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The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

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In the opening sentences in this letter, Hawthorne comes within an inch
of disclosing his political opinions, and yet provokingly fails to do
so. There is nothing about the man concerning which we are so much in
the dark, and which we should so much like to know, as this; and it is
certain from this letter that he held very decided opinions on
political subjects and could defend them with a good deal of energy. On
one occasion when Hawthorne was asked why he was a Democrat, he
replied, "Because I live in a democratic country," which was, of
course, simply an evasion; and such were the answers which he commonly
gave to all interrogatories. His proclivities were certainly not
democratic; but the greater the tenacity with which a man holds his
opinions, the less inclined he feels to discuss them with others. The
Boston aristocracy now vote the Democratic ticket out of opposition to
the dominant party in Massachusetts, and Hawthorne may have done so for
a similar reason.

Hawthorne was now a weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, one
of the most laborious positions in the government service. The
defalcation of Swartwout with over a million dollars from the New York
customs' receipts had forced upon President Van Buren the importance of
filling such posts with honorable men, instead of political shysters,
and Bancroft, though a rather narrow historian, was a gentleman and a
scholar. He was the right man to appreciate Hawthorne, but whether he
bestowed this place upon him of his own accord, or through the ulterior
agency of Franklin Pierce, we are not informed. It is quite possible
that Elizabeth Peabody had a hand in the case, for she was always an
indefatigable petitioner for the benefit of the needy, and had
opportunities for meeting Bancroft in Boston society. His kindness to
Hawthorne was at least some compensation for having originated the most
ill-favored looking public building in the city. [Footnote: The present
Boston Custom House. George S. Hillard called it an architectural
monstrosity.]

Hawthorne's salary was twelve hundred dollars a year,--fully equal to
eighteen hundred at the present time,--and his position appears to have
been what is now called a store-keeper. He fully earned his salary. He
had charge and oversight of all the dutiable imports that came to
Long Wharf, the most important in the city, and was obliged to keep an
account of all dutiable articles which were received there. He had to
superintend personally the unloading of vessels, and although in some
instances this was not unpleasant, he was constantly receiving
shiploads of soft coal,--Sidney or Pictou coal,--which is the dirtiest
stuff in the world; it cannot be touched without raising a dusty vapor
which settles in the eyes, nose, and mouth, and inside the shirt-
collar. He counted every basketful that was brought ashore, and his
position on such occasions was to be envied only by the sooty laborers
who handled that commodity. We wonder what the frequenters of Long
Wharf thought of this handsome, poetic-looking man occupied in such a
business.

Yet he appreciated the value of this Spartan discipline,--the
inestimable value of being for once in his life brought down to hard-
pan and the plain necessities of life. The juice of wormwood is bitter,
but it is also strengthening. On July 3, 1839, he wrote: [Footnote:
American Note-book.]

"I do not mean to imply that I am unhappy or discontented, for this is
not the case. My life only is a burden in the same way that it is to
every toilsome man, and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only
a night's sleep to remove it. But from henceforth forever I shall be
entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall know how to
sympathize with them, seeing that I likewise have risen at the dawn,
and borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps
homeward till eventide. Years hence, perhaps, the experience that my
heart is acquiring now will flow out in truth and wisdom."

This is one of the noblest passages in his writings.

On August 27 he notices the intense heat in the centre of the city,
although it is somewhat cooler on the wharves. At this time Emerson may
have been composing his "Wood Notes" or "Threnody" in the cool pine
groves of Concord. Such is the difference between inheriting twenty
thousand dollars and two thousand. Hawthorne lived in Boston at such a
boarding-place as Doctor Holmes describes in the "Autocrat of the
Breakfast Table," and for all we know it may have been the same one. He
lived economically, reading and writing to Miss Peabody in the evening,
and rarely going to the theatre or other entertainments,--a life like
that of a store clerk whose salary only suffices for his board and
clothing. George Bancroft was kindly disposed toward him, and would
have introduced Hawthorne into any society that he could have wished to
enter; but Hawthorne, then and always, declined to be lionized.
Hawthorne made but one friend in Boston during this time, and that one,
George S. Hillard, a most faithful and serviceable friend,--not only
to Hawthorne during his life, but afterwards as a trustee for his
family, and equally kind and helpful to them in their bereavement,
which is more than could be said of all his friends,--especially of
Pierce. Hillard belonged to the brilliant coterie of Cambridge literary
men, which included Longfellow, Sumner and Felton. He was a lawyer,
politician, editor, orator and author; at this time, or shortly
afterward, Sumner's law partner; one of the most kindly sympathetic
men, with a keen appreciation of all that is finest in art and
literature, but somewhat lacking in firmness and independence of
character. His "Six Months in Italy," written in the purest English,
long served as a standard work for American travellers in that ideal
land, and his rather unsymmetrical figure only made the graces of his
oratory more conspicuous.

Hawthorne kept at his work through summer's heat and winter's cold. On
February 11, 1840, he wrote to his fiancée:

"I have been measuring coal all day, on board of a black little British
schooner, in a dismal dock at the north end of the city. Most of the
time I paced the deck to keep myself warm....

"... Sometimes I descended into the dirty little cabin of the schooner,
and warmed myself by a red-hot stove among biscuit barrels, pots and
kettles, sea chests, and innumerable lumber of all sorts,--my
olfactories, meanwhile, being greatly refreshed by the odor of a pipe,
which the captain or some of his crew was smoking."

[Illustration: HAWTHORNE. FROM THE PORTRAIT BY CHARLES OSGOOD IN 1840.
IN THE POSSESSION OF MRS. RICHARD C. MANNING, SALEM, MASS. FROM
NEGATIVE IN POSSESSION OF AND OWNED BY FRANK COUSIN, SALEM]

One would have to go to Dante's "Inferno" to realize a situation more
thoroughly disagreeable; yet the very pathos of Hawthorne's employment
served to inspire him with elevated thoughts and beautiful reflections.
His letters are full of aërial fancies. He notices what a beautiful day
it was on April 18, 1840, and regrets that he cannot "fling himself on
a gentle breeze and be blown away into the country." April 30 is
another beautiful day,--"a real happiness to live; if he had been a
mere vegetable, a hawthorn bush, he would have felt its influence." He
goes to a picture gallery in the Athenaeum, but only mentions seeing
two paintings by Sarah Clarke. He returns to Salem in October, and
writes in his own chamber the passage already quoted, in which he
mourns the lonely years of his youth, and the long, long waiting for
appreciation, "while he felt the life chilling in his veins and
sometimes it seemed as if he were already in the grave;" but an early
return to his post gives him brighter thoughts. He takes notice of the
magnificent black and yellow butterflies that have strangely come to
Long Wharf, as if seeking to sail to other climes since the last flower
had faded. Mr. Bancroft has appointed him to suppress an insurrection
among the government laborers, and he writes to Miss Sophia Peabody:

"I was not at the end of Long Wharf to-day, but in a distant region,--
my authority having been put in requisition to quell a rebellion of the
captain and 'gang' of shovellers aboard a coal-vessel. I would you
could have beheld the awful sternness of my visage and demeanor in the
execution of this momentous duty. Well,--I have conquered the rebels,
and proclaimed an amnesty; so to-morrow I shall return to that paradise
of measurers, the end of Long Wharf,--not to my former salt-ship, she
being now discharged, but to another, which will probably employ me
well-nigh a fortnight longer."

A month later we meet with this ominous remark in his diary:

"I was invited to dine at Mr. Bancroft's yesterday with Miss Margaret
Fuller; but Providence had given me some business to do, for which I
was very thankful."

Had Hawthorne already encountered this remarkable woman with the
feminine heart and masculine mind, and had he already conceived that
aversion for her which is almost painfully apparent in his Italian
diary? Certainly in many respects they were antipodes.

The Whig party came into power on March 4, 1841, with "Tippecanoe" for
a figure-head and Daniel Webster as its conductor of the "grand
orchestra." A month later Bancroft was removed, and Hawthorne went with
him, not at all regretful to depart. In fact, he had come to feel that
he could not endure the Custom House, or at least his particular share
of it, any longer. One object he had in view in accepting the position
was, to obtain practical experience, and this he certainly did in a
rough and unpleasant manner. The experience of a routine office,
however, is not like that of a broker who has goods to sell and who
must dispose of them to the best advantage, in order to keep his
reputation at high-water mark; nor is it like the experience of a young
doctor or a lawyer struggling to obtain a practice. Those are the men
who know what life actually is; and it is this thoroughness of
experience which makes the chief difference between a Dante and a
Tennyson.

These reflections lead directly to Hawthorne's casual and oft-repeated
commentary on American politicians. He wrote March 15:

"I do detest all offices--all, at least, that are held on a political
tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither
away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to
india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will
stretch as much. One thing, if no more, I have gained by my custom-
house experience,--to know a politician." [Footnote: American
Notebook, i. 220.]

This seems rather severe, but at the time when Hawthorne wrote it,
American politics were on the lowest plane of demagogism. It was the
inevitable result of the spoils-of-office system, and the meanest
species of the class were the ward politicians who received small
government offices in return for services in canvassing ignorant
foreign voters. They were naturally coarse, hardened adventurers, and
it was such that Hawthorne chiefly came in contact with in his official
business. Cleon, the brawling tanner of Athens, has reappeared in every
representative government since his time, and plays his clownish part
with multifarious variations; but it is to little purpose that we
deride the men who govern us, for they are what we and our institutions
have made them. If we want better representatives, we must mend our own
ways and especially purge ourselves of political cant and national
vanity,--which is the food that ward politicians grow fat on. The
profession of a politician is based on instability, and he cannot
acquire, as matters now stand, the solidity of character that we look
for in other professions.

So far, however, was Hawthorne at this juncture from considering men
and things critically, that he closes the account of his first
government experience in this rather optimistic manner:

"Old Father Time has gone onward somewhat less heavily than is his wont
when I am imprisoned within the walls of the Custom-house. My breath
had never belonged to anybody but me. It came fresh from the ocean....

"... It was exhilarating to see the vessels, how they bounded over the
waves, while a sheet of foam broke out around them. I found a good deal
of enjoyment, too, in the busy scene around me. It pleased me to think
that I also had a part to act in the material and tangible business of
this life, and that a portion of all this industry could not have gone
on without my presence." [Footnote: American Note-book, i. 230.]

When Hawthorne philosophizes it is not in old threadbare proverbs or
Orphic generalities, but always specifically and to the point.




CHAPTER VII

HAWTHORNE AS A SOCIALIST: 1841-1842


Who can compute the amount of mischief that Fourier has done, and those
well-meaning but inexperienced dreamers who have followed after him? A
Fourth-of-July firecracker once consumed the half of a large city. The
boy who exploded it had no evil intentions; neither did Fourier and
other speculators in philanthropy contemplate what might be the effect
of their doctrines on minds actuated by the lowest and most inevitable
wants. Wendell Phillips, in the most brilliant of his orations, said:
"The track of God's lightning is a straight line from justice to
iniquity," and one might have said to Phillips, in his later years,
that there is in the affairs of men a straight line from infatuation to
destruction. In what degree Fourier was responsible for the effusion of
blood in Paris in the spring of 1871 it is not possible to determine;
but the relation of Rousseau to the first French revolution is not more
certain. _Fate_ is the spoken word which cannot be recalled, and
who can tell the good and evil consequences that lie hidden in it? The
proper cure for socialism, in educated minds, would be a study of the
law. There we discover what a wonderful mechanism is the present
organization of society, and how difficult it would be to reconstruct
this, if it once were overturned.

As society is constituted at present, the honest and industrious are
always more or less at the mercy of the vicious and indolent, and the
only protection against this lies in the right of individual ownership.
In a general community of goods, there might be some means of
preventing or punishing flagrant misdemeanors, but what protection
could there be against indolence? Those who were ready and willing to
work would have to bear all the burdens of society.

In order that an idea should take external or concrete form it has to
be married, as it were, to some desire or tendency in the individual.
Reverend George Ripley had become imbued with Fourierism through his
studies of French philosophy, but he had also been brought up on a
farm, and preferred the fresh air and vigorous exercise of that mode of
life to city preaching. He was endowed with a strong constitution and
possessed of an independent fortune, and his aristocratic wife, more
devoted than women of that class are usually, sympathized with his
plans, and was prepared to follow him to the ends of the earth. He not
only felt great enthusiasm for the project but was capable of inspiring
others with it. There were many socialistic experiments undertaken
about that time, but George Ripley's was the only one that has acquired
a historical value. It is much to his credit that he gave the scheme a
thorough trial, and by carrying it out to a logical conclusion proved
its radical impracticability.

Such a failure is more valuable than the successes of a hundred men who
merely make their own fortunes and leave no legacy of experience that
can benefit the human race.

It must have been Elizabeth Peabody who persuaded Hawthorne to enlist
in the Brook Farm enterprise. She wrote a paper for the _Dial_
[Footnote: _Dial_, ii. 361.] on the subject, explaining the object
of the West Roxbury community and holding forth the prospect of the
"higher life" which could be enjoyed there. Hawthorne was in himself
the very antipodes of socialism, and it was part of the irony of his
life that he should have embarked in such an experiment; but he
invested a thousand dollars in it, which he had saved from his Custom
House salary, and was one of the first on the ground. What he really
hoped for from it--as we learn by his letters to Miss Sophia Peabody--
was a means of gaining his daily bread, with leisure to accomplish a
fair amount of writing, and at the same time to enter into such society
as might be congenial to his future consort. It seemed reasonable to
presume this, and yet the result did not correspond to it. He went to
West Roxbury on April 12, 1841, and as it happened in a driving
northeast snowstorm,--an unpropitious beginning, of which he has given
a graphic account in "The Blithedale Romance."

At first he liked his work at the Farm. The novelty of it proved
attractive to him. On May 3 he wrote a letter to his sister Louisa,
which reflects the practical nature of his new surroundings; and it
must be confessed that this is a refreshing change from the sublunary
considerations at his Boston boarding-house. He has already "learned to
plant potatoes, to milk cows, and to cut straw and hay for the cattle,
and does various other mighty works." He has gained strength
wonderfully, and can do a day's work without the slightest
inconvenience; wears a tremendous pair of cowhide boots. He goes to bed
at nine, and gets up at half-past four to sound the rising-horn,--much
too early for a socialistic paradise, where human nature is supposed to
find a pleasant as well as a salutary existence. George Ripley would
seem to be driving the wedge in by the larger end. Hawthorne is
delighted with the topographical aspect, and writes:

"This is one of the most beautiful places I ever saw in my life, and as
secluded as if it were a hundred miles from any city or village. There
are woods, in which we can ramble all day without meeting anybody or
scarcely seeing a house. Our house stands apart from the main road, so
that we are not troubled even with passengers looking at us. Once in a
while we have a transcendental visitor, such as Mr. Alcott; but
generally we pass whole days without seeing a single face save those of
the brethren. The whole fraternity eat together; and such a delectable
way of life has never been seen on earth since the days of the early
Christians." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 228.]

From Louisa Hawthorne's reply, it may be surmised that his family did
not altogether approve of the Brook Farm venture, perhaps because it
withdrew him from his own home at a time when they had looked with fond
expectation for his return; and here we have a glimpse into the
beautiful soul of this younger sister, otherwise so little known to us.
Elizabeth is skeptical of its ultimate success, but Louisa is fearful
that he may work too hard and wants him to take good care of himself.
She is delighted with the miniature of him, which they have lately
received: "It has one advantage over the original,--I can make it go
with me where I choose!"

Louisa wrote another warm and beautiful letter on June 11, recalling
the days when they used to go fishing together on Lake Sebago, and
adds:

"Elizabeth Cleveland says she saw Mr. George Bradford in Lowell last
winter, and he told her he was going to be associated with you; but
they say his mind misgave him terribly when the time came for him to go
to Roxbury, and whether to make such a desperate step or not he could
not tell." [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 232.]

George P. Bradford was the masculine complement to Elizabeth Peabody--
flitting across the paths of Emerson and Hawthorne throughout their
lives. His name appears continually in the biographies of that time,
but future generations would never know the sort of man he was, but for
Louisa's amiable commentary. He appeared at Brook Farm a few days
later, and became one of George Ripley's strongest and most faithful
adherents. He is the historian of the West Roxbury community, and late
in life the editor of the _Century_ asked him to write a special
account of it for that periodical. Bradford did so, and received one
hundred dollars in return for his manuscript; but it never was
published, presumably because it was too original for the editor's
purpose.

Is it possible that Hawthorne put on a good face for this letter to his
sister, in order to keep up appearances; or was it like the common
experience of music and drawing teachers that the first lessons are the
best performed; or did he really have some disagreement with Ripley,
like that which he represents in "The Blithedale Romance"? The last is
the more probable, although we do not hear of it otherwise. Spring is
the least agreeable season for farming, with its muddy soil, its
dressing the ground, its weeds to be kept down and its insects to be
kept off. After the first week of June, the work becomes much
pleasanter; and the harvesting is delightful,--stacking the grain,
picking the fruit,--with the cheery wood fires, so restful to mind and
body. Yet we find on August 12 that Hawthorne had become thoroughly
disenchanted with his Arcadian life, although he admits that the labors
of the farm were not so pressing as they had been. Ten days later, he
refers to having spent the better part of a night with one of his co-
workers, "who was quite out of his wits" and left the community next
day. He then continues in his diary: [Footnote: American Notebook, ii.
15.]

"It is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Ripley will succeed in locating
his community on the farm. He can bring Mr. E---- to no terms, and the
more they talk about the matter, the further they appear to be from a
settlement. We must form other plans for ourselves; for I can see few
or no signs that Providence purposes to give us a home here. I am
weary, weary, thrice weary, of waiting so many ages. Whatever may be my
gifts, I have not hitherto shown a single one that may avail to gather
gold."

Here are already three disaffected personages, desirous of escaping
from an earthly paradise. Mr. Ripley has by no means an easy row to
hoe. Yet he keeps on ploughing steadily through his difficulties, as he
did through the soil of his meadows. In September we find Hawthorne at
Salem, and on the third he writes: [Footnote: American Notebook, ii.
16.]

"But really I should judge it to be twenty years since I left Brook
Farm; and I take this to be one proof that my life there was unnatural
and unsuitable, and therefore an unreal one. It already looks like a
dream behind me. The real Me was never an associate of the community:
there has been a spectral appearance there, sounding the horn at
daybreak, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes, and raking hay,
toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to assume my name. But this
spectre was not myself."

This idea of himself as a spectre seems to have accompanied him much in
the way that the daemon did Socrates, and to have served in a similar
manner as a warning to him. He left Brook Farm almost exactly as he
describes himself doing, in "The Blithedale Romance," and he returned
again on the twenty-second, but the brilliant woodland carnival which
he describes, both in his "Note-book" and in "The Blithedale Romance,"
did not take place there until September 28. It was a masquerade in
which Margaret Fuller and Emerson appeared as invited guests, and held
a meeting of the Transcendental club "_sub tegmine fagi_." As
Hawthorne remarks, "Much conversation followed,"--in which he evidently
found little to interest him. Margaret Fuller also made a present of a
heifer to the live-stock of the Farm, of whose unruly gambols Hawthorne
seems to have taken more particular notice. He would seem in fact to
have attributed the same characteristics to the animal and its owner.

Having more time at his own disposal, he now attempted to write another
volume of history for Peter Parley's library, but, although this was
rather a childish affair, he found himself unequal to it. "I have not,"
he said, "the sense of perfect seclusion here, which has always been
essential to my power of producing anything. It is true, nobody
intrudes into my room; but still I cannot be quiet. Nothing here is
settled; and my mind will not be abstracted." During the whole of
October he went on long woodland walks, sometimes alone and at others
with a single companion. He tried, like Emerson, courting Nature in her
solitudes, and made the acquaintance of her denizens as if he were the
original Adam taking an account of his animal kingdom. He picks up a
terrapin, the _Emys picta_, which attempts to hide itself from
him in a stone wall, and carries it considerately to a pond of water;
but there is not much to be found in the woods, and one can travel a
whole day in the forest primeval without coming across anything better
than a few squirrels and small birds. In fact, two young sportsmen once
rode on horseback with their guns from the Missouri River to the
Pacific Ocean without meeting any larger game than prairie-chickens.

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