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The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

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In regard to Holgrave, we have already said somewhat; but he is so
lifelike that it seems as if he must have been studied from one of the
younger members of the Brook Farm association; perhaps the one of whom
Emerson tells us, [Footnote: Lecture on Brook Farm.] that he spent his
leisure hours in playing with the children, but had "so subtle a mind"
that he was always consulted whenever important business was on foot.
He is visible to our mental perspective as a rather slender man, above
medium height, with keen hazel eyes, a long nose, and long legs, and
quick and lively in his movements. Phoebe has a more symmetrical
figure, bluish-gray eyes, a complexion slightly browned from going
without her hat, luxuriant chestnut-brown hair, always quiet and
graceful. We have no doubt that Holgrave made a worthy husband for her,
and that he occasionally took a hand in public affairs.

Judge Pyncheon's duplicity is revealed to Holgrave by the medium of a
daguerreotype. Men or women who are actors in real life should avoid
being photographed, for the camera is pretty sure to penetrate their
hypocrisy, and expose them to the world as they actually are. Every
photograph album is to a certain extent a rogues' gallery, in which our
faults, peculiarities, and perhaps vices are ruthlessly portrayed for
the student of human nature. If a merchant were to have all his
customers photographed, he would soon learn to distinguish those who
were not much to be trusted.

Notice also Hawthorne's eye for color. When Clifford, Hepzibah, and
Phoebe are about to leave the seven-gabled house for the last time, "A
plain, but handsome dark-green barouche" is drawn to the door. This is
evidently his idea of a fine equipage; and it happens that the
background of Raphael's "Pope Julius" is of this same half-invisible
green, and harmonizes so well with the Pope's figure that few realize
its coloring.

The plot of this picturesque story is the most ingenious of Hawthorne's
life, but sufficiently probable throughout to answer the purpose of a
romance, and it is the only one of Hawthorne's larger works which ends
happily. It was brought out by Ticknor & Company at Easter 1850,--less
than ten weeks after it was finished; but we think of the House of the
Seven Gables as standing empty, deserted and forlorn.

In December Emerson had written to Hawthorne concerning a new magazine
in which he and Lowell were interested, and if Hawthorne would only
give it his support its success could not be questioned. What Hawthorne
replied to this invitation has never been discovered, but he had seen
too many such periodicals go to wreck to feel much confidence in this
enterprise. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 381.] It is of more importance
now that Emerson should have addressed him as "My dear Hawthorne," for
such cordial friendliness was rare in "the poet of the pines." Mrs.
Alcott once remarked that Emerson never spoke to her husband otherwise
than as "Mr. Alcott," and it is far from likely that he ever spoke to
Hawthorne differently from this. The conventionalities of letter-
writing run back to a period when gentlemen addressed one another--and
perhaps felt so too--in a more friendly manner than they do at present.

Works of fiction and sentimental poetry stir up a class of readers
which no other literature seems to reach, and Hawthorne was soon
inundated with letters from unknown, and perhaps unknowable, admirers;
but the most remarkable came from a man named Pyncheon, who asserted
that his grandfather had been a judge in Salem, and who was highly
indignant at the use which Hawthorne had made of his name. [Footnote:
Conway, 135.] This shows how difficult it is for a writer of fiction or
a biographer to escape giving offence. The lightning is sure to strike
somewhere.


"THE SNOW IMAGE"


The question now was, what next? As it happened, the next important
event in the Hawthorne family was the advent of their younger daughter,
born like Agassiz, "in the lovely month of May," and amid scenery as
beautiful as the Pays de Vaud. Her father named her Rose, in defiance
of Hillard's objection to idyllic nomenclature; and as a child she
seemed much like the spirit of that almost fabulous flower, the wild
orange-rose. Ten years later, she was the most graceful girl in the
Concord dancing-school, and resembled her elder sister so closely that
they could not have been mistaken for anything but sisters. As she grew
older she came more and more to resemble her mother.

It was said that Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" originated in his telling
free versions of the Greek myths to his children on winter evenings;
and also that Horace Mann's boys, who were almost exactly of the same
age as Una and Julian, participated in the entertainment. This may have
happened the following winter at Newton, but could hardly have taken
place at Lenox; and otherwise it is quite impossible to identify all
the children with botanical names in Hawthorne's introduction. Julian
once remarked, at school, that he believed that he was the original of
Squash-blossom, and that is as near as we can get to it. Some of them
may have been as imaginary as the ingenious Mr. Eustace Bright, and
might serve as well to represent one group of children as another.

The book was written very rapidly, at an average of ten pages a day,
and it has Hawthorne's grace and purity of style, but it does not
belong to the legitimate series of his works. It is an excellent book
for the young, for they learn from it much that every one ought to
know; but to mature minds the original fables, even in a translation,
are more satisfactory than these Anglo-Saxon versions in the "Wonder
Book."

The collection of tales which passes by the name of "The Snow Image" is
a much more serious work. "The Great Stone Face" and one or two others
in the collection were prepared at Salem for the same volume as "The
Scarlet Letter," but judiciously excluded by Mr. Fields. "The Snow
Image" itself, however, is plainly derived from Hawthorne's own
experience during the winter at Lenox. The common-sensible farmer and
his poetic wife could not be mistaken for Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne, but
the two sportive children are easily identified as Una and Julian. They
are not only of the same age, but the "slight graceful girl" and
"chubby red-cheeked boy" describes them exactly. The idea has been
derived from the fable of the Greek sculptor Pygmalion whose statue
came to life. That seems far enough off to be pleasantly credible, but
to have such a transubstantiation take place in the front yard of a
white-fenced American residence, is rather startling. Yet Hawthorne,
with the help of the twilight, carries us through on the broad wings of
his imagination, even to the melting of the little snow-sister before
an airtight stove in a close New England parlor. The moral that
Hawthorne draws from this fable might be summed up in the old adage,
"What is one man's meat is another man's poison"; but it has a deeper
significance, which the author does not seem to have perceived. The
key-note of the fable is the same as that in Goethe's celebrated
ballad, "The Erl King"; namely, that those things which children
imagine, are as real to them as the facts of the external world. Nor do
we altogether escape from this so long as we live.

The origin of "The Great Stone Face" is readily traced to the profile
face in the Franconia Mountains,--which has not only a strangely human
appearance, but a grave dignified expression, and, as a natural
phenomenon, ranks next to Niagara Falls. The value of the fable,
however, has perhaps been over-estimated. It is an old story in a
modern garb, the saying so often repeated in the Book of Isaiah: "The
last shall be first, and the first shall be last." The man Ernest, who
is much in his ways like Hawthorne himself, spends his leisure in
contemplating the Great Stone Face, and thus acquires a similar
expression in his own. The wealthy merchant, the famous general, the
great party leader, and the popular poet, all come upon the scene; but
not one of them appears to advantage before the tranquil countenance of
the Great Stone Face. Finally, Ernest in his old age carries off the
laurel; and in this Hawthorne hits the mark, for it is only through
earnestness that man becomes immortal. Yet, one would suppose that
constantly gazing at a face of stone, would give one a rather stony
expression; as sculptors are liable to become statuesque from their
occupation.

Another Dantean allegory, and fully equal in power to any Canto in
Dante's "Inferno," is the story of "Ethan Brandt," or "The Unpardonable
Sin." We have a clew to its origin in the statement that it was part of
an unfinished romance; presumably commenced at Concord, but afterward
discarded, owing to the author's dissatisfaction with his work--an
illustration of Hawthorne's severe criticism of his own writing. The
scene is laid at a limekiln in a dark and gloomy wood, where a lime-
burner, far from human habitations, is watching his fires at night. To
him Ethan Brandt appears, a strange personage, long known for his quest
after the unpardonable sin, and the solitude echoes back the gloominess
of their conversation. Finally, the lime-burner fixes his fires for the
night, rolls himself up in his blanket, and goes to sleep. When he
awakes in the morning, the stranger is gone, but, on ascending the kiln
to look at his caldron, he finds there the skeleton of a man, and
between its ribs a heart of white marble. This is the unpardonable sin,
for which there is neither dispensation nor repentance. Ethan Brandt
has committed suicide because life had become intolerable on such
conditions.

The summer of 1851 in Lenox was by no means brilliant. It had not yet
become the tip end of fashion, and Hawthorne's chief entertainment
seems to have been the congratulatory letters he received from
distinguished people. Mrs. Frances Kemble wrote to him from England,
announcing the success of his book there, and offering him the use of
her cottage, a more palatial affair than Mrs. Tappan's, for the ensuing
winter. Mrs. Hawthorne, however, felt the distance between herself and
her relatives, and perhaps they both felt it. Mrs. Hawthorne's sister
Mary, now Mrs. Horace Mann, was living in West Newton, and the last of
June Mrs. Hawthorne went to her for a long summer visit, taking her two
daughters with her and leaving Julian in charge of his father, with
whom it may be affirmed he was sufficiently safe. It rarely happens
that a father and son are so much together as these two were, and they
must have become very strongly attached.

For older company he had Hermann Melville, and G. P. R. James, whose
society he may have found as interesting as that of more distinguished
writers, and also Mr. Tappan, whom Hawthorne had learned to respect for
his good sense and conciliatory disposition--a true peace-maker among
men and women. Burill Curtis, the amateur brother of George W. Curtis,
came to sketch the lake from Hawthorne's porch, and Doctor Holmes
turned up once or twice. On July 24 Hawthorne wrote to his friend Pike
at Salem: [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 151.]

"By the way, if I continue to prosper as heretofore in the literary
line, I shall soon be in a condition to buy a place; and if you should
hear of one, say worth from $1500 to $2000, I wish you would keep your
eye on it for me. I should wish it to be on the seacoast, or at all
events with easy access to the sea."

The evident meaning of this is that the Hawthornes had no desire to
spend a second winter in the Berkshire hills. The world was large, but
he knew not where to rest his head. Mrs. Hawthorne solved the problem
on her return to Lenox, and it was decided to remove to West Newton
when cold weather came. Thither they went November 21 in a driving
storm of snow and sleet,--a parting salute from old Berkshire,--and
reached Horace Mann's house the same evening.

Nobody knows where the Hawthornes lived in Newton. The oldest survivors
of both families were only five years of age at that time. Mrs.
Hawthorne's father also resided in Newton that winter, and it is more
than likely that they made their residence with him. Julian Hawthorne
has a distinct recollection of the long freight-trains with their
clouds of black smoke blowing across his father's ground during the
winter; so they could not have lived very far from the Worcester
railroad. Horace Mann's house is still standing, opposite a school-
house on the road from the station, where a by-way meets it at an acute
angle. The freight-trains and their anthracite smoke must have had a
disturbing influence on Hawthorne's sensibility.

The long-extended town of Newton, which is now a populous city, has
much the best situation of any of the Boston suburbs--on a moderately
high range of hills, skirted by the Charles River, both healthful and
picturesque. It is not as hot in summer nor so chilly at other seasons
as Concord, and enjoys the advantage of a closer proximity to the city.
Its society is, and always has been, more liberal and progressive than
Salem society in Hawthorne's time. Its citizens, mainly professional
and mercantile men, are active, intelligent, and sensible, without
being too fastidious. It was a healthful change for Hawthorne, and we
are not surprised to find that his literary work was affected by it.
Mrs. L. Maria Child lived there at the time, and so did Celia Thaxter,
although not yet known to fame. The sound, penetrating intelligence of
Horace Mann may have also had its salutary effect.


"THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE"

Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "The Snow Image" were expressed to
Ticknor & Company before leaving Lenox, and "The Blithedale Romance"
may also have been commenced before that change of base. We only know,
from his diary, that it was finished on the last day of April, 1852,
and that he received the first proof-sheets of it two weeks later--
which shows what expedition publishers can make, when they feel
inclined.

The name itself is somewhat satirical, for Hawthorne did not find the
life at Brook Farm very blithesome, and in the story, with the
exception of the sylvan masquerade, there is much more rue than
heart's-ease, as commonly happens in his stories. The tale ends
tragically, and without the gleam of distant happiness which lights up
the last scenes of "The Scarlet Letter." It commences with a severe
April snowstorm, an unfavorable omen; the same in which Hawthorne set
out to join the West Roxbury community.

And yet the name is not without a serious meaning--a stern, sad moral
significance. The earth is not naturally beautiful, for rank Nature
ever runs to an excess. It is only beautiful when man controls and
remodels it; but what man makes physically, he can unmake spiritually.
We pass by a handsome estate, a grand arcade of elms over its avenue,
spacious lawns, an elegant mansion, a luxurious flower-garden; but we
are informed that happiness does not dwell there, that its owner is a
misanthropic person, whose nature has been perverted by the selfishness
of luxury; that there are no pleasant parties on the lawn, no happy
wooing in that garden, no marriage festivals in those halls; and those
possessions, which might have proved a blessing to generations yet
unborn, are no better than a curse and a whited sepulchre. How many
such instances could be named.

It may have occurred to Hawthorne, that, if George Ripley, instead of
following after a will-o'-the-wisp notion, which could only lead him
into a bog, had used the means at his disposal to cultivate Brook Farm
in a rational manner, and had made it a hospitable rendezvous for
intellectual and progressive people,--an oasis of culture amid the wide
waste of commercialism,--the place might well have been called
Blithedale, and Mr. Ripley would have inaugurated a movement as rare as
it was beneficial. It was only at a city like Boston, whose suburbs
were pleasant and easily accessible, that such a plan could be carried
out; and it was only a man of Mr. Ripley's scholarship and intellectual
acumen who could have drawn together the requisite elements for it. It
looks as if he missed an opportunity.

We should avoid, however, confounding George Ripley with Hawthorne's
Hollingsworth. It is quite possible that Hawthorne made use of certain
traits in Ripley's character for this purpose, and also that he may
have had some slight collision with him, such as he represents in "The
Blithedale Romance;" but Ripley was an essentially veracious nature,
who, as already remarked, carried out his experiment to its logical
conclusion. Hollingsworth, on the contrary, proposes to pervert the
trust confided to him, in order to establish at Blithedale an
institution for the reformation of criminals, by which proceeding he
would, after a fashion, become a criminal himself. At the same time, he
plays fast and loose with the affections of Zenobia and Priscilla, who
are both in love with him, designing to marry the one who would make
the most favorable match for his purpose. It is through the junction of
these two streams of evil that the catastrophe is brought about.

Priscilla is evidently taken from the little seamstress whom Hawthorne
mentions in his diary for October 9, 1841, and if she ever discovered
this, she could hardly have been displeased, for she is one of his most
lovable creations; not so much of an ideal as Phoebe Pyncheon, for she
is older and has already seen hard fortune. Her quiet, almost
submissive ways at first excite pity rather than admiration, but at
length we discover that there is a spirit within her, which shines
through its earthly envelope, like the twinkling of a star.

Zenobia has a larger nature and a more gifted mind than Priscilla, but
also a more mixed character. Her name suggests a queenly presence and
she is fully conscious of this. She does not acquire an equal influence
over the other sex, for she is evidently in love with herself. She is
described as handsome and attractive, but no sooner had "Blithedale"
been published than people said, "Margaret Fuller" [Footnote: the name
of Zenobia is not very remotely significant of Margaret Fuller. Palmyra
was the centre of Greek philosophy in Zenobia's time, and she also
resembled Margaret in her tragical fate.]--although Margaret Fuller
was rather plain looking, and never joined the Brook Farm association.

If this surmise be correct, it leads to a curious consideration. After
painting a portrait of Zenobia in Chapter VI of "Blithedale," quite
worthy of Rubens or Titian, he remarks, through the incognito of Miles
Coverdale, in the first part of Chapter VII, that Priscilla reminds him
of Margaret Fuller, and says this to Priscilla herself. Now it proves
in the sequel that Priscilla and Zenobia are half-sisters, but it would
be as difficult to imagine this from anything that is said in the story
about them, as it is to understand how the shy, undemonstrative
Priscilla could have reminded Coverdale of the brilliant and aggressive
leader of the Transcendentalists.

The introduction of Margaret Fuller's name in that place comes abruptly
on the reader, and momentarily dispels the illusion of the tale. Was
Hawthorne conscious of the undercurrent of relationship, which he had
already formulated in his mind, between Priscilla and Zenobia; or what
is more likely, did he make the comparison in order to lead his readers
away from any conceptions they might have formed in regard to the
original of his heroine? If the latter supposition be true, he
certainly was not very successful, for in either case it is evident
that Margaret Fuller was prominent in his thoughts at the time he wrote
those two chapters.

Hawthorne's idea of her, however, should not be accepted as a finality.
What Emerson and other friends have said concerning her should also be
considered in order to obtain a just impression of a woman who combined
more varied qualities than perhaps any other person of that time.
Hawthorne says of Zenobia, that she was naturally a stump oratoress,--
rather an awkward expression for him--and that "her mind was full of
weeds." Margaret Fuller was a natural orator, and her mind was full of
many subjects in which Hawthorne could take little interest. She was a
revolutionary character, a sort of female Garibaldi, who attacked old
Puritan traditions with a two-edged sword; she won victories for
liberalism, but left confusion behind her. Like all such characters,
she made friends and enemies wherever she went. She sometimes gave
offence by hasty impulsive utterances, but more frequently by keenly
penetrating arguments for the various causes which she espoused. Only a
woman could deliver such telling shots.

Lowell, who was fond of an argument himself, did not like her better
than Hawthorne did. There may be some truth in what he says in "The
Fable for Critics," that the expression of her face seemed to suggest a
life-long familiarity with the "infinite soul"; but Margaret Fuller was
sound at heart, and when she talked on those subjects which interested
her, no one could be more self-forgetful or thoroughly in earnest. At
times, she seemed like an inspired prophetess, and if she had lived two
thousand years earlier, she might have been remembered as a sibyl.
[Footnote: See Appendix B.]

"The Blithedale Romance" is written with a freer pen and less carefully
than "The House of the Seven Gables," and is so much the better; for
the author's state of mind in which he is writing will always affect
the reader more or less, and if the former feels under a slight
constraint the latter will also. A writer cannot be too exact in
ascertaining the truth,--Macaulay to the contrary,--but he can trouble
himself too much as to the expression of it. At the same time, "The
Blithedale Romance" is the least poetic of Hawthorne's more serious
works (which is the same as saying that it is more like a novel), for
the reason that Hawthorne in this instance was closer to his subject.
It is also more of a personal reminiscence, and less an effort of the
imagination. He has included in it a number of descriptive passages
taken from his Brook Farm diary; most notably the account of that
sylvan masquerade, in which Coverdale finds his former associates
engaged on his return to Blithedale in the autumn. Perhaps this is the
reason why the book has so pleasant a flavor--a mellow after-thought of
old associations.

An air of mystery adds an enchantment to a work of art, whether in
poetry, painting, or sculpture,--perhaps also in music; but there is a
difference in kind between mystery and uncertainty. We do not like to
be left half in the dark, in regard to things which we think we ought
to know. There is a break in Hawthorne's chain of evidence against
Hollingsworth and Zenobia, which might possibly have been filled to
advantage. He would certainly have been non-suited, if his case had
been carried into court. We are permitted to suppose that Zenobia, in
order to clear her path of a successful rival, assists the mountebank,
Westervelt, to entrap Priscilla, over whom he possesses a kind hypnotic
power, and to carry her off for the benefit of his mountebank
exhibitions; but it remains a supposition and nothing more. We cannot
but feel rejoiced, when Hollingsworth steps onto the platform and
releases Priscilla from the psychological net-work in which she is
involved, and from which she has not sufficient will-power to free
herself. He certainly deserves her hand and fortune; but, as to his
condemnatory charges against Zenobia, which led directly to her
suicide,--what could they have been? Was there nothing more than the
trick she had attempted upon Priscilla? And if he accused her of that
only, why should he suffer perpetual remorse on account of her death?
Surely there was need of further explanation here, for the catastrophe
and its consequences are out of all proportion to the apparent cause.

His account of the recovery of Zenobia's body is a close transcript of
the search for that unfortunate school-mistress, who drowned herself in
Concord River; and it is possible that, if Hawthorne had not been
present on that occasion, the plot might have terminated in some other
manner.

The story closes without a ray of hope for Hollingsworth; but the
reader can perceive one in the generous devotion of his single-minded
wife, even if Hawthorne did not.




CHAPTER XII

THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: 1852-1854


Why Hawthorne returned to Concord in 1852 is more of a mystery than the
suicide of Zenobia. Horace Mann also left Newton, to be President of
Antioch College (and to die there in the cause of feminine education),
in the autumn of that year; but this could hardly have been expected
six months earlier. Hawthorne was not very favorably situated at
Newton, being rather too near the railroad; but there was plenty of
land on the top of the hill, where he might have built himself a house,
and in the course of twelve years his property would have quadrupled in
value. A poet will not be less of a poet, but more so, for
understanding the practical affairs of life. Or he might have removed
to Cambridge, where Longfellow, always foremost in kind offices, would
have been like a guardian angel to him, and where he could have made
friends like Felton and Agassiz, who would have been much more in
harmony with his political views. Ellery Channing was the only friend
he appears to have retained in Concord, and it was not altogether a
favorable place to bring up his children; but the natural topography of
Concord is unusually attractive, and it may be suspected that he was
drawn thither more from the love of its pine solitudes and shimmering
waters, than from any other motive.

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