Werther" than to "Wilhelm Meister." In certain respects he is +surpassed by the great English novelists: Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, +Dickens and Marian Evans; but he in turn surpasses them all in the +perfection and poetic quality of his art. There is much poetry in Scott +and Dickens, a little also in Thackeray and Miss Evans, but Hawthorne's +poetic vein has a more penetrating tone, and appeals more deeply than +Scott's verses. If power and versatility of characterization were to be +the test of imaginative writing, Dickens would push closely on to +Shakespeare; but we do not go to Shakespeare to read about Hamlet or +Falstaff, or for the sake of the story, or even for his wisdom, but for +the _tout ensemble_--to read Shakespeare. Raphael painted a dozen +or more pictures on the same subject, but they are all original, +interesting and valuable, because Raphael painted them. If it were not +for the odd characters and variety of incident in Dickens's novels they +would hardly be worth reading. Hawthorne's _dramatis personæ_ is +not a long one, for his plots do not admit of it, but his characters +are finely drawn, and the fact that they have not become popular types +is rather in their favor. There are Dombeys and Shylocks in plenty, but +who has ever met a Hamlet or a Rosalind in real life? + +A certain English writer promulgated a list of the hundred superior +authors of all times and countries. There were no Americans in his +catalogue, but he admitted that if the number was increased to one +hundred and eighteen Hawthorne and Emerson might be included in it. +Doubtless he had not heard of Webster or Alexander Hamilton, and many +of his countrymen would be inclined to place Longfellow before Emerson. + +I have myself frequently counted over the great writers of all times +and languages, weighing their respective values carefully in my mind, +but I have never been able to discover more than thirty-five authors +who seem to me decidedly superior to Hawthorne, nor above forty others +who might be placed on an equality with him. [Footnote: Appendix C.] +This, of course, is only an individual opinion, and should be accepted +for what it is worth; but there are many ancient writers, like Hesiod, +Xenophon, and Catullus, whose chief value resides in their antiquity, +and a much larger number of modern authors, such as Balzac, Victor +Hugo, Freytag, and Ruskin, who have been over-estimated in their own +time. Petrarch, and the author of "Gil Bias," might be placed on a +level with Hawthorne, but certainly not above him. Those whom he most +closely resembles in style and subject matter are Goldsmith, Manzoni, +and Auerbach. + +Yet Hawthorne is essentially a domestic writer,--a poetizer of the +hearth-stone. Social life is always the proper subject for works of +fiction, and political life should never enter into them, except as a +subordinate element; but there is a border-land between the two, in +which politics and society act and react on each other, and it is from +this field that the great subjects for epic and dramatic poetry have +always been reaped. Hawthorne only knew of this by hearsay. Of the +strenuous conflict that continually goes on in political centres like +London and New York, a struggle for wealth, for honor, and precedence; +of plots and counterplots, of foiled ambition and ruined reputations,-- +with all this Hawthorne had but slight acquaintance. We miss in him the +masculine vigor of Fielding, the humanity of Dickens, and the trenchant +criticism of Thackeray; but he knew that the true poetry of life (at +the present time) was to be found in quiet nooks and in places far off +from the turbulent maelstrom of humanity, and in his own line he +remains unrivalled. + + +PORTRAITS OF HAWTHORNE + +Hawthorne had no more vanity in his nature than is requisite to +preserve a good appearance in public, but he always sat for his +portrait when asked to do so, and this was undoubtedly the most +sensible way. He was first painted by Charles Osgood in 1840, a +portrait which has at least the merit of a fine poetic expression. He +was afterward painted by Thompson, Healy, and Emanuel Leutze, and drawn +in crayon by Rowse and Eastman Johnson. Frances Osborne also painted a +portrait of him from photographs in 1893, an excellent likeness, and +notable especially for its far-off gaze. Of all these, Rowse's portrait +is the finest work of art, for Rowse was a man of genius, but there is +a slight tendency to exaggeration in it, and it does not afford so +clear an idea of Hawthorne as he was, as the Osborne portrait. Healy +was not very successful with Hawthorne, and Miss Lander's bust has no +merit whatever. The following list contains most of the portraits and +photographs of Hawthorne now known to exist, with their respective +ownerships and locations. + +Oil portrait painted by Charles Osgood, in 1840. Owned by Mrs. Richard +C. Manning. + +Crayon portrait drawn by Eastman H. Johnson, in 1846. Owned by Miss +Alice M. Longfellow. + +Oil portrait painted by George P. A. Healy, in 1850. Now in the +possession of Kirk Pierce, Esq. + +Oil portrait by Miss H. Frances Osborne, after a photograph by Silsbee, +Case & Co., Boston. + +Crayon portrait drawn by Samuel W. Rowse, in 1866. Owned by Mrs. Annie +Fields. + +Engraving after the portrait painted in 1850 by Cephas G. Thompson. +Owned by Hon. Henry C. Leach. + +The Grolier Club bronze medallion, made in 1892, by Ringel d'Illzach. +Owned by B. W. Pierson. + +Cabinet photograph, bust, by Elliott & Fry, London. Owned by Mrs. +Richard C. Manning. + +Card photograph, full length, seated, with book in right hand, by Black +& Case, Boston. + +Cabinet photograph, three-quarter length, standing beside a pillar, +copy by Mackintire of the original photograph. + +Card photograph, three-quarter length, seated, from Warren's +Photographic Studio, Boston. + +Card photograph, bust, by Brady, New York, with autographic signature. +Owned by Hon. Henry C. Leach. + +Bust in the Concord (Massachusetts) Public Library, by Miss Louise +Lander. + +Card photograph, bust, from Warren's Photographic Studio, Boston. Owned +by Mrs. Richard C. Manning. + +Oil portrait by Emanuel Leutze, painted in April, 1852. Owned by Julian +Hawthorne. + +Photograph by Mayall, London. The so-called "Motley photograph." + +Two photographs by Brady, full length; one seated, the other standing. + +Photograph showing Hawthorne, Ticknor and Fields standing together. + + + + +Editions of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Books published under his own +Direction + +Fanshawe: A Tale, Boston, 1828. +Twice-Told Tales, Boston, 1837. + Another edition, Boston, 1842. +Peter Parley's Universal History, Boston, 1837. +The Gentle Boy: A Thrice-Told Tale, Boston, 1839. +Grandfather's Chair: A History for Youth, Boston, 1841. +Famous Old People: or Grandfather's Chair II, Boston, 1841. +Liberty Tree: The Last Words of Grandfather's Chair, Boston, 1841. +Biographical Stories for Children, Boston, 1842. +Historical Tales for Youth, Boston, 1842. +The Celestial Railroad, Boston, 1843. +Mosses from an Old Manse, New York, 1846, 1851. +The Scarlet Letter, Boston, 1850. +True Stories from History and Biography, Boston, 1851. +The House of the Seven Gables, Boston, 1852. +A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, Boston, 1851. + Another edition, Boston, 1857. +The Snow-Image and Other Tales, Boston, 1852. + Another edition, Boston, 1857. +The Blithedale Romance, Boston, 1852. +Life of Franklin Pierce, Boston, 1852. +Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys, Boston, 1853. +Transformation, or the Romance of Monte Beni, Smith & Elder, London, 1860. +The Marble Faun, or the Romance of Monte Beni, Boston, 1860. +Our Old Home, Boston, 1863. + +_A complete list of Hawthorne's contributions to American magazines +will be found in the appendix to Conway's "Life of Hawthorne." _ + + +Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Hawthorne [Footnote: Read at the Emerson Club, at +Boston, January 2, 1906] + +In 1892, when I was constructing the volume known as "Sketches from +Concord and Appledore," I said in comparing Emerson with Hawthorne that +one was like _day_, and the other like _night_. I was not aware that four years +earlier M. D. Conway had made a similar statement in his Life of Hawthorne, +which was published in London. Miss Rebecca Manning, Hawthorne's own +cousin, still living at the age of eighty and an admirable old lady, +distinctly confirms my statement, that "wherever Hawthorne went he +carried twilight with him." Emerson, on the contrary, was of a sanguine +temperament and an essentially sunny nature. His writings are full of +good cheer, and the opening of his Divinity School Address is as full of +summer sunshine as the finest July day. It was only necessary to see him +look at the sunshine from his own porch to recognize how it penetrated +into the depths of his nature. + +It would seem consistent with the rational order of things, that +_day_ should be supplemented by _night_, and _night_ again by _day_; +and here we are almost startled by the completeness of our allegory. We +sometimes come across faces in the streets of a large city, which show +by their expression that they are more accustomed to artificial light +than to the light of the sun. Mrs. Emerson was one of these. She never +seemed to be fully herself, until the lamps were lighted. Her pale face +seemed to give forth moonlight, and its habitual expression was much like +that of a Sister of Charity. It was said of her that she was the last +in the house to retire at night, always reading or busying herself with +household affairs, until twelve or one o'clock; but this mode of life +would appear to have been suited to her organization, for in spite of +her colorless look she lived to be over ninety. + +So far I can tread upon firm earth, without drawing upon my +imagination, but in regard to Mrs. Hawthorne I cannot speak with the +same assurance, for I only became acquainted with her after her +husband's health had begun to fail, and the anxiety in her face was +strongly marked; yet I have reason to believe that her temperament was +originally sanguine and optimistic, and that she alternated from +dreamy, pensive moods to bright vivacious ones. She certainly was very +different from her husband. Her sister, Elizabeth Peabody, was the most +sanguine person of her time, and her introduction of the kindergarten +into America was accomplished through her unbounded hopefulness. The +Wayside, where Mrs. Hawthorne lived, has an extended southern exposure. +The house was always full of light, which is not often the case with +New England country houses; and when she lived at Liverpool, where +sunshine is a rare commodity, she became unwell, so that Mr. Hawthorne +was obliged to send her to Madeira in order to avert a dangerous +illness. + +These two estimable ladies were alike in the excellence of their +housekeeping, the purity of their manners, their universal kindliness, +and their devotion to the welfare of their husbands and children. It +was a pleasure to pass them on the road-side; the fare at their tables +was always of the nicest, even if it happened to be frugal; and people +of all classes could have testified to their helpful liberality. In +these respects they might almost have served as models, but otherwise +they were as different as possible. Mrs. Emerson was of a tall, +slender, and somewhat angular figure (like her husband), but she +presided at table with a grace and dignity that quite justified his +favorite epithet of "Queenie." There was even more of the Puritan left +in her than there was in him, and although she encouraged the liberal +movements and tendencies of her time, one always felt in her mental +attitude the inflexibility of the moral law. To her mind there was no +shady border-land between right and wrong, but the two were separated +by a sharply defined line, which was never to be crossed, and she lived +up to this herself, and, in theory at least, she had but little mercy +for sinners. On one occasion I was telling Mr. Emerson of a fraudulent +manufacturing company, which had failed, as it deserved to, and which +was found on investigation to have kept two sets of books, one for +themselves, and another for their creditors. Mrs. Emerson listened to +this narrative with evident impatience, and at the close of it she +exclaimed, "This world has become so wicked that if I were the maker of +it, I should blow it up at once." Emerson himself did not like such +stories; and although he once said that "all deaf children ought to be +put in the water with their faces downward," he was not always willing +to accept human nature for what it really is. + +Mrs. Emerson did not agree with her husband's religious views; neither +did she adopt the transcendental faith, that the idea of God is innate +in the human mind, so that we cannot be dispossessed of it. She +belonged to the conservative branch of the Unitarian Church, which was +represented by Reverend James Freeman Clarke and Doctor Andrew P. +Peabody. The subject was one which was permitted to remain in abeyance +between them, but Mrs. Emerson was naturally suspicious of those +reverend gentlemen who called upon her husband, and this may have been +the reason why he did not encourage the visits of clergymen like Samuel +Johnson, Samuel Longfellow, and Professor Hedge, whom he greatly +respected, and who should have been by good rights his chosen +companions. I suppose all husbands are obliged to make these domestic +compromises. + +Mrs. Emerson had also something of the spirit-militant in her. When +David A. Wasson came to dine at Mr. Emerson's invitation, she said to +him, by way of grace before meat: "I see you have been carrying on a +controversy with Reverend Mr. Sears, of Wayland, and you will excuse me +for expressing my opinion that Mr. Sears had the best of it." But after +sounding this little nourish of trumpets, she was as kindly and +hospitable as any one could desire. She was one of the earliest +recruits to the anti-slavery cause,--not only a volunteer, but a +recruiting officer as well,--and she made this decision entirely of her +own mind, without any special encouragement from her husband or +relatives. At the time of John Brown's execution she wanted to have the +bells tolled in Concord, and urged her husband energetically to see +that it was done. Mrs. Emerson was always thoroughly herself. There +never was the shadow of an affectation upon her; nor more than a shadow +of self-consciousness--very rare among conscientious persons. One of +her fine traits was her fondness for flowers, which she cultivated in +the little garden between her house and the mill-brook, with a loving +assiduity. She is supposed to have inspired Emerson's poem, beginning: + + "O fair and stately maid, whose eyes + Were kindled in the upper skies + At the same torch that lighted mine: + For so I must interpret still + Thy sweet dominion o'er my will, + A sympathy divine." + +There are other references to her in his published writings, which only +those who were personally acquainted with her would recognize. + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Hawthorne belonged to the class of womankind which Shakespeare has +typified in Ophelia, a tender-hearted, affectionate nature, too +sensitive for the rough strains of life, and too innocent to recognize +the guile in others. This was at once her strength and her weakness; +but it was united, as often happens, with a fine artistic nature, and +superior intelligence. Her face and manners both gave the impression of +a wide and elevated culture. One could see that although she lived by +the wayside, she had been accustomed to enter palaces. Her long +residence in England, her Italian experience, her visit to the Court of +Portugal, her enjoyment of fine pictures, poetry, and architecture, the +acquaintance of distinguished men and women in different countries, had +all left their impress upon her, combined in a quiet and lady-like +harmony. Her conversation was cosmopolitan, and though she did not +quite possess the narrative gift of her sister Elizabeth, it was often +exceedingly interesting. + +Hawthorne has been looked upon as the necrologist of the Puritans, and +yet a certain coloring of Puritanism adhered to him to the last. It was +his wife who had entirely escaped from the old New England conventicle. +Severity was at the opposite pole from her moral nature. Tolerant and +charitable to the faults of others, her only fault was the lack of +severity. She believed in the law of love, and when kind words did not +serve her purpose she let matters take what course they would, trusting +that good might fall, "At last far off at last to all." + +I suspect her pathway was by no means a flowery one. Mrs. Emerson's +life had to be as stoical as her husband's, and Mrs. Hawthorne's, +previous to the Liverpool consulate,--the consulship of Hawthorne,--was +even more difficult. No one knew better than she the meaning of that +heroism which each day requires. A writer in the _Atlantic +Monthly_, reviewing Julian Hawthorne's biography of his father, +emphasizes, "the dual selfishness of Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne." Insensate +words! There was no room for selfishness in the lives they led. In a +certain sense they lived almost wholly for one another and for their +children; but Hawthorne himself lived for all time and for all mankind, +and his wife lived through him to the same purpose. The especial form +of their material life was as essential to its spiritual outgrowth as +the rose-bush is to the rose; and it would be a cankered selfishness to +complain of them for it. + + + + +Appendices + +APPENDIX A + + +There is at least one error in the Symmes diary, which is however +explainable, and need not vitiate the whole of it. It has been +ascertained that the drowning of Henry Jackson in Songo River by being +kicked in the mouth by another boy while swimming, took place in 1828, +so that the statement to that effect in the diary, must have been +interpolated. As it happened, however, another Henry Jackson was +drowned in the Songo River, so Mr. Pickard says, more than twenty years +before that, and it is quite possible that young Hawthorne overheard +some talk about that catastrophe, and mistook it for a recent event; +and that Symmes afterwards confounding the two Jacksons and the +difference in time, amended Hawthorne's statement as we now have it. +Mr. Pickard says in a recent letter: + +"This item alone led me to doubt. But I cannot doubt, the more I +reflect upon it, that H. himself had a hand in most, if not all, the +other items. Who but his uncle could have written that inscription? The +negro Symmes could not have composed that--only a man of culture."... +"The sketch of the sail on Sebago Lake surely was written by some one +who was in that party. Symmes _might_ have been there, but he was +a genius deserving the fame of a Chatterton if he really did this. +Three of that party I personally knew--one (Sawyer) was a cousin of my +grandfather. His sleight of hand, his skill with rifle, his being a +'votary of chance,' are traditions in my family." + +This does not differ essentially from the opinion I have already +expressed in Chapter II. F. B. Sanborn, who is one of the best-informed +of living men in regard to Hawthorne, takes a similar view. + + + + +APPENDIX B + + +In February, 1883, a review of "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife" was +published in the _Atlantic Monthly_, evidently written by a person +with no good-will toward the family. Editors ought to beware of such +reviews, for their character is easily recognized, and the effect they +produce often reacts upon the publication that contains them. In the +present instance, the ill-humor of the writer had evidently been +bottled up for many years. + +To place typographical errors to the debit of an author's account--not +very numerous for a work of eight hundred pages--suggests either an +inexperienced or a strongly prejudiced critic. This is what the +_Atlantic_ writer begins with, and he (or she) next proceeds to +complain that the book does not contain a complete bibliography of +Hawthorne's works; although many excellent biographies have been +published without this, and it is quite possible that Hawthorne's son +preferred not to insert it. No notice is taken of the many fine +passages in the book, like the apostrophe upon Hawthorne's marriage, +[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 242,] and that excellent description of the +performances of a trance medium at Florence, but continues in an +ascending climax of fault-finding until he (or she) reaches the passage +from Hawthorne's Roman diary concerning Margaret Fuller. [Footnote: J. +Hawthorne, i. 30-35.] + +If public opinion has any value, this passage concerning Margaret +Fuller's marriage ought not to have been published; but what can +Margaret Fuller's friends and admirers expect? Do they think that a +young American woman can go to a foreign country, and live with a +foreign gentleman, in defiance of the customs of modern society, +without subjecting herself to the severest criticism? It is true that +she married Count d'Ossoli before her child was born, and her friends, +who were certainly an enlightened class, always believed that she acted +throughout from the most honorable motives (my own opinion is, that she +acted in imitation of Goethe), but how can they expect the great mass +of mankind to think so? Hawthorne had a right to his opinion, as well +as Emerson and Channing, and although it was certainly not a very +charitable opinion, we cannot doubt that it was an honest one. In +regard to the marriage tie, Hawthorne was always strict and +conservative. + +This is the climax of the _Atlantic_ critique, and its anti-climax +is an excoriation of Hawthorne's son for neglecting to do equal and +exact justice to James T. Fields. This truly is a grievous accusation. +Fields was Hawthorne's publisher and would seem to have taken a +personal and friendly interest in him besides, but we cannot look on it +as a wholly unselfish interest. It was not like Hillard's, Pierce's, +and Bridge's interest in Hawthorne. If Fields had not been his +publisher, it is not probable that Hawthorne would have made his +acquaintance; and if his son has not enlarged on Fields's good offices +in bringing "The Scarlet Letter" before the public, there is an +excellent reason for it, in the fact that Fields had already done so +for himself in his "Yesterdays with Authors." That Fields's name should +have been omitted in the index to "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife," +may have been an oversight; but, at all events, it is too microscopic a +matter to deserve consideration in a first-class review. + +Are we become such babies, that it is no longer possible for a writer +to tell the plain, ostensible truth concerning human nature, without +having a storm raised about his head for it? George P. Bradford and +Martin F. Tupper are similar instances, and like Boswell have suffered +the penalty which accrues to men of small stature for associating with +giants. + + + + +APPENDIX C + + +The great poets and other writers of all nations whom I conceive to be +superior to Hawthorne, may be found in the following list: Homer, +Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Pindar, Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, +Demosthenes, Theocritus, Plutarch; Horace, Virgil, Cicero, Tacitus; +Dante, Tasso, Petrarch; Cervantes, Calderon, Camoens; Molière, Racine, +Descartes, Voltaire; Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kant; Swedenborg; +Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and perhaps Burns and Byron; +Alexander Hamilton, Napoleon. + +These also may be placed more on an equality with Hawthorne, although +there will of course always be wide differences of opinion on that +point: Hesiod, Herodotus, Menander, Aristophases; Livy, Cæsar, +Lucretius, Juvenal; Ariosto, Macchiavelli, Manzoni, Lope de Vega, +Buthas Pato; Corneille, Pascal, Rousseau; Wieland, Klopstock, Heine, +Auerbach; Spenser, Ben Jonson, Fletcher, Fielding, Pope, Scott, +Wordsworth, Shelley, Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson, Froude; Webster, +Emerson, Wasson. Sappho, Bion, Moschus, and Cleanthes were certainly +poets of a high order, but only some fragments of their poetry have +survived. Gottfried of Strassburg, the Minnesinger, might be included, +and some of the finest English poetry was written by unknown geniuses +of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Ballads like "Chevy Chace" +and the "Child of Elle" deserve a high place in the rank of poetry; and +the German "Reineke Fuchs" is in its way without a rival. There may be +other French, German, and Spanish writers of exceptional excellence +with whom I am unacquainted, but I do not feel that any French or +German novelists of the last century ought to be placed on a level with +Hawthorne--only excepting Auerbach. Victor Hugo is grandiloquent, and +the others all have some serious fault or limitation. I suppose that +not one in ten of Emerson's readers has ever heard of Wasson, but he +was the better prose writer of the two, and little inferior as a poet. +More elevated he could not be, but more profound, just, logical and +humane--that is, more like Hawthorne. Emerson could not have filled his +place on the _Atlantic Monthly_ and the _North American Review_. + + + + +Index + +Index + +Adams, John Quincy +After-dinner speeches +Alcott, A. Bronson +"Ambitious Guest, The," +"Ancestral Footstep, The," +_Antinous_ of the villa Ludovisi +"Arabella," the ship +Arnold, Matthew +"Artist of the Beautiful, The," +Athenæan Society +Atlantic Club +Aurelius, Marcus + +Bacon's, Miss, volume published +Balzac +Bancroft, George +Beethoven +Bennoch, Francis +"Blithedale Romance" +Blodgett's boarding-house +"Bloody Footstep" +"Birth Mark, The," +"Bosom Serpent, The," +Bradford, George P +Brandes, Danish critic +Bridge, Horatio, +Bright, Henry A. +Brook Farm +Brown, John +Browning and Carlyle +Browning, Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett +Browning, Robert +Buchanan, President + +Carlyle and Hawthorne +Castor and Pollux, statues of +"Celestial Railroad, The" +Cenci, Beatrice, portrait of +Channing, Ellery +Channing, William H. +Cilley and Graves duel +Cilley, Jonathan + description of +Clarke, Edward H. +Clarke, Rev. Dr. James F. +"Code of Honor," the +College skepticism +Columbia, statue of +Concord River +Conway, Rev. M. D. +Crab spider, the +Crawford, sculptor +"Critique of Pure Reason, The" +Curtis, George William + +Dallas, George M. +Dante's _Inferno_ +Dickens +"Doctor Grimshawe's Secret" +Dolliver, Dr. +"Dolliver Romance, The" +Donatello's crime +Dwight, John S., musical critic + +Elgin marbles +Eliot, George +Emerson + essays +Emerson, Mrs. R. W. + her figure + religious views +English lakes +"English Note-book" +English scenery +Essex County people +Evans, Marian + +"Fancy's Show Box" +"Fanshawe" +"Faun of Praxiteles" +"Felton, Septimius," +Fielding +Fields, James T +Florentine art +Fourier +Fuller, Margaret + as Zenobia + her marriage + +Gardner, E. A., Prof +Genius, its growth +"Gentle Boy, The," +Ghosts +Gibson, sculptor + his tinted Eves and Venuses +Gladstone, William E., on transcendentalism +Godkin, E. L. +Goethe +Golden Age, A +Goodrich, S. G., editor +"Great Carbuncle, The," +"Great Stone Face, The," +Guilty glimpses at hired models +Gurney, Prof. E. W. + +"Hall of Fantasy, The," +Harris, Dr. William T. +Harvard Law School +Hathorne, Daniel +Hathorne, John + witches' judge + his last will + his gravestone +Hathorne, Joseph +Hathorne, Nathaniel +Hathorne, William + Letter to British Ministry +Hawthorne, Elizabeth +Hawthorne, Julian +Hawthorne, Louisa + her death +Hawthorne, Mrs. Sophia Peabody + becomes engaged to Hawthorne + writes to her mother + encourages her husband + praises her husband + is out of health + goes to Madeira + is presented at court + the original of Hilda + at Concord + her opinions + character and style +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, + his English ancestors + family name + birthplace + his lameness + early poetry + life at Sebago + his first diary + the budding of his genius + fits for college + "Pin Society" + religious instruction + decides on his vocation + has the measles + his life at Bowdoin + outdoor sports + is fined for gambling + graduates at Bowdoin + decides his profession + publishes "Fanshawe" + changes his name + despondency + goes to Lake Champlain + wins his bet with Cilley + commences his diary + his supposed challenge + thanks Longfellow + goes to Berkshire Hills + character of his diary + his engagement + enters Custom House + goes to Brook Farm + his marriage + his true Arcadia + his skating + opinion of Emerson + birth of a daughter + his indolence + style as an author + returns to Robert Manning's house + is appointed Surveyor of the Port + son Julian is born + occupies house on Mall street + is removed from office + publishes "Scarlet Letter" + method of development + sits for his portrait; goes to Lenox + publishes "House of Seven Gables" + birth of his daughter Rose + leaves Lenox for Newton + returns to Concord + writes the "Life of Pierce" + the Liverpool consulate + sails for England + as an office-holder + his life in England + makes a speech + kindness to Delia Bacon + resigns the Consulate + as a law writer + goes to Paris + arrives at Rome + journeys to Florence + goes to the Vatican + on modern sculpture + returns to Rome + visits Geneva + summer at Redcar + publishes the "Marble Faun + Hawthorne the famous + begins to dislike writing + returns to Concord + method of writing + patriotism + proposes to arm negroes + preparatory sketches + sojourns at Beverly Farms + last entry in his journal + dedicates book to President Pierce + at home + personal appearance + seriously ill + Hawthorne's philosophy + his death + his funeral + religious convictions + his position in literature +Hawthorne, Rose, her birth + her memoirs +Hawthorne's mother + her character + her death +Hawthorne, Una, her birth + severe illness of +Hilda, character of + her tower +Hillard, George S. +Hoar, Miss Elizabeth +Holiday epauletes +Holmes, Oliver Wendell +Hosmer, Harriet +Houghton, Lord +"House of the Seven Gables, The" +Howe, Dr. Samuel G. +Hunt, suicide of Miss + +Italian Note-book + +Jackson, Andrew +James, Henry, Jr. +James, Henry, Sr. +Jameson, Mrs. Anna +Jerrold, Douglas + +Kansas-Nebraska Bill +Kant, Immanuel +Kemble, Frances +Kitridge, Doctor + +"Lady Eleanor's Mantle" +_Laocoön_ +Lathrop, George P. +Leamington +Lincoln, President +Liverpool Consulate +Longfellow, Henry W. + reviews Hawthorne +Loring, Frederick W. +Loring, Dr. George B. +Lowell, James Russell + +Mann, Horace +Mann, Mrs. Horace +Manning family +Manning, Rebecca +Manning, Richard +Manning, Robert +"Marble Faun, The," English reviews of + analysis of + its original +McClellan, General George B. +McMichael, Morton +Melville, Hermann +Mexican War +Michel Angelo + his _Last Judgment and Moses_ +"Miroir, Monsieur du" +"Mosses from an Old Manse" +Motley's opinions +"Mrs. Bullfrog" + +Niagara Falls, visit to +_North American Review_ +Nurse, Rebecca, a witch + +Offensive partisanship +"Old Manse," the +"Ontario Steamboat, The" +O'Sullivan, an editor +"Our Old Home" + +Parker, Theodore +Peabody, Elizabeth +Peabody, Sophia Amelia +Philadelphia Hock Club +Pickard, Samuel T. +Pierce, Franklin + elected Senator + goes to the war + nominated for President + his father + various +Pike, William B. +Poetic mind, the +Politicians, opinion of +Portraits of Hawthorne by Osgood, Healy, Rowse, and + others +Positivists +Powers, Hiram + his _America_ +Prescott, George L +Prince of Wales +Pyncheon, Clifford + +Quakers, persecution of + +Raphael's _Transfiguration_ +"Rappacini's Daughter" +Reform Club of London +Ripley, George +Rock Ferry +Roman Carnival +Runnel, Mary, sweetheart of Daniel Hathorne +Ruskin + +Sailors maltreated +Salem architecture +Salem, situation of +Salem society +Salem's sea-captains +Sanborn, Frank B., attempt to kidnap +"Scarlet Letter, The," +Schönbach, A. E., German critic +"Select Party, The," +Shakespeare, authorship of + Epitaph +Shaw, Chief Justice +Shelley +Sheridan's Ride +"Sights from a Steeple" +Silsbee, Edward +Sistine Chapel +Skepticism of evil +Slavery Question +"Snow Image" +Spartan discipline +Story, William W. +St. Petersburg _Venus_ +Sumner and Motley +Sumner, Charles +Swartwout's defalcation +Symms, William, a mulatto + +"Tanglewood Tales" +Taylor, President +Thoreau + of marriage +Ticknor, W. D., death of +Tituba, the Aztec +Tragedy, character of +Trance medium, a +Transcendentalism + essence of +Tupper, Martin Farquhar +Turner, J. M. W. +"Twice Told Tales" + +"Unpardonable Sin, The," +Upham, the historian + +Vanity of Women +Vasari +_Venus dé Medici_ +"Vicar of Wakefield" +Victor Hugo +Villa Manteüto +"Virtuoso's Collection, The," +"Vision at the Fountain, The," + +Ward's Tavern +Warwick Castle +Wasson, David A +Waters, Henry F., researches of +Wayside, The +Webster, Daniel +West Roxbury commune +Whittier, the poet +Wig Castle in Wigton +Witchcraft persecution +Wood, Warrington +Worcester, Doctor, the lexicographer + +"Young Goodman Brown" + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life and Genius of Nathaniel +Hawthorne, by Frank Preston Stearns + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE/GENIUS NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE *** + +This file should be named 8lgnh10.txt or 8lgnh10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8lgnh11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8lgnh10a.txt + +This eBook was produced by Michelle Shephard, Eric Eldred, +Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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