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The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

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A number of explorers for this wonderful gem meet together at the foot
of the mountain beyond the confines of civilization, and build a hut in
which to pass the night. They are recognizable, from Hawthorne's
description, as the man of one idea, who has spent his whole life
seeking the gem; a scientific experimenter who wishes to grind it up
for the benefit of his crucible; a cynical sceptic who has come to
disprove the existence of the great gem; a greedy speculator who seeks
the carbuncle as he would prospect for a silver-mine; an English lord
who wishes to add it to his hereditary possessions; and finally a young
married couple who want to obtain it for an ornament to their new
cottage. The interest of the reader immediately centres on these last
two, and we care much more concerning their fortunes and adventures
than we do about the carbuncle.

The conversation that evening between these ill-assorted companions is
in Hawthorne's most subtle vein of irony, and would have delighted old
Socrates himself. Meanwhile the young bride weaves a screen of twigs
and leaves, to protect herself and her husband from the gaze of the
curious.

The following morning they all set out by different paths in search of
the carbuncle; but our thoughts accompany the steps of the young bride,
as she makes one toilsome ascent after another until she feels ready to
sink to the ground with fatigue and discouragement. They have already
decided to return, when the rosy light of the carbuncle bursts upon
them from beneath the lifting clouds; but they now feel instinctively
that it is too great a prize for their possession. The man of one idea
also sees it, and his life goes out in the exultation over his final
success. The skeptic appears, but cannot discover it, although his face
is illumined by its light, until he takes off his large spectacles;
whereupon, he instantly becomes blind. The English nobleman and the
American speculator fail to discover it; the former returns to his
ancestral halls, as wise as he was before; and the latter is captured
by a party of Indians and obliged to pay a heavy ransom to regain
freedom. The scientific pedant finds a rare specimen of primeval
granite, which serves his purpose quite as well as the carbuncle; and
the two young doves return to their cot, having learned the lesson of
contentment.

How fortunate was Hawthorne at the age of thirty thus to anatomize the
chief illusions of life, which so many others follow until old age!

It is an erroneous notion that Hawthorne found the chief material for
his work in old New England traditions. There are some half-dozen
sketches of this sort, but they are more formally written than the
others, and remind one of those portraits by Titian which were painted
from other portraits,--better than the originals, but not equal to
those which he painted from Nature.

In the "Sights from a Steeple" Hawthorne exposes his methods of study
and betrays the active principle of his existence. He says:

"The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritualized
Paul Pry hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their
deeds, searching into their hearths, borrowing brightness from their
felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar
to himself."

There are those who would dislike this busybody occupation, and others,
such as Emerson perhaps, might not consider it justifiable; but
Hawthorne is not to be censured for it, for his motive was an elevated
one, and without this close scrutiny of human nature we should have had
neither a Hawthorne nor a Shakespeare. There is no quality more
conspicuous in "Twice Told Tales" than the calm, evenly balanced mental
condition of the author, who seems to look down on human life not so
much from a church steeple as from the blue firmament itself.

Such was the _Eos_ or dawn of Hawthorne's literary art.

Hawthorne returned thanks to Longfellow in a gracefully humorous
letter, to which Longfellow replied with a cordial wish to see
Hawthorne in Cambridge, and by advising him to dive into deeper water
and write a history of the Acadians before and after their expulsion
from Nova Scotia; but this was not practicable for minds like
Hawthorne's, surcharged with poetic images, and the attempt might have
proved a disturbing influence for him. He had already contributed the
substance to Longfellow of "Evangeline," and he now wrote a eulogium on
the poem for a Salem newspaper, which it must be confessed did not
differ essentially from other reviews of the same order. He does not
give us any clear idea of how the poem actually impressed him, which is
after all the best that one can do in such cases. Poetry is not like a
problem in mathematics, which can be marked right or wrong according to
its solution.

When a young man obtains a substantial footing in his profession or
business, he looks about him for a wife--unless he happens to be
already pledged in that particular; and Hawthorne was not an exception
to this rule. He was not obliged to look very far, and yet the chance
came to him in such an exceptional manner that it seems as if some
special providence were connected with it. His position in this respect
was a peculiar one. He does not appear to have been much acquainted in
Salem even now; and the only son of a widow with two unmarried sisters
may be said to have rather a slim chance for escaping from those strong
ties which have grown up between them from childhood. Many a mother has
prevented her son from getting married until it has become too late for
him to change his bachelor habits. His mother and his sisters realize
that he ought to be married, and that he has a right to a home of his
own; but in their heart of hearts they combat the idea, and their
opposition takes the form of an unsparing criticism of any young lady
whom he follows with his eyes. This frequently happens also in a family
of girls: they all remain unmarried because, if one of them shows an
inclination in that direction, the others unite in a conspiracy against
her. On the other hand, a family of four or five boys will marry early,
if they can obtain the means of doing so, simply from the need of
feminine cheer and sympathy. A devoted female friend will sometimes
prevent a young woman from being married. Love affairs are soft earth
for an intriguing and unprincipled woman to work in, but, fortunately,
Mrs. Hawthorne did not belong in that category.

It was stout, large-hearted Elizabeth Peabody who broke the spell of
the enchanted castle in which Hawthorne was confined. The Peabodys were
a cultivated family in Salem, who lived pretty much by themselves, as
the Hawthornes and Mannings did. Doctor Nathaniel Peabody was a
respectable practitioner, but he had not succeeded in curing the
headaches of his daughter Sophia, which came upon her at the close of
her girlhood and still continued intermittently until this time. The
Graces had not been bountiful the Peabody family, so, to compensate for
this, they all cultivated the Muses, in whose society they ascended no
little distance on the way to Parnassus. Elizabeth Peabody was quite a
feminine pundit. She learned French and German, and studied history and
archaeology; she taught history on a large scale at Sanborn's Concord
School and at many others; she had a method of painting dates on
squares, which fixed them indelibly in the minds of her pupils; she
talked at Margaret Fuller's transcendental club, and was an active
member of the Radical or Chestnut Street Club, thirty years later; but
her chief distinction was the introduction of Froebel's Kindergarten
teaching, by which she well-nigh revolutionized primary instruction in
America. She was a most self-forgetful person, and her scholars became
devotedly attached to her.

Her sister Mary was as much like Elizabeth mentally as she differed
from her in figure and general appearance, but soon after this she was
married to Horace Mann and her public activity became merged in that of
her husband, who was the first educator of his time. Sophia Peabody
read poetry and other fine writings, and acquired a fair proficiency in
drawing and painting. They lived what was then called the "higher
life," and it certainly led them to excellent results.

Shortly before the publication of "Twice Told Tales," Elizabeth Peabody
learned that the author of "The Gentle Boy," and other stories which
she had enjoyed in the _Token_, lived in Salem, and that the name
was Hawthorne. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were
the work of Miss Elizabeth Hawthorne, whom she had known somewhat in
earlier days, and she concluded to call upon her and offer her
congratulations. When informed by Louisa Hawthorne, who came to her in
the parlor, instead of the elder sister, that "The Gentle Boy" was
written by Nathaniel, Miss Peabody made the significant remark, "If
your brother can do work like that, he has no right to be idle"
[Footnote: Lathrop, 168. Miss Peabody would seem to have narrated this
to him.]--to which Miss Louisa retorted, it is to be hoped with some
indignation, that her brother never was idle.

It is only too evident from this that public opinion in Salem had
already decided that Hawthorne was an idle fellow, who was living on
his female relatives. That is the way the world judges--from external
facts without any consideration of internal causes or conditions. It
gratifies the vanity of those who are fortunate and prosperous, to
believe that all men have an equal chance in the race of life. Emerson
once blamed two young men for idleness, who were struggling against
obstacles such as he could have had no conception of. Those who have
been fortunate from the cradle never learn what life is really like.

The spell, however, was broken and the friendliness of Elizabeth
Peabody found a deeply sympathetic response in the Hawthorne household.
Nathaniel at last found a person who expressed a genuine and heartfelt
appreciation of his work, and it was like the return of the sun to the
Arctic explorer after his long winter night. Rather to Miss Peabody's
surprise he and his sisters soon returned her call, and visits between
the two families thereafter became frequent.

Sophia Peabody belonged to the class of young women for whom
Shakespeare's Ophelia serves as a typical example. She was gentle,
affectionate, refined, and amiable to a fault,--much too tender-hearted
for this rough world, if her sister Elizabeth had not always stood like
a barrier between her and it.

How Hawthorne might have acted in Hamlet's place it is useless to
surmise, but in his true nature he was quite the opposite of Hamlet,--
slow and cautious, but driven onward by an inexorable will. If Hamlet
had possessed half of Hawthorne's determination, he might have broken
through the network of evil conditions which surrounded him, and lived
to make Ophelia a happy woman. It was only necessary to come into
Hawthorne's presence in order to recognize the force that was in him.

Sophia Amelia Peabody was born September 21, 1811, so that at the time
of which we are now writing she was twenty-five years of age. Hawthorne
was then thirty-two, when a man is more attractive to the fair sex than
at any other time of life, for then he unites the freshness and vigor
of youth with sufficient maturity of judgment to inspire confidence and
trust. Yet her sister Elizabeth found it difficult to persuade her to
come into the parlor and meet the handsomest man in Salem. When she did
come she evidently attracted Nathaniel Hawthorne's attention, for,
although she said little, he looked at her repeatedly while conversing
with her sister. It may not have been an instance of love at first
sight,--which may happen to any young man at a dancing party, and be
forgotten two days later,--but it was something more than a casual
interest. On his second or third call she showed him a sketch she had
made of "the gentle boy," according to her idea of him, and the subdued
tone with which he received it plainly indicated that he was already
somewhat under her influence. Julian Hawthorne writes of this:
[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 179.]

"It may be remarked here, that Mrs. Hawthorne in telling her children,
many years afterwards, of these first meetings with their father, used
to say that his presence, from the very beginning, exercised so strong
a magnetic attraction upon her, that instinctively, and in self-defence
as it were, she drew back and repelled him. The power which she felt in
him alarmed her; she did not understand what it meant, and was only
able to feel that she must resist."

Every true woman feels this reluctance at first toward a suitor for her
hand, but a sensitive young lady might well have a sense of awe on
finding that she had attracted to herself such a mundane force as
Hawthorne, and it is no wonder that this first impression was
recollected throughout her life. There are many who would have refused
Hawthorne's suit, because they felt that he was too great and strong
for them, and it is to the honor of Sophia Peabody that she was not
only attracted by the magnetism of Hawthorne, but finally had the
courage to unite herself to such an enigmatical person.

We also obtain a glimpse of Hawthorne's side of this courtship from a
letter which he wrote to Longfellow in June, 1837, and in which he
says, "I have now, or shall soon have a sharper spur to exertion, which
I lacked at an earlier period;" [Footnote: Conway, 75.] and this is all
the information he has vouchsafed us on the subject. If there is
anything more in his diary, it has not been given to the public, and
probably never will be. A number of letters which he wrote to Miss
Sophia from Boston, or Brook Farm, have been published by his son, but
it would be neither right nor judicious to introduce them here.

It is, however, evident from the above that Hawthorne was already
engaged in June, 1837, but his engagement long remained a secret, for
three excellent reasons; viz., his slender means of support, the
delicate health of his betrothed, and the disturbance which it might
create in the Hawthorne family. The last did not prove so serious a
difficulty as he seems to have imagined; but his apprehensiveness on
that point many another could justify from personal experience.
[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 196.]

From this time also the health of Sophia Peabody steadily improved, nor
is it necessary to account for it by any magical influence on the part
of her lover. Her trouble was plainly some recondite difficulty of the
circulation. The heart is supposed to be the seat of the affections
because mental emotion stimulates the nervous system and acts upon the
heart as the centre of all organic functions. A healthy natural
excitement will cause the heart to vibrate more firmly and evenly; but
an unhealthy excitement, like fear or anger, will cause it to beat in a
rapid and uneven manner. Contrarily, despondency, or a lethargic state
of mind, causes the movement of the blood to slacken. The happiness of
love is thus the best of all stimulants and correctives for a torpid
circulation, and it expands the whole being of a woman like the
blossoming of a flower in the sunshine. From the time of her betrothal,
Sophia Peabody's headaches became less and less frequent, until they
ceased altogether. The true seat of the affections is in the mind. The
first consideration proved to be a more serious matter. If Hawthorne
had not succeeded in earning his own livelihood by literature so far,
what prospect was there of supporting a wife and family in that manner?
What should he do; whither should he turn? He continually turned the
subject over in his mind, without, however, reaching any definite
conclusion. Nor is this to be wondered at. If the ordinary avenues of
human industry were not available to him as a college graduate, they
were now permanently closed. A man in his predicament at the present
time might obtain the position of librarian in one of our inland
cities; but such places are few and the applications are many. Bronson
Alcott once offered his services as teacher of a primary school, a
position he might have filled better than most, for its one requisite
is kindliness, but the Concord school committee would not hear of it.
If Hawthorne had attempted to turn pedagogue he might have met with a
similar experience.

Conway remarks very justly that an American author could not be
expected to earn his own living in a country where foreign books could
be pirated as they were in the United States until 1890, and this was
especially true during the popularity of Dickens and George Eliot.
Dickens was the great humanitarian writer of the nineteenth century,
but he was also a caricaturist and a bohemian. He did not represent
life as it is, but with a certain comical oddity. As an author he is to
Hawthorne what a peony is to a rose, or a garnet is to a ruby; but ten,
persons would purchase a novel of Dickens when one would select the
"Twice Told Tales." Scott and Tennyson are exceptional instances of a
high order of literary work which also proved fairly remunerative; but
they do not equal Hawthorne in grace of diction and in the rare quality
of his thought,--whatever advantages they may possess in other
respects. Thackeray earned his living by his pen, but it was only in
England that he could have done this.




CHAPTER VI

PEGASUS AT THE CART: 1839-1841


Horatio Bridge's dam was washed away in the spring of 1837, by a sudden
and unprecedented rising of the Androscoggin River. Bridge was
financially ruined, but like a brave and generous young man he did not
permit this stroke of evil fortune, severe as it was, to oppress him
heavily, and Hawthorne seems to have felt no shadow of it during his
visit to Augusta the following summer. He returned to Salem in August
with pleasanter anticipations than ever before,--to enjoy the society
of his _fiancée_, and to prepare the second volume of "Twice Told
Tales."

The course of Hawthorne's life during the next twenty months is mostly
a blank to us. He would seem to have exerted himself to escape from the
monotone in which he had been living so long, but of his efforts,
disappointments, and struggles against the giant coils of Fate, there
is no report. He wrote the four Province House tales as a send-off to
his second volume, as well as "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," "Footprints on
the Seashore," "Snow-Flakes," and "Chippings with a Chisel," which are
to be found in it. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, 176.] There is a long blank
in Hawthorne's diary during the winter of 1837-38 which may be owing to
his indifference to the outer world at that time, but more likely
because its contents have not yet been revealed to us. It was the
period of Cilley's duel, and what Hawthorne's reflections were on that
subject, aside from the account which he wrote for the _Democratic
Review_, would be highly interesting now, but the absence of any
reference to it is significant, and there is no published entry in his
diary between December 6, 1837, and May 11, 1838.

Horatio Bridge obtained the position of paymaster on the United States
warship "Cyane," which arrived at Boston early in June, and on the 16th
of the month Hawthorne went to call on his friend in his new quarters,
which he found to be pleasant enough in their narrow and limited way.
Bridge returned with him to Boston, and they dined together at the
Tremont House, drinking iced champagne and claret in pitchers,--which
latter would seem to have been a fashion of the place. Hawthorne's
description of the day is purely external, and he tells us nothing of
his friend,--concerning whom we were anxious to hear,--or of the new
life on which he had entered.

On July 4, his thirty-fifth birthday, he wrote a microscopic account of
the proceedings on Salem Common, which is interesting now, but will
become more valuable as time goes on and the customs of the American
people change with it. The object of these detailed pictorial studies,
which not only remind one of Dürer's drawings but of Carlyle's local
descriptions (when he uses simple English and does not fly off into
recondite comparisons), is not clearly apparent; but the artist has
instincts of his own, like a vine which swings in the wind and seizes
upon the first tree that its tendrils come into contact with. We
sometimes wish that, as in the case of Bridge and his warship, they
were not so objective and external, and that, like Carlyle, he would
throw more of himself into them.

On July 27, Hawthorne started on an expedition to the Berkshire Hills,
by way of Worcester, remaining there nearly till the first of
September, and describing the scenery, the people he met by the way,
and the commencement at Williams College, which then took place in the
middle of August, in his customary accurate manner. He has given a full
and connected account of his travels; so full that we wonder how he
found time to write to Miss Sophia Peabody. He would seem to have been
entirely alone, and to have travelled mainly by stage. On the route
from Pittsfield to North Adams he notices the sunset, and describes it
in these simple terms: [Footnote: American Note-book, 130.]

"After or about sunset there was a heavy shower, the thunder rumbling
round and round the mountain wall, and the clouds stretching from
rampart to rampart. When it abated the clouds in all parts of the
visible heavens were tinged with glory from the west; some that hung
low being purple and gold, while the higher ones were gray. The slender
curve of the new moon was also visible, brightening amidst the fading
brightness of the sunny part of the sky."

At North Adams he takes notice of one of the Select-men, and gives this
account of him: [Footnote: American Note-book, 153.]

"One of the most sensible men in this village is a plain, tall, elderly
person, who is overseeing the mending of a road,--humorous,
intelligent, with much thought about matters and things; and while at
work he had a sort of dignity in handling the hoe or crow-bar, which
shows him to be the chief. In the evening he sits under the stoop,
silent and observant from under the brim of his hat; but, occasion
suiting, he holds an argument about the benefit or otherwise of
manufactories or other things. A simplicity characterizes him more than
appertains to most Yankees."

He did not return to Salem until September 24. A month later he was at
the Tremont House in Boston, looking out of the windows toward Beacon
Street, which may have served him for an idea in "The Blithedale
Romance." After this there are no entries published from his diary till
the following spring, so that the manner in which he occupied himself
during the winter of 1838-39 will have to be left to the imagination.
On April 27, 1839, he wrote a letter to Miss Sophia Peabody from
Boston, in which he says:

"I feel pretty secure against intruders, for the bad weather will
defend me from foreign invasion; and as to Cousin Haley, he and I had a
bitter political dispute last evening, at the close of which he went to
bed in high dudgeon, and probably will not speak to me these three
days. Thus you perceive that strife and wrangling, as well as east
winds and rain, are the methods of a kind Providence to promote my
comfort,--which would not have been so well secured in any other way.
Six or seven hours of cheerful solitude! But I will not be alone. I
invite your spirit to be with me,--at any hour and as many hours as you
please, but especially at the twilight hour before I light my lamp. I
bid you at that particular time, because I can see visions more vividly
in the dusky glow of firelight than either by daylight or lamplight.
Come, and let me renew my spell against headache and other direful
effects of the east wind. How I wish I could give you a portion of my
insensibility! and yet I should be almost afraid of some radical
transformation, were I to produce a change in that respect. If you
cannot grow plump and rosy and tough and vigorous without being changed
into another nature, then I do think, for this short life, you had
better remain just what you are. Yes; but you will be the same to me,
because we have met in eternity, and there our intimacy was formed. So
get well as soon as you possibly can."

This statement deserves consideration under two headings; and the last
shall be first, and the first shall be last.

It will be noticed that the accounts in Hawthorne's diary are for the
most part of a dispassionate objective character, as if he had come
down from the moon to take an observation of mundane affairs. His
letters to Miss Peabody were also dispassionate, but strongly
subjective, and, like the one just quoted, mainly evolved from his
imagination, like orchids living in the air. It was also about this
time that Carlyle wrote to Emerson concerning the _Dial_ that it
seemed "like an unborn human soul." The orchid imagination was an
influence of the time, penetrating everywhere like an ether.

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