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The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

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All those whose attention Hawthorne attracted out of the rush and hurry
of the world were sure to become interested in his welfare. O'Sullivan,
the editor of the _Democratic Review_, had already exerted himself
in Hawthorne's behalf; but President Polk evidently did not know who
Hawthorne was, so that O'Sullivan was obliged to have a puff inserted
in his review for the President's better information. George Bancroft
was now in the Cabinet, and could easily have obtained a lucrative post
for Hawthorne, but it is plain that Bancroft was not over-friendly to
him and that Hawthorne was fully aware of this. Hawthorne had suggested
the Salem postmastership, but when O'Sullivan mentioned this, Bancroft
objected on the ground that the present incumbent was too good a man to
be displaced, and proposed the consulates of Genoa and Marseilles, two
deplorable positions and quite out of the question for Hawthorne, in
the condition of his family at that time. Perhaps it would have been
better for him in a material sense, if he had accepted the invitation
to dine with Margaret Fuller.

The summer wore away, but nothing was acomplished; and late in the
autumn Hawthorne left the Old Manse to return to his Uncle Robert
Manning's house in Salem, where he could always count on a warm
welcome. There he spent the winter with his wife and child, until
suddenly, in March, 1846, he was appointed Surveyor of the Port, or, as
it is now more properly called, Collector of Customs.

This was, in truth, worth waiting for. The salary was not large, but it
was a dignified position and allowed Hawthorne sufficient leisure for
other pursuits,--the leisure of the merchant or banker. Salem had
already begun to lose its foreign trade, and for days together it
sometimes happened that there was nothing to do. Hawthorne's chief
business was to prevent the government from being cheated, either by
the importers or by his own subordinates; and it required a pretty
sharp eye to do this. All the appointments, even to his own clerks,
were made by outside politicians, and when a reduction of employees was
necessary, Hawthorne consulted with the local Democratic Committee, and
followed their advice. Such a method was not to the advantage of the
public service, but it saved Hawthorne from an annoying responsibility.
His strictness and impartiality, however, soon brought him into
conflict with his more self-important subordinates, who were by no
means accustomed to exactness in their dealings, and this finally
produced a good deal of official unpleasantness; and the unfavorable
reports which were afterward circulated concerning Hawthorne's life
during this period, probably originated in that quarter.

[Illustration: THE CUSTOM HOUSE, SALEM, MASS., WHERE HAWTHORNE WAS
EMPLOYED AS SURVEYOR OF THE FORT OF SALEM, AT THE TIME OF HIS WRITING
"THE SCARLET LETTER"]

All the poetry that Hawthorne could extract from his occupation at the
Custom House is to be found in his preface to "The Scarlet Letter," but
he withholds from us the prosaic side of it,--as he well might. At
times he comes close to caricature, especially in his descriptions of
"those venerable incumbents who hibernated during the winter season,
and then crawled out during the warm days of spring to draw their pay
and perform those pretended duties, for which they were engaged." There
were formerly large numbers of moss-grown loafers in the government
service, with whiskey-reddened noses and greasy old clothing, who would
sun themselves on the door-steps, and tell anecdotes of General
Jackson, Senator Benton, and other popular heroes, with whom they would
intimate a good acquaintance at some remote period of their lives. If
removed from office, they were quite as likely to turn up in a
neighboring jail as in any other location. This is no satire, but
serious truth; and instances of it can be given.

Hawthorne's life during the next three years was essentially domestic.
In June, 1846, his son Julian was born--a remarkably vigorous baby--at
Doctor Peabody's house in West Street, Boston; Mrs. Hawthorne wisely
preferring to be with her own mother during her confinement. [Footnote:
At the age of thirty-five, Julian resembled his father so closely that
Nathaniel Hawthorne's old friends were sometimes startled by him, as if
they had seen an apparition. He was, however, of a stouter build, and
his eyes were different.] With two small children on her hands, Mrs.
Hawthorne had slight opportunity to enjoy general society, fashionable
or otherwise. Rebecca Manning says, however:

"Neither Hawthorne nor his wife could be said to be 'in society' in the
technical sense. When the Peabody family lived in Salem, they were, I
have been told, somewhat straitened pecuniarily. After Hawthorne's
marriage, I think I remember hearing of his wife going to parties and
dinners occasionally. Dr. Loring's wife was her cousin. Other friends
were the Misses Howes, one of whom is now Mrs. Cabot of Boston. Mrs.
Foote, who was a daughter of Judge White, was a friend, and I remember
some Silsbees who were also her friends. Hawthorne's wife knew how to
cultivate her friends and make the most of them far better than either
Hawthorne or his sisters did. I have been told that when Hawthorne was
a young man, before his marriage, if he had chosen to enter Salem's
'first circle' he would have been welcome there."

During this last sojourn in his native city Hawthorne was chosen on the
committee for the lyceum lecture course, and proved instrumental in
bringing Webster to Salem,--where he had not been popular since the
trial of the two Knapps,--to deliver an oration on the Constitution; of
which Mrs. Hawthorne has given a graphic description in a letter to her
mother on November 19, 1848:

"The old Lion walked the stage with a sort of repressed rage, when he
referred to those persons who cried out, 'Down with the Constitution!'
'Madmen! Or most wicked if not mad!' said he with a glare of fire."

A pure piece of acting. The national Constitution was not even
endangered by the Southern rebellion,--much less by the small band of
original abolitionists; and Webster was too sensible not to be aware of
this.

While Hawthorne was at the Salem Custom House, he made at least two
valuable friends: Doctor George B. Loring, who had married a cousin of
Mrs. Hawthorne, and William B. Pike, who occupied a subordinate
position in the Custom House, but whom Hawthorne valued for moral and
intellectual qualities of which he would seem to have been the first
discoverer. They were not friends who would be likely to affect
Hawthorne's political views, except to encourage him in the direction
to which he had always tended. Four years earlier, Doctor Loring had
been on cordial terms with Longfellow and Sumner, being a refined and
intellectual sort of man, but like Hillard, had withdrawn from them on
account of political differences. He was an able public speaker, and
became a Democratic politician, until 1862, when he went over to the
Republicans; but after that he was looked upon with a good deal of
suspicion by both parties. The governorship was supposed to have been
the object of his ambition, but he never could obtain the nomination.
Late in life he was appointed Commissioner of Agriculture, a post for
which he was eminently fitted, and finally went to Portugal as United
States Minister.

William B. Pike either lacked the opportunity or the necessary
concentration to develop his genius in the larger world, but Hawthorne
continued to communicate with him irregularly until the close of his
life. He invited him to Lenox when he resided there, and Mrs. Lathrop
recollects seeing him at the Wayside in Concord, after Hawthorne's
return from Europe. She discribes him as a "short, sturdy, phlegmatic
and plebeian looking man," but with a gentle step and a finely
modulated voice. It may have been as well for him that he never became
distinguished. [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, "Memories of Hawthorne," 154.]

The war with Mexico was now fairly afield, and Franklin Pierce, who
left the United States Senate on account of his wife's health, was
organizing a regiment of New Hampshire volunteers, as a "patriotic
duty." Salem people thought differently, and party feeling there soon
rose to the boiling-point. There is no other community where political
excitement is so likely to become virulent as in a small city. In a
country town, like Concord, every man feels the necessity for
conciliating his neighbor, but the moneyed class in Salem was
sufficient for its own purposes, and was opposed to the war in a solid
body. The Whigs looked upon the invasion of Mexico as a piratical
attempt of the Democratic leaders to secure the permanent ascendency of
their party, and this was probably the true reason for Franklin
Pierce's joining it. In their eyes, Hawthorne was the representative of
a corrupt administration, and they would have been more than human if
they had not wished him to feel this. The Salem gentry could not draw
him into an argument very well, but they could look daggers at him on
the street and exhibit their coldness toward him when they went on
business to the Custom House. It is evident that he was made to suffer
in some such manner, and to a tenderhearted man with a clear
conscience, it must have seemed unkind and unjust. [Footnote: When the
engagement between the "Chesapeake" and the "Shannon" took place off
Salem harbor in August, 1813, and Captain Lawrence was killed in the
action, the anti-war sentiment ran so high that it was difficult to
find a respectable mansion where his funeral would be permitted.] In
his Custom House preface, Hawthorne compares the Whigs rather
unfavorably with the Democrats, and this is not to be wondered at; but
he should have remembered that it was his own party which first
introduced the spoils-of-office system.

The first use that Hawthorne made of his government salary was to
cancel his obligations to the Concord tradespeople, and the next was to
provide a home for his wife and mother. They first moved to 18 Chestnut
Street, in June, 1846; and thence to a larger house, 14 Mall Street, in
September, 1847, in which "The Snow Image" was prepared for
publication, and "The Scarlet Letter" was written. Hawthorne's study or
workshop was the front room in the third story, an apartment of some
width but with a ceiling in direct contradiction to the elevated
thoughts of the writer. There is an ominous silence in the American
Note-book between 1846 and 1850, which is rather increased than
diminished by the publication from his diary of a number of extracts
concerning the children. The babies of geniuses do not differ
essentially from those of other people, and it is not supposable that
Hawthorne's reflections during this period were wholly confined to his
own family. It is to be hoped that fuller information will yet be given
to the public concerning their affairs in Salem; for the truth deserves
to be told.

In January, 1846, Mrs. Hawthorne wrote to her mother:

"No one, I think, has a right to break the will of a child, but God;
and if the child is taught to submit to Him through love, all other
submission will follow with heavenly effect upon the character. God
never drives even the most desperate sinner, but only invites or
suggests through the events of His providence."

Nothing is more unfortunate than to break the will of a child, for all
manliness and womanliness is grounded in the will; but it is often
necessary to control the desires and humors of children for their self-
preservation. Hawthorne himself was not troubled with such fancies.
Alcott, who was his nearest neighbor at the Wayside, once remarked that
there was only one will in the Hawthorne family, and that was
Nathaniel's. His will was law and no one thought of disputing it. Yet
what he writes concerning children is always sweet, tender, and
beautiful, with the single exception of a criticism of his own
daughter, which was published long after his death and could not have
been intended for the public eye.

The war with Mexico was wonderfully successful from a military point of
view, but its political effects were equally confounding to the
politicians who projected it. The American people resemble the French,
quite as much perhaps as they do the English, and the admiration of
military glory is one of their Gallic traits. It happened that the two
highest positions in the army were both held by Whig generals, and the
victory of Buena Vista carried Zachary Taylor into the White House, in
spite of the opposition of Webster and Clay, as well as that of the
Democrats and the Free Soilers. Polk, Bancroft, and Pierce had all
contributed to the defeat of their own party. The war proved their
political terminus to the two former; but, _mirabile dictu_, it
became the cap of Fortunatus to Pierce and Hawthorne.

This, however, could not have been foreseen at the time, and the
election of Taylor in November, 1848, had a sufficiently chilling
effect on the little family in Mall Street. Hawthorne entertained the
hope that he might be spared in the general out-turning, as a
distinguished writer and an inoffensive partisan, and this indicates
how loath he was to relinquish his comfortable position. Let us place
ourselves in his situation and we shall not wonder at it. He was now
forty-five, with a wife and two children, and destitution was staring
him in the face. For ten years he had struggled bravely, and this was
the net result of all his endeavors. Never had the future looked so
gloomy to him.

The railroad had superseded his Uncle Manning's business, as it had
that of half the mercantile class in the city, and his father-in-law
was in a somewhat similar predicament. At this time Elizabeth Peabody
was keeping a small foreign book-store in a room of her father's house
on West Street. One has to realize these conditions, in order to
appreciate the mood in which Hawthorne's Custom House preface was
written.

There is one passage in it, however, that is always likely to be
misunderstood. It is where he says:

"I thought my own prospects of retaining office, to be better than
those of my Democratic brethren; but who can see an inch into futurity,
beyond his nose? My own head was the first that fell!"

It is clear that some kind of an effort was made to prevent his
removal, presumably by George S. Hillard, who was a Whig in good favor;
but the conclusion which one would naturally draw from the above, that
Hawthorne was turned out of office in a summary and ungracious manner,
is not justified by the evidence. He was not relieved from duty until
June 14, 1849; that is, he was given a hundred days of grace, which is
much more than officeholders commonly are favored with, in such cases.
We may consider it morally certain that Hillard did what he could in
Hawthorne's behalf. He was well acquainted with Webster, but
unfortunately Webster had opposed the nomination of General Taylor, and
was so imprudent as to characterize it as a nomination not fit to be
made. This was echoed all over the country, and left Webster without
influence at Washington. For the time being Seward was everything, and
Webster was nothing.

In a letter to Horace Mann, shortly after his removal, Hawthorne refers
to two distinct calumnies which had been circulated concerning him in
Salem, and only too widely credited. The most important of these--for
it has seriously compromised a number of Salem gentlemen--was never
explained until the publication of Mrs. Lathrop's "Memories of
Hawthorne" in 1897; where we find a letter from Mrs. Hawthorne to her
mother, dated June 10, 1849, and containing the following passage:

"Here is a pretty business, discovered in an unexpected manner to Mr.
Hawthorne by a friendly and honorable Whig. Perhaps you know that the
President said before he took the chair that he should make no removals
except for dishonesty and unfaithfulness. It is very plain that neither
of these charges could be brought against Mr. Hawthorne. Therefore a
most base and incredible falsehood has been told--written down and
signed and sent to the Cabinet in secret. This infamous paper certifies
among other things (of which we have not heard)--that Mr. Hawthorne has
been in the habit of writing political articles in magazines and
newspapers!" So it appears that the gutta-percha formula [Footnote: By
which eighty-eight per cent, of the classified service were removed.]
of President Cleveland in regard to "offensive partisanship" was really
invented forty years before his time, and had as much value in one case
as in the other. It is possible that such a document as Mrs. Hawthorne
describes was circulated, signed, and sent to Washington, to make the
way easy for President Taylor's advisers, and if so it was a highly
contemptible proceeding; but the statement rests wholly on the
affirmation of a single witness, whose name has always been withheld,
and even if it were true that Hawthorne had written political articles
for Democratic papers the fact would have in no wise been injurious to
his reputation. The result must have been the same in any case. General
Taylor was an honorable man, and no doubt intended to keep his word, as
other Presidents have intended since; but what could even a brave
general effect against the army of hungry office-seekers who were
besieging the White House,--a more formidable army than the Mexicans
whom he had defeated at Buena Vista? In all probability he knew nothing
of Hawthorne and never heard of his case.

The second calumny which Hawthorne refers to was decidedly second-rate,
and closely resembles a servant's intrigue. The Department at
Washington, in a temporary fit of economy, had requested him to
discharge two of his supervisors. He did not like to take the men's
bread away from them, and made a mild protest against the order. At the
same time he consulted his chief clerk as to what it might be best to
do, and they agreed upon suspending two of the supervisors who might
suffer less from it than some others. As it happened, the Department
considered Hawthorne's report favorably, and no suspension took place;
but his clerk betrayed the secret to the two men concerned, who hated
Hawthorne in consequence, and afterward circulated a report that he had
threatened to discharge them unless they contributed to the Democratic
campaign fund. This return of evil for good appears to have been a new
experience for Hawthorne, but those who are much concerned in the
affairs of the world soon become accustomed to it, and pay little
attention to either the malice or the mendacity of mankind.

Twenty years later one of Hawthorne's clerks, who had prudently shifted
from the Democratic to the Republican ranks, held a small office in the
Boston Navy Yard, and was much given to bragging of his intimacy with
"Nat," and of the sprees they went on together; but the style and
description of the man were sufficient to discredit his statements
without further evidence. There were, however, several old shipmasters
in the Salem Custom House who had seen Calcutta, Canton, and even a
hurricane or two; men who had lived close to reality, with a vein of
true heroism in them, moreover; and if Hawthorne preferred their
conversation to that of the shipowners, who had spent their lives in
calculating the profits of commercial adventures, there are many among
the well educated who would agree with him. He refers particularly to
one aged inspector of imports, whose remarkable adventures by flood and
field were an almost daily recreation to him; and if the narratives of
this ancient mariner were somewhat mixed with romance, assuredly
Hawthorne should have been the last person to complain of them on that
account.

At first he was wholly unnerved by his dismissal. He returned to Mall
Street and said to his wife: "I have lost my place. What shall we now
do for bread?" But Mrs. Hawthorne replied: "Never fear. You will now
have leisure to finish your novel. Meanwhile, I will earn bread for us
with my pencil and paint-brush." [Footnote: Mrs. George S. Hillard.]
Besides this, she brought forward two or three hundred dollars, which
she had saved from his salary unbeknown to him; but who would not have
been encouraged by such a brave wife? Fortunately her pencil and paint-
brush were not put to the test; at least so far as we know. Already on
June 8, her husband had written a long letter to Hillard, explaining
the state of his affairs and containing this pathetic appeal:

"If you could do anything in the way of procuring me some stated
literary employment, in connection with a newspaper, or as corrector of
the press to some printing establishment, etc., it could not come at a
better time. Perhaps Epes Sargent, who is a friend of mine, would know
of something. I shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of
itself. Perhaps there may be some subordinate office connected with the
Boston Athenæum (Literary). Do not think anything too humble to be
mentioned to me." [Footnote: Conway, 113.]

There have been many tragical episodes in the history of literature,
but since "Paradise Lost" was sold for five pounds and a contingent
interest, there has been nothing more simply pathetic than this,--that
an immortal writer should feel obliged to apply for a subordinate
position in a counting-room, a description of work which nobody likes
too well, and which to Hawthorne would have been little less than a
death in life. "Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to
me"!

What Hillard attempted to do at this time is uncertain, but he was not
the man to allow the shrine of genius to be converted into a gas-
burner, if he could possibly prevent it. We may presume that he went to
Salem and encouraged Hawthorne in his amiable, half-eloquent manner.
But we do not hear of him again until the new year. Meanwhile Madam
Hawthorne fell into her last illness and departed this life on July 31;
a solemn event even to a hard-hearted son--how much more to such a man
as she had brought into the world. Three days before her death, he
writes in his diary of "her heart beating its funeral march," and
diverts his mind from the awful _finale_ by an accurate description of
his two children playing a serio-comic game of doctor and patient, in the
adjoining room.

It was under such tragical conditions, well suited to the subject, that
he continued his work on "The Scarlet Letter," and his painfully
contracted brow seemed to indicate that he suffered as much in
imagination, as the characters in that romance are represented to have
suffered. In addition he wrote "The Great Stone Pace," one of the most
impressive of his shorter pieces (published, alas! in a Washington
newspaper), and the sketch called "Main Street," both afterward
included in the volume of "The Snow Image." On January 17, 1850, he was
greatly surprised to receive a letter from George S. Hillard with a
large check in it,--more than half-way to a thousand dollars,--which
the writer with all possible delicacy begged him to accept from a few
of his Boston admirers. It was only from such a good friend as Hillard
that Hawthorne would have accepted assistance in this form; but he
always considered it in the character of a loan, and afterward insisted
on repaying it to the original subscribers,--Professor Ticknor, Judge
Curtis, and others. Hillard also persuaded James T. Fields, the younger
partner of Ticknor & Company, to take an interest in Hawthorne as an
author who required to be encouraged, and perhaps coaxed a little, in
order to bring out the best that was in him. Fields accordingly went to
Salem soon afterward, and has given an account of his first interview
with Hawthorne in "Yesterdays with Authors," which seems rather
melodramatic: "found him cowering over a stove," and altogether in a
woe-begone condition. The main point of discussion between them,
however, was whether "The Scarlet Letter" should be published
separately or in conjunction with other subjects. Hawthorne feared that
such a serious plot, continued with so little diversity of motive,
would not be likely to produce a favorable impression unless it were
leavened with material of a different kind. Fields, on the contrary,
thought it better that the work should stand by itself, in solitary
grandeur, and feared that it would only be dwarfed by any additions of
a different kind. He predicted a good sale for the book, and succeeded
in disillusionizing Hawthorne from the notions he had acquired from the
failure of "Fanshawe."

As it was late in the season, Fields would not even wait for the
romance to be finished, but sent it to the press at once; and on
February 4, Hawthorne wrote to Horatio Bridge:

"I finished my book only yesterday; one end being in the press at
Boston, while the other was in my head here at Salem; so that, as you
see, the story is at least fourteen miles long."

The time of publication was a propitious one: the gold was flowing in
from California, and every man and woman had a dollar to spend. The
first edition of five thousand copies was taken up within a month, and
after this Hawthorne suffered no more financial embarrassments. The
succeeding twelve years of his life were as prosperous and cheerful as
his friends and readers could desire for him; although the sombre past
still seemed to cast a ghostly shadow across his way, which even the
sunshine of Italy could not entirely dissipate.

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