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




To which she replied:

"'It is all false. I am clear.' Whereupon Mrs. Pope, one of the
witnesses, fell into a grievous fit." [Footnote: Upham's "Salem
Witchcraft," ii. 64.]

Alas, poor beleaguered soul! And one may well say, "What imaginations
those women had!" Tituba, the West Indian Aztec who appears in this
social-religious explosion as the chief and original incendiary,--
verily the root of all evil,--gave the following testimony:

"Q. 'Did you not pinch Elizabeth Hubbard this morning?'

"A. 'The man brought her to me, and made me pinch her.'

"Q. 'Why did you go to Thomas Putnam's last night and hurt his child?'

"A. 'They pull and haul me, and make me go.'

"Q. 'And what would they have you do?'

"A. 'Kill her with a knife.'

"(Lieutenant Fuller and others said at this time, when the child saw
these persons, and was tormented by them, that she did complain of a
knife,--that they would have her cut her head off with a knife.)

"Q. 'How did you go?'

"A. 'We ride upon sticks, and are there presently.'

"Q. 'Do you go through the trees or over them?'

"A. 'We see nothing, but are there presently.'

"Q. 'Why did you not tell your master?'

"A. 'I was afraid. They said they would cut off my head if I told.'

"Q. 'Would you not have hurt others, if you could?'

"A. 'They said they would hurt others, but they could not.'

"Q. 'What attendants hath Sarah Good?'

"A. 'A yellow-bird, and she would have given me one.'

"Q. 'What meat did she give it?'

"A. 'It did suck her between her fingers.'".

This might serve as an epilogue to "Macbeth," and the wonder is that an
unlettered Indian should have had the wit to make such apt and subtle
replies. It is also noteworthy that these strange proceedings took
place after the expulsion of the royal governor, and previous to the
provincial government of William III. If Sir Edmund Andros had
remained, the tragedy might have been changed into a farce.

After all, it appears that John Hathorne was not a lawyer, for he
describes himself in his last will, dated June 27, 1717, as a merchant,
and it is quite possible that his legal education was no better than
that of the average English squire in Fielding's time. It is evident,
however, from the testimony given above, that he was a strong believer
in the supernatural, and here if anywhere we find a relationship
between him and his more celebrated descendant. Nathaniel Hawthorne was
too clear-sighted to place confidence in the pretended revelations of
trance mediums, and he was not in the least superstitious; but he was
remarkably fond of reading ghost stories, and would have liked to
believe them, if he could have done so in all sincerity. He sometimes
felt as if he were a ghost himself, gliding noiselessly in the walks of
men, and wondered that the sun should cast a shadow from him. However,
we cannot imagine him as seated in jurisdiction at a criminal tribunal.
His gentle nature would have recoiled from that, as it might from a
serpent.

In the Charter Street burial-ground there is a slate gravestone,
artistically carved about its edges, with the name, "Col. John Hathorne
Esq.," upon it. It is somewhat sunken into the earth, and leans forward
as if wishing to hide the inscription upon it from the gaze of mankind.
The grass about it and the moss upon the stone assist in doing this,
although repeatedly cut and cleaned away. It seems as if Nature wished
to draw a kind of veil over the memory of the witch's judge, himself
the sorrowful victim of a theocratic oligarchy. The lesson we learn
from his errors is, to trust our own hearts and not to believe too
fixedly in the doctrines of Church and State. It must be a dull
sensibility that can look on this old slate-stone without a feeling of
pathos and a larger charity for the errors of human nature.

It is said that one of the convicted witches cursed Judge Hathorne,--
himself and his descendants forever; but it is more than likely that
they all cursed him bitterly enough, and this curse took effect in a
very natural and direct manner. Every extravagant political or social
movement is followed by a corresponding reaction, even if the movement
be on the whole a salutary one, and retribution is sure to fall in one
shape or another on the leaders of it. After this time the Hathornes
ceased to be conspicuous in Salem affairs. The family was not in favor,
and the avenues of prosperity were closed to them, as commonly happens
in such cases. Neither does the family appear to have multiplied and
extended itself like most of the old New England families, who can now
count from a dozen to twenty branches in various places. Of John
Hathorne's three sons only one appears to have left children. The name
has wholly disappeared from among Salem families, and thus in a manner
has the witch's curse been fulfilled.

Joseph Hathorne, the son of the Judge, was mostly a farmer, and that is
all that we now know of him. His son Daniel, however, showed a more
adventurous spirit, becoming a shipmaster quite early in life. It has
also been intimated that he was something of a smuggler, which was no
great discredit to him in a time when the unfair and even prohibitory
measures of the British Parliament in regard to American commerce made
smuggling a practical necessity. Even as the captain of a trading
vessel, however, Daniel Hathorne was not likely to advance the social
interests of his family. It is significant that he should have left the
central portion of Salem, where his ancestors had lived, and have built
a house for himself close to the city wharves,--a house well built and
commodious enough, but not in a fashionable location.

But Daniel Hathorne had the advantage over fashionable society in
Salem, in being a thorough patriot. Boston and Salem were the two
strongholds of Toryism during the war for Independence, which was
natural enough, as their wealthy citizens were in close mercantile
relations with English houses, and sent their children to England to be
educated. Daniel Hathorne, however, as soon as hostilities had begun,
fitted out his bark as a privateer, and spent the following six years
in preying upon British merchantmen. How successful he was in this line
of business we have not been informed, but he certainly did not grow
rich by it; although he is credited with one engagement with the enemy,
in which his ship came off with honor, though perhaps not with a
decisive victory. This exploit was celebrated in a rude ballad of the
time, which has been preserved in "Griswold's Curiosities of American
Literature," and has at least the merit of plain unvarnished language.
[Footnote: Also in Lathrop's "Hawthorne."]

There is a miniature portrait of Daniel Hathorne, such as was common in
Copley's time, still in the possession of the Hawthorne family, and it
represents him as rather a bullet-headed man, with a bright, open,
cheery face, a broad English chin and strongly marked brows,--an
excellent physiognomy for a sea-captain. He appears besides to have had
light brown or sandy hair, a ruddy complexion and bright blue eyes; but
we cannot determine how truthful the miniature may be in respect to
coloring. At all events, he was of a very different appearance from
Nathaniel Hawthorne, and if he resembled his grandson in any external
respect, it was in his large eyes and their overshadowing brows. He has
not the look of a dare-devil. One might suppose that he was a person of
rather an obstinate disposition, but it is always difficult to draw the
line between obstinacy and determination.

A similar miniature of his son Nathaniel, born in 1775, and who died at
Surinam in his thirty-fourth year, gives us the impression of a person
somewhat like his father, and also somewhat like his son Nathaniel. He
has a long face instead of a round one, and his features are more
delicate and refined than those of the bold Daniel. The expression is
gentle, dreamy and pensive, and unless the portrait belies him, he
could not have been the stern, domineering captain that he has been
represented. He had rather a slender figure, and was probably much more
like his mother, who was a Miss Phelps, than the race of Judge
Hathorne. He may have been a reticent man, but never a bold one, and we
find in him a new departure. His face is more amiable and attractive
than his father's, but not so strong. In 1799 he was married to Miss
Elizabeth Clarke Manning, the daughter of Richard Manning, and then
only nineteen years of age. She appears to have been an exceptionally
sensitive and rather shy young woman--such as would be likely to
attract the attention of a chivalrous young mariner--but with fine
traits of intellect and character.

The maternal ancestry of a distinguished man is quite as important as
the paternal, but in the present instance it is much more difficult to
obtain information concerning it. The increasing fame of Hawthorne has
been like a calcium-light, illuminating for the past fifty years
everything to which that name attaches, and leaving the Manning family
in a shadow so much the deeper. All we can learn of them now is, that
they were descended from Richard Manning, of Dartmouth in Devonshire,
England, whose son Thomas emigrated to Salem with his widowed mother in
1679, but afterwards removed to Ipswich, ten miles to the north, whence
the family has since extended itself far and wide,--the Reverend Jacob
M. Manning, of the Old South Church, the fearless champion of practical
anti-slaveryism, having been among them. It appears that Thomas's
grandson Richard started in life as a blacksmith, which was no strange
thing in those primitive times; but, being a thrifty and enterprising
man, he lived to establish a line of stage-coaches between Salem and
Boston, and this continued in the possession of his family until it was
superseded by the Eastern Railway. After this catastrophe, Robert
Manning, the son of Richard and brother of Mrs. Nathaniel Hathorne,
became noted as a fruit-grower (a business in which Essex County people
have always taken an active interest), and was one of the founders of
the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. The Mannings were always
respected in Salem, although they never came to affluent circumstances,
nor did they own a house about the city common. Robert Manning, Jr.,
was Secretary of the Horticultural Society in Boston for a long term of
years, a pleasant, kindly man, with an aspect of general culture.
Hawthorne's maternal grandmother was Miriam Lord, of Ipswich, and his
paternal grandmother was Rachel Phelps, of Salem. His father was only
thirty-three when he died at Surinam.

In regard to the family name, there are at present Hawthornes and
Hathornes in England, and although the two names may have been
identical originally, they have long since become as distinct as Smith
and Smythe. I have discovered only two instances in which the first
William Hathorne wrote his own name, and in the various documents at
the State House in which it appears written by others, it is variously
spelled Hathorn, Hathorne, Hawthorn, Haythorne, and Harthorne,--from
which we can only conclude that the a was pronounced broadly. It was
not until the reign of Queen Anne, when books first became cheap and
popular, that there was any decided spelling of either proper or common
names. Then the printers took the matter into their own hands and made
witch-work enough of it. The word "sovereign," for instance, which is
derived from the old French _souvrain_, and which Milton spelled
"sovran," they tortured into its present form,--much as the clerks of
Massachusetts Colony tortured the name of William Hathorne. This,
however, was spelled Hathorne oftener than in other ways, and it was so
spelled in the two signatures above referred to, one of which was
attached as witness to a deed for the settlement of the boundary
between Lynn and Salem, [Footnote: Also in Lathrop's "Hawthorne."] and
the other to a report of the commissioners for the investigation of the
French vessels coming to Salem and Boston in 1651, the two other
commissioners being Samuel Bradstreet and David Denison. [Footnote:
Massachusetts Archives, x. 171.]The name was undoubtedly Hathorne, and
so it continued with one or two slight variations during the eighteenth
century down to the time of Nathaniel Hathorne, Jr., who entered and
graduated at Bowdoin College under that name, but who soon afterward
changed it to Hawthorne, for reasons that have never been explained.

All cognomens would seem to have been derived originally from some
personal peculiarity, although it is no longer possible to trace this
back to its source, which probably lies far away in the Dark Ages,--the
formative period of languages and of families. Sometimes, however, we
meet with individuals whose peculiarities suggest the origin of their
names: a tall, slender, long-necked man named Crane; or a timid,
retiring student named Leverett; or an over-confident, supercilious
person called Godkin In the name of Hawthorne also we may imagine a
curious significance: "When the may is on the thorn," says Tennyson.
The English country people call the flowering of the hawthorn "the
may." It is a beautiful tree when in full bloom. How sweet-scented and
delicately colored are its blossoms! But it seems to say to us, "Do not
come too close to me."




CHAPTER II

BOYHOOD OF HAWTHORNE: 1804-1821


Salem treasures the memory of Hawthorne, and preserves everything
tangible relating to him. The house in which he was born, No. 27 Union
Street, is in much the same style and probably of the same age as the
Old Manse at Concord, but somewhat smaller, with only a single window
on either side of the doorway--five windows in all on the front, one
large chimney in the centre, and the roof not exactly a gambrel, for
the true gambrel has a curve first inward and then outward, but
something like it. A modest, cosy and rather picturesque dwelling,
which if placed on a green knoll with a few trees about it might become
a subject for a sketching class. It did not belong to Hawthorne's
father, after all, but to the widow of the bold Daniel, It was the
cradle of genius, and is now a shrine for many pilgrims. Long may it
survive, so that our grandchildren may gaze upon it.

Here Nathaniel Hawthorne first saw daylight one hundred years ago
[Footnote: 1804.] on the Fourth of July, as if to make a protest
against Chauvinistic patriotism; here his mother sat at the window to
see her husband's bark sail out of the harbor on his last voyage; and
here she watched day after day for its return, only to bring a life-
long sorrow with it. The life of a sea-captain's wife is always a half-
widowhood, but Mrs. Hathorne was left at twenty-eight with three small
children, including a daughter, Elizabeth, older than Nathaniel, and
another, Louisa, the youngest. The shadow of a heavy misfortune had
come upon them, and from this shadow they never wholly escaped.

Lowell criticised a letter which John Brown wrote concerning his
boyhood to Henry L. Stearns, as the finest bit of autobiography of the
nineteenth century.[Footnote: _North American Review_, April
1860.] It is in fact almost the only literature of the kind that we
possess. A frequent difficulty that parents find in dealing with their
children is, that they have wholly forgotten the sensations and
impressions of their own childhood. The instructor cannot place himself
in the position of the pupil. A naturalist will spend years with a
microscope studying the development of a plant from the seed, but no
one has ever applied a similar process to the budding of genius or even
of ordinary intellect. We have the autobiography of one of the greatest
geniuses, written in the calm and stillness of old age, when youthful
memories come back to us involuntarily; yet he barely lifts the veil
from his own childhood, and has much more to say of external events and
older people than of himself and his young companions. How valuable is
the story of George Washington and his hatchet, hackneyed as it has
become! What do we know of the boyhood of Franklin, Webster, Seward and
Longfellow? Nothing, or next to nothing.

[Illustration: WINDOW OF THIS CHAMBER]

Goethe says that the admirable woman is she who, when her husband dies,
becomes a father to his children; but in the case of Hawthorne's
mother, this did not happen to be necessary. Her brother, Robert
Manning, a thrifty and fairly prosperous young man, immediately took
Mrs. Hathorne and her three children into his house on Herbert Street,
and made it essentially a home for them afterward. To the fatherless
boy he was more than his own father, away from home ten months of the
year, ever could have been; and though young Nathaniel must have missed
that tenderness of feeling which a man can only entertain toward his
own child, there was no lack of kindness or consideration on Robert
Manning's part, to either the boy or his sisters.

It was Mrs. Hathorne who chiefly suffered from this change of domicile.
She would seem to have been always on good terms with her brother's
wife, and on the whole they formed a remarkably harmonious family,--at
least we hear nothing to the contrary,--but she was no longer mistress
of her own household. She had her daughters to instruct, and to train
up in domestic ways, and she could be helpful in various matters, large
and small; but the mental occupation which comes from the oversight and
direction of household affairs, and which might have served to divert
her mind from sorrowful memories, was now gone from her. Her widowhood
separated her from the outside world and from all society, excepting a
few devoted friends, [Footnote: _Wide Awake_, xxxiii. 502.] so
that under these conditions it is not surprising that her life became
continually more secluded and reserved. It is probable that her
temperament was very similar to her son's; but the impression which has
gone forth, that she indulged her melancholy to an excess, is by no
means a just one. The circumstances of her case should be taken into
consideration.

Rebecca Manning says:

"I remember aunt Hawthorne as busy about the house, attending to
various matters. Her cooking was excellent, and she was noted for a
certain kind of sauce, which nobody else knew how to make. We always
enjoyed going to see her when we were children, for she took great
pains to please us and to give us nice things to eat. Her daughter
Elizabeth resembled her in that respect. In old letters and in the
journal of another aunt, which has come into our possession, we read of
her going about making visits, taking drives, and sometimes going on a
journey. In later years she was not well, and I do not remember that
she ever came here, but her friends always received a cordial welcome
when they visited her."

This refers to a late period of Madam Hathorne's life, and if she
absented herself from the table, as Elizabeth Peabody states,
[Footnote: Lathrop's "Study of Hawthorne."] there was good reason for
it.

Hawthorne himself has left no word concerning his mother, of favorable
or unfavorable import, but it seems probable that he owed his genius to
her, if he can be said to have owed it to any of his ancestors. In
after life he affirmed that his sister Elizabeth, who appears to have
been her mother over again, could have written as well as he did, and
although we have no palpable evidence of this--and the letter which she
wrote Elizabeth Peabody does not indicate it,--we are willing to take
his word for it. With the shyness and proud reserve which he inherited
from his mother, there also came that exquisite refinement and feminine
grace of style which forms the chief charm of his writing. The same
refinement of feeling is noticeable in the letters of other members of
the Manning family. Where his imagination came from, it would be
useless to speculate; but there is no good art without delicacy.

Doctor Nathaniel Peabody lived near the house on Herbert Street, and
his daughter Elizabeth (who afterward became a woman of prodigious
learning) soon made acquaintance with the Hathorne children. She
remembers the boy Nathaniel jumping about his uncle's yard, and this is
the first picture that we have of him. When we consider what a
beautiful boy he must have been, with his wavy brown hair, large
wistful eyes and vigorous figure, without doubt he was a pleasure to
look upon. We do not hear of him again until November 10, 1813, when he
injured his foot in some unknown manner while at play, and was made
lame by it more or less for the three years succeeding. After being
laid up for a month, he wrote this pathetic little letter to his uncle,
Robert Manning, then in Maine, which I have punctuated properly so that
the excellence of its composition may appeal more plainly to the
reader.

"SALEM, Thursday, December, 1813.

"DEAR UNCLE:

"I hope you are well, and I hope Richard is too. My foot is no better.
Louisa has got so well that she has begun to go to school, but she did
not go this forenoon because it snowed. Mama is going to send for
Doctor Kitridge to-day, when William Cross comes home at 12 o'clock,
and maybe he will do some good, for Doctor Barstow has not, and I don't
know as Doctor Kitridge will. It is about 4 weeks yesterday since I
have been to school, and I don't know but it will be 4 weeks longer
before I go again. I have been out of the office two or three times and
have set down on the step of the door, and once I hopped out into the
street. Yesterday I went out in the office and had 4 cakes. Hannah
carried me out once, but not then. Elizabeth and Louisa send their love
to you. I hope you will write to me soon, but I have nothing more to
write; so good-bye, dear Uncle.

"Your affectionate Nephew,
"NATHANIEL HATHORNE."
[Footnote: Elizabeth Manning in _Wide Awake_, Nov. 1891.]

This is not so precocious as Mozart's musical compositions at the same
age, but how could the boy Hawthorne have given a clearer account of
himself and his situation at the time, without one word of complaint?
It is worth noting also that his prediction in regard to Doctor
Kitridge proved to be correct and even more.

It is evident that neither of his doctors treated him in a physio-
logical manner. Kitridge was a water-cure physician, and his method of
treatment deserves to be recorded for its novelty. He directed
Nathaniel to project his naked foot out of a sitting-room window, while
he poured cold water on it from the story above. This, however, does
not appear to have helped the case, and the infirmity continued so long
that it was generally feared that his lameness would be permanent.

Horatio Bridge considered this a fortunate accident for Nathaniel,
since it prevented him from being spoiled by his female relatives, as
there is always danger that an only son with two or more sisters will
be spoiled. But it was an advantage to the boy in a different manner
from this. He learned from it the lesson of suffering and endurance,
which we all have to learn sooner or later; and it compelled him,
perhaps too young, to seek the comfort of life from internal sources.
There were excellent books in the house,--Shakespeare and Milton, of
course, but also Pope's "Iliad," Thomson's "Seasons," the "Spectator,"
"Pilgrim's Progress," and the "Faerie Queene," and the time had now
come when these would be serviceable to him. He was not the only boy
that has enjoyed Shakespeare at the age of ten, but that he should have
found interest in Spenser's "Faerie Queene" is somewhat exceptional.
Even among professed _littérateurs_ there are few that read that
long allegory, and still fewer who enjoy it; and yet Miss Manning
assures us that Hawthorne would muse over it for hours. Its influence
may be perceptible in some of his shorter stories, but "Pilgrim's
Progress" evidently had an effect upon him; and so had Scott's novels,
as we may judge from the first romance that he published.

At the age of twelve years and seven months he composed a short poem,
so perfect in form and mature in judgment that it is difficult to
believe that so young a person could have written it. Not so poetic as
it is philosophical, it is valuable as indicating that the boy had
already formed a moral axis for himself,--a life principle from which
he never afterward deviated; and it is given herewith: [Footnote: A
facsimile of the original can be found in _Wide Awake_, November,
1891.]


"MODERATE VIEWS.

"With passions unruffled, untainted by pride,
By reason my life let me square;
The wants of my nature are cheaply supplied,
And the rest are but folly and care.
How vainly through infinite trouble and strife,
The many their labours employ,
Since all, that is truly delightful in life,
Is what all if they please may enjoy.

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