A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

F >> Frank Preston Stearns >> The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne





"THE SCARLET LETTER"

The germ of this romance is to be found in the tale of "Endicott and
the Red Cross," published in the _Token_ in 1838, so that it must
have been at least ten years sprouting and developing in Hawthorne's
mind. In that story he gives a tragically comic description of the
Puritan penitentiary,--in the public square,--where, among others, a
good-looking young woman was exposed with a red letter A on her breast,
which she had embroidered herself, so elegantly that it seemed as if it
was rather intended for a badge of distinction than as a mark of
infamy. Hawthorne did not conjure this up wholly out of his
imagination, for in 1704 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay passed
the following law, which he was no doubt aware of:

"Convicted before the Justice of Assize,--both Man and Woman to be set
on the Gallows an Hour with a Rope about their Necks and the other end
cast over the Gallowses. And in the way from thence to the common Gaol,
to he Scourged not exceeding Forty Stripes. And forever after to wear a
Capital A of two inches long, of a contrary colour to their cloathes,
sewed on their upper Garments, on the Back or Arm, in open view. And as
often as they appear without it, openly to be Scourged, not exceeding
Fifteen Stripes." [Footnote: Boston, Timothy Green, 1704.]

The most diligent investigation, however, has failed to discover an
instance in which punishment was inflicted under this law, so that we
must conclude that Hawthorne invented that portion of his statement. In
fact, nothing that Hawthorne published himself is to be considered of
historical or biographical value. It is all fiction. He sported with
historical facts and traditions, as poets and painters always have
done, and the manuscript which he pretends to have discovered in his
office at the Custom House, written by one of his predecessors there,
is a piece of pure imagination, which serves to give additional
credibility to his narrative. He knew well enough how large a portion
of what is called history is fiction after all, and the extent to which
professed historians deal in romance. He felt that he was justified so
long as he did not depart from the truth of human nature. We may thank
him that he did not dispel the illusion of his poetic imagery by the
introduction of well-known historical characters. This is permissible
in a certain class of novels, but its effect is always more or less
prosaic.

Our Puritan ancestors evidently did not realize the evil effects of
their law against faithless wives,--its glaring indelicacy, and
brutalizing influence on the minds of the young; but it was of a piece
with their exclusion of church-music and other amenities of
civilization. Was it through a natural attraction for the primeval
granite that they landed on the New England coast? Their severe self-
discipline was certainly well adapted to their situation, but, while it
built up their social edifice on an enduring foundation, its tendency
was to crush out the gentler and more sympathetic qualities in human
nature. In no other community would the story of Hester Prynne acquire
an equal cogency and significance. A German might, perhaps, understand
it; but a Frenchman or an Italian not at all.

The same subject has been treated in its most venial form by
Shakespeare in "Measure for Measure," and in its most condemnable form
in Goethe's "Faust." "The Scarlet Letter" lies midway between these
two. Hester Prynne has married a man of morose, vindictive disposition,
such as no woman could be happy with. He is, moreover, much older than
herself, and has gone off on a wild expedition in pursuit of objects
which he evidently cares for, more than for his wife. She has not heard
from him for over a year, and knows not whether he has deserted her, or
if he is no longer living. She is alone in a strange wild country, and
it is natural that she should seek counsel and encouragement from the
young clergyman, who is worthy of her love, but, unfortunately, not a
strong character. Lightning is not swifter than the transition in our
minds from good to evil, and in an unguarded moment he brings ruin upon
himself, and a life-long penance on Hester Prynne. Hawthorne tells this
story with such purity and delicacy of feeling that a maiden of sixteen
can read it without offence.

"The Scarlet Letter" is at once the most poetic and the most powerful
of Hawthorne's larger works, much more powerful than "The Vicar of
Wakefield," which has been accepted as the type of a romance in all
languages. Goldsmith's tale will always be more popular than "The
Scarlet Letter," owing to its blithesome spirit, its amusing incidents
and bright effects of light and shade; but "The Scarlet Letter" strikes
a more penetrating chord in the human breast, and adheres more closely
to the truth of life. There are certain highly improbable circumstances
woven in the tissue of "The Vicar of Wakefield," which a prudent,
reflective reader finds it difficult to surmount. It is rather
surprising that the Vicar should not have discovered the true social
position of his friend Mr. Burchell, which must have been known to
every farmer in the vicinity; and still more so that Mr. Burchell
should have permitted the father of a young woman in whom he was deeply
interested, to be carried to prison for debt without making an inquiry
into his case. "The Scarlet Letter" is, as Hawthorne noticed, a
continual variation on a single theme, and that a decidedly solemn one;
but its different incidents form a dynamic sequence, leading onward to
the final catastrophe, and if its progress is slow--the narrative
extends over a period of seven years--this is as inevitable as the
march of Fate. From the first scene in the drama, we are lifted above
ourselves, and sustained so by Hawthorne's genius, until the close.

This sense of power arises from dealing with a subject which demanded
the whole force and intensity of Hawthorne's nature. Hester Prynne
herself is a strong character, and her errors are those of strength and
independence rather than of weakness. She says to Mr. Dimmesdale that
what they did "had a consecration of its own," and it is this belief
which supports her under a weight of obloquy that would have crushed a
more fragile spirit. She does not collapse into a pitiful nonentity,
like Scott's Effie Deans, nor is she maddened to crime like George
Eliot's "Hetty Sorrel"; [Footnote: A name apparently compounded from
Hester Prynne and Schiller's Agnes Sorrel.] but from the outset she
forms definite resolutions,--first to rehabilitate her own character,
and next to protect the partner of her shame. This last may seem to be
a mistaken devotion, and contrary to his true interest, for the first
step in the regeneration from sin is to acknowledge manfully the
responsibility of it; but to give the repentance even the appearance of
sincerity, the confession must be a voluntary one, and not be forced
upon the delinquent person by external pressure. We cannot withhold our
admiration for Hester's unswerving fidelity to this twofold purpose. We
may condemn her in our minds, but we cannot refuse her a measure of
sympathy in our hearts.

I believe this to be the explanation of her apparent inconsistency at
the close of the book. Many of Hawthorne's commentators have been
puzzled by the fact that Hester, after so many years of contrition,
should advise Dimmesdale to fly to England, and even offered to
accompany him. Women have not the same idea of law that men have. In
their ideas of right and wrong they depend chiefly on their sense of
purity; and it is very difficult to persuade a woman that she could be
wrong in obeying the dictates of her heart. Hester perceives that her
former lover is being tortured to death by the silent tyranny of
Chillingworth; the tide of affection so long restrained flows back into
her soul; and her own reputation is as nothing compared with the life
of the man she hopes to save. There is no other passage in American
fiction so pathetic as that woodland meeting, at which their mutual
hopes of happiness blaze up like the momentary brightness of a dying
flame. Hester's innocent child, however, representing the spirit of
truthfulness, is suddenly seized with an aversion to her father and
refuses to join their company,--an unfavorable omen and dark presage of
the minister's doom.

Pearl's behavior, on this occasion, may be supposed to represent the
author's own judgment. How far shall we agree with him? The past
generation witnessed one of the noblest of women uniting herself, for
life and death, to a man whom she could not marry on account of purely
legal objections. Whether Hester's position in the last act of this
drama is comparable with that of Marian Evans every one must decide
according to his or her conscience.

Hawthorne certainly proves himself a good Puritan when he says, "And be
the stern and sad truth spoken that the breach which guilt has once
made into the human soul, is never in this mortal state repaired." The
magnitude of the evil of course makes a difference; but do we not all
live in a continual state of sinning, and self-correction? That is the
road to self-improvement, and those who adhere most closely to
inflexible rules of conduct discover at length that the rules
themselves have become an evil. Mankind has not yet fully decided as to
what things are evil, and what are good; and neither Hawthorne nor the
Puritan lawmakers would seem to have remembered Christ's admonition on
a similar occasion: "Let him who is without sin among you, cast the
first stone."

A writer in the _Andover Review_, some twenty years ago,
criticised the impersonation of Pearl as a fable--"a golden wreck." He
quoted Emerson to the effect that in all the ages that man has been
upon the earth, no communication has been established between him and
the lower animals, and he affirmed that we know quite as little of the
thoughts and motives of our own children. Both conclusions are wide of
the mark. There is much more communication between man and the domestic
animals than between animals of the same species. The understanding
between an Arab and his horse is almost perfect, and so is that between
a sportsman and his setters. Even the sluggish ox knows the word of
command. Then what shall we say of the sympathetic relation between a
mother and her child? Who can describe it--that clairvoyant
sensibility, intangible, too swift for words? Who has depicted it,
except Hawthorne and Raphael? Pearl is like a pure spirit in "The
Scarlet Letter," reconciling us to its gloomy scenes. She is like the
sunshine in a dark forest, breaking through the tree-tops and dancing
in our pathway. It is true that Hawthorne has carried her clairvoyant
insight to its furthest limits, but this is in accordance with the
ideal character of his work. She has no rival except Goethe's Mignon.

Hawthorne's method of developing his stories resembled closely that of
the historical painter; and it was only in this way that he could
produce such vivid effects. He selected models for his principal
characters and studied them as his work progressed. The original of
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was quickly recognized in Salem as an amiable
inoffensive person, of whom no one suspected any evil,--and that was,
no doubt, the reason why Hawthorne selected him for his purpose. It was
no discredit to the man himself, although tongues were not wanting to
blame Hawthorne for it. Who Hester may have been still remains a
mystery; but it was evidently some one with whom the author was well
acquainted,--perhaps his younger sister. So Rubens painted his own wife
at one time an angel, and at another in the likeness of Herodias. It is
still more probable that Pearl is a picture of Hawthorne's own
daughter, who was of the right age for such a study, and whose
sprightly, fitful, and impulsive actions correspond to those of
Hester's child. This would also explain why her father gave Una so much
space in his Note-book. He may have noticed the antagonism between her
and the Whig children of the neighborhood and have applied it to
Pearl's case. It was also his custom, as appears from his last
unfinished work, to leave blank spaces in his manuscript while in the
heat of composition, which, like a painter's background, were
afterwards filled in with descriptions of scenery or some subsidiary
narrative.

The models of the novelist cannot be hired for the purpose, like those
used by the painter or sculptor, but have to be studied when and where
they can be found, for the least self-consciousness spoils the effect.
Hawthorne in this only followed the example of the best authors and
dramatists; and those who think that good fiction or dramatic poetry
can be written wholly out of a man's or a woman's imagination, would do
well to make the experiment themselves.




CHAPTER XI

PEGASUS IS FREE: 1850-1852


Frederick W. Loring, that bright young poet who was so soon lost to us,
once remarked: "Appreciation is to the artist what sunshine is to
flowers. He cannot expand without it." The success of "The Scarlet
Letter" proved that all Hawthorne's genius required was a little
moderate encouragement,--not industry but opportunity. His pen, no
longer slow and hesitating, moved freer and easier; the long pent-up
flood of thoughts, emotions, and experiences had at length found an
outlet; and the next three years were the most productive of his life.

His first impulse, however, was to escape from Salem. Although his
removal from office had been a foregone conclusion, Hawthorne felt a
certain degree of chagrin connected with it, and also imagined a
certain amount of animosity toward himself which made the place
uncomfortable to him. He was informed that the old Sparhawk mansion,
close to the Portsmouth Navy Yard, was for sale or to rent, and the
first of May, Hawthorne went thither to consider whether it would serve
him for a home. [Footnote: Lathrop, 225.] One would suppose that sedate
old Portsmouth, with its courteous society and its dash of military
life, would have suited Hawthorne even better than Concord; but he
decided differently, and he returned to meet his family in Boston,
where he made the acquaintance of Professor Ticknor, who introduced him
at the Athenaeum Library. He saw Hildreth at the Athenæum working on
his history of the United States; sat for his portrait to C. E.
Thompson; went to the theatre; studied human nature in the smoking-room
at Parker's; and relaxed himself generally. He must have stayed with
his family at Doctor Peabody's on West Street, for he speaks of the
incessant noise from Washington Street, and of looking out from the
back windows on Temple Place. This locates the house very nearly.

Two months later, July 5, 1850, he was at Lenox, in the Berkshire
Mountains. Mrs. Caroline Sturgis Tappan, a brilliant Boston lady,
equally poetic and sensible, owned a small red cottage there, which she
was ready to lease to Hawthorne for a nominal rent. Lowell was going
there on account of his wife, a delicate flower-like nature already
beginning to droop. Doctor Holmes was going on account of Lowell, and
perhaps with the expectation of seeing a rattlesnake; Fields was going
on account of Lowell and Holmes. Mrs. Frances Kemble, already the most
distinguished of Shakespearian readers, had a summer cottage there; and
it was hoped that in such company Hawthorne would at last find the
element to which he properly belonged.

Unfortunately Hawthorne took to raising chickens, and that seems to
have interested him more than anything else at Lenox. He fell in
cordially with the plans of his friends; ascended Monument Mountain,
and went on other excursions with them; but it may be more than
suspected that Lowell and Holmes did most of the talking. He
assimilated himself more to Holmes perhaps than to any of the others.
His meeting with Mrs. Kemble must have been like a collision of the
centrifugal and centripetal forces; and for once, Hawthorne may be said
to have met his antipodes. They could sincerely admire one another as
we all do, in their respective spheres; but such a chasm as yawned
between them in difference of temperament, character, and mode of
living, could not have been bridged over by Captain Eads.

Fannie Kemble, as she was universally called, had by long and
sympathetic reading of Shakespeare transformed herself into a woman of
the Elizabethan era, and could barely be said to belong to the
nineteenth century. Among other Elizabethan traits she had acquired an
unconsciousness of self, together with an enormous self-confidence, and
no idea of what people thought of her in polite society ever seems to
have occurred to her. She had the heart of a woman, but mentally she
was like a composite picture of Shakespeare's _dramatis personae_,
and that Emerson should have spoken of her as "a great exaggerated
creature" is not to be wondered at. In her own department she was
marvellous.

The severity of a mountain winter and the disagreeableness of its
thawing out in spring, is atoned for by its summer,--that fine
exhilarating ether, which seems to bring elevated thoughts, by virtue
of its own nature. Hawthorne enjoyed this with his children and his
chickens; and his wife enjoyed it with him. It is evident from her
letters that she had not been so happy since their first year at the
Old Manse. She had now an opportunity to indulge her love of artistic
decoration, in adorning the walls of their little red cottage, which
has since unfortunately been destroyed by fire. She even began to give
her daughter, who was only six years old, some instruction in drawing.
The following extract concerning her husband, from a letter written to
her mother, is charmingly significant of her state of mind at this
time.

"Beauty and the love of it, in him, are the true culmination of the
good and true, and there is no beauty to him without these bases. He
has perfect dominion over himself in every respect, so that to do the
highest, wisest, loveliest thing is not the least effort to him, any
more than it is to a baby to be innocent. It is his spontaneous act,
and a baby is not more unconscious in its innocence. I never knew such
loftiness, so simply borne. I have never known him to stoop from it in
the most trivial household matter, any more than in a larger or more
public one." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 373.]

Truly this gives us a beautiful insight into their home-life, and
Hawthorne himself could not have written a more accurate eulogium. As
intimated in the last chapter, we all make our way through life by
correcting our daily trespasses, and Hawthorne was no exception to it;
but as a mental analysis of this man at his best Mrs. Hawthorne's
statement deserves a lasting recognition.


"THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES"

It was not until early frosts and shortening days drove Hawthorne
within doors that he again took up his writing, but who can tell how
long he had been dreaming over his subject? Within five months, or by
the last week of January, "The House of the Seven Gables" was ready for
the press. There is no such house in Salem, exactly as he describes it;
but an odd, antiquated-looking structure at No. 54 Turner Street is
supposed to have served him for the suggestion of it. The name is
picturesque and well suited to introduce the reader to a homely
suburban romance.

The subject of the story goes back to the witchcraft period, and its
active principle is a wizard's curse, which descends from one
generation to another, until it is finally removed by the marriage of a
descendant of the injured party to a descendant of the guilty one.
Woven together with this, there is an exposition of mesmerism, or, as
it is now called, Christian Science, with its good and evil features.

Each of Hawthorne's larger romances has a distinct style and quality of
its own, apart from the fine individualized style of the author.
Lathrop makes an excellent remark in regard to "The House of the Seven
Gables," that the perfection of its art seems to stand between the
reader and his subject. It resembles in this respect those Dutch
paintings whose enamelled surface seems like a barrier to prevent the
spectator from entering the scenes which they represent. It would be a
mistake to consider this a fault, but one cannot help noticing the
accuracy with which the subordinate details of the plot are elaborated.
Is it possible that this is connected in a way with the rarefied
atmosphere of Lenox, in which distant objects appear so sharply
defined?

"The House of the Seven Gables" might be symbolized by two paintings,
in the first of which Hepzibah Pyncheon stands as the central figure,
her face turned upward in a silent prayer for justice, her brother
Clifford, with his head bowed helplessly, at one side, and the judge,
with his chronic smile of satisfaction, behind Clifford; on the other
side the keen-eyed Holgrave would appear, sympathetically watching the
progress of events, with Phoebe Pyncheon at his left hand. Old Uncle
Banner and little Ned Higgins might fill in the background. In the
second picture the stricken judge would be found in a large old-
fashioned arm-chair, with Clifford and Hepzibah flying through a
doorway to the right, while Phoebe and Holgrave, the one happy and the
other startled, enter on the left.

Hepzibah, not Phoebe, is the true heroine of the romance,--or at least
its central figure. Nowhere do we look more deeply into Hawthorne's
nature than through this sympathetic portrait of the cross-looking old
maid, whose only inheritance is the House of the Seven Gables, in which
she has lived many years, poor, solitary, friendless, with a disgrace
upon her family, only sustained by the hope that she may yet be a help
and comfort to her unfortunate brother. The jury before whom Clifford
was tried believed him to be guilty, but his sister never would believe
it. She lives for him and suffers with him. Hawthorne does not mitigate
the unpleasantness of her appearance, but he instructs us that there is
a divine spark glowing within. Very pitiful is her attempt to support
the enfeebled brother by keeping a candy store; but noble and heroic is
her resistance to the designs of her tyrannical cousin. It is her
intrepidity that effects the crisis of the drama.

Both Hepzibah and Clifford Pyncheon are examples of what fine
portraiture Hawthorne could accomplish in exceptional or abnormal
personalities, without ever descending to caricature. Judge Pyncheon
has been criticised as being too much of a stage villain, but the same
might be alleged of Shakespeare's (or Fletcher's) Richard III. What is
he, in effect, but a Richard III. reduced to private life? Moreover,
his habit of smiling is an individual trait which gives him a certain
distinction of his own. Usually,

Faces ever blandly smiling
Are victims of their own beguiling.

But Judge Pyncheon is a candidate for the governorship, and among the
more mercenary class of politicians smiling often becomes a habit for
the sake of popularity. Hawthorne might have added something to the
judge's _personale_ by representing him with a droll wit, like
James Fiske, Jr., or some others that we have known, and he might have
exposed more of his internal reflections; but he serves as a fair
example of the hard, grasping, hypocritical type of Yankee. We see only
one side of him, but there are men, and women too, who only have one
side to their characters.

It has been affirmed that Hawthorne made use of the Honorable Mr.
Upham, the excellent historian of Salem witchcraft, as a model for
Judge Pyncheon, and that this was done in revenge for Mr. Upham's
inimical influence in regard to the Salem surveyorship. It is
impossible, at this date, to disentangle the snarl of Hawthorne's
political relations in regard to that office, but Upham had been a
member of Congress and was perhaps as influential a Whig as any in the
city. If Hawthorne was removed through his instrumentality, he
performed our author a service, which neither of them could have
realized at the time. Hawthorne, however, had a strong precedent in his
favor in this instance; namely, Shakespeare's caricature of Sir Thomas
Luce, as Justice Shallow in "The Merry Wives of Windsor"; but there is
no reason why we should think better or worse of Mr. Upham on this
account.

Phoebe Pyncheon is an ideal character, the type of youthful New England
womanhood, and the most charming of all Hawthorne's feminine creations.
Protected by the shield of her own innocence, she leaves her country
home from the same undefined impulse by which birds fly north in
spring, and accomplishes her destiny where she might have least
expected to meet with it. She fills the whole book with her sunny
brightness, and like many a young woman at her age she seems more like
a spirit than a character. Her maidenly dignity repels analysis, and
Hawthorne himself extends a wise deference to his own creation.

The future of a great nation depends more on its young women than upon
its laws or its statesmen.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.