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LIFE
OF
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
BY
35-829
MONCURE Danil
CONWAY
WAY
1890
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE.
NEW YORK: 3 EAST 14TH STREET,
AND MELBOURNE.
Ma
·.·
ì
359
2.
12-2-14
orint
PREFACE .
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
New England Puritanism; Hawthorne's ancestors; birth at
Salem, July 4, 1804; early days and traits of character;
removal to Raymond (Maine); returns to Salem to school;
attempts journalism as a pastime; early reading in litera-
ture; doubts as to the choice of a profession; goes to
Bowdoin College, 1821; friends, life, and scrapes there
name
·
CHAPTER II.
Graduates, and returns to Salem, 1825; his own account of
his lonely life at Salem from 1825 to 1838; his sister-in-
law's account of this period, and of his literary career to
the publication of "The Scarlet Letter"; "Fanshawe,"
his earliest romance; his objection to enter any profession,
especially the ministry; the w (Hawthorne) in the family
CHAPTER III.
Magazine contributions of 1830-38; becomes editor of The
American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Know-
ledge, 1836; specimens of his contributions to this maga-
zine ; writes "Peter Parley's Universal History";
favourable notice of his stories by the London Athenæum,
1835; expresses, in a letter to Longfellow, his dissatis-
faction with his long seclusion at Salem, 1838.
PAGE
9
13.
28
42
6
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
Hawthorne's susceptibility to the influence of beauty; deceived
by a coquette, he challenges a friend, but the matter is ex-
plained; far-reaching and unfortunate results of this
challenge; his four years' engagement to Sophia Amelia
Peabody, 1838-42 .
CHAPTER VI.
"Grandfather's Chair" (1840); "Twice-told Tales"; Haw-
thorne joins Brook Farm Community, 1841; his friends
and life there; finding he is out of place at Brook Farm,
he leaves, 1842; Brook Farm and "The Blithedale
Romance"; marries Sophia Peabody, July 9, 1842 .
CHAPTER V.
"A Virtuoso's Collection," based on the idea of the Wandering
Jew; William Austin's story of "Peter Rugg, the Missing
Man"; Hawthorne's "Wakefield" a rationalization of
this; his originality; his early works free from the mysti-
cism of his later writings; influence of transcendentalism ;
and of "The Pilgrim's Progress"; "The Celestial
Railroad" (1843); his love of classical legends and fairy
tales; the first series of "Twice-told Tales" published,
1837; finds literature does not pay; becomes weigher and
gauger at Boston Custom House, 1839; his two years there 67
CHAPTER VII.
Hawthorne and his wife; they settle at the Old Manse, Con-
cord; their slender means; Longfellow's "Evangeline "
the theme borrowed from Hawthorne, who had intended to
use it; the Old Manse; life there; his friends at Concord;
his relations with Emerson; their intercourse at Concord;
Hawthorne's first child (Una) born, 1844; his feelings on
the occasion; he is appointed Surveyor of Customs at
Salem, 1846
•
•
PAGE
CHAPTER VIII.
Salem; Hawthorne as a Customs' officer; his personal charac-
58
83
91
CONTENTS.
7
CHAPTER IX.
"The Snow Image," "The Great Stone Face," and other tales
written in 1848; "The Scarlet Letter," 1850; its success;
his treatment of Salem and its people in "The Scarlet
Letter"; its merits and its morality; a pathetic theme
and hardly a pathetic passage in the book
teristics; unpopularity at Salem; his son Julian born,
1846; his home life at Salem; the unpleasantness of his
position at the Custom House and in Salem generally;
on a change of Government the political parties in Salem
unite to oust him; his correspondence on the subject;
he quits the Custom House, 1849; a Salemite's explanation
of Salem's apparent ill-treatment of Hawthorne ; unex-
pected financial help in his difficulties; a testimonial from
his friends-correspondence connected therewith
. 105
•
PAGE
CHAPTER XI.
Hawthorne's "campaign biography" of Franklin Pierce; the
circumstances in which the work was undertaken; Pierce's
character; Hawthorne as a defender of slavery; he is
appointed to the Liverpool consulate, 1853; the value of
the consulate; the causes of his unfavourable impressions of
England; his avoidance of English authors; a despatch
concerning the seamen on American ships; his association
with Delia Bacon, the anti-Shakespearean apostle; stays
in London on his resignation of the consulate in 1857
•
CHAPTER X.
Removal to and life at Lenox, Mass., 1850; "The House of
the Seven Gables," 1851; its characters and chief merits;
its success; "A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls” (1851),
and "Tanglewood Tales" (1853); their method and merits;
birth of his daughter Rose, 1851; his still straitened cir-
cumstances-views on life insurance; removes to West
Newton and there writes "The Blithedale Romance,"
1851; purchases, and moves to, "Wayside," Concord, 1852;
death of his sister Louisa .
. 132
121
143
8
CONTENTS.
(C
:
CHAPTER XII.
The Hawthornes visit Rome, 1858-9; friends there; Rome in-
spires "Transformation "; its merits and defects; why the
work was necessarily inconclusive; the characters more
American than Italian; Una Hawthorne the original of
the Hilda of "Transformation"; her character; she falls
ill; her oratory in the Villa Montauto at Florence; her
illness leaves her a religious enthusiast; her later troubles.
and death (1877); Hawthorne's own spiritual development
typified in the character of Hilda; the gradual awakening
of his religious sense under the influence of Rome; old
Roman legends replaced by those of "Transformation ";
his view of the lessons taught by Rome; his impressions
of Rome; Hawthorne as an art critic; the period at which
he began to be affected by pictures of the Virgin; a visit
to Florence; experiences of and views on spiritualism;
his feeling for Rome; Rome's ignorance of him.
•
CHAPTER XIII.
The Hawthornes return to England, 1859; Henry Bright's
Song of Consul. Hawthorne;" "Transformation" pub-
lished; the success of his second stay in England; it came
too late to remove old impressions; his final longing for
England.
• 192
PAGE.
•
""
CHAPTER XIV.
The Hawthornes return to America, 1860; Hawthorne's
appearance at this time; settles at "Wayside," Concord,
again; his many plans of work; his absorption in his
work; his loyalty in friendship; prevented by the war
from working, he visits the various points of interest;
writes an article on the subject; his political position and
views; he tries to begin writing again, but fails; com-
mences "The Dolliver Romance"; illness of Una and
himself; works on at "Septimius Felton and "The
Dolliver Romance"; growing worse, he gives up work;
his death, May 18, 1864; and burial; his wife's resignation 198
INDEX
216
•
160.
PREFACE.
THE
HERE are few authors with whom the world is
more intimate than the one supposed to have
most shunned its intimacy. But Nathaniel Hawthorne,
though his peculiar sensibility shrank from men, loved
mankind, and described his earliest writings as "attempts.
to open an intercourse with the world.” In his works he
has occasionally taken the world into his confidence in
matters which most men of the world would veil-as in
the opening chapter of "The Scarlet Letter." Like his
own Hilda, in "Transformation," he was spiritually
compelled to descend from his aërial hermitage, and
unburden his heart in the world's confessional. And
as, when Hilda had disappeared, a duplicate key ad-
mitted lover and contadina alike to her virginal chamber,
Hawthorne's journals and letters have made a saloon of
his retreat, and brought a flare of daylight into the
twilight seclusion, where he sat at his beautiful task and
fed his sacred lamp. But this prosaic light becomes
tender and mystical as it reveals the infusion of his
heart's blood in the pigments so refined into finished
L
10
PREFACE.
1
pictures. And it is a large compensation for the fewness.
of these that the walls of his hermitage, as opened by
his "American Note Books," are found hung with many
sketches, studies, fancies, visions, each with its charm,
and all disclosing something of the secret of his art∙
Still, the pathos of Hawthorne's life is deepened by
these revelations. For these multitudinous unmatured
blossoms, with their richness as of flowers blooming on
battle-fields, tell a tale of life-blood wasted, the more
tragical beside the fruits reporting victories won. Such
victories !
Hawthorne has had exceptionally competent bio-
graphers and editors of his papers. No one could have
edited his "Note Books " with such full information
as his widow, though delicacy may have required
suppression of some passages relating to herself. Her
sister, Elizabeth Peabody, is a cyclopædia of reminis-
cences: I remember hearing Emerson say that her
journals and correspondence would probably be a com-
plete literary and philosophical history of New England
during her long life. She was a playmate of Hawthorne
in his childhood, and his intimate friend through life.
Her recollections have assisted Hawthorne's son, Julian,
and George Parsons Lathrop (who married Hawthorne's
daughter Rose), both of whom were peculiarly fitted,
by personal knowledge and affection, as well as by
literary ability, to portray the man and the author. Mr.
Lathrop's "Study of Hawthorne" shows us much of
the relation between the private life of Hawthorne and
his works. Julian Hawthorne's "Nathaniel Hawthorne
and his Wife" reveals the romance of his father's career,
1
PREFACE.
11
career
which is illustrated with interesting reminiscences and
anecdotes. Had Julian's remarkable story been before
him, Henry James, jun., could hardly have introduced
his "Hawthorne" with the statement that his
was probably as tranquil and uneventful a one as ever
fell to the lot of a man of letters." Imperfections in
the record supplied him have not, however, prevented
the younger novelist (Henry James) from giving us a
striking and suggestive monograph on his great fore-
runner. With these, and Field's "Yesterdays," the
admirable “Analytical Index" of Hawthorne's works
(Houghton), and Page's "Memoir" (London, 1872), it
might appear that the life of Hawthorne has been suffi-
ciently treated. But the above-named publications have
not exhausted the subject; in some respects they have
excited an unsatisfied interest. A series of letters by
Hawthorne, owned by Dr. John S. H. Fogg, of Boston,
which appeared in the Athenæum (London, August 10
and 17, 1889), have brought out an important episode.
in the author's history. In preparing this work I found
much valuable material that has never appeared. Of
this, by the bounty of its several owners, I have availed
myself, so far as it is due or useful to the public.¹ It is
My chief debt is to Mr. G. M. Williamson (Brooklyn, N.Y.),
a Hawthorne enthusiast; my grateful acknowledgments are due
also to Messrs. Ferdinand J. Dreer and Simon Gratz, of Phila-
delphia; to Mr. Walter R. Benjamin, of New York. Nor can I
forbear expressing thanks for the information I have received from
Miss Elizabeth Peabody, Dr. Loring, Mrs. Hiram Powers, and her
son, Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Story, Mr. Garnett of the British Museum,
and Mr. Wentworth Higginson of Cambridge, Mass. It need hardly
be said that for the main facts of Hawthorne's life I largely depend
on his son Julian's biography, and G. P. Lathrop's "Study."
12
PREFACE.
·
possible that some of this new matter has been purposely
omitted by Hawthorne's biographers from motives akin
to those which led Mrs. Hawthorne to omit passages in
the "Note Books" relating to herself. There are aspects
of this author's career which, however honourable to
himself, are not so honourable to his time and country,
and which a member of his household might naturally
be too proud to set forth in relief. At any rate the
last word concerning Hawthorne has not been said; and
though the present writer cannot hope to say that word,
he is not hopeless of contributing something that may
enhance the interest in Hawthorne's career, and suggest
its larger significance.
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
CHAPTER I.
IT
may
T has been said that every particle of the soil of
New England may be traced to the rock from which
it was pulverised. The intellectual soil may be certainly
traced to the flinty Puritanism which preceded it. The
combination of religious and secular elements in the
Puritan rock made a substance too hard to be symbo-
lised even by the granite, which was sooner made levi-
gable. In the early New England commonwealth all
laws were consecrated, some of the worst being taken
seriously after they had become obsolete in England.
The first protest against English interference with the
internal affairs of New England, was not in the interest
of civil liberty, but the reverse. The theocracy had
already too much independence, and had not Charles II.
interfered, Quakers and "Witches " might have suffered
many a year longer.
Hawthorne had not, like the majority of New England
authors, a clerical ancestry; his American forefathers
14
LIFE OF
1
were active in public and political affairs. The founder of
the family in America, William Hathorne (so spelt, but
pronounced nearly as afterwards written) emigrated from
Wiltshire in 1630. (Arms: Azure, a lion's head erased,
between three fleurs-de-lis.) William was long a deputy
in his Colonial Assembly, for some time its Speaker; he
turned soldier when Indians were to be fought; he was
a magistrate, and, though he caused Quakers to be
scourged, is to be credited with the execution of John
Flint for killing a red man. It was this William
Hathorne to whom is credited the protest against
English interference already referred to. The document
(1666) printed by Julian Hawthorne (i. 13) would have
been creditable to its writer's valour had he not signed
a feigned name, and it sounds a note of independence;
but the objects for which irresponsibility to royal com-
missioners in England is demanded are suspicious.
They dread any interference with the government they
have built up chiefly because, if the wall be pulled
down, "the wild boar will soon destroy the Lord's
vineyard," there being "many sectaries and profane
persons" longing for such opportunity. The liberty to
deal with Friends, and other innocent victims, as wild
boars in the Lord's vineyard was, unfortunately for
William Hathorne's descendants, for a time continued.
William's magisterial successor was his son John. Of
this Judge Hathorne's seventy-seven years no good
action has been able to survive under the deep shadow
of his fanatical fame. The Judge, who died in 1717,
probably did not live late enough to realize that where
he saw devils in disguise, posterity would see innocent.
HAW THORNE.
15
human beings. He evidently did not consider humanity
as involved in witch cases, though there is no indication
of his reception of evidence inadequate for a magistrate
administering, as contemporary law, "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live." Of one accused woman brought
before him, the husband wrote: "She was forced to
stand with her arms stretched out. I requested that I
might hold one of her hands, but it was declined me;
then she desired me to wipe the tears from her eyes,
which I did; then she desired that she might lean
herself on me, saying she should faint. Justice Ha-
thorne replied she had strength enough to torture these
persons, and she should have strength enough to stand.
I repeating something against their cruel proceedings,
they commanded me to be silent, or else I should be
turned out of the room." There are other ugly records
of such trials, but it is probably to this one that the
traditional "curse"
" is traceable-the husband having
exclaimed that God would avenge his wife's sufferings.
Of his first American ancestor, William-also noto-
rious for his remorselessness towards some women, "Anne
Coleman and her four friends," albeit before his magis-
tracy he had opposed persecution of Quakers-Haw-
thorne paints an impressive portrait. Of both earlier
ancestors he writes:
"I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby
take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that
any curse incurred by them—as I have heard, and as
the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for
many a long year back, would argue to exist-may be
now and henceforth removed."
16
LIFE OF
It is satisfactory to find now, in the sixth generation of
American Hawthornes, a representative of the family who
can smile at the traditional doom; but it needs no super-
stition to recognize how such curses, born of fearful facts,
tend to fulfil themselves. Hawthorne's language just
quoted, from his introduction to "The Scarlet Letter,"
suggests that in his calamitous winter of 1849 he may
have given some credit to the superstition. A family
legend, however, demands a certain loyalty in its heirs-
especially if præternatural: only distinguished houses.
are marked out for even retributive attentions from
supernal powers. The legendary curse on the Hathornes,
and the mysterious disappearance of the titles of
Hawthorne's maternal relatives to the land on which
the town of Raymond, Maine, now stands, are combined
and built into a romantic family monument in "The
House of the Seven Gables."
The third son of Judge John Hathorne, "Farmer
Joseph," lived and died peacefully at Salem; his,
Joseph's, fifth son, "Bold Daniel," became a priva-
teersman in the War of Independence; and in the
beginning of that war, 1775, was born Daniel's third
son, Nathaniel, the father of our author.
Hawthorne's father was a sea-captain; he was a silent,
reserved, stern, melancholy man; he carried books to
sea; he was fond of children. He died of yellow fever at
Surinam, 1808. His widow-Elizabeth Clarke Manning,
descendant of Richard Manning, of Dartmouth, England
was left with two daughters and one son.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author, was born at Salem,
HAWTHORNE.
17
:
Massachusetts, on the twenty-eighth anniversary of
American independence-July 4, 1804. He could
thus have no recollection of his father, whose silence,
vein of melancholy, love of reading, and personal
appearance, he inherited. When Hawthorne was Sur-
veyor of Customs at Salem a sailor stopped him to
ask if he were not a relative of Captain Hathorne, whom
this sailor had known forty years before. The only
external heritage which young Hawthorne received at
his father's death was a darkened home. His mother,
beautiful, ascetic, in the human rather than the religious
way, took the veil of widowhood, and it was never laid
aside. Her children played with their mates at school
and out of doors, but they saw no society at home. In
a little tale, "The Wives of the Dead," Hawthorne
describes the sorrow of a young wife whose husband had
died in a distant region: "Her face was turned partly
inward to the pillow, and had been hidden there to weep;
but a look of motionless contentment was now visible
upon it, as if her heart, like a deep lake, had grown calm
because its dead had sunk down so far within it." Haw-
thorne always preserved the greatest tenderness for his
mother, and her morbid anxieties were an effectual re-
straint upon his adventurous spirit.
In 1871 and 1873 there appeared in the Portland
(Maine) Transcript what purported to be extracts from
a journal kept by Hawthorne from his twelfth year.
Although discredited by Julian Hawthorne, I incline to
agree with Mr. Lathrop's critical argument in favour of
their genuineness. They are not, indeed, of great
biographical value, but they show early thoughtfulness,
1
2
18
LIFE OF
and some precocity in writing, as well as in observation.
One extract will suffice to indicate these, as well as what
has been said concerning his relation to his mother :
"A young man named Henry Jackson, jun., was
drowned two days ago, up Crooked River. He and
one of his friends were trying which could swim the
faster. Jackson was behind but gaining; his friend
kicked at him in fun, thinking to hit his shoulder and
push him back, but missed, and hit his chin, which
caused him to take in water and strangle, and before his
friend could help or get help, poor Jackson was (Elder
Leach says) beyond the reach of mercy. I read one of
the Psalms to my mother this morning, and it plainly
declares twenty-six times that 'God's mercy endureth for
ever.' I never saw Henry Jackson; he was a young
man just married. Mother is sad, says that she shall not
consent to my swimming any more in the mill-pond with
the boys, fearing that in sport my mouth might get
kicked open, and then sorrow for a dead son be added
to that for a dead father, which she says would break her
heart. I love to swim, but I shall not disobey my
mother."
Julian Hawthorne's biography contains (i. 98) an
interesting letter from his aunt Elizabeth Hawthorne,
written to Hawthorne's daughter Una, in the year after
his death:
"Your father was born in 1804, on the 4th of July, in the chamber
over the little parlour in the house in Union Street, which then
belonged to my grandmother Hathorne, who lived in one part of it.
There we lived until 1808, when my father died, at Surinam. I
remember that one morning my mother called my brother into her
1
HAWTHORNE.
19
•
room, next to the one where we slept, and told him that his father
was dead. He left very little property, and my grandfather Man-
ning took us home. All through our childhood we were indulged
in all convenient ways, and were under very little control except
that of circumstances. There were aunts and uncles, and they were
all as fond of your father and as careful of his welfare as if he had
been their own child. He was beautiful and bright, and perhaps
his training was as good as any other could have been. We were
the victims of no educational pedantry. We always had plenty of
books, and our minds and sensibilities were not unduly stimulated.
Your father was fond of animals, especially kittens. . . . He
never wanted money, except to spend; and once, in the country,
where there were no shops, he refused to take some that was offered
him, because he could not spend it immediately. Another time, old
Mr. Forrester offered him a five-dollar bill, which he also refused;
which was uncivil, for Mr. Forrester always noticed him very kindly
when he met him. At Raymond, in Maine, my grandfather owned
a great deal of wild land. Part of the time we were at a farmhouse
belonging to the family, as boarders, for there was a tenant on the
farm; at other times we stayed at our uncle's. It was close to the
great Sebago Lake, now a well-known place. We enjoyed it
exceedingly, especially your father and I. At the time our father
died, Uncle Manning had assumed the entire charge of my brother's
education, sending him to the best schools and colleges. It was
much more expensive than it would be to do the same things now,
because the public schools were not good then, and of course he
never went to them. Your father was lame a long time from an
injury received while playing bat-and-ball.
His foot pined away
and was considerably smaller than the other. He had every doctor
that could be heard of; among the rest your grandfather Peabody.
But it was Dr. Time' who at last cured him. I remember he used
to lie upon the floor and read, and that he went upon two crutches.
Everybody thought that, if he lived, he would be always lame. Mr.
Joseph E. Worcester, the author of the Dictionary, who at one time
taught a school in Salem, to which your father went, was very kind
to him; he came every evening to hear him repeat his lessons.
was during this long lameness that he acquired his habit of constant
reading.
It
20
LIFE OF
J
Robert Manning, the uncle who paid for Hawthorne's
education, built near Raymond, on Sebago Lake, a
dwelling "so ambitious," says Mr. Lathrop, "that it
gained the title of 'Manning's Folly."" It has since.
been a tabernacle, and is now a mossy ruin, said to be
haunted; but it was there, and in that region before it
was built, that the happiest years of Hawthorne's boy-
hood were passed. In October, 1818, the widow Haw-
thorne finally removed thither from Salem. Hawthorne
loved to dwell there again in memory. Mr. James T.
Fields, in his "Yesterdays with Authors," reports Haw-
thorne's talk about those years, near the close of life.
I lived in Maine,' he said, 'like a bird of the air, so
perfect was the freedom I enjoyed. But it was there I
got my cursed habits of solitude.' During the moonlight
nights of winter he would skate until midnight all alone
upon Sebago Lake, with the deep shadows of the icy
hills on either hand. When he found himself far away
from his home and weary with the exertion of skating,.
he would sometimes take refuge in a log cabin where half
a tree would be burning on the broad hearth. He would
sit in the ample chimney and look at the stars through
the great aperture through which the flames went roaring
up. Ah,' he said, 'how well I recall the summer days.
when, with my gun, I roamed at will through the woods
of Maine. How sad middle life looks to people of
erratic temperaments! Everything is beautiful in youth,
for all things are allowed to it then.””
C
In 1853, Hawthorne wrote to R. H. Stoddard, who
was preparing a sketch of him for The National Review,
that "one of the peculiarities" of his boyhood was a.
CC
HAWTHORNE.
21
grievous disinclination to go to school." Of the life at
Sebago Lake he says:
"Here I ran quite wild, and would, I doubt not, have
willingly run wild till this time, fishing all day long, or
shooting with an old fowling-piece; but reading a good
deal, too, on the rainy days, especially in Shakespeare
and 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' and any poetry or light
books within my reach. Those were delightful days;
for that part of the country was wild then, with only
scattered clearings, and nine-tenths of it primeval woods.
But by and by my good mother began to think it was
necessary for her boy to do something else; so I was
sent back to Salem, where a private instructor fitted me
for college."
This return to Salem was in the autumn of 1818, and
the boy was homesick for Raymond, where the rest of
the family remained. Julian Hawthorne publishes
(i. 105) the following characteristic letter :
“SALEM, Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1819.
"DEAR SISTER,-We are all well, and hope you are the same.
I
do not know what to do with myself here. I shall never be con-
tented here, I am sure. I now go to a five-dollar school-I, that
have been to a ten-dollar one. O Lucifer, son of the morning,
how art thou fallen!' I wish I was but in Raymond, and I should
be happy. But ''twas light that ne'er shall shine again on life's
dull stream.' I have read Waverley,' 'The Mysteries of Udolpho,'
'The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom,' 'Roderick Random,'
and the first volume of 'The Arabian Nights.'
Oh, earthly pomp is but a dream,
And like a meteor's short-lived gleam;
And all the sons of glory soon
Will rest beneath the mould'ring stone.
22
LIFE OF
And Genius is a star whose light
Is soon to sink in endless night,
And heavenly beauty's angel form
Will bend like flower in winter's storim.
1.
Though those are my rhymes, yet they are not exactly my
thoughts. I am full of scraps of poetry; can't keep it out of my
brain. Tell Ebe she's not the only one of the family whose works have
appeared in the papers. The knowledge I have of your honor and
good sense, Louisa, gives me full confidence that you will not show
this letter to anybody. You may to mother, though. My respects
to Mr. and Mrs. Howe.
“I remain, your humble servant and affectionate brother,
"N. H."
The message to Ebe-his childish appellation of his
sister Elizabeth, which adhered to her-suggests that he
may have been experimenting with the Salem paper. In
the following year he beguiled his loneliness by printing
with his pen a weekly Spectator, of which Mr. Lathrop
gives (p. 101) specimens showing his boyish humour.
An advertisement says: "Employment will be given to
any number of indigent Poets and Authors at this office.”
In an essay “On Industry," he says: "It has somewhere
been remarked that an author does not write the worse
for knowing little or nothing of his subject. We hope
the truth of this saying will be manifest in the present
article. With the benefits of Industry we are not per-
sonally acquainted." The first issue of the Spectator is
dated August 21, 1820; the last (September 18, 1820)
contained these lines:
Days of my youth, ye fleet away,
As fades the bright sun's cheering ray,
!
HAWTHORNE.
23.
And scarce my infant hours are gone
Ere manhood's troubled step comes on.
My infant hours return no more,
And all their happiness is o'er :
The stormy sea of life appears,
A scene of tumult and of tears.
The journalistic pastime was given up on the entrance
upon serious work. His uncle William Manning em-
ployed Hawthorne as secretary, and, with preparations
for college, his hands were full. In October, 1820, he
writes to his sister (Lathrop, p. 108):
"I am very angry with you for not sending me some of your
poetry. You will not see one line of mine until you return the
confidence which I have placed in you. I have bought the 'Lord
of the Isles,' and intend either to send or to bring it to you. I like
it as well as any of Scott's other poems. I have read Hogg's
'Tales,'' Caleb Williams,''St. Leon,' and Mandeville.' I admire
Godwin's novels, and intend to read them all. I shall read The
Abbot' by the author of. 'Waverley,' as soon as I can hire it. I
have read all Scott's novels except that. I wish I had not, that I
might have the pleasure of reading them again. Next to these I
like Caleb Williams.' I have almost given up writing poetry.
No man can be a Poet and a book-keeper at the same time. I do
find this place most 'dismal,' and have taken to chewing tobacco
with all my might, which, I think, raises my spirits. Say nothing
of it in your letters, nor of the Lord of the Isles.'
I do not
think I shall ever go to college. I can scarcely bear the thought
of living upon Uncle Robert for four years longer.
should be to be able to say, 'I am Lord of myself!' You may cut
off this part of my letter, and show the other to Uncle Richard.
Do write me some letters in skimmed milk. I must conclude, as I
am in a ‘monstrous hurry!
How happy I
In a letter to his mother, March 13, 1821, he writes:
"I don't read so much now as I did, because I am more taken.
>
•
•
•
:
t
A
24
LIFE OF
༣
up in studying. 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 con-
cluded what profession I shall have. The being a minister is of
course out of the question. I should 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 inferum,' which, being
interpreted, is 'to the realms below.' Oh that I was rich enough
to live without any 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.
How proud you
would be to see my works praised by the reviewers, as equal to the
proudest productions of the scribbling sons of John Bull. But
authors are always poor devils, and therefore Satan may take them.
I am in the same predicament as the honest gentleman in 'Espriella's
Letters,'
"I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here,
A-musing in my mind what garment I shall wear.
Hawthorne was prepared by a Salem lawyer, Benjamin
Oliver, for Bowdoin College (Brunswick, Maine), which
he entered in 1821. He had the good fortune to be a
Freshman with Longfellow, his friendship with whom
continued through life. Another classmate was Jonathan
Cilley, afterwards a member of Congress. Franklin
Pierce, who became President of the United States, was
then a Sophomore in the College. Another college-
mate was Horatio Bridge (U.S.N.), to whom, dedicating
?
HAWTHORNE.
25
;
"The Snow Image," Hawthorne says, "If anybody is
responsible for my being at this day an author, it is
yourself."
"I was an idle student," wrote Hawthorne to Stoddard,
"negligent of College rules and the Procrustean details
of academic life, rather choosing to nurse my own fancies
than to dig Greek roots and be numbered among the
learned Thebans." The following ominous letter-for
which I am indebted to Mr. G. M. Williamson—points
the confession just quoted:
"BOWDOIN COLL., BRUNSWICK, May 31, 1822.
"MY DEAR FRIEND, AS I intend that you shall have no cause
of complaint for my neglect this term, I take this early opportunity
of writing to you. There is no news here, except that all the Card-
Players have been found out. We have all been called before the
Government, two have been suspended, and several more, myself
among the number, have been fined. The President has written to all
the parents of those who were found out, and to my mother among
the rest. If Uncle R, hears of it he will probably take me
away from College. I noticed in the paper that No. 16885 had
drawn a prize of 1000. Is not that one of your tickets? If it is,
I congratulate you upon your good fortune, and only wish it had
been 100,000.
I have been much more steady this term, than I was last, as I
have not drank any kind of spirit, nor played cards, for the offence
for which I was fined was committed last term. The reason of my
good conduct is that I am very much afraid of being suspended if
I continue any longer in my old courses.
"I hope you will write to me soon and tell me all about your
prize. I must conclude my letter as it is nearly recitation time,
and it is probable that you will not be able to read half that I have
written.
"I remain, your friend,
"N. H."
26
LIFE OF
+
The name of the friend to whom the above letter was
written does not appear. In a letter of the previous day,
to his mother, he says: "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 honour 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 costs fifty cents. I have not played at all this
term. I have not drank any spirits or wine this term,
and shall not till the last week."
The College President (William Allen), in his letter to
Mrs. Hawthorne, mentions that the offence, for which
her son had been fined fifty cents, was not recent, and
adds: "Perhaps he might not have gamed, were it not
for the influence of a student whom we have dismissed
from College." This appears to have been the only
thing in the affair that excited any feeling in Hawthorne.
“I have a great mind," he writes to his sister, "to com-
mence playing again, merely to show him that I scorn to
be seduced by another into anything wrong." In the
same letter he says: "Ever since my misfortune I have
been as steady as a sign-post, and as sober as a deacon,
have been in no 'blows' this term, nor drank any kind
of wine or strong drink.' So that your comparison of
me to the 'prodigious son' will hold good in nothing,
except that I shall probably return penniless, for I have
had no money this six weeks." It is plain that the faults
HAWTHORNE.
27
2
of the Hawthorne household were not of the puritanical
kind.
1
Hawthorne paid fines regularly rather than make
declamations. He excelled only in Latin and in com-
position. The best thing Bowdoin College did for him
was to give him three or four friends.
;
¿
•
CHAPTER II.
H
AWTHORNE graduated in 1825, just after reach-
ing his majority. He returned to Salem, and
entombed himself, in the "haunted chamber” of the
old family mansion, for the next three years. Of any
incident in these hermit years no record remains in his
journals, nor has any letter written during that time
appeared. In his letter to Stoddard (1853) he refers to
this period as follows:
It was my fortune or misfortune, just as you please, to have
some slender means of supporting myself; and so, on leaving
College, in 1825, instead of immediately studying a profession, I
sat myself down to consider what pursuit in life I was best fit for.
My mother had now returned, and taken up her abode in her
deceased father's house, a tall, ugly, old, grayish building (it is now
the residence of half a dozen Irish families), in which I had a room.
And year after year I kept on considering what I was fit for, and
time and my destiny decided that I was to be the writer that I am.
I had always a natural tendency (it appears to have been on the
paternal side) toward seclusion; and this I now indulged to the
utmost, so that, for months together, I scarcely held human inter-
course outside of my family; seldom going out except at twilight,
or only to take the nearest way to the most convenient solitude,
which was oftenest the seashore-the rocks and beaches in that
vicinity being as fine as any in New England. Once a year, or
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
29
thereabouts, I used to make an excursion of a few weeks, in which
I enjoyed as much of life as other people do in the whole year's
round. Having spent so much of my boyhood and youth away
from my native place, I had very few acquaintances in Salem, and
during the nine or ten years that I spent there, in this solitary way,
I doubt whether so much as twenty people in the town were aware
of my existence. Meanwhile, strange as it may seem, I had lived
a very tolerable life, always seemed cheerful, and enjoyed the very
best bodily health. I had read endlessly all sorts of good and
good-for-nothing books, and, in the dearth of other employment,
had early begun to scribble sketches and stories, most of which I
burned."
To this may be added the more characteristic retro-
spect in his "Note Book," under date of October 4, 1840:
"Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber, where I
used to sit in days gone by. . . . Here I have written
many tales,—many that have been burned to ashes,
many that doubtless deserved the same fate. 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 some-
times it seemed as if I were already in the grave, with
only life enough to be chilled and benumbed. But
L
十
​30
LIFE OF
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. . . .
I used to think I could imagine all passions, all feelings,
and states of the heart and mind; but how little did I
know! . . . Indeed we are but shadows; we are not
endowed with real life, and all that seems most real
about us is but the thinnest substance of a dream, till
the heart be touched. That touch creates us,-then we
begin to be, thereby we are beings of reality and
inheritors of eternity."
This creating touch had come for Hawthorne from
Miss Sophia Amelia Peabody. Many years ago the
sister of this lady, Miss Elizabeth Peabody, always in
Hawthorne's confidence, wrote out some particulars of
those lonely years, which have not been published.
am indebted to Mr. G. M. Williamson for the use of
this valuable manuscript.
I
HAWTHORNE.
31
{
"He graduated at Brunswick, Maine, in the year 1825,
and immediately returned to Salem, where his mother
was living in a house belonging to her brother, William
Manning. He was not attracted to either of the pro-
fessions, but to literary art, and there he began to write
his first work, Fanshawe.' Later in life he repudiated
it, and did not allow it to appear again. As all his class-
mates were Maine men, and his mother lived in the most
profound retirement, literally receiving no visitors, the
sensitive, shy young man was too entirely alone. After
a while, however, having made himself thoroughly
acquainted with the ancient history of Salem, and
especially with the witchcraft era, he began to write.
stories, a few of which are to be found among the
'Twice-told Tales'; but the bulk of them he once
burnt up, in a fit of despair. He said some of these
were perhaps the most powerful things he had written,
but felt they were morbid. And he remarked that, when
he found, on re-reading anything, that it had not the
healthiness of nature, he felt as if he had been guilty of
a lie. He was not sure that he had burnt all that
deserved that fate. He also told me the following story
of his effort to get into print. He wrote a book which
he named the 'Storyteller.' It began describing him-
self, the author, as a dreamy person who subjected all
his observation and reading to his fancy, reproducing it
in the form of a story; and that he was regarded by his
neighbours, and even by most of his relatives, as an idler
and cumberer of the ground. But he had one neighbour
as little of a society man as himself, yet very different;
for this young man was an enthusiast in religion who felt
32
LIFE OF
CA
8.47.
an internal call to convert the whole world. The two
odd neighbours drew together because pretty much alike
in reputation, viz., as both impracticable and unpractical
loafers. So one day, talking over between themselves
their anomalous position, they agreed to set forth, the
one to preach in the open air wherever he could collect
a congregation by means of placards posted on trees and
fences of the place where he should preach in the after-
noon; and the other advertising that he should in the
evening tell a story. They started off and wandered
over New England, and the tales, afterwards told again,
had this origin. When the book was done, he sent it to
Goodrich to publish, but Goodrich declined to undertake
it—it was two volumes-but said he was publishing
The Token, and would buy some of the stories for this,
and also the editor of The New England Magazine would
take some of the stories. So they tore up the book,
and Hawthorne said he cared little for the stories.
afterwards, which had in their original place in the
'Storyteller' a greater degree of significance; and he
got little or nothing as pay. Then, as nobody reviews
stories in magazines, it did not serve the purpose of
introducing him into the world of letters. 'It was like
a man talking to himself in a dark place.' Meanwhile
his classmates went into politics and became noted men,
but did not forget the beautiful young man full of genius
at college, whom they called 'Oberon the Fairy,' on
account of his beauty, and because he improvised tales.
He was offered public place by Van Buren at their
instance, but refused everything, being uninterested in
present politics, and ignorant; for, as he said, 'I cannot
HAWTHORNE.
33
understand the newspapers, or history till it is at least a
hundred years old.'
"But his friend, Horatio Bridge, would not abandon
the idea of his finding a high place in the temple of fame
-made him a visit to remonstrate with him on not doing
something-so Hawthorne told him of his attempt with
Goodrich. On this Bridge went to Goodrich and told
him to write to Hawthorne as if from his own motion,
and ask him to select a volume of tales from those which
had been published, and offer the usual royalty, saying
to Goodrich that he (Bridge) would pay if the book
failed, but he did not want to have Hawthorne know
that he had spoken to him. (Mr. Bridge told me this
himself.) So Mr. Goodrich did so; and hence the first
volume was published in 1837 or 1838. Hawthorne was
to have $100, but Goodrich failed, and he did not get a
cent. The book, however, was reviewed by Longfellow,
and the world found it had a new original author.
}
'Then O'Sullivan, of The Democratic Review, came to
Salem and engaged him at $5 a page. In 1840 he went
to Brook Farm, and left in six months, and then published
the 'Grandfather's Chair' in three parts. I was keeping
bookstore then and published it. This was a great
success ; and Tappan and Dutton made him a great
offer for it, and also engaged him to write 'True Stories
for Children.'
"He was married in 1842, and while living in Concord
published a second volume of 'Twice-told Tales'; also
two volumes collected partly from The Democratic Review,
which G. P. Putnam of New York published under the
title of 'Mosses from an Old Manse;' and later, 'The
1
:
3
34
LIFE OF
1
1
!
C
Snow Image and Other Tales.' But that was not until
after he had left Concord, which he left when The
Democratic Review failed, owing him a considerable
sum of money. He then went to Salem, and literary
work was suspended until he lost his place by the coming
in of Taylor as President. He then wrote his first
romance, 'The Scarlet Letter,' which Ticknor and Fields.
published (and in the end they became his sole pub-
lishers). Before he went to Europe, as Consul at
Liverpool, all his works were published in a uniform
edition."
correct.
Miss Peabody, as we shall see, was not fully informed
on one or two business points (for instance, Hawthorne
did not refuse office), but her general impressions are
So much of the "Storyteller," alluded to by
Miss Peabody, as ever saw the light-or twilight-in The
Token is now included in the "Mosses from an Old
Manse," under the title "Passages from a Relinquished
Work." The account in it of the Storyteller's experience
with his audience provokes real laughter, and shows
that Hawthorne might have made himself a famous
humorist. Miss Peabody says little about "Fan-
shawe," Hawthorne's earliest romance-purposely, no
doubt, for the author had done his best to suppress it,
and was not pleased to have his friends allude to it.
The printing of "Fanshawe" (1828) cost its author a
hundred dollars. The profit was in experience. There
is no foretaste of Hawthorne's individuality in the book,
none of his exquisite and subtle English. The style
is without any particular fault, unless it be a monotonous
smoothness. It bears witness to its author's unworldli-
HAWTHORNE.
35
ness, in his twenty-fourth year, to his ignorance of
supreme passions, and of the motives that impel men to
evil. One of his two villains has determined to reform
his wicked ways, and, in order to escape from an old
comrade in wickedness, helps that comrade to abduct a
lovely maiden. The abductor loses his prize and his
life by his own gratuitous stupidity. The more attrac-
tive of this maiden's two lovers rescues her; then, after
she has offered him her hand, with every indication of
affection, he passes it over to his rival, without any
apparent motive for the sacrifice. The book is thus
a curiosity of literature, as a romance; but it contains
interesting, if at times prosy, descriptions of Bowdoin
College, a good portrait of its venerable president, and
some fine sketches of natural scenery in the vicinity of
Brunswick. The book was hardly noticed; but the
Critic-possibly by the pen of Longfellow-said its author
would be heard from again, and with honour.
In the early days of New England, every man per-
formed some practical service in the community. The
first immigrant Emerson, though of aristocratic family,
became a baker at Ipswich, and such instances were not
rare. The immemorial custom became transcendent
law, and a youth could not decline each and all of the
prescribed avocations without some combat. If he were
of a meditative and literary turn there was the ministry
open to him. There are several passages in Hawthorne's
writings indicating that some of his relatives—his
maternal uncles we may suppose-were offended by his
refusal to undertake any recognized vocation, not even
the ministry.
36
LIFE OF
In fact to make a little digression-Hawthorne,
without being of a sceptical temperament, manifested
from childhood a singular aversion to churches, and I
cannot find that his mother and sisters had much dis-
position to change him in this respect. He would appear
to have derived from his studies of witch-persecution in
Salem, some such lesson as that which, in Balzac's “La
Succube," Tournebouche, after witnessing the torture
and murder of the so-called Sorceress, transmitted to his
son firstly, that to live happily, it is necessary to keep
far away from church people, to honour them much
without giving them leave to enter your house." It
was, however, their house that Hawthorne disliked to
enter. At college he was robust except for what he
calls his " Sunday sickness"—a trouble well known in
colleges where church-going is compulsory. At a time
when the Methodist Father Taylor, of the Seamen's
Bethel in Boston, so graphically described by Charles
Dickens, was making an impression on best men and
women-among others on Emerson-the lady who was
to become Hawthorne's wife desired him to hear that
preacher. He replies: "Most absolute little Sophia,
didst thou expressly command me to go to Father
Taylor's church this very sabbath? Now, it would not
be an auspicious day for me to hear the aforesaid Son of
Thunder. I have a cold, though, indeed, I fear I have
partly conjured it up to serve my naughty purpose.
Some sunshiny day, when I am wide awake and warm
and genial, I will go and throw myself open to his blessed
influence; but now there is only one thing I feel anywise.
inclined to do, and that is to go to sleep. But indeed,
(6
{
HAWTHORNE.
37
dearest, I feel somewhat afraid to hear this divine
Father Taylor, lest my sympathy with your admiration
of him be colder and feebler than you look for. Our
souls are in happiest unison, but we must not disquiet
ourselves if every tone be not re-echoed from one to the
other-if every shade be not reflected in the alternate
mirror. Our broad and general sympathy is enough to
secure our bliss, without our following it into minute
details. Will you promise not to be troubled, should I
be unable to appreciate the excellence of Father Taylor?
Promise me this, and at some auspicious hour, which
I trust will soon arrive, Father Taylor shall have an
opportunity to make music with my soul. But I fore-
warn you, dearest, that I am a most unmalleable man ;
you are not to suppose, because my spirit answers to
every touch of yours, that, therefore, every breeze, or
even every whirlwind, can upturn me from my depths."
In no other letter printed by his son can I find further
mention of Father Taylor, and indeed Julian Hawthorne
says he cannot remember his father's attending church.
In his "Sunday at Home" ("Twice-told Tales ") Haw-
thorne says: "It is my misfortune seldom to fructify,
in a regular way, by any but printed sermons. The first
strong idea which the preacher utters, gives birth to a
train of thought, and leads me onward, step by step,
quite out of hearing of the good man's voice, unless he
be indeed a son of thunder." His experience of
parsons in Salem could not have been fortunate to judge
by his portrait of Thumpcushion: "Such sounding and
expounding the moment he began to grow warm, such
slapping with his open palm, thumping with his closed
38
LIFE OF
fist, and banging with the whole weight of the great Bible,
convinced me that he held, in imagination, either the
old Nick or some Unitarian infidel at bay, and belaboured
his unhappy cushion as proxy for those abominable
adversaries" (Page's "Memoir," p. 162).
In making this parson his guardian, the "Storyteller'
reveals the secret of Hawthorne's own landerjähre.
The parson is figurehead of the whole Salem régime.
"I was a youth of gay and happy temperament, with an
incorrigible levity of spirit, of no vicious propensities,
sensible enough, but wayward and fanciful. What a
character was this to be brought into contact with the
old pilgrim spirit of my guardian! We were at variance
on a thousand points; but our chief and final dispute
arose from the pertinacity with which he insisted on my
adopting a particular profession: while I, being heir to
a moderate competence, had avowed my purpose of
keeping aloof from the regular business of life. This
would have been a dangerous resolution anywhere in the
world; it was fatal in New England. There is a gross-
ness in the conceptions of my countrymen ; they will not
be convinced that any good thing may consist with what
they call idleness; they can anticipate nothing but evil.
of a young man who neither studies physic, law, nor
gospel, nor opens a store, nor takes to farming, but
manifests an incomprehensible disposition to be satisfied
with what his father left him. The principle is excellent.
in its general influence, but most miserable in its effect
on the few who violate it. I had a quick sensitiveness.
to public opinion, and felt as if it ranked me with the
tavern haunters and town-paupers-with the drunken
·
HAWTHORNE.
39
7
poet who hawked his own Fourth of July Odes, and the
broken soldier who had been good for nothing since last
war. The consequence of all this was a piece of light-
hearted desperation. I do not over-estimate my notoriety
when I take it for granted that many of my readers must.
have heard of me in the wild way of life which I adopted.
The idea of becoming a wandering storyteller had been
suggested a year or two before, by an encounter with
several merry vagabonds in a showman's wagon, where
they and I had sheltered ourselves during a summer
shower."
Hawthorne had inserted a win the family name
during the last year of his college life,-whether from
poetic sentiment, or (as I suspect) from a dislike of
the ancestral record, combined with a desire for secrecy,
does not appear, and it proved to be a disguise.
Some neighbours-the Peabodys, for instance-did not
know that the early pieces so signed were by Mrs.
Hathorne's son. Perhaps, too, they could not imagine
the handsome, robust youth writing in such a medita-
tive and delicate vein. One of his earliest pieces,
printed in Goodrich's Token (1832), attracted Mar-
garet Fuller's attention; but she supposed it by a
feminine hand, and made inquiries after the new
authoress ! This adopted w led a Frenchman, of whom.
Hawthorne took lessons, to translate him into M. de
l'Aubépine. Hawthorne could hardly have imagined,
as his son suggests (i. 8) that his name was really a
translation, but he played with the Frenchman's version,
used it in "Rappacini's Daughter" ("Mosses from an
Old Manse,") and in The Democratic Review. Possibly it
2+..!
L
40
LIFE OF
was one cause of the interest of French writers in
Hawthorne. But this change of name, which Haw-
thorne's college correspondents but slowly conceded
-continuing for some time to address him as
"Dear
¹ Some of these stories were "imités" by M. Spoll ("Contes
Étranges "), and M. Forgues gave his countrymen "La Lettre
Rouge " and "La Maison aux sept Pignons." In the Revue
Bleue (November 16, 1889), M. Paul Masson began further trans-
lations with "La Fiancée du Shaker." In his introduction M.
Masson speaks of Hawthorne as "l'illustre humoriste américain,"
which may be accepted as an offset to M. Émile Montégut's
description of our author in 1860, as "Un romancier pessimiste
(Revue des Deux Mondes). M. Masson acutely remarks that
Hawthorne was a pioneer in the school which has replaced the idea
of "art for art's sake." Speaking of "The Shaker Bridal," the
translator remarks: "Dans la courte Nouvelle qu'on va lire, il
a spécialment en vue de combattre ces dogmes austères qui
étouffent en l'homme ses penchants sympathiques, et sacrifient
à un faux idéal de détachement terrestre les aspirations les plus
légitimes de notre nature." The sketch in question seems, how-
ever, coldly impartial between the ideas of celibacy and matrimony,
and might readily be cited by M. Montégut in support of his
theory of pessimism. In 1856 Hawthorne's "Wonder Book"
("Livre des Merveilles ") was translated by M. Léonce Rabillon, a
note to whom has been shown me by Mr. W. R. Benjamin :—
"(
"U.S. CONSULATE, LIVERPOOL, August 22, 1856.
SIR,-I sincerely thank you for the courtesy which has induced
your reference to me in regard to the publication of your translation
of the Wonder Book'; and I beg to assure you that I have
great pleasure in complying with your request. I send the
accompanying certificate of my consent, to yourself, rather than
to Mr. Hachette, because your letter leaves me in doubt whether
the manuscript of the translation has yet been forwarded to that
gentleman. Believe me, my dear sir, sincerely yours,
'NATHL. HAWTHORNE."
""
Hachette et Cie published all these translations.
HAWTHORNE.
41
'
Hath."-is especially interesting as an early symptom
of his desire to preserve an incognito in his rambles
along the coast where the name of the seafaring
Hathornes was widely known. He desired to sit in
taverns among rough people as an equal, and to gather
knowledge of them and their ways in the only way
possible to his shy nature. Wherever he went, his shell,
however invisible, was found to be with him, by any
who came too close.
J
!
1
CHAPTER III.
S
in
UMMER excursions through the White Moun-
tains, on the Western Lakes, to Niagara, in Central
New York, and elsewhere, are traceable in Hawthorne's.
early tales and sketches: e.g., "The Seven Vagabonds,"
"The Great Carbuncle," "The Notch of the White
Mountains," "The Canterbury Pilgrims," "Chippings.
with a Chisel." But the world has forever lost the
record of some of his more important travels-namely,
those amid the legends and folklore of New England.
The chief toil of several years was embodied in a set
of stories, which he entitled "Seven Tales of my Native
Land" (their motto, "We are Seven "), but, after vain
efforts to find a publisher, he burnt them from their
ashes arose, "The Devil in Manuscript." It is probable,
however, that some of the main incidents of these seven
tales were reproduced in "Grandfather's Chair" (1840-
1842). This I infer from a note, shown me by
Mr. Williamson, from Hawthorne to S. G. Goodrich
(dated at Salem, Nov. 9, 1830), offering for The
Token, a story "by the author of 'Provincial Tales.'
He adds: "An unpublished book is more obscure than
many that creep into the world, and your readers will
"""
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
43
suppose that the 'Provincial Tales' are among the
latter." This story, which has escaped the attention
of Hawthorne's biographers and bibliographers, appeared
in The Token for 1830, under the title of "The Young
Provincial." It is about "Grandfather's" gun, his fight
at Bunker Hill, imprisonment at Halifax, and escape.
Hawthorne at one time meant to call the stories in
"Grandfather's Chair" by the title "Provincial Tales."
It is also probable that some of the burnt material
was resuscitated in "Tales of the Province House;
but his sister's recollection of others proves that they
were never rewritten.
"7
Goodrich, the publisher ("Peter Parley "), is said to
have been a "sweater" of young writers, but to him
belongs the credit of being the first editor to recognize
the ability of Hawthorne. True, he did not pay much,
and in the end he could not pay all he promised;
but, if it be remembered that (being himself an author)
he was trying to build up American literature in com-
petition with immense masses of unpaid foreign publi-
cations, he should be given credit for having paid as
much as thirty-five dollars for each story. Goodrich's
annual was entitled, The Boston Token and Atlantic
Souvenir. In it appeared eighteen pieces by Hawthorne
(1830-1838), and they were all paid for. Moreover,
Goodrich published several of Hawthorne's stories in
each issue of his annual. Four were inserted in The
Token for 1830, the editor writing to Hawthorne : As
they are anonymous, no objection arises from having
so many pages by one author, particularly as they are
as good, if not better, than anything else I get. My
CC
{
44
LIFE OF
¿
/
estimate of the pieces is sufficiently evinced by the use
I have made of them, and I cannot doubt that the
public will coincide with me." Hawthorne was also
conceded the right to include such stories in any volume
he might publish.
However, Hawthorne could not live on one annual,
so he made an effort to get a connection with others.
Mr. Ferdinand J. Dreer copies for me an application
which, though fruitless, possesses interest :
"SALEM (MASS.), January 27, 1832.
“GENTLEMEN,-I am the author of some tales ('My Kinsman,
Major Molineux'; 'Roger Malvin's Burial'; and the‘Gentle
Boy') published in The Token for the present year. I do not
know whether they attracted your notice; but the object of this
letter is to inquire whether you would choose to insert an article
from me in the next Souvenir? and if so, what number of pages?
and whether there is any mode of transmitting the manuscript to
Philadelphia, except by mail?
"I should not wish to be mentioned as the author of those tales.
-Very respectfully,
"Messrs. Carey and Lea."
"NATH. HAWTHORNE.
Why Hawthorne did not wish to be known as author of
the tales is explicable by the fact that Goodrich was
able to publish the four, by the same writer, because
they were anonymous. Compelled to write for other
publications for support-The Knickerbocker, The New
England Magazine, The American Monthly Magazine,
even The Salem Gazette-he avoided offence to any
editorial susceptibilities by adopting pseudonyms. One
of these "Ashley Allen Royce" is curious, but "Oberon,"
HAWTHORNE.
45
as we have seen, was reminiscence of an appellation
given by his college friends-because of his beauty, and
his fondness for romance.
In the beginning of 1836 Fortune seemed about to
smile on Hawthorne. Through Goodrich he received
the editorship of the "Bewick Company's" American
Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, with
a salary of five hundred dollars. But the editor had
to write the whole of each number, which with his
sister's help he did; but, alas, he had been invoked to
buttress a sinking concern. The company soon became
insolvent, and Hawthorne got but a small part of his
money. Hawthorne at first visited this on the head
of Goodrich, who, however, appears to have been as
seriously involved as himself in the catastrophe. Haw-
thorne resumed his relations with that publisher, and
presently, still assisted by his sister, wrote Peter Parley's
"Universal History," for which he received the sum
agreed on—one hundred dollars. The work had a large
circulation, but whether its compilers got anything more
does not appear.
Hawthorne's son does not print a
sufficient number of Goodrich's letters, which he men-
tions as (C
numerous," to justify an adverse verdict on
the publisher who brought Hawthorne forward, and
published the "Twice-told Tales."
Although in the magazine which he edited, Hawthorne
wrote a good deal that was merely perfunctory, hist
articles were conscientious pieces of work, and indicate
a marvellous amount of reading. Every issue had its
pearl, as witness the following which I have gathered
from Mr. Williamson's files.
46
LIFE OF
:
Martha's Vineyard, to which the first extract relates,
is now the Delectable City of revivalists, to which they
throng on "celestial" steam-lines; but it was a little
known island when Hawthorne wandered there in youth,
and found its most interesting society in the ancient
graveyard. Our selection refers to the epitaphs, most of
which he did not like.
"Yet one of them was worth reading. It was con-
secrated to the memory of John and Lydia Claghorn,
a young whaler and his wife, the former of whom had
perished on the farther side of Cape Horn about the
same time that Lydia had died in child-bed. The
monumental verse ran thus :-
"John and Lydia, that lovely pair ;
A whale killed him, her body lies here;
Their souls, we hope, with Christ shall reign-
So our great loss is their great gain.'
John Claghorn has now slept beneath the sea, and
Lydia here in her lonesome bed, between sixty and
seventy years. One of the rarest things in the world
is an appropriate and characteristic epitaph, marked with
the truth and simplicity which a sorrowing heart would
pour into the effusion of an unlettered mind; an ex-
pression, in unaffected language, of what would be the
natural feelings of friends and relatives were they
standing above the grave. It seems to us that this
rude and homely verse may be ranked among the
masterpieces of monumental literature.
In a spot
where there were several children's graves together,
almost obliterated by time, a wild rose, red, fragrant
•
1
HAWTHORNE.
47
and very small, had either sprouted from one of the
little mounds, or been planted there by the forgotten.
parents of the forgotten child, and had now spread over
the whole group of those small graves. The mother's
dust had long ago mingled with the dust over which she
wept-the nameless infant, had it lived, would have
been hoary and decrepit now-yet, all this while, though
marble would have decayed, the rose had been faithful
to its trust. It told of affection still."
One of Hawthorne's excursions was on an Ontario
steamboat, voyaging from Ogdensburgh westward. The
region was a comparative wilderness in those days, and
the steamboat primitive. Hawthorne's sketch is of
especial interest as illustrating his human sympathy and
his optimistic faith.
"There were three different orders of passengers an
aristocracy in the grand cabin and ladies' saloon; a
commonalty in the forward cabin; and, lastly, a
multitude on the forward deck, constituting as veritable
a Mob as could be found in any country. These latter
did not belong to that proud and independent class
among our native citizens who chance, in the present
generation, to be at the bottom of the body politic;
they were the exiles of another clime-the scum which
every wind blows off the Irish shores-the pauper dregs
which England flings out upon America. . . . In our
country, at large, the different ranks melt and mingle
into one another, so that it is as impossible to draw a
decided line between any two contiguous classes as to
divide a rainbow accurately into its various hues. But
here the high, the middling, and the low had classed
48
LIFE OF
themselves, and the laws of the vessel rigidly kept each
inferior from stepping beyond the proper limits. . .
Here, therefore, was something analogous to that
picturesque state of society, in other countries and
earlier times, when each upper class excluded every
lower one from its privileges, and when each individual
was content with his allotted position, because there was
no possibility of bettering it. I, by paying ten dollars,
instead of six or four, had entitled myself to the
aristocratic privileges of our floating community. But,
to confess the truth, I would as willingly have been
anywhere else as in the grand cabin. There was good
company, assuredly;-among others a Canadian judge,
with his two daughters, whose stately beauty and bright.
complexions made me proud to feel that they were my
countrywomen; though I doubt whether these lovely
girls would have acknowledged that their country was
the same as mine."
After studying the forward cabin,—with its second-
class passengers feasting on relics of the first cabin
banquet,- Hawthorne observes the crowd of the forward
deck, who had no cabin at all, not even for their sleep;
this being "on the wide promiscuous couch of the
deck," where men and women carelessly disrobed, and
lay where they could. "A single lamp shed a dim ray
over the scene, and there was also a dusky light from the
boat's furnaces which enabled me to distinguish quite
as much as it was allowable to look upon, and a good
deal more than it would be decorous to describe.
I know not what their habits might have been in their
native land; but, since they quitted it, these poor people
HAWTHORNE.
49
had led such a life in the steerages of the vessels that
brought them across the Atlantic, that they probably
stepped ashore far ruder and wilder beings than they
had embarked; and afterwards, thrown homeless upon
the wharves of Quebec and Montreal, and left to wander
whither they might, and subsist how they could, it was
impossible for their moral natures not to have become
wofully deranged and debased. I was grieved, also,
to discern a want of fellow-feeling among them. They
appeared, it is true, to form one community, but con-
nected by no other bond than that which pervades a
flock of wild geese in the sky, or a herd of wild horses
in the desert. They were all going the same way, by a
sort of instinct,-some laws of mutual aid and fellow-
ship had necessarily been established,-yet each in-
dividual was lonely and selfish. Even domestic ties did
not invariably retain their hallowed strength. . . . I
found no better comfort than in the hope and trust.
that it might be with these homeless exiles, in their
passage through the world, as it was with them and all
of us in the voyage on which we had embarked together.
As we had all our destined port, and the skill of the
steersmen would suffice to bring us thither, so had each
of these poor wanderers a home in futurity—and the
God above them knew where to find it. It was cheer-
ing, also, to reflect that nothing short of settled
depravity could resist the strength of moral influences,
diffused throughout our native land; that the stock of
home-bred virtue is large enough to absorb and neutra-
lize so much of foreign vice; and that the outcasts of
Europe, if not by their own choice, yet by an almost
4
50
LIFE OF
inevitable necessity, promote the welfare of the country
that receives them to its bosom."
It will not be wondered that Hawthorne's imagination
was touched by the announcement that an Italian had
discovered some chemical means of petrifying the dead,
converting them as it were into statues.
"But Segato's greatest curiosity is a table, inlaid with
two hundred pieces of stone (or what appears such) of
splendid and variegated hues, admirably polished, and
so extremely hard that a file can scarcely make the
slightest scratch upon them. These stones, which would
be mistaken for specimens of the most precious marbles,
are different portions of the human body-the heart,
liver, pancreas, spleen, tongue, brain, and arteries.
Thus a multitude of men and women, once alive, have
contributed fragments of their vital organs to form
Segato's inlaid table; a poet, perhaps, has given his
brain, an orator his tongue, a hypochondriac his spleen,
and a love-sick girl her heart-for even so tender a
thing as a young girl's heart can now be changed to
stone. In her lifetime it may be all softness; but after
death, if it pass through Segato's hands, a file can make
no impression on it. . . . Instead of seeking the sculp-
tor's aid to perpetuate the form and features of
distinguished men, the public may henceforth possess
the very shape and substance, when the aspiring souls
have left them. The statesman may stand in the legisla-
tive hall where he once led the debate, as indestructible
as the marble pillars which support the roof. He might
be literally a pillar of state. Daniel Webster's form
might help to uphold the Capitol, assisted by the great
T
HAWTHORNE.
51
of all parties, each lending a strong arm to the good
cause. The warrior-our own old General-might stand
forever on the summit of a battle-monument overlooking
his field of victory at New Orleans. Nay, every mortal,
when the heart has ceased to beat, may be straightway
turned into a tombstone, and our cemeteries be thronged
with the people of past generations, fixing their frozen
stare upon the living world.
"But never may we the writer-stand amid that
marble crowd! In God's own time we would fain be
buried as our fathers were. We desire to give mortality
its own. Our clay must not be baulked of its repose.
We are willing to let it moulder beneath the little
hillock, and that the sods should gradually settle down,
and leave no traces of our grave. We have no yearnings
for the grossness of this earthly immortality. If some-
what of our soul and intellect might live in the memory
of men, we should be glad. It would be an image of
the etherial and indestructible. But what belongs to
earth, let the earth take it.”
So early did he sound the note that was last on his
lips. In another paper the English Dr. Philip's opinion
(that we have two systems-a sensitive, which alternates.
between excitement and exhaustion, recovered from by
sleep; a vital system that never sleeps) is carefully
stated, and reflections added:
"Hence we may infer that no living creature has ever
been more than half asleep, and that only the dead sleep
sound; their bodies we mean; for their spirits are then
more wide awake than ever. How strange and myste-
rious is our love of sleep! Fond as we are of life, we
..
·
52
:
LIFE OF
are yet content to spend a third of its little space in
what, so far as relates to our own consciousness, is a
daily, or nightly, annihilation. We congratulate our-
selves when we have slept soundly; as if it were a
matter of rejoicing that thus much of time has been
snatched from the sum total of our existence-that we
are several steps nearer to our graves without perceiving
how we arrived thither, or gaining either knowledge or
enjoyment on the way. Well! Eternity will make up
the loss; on no other consideration can a wise man
reconcile himself to the necessity of sleep."
A little essay on "April Fools," commonplace in the
beginning, contains presently some neat satire, that on
the author being plainly meant for himself:
"He who has climbed or suffered himself to be lifted,
to a station for which he is unfit, does but stand upon a
pedestal to show the world an April Fool. The gray-
haired man, who has sought the joys of wedlock with a
girl in her teens, and the young girl who has wedded an
old man for his wealth, are a pair of April Fools. The
married couple who have linked themselves for life, on
the strength of a week's liking; the ill-matched pair, who
turn their roughest sides towards each other, instead of
making the best of a bad bargain: the young man who
has doomed himself to a life of difficulties by a too-early
marriage; the middle-aged bachelor who is waiting to be
rich; the damsel who has trusted her lover too far; the
lover who is downcast for a damsel's fickleness;—all
these are April Fools. The farmer who has left a good
homestead in New England, to migrate to the Mississippi
Valley, or anywhere else on this side of heaven; the
HAWTHORNE.
53
fresh-cheeked youth who has gone to find his grave in
New Orleans; the Yankees, who have enlisted for Texas;
the merchant who has speculated on a French war; the
author who writes for fame--or for bread-if he can do
better: the student who has turned aside from the path
of his profession, and gone astray in poetry and fanciful-
ness;—what are these but a motley group of April
Fools? And the wiseacre who thinks himself a fool in
nothing. Oh, superlative April Fool!"
The allusion to Texas in the above passage is notable.
Hawthorne was always associated with the Democratic
party, which was sympathetic with the "filibusters" in
Texas.
A wood-cut of George Washington, surrounded by
emblems, is accompanied by an article which concludes.
with a suggestion of some novelty when it was written:
"These emblems refer exclusively to Washington's
military deeds. But it should never be forgotten that
it is not merely in the character of a hero that his fame
shines resplendent, and will remain undimmed by the
gathering mist of ages. It is true that no other man
possessed the peculiar military talent, the caution mingled
with boldness, the judgment, the equanimity which never
sank too low nor rose too high, that were requisite to
carry us triumphantly through the Revolutionary contest.
Yet it may be justly said that, even while the war was
raging, his civil virtues and abilities held no inferior
place to those which marked him as a soldier. It was
his moral strength of character that gave firmness to a
tottering cause. Other great generals have been idolized
by their armies because victory was sure to follow where
*
54
LIFE OF
they led; their fame has been won by triumphant
marches and conquest on every field. Fortune has been
the better half of all their deeds. But his defeats never
snatched one laurel from the brow of Washington. In
him his soldiers recognized qualities far superior to
those of the mere military chieftain, and gave him their
confidence as unreservedly at Long Island as at York-
town. And in the troubled times that succeeded the
Revolution, no influence but Washington's could have.
harmonized the discordant elements of our country; no
other arm could have upheld the State."
The picture of Washington, and several others, which
appeared in The American Magazine of Useful and
Entertaining Knowledge, were such to cause Hawthorne
to insert in the number for August, 1836, an "editorial"
note which may not have gratified the proprietor. "It is
proper to remark that we have not had full control of the
contents of the Magazine, inasmuch as the embellish-
ments have chiefly been selected by the executive officers
of the Boston Bewick Company, or by the engravers
themselves."
When it is considered that the Company derived its
name from the famous English artist and engraver, the
reader will not be surprised at learning that its wretched
illustrations preceded approaching death.
Even in small statistical paragraphs Hawthorne was
apt to insert subtle sentences. In one on "Comparative
Longevity," he finds a crevice for this seed: "It is not
we hope irreverent to say that the Creator gave us our
world in a certain sense unfinished, and left it to the
ingenuity of man to bring it to the highest perfection of
:
HAWTHORNE.
55
((
which finite and physical things are capable." Amid dry
antiquarian notes on Bells," we find a pregnant passage:
"Every little chapel in the wilderness, where the French
Jesuits preached to the red-men, had its bell. We recol-
lect to have seen, in the museum of Bowdoin College,
one which we believe had belonged to the chapel of the
martyred Father Ralle. After the priest was slain, and
his altar desecrated by the bloody hands of the New
England rangers, this bell, if we mistake not, lay hidden
many years beneath the forest leaves; until being acci-
dentally brought to light, it was suspended in the belfry
of the College Chapel. The adventures of this bell
would form a pretty and fanciful story, which we should
be glad to write, if it were in our nature to be guilty of
such nonsensical scribblings."
(C
The smile behind his mask in this last sentence is an
early instance of one of Hawthorne's favourite arts.
What with this, his change of the inherited name, and.
his pseudonyms, the public is hardly chargeable for the
distinction" claimed in his preface to "Twice-told
Tales," that he was "for a good many years, the obscurest
man of letters in America." This hiding of his name
was due, as has been said, to the necessity that Goodrich's
Token should not appear to depend so much on a
single writer. Hawthorne longed for recognition, and
was deeply gratified by a notice of his stories in the
London Athenæum, Nov. 7, 1835, declaring each of
them to have "singular ty enough to recommend it to
the reader." (C
'My worshipful self," he writes home, “is
a very famous man in London, the Athenæum having
noticed all my articles in the last Token, with long
i
56
LIFE OF
extracts." This recognition of Hawthorne, credited to
Henry Chorley, brought one sweet flower to the dismal
vale from which he could not emerge. On Christmas
Day, 1854, he wrote in his journal a pathetic passage:
"I think I have been happier this Christmas than ever
before-by my own fireside and with my wife and
children about me-more content to enjoy what I have,
less anxious for anything beyond it in this life. My early
life was perhaps a good preparation for the declining half
of life; it having been such a blank that any thereafter
would compare favourably with it. For a long, long
while I have occasionally been visited with a singular
dream; and I have an impression that I have dreamed.
it ever since I have been in England. It is that I am
still at college-or, sometimes even at school—and there
is a sense that I have been there unconscionably long,
and have quite failed to make such progress as my con-
temporaries have done; and I seem to meet some of
them with a feeling of shame and depression that broods
over me as I think of it, even when awake. This dream,
recurring through all these twenty or thirty years, must
be one of the effects of that heavy seclusion in which I
shut myself up for twelve years after leaving college, when
everybody moved on and left me behind. How strange
that it should come now when I may call myself famous
and prosperous !—and happy, too!"
In the last of the twelve years, mentioned in this
passage, he received a cordial letter from one of his
most successful classmates, the poet Longfellow, and in
his reply (published by Mr. Lathrop) says:—
HAWTHORNE.
57
}
ľ
"It gratifies me that you have occasionally felt an interest in my
situation; but your quotation from Jean Paul about the 'lark's
nest' makes me smile. You would have been much nearer the
truth if you had pictured me as dwelling in an owl's nest; for mine
is about as dismal, and, like the owl, I seldom venture abroad till
after dusk. By some witchcraft or other-for I really cannot assign
any reasonable why and wherefore-I have been carried apart from
the main current of life, and find it impossible to get back again.
Since we last met, which you remember was in Sawtell's room,
where you read a farewell poem to the relics of the class-ever since
that time I have secluded myself from society; and yet I never
meant any such thing, nor dreamed what sort of life I was going to
lead. I have made a captive of myself, and put me into a dungeon,
and now I cannot find the key to let myself out-and if the door
were open, I should be almost afraid to come out. You tell me
that you have met with troubles and changes. I know not what these
may have been, but I can assure you that trouble is the next best
thing to enjoyment, and that there is no fate in this world so horrible
as to have no share in its joys or sorrows. For the last ten years I
have not lived, but only dreamed of living. It may be true that
there have been some unsubstantial pleasures, here in the shade,
which I might have missed in the sunshine, but you cannot conceive
how utterly devoid of satisfaction all my retrospects are. I have
laid up no treasure of pleasant remembrances against old age; but
there is some comfort in thinking that future years can hardly fail to
be more varied, and therefore more tolerable than the past."
:
CHAPTER IV.
H
AWTHORNE'S early fear of entering freely into
society may have been partly due to his con-
sciousness of a certain morbid susceptibility to the
influence of persons. Without sensual proclivities he
was liable to the charms of beauty and graceful ways.
"About the year 1833," writes his sister to Una Haw-
thorne, "your father, after a sojourn of two or three
weeks at Swampscott, came home captivated, in his
fanciful way, with a 'mermaid,' as he called her. He
would not tell us her name, but said she was of the
aristocracy of the village, the keeper of a little shop.
She gave him a sugar heart, a pink one, which he kept a
great while, and then (how boyish, but how like him!) he
ate it. You will find her, I suspect, in The Village
Uncle.' She is Susan. He said she had a great deal of
what the French call espièglerie. At that time he had
fancies like this whenever he went from home." In the
story, apostrophising the Swampscott "mermaid," he
says:
"Nature wrought the charm. She made you a
frank, simple, kind-hearted, sensible, and mirthful girl.
Obeying nature, you did free things without indelicacy,
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
59
displayed a maiden's thoughts to every eye, and proved
yourself as innocent as naked Eve.”
But all of the fair fascinators Hawthorne met were not
so guileless as the mermaid, and one of them caused a
shadow to fall on his life, which was never lifted. In
this case the young lady, whose name is withheld by
Julian Hawthorne, was of high social position, and
ambitious of capturing the new author in her train of
admirers. She succeeded in engaging his sympathetic
interest in her confidences, but not receiving his in
return, concluded to utilise him in making herself the
centre of a sensational situation. She confided to
Hawthorne that one of his friends had attempted to
practice the basest treachery upon her, and passionately
invoked his championship. The accusation had no
vestige of truth, and Hawthorne challenged his friend,
only to be shown that he had been made a fool of by the
artifices of a coquette anxious to be the heroine of a
duel. The unhappy affair seemed to have ended with
no worse result than Hawthorne's humiliation; but it
was not so to be. Long after it was forgiven and for-
gotten by his friend, and transmuted into experience by
himself, and in the moment of his happy betrothal, this
incident returned on him with tragical and far-reaching
sequels.
The Hon. Jonathan Cilley, his former college friend,
was challenged by another member of Congress, Graves
of Kentucky, and was induced, by the citation of
Hawthorne's example, to fight the duel in which he
fell. It was painful enough for Hawthorne to find the
miserable infatuation and blunder that had seemed
60
LIFE OF
buried rising up to end the brilliant career of his
friend; but even this was not all. Cilley was shot
down at the very moment when he was endeavouring
to secure from the new democratic administration, with
which he had much influence, a lucrative post for Haw-
thorne. This last fact, which would certainly be known
to Hawthorne, is attested by a letter published in the
London Athenæum, Aug. 17, 1889. It was written in 1843,
by J. L. O'Sullivan to Hon. Henry A. Wise, asking his
influence with the administration to appoint Hawthorne
postmaster of Salem. In the Cilley duel Wise had been
the second of Graves-not a principal, as Julian Haw-
thorne supposes-and O'Sullivan alludes to this fact.
“One of Hawthorne's few intimate and fast friends was
Cilley, who had been a college companion. It was he
who first interested me in him- who was himself
earnestly desirous to obtain some such suitable pro-
vision for him, and specifically this very appointment-
who would have done it, had he not fallen, so unhappily
for us all, and most of all, I doubt not, my dear sir, for
you-and from whom it has always since rested on my
mind as a bequeathed duty to be performed for him and
in his name."
Hawthorne was not like Goethe, whose mother said
that he could get rid of any grief by putting it into a
poem. When he had embodied his mournful memories
in such pieces as "The Haunted Mind," and "Fancy's
Show-box," they all the more took up their abode with
him. There is a great pain in some of his casual sen-
tences, as where he exclaims: "Would that I had a folio
to write, instead of an article of a dozen pages! Then
HAWTHORNE.
61
might I exemplify how an influence, beyond our control,
lays its strong hand on every deed which we do,
and weaves its consequences into an iron tissue of
necessity."
When Hawthorne wrote the words just quoted (from
"Wakefield "), the ghost of Cilley seemed finally laid, so
far as his life was concerned, however it might still haunt
his mind. During the summer before Cilley's death, he
and Hawthorne met in Maine, for the first time since
their graduation. The memorandum concerning him
("Am. Note Books," i. 87) shows that Cilley had become
too much the politician to satisfy Hawthorne, though he
felt the unimpaired depth of his classmate's friendship
for himself. But when the young statesman had fallen
into a grave, at which Hawthorne had so much cause to
be the sincerest mourner, all his faults were buried, his
virtues alone remained. Hawthorne was naturally eager
to do justice to his friend's memory, and accepted the
invitation of O'Sullivan to prepare a sketch of Cilley for
The Democratic Review. I am indebted to Mr. G. M.
Williamson for an interesting letter, addressed—“ Post-
master, Thomaston, Maine":
(6
SALEM, March 15, 1838.
"SIR,-I was a particular friend of the late lamented Mr. Cilley;
and the editor of The Democratic Review has requested me to write
a biographical sketch of him for that publication. As it might
appear indelicate in a stranger to intrude upon his family, I have
been induced to apply to you, in the hope that you will have it in
your power to favour me with a few facts respecting his life. In
regard to his early life I can obtain information from other sources,
and will trouble you merely for a brief account of the incidents
which occurred during his residence in Thomaston. The date of his
62
LIFE OF
marriage his wife's name and parentage—his character and success
as a lawyer-his entrance into political life, &c.—these are the
principal topics on which information appears desirable.
"I trust that you will excuse the liberty which I have taken; and,
if inconvenient for you to comply with my request, please to hand
this letter to some relation or friend of Mr. Cilley. As I have but
a short time in which to prepare the biographical sketch, it will be
necessary that any information should be sent me within two or
three days after the receipt of this letter.
"Your obedient servant,
"NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.”
At the bottom of the letter is scrawled: "Mr. Fuler
you may ansor this if you please perhaps it would be
well so to do."
Cilley had represented Thomaston in the Maine Legis-
lature five years, but Hawthorne apparently got little
by his application. His paper, which appeared in The
Democratic Review, is remarkable on many accounts.
There had been a schism in the democratic party in
Maine, and Cilley represented the triumphant side.
Hawthorne narrated all this with such art that it is
difficult to say to which wing he leaned, and both might
unite over the dead statesman to recognize the brilliant
qualities he had displayed amid hostilities then ended.
Hawthorne's reminiscence of his last meeting with his
friend, and study of his character, are ideal in their way.
Near the close comes a pregnant passage:
"On the 23rd
of February last, Mr. Cilley received a challenge from
Mr. Graves, of Kentucky, through the hands of Mr.
Wise, of Virginia. This measure, as is declared in the
challenge itself, was grounded on Mr. Cilley's refusal to
receive a message, of which Mr. Graves had been the
HAWTHORNE.
63
bearer, from a person of disputed respectability; although
no exception to that person's character had been ex-
pressed by Mr. Cilley; nor need such inference have
been drawn, unless Mr. Graves were conscious that
public opinion held his friend in a doubtful light. The
challenge was accepted, and the parties met on the fol-
lowing day. They exchanged two shots with rifles. After
each shot a conference was held between the friends of
both parties, and the most generous avowals of respect
and kindly feeling were made on the part of Cilley
towards his antagonist, but without avail. A third shot
was exchanged; and Mr. Cilley fell dead into the arms
of one of his friends. . . A challenge was never given
on a more shadowy pretext; a duel was never pressed
to a fatal close in the face of such open kindness as
was expressed by Mr. Cilley; and the conclusion is
inevitable, that Mr. Graves, and his principal second,
Mr. Wise, have gone further than their own dreadful
code will warrant them, and overstepped the imaginary
distinction, which, on their own principles, separates.
manslaughter from murder.
"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?'
Alas, none could answer this question so fully as the
conscience of him who puts it: because his friend
Hawthorne had once challenged a friend to mortal
combat!
1
}
64
LIFE OF
It was not to be supposed that the Hon. Henry A.
Wise failed to take note of the virtual charge of murder
published in the high democratic organ, or that he
had not discovered the author. It is strange that
O'Sullivan, editor of the Review, should have ventured
to write to Wise the appeal in Hawthorne's behalf already
quoted. At any rate it was ineffectual. Five years after
Cilley's fall had ended Hawthorne's hope of the Salem
postmastership, his ghost raised by our author's tribute,
rose to bar the way. And we shall see that even this
was not the last recoil on him of his quixotic champion-
ship of a coquette, nor the last time that Cilley's gory
locks were shaken at him!
But the thread of our narrative must be resumed.
Hawthorne was saved from despair, at the time of his
friend's death, by a great joy. Soon after that tragedy
he became the accepted lover of Sophia Amelia Pea-
body, daughter of a physician in Salem. There were six
children in this family, and little means for their support;
but the three daughters managed to secure excellent
education, and became distinguished women. The
eldest, Elizabeth, still lives in honoured age. She was
taught Greek by Emerson, while he was a student of
divinity at Harvard, and his estimate of her important
services to American thought has already been men-
tioned. Elizabeth partly taught her younger sisters,
Mary and Sophia. Of these the former became wife of
the Hon. Horace Mann, and her biography of that
eminent educator and statesman is among the most
valuable of American books. Sophia, an invalid from
childhood, had read a good deal, was of poetic tem-
HAWTHORNE.
65
perament, and had received lessons in painting from
Allston. The long engagement is represented by the
pretty pictures she sent her lover, and by his letters-
more burning than the flame to which he committed hers,
lest other eyes should read them. She made a picture
of the "Gentle Boy" at the foot of a tree, which caused
him to publish the story separately. The picture was
etched by Elizabeth Peabody, and the dedication is:
"To Miss Sophia A. Peabody this little Tale, to which
her kindred Art has given value, is respectfully inscribed
by the Author." This was in 1839, and the publication
must have cost Hawthorne more than he could well
spare; but it was characteristic of his nature not to
count the cost of alabaster beside an offering of love.
It was not until three years later that the marriage took
place. Julian Hawthorne attributes this three years'
engagement to Hawthorne's apprehension that his mar-
riage with an invalid would seriously affect his mother's
happiness and health. As its actual effect was the
reverse, one cannot repress some scepticism on this
explanation. The more obvious difficulty was that
Hawthorne had only twelve hundred dollars a year from
a precarious office. As Miss Peabody could bring him
no resources, there would appear good cause for the
postponement. But meanwhile the betrothal appears
to have made the three years wonderfully happy. The
tomb and the dungeon which, he says, are in the depths.
of every heart, were overlaid with tender messages, and
pretty dreams in pictures. Under the kiss of her hero
Sophia, like another Dornröschen, had arisen, and left
all her thorns of weakness and pain. On the other hand,
,
:
5
:
:
66
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
"Sometimes,"
the spell that bound him was broken.
to quote one letter (1840)—"in our old Salem house,
it seemed to me as if I had only life enough to know
that I was not alive; for I had no wife then to keep
my heart warm. But, at length, you were revealed to
me, in the shadow of a seclusion deep as my own. I
drew nearer and nearer to you, and opened my heart to
you, and you came to me, and will remain for ever,
keeping my heart warm and renewing my life with your
own."
CHAPTER V.
THE
HE early culture of Hawthorne is especially trace-
able in his little allegory, "A Virtuoso's Collec-
tion." The idea itself, of the Wandering Jew making a
selection of the creations of mythology and poetry,
ancient and modern, and exhibiting them in the light
spirit of the dilettante-all miracles being trivial com-
pared with himself, and his own eternity too familiar for
wonder-shows Hawthorne held fast by the glittering
eye of the Day whose doom of unrest had passed on the
intellectual age. In his seventeenth year (Oct. 1820), he
writes to his sister that he has read "St. Leon," and adds,
“I admire Godwin's novels, and intend to read them all.”
"St. Leon" is one of the earliest appearances of the
"undying one," in modern literature. That type of the
human spirit, parted hopelessly from the faith on which
it had so long found rest, destined to wander endlessly,
rose in various shapes before all the intellectual children
of the nineteenth century-Shelley, Goethe, Byron,
Wordsworth, Carlyle, Heine, Quinet, Hans Anderson,
Emerson, Tennyson, Richard Wagner (whose "Wodan,
wanderer of the Air," and "Flying Dutchman, wanderer
of the Sea," are brothers of the earth-travelled Ahasuerus),
68
LIFE OF
:
These and many others were fascinated by this idealized
Wandering Jew. The impression made by "St. Leon
on the youth is recorded in his reply to the Virtuoso,
who offers him a draught of the elixir of life: "No; I
desire no earthly immortality. Were man to live longer
on the earth, the spiritual would die out of him." This
theme yielded Hawthorne subtle variations—as in “Dr.
Heidegger's Experiment" (partly appropriated by Dumas),
and later in "Septimius Felton," and the "Dolliver
Romance."
>>
In this connection a variant in "A Virtuoso's Collec-
tion," is especially interesting,-namely, "Peter Rugg."
After observing Peter Schlemihl's shadow, the visitor
perceives a figure of "restless aspect and dim, confused,
questioning anxiety," who, "half starting from his seat,
addressed me, 'I beseech you, kind sir,' said he, in a
cracked, melancholy tone, 'have pity on the most unfor-
tunate man in the world. For heaven's sake, answer me
a single question! Is this the town of Boston?' 'You
have recognized him now,' said the Virtuoso. It is
Peter Rugg, the missing man. I chanced to meet him
the other day, still in search of Boston, and conducted
him hither.
t
>
The story of "Peter Rugg, the Missing Man," first
appeared in Buckingham's New England Galaxy, Sept.
10, 1824-the year before Hawthorne's graduation. It
had a wide newspaper circulation at the time, and has
recently appeared in Mr. Stedman's compilation of
selections from American literature. The author was
William Austin, an eminent Boston lawyer, who died in
1841. In 1804, Austin published a volume of "Letters.
HAWTHORNE.
69
from London," which show a personal acquaintance with
authors in that city, Godwin among others.
So he also
had come in contact with "St. Leon." In the New
York Independent (March 29, 1888) Mr. Wentworth
Higginson describes Austin as "a precursor of Haw-
thorne." I The story of "Peter Rugg" follows pretty
closely that of the "Flying Dutchman " (whose autograph,
by the way, is in "A Virtuoso's Collection "). Overtaken
by a storm at Menotomy, now Arlington, a few miles out
of Boston, while driving with his child, he swore to get
home that night, or never see home again. He left
Boston in 1770, but for fifty years after is now and then
(C
1 Mr. Higginson finds a touch of Hawthorne" in another of
Austin's stories, "The late Joseph Natterstrom " (New England
Magazine, July, 1831). This hero is a New York merchant, in-
trusted by a Turkish correspondent with a venture in which a fortune
is made, which fortune the New Yorker invests and re-invests,
always in the Turk's name, until the name of Natterstrom is utterly
merged; and its faithful owner comes to be known only by the name
of the Turk, Ebn Beg, anglicised into Eben Beck, whose wealth is
always kept sacred, and is at last restored to him. Mr. Higginson
has told me in conversation the plot of another of Austin's stories,
not yet traced to its place of publication, "The Man of Cloaks."
This cold-hearted man cannot get warm physically, and puts on
cloak after cloak. But one day he does some act of kindness,
and finds that one of his cloaks may be removed. By similar
actions his cloaks are rendered successively superfluous, and his
temperature is humanized. This certainly seems "Hawthornish.”
Mr. Higginson also notes in Austin's style something of what he
felicitously calls Hawthorne's penumbra-suggesting doubts about
his own statement, discrediting his own witnesses, consulting the
reader as to an explanation, e.§., "Whether Rugg, or whoever
the person was, ever passed the bridge again, the toll-gatherer would
never tell—and when questioned, seemed anxious to waive the sub-
ject.”
70
LIFE OF
F
met in his chaise, with his child, asking the way to Bos-
ton, but never getting there. In a continuation, how-
ever (1825), Peter Rugg reaches Boston at the moment.
when an auctioneer is offering for sale his own ancient
estate, escheated to the commonwealth. The house is
gone, the generation Rugg knew is gone, and in response
to the wanderer's entreaty for recognition, a voice from
the crowd said: "There is nothing strange here but
yourself, Mr. Rugg. Time, which destroys and renews.
all things, has dilapidated your house and placed us here.
You have suffered many years under an illusion. The
tempest which your profanely defied at Menotomy has at
length subsided; but you will never see home, for your
house and wife and neighbours have all disappeared.
Your estate indeed remains, but no home. You were
cut off from the last age, and you can never be fitted to
the present. Your home is gone, and you can never
have another home in this world."
This tale is artfully rationalized in one of Hawthorne's
most original tales. "Wakefield " pretends to be leaving
home for a journey, but goes into the next street.
For a
time, in disguise, he watches the movements of his wife,
but habit hardens his whim; sulkiness at the supposed
inadequacy of Mrs. Wakefield's sensations, doubts about
his reception should he return, difficulty of explanation,
all help to dig a gulf between him and his house in the
next street. He has lost the perception of singularity in
his conduct; he is spell-bound. Standing out in the
wintry evening he sees on the ceiling of his house his
wife's shadow, thrown by the comfortable firelight. "He
ascends the steps — heavily! - for twenty years have
HAWTHORNE.
71
stiffened his legs since he went down - but he knows it
not. Stay, Wakefield! Would you go to the sole home
that is left you? Then step into your grave! . . .
Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious, world,
individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and
systems to one another, and to a whole, that by stepping
aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful
risk of losing his place for ever. Like Wakefield, he may
become, as it were, the outcast of the universe.'
This is a version of what the voice from the crowd
said to Peter Rugg, when he at last reached Boston. I
have dwelt on the point more because it appears a fine
illustration of legitimate intellectual lineage. Hawthorne
is pre-eminent among modern imaginative writers for the
number and originality of his plots, his only equal in this
respect, perhaps, being Robert Browning. I know of but
one instance among Hawthorne's works of even partial
imitation. "Feathertop" seems to be an imitation of
Tieck's "Die Vogelscheuche." In Tieck's satire, a figure
of Robin Hood, made of leather, but exceeding smart, is
used as a scarecrow; becoming vitalized by a shooting
star, it appears as Baron Ledebrinna, a great authority
in literary circles. Tieck got his idea from Hauff's
"Young Englishman," wherein a monkey, dressed and.
drilled for the purpose, is introduced by an Englishman
as his nephew, and passed off in the best German society.
This Hawthorne had probably not seen, but his “Ameri-
can Note Books" show him studying German from
"Tieck's tale" (1843). While he "plodded onward in
the rugged and bewildering depths of Tieck's tale,” he
is "sometimes dimly shaping out scenes of a tale"
}
72
LIFE OF
("American Note Books," i. pp. 260, 261). But here is a
coincidence. In 1840, when he certainly had not read
Tieck, Hawthorne enters in his "Note Book":"To make
a story out of a scarecrow, giving it odd attributes. From
different points of view, it should appear to change-now
an old man, now an old woman-a gunner, a farmer, or
the Old Nick."
If Hawthorne read "Peter Rugg," on its appearance
(1824), it certainly did not influence his earliest work.
Nothing can be freer from Austin's penumbra than
'Fanshawe." One might, I think, pick out the earlier
compositions of Hawthorne by their lack of the mystical
vein which runs through his characteristic works. One
of his much admired pieces, "The Gentle Boy," pathetic
as it is, pleases the reader mainly as a simple narrative of
the early sufferings of a Quaker family. It has, indeed,
a moral, but an unconscious one, in the influence of the
boy on the Puritan who protected him. That the Puritan
should have become a Quaker is an incident of some
autobiographic value. Hawthorne appears to have
studied the writings of the sect which his ancestors
persecuted, and in "A Virtuoso's Collection," we find
the startling sentence: "George Fox's hat impressed me
with deep reverence as a relic of perhaps the truest
apostle that has appeared on earth for these eighteen
hundred years." This reverence for George Fox was
characteristic of the rise of what was called "Transcen-
dentalism," in New England. One of the first signs was
Emerson's withdrawal from the pulpit because of his
unwillingness to administer the sacrament of communion.
This was the great religious event when Hawthorne was
HAWTHORNE.
73
twenty-eight years of age, and engaged on his stories.
His writings were unconsciously and vaguely influenced
by this movement, before his entrance into the trans-
cendental community of Brook Farm.
For a New England boy of sixty years ago, whose
weekly holiday morning was passed in a congregational
edifice where ugliness was held a part of godliness, Bunyan
was a benediction. The dismal walls were frescoed
with visions of "The Pilgrim's Progress," and the plain
windows passionate with the piously-named faërie of
the old dreamer. Mr. Lathrop supposes that the idea of
"A Virtuoso's Collection" may have been suggested by
the exhibition to Christiana, at the Palace Beautiful, of
one of the apples Eve ate of, and Jacob's ladder. My
friend Mr. Garnett, of the British Museum, once pointed
out to me the suggestion of such an ideal curiosity-shop
in the “Peau de Chagrin" of Balzac ; but Mr. Lathrop's
view seems to me probable. One of the objects shown,
it will be remembered, was Christian's burden.
666 о
pray let us open it!' cried I. For many a year I have
longed to know its contents.' 'Look into your own con-
sciousness and memory,' replied the Virtuoso. 'You
will there find a list of whatever it contains.'
"""
"The Celestial Railroad" (which first appeared in The
Democratic Review, May, 1843) is the finest tribute ever
paid to Bunyan's genius. It is also the height of Haw-
thorne's humour. The opening of railways in regions.
where in boyhood he had journeyed on foot, the frequent.
explosions and catastrophes which attended the earlier
experiments in steam travelling, the new iron forges of
New York, the lighting of Fredonia, New York, from its
74
LIFE OF
natural gas springs-entered in his "Note Book "(1837)
with the query, "What moral could be drawn from this?".
supplied ample scenery; and the new optimistic theology
of Boston, which explained away biblical menaces, and
smoothed the ancient religious difficulties, presented im-
pressive contrasts for the intellectual hermit whose cell
was still radiant with Bunyan's visions. Some of Haw-
thorne's acquaintances resented this satire, in which the
cave of Pope and Pagan was occupied by Giant Trans-
cendentalism, "who shouted after us, but in so strange
a phraseology that we knew not what he meant, nor
whether to be encouraged or affrighted"; though the
dreamer is careful not to make this giant a friend of the
new enterprize by which Mr. Smooth-it-away and Apollyon
pretend to convey pilgrims to the Celestial City. The
turning of Satan and Hell into metaphors by the
Unitarians and Universalists no doubt gave rise to a good
deal of unctuous self-indulgence. It is more clear now
than fifty years ago that the naturalistic optimism which
resulted from the revolution against orthodox pessimism,
failed to provide in place of the Cross any means whereby
humanity might be relieved of its heavy burdens, inward
and outward. "The Celestial Railroad" is, therefore,
more likely to be appreciated by a liberal reader of to-day
than when it was written. It was taken seriously by
theological opponents of rationalism, and its hits at the
Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit, and Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine,
were by no means taken to heart by themselves. The
churches in every street of Vanity Fair were of course
Unitarian churches. The piece was actually published
by the American Sunday School Union (Philadephia),
1
HAWTHORNE.
75
without the author's name, and with the following
note:
"The following allegory (though not particularly designed for
children) very strikingly sets forth a class of false opinions and prac-
tices which are common among men. It is an admirable Commen-
tary on the declaration of our divine Saviour, Wide is the gate, and
broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that
go in thereat; and Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which
leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
"" I
There are evidences of Hawthorne's careful reading of
Shakespeare, but none of any important gains from that
source. The temporary influence of Walter Scott may
be traced in heroic attitudes of certain figures in the
early colonial tales. But from first to last he is an
insatiable reader of classical legends, of "Arabian
Nights Tales," of all fairy tales. These weird or aerial
creatures peep out from beneath Yankee hats, bonnets,
and veils; and we may fancy the whole troop coming
with their gifts to the christening-if she ever was
christened—of his first-born child, Una, who stepped out
of Spenser's poem.
But this allusion may remind the reader that we have
wandered too far ahead in this interlude.
"I have now, or shall soon have, a sharper spur to
exertion, which I lacked at an earlier period." So wrote
Hawthorne to Longfellow in June, 1837. What was
In 1847 the "Celestial Railroad" also appeared apparently as
a tract (Lowell: D. Skinner). But I have never met with any
copies of these pious publications except in the Hawthorne collec-
tion of my friend, G. M. Williamson.
76
LIFE OF
*
this spur? He had just begun a friendship with Sophia.
Peabody, and may have foreseen the future.
In March of the same year his first volume had
appeared, the first series of "Twice-told Tales." It
brought him an excellent review by Longfellow, in The
North American Review, and awakened the interest of
literary men; but these were few; or perhaps it should
be said that the literary men and women had been
generally carried away into spiritual and social enthu-
siasms of the time. The agitation against slavery was
rising like a storm; the socialistic propaganda of Robert
Owen's followers was filling the land. The cultured
public in and around Boston, which Hawthorne might
naturally have interested, was preoccupied with the
transcendental lectures of Emerson and the controver-
sies which had sprung up around that mildest of
revolutionary philosophers. As for the nation at large,
its reading time was fully occupied with comfortably
pirated editions of Scott, Dickens, and other English
writers. It may perhaps be regarded as a success that
Hawthorne's first book sold over six hundred copies!
Him it brought no money. With the prospect of
marriage to a lady without means, he made for himself
the discovery which all American authors before and
since have made, that no family can be supported by
authorship in a country where piracy on foreign authors
is permitted. American authors who have neither
inherited nor married wealth have invariably been
compelled to sell their main time and strength to
colleges, professions, journals, magazines, or offices, or
perhaps to reside abroad. In no case has literature,
HAWTHORNE.
77
pure and simple, ever supported an American author,
unless, possibly, if he were a bachelor. As a bachelor
Hawthorne had found his slender income sufficient, but
with the prospect of a family came the necessity for an
occupation other than literature. "I can turn my pen
to all sorts of drudgery," he writes to Longfellow, "such as
children's books, &c., and by and by I shall get some
editorship that will answer my purpose. Frank Pierce,
who was with us at college, offered me his influence to
obtain an office in the Exploring Expedition; but I believe
that he was mistaken in supposing that a vacancy existed.
If such a post were attainable, I should certainly accept.
it; for, though fixed so long to one spot, I have always
had a desire to run round the world."
Soon after this—in the summer of 1837-Hawthorne
went on the happy excursion in Maine, described in his
"American Note Books." There he was with his friend,
Horatio Bridge, whose generous guarantee had alone
induced the publisher to issue "Twice-told Tales,” and
there he met his college friend, Cilley. It was soon
after that this Congressman was engaged in preparing
an application for the appointment of Hawthorne to a
lucrative office, when he fell in a duel, as already related.
George Bancroft, under the normal necessity of
authors, had obtained the Boston Custom House, and
he appointed Hawthorne to be weigher and gauger, at a
salary of £240. Hawthorne entered on his duties early
in January, 1839. Unpleasant as it is to reflect on the
situation now, the circumstances made this a happier
position for Hawthorne than any which had impawned
his pen. Not only did the appointment save him from
78
LIFE OF
;
further brooding over his friend's death with a feel-
ing of participating in the guilt of it, but from a bitter
consciousness that he was missing the real world. "I
have," he had written to Longfellow, "great difficulty in
the lack of materials; for I have seen so little of the
world that I have nothing but thin air to concoct my
stories of, and it is not easy to give a little semblance to
such shadowy stuff. Sometimes through a peep-hole I
have caught a glimpse of the real world, and the two or
three articles in which I have portrayed these glimpses
please me better than the others." But now, seven
months later (January 12, 1839), he writes to the same
friend, merrily, but with much meaning in his mirth, “I
have no reason to doubt my capacity to fulfil the duties;
for I don't know what they are. They tell me that a
considerable portion of my time will be unoccupied, the
which I mean to employ in sketches of my new experi-
ence, under some such titles as follows: 'Scenes in
Dock,' 'Voyages at Anchor,' 'Nibblings of a Wharf
Rat,' 'Trials of a Tide-Waiter,' 'Romance of the Revenue
Service,' together with an ethical work in two volumes,
on the subject of Duties, the first volume to treat of
moral and religious duties, and the second of duties
imposed by the Revenue Laws, which I begin to con-
sider the most important class."
Twelve hundred dollars a year, and that dependent
on the aura popularis of the next presidential election,
was not enough to marry on.
But he came in contact
with real life; he was awake.
Mr. Lathrop mentions that he used to get to the
wharf at the earliest possible hour, because the wages
HAWTHORNE.
79
of the wharf labourers depended on their number of
hours. His life was thus severe, but, he wrote, "mine is
a healthy weariness, such as needs only a night's sleep
to remove it. 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 like-
wise have risen with the dawn, and borne the fervour of
the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps home-
ward till eventide. Years hence, perhaps, the experience
my heart is acquiring now will flow out in truth and
wisdom."
Madox Brown painted a fine picture of Carlyle and
F. D. Maurice standing near some men with hods at
work on a building in the street. Carlyle breaks into
laughter on observing some ladies daintily holding their
skirts from the rubbish; Maurice looks sadly on the
toilers. Why will not some artist paint us the historian
Bancroft and Hawthorne beside their coal-heavers on
the Boston wharf? So far as Hawthorne is concerned,
the artist need only peruse the pictures unconsciously
drawn of himself, inserted at the end of the first volume
of his "American Note Books."
"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 odour of a pipe, which the captain or some one of
•
80
LIFE OF
his crew was smoking. But at last came the sunset,
with delicate clouds, and a purple light upon the
islands; and I blessed it, because it was the signal of
my release."
"When I shall be free again I will enjoy all things
with the fresh simplicity of a child of five years old.
I shall grow young again, made all over anew. I will
go forth and stand in a summer shower, and all the
worldly dust that has collected on me shall be washed
away at once, and my heart will be like a bank of fresh
flowers for the weary to rest upon.”
Rejoice with me, for I am free from a load of coal
which has been pressing upon my shoulders throughout
all the hot weather. I am convinced that Christian's
burden consisted of coal."
"Salt is white and pure-there is something holy in
salt."
"I have observed that butterflies-very broad-winged
and magnificent butterflies-frequently come on board
of the salt-ship, where I am at work. What have these
bright strangers to do on Long Wharf, where there are
no flowers nor any green thing, nothing but brick store-
houses, stone piers, and the bustle of toilsome men,
who neither look up to the blue sky, nor take note of
these wandering gems of the air? I cannot account for
them, unless they are the lovely fantasies of the mind."
"For three or four days I have been observing a little
Mediterranean boy from Malaga, not more than ten or
eleven years old, but who is already a citizen of the
world, and seems to be just as gay and contented on the
deck of a Yankee coal-vessel as he could be while
(C
HAWTHORNE.
81
;
playing beside his mother's door. It is really touching
to see how free and happy he is-how the little fellow
takes the whole wide world for his home, and all man-
kind for his family. He talks Spanish-at least that is
his native tongue; but he is also very intelligible in
English, and perhaps he likewise has smatterings of the
speech of other countries, whither the winds may have
wafted this little sea-bird. He is a Catholic; and yester-
day being Friday he caught some fish and fried them
for his dinner in sweet oil, and really they looked so
delicate that I almost wished he would invite me to
partake. Every once in a while he undresses himself
and leaps overboard, plunging down beneath the waves
as if the sea were as native to him as the earth. Then
he runs up the rigging of the vessel as if he meant to fly
away through the air. I must remember this little boy,
and perhaps I may make something more beautiful of
him than these rough and imperfect touches would
promise."
"I pray that in one year more I may find some way of
escaping from this unblest Custom House; for it is
a very grievous thraldom. 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.”
The prayer in this last paragraph was precisely
answered: the Van Buren administration was succeeded
6
82
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
by that of Harrison, and short shrift was made of
Bancroft and Hawthorne. When Hawthorne was
entering office he was afflicted on meeting the
ejected face of the man he had supplanted, and re-
corded his protest against "rotation in office"; but
Hawthorne's successor saw no sadness in his face. The
Custom House was needed, no doubt, when his genius
was pale; it was a two years' course, as it were, of cod-
liver oil, and he had got whatever picturesqueness there
was in the bottles. But he was robust now, and the
nasty stuff was disguised by no sense of benefit. So he
ran out like a happy child into the summer shower, the
customs dust was washed away, and his heart was a bank
of fresh flowers.
CHAPTER VI.
FOR
'OR his two years' hard work in the Boston Custom
House, Hawthorne received twenty-four hundred
dollars. When he left it he had saved one thousand.
He had also the nearly completed manuscript of "Grand-
father's Chair,"-stories for children clustered around
a chair given by the Earl of Lincoln to his daughter,
Lady Arabella Johnson, and purporting to have passed
in succession to a number of persons figuring in colonial
history-Roger Williams, Anne Hutchinson, Sir Harry
Vane, and others. At this time Miss Elizabeth Peabody
had set up in Boston her famous West Street establish-
ment, where the Dial was published, and various
books of the new transcendental age. She brought
out "Grandfather's Chair," and it was also published
by Wiley and Putnam in New York. Meanwhile
"Twice-told Tales" (first series) had been nearly
four years before the public, but, despite the good
reviews by Longfellow and others, the publishers
(Munroe and Co.) now reported that the sales had
not covered expenses.
The alternatives seemed now a surrender to Giant
Despair or to Giant Transcendentalism.
84
LIFE OF
*
t
Carlyle had spoken to the youth of America with
a thunder which " deprived them of sleep"; but to
these sleepless ones Emerson brought sweetest dreams.
Unhappily, it is the way of day-dreams to unfit the
dreamers for the prosaic world with its light of common
day. The Peabodys, including Hawthorne's Sophia,
were Emersonian enthusiasts, and probably it was
largely through their influence that the way-worn pilgrim
-finding the old world a mere city of Destruction for
a man without trade, profession, or means-sought a
new world through the portals of Brook Farm com-
munity. Those who have imagined the nature of
Hawthorne to be unsocial may wonder at his member-
ship of a socialistic fraternity. But those who knew the
man well recognised in him a desire for such fellowship
as would leave undisturbed the inner sanctuary where
his heart and intellect sat at their sacred task. This
¹ One who knew him well, Dr. George B. Loring of Salem-now
(1890) United States Minister in Portugal-says, in a letter I have
from him, that Hawthorne had a two-fold existence-a real and
a supernatural. "He was fond of the companionship of all who
were in sympathy with the real and human side of life." But "it.
was the supernatural element in Hawthorne which gave him his
high distinction. When he entered upon his work as a writer he
left this personality entirely behind him. In this work he allowed
no interference, he asked for no aid. He was shy of those whose
intellectual power and literary fame might seem to give them a right.
to enter his sanctuary, The working of his mind was so sacred and
mysterious to him, that he was impatient of any, attempt at fami-
liarity, or even intimacy with the divine power within him.
Hawthorne said of himself that his work grew in his brain as it
went on, and was beyond his control or direction-for nature was
his guide. Theodore Parker once said to me he had no idea that
Hawthorne understood his own genius or comprehended the philo-
HAWTHORNE.
85
was just what Brook Farm promised. There was to be
an unconventional society of men and women, sick as
himself of politics, and unfit for the meanness of barter ;
the supply of food and raiment was to be reduced to
a minimum of ccst by co-operation and communal life.
on that lower plane; and the result was to be a release
of much time for each, and security for the solitude.
demanded for the individual genius. The sage Mani
said, "The populousness of my body is the solitude of
my soul." Brook Farm was to be as the social body;
its perfected organization of many functions was to free
from the curse of multifarious toil the thinker of slender
means. Had Hawthorne earlier met Emerson himself
he might not have ventured his all in this dream. For
Emerson, from his retreat at Concord, where society and
solitude so happily harmonised, saw the whole Brook
Farm incident as a transcendental pic-nic. But with
"The Blithedale Romance" in his hand, no reader can
lament that Hawthorne sowed his last thousand dollars
for a harvest so rich.
Not long ago I took the railway which now goes within
three miles of that Land of Beulah. The Yankee driver
I found at the station could remember no previous
pilgrim to Brook Farm, and had never heard that any
important people had dwelt there. I paused at a house
which I had managed to identify as the House of the
sophical meaning of many of the circumstances or characters found
in his books; that his characters were true to nature in spite of
himself. And so in great loneliness he toiled, conscious that no
human power could guide him, and that human sympathy was of
no avail.
The sacredness of his genius was to him like the sacred-
ness of his love."
86
LIFE OF
2
Interpreter-there Margaret Fuller held her "Conversa-
tions "--but it seemed dismal and deserted. Farther
on was the large building which the dreamers called the
The Hive. There the common table was spread. It is
now a German Lutheran orphanage, its wall decorated
with Scripture texts. The poorly clad children were
playing merrily in the ill-kept "yard," and I presently
saw them enjoying their homely fare in the room where
once sat men and women who have given shining names
to literature. They were summoned by the same bell,
which still sounds from the old cupola. The good
German matron had never heard of any one of those
notable people, and knew nothing of the previous history
of the place. It was too disenchanting to try and
identify the dilapidated frame cabins here and there with
places that bore the poetical names of The Pilgrim House,
The Eyrie, The Nest, The Cottage. It was pleasanter
to ramble through the large forest, carpeted with sun-
glints and wild flowers, where passed the wondrous
masquerades so finely described by Hawthorne. Alas,
of all those scenes the sole relique is a long half-decayed
table, with benches around on which one dare not sit.
The neighbouring streamlet ran on as in the days when
in this Xanadu the visionaries, under pleasure-dome of
the sky, fed on honey-dew and milk of Paradise, some-
times drawn from the udder by Hawthorne's own
fingers! But through what fathomless caverns has passed
the sacred stream that once flowed here! Brownson
became a great Roman Catholic champion; Charles
Dana founded the New York Sun, which has given
him wealth and influence; George Ripley had a success-
HAWTHORNE.
87
ful career on the New York Tribune; George Curtis is
now an honoured editor and orator--and he has never
forgotten the dreams of his youth.
It was significant now to read the texts on the walls of
The Hive. Of the many communities which in those
years sprang up in America, only those survive which
were based on some religious enthusiasm-Moravian,
Shaker, Mormon. The Brook Farmers were mainly
philosophical idealists, for the most part freethinkers,
who believed that nature would cherish the ideals they
had projected into nature. But Boston removed no
farther from the Arctic Circle; New England granite
remained granite; the butcher and baker still demanded
vulgar coin for their products. Hawthorne did not
become a financier by being made chairman of the
Finance Committee. This pretty flower could not be
acclimatised in New England, if indeed on earth; it soon
burst, and its winged seeds floated through the world,
took root, and bore each its several flower-on all, how-
ever, some tint of that planted with such faith and hope
at Brook Farm.
Hawthorne, suo more, formed his friendships chiefly
with those of the community without special relation
to literature, but with heart and culture. George
Bradford, his old friend-beloved of all best men;
Frank Farley, a Western pioneer, of precarious sanity;
Rev. Warren Burton, who wrote a book on landscape
art-are mentioned by Mr. Lathrop as Hawthorne's
particular associates at Brook Farm.
Hawthorne arrived at Brook Farm, April 12, 1841,
in a snowstorm. On the next day he writes to Sophia
88
LIFE OF
Peabody: "Here I am in a polar Paradise! I know
not how to interpret this aspect of nature-whether it
be of good or evil omen to our enterprise. But I reflect
that the Plymouth Pilgrims arrived in the midst of
I laud my stars, however, that you will not
have your first impressions of (perhaps) our future home
from such a day as this."
storm.
On May the 3rd, he writes to his sister Louisa a
letter, printed by his son, Julian :
Mr. Ripley summoned us into the cow-yard, and introduced me
to an instrument with four prongs, commonly entitled a dung-fork.
With this tool I have already assisted to load twenty or thirty carts.
of manure, and shall take part in loading three hundred more.
Besides, I have planted potatoes and pease, cut straw and hay for
the cattle, and done various other mighty works. This very morning
I milked three cows, and I milk two or three every night and
morning. The weather has been so unfavourable that we have
worked comparatively little in the fields; but, nevertheless, I have
gained strength wonderfully—grown quite a giant, in fact—and can
do a day's work without the slightest inconvenience. In short, I am
transformed into a complete farmer.
"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 with-
out 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.
"The thin frock which you made for me is considered a most
splendid article, and I should not wonder if it were to become the
summer uniform of the community. I have a thick frock likewise;
but it is rather deficient in grace, though extremely warm and com-
HAWTHORNE.
89
fortable. I wear a tremendous pair of cow-hide boots, with soles
two inches thick-of course, when I come to see you I shall wear
my farmer's dress."
This letter is signed, "Nath. Hawthorne, Ploughman."
There is a tone about it, as if the writer felt himself to
be playing at work, but he was not conscious of it. He
declares that he looked forward to so passing years, if
not a lifetime, and in the spring of 1842 looked about
for the site of a house which he hoped to build for his
bride. But one day, when he was hoeing his potatoes,
there rose in him an overpowering conviction that he
was out of his own place, and in somebody else's place.
So he vanished. He left on good terms with all, asked
back nothing that he had invested, and, at thirty-eight,
began life again-his means at lowest ebb.
Hawthorne remained in the community about a year.
But before he left he had made a discovery that he had
never been really there at all. "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 honour to assume
my name. But this spectre was not myself." But the
great eye of Hawthorne was there, and every scene was
pictured on it. It was the sufficient raison d'être of
Brook Farm that it produced that truly American novel
"The Blithedale Romance." The other principa
works of Hawthorne relate to imported customs and
characters-the most American among them, perhaps,
being that which is mounted amid the scenery of Rome.
90
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
But "The Blithedale Romance" is a genuine transcript
of original New World life. Hollingsworth, Zenobia,
Priscilla, Coverdale, still survive. The locality was
trampled out of shape when it was made into Camp
Andrew in 1861, but the Utopia has not passed away.
There is a bit of Brook Farm in Howells, in Edward
Bellamy, in all the younger generation of writers, who
talk the same dream as if it had never perished, nor
its beautiful monument been built by the art of Haw-
thorne.
Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody had grown old enough
and wise enough to discover the secret of the only
paradise which the world admits to love and be
beloved, to dwell in the neighbourhood of best heads
and hearts, to follow one's own genius. So they repaired
to Concord, and there married-resolving that if they
must be poor they would be poor together, and at least
rich in mutual love and high thinking.
CHAPTER VII.
ATHANIEL HAWTHORNE and
N
Sophia Pea-
body were married on July 9, 1842. He was in
his thirty-ninth, she in her thirty-second, year, but not
pair in their teens were ever more rapt in love's young
dream. Il faut passer la jeunesse, and hitherto neither.
of them had really known the meaning of youth. Pro-
bably neither of them had ever attended a dance, or
knew how to dance. Outside of their families, the
author appears to have never known any lady except
the one he asked to become his wife, and it is probable
that she was much in the same case as regards the male
They thus represented to each other their respec-
tive divisions of the human race, and Hawthorne appro-
priately described his wife and himself as Adam and
Eve. They secured the lease of a fair enough paradise
-the Old Manse. It was as picturesque as her pencil
could desire, and haunted by precisely the romantic-
historic legends and figures in which his pen delighted.
sex.
Fortunately, too, it did not cost much; for they were
beginning married life on slender expectations, and even
these soon failed them. The Democratic Review, pub-
lished at Washington, had engaged him to write regular
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LIFE OF
contributions, and began paying fairly; but it soon
collapsed. The literary horizon contracted to a more
substantial vegetable garden. It was the great era of
book piracy. Tom Appleton, a well-known wit, used to
call Hawthorne a "boned pirate," but he could not have
so described the publisher of that period. He was a
thoroughly organized pirate. "I continue," writes Haw-
thorne to a friend, "to scribble tales with good success
so far as regards empty praise, some notes of which,
pleasant enough to my ears, have come from across the
Atlantic. But the pamphlet and piratical system has
so far broken up all regular literature, that I am forced
to work hard for small gains." The allusion was to the
recognition his tales had received from Henry Chorley,
in the Athenæum. But American literary men were no
whit behind those of England in such recognition.
Poe's first growls at the rival story-teller had ended in
praise. Longfellow and Hillard filled the air with his
merits, and were always contriving how they might bring
on Hawthorne some golden shower from the firmament
of brass.
And here may be mentioned an incident which added
gratitude to the friendship of Longfellow. Hawthorne
had got hold of a romantic incident of French Canada,
which he intended to weave into a tale. He happened,
however, to tell the substance of it to an acquaintance
named Conolly, who told it to Longfellow. It presently
appeared as Longfellow's "Evangeline." Hawthorne,
without any hint of his loss, wrote a fine review of the
poem, saying of Longfellow: "By this work of his
maturity he has placed himself on a higher eminence
HAWTHORNE.
93
than he had yet attained, and beyond the reach of envy.
Let him stand, then, at the head of our list of native
poets, until some one else shall break up the rude soil
of our American life, as he has done, and produce from
it a lovelier and nobler flower than this poem of Evan-
geline." Longfellow, it would appear, had understood
from Conolly that the tale was sent him by Hawthorne,
for he wrote: "Perhaps I can pay you back in part your
own generous gift, by giving you a theme for story, in
return for a theme for song. It is neither more nor less
than the history of the Acadians, after their expulsion
as well as before. Felton has been making some re-
searches in the State archives, and offers to resign the
documents into your hands. Pray come and see me
about it without delay. Come so as to pass a night with
us, if possible, this week; if not a day and night."
From what I have heard, on good authority, Hawthorne
meant to use the story himself, though Longfellow never
knew the full magnanimity of the review above quoted.
Conolly having afterwards asked some favour of Haw-
thorne, the latter replied, "I will do it, and thereby
prove myself the most Christian man in the world.”
There is, however, another version of the story in Fields'
"Yesterdays," according to which Longfellow asked Haw-
thorne if he had made up his mind not to use the story.
Hawthorne was not inclined to undertake the Acadians.
His "Note Books" show that his inner garden was
already over-thick with blossoms which could never
mature fruits in the chill ("piratical") atmosphere.
under which American literature was suffering-still
suffers, albeit with mitigations.
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LIFE OF
But we return now to the roses that bloomed around
the Old Manse, and the "mosses" that grew on it.
This ancient homestead stands beside an invisible stream
of history. Generations of ministers had dwelt there,
leading the village from Puritanism to liberalism. Under
its windows occurred the first resistance to English troops
in the Revolution, witnessed by Emerson's grandfather,
who resided there-nay, his father used to claim that he
was "in arms" that day (being then an infant). There
Emerson wrote his first book, "Nature," which began a
revolution equal in importance to that which set there
the monument dedicated by his famous hymn to the
farmers, who here "fired the shot heard round the
world." But the Old Manse is beside the visible
Concord River-a gentle stream, with islets, adorned
with lilies in summer and rosettes of the hoar-frost in
winter; blithe, too, with pleasure-boats at one time, and
troops of skaters at another. As for the house itself,
though the present writer has been familiar with it for
thirty-five years, he could never examine it closely.
Walking down the long avenue of balm-of-Gilead trees
he could see only the figures of scholars, of gracious
ladies who dwelt there in the past, and, on entering, the
beautiful widow Ripley and her daughters, who made
it the home of finest hospitality, intellectual and social.
It was an ideal home for the Hawthornes. Had the
owners foreseen the value to be added to it as an estate
by his "Mosses from an Old Manse," they might well
have paid him to reside there. As it was, his severest
sufferings from poverty were there endured. However,
he and his wife had health and love for their guests, and
i
HAWTHORNE.
95
were willing to spare others, and for a long time fairly
checkmated surly fate. Hawthorne turned poverty into
a jest. The arm of a chair comes off as he touches it,
and he throws his wife into fits of laughter by saying
majestically, "I will flee my country." His dressing-
gown has an appalling vacuum, and he remarks on the
strangeness that, being a man of the largest rents in
the country," he has not more ready money.
"" On
Christmas Day we had a truly paradisaical dinner of
preserved quince and apple, dates, and bread and
cheese, and milk."
(6
Hawthorne was never more careful about his affairs
than now, in his "Eden," as he called it. "I wish," he
writes to his friend Hillard (in a letter of November 26,
1843, printed in the Athenæum, August 10, 1889), "I
wish at some leisure moment you would give yourself
the trouble to call into Munroe's bookstore 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 the expenses; but it may be other-
wise 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. What the devil's the matter? We
are very well here, and, as usual, preposterously happy."
Even amid poverty the "New Adam and Eve” de-
clined to receive a boarder, however congenial. Margaret
Fuller's sister had just married Ellery Channing, the poet,
and it was suggested that they should live at the Old
Manse. Mrs. Hawthorne rather favoured the plan, but
Hawthorne wrote to "Dear Margaret,"- "Had it been
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LIFE OF
proposed to Adam and Eve to receive two angels into
their paradise, as boarders, I doubt whether they would
have been pleased to consent." He admits that he had
proposed to receive George Bradford. "In doing so I
was influenced less by what Mr. Bradford is, than by
what he is not; or rather his negative qualities seem to
take away his personality, and leave his excellent charac-
teristics to be fully and fearlessly enjoyed. I doubt
whether he be not precisely the rarest man in the
world." One meaning of which was that Hawthorne
was shy of literary men, such as Ellery Channing, but
desired the companionship of men of culture and
character who were not authors. But he had "mis-
givings" as to undertaking such responsibility even for
Bradford his friend both at Salem and Brook Farm-
and I believe no arrangement of the kind was reached.
But Hawthorne's shyness of literary men wore off
among such as he found at Concord. He enjoyed the
companionship of Ellery Channing — who, Emerson
said, wrote "poetry for poets," and who has put Haw-
thorne into several of them. He became much attached.
to Thoreau, who used to take him out in his boat, the
"Pond Lily." He enjoyed talks with Margaret Fuller,
who passed much of her time at Concord; and with
Miss Elizabeth Hoar, who had the qualities he ascribed
to George Bradford, being at the same time not an
author. Mr. Keyes, an eminent citizen of Concord,
told me that he found Hawthorne good company. "I
enjoyed his Twice-told Tales,' and remember reading
them in the Old Manse in 1841, to Dr. Ripley, then
aged ninety-one. But Hawthorne had to be captured.
HAWTHORNE.
97
I used to capture him now and then, and he was
pleasant enough." Mrs. Keyes was a friend of the
Hawthornes, but when, at the age of twenty, she was
introduced to Hawthorne at the Manse, she was
frightened, and glad to get off. She remembers being
there one day when Hawthorne returned from a journey.
When Mrs. Hawthorne saw him coming down the
avenue, she said to her friend, "Oh, do go! I
wouldn't for the world have anybody see me meet my
husband."
But what of Emerson?
Could Michel Angelo have reappeared, in the Concord
of those days, he might have found in its two great
authors models for a new Morn and Twilight. Haw-
thorne's portrait of Emerson, and his environment of
pilgrims ("Mosses ") is one of the most powerful things
he ever wrote. "For myself there had been epochs of
my life when I, too, might have asked of this prophet
the master-word that should solve me the riddle of the
universe. But now, being happy, I felt as if there were
no question to be put, and therefore admired Emerson
as a poet of deep beauty and austere tenderness, but.
sought nothing from him as a philosopher. It was good,
nevertheless, to meet him in the wood-paths, or some-
times in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual gleam
diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining
one; and he so quiet, so simple, so without pretension,
encountering each man alive as if expecting to receive
more than he could impart. But it was impossible to
dwell in his vicinity without inhaling, more or less, the
mountain atmosphere of his lofty thought, which, in the
:
98
LIFE OF
\
brains of some people, wrought a singular giddiness-
new truth being as heady as new wine."
It was Emerson who inspired the finest allegorical
tale ever written-"The Great Stone Face." The most
impressive natural phenomenon in America is the
stone face of Profile Mountain, which so appeals to
the imagination, that in our college days we saw it as
the face of Carlyle, and it still rises before the writer of
this when he passes the pathetic face looking across the
Thames to its far horizon. With poetic felicity Haw-
thorne represents the boy Ernest, awaiting fulfilment of
the prophecy that a great man should come, who would
be known by his resemblance to the stone face. The
people recognize him in the millionaire, Mr. Gathergold,
then in the victorious "Old Blood-and-Thunder" [General
Jackson], and in Old Stony Phiz [Daniel Webster]; but
Ernest cannot recognize in either the countenance on
the mountain. And when at last all others recognize
the coming one in Ernest himself, his eyes are still look-
ing for one worthier of the Great Stone Face.
Emerson, on his part, was the personal friend of
Hawthorne, and recognized his power; but he could
not enjoy his writings. There was not enough sun-
shine in them for so devout an optimist. Himself
brought up among liberal people, his youth passed at
the feet of Channing-he knew little of the Puritan
nightmare that haunted every pillow in the Salem of
Hawthorne's boyhood. The tales of secret sin, of
veiled wrong, of inherited dooms, were to him too
pathological. "He holds a dark steed hard".
so he
said of Hawthorne. He told me that he thought Haw-
M
HAWTHORNE,
"Our
thorne's "Recollections of a gifted Woman" (in
Old Home"), the best thing he ever wrote. This did
not prevent a cordial relation between the two men.
But probably Emerson was troubled at the failure of his
efforts to bring Hawthorne into an equally friendly rela-
tion with others. It was his custom to receive his friends
on Sunday evenings, but on such occasions Hawthorne
was apt to sit apart, taciturn and "unclubbable." He
thought there seemed to be something "feminine" about
the mind of this robust and grand man, who was so
inexplicably shy. Emerson, furthermore, had never
known poverty, and probably knew not, until later, the
extent to which Hawthorne's life was overshadowed by
it. Finally, let it be added, Emerson was a public
teacher who, without seeking it, had been burdened
with responsibility by the young who looked to him
for guidance. He held health-spiritual and physical—
above all treasures, and, was chary of speaking with
admiration of books which had not that bloom on
them, all the more if they were fascinating. Emerson
realized perfectly the truth of what Hawthorne says of
the "giddiness " caused in some minds by his new
wine. He felt deeply some of the tragical results,
such as that suicide of Miss Hunt whose body, drawn
by Hawthorne and others from Concord River, is de-
scribed so painfully in "The Blithedale Romance.”
was generally believed that this maiden had found an
unendurable discord between her transcendental ideals
and her condition of poverty. In short, Emerson feared
It
I
}
99
Ι
I This, however, was denied by her cousins, with whom the
present writer boarded for a summer, and one of whom in the end
drowned herself in the same river!
36.1.4
J
sy to manag
:
"
i
.
100
LIFE OF
1
everything morbid, everything superstitious, insomuch
that I suspect he did not get far enough in Hawthorne's
books to find what a ruddy heart was masquerading in
that sombre Salem raiment.
But when Emerson came, "with a sunbeam in his
face," Hawthorne's evening star turned to a morning
star. The two men walked in the woods, and bathed
in Walden Water, and bathed in the beauty of nature.
Together they mourned over the uncelestial railroad to
Boston, begun in 1843 (the year in which Hawthorne's
"Celestial Railroad" appeared), which, says Emerson in
a letter, "may unseat us all, and drive us into new
solitudes." This occurs in a letter to his friend George
Stearns Wheeler (then, April 30, 1843, in Rome) com-
municated to The Manchester Guardian (Dec. 3, 1889)
by Alexander Ireland:
Hawthorne," writes Emerson further, "remains in his seat,
and writes very actively for all the magazines. .. Nature is
resolved to make a stand against the market, which has grown so
usurping and omnipotent. Everything shall not go to market; so
she makes shy men, cloistered maids, and angels in lone places.
Brook Farm is an experiment of another kind, where a hotbed
culture is applied, and carried to its extreme. I learn from all
quarters that a great deal of action and courage has been shown
there, and my friend Hawthorne almost regrets that he has not
remained there, to see the unfolding and issue of so much bold life.
He should have stayed to be its historian. My friend Mr. Brad-
ford writes me from Brook Farm that he has formed several new
friendships with old friends, such new grounds of character have
been formed.”
*
On March 3, 1844, a child was born in the Old
Manse-Una. To a congratulation from his friend.
Maou
HAWTHORNE.
101
¿
Hillard (author of "Six Months in Italy") Hawthorne
replies:
"I thank you for your kind and warm congratulations on the
advent of our little Una- -a name which I wish you were entirely
pleased with, as I think you will be by and by. Perhaps the
first impression may not be altogether agreeable; for the name has
never before been warmed with human life, and therefore may not
seem appropriate to real flesh and blood. But for us, our child
has already given it a natural warmth; and when she has worn it
through her lifetime, and perhaps transmitted it to descendants of
her own, the beautiful name will have become naturalized on earth;
Ad
-whereby we shall have done a good deed in bringing it out of the
realm of Faery. I do not agree with you that poetry ought not to
be brought into common life. If flowers of Eden can be made to
grow among my cabbages and squashes, it will please me so much
the better; those excellent vegetables will be just as good to eat,
and the flower no less delightful to see and smell. After all, I like
the name, not so much from any association with Spenser's heroine,
as for its simple self-it is as simple as a name can be as simple
as a breath-it is merely inhaling a breath into one's heart, and
emitting it again, and the name is spoken.
66
I find it a very sober and serious kind of happiness that springs
from the birth of a child. It ought not to 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. There is no escaping it any longer. I have business on
earth now, and must look about me for the means of doing it.
"It will never do for me to continue merely a writer of stories
for the magazines—the most unprofitable business in the world;
and moreover, even if there were ever so great a demand for my
productions, I could not spend more than a third of my time in this
sort of composition. It requires a continual freshness of mind,
else a deterioration in the article will quickly be perceptible. If I
*
Uor M
102
LIFE OF
:
PAYME
am to support myself by literature, it must be by what is called
drudgery, but which is incomparably less irksome, as a business,
than imaginative writing-by translation, concocting of school-books,
newspaper scribbling, &c. If we have a democratic administration
next year, I shall again favour Uncle Sam with my services, though
I hope in some less disagreeable shape than formerly.
"I sent an article to Graham some months ago, and he wrote to
me, accepting it with a great deal of pleasure,' &c. ; but it does
not yet appear. Unless he publishes it next month, I shall reclaim
it, having occasion for it elsewhere. God keep me from ever
being really a writer for bread! If I alone was concerned I had
rather starve; but in that case poor little Una would have to take
refuge in the alms-house-which here in Concord is a most gloomy
old mansion. Her 'angel face' would hardly make a sunshine
there. You must come and see little Una, and the rest of us, as
soon as the railroad is opened. People of experience in babies say
she is going to be pretty-which I devoutly believe, though the
tokens are hidden from my eyes. At all events she is a remarkably
strong and healthy child, free from all troubles and torments such
as Nature generally provides for poor little babies. She seldom
cries except for hunger-her alimentiveness being enormously de-
veloped. She has already smiled once, on the sixteenth morning.
of her existence. I was inclined to attribute it to wind, which
sometimes produces a sardonic grin; but her mother, who was the
sole witness of the phenomenon, persists that it was a veritable smile
out of the child's mouth and eyes. I hope to see you in Boston
early in next month. Give our regards to Mrs. Hillard. We long
to show her our baby. I am glad of Longfellow's anticipated
happiness. It is a pity that any mortal should go out of life with-
out experiencing what gives life its reality; and, next to a child on
earth, it is good to have a child in Heaven.
"Your friend,
'NATH. HAWTHORNE."
The last sentence alludes to his friend Hillard's recent
loss of an only child.
For little Una, a huge cat was in due time procured,
and of course named Lion; but the real lion she rode
Maou
HAWTHORNE.
103
on was her broad-shouldered father. It was, however,
she who presently carried him from his Concord paradise.
A family cannot live on Old Manse mosses or roses, or
even its romances, alone. Something must be done.
A democratic administration has come-that of Polk-
and Hawthorne's friends lose no time in looking after
his interests. "Everything now seems to be wearing
out all at once," writes Mrs. Hawthorne to her mother
(May, 1845). "Had my husband been dealt justly by
in the matter of emoluments, there would not have been
even this shadow upon the blessedness of our condition.
But Horatio Bridge and Franklin Pierce came yesterday,
and gave us solid hope. . . Mr. Hawthorne was in
the shed, hewing wood. Mr. Bridge caught a glimpse
of him, and began a sort of waltz towards him. Mr.
Pierce followed; and when they reappeared, Mr. Pierce's
arm was encircling my husband's old blue frock. How
his friends do love him!" O'Sullivan, of the collapsed
Democratic Review (he was Una's godfather), writes:
"Something satisfactory shall be done for you." It was
not poverty but debt that was worrying Hawthorne, who,
in all pecuniary matters, was always most scrupulous.
"It is wholly new to him to be in debt," writes Mrs.
Hawthorne to her mother; "and he cannot whistle
for it,' as Mr. Emerson advised him to do, telling him
that everybody was in debt, and that they were all worse
than he was. His soul is too fresh with Heaven to take
the world's point of view about anything.”
"Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps.
of the strange things that almost happen." So wrote:
Hawthorne in his exquisite fable, "David Swan." As.
•
6
104
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
many different possible destinies now hovered around
Hawthorne as about the slumbering young David. A
naval post, a place in the Legation at China, Consulates
in various regions of the world, were proposed for him.
But, as his sister wrote long before, "by some fatality
we all seemed to be brought back to Salem, in spite of
our intentions and even resolutions." It was for Salem
Custom House that Hawthorne, after nearly four years
at the Old Manse, parted from its roses along with their
thorns, but taking its mosses for an unfading life.
+
CHAPTER VIII.
H
AWTHORNE was appointed Surveyor of Customs
at Salem in March, 1846. The salary was only
£240; but the debts were paid off, and, as they made
one household with his mother and sister, the combined
means were sufficient for physical comfort. The draw-
back was, that the author was without a study.
Though Hawthorne had a certain love for his native.
town, he did not like it. In 1846 it was a picturesque
elm-embowered old village, hardly discoverable in the
Salem of to-day, with its admirable museum and other
institutions, and its atmosphere of culture. Yet, as Mr.
Underwood has pointed out, in an excellent article on
Hawthorne (Good Words, Oct., 1887), it was especially
suited to nourish his genius. People from every clime
moved about its port, and there were steady importations.
of sea-legends, tales of slavers and pirates, from which
the boy Hawthorne had once levied tribute where the
man must levy on more prosaic stuff. The Salem boys
still kindled fifth-of-November fires on Gallows Hill, as
their fathers did, without dreaming of Guy Fawkes;
Whitsuntide survived under disguise of the gubernational
Election Festival; there were haunted houses and gabled
Aye Rom
106
LIFE OF
houses, and in them the scanty old libraries of the
colonists; nay, even the old costumes were sometimes
visible in the streets. Absorbed, however, in less interest-
ing "Customs," Hawthorne felt that he had passed from
happy though ill-fed freedom in Concord to wear a collar
round his neck. From that four years' felicity he came
to three years' bondage; yet the "Mosses from an Old
Manse," representing the former, were of slight import-
ance compared with the two great novels that grew in
grimy Salem Custom House.
There never was a better officer. "Placid "-I quote
by permission a letter of his Salem friend, Dr. Loring—
CC
Placid, peaceful, calm, and retiring as he was in all the
ordinary events of life, he was tempestuous and irre-
sistible when roused. An attempt on the part of a rough
and overbearing sea-captain to interfere with his business.
as an inspector of Customs in charge of his ship, was
met with such a terrific uprising of spiritual and physical
wrath, that the dismayed captain fled up the wharf and
took refuge in the Office, inquiring, 'What in God's name
have you sent on board my ship as an inspector?' He
knew no such thing as fear; was scrupulously honest;
was unwavering in his fidelity; conscientious in the
discharge of his duty. I have known no man more
impressive, none in whom the great reposing strength
seemed clad in such a robe of sweetness." I
II add, in a note, as it is not in strict connection, Dr. Loring's
"His massive head sat
impression of Hawthorne's personality.
upon a strong and muscular neck, and his chest was broad and
capacious. His muscular force was great-his hand and foot large
and well-made. In walking he had a firm step and a great stride,
without effort. In early manhood he had abounding health, a good
HAWTHORNE.
107
The sea-captain's question was echoed in a way by all
Salem-What have you sent us as an inspector? It was
customary in those days for a Revenue Office to be a
centre of party intrigues. Hawthorne would have
nothing to do with politics, and the local democracy
detested him. The democratic party in Massachusetts
was then very different from what it is now. It was
largely the party of rowdies. The respectable and well-
to-do citizens were Whigs, and those of Salem looked
askance on Hawthorne because he was a democrat.
The new surveyor held aloof from the political schemings
of both parties, and was cordially disliked by both. There
is nothing in Hawthorne's "Note Books" or published
letters about this Salem experience, but his wife's letters,
published by her son, contain some significant items.
Before the family had settled in Salem this son, Julian,
the second child, was born in Boston, where Mrs. Haw-
thorne passed the summer (1846). On Nov. 17 Mrs.
Hawthorne writes from Salem that they had passed an
evening with Emerson at Mr. Howe's house. "It is the
first time we have spent the evening out since Una was
digestion, a hearty enjoyment of food. His excellent physical
condition gave him a placid and even temper, a cheerful spirit. He
was a silent man, and often a moody man, but never irritable or
morose; his organization was too grand for that. In conversation
he was never controversial or authoritative, and never absorbing.
In a multitude his silence was oppressive, but with a single com-
panion his talk flowed on sensibly and quietly and full of wisdom
and shrewdness. He discussed books with wonderful acuteness,
sometimes with startling power, and with an unexpected verdict.
He analyzed men, their characters, and motives, and capacity, with
great penetration-impartially if a stranger, with the tenderest
justice if a friend."
:
108
LIFE OF
born." They at first dwelt in the old family house in
Herbert Street; it was not until the autumn of 1847
that they found one large enough to accommodate the
families and give Hawthorne a study. It was in Mall
Street, and its annual cost £40. "My husband's study
will be high from all noise, and it will be to me a
Paradise of Peace to think of him alone and still, yet
within my reach. He has now lived in the nursery
a year without a chance for one hour's uninterrupted
musing, and without his desk being once opened. He
-the heaven-gifted Seer-to spend his life between the
Custom House and the nursery! I want him to be
with me, not because he must be, but only when he is
just in the mood for all the scenes of Babydom. In the
evening he is always mine, for then he never wishes to
write." "Madame Hawthorne is so uninterfering, of so
much delicacy, that I shall never know she is near
excepting when I wish it; and she has so much kindness
and sense and spirit that she will be a great resource in
emergencies."
The Peabodys-Mrs. Hawthorne's parents-no longer
resided in Salem, but were engaged with their daughter
Elizabeth in her transcendental book (and homoeopathic)
establishment in Boston. Mrs. Hawthorne visited them
in June, 1848. Let the dismal surveyor's office be
credited with the following, from a letter to the absent
wife, there dated, June 19th:
"Tell my little daughter Una that her dolly, since her departure,
has been blossoming like a rose-such an intense bloom, indeed,
that I rather suspected her of making free with a brandy-bottle.
On taxing her with it, however, she showed no signs of guilt or
HAWTHORNE.
109
confusion, and I trust it was merely owing to the hot weather. The
colour has now subsided into quite a moderate tint, and she looks
splendidly at a proper distance, though, on close inspection, her skin
appears rather coarse. She has contracted an unfortunate habit of
squinting, and her mouth, I am sorry to say, is somewhat askew. I
shall take her to task on these matters, and hope to produce a
reformation. Should I fail, thou must take her in hand. Give
Una a kiss, and tell her I love her dearly."
The Salem of to-day is, no doubt, sufficiently ashamed
of the way in which Hawthorne was treated by the Salem
of forty years ago.
He had already been recognized by
the finest minds in the country, but now, returning to
his native town, it had no pride in him. There were
exceptions, no doubt, but Salem, as a town, supplied him
no shield against his enemies. For the feeling of the
vulgar partizans, to whose assembly his honour could not
be united, amounted to enmity. This was not, perhaps,
or not universally, the feeling in the Custom House itself.
Probably not one of his fellow-officials, he supposes, had
ever read a word of his writings; but they no doubt felt
his superiority and knew his magnanimity. Yet among
them he appears to have found only two with whom he
could be on anything like personal terms. One was the
head clerk, "Zach. Burchmore," easily identified as the
man described, though unnamed, in the introduction to
"The Scarlet Letter." "He was, indeed, the Custom
House in himself ;" and the observation of his character
a new idea of talent."
gave Hawthorne
Here, in a
word-and it is a rare instance in my life-I had met
with a person thoroughly adapted to the situation which
he held." Burchmore was a man of humour, too. From
my friend Mr. Williamson I have a note of his : " SALEM,
66
110
LIFE OF
(6
Jan. 27, 1848. For value received I promise to pay
Nathaniel Hawthorne four pence in sixty years.-Z.
BURCHMORE." Over the face of this is written: Pay
the within to the Wandering Jew, Nath'l Hawthorne."
The other official who interested Hawthorne was a sort
of Socrates-in-the-rough, named Pike, of whom Hawthorne
said to President Pierce, "there is an old fellow at Salem
who has more brains than either of us." Neither Burch-
more nor Pike ever read a line of Hawthorne's, but they
were fascinated by him, and an amusing feud arose from
their jealousy of each other's place in his regard.
It is pleasant to associate that grim Custom House
with even one laugh. For it was a dismal time. In
those days even the pittance paid to Customs Surveyors
by the Treasury was delayed, if the receipts fell off, and
for this stinted income odious work was sometimes
required. Hawthorne, for instance, was required by the
Treasury to dismiss two temporary inspectors; and,
despite his efforts to save them by merely suspending
them until business might justify their return, they became
his enemies.I
It appears that there was some treachery in this business, and
that some subordinate used the suspension to get a partizan contri-
bution from the men as a means of restoration. This was actually
charged against Hawthorne, proving how little he was known in
Salem. A painful circumstance is that among his opponents should
have been Charles W. Upham, historian of "Salem Witchcraft "
the man of all others who should have been a friend to his brother
author. Mr. Upham was not, as Hawthorne supposed, prime
mover in the affair; his fault was in lending his ear to the accusa-
tions of others. Hawthorne, it should be said, had some years
before been annoyed by Mr. Upham's mentioning in Salem the
poverty of the Hawthornes in Concord, and possibly had conceived
HAWTHORNE.
111
In November, 1848, the Whig candidate, General
Zachary Taylor, was elected to the presidency, and
there was a clamour for Hawthorne's official head. In
this the Whigs and Democrats combined, though it
would appear that afterwards, when it was too late,
there was a reaction. But the story is told by Haw-
thorne himself in his letters to George S. Hillard
(Athenæum, August 10 and 17, 1889). Dr. John S. H.
Fogg, of Boston, the owner of these letters, enables me
to supply a passage omitted from the first letter, as
printed in the Athenæum :
"March 5, 1849.
"I am informed that there is to be a strong effort among the
politicians here to remove me from office, and that my successor is
already marked out. I do not think that this ought to be done;
for I was not appointed to office as a reward for political services,
nor have I acted as a politician since. A large portion of the local
democratic party look coldly on me for not having used the influence
of my position to obtain the removal of Whigs-which I might have
done, but which I in no case did. Neither was my appointment
made at the expense of a Whig; for my predecessor was appointed
by Tyler in his latter days, and called himself a Democrati. Nor
can any charge of inattention to duty, or other official misconduct,
be brought against me; or, if so, I could easily refute it.
There is,
therefore, no ground for disturbing me, except on the most truculent
party system. All this, however, will be of little avail with the
Hangwhangers-the vote-distributors-the Jack Cades who assume
to decide upon these matters, after a political triumph; and as to
a dislike for him. It should be added that the personal charge
against Hawthorne was of "loafing round with hard drinkers.”
His own head was proof against stimulants, but this was not the
case with all of those with whom he associated. No charge of
immorality was ever made against Hawthorne.
112
LIFE OF
It
any literary claims of mine, they would not weigh a feather, nor be
thought worth weighing at all. But it seems to me that an
inoffensive man of letters, having obtained a pitiful little office,
on no other plea than his pitiful little literature, ought not to be
left to the mercy of these thick-skulled and no-hearted ruffians.
is for this that I now write to you. There are men in Boston-Mr.
Rufus Choate, for instance-whose favourable influence with the
administration would make it impossible to remove me, and
whose support and sympathy might fairly be obtained in my behalf
--not on the ground that I am a very good writer, but because I
gained my position, such as it is, by my literary character, and have
done nothing to forfeit that tenure. I do not think you can have
any objection to bringing this matter under the consideration of such
men; but if you do object, I am sure it will be for some good
reason, and therefore beg you not to stir in it. I do not want any
great fuss to be made the whole thing is not worth it: but I should
like to have the Administration enlightened by a few such testimo-
nials as would take my name out of the list of ordinary office-holders,
and at least prevent any hasty action. I think, too, that the letters
(if you obtain any) had better contain no allusion to the proposed
attack on me, as it may possibly fall through of itself. Certainly
the general feeling here in Salem would be in my favour; but I have
seen too much of the modes of political action to lay any great
stress on that.
"Be pleased on no account to mention this matter to any Salem
man, however friendly to me he may profess himself. If any move-
ment on my part were heard of, it would precipitate their assault.
"So much for business. I do not let myself be disturbed by
these things, but employ my leisure hours in writing, and go on as
quietly as ever. I see that Longfellow has written a prose tale.
How indefatigable he is! and how adventurous !
Well he may be,
for he never fails."
، 4
'June 8, 1849.
"I am turned out of office!
"There is no use in lamentation. It now remains to consider
what I shall do next. The emoluments of the office have been so
moderate' that I have not been able to do anything more than
support my family, and pay some few debts that I had contracted..
HAWTHORNE.
113
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, &c., 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 [Library].
Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to me.
CC
I wrote to Longfellow the other day that I would dine with
him on his next invitation, and that you would come too. I should
like soon to meet you and him.
"The intelligence has just reached me, and Sophia has not yet
heard it. She will bear it like a woman-that is to say, better than
a man.
>>
"SALEM, June 12, 1849.
"I have just received your letter. It makes me sick at heart
to think of making any effort to retain this office. I trust that God
means to put me in some other position; and I care not how hard
or how humble it may be. Nevertheless, I answer your questions.
as well as I can.
re
"I am accused, you tell me, of writing political articles for a
democratic paper here-the Salem Advertiser. My contributions to
that paper have been two theatrical criticisms, a notice of a ball at
Ballard Vale, a notice of Longfellow's Evangeline,' and perhaps
half a dozen other books. Never one word of politics. Any one of
the articles would have been perfectly proper for a Whig paper, and
indeed most of them were copied into Whig papers elsewhere.
You know and the public knows what my contributions to The
Democratic Review have been. They are all published in one or
another of my volumes-all, with a single exception. That is a
brief sketch of the life of my early and very dear friend Cilley,
written shortly after his death, at the request of the editor. I have
not read it for years; but I am willing to refer to it as a proof of
what sort of a politician I am. Written in the very midst of my
grief, and when every other man in the nation, on both sides, was
at fever-heat, it is, though very sad, as calm as though it had been
written a hundred years after the event; and so far as I recollect it,
it might as well have been written by a Whig as a Democrat.
Look
8
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LIFE OF
at it, and see. It cannot be called a political article; and, with
that single exception, I have never, in all my life, written one word
that had reference to politics.
CC
As to my political action, I have voted, since I have been in
office, twice. I have listened to a portion of a political address by
Mr. Rantoul, and to a portion of another by Caleb Cushing. I
suffer under considerable odium in the view of my own party for
having taken no part whatever. All my official conduct has been
under the supervision and sanction of Colonel Miller, a Whig, the
Deputy Collector, and now Collector of the port. He is now in
Washington. I refer to him. If any definite charges were before
me, I would answer them. As it is, I have no more to say-and do
not care to have said what I have.
"I repeat, that it makes me sick to think of attempting to recover
this office. Neither have I any idea that it can be recovered. There
is no disposition to do me justice. The Whigs know that the
charges are false. But, without intending it, they are doing me
a higher justice than my best friends. I have come to feel that it is
not good for me to be here. I am in a lower moral state than I
have been a duller intellectual one. So let me go; and, under
God's providence, I shall arrive at something better.
It seems probable, from the foregoing letter, that the
ghost of poor Cilley had once more risen in Hawthorne's
path, and his praise of that democratic statesman been
recalled by a Whig administration, as his condemnation
of an accessory to the duel-murder had forfeited the
favour of a democratic administration. If this be so,
the ghost of Cilley really did him good service this time.
Hawthorne's removal from the Custom House was the
first entrance on a career worthy of him. His wife
having greeted the tidings as a release, Hawthorne at
once realized how great a burden had been lifted. There
was a good deal of resentment of this removal among
men who wielded sharp pens. President Taylor had
}
HAWTHORNE.
115
P
been elected by voters from both parties, on account
of his military services, and had proclaimed, “I am
a Whig, but not an ultra Whig." But official democratic
heads fell all the same, and Hawthorne's case presented
an extreme application of the "spoils system." Possibly
his office might have been restored had he not refused
to accede to it. He tried to utilize all the sentiment
elicited for himself for the restoration of Burchmore.
This officer, bred in the Custom House, had been
ruthlessly removed, and Hawthorne wrote letter after
letter to testify the importance of Burchmore's services.
to the public business at Salem.¹
What is said, in the foregoing statement, of Haw-
thorne's relations with Salem, is based on his letters, and
his introduction to "The Scarlet Letter," though not
without misgivings, based on my personal recollections
of Salem's hospitable homes, that there must be another
side, not visible to the author in his transient vale of
humiliation. I therefore submitted the matter to my
•
A
، ،
>>
¹ It was all of no avail, and the poor head clerk, who had given
Hawthorne a new idea of talent," disappears in some small shop
in Salem. Mr. Williamson has several letters to Burchmore after-
wards written by Hawthorne. In one (May 13, 1850) Hawthorne,
now in Boston, says, "I can't come to Salem, and, to say the
truth, would rather go to any other place in the known world.'
From Lenox (April 7, 1851), he writes: "Do you deal in cigars ?
If you meet with any good ones, at a reasonable rate, I should like
to have you reserve a quarter of a thousand for me; and I will call
for them when I come to Boston." From Concord (July, 1852) :
"Is there any first-rate brandy to be had? I shall want a gallon or
two before the liquor law goes into operation." So his patronage
went all the way to Salem for the sake of this humiliated clerk.
116
LIFE OF
i
friend Dr. Loring, a friend of both Salem and Haw-
thorne, and am permitted to quote his reply:
"Salem did not treat its illustrious son' at all,
because he gave it no opportunity. He was a recluse
there always. In early life he was part of the time in
Maine, part of the time in college, and the rest of the
time an unknown and apparently idle young man.
He
wrote stories and published them in magazines, but.
nobody knew who wrote them; and Elizabeth Peabody
told me that for a long time it was supposed they were
written by a woman-and that not long before the
'Twice-told Tales' came out. She first discovered that
they were written in Salem, and then, after long search,
that they were written by one Hawthorne.
It was very
difficult for the Peabodys to make his acquaintance.
At last their culture and intellectual capacity drew him
out, and he began to call at their house. To the
Peabody family he confined his social attentions in
Salem. My first wife, a cousin of Mrs. Hawthorne,
used often to urge Sophia to bring him to her house,
but in vain. Salem was full of cultivated and brilliant
people at that time, but Hawthorne could not be induced
to visit them. He was really too shy for such social
intercourse; his brain was too busy with its creations;
and he had no gift whatever for ordinary conversation.
His life had been too long secluded. His daily official
associates [when he had returned there after marriage]
were a group of men, all of whom had remarkable
characteristics, not of the best many times, but original,
strong, highly-flavoured, defiant democrats, with whom
he was officially connected, who made no appeal to him,
،
HAWTHORNE.
117
but responded to the uncultivated side of his nature, and
to whose defects he was blind on account of their
originality. If they were given to excesses, as perhaps
one or two of them were, he took no part with them in
that side of their lives. How often it happens that
a hard, rough, racy, unpolished, strong, and vigorous
person furnishes a sort of relief to the refined and
cultivated, as the eye accustomed to the artistic beauties
of the garden and the gallery, and to the refinements of
a tasteful home, will take delight in the rudeness of a
homely cottage on a rough and rugged mountain side!
Hawthorne was thrown into such a group in the Custom
House, and he associated with them while he was not of
them. Ever in reserve, he was an uneventful person-
his great charm consisting in his manifest appreciation of
everything about him. He was most winning in his own
home and in the houses of his friends. His entertain-
ments of me at Concord were charming, but there is no
event about them. He should be judged by his intimacy
with the Peabodys, and by his home made most taste-
ful and refined by his brilliant wife, where he spent
all his leisure hours, and to which he was always
devoted."
J
At the time when Hawthorne's fortunes seemed to
reach their lowest depth, he found himself, as it were,
rich. In the first place his wife disclosed a hundred and
fifty golden dollars which, without his knowledge, she
had saved up for just this rainy day. Another hundred
came unexpectedly from O'Sullivan-saved from wreck
of The Democratic Review. And how unsuspectedly
rich this ostracized Salemite was in friends a little way
118
LIFE OF
off was presently revealed by a substantial cheque and a
noble letter (Jan. 17, 1850) from Hillard:
"It occurred to me," so it ran, "and some other of your friends
that, in consideration of the events of the last year, you might at
this time be in need of a little pecuniary aid. I have therefore col-
lected, from some of those who admire your genius and respect your
character, the enclosed sum of money, which I send you with my
warmest wishes for your health and happiness. I know the sensitive
edge of your temperament; but do not speak or think of obligation.
It is only paying, in a very imperfect measure, the debt we owe you
for what you have done for American literature. Could you know
the readiness with which every one to whom I applied contributed
to this little offering, and could you have heard the warm expressions
with which some accompanied their gift, you would have felt that
the bread you had cast on the waters had indeed come back to you.
Let no shadow of despondency, my dear friend, steal over you.
Your friends do not and will not forget you. You shall be protected
against eating cares,' which, I take it, mean cares lest we should
not have enough to eat."
And here is the touching reply :
C
SALEM, Jan. 30, 1850.
"I read your letter in the vestibule of the Post Office; and it
drew-what my troubles never have--the water to my eyes; so that
I was glad of the sharply cold west wind that blew into them
as I came homeward, and gave them an excuse for being red and
bleared.
66
"There was much that was very sweet-and something too that
was very bitter-mingled with that same moisture. It is sweet to
be remembered and cared for by one's friends-some of whom know
me for what I am, while others, perhaps, know me only through a
generous faith-sweet to think that they deem me worth upholding
in my poor work through life. And it is bitter, nevertheless, to
need their support. It is something else besides pride that teaches
me that ill-success in life is really and justly a matter of shame. I
am ashamed of it, and I ought to be. The fault of a failure is
HAWTHORNE.
119
attributable-in a great degree at least to the man who fails. I
should apply this truth in judging of other men; and it behoves me
not to shun its point or edge in taking it home to my own heart.
Nobody has a right to live in the world unless he be strong and
able, and applies his ability to good purpose.
The money, dear Hillard, will smooth my path for a long time to
come. The only way in which a man can retain his self-respect,
while availing himself of the generosity of his friends, is by making
it an incitement to his utmost exertions, so that he may not need
their help again. I shall look upon it so-nor will shun any
drudgery that my hand shall find to do, if thereby I may win
bread."
Finally, we may anticipate a few years, and find a
happy end to this chapter in the subjoined letter from the
Liverpool consulate :
"LIVERPOOL, Dec. 9, 1853.
"DEAR HILLARD,-I herewith send you a draft on Ticknor for
the sum (with interest included) which was so kindly given me by
unknown friends, through you, about four years ago.
I am
I have always hoped and intended to do this, from the first
moment when I made up my mind to accept the money. It would
not have been right to speak of this purpose before it was in my
power to accomplish it; but it has never been out of my mind for a
single day, nor hardly, I think, for a single working hour.
most happy that this loan (as I may fairly call it, at this moment)
can now be repaid without the risk on my part of leaving my wife
and children utterly destitute. I should have done it sooner; but I
felt that it would be selfish to purchase the great satisfaction for
myself, at any fresh risk to them. We are not rich, nor are we ever
likely to be; but the miserable pinch is over.
"The friends who were so generous to me must not suppose that
I have not felt deeply grateful, nor that my delight at relieving my-
self from this pecuniary obligation is of any ungracious kind. I
have been grateful all along, and am more so now than ever. This
act of kindness did me an unspeakable amount of good; for it came
when I most needed to be assured that anybody thought it worth
a di
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*
3
7
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LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
while to keep me from sinking. And it did me even greater good
than this, in making me sensible of the need of sterner efforts than
my former ones, in order to establish a right for myself to live and
be comfortable. For it is my creed (and was so even at that
wretched time) that a man has no claim upon his fellow-creatures,
beyond bread and water, and a grave, unless he can win it by his
own strength or skill. But so much the kinder were those unknown.
friends whom I thank again with all my
heart."
So did the last cloud of a long dismal day float into
light.
1
CHAPTER IX.
D
URING the first year of his Salem surveyorship,
as we have seen, Hawthorne had not even a study.
In November, 1847, Mrs. Hawthorne writes, "My hus-
band began retiring to his study on the 1st of November,
and writes every afternoon." The year following was one
of miserable annoyances, yet in it grew two at least of
those mystical "tales" that may rather be called poems.
One of these is "The Snow Image." In early life I
knew a brilliant lady in Washington who told me that
she measured her guests by their estimates of that fable,
and I did not wonder when she afterwards put forth
poetic wings (under the initials "H. H."). The other
tale—or poem—to which I refer is "The Great Stone
Face." This seems to have found its way into the hands
of the poet Whittier, and was sent by him to Dr. Bailey,
editor of The National Era (Washington), in which paper
it appeared, Jan. 24, 1850. It is rather curious, remem-
bering Hawthorne's association with the party allied with
slavery, that this tale should appear in the journal which
brought out "Uncle Tom's Cabin." "Main Street " was
also written in the same year, and appeared in Elizabeth
Peabody's volume of "Esthetic Papers." There was a
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LIFE OF
}
large demand for Hawthorne's pen, but he was apt to
consider his tales unfinished, and reluctant to print them.
Mr. Williamson lends me a letter written by him from
Salem (Dec. 14, 1848) to C. W. Webber, New York,
referring to some enterprise of which I can find nothing
further. The opening sentence points, I think, to "Ethan
Brand a Chapter from an Abortive Romance," which is
indeed fragmentary: 1
I
"At last," he says, "by main strength, I have wrenched and torn
an idea out of my miserable brain; or rather, the fragment of an
idea, like a tooth ill-drawn, and leaving the roots to torture me. I
shall send it to you by express to-day or to-morrow. Perhaps you
will not like it; if so, make no ceremony about rejecting it. I am
as tractable an author as you ever knew, so far as putting my
articles into the fire goes; though I cannot abide alterations or
omissions.
"I am ashamed, as a Yankee, and surveyor of the revenue, to
say that I had not paid proper consideration to the terms of pay-
ment mentioned in two of your letters. I concluded your first
statement to be as liberal as circumstances would allow, and should
still think so if you did not yourself tell me to the contrary.
"When shall you want another article? Now that the spell
is broken, I hope to get into a regular train of scribbling; perhaps
not, however, for I have many impediments to struggle against.
"Pray continue to write freely to me. I feel a real interest in the
success of your enterprise."
I was told by Mrs. Hawthorne's sister, Elizabeth Pea-
body, that when, on that wintry day, Hawthorne returned
so early from the Custom House, and with pale lips said
to his wife, "I am turned out of office," she cheerily
1 But this first appeared, I believe, in The Dollar Magazine, early
in 1851, and entitled "The Unpardonable Sin.”
J
HAWTHORNE.
123
ļ
replied, "Very well! now you can write your book!"
While Hawthorne's eyes were feasting on the unsuspected
little pile of gold she had saved, the wife was in his
study, where his table was arranged, and a fire soon
blazing. The great man's enemies, little dreaming what
triumph lay in his seeming defeat, were speedily for-
gotten; in their places stood fair phantoms summoned
for new life from a past whose cruelties the enemies
helped him to realize.
It was perfectly understood by Hawthorne what book
his wife meant. "The Scarlet Letter" had long been
taking shape in him. Many years before he found in
the records of Boston mention of a punishment which
Mr. Lathrop now discovers in an enactment of Plymouth
Colony, in 1658: "It is enacted by the Court and the
Authoritie thereof that whosoever shall committ Adultery
shall be severly Punished by whipping two several times
viz once whiles the Court is in being att which they are
convicted of the fact, and the second time as the Court
shall order, and likewise to were two Capital letters
viz.: A D cut out in cloth and sewed on their vpermost
garments on their arme or backe; and if at any time
they shal bee taken without said letters, whiles they are
in the Gov'ment soe worne, to be forthwith Taken and
publicly whipt." When first discovered the record had
suggested to Hawthorne another view, as we find in the
earlier tale, "Endicott and the Red Cross": "Sporting
with her infamy, the lost and desperate creature had em-
broidered the fatal token in scarlet cloth, with golden
thread and the nicest art of needlework." But some
friend of the author said, "We shall hear of that letter
124
LIFE OF
again." Perhaps he had found Hawthorne reflecting
that some other interpretation might be put on the
woman's careful embroidery of her scarlet brand.
When Hawthorne had advanced towards the middle
of the novel an unexpected calamity came upon him—
the death of his mother, to whom he was tenderly
attached. Afterwards he was taken ill himself, and just
as the money had given out. He began to despond
about the novel too; he considered that, after all, it was
only another tale such as he had previously "scribbled,”
and, as a note in the work shows, had actually contem-
plated its publication as one of another volume of Tales.
The completion of "The Scarlet Letter" is no doubt
partly due to the late James T. Fields, who, with the
publisher's shrewdness, combined the insight of a literary
man. Among Mr. Fields' "Yesterdays with Authors,"
none shines more brightly than that which carried him
to Salem, in the winter of 1849, and up into the study,
where he found Hawthorne hovering over a stove.
"Now," cried Fields, "it is time for you to publish; for
I know during these years in Salem you must have got
something ready for the press." "Nonsense," says Haw-
thorne; “what heart had I to write anything when my
publishers have been so many years trying to sell a small
edition of the Twice-told Tales'?" And to further
pressure, "Who," he asks, "would risk publishing a book
from me, the most unpopular writer in America?" "I
would," returns Fields, who, as he rises to go, catches
sight of some drawers and affirms positively that they
contain stories. Hawthorne shakes his head, but, when
Fields is on his way downstairs, follows him with a roll
HAWTHORNE.
125
f
of manuscript. "As you have found me out, take what
I have written, and tell me if it is good for anything."
Before Fields slept that night he had read the germ of
"The Scarlet Letter," and had written to Hawthorne
his admiration of it. He had said in their interview
that he would begin with an edition of 2,000 copies of
anything Hawthorne might write; but this novel would
require 5,000 at once. Hawthorne took courage, and
by February 3rd had completed the story. He read the
conclusion to his wife, and "it broke her heart and sent
her to bed with a grievous headache." Yet, despite this
triumphant success," he could not believe that any
writing of his would touch the public heart. "My dear
Fields," he writes (the letter, lent me by Mr. Williamson,
is dated March 7, 1850): "I pray Heaven the book may
be a quarter part as successful as you prophesy. Never-
theless, I don't expect even this small modicum of luck.
It is not in my cards." But the prophecy was more
than fulfilled. The first edition (5,000 copies) was at
once sold, and the reprint in England was nearly as
successful for its publishers.
66
Among the minor results of the splendid success of
"The Scarlet Letter," it may be mentioned that Salem
waked up to a perception that it had been entertaining
(or the reverse) a great man unawares. Not that it had
any reason to think him an angel, for in his introduction
Hawthorne had painted portraits of some of those by
whom he had been surrounded, without any particular
tenderness, though certainly without vindictiveness.
Hawthorne was well aware of the echoes that would
come from Salem if his book should be read there.
126
LIFE OF
<<
Touching the advance sheets for the Literary World,"
he writes Fields, in this letter of March 7th, "I think it would
be well to give them; but I hesitate about that particular pas-
sage. I shall catch it pretty smartly from my ill-wishers here in
Salem, on the score of this old Inspector; and though I care
little for that, yet it may be as well not to bring his character
out in the alto relievo of a preliminary extract. How would it do
to take the character of General Miller? I don't think it would be
advisable to give anything from the story itself, because I know of
no passage that would not throw too much light on the plot of
the book. The whole introduction might be sent to Duyckinck
with a veto only on that one passage."
So the book came out in its integrity. The old
Inspector was dead, and Hawthorne may not have known
that he had left two daughters. He is unable to resist
the temptation to put him into a picture of the Customs
interior. There was a certain public justice, perhaps, in
portraying a specimen of the people protected by all
administrations while the competent were decapitated.
It is done with as full freedom from personal animosity as
ever animated Teniers in painting a merry boor in his beer-
house. Hawthorne plainly prizes his model. Yet I cannot
help feeling that the pages on the Inspector fall beneath
Hawthorne's art, and that a humorous sentence or two
would have sufficed. With one or two duly marked
exceptions, however, it is clear that the officials of the
Custom House had by no means shown themselves in
possession of such competency or character as to deserve
that any veil should be left over the kind of institution
produced in every part of the country by the system.
of using the Civil Service to reward party service. This
introduction was the earliest exposure of the vicious
1
HAWTHORNE.
127
"spoils" system with which Civil Service reformers-
under the lead of Hawthorne's friend, George W. Curtis
-are now occupied; but which, as I think, they will
find to be rooted as deeply as the birthmark in one
of our author's tales. When it disappears the pre-
sidential monarchy will disappear with it.
It was a terrible sentence that Salem, which supplied him
no defender, now heard from the man whom it presently
recognized as its greatest son—the flower of all its history.
"My good townspeople will not much regret me; for,
though it has been as dear an object as any, in my
literary efforts, to be of some importance in their eyes,
and to win myself a pleasant memory in this abode and
burial-place of so many of my forefathers, there has
never been, for me, the genial atmosphere which a
literary man requires, in order to ripen the best harvest
of his mind. I shall do better amongst other faces; and
these familiar ones, it need hardly be said, will do just
as well without me. It may be, however-oh, trans-
porting and triumphant thought !—that the great-grand-
children of the present race may sometimes think kindly
of the scribbler of bygone days, when the antiquary of
days to come, among the sites memorable in the town's
history, shall point out the locality of THE TOWN
PUMP!" I
I
The site of my town pump," writes Hawthorne in 1858, "so
plainly indicated in the sketch itself, has already been mistaken in
the City council and in the public prints." His pride in this old
sketch of his is amusing; it is the only one he ever gloried in. He
remembers it beside Boccaccio's well at Arezzo. "A thousand and
a thousand people had pumped there, merely to water oxen or fill
their tea-kettles, but when once I grasped the handle, a rill gushed
128
LIFE OF
Not merely the Town Pump, but every object referred
to in Hawthorne's tales, was treasured by those who
read this pathetic passage-recognition not being left
even to their children. Before Hawthorne died three
houses in his native town were competing for the honour
of being his "House of the Seven Gables." Nay, there
were hundreds who, when they read the introduction to
"The Scarlet Letter," and learned that the author had
been pelted with calumnies without finding a defender
in his native town, would have rushed to the Mall Street
house and clasped his feet. But it was too late. Haw-
thorne had lingered in Salem only for his mother's sake;
she being dead, he had left the place for ever. (But all
hard feelings died away. In 1860 Hawthorne contri-
buted to "Weal-Reaf," printed in Salem for benefit of a
Fair, a characteristic letter on a "haunted" house of the
neighbourhood,-where some boys were once frightened
by ghosts-in a closet they opened-which proved to
be old portraits.) "The Scarlet Letter" is epical in its
expression of the moral history of New England. It has
been made into an opera in Europe, and dramatised in
America, but if acted in Massachusetts it would produce
the effect of a Passion Play. Its success was largely due
to its harmony with scriptural themes which, by a sort of
survival of the Leviticalest, have become part of the very
forth that meandered as far as England-as far as India-besides
tasting pleasantly in every town and village of our own country. I
like to think of this, so long after I did it, and so far from home,
and am not without hopes of some kindly local remembrance on
that score." The sketch was published in London (1857) as a
temperance tract.
L
HAWTHORNE.
129
،،
""
tissues of the New England man. Hester Prynne's
scarlet mark is the brand of Cain over again. As one
may hear on any Sunday, from pulpit expounders of
the fratricide's brand, Hester's mark "had the effect of
a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with.
humanity;" and what other interpretation would the
sound theologian put on the protection of Cain's life by
his mark than that suggested by Hester's husband:
"Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could
I do better for my object than to let thee live, so that
this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom?
Touching thus chords which had vibrated in every breast
for centuries, “The Scarlet Letter" would have proved
effective and successful even had it been less artistic.
But how fine is its art appears in the pretty general
belief that Hawthorne actually found an embroidered
letter in the Salem Custom House. How else could he
offer to show it to any one who might desire to see this
most curious relic"? The letter and the old MS.,
which he contemplates depositing with the Essex
Historical Society, are, of course, purely fictitious. The
book is also daring in its disregard of the ethical survi-
vals. This is the more remarkable because Hawthorne
was himself a purist with regard to sexual morality. He
once told the present writer that he did not meet a certain
author in London because of her irregular marriage. In
re-reading "The Scarlet Letter," however, I have had
1 It is notable that another novel, which has a place beside
The Scarlet Letter," as an American classic work, is also a
criptural travesty-" Elsie Venner," in which the hereditary Fall,
hrough the serpent, is rationalized.
·
9
130
LIFE OF
misgivings that I may have misunderstood him, for he
has here made one such woman into the only noble,
pure, and lovable character in his book. Beside stolid.
Respectability, and Priestcraft cruel and cowardly, she
shines like a star. Nor is her exaltation that of a peni-
tent Magdalen. What we did had a consecration of
its own," she says to her reverend lover, with whom she
would fain seek to recover happiness in a distant land.
And finally the lives of herself and her daughter, instead
of illustrating retributive “justice," end happily. Haw-
thorne may not have intended any such general impres-
sion as that just given; indeed, there are sentences
thrown in here and there which look as if he had become
conscious, during revision, that some caveat was needed.
It appears to me plain that Hawthorne threw his intellect
unreservedly into this work, that his characters were
created organically, without the slightest reference to
conventional estimates or religious prejudices. Perhaps,
in his long absence from church, and his excursions
among the so-called " come-outers (ie., from existing
society) of Brook Farm and Concord, he had even
forgotten what the standards of soundness were. The
Church Review reminded him of them sharply, and
asked, “Is the French era actually begun in our litera-
ture?" The "orthodox" were particularly scandalized.
by a sympathetic review, in The Massachusetts Quarterly
(edited by Theodore Parker), Sept. 1850, from the pen
of Dr. George B. Loring. Mr. Lathrop finds it still
necessary to insist that Hawthorne cannot be held
responsible for the utterances of his characters, ar
points out sentences in which their moral delusions a
""
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HAWTHORNE.
131
rebuked.
But the clerical instinct told true, however
confused its comments. Here was a story that did not
preach. It had neither moral nor immoral object. It
was a calm—almost cold—history of a situation hap-
pening amid the moral and religious conditions and.
institutions of New England. The events happened so,
and the characters acted as they must; if the happenings
and the actings are not such as might point the pulpit's
moral, or adorn the Sunday-school tale, the historian
cannot help it. It is largely this remorseless-though
sometimes apparently reluctant - veracity which makes
the story thrilling.
It is not wonderful that it should have sent Mrs.
Hawthorne to bed with a grievous headache. But this
may partly be because it seals up the fountain of tears.
Pathetic as is the theme, there is hardly a pathetic
passage in the story. It excites pity, sometimes anger,
but it is against impersonal laws, moving by necessity,
like glaciers. There is a masterly dissection of typical
hearts, at which we seem to assist, like the students
around their master in Rembrandt's picture of the
dissecting-room. It would be intolerable were it vivi-
section; but we feel at every moment that the system
out of which such a tragedy could arise is dead. Hester
Prynne is its last victim, and we now see her turned by
a wondering generation into a martyr.
Y
;
3
2
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CHAPTER X.
A
S one may infer, from the exquisite vesture in which
his thoughts are dressed, Hawthorne was very dainty
in æsthetic tastes. His children must have pretty names
—Una, Julian, Rose-which happily suited them well.
This master of mystery and gloom did not like that his
wife or daughters should wear dark stuffs. He had the
Hindu's sentiment, that if the women of a house are
beautifully arrayed the whole house is decorated.
Nevertheless, it was the wife's dream that her husband
should dwell in a beautiful home. With her artistic
accomplishments but little outlay was needed for this;
and when, in the summer of 1850, the family, Salem
dust shaken from their feet, removed to Lenox, Massa-
chusetts, the first moneys from "The Scarlet Letter"
were devoted to the decorations of the home interior.
The house was small, of such deep red brick that
Hawthorne called it the "Scarlet Letter," and Hester
Prynne never embroidered her badge more carefully
than this home was adorned. It was also adorned with
friends. Lenox was then a unique place. Mrs. Sedg-
wick had opened there an excellent school for young
ladies, and the beauty of the region-its hills, dales, lake,
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LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
133
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woods—had attracted pleasant families, who had built
there summer villas. Among the notable figures of the
vicinity were Fanny Kemble, Herman Melville, and G.
P. R. James. In that first summer (1850) literary men
swarmed there on visits-Holmes, Lowell, Whipple,
Duyckinck, Headley, Fields and his wife. Hawthorne
joined in their excursions, for he did not write much
in summer. Oftener he rambled with his children, and
made acquaintance with the bees and humming-birds
and chickens the latter making an important part of
the family. When autumn came, all these were sum-
moned into his study and transferred by his art to the
legendary garden of "The House of the Seven Gables."
In this romance (finished January 26, 1851) we find
Hawthorne intellectually enriched by severe experiences.
It is founded on the traditional "curse "hurled on the
Hawthorne family by the "wizard" executed by sentence
of their magisterial ancestor; but whereas, in "The
Scarlet Letter," this is alluded to in a way suggestive of
superstition in the author, it is here rationalized. "Under
those seven gables, at which we now look up. through
a portion of three centuries, there has been perpetual
remorse of conscience, a constantly defeated hope, strife
amongst kindred, various misery, a strange form of death,
dark suspicion, unspeakable disgrace; all, or most of
which calamity, I have the means of tracing to the old
Puritan's desire to plant and endow a family." He
can now, in his happy home, even smile at poor Hepzi-
bah's satisfaction in "the sombre dignity of an inherited.
curse.'
For the rest, I cannot see with some others any great
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LIFE OF
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66
originality in Hawthorne's delineation of the hypocritical
Judge Pyncheon. I have heard that there used to be
a cruel daguerreotype of Mr. Upham, a handsome man,
in a Salem shop window, and possibly this may have
suggested one incident in the tale (unless the incident
suggested the daguerreotype story!). But there was
nothing in Mr. Upham's career resembling anything in
that of Judge Pyncheon. The Judge appears to me an
unrealistic stage-villain, acting as it is written" in
the legend. Nor does heroine Phoebe-charming and
satisfactory as she is seem a particularly unique crea-
tion. The miracles of the book are the gradual effort
of the prisoner-so long buried alive to recover his
lost youth and happiness, and the loyal devotion of
gaunt Hepzibah to this brother, even to the withdrawal.
of her marred visage, which he dislikes to look upon.
When the late Bronson Alcott—a transcendental dreamer
at Concord in Hawthorne's time-became aged and
feeble-minded, he was amused with pictures, but if
any wild beast appeared in these he began to weep.
Long before this, Hawthorne wrote of enfeebled Clifford,
looking at the organ-grinder's monkey, that "he was
so shocked by his horrible ugliness, spiritual as well as
physical, that he actually began to shed tears." In all
the detail work of this romance the reader feels that he
is receiving actual impressions and experiences.
Hawthorne was overwhelmed with letters about "The
Scarlet Letter," and the "House of the Seven Gables."
"I receive," he writes to his sister Louisa, “very com-
plimentary letters from poets and prosers, and adoring
ones from young ladies; and I have almost a challenge
1
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HAWTHORNE.
135
•
from a gentleman who complains of me for intro-
ducing his grandfather, Judge Pyncheon. It seems
there was really a Pyncheon family formerly resident in
Salem, and one of them bore the title of Judge, and
was a Tory at the time of the Revolution-with which
facts I was entirely unacquainted. I pacified the gentle-
man by a letter." The real Judge Pyncheon was a
worthy gentleman, and it was rather imprudent in Haw-
thorne to take old names from the annals of Salem, as
he did also in the case of Maule.
The success of the novel was even greater than that
of "The Scarlet Letter," from the publisher's point of
view. Fields lustily cried, "More!" Hawthorne had
grown so hopeless about his later tales that he had not
even preserved copies of them, but fortunately his sisters.
had been more careful; by their assistance was formed
the collection afterwards (1852) published under title
of "The Snow Image, and other Twice-told Tales."
Meanwhile, however, he had written (1851) "A
Wonder Book for Boys and Girls," which, in Frederick
Warne and Co.'s "Chandos Classics," appears with a
later volume "Tanglewood Tales" (1853), and under
the latter title. In March, 1853 ("Am. Note Books,"
ii. p. 154), he speaks of his "former plan of writing one.
or two mythological story-books," and no doubt these
stories had for some time been on his anvil. Of these
works Mr. Henry James, jun., says, "I have been carefull
not to read them over, for I should be very sorry to risk
disturbing in any degree a recollection of them that has
been at rest since the appreciative period of life to
which they are addressed. They seem at that period
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LIFE OF
enchanting." More adventurous than my friend, I have
just read the stories again. Emerson used to insist.
on inviting to our picnics at Concord, "all children
from six years to sixty;" and Hawthorne contemplates
a similar company. When he read these stories at
Tanglewood, Lenox, or at Wayside, Concord, he did not.
fail to provide tit-bits for the grown-up children who
were sure to be present. The scheme of this treatment
of familiar Greek myths-Medusa, Midas, Circe, &c.—
possesses a certain interest for the comparative myth-
ologist, as being a continuation of the process of
adaptation by which was secured the migration of
Oriental fables. The "Tanglewood Tale" is a moralized
version of the Greek myth in the same way that "Whit-
tington and his Cat" is a moralized version of "Puss-in-
boots," but it is not similarly rationalized. Indeed,
the original marvels are sometimes enhanced
the
giants made bigger, the pygmies smaller-and there is
not a suggestion of any "solar" or other theory of
mythology. "No epoch of time can claim a copyright
in these immortal fables," says the preface. "They
seem never to have been made; and certainly, so long
as man exists, they can never perish; but by their
indestructibility itself they are legitimate subjects for
every age to clothe with its own garniture of manners
and sentiment, and to imbue with its own morality."
The success is normal but not invariable. The children
with poetic pseudonyms-Primrose, Sweet Fern, and
the rest on hearing the story-telling college-student tell
how Hercules laughed at the pygmies, and slew their
good-natured giant friend, Antæus-must have thought
}
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HAWTHORNE.
137
the demigod a very unaniable character in his treatment
of little people and big. This, however, is the only
instance in which the Tanglewood Homer has nodded
to the extent of following the ancient dream instead of
Yankee sentiment. Hawthorne speaks of this as one of
the most agreeable literary tasks he ever undertook.
The work has charms of local colour. "There was,"
writes his son, "a long declivity towards Tanglewood
and the lake; and, in winter, Hawthorne and the
children used to seat themselves one behind another
upon the big sled, and go down in headlong career
through the snowdrifts, as is related in the "Wonder
Book" of Eustace Bright and his little. people. Even
the collision with the stump, hidden beneath the snow,
actually happened precisely as set down in the book, as
well as many other humorous and delightful episodes."
The introduction to "Tanglewood Tales" is entitled
"The Wayside "-name still borne by the house in
Concord where the Hawthornes resided in 1853. Here
he led his mythical college-student, Eustace Bright, to
a summer-house on the hillside, built by his predecessor.
It is a mere skeleton of slender, decaying tree-trunks,
with neither walls nor a roof-nothing but a tracery of
branches and twigs, which the next wintry blast will be
very likely to scatter in fragments along the terrace. It
looks and is as evanescent as a dream; and yet, in
its rustic network of boughs, it has somehow enclosed
a hint of spiritual beauty, and has become a true emblem
of the subtle and etherial mind that planned it." This
was the late A. Bronson Alcott, who built a similar
bower near Emerson's house, where midsummer story-
(C
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LIFE OF
..
E
telling became an institution. In it the present writer
passed many a happy hour of that same year's summer
with the children,—each of us in bond for a tale. It
is not the least value of his books for children that in
them is unconsciously revealed Hawthorne's great love
for children. The same is remembered of his gloomy
seafaring father. On one occasion some ladies of Con-
cord prepared a picnic in Emerson's grounds for children,
the only man admitted being Hawthorne, who so desired
to see the little people at play that a hiding-place was
found for him near by. His own home was a "Paradise
for Children,”—as he calls his beautiful story of Pandora
—and never more so than in the year when, after so
many troubles, Hope emerged from the box and become
a guest in his house.
In the happiest spring that Hawthorne's life had
known since he left the Old Manse-that of 1851—
his third and last child was born, and named Rose.
On May 25th he writes to his wife's sister, Elizabeth,
of his hope that his life may be the means of providing
more for his family than his death, even were his life
insured, and adds :
Sophia and the baby are getting on bravely. She gazes at it
all day long, and continually discovers new beauties.
As for me,
who look at it perhaps a half-dozen times a day, I must confess
that I have not yet discovered the first beauty. But I think I
never have had any natural partiality for my children. I love them
according to their deserts-they have to prove their claim to all
the affection they get; and I believe I could love other people's
children better than mine, if I felt that they deserved it more.
Perhaps, however, I should not be quite a fair judge on which
side the merit lay. It does seem to me, moreover, that I feel
HAWTHORNE.
139
7
a more decided drawing of the heart towards this baby than either
of the other two, at their first appearance. This is my last and
latest, my autumnal flower, and will be still in her gayest bloom
when I shall be most decidedly an old man-the daughter of my
age, if age and decrepitude are really to be my lot. But, if it were
not for the considerations in the first part of my letter, I should
wish this scribbling hand to be dust ere then."
In the Italian journals we catch pleasant glimpses of
“Rosebud ”—as he used to call her-blooming beside
her father amid the ruins of Rome.
Yes, Hope had become a guest in the pretty home at
Lenox, but, alas, she seemed to make little headway
against the cares that had escaped from Pandora's box.
Notwithstanding the brilliant succès d'estime of "The
Scarlet Letter," and the five thousand copies sold,
Hawthorne's circumstances were straitened. In the letter
last quoted, concerning his new-born Rose, he says:
"The subject of Life Insurance is not new to me. I have
thought, read, and conversed about it long ago, and have a pamphlet,
treating of its modes and advantages, in the house. I know that it
is an excellent thing in some circumstances-that is, for persons with
a regular income, who have a surplus, and can calculate precisely
what it will be. But I have never yet seen the year, since I was
married, when I could have spared even a hundred dollars from the
necessary expense of living. If I can spare it this year, it is more
than I yet know; and if this year, then probably it would be wanted
the ensuing year. Then our expenditure must positively increase
with the growth of our children and the cost of their education. I
say nothing of myself-nothing of Sophia-since it is probably our
duty to sacrifice all the green margin of our lives to these children,
whom we have seen fit to bring into the world. In short, there is
no use in attempting to put the volume of my convictions on paper.
I should have insured my life, years since, if I had not seen that it
is not the thing for a man, situated like myself, to do, unless I could
=
140
LIFE OF
!
have a reasonable certainty of dying within a year or two. We
must take our chance, or our dispensation of Providence. If I die
soon, my copyrights will be worth something, and might-by the
exertions of friends, who undoubtedly would exert themselves-be
made more available than they have yet been. If I live some years
I shall be as industrious as I may, consistently with keeping my
faculties in good order; and not impossibly I may thus provide for
Sophia and the children."
In the latter part of November, 1851, Hawthorne took
up his temporary abode at West Newton, which then
had little promise of the pretty villas which now adorn
it. It was the residence of his wife's parents, and of the
Hon. Horace Mann, who married her sister; and for
the rest the prosaic character of this suburb of Boston
was rather attractive. For Hawthorne was anxious for
some solitude in which he could revive the impressions
of Brook Farm-which, by the by, is not far from West
Newton. Here, then, was written The Blithedale
Romance." Of this work I have already spoken, and
cannot dwell on it here. It is wonderful that the pen
that wrote the other romances should also have written
this. What worldly wit, what life studies, and subtlety
of suggestion! Not only is every character alive, but
the very language in which each is incarnate. When
Brook Farm had broken up, these "Blithedale" men
and women were met in every street, so that it was
absurd to identify one or another as his model. Of
course it was Margaret Fuller's fate to be Zenobia,
though she was homely and Zenobia beautiful, and
without the warm voluptuous aura of Zenobia; but what
other woman of such commanding power was there at
Brook Farm? The theory-blinded Hollingsworth be-
CC
HAWTHORNE.
141
•
came the many-headed reader of the romance; all the
heads, duly self-fitted with Hawthorne's caps, resented
his "personal allusions." They never knew what tributes.
they were paying to the insight of the artist who was
least servile to visible models, and painted souls under
whatever disguises-conscious or unconscious.
In the summer of 1852, Hawthorne purchased Bronson
Alcott's house at Concord, "Hillside," and re-christened
it, more accurately, "Wayside." This was the first
homestead Hawthorne had owned. It was an humble
frame dwelling, yet not without beauty-chiefly of little
verandas added by Alcott, who had also built (in this
case with his own hands) the hillside summer bower
where the collegian is supposed to tell his Tanglewood
Tales. On July 14, 1852, Hawthorne writes cheerily to
his friend, George W. Curtis, then in Europe :
"The hillside is covered chiefly with locust-trees which come into
luxuriant blossom in the month of June, and look and smell very
sweetly, intermixed with a few young elms, and white pines and
infant oaks—the whole forming rather a thicket than a wood.
Nevertheless, there is some very good shade to be found there. I
spend delectable hours there in the hottest part of the day, stretched
out at my lazy length, with a book in my hand, or some unwritten
book in my thoughts. . . . In front of the house, on the opposite
side of the road, I have eight acres of land. . . . On the hither side
my territory extends some little distance over the brow of the hill,
and is absolutely good for nothing, in a productive point of view,
though very good for many other purposes. I know nothing of the
history of the house, except Thoreau's telling me that it was in-
habited a generation or two ago by a man who believed he should
never die."
The author whose imagination had already dealt with
t
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LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
the Wandering Jew, turning him into a Virtuoso, had
thus come to one of his latest haunts. Even his pre-
decessor there, Mr. Alcott, used to regard it as a mistake
to die so soon: he was born with this century, and told
the present writer that he meant to see the century out
-which perhaps he might have done had not his
faculties failed by extreme age. There were thus asso-
ciations enough to make the would-be immortal "Septi-
mius Felton" an "unwritten book in his thoughts."
But meanwhile the fact of mortality was brought
home to the hillside dreamer in a terrible way. His
sister Louisa, leaping from a burning steamer on the
Hudson, was drowned.
A
CHAPTER XI.
THE
HE tragical death of his sister (July 27, 1852)
affected Hawthorne greatly, and he was in the
frame of mind for any absorbing task, when one was
offered that also promised to be lucrative-a considera-
tion which the depressing state of his finances would not
suffer to be omitted. In an evil hour his college friend,
Franklin Pierce, having become candidate for the pre-
sidency, appealed to his pen for a "campaign biography."
Hawthorne reluctantly undertook the task, on which an
admirer of his can now hardly look with satisfaction,
whatever he may think of contemporary party explana-
tions of the matter.
The obvious thing is, that Hawthorne wrote a
eulogistic Life of the candidate, and was paid for it with
the Liverpool Consulate. But even were this the real
and the whole case, one might justly reserve all bitter
reproaches for the book-piracy which had reduced such
an author to the necessity of so bartering his brain for
the support of his family. But this is not the whole
case. Pierce was candidate of the party to which
Hawthorne had all his life belonged, and strictly repre-
sentative of his political principles. He was also his
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LIFE OF
loyal friend from college days, had helped to secure him
the Surveyorship of Customs at Salem, and, if elected,
would pretty certainly have offered Hawthorne office,
whether the biography were written or not. Pierce
requested this favour. "I have consented," wrote
Hawthorne to Fields, who published the book, "some-
what reluctantly, however, for Pierce has now reached
that altitude where a man careful of his personal dignity
will begin to think of cutting his acquaintance. But I
seek nothing from him, and therefore need not be
ashamed to tell the truth of an old friend." To Horatio
Bridge he wrote that he had vainly tried to persuade
Pierce that he could not perform the work as well as
others, "and of course, after a friendship of thirty years,
it was impossible to refuse my best efforts in his behalf,
at the great pinch of his life." In this letter he states.
that, before undertaking the work, he resolved to accept
no office from Pierce, but afterwards inclined to regard
this as
"rather folly than heroism;" he now also thinks
that Pierce certainly owes him something. "For the
biography has cost me hundreds of friends here in the
North, who had a purer regard for me than Frank Pierce
or any other politician ever gained, and who drop off
from me like autumn leaves, in consequence of what I
say on the slavery question. But they were my real
sentiments, and I do not now regret that they are on
record." The preface opens with a remarkable caveat:
"The author of this memoir-being so little of a politi-
cian that he scarcely feels entitled to call himself a
member of any party-would not voluntarily have under-
taken the work here offered to the public."
HAWTHORNE.
145
Such, then, is the whole case. Franklin Pierce was a
very persuasive person, just the man to win from the
feminine side of Hawthorne's heart this promise so
reluctantly performed. The sharpness of the above
allusion to "Frank Pierce or any other politician
cannot be mistaken. Hawthorne has an angry conscious-
ness that he has been persuaded to descend from the
sanctum of his genius. Whatever Pierce's friendship,
he was sufficiently a "politician" to subordinate his
friend's literary reputation to his own elevation to the
presidency. "He certainly owes me something," writes
Hawthorne to their mutual friend Bridge, of which there
can be no doubt, whatever may be thought of Haw-
thorne's accepting the payment. Pierce was little known
in the country-his obscurity being made the most of by
his opponents and Hawthorne's romantic eulogium may
have secured his election. The author is to be credited
with never having thrown any defensive glamour over this
transaction. In 1858, when ex-President Pierce was
with him in Rome, Hawthorne reflects with satisfaction
that the benefaction was not all on one side. "Each
did his best for the other, as friend for friend." This
is his own verdict. He knew that Pierce would offer
him office, and that his circumstances would not permit
him to refuse it; he did not wish to be under unrequited
obligations. Thus his fault leans to virtue's side. The
only distress one feels in such an everyday kind of thing
is based in homage to one who was not an everyday
kind of man.
??
To the present writer it appears that Hawthorne
descended from his height to write the book, and re-
}
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LIFE OF
mained on that lower level while writing. The “Life
of Franklin Pierce," as one reads it in the light of history,
seems a sorrier performance than it really was while as
yet the candidate was only a good sort of fellow to his
friends. But that miserable and murderous administra-
tion has been removed, by events that sum up genera-
tions, into a past sufficiently remote to admit of a
dispassionate verdict on Pierce. An old farmer of hist
neighbourhood (Concord, N. H.), on hearing of his
nomination, said—“ Frank does well enough for Concord,
but he'll be monstrous thin, spread out over the United
States." This proved true. Without being merely wise
after the fact, one may see in this so-called "Life"-a
prolonged encomium-an illustration of how a weak
man may sometimes pull a strong one near his own
level. In this, his only biography, the subsequent
devastator of Kanzas, through mere passiveness in the
hands of slavery, stands worthy of the Great Stone Face.
Plainly, Hawthorne had undertaken a political job, and
was too truthful to give it the air of impartial history.
It is shocking to think that such a man should speak
— with a sincerity that itself seems deplorable — of
the anti-slavery movement as "the mistiness of a
philanthropic theory;" still more that his hero's share
in the proslavery robbery of Mexico euphemisti-
cally called "
war"-should be extolled without any
intimation of the indignation felt by every other northern
thinker in America. There could be little if any com-
plaint that Hawthorne, as the hermit of his thought,
absorbed in his own particular task, should withhold
himself from the political agitations of the country, and
HAWTHORNE.
147
even from the struggle for negro emancipation. But in
this instance he did descend into the arena, he did
participate in the struggle of liberty, reinforcing wrong
by a blindness which seems the very counterpart of
his clear vision in his own realm. In this partizan
plane he repeats, with a tone of profundity, common-
places of the proslavery stump. E.g., "There is still
another view, and probably as wise a one. It looks
upon slavery as one of those evils which Divine Provi-
dence does not leave to be remedied by human con-
trivances, but which, in its own good time, by some means
impossible to be anticipated, but of the simplest and
easiest operation, when all its uses shall have been
fulfilled, it causes to vanish like a dream. There is no
instance, in all history, of the human will and intellect
having perfected any great moral reform by methods
which it adapted to that end." Hawthorne wrote this
in August, and if he had dropped his pen and gone to
Concord Town Hall, he might have hit the very hour
when his fellow-citizens were celebrating the emancipa-
tion of slaves in the West Indies by "methods adapted
to that end" by human will and intellect. On the other
hand, he might have discovered in the seven years
American Revolution, what the horrible Civil War had
not yet confirmed, those "means of simplest and easiest
operation" by which evils are removed when left to be
remedied by " Providence, in its own good time." It is
tragical to think that such stuff brought Hawthorne more
money than all his real works together.
The errors of a good man, says a Hindu verse, are like
eclipses of the sun and moon; their darkness all men
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LIFE OF
deplore, for their return all men look. In Hawthorne's
eclipse the expectancy of his friends was not that he
would ever attain knowledge of the subjects treated in
the biography of Pierce. There he had somehow
suffered a hopeless arrest of development. But they
longed for the day when he should emerge from the
political “ring” which had used him, and be seen again
in his shining height of thought. Though no prospect
of advantage, unreinforced by loyalty to early friendship,
could have induced Hawthorne to write a campaign.
document even for the party he preferred, it was but
fair, amid the bitter consequences, that payment should
be made. It was demanded by all parties, and without
reproaches on Hawthorne. So far as it was possible the
debt was paid. The Liverpool Consulate was given,
and Hawthorne was released from want, and all its
temptations, for the rest of his life.
Felicitations were universal. Hawthorne was nearly
the only literary man in America who had not opposed
Pierce's election, but they all rejoiced. Charles Sumner,
leader of the antislavery party in the Senate, wrote a
note, in the moment of Hawthorne's confirmation, that
"fairly shouted as with a silver trumpet," says Mrs.
Hawthorne, "it was so cordial and full of joy. So from
all sides Hawthorne seems chosen by acclamation.' It
is amusing to find Hawthorne himself turned into a
dispenser of patronage. Mr. Dreer possesses a charac-
teristic letter, dated at Concord, April 1, 1853:
""
"DEAR O'SULLIVAN,-It vexes me to see that you are not yet.
appointed to some most desirable office or other; for I am convinced
HAWTHORNE.
149
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that it is only your own fine-drawn scruples that prevent it.
out of patience with you.'
Ι
But what I wish now to say is, that there is a young fellow in
New York in whom I feel an interest; and if you had been appointed
Post-master, I meant to ask you to find him a clerkship. It is
the poet; a good little fellow, who has recently got married,
and has no means of keeping his wife or himself. He tells me
he is a Democrat; but as to hard shell or soft shell, or Barn-
burner or Hunker, he don't know one from another. His habits
and character are unexceptionable; he has shown a good deal of
poetic talent, and a small appointment in his favour would reflect
credit on the source whence it should come. His claim on me
is, that he wrote a biography of my distinguished self in a magazine ;
and biographers of great men ought to be rewarded—and sometimes
are so. Can you do anything for him? I shall not probably have
any situation for him at Liverpool; neither would it suit him to go
there with his wife, nor, to confess the truth, would it suit me very
well to take him. I don't want to be bothered with a poet. Think
of this. Parke Godwin, I understand, knows
and can tell
you whether it is best to help him.
I am
"Your friend,
66 NATH. HAWTHORNE."
"P.S.—I mean to go to Washington (for the first time in my life)
in about a fortnight."
I
The eclipse was long. In the latter part of June,
1853, Hawthorne sailed for Liverpool, and for six years.
no literary work appeared from his pen. It was the
most dignified consulate in the gift of the Government,
it involved little of the "society business" which Haw-
O'Sullivan was presently appointed Minister to Portugal, a post.
at first thought of for Hawthorne.
2 (6
"My ancestor," he writes, "left England in 1630; I return in
1853. I sometimes feel as if I myself had been absent these two
hundred and twenty-three years, leaving England just emerging
from the feudal system, and finding it on my return on the verge of
republicanism."
1
150
LIFE OF
thorne detested, and was supposed to be a mine of
wealth. The latter supposition was, however, delusive,
as appears from the subjoined (unpublished) letter,
dated September 13, 1853:-
“DEAR X.,—I have been intending to write to you this some
time, but wished to get some tolerably clear idea of the state of
things here before communicating with you. I find that I have
three persons in my
office-the head clerk, or vice-consul, at £200;
the second clerk, at £150; and the messenger, who does some
writing, at £80. They are all honest and capable men, and do
their duty to perfection. No American would take either of these
places for twice the suns they receive; and no American without
some months' practice would undertake the duty. Of the two, I
would rather displace the vice-consul than the second clerk, who
does a great amount of labour, and has a remarkable variety of
talent, whereas the old gentleman, though perfect in his own track,
is nothing outside of it. I will not part with either of these men
unless compelled to do so; and I don't think old Lord Massey can
compel me.
Now as to the Manchester branch, it brings me in only about
£200. There is a consular agent there, all the business being
transacted here in Liverpool. The only reason for appointing
an agent would be that it might shut off all attempts to get a
separate consulate there. There is no danger, I presume, of such
an attempt for some time to come, for Pierce made a direct
promise that the place should be kept open for my benefit. Never-
theless, efforts will be made to fill it, and very possibly representa-
tions may be made from the business-men of Manchester that there
is necessity for a consul there. In a pecuniary point of view, it
would make very little difference to me whether the place were
filled by an independent consul or by a vice-consul of my own
appointment, for the latter would, of course, not be satisfied with
less than the whole £200. What I should like would be to keep
the place vacant and receive the proceeds as long as possible, and
at last, when I could do no better, to give the office to you. No
great generosity in that, to be sure. There, I have put the matter
HAWTHORNE.
151
1
fairly before you. Do you tell me frankly how your own affairs
stand, and whether you can live any longer in that cursed old
custom-house without hanging yourself. Rather than that you
should do so, I would let you have the place to-morrow, although
it would pay you about £100 less than your present office. I
suppose, as a single man, you might live within your income at
Manchester; but, judging from my own experience, as a married
man it would be a very tight fit. With all the economy I could
use, I have already got rid of $2,000 since landing in England.
Hereafter I hope to spend less and save more.
"In point of emolument, my office will turn out about what I
expected. If I have ordinary luck I shall bag from $5,000 to $7,000
clear per annum; but to effect this I shall have to deny myself many
things which I would gladly have. Col. Crittenden told me that it
cost him $4,000 to live with only his wife at a boarding-house,
including a journey to England now and then. I am determined
not to spend more than this in keeping house with my wife and
children. I have hired a good house, furnished, at £160, on the
other side of the river Mersey, at Rock Park, where there is good
air and play-ground for the children; and I can come over to the
city by steamboat every morning. I like the situation all the
better because it will render it impossible for me to go to parties,
or to give parties myself, and will keep me out of a good deal of
nonsense.
CC
Liverpool is a most detestable place as a residence that ever my
lot was cast in-smoky, noisy, dirty, pestilential; and the consulate
is situated in the most detestable part of the city. The streets
swarm with beggars by day and by night. You never saw the
like; and I pray that you may never see it in America. It is worth
while coming across the sea in order to feel one's heart warm
towards his own country; and I feel it all the more because it is
plain to be seen that a great many of the Englishmen whom I meet
here dislike us, whatever they may pretend to the contrary.
"Myself and my family have suffered very much from the
elements. There has not been what we should call a fair day
since our arrival, nor a single day when a fire would not be agree-
able. I long for one of our snowy days and one of our good hearty
rains. It always threatens to rain, but seldom rains in good earnest.
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LIFE OF
:
It never does rain, and it never don't rain; but you are pretty sure
to get a sprinkling if you go out without an umbrella. Except by
the fireside I have not been as warm as I should like to be; but
the Englishmen call it a sultry day whenever the thermometer rises
above 60°. There has not been heat enough in England this season
to ripen an apple.
"My wife and children often talk of you. Even the baby has
not forgotten you. Write often, and say as much as you can about
yourself, and as little as you please about A, B, and C, and all the
rest of those wretches of whom my soul was weary to death before
I made my escape.-Your friend ever,
"NATH. HAWTHORNE.”
The "Lord Massey" referred to was Secretary-of-State
Marcy. The initials are not those of the persons named
in the original. The lugubrious note sounded in this
letter did not improve. It is as impossible to acquit.
Hawthorne of some provincialism as Liverpool of the
capacity for bringing it all out. Henry Bright, a gentle-
man of fine wit, whom he had met in America, tried by
every art to make the place pleasant for him. The
Heywoods were also devoted. What success they had
is discoverable in this note of July 5, 1855:
"DEAR MR. BRIGHT,-I have come back (only for a day or
two) to this black and miserable hole.-Yours truly,
"NATH. HAWTHORNE.
"P.S.-I don't mean to apply the above two disparaging adjec-
tives merely to my Consulate, but to all Liverpool and its environs
-except Sandheys and Norris Green."
These exceptions were the homes of the Heywoods
and the Brights. In fact, there is something in Haw-
thorne's whole sojourn in England to remind one of a
theme he noted in early life, of a person or family
HAWTHORNE.
153
desiring a particular good, and, when it finally arrives,
finding it the pest of their lives. He did, indeed, find
some benefits; sufficiency of means for the time-though
saving was necessary-enabled him to enjoy and assist
the mental growth of his children. But it was a hard
fate for a mind so active—as proved by his "Note Books"
-to be unproductive for long years. Some bitterness
must have mingled with the disappointment in finding
the emoluments of the Consulate so much less than
reported during his tenure they were reduced much
lower by Act of Congress-in remembrance of the
uncongenial and costly task which had received a
reward so paltry.
But, beyond all this, there was a deeper fact which
made England an unfortunate appointment for Haw-
thorne-a fact now, happily, so incomprehensible, that
its mention may raise a smile of incredulity. The old
Anglophobia had been revived by the share taken by
England in the anti-slavery agitation; it had become
the special heritage of the democratic party, and con-
fused with patriotic sentiment. Hawthorne inhaled this
prejudice from the Custom House atmosphere, both in
Boston and Salem, and now from the party which
appointed him-the "democracy" being exasperated
by the English enthusiasm for Mrs. Stowe. He meets
"Grace Greenwood" (Mrs. Lippincott) in England, and
mentions her regret at leaving the country, "the manners
and institutions of which she likes rather better, I
suspect, than an American ought. She speaks raptur-
I This remark adds to the point made by Leslie Stephen in a fine
chapter on Hawthorne ("Hours in a Library "). He thinks Haw-
154
LIFE OF
ously of the English hospitality and warmth of heart.
I likewise have already experienced something of this,
and apparently have a good deal more of it at my option.
I wonder how far it is genuine, and in what degree it
is better than the superficial good-feeling with which.
Yankees receive foreigners—a feeling not calculated for
endurance, but a good deal like a brushwood fire. We
shall see!" I am assured by eminent Englishmen that,
at that time, the average Englishman was apt to assume
airs towards an American, which could hardly fail to
keep alive such hereditary prejudices as those of Haw-
thorne.
It is melancholy to think that this combination of
causes should have made the stay of such a man in the
country which first stamped his genius as pure gold, so
unsatisfactory. He appears to have met few except
second-rate writers. His career in England was a failure.
He never knew the giants of his own art-Thackeray,
Dickens, Reade, George Eliot. He saw Tennyson in a
thorne was afraid of coming to like England and the English too
well. It may also be remarked that Hawthorne was strangely
unconscious of the esteem felt for him in England. He is over-
whelmed by the kindness of Lady Webster in showing him through
Battle Abbey, and of Mr. Evelyn in following him to Mr. Tupper's
with three rare volumes which Hawthorne had failed to see, in his
absence, when calling with Francis Bennoch at Wooton. He should
never had expected such kindness, he says with naïvete.
"I liked
him [Mr. Evelyn], and felt that I could become intimately acquainted
with him if circumstances were favourable; but at a brief interview
like this it was hopeless to break through two great reserves. Un-
fortunately, he declined the hospitalities of Wooton, as of some
other places which might have brought him really into "Our Old
Home," which he so timidly looked on from the outside.
""
HAWTHORNE.
155
picture-gallery, and wrote a fine description of his appear-
ance, but never met him; nor Carlyle, Mill, Grote,-not
the men who might have made his sojourn a cosmopolitan
education. He did indeed meet the Brownings, but
hardly has a word to say till he meets them again in
Florence. "He looked younger and handsomer than
when I saw him in London," and so on. "When I met
her [Mrs. Browning] in London, at Lord Houghton's
breakfast-table, she did not impress me so singularly."
There is plenty of racy recognition of the Brownings,
and of other English authors met under Italian skies;
but the few magnates of literature casually met in
England, before he went to Italy, were overcast by
the lingering mist and official torpor of Liverpool. On
his return from Italy, as we shall see, it was better; but
during that brief and busy visit the lost opportunities
could not be recovered.
The only thing during his consular career which excited
Hawthorne's interest was the scandal caused by the brutal
treatment of seamen on American ships. His despatch,
written just after his resignation, states forcibly the case
-that the United States has no native seamen, and
that the maltreated were generally landsmen (returning
emigrants) trying to secure passage to Europe without
payment. The ship-masters, being without legal means
of enforcing their authority, dislike the service, and their
class deteriorates. To this matter the following extract,
from a letter (loaned me by Mr. W. R. Benjamin, of New
York) to Elizabeth Peabody, refers :-
"I do not know what Sophia may have said about my conduct in
156
LIFE OF
the Consulate. I only know that I have done no good; none
whatever. Vengeance and beneficence are things that God claims
for Himself. His instruments have no consciousness of His pur-
pose; if they imagine they have, it is a pretty sure token that they
are not His instruments. The good of others, like our own happi-
ness, is not to be attained by direct effort, but incidentally. All
history and observation confirm this. I am really too humble to
think of doing good! Now, I presume you think the abolition of
flogging was a vast boon to seamen. I see, on the contrary, with
perfect distinctness, that many murders and an immense mass of
unpunishable cruelty—a thousand blows, at least, for every one
that the cat-of-nine-tails would have inflicted-have resulted from
that very thing. There is a moral in this fact which I leave you to
deduce. God's ways are in nothing more mysterious than in this
matter of trying to do good.
"This is the last letter I shall write you from the Consulate.
My successor is in town, and will take the office upon him next
Monday. Thank Heaven; for I am weary, and, if it were not for
Sophia and the children, would like to lie down on one spot for
about a hundred years.
"We shall be in England, however, some weeks longer. Good-
bye."
It was, however, precisely in that dismal time and
place that Hawthorne was surprised into acting the
leading part in a romance as thrilling as any he ever
wrote. In early life he imagined the story of a person.
going about and making converts to some new theory,
but presently, while addressing a meeting, discovered to
be an escaped lunatic. Poor Delia Bacon, the anti-
Shakespearian apostle, had not yet reached the asylum
when she persuaded Emerson, Hawthorne, even Carlyle,
to take her seriously (albeit sceptically); but her
biography, by Theodore Bacon, leaves little room to
doubt that her mind was affected by an early disappoint-
1
HAWTHORNE.
157
ment, and her career hysterical. The personal charm
and refined enthusiasm of Miss Bacon fairly magnetized
Hawthorne; it did not appear to him incredible that the
vicar at Stratford-on-Avon, and the sexton, had given
her-apparently if not really-opportunity to open the
grave of Shakespeare, in the night, in search of docu-
ments which were to disprove his authorship of the
plays. The potency of the imprecation on that grave
was shown in the faltering of her own heart.
It was
previous to that mythical scene in the church, so im-
pressively described by Hawthorne in "Our Old Home,"
that he undertook to write an introduction to her " Philo-
sophy of the Plays of Shakespeare." He was reluctant
to do this; he did not believe in the paradox, and wrote
to her (May 12, 1856), "As to the case of the 'Old
Player' (whom you grieve my heart by speaking of so
contemptuously), you will have to rend him out of me
by the roots, and by main force, if at all." He did not
(as she entreated) read the most unreadable of books,
but dipped into the huge MS. here and there; he fore-
warns the reader of an attack on Shakespeare, which it
does not contain, and praises the work for what is not
there. This introduction, and the correspondence
between Hawthorne and Miss Bacon, make her bio-
graphy an addition to the curiosities of literature. Never
was greater generosity than that of Hawthorne to the dis-
traught lady; besides introducing the book whose
(supposed) notions he abhorred, he paid for its publica-
tion. He also sent the impecunious lady money, and
altogether lost some £200 by her. He was repaid by
her insane anger. Hawthorne's particular friend in
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LIFE OF
London, Francis Bennoch, tells me that, at his request,
he visited Miss Bacon at Stratford-on-Avon several times,
and saw her book through the press, though he knew she
was insane. She told Mr. Bennoch that she had resolved
to die in Stratford, and had arranged with the sexton to
have her grave dug near the church wall, on a line with
Shakespeare's, and that the wall would be pierced, so
that her spirit might have free intercourse with that of
the poet. As it was only the "Old Player," and not the
real poet, according to her theory, this sentiment might
suggest returning sanity; but it was some years after her
removal to an asylum, and for a short time before her
death in America, that the cloud lifted from her brain
sufficiently even to enable her to see Hawthorne's kind-
ness in its true light.
Hawthorne visited interesting places in England-the
Lakes, where he vainly tried to shout into Harriet Mar-
tineau's ear-trumpet; Stratford-on-Avon, where he failed.
to see the Flowers who take Americans under special
care; Old Boston-and in November, 1857, took lodgings
at 24, Great Russell Street, London. This was after his
resignation, in June. He remained in London fifty days,
in strange seclusion, so far as the living London was con-
cerned, but observing well the London of bygone ages.
Passing over to Paris (Jan. 3, 1858), he plunges into such
ferocious weather that "England has nothing to be com-
pared with it." His patriotism is sufficiently cooled for a
sound comment on the uselessness of an American Lega-
tion. "There is no good reason why Uncle Sam should
pay Judge Mason seventeen thousand dollars a year for
sleeping in the dignified post of Ambassador to France.
HAWTHORNE.
159
The true ground of complaint is, that whether he slept
or waked, the result would be the same.”
He was
eager to go South, and the little time passed at Paris
and Marseilles was devoted to ordinary sight-seeing. He
was in Marseilles when an attempt was made on the
Emperor's life, but no feeling about the incident is re-
corded in his "Note Books." The first note of joy is
sounded in response to a sunset "that reminded us of
what we used to see day after day in America, and what
we have not seen since."
CHAPTER XII.
IN
N the third week of January, 1858, the Hawthornes
reached Rome. The new Rome had not then been
added. The population was about half of what it now
is, and the civilized comforts for the visitor far inferior to
what they now are. The sacred hills were not yet invaded
by the temporal railway. From Civita Vecchia the jour-
ney was by coach. The road being not yet secure from
banditti, the Hawthornes remembered the proverbial
hilarity of the empty traveller in meeting the robber, and
hid their gold in an old umbrella and other unsuspicious
places. So they entered Rome, and took up their
abode in Palazzo Sarazzani, Via Porta Pinciana, where
Hawthorne's Italian experiences began with an influenza.
He found himself among friends, and passed two winters
there,―between which I shall not carefully distinguish.
The historian Motley was in Rome with his family
during the winter of 1858-9. Motley had a profound
admiration for Hawthorne's genius, and there are inte-
resting notes of their friendship in his letters, edited by
his daughter, Lady Harcourt. W. W. Story, the sculptor,
was a native of the same town, Salem, and had met Haw-
thorne in the office of his friend Hillard, with whom Story
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
161
studied law. Hawthorne, Story, and Motley formed a sort
of rambling club among themselves. Every Sunday they
wandered on the Campagna, depending on the casual
Albergo for their luxuriant luncheon of bread and cheese
and sour wine. From the surviving comrade I learn
that those who knew Hawthorne as a shy and taciturn
man would not have recognized him on these rambles;
he laughed, chattered, leaped. "We were as three boys.
together." Hawthorne had just liberated himself from
his consular galleys at Liverpool, and was rejoicing in his
freedom. He had come to Rome only to give his family
-particularly his wife, and their daughter Una, both
devoted to art-a pleasant excursion. For himself, he
had little knowledge of art, and no taste for ruins, and
it was to be some time before he should take Rome
seriously. Soon after his arrival the Carnival came on:
Hawthorne actually entered into the frolic, and took his
shower of confetti like a man. They were symbols of
sunbeams coming after a severe winter. Hawthorne
really enjoyed the society he met in Rome, which, be-
sides the Storys and Motleys, included Mrs. Jameson,
Miss Bremer, the poet Bryant, Harriet Hosmer, the
Hookers, the artists Terry, Thompson, Ropes, and Miss
Lander, who made the bust of him now in Concord
Library. It was only after the publication of Haw-
thorne's journals that the artists knew how carefully he
had been observing their works. Mr. Story tells me
that while he was at work on his "Cleopatra" Hawthorne
sometimes sat beside him, but said little, and he (the
sculptor) suspected his friend did not like the work.
He had not yet received "Transformation" when some
·
II
162
LIFE OF
English ladies asked to see Cleopatra," before which
one of them read the description aloud. The sculptor
then advanced from his work with inquiries, and thus for
the first time discovered the impression his statue had
made on Hawthorne.
(C
Hawthorne had no thought of writing a romance about
Rome when he arrived there. But Rome presently held
him with its glittering eye.
"That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me,
To him my tale I teach."
In vain the guest tries to get free. He rages at the rub-
bish of Rome, literal and moral. He pictures Rome,
repeatedly, as a corpse.
The similitude recalls the
legend of Saint Francis of Assisi at the bedside of a
woman who had entreated his presence to receive her
dying confession. He has arrived after her death, but
summons the corpse back into consciousness long enough.
to whisper her secret burden. The spell of Hawthorne's
mystical romance lies in the secrets he hears from pallid
lips of Rome's past, and also for the confession was not
all on one side-in its self-revelations. Hawthorne's
genius is expressed equally in other works, but it is in
"Transformation" that his inner history is told,—and
therein all the evolutionary years of New England, whereof
he was the characteristic flower. Having come so far
the book reaches far: it has had the phenomenal success
of becoming at once the tourist's guide and the scholar's
interpreter. "I have read it seven times," said Dean
Stanley to a friend. "I read it when it appeared, as I
HAWTHORNE.
163
read everything from that English master. I read it again
when I expected to visit Rome, then when on the way to
Rome, again while in Rome, afterwards to revive my
impressions of Rome. Recently I read it again because
I wanted to." "Transformation" has thus made its way
into public favour, despite faults which lovers of romance
especially resent-inconclusiveness, and the raising of
mysteries never explained.
The disappointments almost hid for a time the real
value of the work. The Saturday Review congratulated
Americans on having produced a writer of English who
had "few rivals or equals in the mother country," but
complains that, in "Transformation," a "mystery is set
before us to unriddle, and at the end the author turns
round and asks us what is the good of solving it." Henry
Chorley, to whom Hawthorne owed his first recognition
in England, was constrained to say, in the Athenæum,
"We know of little in romance more inconclusive and
hazy than the manner in which the tale is brought to a
close. Hints will not suffice to satisfy interest which has
been excited to voracity." The general grumbling attested
the power of the wizard, and he was overwhelmed with
private questions. Compelled to some response, he
added a "Postscript" to the second edition; but this
left unsolved the real riddles. What crime had the old
model committed; and by what ingenuity had he so
involved innocent Miriam, that she was in his power?
With what motive did he torment her? What became
of Miriam and her lover?
These questions are not answered because they are
unanswerable. The mistake was in calling the work a
,
164
LIFE OF
T
romance. The artist has portrayed four characters, and
surrounded them with an ornamental frame of Roman
scenes. If the whiteness of one requires a very dark
background, the pigment is supplied, whether ground
from a mummy or a murdered monk. Hilda must be too
pure for friendship with an accomplice of homicide;
Miriam too noble to be an accomplice in any but a tran-
scendental homicide, by which the reader is relieved, and
then only by an unconscious look; Donatello must be
heroic, as if, summoned by the appealing look, he had
slain a dragon about to devour the maiden. An original.
crime so dark, so continuous and all-pervading as to
supply such various artistic requirements, is unknown to
history, and consequently incommunicable. For our
artist's purposes-to supply shades and backgrounds for
his characters-it is enough to declare that the mysterious
horror had occurred, and to show its evil reflection on
the persons portrayed. Had he described the crime he
would be met by vociferous declarations of its impossi-
bility or inadequacy. His four portraits, his ornamental
frame, would have been lost sight of in the discussion.
Nor could he ring commonplace wedding-bells over-
Donatello without marring the unique character. Under
He artfully raises the crime into his romantic atmosphere by
hinting that it bore some resemblance to that of Beatrice Cenci, but,
had it been identified as that, his reader's feeling towards Miriam
would be entirely changed. Her air of innocence would be re-
pulsive. The relation between Miriam and the Model suggests.
that between Hester and her husband, in "The Scarlet Letter," but
the comparison cannot be pressed without fatally modifying Miriam's
character. The artist prefers to accept his scoldings rather than mar
his characters.
-
HAWTHORNE.
165
the ray of love, and the shock of crime inspired by love,
a soul is born in the Faun; it is proved by renunciation,
by confession and surrender. While his execution would
be intolerable, his release would dim his crown of martyr-
dom. Subsequent happiness, after even a chivalrous
homicide, would argue a downward development. It was
necessary to leave his fate undetermined.
Despite its artful sheen of romanticism, "Transforma-
tion" is a rather realistic drama. It is more American
than Italian, even the scenery amid which it is mounted
being cunningly moralized into harmony with characters
by no means Italian. It is a liability of the Yankee, in
becoming cosmopolitan, to know every country except
his own; but Hawthorne was never cosmopolitan-New
England may always be discovered looking through his
eyes. The characters of "Transformation" are indeed
invested with a widely human interest, but two of the
models-Hilda and Kenyon-are Bostonian; Miriam,
though portrayed from a Jewess met in London, is
naturalized into American independence; and the only
professed Italian, Donatello, is more like Henry Thoreau
of Concord, than any historical personage. Thoreau
used to amuse us by gently raising fish out of the water;
to those who did not know that the fish was the bream,
which is bold enough to try and protect its spawn-which
Thoreau's hand threatened-the feat was sufficiently
marvellous to suggest Donatello's intimacy with the wild
creatures around Monte Beni.
Hilda—the name was fixed on at Whitby Abbey-in
her tower, surrounded by white doves, and keeping alive
the Virgin's lamp, may appear a romantic figure. She is,
8
166
LIFE OF
however, a "prophetic picture" of Hawthorne's eldest
daughter. "Una," says her brother Julian, "was the
first-born, and on many accounts perhaps the dearest of
the children. She had the finest mind of any, the most
complex and beautiful character, and in various ways
most strongly resembled her father." Hawthorne always
called the Old Manse at Concord his Eden, and Una
was the sweetest flower from it. She grew to be a fair
maiden, with golden-tinted hair, who not only appeared
to have stepped from Spenser's poem, but had a dreamy
way of thinking. In a game of comparisons, one of her
young friends told me, Una was always vague—“like a
shadow ""like a perfume," she would say, without the
slightest affectation, as if these were the things most
familiar to her. Art became her natural expression, and
it was while beguiled by some fascinating ruin she was
sketching in Rome that she slipped within the typhoid
coils. Una's illness overshadowed Rome for Hawthorne.
Both he and his wife appear to have been strangely help-
less, and the case was entirely trusted to a foolish
physician, who declared that Una must die on the seven-
teenth of the month. The miserable parents surrendered
to this fate without questioning. Every morning Haw-
thorne counted another day off Una's life; and Mrs.
Hawthorne sat, with pen and paper, writing down the
girl's utterances. Mrs. Story, who visited them constantly,
tells me that Hawthorne's grief was most touching. He
used to sit by the fire warming tea-leaves for Una, having
heard that such heating would bring out the flavour. At
last Mr. and Mrs. Story saw that Hawthorne was in more
danger than Una: they insisted that another physician
HAWTHORNE.
167
should be called, declaring that no man who ventured to
prophesy the exact far day of the girl's death could be
trustworthy. Another physician-like the other, homoeo-
pathic was brought in, and said Una would recover—as
she did.
While Hawthorne was writing the first sketch of
"Transformation "-in the Villa Montauto, near Flor-
ence-Una had her room in the tower, which is some-
what idealized in the description of Monte Beni Castle.
"Adjoining Una's chamber," says the journal, "which
is in the tower, there is a little oratory, hung round with
sacred prints of very ancient date, and with crucifixes,.
holy water vases, and other consecrated things; and here,
within a glass case, there is the representation of an
undraped little boy in wax, very prettily modelled, and
holding up a heart that looks like a bit of red sealing
wax." There was also a skull—a rather gruesome object
for the bedroom of a girl of fifteen. Here Una sketched,
and became herself a fair model for Hilda in her tower,
feeding the Virgin's lamp.
To her acquaintances Una, after her illness, appeared
the same as before; it is probable, however, that the
father felt that all was not as before. An inner physical
weakness was betrayed in a religious longing for some-
thing to lean on, which her father could not supply, and
which could not be satisfied with the transcendentalism
of Mr. Channing, whose ministrations the family-Haw-
thorne excepted-had attended in Liverpool. These
tendencies, and even their hysterical complication,
are suggested in the picture of Hilda in St. Peter's,
written in England a year after Una's illness. "She
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LIFE OF
laid her forehead on the marble steps before the altar,
and sobbed out a prayer; she hardly knew to whom,
whether Michael, the Virgin, or the Father; she hardly
knew for what, save only a vague longing that thus the
burden of her spirit might be lightened a little. . . . A
hope, born of hysteric trouble, fluttered in her breast.
She came to a confessional on which was inscribed PRO
ANGLICA LINGUA. It was the word in season! . . . She
did not think; she only felt. Within her heart was a
great need. Close at hand, within the veil of the con-
fessional, was the relief."
But there is a melancholy contrast between Hilda's
ideal and Una's actual fulfilment of the "prophetic pic-
ture." Hilda's lamp went out, her doves departed,
because the confessional had proved a portal of imprison-
ment in the Convent of the Sacré Cœur. From her
Protestant pilgrimage to Catholic shrines, ending in tem-
porary captivity, she returned to be a happy wife. Una's
physical and spiritual natures were, like her father's, fused
into one life; her spells of weakness were accompanied
by loss of mental balance. When bereavement of her
parents was added to her physical delicacy, she made a
brave effort at self-reliance. She devoted herself to
orphans in London, with an orphan's sympathy. She
received confirmation in the English Church, and loved
its services. Her friends rejoiced that Una's lamp was
re-kindled, and her dove of peace returned; and pre-
sently at her happy betrothal. Alas! death snatched
away her lover, and Una sank, after so great calamities.
Her golden hair was grey at thirty-three. With the fatal
shaft in her heart she could only carry it to her father,
薯
​[
HAWTHORNE.
169
whose spirit symbolized for her the supreme love, and
sought something like her little oratory at Montauto.
But that lost bower could not be found. In its place
was taken a cell in the English convent at Clewer, where
(1877) her brother found her, at midnight, dead.
In the character of Hilda, in "Transformation,"
Hawthorne has projected, as it were, his own soul. It
was he who from the hard region of Puritanism had
come to kindle a lamp and set a flower before a divine
mother; but to do this in the solitude of his indivi-
duality. The formalisms and superstitions of the world
can reach that tower only as white doves. The devout
artist recognizes the Madonna only as she grew genuinely,
like the rose which the New England maiden so simply
laid before her, from her lover's bouquet. The Madonna
and her Protestant votary had travelled to their tower by
the same road. It may sound a far cry from the Colis-
seum to Gallows Hill, Salem; but morally they are the
Good people were torn by wild beasts at Salem
also, because they were heretics to the reigning religion.
There was no moral difference between Jupiter Tonans
at Rome, and Jehovah Tonans in Massachusetts. The
pilgrimage of New England from deified despotism to
the maternal deity, in all but sex, of Channing, was on
the same spiritual path that led Rome to build the
Madonna's shrine.
same.
Lady Hobart, who now resides at Montauto Villa,
informed me that until lately there grew on the tower
a bush. It was that, no doubt, which finds a mystical
growth in the romance there written. "He [Kenyon]
looked about him, and beheld growing out of the stone
THE RE
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LIFE OF
pavement, which formed the roof, a little shrub, with green
and glossy leaves. It was the only green thing there;
and heaven knows how its seeds had ever been planted,
at that airy height, or how it had found nourishment for
its small life, in the chinks of the stones; for it had no
earth, and nothing more like soil than the crumbling
mortar, which had been crammed into the crevices in a
long past age." Hawthorne's new spiritual vision now
recognizes evergreen growths where his religious training
taught him to see only crumbling idolatry.
An interesting variant of "The Celestial Railway" is
imaginable, which should describe the iron track on
which religious opinion travels in England and America.
The scientific conception of unity in nature, which in-
fluenced the creed of Newton, may be called, in an
American phrase, a new departure. From that grand
station the rationalistic railways proceed past way-stations
-pantheism, optimism, unitarianism, monism—with a
regularity like that of the Catholic "Stations of the
Cross," or the stages of Bunyan's pilgrimage. A new
line of speculative thought, as when Samuel Laing
becomes a "Modern Zoroastrian," or Hartmann declares
the "supreme unhappiness" of the deity-strikes the
normal Western wayfarer as mere eccentricity.
It is a singularity of Hawthorne's career that he never
got on this familiar track of religious "progression,” nor
did he originate any other. From the frequency of
fanatics, Puritans, ministers, in his tales, he might be
supposed to have had the usual experiences of a New
England boy bred in an orthodox household-suffering.
remorseless sabbaths and painful prayers. But the
HAWTHORNE.
171
Hawthorne home in Salem seems to have been exception-
ally free from religious rigours. He seems to have known
there neither cant nor catechism; his earlier writings
betray no self-questionings or inner misgivings. There is
CC con-
no trace of trouble about his soul. He was never
verted,” and never joined any church. He was not what
could be called a religious man.
His treatment of
ministers and pious professions are those of an intel-
lectual observer, or an artist whose neighbourhood
supplied mainly those models, but who cared for these
only as they might be adaptable to his pictures. His
moral sense was quick, and a fine individual character
resulted; but he could not enter into a cause, like that
of emancipation, which was the expansion of ethical
sentiment under a religious enthusiasm. The cause of
the slave flowered out of Channing's faith in the divinity
of human nature-divinity of the lowliest, even the most
repulsive. Hawthorne knew nothing of such idealization
of humanity in the abstract. He evoked from the gross
mass certain types of character, and they were as a
gallery amid which he moved. New England supplied
no other gallery; and its churches admitted no art but
music, for which he had no ear. A cold alienation from
the creed that had made his two magisterial ancestors
the Nero and Caligula of Salem had developed an
antipathy to all churches, even to those which were doing
away with Puritanism in all its survivals.
There was thus a sense in which the untransformed
Faun also represented Hawthorne. The Faun at the
Capitol attributed to Praxiteles, while described with
physiological exactness, is subtly touched here and there
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LIFE OF
into physiognomical suggestiveness.¹ One is now re
minded of our arboreal ancestor, as revealed by Darwin,
and now of Byron's "form and face of an Apollo, with
the feet and legs of a sylvan Satyr," as disclosed―trea-
cherously, Hawthorne thought-by Trelawny. But the
sculptor's art, which has preserved the signs of inferior
origin only in graceful "survivals," is carried farther by
that of the author, who harmonizes the complex con-
ception with the Miltonic Adam. "Adam falls anew,
and Paradise, heretofore in unfaded bloom, is lost
again."
This immemorial theme had travelled from ancient
Palestine to England, had sailed on the Mayflower to
I
however, occurs in Hawthorne's description of the
1 One error,
statue.
He says the Faun's nose is almost straight, but very
slightly turned inward, thereby acquiring an indescribable charm of
geniality and humour." This, though true of the Faun which names.
the adjoining saloon, is not true of Hawthorne's Faun.
I suspect
this is a proof-reader's error; for the more humorous character of
the nez retroussé must have been known to such a connoisseur in
noses as Hawthorne. I have before me a paper of his, written while
editor of the Bewick Company's Magazine, in which he gives pas-
sages from an old book on Noses, with comments :- "A Nose
indifferently long, and small in the middle, signifies a person bold,
rational, honest, soon angry but soon pleased.' As noses go, this is
worth any money.
It is not to be sneezed at. 'A Nose every way
very big, very long, and with wide nostrils, denotes a person more
weak than wise, fallacious, subtle, contentious, luxurious, vain-
glorious, envious, and impertinently curious.' When we meet this
Nose we shall hardly refrain from giving it a tweak. 'A Nose con-
veniently big, and reasonably straight, denotes a person peaceful,
meek, faithful, laborious, diligent, secret, and of good intellect.'
Oh, happy nose! Mayest thou continually inhale the scent of roses!
And may we, no long time hence, find just such a nose in a fair
lady's face!"
(C
1
HAWTHORNE.
173
New England, was there preached for six generations,
and journeyed in the genius of Hawthorne, over land
and sea, to give this Faun in the Capitol a new soul of
which its sculptor never dreamed. And once more we
find, as in "The Scarlet Letter" (the mark of Cain), the
"House of the Seven Gables" (visitation of the father's
sins on the children), that no amount of alienation from
churches could keep the great New England novelist
from breathing the biblical atmosphere. But hitherto
he had been able to give such ideas artistic expression
precisely because his soul stood outside them-as Lan-
dor's Aspasia says the poets wrote so well of love
because they never loved. But in the atmosphere of
Rome the artistic is subordinated to the religious expres-
sion. A transformation in Hawthorne preceded the
transformation of his Marble Faun. He had not the
least interest in pope, priest, or pious ceremonies, but
the religion pictured in the galleries and monuments.
entered the sacred retreat where eloquent preachers had,
for a generation, knocked in vain. "Occasionally to-day
I was sensible of a certain degree of emotion in looking
at an old picture; as, for example, by a large, dark, ugly
picture of Christ bearing the Cross and sinking beneath
it, when, somehow or other, a sense of His agony, and
the fearful wrong that mankind did
that mankind did (and does) its
Redeemer, and the scorn of His enemies, and the sorrow
of those who loved Him, came knocking at my heart, and
got entrance there. Once more I deem it a pity that
Protestantism should have entirely laid aside this mode
of appealing to the religious sentiment." This is pathetic;
the great man at fifty-four begins as if at the knee of a
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LIFE OF
wiser mother than Salem, with its unlovely dogmas and
churches, had been to him. He would fain do better by
his child. "Una spoke with somewhat alarming fervour
of her love for Rome, and regret at leaving it. We shall
have done the child no good office in bringing her here,
if the rest of her life is to be a dream of this 'city of the
soul,' and an unsatisfied yearning to come back to it.
On the other hand, nothing elevating and refining can be
really injurious, and so I hope she will always be better
for Rome, even if her life should be spent where there
are no pictures, no statues—nothing but the dryness and
meagreness of a New England village." We may often
read between the lines of his journals how homeless his
spirit had been. Of Michel Angelo's Fates he writes:
"I remember seeing an etching of this when a child, and
being struck, even then, with the terrible, stern, pas-
sionless severity, neither loving nor hating us, that
characterizes these ugly old women. If they were angry,
or had the least spite against humankind, it would render
them more tolerable. They are a great work, containing
and representing the very idea that makes a belief in fate
such a cold torture to the human soul." This is the
corpse of Puritanism re-animated for a confession to
Rome. For this child it had brought from barbarism its
altar of unhewn stones. It might even have been better
for this child had he, after the earlier fashion, been forced
to eat the stones for bread, for then he must needs have
pulverized some of them, and made them bear other
green things like that which grew from the chance seed
wafted from Michel Angelo's picture, and devoured with
such pathetic hunger. As it was, his spiritual starvation
√
HAWTHORNE.
175
i
was long unconscious. He remarked in the Vatican a very
hungry boy who, beside the great porphyry vase, wished
he had it full of soup. Rome and Salem might there
have exchanged a blush. Rome had provided her child
with art but not soup; Salem hers with soup but not art.
Hawthorne, who had become as a child amid these
pictures, may have felt that he and the soupless boy
were both changelings. The marble statues said to him
as to stolen Mignon, "What's this, poor child, to thee
they've done?" He had come back to his father's hall.
"No place ever took so strong a hold of my being as
Rome, nor ever seemed so close to me and so strangely
familiar."
One cannot read without emotion these secret records
of a soul for the first time discovering that it had been
moving about amid worlds not realized, while the intellect
is still but half conscious of the heart's sad secret. One
hardly knows whether laughter or tears were the bitter
response to Hawthorne's anger with Carlo Dolce for
sceptical misgivings inspired by his picture of the
"Eternal Father."
"It is the All-powerless, a fair-haired, soft, con-
sumptive deity, with a mouth that has fallen open
through very weakness. . . . If Carlo Dolce had been
wicked enough to know what he was doing, the picture
would have been most blasphemous-a satire, in the
very person of the Almighty, against all incompetent
rulers, and against the rickety machine and crazy action
of the universe. Heaven forgive me for such thoughts.
as this picture has suggested! . I wonder what
Michel Angelo would have said to this painting."
•
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LIFE OF
Hawthorne sees in the Sistine Chapel what Michel
Angelo would say of it. In the Jesus of the Last
Judgment he beholds the man, sufficiently strong-
willed, to whom the reins of omnipotence are delivered
at the last day. "Above sits Jesus, not looking in the
least like the Saviour of the world, but, with uplifted arm,
denouncing eternal misery on those whom He (sic) came
to save. I fear I am myself among the wicked, for I
found myself inevitably taking their part, and asking for
at least a little pity, some few regrets, and not such a
stern, denunciatory spirit on the part of Him who had
thought us worth dying for." Hawthorne is consoled.
at last by the Jesus of Fra Angelico's "Last Judgment."
"Above sits Jesus, with the throng of blessed saints
around Him, and a flow of tender and powerful love
in His own face, that ought to suffice to redeem all
the damned, and convert the very fiends, and quench
the fires of hell. At any rate Fra Angelico had a
higher conception of his Saviour than Michel Angelo." 1
And Raphael relieves our pilgrim from that Doubting
Castle into which he had been thrust by Carlo Dolce's
suggestion of the "crazy action of the universe."
In the upper and lower parts of the Transfiguration,
neither aware of the other, he finds it symbolical of “the
spiritual shortsightedness of mankind that, amid the
trouble and grief of the lower picture, not a single in-
dividual, either of those who seek help or those who
I
But the Judge is looking only to those on His right; fortunately
for Fra Angelico, Hawthorne did not observe the companion-picture
near by, in which the face of Christ is distorted with anger, as it
turns to those on His left.
HAWTHORNE.
177
would willingly afford it, lifts his eyes to that region, one
glimpse of which would set all right."
Thus, late in life, Hawthorne gathered from Italy's
pictures the flowers of faith which had been strewn in
vain at his feet by Emerson, Channing, Parker, and
many another, in such forms as language could paint.
The then pictureless New England had been for this
latter-day Bunyan a sort of City of Destruction. The
imprisonment of his genius in the Liverpool consulate
may have been, as Bedford gaol to his forerunner, the
portal to spiritual visions. In "Transformation " we
follow a pious pictorial pilgrimage, whose visions hover
over ancient shrines but eclipse their legendary lustre.
The persons are characters, at once real and allegorical,
representing, as we have seen, the thought and feeling
of the American and the Englishman; and the Roman
scenery amid which they act their imported parts is, by
subtle process of selection and interpretation, conformed
to the new spirit. Hawthorne has, in fact, supplanted
the old legends of Rome with a new set. In Hilda's
Tower I observed a fresco, painted since "Transforma-
tion" appeared, in which the most prominent figure is
an ape. The poor creature had a comical suggestion of
trying to reclaim his legendary rights from a dove,
represented as just alighting on the opposite wall. For
centuries before its invasion by Hilda and her doves
the place was known as the Palazzo della Scimmia, and
its legend was of a babe rescued by the Virgin from the
parapet over which it was held by a pet monkey; in
gratitude for which, and in accordance with a vow made
on seeing his child's peril, the owner raised there the
OBA
I 2
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LIFE OF
:
I
Madonna's image, and ordained that the lamp should
burn perpetually before it. Hawthorne tells the legend
in his Italian journal (i. 264), but in Transformation
there is no faintest hint of it. He will not have any
animal associated with his Beloved less etherial than the
white dove, which he remembered in the sculpture at
the Capitol-the dove clasped to her breast by a child
who is attacked by a snake-"symbol of the human
soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close at hand."
The painted ape will never recover his legend: it is no
longer the tower "della Scimmia," but Hilda's Tower.
Even Clelia, the Countess Marone's pretty maid, who
guided me to the tower, had but hazy ideas of the ape-
legend, but evinced a blushing pride at being Hilda's
successor in keeping the lamp burning.
The old ape-legend-of which there are variants in
Munich and elsewhere-is of much interest to the
student of folklore and mythology, who may not like
Hawthorne's disregard of this and other legends. Con-
noisseurs in art and archæology have pointed out errors
—sometimes with the precision of a man of science
who proposed to amend Shakespeare's phrase about
"books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and
good in everything." Obviously it should be stones in
the running brooks, and sermons in books. Hawthorne's
awakened religious nature was too overpowering to admit
of an unbiassed or scientific view of what attracted him
in Rome. He wrought in the same sincerity and the
same spirit that turned temples to churches and gods to
saints. This was the man who had come to Rome, and
this the strange eye that was turned upon it. Mrs. W.
""
HAWTHORNE.
179
W. Story told me that she drove with him along the
Appian Way, by whose interminable memorials of
vanished life and splendour he was deeply impressed.
At length they came to a place where the wind was
playing on telegraph-wires, making a weird music-now
of low moanings, now rising to screams, or sinking into
plaintive, tremulous sounds. Hawthorne asked that the
carriage should stop; he was thrilled by these sounds,
and, after listening long in silence, said, "I hear the
wailings of former generations."
Long had the winds blown there before the wires were
stretched which gave them such notes, and long had the
burden of Rome waited for such utterance as it found
on the heart-strings of Hawthorne. They had been
attuned under the burden of New England's sad and
guilty past; the cries of scourged and executed witches,
mingling with every wind from Gallows Hill, the sighs
of Hester Prynne with the cruel Scarlet Letter on her
breast, had become audible on them. In nearly the
same words that he had written concerning Hester he
wrote of Beatrix Cenci, in the Barberini palace. "It
was the very saddest picture ever painted or conceived,
the sense of which came to the observer by a sort of
intuition. It was a sorrow that removed this beautiful
girl out of the sphere of humanity, and set her in a far-
off region." As on Gallows Hill he forgot the landscape,
and Salem embowered with elms, in his vision of his
Puritan ancestors looking down on that scene of their
cruelties, so now the Coliseum's grandeur is hidden by
the assemblage of remorseful shades looking from those
tiers of broken arches on the arena of their savage
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LIFE OF
pleasures. He overhears a conversation between Hadrian
and the archangel on San Angelo. Hadrian, complaining
of his mausoleum's treatment, is instructed that "where
a warlike despot is sown as seed, a fortress and a prison
are the only possible crop." And again: "All that rich
sculpture of Trajan's bloody warfare, twining from the
base of the pillar to its capital, may be but an ugly
spectacle for his ghostly eyes, if he considers that this
huge storied shaft must be laid before the judgment-
seat as a piece of the evidence of what he did in the
flesh."
Remembering the apathy of Hawthorne concerning
slavery in America, one cannot help perceiving his
limitations. Ex-president Pierce, the devastator of hist
country's liberties, came to Rome, sat sympathizingly
besides Una's bedside, and no doubt joined with his old
college friend in branding ancient oppressors. The two-
moving about Rome recall those spirits seen by Dante,
whose doom was to see only what was remote, all that
was around them being invisible. We must be content
that the blood-stained president was branded under the
name of Hadrian or Trajan, however the old friend
might be welcomed; and the poor negro sympathized
with, if only in person of the European pauper.
Scholars learned in the language and arts of Italy are
sometimes impatient with Hawthorne. Mr. Eugene
Schuyler (in the New York Nation, July 11 and 18,
1889) says that "he remembered only the impressions
which had been made on him, and frequently his entries
seem like impressions of his impressions." Robert
Browning shrewdly answered a preacher who asked his
{
HAWTHORNE.
181
opinion of his sermon, which had been on Nature: "I
might have been better satisfied if, instead of describing
nature, you had given us the impression made by nature.
on you." On Rome enough has been written; the only
useful thing Hawthorne could add was the impression
it made on himself-his very Salem-and-Concord self.
His friend Curtis relates that once, when looking at
a poor picture in a country inn, in Massachusetts,
Hawthorne said to a friend, "There is something very
charming to me in that picture, which I suppose is a
daub. But I think that a painter is entitled to the credit
of all the good things that anybody finds in his picture."
This may be provincialism, but it is a sweet provincialism,
and it makes Hawthorne's Italian journal a religious
autobiography. It holds him to his point of view, that
is, to his originality. 'The plastic sense was not strong
in Hawthorne," says Mr. Henry James, jun.; "there can
be no better proof of it than his aversion to the repre-
sentation of the nude in sculpture." That this is not quite
true is shown in the fact that "Transformation itself
is the transfiguration of a nude statue. That Hawthorne
was at first repelled by such nudity is true.
It was
mainly from a high-minded woman, Mrs. Jameson, that
he learned to suspect himself of error, in this feeling,
which is finally relegated to one of his female characters,
where it is quite natural. He also sat at the feet of his
friend Story. He saw the "Cleopatra" he so admired
grow under the sculptor's hand, and it was an educational
experience. There is not, indeed, very much nudity
about that statue, but the innocency of its voluptuous-
ness gave Hawthorne a sense of time-perspective.
>>
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LIFE OF
1
(C
Cleopatra belonged to a time and place where her
draping or undraping could no more be questioned than
her Egyptian blood, or the serpent-symbol on her brow.
He found that what he disliked was not nudity but
nakedness—not, that is, exposure which is appropriate
to the artistic purpose, but that which is inappropriate to
it. We presently find that his greatest enthusiasm is
evoked by the Medicean Venus at Florence. The Puritan
sentiment lingered just enough to leave us an impor-
tant remark concerning that statue, which, on account.
of its attitude, has so often been accused of mock
modesty. "I felt," writes Hawthorne, a kind of
tenderness for her; an affection, not as if she were one
woman, but all womanhood in one. Her modest attitude
—which before I saw her I had not liked, deeming that
it might be an artificial shame-is partly what unmakes
her as a heathen goddess and softens her into a woman.
From other examples of Hawthorne's critical insight
I select one of intrinsic interest. Guido's "Angel and
Satan" (Church of the Capucins) is often called the
"Archangel and Lucifer;" but this is the millennial
angel, bearing a chain for the devil-who is not the
starry Lucifer, new-fallen, but the enemy of man, stained
and disfigured with ages of evil. The most chivalrous
sympathizer with the sufferer in a combat cannot feel
any pity with this cruel, crafty, demon-sum of every
creature's worst. He is passionlessly, organically bad,
and Hawthorne used this countenance for the evil being
who dogs Miriam's footsteps. He is a motiveless
tormentor whom we are meant not to pity; we can feel
only relief when he is pitched over the Tarpeian Rock.
>>
I
HAWTHORNE.
183
1
But Hawthorne suggests that in Guido's picture there
should be some sign of a struggle. There is not a
loosed string of the dainty sandal, not a ruffled feather
of the angel's wing, to indicate that there has been any
combat. The criticism has rightly adhered to the
picture. It cannot be said that there is no sign of a
combat because the angel represents omnipotence, for
the angel has brought a weapon. The far-reaching
import of Hawthorne's criticism was impressed on me
by a picture at Sorrento, of the same subject, by Sanga-
relli. Here the fiend's eyes expand with surprise, as
well they may, for the angel, under whose tiny foot he
lies, is slight as a maiden of seventeen, and bears no
weapon at all. This angel bears on the left arm a shield
barely large enough to hold the words, "QUIS UT DEUS,"
and the weaponless right hand points upward to the
This
source of this subduing strength - the Dove.
picture, I felt, was painted by an artistic Hawthorne,
who perceived that if Satan were conquered by a carnal
weapon there should be some sign of struggle, and who
preferred his vision of good overcoming evil with good.
This little angel seems, indeed, to be the child sculptured
in the Capitol, attacked by a snake and pressing the
dove to her breast, in a further phase: here the dove
hovers over the child, and the demon is under the little
feet.
On the evening of May 15, 1858, nearly four months
after Hawthorne reached Rome, his friend Mr. Thomp-
son, an American artist, guided him to the Via Portu-
ghese, and showed him the tower, with its Virgin and
ever-burning lamp (which, whatever it did then, now
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LIFE OF
burns only at night), which play such an important part
in "Transformation." Hawthorne records the legend
in his journal without any moral reflections. It was by
comparatively slow steps that he came to recognize the
significance of that shrine. Among all the entries in
his journal of the first winter in Rome I can discover
no serious impression made by any picture or statue of
the Virgin. We have seen how distressed he was by the
wrathful Christ in Michel Angelo's "Last Judgment."
He mentions the "grim saints" around the inexorable
judge, but fails to see the Mother at his side, in whom
the artist had painted all the compassion that Hawthorne
felt, and for which he looked in the "Saviour." Michel
Angelo had painted the Divine compassionateness in
the maternal being who had been evolved to represent
it. Puritanism had eliminated the Madonna, but for
Hawthorne, and other hearts that flowered above that
thorny stem, Jesus had absorbed the Madonna and
revealed her gentle features. "Depart, ye cursed, into
everlasting fire" had faded out of the New England
scholar's Bible. By the maternal Jesus, Hawthorne
had judged the ancient monuments of Rome, and it
was some time before he perceived that, in Italy, it was
the feminine nature which had come to symbolize the
softly subduing force to which its cruel Cæsarism, pagan
and Christian, steadily surrendered.
It was in Florence that Hawthorne first began to
observe carefully pictures of the Virgin. Those of
Raphael, Perugino, Correggio, are "stations" of his
pilgrimage to that shrine where Hilda-his self-delineated
soul-is kneeling. He is astonished now at meeting
HAWTHORNE.
185
his old undevout self in a prosaic Englishman. "I liked
the man, and should be glad to know him better. As
for his criticism, I am sorry to remember only one. It
was upon a picture of the Nativity, by Correggio, in the
Tribune, where the mother is kneeling before the Child
and adoring it in an awful rapture, because she sees the
eternal God in its baby face and figure. The English-
man was highly delighted with this picture, and began
to gesticulate, as if dandling a baby, and to make a
chirruping sound. It was to him merely a representation
of a mother fondling her infant."
These passages were written at the time that Haw-
thorne was blocking out his Faun novel, while Una
sat near in her tower, and perhaps knelt in her
oratory.
The family had left Rome, May 24, 1858, and after a
drive through Soracte, Terni, Foligno, Assisi, Perugia,
Passignano, Arezzo, Incisa, reached Florence early in
June. "This journey from Rome has been one of the
brightest and most uncareful interludes of my life." The
next two months were passed in Florence, in the Casa del
Bello, in luxurious enjoyment of pictures, drives, studios,
and artists-Landor, then rapidly sinking, he did not
meet, but enjoyed the Brownings. He had charming
interviews with his countryman, Hiram Powers, enjoying
his racy narratives of early life in Cincinnati, and the
Inferno he made there with wax figures, as well as his
statues. Powers had obtained for him the beautiful
abode near his own. He could not understand the
alliance of such a man with Pierce, but they had many
feelings in common, and used to sit together on the
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LIFE OF
house-top dreaming of invisible worlds and intelligences.
Early in July the Brownings left for the seaside, and
the Hawthornes went to reside at Montauto Villa. In
a letter of July 18, 1858, now before me, Powers writes
to a friend: "The House of the Seven Gables is very
domestic, does not seem inclined to visit his neighbours
much, and when he does his stay is short." Hawthorne
had now, indeed, called around him other companions,—
Donatello, Hilda, and the rest. From the ancient tower,
whence imprisoned Savonarola looked on the city where
his stake was prepared, Hawthorne gazed on the beau-
tiful hills. He could almost see the garden where
Boccaccio pictured his story-telling circle. I have heard.
that, when he ascended the tower, he used to draw the
last ladder up after him. I was hospitably admitted by
Lady Hobart, the present occupant, to the study in
which "Transformation" was written, and recognized in
the pretty nymphs and Cupids on its ceiling the "angels
and cherubs" which they appeared to the author's un-
sophisticated first glance.
Among other interesting experiences at Florence were
some in "Spiritualism." Miss Ada Shepherd, a gover-
ness in the Hawthorne family, "developed" into a
writing medium. "Her integrity," says Hawthorne,
"is absolutely indubitable, and she herself totally dis-
believes in the spiritual authenticity of what is commu-
nicated through her medium." Hawthorne had no
philosophical objection to hypnotic marvels. His feeling
on such matters is suggested in a note (sent me by Mr.
W. R. Benjamin) written to Elizabeth Peabody when
leaving the Consulate.
į
HAWTHORNE.
187
As
"And the very fact of my speaking so implies all the love and
respect which, because I speak so, you are ready to disbelieve.
for Miss I have long ago taken her measure, though she has
failed to take mine. What you tell me about the letter is very
curious, and it goes to confirm my previous idea of such revelations.
A seeress of this kind will not afford you any miraculous insight
into a person's character and mind; she will merely discover,
through the medium of the letter, what another person, of just the
same natural scope and penetration as the seeress, would discover
normally by personal intercourse and observation of the person
described. Thus her revelations (like all our conceptions of other
person's characters) have some truth and much error."
Julian Hawthorne tells an astonishing story about the
experiments with the governess at Villa Montauto, near
Florence. One day the name of "Mary Rondel" was
written by the medium. Mary said that in her life on
earth she had been in some way connected with the
Hawthorne family, and wanted Nathaniel Hawthorne's
sympathy. Hawthorne remembered nothing of any
such person; the matter was dismissed and forgotten;
but, after Hawthorne's death, he-Julian-discovered
in family papers that Daniel Hawthorne, grandfather of
our author, had indeed had a love affair with one "Mary
Rondel." Julian was about twelve years of age at the
time of the manifestation, and probably got his account
by hearsay. According to Hawthorne ("French and
Italian Note-Books," ii. 145) the name written was
Mary Runnel-not Rondel-nor does he mention that
she wished his sympathy, or sent him any message.
"The other spirits," he says, "discredited the veracity
of Mary, who frequently manifested herself, and when-
ever there was any mistake or falsehood the odium was
laid on her." "The whole matter," he adds, “seems to
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LIFE OF
me a sort of dreaming awake. It resembles a dream,
in that the whole material is from the first in the
dreamer's mind, though concealed at various depths
below the surface; the dead appear alive, as they always
do in dreams; unexpected combinations occur, as
continually in dreams; the mind speaks through the
various persons of the drama, and sometimes astonishes.
itself with its own wit, wisdom, and eloquence, as often
in dreams; but in both cases the intellectual manifesta-
tions are really of a very flimsy nature. Mary Runnel
is the only personage who does not come evidently from
dreamland; and she, I think, represents that lurking
scepticism, that sense of unreality, of which we are
often conscious, amid the wild phantasmagoria of a
dream. I should be glad to believe in the genuineness
of these spirits, if I could; but the above is the con-
clusion to which my soberest thoughts tend."
Hawthorne was pretty well acquainted with his family
history, and his intimation that Mary Runnel did not
come from dreamland suggests that he had some remem-
brance of a note concerning her, and of his grandfather's
romance. Miss Shephard, who enjoyed the family
intimacy, may have seen or heard the name, and for-
gotten it; or the resemblance between the names of the
spirit and Daniel's sweetheart may be a curious coin-
cidence.
Julian Hawthorne is mistaken in his impression that
the Brownings were present at these séances. Robert
Browning told Mr. Story that neither he nor his wife
was present on any such occasion, and that they were
never at the Villa Montauto at all. It is, indeed, a pity
HAWTHORNE.
189
that Robert Browning was not present, for, as Hawthorne
says, the "phenomena " generally disappeared under his
powerful gripe. Mrs. Hawthorne, it should be stated,
was inclined to Spiritualism. Under the circumstances.
the only scrutinizer present could hardly be very rigid;
but he recognized in the medium's "messages" only
such things as were likely to be in his wife's mind, and
concluded that the transference was "mesmeric."
The Hawthornes returned to Rome after the middle
of October, 1858. It was during this second winter in
Rome that Una's illness occurred; and, indeed, I have
in this chapter dealt with the events of Hawthorne's
sojourn in Italy without careful distinctions of place and
time. But the time came for leaving the beautiful land
for ever. On May 26, 1859, Hawthorne passes the
morning in revisiting certain places. "Methought they
never looked so beautiful, nor the sky so bright and
blue. I saw Soracte on the horizon, and I looked at
everything as if for the last time; nor do I wish ever
to see any of these objects again, though no place ever
took so strong a hold of my being as Rome, nor ever
seemed so close to me and so strangely familiar. I seem
to know it better than my birthplace, and to have known
it longer."
Rome was, indeed, the place of his new birth. It
could not, however, give a congenial home to the spirit.
it had awakened any more than his first birthplace. So
far as Rome is related to him it is inseparable. The
pilgrim bears away the interpretations, and does not wish
to return to the House of the Interpreter. And mean-
while Rome remains serenely unaware that New England
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LIFE OF
has come, and looked, and is driving off in a coach to
Civita Vecchia-to the New World. "Transformation
has not been translated into Italian, and it is pretty
certain that the average Italian could not understand it.
Rome is as unaware as the Marble Faun that it has
been turned into a fable. Our driver, in the Borghese.
gardens, looks incredulous when we bid him stop at
a space where we see Donatello and Miriam, the
contadinas and French soldiers and English tourists,
and hear the harp and the tambourine which have set
them all into their mad sylvan dance, presently to melt
into air, like Prospero's insubstantial, but never-ending,
masque. W. D. Howells, in his delightful "Italian
Journeys," speaks of visiting the Tarpeian Rock, not
because of those anciently thrown over it, but because
of Miriam and Donatello. Thousands have gone there
for the same reason, but no impression has the new
legend made on the old rock. We asked the custodian
the spot at which the old monk fell and was killed. She
promptly replied, "He was not killed at all. The
newspapers said so; but he was taken to the hospital
and is now quite well!" In his artful legend of
Memmius, the heathen spy on the Christian refugees
of the catacomb (St. Calixtus), Hawthorne has caught
the very trick and accent of Roman folklore,-for
instance, of Malchus, who, unconverted by the miracu-
lous mercy that healed his smitten ear, must journey till
Judgment Day round a subterranean pillar. We asked
our guide whether he had ever heard of this Memmius
haunting the catacomb, vainly seeking daylight. Think-
ing we might be apprehensive, he vehemently declared,
در
HAWTHORNE.
191
督
​"I have been here night and day these thirty years
and never saw or heard of any ghost here yet." The
old priest selling photographs at the entrance said,
“There are souls so wicked that they are not permitted
to rest, and this Memmius, if he did as you say, was
very wicked. But no such phantom was ever known
here." So moves on old Rome, the graceful furry ears
impenetrable to the new Orphic strain to which the
walls of a new city are steadily rising around it.
!
i
十
​!
;
CHAPTER XIII.
H
AWTHORNE was eager to reach England and
write his romance. He enjoyed his voyage on
the Mediterranean, but hurried through France and
Switzerland. There was some stay at Avignon, and at
Geneva, but no incidents occurred beyond ordinary
sight-seeing. Hawthorne had really been homesick ever
since he left Concord, and his face shone as it was now
turned homeward. He intended to proceed immedi-
ately, and wrote on to have passages from Liverpool
secured at once. After posting the letter, at Geneva,
he writes: "It makes my heart thrill, half pleasantly,
half otherwise; so much nearer does this step seem to
bring the home whence I have now been absent six
years, and which, when I see it again, may turn out
to be not my home any longer. I likewise wrote to
Bennoch, though I know not his present address; but I
should deeply grieve to leave England without seeing him.
He and Henry Bright are the only two men in England
to whom I shall be much grieved to bid farewell.”
These, indeed, were the only two Englishmen whom
Hawthorne as yet knew. And Henry Bright knew him.
One of the cleverest things ever written about him was
}
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
193
Henry Bright's "Song of Consul Hawthorne," printed
in Julian Hawthorne's work:
written.
"Should you ask me, 'Who is Hawthorne?
Who this Hawthorne that you mention?'
I should answer, I should tell you,
'He's a Yankee, who has written
Many books you must have heard of;
For he wrote "The Scarlet Letter
And "The House of Seven Gables,'
Wrote, too, "Rappacini's Daughter,"
And a lot of other stories ;-
Some are long, and some are shorter;
Some are good, and some are better.
And this Hawthorne is a Consul,
Sitting in a dismal office,—
Dark and dirty, dingy office,
Full of mates, and full of captains,
Full of sailors and of niggers,-
And he lords it over Yankees.'. .
Do you ask me, 'Tell me further
Of this Consul, of this Hawthorne?'
I would say, 'He is a sinner,—
Never goes inside a chapel,
Only sees outsides of chapels,
Says his prayers without a chapel !
I would say that he is lazy,
Very lazy, good-for-nothing ;
Hardly ever goes to dinners,
Never goes to balls or soirées ;
Thinks one friend worth twenty friendly;
Cares for love, but not for liking;
Hardly knows a dozen people.
225
>>
But a dozen was too large a number, when this witty
Hiawatha-rhyme, which greatly pleased Hawthorne, was
He resolved to remain another year in Eng-
}
13
194
LIFE OF
3
land, in order to re-write and publish "Transformation."
Rome and Florence had greatly humanized him, and,
but for the necessity of finishing his romance, he would
probably have enjoyed a free year in London. As it was,
after the work (completed at Redcar and Leamington)
was in the hands of his publishers-Smith and Elder—
in February, 1860, he passed nearly four pleasant months.
in London and Bath. He visited Whitby, and Coventry,
where he met the Brays and Hennells. In May he was
the guest of the Motleys for some days-a most happy
visit. He had left his family in Leamington, and daily
posted to them letters written for him by Una before
he left. He was in his merriest mood. "I dined with
the Motleys at Lord Dufferin's, on Monday evening, and
there met, among a few other notable people, Mrs.
Norton, a dark, comely woman, who doubtless was once
most charming, and still has charms, at above fifty years.
of age."
"You would be stricken dumb," he says in
a letter, "to see how quietly I accept a whole string of
invitations. The stir of this London life, somehow
or other, has done me a wonderful deal of good, and I
feel better than for months past." He sat to a German
•
I
¹ At Coventry he was the guest of Mr. Bill. My friend, Mrs.
Charles Bray, writes: "My husband and I were invited to meet
him at dinner; and as he took me in to dinner he sat next to me,
and I think talked exclusively about Miss Evans, asking questions
of all kinds about her, which I was very glad to answer to one so
appreciative and so interesting as himself. He was one of the few
men of genius whose personality corresponded with the ideal we
had formed of him; and to this day I can recall vividly his modest,
almost shy, manner, and his very expressive and strongly intellectual
face."
HAWTHORNE.
195
1
sculptor, and, at Motley's request, allowed his photograph
to be taken by Mayall,—an excellent one. He chatted
with Tom Hughes and Layard at the Cosmopolitan Club
on Sunday evenings, dined with Henry Chorley of the
Athenæum, and breakfasted with Richard Monckton Milnes
(Lord Houghton). He visited Leigh Hunt, proprio motu !
He was invited by Samuel Lucas, editor of Once a Week,
to write a romance for that publication, and name his
Own terms. All this sweetened his last days in
England. He could not indeed escape from his doom
of shyness when in company, but bore an amiable
aspect. Lord Dufferin told me that at the dinner at
his house Hawthorne did not indeed talk much, but
manifested interest in those present and in what was
said. "And we felt at every moment that we were
in the presence of those large wonderful eyes! Shy
though he was, Hawthorne was never confused in com-
pany. When addressed his reply was to the point. In
a discussion of some sentence in the Queen's speech,
whose grammar was questioned, Hawthorne, appealed to,
remarked, "Surely the Queen may do what she will with
her own." He also amazed his friends by the ease and
wit of his after-dinner speeches. He especially enjoyed
one of the free-and-easy evenings at the Working Men's
College, where he was taken by (Judge) Thomas Hughes.
The songs happened to be of the patriotic kind, and
Hawthorne was delighted; he fairly surrendered to these
Englishmen when they sang the "Tight Little Island,"
and ran up the flag. He said afterwards, "I never
before understood this English feeling."
"}
Nevertheless, despite this final spurt, it was too late
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LIFE OF
for Hawthorne to get what England had for him. This
was certainly not the fault of England. Lord Houghton,
the chief host of literary guests, was unwearied in his
efforts to beguile Hawthorne, even before his departure
for Italy, into the London circle. Houghton came to
the conclusion that Hawthorne had some personal dislike
for him, which was far from the fact. Hawthorne was
simply one of the later "survivals" of the old anti-
English democracy come down from the Revolution,
and preserved with care in the heavy atmosphere of hist
odious consulate in Liverpool. He had taken refuge in
the Elizabethan Age, and never saw the Victorian Age
at all. His book, "Our Old Home," is a sort of
antediluvian record. When, in that volume, venturing
out of his happy intimacy with the ancient worthies of
Leamington or Stratford, Hawthorne described the
Englishwoman as made up of steaks and sirloins, there
was an amusingly anachronistic tone of democratic
defiance in the criticism. The Times summed it up
as the Yankee saying, "My wife's prettier than yours."
Punch remarked that the opinion was all the more
weighty because of Hawthorne's well-known dash and
address in society. Henry Bright wrote to him, "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 far as the life of the English
people was concerned, Hawthorne might have written a
better book had he never left Concord. But "Our Old
Home" should be taken as the Whigs took the bio-
graphy of Pierce-as a a romance. To Pierce, this
democratic fling at England is appropriately dedicated.
HAWTHORNE.
197
•
Its chapters are, indeed, full of romantic interest,
all the more entertaining by the interwoven sketches
of reality-the best of these being that of poor Delia
Bacon.
Hawthorne was astonished and distressed at the
indignation "Our Old Home" excited in England. He
protested that in his comparisons of the two peoples the
balance was almost invariably cast against his own.
"They do me great injustice in supposing I hate them.
I would as soon hate my own people." When he came
to think over the matter, to see England in the distance
-his small consular worries forgotten, his party faith
shaken by the war-I suspect that he began to realize
his failure to make the most of his irrecoverable
opportunity. In 1863, when my wife was about to leave
Concord, where we had resided, and join me in London,
Hawthorne who had been very kind to her in my
absence-showed her his many photographs, and ex-
pressed his strong hope of soon returning to England.
"Una longs for England, and so do I." Alas! when
Una sailed it had to be without him. When death's
hand was strong upon him, he wrote, "If I could but
go to England now, I think that the sea-voyage and the
'old home' might set me all right." They were nearly
his last words.
CHAPTER XIV.
W
HEN Hawthorne returned to America his ac-
quaintances generally remarked the greater ease
of his manners. This is mentioned in a note before me
from a lady of Boston, who often entertained him in her
house. "The self-consciousness of Hawthorne, which
men called his shyness, was a natural concomitant of
his solitary life and extreme sensitiveness. In England
he lost something of this, you know, but it was another.
proof of the subtle connection between our physical and
spiritual natures more easy to discern than to compre-
hend." He impressed me-the present writer-as of
much nobler presence than formerly, and certainly he
was one of the finest looking of men. I observed him
closely at a dinner of the Literary Club, in Boston, the
great feature of which was the presence of Hawthorne,
then just from Europe (July, 1860). His great athletic
frame was softened by its repose, which was the more
striking beside the vivacity of Agassiz, at whose side he
sat-himself a magnificent man in appearance. Haw-
thorne's massive brow and fine aquiline nose were of
such commanding strength as to make the mouth and
chin seern a little weak by contrast. The upper lip was
I
?
#
LIFE OF HAWTHORNE.
hidden by a thick moustache; the under lip was some-
what too pronounced, perhaps. The head was most
shapely in front, but at the back was singularly flat.
This peculiarity appears in a bust of Hawthorne now in
the possession of his friend and banker, Mr. Hooker,
at Rome. It is by Phillips, and is especially interest-
ing as representing the author in early life, before the
somewhat severe mouth was modified by a moustache.
The eyes were at once dark and lucid, very large but
never staring, incurious, soft and pathetic as those of
a deer. When addressed a gracious smile accompanied
his always gentle reply, and the most engaging expression
suffused his warm brown face. The smile, however, was
sweet only while in the eyes; when it extended to the
mouth it seemed to give him pain. There must have
been battles between those soft eyes and this mouth.
His voice was sweet and low, but suggested a reserve
of quick and powerful intelligence. In conversation the
trait that struck me most was his perfect candour. There
was no faintest suggestion of secrecy. I have a suspicion
that his shyness was that of one whose heart was without
bolts or bars, and who felt himself at the mercy of every
"interviewer" that might chance to get hold of him.
On his return to Concord, Hawthorne repaired to
his residence, "Wayside," with such avoidance of parade
that the quiet little town was for some days ignorant
of his arrival. The first thing he set about was having
a tower added to his house, something like that which
had so fascinated his imagination in the Via Portughese,
at Rome. This was set aside as his study, or rather
as his writing-place, for the library was in another room.
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:
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LIFE OF
Hawthorne was oppressed by a crowd of people even
when represented by their books. Like his friend
Longfellow he liked to stand while writing, and a high
desk was the only furniture absolutely necessary in the
tower where his winged fancies were received. These
never flitted out of books. It is rare to find a quotation
in Hawthorne's works. I was startled on finding in his
journal Emerson's line, "They builded better than they
knew," and recalled a story, told me by Dr. Loring,
that Hawthorne complained that American poetry had
no quotable lines. Dr. Holmes, on hearing this, said
"Ah, he has forgotten Longfellow's 'Art!"" ("Art is
long and time is fleeting.")
In fact, Hawthorne was embarrassed by the quantity
of his own mental furniture, which had been greatly
increased by his long silent sojourn in Europe. He
made haste to clear the English sketches out of his
way, and set himself to the blocked-out romances
brought from Europe. The English fragment, posthu-
mously published as "The Ancestral Footstep," had
been shoved out of his mind by the overwhelming
experiences of Rome. He had brought from Florence
the suggestion of a pretty story. He had visited an old
Englishman, Seymour Kirkup, long resident in Florence,
antiquarian and reputed necromancer, a spiritualist too,
holding converse, through a medium, with dead poets
and emperors.
He found the quaint old man in an
ancient house of the Templars; his face was shrivelled,
his silken hair white, his eyes as if seeing something
that struck him with surprise. Amid curious old masks,
frescoes, parchments, he moved, always followed by a
1
HAWTHORNE.
201
pale, large-eyed little girl. She was the daughter of a
beautiful Florentine woman who had lived with the old
necromancer as his spiritual medium until her death, and
whose powers of spiritual communication the girl in-
herited. Then there was the haunting story told him
by Thoreau of his own house, "Wayside," whose earlier
occupant believed he could live for ever. These airy
dreams, less manageable than Hilda's doves, fluttered to
his Wayside Tower, each eager to nestle on his desk.
It was hard to choose, and he was contriving how he
might fold them all to his breast at once, or put them
in the columbarium of one romance, when the clangour
of war frightened them away.
On his return to Concord, Hawthorne was so eager
to make up in literary work for the five barren consular
years, that he was in danger of becoming a prisoner in
his tower. Even when he walked the streets his eye
had a look of being still in that aerial solitude. And
indeed Emerson's son, in his delightful account of his
father's home life, tells a story which shows how far
away from Concord Hawthorne was, and at the same
time how desirous he was of knowing more of the
Hildas near his door. I quote the anecdote as freshly
told in a letter from my friend Edward Emerson :
"When the family returned to Concord after their European
sojourn, and we had renewed our acquaintance with the children,
one Sunday evening, at about half-past eight, the door-bell rang, and
to our astonishment Mr. Hawthorne was shown in.
Father was
away and mother not well, and Edith and I sat alone in the parlour.
Mr. Hawthorne explained that his call was upon Miss Ellen (of
whose virtues he had much from his wife and Una). Ellen [Emer-
son's eldest daughter], as was her custom, had gone to bed at eight,
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LIFE OF
so there was nothing for it but for Mr. Hawthorne to make the
best of it with us. He was, as I always remember him, kindly, but
shy as a wild thing from the woods; and to conceal his embarrass-
ment even with us, children of thirteen and fifteen, took up the
stereoscope we had on the table and began looking at the views.
He presently asked us of what places they were taken. They
represented the Concord Common, the Court House and Town
House, and the Milldam, as we call the centre of the town where
the stores and post-office are. He evidently asked in good faith,
and, though he walked through these places on his visits to the
post-office and railway station, knew as little about them as the
fox that might burrow in his hillside did.
Although the absorbed author never visited his neigh-
bours, those who had reason to visit him were kindly
received. Among these was W. D. Howells, then
known to a comparatively small circle, and, as a poet,
Hawthorne recognized the young author's ability, and
sent him to Emerson with a card on which was written,
"I find him worthy." His loyalty in friendship was put
to the test by his publisher's warning, and that of
others, that the dedication of "Our Old Home" to,
Ex-President Pierce, an object of universal odium, would
endanger the book's success. "If he is so exceedingly
unpopular that his name is enough to sink the volume,
there is so much the more need that an old friend should
stand by him," and "the literary public must accept my
book precisely as I think fit to give it, or let it alone."
I
¹ In reply to a question concerning this visit, Howells tells me,
"Hawthorne took me up on the hill behind Wayside, and we had a
silence of half an hour together. He said he never saw a perfectly
beautiful woman; asked much about the West; and wished he could
find some part of America 'where the cursed shadow of Europe had
not fallen.'":
}
HAWTHORNE.
203
܀
At Bowdoin College there had been a military com-
pany of students, of which Frank Pierce was com-
mander, and Hawthorne a soldier. There is almost
a military ring in this insistence on his dedication to hist
old captain. And indeed there was a martial element
in Hawthorne, which asserted itself during the war
along with his disgust at its causes.¹ This was curiously
illustrated in his descriptive article on the subject,
which appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, July, 1862.
By his eulogistic "Life of Pierce" Hawthorne had done
more than, it is to be hoped, he ever knew to raise the
terrible Frankenstein; and as the phantasm would not
let him work he went forth to survey its desolations.
He visited Washington, met President Lincoln and his
Ministers, went to the camps and battlefields in Virginia.
In the old engine-house at Harper's Ferry, which John
Brown had seized as a fortress in his attack on slavery,
and which became his prison, it is a marvel that Haw-
thorne did not see the executed captain shaking his
gory locks at him. For it was he whom Hawthorne
had extolled into the presidency whose oppression in
Kanzas had driven the good captain mad, and indeed
made the war inevitable. Hawthorne's article is spark-
ling, graphic, cynical. When with the soldiers his
bosom swells with patriotic pride, and almost gloats
over the prospective defeat of the South; when he is
with the politicians he is an old proslavery democrat
again, and pities the poor negroes on account of their
A remarkable letter from Hawthorne to Francis Bennoch (after
whom a room at Wayside was named), relating to the war, was
printed in my " Emerson at Home and Abroad.”
'
204
LIFE OF
sad prospect of liberty. One or two passages of the
article as originally written the editor refused to publish,
-among these the very striking portraiture of President
Lincoln, which Houghton and Co. have done well to
restore in their edition of Hawthorne's works. When
the article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly it was
accompanied by footnotes sneering at the writer, or
severely rebuking him. "Can it be a son of old
Massachusetts who utters this abominable sentiment?
For shame." "The author seems to imagine that he
has compressed a great deal of meaning into these
little, hard, dry pellets of aphoristic wisdom. We dis-
agree with him," &c. &c. After reading the article, with
these terrible editorial comments, the present writer
(then residing in Concord), in alarm for the consequences
to Hawthorne, rushed with the magazine to Emerson's
house. Emerson read the censorious notes and quietly
said, "Of course he wrote the footnotes himself."
It was about that time that I passed a day or two with
Hawthorne at the house of James T. Fields, in Boston.
He had aged rapidly, and appeared vague and lost amid
the whirl of events, about which he was inclined to be
silent. On one evening other guests came, and I was
deputed by some ladies to try and coax him from his
room. I found him reading Defoe's ghost stories, and,
after listening affably to my request, he so entertained
me with talk about the stories that I forgot my mission.
He asked me to tell him some of the ghostly lore of
negroes in my own State (Virginia), and showed much
interest in the few that I remembered. He hardly
appeared the same man as that taciturn personage I had
HAWTHORNE.
205
sometimes met in company · though not, of course,
among friends so near as those under whose roof he now
was. At breakfast he appeared with an amusing look of
boyish meekness, as if expecting reproach from Mrs.
Fields for not having shown himself in the drawing-room
the evening before. He met, of course, only sunshine,
and was warmed by it into a charming flow of talk—most
of it being about England. He had been so pained by
the reception of his book, "Our Old Home," in England,
that he had begged Fields to send him no more notices
of it from the English press. The sketches, which had
appeared as papers in the Atlantic Monthly, had unfor-
tunately been hurried into a volume, amid many worries,
without such revision as we now got at the breakfast-
table, where all his memories of England were
happy.
I was at that time devoting myself to the cause of
emancipation, and was daily hearing from some of our
anti-slavery rank and file sharp words concerning Haw-
thorne, but never for a moment did I have any such
feeling towards him. Being a Virginian who had known
the loneliness of social exile on account of my anti-
slavery views, I felt some nearness to this Northern man,
whose opposite views had suddenly isolated him. This
strange being from fairyland was not to be judged by
common standards. On the subject that absorbed all
minds he could not converse with his intimate friends.
His old democratic friends either did not like his patriotic
advocacy of the war, or had been converted by events
from his lingering sympathy with Southern politics. He
had not the flexibility of principle displayed by so many
206
LIFE OF
in those days. He thus had no party,-then nearly
equivalent to having no country.
Probably there was not an individual in the United
States who would have subscribed his article, "Chiefly
on War Matters." Although he wished for the military
success of the North, and began to think slavery at least
a national nuisance, he did not at once share the general
enthusiasm for the Union.
CC
Though I approve of the war as much as any man," he wrote
to Horatio Bridge, "I don't 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. If
we are fighting for the annihilation of slavery, to be sure it may be
a wise object, and offer a tangible result, and the only one which is
consistent with a future union between North and South.
A con-
tinuance of the war would soon make this plain to us, and we should
see the expediency of preparing our black brethren for future citizen-
ship by allowing them to fight for their own liberties, and educating
them through heroic influences. Whatever happens next, I must
say that I rejoice that the old Union is smashed. We never were
one people, and never really had a country since the constitution
was formed.”
Hawthorne lent an eager ear to the Hon. Martin F.
Conway, a member of Congress, who came to Concord
to make converts to a policy he had for peaceful dissolu-
tion of the Union. He was a native of Maryland,
though he represented Kanzas, and was an eloquent
anti-slavery champion. He urged on the anti-slavery
men, what then seemed to be true, that emancipation
was no part of the purpose of the administration in the
war, which was likely to end in some compromise with
I
HAWTHORNE.
207
;
that institution, leaving the slaves more hopelessly bound
than before. Whereas with separation all constitutional
compromises with slavery would lapse; the area of negro
liberty, instead of being in distant Canada, to which
the fugitive must escape, would be carried down to the
Potomac and the Ohio; and, as the North would no
longer be under the constitutional obligation to return
negro fugitives, they would all gradually escape. This
reasoning made an impression on us all, and Hawthorne,
for one moment of his life, stood with a good many anti.
slavery men. But further events speedily identified the
war with emancipation, and all side schemes and theories
were merged in the struggle.
The first two years of the war, its miserable blunders,
its fearful massacres, were depressing enough even for
those who had faith in a heavenly advent of liberty for
the slave, and liberation of the nation from Slavery; but
for Hawthorne, with no enthusiasm of this kind, it was a
prolonged nightmare. His only happiness, he said, was
that his son was too young to enlist; his regret, that he
himself was too old. Gradually, however, like other
literary men, he had to establish some modus vivendi with
the situation. He locked himself in his tower, took up
the so long paralyzed pen, and addressed himself to write
a romance. It came hard. "There is something pre-
ternatural in my reluctance to begin," he wrote his urgent
publisher, Mr. Fields. "I linger at the threshold, and
have a perception of very disagreeable phantoms to be
encountered if I enter. There are two or three chap-
ters ready to be written, but I am not robust enough to
begin, and I feel as if I should never carry it through. . . .
..
208
LIFE OF
Seriously, my mind has, for the present, lost its temper,
and its fine edge, and I have an instinct that I had better
keep quiet."
This depressed state of mind is not to be explained.
merely by worries about the war, or the prolonged sus-
pense of work. In large part it was, I believe, due to a
repugnance conceived against the subjects on which he
had been working, in England and Florence-these being
the only ones in a sufficient state of preparation to be
available for the clamorous Atlantic. He had suffered
anguish in Rome, and here was a nation of parents in
such anguish of apprehension as he had felt for his
daughter. It seemed dreadful to add any gloom, how-
ever imaginative, to the sad time, but whenever he took
his pen, uprose his dark phantoms-Septimius Felton,
Dolliver, Grimshawe, and the Bloody Footstep. "Ah,"
he said, "could I only write a sunshiny book!"
Then he set himself to "The Dolliver Romance," and
no doubt, had he lived to complete it, he would have
brought some Italian sunshine into it. But, alas, hardly
had he begun when the sunshine began to fade out of
his life. Una fell ill! This daughter, idealized as we
have seen in Hilda-the pure vision of his own soul—
had returned from the shadow of death, in Rome, to
become interwoven with the very fibres of Hawthorne's
life. Her relapse became his also. And it was an illness.
of ominous character, rendering it but too certain that
her strength was undermined, and threatening both mind
and body.
This was really Hawthorne's death-blow. He would
not admit that anything was the matter with him, but he
HAWTHORNE.
209
aged daily. Una was sent to the seaside, and physically
seemed somewhat better; but Hawthorne's prophetic
vision foresaw a peril he would not whisper even to
his wife. In Una's absence he could not eat or sleep,
and sank visibly. He was persuaded to make a visit.
to the seaside himself, taking his son Julian, in the
summer of 1863. This was near Salem, where he
visited his friend Dr. Loring. He had given no sign
that their little girl, of five years, had attracted him, but
on leaving he took her hand and said, "I hope, Posy,
when we meet again we shall be better acquainted."
Something in his tone caused the simple words to be
remembered, as if he had seen in the precocious child
some token that their meeting might be in the happier
world for which he hoped. She died the next summer.
The seaside rambles with Julian did him some good, but
not so much as he artfully made out to his wife, to whom
he wrote mirthful letters (printed by his son) that now
are most touching. Against her entreaties he returned
home, with the evident determination to utilize every
heart-beat of his consciously sinking life in an effort to
leave his literary work in better shape. He must have
toiled terribly on "Septimius Felton," which, as found
among his manuscripts, was in such rapid and broken
handwriting that his daughter Una could only decipher
and arrange it by Robert Browning's aid. He would
appear, however, to have left this for "The Dolliver
Romance," of which one part was found finished, and
two other scenes fairly well sketched. Both of these
works are on the same theme-the elixir of life. It is
sufficiently tragical to think of the author in his tower,
14
210
LIFE OF
writing of an elixir by which the aged grew young, while
he himself is consciously sinking into his grave.
Julian Hawthorne, in publishing another version of
"Septimius Felton" (Lippincott's Magazine, January-April,
1890), points out the probable relation of its war features
to the fact that the first Concord regiment marched to
the late civil war on April 19, anniversary of the Concord
fight in 1775. In seeing the British advance, Septimius
says,
"I know not what I have to do with the quarrel.'
Such was Hawthorne's own feeling eighty-seven years
later; but he presently shared the national ardour, and
thrust aside "Septimius" for "Pansie," or "The Dolliver
Romance." He also longed to write "a sunshiny book."
From the cold-hearted Septimius he turned to the genial.
antiquarian of Florence, Seymour Kirkup, and pretty
Imogen at his side. These now appear as Grandsir
Dolliver and Pansie.
21
It has been stated, in the earlier part of this work,
that Emerson feared Hawthorne's sombre spirit; but I
suspect that now the fear was on Hawthorne's side. He
was writing the romance of immortality, while sinking into
the grave, and perhaps dreaded Emerson's attitude to-
wards all supernaturalism. I have heard, indeed, that
when Emerson visited his friend in his illness, and
spoke of man's resources of strength as lying in himself,
altogether ignoring the future, Hawthorne was rather
depressed than cheered by the interview.
Hawthorne at last grows very weary. "Those verses
entitled Weariness' in the last magazine seem to me
profoundly touching. I, too, am weary, and begin to
look ahead for the Wayside Inn." So he writes to
<
HAWTHORNE.
211
Fields in December, 1863. At the end of the following
February he writes to this dear friend, his publisher, that
the pen has finally fallen from his hand, and that he shall
never finish the romance. "I cannot finish it unless.
a great change comes over me; and if I make too great.
an effort to do so, it will be my death; not that I should
care much for that, if I could fight the battle through
and win it, thus ending a life of much smoulder and
scanty fire in a blaze of glory. But I should smother
myself in mud of my own making. I am not low-
spirited, nor fanciful, nor freakish, but look what seem
to me realities in the face, and am ready to take what-
ever may come. If I could but go to England now,
I think that the sea-voyage and the old home' might
set me all right."
So sorrowfully, for Hawthorne's friends, had the New
Year (1864) opened. One of the nearest of them, Dr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, then had an interview with
Hawthorne, at the end of which he advised his friend.
to take some quiet tour. Dr. Holmes had little hope of
Hawthorne's recovery, and Hawthorne himself none at
all. He had no fear of death. I was told that Haw-
thorne expressed to Dr. Holmes some anxiety lest his
physical condition, or, if he should die, the cause of his
death, might be described in the newspapers.
In March Hawthorne went southward, under care of
his friend W. D. Ticknor, senior partner of the firm that
published his works, and Mrs. Hawthorne received daily
letters from Ticknor, reporting improvement in her
husband's condition. But at Philadelphia Ticknor
suddenly died. The shock-the burden of having
212
LIFE OF
the body prepared for transportation - the whole.
ghastly situation-brought Hawthorne home a dying
man. But his wife would not surrender. His old
friend, Ex-President Pierce, came on in May to take
him on an excursion. Politically the two had parted.
Dr. Loring and Hawthorne, in the previous summer,
drove over to see Pierce at Rockport. The three had
been "democrats" together, but now, when the visitors.
spoke favourably of Lincoln, the ex-president said, "Not
one act of his administration can be commended."
Pierce had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Cer-
tainly he never forgot his friendship for Hawthorne.
When, about the same time, Mrs. Pierce died, Haw-
thorne, ill as he was, could not be restrained from
accompanying his friend to her grave. The air was
chill, and Pierce, in that moment of deep grief, was
observed to turn and pull up Hawthorne's overcoat
about his throat.
About the middle of May Hawthorne parted with his
family, sweetly, but without any scene, and the two
white-haired old men started on their way towards the
region where their college days were passed together.
On May 18th they reached Plymouth, New Hampshire.
They stopped at the Pemigewasset Hotel.
Once or
twice in the night Pierce crept near Hawthorne's bed,
in an adjacent room, and found him asleep, and breath-
ing quietly. But when he went again, some time after
midnight, Hawthorne, though his position was unchanged,
had ceased to breathe.
On May 24, 1864, Hawthorne was borne to his rest
to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, not far from his house, in
1
HAWTHORNE.
213
Concord. There, not far from his friend Thoreau—of
whom he meant to prefix a sketch in his "Dolliver
Romance," he was attended by Emerson, who now
lies near him, and Longfellow, who wrote touching lines
on his dead friend.
(C
There in seclusion and remote from men,
The wizard hand lies cold,
Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,
And left the tale half told.
Ah, who shall lift that wand of magic power,
And the lost clue regain !
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower
Unfinished must remain !"
On the coffin lay the manuscript of "the tale half
told "-tale of the deathless man. The address in the
church (Unitarian) was by the Rev. James Freeman.
Clarke, who in the same building had married Haw-
thorne and his wife twenty-two years before. A vast
crowd assembled, and there was almost a crush, so great
was the desire to look on the face of the great man whom.
even some of his neighbours had never seen.
With a letter written to dear friends by the widow-
her song in the night-this brief history of a great
writer may fitly end.
May, 1864, Monday Night.
"BELOVED,-When I see that I deserved nothing, and that my
Father gave me the richest destiny for so many years of time, to
which eternity is to be added, I am struck dumb with an ecstasy
of gratitude, and let go my mortal hold with an awful submission,
and without a murmur. I stand hushed into an ineffable peace
which I cannot measure nor understand. It therefore must be that.
214
LIFE OF
peace which
passeth all understanding.' I feel that his joy is
such as
'the heart of man cannot conceive,' and shall I not then
rejoice, who loved him so far beyond myself? If I did not at once
share his beatitude, should I be one with him now in essential
essence? Ah, thanks be to God who gives me this proof-beyond
all possible doubt-that we are not, and never can be, divided !
If my faith bear this test, is it not beyond the utmost scope and
vision of calamity'? Need I ever fear again any possible dis-
pensation, if I can stand serene when that presence is reft from me
which I believed I must instantly die to lose? Where, O God, is
that supporting, inspiring, protecting, entrancing presence which
surrounded me with safety and supreme content?
"It is with you, my child,' saith the Lord, and seemeth only to
be gone.'
"Yes, my Father, I know I have not lost it, because I still live.
'I will be glad.' 'Thy will be done.' From a child I have truly
believed that God was all-good and all-wise, and felt assured that
no event could shake my belief. To-day I know it.
"This is the whole. No more can be asked of God. There can
be no death nor loss for me for evermore. I stand so far within
the veil that the light from God's countenance can never be hidden
from me for one moment of the eternal day, now nor then. God
gave me the rose of time-the blossom of the ages to call my own
for twenty-five years of human life. God has satisfied wholly my
insatiable heart with a perfect love that transcends my dreams. He
has decreed this earthly life a mere court of the house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens.'
'
Oh, yes, dear heavenly Father! I will be glad' that my
darling has suddenly escaped from the rude jars and hurts of this
outer court, and when I was not aware that an angel gently drew
him within the palace-door that turned on noiseless golden hinges,
drew him in, because he was weary.
"God gave to His beloved sleep. And then an awakening
which will require no more restoring slumber.
"As the dewdrop holds the day, so my heart holds the presence
of the glorified freed spirit. He was so beautiful here, that he will
not need much change to
How easily
I shall know him when my children have done with me, and
become a shining one!'
HAWTHORNE.
215
perhaps the angel will draw me gently also within the palace-door,
if I do not faint, but truly live. Thy will be done.
"At that festival of life that we all celebrated last Monday, did
not those myriad little white lily-bells ring in for him the eternal
year of peace, as they clustered and hung around the majestic
temple in which he once lived with God? They rang out, too, that
What
lordly incense that can come only from a lily, large or small.
lovely ivory sculpture round the edge ! I saw it all, even at that
breathless moment, when I knew that all that was visible was about
to be shut out from me for my future mortal life. I saw all the
beauty, and the tropical gorgeousness of odour that enriched the air
from your peerless wreath steeped me in Paradise. We were the
new Adam and new Eve again, and walked in the garden in the
cool of the day, and there was not yet death, only the voice of the
Lord. But indeed it seems to me that now again there is no death.
His life has swallowed it up.
"Do not fear for me. 'Dark hours?' I think there is nothing
dark for me henceforth. I have to do only with the present, and
the present is light and rest. Has not the everlasting—
CCC
Morning spread
Over me her rich surprise!'
I have no more to ask, but that I may be able to comfort all who
mourn, as I am comforted. If I could bear all sorrow I would be
glad, because God has turned for me the silver lining; and for me
the darkest cloud has broken into ten thousand singing-birds-as
I saw in my dream that I told you. So in another dream, long
ago, God showed me a gold thread passing through each mesh of
a black pall that seemed to shut out the sun. I comprehend all
now; before I did not doubt. Now God says in soft thunders,
'Even so.'-Your faithful friend,
"SOPHIA HAWTHORNE."
:
:
81
!
A.
Alcott, Mr. Bronson, 134, 137,
141, 142
American Magazine of Useful
and Entertaining Knowledge,
The, Hawthorne edits, 45-55
American Monthly Magazine,
The, 44
12;
American Note Books," 10,
quoted, 29-30, 61, 71, 72, 74,
77, 79, 93, 135, 153
Analytical Index of Haw-
thorne's works, II
"Ancestral Footstep, The," 200
Angelico, Frà, Hawthorne's
opinion of his
"Last Judg-
ment," 176
Angelo, Michel, Hawthorne's
opinion of his "Fates," 174 ;
and "Last Judgment," 176, 184
Athenæum, The, 11, 55, 60, 92,
95, III, 163, 195
Atlantic Monthly, The, 203, 204
Austin, William, 68-69
"
"C
INDEX.
"J
B.
Bacon, Miss Delia, 156-158
Bancroft, George, 77, 79, 82
Bath, Eng., 194
Benjamin, Mr. W. R., II, 40
note, 155, 186
Bennoch, Mr. Francis, 154 note,
158, 192, 203 note
Blithedale Romance, The," 85,
89-90, 99, 140-141
Boston Custom House, Haw-
thorne at, 77-82, 83
Boston Token and Atlantic Sou-
venir, The, 32, 34, 39, 42-44,
55
Bowdoin College, 24-27, 203
Bradford, George, 87, 96
Bray, Mr. and Mrs., 194
Bremer, Miss, 161
Bridge, Horatio, U.S.N., 24, 33,
77, 103, 144, 145, 206
Bright, Mr. H., 152, 192, 196;
his "Song of Consul Haw-
thorne," 193
"(
4
218
INDEX.
Brook Farm, 33, 84-90, 140
Browning, Mr. and Mrs., 155,
180, 185, 186, 188, 189, 209
Brownson, O. A., 86
Bryant, the poet, 161
Burchmore, Zach., 109-110, 115
and note
Burton, Rev. Warren, 87
100, 170
Channing, Ellery, 95, 96
Chorley, Henry, 56, 92, 163, 195
Church Review, The, 130
Cilley, Hon. Jonathan, 24, 59–64,
C.
Celestial Railroad, The," 73-75,
77, 113, 114
Clarke, Rev. J. F., 213
Concord, 33, 34, 90-104, 136, 137,
141, 199
Conolly, Mr., 92-93
Conway, Hon. Martin F., 206
Critic, The, quoted, 35
Curtis, George W., 87, 127, 141,
181
("
D.
Dana, Charles A., 86
David Swan," quoted, 103
Democratic Review, The, 33, 34,
39, 61, 62, 73, 91, 113, 117
"Devil in Manuscript, The," 42
Dolce, Carlo, Hawthorne's opinion
of his Eternal Father," 175,
176
"Dolliver Romance, The," 68,
208-210, 213
Dreer, Mr. F. J., 11, 44, 148
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment,"
68
#
"
Dufferin, Lord, 194, 195
Duyckinck, Mr., 126, 133
E.
Emerson, Edward, quoted, 201–
202
Emerson, R. W., 35, 36, 64, 84,
85, 94, 97-100, 103, 107, 136,
156, 202, 204, 210, 213; quoted,
IO, 96
Endicott and the Red Cross,"
123
England, Hawthorne and, 153-
156, 192–197, 205
"Ethan Brand, a Chapter from
an Abortive Romance," 122
"
Evangeline," Longfellow's, the
theme borrowed from Haw-
thorne, 92-93
Evelyn, Mr. W., 154 note
A
(C
F..
Fanshawe," 31, 34-35, 72
Farley, Frank, 87
(
"
Feathertop," 71
Fields, Mr. J. T., 34, 124, 125,
126, 133, 135, 144, 204, 205,
207, 211; his "Yesterdays with
Authors," quoted, 20, 93, 124–
125
Florence, 167, 184-189
Fogg, Dr. John S. H., II, III
Forgues, Mons., his translations
of Hawthorne's works, 40 note
"French and Italian Note Books,'
quoted, 187
French translations and opinions
of Hawthorne's works, 40 note
Fuller, Margaret, 39, 86, 95, 96,
140
""
INDEX.
219
:
་
G.
Garnett, Mr. R., 11, 73
"Gentle Boy, The,” 65, 72
Goodrich, the publisher, 32, 33,
42-45
Good Words, 105
"Grandfather's Chair," 33, 42,
83
Gratz, Mr. S., II
Graves, Mr., 59–64
"
"Great Stone Face, The," 98, 121
Guido's Angel and Satan,"
Hawthorne's criticism of, 182-
183
H.
Hathorne, Daniel, Hawthorne's
grandfather, 16
Hathorne, Elizabeth Clarke,
Hawthorne's mother, 16-26,
108, 124
Hathorne, Judge John, Haw-
thorne's great-great-grand-
father, 14-16
Hathorne, Joseph, Hawthorne's
great-grandfather, 16
Hathorne, Nathaniel, Haw-
thorne's father, 16
Hathorne, Judge William, founder
of the Hawthorne family in
America, 14-15
Hawthorne, Elizabeth, Natha-
niel's sister, quoted, 18-19, 22,
58
Hawthorne, Julian, Nathaniel's
son and biographer, 10, 11, 107,
132, 209; quoted, 17, 18-19,
21-22, 37, 39, 59, 60, 65, 88,
137, 166, 187, 188, 210
-
Hawthorne, Louisa, Nathaniel's
sister, 21-22, 88, 134, 142, 143
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, light
thrown upon his life by his
works and letters, 9-10; his
biographers, 10-12; ancestors,
13-16; birth, 16; early days at
Salem, 17-20; and Raymond
(Maine), 20-21; school and
early journalism at Salem, 21–
22; early literary tastes, 23;
doubts as to the choice of a pro-
fession, 24; goes to Bowdoin
College, 24; life and friends
there, 25-27; graduates and
returns to Salem, 28; life there,
28-30; first literary efforts and
attempts at publication, 31-33;
the order of publication of his
earlier works, 33-34; "Fan-
shawe," 34-35; his dislike of
churches and parsons, 36-38;
why he did not enter a profes-
sion, 38-39; causes and effects
of his spelling his name with a
w, 39-41; his early stories,
"Universal History," and maga-
zine contributions, 42-55; The
Athenæum praises his stories,
55-56; dissatisfaction with his
Salem life, 56-57; his suscepti-
bility to beauty, 58-59; he
challenges a friend, 59; the far-
reaching effects of this challenge,
59-64; he becomes engaged to
Sophia Amelia Peabody, 64-66 ;
"A Virtuoso's Collection," 67-
68; "Wakefield," 70-71; his
originality, 71; "Feathertop,"
71; his mysticism, 72; influence
220
INDEX.
معها
hure of by
"
C
of Bunyan, 73 i
The Celestial
Railroad," 73-75; love of clas-
sical legends and fairy tales 75
first series of "Twice-told
Tales," 76; finds literature does
not pay, 76-77; serves two
years in Boston Custom House
as a weigher and gauger, 77–
82; "
Grandfather's Chair,"
83; comes under the influence
of transcendentalism and joins
the Brook Farm community,
84-89; leaves Brook Farm, 89-
90; marries Sophia Peabody,
90-91; settles at the Old Manse,
Concord, 91; his slender means,
92; he supplies the idea of
Evangeline" to Longfellow,
92-93; his life at the Old Manse,
94-96; his friends at Concord,
96-97 his friendship with
Emerson, 97-100; birth of his
daughter Una, 100-103; be-
comes Surveyor of Customs at
Salem, 103-104; his son Julian
born, 107; his three years in,
and his removal from, the Salem
Custom House, 105-117; his
financial difficulties relieved,
117-118; a testimonial, 118-
120; The Snow Image,"
"The Great Stone Face," and
other tales, 121-122;
The
Scarlet Letter," 122-131; moves
to Lenox, Mass., 132-133;
The House of the Seven
Gables," 133-135; "A Wonder
Book for Boys and Girls," and
"Tanglewood Tales," 135-138;
birth of his third child, Rose,
(
}
Co
"
138-140; moves to West New-
ton and writes "The Blithedale
Romance," 140-141; purchases
and moves to "Wayside," Con-
cord, 141-142; death of his
sister Louisa, 142-143; writes,
for a political campaign, a
"Life of Franklin Pierce," 143-
148 is appointed consul at
;
Liverpool, 148-149; his life in,
and impressions of, England,
149-156; his introduction to
Miss Bacon's "
Philosophy of
the Plays of Shakespeare," 156-
158; resigns the consulate, 158;
proceeds to Rome, 159-162;
Transformation," 162-169;
the influence of artistic Rome
upon his spiritual development,
169-177; his "Transforma-
tion" legends, 177–178); the
lessons taught by Romé, 179–
180; his impressions of Rome,
180-184; visits Florence, 184-
186; experiences of, and views
on, spiritualism, 186-189; his
feeling for Rome, 189; Rome's
ignorance of him, 189-191; re-
turns to England, 192–194 ;
publishes Transformation,"
194; his cordial reception in
England, 194-195; his final
feeling for England, 195-197;
his personal appearance on his
return to America, 198-199;
settles at (4
Wayside," Concord,
again, 199; his literary plans
and his absorption in them,
200-202; his loyalty in friend-
ship, 202; visits the scenes of
"
((
INDEX.
221
the war and writes a descriptive
article, 203-204; his political
position and views, 205-207;
commences
"The Dolliver
Romance," 207-208; illness of
Una and himself, 208-209; en-
deavours to resume work but is
obliged to give it up, 209-211;
his death and burial, 211-213
Hawthorne, Rose, Nathaniel's
daughter, 10, 132, 138-140, 209
Hawthorne, Sophia A., Natha-
niel's wife, 10, 12, 30, 36, 64-66,
76, 87-88, 90, 91, 95, 97, 102,
103, 107, 108, 113, 114, 116, 117,
121, 123, 125, 132, 138, 148, 161,
166, 189, 209, 211-215
Hawthorne, Una, Nathaniel's
daughter, 18, 58, 75, 100-102,
108, 132, 161, 166-169, 174, 189,
194, 197, 208, 209
Headley, Mr., 133
Hennell, Miss, 194
Heywood, Mr. and Mrs., 152, 196
Higginson, Mr. Wentworth, 11, 69
Hillard, Mr. G. S., 92, 95, IOI-
102, 110-114, 118-120
Hoar, Miss E., 96
Holmes, Dr. O. W., 133, 200, 211
Hooker, Mr. and Mrs., 161, 199
Hosmer, Harriet, 161
"House of the Seven Gables,
The," 16, 128, 133-135, 173
Howells, Mr. W. D., quoted, 190,
202
Howe, Mr., 107
Hunt, Leigh, 195
I.
Ireland, Alexander, 100
J.
James, G. P. R., 133
James, Henry, jun., Hawthorne's
biographer, II; quoted, 135,
181
Jameson, Mrs., 161, 181
K.
Kemble, Fanny, 133
Keyes, Mr., quoted, 96
Knickerbocker, The, 44
L.
Lander, Miss, 161
Lathrop, George Parsons, Haw-
thorne's son-in-law and bio-
grapher, 10, 11; quoted, 17,
20, 22-24, 57, 73, 78, 87, 123,
130
Lenox, Mass., 132-140
'Life of Franklin Pierce, The,"
143-148
Lincoln, President, 203, 204
Lippincott, Mrs., 153
Liverpool, 34, 143, 148, 149–156
London, 158, 194-195
Longfellow, H. W., 24, 33, 35,
56, 75, 76, 77, 78, 83, 92-93,
112, 113, 200, 213
Loring, Dr., II, 130, 209, 212;
quoted, 84-85 note, 106, 106-
107 note, 116-117, 200
Lowell, Mr. J. R., 133
Lucas, Mr. S., 195
""
M.
Main Street," 121
Manchester Guardian, The, 100
Mann, Hon. Horace, 64, 140
Manning, Elizabeth Clarke, Haw-
"
222
INDEX.
thorne's mother, see Hathorne,
Elizabeth Clarke
Manning, Robert, Hawthorne's
uncle, 19-20
"Manning's Folly," 20
Manning, William, Hawthorne's
uncle, 23, 31
Marseilles, 159
Massachusetts Quarterly,
Quarterly, The,
C
2
130
Masson, M. Paul, his translation
and criticism of Hawthorne's
works, 40 note
Melville, Herman, 133
Milnes, Richard Monckton (Lord
Houghton), 195
Montégut, M. Emile, his criticism
of Hawthorne's works, 40 note
Mosses from an Old Manse,”
33, 34, 39, 94, 106
Motley, Mr., 160-161, 194, 195
"
""
N.
Nathaniel Hawthorne and his
Wife," Julian Hawthorne's, 10,
II
National Era, The, 121
New England Magazine, The, 32,
44
North American Review, The, 76
Norton, Mrs., 194
0.
Old Manse, The, at Concord, 91-
I04
O'Sullivan, Mr. J. L., editor of
The Democratic Review, 33, 60,
61, 64, 103, 117, 148, 149
Our Old Home," 157, 196, 202,
205
P.
Page, H. A., his "Memoir" of
Hawthorne, 11; quoted, 37-38
Paris, 158-159
Peabody, Elizabeth, 10, 11, 64,
65, 83, 116, 121, 138, 155, 186;
quoted, 31-34, 122
Peabody, Mary, 64
Peabody, Sophia A., see Haw-
thorne, Sophia A.
Peter Rugg, the Missing Man,"
William Austin's, 68-70, 72
Phillips, Mr., the sculptor, 199
Philosophy of the Plays of
Shakespeare," Hawthorne's in-
troduction to Miss Bacon's, 157
Pierce, Franklin, President, 24,
103, 143-148, 150, 180, 196,
202, 203, 212
Pike, Mr., 11O
((
"
Pilgrim's Progress, The," in-
fluence of, 73
Poe, E. A., 92
Powers, Mr. Hiram, 185, 186
Putnam, Mr. G. P., the publisher,
33
"
R.
Rabillon, M. Léonce, his transla-
tion of Hawthorne's "Wonder
Book," 40 note
Raphael, Hawthorne's opinion of
his " Transfiguration," 176
Raymond (Maine), 20-21
Ripley, Dr., 86, 88, 96
Rome, 145, 160–191, 199
Ropes, Mr., 161
S.
Salem, 16, 21-24, 28-33, 34, 38,
104, 105-117, 121, 125-128,
Salem Gazette, The, 44
Saturday Review, The, 163
Scarlet Letter, The," 9, 34, 109,
115, 123-131, 132, 133, 134, 135,
139, 164, 173; quoted, 15
Schuyler, Mr. Eugene, quoted,
180
"
Sedgwick, Mrs., 132
"Septimius Felton," 68, 142, 208–
INDEX.
210
Shepherd, Miss Ada, 186-188
Slavery, Hawthorne and, 146–
147
"Snow Image and other Tales,
The," 121, 135; quoted, 25, 34
Spoll, Mons., his translation of
Hawthorne's works, 40 note
Stanley, Dean, quoted, 162-163
Stephen, Mr. Leslie, quoted, 153-
154 note
Stoddard, R. H., letter to, 20-21,
25, 28
Story, Mr. and Mrs. W. W., 11,
II,
160-161, 162, 166-167, 178-
179, 181, 188
((
'Storyteller, The," 31-32, 34;
quoted, 38, 39
Study of Hawthorne," Mr.
Lathrop's, 10
Sumner, Hon. Charles, 148
""
I.
Tales of the Province House,"
43
Tanglewood and the "Tangle-
wood Tales," 135-138, 141
Tappan and Dutton, the pub-
lishers, 33
Taylor, Father, the Methodist,
36-37
""
Taylor, President, 34]
Tennyson, Lord, 154-155
Terry, the artist, 161
Thompson, Mr., 161, 183
Thoreau, Mr., 96, 165, 201, 213
Ticknor, the publisher,+34, 211
Tieck's "Die Vogelscheuche," 71-
72
223
Transcendentalism, influence of,
72-73, 74, 83-85
Transcript, The, 17
"Transformation,"
"
194
True Stories for Children," 33
"Twice-told Tales, The," 31, 33,
45, 76, 77, 83, 95, 96, 116, 124;
quoted, 37, 55
9, 161-170,
177-178, 181, 184, 186, 190,
U.
Underwood, F. H., 105
"Universal History, Peter Par-
ley's," Hawthorne writes, 45
Upham, Hon. C. W., 110 note,
134
V.
Van Buren, President, 32, 81
"Virtuoso's Collection, A.," 67-
70; quoted, 72-73
"
W.
Wakefield," 70–71
Wandering Jew, influence of the
idea of the, 67-68
Webber, Mr. C. W., 122
Webster, Lady, 154 note
West Newton, 140-141
224
INDEX.
Wheeler, Mr. G. S., 100
Whipple, Mr., 133
Whittier, the poet, 121
Williamson, Mr. G. M., II, 25,
30, 42, 45, 61, 75, 109, 115 note,
122, 125
Wise, Hon. Henry A., 60-64
"Wives of the Dead, The,"
quoted, 17
"Wonder Book for Boys and
Girls, A," 40 note, 135-138
<<
Y.
Young Provincial, The," 43
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
I. WORKS.
II. CONTRIBUTIONS
TO MAGAZINES,
ETC.
JOHN P. ANDERSON
(British Museum).
III. APPENDIX—
Biography, Criticism, etc.
Magazine Articles.
I. WORKS.
BY
The Works of Nathaniel Haw-
thorne. 12 vols. [or rather in 24
vols.]. Boston, 1879, 8vo.
An Analytical Index to the
Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
With a sketch of his life [by E.
M. O'C.-i.e., Eva M. O'Con-
nor]. Boston, 1882, 8vo.
The Complete Works of Nathaniel
Hawthorne, with introductory
notes by G. P. Lathrop, and
illustrated with etchings.
Riverside edition. 12 vols.
Boston, 1883, 8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales. 2
vols. London, 1866, 8vo.
IV. CHRONOLOGICAL
LIST OF WORKS.
Biographical Stories for Children,
etc. Boston, 1842, 18mo.
-Biographical Stories.
don [1883], 8vo.
Biographical Stories. Boston,
1883, 8vo.
No. 10 of The Riverside Literature
Series.
Lon-
The Blithedale Romance. Boston,
1852, 12mo.
-Another edition. 2 vols.
London, 1852, 8vo.
London,
Second edition.
1854, 8vo.
One of the series entitled, "Select
Library of Fiction.'
-Seventh edition. London
[1884], 8vo.
Transformation and The
Blithedale Romance. London,
1884, 8vo.
""
15
đệ
ii
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
A
Doctor Grimshawe's Secret.
omance. Edited, with preface
and notes, by Julian Hawthorne.
Boston, 1883, 8vo.
London,
Another edition.
1883, Svo.
The Dolliver Romance and other
pieces. Boston, 1876, 12mo.
The first two chapters appeared
in the Atlantic Monthly for 1864 and
1865. A third fragment is now
included.
12mo.
The first chapter of The Dolliver
Romance.
London,
-Pansie: a fragment. The last The Marble Faun; or, the Romance
of Monte Beni. 2 vols. Boston,
literary effort of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. London [1864],
1860, 16mo.
Famous Old People; the second
epoch of Grandfather's Chair.
Boston, 1841, 18mo.
-Second edition. Boston,
1842, 18mo.
Fanshawe, a tale. Boston, 1828,
12mo.
-Fanshawe and other pieces.
Boston, 1876, 8vo.
Grandfather's Chair: a history for
youth. Boston, 1841, 24mo.
The House of the Seven Gables: a
romance. Boston, 1851, 8vo.
-Another edition. London,
1851, 8vo.
Part of "Bohn's Cheap Series."
Another edition. London,
1852, 8vo.
Journal of an African Cruiser. By
an officer of the U.S. Navy
[Horatio Bridge]. Edited by
Nathaniel Hawthorne. London,
1845, 8vo.
Part of Wiley and Putnam's
Library or American Books.
Legends of New England. Cam-
bridge, 1877, 16mo.
Contains "The Gray Champion,'
"The May-Pole of Merry Mount,
"Endicott and the Red Cross," and
"Roger Malvin's Burial."
"
Legends of the Province House.
Cambridge, 1877, 16mo.
Appeared originally in the Demo-
cratic Review for 1838.
Liberty Tree with the last words
of Grandfather's Chair. Boston,
1842, 12mo.
Life of Franklin Pierce. Boston,
1852, 8vo.
"}
Another edition.
1853, 8vo.
Second edition. 3 vols. Lon-
don, 1860, 8vo.
2 vols.
Another edition.
Leipzig, 1860, 8vo.
Vols. 515, 516 of the Tauchnitz
Collection of British Authors.
Illustrated edition. London,
1865, 8vo.
Another edition. 2 vols.
Cambridge, 1871, 12mo.
-Another edition. Transform-
ation; or, the Romance of Monte
Beni. 3 vols. London, 1860,
8vo.
-Another edition. Illustrated
with photogravures. [With an
introductory note by G. P. L.—
i.e., G. P. Lathrop.] 2 vols.
Boston, 1889, 8vo.
Mosses from an Old Manse. 2 pts.
London, 1846, 8vo.
Part of Wiley and Putnam's
Library of American Books.
-Another edition. New York,
1850, 12mo.
Another edition. 2 pts. New
York [1851], 12mo.
-Another edition.
1852, 8vo.
London,
2 vols.
London
-Another edition.
Boston, 1854, 12mo.
-Another edition.
[1884], 12mo.
Part of the Chandos Classics.
Our Old Home. Boston, 1863,
16mo.
2 vols.
-Another edition.
London, 1863, 8vo.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Another edition. Edinburgh,
1884, 8vo.
Part of Paterson's Shilling
Library.
Passages from the American Note-
Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
2 vols. Boston, 1868, 8vo.
-Another edition. 2 vols.
London, 1868, 8vo.
Passages from the English Note-
Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
[Edited by S. H.-i.e., Sophia
Hawthorne.] 2 vols. Boston,
1870, 12mo.
2 vols.
-Another edition.
London, 1870, 8vo.
Passages from the French and
Italian Note-Books of Nathaniel
Hawthorne. 2 vols. London,
1871, 8vo.
-Another edition.
Boston,
1873, Svo.
Forming part of "Hawthorne's
Works. Illustrated Library Edi-
tion."
Passages from the Note-Books of
Nathaniel Hawthorne. With
an introduction by M. D. Con-
way. London, 1869, 8vo.
A Rill from the Town Pump, by
Hawthorne. With remarks by
Telba. London, 1857, 12mo.
Originally published in "The
New England Magazine," vol. viii.,
1835.
The Scarlet Letter: a romance.
Boston, 1850, 16mo.
Another edition,
London,
London,
Forming part of the "Railway
Library.'
1851, 8vo.
Another edition.
1851, 8vo.
""
Another edition, London,
1852, 8vo.
Another edition.
Leipzig,
1852, 16mo.
Vol. 226 of the Tauchnitz Collection
of British Authors.
iii
-Another edition. With illus-
trations by Miss M. E. Dear.
London [1859], 8vo.
-Another edition. Illustrated.
Boston, 1878, 8vo.
Another edition.
London
[1886], 8vo.
Part of Cassell's Red Library.
Another edition. London
[1887], 8vo.
Septimius Felton ; or, the Elixir of
Life. Boston, 1872, 8vo.
Appeared originally in vols. 29
and 30, 1872, of the Atlantic
Monthly.
8vo.
Sketches and Studies.
[1883], 8vo.
-Another edition. Septimius.
A romance. [Edited by Una
Hawthorne.] London, 1872,
Boston
The Snow Image and other Tales.
London, 1851, 8vo.
Part of "Bohn's Cheap Series."
"The Snow Image" appeared origin-
ally in a volume entitled "The
Memorial: written by friends of the
late Mrs. Osgood, and edited by
Mary E. Howitt," New York, 1851.
-Another edition. The Snow
Image and other Twice-Told
Tales. Boston, 1852, 12mo.
Another edition. Boston,
1857, 8vo.
-Another edition. Boston,
1869, 8vo.
-Another edition. Edinburgh,
1883, 8vo.
Shilling
Part of Paterson's
Library-New England Novels.
Tales of the White Hills. Boston,
1877, 16mo.
Contains
"The Great Stone
Face," "The Great Carbuncle," and
"The Ambitious Guest.'
"}
Tanglewood Tales. See infra:
A Wonder-Book, etc.
iv
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Transformation; or, the Romance
of Monte Beni. See supra:
The Marble Faun.
True Stories from History and
Biography. Boston, 1851,
12mo.
Includes "Grandfather's Chair,"
originally published in 1841;
"Famous Old People: being the
second epoch of Grandfather's
Chair," 1841; "Liberty Tree, with
the last words of Grandfather's
Chair," 1842, and "Biographical
Stories," 1842.
Twice-Told Tales.
8vo.
Boston, 1837,
The first series of the "Tales."
The edition published in 1842
included a second series.
2 vols.
Another edition.
Boston, 1842, 8vo.
New edition. 2 pts. London,
1851, 8vo.
Part of "Bohn's Shilling Series."
New edition. 2 pts. London,
1852, 8vo.
2 vols.
-Another edition.
Boston, 1864, 32mo.
New edition. 2 vols. Boston,
1866, 8vo.
New edition. London [1883],
8vo.
-Twice-Told Tales. Lon-
don [1849], 8vo.
Selections from the two series of
"Twice-Told Tales."
A Virtuoso's Collection, and other
Tales. Boston, 1877, 16mo.
Contains "A Virtuoso's Collec-
tion," "The Celestial Railroad,"
and "A Select Party."
A Wonder-Book for Girls and
Boys, etc. Boston, 1851, 12mo.
Another edition. Boston,
1852, 12mo.
Another edition. (Including
Tanglewood Tales.") 2 pts.
London, 1868 [1867], 8vo.
Tanglewood Tales [and] A
Wonder-Book, etc. London
[1883], 8vo.
-A Wonder-Book for Girls and
Boys. With illustrations by
F. S. Church. Boston [1884],
8vo.
Another edition. London,
1885 [1884], 8vo.
-Tanglewood Tales, for Girls
and Boys: being a second
Wonder-Book. London, 1853,
8vo.
-New edition. London [1855],
16mo.
Another edition. London
[1856], 16mo.
Another edition.
Boston,
London
1857, 16mo.
Another edition.
[1882], 8vo.
Part of the Chandos Classics.
Another edition. London,
1884, 8vo.
Part of Black's Educational
Series.
-Another edition. With illus-
trations by G. W. Edwards.
Boston, 1887, 8vo.
London,
-Another edition.
1888 [1887], 4to.
II. CONTRIBUTIONS TO
MAGAZINES, ETC.
The Token (Boston)-
Sights from a Steeple; 1831,
pp. 41-51.
M
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Wives of the Dead; 1832,
pp. 74-82.
Reprinted in The Snow Image and
other Tales. It also appeared in the
Democratic Review for 1843, under
the title of "The Two Widows."
My Kinsman, Major Molineux;
1832, pp. 89-116.
Reprinted in The Snow Image and
other Tales.
Roger Malvin's Burial; 1832,
pp. 161-188.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The Token (Boston)-
The Gentle Boy; 1832, pp.
193-240.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
It also appeared as a separate work
in 1839.
Sp
Sir William Pepperell; 1833.
Included in the volume with
Fanshawe.
The Seven Vagabonds; 18 33.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Canterbury Pilgrims; 1833.
Reprinted in The Snow Image
and other Twice-Told Tales.
The Haunted Mind; 1835, pp.
76-82.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Alice Doane's Appeal; 1835,
pp. 84-101.
Reprinted in Tales, Sketches, etc.,
vol. xii. of the Complete Works of
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Mermaid: 1835, pp. 106-
121.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales as
"The Village Uncle."
Monsieur du Miroir; 1837, pp.
49-64.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
Sunday at Home; 1837, pp.
88-96.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Man of Adamant ; an
apologue; 1837, pp. 119-128.
Reprinted in The Snow Image
and other Tales.
David Swan; 1837, pp. 147-
155.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Great Carbuncle; 1837, pp.
156-175.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Fancy's Show Box; 1837, pp.
177-184.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Prophetic Pictures; 1837,
pp. 289-307.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Sylph Etheridge; 1838, pp. 22-
32.
Reprinted in The Snow Image
and other Tales.
▼
The Token (Boston)-
Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure ;
1838, pp. 37-65.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Endicott and the Red Cross;
1838, pp. 69-78.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Night Sketches, beneath an
Umbrella; 1838, pp. 81-89.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Shaker Bridal; 1838, pp.
117-125.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
New England Magazine-
The Story Teller, vol. vii.,
1834, pp. 352-358, 449-459.
Reprinted as "Passages from a
Relinquished Work” in Mosses from
an Old Manse.
Mr. Higginbotham's
Cata-
strophe, vol. vii., 1834, pp.
450-459.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Gray Champion, vol.
viii., 1835, pp. 20-26.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Old News: I. The Colonial
Newspaper. II. The Old
French War. III. The Old
Tory, vol. viii., 1835, pp.
81-88, 170-178, 365-370.
Reprinted in The Snow Image
and other Tales.
My Visit to Niagara, vol. viii.,
1835, pp. 91-96.
Reprinted in The Dolliver Ro-
mance and other pieces.
Young Goodman Brown, vol.
viii., 1835, pp. 249-260.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
Wakefield, vol. viii., 1835, pp.
341-347.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Ambitious Guest, vol. viii.,
1835, pp. 425-431.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Graves and Goblins, vol. viii.,
1835, pp. 438-444.
Reprinted in The Dolliver Ro
mance.
1
vi
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
New England Magazine-
A Rill from the Town Pump,
vol. viii., 1835, pp. 473-478.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Old Maid in the Winding
Sheet, vol. ix., 1835, pp.
8-16.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales as
The White Old Maid."
The Vision of the Fountain,
vol. ix., 1835, pp. 99-104.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Sketches from Memory, vol. ix.,
1835, pp. 321-326, 398-409.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
Co
The Devil in Manuscript, vol.
ix., 1835, pp. 340-345.
Reprinted in The Snow Image
and other Tales.
American Magazine of Useful
Knowledge-
An Ontario Steam-Boat, vol. ii.,
1836, pp. 270-272.
Preservation of the Dead, vol.
ii., 1836, pp. 314, 315.
The Boston Tea-Party, vol. ii.,
1836, pp. 317-319.
April Fools, vol. ii., 1836, pp.
339, 340.
Nature of Sleep, vol. ii., 1836,
p. 385.
Bells, vol. ii., 1836, p. 387.
The Duston Family, vol. ii.,
1836, pp. 395-397.
Knickerbocker—–
The Fountain of Youth, vol.
ix., 1837, pp. 27-33.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales,
under the title "Dr. Heidegger's
Experiment.
""
A. Bell's Biography, vol. ix.,
1837, pp. 219-223.
Reprinted in The Snow Image and
other Tales.
Edward Fane's Rosebud, vol. x.,
1837, pp. 195-199.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
American Monthly Magazine—
The Threefold Destiny, vol. v.,
1838, pp. 228-235.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
The Southern Rose, a weekly
published at
newspaper,
Charleston-
The Lily's Quest, Jan. 19, 1839.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Democratic Review-
Footprints on the Sea-Shore,
vol. i., 1838, p. 190.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Tales of the Province-House:
I. Howe's Masquerade. II.
Edward Randolph's Portrait.
III. Lady Eleanor's Mantle.
IV. Old Esther Dudley, vol.
2, 1838, pp. 129-140, 360-
369; vol. 3, pp. 321-332;
vol. 5, pp. 51-59.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Chippings with a Chisel, vol. 3,
1838, pp. 18-26.
Reprinted in Twice-Told Tales.
Jonathan Cilley, vol. 3, 1838,
pp. 67-76.
Included in the volume with
Fanshawe.
John Inglefield's Thanksgiving,
vol. 7, 1840. pp. 209-212.
Reprinted in The Snow Image and
other Tales.
The New Adam and Eve, vol.
12 N.S., 1843, pp. 146-155.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Olả
Manse.
Egotism; or, the Bosom Serpent,
from the unpublished "Alle-
gories of the Heart," vol. 12
N.S., 1843, pp. 255-261.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
The Procession of Life, vol. 12
N.S., 1843, pp. 360-366.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
The Celestial Railroad, vol. 12
N.S., 1843, pp. 515-524.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Olă
Manse.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Democratic Review-
Buds and Bird Voices, vol. 12
N.S., 1843, pp. 604-608.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
Fire-Worship, vol. 13 N.S.,
1843, pp. 627-630.
Reprinted in Mosses from an
Old Manse.
The Christmas Banquet, vol. 14
N.S., 1844, pp. 78-87.
Reprinted in Mosses from an
Old Manse.
The Intelligence Office, vol. 14
N.S., 1844, pp. 269-275.
Reprinted in Mosses from
Old Manse.
The Artist of the Beautiful, vol.
14 N.S., 1844, pp. 605-617.
Reprinted in Mosses from an
Old Manse.
A Select Party, vol. 15 N.S.,
1844, pp. 33-40.
Reprinted in Mosses from an
Old Manse.
A Book of Autographs, vol. 15
N.S., 1844, pp. 454-461.
Reprinted in The Dolliver Romance.
Writings of Aubépine-Raj-
paccini's Daughter, vol. 15
N.S., 1844, pp. 545-560.
Reprinted in Mosses from an
Old Manse.
P's Correspondence, vol. 16
N.S., 1845, pp. 337-345.
Reprinted in Mosses from an
Old Manse.
Papers of an Old Dartmouth
Prisoner, vol. 18 N.S., 1846,
pp. 31-39, 97-111, 200-212,
360-368, 457-465.
Pioneer-
The Birthmark, 1843.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
The Hall of Fantasy.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
Esthetic Papers. Edited by Eliza-
beth P. Peabody, Boston. 1849.
Main Street, pp. 145-174.
Reprinted in The Snow Image and
other Tales.
vi
The National Era (Washing-
ton)-
The Great Stone Face; Jan.
24, 1850.
Reprinted in The Snow Image, etc.
Dollar Magazine-
The Unpardonable Sin; 1851.
Reprinted in The Snow Image
and other Tales, as "Ethan Brand,”
International Magazine—
Feathertop, vol. 5, 1852, pp.
182-186, 333-337.
Reprinted in Mosses from an Old
Manse.
The Philosophy of the Plays of
Shakspere unfolded. By Delia
Bacon. With a Preface by
Nathaniel Hawthorne. Lon-
don, 1857, 8vo.
Harper's New Monthly Magazine—
Uttoxeter, vol. 14, 1857, pp.
639-641.
Reprinted in Our Old Home.
Weal - Reaf. A Record of the
Essex Institute Fair, held at
Salem, Sept. 4-8, 1860-
Browne's Folly, pp. 14 and 24.
Reprinted in The Dolliver Ro-
*
mance.
Atlantic Monthly—
Some of the Haunts of Burns,
vol. 6, 1860, pp. 385-395.
Near Oxford, vol. 8, 1861, pp.
385-397.
Pilgrimage to Old Boston, vol.
9, 1862, pp. 8S-101.
Leamington Spa, vol. 10, 1862,
pp. 451-462.
About Warwick, vol. 10, 1862,
pp. 708-720.
Recollections of a Gifted
Woman (Delia Bacon), vol.
11, 1863, pp. 43-58.
A London Suburb, vol. 11,
1863, pp, 306-321.
Up the Thames, vol. 11, 1863,
pp. 598-614.
Outside Glimpses of English
Poetry, vol. 12, 1863, pp.
36-51.
viii
BIBLIOGRAPHY. .
Atlantic Monthly—
Civic Banquets, vol. 12, 1863,
pp. 195-212.
The ten preceding articles were
collected and published in Our Old
Home in 1863.
Chiefly about War Matters, vol.
10, 1862, pp. 43-61.
Reprinted in vol. xii, of the
Collected Works, 1883.
A Scene from the Dolliver Ro-
mance, vol. 14, 1864, pp.
101-109.
Another Scene from the Dolliver
Romance, vol. 15, 1865, pp.
1-7.
Reprinted in book form in 1876
with the addition of a third frag-
ment.
Passages from Hawthorne's
Note-Books, vol. 17, 1866,
pp. 1-10, 170-178, 257-266,
422-432, 565-571, 725-734;
vol. 18, pp. 40-47, 189-196,
288-295, 450-460, 536-544,
682-697; vol. 10, pp. 15-21.
Reprinted in book form at
Boston in 1868.
Hawthorne in the Boston
Custom House. [Extracts
from his private letters.]
Vol. 21, 1868, pp. 106-111.
Septimius Felton; or, the Elixir
of Life, vol. 29, 1872, pp.
5-14, 129-138, 57-266, 475-
484, 566-576, 645-655; vol.
30, pp. 1-18, 129-144.
Published at Boston in book
form the same year.
-
III. APPENDIX.
BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, ETC.
American
Authors.-Homes of
American Authors, etc. [By
George W. Curtis.] New York,
1853, 8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 291-313.
Bolton, Sarali K.-Famous Ameri-
can Authors. New York [1887],
8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne and his
Family, pp. 104-132.
Bungay, George W.-Off-Hand
Takings; or, Crayon Sketches
of the Noticeable Men of our
Age. New York [1860], 8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 210-
213.
Conway, Moncure D.-An Intro-
duction to ..
Passages from
the Note-Books of Nathaniel
Hawthorne." London, 1869, 8vo.
-Emerson at Home and Abroad.
Boston, 1882, 8vo.
Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne,
pp. 256-278.
Drake, Samuel Adams. -Our Great
Benefactors, etc. Boston, 1881,
Svo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 116-124.
Einmerton, James A., and Waters,
Henry F.-Gleanings from
English Records about New
England Families. Salem, 1880,
8vo.
Pedigree of Nathaniel Haw
thorne, pp. 53-55.
Fields, James T.-Yesterdays with
Authors. Boston, 1873, 8vo.
Hawthorne, pp. 39-124.
-Hawthorne. Illustrated.
Boston, 1876, 24mo.
Part of the "Vest-pocket Series of
Standard Authors."
Hawthorne, Julian.
Nathaniel
Hawthorne and his Wife. A
biography. 2 vols. London,
1885, 8vo.
Hazeltine, Mayo Williamson. —
Chats about Books, Poets, and
Novelists. New York, 1883,
8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 260-271.
Higginson, Thomas W. Short
Studies of American Authors.
Boston, 1888, 8vo.
Hawthorne, pp. 3-11.
1
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Hutton, Richard Holt.-Essays,
theological and literary. 2 vols.
London, 1871, 8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, vol. ii.,
pp. 392-449.
James, Henry, Jun.-Hawthorne.
London, 1879, 8vo.
Part of the English Men of Letters
Series.
✔
Lathrop,
George Parsons. — A
Study of Hawthorne. Boston,
1876, 16mo.
Montégut, E.
Contes étranges
imités d'Hawthorne par E. A.
Spoll, précédés d'une étude par
E. Montégut. Clichy, 1866,
12mo.
Nichol, John.-American Litera-
ture; an historical sketch,
Edinburgh, 1882,
1620-1880.
Evo.
352.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 322-
Page, H. A., pseud. [i.e., A. H.
Japp].-Memoir of Nathaniel
Hawthorne ; with stories now
first published in this country.
London, 1872, 8vo.
Peck, E. W.-Nathaniel Haw-
thorne's Scarlet Letter drama-
tised. A play in five acts.
Boston, 1876, 4to.
Poe, Edgar A.-The Literati ;
some honest opinions about
autorial merits and demerits,
etc. New York, 1850, 8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 188-
202.
Salt, H. S.-Literary Sketches.
London, 1888, 8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Ro-
mances, pp. 189-207; appeared
originally in Progress, Sept. 1887.
Shepard, William.-The Literary
Life. Pen Pictures of Modern
Authors. New York, 1882,
12mo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 150-
160.
Smith, George Barnett.- Poets
and Novelists; a series of!
ix
literary studies. London, 1875,
8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 151-
206.
Stephen, Leslie.
Leslie.-Hours in
Library. London, 1874, 8vo.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 256-
a
298.
Symonds, Joseph W.-Nathaniel
Hawthorne. An Oration de-
livered before the Alumni of
Bowdoin College, July 10, 1878.
Portland, 1878, 8vo.
Tuckerman, Henry T.- Mental
Portraits. London, 1853, 8vo.
The Prose Poet: Nathaniel Haw-
thorne, pp. 250-270.
Whipple, Edwin P.-Character
and Characteristic Men. Bos-
ton, 1866, 8vo.
242.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 218-
Wilson, James Grant, and Fiske,
John.-Appleton's Cyclopædia
of American Biography. New
York, 1887, etc., 8vo.
>
Nathaniel Hawthorne, vol. iii.,
Pp. 124-130.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES, ETC.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.-Christian
Examiner, by A. P. Peabody, vol.
25, 1838, pp. 182-190.-Demo-
cratic Review, vol. 16 N.S., 1845,
pp. 376-384.-American Review,
by C. W. Webber, vol. 4, 1846, pp.
296-316.-New Englander, by S.
W. S. Dutton, vol. 5, 1847, pp.
56-69.-International Magazine
(with portrait), vol. 3, 1851,
pp.
156-160.-Southern Liter-
ary Messenger, by H. T.
Tuckerman, vol. 17, 1851, pp.
344-349.-New Monthly Maga-
zine, vol. 94, 1852, pp. 202-
207;
same article, Littell's
Living Age, vol. 33, pp. 17-19.
-New Monthly Magazine, vol.
98, 1853, pp. 202-212; same
·
X
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
article, Littell's Living Age,
vol. 38, pp. 154-160, and
Eclectic Magazine, vol. 29, pp.
481-488.-Yale Literary Maga-
zine, vol. 19, 1854, pp. 247-254.
-Dublin University Magazine,
vol. 46, 1855, pp. 463-469;
same article, Eclectic Magazine,
vol. 36, pp. 996-1001.-Tait's
Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 22
N.S., 1855, pp. 33-41; vol. 23,
pp. 756, 757.-Revue Contem-
poraine, by L. Etienne, tom.
31, 1857, pp. 633-663.-Uni-
versal Review, vol. 3, 1860, pp.
742-771; same article, Littell's
Living Age, vol. 65, pp. 707-
723.-National Review, vol. 11,
1860, pp. 453-481; same article,
Littell's Living Age, vol.
68, pp. 217-232. Atlantic
Monthly, by E. P. Whipple,
vol. 5, 1860, pp. 614-622.-Yale
Literary Magazine, vol. 28,
1862, pp. 300-303. Black-
wood's Edinburgh Magazine,
vol. 94, 1863, pp. 610-623.
Macmillan's Magazine, by E.
Dicey, vol. 10, 1864, pp. 241-
246.-Sharpe's London Maga-
zine, by C. Kendal, vol. 26
N.S., 1865, pp. 29-33.
Methodist Quarterly, by W. H.
Barnes, vol. 48, 1866, pp. 51-
64.-North British Review, vol.
49, 1868, pp. 173-208; saine
article, Littell's Living Age, vol.
99, pp. 67-86.-Once a Week,
vol. 1, 3rd Series, 1868, pp.
562, 563.-Appleton's Journal
(with portrait), vol. 4, 1870,
405-408. — Lippincott's Maga-
zine, by H. T. Tuckerman, vol.
-
5, 1870, pp. 498-507.-Saint
Paul's, by Matthew Browne, vol.
8, 1871, pp. 150-161; same
article, Eclectic Magazine, vol.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
77, pp. 174-180. Cornhill
Magazine, vol. 23, 1871, pp.
321-336, 444-456, 566-575;
same article, Littell's Living
Age, vol. 116, pp. 195-207.-
Cornhill Magazine, by Leslie
Stephen, vol. 26, 1872, pp. 717-
734.-Harper's New Monthly
Magazine, by R. H. Stoddard,
vol. 45, 1872, pp. 683-697.-
Belgravia, by K. Cook, vol. 9,
2nd Series, 1873, pp. 72-79.-
Scribner's Monthly, by G. P.
Lathrop, vol. 11, 1876, pp. 799-
808.-Catholic World, by J. V.
O'Conor, vol. 32, 1881, pp. 231-
237.-Critic (New York), by J.
H. Morse, vol. 3, 1883, pp. 65,
66.-Spectator, Nov. 22, 1884,
pp. 1546, 1547; Nov. 29, pp.
1579, 1580.-New Englander,
by J. S. Sewall, vol. 44, 1885,
pp. 403-423. Critic (New
York), by J. T. Fields, vol. 6
N.S., 1886, pp. 177, 178.-
Good Words, by Francis H.
Underwood, 1887, pp. 664-671.
-Atalanta, by R. Garnett,
June 1890, pp. 617-621.
G
-among his Friends. Harper's
New Monthly Magazine, by G.
H. Holden, vol. 63, 1881, pp.
260-267.
and George Eliot. North
British Review, vol. 33, 1860,
pp. 165-185.
-and his Teachings. Catholic
Presbyterian, by A. C. Roe, vol.
6, 1881, pp. 33-42, 197-213.
-and his Wife. Saturday
Review, vol. 58, 1884, pp. 759,
760.-Atlantic Monthly, vol.
55, 1855, pp. 259-265.-Temple
Bar, by E. Markwick, vol. 75,
1885, pp. 523-538.-Critic (Bos-
ton), by R. H. Stoddard, Dec.
13, 1884, pp. 277, 278.-Nation,
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
Dec. 18, 1884, pp. 525, 526.
Academy, by E. Purcell, vol.
26, 1884, pp. 350-352.-Literary
World (Boston), vol. 15, 1884,
pp. 478, 479.
and Julian. Western, by
Elizabeth P. Peabody, vol. 1,
1875, pp. 352-359.
-and Poe. Galaxy, by E. Ben-
son, vol. 6, 1868, pp. 742-748.
Attitude towards Catholicism.
Catholic World, by A. F.
Hewitt, vol. 42, 1886, pp. 21-
34.
Blithedale Romance. New
Quarterly Review, vol. 1, 1852,
pp. 413-415.-Westminster Re-
view, vol. 58, 1852, pp. 592-
598.-New Monthly Magazine,
vol. 95, 1852, pp. 334-343;
same article, Littell's Living
Age, vol. 34, pp. 327-332.
Brownson's Quarterly Review,
vol. 6 N.S., 1852, pp. 561-564.
-North American Review, by
A. P. Peabody, vol. 76, 1853,
pp. 227-248.-Revue des Deux
Mondes, by Emile Montégut,
tom. 16, 1852, pp. 809-841.
-Day in the Haunts of. Over-
land Monthly, vol. 4, 1870, pp.
516-520.
-Dr. Grimshawe's Secret. New
Englander, by J. R. Potter, vol.
42, 1883, pp. 339-353.-Satur-
day Review, vol. 55, 1883, pp.
25, 26.-Dial, by M. P. Mason,
vol. 3, 1883, pp. 222-221.
Spectator, Dec. 30, 1882, pp.
1686, 1687.-Athenæum, Jan.
6, 1883, pp. 9-11.-Literary
World (Boston), vol. 14, 1883,
pp. 3, 4.
Elixir of Life. Lippincott's
Monthly Magazine, by Julian
Hawthorne, Jan. 1890, pp. 66-
76; Feb., pp. 224-235; March,
xi
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
pp. 412-425; April, pp. 548-
561.
-English Note-Books. Nation,
by J. R. Dennett, vol. 11, 1870,
pp. 59-61.-Atlantic Monthly,
by G. S. Hillard, vol. 26, 1870,
pp. 257-272.
Exhumed Sketch. Open
Court (Chicago), by M. D. Con-
way, vol. 3, No. 119, Dec. 5,
1889.
-French and Italian Journals.
Nation, by H. James, Jun., vol.
14, 1872, pp. 172, 173.-Saint
Paul's, by George P. Lathrop,
vol. 9, 1871, pp. 311-313.
Genius of. Western Monthly,
by Robert Collyer, vol. 1, 1869,
pp. 30-34.-Atlantic Monthly,
by Elizabeth P. Peabody, vol.
22, 1868, pp. 359-374.-North
American Review, by A. Trol-
lope, vol. 129, 1879, pp. 203-
222.
House of Seven Gables.
North
American Review, by A. P.
Peabody, vol. 76, 1853, pp. 227.
248.-Knickerbocker, vol. 37,
1851, pp. 455-457.
in Undress. Argosy, vol. 13,
1872, pp. 109-115.
-James's Life of. Nation, by
W. C. Brownell, vol. 30, 1880,
pp. 80, 81.
-Life and Writings of. Lon-
don Quarterly Review, vol, 37,
1871, pp. 48-78.
-Look into the Workshop of.
Century, vol. 25, 1883, pp. 433-
448.
-Manuscripts of. Atlantic
Monthly, by G. P. Lathrop,
vol. 51, 1883, pp. 363-375.
-Marble Faun. Westmin-
ster Review, vol. 17 N.S.,
1860, pp. 624-627. - Dublin
University Magazine, vol. 55,
xii
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
1860, pp. 679-688.-Revue des
Deux Mondes, by Emile Mon-
tégut, tom. 28, 1860, pp. 668-
703.-New Englander, by Mrs.
M. T. Gale, vol. 19, 1861, pp.
860-870.-Western, by H. Reed,
vol. 5, 1879, pp. 265-273.
New Englander, by E. W. Rob-
bins, vol. 18, 1860, pp. 441-452.
-Scribner's Monthly, by W. L.
Alden, vol. 2, 1871, pp. 493-
494.-Nation (New York), by
Eugene Schuyler, July 11 and
18, 1889.
-Old Manse at Concord. Apple-
ton's Journal, by A. B. Harris,
vol. 8, 1872, pp. 300-301.
on England. Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 94,
1863, pp. 610-623.
Passages from Note-Books of.
Atlantic Monthly, vol. 17,
1866, pp. 1-10, 170-178, 257-
266, 422-432, 565-571, 725-734;
vol. 18, pp. 40-47, 189-196, 288-
295, 450-460, 536-544, 682-697;
vol. 20, pp. 15-21.
-Philosophy of. Century, by
Julian Hawthorne, vol. 32,
1886, pp. 83-93.
Portrait of. Harper's New
Monthly Magazine, vol. 73,
1886, pp. 164, 309-11.
-Romances of. Fortnightly
Review, by W. L. Courtney,
vol. 40 N.S., 1886, pp. 511-
522.-Progress, by H. S. Salt,
Sept. 1887, pp. 262-269; re-
printed in Literary Sketches,
1888. Revue des Deux Moudes,
by E. D. Forgues, tom. 14,
1852, pp. 337-365.
Salem of Century Maga-
zine, by Julian Hawthorne,
vol. 28, 1884, pp. 3-17.
-Scarlet Letter. North Ameri-
can Review, by A. W. Abbott,
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
vol. 71, 1850, pp. 135-148.-
Littell's Living Age (from the
New York Tribune), vol. 25,
1850, pp. 203-207.-Brownson's
Quarterly Review, vol. 4 N.S.,
1850, pp. 528-532.
-Problems of Scarlet
Letter. Atlantic Monthly, by
Julian Hawthorne, vol.
vol. 57,
1886, pp. 471-485.
Scenes of his Romances.
Century, by Julian Hawthorne,
vol. 28, 1884, pp. 380-397.
-Septimius Felton. Scribner's
Monthly, by T. H. Higginson,
vol. 5, 1872, pp. 100-105.-
Atlantic Monthly, by G. P.
Lathrop, vol. 30, 1872, pp.
452-460.
Supernatural in. Overland
Monthly, by D. Libby, vol. 2,
1869, pp. 138-143.
or,
Transformation;
the
Romance of Monte Beni. See
Marble Faun.
Twice- Told
Tales. North
American Review, by H. W.
Longfellow, vol. 45, 1837, pp.
59-73.-Christian Examiner, by
A. P. Peabody, vol. 26, 1838,
pp. 182-190.
Two Glimpses of. Critic (New
York), by J. W. Howe, vol. 1,
1881, p. 158.
Works of North American
Review, by G. W. Curtis, vol.
99, 1864, pp. 539-557.
-Writings of. Universalist
Quarterly, by A. D. Mayo, vol.
8, 1851, pp. 272-293.-Church
Review (New Haven), by A. C.
Coxe, vol. 3, 1851, pp. 489-511.
-Christian Examiner, by C. A.
Cummings, vol. 78, 1065, pp.
89-106. Southern Review, vol.
7 N.S., 1870, pp. 328-354.
¦
Fanshawe.
Twice-Told Tales-
1st Series
2nd
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
IV. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.
""
Grandfather's Chair
Famous Old People. (Grand-
father's Chair)
Liberty Tree. (Grand
father's Chair)
•
Biographical Stories for
Children
1842
1845
Mosses from an Old Manse 1846
Scarlet Letter
1850
1851
House of the Seven Gables
True Stories from History
and Biography.
whole history of Grand-
father's Chair)
(The
Journal ofan African Cruiser
(Edited)
•
The Wonder Book
The Snow Image and other
Tales
1828 Blithedale Romance
Life of Franklin Pierce
1842
1837 Tanglewood Tales. (Con-
tinuation of The Wonder
Book)
Marble Faun
1841
1841 Our Old Home.
1842
•
•
1851
1851
•
•
Dolliver Romance. (First
part in Atlantic Monthly)
American Note-Books
English Note-Books .
French and Italian Note-
Books
Septimius Felton; or, the
Elixir of Life.
Dolliver Romance. (Three
parts)
THE WALTER SCOTT PRESS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
xiii
1864
1868
1870
1872
1872
1876
1851 Doctor Grimshawe's Secret 1883
•
1852
1852
1853
1860
1863
+
GREAT WRITERS.
A NEW SERIES OF CRITICAL BIOGRAPHIES
Edited by Professor ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A.
MONTHLY SHILLING VOLUMES.
VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED-
LIFE OF LONGFELLOW. By Prof. Eric S. Robertson.
"A most readable little work."-Liverpool Mercury.
LIFE OF COLERIDGE. By Hall Caine.
"Brief and vigorous, written throughout with spirit and great literary
skill."-Scotsman.
LIFE OF DICKENS. By Frank T. Marzials.
Notwithstanding the mass of matter that has been printed relating to
Dickens and his works. .. we should, until we came across this volume,
have been at a loss to recommend any popular life of England's most
popular novelist as being really satisfactory. The difficulty is removed
by Mr. Marzials's little book.”—Athenæum.
"
LIFE OF DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI. By J. Knight.
"Mr. Knight's picture of the great poet and painter is the fullest and
best yet presented to the public."-The Graphic.
LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON.
By Colonel F. Grant.
"Colonel Grant has performed his task with diligence, sound judgment,
good taste, and accuracy."—Illustrated London News.
LIFE OF DARWIN. By G. T. Bettany.
"Mr. G. T. Bettany's Life of Darwin is a sound and conscientious work."
-Saturday Review.
LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË. By A. Birrell.
"Those who know much of Charlotte Brontë will learn more, and those
who know nothing about her will find all that is best worth learning in
Mr. Birrell's pleasant book.”—St. James' Gazette.
LIFE OF THOMAS CARLYLE. By R. Garnett, LL.D.
"This is an admirable book. Nothing could be more felicitous and fairer
than the way in which he takes us through Carlyle's life and works."-Pall
Mall Gazette.
LIFE OF ADAM SMITH.
By R. B. Haldane, M.P.
"Written with a perspicuity seldom exemplified when dealing with
economic science."-Scotsman.
LIFE OF KEATS.
By W. M. Rossetti.
"Valuable for the ample information which it contains."-Cambridge
Independent.
LIFE OF SHELLEY. By William Sharp.
"The criticisms . . . entitle this capital monograph to be ranked with
the best biographies of Shelley."-Westminster Review.
LIFE OF SMOLLETT. By David Hannay.
44
A capable record of a writer who still remains one of the great masters
of the English novel."-Saturday Review.
LIFE OF GOLDSMITH By Austin Dobson.
"The story of his literary and social life in London, with all its humorous
and pathetic vicissitudes, is here retold, as none could tell it better."-
Daily News,
Į
LIFE OF SCOTT.
By Professor Yonge.
"This is a most enjoyable book."-Aberdeen Free Press.
LIFE OF BURNS. By Professor Blackie.
"The editor certainly made a hit when he persuaded Blackie to write
about Burns."-Pall Mall Gazette.
LIFE OF VICTOR HUGO. By Frank T. Marzials.
"Mr. Marzials's volume presents to us, in a more handy form than any
English or even French handbook gives, the summary of what is known
about the life of the great poet."-Saturday Review.
LIFE OF EMERSON.
By Richard Garnett, LL.D.
"No record of Emerson's life could be more desirable.”—Saturday Review.
LIFE OF GOETHE. By James Sime.
"Mr. James Sime's competence as a biographer of Goethe is beyond
question."-Manchester Guardian.
LIFE OF CONGREVE. By Edmund Gosse.
"Mr. Gosse has written an admirable biography."-Academy.
LIFE OF BUNYAN. By Canon Venables.
46
A most intelligent, appreciative, and valuable memoir."-Scotsman.
LIFE OF CRABBE. By T. E. Kebbel.
"No English poet since Shakespeare has observed certain aspects of
nature and of human life more closely."—Athenæum.
LIFE OF HEINE. By William Sharp.
"An admirable monograph . more fully written up to the level of
rocent knowledge and criticism than any other English work."-Scotsman.
LIFE OF MILL. By W. L. Courtney.
~
"A most sympathetic and discriminating memoir."-Glasgow Herald.
•
LIFE OF SCHILLER. By Henry W. Nevinson.
"Presents the poet's life in a neatly rounded picture."-Scotsman.
LIFE OF CAPTAIN MARRYAT. By David Hannay.
"We have nothing but praise for the manner in which Mr. Hannay has
done justice to him."-Saturday Review.
LIFE OF LESSING. By T. W. Rolleston.
""
One of the best books of the series."-Manchester Guardian.
LIFE OF MILTON. By Richard Garnett, LL.D.
"Has never been more charmingly or adequately told."-Scottish Leader.
LIFE OF BALZAC. By Frederick Wedmore.
LIFE OF GEORGE ELIOT. By Oscar Browning.
LIFE OF JANE AUSTEN. By Goldwin Smith.
LIFE OF BROWNING. By William Sharp.
LIFE OF BYRON. By Hon. Roden Noel.
Complete Bibliography to each volume, by J. P. ANDERSON, British Museum
Volumes are in preparation by Arthur Symons, W. E. Henley, Hermann
Merivale, H. E. Watts, Cosmo Monkhouse, Frank T. Marzials, W. H. Pollock,
John Addington Symonds, Stepniak, Moncure Conway, Professor Wallace,
Lloyd Sanders, etc., etc.
Library Edition of "Great Writers," Demy 8vo, 2s. 6d.
London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.
Crown 8vo, about 350 pp. each, Cloth Cover, 2s. 6d. per
Volume. Half-Polished Morocco, gilt top, 5s.
Count Tolstoi's Complete Works.
!
JUST READY, COUNT TOLSTOI'S LATEST Novel,
THE
KREUTZER SONATA,
AND
ܐ܂
FAMILY HAPPINESS.
(IN ONE VOLUME.)
Some idea of Count
of Count Tolstoï's famous
"Kreutzer Sonata," here given as a complete
story, has already been conveyed to the public
by the many recent discussions in the reviews
and magazines. It is extraordinary as a piece
of artistic presentment, extraordinary in its
ruthless diagnosis of social evils, and in its solu-
tion of these evils highly characteristic of the
author's present extreme idealism.
London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.
91f
"
-----

TWO WEEK BOOK
NON
CIRCULATING
i.

3 9015 06545 8807
BOUND
FEB 22 1945
UNIV. OF MICH.
LIBRARY
A 522790
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
CAK