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The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Hawthorne did not feel this at first. He arrived in inclement weather,
and it was some weeks before he became accustomed to the climatic
conditions--so different from any northern atmosphere. He hated the
filth of the much-neglected city, the squalor of its lower classes, the
narrowness of its streets, and the peculiar pavement, which, as he says
makes walking in Rome a penitential pilgrimage. He goes to the
carnival, and his penetrating glance proves it to be a sham
entertainment.

But in due course he emerges from this mood; he rejoices in the
atmospheric immensity of St. Peter's; he looks out from the Pincian
hill, and sees _Nivea Soracte_ as Horace beheld it; and he is
overawed (if Hawthorne could be) by the Forum of Trajan and the Column
of Antoninus. He makes a great discovery, or rediscovery, that
Phidias's colossal statues of Castor and Pollux on the Monte Cavallo
are the finest figures in Rome. They are late Roman copies, but
probably from Phidias,--not by Lysippus or Praxiteles; and he felt the
presence of Michel Angelo in the Baths of Diocletian. It is not long
before he goes to the Pincian in the afternoon to play at jack-stones
with his youngest daughter.

William W. Story, the American sculptor, would seem to have been a
former acquaintance. His father, the famous law lecturer, lived in
Salem during Hawthorne's youth, but afterward removed to Cambridge,
where the younger Story was educated, and there married an intimate
friend of Mrs. James Russell Lowell. This brought him into close
relations with Lowell, Longfellow, and their most intimate friends. He
was something of a poet, and more of a sculptor, but, inheriting an
independent fortune and living in the Barberini Palace, he soon became
more of an Englishman than an American, a tendency which was visibly
increased by a patent of nobility bestowed on him by the King of
Naples.

Hawthorne soon renewed William Story's acquaintance, and found him
modelling the statue of Cleopatra, of which Hawthorne has given a
somewhat idealized description in "The Marble Faun." This may have
interested him the more from the fact that he witnessed its development
under the sculptor's hands, and saw that distinguished historical
person emerge as it were out of the clay, like a second Eve; but he
makes a mental reservation that it would be better if English and
American sculptors would make a freer use of their chisels--of which
more hereafter. Story was a light-hearted, discursive person, with a
large amount of bric-à-brac information, who could appreciate Hawthorne
either as a genius or as a celebrity. He soon became Hawthorne's chief
companion and social mainstay in Rome, literally a _vade mecum_,
and we may believe that he exercised more or less influence over
Hawthorne's judgment in matters of art.

Hawthorne listened to Story, and read Mrs. Jameson, although Edward
Silsbee had warned him against her as an uncertain authority; but
Hawthorne depended chiefly on his own investigations. He and his wife
declined an invitation to Mrs. Story's masquerade, and lived very
quietly during this first winter in Rome, making few acquaintances, but
seeing a good deal of the city. They went together to all the principal
churches and the princely galleries; and beside this Hawthorne
traversed Rome from one end to the other, and across in every
direction, sometimes alone, or in company with Julian, investigating
everything from the Mamartine prison, in which Jugurtha was starved, to
the catacombs of St. Calixtus and the buffaloes on the Campagna. The
impression which Conway gives, that he went about sight-seeing and
drinking sour wine with Story and Lothrop Motley, is not quite correct,
for Motley did not come to Rome until the following December, and then
only met Hawthorne a few times, according to his own confession.
[Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 406.] We must not forget, however, that
excellent lady and skilful astronomer, Miss Maria Mitchell, who joined
the Hawthorne party in Paris, and became an indispensable accompaniment
to them the rest of the winter.

Hawthorne also became acquainted with Buchanan Read, who afterward
painted that stirring picture of General Sheridan galloping to the
battle of Cedar Run; and on March 12 Mr. Read gave a party, at his
Roman dwelling, of painters and sculptors, which Hawthorne attended,
and has entered in full, with the moonlight excursion afterward, in
"The Marble Faun." There Hawthorne met Gibson, to whom he refers as the
most distinguished sculptor of the time. So he was, in England, but
there were much better sculptors in France and in Germany. Gibson's
personality interested Hawthorne, as it well might, but he saw clearly
that Gibson was merely a skilful imitator of the antique, or, as he
calls him, a pagan idealist. He also made acquaintance with two
American sculptors, a Yankee and a girlish young woman, whose names are
prudently withheld; for he afterward visited their studios, and readily
discovered that they had no real talent for their profession.

If we feel inclined to quarrel with Hawthorne anywhere, it is in his
disparagement of Crawford. There might be two opinions in regard to the
slavery question, but there never has been but one as to the greatest
of American artists. It was a pity that his friend Hillard could not
have been with Hawthorne at this time to counteract the jealous
influences to which he was exposed. He writes no word of regret at the
untimely death of Crawford, but goes into his studio after that sad
event and condemns his work. Only the _genre_ figure of a boy
playing marbles, gives him any satisfaction there; although a plea of
extenuation might be entered in Hawthorne's favor, for statues of
heroic size could not be seen to greater disadvantage than when packed
together in a studio. The immense buttons on the waistcoats of our
revolutionary heroes seem to have startled him on his first entrance,
and this may be accepted as an indication of the rest. Yet the tone of
his criticism, both in the "Note-book" and in "The Marble Faun," is far
from friendly to Crawford. He does not refer to the statue of
Beethoven, which was Crawford's masterpiece, nor to the statue of
Liberty, which now poses on the lantern of the Capitol at Washington,--
much too beautiful, as Hartmann says, for its elevated position, and
superior in every respect to the French statue of Liberty in New York
harbor.

Hawthorne had already come to the conclusion that there was a certain
degree of poison in the Roman atmosphere, and in April he found the
climate decidedly languid, but he had fallen in love with this pagan
capital and he hated to leave it. Mrs. Anna Jameson arrived late in
April; a sturdy, warm-hearted Englishwoman greatly devoted to art, for
which her books served as elementary treatises and pioneers to the
English and Americans of those days. She was so anxious to meet
Hawthorne that she persuaded William Story to bring him and his wife to
her lodgings when she was too ill to go forth. They had read each
other's writings and could compliment each other in all sincerity, for
Mrs. Jameson had also an excellent narrative style; but Hawthorne found
her rather didactic, and although she professed to be able "to read a
picture like a book," her conversation was by no means brilliant. She
had contracted an unhappy marriage early in life, and found an escape
from her sorrows and regrets in this elevated interest.

It was just before leaving Rome that Hawthorne conceived the idea of a
romance in which the "Faun" of Praxiteles should come to life, and play
a characteristic part in the modern world; the catastrophe naturally
resulting from his coming into conflict with a social organization for
which he was unfitted. This portion of Hawthorne's diary is intensely
interesting to those who have walked on classic ground.

On May 24 Hawthorne commenced his journey to Florence with a
_vetturino_ by easy stages, and one can cordially envy him this
portion of his Italian sojourn; with his devoted wife and three happy
children; travelling through some of the most beautiful scenery in the
world,--nearly if not quite equal to the Rhineland--without even the
smallest cloud of care and anxiety upon his sky, his mind stored with
mighty memories, and looking forward with equal expectations to the
prospect before him,--_bella Firenze_, the treasure-house of
Italian cities; through sunny valleys, with their streams and hill-
sides winding seaward; up the precipitous spurs of the Apennines, with
their old baronial castles perched like vultures' nests on inaccessible
crags; passing through gloomy, tortuous defiles, guarded by Roman
strongholds; and then drawn up by white bullocks over Monte Somma, and
to the mountain cities of Assisi and Perugia, older than Rome itself;
by Lake Trasimenus, still ominous of the name of Hannibal; over hill-
sides silver-gray with olive orchards; always a fresh view and a new
panorama, bounded by the purple peaks on the horizon; and over all, the
tender blue of the Italian sky. Hawthorne may have felt that his whole
previous life, all he had struggled, lived and suffered for, was but a
preparation for this one week of perfectly harmonious existence. Such
vacations from earthly troubles come but rarely in the most fortunate
lives, and are never of long duration.

When they reached Florence, they found it, as Rose Hawthorne says, very
hot--much too hot to enjoy the city as it should be enjoyed. Her
reminiscences of their life at Florence, and especially of the Villa
Manteüto, have a charming freshness and virginal simplicity, although
written in a somewhat high-flown manner. She succeeds, in spite of her
peculiar style, in giving a distinct impression of the old chateau, its
surroundings, the life her family led there, and of the wonderful view
from Bellosguardo. One feels that beneath the disguise of a fashionable
dress there is an innocent, sympathetic, and pure-spirited nature.

The Hawthornes arrived in Florence on the afternoon of June 3, and
spent the first night at the Albergo della Fontano, and the next day
obtained apartments in the Casa del Bello, opposite Hiram Powers'
studio, and just outside of the Porta Romana. Hawthorne made Mr.
Powers' acquaintance even before he entered the city, and Powers soon
became to him what Story had been in Rome. The Brownings were already
at Casa Guidi,--still noted in the annals of English poesy,--and called
upon the Hawthornes at the first notice of their arrival. Alacrity or
readiness would seem to have been one of Robert Browning's prominent
characteristics. Elizabeth Browning's mind was as much occupied with
spiritism as when Hawthorne met her two years previously at Monckton
Milnes's breakfast; an unfortunate proclivity for a person of frail
physique and delicate nerves. Neither did she live very long after
this. Her husband and Hawthorne both cordially disapproved of these
mesmeric practices; but Mrs. Browning could not be prevented from
talking on the subject, and this evidently produced an ecstatic and
febrile condition of mind in her, very wearing to a poetic temperament.
Hawthorne heartily liked Browning himself, and always speaks well of
him; but there must also have been an undercurrent of disagreement
between him and so ardent an admirer of Louis Napoleon, and he recalls
little or nothing of what Browning said to him. This continued till the
last of June, when Robert and Elizabeth left Florence for cooler
regions.

Meanwhile Hawthorne occupied himself seriously with seeing Florence and
studying art, like a man who intends to get at the root of the matter.
Florence afforded better advantages than Rome for the study of art, not
only from the superiority of its collections, but because there the
development of mediaeval art can be traced to its fountain-source. He
had no textbooks to guide him,--at least he does not refer to any,--and
his investigations were consequently of rather an irregular kind, but
it was evidently the subject which interested him most deeply at this
time. His Note-book is full of it, and also of discussions on sculpture
with Hiram Powers, in which Hawthorne has frequently the best of the
argument.

In fact Powers looked upon his art from much too literal a stand-point.
He agreed with Hawthorne as to the fine expression of the face of
Michel Angelo's "Giuliano dé Medici," [Footnote: As Hawthorne did not
prepare his diary for publication, it would not be fair to hold him
responsible for the many instances of bad Italian in the Note-book,
which ought to have been edited by some one who knew the language.] but
affirmed that it was owing to a trick of overshadowing the face by the
projecting visor of Giuliano's helmet. Hawthorne did not see why such a
device did not come within the range of legitimate art, the truth of
the matter being that Michel Angelo left the face unfinished; but the
expression of the statue is not in its face, but in the inclination of
the head, the position of the arms, the heavy droop of the armor, and
in fact in the whole figure. Powers' "Greek Slave," on the contrary,
though finely modelled and sufficiently modern in type, has no definite
expression whatever.

Hawthorne found an exceptional interest in the "Venus dé Medici," now
supposed to have been the work of one of the sons of Praxiteles, and
its wonderful symmetry gives it a radiance like that of the sun behind
a summer cloud; but Powers cooled down his enthusiasm by objecting to
the position of the ears, the vacancy of the face, the misrepresentation
of the inner surface of the lips, and by condemning particularly the
structure of the eyes, which he declared were such as no human being
could see with. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, June 13, 1858.] Hawthorne
was somewhat puzzled by these subtleties of criticism, which he did not
know very well how to answer, but he still held fast to the opinion that
he was fundamentally right, and retaliated by criticising Powers' own
statues in his diary.

The Greeks, in the best period of their favorite art, never attempted a
literal reproduction of the human figure. Certain features, like the
nostrils, were merely indicated; others, like the eyelashes, often so
expressive in woman, were omitted altogether; hair and drapery were
treated in a schematic manner. In order to give an expression to the
eyes, various devices were resorted to. The eyelids of the bust of
Pericles on the Acropolis had bevelled edges, and the eyeballs of the
"Apollo Belvedere" are exceptionally convex, to produce the effect of
looking to a distance, although the human eye when gazing afar off
becomes slightly contracted. The head of the "Venus dé Medici" is
finely shaped, but small, and her features are pretty, rather than
beautiful; but her eyes are exceptional among all feminine statues for
their tenderness of expression--swimming, as it were, with love; and it
is the manner in which this effect is produced that Powers mistook for
bad sculpture. Hiram Powers' most exceptional proposition was to the
effect that the busts of the Roman emperors were not characteristic
portraits. Hawthorne strongly dissented from this; and he was in the
right, for if the character of a man can be read from marble, it is
from those old blocks. Hawthorne has some admirable remarks on this
point.

Such was Hawthorne's internal life during his first month at Florence.
He was full of admiration for the cathedral, the equestrian statue of
Cosmo dé Medici, the "David" of Michel Angelo, the Loggia dé Lanzi,
Raphael's portrait of Julius II., the "Fates" of Michel Angelo, and
many others; yet he confesses that the Dutch, French, and English
paintings gave him a more simple, natural pleasure,--probably because
their subjects came closer to his own experience.

A strange figure of an old man, with "a Palmer-like beard," continually
crossed Hawthorne's path, both in Rome and in Florence, where he dines
with him at the Brownings'. His name is withheld, but Hawthorne informs
us that he is an American editor, a poet; that he voted for Buchanan,
and was rejoicing in the defeat of the Free-soilers,--"a man to whom
the world lacks substance because he has not sufficiently cultivated
his emotional nature;" and "his personal intercourse, though kindly,
does not stir one's blood in the least." Yet Hawthorne finds him to be
good-hearted, intelligent, and sensible. This can be no other than
William Cullen Bryant. [Footnote: Italian Note-book, ii. 15.]

In the evening of June 27 the Hawthornes went to call on a Miss
Blagden, who occupied a villa on Bellosguardo, and where they met the
Brownings, and a Mr. Trollope, a brother of the novelist. It could not
have been the Villa Manteüto, which Miss Blagden rented, for we hear of
her at Bellosguardo again in August, when Hawthorne was living there
himself; and after this we do not hear of the Brownings again.

Hawthorne's remark on Browning's poetry is one of the rare instances in
which he criticises a contemporary author:

"I am rather surprised that Browning's conversation should be so clear,
and so much to the purpose at the moment, since his poetry can seldom
proceed far, without running into the high grass of latent meanings and
obscure allusions."

It is precisely this which has prevented Browning from achieving the
reputation that his genius deserves. We wish that Hawthorne could have
favored us with as much literary criticism as he has given us of art
criticism, and we almost lose patience with him for his repeated
canonization of General Jackson--St. Hickory--united with a
disparagement of Washington and Sumner; but although Hawthorne's
insight into human nature was wonderful in its way, it would seem to
have been confined within narrow boundaries. At least he seems to have
possessed little insight into grand characters and magnanimous natures.
He wishes now that Raphael could have painted Jackson's portrait. So,
conversely, Shakespeare belittles Cæsar in order to suit the purpose of
his play. Which of Shakespeare's male characters can be measured beside
George Washington? There is not one of them, unless Kent in "King
Lear." Strong, resolute natures, like Washington, Hamilton, Sumner, are
not adapted to dramatic fiction, either in prose or in verse.

A Florentine summer is about equal to one in South Carolina, and now,
when Switzerland can be reached by rail in twenty-four hours, no
American or Englishman thinks of spending July and August there; but in
Hawthorne's time it was a long and expensive journey over the Pennine
Alps; Hawthorne's physique was as well attempered to heat as to cold;
and he continued to frequent the picture-galleries and museums after
all others had ceased to do so; although he complains in his diary that
he had never known it so hot before, and that the flagstones in the
street reflect the sun's rays upon him like the open doors of a
furnace.

At length, in an entry of July 27, he says:

"I seldom go out nowadays, having already seen Florence tolerably well,
and the streets being very hot, and myself having been engaged in
sketching out a romance, [Footnote: "The Marble Faun."] which whether
it will ever come to anything is a point yet to be decided. At any
rate, it leaves me little heart for journalizing, and describing new
things; and six months of uninterrupted monotony would be more valuable
to me just now, than the most brilliant succession of novelties."

This is the second instance in which we hear of a romance based on the
"Faun" of Praxiteles, and now at last he appears to be in earnest.

It may be suspected that his entertaining friend, Hiram Powers, was the
chief obstacle to the progress of his new plot, and it is rather
amusing to believe that it was through the agency of Mr. Powers, who
cared for nothing so much as Hawthorne's welfare, that this impediment
was removed. Five days later, Hawthorne and his household gods, which
were chiefly his wife and children, left the Casa del Bello for the
Villa Manteüto where they remained in peaceful retirement until the
first of October.

On the tower of the Villa he could enjoy whatever enlivening breezes
came across to Florence from the mountains to the north and east. When
the _tramontana_ blew, he was comfortable enough. Thunder-storms
also came frequently, with the roar of heaven's artillery reverberating
from peak to peak, and enveloping Bellosguardo in a dense vapor, like
the smoke from Napoleon's cannon; after which they would career down
the valley of the Arno to Pisa, flashing and cannonading like a
victorious army in pursuit of the enemy.

The beauty of the summer nights at Florence amply compensates for the
sultriness of the days,--especially if they be moonlight nights,--and
the bright starlight of the Mediterranean is little less beautiful.
Travellers who only see Italy in winter, know not what they miss.
Hawthorne noticed that the Italian sky had a softer blue than that of
England and America, and that there was a peculiar luminous quality in
the atmosphere, as well as a more decided difference between sunshine
and shadow, than in countries north of the Alps. The atmosphere of
Italy, Spain, and Greece is not like any American air that I am
acquainted with. During the summer season, all Italians whose
occupation will permit them, sleep at noon,--the laborers in the
shadows of the walls,--and sit up late at night, enjoying the fine air
and the pleasant conversation which it inspires. Hawthorne found the
atmosphere of Tuscany favorable for literary work, even in August.

On the 4th of that month he looked out from his castle wall late at
night and noticed the brilliancy of the stars,--also that the Great
Dipper exactly overhung the valley of the Arno. At that same hour the
astronomer Donati was sweeping the heavens with his telescope at the
Florentine observatory, and it may have been ten days later that he
discovered in the handle of the Dipper the great comet which will
always bear his name,--the most magnificent comet of modern times, only
excepting that of 1680, which could be seen at noonday. It first became
visible to the naked eye during the last week of August, as a small
star with a smaller tail, near the second star from the end of the
handle of the Dipper; after which it grew apace until it extended
nearly from the horizon to the zenith, with a tail millions of miles in
length. This, however, did not take place until near the time of
Hawthorne's departure from Florence. In his case it proved sorrowfully
enough a harbinger of calamity.

Hawthorne blocked out his sketch of "The Romance of Monte Beni" in a
single month, and then returned to the churches and picture-galleries.
He could not expect to revisit Italy in this life, and prudently
concluded to make the most of it while the opportunity lasted. He
notices the peculiar fatigue which sight-seeing causes in deep natures,
and becomes unspeakably weary of it, yet returns to it again next day
with an interest as fresh as before.

Neither did he lack for society. William Story came over to see him
from Siena, where he was spending the summer, exactly as Hawthorne
describes the visit of Kenyon to Donatello in his romance. Mr. and Mrs.
Powers came frequently up the hill in the cool of the evening, and Miss
Blagden also proved an excellent neighbor. Early in September the
"spirits" appeared again in great force. Mrs. Hawthorne discovered a
medium in her English governess; table-rappings and table-tippings were
the order of the evening; and some rather surprising results were
obtained through Miss Shepard's fingers. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i.
31.] Powers related a still more surprising performance [Footnote:
Italian Note-book.] that he had witnessed, which was conducted by D. D.
Home, an American mountebank, who hoaxed more crowned heads, princes,
princesses, and especially English duchesses than Cagliostro himself.
Hawthorne felt the repugnance of the true artist to this uncanny
business, and his thorough detestation of the subject commends itself
to every sensible reader. He came to the conclusion that the supposed
revelations of spirits were nothing more than the mental vagaries of
persons in the same room, conveyed in some occult manner to the brain
of the medium. The governess, Miss Shepard, agreed with him in this,
but she could give no explanation as to the manner in which the
response came to her. Twenty years of scientific investigations have
added little or nothing to this diagnosis of Hawthorne's, nor are we
any nearer to an explanation of the simple fact; which is wonderful
enough in its way. Hawthorne compares the revelations of mediums to
dreams, but they are not exactly like them, for they are at the same
time more rational and less original or spontaneous than dreams. In my
dreams my old friends often come back to me and speak in their
characteristic manner,--more characteristic perhaps than I could
represent them when awake,--but the responses of mediums are either
evasive or too highly generalized to be of any particular value. The
story of Mary Runnel, or Rondel, which Julian Hawthorne narrates, is an
excellent case in point. Hawthorne had probably heard of that
flirtation of his grandfather some time in his youth, and the fact was
unconsciously latent in his mind; but nothing that Mary divulged at
Bellosguardo was of real interest to him or to the others concerned.
The practice of spiritism, hypnotism, or Christian Science opens a wide
door for superstition and imposture to walk in and seat themselves by
our firesides.

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