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i high excellence of their contents makes them desirable 
 I always and everywhere. The series will include the 
 choicest productions of such authors as 
 
 EMERSON, LOWELL, 
 
 LONGFELLOW, HOLMES, 
 
 WHITTIER, HOWELLS, 
 
 HAWTHORNE, HARTE, 
 
 ALDRICH, THOREAU, 
 
 and others of like fame. 
 
 They are beautifully printed, and bound in flexible 
 cloth covers, at a uniform price of 
 
 FIFTY CENTS EACH. 
 The first issues include : 
 
 Snow-Bound. By JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 
 Illustrated. 
 
 Evangeline. By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 
 Illustrated. 
 
 ! Power, "Wealth, Illusions. Essays by RALPH* 
 WALDO EMERSON. 
 
 Culture, Behavior, Beauty. Essays by RALPH 
 WALDJ EMERSON. 
 
 The Courtship of Miles Standish. By HENRY 
 
 WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Illustrated. 
 
 ! Enoch Arden. By ALFRED TENNYSON. Illustrated. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne. By JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 Illustrated 
 
 ; A Day s Pleasure. By W. D. HOWELLS. Illus 
 trated. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 
 
 PUBLISHERS, BOSTON. 
 
JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 
 A hundred years ago Henry Vaughan seems almost to have 
 anticipated Hawthorne s appearance when he wrote that beautiful 
 line, 
 
 "Feed on the vocal silence of his eye." 
 
 f OF THE 
 
 | UNIVERSITftlkirstrt. 
 
 OF 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 Late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co. 
 
 1876. 
 
Copyright, 1871, by 
 
 JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 
 University Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 Cambridge. 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 AM sitting to-day opposite the likeness of 
 the rarest genius America has given to 
 literature, a man who lately sojourned 
 in this busy world of ours, bnt during many years 
 of his life 
 
 " "Wandered lonely as a cloud," 
 
 a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with 
 solitude. The writings of this author have never 
 soiled the public mind with one unlovely image. 
 His men and women have a magic of their own, 
 and we shall wait a long time before another arises 
 among us to take his place. Indeed, it seems prob 
 able no one will ever walk precisely the same round 
 of fiction which he traversed with so free and firm 
 a step. 
 
 The portrait I am looking at was made by Rowse 
 (an exquisite drawing), and is a very truthful rep 
 resentation of the head of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 
6 HAWTHOBNE. 
 
 He was several times painted and photographed, 
 but it was impossible for art to give the light and 
 beauty of his wonderful eyes. I remember to have 
 heard, in the literary circles of Great Britain, that, 
 since Burns, no author had appeared there with 
 a finer face than Hawthorne s. Old Mrs. Basil 
 Montagu told me, many years ago, that she sat 
 next to Burns at dinner, when he appeared in 
 society in the first flush of his fame, after the Edin 
 burgh edition of his poems had been published. 
 She said, among other things, that, although the 
 company consisted of some of the best bred men 
 of England, Burns seemed to her the most perfect 
 gentleman among them. She noticed, particularly, 
 his genuine grace and deferential manner toward 
 women, and I was interested to hear Mrs. Mon 
 tagu s brilliant daughter, when speaking of Haw 
 thorne s advent in English society, describe him in 
 almost the same terms as I had heard her mother, 
 years before, describe the Scottish poet. I hap 
 pened to be in London with Hawthorne during 
 his consular residence in England, and was always 
 greatly delighted at the rustle of admiration his 
 personal appearance excited when he entered a 
 room. His bearing was modestly grand, and his 
 voice touched the ear like a melody. 
 
 Here is a golden curl which adorned the head of 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne when he lay a little child in 
 his cradle. It was given to me many years ago by 
 
HAWTHOUNE. 7 
 
 one near and dear to him. I have two other 
 similar "blossoms," which I keep pressed in the 
 same book of remembrance. One is from the head 
 of John Keats, and was given to me by Charles 
 Cowden Clarke, and the other graced the head of 
 Mary Mitford, and was sent to me after her death 
 by her friendly physician, who watched over her 
 last hours. Leigh Hunt says with a fine poetic 
 emphasis, 
 
 "There seems a love iu hair, though it be dead. 
 It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread 
 Of our frail plant, a blossom from the tree 
 Surviving the proud trunk ; as though it said, 
 Patience and Gentleness is Power. In me 
 Behold affectionate eternity." 
 
 There is a charming old lady, now living two 
 doors from me, who dwelt in Salem when Haw 
 thorne was born, and, being his mother s neighbor 
 at that time (Mrs. Hawthorne then lived in Union 
 Street), there came a message to her intimating 
 that the baby could be seen by calling. So my 
 friend tells me she went in, and saw the little 
 winking thing in its mother s arms. She is very 
 clear as to the beauty of the infant, even when only 
 a week* old, and remembers that "he was a pleasant 
 child, quite handsome, with golden curls." She 
 also tells me that Hawthorne s mother was a beau 
 tiful woman, with remarkable eyes, full of sensibil 
 ity and expression, and that she was a person of 
 
8 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 singular purity of mind. Hawthorne s father, 
 whom my friend knew well, she describes as a 
 warm-hearted and kindly man, very fond of chil 
 dren. He was somewhat inclined to melancholy, 
 and of a reticent disposition. He was a great 
 reader, employing all his leisure time at sea over 
 books. 
 
 Hawthorne s father died when Nathaniel was 
 four years old, and from that time his uncle Rob 
 ert Manning took charge of his education, sending 
 him to the best schools and afterwards to college. 
 When the lad was about nine years old, while play 
 ing bat and ball at school, he lamed his foot so 
 badly that he used two crutches for more than a 
 year. His foot ceased to grow like the other, and 
 the doctors of the town were called in to examine 
 the little lame boy. He was not perfectly restored 
 till he was twelve years old. His kind-hearted 
 schoolmaster, Joseph Worcester, the author of the 
 Dictionary, came every day to the house to hear 
 the boy s lessons, so that he did not fall behind in 
 his studies. [There is a tradition in the Manning 
 family that Mr. Worcester was very much inter 
 ested in Maria Manning (a sister of Mrs. Haw 
 thorne), who died -in 1814, and that this was t one 
 reason of his attention to Nathaniel.] The boy used 
 to lie flat upon the carpet, and read and study the 
 long days through. Some time after he had re 
 covered from this lameness he had an illness caus- 
 
HAWTHORNE. 9 
 
 ing him to lose the use of his limbs, and he was 
 obliged to seek again the aid of his old crutches, 
 which were then pieced out at the ends to make 
 them longer. While a little child, and as soon 
 almost as he began to read, the authors he most 
 delighted in were Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, arid 
 Thomson. The " Castle of Indolence " was an 
 especial favorite with him during boyhood. The 
 first book he bought with his own money was a 
 copy of Spenser s " Faery Queen." 
 
 One who watched him during his childhood tells 
 me, that " when he was six years old his favorite 
 book was Banyan s Pilgrim s Progress : and that 
 whenever he went to visit his Grandmother Haw 
 thorne, he used to take the old family copy to a 
 large chair in a corner of the room near a window, 
 and read it by the hour, without once speaking. 
 No one ever thought of asking how much of it he 
 understood. I think it one of the happiest cir 
 cumstances of his training, that nothing was ever 
 explained to him, and that there was no profess 
 edly intellectual person in the family to usurp the 
 place of Providence and supplement its shortcom 
 ings, in order to make him what he was never 
 intended to be. His mind developed itself ; inten 
 tional cultivation might have spoiled it He 
 
 used to invent long stories, wild and fanciful, and 
 tell where he was going when he grew up, and of 
 the wonderful adventures he was to meet with, 
 
10 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 always ending with, And I m never coming back 
 again/ in quite a solemn tone, that enjoined upon us 
 the advice to value him the more while he stayed 
 with us. 
 
 When he could scarcely speak plain, it is recalled 
 by members of the family that the little fellow 
 would go about the house, repeating with vehement 
 emphasis and gestures certain stagy lines from 
 Shakespeare s Richard III., which he had over 
 heard from older persons about him. One line, in 
 particular, made a great impression upon him, and 
 he would start up on the most unexpected occasions 
 and lire off in his loudest tone, 
 
 " Stand back, my Lord, and let the coffin pass." 
 
 On the 21st of August, 1820, No. 1 of "The 
 Spectator, edited by N. Hathorne," neatly written 
 in printed letters by the editor s own hand, ap 
 peared. A prospectus was issued the week before, 
 setting forth that the paper would be published on 
 Wednesdays, "price 12 cents per annum, payment 
 to be made at the end of the year." Among the 
 advertisements is the following : 
 
 " Nathaniel Hathorne proposes to publish by subscription 
 fc NEW EDITION of the MISERIES OF AUTHORS, to which 
 will be added a SEQUEL, containing FACTS and REMARKS 
 drawn from his own experience." 
 
 Six numbers only were published. The following 
 subjects were discussed by young " Hathorne " in 
 the Spectator, " On Solitude," " The End of the 
 
HAWTHORNE. 11 
 
 Year/ " On Industry," " On Benevolence/ " On 
 Autumn/ " On Wealth/ " On Hope/ " On Cour 
 age." The poetry on the last page of each number 
 was evidently written by the editor, except in one 
 instance, when an Address to the Sun is signed by 
 one of his sisters. In one of the numbers he apolo 
 gizes that no deaths of any importance have taken 
 place in the town. Under the head of Births, he 
 gives the following news, " The lady of Dr. Win- 
 throp Brown, a son and heir. Mrs. Hathorne s 
 cat, seven kittens. We hear that both of the above 
 ladies are in a state of convalescence." One of the 
 literary advertisements reads : 
 
 "Blank Books made and for sale by N. Hathorne." 
 
 While Hawthorne was yet a little fellow the fam 
 ily moved to Raymond in the State of Maine ; here 
 his out-of-door life did him great service, for he 
 grew tall and strong, and became a good shot and 
 an excellent fisherman. Here also his imagination 
 was first stimulated, the wild scenery and the prim 
 itive manners of the people contributing greatly 
 to awaken his thought. At seventeen he entered 
 Bowdoin College, and after his graduation returned 
 again to live in Salem. During his youth he had 
 an impression that he would die before the age of 
 twenty-five; but the Mannings, his ever-watchful 
 and kind relations, did everything possible for the 
 care of his health, and he was tided safely over the 
 
12 HAWTHOHNE. 
 
 period when lie was most delicate. Professor Pack 
 ard told me that when Hawthorne was a student at 
 Bowdoin in his freshman year, his Latin composi 
 tions showed such facility that they attracted the 
 special attention of those who examined them. The 
 Professor also remembers that Hawthorne s English 
 compositions elicited from Professor Newman (au 
 thor of the work on Rhetoric) high commendations. 
 
 When a youth Hawthorne made a journey into 
 New Hampshire with his uncle, Samuel Manning. 
 They travelled in a two-wheeled chaise, and met with 
 many adventures which the young man chronicled 
 in his home letters. Some of the touches in these 
 epistles were very characteristic and amusing, and 
 showed in those early years his quick observation 
 and descriptive power. The travellers " put up " at 
 Farmingtou, in order to rest over Sunday. Haw 
 thorne writes to a member of the family in Salem : 
 "As we were wearied with rapid travelling, we found 
 it impossible to attend divine service, which was, 
 of course, very grievous to us both. In the even 
 ing, however, I went to a Bible class, with a very 
 polite and agreeable gentleman, whom I afterwards 
 discovered to be a strolling tailor, of very question 
 able habits." 
 
 When the travellers arrived in the Shaker village 
 of Canterbury, Hawthorne at once made the ac 
 quaintance of the Community there, and the account 
 which he sent home was to the effect that the broth- 
 
HAWTHOENE. 13 
 
 ers and sisters led a good and comfortable life, and 
 he wrote : " If it were not for the ridiculous cere 
 monies, a man might do a worse thing than to join 
 them." Indeed, he spoke to them about becoming 
 a member of the Society, and was evidently much 
 impressed with the thrift and peace of the establish 
 ment. 
 
 This visit in early life to the Shakers is interest- 
 ing as suggesting to Hawthorne his beautiful story 
 of " The Canterbury Pilgrims," which is in his vol 
 ume of " The Snow-Image, and other Twice-Told 
 Tales." 
 
 A lady of my acquaintance (the identical " Little 
 Annie " of the " Ramble " in " Twice-Told Tales ") 
 recalls the young man " when he returned home 
 after his collegiate studies." " He was even then," 
 she says, " a most noticeable person, never going 
 into society, and deeply engaged in reading every 
 thing he could lay his hands on. It was said in 
 those days that he had read every book in the Athe 
 naeum Library in Salem." This lady remembers 
 that when she was a child, and before Hawthorne 
 had printed any of his stories, she used to sit on his 
 knee and lean her head on his shoulder, while by 
 the hour he would fascinate her with delightful 
 legends, much more wonderful and beautiful than 
 any she has ever read since in printed books. 
 
 The traits of the Hawthorne character were stern 
 probity and truthfulness. Hawthorne s mother had 
 
14 HAWTHOENE. 
 
 many characteristics in common with her distin 
 guished son, she also being a reserved and thought 
 ful person. Those who knew the family describe 
 the son s affection for her as of the deepest and ten- 
 derest nature, and they remember that when she 
 died his grief was almost insupportable. The an 
 guish he suffered from her loss is distinctly recalled 
 by many persons still living, who visited the family 
 at that time in Salem. 
 
 I first saw Hawthorne when he was about thirty- 
 five years old. He had then published a collection 
 of his sketches, the now famous " Twice-Told 
 Tales." Longfellow, ever alert for what is excel 
 lent, and eager to do a brother author opportune 
 and substantial service, at once came before the 
 public with a generous estimate of the work in the 
 North American Review ; but the choice little vol 
 ume, the most promising addition to American 
 literature that had appeared for many years, made 
 little impression on the public mind. Discerning 
 readers, however, recognized the supreme beauty in 
 this new writer, and they never afterwards lost sight 
 of him. 
 
 In 1828 Hawthorne published a short anonymous 
 romance called Fanshawe. I once asked him about 
 this disowned publication, and he spoke of it with 
 great disgust, and afterwards he thus referred to the 
 subject in a letter written to me in 1851: "You 
 
HAWTHORNE. 15 
 
 make an inquiry about some supposed former publi 
 cation of mine. I cannot be sworn to make correct 
 answers as to all the literary or other follies of my 
 nonage ; and I earnestly recommend you not to 
 brush away the dust that may have gathered over 
 them. Whatever might do me credit you may be 
 pretty sure I should be ready enough to bring for 
 ward. Anything else it is our mutual interest to 
 conceal ; and so far from assisting your researches 
 in that direction, I especially enjoin it on you, my 
 dear friend, not to read any unacknowledged page 
 that you may suppose to be mine." 
 
 When Mr. George Bancroft, then Collector of the 
 Port of Boston, appointed Hawthorne weigher and 
 gauger in the custom-house, he did a wise thing, 
 for no public officer ever performed his disagreeable 
 duties better than our romancer. Here is a tattered 
 little official document signed by Hawthorne when 
 he was watching over the interests of the country : 
 it certifies his attendance at the unlading of a brig, 
 then lying at Long Wharf in Boston. I keep this 
 precious relic side by side with one of a similar 
 custom-house character signed Robert Burns. 
 
 I came to know Hawthorne very intimately after 
 the Whigs displaced the Democratic romancer from 
 office. In my ardent desire to have him retained 
 in the public service, his salary at that time being 
 his sole dependence, not foreseeing that his with 
 drawal from that sort of employment would be the 
 
16 HAWTHOENE. 
 
 best thing for American letters that could possibly 
 happen, I called, in his behalf, on several influen 
 tial politicians of the day, and well remember the 
 rebuffs I received in my enthusiasm for the author 
 of the "Twice-Told Tales." One pompous little 
 gentleman in authority, after hearing my appeal, 
 quite astounded me by his ignorance of the claims 
 of a literary man on his country. " Yes, yes," he 
 sarcastically croaked down his public turtle -fed 
 throat, "I see through it all, I see through it ; 
 this Hawthorne is one of them ere visionists, and 
 we don t want no such a man as him round." So 
 the " visionist " was not allowed to remain in office, 
 and the country was better served by him in another 
 way. In the winter of 1849, after he had been 
 ejected from the custom-house, I went down to 
 Salem to see him and inquire after his health, for 
 we heard he had been suffering from illness. He 
 was then living in a modest wooden house in Mall 
 Street, if I remember rightly the location. I found 
 him alone in a chamber over the sitting-room of the 
 dwelling ; and as the day was cold, he was hovering 
 near a stove. We fell into talk about his future 
 prospects, and he was, as I feared I should find 
 him, in a very desponding mood. " Now," said I, 
 " is the time for you to publish, for I know during 
 these years in Salem you must have got something 
 ready for the press." " Nonsense," said he ; "what 
 heart had I to write anything, when my publishers 
 
HAWTHOENE. 19 
 
 (M. and Company) have been so many years trying 
 to sell a small edition of the Twice-Told Tales ?" 
 I still pressed upon him the good chances he would 
 have now with something new. " Who would risk 
 publishing a book for me, the most unpopular writer 
 in America?" "I would," said I, "and would 
 start with an edition of two thousand copies of 
 anything you write." " What madness ! " he ex 
 claimed ; " your friendship for me gets the better 
 of your judgment. No, no," he continued; "I 
 have no money to indemnify a publisher s losses on 
 my account." I looked at my watch and found 
 that the train would soon be starting for Boston, 
 and I knew there was not much time to lose in 
 trying to discover what had been his literary work 
 during these last few years in Salem. I remember 
 that I pressed him to reveal to me what he had 
 been writing. He shook his head and gave me to 
 understand he had produced nothing. At that mo 
 ment I caught sight of a bureau or set of drawers 
 near where we were sitting; and immediately it 
 occurred to me that hidden away somewhere in that 
 article of furniture was a story or stories by the 
 author of the " Twice-Told Tales," and I became 
 so positive of it that I charged him vehemently 
 with the fact. He seemed surprised, I thought, 
 but shook his head again ; and I rose to take my 
 leave, begging him not to come into the cold entry, 
 saying I would come back and see him again in a 
 
20 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 few days. I was hurrying down the stairs when 
 he called after me from the chamber, asking me to 
 stop a moment. Then quickly stepping into the 
 entry with a roll of manuscript in his hands, he said : 
 " How in Heaven s name did you know this thing 
 was there ? As you have found me out, take what 
 I have written, and tell me, after you get home and 
 have time to read it, if it is good for anything. It 
 is either very good or very bad, I don t know 
 which." On my way up to Boston I read the germ 
 of " The Scarlet Letter " ; before I slept that night 
 I wrote him a note all aglow with admiration of the 
 marvellous story he had put into my hands, and 
 told him that I would come again to Salem the next 
 day and arrange for its publication. I went on in 
 such an amazing state of excitement when we met 
 again in the little house, that he would not believe 
 I was really in earnest. He seemed to think I was 
 beside myself, and laughed sadly at my enthusiasm. 
 However, we soon arranged for his appearance again 
 before the public with a book. 
 
 This quarto volume before me contains numerous 
 letters, written by him from 1850 down to the month 
 of his death. The first one refers to " The Scarlet 
 Letter," and is dated in January, 1850. At my 
 suggestion he had altered the plan of that story. It 
 was his intention to make " The Scarlet Letter " 
 one of several short stories, all to be included in one 
 volume, and to be called 
 
HAWTHORNE. 21 
 
 OLD-TIME LEGENDS: 
 
 TOGETHER WITH SKETCHES, 
 
 EXPERIMENTAL AND IDEAL. 
 
 His first design was to make " The Scarlet Letter " 
 occupy about two hundred pages in his new book ; 
 but I persuaded him, after reading the first chapters 
 of the story, to elaborate it, and publish it as a sep 
 arate work. After it was settled that " The Scarlet 
 Letter " should be enlarged and printed by itself in 
 a volume he wrote to me : 
 
 " I am truly glad that you like the Introduction, for I was 
 rather afraid that it might appear absurd and impertinent to 
 be talking about myself, when nobody, that I know of, has 
 requested any information on that subject. 
 
 " As regards the size of the book, I have been thinking a 
 good deal about it. Considered merely as a matter of taste 
 and beauty, the form of publication which you recommend 
 seems to me much preferable to that of the Mosses. 
 
 " In the present case, however, I have some doubts of the 
 expediency, because, if the book is made up entirely of The 
 Scarlet Letter, it will be too sombre. I found it impossible 
 to relieve the shadows of the story with so much light as I 
 would gladly have thrown in. Keeping so close to its point 
 as the tale does, and diversified no otherwise than by turn 
 ing different sides of the same dark idea to the reader s eye, 
 it will weary very many people and disgust some. Is it 
 safe, then, to stake the fate of the book entirely on this one 
 chance? A hunter loads his gun with a bullet and several 
 buckshot ; and, following his sagacious example, it was my 
 purpose to conjoin the one long story with half a dozen 
 shorter ones, so that, failing to kill the public outright with 
 my biggest and heaviest lump of lead, I might have other 
 

 22 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 chances with the smaller bits, individually and in the aggre 
 gate. However, I am willing to leave these considerations 
 to your judgment, and should not be sorry to have you de 
 cide for the separate publication. 
 
 " In this latter event it appears to me that the only proper 
 title for the book would be The Scarlet Letter, for The 
 Custom-House is merely introductory, an entrance-hall 
 to the magnificent edifice which I throw open to my guests. 
 It would be funny if, seeing the further passages so dark 
 and dismal, they should all choose to stop there ! If The 
 Scarlet Letter is to be the title, would it not be well to 
 print it on the title-page in red ink ? I am not quite sure 
 about the good taste of so doing, but it would certainly be 
 piquant and appropriate, and, I think, attractive to the great 
 gull whom we are endeavoring to circumvent." 
 
 One beautiful summer day, twenty years ago, I 
 found Hawthorne in his little red cottage at Lenox, 
 surrounded by his happy young family. He had 
 the look, as somebody said, of a banished lord, and 
 his grand figure among the hills of Berkshire seemed 
 finer than ever. His boy and girl were swinging 
 on the gate as we drove up to his door, and with 
 their sunny curls formed an attractive feature in 
 the landscape. As the afternoon was cool and de 
 lightful, we proposed a drive over to Pittsfield to 
 see Holmes, who was then living on his ancestral 
 farm. Hawthorne was in a cheerful condition, and 
 seemed to enjoy the beauty of the day to the utmost. 
 Next morning we were all invited by Mr. Dudley 
 Field, then living at Stockbridge, to ascend Monu 
 ment Mountain. Holmes, Hawthorne, Duyckinck, 
 Herman Melville, Headley, Sedgwick, Matthews, 
 
HAWTHORNE. 23 
 
 and several ladies were of the party. We scram 
 bled to the top with great spirit, and when we 
 arrived, Melville, I remember, bestrode a peaked 
 rock, which ran out like a bowsprit, and pulled and 
 hauled imaginary ropes for our delectation. Then 
 we all assembled in a shady spot, and one of the 
 party read to us Bryant s beautiful poem commem 
 orating Monument Mountain. Then we lunched 
 among the rocks, and somebody proposed Bryant s 
 health, and "long life to the dear old poet." This 
 was the most popular toast of the day, and it took, 
 I remember, a considerable quantity of Heidsieck 
 to do it justice. In the afternoon, pioneered by 
 Headley, we made our way, with merry shouts and 
 laughter, through the Ice- Glen. Hawthorne was 
 among the most enterprising of the merrymakers ; 
 and being in the dark much of the time, he ven 
 tured to call out lustily and pretend that certain 
 destruction was inevitable to all of us. After this 
 extemporaneous jollity, we dined together at Mr. 
 Dudley Field s in Stockbridge, and Hawthorne 
 rayed out in a sparkling and unwonted manner. I 
 remember the conversation at table chiefly ran on 
 the physical differences between the present Ameri 
 can and English men, Hawthorne stoutly taking 
 part in favor of the American. This 5th of August 
 was a happy day throughout, and I never saw 
 Hawthorne in better spirits. 
 
 Often and often I have seen him sitting in the 
 
HAWTHORNE. 
 
 chair I am now occupying by the window, looking 
 out into the twilight. He liked to watch the ves 
 sels dropping down the stream, and nothing pleased 
 him more than to go on board a newly arrived bark 
 from Down East, as she was just moored at the 
 wharf. One night we made the acquaintance of a 
 cabin-boy on board a brig, whom we found off duty 
 and reading a large subscription volume, which 
 proved, on inquiry, to be a Commentary on the 
 Bible. When Hawthorne questioned him why he 
 was reading, then and there, that particular book, 
 he replied with a knowing wink at both of us, 
 " There s consider ble her sy in our place, and I m 
 a studying up for em." 
 
 He liked on Sunday to mouse about among the 
 books, and there are few volumes in this room that 
 he has not handled or read. He knew he could 
 have unmolested habitation here, whenever he chose 
 to come, and he was never allowed to be annoyed 
 by intrusion of any kind. He always slept in the 
 same room, the one looking on the water ; and 
 many a night I have heard his solemn footsteps 
 over my head, long after the rest of the house had 
 gone to sleep. Like many other nervous men of 
 genius, he was a light sleeper, and he liked to be 
 up and about early ; but it was only for a ramble 
 among the books again. One summer morning I 
 found him as early as four o clock reading a favor 
 ite poem, on Solitude, a piece he very much ad- 
 
3MA^ 
 
 OF THE 
 
 >NIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
HAWTHORNE. S 7 
 
 mired. That morning I shall not soon forget, for 
 he was in the vein for autobiographical talk, and 
 he gave me a most interesting account of his father, 
 the sea-captain, who died of the yellow-fever in 
 Surinam in 1808, and of his beautiful mother, who 
 dwelt a secluded mourner ever after the death of 
 her husband. Then he told stories of his college 
 life, and of his one sole intimate, Franklin Pierce, 
 whom he loved devotedly his life long. 
 
 In the early period of our acquaintance he much 
 aifected the old Boston Exchange Coffee-House in 
 Devonshire Street, and once I remember to have 
 found him shut up there before a blazing coal-fire, 
 in the " tumultuous privacy " of a great snow-storm, 
 reading with apparent interest an obsolete copy of 
 the " Old Farmer s Almanac," which he had picked 
 up about the house. He also delighted in the Old 
 Province House, at that time an inn, kept by one 
 Thomas "Waite, whom he has immortalized. After 
 he was chosen a member of the Saturday Club he 
 came frequently to dinner with Felton, Longfellow, 
 Holmes, and the rest of his friends, who assembled 
 once a month to dine together. At the table, on 
 these occasions, he was rather reticent than con 
 versational, but when he chose to talk it was ob 
 served that the best things said that day came from 
 him. 
 
 As I turn over his letters, the old days, delight 
 ful to recall, come back again with added interest. 
 
28 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 " I sha n t have the new story," he says in one of them, 
 dated from Lenox on the 1st of October, 1850, " ready by 
 November, for I am never good for anything in the literary 
 way till after the first autumnal frost, which has somewhat 
 such an effect on my imagination that it does on the foliage 
 here about me, multiplying and brightening its hues : 
 though they are likely to be sober and shabby enough 
 after all. 
 
 " I am beginning to puzzle myself about a title for the 
 book. The scene of it is in one of those old projecting- 
 storied houses, familiar to my eye in Salem ; and the story, 
 horrible to say, is a little less than two hundred years long ; 
 though all but thirty or forty pages of it refer to the present 
 time. I think of such titles as The House of the Seven 
 Gables, there being that number of gable-ends to the old 
 shanty; or, The Seven-Gabled House ; or simply, The 
 Seven Gables. Tell me how these strike you. It appears 
 to me that the latter is rather the best, and has the great ad 
 vantage that it would puzzle the Devil to tell what it means." 
 
 A month afterwards lie writes further with regard 
 to " The House of the Seven Gables," concerning 
 the title to which he was still in a quandary : 
 
 "The Old Pyncheou House: A Romance ; The Old 
 Pyncheon Family ; or, The House of the Seven Gables : A 
 Romance ; choose between them. I have rather a dis 
 taste to a double title ; otherwise, I think I should prefer 
 the second. Is it any matter under which title it is an 
 nounced ? If a better should occur hereafter, we can sub 
 stitute. Of these two, on the whole, I judge the first to be 
 the better. 
 
 " I write diligently, but not so rapidly as I had hoped. I 
 find the book requires more care and thought than The 
 Scarlet Letter ; also I have to wait oftener for a mood. 
 The Scarlet Letter being all in one tone, I had only to get 
 my pitch, and could then go on interminably. Many pas- 
 
HAWTHORNE. 29 
 
 sages of this book ought to be finished with the minuteness 
 of a Dutch picture, in order to give them their proper effect. 
 Sometimes, when tired of it, it strikes me that the whole is 
 an absurdity, from beginning to end ; but the fact is, in 
 writing a romance, a man is always, or always ought to be, 
 careering on the utmost verge of a precipitous absurdity, 
 and the skill lies in coming as close as possible, without ac 
 tually tumbling over. My prevailing idea is, that the book 
 ought to succeed better than The Scarlet Letter, though I 
 have no idea that it will." 
 
 On the 9th. of December he was still at work on 
 the new romance, and writes : 
 
 " My desire and prayer is to get through with the busi 
 ness in hand. I have been in a Slough of Despond for some 
 days past, having written so fiercely that I came to a stand 
 still. There are points where a writer gets bewildered and 
 cannot form any judgment of what he has done, or tell what 
 to do next. In these cases it is best to keep quiet." 
 
 On the 12th of January, 1851, he is still busy 
 over his new book, and writes : " My House of 
 the Seven Gables is, so to speak, finished ; only I 
 am hammering away a little on the roof, and doing 
 up a few odd jobs, that were left incomplete." At 
 the end of the month the manuscript of his second 
 great romance was put into the hands of the ex 
 pressman at Lenox, by Hawthorne himself, to be 
 delivered to me. On the 2?th he writes : 
 
 " If you do not soon receive it, you may conclude that it 
 has miscarried; in which case, I shall not consent to the 
 universe existing a moment longer. I have no copy of it, 
 except the wildest scribble of a first draught, so that it could 
 never be restored. 
 
30 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 " It has met with extraordinary success from that portion 
 of the public to whose judgment it has been submitted, viz. 
 from my wife. I likewise prefer it to The Scarlet Letter ; 
 but an author s opinion of his book just after completing it 
 is worth little or nothing, he being then in the hot or cold 
 fit of a fever, and certain to rate it too high or too low. 
 
 " It has undoubtedly one disadvantage in being brought 
 so close to the present time ; whereby its romantic improba 
 bilities become more glaring. 
 
 " I deem it indispensable that the proof-sheets should be 
 sent me for correction. It will cause some delay, no doubt, 
 but probably not much more than if I lived in Salem. At 
 all events, I don t see how it can be helped. My autography 
 is sometimes villanously blind ; and it is odd enough that 
 whenever the printers do mistake a word, it is just the very 
 jewel of a word, worth all the rest of the dictionary." 
 
 I well remember with what anxiety I awaited 
 the arrival of the expressman with the precious 
 parcel, and with what keen delight I read every 
 word of the new story before I slept. Here is 
 the original manuscript, just as it came that day, 
 twenty years ago, fresh from the author s hand. 
 The printers carefully preserved it for me ; and 
 Hawthorne once made a formal presentation of it, 
 with great mock solemnity, in this very room where 
 I am now r sitting. 
 
 After the book came out he wrote : 
 
 " I have by no means an inconvenient multitude of 
 friends ; but if they ever do appear a little too numerous, it 
 is when I am making a list of those to whom presentation 
 copies are to be sent. Please send one to General Pierce, 
 Horatio Bridge, R W. Emerson, W. E. Channing, Longfellow, 
 Hillard, Sumner, Holmes, Lowell, and Thompson the artist. 
 
HAWTHORNE. 31 
 
 You will yourself give one to Whipple, whereby I shall 
 make a saving. I presume you won t put the portrait into 
 the book. It appears to me an improper accompaniment to 
 a new work. Nevertheless, if it be ready, 1 should be glad 
 to have each of these presentation copies accompanied by a 
 copy of the engraving put loosely between the leaves. Good 
 by. I must now trudge two miles to the village, through 
 rain and mud knee-deep, after that accursed proof-sheet. 
 The book reads very well in proofs, but I don t believe it 
 will take like the former one. The preliminary chapter was 
 what gave The Scarlet Letter its vogue." 
 
 The engraving he refers to in this letter was 
 made from a portrait by Mr. C. Gr. Thompson, and 
 at that time, 1851, was an admirable likeness. On 
 the 6th of March he writes : 
 
 "The package, with my five heads, arrived yesterday 
 afternoon, and we are truly obliged to you for putting so 
 many at our disposal. They are admirably done. The chil 
 dren recognized their venerable sire with great delight. My 
 wife complains somewhat of a want of cheerfulness in the 
 face ; and, to say the truth, it does appear to be afflicted 
 with a bedevilled melancholy ; but it will do all the better 
 for the author of The Scarlet Letter. In the expression 
 there is a singular resemblance (which I do not remember 
 in Thompson s picture) to a miniature of my father." 
 
 His letters to me, during the summer of 1851, 
 were frequent and sometimes quite long. " The 
 House of the Seven Gables " was warmly wel 
 comed, both at home and abroad. On the 23d of 
 May he writes : 
 
 " Whipple s notices have done more than pleased me, for 
 they have helped me to see my book. Much of the censure 
 
32 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 I recognize as just ; I wish I could feel the praise to be so 
 fully deserved. Being better (which I insist it is) than 
 The Scarlet Letter, I have never expected it to be so pop 
 ular (this steel pen makes me write awfully). , 
 
 Esq., of Boston, has written to me, complaining that I have 
 made his grandfather infamous ! It seems there was actu 
 ally a Pyncheon (or Pynchon, as he spells it) family resident 
 in Salem, and that their representative, at the period of the 
 Revolution, was a certain Judge Pynchon, a Tory and a 
 
 refugee. This was Mr. s grandfather, and (at least, so 
 
 he dutifully describes him) the most exemplary old gentle 
 man in the world. There are several touches in my account 
 of the Pyncheons which, he says, make it probable that I 
 had this actual family in my eye, and he considers himself 
 infinitely wronged and aggrieved, and thinks it monstrous 
 that the virtuous dead cannot be suffered to rest quietly 
 in their graves. He further complains that I speak disre 
 spectfully of the s in G-randfather s Chair. He writes 
 
 more in sorrow than in anger, though there is quite enough 
 of the latter quality to give piquancy to his epistle. The joke 
 of the matter is, that I never heard of his grandfather, nor 
 knew that any Pyncheons had ever lived in Salem, but took 
 the name because it suited the tone of my book, and was as 
 much my property, for fictitious purposes, as that of Smith. 
 I have pacified him by a very polite and gentlemanly letter, 
 and if ever you publish any more of the Seven Gables, I 
 should like to write a brief preface, expressive of my anguish 
 for this unintentional wrong, and making the best repara 
 tion possible ; else these wretched old Pyncheons will have 
 no peace in the other world, nor in this. Furthermore, there 
 
 is a Rev. Mr. , resident within four miles of me, and a 
 
 cousin of Mr. , who states that he likewise is highly in 
 dignant. Who would have dreamed of claimants starting up 
 for such an inheritance as the House of the Seven Gables ! 
 
 " I mean to write, within six weeks or two months next 
 ensuing, a book of stories made up of classical myths. The 
 subjects are : The Story of Midas, with his Golden Touch, 
 
HAWTHOENE. 33 
 
 Pandora s Box, The Adventure of Hercules in quest of the 
 Golden Apples, Bellerophon and the Chimera, Baucis and 
 Philemon, Perseus and Medusa; these, I think, will be 
 enough to make up a volume. As a framework, I shall have 
 a young college student telling these stories to his cousins 
 and brothers and sisters, during his vacations, sometimes at 
 the fireside, sometimes in the woods and dells. Unless I 
 greatly mistake, these old fictions will work up admirably 
 for the purpose ; and I shall aim at substituting a tone in 
 some degree Gothic or romantic, or any such tone as may 
 best please myself, instead of the classic coldness, which is 
 as repellent as the touch of marble. 
 
 " I give you these hints of my plan, because you will per 
 haps think it advisable to employ Billings to prepare some 
 illustrations. There is a good scope in the above subjects 
 for fanciful designs. Bellerophon arid the Chimera, for in 
 stance: the Chimera a fantastic monster with three heads, 
 and Bellerophon fighting him, mounted on Pegasus ; Pan 
 dora opening the box ; Hercules talking with Atlas, an enor 
 mous giant who holds the sky on his shoulders, or sailing 
 across the sea in an immense bowl ; Perseus transforming a 
 king and all his subjects to stone, by exhibiting the Gor 
 gon s head. No particular accuracy in costume need be 
 aimed at. My stories will bear out the artist in any liber 
 ties he may be inclined to take. Billings would do these 
 things well enough, though his characteristics are grace and 
 delicacy rather than wildness of fancy. The book, if it comes 
 out of my mind as I see it now, ought to have pretty wide 
 success amongst young people ; and, of course, I shall purge 
 out all the old heathen wickedness, and put in a moral 
 wherever practicable. For a title how would this do -. A 
 Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys ; or, The Wonder-Book 
 of Old Stories ? I prefer the former. Or Myths Modern 
 ized for my Children ; that won t do. 
 
 " I need a little change of scene, and meant to have 
 come to Boston and elsewhere before writing this book ; but 
 I cannot leave home at present." 
 
HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Throughout the summer Hawthorne was con 
 stantly worried by people who insisted that they, 
 or their families in the present or past generations, 
 had been deeply wronged in " The House of the 
 Seven Gables." In a note, received from him on 
 the 5th of June, he says : 
 
 " I have just received a letter from still another claimant 
 of the Pyncheon estate. 1 wonder if ever, and how soon, I 
 shall get a just estimate of how many jackasses there are in 
 this ridiculous world. My correspondent, by the way, esti 
 mates the number of these Pyncheon jackasses at about 
 twenty ; I am doubtless to be remonstrated with by each 
 individual. After exchanging shots with all of them, I shall 
 get you to publish the whole correspondence, in a style to 
 match that of my other works, and I anticipate a great run 
 for the volume. 
 
 " P. S. My last correspondent demands that another 
 name be substituted, instead of that of the family ; to which 
 1 assent, in case the publishers can be prevailed on to 
 cancel the stereotype plates. Of course you will consent ! 
 Pray do ! " 
 
 Praise now poured in upon him from all quar 
 ters. Hosts of critics, both in England and 
 America, gallantly came forward to do him service, 
 and his fame was assured. On the 15th of July he 
 sends me a jubilant letter from Lenox, from which 
 I will copy several passages : 
 
 " Mrs. Kemble writes very good accounts from London 
 of the reception my two romances have met with there. She 
 says they have made a greater sensation than any book since 
 * Jane Eyre ; but probably she is a little or a good deal too 
 emphatic in her representation of the matter. At any rate, 
 
HAWTHORNE. 37 
 
 she advises that the sheets of any future book be sent to 
 Moxon, and such an arrangement made that a copyright 
 may be secured in England as well as here. Could this be 
 done with the Wonder-Book? And do you. think it would 
 be worth while ? 1 must see the proof-sheets of this book. 
 It is a cursed bore ; for I want to be done with it from this 
 moment. Can t you arrange it so that two or three or more 
 sheets may be sent at once, on stated days, and so my jour 
 neys to the village be fewer V 
 
 "That review which you sent me is a remarkable produc 
 tion. There is praise enough to satisfy a greedier author 
 than myself. I set it aside, as not being able to estimate 
 how far it is deserved. I can better judge of the censure, 
 much of which is undoubtedly just ; and I shall profit by it 
 if I can. But ; after all, there would be no great use in at 
 tempting it. There are weeds enough in my mind, to be 
 sure, and I might pluck them up by the handful ; but in so 
 doing I should root up the few flowers along with them. It 
 is also to be considered, that \vhat one man calls weeds an 
 other classifies among the choicest flowers in the garden. 
 But this reviewer is certainly a man of sense, and sometimes 
 tickles me under the fifth rib. 1 beg you to observe, how 
 ever, that I do not acknowledge his justice in cutting and 
 slashing among the characters of the two books at the rate 
 he does ; sparing nobody, I think, except Pearl and Phoebe. 
 Yet I think he is right as to my tendency as respects indi 
 vidual character. 
 
 " I am going to begin to enjoy the summer now, and to 
 read foolish novels, if I can get any, and smoke cigars, and 
 think of nothing at all; which is equivalent to thinking of 
 all mariner of things." 
 
 The composition of the " Tanglewood Tales " 
 gave him pleasant employment, and all his letters, 
 during the period he was writing them, overflow 
 with evidences of his felicitous mood. He requests 
 
38 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 that Billings should -pay especial attention to the 
 drawings, and is anxious that the porch of Tangle- 
 wood should be " well supplied with shrubbery." 
 He seemed greatly pleased that Mary Russell Mit- 
 ford had fallen in with his books and had written 
 to me about them. "Her sketches," he said, "long 
 ago as I read them, are as sweet in my memory as 
 the scent of new hay." On the 18th of August he 
 writes : 
 
 " You are going to publish another thousand of the Seven 
 Gables. I promised those Pyncheons a preface. What if 
 you insert the following ? 
 
 " (The author is pained to learn that, in selecting a name 
 for the fictitious inhabitants of a castle in the air, he has 
 wounded the feelings of more than one respectable descend 
 ant of an old Pyncheon family. He begs leave to say that 
 he intended no reference to any individual of the name, now 
 or heretofore extant ; and further, that, at the time of writ 
 ing his book, he was wholly unaware of the existence of 
 such a family in New England for two hundred years back, 
 and that whatever he may have since learned of them is 
 altogether to their credit.) 
 
 " Insert it or not, as you like. I have done with the 
 matter." 
 
 I advised him to let the Pyncheons rest as they 
 were, and omit any addition, either as note or 
 preface, to the romance. 
 
 Near the close of 1851 his health seemed un 
 settled, and he asked me to look over certain proofs 
 " carefully," for he did not feel well enough to 
 manage them himself. In one of his notes, written 
 from Lenox at that time, he says : 
 
HAWTHORNE. 39 
 
 " Please God, I mean to look you in the face towards the 
 end of next week ; at all events, within ten days. I have 
 stayed here too long and too constantly. To tell you a 
 secret, I am sick to death of Berkshire, and hate to think of 
 spending another winter here. But I must. The air and 
 climate do not agree with my health at all ; and, for the 
 first time since I was a boy, I have felt languid and dispir 
 ited during almost my whole residence here. that Provi 
 dence would build me the merest little shanty, and mark 
 me out a rood or two of garden-ground, near the sea-coast. 
 1 thank you for the two volumes of De Quincey. If it were 
 not for your kindness in supplying me with books now and 
 then, I should quite forget how to read." 
 
 Hawthorne was a hearty devourer of hooks, and 
 in certain moods of mind it made very little differ 
 ence what the volume before him happened to be. 
 An old play or an old newspaper sometimes gave 
 him wondrous great content, and he would ponder 
 the sleepy, uninteresting sentences as if they con 
 tained immortal mental aliment. He once told me 
 he found such delight in old advertisements in the 
 newspaper files at the Boston Athenaeum, that he 
 had passed delicious hours among them. At other 
 times he was very fastidious, and threw aside book 
 after book until he found the right one. De 
 Quincey was a special favorite with him, and the 
 Sermons of Laurence Sterne he once commended 
 to me as the best sermons ever written. In his 
 library was an early copy of Sir Philip Sidney s 
 " Arcadia," which had floated down to him from a 
 remote ancestry, and which he had read so indus- 
 
40 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 triously for forty years that it was nearly worn out 
 of its thick leathern cover. Hearing him say once 
 that the old English State Trials were enchanting 
 reading, and knowing that he did not possess a 
 copy of those heavy folios, I picked up a set one 
 day in a book-shop and sent them to him. He often 
 told me that he spent more hours over them and 
 got more delectation out of them than tongue could 
 tell, and he said, if five lives were vouchsafed to 
 him, he could employ them all in writing stories 
 out of those books. He had sketched, in his mind, 
 several romances founded on the remarkable trials 
 reported in the ancient volumes ; and one day, I 
 remember,- he made my blood tingle by relating 
 some of the situations he intended, if his life was 
 spared, to weave into future romances. Sir Walter 
 Scott s novels he continued almost to worship, and 
 was accustomed to read them aloud in his family. 
 The novels of G. P. R. James, both the early and 
 the later ones, he insisted were admirable stories, 
 admirably told, and he had high praise to bestow 
 on the works of Anthony Trollope. " Have you 
 ever read these novels ? " he wrote to me in a 
 letter from England, some time before Trollope 
 began to be much known in America. " They 
 precisely suit my taste ; solid and substantial, 
 written on the strength of beef and through the 
 inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant 
 had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it 
 
HAWTHORNE. 41 
 
 under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going 
 about their daily business arid not suspecting that 
 they were made a show of. And these books are 
 as English as a beefsteak. Have they ever been 
 tried in America ? It needs an English residence 
 to make them thoroughly comprehensible ; but still 
 I should think that the human nature in them 
 would give them success anywhere." 
 
 I have often been asked if all his moods were 
 sombre, and if he was never jolly sometimes like 
 other people. Indeed he was ; and although the 
 humorous side of Hawthorne was not easily or 
 often discoverable, yet have I seen him marvel 
 lously moved to fun, and no man laughed more 
 heartily in his way over a good story. Wise and 
 witty H , in whom wisdom and wit are so in 
 grained that age only increases his subtile spirit, 
 and greatly enhances the power of his cheerful tem 
 perament, always had the talismanic faculty of 
 breaking up that thoughtfully sad face into mirthful 
 waves ; and I remember how Hawthorne writhed 
 with hilarious delight over Professor L s ac 
 count of a butcher who remarked that " Idees had 
 got afloat in the *public mind with respect to sas- 
 singers." I once told him of a young woman who 
 brought in a manuscript, and said, as she placed it 
 in my hands, " I don t know what to do with 
 myself sometimes, I m so filled with mammoth 
 thoughts 1 A series of convulsive efforts to sup- 
 
42 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 press explosive laughter followed, which I remember 
 to this day. 
 
 He had an inexhaustible store of amusing anec 
 dotes to relate of people and things he had observed 
 on the road. One day he described to me, in his 
 inimitable and quietly ludicrous manner, being 
 watched, while on a visit to a distant city, by a 
 friend who called, and thought he needed a pro 
 tector, his health being at that time not so good 
 as usual. " He stuck by me," said Hawthorne, 
 " as if he were afraid to leave me alone ; he stayed 
 past the dinner-hour, and when I began to wonder 
 if he never took meals himself, he departed and set 
 another man to watch me till he should return. 
 That man watched me so, in his unwearying kind 
 ness, that when I left the house I forgot half my 
 luggage, and left behind, among other things, a 
 beautiful pair of slippers. They watched me so, 
 among them, I swear to you I forgot nearly every 
 thing I owned." 
 
 Hawthorne is still looking at me in his far-see 
 ing way, as if he were pondering what was next to 
 be said about him. It would npt displease him, I 
 know, if I were to begin my discursive talk to-day 
 by telling a little incident connected with a famous 
 American poem. 
 
 Hawthorne dined one day with Longfellow, and 
 brought with him a friend from Salem. After 
 
.OF 
 
 .; HAWTHOKNE. 43 
 
 
 dinner the friend said : " I have been trying to 
 persuade Hawthorne to write a story, hased upon a 
 legend of Acadie, and still current there ; a legend 
 of a girl who, in the dispersion of the Acadians, 
 was separated from her lover, and passed her life in 
 waiting and seeking for him, and only found him 
 dying in a hospital, when both were old." Long 
 fellow wondered that this legend did not strike the 
 fancy of Hawthorne, and said to him : " If you 
 have really made up your mind not to use it for a 
 story, will you give it to me for a poem ? " To this 
 Hawthorne assented, and moreover promised not to 
 treat the subject in prose till Longfellow had seen 
 what he could do with it in verse. And so we 
 have " Evangeline " in beautiful hexameters, a 
 poem that will hold its place in literature while 
 true affection lasts. Hawthorne rejoiced in this 
 great success of Longfellow, arid loved to count up 
 the editions, both foreign and American, of this 
 now world-renowned poem. 
 
 I have lately met an early friend of Hawthorne s, 
 older than himself, who knew him intimately all his 
 life long, and I have learned some additional facts 
 about his youthful days. Soon after he left college 
 he wrote some stories which he called " Seven Tales 
 of my Native Land." The motto which he chose 
 for the title-page was " We are Seven," from Words 
 worth. My informant read the tales in manuscript, 
 and says some of them were very striking, particu- 
 
44 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 larly one or two Witch Stories. As soon as the 
 little book was well prepared for the press he de 
 liberately threw it into the fire, and sat by to see 
 its destruction. 
 
 When about fourteen, he wrote out for a member 
 of his family a list of the books he had at that time 
 been reading. The catalogue was a long one, but my 
 informant remembers that The \Vaverley Novels, 
 Rousseau s Works, and The Newgate Calender were 
 among them. Serious remonstrances were made by 
 the family touching the perusal of this last work, 
 but he persisted in going through it to the end. 
 He had an objection in his boyhood to reading 
 much that was called "true and useful." Of his 
 tory in general he was not very fond, but he read 
 Froissart with interest, and Clarendon s History of 
 the Rebellion. He is remembered to have said at 
 that time " he cared very little for the history of 
 the world before the fourteenth century." After he 
 left college he read a great deal of French literature, 
 especially the works of Voltaire and his contempo 
 raries. He rarely went into the streets during the 
 daytime, unless there was to be a gathering of the 
 people for some public purpose, such as a political 
 meeting, a military muster, or a fire. A great con 
 flagration attracted him in a peculiar manner, and 
 he is remembered, while a young man in Salem, to 
 have been often seen looking on, from some dark 
 corner, while the fire was raging. When General 
 
HAWTHORNE. 45 
 
 Jackson, of whom lie professed himself a partisan, 
 visited Salem in 1833, he walked out to the bound 
 ary of the town to meet him, not to speak to 
 him, but only to look at him. When he came home 
 at night he said he found only a few men and boys 
 collected, not enough people, without the assistance 
 he rendered, to welcome the General with a good 
 cheer. It is said that Susan, in the " Village Uncle," 
 one of the "Twice-Told Tales," is not altogether a 
 creation of his fancy. Her father was a fisherman 
 living in Salem, and Hawthorne was constantly tell 
 ing the members of his family how charming she 
 was, and he always spoke of her as his " mermaid." 
 He said she had a great deal of what the French 
 call espieglerie. There was another young beauty, 
 living at that time in his native town, quite capti 
 vating to him, though in a different style from the 
 mermaid. But if his head and heart were turned 
 in his youth by these two nymphs in his native 
 town, there was soon a transfer of his affections 
 to quite another direction. His new passion was 
 a much more permanent one, for now there dawned 
 upon him so perfect a creature that he fell in love 
 irrevocably; all his thoughts and all his delights 
 centred in her, who suddenly became indeed the 
 mistress of his soul. She filled the measure of his 
 being, and became a part and parcel of his life. 
 Who was this mysterious young person that had 
 crossed his boyhood s path and made him hers 
 
46 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 forever ? Whose daughter was she that could thus 
 inthrall the ardent young man in Salem, who knew 
 as yet so little of the world and its sirens ? She 
 is described by one who met her long before Haw 
 thorne made her acquaintance as "the prettiest low 
 born lass that ever ran on the greensward," and she 
 must have been a radiant child of beauty, indeed, 
 that girl! She danced like a fairy, she sang ex 
 quisitely, so that every one who knew her seemed 
 amazed at her perfect way of doing everything she 
 attempted. "Who was it that thus summoned all 
 this witchery, making such a tumult in young Haw 
 thorne s bosom? She was "daughter to Leontcs 
 and Hermione," king and queen of Sieilia, and her 
 name was Perdita ! It was Shakespeare who intro 
 duced Hawthorne to his first real love, and the lover 
 never forgot his mistress. He was constant ever, 
 and worshipped her through life. Beauty always 
 captivated him. Where there was beauty he fancied 
 other good gifts must naturally be in possession. 
 During his childhood homeliness was always repul 
 sive to him. When a little boy he is remembered 
 to have said to a woman who wished to be kind to 
 him, " Take her away ! She is ugly and fat, and 
 has a loud voice." 
 
 When quite a young man he applied for a situation 
 under Commodore Wilkes on the Exploring Expedi 
 tion, but did not succeed in obtaining an appointment. 
 He thought this a great misfortune, as he was fond 
 
HAWTHORNE. 47 
 
 of travel, and he promised to do all sorts of wonder 
 ful things, should he be allowed to join the voyagers. 
 One very odd but characteristic notion of his, 
 when a youth, was, that he should like a com 
 petent income which should neither increase nor 
 diminish, for then, he said, it would not engross 
 too much of his attention. Surrey s little poem, 
 " The Means to obtain a Happy Life," expressed 
 exactly what his idea of happiness was when a lad. 
 When a school-boy he wrote verses for the news 
 papers, but he ignored their existence in after years 
 with a smile of droll disgust. One of his quatrains 
 lives in the memory of a friend, who repeated it to 
 me recently: 
 
 " The ocean hath its silent caves, 
 
 Deep, quiet, and alone ; 
 Above them there are troubled waves, 
 Beneath them there are none." 
 
 When the Atlantic Cable was first laid, somebody, 
 not knowing the author of the lines, quoted them 
 to Hawthorne as applicable to the calmness said to 
 exist in the depths of the ocean. He listened to 
 the verse, and then laughingly observed, " I know 
 something of the deep sea myself." 
 
 In 1836 he went to Boston, I am told, to edit 
 the " American Magazine of Useful Knowledge," for 
 which he was to be paid a salary of six hundred 
 dollars a year. The proprietors soon became in 
 solvent, so that he received nothing, but he kept 
 
48 HAWTHOENE. 
 
 on just the same as if he had been paid regularly. 
 The plan of the work proposed by the publishers 
 of the magazine admitted no fiction into its pages. 
 The magazine was printed on coarse paper, and 
 was illustrated by engravings painful to look at. 
 There were no contributors except the editor, and 
 he wrote the whole of every number. Short bio 
 graphical sketches of eminent men and historical 
 narratives filled up its pages. I have examined the 
 columns of this deceased magazine, and read Haw 
 thorne s narrative of Mrs. Dustan s captivity. Mrs. 
 Dustan was carried off by the Indians from Haver- 
 hill, and Hawthorne does not much commiserate 
 the hardships she endured, but reserves his sym 
 pathy for her husband, who was not carried into 
 captivity, and suffered nothing from the Indians, 
 but who, he says, was a tender-hearted man, and 
 took care of the children during Mrs. D. s absence 
 from home, and probably knew that his wife would 
 be more than a match for a whole tribe of savages. 
 
 "When the llev. Mr. Cheever was knocked down 
 and flogged in the streets of Salem and then im 
 prisoned, Hawthorne came out of his retreat and 
 visited him regularly in jail, showing strong sym 
 pathy for the man and great indignation for those 
 who had maltreated him. 
 
 Those early days in Salem, how interesting the 
 memory of them must be to the friends who knew 
 and followed the gentle dreamer in his budding 
 
HAWTHORNE. 49 
 
 career ! "When the whisper first came to the timid 
 boy, in that "dismal chamber in Union Street," 
 that he too possessed the soul of an artist, there 
 were not many about him to share the divine rap 
 ture that must have filled his proud young heart. 
 Outside of his own little family circle, doubting and 
 desponding eyes looked upon him, and many a stu 
 pid head wagged in derision as he passed by. But 
 there was always waiting for him a sweet and 
 honest welcome by the pleasant hearth where his 
 mother and sisters sat and listened to the beautiful 
 creations of his fresh and glowing fancy. We can 
 imagine the happy group gathered around the even 
 ing lamp ! "Well, my son," says the fond mother, 
 looking up from her knitting-work, "what have you 
 got for us to-night? It is some time since you read 
 us a story, and your sisters are as impatient as I am 
 to have a new one." And then we can hear, or 
 think we hear, the young man begin in a low and 
 modest tone the story of "Edward Fane s Rose 
 bud," or "The Seven Vagabonds," or perchance (0 
 tearful, happy evening !) that tender idyl of " The 
 Gentle Boy ! " What a privilege to hear for the 
 first time a " Twice-Told Tale," before it was even 
 once told to the public ! And I know with what 
 rapture the delighted little audience must have 
 hailed the advent of every fresh indication that 
 genius, so seldom a visitant at any fireside, had 
 come down so. nois.eless.ly to bless their quiet 
 
50 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 hearthstone in the sombre old town. In striking 
 contrast to Hawthorne s audience nightly con 
 vened to listen while he read his charming tales 
 and essays, I think of poor Bernardin de Saint- 
 Pierre, facing those hard-eyed critics at the house 
 of Madame Neckar, when, as a young man and 
 entirely unknown, he essayed to read his then un 
 published story of " Paul and Virginia." The story 
 was simple and the voice of the poor and nameless 
 reader trembled. Everybody was unsympathetic 
 and. gaped, and at the end of a quarter of an hour 
 Monsieur de Buffon, who always had a loud way 
 with him, cried out to Madame Neckar s servant, 
 "Let the horses be put to my carriage!" 
 
 Hawthorne seems never to have known that raw 
 period in authorship which is common to most grow 
 ing writers, when the style is " ovcrlanguaged," and 
 when it plunges wildly through the " sandy deserts 
 of rhetoric," or struggles as if it were having a 
 personal difficulty with Ignorance and his brother 
 Platitude. It was capitally said of Chateaubriand 
 that "he lived on the summits of syllables, and of 
 another young author that he "was so dully good, 
 that he made even virtue disreputable." Haw 
 thorne had no such literary vices to contend with. 
 His looks seemed from the start to be 
 
 " Commercing with the skies," 
 and he marching upward to the goal without im- 
 
HAWTHORNE. 51 
 
 pediment, I was struck a few days ago with the 
 untruth, so far as Hawthorne is concerned, of a 
 passage in the Preface to Endymion. Keats says : 
 " The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the ma 
 ture imagination of a man is healthy ; but there is 
 a space of life between, in which the soul is in a 
 ferment, the character undecided, the way of life un 
 certain, the ambition thick-sighted." Hawthorne s 
 imagination had no middle period of decadence or 
 doubt, but continued, as it began, in full vigor to 
 the end. 
 
 In 1852 I went to Europe, and while absent had 
 frequent most welcome letters from the delightful 
 dreamer. He had finished the " Blithedale Ro 
 mance " during my wanderings, and I was fortu 
 nate enough to arrange for its publication in London 
 simultaneously with its appearance in Boston. One 
 of his letters (dated from his new residence in 
 Concord, June 17, 1852) runs thus: 
 
 " You have succeeded admirably in regard to the Blithe- 
 dale Romance, and have got 150 more than I expected to 
 receive. It will come in good time, too ; for rny drafts have 
 been pretty heavy of late, in consequence of buying an es 
 tate ! ! ! and fitting up my house. What a truant you are 
 from the Corner ! I wish, before leaving London, you 
 would obtain for me copies of any English editions of my 
 writings not already in my possession. I have Routledge s 
 edition of The Scarlet Letter, the Mosses, and Twice- 
 Told Tales ; Bohn s editions of The House of the Seven 
 Gables, the Snow-Image, and the Wonder-Book, and 
 
HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Bogue s edition of The Scarlet Letter ; these are all, 
 and I should be glad of the rest. I meant to have written 
 another Wonder-Book this summer, but another task has 
 unexpectedly intervened. General Pierce of New Hamp 
 shire, the Democratic nominee for the Presidency, was a 
 college friend of mine, as you know, and we have been inti 
 mate through life. He wishes me to write his biography, 
 and I have consented to do so ; somewhat reluctantly, how 
 ever, for Pierce has now reached that altitude when a man, 
 careful of his personal dignity, will begin to think of cutting 
 his acquaintance. But I seek nothing from him, and there 
 fore need not be ashamed to tell the truth of an old friend. 
 .... I have written to Barry Cornwall, and shall probably 
 enclose the letter along with this. I don t more than half 
 believe what you tell me of my reputation in England, and 
 am only so far credulous on the strength of the 200, and 
 shall have a somewhat stronger sense of this latter reality 
 when I finger the cash. Do come home in season to preside 
 over the publication of the Bxmiance." 
 
 He had christened his estate The Wayside, and 
 in a postscript to the above letter he begs me to 
 consider the name and tell him how I like it. 
 
 Another letter, evidently foreshadowing a foreign 
 appointment from the newly elected President, con 
 tains this passage : 
 
 " Do make some inquiries about Portugal ; as, for instance, 
 in what part of the world it lies, and whether it is an em 
 pire, a kingdom, or a republic. Also, and more particularly, 
 the expenses of living there, and whether the Minister 
 would be likely to be much pestered with his own country 
 men. Also, any other information about foreign countries 
 would be acceptable to an inquiring mind." 
 
 When I returned from abroad I found him get 
 ting matters in readiness to leave the country for a 
 
HAWTHORNE. 55 
 
 consulship in Liverpool. lie seemed happy at the 
 thought of flitting, but I wondered if he could 
 possibly be as contented across the water as he was 
 in Concord. I remember walking with him to the 
 Old Manse, a mile or so distant from The Wayside, 
 his new residence, and talking over England and 
 his proposed absence of several years. We strolled 
 round the house, where he spent the first years of 
 his married life, and he pointed from the outside to 
 the windows, out of which he had looked and seen 
 supernatural and other visions. We walked up and 
 down the avenue, the memory of which he has em 
 balmed in the " Mosses," and he discoursed most 
 pleasantly of all that had befallen him since he led 
 a lonely, secluded life in Salem. It was a sleepy, 
 warm afternoon, and he proposed that we should 
 wander up the banks of the river and lie down 
 arid watch the clouds float above and in the quiet 
 stream. I recall his lounging, easy air as he tolled 
 me along until we came to a spot secluded, and 
 ofttimes sacred to his wayward thoughts. He bade 
 me lie down on the grass and hear the birds sing. 
 As we steeped ourselves in the delicious idleness, he 
 began to murmur some half- forgotten lines from 
 Thomson s " Seasons," w r hich he said had been 
 favorites of his from boyhood. While we lay there, 
 hidden in the grass, we heard approaching footsteps, 
 and Hawthorne hurriedly whispered, " Duck ! or 
 we shall be interrupted by somebody." The solem- 
 
56 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 nity of his manner, and the thought of the down- 
 flat position in which we had both placed ourselves 
 to avoid being seen, threw me into a foolish, semi- 
 hysterical fit of laughter, and when he nudged me, 
 and again whispered more lugubriously than ever, 
 " Heaven help me, Mr. is close upon us ! " I 
 felt convinced that if the thing went further, suffo 
 cation, in my case at least, must ensue. 
 
 He kept me constantly informed, after he went 
 to Liverpool, of how he was passing his time ; and 
 his charming " English Note-Books " reveal the 
 fact that he was never idle. There were touches, 
 however, in his private letters which escaped daily 
 record in his journal, and I remember how delight 
 ful it was, after he landed in Europe, to get his 
 frequent missives. In one of the first he gives me 
 an account of a dinner where he was obliged to 
 make a speech. He says : 
 
 "I tickled up John Bull s self-conceit (which is very 
 easily done) with a few sentences of most outrageous flat 
 tery, and sat down in a general puddle of good feeling." In 
 another he says : " I have taken a house in Rock Park, on 
 the Cheshire side of the Mersey, and am as snug as a bug 
 in a rug. Next year you must come and see how I live. 
 Give my regards to everybody, and my love to half a dffien. 
 .... I wish you would call on Mr. Savage, the antiqua 
 rian, if you know him, and ask whether he can inform me 
 what part of England the original William Hawthorne came 
 
 from. He came over, I think, in 1634 It would 
 
 really he a great obligation if he could answer the above 
 query. Or, if the fact is not within his own knowledge, he 
 
HAWTHOENE. 57 
 
 might perhaps indicate some place where such information 
 might be obtained here in England. I presume there are 
 records still extant somewhere of all the passengers by those 
 early ships, with their English localities annexed to their 
 names. Of all things, I should like to find a gravestone in 
 one of these old churchyards with my own name upon it, 
 although, for myself, I should wish to be buried in America. 
 The graves are too horribly damp here." 
 
 The hedge-rows of England, the grassy meadows, 
 and the picturesque old cottages delighted him, and 
 he was never tired of writing to me about them. 
 While wandering over the country, he was often 
 deeply touched by meeting among the wild-flowers 
 many of his old New England favorites, blue 
 bells, crocuses, primroses, foxglove, and other 
 flowers which are cultivated in our gardens, and 
 which had long been familiar to him in America. 
 
 I can imagine him, in his quiet, musing way, 
 strolling through the daisied fields on a Sunday 
 morning and hearing the distant church-bells chim 
 ing to service. His religion was deep and broad, 
 but it was irksome for him to be fastened in by a 
 pew-door, and I doubt if he often heard an English 
 sermon. He very rarely described himself as in 
 side a church, but he liked to wander among the 
 graves in the churchyards and read the epitaphs on 
 the moss-grown slabs. He liked better to meet and 
 have a talk with the sea-ton than with the rector. 
 
 He was constantly demanding longer letters from 
 home ; and nothing gave him more pleasure than 
 
58 HAWTHOBNE. 
 
 monthly news from " The Saturday Club," and 
 detailed accounts of what was going forward in 
 literature. One of his letters dated in January, 
 1854, starts off thus : 
 
 " I wish your epistolary propensities were stronger than 
 they are. All your letters to me since I left America might 
 
 be squeezed into one I send Ticknor a big cheese, 
 
 which I long ago promised him, and my advice is, that he keep 
 it in the shop, and daily, between eleven and one o clock, 
 distribute slices of it to your half-starved authors, together 
 
 with crackers and something to drink I thank you 
 
 for the books you send me, and more especially for Mrs. 
 Mowatt s Autobiography, which seems to me an admirable 
 book. Of all things I delight in autobiographies; and I 
 hardly ever read one that interested me so much. She must 
 be a remarkable woman, and I cannot but lament my ill 
 fortune in never having seen her on the stage or elsewhere. 
 .... I count strongly upon your promise to be with us in 
 May. Can t you bring Whipple with you ? " 
 
 One of his favorite resorts in Liverpool was the 
 boarding-house of good Mrs. Blodgett, in Duke 
 Street, a house where many Americans have found 
 delectable quarters, after being tossed on the stormy 
 Atlantic. " I have never known a better woman," 
 Hawthorne used to say, " and her motherly kind 
 ness to me and mine I can never forget." Hun 
 dreds of American travellers will bear witness to 
 the excellence of that beautiful old lady, who pre 
 sided with such dignity and sweetness over her 
 hospitable mansion. 
 
 On the 13th of April, 1854, Hawthorne wrote 
 
HAWTHORNE. 59 
 
 to me this characteristic letter from the consular 
 office in Liverpool : 
 
 " I am very glad that the Mosses have come into the 
 hands of our firm ; and I return the copy sent me, after a 
 rareful revision. When I wrote those dreamy sketches, I 
 little thought that I should ever preface an edition for the 
 press amidst the bustling life of a Liverpool consulate. 
 Upon my honor, I am not quite sure that I entirely compre 
 hend my own meaning in some of these blasted allegories ; 
 but I remember that I always had a meaning, or at least 
 thought I had. I am a good deal changed since those 
 times ; and, to tell you the truth, my past self is not very 
 much to my taste, as I see myself in this book. Yet cer 
 tainly there is more in it than the public generally gave me 
 credit for at the time it was written. 
 
 " But I don t think myself worthy of very much more 
 credit than I got. It has been a very disagreeable task to 
 read the book. The story of c Uappaccini s Daughter was 
 published in the Democratic Review, about the year 1844 ; 
 and it was prefaced by some remarks on the celebrated French 
 author (a certain M. de 1 Aubepine), from whose works it 
 was translated. I left out this preface when the story was 
 republisbed; but I wish you would turn to it in the Demo 
 cratic, and see whether it is worth while to insert it in the 
 new edition. I leave it altogether to your judgment. 
 
 " A young poet named has called on me, and has sent 
 
 me some copies of his works to be transmitted to America. 
 It seems to me there is good in him ; and he is recognized 
 by Tennyson, by Carlyle, by Kmgsley, and others of the 
 best people here. He writes me that this edition of his 
 poems is nearly exhausted, and that Routledge is going to 
 publish another, enlarged and in better style. 
 
 " Perhaps it might be well for you to take him up in 
 America. At all events, try to bring him into notice ; and 
 some day or other you may be glad to have helped a famous 
 
60 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 poet in his obscurity. The poor fellow has left a good post 
 in the customs to cultivate literature in London ! 
 
 " We shall begin to look for you now by every steamer 
 from Boston. You must make up your mind to spend a 
 good while with us before going to see your London friends. 
 
 " Did you read the article on your friend De Quincey in 
 
 the last Westminster ? It was written by Mr. of this 
 
 city, who was in America a year or two ago. The article is 
 pretty well, but does nothing like adequate justice to De 
 Quincey ; and in fact no Englishman cares a pin for him. 
 We are ten times as good readers and critics as they. 
 
 " Is not Whipple coming here soon ? " 
 
 Hawthorne s first visit to London afforded him 
 great pleasure, but he kept out of the way of liter 
 ary people as much as possible. He introduced 
 himself to nobody, except Mr. , whose assist 
 ance he needed, in order to be identified at the 
 bank. He wrote to me from 24 George Street, 
 Hanover Square, and told me he delighted in Lon 
 don, and wished he could spend a year there. He 
 enjoyed floating about, in a sort of unknown way, 
 among the rotund aud rubicund figures made jolly 
 with ale and port-wine. He was greatly amused 
 at being told (his informants meaning to be com 
 plimentary) "that he would never be taken for any 
 thing but an Englishman." He called Tennyson s 
 "Charge of the Light Brigade," just printed at 
 that time, "a broken-kneed gallop of a poem." 
 He writes : 
 
 " John Bull is in high spirits just now at the taking of 
 Sebastopol. What an absurd personage John is ! I find 
 
HAWTHORNE. 61 
 
 that my liking for him grows stronger the more I see of 
 him, but that my admiration and respect have constantly 
 decreased." 
 
 One of his most intimate friends (a man unlike 
 that individual of whom it was said that he was the 
 friend of everybody that did not need a friend) 
 w..s Francis Bennoch, a merchant of Wood Street, 
 Cheapside, London, the gentleman to whom Mrs. 
 Hawthorne dedicated the English Note-Books. 
 Hawthorne s letters abounded in warm expressions 
 of affection for the man whose noble hospitality and 
 deep interest made his residence in England full of 
 happiness. Bennoch was indeed like a brother to 
 him, sympathizing warmly in all his literary pro 
 jects, and giving him the benefit of his excellent 
 judgment while he was sojourning among strangers. 
 Bennoch s record may be found in Tom Taylor s 
 admirable life of poor Haydon, the artist. All lit 
 erary and artistic people who have had the good 
 fortune to enjoy his friendship have loved him. I 
 happen to know of his bountiful kindness to Miss 
 Mitford and Hawthorne and poor old Jerdan, for 
 these hospitalities happened in my time ; but he 
 began to befriend all who needed friendship long 
 before I knew him. His name ought never to be 
 omitted from the literary annals of England; nor 
 that of his wife either, for she has always made her 
 delightful fireside warm and comforting to her hus 
 band s friends. 
 
62 HAWTHOBNE. 
 
 Many and many a happy time Bennoch, Haw 
 thorne, and myself have had together on British 
 soil. I remember we went once to dine at a great 
 house in the country, years ago, where it was un 
 derstood there would be no dinner speeches. The 
 banquet was in honor of some society, I have 
 quite forgotten what, but it was a jocose and not 
 a serious club. The gentleman who gave it, Sir 
 , was a most kind and genial person, and gath 
 ered about him on this occasion some of the bright 
 est and best from London. All the way down in 
 the train Hawthorne was rejoicing that this was to 
 be a dinner without speech-making ; " for," said 
 he, " nothing would tempt me to go if toasts and 
 such confounded deviltry were to be the order of 
 the day." So we rattled along, without a fear of 
 any impending cloud of oratory. The entertain 
 ment was a most exquisite one, about twenty gen 
 tlemen sitting down at the beautifully ornamented 
 table. Hawthorne was in uncommonly good spir 
 its, and, having the seat of honor at the right of 
 his host, was pretty keenly scrutinized by his British 
 brethren of the quill. He had, of course, banished 
 all thought of speech-making, and his knees never 
 smote together once, as he told me afterwards. 
 But it became evident to my mind that Hawthorne s 
 health was to be proposed with all the honors. I 
 glanced at him across the table, and saw that he 
 w r as unsuspicious of any movement against his quiet 
 
HAWTHOENE. 63 
 
 serenity. Suddenly and without warning our host 
 rapped the mahogany, and began a set speech of 
 welcome to the " distinguished American romancer." 
 It was a very honest and a very hearty speech, but 
 I dared not look at Hawthorne. I expected every 
 moment to see him glide out of the room, or sink 
 down out of sight from his chair. The tortures I 
 suffered on Hawthorne s account, on that occasion, 
 I will not attempt to describe now. I knew noth 
 ing would have induced the shy man of letters to 
 go down to Brighton, if he had known he was to 
 be spoken at in that manner. I imagined his face 
 a deep crimson, and his hands trembling with ner 
 vous horror; but judge of iny surprise, when he 
 rose to reply with so calm a voice and so composed 
 a manner, that, in all my experience of dinner- 
 speaking, I never witnessed such a case of apparent 
 
 ease. (Easy-Chair C himself, one of the best 
 
 makers of after-dinner or any other speeches of our 
 day, according to Charles Dickens, no inadequate 
 judge, all will allow, never surpassed in eloquent 
 effect this speech by Hawthorne.) There was no 
 hesitation, no sign of lack of preparation, but he 
 went on for about ten minutes in such a masterly 
 manner, that I declare it was one of the most suc 
 cessful efforts of the kind ever made. Everybody 
 was delighted, arid, when he sat down, a wild and 
 unanimous shout of applause rattled the glasses on 
 the table. The meaning of his singular composure 
 
64 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 on that occasion I could never get him satisfactorily 
 to explain, and the only remark I ever heard him 
 make, in any way connected with this marvellous 
 exhibition of coolness, was simply, "What a con 
 founded fool I was to go down to that speech-mak 
 ing dinner ! " 
 
 During all those long years, while Hawthorne 
 was absent in Europe, he was anything but an idle 
 man. On the contrary, he was an eminently busy 
 one, in the best sense of that term ; and if his life 
 had been prolonged, the public would have been a 
 rich gainer for his residence abroad. His brain 
 teemed with romances, and once I remember he told 
 me he had no less than five stories, well thought 
 out, any one of which he could finish and publish 
 whenever he chose to. There was one subject for 
 a work of imagination that seems to have haunted 
 him for years, and he has mentioned it twice in his 
 journal. This was the subsequent life of the young 
 man whom Jesus, looking on, " loved," and whom 
 he bade to sell all that he had and give to the poor, 
 and take up his cross and follow him. " Something 
 very deep arid beautiful might be made out of this," 
 Hawthorne said, " for the young man went away 
 sorrowful, and is not recorded to have done what 
 he was bidden to do." 
 
 One of the most difficult matters he had to man 
 age while in England was the publication of Miss 
 Bacon s singular book on Shakespeare. The poor 
 
HAWTHORNE. 65 
 
 lady, after lie had agreed to see the work through 
 the press, broke off all correspondence with him in 
 a storm of wrath, accusing him of pusillanimity in 
 not avowing full faith in her theory ; so that, as he 
 told me, so far as her good-will was concerned, he 
 had not gained much by taking the responsibility 
 of her book upon his shoulders. It was a heavy 
 weight for him to bear in more senses than one, for 
 he paid out of his own pocket the expenses of pub 
 lication. 
 
 I find in his letters constant references to the 
 kindness with which he was treated in London. 
 He spoke of Mrs. S. C. Hall as "one of the best 
 and warmest-hearted women in the world." Leigh 
 Hunt, in his way, pleased and satisfied him more 
 than almost any man he had seen in England. 
 "As for other literary men," he says in one of 
 his letters, " I doubt whether London can mus 
 ter so good a dinner-party as that which assem 
 bles every month at the marble palace in School 
 Street." 
 
 All sorts of adventures befell him during his stay 
 in Europe, even to that of having his house robbed, 
 and his causing the thieves to be tried and sentenced 
 to transportation. In the summer-time he trav 
 elled about the country in England and pitched 
 his tent wherever fancy prompted. One autumn 
 afternoon in September |ie writes, to, me from Leam 
 ington : 
 
66 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 " I received your letter only this morning, at this cleanest 
 and prettiest of English towns, where we are going to spend 
 a week or two before taking our departure for Paris. We 
 are acquainted with Leamington already, having resided 
 here two summers ago ; and the country round about is 
 unadulterated England, rich in old castles, manor-houses, 
 churches, and thatched cottages, and as green as Paiadise 
 itself. I only wish I had a house here, and that you could 
 come and be my guest in it ; but I am a poor wayside vaga 
 bond, and only find shelter for a night or so, and then trudge 
 onward again. My wife and children and myself are famil 
 iar with all kinds of lodgement and modes of living, but we 
 have forgotten what home is, at least the children have, 
 poor things ! I doubt whether they will ever feel inclined 
 to live long in one place. The worst of it is, I have outgrown 
 my house in Concord, and feel no inclination to return to it. 
 
 " We spent seven weeks in Manchester, and went most 
 diligently to the Art Exhibition ; and I really begin to be 
 sensible of the rudiments of a taste in pictures." 
 
 It was during one of his rambles with Alexander 
 Ireland through the Manchester Exhibition rooms 
 that Hawthorne saw Tennyson wandering about. I 
 have always thought it unfortunate that these two 
 men of genius could not have been introduced on 
 that occasion. Hawthorne was too shy to seek an 
 introduction, and Tennyson was not aware that the 
 American author was present. Hawthorne records 
 in his journal that he gazed at Tennyson with all 
 his eyes, " and rejoiced more in him than in all the 
 other wonders of the Exhibition." When I after 
 wards told Tennyson that the author whose " Twice- 
 Told Tales" he happened to be then reading at 
 
HAWTHOKNE. 67 
 
 Farringford liad met him at Manchester, but did not 
 make himself known, the Laureate said in his frank 
 and hearty manner: "Why did n t he come up and 
 let me shake hands with him ? I am sure I should 
 have been glad to meet a man like Hawthorne any 
 where." 
 
 At the close of 1857 Hawthorne writes to me that 
 he hears nothing of the appointment of his suc 
 cessor in the consulate, since he had sent in his 
 resignation. " Somebody may turn up any day," 
 he says, " with a new commission in his pocket." 
 He was meanwhile getting ready for Italy, and 
 he writes, " I expect shortly to be released from 
 durance." 
 
 In his last letter before leaving England fop the 
 Continent he says : 
 
 " I made up a huge package the other day, consisting of 
 seven closely written volumes of journal, kept by me since 
 my arrival in England, and filled with sketches of places 
 and men and manners, many of which would doubtless be 
 very delightful to the public. I think I shall seal them up, 
 with directions in my will to have them opened and pub 
 lished a century hence ; and your firm shall have the refusal 
 of them then. 
 
 " Remember me to everybody, for I love all my friends at 
 least as well as ever." 
 
 Released from the cares of office, and having 
 nothing to distract his attention, his life on the 
 Continent opened full of delightful excitement. 
 His pecuniary situation was such as to enable 
 
68 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 him to live very comfortably in a country where, 
 at that time, prices were moderate. 
 
 In a letter dated from a villa near Florence on 
 the 3d of September, 1858, he thus describes, in a 
 charming manner, his way of life in Italy : 
 
 " I am afraid I have stayed away too long, and am for 
 gotten by everybody. You have piled up the dusty rem 
 nants of my editions, I suppose, in that chamber over the 
 shop, where you once took me to smoke a cigar, and have 
 crossed my name out of your list of authors, without so 
 much as asking whether I am dead or alive. But I like it 
 well enough, nevertheless. It is pleasant to feel at last that 
 I am really away from America, a satisfaction that I never 
 enjoyed as long as I stayed in Liverpool, where it seemed to 
 me that the quintessence of nasal and hand-shaking Yan- 
 keedoni w r as continually filtered and sublimated through my 
 consulate, on the way outward and homeward. I first got 
 acquainted with my own countrymen there. At Rome, too, 
 it was not much better. But here in Florence, and in the 
 summer-time, and in this secluded villa, I have escaped out 
 of all my old tracks, and am really remote. 
 
 " I like my present residence immensely. The house 
 stands on a hill, overlooking Florence, and is big enough to 
 quarter a regiment ; insomuch that each member of the 
 family, including servants, has a separate suite of apart 
 ments, and there are vast wildernesses of upper rooms into 
 which we have never yet sent exploring expeditions. 
 
 " At one end of the house there is a moss-grown tower, 
 haunted by owls and by the ghost of a monk, w r ho was con 
 fined there in the thirteenth century, previous to being 
 burned at the stake in the principal square of Florence. I 
 hire this villa, tower and all, at twenty-eight dollars a 
 month ; but I mean to take it away bodily and clap it into 
 a romance, which I have in my head ready to be written 
 out. 
 
HAWTHOENE. 69 
 
 " Speaking of romances, I have planned two, one or both 
 of which I could have ready for the press in a few months 
 if I were either in England or America. But I find this 
 Italian atmosphere not favorable to the close toil of compo 
 sition, although it is a very good air to dream in. I must 
 breathe the fogs of old England or the east-winds of Massa 
 chusetts, in order to put me into working trim. Neverthe 
 less, 1 shall endeavor to be busy during the coming winter 
 at Rome, but there will be so much to distract my thoughts 
 that I have little hope of seriously accomplishing anything. 
 It is a pity; for I have really a plethora of ideas, and 
 should feel relieved by discharging some of them upon the 
 public. 
 
 " We shall continue here till the end of this month, and 
 shall then return to Rome, where I have already taken a 
 house for six months. In the middle of April we intend to 
 start for home by the way of Geneva and Paris ; and, after 
 spending a few weeks in England, shall embark for Boston 
 in July or the beginning of August. After so long an ab 
 sence (more than five years already, which will be six before 
 you see me at the old Corner), it is not altogether delightful 
 to think of returning. Everybody will be changed, and I 
 myself, no doubt, as much as anybody. Ticknor and you, 
 I suppose, were both upset in the late religious earthquake, 
 and when I inquire for you the clerks will direct me to the 
 Business Men s Conference. It won t do. I shall be 
 forced to come back again and take refuge in a London 
 lodging. London is like the grave in one respect, any 
 man can make himself at home there ; and whenever a man 
 finds himself homeless elsewhere, he had better either die 
 or go to London. 
 
 " Speaking of the grave reminds me of old age and other 
 disagreeable matters ; and I would remark that one grows 
 old in Italy twice or three times as fast as in other coun 
 tries. I have three gray hairs now for one that I brought 
 from England, and I shall look venerable indeed by next 
 summer, when I return. 
 
70 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 " Remember me affectionately to all my friends. Who 
 ever has a kindness for me may be assured that I have 
 twice as much for him." 
 
 Hawthorne s second visit to Rome, in the winter 
 of 1859, was not a fortunate one. His own health 
 was excellent during his sojourn there, but several 
 members of his family fell ill, and he became very 
 nervous and longed to get away. In one of his 
 letters he says : 
 
 " I bitterly detest Rome, and shall rejoice to bid it fare 
 well forever ; and I fully acquiesce in all the mischief and 
 ruin that has happened to it, from Nero s conflagration 
 downward. In fact, I wish the very site had been obliter 
 ated before I ever saw it." 
 
 He found solace, however, during the series of 
 domestic troubles (continued illness in his family) 
 that befell, in writing memoranda for " The Marble 
 Faun." He thus announces to me the beginning 
 of the new romance : 
 
 " I take some credit to myself for having sternly shut my 
 self up for an hour or two almost every day, and come to 
 close grips with a romance which I have been trying to tear 
 out of my mind. As for my success, I can t say much ; in 
 deed, I don t know what to say at all. I only know that I 
 have produced what seems to be a larger amount of scribble 
 than either of my former romances, and that portions of it 
 interested me a good deal while I was writing them ; but I 
 have had so many interruptions, from things to see and 
 things to suffer, that the story has developed itself in a very 
 imperfect way, and will have to be revised hereafter. I 
 could finish it for the press in the time that I am to remain 
 here (till the 15th of April), but my brain is tired of it just 
 
HAWTHOENE. 71 
 
 now ; and, besides, there are many objects that I shall re 
 gret not seeing hereafter, though I care very little about 
 seeing them now ; so I shall throw aside the romance, and 
 take it up again next August at The Wayside." 
 
 He decided to be back in England early in the 
 summer, and to sail for home in July. He writes 
 to me from Rome : 
 
 " I shall go home, I fear, with a heavy heart, not expect 
 ing to be very well contented there If I were but 
 
 a hundred times richer than I am, how very comfortable I 
 could be ! I consider it a great piece of good fortune that 
 I have had experience of the discomforts and miseries of 
 Italy, and did not go directly home from England. Any 
 thing will seem like Paradise after a Roman winter. 
 
 " If I had but a house fit to live in, I should be greatly 
 more reconciled to coming home ; but I am really at a loss 
 to imagine how we are to squeeze ourselves into that little 
 old cottage of mine. We had outgrown it before we came 
 away, and most of us are twice as big now as we were 
 then. 
 
 " I have an attachment to the place, and should be sorry 
 to give it up ; but I shall half ruin myself if I try to enlarge 
 the house, and quite if I build another. So what is to be 
 done ? Pray have some plan for me before I get back ; not 
 that I think you can possibly hit on anything that will suit 
 
 me I shall return by way of Venice and Geneva, 
 
 spend two or three weeks or more in Paris, and sail for 
 home, as I said, in July. It would be an exceeding delight 
 to me to meet you or Ticknor in England, or anywhere else. 
 At any rate, it will cheer my heart to see you all and the 
 old Corner itself, when I touch my dear native soil again." 
 
 I went abroad again in 1859, and found Haw 
 thorne back in England, working away diligently 
 at " The Marble Faun." While travelling on the 
 
72 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Continent, during the autumn I had constant letters 
 from him, giving accounts of his progress on the 
 new romance. He says : "I get along more slowly 
 
 than I expected If I mistake not, it will 
 
 have some good chapters." Writing on the 10th 
 of October he tells me : 
 
 " The romance is almost finished, a great heap of manu 
 script being already accumulated, and only a few concluding 
 chapters remaining behind. If hard pushed, I could have 
 it ready for the press in a fortnight ; but unless the pub 
 lishers [Smith and Elder were to bring out the work in 
 England] are in a hurry, I shall be somewhat longer about 
 it. I have found far more work to do upon it than I antici 
 pated. To confess the truth, I admire it exceedingly at in 
 tervals, but am liable to cold fits, during which I think it 
 the most infernal nonsense. You ask for the title. I have 
 not yet fixed upon one, but here are some that have occurred 
 to me ; neither of them exactly meets my idea : Monte 
 Beni ; or, The Faun. A Romance. The Romance of a 
 Faun. The Faun of Monte Beni. 5 Monte Beni : a Ro 
 mance. Miriam : a Romance. Hilda : a Romance. 
 Donatello : a Romance. The Faun : a Romance. Mar 
 ble and Man : a Romance. When you have read the work 
 (which I especially wish you to do before it goes to press), 
 you will be able to select one of them, or imagine something 
 better. There is an objection in my mind to an Italian 
 name, though perhaps Monte Beni might do. Neither do I 
 wish, if I can help it, to make the fantastic aspect of the 
 book too prominent by putting the Faun into the title- 
 page. " 
 
 Hawthorne wrote so intensely on his new story, 
 that he was quite worn down before he finished it. 
 To recruit his strength he went to Redcar, where 
 
HAWTHO11NE. 75 
 
 the bracing air of the German Ocean soon counter- 
 anted the ill effect of overwork. "The Marble 
 Faun" was in the London printing-office in No 
 vember, and he seemed very glad to have it off his 
 hands. His letters to me at this time (I was still 
 on the Continent) were jubilant with hope. He 
 was living in Leamington, and was constantly writ 
 ing to me that I should find the next two months 
 more comfortable in England than anywhere else. 
 On the 17th he writes : 
 
 " The Italian spring commences in February, which is 
 certainly an advantage, especially as from February to May 
 is the most disagreeable portion of the English year. But 
 it is always summer by a bright coal-fire. We find nothing 
 to complain of in the climate of Leamington. To be sure, 
 we cannot always see our hands before us for fog ; but I 
 like fog, and do not care about seeing my hand before me. 
 We have thought of staying here till after Christmas and 
 then going somewhere else, perhaps to Bath, perhaps to 
 Devonshire. But all this is uncertain Leamington is not 
 so desirable a residence in winter as in summer ; its great 
 charm consisting in the many delightful walks and drives, 
 and in its neighborhood to interesting places. I have quite 
 finished the book (some time ago) and have sent it to Smith 
 and Elder, who tell me it is in the printer s hands, but I 
 have received no proof-sheets. They wrote to request an 
 other title instead of the Romance of Monte Beni, and I 
 sent them their choice of a dozen. I don t know what they 
 have chosen ; neither do I understand their objection to the 
 above. Perhaps they don t like the book at all ; but I shall 
 not trouble myself about that, as long as they publish it and 
 pay me my 600. For my part, I think it much my best 
 romance ; but I can see some points where it is open to 
 
76 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 assault. If it could have appeared first in America, it would 
 
 have been a safe thing 
 
 " I mean to spend the rest of my abode in England in 
 blessed idleness : and as for my journal, in the first place I 
 have not got it here j secondly, there is nothing in it that 
 will do to publish." 
 
 Hawthorne was, indeed, a consummate artist, and 
 I do not remember a single slovenly passage in all 
 his acknowledged writings. It was a privilege, 
 and one that I can never sufficiently estimate, to 
 have known him personally through so many years. 
 He was unlike any other author I have met, and 
 there were qualities in his nature so sweet and 
 commendable, that, through all his shy reserve, 
 they sometimes asserted themselves in a marked 
 and conspicuous manner. I have known rude 
 people, who were jostling him in a crowd, give 
 way at the sound of his low and almost irresolute 
 voice, so potent was the gentle spell of command 
 that seemed born of his genius. 
 
 Although he was apt to keep aloof from his kind, 
 and did not hesitate frequently to announce by his 
 manner that 
 
 " Solitude to him 
 
 Was blithe society, who filled the air 
 With gladness and involuntary songs," 
 
 I ever found him, like Milton s Raphael, an " affable " 
 angel, and inclined to converse on whatever was 
 human and good in life. 
 
HAWTHORNE. 77 
 
 Here are some more extracts from the letters 
 he wrote to me while he was engaged on "The 
 Marhle Faun." On the llth of February, 1860, 
 he writes from Leamington in England (I was then 
 in Italy) : 
 
 " I received your letter from Florence, and conclude that 
 you are now in Rome, and probably enjoying the Carnival, 
 a tame description of which, by the by, I have introduced 
 into my Romance. 
 
 " I thank you most heartily for your kind wishes in favor 
 of the forthcoming work, and sincerely join my own prayers 
 to yours in its behalf, but without much confidence of a 
 good result. My own opinion is, that I am not really a 
 popular writer, and that what popularity I have gained is 
 chiefly accidental, and owing to other causes than my own 
 kind or degree of merit. Possibly I may (or may not) de 
 serve something better than popularity ; but looking at all 
 my productions, and especially this latter one, with a cold 
 or critical eye, I can see that they do not make their appeal 
 to the popular mind. It is odd enough, moreover, that my 
 own individual taste is for quite another class of works than 
 those which I myself am able to write. If I were to meet 
 with such books as mine, by another writer, I don t believe 
 I should be able to get through them. 
 
 " To return to my own moon shiny Romance ; its fate will 
 soon be settled, for Smith and Elder mean to publish on the 
 28th of this month. Poor Ticknor will have a tight scratch 
 to get his edition out contemporaneously ; they having sent 
 him the third volume only a week ago. I think, however, 
 there will be no danger of piracy in America. Perhaps no 
 body will think it worth stealing. Give my best regards to 
 William Story, and look well at his Cleopatra, for you will 
 meet her again in one of the chapters which I wrote with 
 most pleasure. If he does not find himself famous hence- 
 
78 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 forth, the fault will be none of mine. I, at least, have done 
 my duty by him, whatever delinquency there may be on the 
 part of other critics. 
 
 " Smith and Elder persist in calling the book Trans 
 formation, which gives one the idea of Harlequin in a pan 
 tomime ; but I have strictly enjoined upon Ticknor to call it 
 The Marble Faun; a Romance of Monte Beni. " 
 
 In one of his letters written at this period, refer 
 ring to his design of going home, he says : 
 
 " I shall not have been absent seven years till the 5th of 
 July next, and I scorn to touch Yankee soil sooner than that. 
 .... As regards going home I alternate between a longing 
 and a dread." 
 
 Returning to London from the Continent, in 
 April, I found this letter, written from Bath, 
 awaiting my arrival : 
 
 " You are welcome back. I really began to fear that you 
 had been assassinated among the Apennines or killed in 
 that outbreak at Rome. I have taken passages for all of us 
 in the steamer which sails the 16th of June. Your berths 
 are Nos. 19 and 20. I engaged them with the understand 
 ing that you might go earlier or later, if you chose; but I 
 would advise you to go on the 16th; in the first place, be 
 cause the state-rooms for our party are the most eligible in 
 tbe ship; secondly, because we shall otherwise mutually 
 lose the pleasure of each other s company. Besides, I con 
 sider it my duty, towards Ticknor and towards Boston, and 
 America at large, to take you into custody and bring you 
 home ; for I know you will never come except upon compul 
 sion. Let me know at once whether I am to use force. 
 
 " The book (The Marble Fun) has done better than I 
 thought it would ; for you will have discovered, by this 
 time, that it is an audacious attempt to impose a tissue of 
 
HAWTHOKNE. 79 
 
 absurdities upon the public by the mere art of style of nar 
 rative. I hardly hoped that it would go down with John 
 Bull ; but then it is always rny best point of writing, to un 
 dertake such a task, and 1 really pui what strength I have 
 into many parts of this book. 
 
 " The English critics generally (with two or three unim 
 portant exceptions) have been sufficiently favorable, and the 
 review in the Times awarded the highest praise of all. At 
 home, too, the notices have been very kind, so far as they 
 have come under my eye. Lowell had a good one in the 
 Atlantic Monthly, and Hillard an excellent one in the Cou 
 rier; and yesterday I received a sheet of the May number of 
 the Atlantic containing a really keen and profound article 
 by Whipple, in which he goes over all my works, and recog 
 nizes that element of unpopularity which (as nobody knows 
 better than myself) pervades them all. I agree with almost 
 all he says, except that I am conscious of not deserving 
 nearly so much praise. When I get home, I will try to 
 write a more genial book ; but the Devil himself always 
 seems to get into my inkstand, and I can only exorcise him 
 by pensful at a time. 
 
 " 1 am coming to London very soon, and mean to spend a 
 fortnight of next month there. I have been quite homesick 
 through this past dreary winter. Bid you ever spend a win 
 ter in England ? If not, reserve your ultimate conclusion 
 about the country until you have done so." 
 
 "We met in London early in May, and, as our 
 lodgings were not far apart, we were frequently 
 together. I recall many pleasant dinners with him 
 and mutual friends in various charming seaside and 
 country-side places. We used to take a run down 
 to Greenwich or Blackwall once or twice a week, 
 and a trip to Richmond was always grateful to him. 
 Bennoch was constantly planning a day s happi- 
 
80 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 ness for his friend, and the hours at that pleasant 
 season of the year were not long enough for our 
 delights. In London we strolled along the Strand, 
 day after day, now diving into Bolt Court, in pur 
 suit of Johnson s whereabouts, and now stumbling 
 around the Temple, where Goldsmith at one time 
 had his quarters. Hawthorne was never weary of 
 standing on London Bridge, and watching the 
 steamers plying up and down the Thames. I was 
 much amused by his manner towards importunate 
 and sometimes impudent beggars, scores of whom 
 would attack us even in the shortest walk. He had 
 a mild way of making a severe and cutting remark, 
 which used to remind me of a little incident which 
 Charlotte Cushman once related to me. She said 
 a man in the gallery of a theatre (I think she was 
 on the stage at the time) made such a disturbance 
 that the play could not proceed. Cries of " Throw 
 him over" arose from all parts of the house, and 
 the noise became furious. All was tumultuous 
 chaos until a sweet and gentle female voice was 
 heard in the pit, exclaiming, " No ! I pray you 
 don t throw him over ! I beg of you, dear friends, 
 don t throw him over, but kill him where he is." 
 One of our most royal times was at a parting 
 dinner at the house of Barry Cornwall. Among 
 the notables present were Kinglake and Leigh 
 Hunt. Our kind-hearted host and his admirable 
 wife greatly delighted in Hawthorne, and they 
 
HAWTH011NE. 81 
 
 made this occasion a most grateful one to him. .1 
 remember when we went up to the drawing-room 
 to join the ladies after dinner, the two dear old 
 poets, Leigh Hunt and Bany Cornwall, mounted 
 the stairs with their arms round each other in a 
 very tender and loving way. Hawthorne often 
 referred to this scene as one he would not have 
 missed for a great deal. 
 
 His renewed intercourse with Motley in England 
 gave him peculiar pleasure, and his genius found 
 an ardent admirer in the eminent historian. He 
 did not go much into society at that time, hut 
 there were a few houses in London where he al 
 ways seemed happy. 
 
 I met him one night at a great evening-party, 
 looking on from a nook a little removed from the 
 full glare of the soiree. Soon, however, it was 
 whispered about that the famous American ro 
 mance-writer was in the room, and an enthusiastic 
 English lady, a genuine admirer and intelligent 
 reader of his books, ran for her album and attacked 
 him for " a few words and his name at the end." 
 He looked dismally perplexed, and turning to me 
 said imploringly in a whisper, " For pity s sake, 
 what shall I write ? I can t think of a word to 
 add to my name. Help me to something." Think 
 ing him partly in fun, I said, " Write an original 
 couplet, this one, for instance, 
 
 When this you see, 
 Remember me, " 
 
82 HAWTHOENE. 
 
 and to iny amazement he stepped forward at once 
 to the table, wrote the foolish lines I had sug 
 gested, and, shutting the book, handed it very con 
 tentedly to the happy lady. 
 
 "We sailed from England together in the month 
 of June, as we had previously arranged, and our 
 voyage home was, to say the least, an unusual one. 
 We had calm summer, moonlight weather, with no 
 storms. Mrs. Stowe was on board, and in her own 
 cheery and delightful way she enlivened the pas 
 sage with some capital stories of her early life. 
 
 When we arrived at Queen stown, the captain an 
 nounced to us that, as the ship would wait there 
 six hours, we might go ashore and see something 
 of our Irish friends. So we chartered several jaunt 
 ing-cars, after much tribulation and delay in ar 
 ranging terms with the drivers thereof, and started 
 off on a merry exploring expedition. I remember 
 there was a good deal of racing up and down the 
 hills of Queenstown, much shouting and laughing, 
 and crowds of beggars howling after us for pence 
 and beer. The Irish jaunting-car is a peculiar 
 institution, and we all sat with our legs dangling 
 over the road in a " dim and perilous way." Oc 
 casionally a horse would give out, for the animals 
 were sad specimens, poorly fed and wofully driven. 
 We were almost devoured by the ragamuffins that 
 ran beside our wheels, and I remember the " sad 
 civility" with which Hawthorne regarded their 
 
HAWTHORNE. 83 
 
 clamors. We had provided ourselves before start 
 ing with much small coin, which, however, gave out 
 during our first mile. Hawthorne attempted to 
 explain our inability further to supply their demands, 
 having, as he said to them, nothing less than a sov 
 ereign in his pocket, when a voice from the crowd 
 shouted, " Bedad, your honor, I can change that 
 for ye " ; and the knave actually did it on the spot. 
 Hawthorne s love for the sea amounted to a 
 passionate worship ; and while I (the worst sailor 
 probably on this planet) was longing, spite of the 
 good company on board, to reach land as soon as 
 possible, Hawthorne was constantly saying in his 
 quiet, earnest way, " I should like to sail on and 
 on forever, and never touch the shore again." He 
 liked to stand alone in the bows of the ship and see 
 the sun go down, and he was never tired of walk 
 ing the deck at midnight. I used to watch his 
 dark, solitary figure under the stars, pacing up and 
 down some unfrequented part of the vessel, musing 
 and half melancholy. Sometimes he would lie 
 down beside me and commiserate my unquiet con 
 dition. Sea-sickness, he declared, he could not un 
 derstand, and was constantly recommending most 
 extraordinary dishes and drinks, " all made out of 
 the artist s brain," which he said were sovereign 
 remedies for nautical illness. I remember to this 
 day some of the preparations which, in his revelry 
 of fancy, he would advise me to take, a farrago of 
 
84 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 good things almost rivalling " Oberon s "Feast," 
 spread out so daintily in Herrick s " Hesperides." 
 He thought, at first, if I could bear a few roc s 
 eggs beaten up by a mermaid on a dolphin s back, 
 1 might be benefited. He decided that a gruel 
 made from a sheaf of Robin Hood s arrows would 
 be strengthening. \Vhen suffering pain, " a right 
 gude willie- waught," or a stiff cup of hemlock of 
 the Socrates brand, before retiring, he considered 
 very good. He said he had heard recommended a 
 dose of salts distilled from the tears of Niobe, but 
 he did n t approve of that remedy. He observed 
 that he had a high opinion of hearty food, such as 
 potted owl with Minerva sauce, airy tongues of 
 sirens, stewed ibis, livers of Roman Capitol geese, 
 the wings of a Phoenix not too much done, love 
 lorn nightingales cooked briskly over Aladdin s 
 lamp, chicken -pies made of fowls raised by Mrs. 
 Carey, Nautilus chowder, and the like. Fruit, by 
 all means, should always be taken by an uneasy 
 victim at sea, especially Atalanta pippins and 
 purple grapes raised by Bacchus & Co. Examin 
 ing my garments one day as I lay on deck, he 
 thought I was not warmly enough clad, and he 
 recommended, before I took another voyage, that 
 I should fit myself out in Liverpool with a good 
 warm shirt from the shop of Nessus & Co. in 
 Bold Street, where I could also find stout seven- 
 league boots to keep out the damp. He knew 
 
HAWTHORNE. 85 
 
 another shop, he said, where I could buy raven - 
 down stockings, and sable clouds with a silver lin 
 ing, most warm and comfortable for a sea voyage. 
 
 His own appetite was excellent, and day after day 
 he used to come on deck after dinner and describe 
 to me what he had eaten. Of course his accounts 
 were always exaggerations, for my amusement. I 
 remember one night he gave me a running cata 
 logue of what food he had partaken during the 
 day, and the sum total was convulsing from its ab 
 surdity. Among the viands he had consumed, I 
 remember he stated there were " several yards of 
 steak," and a "whole warrenful of Welsh rabbits." 
 The "divine spirit of Humor" was upon him dur 
 ing many of those days at sea, and he revelled in it 
 like a careless child. 
 
 That was a voyage, indeed, long to be remem 
 bered, and I shall ever look back upon it as the 
 most satisfactory "sea turn" I ever happened to 
 experience. I have sailed many a weary, watery 
 mile since then, but Hawthorne was not on board ! " 
 
 The summer after his arrival home he spent 
 quietly in Concord, at the Wayside, and illness in 
 his family made him at times unusually sad. In 
 one of his notes to me he says : 
 
 "I am continually reminded nowadays of a response 
 which I once heard a drunken sailor make to a pious gen 
 tleman, who asked him how he felt, Pretty d d miserable, 
 thank God ! It very well expresses my thorough discom 
 fort and forced acquiescence." 
 
86 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Occasionally he wrote requesting me to make a 
 change, here and there, in the new edition of his 
 works then passing through the press. On the 
 23d of September, 1860, he writes :- 
 
 " Please to append the following note to the foot of the 
 page, at the commencement of the story called Dr. Heideg 
 ger s Experiment, in the Twice-Told Tales : In an Eng 
 lish Review, not long since, I have been accused of plagiariz 
 ing the idea of this story from a chapter in one of the novels 
 of Alexandre Dumas. There has undoubtedly been a pla 
 giarism, on one side or the other; but as my story was 
 written a good deal more than twenty years ago, and as the 
 novel is of considerably more recent date, I take pleasure in 
 thinking that M. Dumas has done me the honor to appro 
 priate one of the fanciful conceptions of my earlier days, 
 lie is heartily welcome to it ; nor is it the only instance, by 
 many, in which the great French romancer has exercised 
 the privilege of commanding genius by confiscating the in 
 tellectual property of less famous people to his own use and 
 behoof. " 
 
 Hawthorne was a diligent reader of the Bible, 
 and when sometimes, in my ignorant way, I would 
 question, in a proof-sheet, his use of a word, he 
 would almost always refer me to the Bible as his 
 authority. It was a great pleasure to hear him 
 talk about the Book of Job, and his voice would be 
 tremulous with feeling, as he sometimes quoted a 
 touching passage from the New Testament. In 
 one of his letters he says to me : 
 
 " Did not I suggest to you, last summer, the publication 
 of the Bible in ten or twelve 12mo volumes ? I think it 
 would have great success, and, at least (but, as a publisher, 
 
HAWTHORNE. 87 
 
 I suppose this is the very smallest of your cares), it would 
 result in the salvation of a great many souls, who will never 
 find their way to heaven, if left to learn it from the incon 
 venient editions of the Scriptures now in use. It is very 
 singular that this form of publishing the Bible in a single 
 bulky or closely printed volume should be so long contin 
 ued. It was first adopted, I suppose, as being the universal 
 mode of publication at the time when the Bible was trans 
 lated. Shakespeare, and the other old dramatists and poets, 
 were first published in the same form ; but all of them have 
 long since been broken into dozens and scores of portable 
 and readable volumes ; and why not the Bible? " 
 
 During this period, after his return from Europe, 
 I saw him frequently at the Wayside, in Concord. 
 He now seemed happy in the dwelling he had put 
 in order for the calm and comfort of his middle 
 and later life. He had added a tower to his house, 
 in which he could be safe from intrusion, and where 
 he could muse arid write. Never was poet or ro 
 mancer more fitly shrined. Druinmond at Haw- 
 thornden, Scott at Abbotsford, Dickens at Gad s 
 Hill, Irving at Siumyside, were not more appro 
 priately sheltered. Shut up in his tower, he could 
 escape from the tumult of life, and be alone with 
 only the birds and the bees in concert outside his 
 casement. The view from this apartment, on every 
 side, was lovely, and Hawthorne enjoyed the charm 
 ing prospect as I have known few men to enjoy 
 nature. 
 
 His favorite walk lay near his house, indeed it 
 was part of his own grounds, a little hillside, 
 
88 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 where he had worn a foot-path, and where he might 
 he found in good weather, when not employed in 
 the tower. While walking to and fro on this hit 
 of rising ground he meditated and composed innu 
 merable romances that were never written, as well 
 as some that were. Here he first announced to me 
 his plan of "The Dolliver Romance," and, from 
 what he told me of his design of the story as it 
 existed in his mind, I thought it would have been 
 the greatest of his books. An enchanting memory 
 is left of that morning when he laid out the whole 
 story before me as he intended to write it. The 
 plot was a grand one, and I tried to tell him how 
 much I was impressed by it. Very soon after our 
 interview, he wrote to me : 
 
 " In compliance with your exhortations, I have begun to 
 think seriously of that story, not, as yet, with a pen in my 
 
 hand, but trudging to and fro on my hill-top I don t 
 
 mean to let you see the first chapters till I have written the 
 final sentence of the story. Indeed, the first chapters of a 
 
 story ought always to be the last written If you 
 
 want me to write a good book, send me a good pen ; not a 
 gold one, for they seldom suit me ; but a pen flexible and 
 capacious of ink, and that will not grow stiff and rheumatic 
 the moment 1 get attached to it. I never met with a good 
 pen in my life." 
 
 Time went on, the war broke out, and he had not 
 the heart to go on with his new Romance. During 
 the month of April, 1862, he made a visit to Wash 
 ington with his friend Ticknor, to whom he was 
 greatly attached. While on this visit to the capital 
 
HAWTHORNE. 91 
 
 he sat to Leutze for a portrait. He took a special 
 fancy to the artist, and, while he was sitting to him, 
 wrote a long letter to me. Here is an extract from 
 it: 
 
 " I stay here only while Leutze finishes a portrait, which 
 I think will be the best ever painted of the same unworthy 
 subject. One charm it must needs have, an aspect of 
 immortal jollity and well-to-do-ness ; for Leutze, when the 
 sitting begins, gives me a first-rate cigar, and when he sees 
 me getting tired, he brings out a bottle of splendid cham 
 pagne ; and we quaffed and smoked yesterday, in a blessed 
 state of mutual good-will, for three hours and a half, during 
 which the picture made a really miraculous progress. Leutze 
 is the best of fellows." 
 
 In the same letter he thus describes the sinking 
 of the Cumberland, and I know of nothing finer in 
 its way : 
 
 " I see in a newspaper that Holmes is going to write a 
 song on the sinking of the Cumberland ; and feeling it to be 
 a subject of national importance, it occurs to me that he 
 might like to know her present condition. She lies with her 
 three masts sticking up out of the water, and careened over, 
 the water being nearly on a level with her maintop, I 
 mean that first landing-place from the deck of the vessel, 
 after climbing the shrouds. The rigging does not appear at 
 all damaged. There is a tattered bit of a pennant, about a 
 foot and a half long, fluttering from the tip-top of one of the 
 masts ; but the flag, the ensign of the ship (which never 
 was struck, thank God), is under water, so as to be quite 
 invisible, being attached to the gaif, I think they call it, of 
 the mizzen-mast ; and though this bald description makes 
 nothing of it, I never saw anything so gloriously forlorn as 
 those three masts. I did not think it was in me to be so 
 
92 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 moved by any spectacle of the kind. Bodies still occasion 
 ally float up from it. The Secretary of the Navy says she 
 shall lie there till she goes to pieces, but I suppose by and 
 by they will sell her to some Yankee for the value of her old 
 iron. 
 
 " P. S. My hair really is not so white as this photograph, 
 which I enclose, makes me. The sun seems to take an in 
 fernal pleasure in making me venerable, as if I were as 
 old as himself." 
 
 Hawthorne has rested so long in the twilight of 
 impersonality, that I hesitate sometimes to reveal 
 the man even to his warmest admirers. This very 
 day Sainte-Beuve has made me feel a fresh reluc 
 tance in unveiling my friend, and there seems almost 
 a reproof in these words, from the eloquent French 
 author : 
 
 " We know nothing or nearly nothing of the life of La 
 Bruyere, and this obscurity adds, it has been remarked, to 
 the effect of his work, and, it may be said, to the piquant 
 happiness of his destiny. If there was not a single line of 
 his unique book, which from the first instant of its publica 
 tion did not appear and remain in the clear light, so, on the 
 other hand, there .was not one individual detail regarding 
 the author which was well known. Every ray of the cen 
 tury fell upon each page of the book, and the face of the 
 man who held it open in his hand was veiled from our 
 sight." 
 
 Beautifully said, as usual with Sainte-Beuve, hut 
 I venture, notwithstanding such eloquent warning, 
 to proceed. 
 
 After his return home from "Washington, Haw- 
 
HAWTHORNE. 93 
 
 thorn e sent to me, during the month of May, an 
 article for the Atlantic Monthly, which he entitled 
 " Chiefly about War-Matters." The paper, excel 
 lently well done throughout, of course, contained a 
 personal description of President Lincoln, which I 
 thought, considered as a portrait of a living man, 
 and drawn by Hawthorne, it would not be wise or 
 tasteful to print. The office of an editor is a dis 
 agreeable one sometimes, and the case of Hawthorne 
 on Lincoln disturbed me not a little. After reading 
 the manuscript, I wrote to the author, and asked 
 his permission to omit his description of the Presi 
 dent s personal appearance. As usual, for he was 
 the kindest and sweetest of contributors, the most 
 good-natured and the most amenable man to advise 
 I ever knew, he consented to my proposal, and 
 allowed me to print the article with the alterations. 
 If any one will turn to the paper in the Atlantic 
 Monthly (it is in the number for July, 1862), it 
 will be observed there are several notes ; all of 
 these were written by Hawthorne himself. He 
 complied with my request without a murmur, but 
 he always thought I was wrong in my decision. 
 He said the whole description of the interview and 
 the President s personal appearance were, to his 
 mind, the only parts of the article worth publish 
 ing. "What a terrible thing," he complained, 
 "it is to try to let off a little bit of truth into this 
 miserable humbug of a world!" President Lin- 
 
94 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 coin is dead, and as Hawthorne once wrote to me, 
 " Upon my honor, it seems to me the passage 
 omitted has an historical value/ I will copy here 
 verbatim what I advised my friend, both on his 
 own account and the President s, not to print nine 
 years ago. Hawthorne and his party had gone into 
 the President s room, annexed, as he says, as super 
 numeraries to a deputation from a Massachusetts 
 whip -factory, with a present of a splendid whip to 
 the Chief Magistrate : 
 
 " By and by there was a little stir on the staircase and in 
 the passageway, and in lounged a tall, loose-jointed figure, 
 of an exaggerated Yankee port and demeanor, whom (as 
 being about the homeliest man I ever saw, yet by no means 
 repulsive or disagreeable) it was impossible not to recog 
 nize as Uncle Abe. 
 
 " Unquestionably, "Western man though he be, and Ken- 
 tuckian by birth, President Lincoln is the essential repre 
 sentative of all Yankees, and the veritable specimen, physi 
 cally, of what the world seems determined to regard as our 
 characteristic qualities. It is the strangest and yet the 
 fittest thing in the jumble of human vicissitudes, that he, 
 out of so many millions, unlocked for, unselected by any 
 intelligible process that could be based upon his genuine 
 qualities, unknown to those who chose him, and unsus 
 pected of what endowments may adapt him for his tre 
 mendous responsibility, should have found the way open 
 for him to fling his lank personality into the chair of state, 
 where, I presume, it was his first impulse to throw his 
 legs on the council-table, and tell the Cabinet Ministers a 
 story. There is no describing his lengthy awkwardness, 
 nor the uncouthness of his movement ; and yet it seemed 
 as if I had been in the habit of seeing him daily, and had 
 shaken hands with him a thousand times in some village 
 
HAWTHORNE. 95 
 
 street ; so true was he to the aspect of the pattern Ameri 
 can, though with a certain extravagance which, possibly, I 
 exaggerated still further by the delighted eagerness with 
 which I took it in. If put to guess his calling and liveli 
 hood, I should have taken him for a country schoolmaster 
 as soon as anything else. He was dressed in a rusty black 
 frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faith 
 fully that the suit had adapted itself to the curves and 
 angularities of his figure, and had grown to be an outer 
 skin of the man. He had shabby slippers on his feet. His 
 hair was black, still unmixed with gray, stiif, somewhat 
 bushy, and had apparently been acquainted with neither 
 brush nor comb that morning, after the disarrangement of 
 the pillow ; and as to a nightcap, Uncle Abe probably knows 
 nothing of such effeminacies. His complexion is dark and 
 sallow, betokening, I fear, an insalubrious atmosphere 
 around the White House ; he has thick black eyebrows and 
 an impending brow ; his nose is large, and the lines about 
 his mouth are very strongly denned. 
 
 " The whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would 
 meet anywhere in the length and breadth of the States ; 
 but, withal, it is redeemed, illuminated, softened, and 
 brightened by a kindly though serious look out of his eyes, 
 and an expression of homely sagacity, that seems weighted 
 with rich results of village experience. A great deal of 
 native sense ; no bookish cultivation, no refinement ; honest 
 at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet in some sort, sly, at 
 least, endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin 
 to craft, and would impel him, I think, to take an antago 
 nist in flank, rather than to make a bull-run at him right in 
 front. But, on the whole, I like this sallow, queer, saga 
 cious visage, with the homely human sympathies that 
 warmed it ; and, for my small share in the matter, would 
 as lief have Uncle Abe for a ruler as any man whom it 
 would have been practicable to put in his place. 
 
 " Immediately on his entrance the President accosted our 
 member of Congress, who had us in charge, and, with a 
 
96 IIAWTHOENE. 
 
 comical twist of his face, made some jocular remark about 
 the length of his breakfast. He then greeted us all round, 
 not waiting for an introduction, but shaking and squeezing 
 everybody s hand with the utmost cordiality, whether the 
 individual s name was announced to him or not. His man 
 ner towards us was wholly without pretence, but yet had 
 a kind of natural dignity, quite sufficient to keep the for- 
 wardest of us from clapping him on the shoulder and asking 
 for a story. A mutual acquaintance being established, our 
 leader took the whip out of its case, and began to read the 
 address of presentation. The whip was an exceedingly 
 long one, its handle wrought in ivory (by some artist in the 
 Massachusetts State Prison, I believe), and ornamented 
 with a medallion of the President, and other equally beau 
 tiful devices ; and along its whole length there was a suc 
 cession of golden bands and ferrules. The address was 
 shorter than the whip, but equally well made, consisting 
 chiefly of an explanatory description of these artistic de 
 signs, and closing with a hint that the gift was a suggestive 
 and emblematic one, and that the President would recog 
 nize the use to which such an instrument should be put. 
 
 " This suggestion gave Uncle Abe rather a delicate task 
 in his reply, because, slight as the matter seemed, it ap 
 parently called for some declaration, or intimation, or faint 
 foreshadowing of policy in reference to the conduct of the 
 war, and the final treatment of the Rebels. But the Presi 
 dent s Yankee aptness and not-to-be-caught-ness stood him 
 in good stead, and he jerked or wiggled himself out of the 
 dilemma with an uncouth derterity that was entirely in 
 character ; although, without his gesticulation of eye and 
 mouth, and especially the flourish of the \vhip, with which 
 he imagined himself touching up a pair of fat horses, I 
 doubt whether his words would be worth recording, even 
 if I could remember them. The gist of the reply was, that 
 he accepted the whip as an emblem of peace, not punish 
 ment; and, this great affair over, we retired out of the 
 presence in high good-humor, only regretting that we could 
 
HAWTHORNE. 97 
 
 not have seen the President sit down and fold up his legs 
 (which is said to be a most extraordinary spectacle), or have 
 heard him tell one of those delectable stories for which lie 
 is so celebrated. A good many of them are afloat upon the 
 common talk of Washington, and are certainly the aptest, 
 pitliiest, and funniest little things imaginable; though, to 
 be sure, they smack of the frontier freedom, and would not 
 always bear repetition in a drawing-room, or on the im 
 maculate page of the Atlantic." 
 
 So runs the passage which caused some good- 
 natured discussion nine years ago, between the con 
 tributor and the editor. Perhaps I was squeamish 
 not to have been willing to print this matter at 
 that time. Some persons, no doubt, will adopt that 
 opinion, but as both President and author have long 
 ago met on the other side of criticism and maga 
 zines, we will leave the subject to their decision, 
 they being most interested in the transaction. I 
 did what seemed best in 1862. In 1871 "circum 
 stances have changed " with both parties, and I 
 venture to-day what I hardly dared then. 
 
 Whenever I look at Hawthorne s portrait, and 
 that is pretty often, some new trait or anecdote or 
 reminiscence comes up and clamors to be made 
 known to those who feel an interest in it. But 
 time and eternity call loudly for mortal gossip 
 to be brief, and I must hasten to my last session 
 over that child of genius, who first saw the light on 
 the 4th of July, 1804. 
 4 
 
98 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 One of his favorite books was Lockhart s Life 
 of Sir Walter Scott, and in 1862 I dedicated to 
 him the Household Edition of that work. When 
 he received the first volume, he wrote to me a letter 
 of which I am so proud that I keep it among my 
 best treasures. 
 
 " I am exceedingly gratified by the dedication. I do not 
 deserve so high an honor ; but if you think me worthy, it 
 is enough to make the compliment in the highest degree 
 acceptable, no matter who may dispute my title to it. I 
 care more for your good opinion than for that of a host of 
 critics, and have an excellent reason for so doing; inas 
 much as my literary success, whatever it has been or may 
 be, is the result of my connection with you. Somehow or 
 other you smote the rock of public sympathy on my behalf, 
 and a stream gushed forth in sufficient quantity to quench 
 my thirst though not to drown me. I think no author can 
 ever have had publisher that he valued so much as I do 
 mine." 
 
 He began in 1862 to send me some articles from 
 his English Journal for the Atlantic magazine, which 
 he afterwards collected into a volume and called 
 " Our Old Home." On forwarding one for Decem 
 ber of that year he says : 
 
 " I hope you will like it, for the subject seemed interest 
 ing ! to me when I was on the spot, but I always feel a 
 singular despondency and heaviness of heart in reopening 
 those old journals now. However, if I can make readable 
 sketches out of them, it is no matter." 
 
 In the same letter he tells me he has been re 
 reading Scott s Life, and he suggests some additions 
 to the concluding volume. He says : 
 
HAWTHORNE. 99 
 
 "If the last volume is not already printed and stereo 
 typed, I think you ought to insert in it an explanation of 
 all that is left mysterious in the former volumes, the 
 name and family of the lady he was in love with, etc. It 
 is desirable, too, to know what have been the fortunes and 
 final catastrophes of his family and intimate friends since 
 his death, down to as recent a period as the death of Lock- 
 hart. All such matter would make your edition more 
 valuable; and I see no reason why you should be bound 
 by the deference to living connections of the family that 
 may prevent the English publishers from inserting these 
 particulars. We stand in the light of posterity to them, 
 
 and have the privileges of posterity I should be 
 
 glad to know something of the personal character and life 
 of his eldest son, and whether (as I have heard) he was 
 ashamed of his father for being a literary man. In short, 
 fifty pages devoted to such elucidation would make the 
 edition unique. Do come and see us before the leaves 
 fall." 
 
 While he was engaged in copying out and re 
 writing his papers on England for the magazine he 
 was despondent about their reception by the public. 
 Speaking of them, one day, to me, he said : " We 
 must remember that there is a good deal of intel 
 lectual ice mingled with this wine of memory." 
 He was sometimes so dispirited during the war that 
 he was obliged to postpone his contributions for 
 sheer lack of spirit to go on. Near the close of 
 the year 1862 he writes : 
 
 "I am delighted at what you tell me about the kind 
 appreciation of my articles, for I feel rather gloomy about 
 them myself. I am really much encouraged by what you 
 say ; not but what I am sensible that you mollify me with 
 
100 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 a good deal of soft soap, but it is skilfully applied and 
 
 effects all you intend it should I cannot come to 
 
 Boston to spend more than a day, just at present. It would 
 suit me better to come for a visit when the spring of next 
 year is a little advanced, and if you renew your hospitable 
 proposition then, I shall probably be glad to accept it ; 
 though 1 have now been a hermit so long, that the thought 
 affects me somewhat as it would to invite a lobster or a 
 crab to step out of his shell." 
 
 He continued, during the early months of 1863, 
 to send now and then an article for the magazine 
 from his English Note-Books. On the 22d of 
 February he writes : 
 
 "Here is another article. I wish it would not be so 
 wretchedly long, but there are many things which I shall 
 find no opportunity to say unless I say them now ; so the 
 article grows under my hand, and one part of it seems just 
 about as well worth printing as another. Heaven sees tit 
 to visit me with an unshakable conviction that all this 
 series of articles is good for nothing ; but that is none of 
 my business, provided the public and you are of a different 
 opinion. If you think any part of it can be left out with 
 advantage, you are quite at liberty to do so. Probably I 
 have not put Leigh Hunt quite high enough for your senti 
 ments respecting him ; but no more genuine characteriza 
 tion and criticism (so far as the writer s purpose to be true 
 goes) was ever done. It is very slight. I might have made 
 more of it, but should not have improved it. 
 
 " I mean to write two more of these articles, and then 
 hold my hand. I intend to come to Boston before the end 
 of this week, if the weather is good. It must be nearly or 
 quite six months since I was there ! I wonder how many 
 people there are in the world who would keep their nerves 
 in tolerably good order through such a length of nearly 
 solitary imprisonment ? " 
 
HAWTHORNE. 101 
 
 I advised him to begin to put the series in order 
 for a volume, and to preface the book with his 
 " Consular Experiences." On the 18th of April he 
 writes : 
 
 " I don t think the public will hear any more of this sort 
 
 of thing I had a letter from , the other day, in 
 
 which he sends me the enclosed verses, and I think he 
 would like to have them published in the Atlantic. Do it 
 if you like, I pretend to no judgment in poetry. He also 
 
 sent this epithalamium by Mrs. , and I doubt not the 
 
 good lady will be pleased to see it copied into one of our 
 American newspapers with a few laudatory remarks. Can t 
 you do it in the Transcript, and send her a copy ? You 
 cannot imagine how a little praise jollifies us poor authors 
 to the marrow of our bones. Consider, if you had not 
 been a publisher, you would certainly have been one of our 
 wretched tribe, and therefore ought to have a fellow-feel 
 ing for us. Let Michael Angelo write the remarks, if you 
 have not the time." 
 
 (" Michael Angelo " was a clever little Irish-boy 
 who had the care of my room. Hawthorne con 
 ceived a fancy for the lad, and liked to hear stories 
 of his smart replies to persistent authors who called 
 during my absence with unpromising-looking manu 
 scripts.) On the 30th of April he writes : 
 
 " I send the article with which the volume is to com 
 mence, and you can begin printing it whenever you like. 
 I can think of no better title than this, Our Old Home; a 
 Series of English Sketches, by, etc. I submit to your 
 judgment whether it would not be well to print these 
 Consular Experiences in the volume without depriving 
 them of any freshness they may have by previous publica 
 tion in the magazine ? 
 
 /f ^ OF THE 
 
102 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 " The article has some of the features that attract the 
 curiosity of the foolish public, being made up of personal 
 narrative and gossip, with a few pungencies of personal 
 satire, which will not be the less effective because the 
 reader can scarcely find out who was the individual meant. 
 I am not without hope of drawing down upon myself a 
 good deal of critical severity on this score, and would 
 gladly incur more of it if I could do so without seriously 
 deserving censure. 
 
 " The story of the Doctor of Divinity, I think, will prove 
 a good card in this way. It is every bit true (like the other 
 anecdotes), only not told so darkly as it might have been 
 for the reverend gentleman. I do not believe there is any 
 danger of his identity being ascertained, and do not care 
 whether it is or no, as it could only be done by the imperti 
 nent researches of other people. It seems to me quite 
 essential to have some novelty in the collected volume, and, 
 if possible, something that may excite a little discussion 
 and remark. But decide for yourself and me ; and if you 
 conclude not to publish it in the magazine, I think I can 
 concoct another article in season for the August number, if 
 you wish. After the publication of the volume, it seems to 
 me the public had better have no more of them. 
 
 " J has been telling us a mythical story of your in 
 tending to walk with him from Cambridge to Concord. We 
 should be delighted to see you, though more for our own 
 sakes than yours, for our aspect here is still a little winter- 
 ish. When you come, let it be on Saturday, and stay till 
 Monday. I am hungry to talk with you." 
 
 I was enchanted, of course, with the " Consular 
 Experiences," and find from his letters, written at 
 that time, that he was made specially happy hy the 
 encomiums I could not help sending upon that 
 inimitable sketch. When the " Old Home " was 
 nearly all in type, he began to think about a 
 
HAWTHORNE. 103 
 
 dedication to the book. On the 3d of May he 
 
 writes : 
 
 " I am of three minds about dedicating the volume. First, 
 it seems due to Frank Pierce (as he put me into the position 
 where I made all those profound observations of English 
 scenery, life, and character) to inscribe it to him with a few 
 pages of friendly and explanatory talk, which also would be 
 very gratifying to my own lifelong affection for him. 
 
 " Secondly, I want to say something to Bennoch to show 
 him that I am thoroughly mindful of all his hospitality and 
 kindness ; and I suppose he might be pleased to see his 
 name at the head of a book of mine. 
 
 " Thirdly, I am not convinced that it is worth while to in 
 scribe it to anybody. We will see hereafter." 
 
 The book moved on slowly through the press, and 
 he seemed more than commonly nervous about the 
 proof-sheets. On the 28th of May he says in a 
 note to me : 
 
 " In the proof-sheet of Our Old Home which I sent you 
 to-day (page 43, or 4, or 5 or thereabout) I corrected a line 
 thus, possessing a happy faculty of seeing my own inter 
 est. Now as the public interest was my sole and individual 
 object while I held office, I think that as a matter of scanty 
 justice to myself, the line ought to stand thus, possessing 
 a happy faculty of seeing my own interest and the public s. 
 Even then, you see, I only give myself credit for half the 
 disinterestedness I really felt. Pray, by all means, have it 
 altered as above, even if the page is stereotyped ; which it 
 can t have been, as the proof is now r in the Concord post- 
 office, and you will have it at the same time with this. 
 
 " We are getting into full leaf here, and your walk with 
 J might come off any time." 
 
104 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 An arrangement was made with the liberal house 
 of Smith and Elder of London, to bring out " Our 
 Old Home " on the same day of its publication in 
 Boston. On the 1st of July Hawthorne wrote to 
 me from the Wayside as follows : 
 
 " I am delighted with Smith and Elder, or rather with 
 you ; for it is you that squeeze the English sovereigns out 
 of the poor devils. On my own behalf I never could have 
 thought of asking more than 50, and should hardly have 
 expected to get 10; I look upon the 180 as the only 
 trustworthy funds I have, our own money being of such a 
 gaseous consistency. By the time I can draw for it, I ex 
 pect it will be worth at least fifteen hundred dollars. 
 
 " I shall think over the prefatory matter for Our Old 
 Home to-day, and will w r rite it to-morrow. It requires 
 some little thought and policy in order to say nothing amiss 
 at this time ; for I intend to dedicate the book to Frank 
 Pierce, come what may. It shall reach you on Friday 
 morning. 
 
 " We find a comfortable and desirable guest to have 
 
 in the house. My wife likes her hugely, and for my part, I 
 had no idea that there was such a sensible woman of letters 
 in the world. She is just as healthy-minded as if she had 
 never touched a pen. I am glad she had a pleasant time, 
 and hope she will come back. 
 
 " I mean to come to Boston whenever I can be sure of a 
 cool day. 
 
 " What a prodigious length of time you stayed among the 
 mountains ! 
 
 " You ought not to assume such liberties of absence with 
 out the consent of your friends, which I hardly think you 
 would get. I, at least, want you always within attainable 
 distance, even though I never see you. Why can t you 
 come and stay a day or two with us, and drink some spruce 
 beer?" 
 
HAWTHORNE. 105 
 
 Those were troublous days, full of war gloom and 
 general despondency. The North was naturally 
 suspicious of all public men who did not bear a 
 conspicuous part in helping to put down the Rebel 
 lion. General Pierce had been President of the 
 United States, and was not identified, to say the 
 least, with the great party which favored the vig 
 orous prosecution of the war. Hawthorne pro 
 posed to dedicate his new book to a very dear 
 friend, indeed, but in doing so he would draw 
 public attention in a marked way to an unpopular 
 name. Several of Hawthorne s friends, on learn 
 ing that he intended to inscribe his book to Frank 
 lin Pierce, came to me and begged that I would, if 
 possible, help Hawthorne to see that he ought not 
 to do anything to jeopardize the currency of his 
 new volume. Accordingly I wrote to him, just 
 what many of his friends had said to me, and this 
 is his reply to my letter, which bears date the 18th 
 of July, 1863 : 
 
 " I thank you for your note of the 15th instant, and have 
 delayed my reply thus long in order to ponder deeply on 
 youi advice, smoke cigars over it, and see what it might be 
 possible for me to do towards taking it. I find that it would 
 be a piece of poltroonery in me to withdraw either the dedi 
 cation or the dedicatory letter. My long and intimate per 
 sonal relations with Pierce render the dedication altogether 
 proper, especially as regards this book, which would have 
 had no existence without his kindness ; and 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 
 
106 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 should stand by him. I cannot, merely on account of pecun 
 iary profit or literary reputation, go back from what 1 have 
 deliberately felt and thought it rigut to do; and if I were to 
 tear out the dedication, I should never look at the volume 
 again without remorse and shame. As for the literary pub 
 lic, it must accept my book precisely as I think fit to give it, 
 or let it alone. 
 
 " Nevertheless, I have no fancy for making myself a 
 martyr when it is honorably and conscientiously possible to 
 avoid it ; and I always measure out my heroism very accu 
 rately according to the exigencies of the occasion, and should 
 be the last man in the world to throw away a bit of it need 
 lessly. So I have looked over the concluding paragraph and 
 have amended it in such a way that, while doing what I 
 know to be justice to my friend, it contains not a word that 
 ought to be objectionable to any set of readers. If the pub 
 lic of the North see fit to ostracize me for this, I can only 
 say that I would gladly sacrifice a thousand or two of dollars 
 rather than retain the good-will of such a herd of dolts and 
 mean-spirited scoundrels. I enclose the rewritten para 
 graph, and shall wish to see a proof of that and the whole 
 dedication. 
 
 " I had a call from an Englishman yesterday, and kept 
 him to dinner ; not the threatened , but a Mr. , in 
 troduced by . He says he knows you, and he seems to 
 
 be a very good fellow. I have strong hopes that he will 
 
 never come back here again, for J took him on a walk 
 
 of several miles, whereby they both caught a most tremen 
 dous ducking, and the poor Englishman was frightened half 
 
 to death by the thunder On the other page is the list 
 
 of presentation people, and it amounts to twenty-four, -which 
 your liberality and kindness allow me. As likely as not I 
 have forgotten two or three, and I held my pen suspended 
 over one or two of the names, doubting whether they de 
 served of me so especial a favor as a portion of my heart and 
 brain. I have few friends. Some authors, I should think, 
 would require half the edition for private distribution." 
 
HAWTHORNE. 107 
 
 " Our Old Home " was published in the autumn 
 of 1863, and although it was everywhere welcomed, 
 in England the strictures were applied with a 
 liberal hand. On the 18th of October he writes 
 to me : 
 
 " You sent me the Reader with a notice of the book, 
 and 1 have received one or two others, one of them from 
 Bennoch. The English critics seem to think me very bitter 
 against their countrymen, and it is, perhaps, natural that 
 they should, because their self-conceit can accept nothing 
 short of indiscriminate adulation ; but I really think that 
 Americans have more cause than they to complain of me. 
 Looking over the volume, I am rather surprised to find that 
 whenever I draw a comparison between the two people, I 
 almost invariably cast the balance against ourselves. It is 
 not a good nor a weighty book, nor does it deserve any great 
 amount either of praise or censure. I don t care about see 
 ing any more notices of it." 
 
 Meantime the " Dolliver Romance," which had 
 been laid aside on account of the exciting scenes 
 through which we were then passing, and which 
 unfitted him for the composition of a work of the 
 imagination, made little progress. In a note written 
 to me at this time he says : 
 
 " I can t tell you when to expect an instalment of the 
 Romance, if ever. There is something preternatural in my 
 reluctance to begin. I linger at the threshold, and have a 
 perception of very disagreeable phantasms to be encountered 
 if I enter. I wish God had given me the faculty of writing 
 a sunshiny book." 
 
 I invited him to come to Boston and have a 
 cheerftil week among his old friends, and threw 
 
108 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 in as an inducement a hint that he should hear the 
 great organ in the Music Hall. I also suggested 
 that we could talk over the new Romance together, 
 if he would gladden us all by coming to the city. 
 Instead of coming, he sent this reply : 
 
 " I thank you for your kind invitation to hear the grand 
 instrument ; but it offers me no inducement additional to 
 what I should always have for a visit to your abode. I 
 have no ear for an organ or a je\vs-harp, nor for any instru 
 ment between the two ; so you had better invite a worthier 
 guest, and I will come another time. 
 
 " I don t see much probability of my having the first chap 
 ter of the Romance ready so soon as you want it. There are 
 two or three chapters ready to be written, but I am not yet 
 robust enough to begin, and I feel as if I should never carry 
 it through. 
 
 "Besides, I want to prefix a little sketch of Thoreau to it, 
 because, from a tradition which he told me about this house 
 of mine, I got the idea of a deathless man, which is now tak 
 ing a shape very different from the original one. It seems 
 the duty of a live literary man to perpetuate the memory of 
 a dead one, when there is such fair opportunity as in this 
 case . but how Thoreau would scorn me for thinking that / 
 could perpetuate him ! And I don t think so. 
 
 " I can think of no title for the unborn Romance. Always 
 heretofore I have waited till it was quite complete before 
 attempting to name it, and I fear I shall have to do so now. 
 I wish you or Mrs. Fields would suggest one. Perhaps you 
 may snatch a title out of the infinite void that will mirac 
 ulously suit the book, and give me a needful impetus to 
 write it. 
 
 " I want a great deal of money I wonder how peo 
 ple manage to live economically. I seem to spend little or 
 nothing, and yet it will get very far beyond the second thou 
 sand, for the present year If it were not for these 
 
HAWTHORNE. 109 
 
 troublesome necessities, I doubt whether you would ever 
 see so much as the first chapter of the new Romance. 
 
 " Those verses entitled Weariness, in the last magazine, 
 seem to me profoundly touching. I too am weary, and be 
 gin to look ahead for the Wayside Inn." 
 
 I had frequent accounts of his ill health and 
 changed appearance, but I supposed he would rally 
 again soon, and become hale and strong before the 
 winter fairly set in. But the shadows even then 
 were about his pathway, and Allan Cunningham s 
 lines, which he once quoted to me, must often have 
 occurred to him, - 
 
 " Cauld s the snaw at my head, 
 And cauld at my feet, 
 And the finger o death s at my een, 
 Closing them to sleep." 
 
 We had arranged together that the " Dolliver 
 Romance " should be first published in the maga 
 zine, in monthly instalments, and we decided to 
 begin in the January number of 1864. On the 
 8th of November came a long letter from him : 
 
 " I foresee that there is little probability of my getting 
 the first chapter ready by the 15th, although I have a reso 
 lute purpose to write it by the end of the month. It will 
 be in time for the February number, if it turns out fit for 
 publication at all. As to the title, we must defer settling 
 that till the book is fully written, and meanwhile I see 
 nothing better than to call the series of articles Fragments 
 of a Iloniance. This will leave me to exercise greater free 
 dom as to the mechanism of the story than I otherwise can, 
 and without which I shall probably get entangled in my 
 
110 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 own plot. "When the work is completed in the magazine, I 
 can fill up the gaps and make straight the crookednesses, 
 and christen it with a fresh title. In this untried experi 
 ment of a serial work I desire not to pledge myself, or prom 
 ise the public more than I may confidently expect to achieve. 
 As regards the sketch of Thoreau, I am not ready to write 
 it yet, but will mix him up with the life of the Wayside, 
 and produce an autobiographical preface for the finished 
 Romance. If the public like that sort of stuff, I too find it 
 pleasant and easy writing, and can supply a new chapter of 
 it for every new volume, and that, moreover, without in 
 fringing upon my proper privacy. An old Quaker wrote me, 
 the other day, that he had been reading my Introduction to 
 the Mosses and the Scarlet Letter, and felt as if he 
 knew me better than his best friend ; but I think he con 
 siderably overestimates the extent of his intimacy with me. 
 
 " I received several private letters and printed notices of 
 Our Old Home from England. It is laughable to see the 
 innocent wonder with which they regard my criticisms, ac 
 counting for them by jaundice, insanity, jealousy, hatred, on 
 my part, and never admitting the least suspicion that there 
 may be a particle of truth in them. The monstrosity of their 
 self-conceit is such that anything short of unlimited admi 
 ration impresses them as malicious caricature. But they 
 do me great injustice in supposing that I hate them. I 
 would as soon hate my own people. 
 
 " Tell Ticknor that I want a hundred dollars more, and I 
 suppose I shall keep on wanting more and more till the end 
 of my days. If I subside into the almshouse before my in 
 tellectual faculties are quite extinguished, it strikes me that 
 I would make a very pretty book out of it ; and, seriously, 
 if I alone were concerned, I should not have any great ob 
 jection to winding up there." 
 
 On the 14th of November came a pleasant little 
 note from him, which seemed to have been written 
 
HAWTHORNE. Ill 
 
 in better spirits than he had shown of late. Photo 
 graphs of himself always amused him greatly, and 
 in the little note I refer to there is this pleasant 
 passage : 
 
 " Here is the photograph, a grandfatherly old figure 
 enough j and I suppose that is the reason why you select 
 it. 
 
 " I am much in want of cartes de vislte to distribute on 
 my own account, and am tired and disgusted with all the 
 undesirable likenesses as yet presented of me. Don t you 
 think 1 might sell my head to some photographer who would 
 be willing to return me the value in small change ; that is 
 to say, in a dozen or two of cards ? " 
 
 The first part of Chapter I. of " The Dolliver 
 Romance " came to me from the Wayside on the 
 1st of December. Hawthorne was very anxious to 
 see it in type as soon as possible, in order that he 
 might compose the rest in a similar strain, and so 
 conclude the preliminary phase of Dr. Dolliver. 
 He was constantly imploring me to send him a 
 good pen, complaining all the while that every 
 thing had failed him in that line. In one of his 
 notes begging me to hunt him up something that 
 he could write with, he says : 
 
 " Nobody ever suffered more from pens than I have, and 
 I am glad that my labor with the abominable little tool is 
 drawing to a close." 
 
 In the month of December Hawthorne attended 
 the funeral of Mrs. Franklin Pierce, and, after the 
 
112 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 ceremony, came to stay with us. He seemed ill 
 and more nervous than usual. He said he found 
 General Pierce greatly needing his companionship, 
 for he was overwhelmed with grief at the loss of 
 his wife. I well remember the sadness of Haw 
 thorne s face when he told us he felt obliged to 
 look on the dead. " It was," said he, " like a 
 carven image laid in its richly embossed enclosure, 
 and there was a remote expression about it as if 
 the whole had nothing to do with things present." 
 He told us, as an instance of the ever-constant 
 courtesy of his friend General Pierce, that while 
 they were standing at the grave, the General, 
 though completely overcome with his own sorrow, 
 turned and drew up the collar of Hawthorne s coat 
 to shield him from the bitter cold. 
 
 The same day, as the sunset deepened and we sat 
 together, Hawthorne began to talk in an autobio 
 graphical vein, and gave us the story of his early 
 life, of which I have already written somewhat. 
 He said at an early age he accompanied his mother 
 and sister to the township in Maine, w r hich his 
 grandfather had purchased. That, he continued, 
 was the happiest period of his life, and it lasted 
 through several years, when he was sent to school 
 in Salem. " I lived in Maine," he said, "like a 
 bird of the air, so perfect was the freedom I en 
 joyed. But it was there I first got my cursed 
 habits of solitude." During the moonlight nights 
 
HAWTHORNE. 113 
 
 of winter lie 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 exer 
 tion 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 sum 
 mer days also, when, with my gun, I roamed at 
 will through the woods of Maine. How sad mid 
 dle life looks to people of erratic temperaments! 
 Everything is beautiful in youth, for all things are 
 allowed to it then." 
 
 The early home of the Hawthornes in Maine 
 must have been a lonely dwelling-place indeed. A 
 year ago (May 12, 1870) the old place was visited by 
 one who had a true feeling for Hawthorne s genius, 
 and who thus graphically described the spot : 
 
 " A little way off the main-travelled road in the town of 
 liaymond there stood an old house which has much in com 
 mon with houses of its day, but which is distinguished from 
 them by the more evident marks of neglect and decay. Its 
 impainted walls are deeply stained by time. Cornice and 
 window-ledge and threshold are fast falling with the weight 
 of years. The fences were long since removed from all the 
 enclosures, the garden-wall is broken down, and the garden 
 itself is now grown up to pines whose shadows fall dark 
 and heavy upon the old and mossy roof; fitting roof-trees 
 for such a mansion, planted there by the hands of Nature 
 
114* HAWTHORNE. 
 
 herself, as if she could not realize that her darling child was 
 ever to go out from his early home. The highway once 
 passed its door, but the location of the road has been 
 changed; and now the old house stands solitarily apart 
 from the busy world. Longer than I can remember, and I 
 have never learned how long, this house has stood unten- 
 anted and wholly unused, except, for a few years, as a place 
 of public worship ; but, for myself, and for all who know 
 its earlier history, it will ever have the deepest interest, for 
 it was the early home of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
 
 " Often have I, when passing through that town, turned 
 aside to study the features of that landscape, and to reflect 
 upon the influence which his surroundings had upon the 
 development of this author s genius. A few rods to the 
 north runs a little mill-streani, its sloping bank once cov 
 ered with grass, now so worn and washed by the rains as 
 to show but little except yellow sand. Less than half a mile 
 to the west, this stream empties into an arm of Sebago 
 Lake. Doubtless, at the time the house was built, the forest 
 was so much cut away in that direction as to bring into view 
 the waters of the lake, for a mill was built upon the brook 
 about half-way down the valley, and it is reasonable to sup 
 pose that a clearing was made from the mill to the landing 
 upon the shore of the pond ; but the pines have so far 
 regained their old dominion as completely to shut out the 
 whole prospect in that direction. Indeed, the site aifords 
 but a limited survey, except to the northwest. Across a 
 narrow valley in that direction lie open fields and dark pine- 
 covered slopes. Beyond these rise long ranges of forest- 
 crowned hills, while in the far distance every hue of rock and 
 tree, of field and grove, melts into the soft blue of Mount 
 Washington. The spot must ever have had the utter lone 
 liness of the pine forests upon the borders of our northern 
 lakes. The deep silence and dark shadows of the old woods 
 must have filled the imagination of a youth possessing 
 Hawthorne s sensibility with images which later years 
 could not dispel. 
 
HAWTHOKNE. 115 
 
 " To this place came the widowed mother of Hawthorne 
 in company with her brother, an original proprietor and 
 one of the early settlers of the town of Raymond. This 
 house was built for her, and here she lived with her son for 
 several years in the most complete seclusion. Perhaps she 
 strove to conceal here a grief which she could not forget. 
 In what way, and to what extent, the surroundings of his 
 boyhood operated in moulding the character and develop 
 ing the genius of that gifted author, I leave to the reader 
 to determine. I have tried simply to draw a faithful pic 
 ture of his early home." 
 
 On the 15th of December Hawthorne wrote to 
 me : 
 
 " I have not yet had courage to read the Dolliver proof- 
 sheet, but will set about it soon, though with terrible 
 
 reluctance, such as I never felt before I am most 
 
 grateful to you for protecting me from that visitation of the 
 
 elephant and his cub. If you happen to see Mr. of 
 
 L , a young man who was here last summer, pray tell 
 
 him anything that your conscience will let you, to induce 
 him to spare me another visit, which I know he intended. 
 I really am not well and cannot be disturbed by strangers 
 without more suffering than it is worth while to endure. 
 
 I thank Mrs. F and yourself for your kind hospitality, 
 
 past and prospective. I never come to see you without 
 feeling the better for it, but I must not test so precious a 
 remedy too often." 
 
 The new year found him incapacitated from writ 
 ing much on the Romance. On the 17th of January, 
 1864, he says : 
 
 " I am not quite up to writing yet, but shall make an 
 effort as soon as I see any hope of success. You ought to 
 be thankful that (like most other broken-down authors) I 
 do not pester you with decrepit pages, and insist upon your 
 
116 HAWTHOENE. 
 
 accepting them as full of the old spirit and vigor. That 
 trouble, perhaps, still awaits you, after I shall have reached 
 a further stage of decay. 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. Perhaps I shall have 
 a new spirit of vigor, if I wait quietly for it; perhaps not." 
 
 The end of February found him in a mood which 
 is best indicated in this letter, which he addressed 
 to me on the 25th of the month : 
 
 " I hardly know what to say to the public about this abor 
 tive Romance, though I know pretty well what the case will 
 be. I shall never finish it. Yet it is not quite pleasant for 
 an author to announce himself, or to he announced, as finally 
 broken down as to his literary faculty. It is a pity that I 
 let you put this work in your programme for the year, for 
 I had always a presentiment that it would fail us at the 
 pinch. Say to the public what you think best, and as 
 little as possible; for example : We regret that Mr. Haw 
 thorne s Romance, announced for this magazine some months 
 ago, still lies upon the author s writing-table; he having 
 been interrupted in his labor upon it by an impaired state 
 of health ; or, We are sorry to hear (but know not 
 whether the public will share our grief) that Mr. Haw 
 thorne is out of health and is thereby prevented, for the 
 present, from proceeding with another of his promised (or 
 threatened) Romances, intended for this magazine ; or, 
 Mr. Hawthorne s brain is addled at last, and, much to our 
 satisfaction, he tells us that he cannot possibly go on with 
 the Romance announced on the cover of the January maga 
 zine. We consider him finally shelved, and shall take early 
 occasion to bury him under a heavy article, carefully sum 
 ming up his merits (such as they were) and his demerits, 
 what few of them can be touched upon in our limited 
 space ; or, We shall commence the publication of Mr. 
 Hawthorne s Romance as soon as that gentleman chooses 
 
HAWTHORNE. 117 
 
 to forward it. "We are quite at a loss how to account for 
 this delay in the fulfilment of his contract; especially as 
 he has already been most liberally paid for the first num 
 ber. Say anything you like, in short, though I really don t 
 believe that the public will care what you say or whether 
 you say anything. If you choose, you may publish the 
 first chapter as an insulated fragment, and charge me with 
 the overpayment. 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 mean to come to Boston soon, not for a week but for a 
 single day, and then I can talk about my sanitary pros 
 pects more freely than I choose to write. I am not low- 
 spirited, nor fanciful, nor freakish, but look what seem to 
 be realities in the face, and am ready to take whatever 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. 
 
 " This letter is for your own eye, and I wish especially 
 that no echo of it may come back in your notes to me. 
 
 " P. S. Give my kindest regards to Mrs. F , and tell 
 
 her that one of my choicest ideal places is her drawing- 
 room, and therefore I seldom visit it." 
 
 On Monday, the 28th of March, Hawthorne 
 came to town and made my house his first station 
 on a journey to the South for health. I was greatly 
 shocked at his invalid appearance, and he seemed 
 quite deaf. The light in his eye was beautiful as 
 ever, but his limbs seemed shrunken and his usual 
 stalwart vigor utterly gone. He said to me with a 
 pathetic voice, " Why does Nature treat us like 
 little children ! I think we could bear it all if we 
 
118 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 knew our fate ; at least it would not make much 
 difference to me now what became of me." Toward 
 night he brightened up a little, and his delicious 
 wit flashed out, at intervals, as of old ; but he was 
 evidently broken and dispirited about his health. 
 Looking out on the bay that was sparkling in the 
 moonlight, he said he thought the moon rather lost 
 something of its charm for him as he grew older. 
 He spoke with great delight of a little story, called 
 " Pet Marjorie," and said he had read it carefully 
 through twice, every word of it. He had much 
 to say about England, and observed, among other 
 things, that " the extent over which her dominions 
 are spread leads her to fancy herself stronger than 
 she really is ; but she is not to-day a powerful em 
 pire ; she is much like a squash-vine, which runs 
 over a whole garden, but, if you cut it at the root, 
 it is at once destroyed." At breakfast, next morn 
 ing, he spoke of his kind neighbors in Concord, and 
 said Alcott was one of the most excellent men he 
 had ever known. " It is impossible to quarrel with 
 him, for he would take all your harsh words like a 
 saint." 
 
 He left us shortly after this for a journey to 
 Washington, with his friend Mr. Ticknor. The trav 
 ellers spent several days in New York, and then 
 proceeded to Philadelphia. Hawthorne wrote to 
 me from the Continental Hotel, dating his letter 
 " Satuwlay evening," announcing the severe illness 
 
HAWTHORNE. 119 
 
 of his companion. He did not seem to anticipate 
 a fatal result, but on Sunday morning the news 
 came that Mr. Ticknor was dead. Hawthorne re 
 turned at once to Boston, and stayed here over 
 night. He was in a very excited and nervous state, 
 and talked incessantly of the sad scenes he had just 
 been passing through. We sat late together, con 
 versing of the friend we had lost, and I am sure he 
 hardly closed his eyes that night. In the morning 
 he went back to his own home in Concord. 
 
 His health, from that time, seemed to give way 
 rapidly, and in the middle of May his friend, Gen 
 eral Pierce, proposed that they should go among 
 the New Hampshire hills together and meet the 
 spring there. 
 
 The first letter we received from Mrs. Haw 
 thorne * after her husband s return to Concord in 
 
 * As I write this paragraph, my friend, the Reverend 
 James Freeman Clarke, puts into my hand the following 
 note, which Hawthorne sent to him nearly thirty years 
 ago : 
 
 64 PINCKNEY STREET, Friday, July 8, 1842. 
 
 MY DEAR SIR, Though personally a stranger to you, I 
 am about to request of you the greatest favor which I can 
 receive from any man. "I am to be married to Miss Sophia 
 Peabody ; and it is our mutual desire that you should per 
 form the ceremony. Unless it should be decidedly a rainy 
 day, a carriage will call for you at half past eleven o clock 
 in the forenoon. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 NATH. HAWTHORNE. 
 
 REV. JAMES F. CLARKE, Chestnut Street. 
 
120 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 April gave us great anxiety. It was dated " Mon 
 day eve," and here are some extracts from it : 
 
 " I have just sent Mr. Hawthorne to bed, and so have a 
 moment to speak to you. Generally it has been late and I 
 have not liked to disturb him by sitting up after him, and 
 so I could not write since he returned, though I wished 
 very much to tell you about him,ever since he came home. 
 He came back unlocked for that day ; and when I heard a 
 step on the piazza, I was lying on a couch and feeling quite 
 indisposed. But as soon as I saw him I was frightened out 
 of all knowledge of myself, so haggard, so white, so deeply 
 scored with pain and fatigue was the face, so much more 
 ill he looked than I ever saw him before. He had walked 
 from the station because he saw no carriage there, and his 
 brow was streaming with a perfect rain, so great had been 
 
 the effort to walk so far He needed much to get 
 
 home to me, where he could fling off all care of himself and 
 give way to his feelings, pent up and kept back for so long, 
 especially since his watch and ward of most excellent, kind 
 Mr. Ticknor. It relieved him somewhat to break down as 
 
 he spoke of that scene But he was so weak and weary 
 
 he could not sit up much, and lay on the couch nearly all 
 the time in a kind of uneasy somnolency, not wishing to be 
 read to even, not able to attend or fix his thoughts at all. 
 On Saturday he unfortunately took cold, and, after a most 
 restless night, was seized early in the morning with a very 
 bad stiff neck, which was acutely painful all Sunday. Sun 
 day night, however, a compress of linen wrung in cold water 
 cured him, with belladonna. But he slept also most of this 
 
 morning He could as easily build London as go to 
 
 the Shakespeare dinner. It tires him so much to get en 
 tirely through his toilet in the morning, that he has to lie 
 down a long time after it. To-day he walked out on the 
 grounds, and could not stay ten minutes, because I would 
 not let him sit down in the wind, and he could not bear any 
 longer exercise. He has more than lost all he gained by 
 
HAWTHORNE. 121 
 
 the journey, by the sad event. From being the nursed and 
 cared for, early to bed and late to rise, led, as it were, 
 by the ever-ready hand of kind Mr. Ticknor, to become the 
 nurse and night-watcher with all the responsibilities, with 
 his mighty power of sympathy and his vast apprehension of 
 suffering in others, and to see death for the first time in a 
 state so weak as his, the death also of so valued a friend, 
 as Mr. Hawthorne says himself, it told upon him fear 
 fully. There are lines ploughed on his brow which never 
 
 were there before I have been up and alert ever 
 
 since his return, but one day I was obliged, when he was 
 busy, to run off and lie down for fear I should drop before 
 his eyes. My head was in such an agony I could not endure 
 it another moment. But I am well now. I have wrestled 
 and won, and now I think I shall not fail again. Your most 
 generous kindness of hospitality I heartily thank you for, 
 but Mr. Hawthorne says he cannot leave home. He wants 
 rest, and he says when the wind is warm he shall feel well. 
 This cold wind ruins him. I wish he were in Cuba or on 
 some isle in the Gulf Stream. But I must say I could not 
 think him able to go anywhere, unless I could go with him. 
 He is too weak to take care of himself. I do not like to 
 have him go up and down stairs alone. I have read to him 
 all the afternoon and evening and after he walked in the 
 morning to-day. I do nothing but sit with him, ready to 
 do or not to do, just as he wishes. The wheels of my small 
 menage are all stopped. He is my world and all the busi 
 ness of it. He has not smiled since he came home till to 
 day, and I made him laugh with Thackeray s humor in read 
 ing to him ; but a smile looks strange on a face that once 
 shone like a thousand suns with smiles. The light for the 
 time has gone out of his eyes, entirely. An infinite weari 
 ness films them quite. I thank Heaven that summer and 
 not winter approaches." 
 
 On Friday evening of the same week Mrs. Haw 
 thorne sent off another despatch to us : 
 
122 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 " Mr. Hawthorne has been miserably ill for two or three 
 days, so that I could not find a moment to speak to you. I 
 am most anxious to have him leave Concord again, and Gen 
 eral Pierce s plan is admirable, now that the General is well 
 himself. I think the serene jog-trot in a private carriage 
 into country places, by trout-streams and to old farm-houses, 
 away from care and news, will be very restorative. The 
 boy associations with the General will refresh him. They 
 will fish, and muse, and rest, and saunter upon horses feet, 
 and be in the air all the time in fine weather. I am quite 
 content, though I wish I could go for a few petits sions. 
 But General Pierce has been a most tender, constant nurse 
 for many years, and knows how to take care of the sick. 
 And his love for Mr. Hawthorne is the strongest passion of 
 his soul, now his wife is departed. They will go to the 
 Isles of Sboals together probably, before their return. 
 
 " Mr. Hawthorne cannot walk ten minutes now without 
 wishing to sit down, as I think I told you, so that he cannot 
 take sufficient air except in a carriage. And his horror of 
 hotels and rail-cars is immense, and human beings beset 
 him in cities. He is indeed very weak. I hardly know 
 what takes away his strength. I now am obliged to super 
 intend my workman, who is arranging the grounds. When 
 ever my husband lies down (which is sadly often) I rush 
 out of doors to see what the gardener is about. 
 
 " I cannot feel rested till Mr. Hawthorne is better, but I 
 get along. I shall go to town when he is safe in the care of 
 General Pierce." 
 
 On Saturday this communication from Mrs. 
 Hawthorne reached us : 
 
 " General Pierce wrote yesterday to say he wished to 
 meet Mr. Hawthorne in Boston on Wednesday, and go from 
 thence on their way. 
 
 " Mr. Hawthorne is much weaker, I find, than he has 
 been before at any time, and I shall go down with him, 
 
HAWTHOENE. 123 
 
 having a great many things to do in Boston ; hut I am sure 
 he is not n t to be left by himself, for his steps are so un 
 certain, and his eyes are very uncertain too. Dear Mr. 
 Fields, I am very anxious about him, and I write now to 
 say that he absolutely refuses to see a physician officially, 
 and so I wish to know whether Dr. Holmes could not see 
 him in some ingenious way on Wednesday as a friend ; but 
 with his experienced, acute observation, to look at him 
 also as a physician, to note how he is and what he judges 
 of him comparatively since he last saw him. It almost 
 deprives me of my wits to see him growing weaker with 
 no aid. He seems quite bilious, and has a restlessness that 
 is infinite. His look is more distressed and harassed than 
 before; and he has so little rest, that he 13 getting worn 
 out. I hope immensely in regard of this Sauntering jour 
 ney with General Pierce. 
 
 " I feel as if I ought not to speak to you of anything 
 when you are so busy and weary and bereaved. But yet 
 in such a sad emergency as this, I am sure your generous, 
 kind heart will not refuse me any help you can render. 
 .... I wish Dr. Holmes would feel his pulse; I do not 
 know how to judge of it, but it seems to me irregular." 
 
 His friend, Dr. 0. W. Holmes, in compliance 
 with Mrs. Hawthorne s desire, expressed in this 
 letter to me, saw the invalid, and thus describes 
 his appearance in an article full of tenderness and 
 feeling which was published in the " Atlantic 
 Monthly " for July, 1864 : 
 
 " Late in the afternoon of the day before he left Boston 
 on his last journey I called upon him at the hotel where 
 he was staying. He had gone out but a moment before. 
 Looking along the street, I saw a form at some distance in 
 advance which could only be his, but how changed from 
 
124 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 his former port and figure ! There was no mistaking the 
 long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the 
 general look of the natural outlines and movement ; but he 
 seemed to have shrunken in all his dimensions, and faltered 
 along with an uncertain, feeble step, as if every movement 
 were an effort. I joined him, and we walked together half 
 an hour, during which time I learned so much of his state 
 of mind and body as could be got at without worrying him 
 with suggestive questions, my object being to form an 
 opinion of his condition, as I had been requested to do, and 
 to give him some hints that might be useful to him on hia 
 journey. 
 
 " His aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable. 
 There were persistent local symptoms, referred especially 
 to the stomach, boring pain, distension, difficult diges. 
 tion, with great wasting of flesh and strength. He was 
 very gentle, very willing to answer questions, very docile 
 to such counsel as I offered him, but evidently had no hope 
 of recovering his health. He spoke as if his work were 
 done, and he should write no more. 
 
 "With all his obvious depression, there was no failing 
 noticeable in his conversational powers. There was the 
 same backwardness and hesitancy which in his best days 
 it was hard for him to overcome, so that talking with him 
 was almost like love-making, and his shy, beautiful soul 
 had to be wooed from its bashful prudency like an un 
 schooled maiden. The cairn despondency with which he 
 spoke about himself confirmed the unfavorable opinion sug 
 gested by his look and history." 
 
 I saw Hawthorne alive, for the last time, the day 
 he started on this his last mortal journey. His 
 speech and his gait indicated severe illness, and I 
 had great misgivings about the jaunt he was pro 
 posing to take so early in the season. His tones 
 
HAWTHORNE. 125 
 
 were more subdued than ever, and he scarcely spoke 
 above a whisper. He was very affectionate in part 
 ing, and I followed him to the door, looking after 
 him as he went up School Street. I noticed that 
 he faltered from weakness, and I should have taken 
 my hat and joined him to offer my arm, but I knew 
 he did not wish to seem ill, and I feared he might 
 be troubled at my anxiety. Fearing to disturb 
 him, I followed him with my eyes only, and 
 watched him till he turned the corner and passed 
 out of sight. 
 
 On the morning of the 19th of May, 1864, a 
 telegram, signed by Franklin Pierce, stunned us 
 all. It announced the death of Hawthorne. In 
 the afternoon of the same day came this letter to 
 me : 
 
 "PEMIGEWASSET HOUSE, PLYMOUTH, N. H., 
 Thursday morning, 5 o clock. 
 
 "My DEAR SIR, The telegraph has communicated to 
 you the fact of our dear friend Hawthorne s death. My 
 friend Colonel Hibbard, who bears this note, was a friend 
 of H , and will tell you more than I am able to write. 
 
 " I enclose herewith a note which I commenced last 
 evening to dear Mrs. Hawthorne. 0, how will she bear 
 this shock ! Dear mother dear children 
 
 " When I met Hawthorne in Boston a week ago, it was 
 apparent that he was much more feeble and more seriously 
 diseased than I had supposed him to be. We came from 
 Centre Harbor yesterday afternoon, and I thought he was 
 on the whole brighter than he was the day before. Through 
 the week he had been inclined to somnolency during the 
 day, but restless at night. He retired last night soon after 
 
126 HAWTHOENE. 
 
 nine o clock, and soon fell into a quiet slumber. In less 
 than half an hour changed his position, but continued to 
 sleep. I left the door open between his bedroom and mine, 
 our beds being opposite to each other, and was asleep 
 myself before eleven o clock. The light continued to burn 
 
 in my room. At two o clock, I went to H s bedside ; 
 
 he was apparently in a sound sleep, and 1 did not place my 
 hand upon him. At four o clock I went into his room 
 again, and, as his position was unchanged, I placed my 
 hand upon him and found that life was extinct. I sent, 
 however, immediately for a physician, and called Judge 
 Bell and Colonel Hibbard, who occupied rooms upon the 
 same floor and near me. He lies upon his side, his position 
 so perfectly natural and easy, his eyes closed, that it is 
 difficult to realize, while looking upon his noble face, that 
 this is death. He must have passed from natural slumber 
 to that from which there is no waking without the slightest 
 movement. 
 
 " I cannot write to dear Mrs. Hawthorne, and you must 
 exercise your judgment with regard to sending this and the 
 unfinished note, enclosed, to her. 
 "Your friend, 
 
 "FRANKLIN PIERCE." 
 
 i 
 
 Hawthorne s lifelong desire that the end might 
 he a sudden one was gratified. Often and often he 
 has said to me, " What a blessing to go quickly ! " 
 So the same swift angel that came as a messenger 
 to Allston, Irving, Prescott, Macaulay, Thackeray, 
 and Dickens was commissioned to touch his fore 
 head, also, and beckon him away. 
 
 The room in which death fell upon him, 
 
 " Like a shadow thrown 
 Softly and lightly from a passing cloud," 
 
HAWTHOKNE. 127 
 
 looks toward the east ; and standing in it, as I have 
 frequently done, since he passed out silently into 
 the skies, it is easy to imagine the scene on that 
 spring morning which President Pierce so feelingly 
 describes in his letter. 
 
 On the 24th of May we carried Hawthorne 
 through the blossoming orchards of Concord, and 
 laid him down under a group of pines, on a hill 
 side, overlooking historic fields. All the way from 
 the village church to the grave the birds kept up 
 a perpetual melody. The sun shone brightly, and 
 the air was sweet and pleasant, as if death had 
 never entered the world. Longfellow and Emer 
 son, Channing and Hoar, Agassiz and Lowell, 
 Greene and Whipple, Alcott and Clarke, Holmes 
 and Hillard, and other friends whom he loved, 
 walked slowly by his side that beautiful spring 
 morning. The companion of his youth and his 
 manhood, for whom he would willingly, at any time, 
 have given up his own life, Franklin Pierce, was 
 there among the rest, and scattered flowers into the 
 grave. The unfinished Romance, which had cost 
 him so much anxiety, the last literary work on 
 which he had ever been engaged, was laid on his 
 coffin. 
 
 " Ah ! wlio shall lift that wand of magic power, 
 
 And the lost clew regain ? 
 The unfinished window in Aladdin s tower 
 Unfinished must remain.." 
 
128 
 
 HAWTHORNE. 
 
 Longfellow s beautiful poem will always be asso 
 ciated with the memory of Hawthorne, and most 
 fitting was it that his fellow-student, whom he so 
 loved and honored, should sing his requiem. 
 
 /^^ 
 
 / OF THE 
 
 { UNIVERSITY 
 
 V OF 
 
 Xj^UFor 
 
 Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
Illustrated Library Edition. 
 
 Comprising all but the three Juvenile Books, in Nine Vol 
 umes. Price, cloth, $ 2.00 each. The set, half calf, $ 36.00. 
 
 "Little Classic" Edition. 
 
 In Twenty-one Volumes, as above, uniform in style with 
 the popular " LITTLE CLASSICS." Each volume has 
 a fine new Vignette Illustration. Price, $ 1.25 a volume. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 
 
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YESTERDAYS WITH AUTHORS, 
 
 BY JAMES T. FIELDS. 
 
 1 voL -12mo. $2.00. 
 
 Contents : 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. THACKERAY. HAWTHORNE. 
 DICKENS. WORDSWORTH. 
 MISS MITFORD. 
 
 "Mr. Fields has certainly met with signal success in the compo- 
 
 ,a of an entertaining volume. It offers a rare charm to the 
 
 ! lovers of literary anecdote, a class which probably includes the 
 
 Vie of its readers, and in many considerable portions possesses 
 
 j an interest no less enticing than the naive recitals of Boswell or the 
 
 I pleasant recollections of Crabb Robinson." New York Tribune. 
 
 "The world owes* Mr. Fields many thanks for his Yesterda 
 i with Authors, a ^volume full of reminiscences, anecdotes, 
 
 rs of some of thi writers whom Mr. Fields has known. "* 
 j eray, Hawthorne, Dickens, and Miss Mitford are the chief 
 i ages described, and what is said of them all, is fresh and 
 The paper on Wordsworth gives some of his traits as 
 any description we have ever seen, and the whole book 
 Spr ing field R ep u blica n . 
 
 "This work is far better than Crabb Robinson s d 
 * the fault of which was that, being chiefly a Diar 
 
 of erainenj people ^whereas Mr. F 
 r.ot elaborated; but $pisJke 4, graceful, and i 
 | Much of what he tefl$ us is the result of pers 
 j observation, and for* the rest he h 
 j reminiscences to speak for themselves in 
 j is particularly the case with Dickens, fr 
 I set of epistle^, v- one to Mr. Fields a 
 
 I fessor Fcltoti, and in that of Miss ifejw ., ~~ ^-^ ,-^ 
 
 \ is equal in sprrifand easv grace toAfl / *< II *J 
 
 \ Madame de Sevigne." Philadj^l \ / V ^ 
 
 " The volume is full 
 j thors." .