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Memories of Hawthorne

by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop · English · Gutenberg #6926 · 711,098 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Memories of Hawthorne

Author: Rose Hawthorne Lathrop


        
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6926]
                Most recently updated: December 30, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6926


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES OF HAWTHORNE ***









MEMORIES OF HAWTHORNE

By

Rose Hawthorne Lathrop




PREFACE


It will be seen that this volume is really written by Sophia
Hawthorne; whose letters from earliest girlhood are so expressed, and
so profound in thought and loveliness, that some will of sterner
quality than a daughter's must cast them aside. I have tried to weed
out those written records of hers (even from 1820) reaching to her
last year in 1871, that could give no especial pleasure to any
descendant who might come upon them; and I have been astonished to
find that there was scarcely one such page. This is the explanation of
my return, in the company of the friends of my father and mother, to
an old garden, a familiar discourse, and a circle of life that
embraced so much beauty.

ROSE HAWTHORNE LATHROP.

NEW YORK, February 20th, 1897.




CONTENTS

[online ed: page numbers omitted]

CHAPTER I

THE HAWTHORNES AND THE PEABODYS

The Hawthornes summoned from their quietude by the Peabodys. Sophia
Peabody's mother and grandmother, the latter wife of General Palmer,
who was prominent in the Revolution. Characteristics of the Misses
Peabody. Letters to the Hawthornes from the Peabodys, though so close
at hand, because of the difficulty of seeing the former at any time.
The dignity of George Peabody's nature. Sophia's fondness for profound
books. The great affection of friends for her, who bring rare flowers
to the little studio where she is often imprisoned. Elizabeth
Hawthorne consents to walk with the Peabodys. Dr. Channing's regard
for Sophia's artistic talent and motive. Miss Burley's literary club,
to which Hawthorne liked to go with Sophia. The wooing not a moment
delayed. Visits from Emerson and Very. Elizabeth goes forth among the
most interesting people of Boston, and remains to teach their
daughters.

CHAPTER II

THE DAYS OF THE ENGAGEMENT

Hawthorne and Sophia become engaged, but defer the announcement for a
year. Sophia visits friends in Boston, and Hawthorne visits Boston
also. Washington Allston's deep approval of Sophia's talents.
Elizabeth visits the Emersons in Concord, and writes as if from
heaven. Mr. Bancroft remarked to Emerson that Hawthorne was
exceptionally thorough in business. Sophia draws and paints vigorously
in her happy security of the highest love. Letters from Hawthorne to
her. Fragment of a Scrap-Book kept by Hawthorne at the Boston Custom
House. Friends rejoice in the engagement when it is made known.

CHAPTER III

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE MARRIAGE

The beautiful marriage is appreciated by all. Letters to Mrs. Caleb
Foote and to Sophia's mother describe life at the Old Manse in
Concord. The birth of Una. Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne skate upon
the river near the Manse, with differing aspects. The radiance and
sublimity of a Massachusetts winter enrich the landscape. Evening
readings by Hawthorne to his wife from the classics begun and always
continued. Friends call somewhat frequently, at last, from the outside
world; Visits to relatives in Boston and Salem. Mary Peabody becomes
the wife of Horace Mann. Sophia describes Una's favorable impression
upon the circle of friends in Salem and Boston. Returning to the Old
Manse renews the enjoyment of nature and peace.

CHAPTER IV

LIFE IN SALEM

Salem becomes their home for the second time. Letter from George W.
Curtis while in Europe. Sophia expresses in a letter to Hawthorne her
entire satisfaction, though poor and in the midst of petty cares,
under his enchanting protection. Daniel Webster's oration in Salem.
Alcott's monologue. Thoreau's lecture. Letters about the attack of
certain mistaken people upon Hawthorne as a Democrat and official.
Hawthorne writes to Horace Mann upon the subject. The best citizens
are active to remedy the offense against Hawthorne. George Mullet's
letters describing Hawthorne as official and man.

CHAPTER V

FROM SALEM TO BERKSHIRE

The Hawthornes seek a home by the sea, but drift up to the mountains
of Berkshire, and are happy. Letter from Mrs. James R. Lowell, _nee_
White. The Sedgwicks are the kindest friends in the world. Herman
Melville is drawn to the life by Mrs. Hawthorne, in a letter to her
mother. A poem, by Mrs. Hawthorne, to her husband.

CHAPTER VI

LENOX

Letters and visits from friends are frequent in Lenox, where a
literary group begin to suggest flight to the Hawthornes, who have no
liking for a fussy succession of intercourse. Hawthorne reads the
"House of the Seven Gables" aloud to his wife as he writes it. He
sends a long letter to William B. Pike. Charming long letters come
from Herman Melville, though he is not far off.

CHAPTER VII

FROM LENOX TO CONCORD

Letter, full of amused astonishment, from Hawthorne to Mrs. Tappan.
Descriptions of the divine Lenox home life, by Mrs. Hawthorne. The
removal to West Newton, and finally to Concord, is made. Letter from
Maria L. Porter, a kindred nature. Mr. Alcott is lovingly analyzed by
Mrs. Hawthorne. Letters to her from Mr. Alcott. Letters to her, from
Emerson, of an earlier date. Letters from Margaret Fuller. Mrs.
Hawthorne describes The Wayside. General Solomon McNiel wields his
affable sword. The Emersons pervade the little town like reigning
powers.

CHAPTER VIII

THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE

The Wayside begins to be hospitable in earnest, and Mr. Miller, the
artist, talks unceasingly there. Mrs. Hawthorne describes her husband.
Hawthorne visits the Isles of Shoals. Ex-President Pierce is insulted
and bears it well. Hawthorne visits Brunswick College, and is welcomed
back there. A talk on The Wayside hill. The Liverpool Consulate is
given to Hawthorne, who visits Washington before embarking for
England. Description of Hawthorne by his daughter Rose. The voyage is
described in a letter from Mrs. Hawthorne. Field Talfourd pleases her,
especially. Mr. Henry Bright shines upon the family. Rose describes
him. Mrs. Hawthorne writes to her father about him, his family at
their home, and of English ways.

CHAPTER IX

ENGLISH DAYS: I

Hospitable English strangers make the American strangers welcome. An
English mansion described by Mrs. Hawthorne. Liverpool organizations
honor Hawthorne by attentions. The Squareys of Dacre Hill. Hawthorne's
unstinted friendliness towards Americans in distress. The De Quincey
family greatly desire to see Hawthorne, Ticknor says. Hawthorne meets
the sons of Burns. Liscard Vale and its dinner-party described by Mrs.
Hawthorne, who is entertained by the magnificence and the characters
richly gathered there. Mrs. Hawthorne tells her father about a visit
to Chester on Sunday. The "Westminster Review" praises Hawthorne's
art. Distinguished English people seek Hawthorne out. Mr. Martineau
described by Mrs. Hawthorne. Mr. Bennoch's first call upon the family.
Miss Cushman visits the Hawthornes with her splendid geniality. Mrs.
Hawthorne described by her daughter Rose. Hawthorne is hunted to
gorgeous dinners against his better instincts. Henry Bright more
delightfully drives him to beautiful scenes. "The Scarlet Letter"
sells very largely in England, and is read. The Consulate is sighed
over by Mrs. Hawthorne.

CHAPTER X

ENGLISH DAYS: II

The Isle of Man is visited as if it were Fairyland. The Consulate is
again described by Mrs. Hawthorne. Hawthorne refuses to let two
hundred shipwrecked American soldiers die in destitution, and charters
a ship to send them home, at some risk of personal bankruptcy. The
death of Mrs. Hawthorne's father is communicated to her by her
husband. A letter from Una tells about the family and the scene of the
country-side, and refers to Lenox pastimes. Visit of the family to
Wales. Hawthorne goes to a dinner-party to meet Mr. Buchanan and Miss
Lane. Hawthorne and Mrs. Hawthorne described by Rose. Hawthorne still
reads aloud in the evenings. Letters from Hawthorne to Rose. His
playfulness and generous thought for his children noted. The home life
of the family depicted, and also Mrs. Hawthorne's energy of geniality.
A sketch of Mr. Bennoch, and a letter from him. Lord Houghton and
others try to bring Hawthorne to society by letter. The family go to
London for the ostensible purpose of enjoying society, but Hawthorne
is obliged to spend part of the time in Liverpool. Mrs. Hawthorne
writes to him of London and Henry Bright, who is there, and speaks of
Miss Bacon's genius.

CHAPTER XI

ENGLISH DAYS: III

Mrs. Hawthorne's letter to Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody describes
Wordsworth's country. The family visit Southport for the winter, for
Mrs. Hawthorne's health. A trip to Manchester, for the Exhibition,
includes a glimpse of Tennyson and his family. Mrs. Hawthorne
carefully describes them. She refers to slavery with contempt.
Hawthorne writes to Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody about her anti-slavery
essay with frankest honesty and distaste, being importuned for his
opinion. His estimate of Goodrich. A visit to Kenilworth by the family
is portrayed in a letter of Mrs. Hawthorne's. English days in
Leamington are quiet and economical, but always suggestive to
imagination. A visit to a genuinely palatial hotel in Bath described
by Mrs. Hawthorne. Redcar and Hawthorne's enjoyment of it reproduced
by descriptions and diaries. "The Marble Faun" worked out and finished
in this seaport town.

CHAPTER XII

ITALIAN DAYS: I

Rome has a superlative effect upon the family. Hawthorne's manner in
the midst of the richest scene in history. A host of friends happen to
congregate, at Carnival time. Miss Maria Mitchell, Miss Harriet
Hosmer, and Miss Elizabeth Hoar described. Una's illness proves the
true friendship of lifelong and new acquaintances. C. G. Thompson and
his studio sketched. Rome's lasting charm for a little girl
evident.

CHAPTER XIII

ITALIAN DAYS: II

Six months in Florence. Mrs. Hawthorne's letters continue to catch and
imprison the atmosphere of every scene. The castle of Montauto
fascinates the family. Catholicity penetrates the heart of both
husband and wife, in spite of much armor. Stella humbly and silently
expresses religious gentleness. Spiritualism introduces its clumsy
morbidness to Mrs. Hawthorne in the presence of the Brownings. Mr. and
Mrs. Browning described from the enthusiastic memory of a child.
Motley's letter about "Monte Beni" is given.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WAYSIDE

The Wayside welcomes the family to a life of simplicity, second-rate
enjoyment, and sacrifice. Interesting minds working for humanity are
the happy reward for a quiet life. Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau and
Channing described. Visits to the Fields's in Boston, where rare
people are met. The Wayside, quiet as it is, is not quite out of the
world, and friends and letters from abroad often follow Hawthorne
thither. One of Louisa Alcott's jolly little poems. General Hitchcock
is mentioned by Mrs. Hawthorne, who valued him among a group of finest
minds. Concord life portrayed in Mrs. Hawthorne's journals and
letters. Hawthorne's breaking health soon affects the family with
half-admitted dread. President Lincoln becomes a verified ideal.

CHAPTER XV

THE ARTIST AT WORK

Hawthorne's habits of work are described, and his attitude of mind is
guessed, by his daughter Rose. The "North British Review" quoted upon
Hawthorne's art. His efforts to continue at his work unflinchingly, by
means of exercise and hardihood.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LEAVE-TAKING

Emerson and Longfellow write of their desire to be with Hawthorne in
companionship. Dr. Holmes flashes joyfully yet longingly as he speaks
of Hawthorne's personality. Miss Elizabeth M. Hawthorne makes a visit
to The Wayside, and her niece Rose tries to study her. Una's lifelong
love and admiration for her. Hawthorne's devoted care for her, which
he bequeathed to his family. Mrs. Hawthorne expresses in a letter to
a friend some of her vigorous and sublime principles of thought and
action. Hawthorne's death comes while he is away from his wife, but
she is conscious of its presence.




MEMORIES OF HAWTHORNE


CHAPTER I

THE HAWTHORNES AND THE PEABODYS


To my lot have fallen sundry letters of my mother's, received in youth
by her sisters and friends, and by her husband and others in later
life. I have often read over these magic little pictures of old days,
and each time have felt less inclined to let them remain silently in
the family. The letters are full of sunshine, which is not even yet
in the least dimmed; and there is a pleasant chatter of persons of
whom we have heard widely in the most refined atmosphere this country
knows.

The scene surrounds a soul, my father's, whose excellence grows more
and more evident, and who enriches every incident and expression that
comes in contact with him. The tone of the life depicted is usually
glad; but even where discomfort and sorrow break it, Hawthorne's
unflinching endurance suggests unsoured activity and a brave glance.

I will preserve, as well as I can by selections, the effect produced
upon me by the many packages of letters which I opened some years ago.
What Hawthorne cared for is somewhat clearly shown by side-lights; and
there is also some explanation from my mother, as unintentionally
given as the rest, of why he cared.

It was a genial and vivid existence which enveloped her family always;
and it became an interesting problem to the Peabodys to entice the
reticent Hawthornes into it, from the adjacent Herbert Street,--by
gentle degrees, well-adjusted baits, and affectionate compliments.
Trout-fishing comes to mind,--and the trout were very skillful in
keeping aloof. Nevertheless, Hawthorne liked all he heard and saw at
the Peabodys' in Charter Street; and Sophia, his future wife, gleams
near him as the unwitting guide to the warm contact with his kind for
which he searched, though with delicacy of choice.

Sophia's mother had strong intellect and great refinement, as well as
a strength of character which gave her the will to teach school for
many years, while her own children were growing up. She was very well
connected in various directions; in other words, she had sprung from
cultivated intelligences.

Mrs. Peabody's mother was the wife of Judge Cranch, of Boston, whose
sister, the wife of General Palmer, wrote to her in Revolutionary days
the following letter, wherein very mild words stand for very strong
emotions:--


GERMANTOWN, February 12, 1775.

DEAR SISTER,--It is a long time since we have heard from you, except
by transient reports that your family was pretty well. I suppose you
are all anxious about publick affairs as well as other folks. 'T is a
dreadful dull time for writing; this suspense that we are in seems to
absorb every Faculty of the mind, especially in our situation where we
seldom see anybody from the busy world.

Mr. Palmer has been gone a fortnight to Congress, and we have never
heard a word from him. The folks are almost impatient to hear what
they are about.

Certainly we at this time want every motive of Religion to strengthen
our souls and bear up our spirits, that we may not faint in the evil
time. Why should not there be religious as well as Political
correspondencies? I believe much good might be done by such means, as
those who are sincerely good would be able to strengthen each
other--oh dear! I am so stupid! I wonder whether you feel so, too; but
you have little ones about you that will keep you rousing. My Love to
them all, together with my Brother.

Your affectionate sister, M. PALMER.


Literature, art, and intercourse were the three gracious deities of
the Peabody home, and many persons came to join the family in
worshiping them; so that the pages of all the letters and journals,
from which but a fragmentary gleaning has been made, blossom daily
with name after name of callers. Elizabeth was profoundly
interesting, Mary was brilliant, and Sophia was lovely in her studio,
to which everybody eagerly mounted. At about the time when I begin to
levy upon the letters, the efforts of these young ladies to establish
common ground of friendship with the Hawthornes peep forth in small
messages, bequeathed to me by my recluse aunt Ebie Hawthorne.

Elizabeth Peabody was the first and most frequent angler at the
brookside, and actually succeeded in establishing a sturdy friendship
with the young author, who was being sought for by the best people in
Salem. His mother and sisters, walks and books, were the principal
factors in his capture by the admiring enemy. Elizabeth had already a
high intercourse upon high themes with the best minds among manly
American thought. Her perfect simplicity of motive and abandonment of
selfish, vain effeminateness made her the delight of the great men she
met. She was a connoisseur in this field. To such a genial cultivator
of development it seemed folly for the women of the Hawthorne family
so to conceal their value; it was positively non-permissible for the
genius of the family to conceal _his_, and so this New World Walton
fished him forth. She sends a note to Herbert Street:--


MY DEAR MRS. HAWTHORNE,--I have taken the liberty to have your book
bound before I returned it to you, as it was somewhat abused at the
printing-office. And besides, I thought there should be some attempt
at harmony between the outside and the inside; and more than that, I
wanted in some slight degree to express my respect for it. How happy
you must be in reading these tales! For if the genius which produced
them is independent of all source but the divine bounty, the holiness
and virtue which breathe on every page may be fairly attributed to the
sacred influences of a pure New England home, in no small degree. But
to enter upon the satisfactions of a mother in such a case I feel to
be intruding upon consecrated ground. Yet you will easily pardon the
feeling that impels me.

With the greatest respect, yours,

ELIZABETH P. PEABODY.


My mother joins in the pursuit, though interested only in catching a
glimpse of the widow and the shy eldest daughter. It must have been
worth many experiments to gently succeed in putting their skill in
hiding to naught. She slaps a dainty fishing-line through the
leaves:--


MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--I send you a volume of Carlyle, lately published.
It is well worth reading; and your mother--will she like to read it? I
shall charge Bridget to inquire how your mother's and Louisa's
headaches are. I should have gone myself to-day to ask, had not the
wind been east. Won't you come to walk to-morrow afternoon with my
mother, dear Elizabeth, and then I shall see you a few minutes? I want
very much to see you, and to show you a certain white vase filled with
brilliant flowers, which would charm your eye. I hope you enjoyed the
music last evening.

Truly yours and Louisa's,

S. A. PEABODY.


I can imagine nothing more curious to the Peabodys than people who
withdrew themselves from choice. My mother was often hidden, because
of great delicacy of health, which her ardent pursuance of art
constantly fatigued; but she saw so many people that there was
scarcely a whole day of isolation. At the Hawthornes', on the
contrary, quiet prevailed: caused partly by bereavement, partly by
proud poverty, and no doubt not a little by the witch-shadow of Judge
Hawthorne's unfortunate condemnation of Rebecca Nurse, whose dying
curse was never ignored; partly also by a sense of superiority, which,
I think, was the skeleton in every Hawthorne's body at that time.

For a year one of the brothers at the Peabodys', George, remained in
his room, slowly dying from the effects of over-exertion in athletic
sports. He was of large frame and of noble appearance, and was
referred to by my mother in after-life with the deepest admiration.
She writes:--


"It is difficult to realize how ill he is. He has none of the ways of
sick people. His voice is as cheerful as ever, with no whine in its
tones. He has no whims. He is always ready to smile, and reads
constantly. . . . Mary and I spent the evening with the beloved one.
He was pretty cheery, and told a comical anecdote of Dean Swift. He
stood up on Friday much more firmly than formerly. Elizabeth
Hawthorne sent him Miss Martineau's book, after tea, which was
certainly very kind and attentive in her. I am determined to go and
see her this week. I spent the morning upon my bed, reading Herodotus.
. . . I found that mother had taken James and gone to Paradise after a
_hawthorne_ bush. It is a bush for which she has had a longing for
several years, but never could get any kind friend to uproot it for
her."


The highest principles of thought and action are constantly danced
about and caressed by my mother in all her letters, as we imagine a
Greek maiden paying cheerful homage to beautiful statues of the gods.
For instance, in writing to the brother already mentioned, before his
illness, she says:--


"I do not like to have you say that you enjoy despising people,
George. It would be a little better to say you cannot help it
sometimes; and even that is a dangerous attitude of mind. It is
better to sorrow over than to despise. You know, Wordsworth says, 'He
that feels contempt for any living thing hath faculties which he has
never used.'"


A message from Mary Peabody shows how intimate Herbert and Charter
streets were growing:--


MY DEAR ELIZABETH,--I am very sorry to have been prevented from
walking, but I hope to be able to go by Tuesday. George is fast
growing weaker, and we do not know what a day may bring forth. Still,
I feel it is necessary to take exercise when I can. We do not tell all
our fears to Sophia, whom we wish to keep cheerfully employed as long
as we can. Will you ask your brother to dine with us to-morrow?
Elizabeth [who was then teaching school in Boston] depends upon the
pleasure of seeing him when she comes. We dine as early as twelve on
Sunday. Yours very truly,

MARY T. PEABODY.


From this point, the letters and fragments of journals bring to view
what Hawthorne saw, and make real to us the woman he soon loved.


SALEM, October 22, 1832.

I have been in old native Salem for ten days. Betty and I returned by
seven o'clock to our minimum of a house, and upon entering I really
felt a slight want of breath to find the walls so near together and
the ceiling nearly upon my head. But there stood my beloved mother,
all in white, her face radiant with welcome and love, and in her arms
there was no want of room. In September or October I live _par
excellence_. I feel in the abstract just as an autumn leaf _looks_. I
step abroad from my clay house, and become a part of the splendor and
claritude and vigor around.

DEAR BETTY,--I forgot to tell you that mother's garden has been
arranged. She is quite happy in it. Father presided over a man as he
uprooted and planted. The man was quite an original. He came looking
very nice, very gentlemanly, in broadcloth and cambric cravat. But
after disappearing into the barn for several minutes, he came forth
transformed into a dirty workman, though still somewhat distinguished
by his figure and air. He expressed himself in very courtly phrase,
also, and was quite sentimental about the shrubbery round the tombs.
[A graveyard was close to the house.] I should much like to know the
history of his mind and career. . . . The clematis which climbs into
my window is all sprouting. My glorious tree--my hieroglyphic for the
everlasting forests--is also putting forth leaves, and the robins sing
among the branches.

Ellen Barstow came with an exquisite crimson rose, for me, which she
wished to present herself; and as I was lying down, she went away to
come again. So towards tea-time I saw her and Augusta running along.
Ellen discovered me at the window, and shouted and flew on. As they
were ascending the stairs I heard Ellen say, "Now hold your hand
behind you, Augusta!" They entered with hands concealed and gleaming
faces, and when they were within reach suddenly the concealed hands
were thrust towards my face, each adorned with a crimson rose. My
exclamation of delight seemed to fulfill their desires; and now I want
to know if it is not worth fifteen years of bodily pain and discomfort
to be the cause of such divine sentiment in the souls of so many
children as I am? I feel perfectly consecrated by it, and bound over
to be worthy of such pure emotions. Oh, _not_ mysterious Providence! How
even are thy golden scales--sweetest compensations poising exactly the
ills! It is not suffering which I think beautiful or desirable, but
what suffering brings along with it, and _causes_. My door was open,
and who should unexpectedly come out of Mary's room but Miss Elizabeth
Hawthorne, going to walk with Mary. I was very glad to see her, and
wanted her to come into my studio, but Mary was in haste to be
walking. Miss Hawthorne looked very interesting. They had a
delightful ramble, and she sent me a bunch of seaweed fastened to a
rock, which she stepped into the sea to get for me. It looks like a
drooping plume if it is held up, and I went into George's room to get
his admiration; but he persisted in declaring it hideous. I was
delighted by her thinking of sending it to me.

I happened to be up in the third story just as the children were going
home [Mary was teaching two or three little girls], and they went into
my studio with Mary. I was very much impressed with what I heard said
in tones of reverence. "_Look_ at that hammock! _Oh,_ that picture! And
there are the flowers! Oh, _I_ gave her those! Miss Peabody, is that a
_bed?_ _Oh,_ how beautifully everything looks! Is Sophia gone out?" I
cannot convey to you the intonations of affection and interest which
made these sentences so touching.

This morning Mary came in and threw at me a beautiful handful of
flowers, which I crowed over for a time, and then arose. I worked a
little while at my painting, and then Mary Channing came gliding in
upon me, like a dream, with more flowers, the Scotch rose and many
rare things among them. Mr. Doughty [the artist, who had consented to
give Sophia lessons] came, as bright as possible. The cool breezes,
the flowers, etc., put him into excellent humor. He said it was luxury
to sit and paint here. He created a glowing bank in broad sunshine.
Mr. Russell called, and came up into my studio. He thought such a
studio and such an occupation must cure the headache. Then I prepared
to make several calls, but on my way was arrested by Mr. George
Hillard, who was altogether too agreeable to leave. He is amazingly
entertaining, to be sure. He remarked what a torment of his life Mr.
Reed, the postmaster in Cambridge, was. He is an old man, about a
hundred and forty years old, who always made him think of the little
end of nothing sharpened off into a point. He had but one joke--to
tell people sometimes when they asked for a letter that they must pay
half a dollar for it; and then, if in their simplicity they gave it,
he would laugh, and say it was a joke. After Mr. Hillard went away,
Sally Gardiner came in with an armful of roses, which she poured upon
me, taken from Judge Jackson's garden. She had just returned from
Milton, and was overflowing with its grandeur and beauty.

Yours affectionately,

SOPHIE.


The somewhat invalided little artist was highly and widely admired;
and to illustrate the happy fact I quote this letter, written by her
spirited sister Mary:--


BOSTON, June 19, 1833.

MY DEAREST,--I went to Dr. Channing's yesterday afternoon and carried
him your drawings, with which he was so enchanted that I left them for
him to look at again. He gathered himself up in a little striped
cloak, and all radiant with that soul of his, said with his most
divine inflection, "This is a great and noble undertaking, and will do
much for us here." And then he rolled his orbs upon me in that
majestic way of his, which, when it melts into loveliness as it
sometimes does, so takes captivity captive. In short, he was quite in
an ecstasy with you and your notions. [Probably drawings illustrating
auxiliary verbs.] He inquired very particularly for you, and showed me
all the new books he had just received from England, which he thought
a great imposition, they being big books. Edward [his brother] came
in, and they greeted affectionately. After a long survey of the
Professor, he exclaimed, "Why, Edward, you look gross--take care of
the intellect!" Then he handed him one of the great books, just
arrived, which was an edition of Thomas Belsham's works, with a
likeness of the author. "There," said he, "is a man who had not quite
the dimensions of a hogshead; but he was the largest man I ever saw."
Edward looked rather uneasy. "William," he replied, "I don't think you
are any judge of large men. Last week I looked quite thin, but to-day
my head and face are very much swelled." The Doctor, in the simplicity
of his heart, never thinks of feelings, only of things, as Plato would
say. Your affectionate sister,

MARY.

Sophia writes to Elizabeth in Boston, in 1838, of her daily life, as
follows:--

"I went to my hammock [in the studio] with Xenophon. Socrates was
divinest, after Jesus Christ, I think. He lived up to his thought. . . .
After dinner, Mary went out 'to take the fresh,' intending to
finish the afternoon by a walk with Miss Hawthorne, and I commissioned
her to bring home both her and her brother, if he should go, that I
might give him my fragrant violets. . . .

"Miss Hawthorne came to walk, and remarked to Mary how beautiful the
crocuses were which I had given to her brother. Mary told her that I
sent them _to her_. 'That is a pretty story,' she replied. 'He never
told me so.'

"Just after seven Mr. Hawthorne came. He looked very brilliant. . . .
His coming here is one sure way of keeping you in mind, and it must be
excessively tame for him after his experience of your society and
conversation; so that, I think, you will shine the more by contrast."

One evening, she says, she "showed him Sarah Clarke's picture of the
island, and that gorgeous flower in the Chinese book of which there is
a mighty tree in Cuba. And then I turned over the pictures of those
hideous birds, which diverted him exceedingly. One he thought deserved
study. . . .

"I was to go to see his sister Elizabeth that afternoon, and he had
heard about it. He asked if I could go, and said he should have waited
for me to come if he had not supposed the east wind would prevent me.
I said that it would. He wanted to know if I would come the next day.
I meant to call Mary, but he prevented me by saying he could not stay
long enough. . . . [He seldom stayed unless he found Sophia alone.]

"Last evening Mr. Hawthorne came for Mary to go with him to Miss
Burley's [to a club which met every week]. Mary could not go. It
seemed a shame to refuse him. I came down to catch a glimpse of him.
He has a celestial expression which I do not like to lose. . . .

"The children have just come in, and brought me a host of odorous
violets. I made George a visit in the afternoon, in the midst of my
battle with headache, and to my question of 'How dost?' he replied,
for the first time, 'Pretty fair,' instead of the unvarying
'Middling.' Skeptics surely cannot disbelieve in one thing that is
invisible, and that is Pain."

May, 1838.

After my siesta I went down to Herbert Street with the book I wished
to leave, and when I opened the gate [of the Hawthornes' house] the
old woman with her hood on [an aunt of the Hawthornes] was stooping
over a flower-bed, planting seeds. She lifted her smiling face, which
must have been very pretty in her youth, and said, "How do you do,
Miss Peabody?" Yet I never saw her in my life before. She begged me to
walk in, but I refused, and gave her my message of thanks for the
book.

Ever thine wholly,

SOPHIECHEN.

May 14, 1838.

To-day I was tempted to trot about the room and arrange all my vases,
and give an air to the various knickknacks. I am much more easily
tired than ever before. My walk to Castle Hill before February did not
make me feel so hopelessly tired as it now does to walk as far as the
Hawthornes'. Mr. Hawthorne had declined to come to dine with you on
your arrival, but was to be here directly after dinner. When he came I
happened to be the only one ready to go down. His first question was,
"Where is Elizabeth?" He was not at all inclined to bear the
disappointment of your not being here, after all. He thought it "too
bad," "insufferable," "not fair," and wondered what could be the
reason. I told him your excuse, and that there was a letter for him,
which Mary soon brought. He put it into his pocket without breaking
the seal. He looked very handsome, and was full of smiles. I assured
him the morning was the best time to do creative work. He said he
believed he would go and take a walk in South Salem. "Won't you go?"
he asked of me. But the wind was east.

MY DEAR LIZZIE,--I can think of nothing now but Charles Emerson. A
sudden gloom seems to overshadow me. I hope you will tell us to-morrow
whether he is dangerously ill. We had an exquisite visit from Waldo.
It was the warbling of the Attic bird. The gleam of his _diffused_
smile; the musical thunder of his voice; his repose, so full of the
essence of life; his simplicity--just think of all these, and of my
privilege in seeing and hearing him. He enjoyed everything we showed
him so much. He talked so divinely to Raphael's Madonna del Pesce. I
vainly imagined I was very quiet all the while, preserving a very
demure exterior, and supposed I was sharing his oceanic calm. But the
next day I was aware that I had been in a very intense state. I told
Mary, that night after he had gone, that I felt like a gem; that was
the only way I could express it. I don't know what Mary hoped to get
from him, but I was sure of drinking in that which would make me paint
Cuban skies better than even my recollections could have made me, were
they as vivid as the rays of the sun in that sunniest of climates. He
made me feel as Eliza Dwight did once, when she looked uncommonly
beautiful and animated. I felt as if her beauty was all about the
room, and that I was in it, and therefore beautiful too. It seemed
just so with Waldo's soul-beauty. Good-by,

SOPHY.

June 1, 1838.

One afternoon Elizabeth Hawthorne came to walk with Mary, and mother
went with her instead. She first came up into my chamber, and seemed
well pleased with it, but especially admired the elm-tree outside. She
looked very interesting. Mother took her to the cold spring, and they
did not return till just at dark, loaded with airy anemones and blue
violets and a few columbines. They had found Mr. John King and his
daughter at the spring, looking for wild-flowers, and mother
introduced Miss Hawthorne; but she hung her head and scarcely
answered, and did not open her lips again, though Mr. King accompanied
them all the way home. He gave mother some columbines, and after a
while said, "I must make your bunch like Mrs. Peabody's, my dear," and
so put some more into Miss Hawthorne's hand.

The day before Mr. Hawthorne had called at noon to see our ladyships,
and I never saw him look so brilliantly rayonnant. He said to me,
"Your story will be finished soon, Sophia--to-morrow or next day." I
was surprised to have the story so appropriated, and I do long to see
it. [Probably Edward Randolph's Portrait.] He proposed to Mary to go
to the beach the same day, and she consented. He said that he had not
spoken to his sister about it, but would do so as soon as he went
home. He wished to go early, and have a good walk. Only think what
progress! To come and propose a walk at mid-day!

He said he had a letter nearly written to you, but should not finish
it till you wrote. He seemed quite impatient to hear from you, and
remarked that he had not heard since you were here. Mary went to
Herbert Street to join Miss Hawthorne for the walk, but did not see
her. Her mother said Elizabeth did not want to go because it was
windy, and the sun was too hot, and clouds were in the south! (It was
the loveliest day in the world.) Was it not too bad to disappoint her
brother so? I could have whipped her. When Mary went the next day
with the tulips, Louisa told her that Elizabeth was very sorry
afterwards that she did not go.

A successful visit, almost accidental, upon Ebie Hawthorne pleased
Sophia very much, and she writes:--

"She was very agreeable, and took the trouble to go and get some
engravings of heads to show me, Wordsworth among the number, which I
had never seen before.

"Elizabeth also inquired particularly for George, and gave me more
books for him. She asked if we did not miss you exceedingly. I should
like to have stayed for two or three hours. She came downstairs with
me, and out of the door, and talked about the front yard, where her
aunt is going to make a garden."

Elizabeth Peabody's letters are always delight-, fully direct, and
varied in quality of emotion, being equally urgent over philosophy or
daily bread, as the ensuing one will show in part:--

53 MYRTLE STREET, BOSTON, 1838.

MY DEAR SOPHIA,--Your beautiful letters require an answer, but I
cannot possibly answer them in kind. This evening, notwithstanding
the storm, George and Susan Hillard have gone to a singing-school, and
left me to amuse myself. I hoped Mr. Hawthorne would come in. I have
not seen him yet. Last night I took tea with Sally Gardiner and Miss
Jackson, who are still enjoying your Flaxman drawings. Why do not you
Salem folks have a hencoop and keep hens! five or six hens would
overwhelm you with eggs all the year round. I like to hear the little
items about Hawthorne. I had a nice talk with Mr. Capen about him
to-day. He has him in his mind, and I hope it will come to some good
purpose for the public.

Yours truly and ever, E. P. P.

Sophia writes:--

July 23, 1838.

William White arrived on Saturday. Why did not you send Stuart's
Athens by him? He said that he had heard it remarked that Mr. Emerson
expected another Messiah. Your slight account of Mr. E.'s "Address" is
enough to wake the dead, and I do not know what the original utterance
must have done. I told Mary I thought Mr. Emerson was the Word again.
She exclaimed, "You blasphemer!" "Do you really think it blasphemy?"
said I. "Oh no," she replied. "It is the gospel according to you." Was
not that a happy saying? While the maid was at Miss Hurley's on an
errand, she saw Mr. Hawthorne enter, probably for a take-leave call.
He was here also, looking radiant. He said he took up my Journal
[written in Cuba] to bring it back, but my "works were so voluminous
that he concluded to send them!"

Elizabeth Peabody makes, upon her return to 'Salem for the winter, an
heroic move towards gaining a still more affectionate advantage over
the solitaries in Herbert Street. A little smile must have given her
face its most piquant expression as she wrote:--

Saturday, November 10, 1838.

DEAR LOUISA,--You know I want to knit those little stockings and
shoes,--I think I will do it in the course of time at your house,--and
would thank you to buy the materials for me, and I will pay you what
they cost, when I know what it is. I suppose the four or five evenings
which I shall anticipate spending with you (in the course of the
winter!) will complete the articles.

When Elizabeth wakes, please give her this note and rose and book; and
when Nathaniel comes to dinner please give him the note I wrote to
him. He said he was going to write to-day, and therefore I should
prefer that he should not be interrupted on purpose to read it. We
will not interrupt the bird in his song. I wonder what sort of a
preparation he finds an evening of whist, for the company of the Muse!

Yours ever truly,

E. P. PEABODY.

It is delightful to picture the commotion in the fernlike seclusion
which enveloped the women of the Hawthorne household when this note
was opened and read. Squirrels aroused, owls awakened, foxes startled,
would have sympathized. Louisa, the only really active member of the
trio, wonderfully deft in finest sewing and embroidery, generously
willing to labor for all the relatives when illness required, may not
have felt faint or fierce. But Mrs. Hawthorne, even in the covert of
her chamber, where she chiefly resided, no doubt drew back; and
Elizabeth's beautiful eyes must have shone superbly. However, to prove
that the trio among the ferns (guarding, as testimony proves,
Hawthorne himself with unasked care) could serve the needs of others
on occasion,

I will insert a little letter of a much earlier date, from Louisa.

TO MISS MARY MANNING, RAYMOND, MAINE, CARE OF RICHARD MANNING, ESQ.

SALEM, March 3, 1831.

MY DEAR AUNT,--Uncle Sammie has returned from Boston, and has taken up
his abode for the present at uncle Robert's [his brother, who
befriended Hawthorne in his early youth], and is much better than we
expected to see him. We should have been glad to have him with us,
and would have done everything in our power to make him happy. We are
so near that he can at any time command our services and our company.
Nathaniel goes in to see him, and I am there a great part of the time.
Mother has kept about all winter. There have been worse storms than I
ever remember; the roads were absolutely impassable, and the
snow-banks almost as high as the house. I would write more, but my
time is much taken up now. I remain yours, With much affection,

M. L. HATHORNE.

That the reluctance to be genial with very genial folk was bravely
overcome (to some extent) the ensuing notes prove:--

DEAR ELIZABETH,--As you were out on Saturday evening, I hope you will
be able to come and spend to-morrow evening with us--will you not? I
should be extremely happy to see Mary, though I despair of it; and
though I cannot venture to ask Sophia, perhaps you can for me. Pray
tell me particularly how your father is; we are all anxious to hear;
and whether George is as he was when we heard last.

I am, in haste, E, M. H.

DEAR ELIZABETH,--Shall we go to the beach? If so, I propose that we
set off instanter. I think a sea-breeze would be most refreshing this
afternoon. Truly yours,

M. T. P.

Don't forget to ask your brother.

MY DEAR E.,--I am afraid I shall not be able to go and spend an
evening with you while the girls are gone. To-morrow, you know, is the
eclipse. I wish you would come here in the afternoon. The graveyard
is an open place to see it from, and I should be very glad of your
company. Yesterday I heard of Nathaniel. A gentleman was shut up with
him on a rainy day in a tavern in Berkshire, and was perfectly charmed
with his luck. In haste, yours,

E. P. P.

By and by Elizabeth Peabody returns to Boston, and Sophia goes on with
letters:--

I do not think I am subject to my imagination; I can let an idea go to
the grave that I see is false. When I am altogether true to the light
I have, I shall be in the heaven where the angelic Very now is. I went
to see dear Miss Burley, who sent for me to go to her room. She
insisted upon accompanying me all the way downstairs, limping
painfully, and would open the outer door for me, and bow me out with
as much deference as if I had been Victoria, or Hawthorne himself! So
much for the Word uttering itself through my fingers in the face of
Ilbrahim. [She had just finished illustrating "The Gentle Boy" by a
drawing which was greatly praised.]

Jones Very came to tea that afternoon. He was troubled at first, but
we comforted him with sympathy. His conversation with George was
divine, and such level rays of celestial light as beamed from his face
upon George, every time he looked up at him, were lovely to behold. We
told him of our enjoyment of his sonnets. He smiled, and said that,
unless we thought them beautiful because we also heard the Voice in
reading them, they would be of no avail. "Since I have shown you my
sonnets," said he to me, "I think you should show me your paintings,"
Mary brought my drawing-book and "AEschylus" [wonderfully perfect
drawings from Flaxman's illustrations]. He deeply enjoyed all. I told
him of my Ilbrahim. He said he delighted in the "Twice-Told Tales."
Yesterday Mr. Hawthorne came in, and said, "I am going to Miss
Hurley's, but you must not go. It is too cold. You certainly must not
go." I assured him I should go, and was sorry I was not wanted. He
laughed, and said I was not. But I persisted. He knew I should be made
sick; that it was too cold. Meanwhile I put on an incalculable
quantity of clothes. Father kept remonstrating, but not violently, and
I gently imploring. When I was ready, Mr. Hawthorne said he was glad I
was going. Mary was packed up safely, also. I was very animated, and
felt much better than on either of the previous club nights. Mr.
Hawthorne declared it must be the spirit of contradiction that made me
so; and I told him it was nothing but fact. We walked quite fast, for
I seemed stepping on air. It was partly because I had not got tired
during the day. It was splendid moonlight. I was not in the least
cold, except my thumb and phiz. Mr. H. said he should have done
admirably were it not for his nose. He did not believe but that it
would moderate, "For God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and when
you go out we may expect mild weather!" Was not that sweet? Mr. II.
and I went into the parlor together, and Miss Burley looked delighted.
He was exquisitely agreeable, and talked a great deal, and looked
serene and happy and exceedingly beautiful. Miss Burley showed Mary
and me some botanical specimens, and he came to the table and added
much to the lights. But oh, we missed you so much; Miss Burley said
so, and I felt it. They do not understand Very, there. When we were
taking leave, Mr. Howes said to Mr. Hawthorne that he hoped nothing
would prevent his coming next Saturday.

"Oh no," replied he. "It is so much a custom, now, that I cannot do
without it." Was not that delightful for Miss Burley's ears? I was so
glad he said it. When we came out it was much more moderate, and we
got home very comfortably. Mr. H. said he thought of coming for me to
walk on Friday, but was afraid the walking was not good enough. I told
him how we were all disappointed at his vanishing that night, and he
laughed greatly. He said he should not be able to come this evening to
meet Very, because he had something to read, for he was engaged Monday
and Tuesday evening and could not read then. I am so sorry.

Yours affectionately, SOPHIE.




CHAPTER II

THE DAYS OF THE ENGAGEMENT


The engagement of Hawthorne to his future wife was now a fact, but it
was not spoken of except to one or two persons. Sophia had slipped
away for a visit to friends in Boston; but as Elizabeth was at present
in Newton, her letters to the latter continued as follows:--

WEST STREET, BOSTON, May 19, 1839.

DEAREST LIZZIE,--Two days ago Mr. Hawthorne came. He said that there
was nothing to which he could possibly compare his surprise, to find
that the bird had flown when he went to our house. He said he sat for
half an hour in the parlor before he knocked to announce his presence,
feeling sure I would know he was there, and descend,--till at last he
was 'tired of waiting. "Oh, it was terrible to find you gone," he
said. And it was such a loss, to be sure, to me not to see him. I am
glad you enjoyed his visit so much. He told me he should be at the
picture-gallery the next morning [Sophia went very early to avoid the
crowd], and there I found him at eight o'clock. He came home with me
through a piercing east wind, which he was sure would 'make me ill for
a week. In the evening he came to see if it had given me a cold, but
it had not. Caroline [Tappan] was busy with her children, and did not
come down for half an hour. When she did, she was very agreeable, and
so was Mr. Hawthorne. She admired him greatly. He said he should be at
the gallery this morning, if possible. I went before eight, and found
the room empty, except for Mr. William Russell. Mr. IT. arrived at
nine, for, as it was cloudy weather until then, he thought I would not
be there, and he came with the sunshine. At ten it began to grow
crowded, and we went out. He peremptorily declared I should ride.

Washington Allston had a great regard for Sophia's talent in art.
Elizabeth refers to it in a letter written while visiting the
Emersons:--

CONCORD, MASS., June 23, 1839.

Here I am on the Mount of Transfiguration, but very much in the
condition of the disciples when they were prostrate in the dust. I got
terribly tired in Boston. I went to the Athenaeum Gallery on Monday
morning, and in the evening Hawthorne came and said that he went to
the Allston gallery on Saturday afternoon. I went to Allston's on
Tuesday evening. He was in delightful spirits, but soft as a summer
evening. He seemed transported with delight on hearing of your
freedom from pain, and was eager to know what you were going to paint.
I said you had several things a-going, but did not like to tell of
your plans. He said, then you would be more likely to execute them,
and that it was a good thing to have several paintings at once,
because that would save time, as you could rest yourself by change. I
carried to him a volume of "Twice-Told Tales," to exchange for mine.
He said he thirsted for imaginative writing, and all the family had
read the book with great delight. I am really provoked that I did not
bring "The Token" with me, so as to have "The Mermaid" and "The
Haunted Mind" to read to people. I was hardly seated here, after tea
yesterday, before Mr. Emerson asked me what I had to say of Hawthorne,
and told me that Mr. Bancroft said that Hawthorne was the most
efficient and best of the Custom House officers. Pray tell that down
in Herbert Street. Mr. Emerson seemed all congenial about him, but has
not yet read his writings. He is in a good mood to do so, however, and
I intend to bring him to his knees in a day or two, so that he will
read the book, and all that Hawthorne has written. He is in a
delightful state of mind; not yet rested from last winter's undue
labors, but keenly industrious. He has uttered no heresies about Mr.
Allston, but only beautiful things,--dwelling, however, on his highest
merits least. He says Very forbids all correcting of his verses; but
nevertheless he [Emerson] selects and combines with sovereign will,
"and shall," he says, "make out quite a little gem of a volume."
"But," says he, "Hawthorne says he [Very] is always vain. I find I
cannot forget that dictum which you repeated; but it is continually
confirmed by himself, amidst all his sublimities." And then he
repeated some of Very's speeches, and told how he dealt with him. I am
very stupid. I have been awake for about two months! Mr. Emerson is
very luminous, and wiser than ever. Oh, he is beautiful, and good, and
great! Your sister, E.

Sophia, once more in Salem, replies:--

June 29, 1839.

I am very sorry you were disappointed by not meeting Mr. Hawthorne at
the galleries. But I am delighted that you saw Mr. Allston. How kind
and inspiring is his interest about my health. I am rejoiced that Mr.
Emerson has uttered no heresies about our High Priest of Nature. For
him to think that because a man is born to-day instead of yesterday he
cannot move the soul seems quite inconsistent with his proclamation
that "the sun shines to-day, also!"

When some other callers had departed, came Mr. Hawthorne. It was a
powerful east wind, and he would not let me go out; but we were both
so virtuous that he went alone to Miss Burley's. You never can know
what a sacrifice that was! If you could, you would never again accuse
either of us of disregard of the claims of others. I told him what
Mr. Bancroft said, and he blushed deeply, and replied, "What fame!"
After he went away, I read "Bettina von Arnim." She is not to be
judged; she is to be received and believed. She is genius, life, love,
inspiration. If anybody undertakes to criticise her before me, I
intend to vanish, if it is from a precipice into the sea. Tuesday, my
Demon called upon me to draw some of the Auxiliary Verbs. . . .

July 5. Yesterday was the great day, and this wretched town made no
appropriations for celebrating it--not even for the ringing of bells.
So the people in wrath hung flags at half-mast, and declared they
would toll the bells. Then it was granted that there should be joyful
ringing at noon and sunset. They pealed forth jubilantly, and I heard
the clash of cymbals in the afternoon. Every soul in America should
thrill on the anniversary of the most illustrious event in all
history; and as some souls sleep, these should be stirred with bells,
trumpets, and eloquence.

To-day the Demon demanded the completion of St. George and Una; and,
alternating with my music, I drew all the morning. A horse has leaped
out of my mind. I wonder what those learned in horses would say to
him. George says he is superb. My idea was to have St. George's whole
figure express the profoundest repose, command, and self-involvedness,
while the horse should be in most vivid action and motion, the glory
of his nostrils terrible, "as much disdaining to the curb to yield."
The foam of power, and the stillness of power. You must judge if I
have succeeded. The figure of Una is now far better than the first
one. You cannot imagine with what ease I draw; I feel as if I could
and might do anything, now. Next week, if Outlines do not prevail, I
shall begin again with oils. I feel on a height. Oh, I am so happy!
But I have not ridden horse-back since Tuesday on account of the
weather. Is it not well that I kept fast hold of the white hand of
Hope, dear Betty? For behold where she has led me! My wildest
imaginations, during my hours of sickness in the past, never could
have compassed such a destiny. All my life long my word has been,
"This is well, and to-morrow it will be better; and God knows when to
bring that morrow." You mistake me if you thought I ever believed that
we should not be active for others. That is of course. With regard to
our own minds, it seems to me we should take holy care of the present
moment, and leave the end to God.

Now I am indeed made deeply conscious of what it is to be loved. Most
tunefully sweet is this voice which affirms ever, for negation belongs
to this world only. Its breath so informs the natural body that the
spiritual body begins to plume its wings within, and I seem appareled
in celestial light.

A few paragraphs from letters written by Hawthorne follow:--

Six o'clock, P. M.

What a wonderful vision that is--the dream-angel. I do esteem it
almost a miracle that your pencil should unconsciously have produced
it; it is as much an apparition of an ethereal being as if the
heavenly face and form had been shadowed forth in the air, instead of
upon paper. It seems to me that it is our guardian angel, who kneels
at the footstool of God, and is pointing to us upon earth, and asking
earthly and heavenly blessings for us,--entreating that we may not be
much longer divided, that we may sit by our own fire-side. . . .


BOSTON, September 9, half past eight P. M., 1839.

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 shovelers aboard a coal-vessel. . . . Well--I
have conquered the rebels, and proclaimed an amnesty; so to-morrow I
shall return to that Paradise of Measures, the end of Long Wharf. Not
to my former salt-ship, she being now discharged; but to another,
which will probably employ me wellnigh a fortnight longer. The salt
is white and pure--there is something holy in salt.

BOSTON, 1839.

Your wisdom is not of the earth; it has passed through no other mind,
but gushes fresh and pure from your own, and therefore I deem myself
the safer when I receive your outpourings as a revelation from Heaven.
Not but what you have read, and tasted deeply, no doubt, of the
thoughts of other minds; but the thoughts of other minds make no
change in your essence, as they do in almost everybody else's essence.
You are still sweet Sophie Hawthorne, and still your soul and
intellect breathe forth an influence like that of wildflowers, to
which God, not man, gives all their sweetness. . . . If the whole world
had been ransacked for a name, I do not think that another could have
been found to suit you half so well. It is as sweet as a wildflower.
You ought to have been born with that very name--only then I should
have done you an irreparable injury by merging it in my own.

You are fitly expressed to my soul's apprehension by those two magic
words--Sophia Hawthorne! I repeat them to myself sometimes; and always
they have a new charm. I am afraid I do not write very clearly, having
been pretty hard at work since sunrise. You are wiser than I, and will
know what I have tried to say. . . . NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Their engagement was not announced for about a year, because it was
expected that it would be a very long one; and also to avoid, for as
great an interval as possible, causing consternation in Herbert
Street, since there, the approach of any permanent change on
Hawthorne's part from a quiet sojourn under shadows and through
enchantingly mellowed lights was looked upon as a Waterloo.

I go back a little from the last date to give the following fragment
of a diary, contained in a small leather-bound memorandum-book, marked
on the cover "Scrap-Book, 1839." The period covered is a brief portion
of Hawthorne's service as weigher and ganger in the Boston Custom
House, a position to which he was appointed by George Bancroft, at
that time collector of the port.

February 7, 1839. Yesterday and day before, measuring a load of coal
from the schooner Thomas Lowder, of St. John, N. B. A little, black,
dirty vessel. The coal stowed in the hold, so as to fill the schooner
full, and make her a solid mass of black mineral. The master, Best, a
likely young man; his mate a fellow jabbering in some strange
gibberish, English I believe--or nearer that than anything else--but
gushing out all together--whole sentences confounded into one long,
unintelligible word. Irishmen shoveling the coal into the two Custom
House tubs, to be craned out of the hold, and others wheeling it away
in barrows, to be laden into wagons. The first day, I walked the
wharf, suffering not a little from cold; yesterday, I sat in the cabin
whence I could look through the interstices of the bulkhead, or
whatever they call it, into the hold. My eyes, what a cabin! Three
paces would more than measure it in any direction, and it was filled
with barrels, not clean and new, but black, and containing probably
the provender of the vessel; jugs, firkins, the cook's utensils and
kitchen furniture--everything grimy and sable with coal dust. There
were two or three tiers of berths; and the blankets, etc., are not to
be thought of. A cooking stove, wherein was burning some of the
coal--excellent fuel, burning as freely as wood, and without the
bituminous melting of Newcastle coal. The cook of the vessel, a grimy,
unshaven, middle-aged man, trimming the fire at need, and sometimes
washing his dishes in water that seemed to have cleansed the whole
world beforehand--the draining of gutters, or caught at sink-spouts.
In the cessations of labor, the Irishmen in the hold would poke their
heads through the open space into the cabin and call "Cook!"--for a
drink of water or a pipe--whereupon Cook would fill a short black
pipe, put a coal into it, and stick it into the Irishman's mouth. Here
sat I on a bench before the fire, the other guests of the cabin being
the stevedore, who takes the job of getting the coal ashore, and the
owner of the horse that raised the tackle--the horse being driven by a
boy. The cabin was lined with slabs--the rudest and dirtiest hole
imaginable, yet the passengers had been accommodated here in the trip
from New Brunswick. The bitter zero atmosphere came down the
companion-way, and threw its chill over me sometimes, but I was pretty
comfortable--though, on reaching home, I found that I had swaggered
through several thronged streets with coal streaks on my visage.

The wharfinger's office is a general resort and refuge for people who
have business to do on the wharf, in the spaces before work is
commenced, between the hours of one and two, etc. A salamander
stove--a table of the signals, wharves, and agent of packets plying to
and from Boston--a snuff-box--a few chairs--etc., constituting the
furniture. A newspaper.

February 11. Talk at the Custom House on Temperance. Gibson gives an
account of his brother's sore leg, which was amputated. Major Grafton
talks of ancestors settling early in Salem--in 1632. Of a swallow's
nest, which he observed, year after year, on revisiting his boyhood's
residence in Salem, for thirty years. It was so situated under the
eaves of the house, that he could put his hand in and feel the young
ones. At last, he found the nest gone, and was grieved thereby.
Query, whether the descendants of the original builders of the nest
inhabited it during the whole thirty years. If so, the family might
vie for duration with the majority of human families.

February 15. At the Custom House, Mr. Pike told a story of a human
skeleton without a head being discovered in High Street, Salem, about
eight years ago--I think in digging the foundations of a building. It
was about four feet below the surface. He sought information about the
mystery of an old traditionary woman of eighty, resident in the
neighborhood. She, coming to the spot where the bones were, lifted up
her hands and cried out, "So! they 've found the rest of the poor
Frenchman's bones at last!" Then, with great excitement, she told the
bystanders how, some seventy-five years before, a young Frenchman had
come from over-seas with a Captain Tanent, and had resided with him in
Salem. He was said to be very wealthy, and was gayly appareled in the
fashion of those times. After a while the Frenchman disappeared and
Captain Tanent gave out that he had gone to some other place, and been
killed there. After two or three years, it was found that the Captain
had grown rich; but he squandered his money in dissipated habits, died
poor--and there are now none left of the race. Many years afterwards,
digging near his habitation, the workmen found a human skull; and it
was supposed to be that of the young Frenchman, who was all along
supposed to have been murdered by the Captain. They did not seek for
the rest of the skeleton; and no more was seen of it till Mr. Pike
happened to be present at the discovery. The bone first found was that
of the leg. He described it as lying along horizontally, so that the
head was under the corner of the house; and now I recollect that they
were digging a post-hole when the last discovery was made, and at that
of the head they were digging the foundation of the house. The bones
did not adhere together, though the shape of a man was plainly
discernible. There were no remnants of clothing.

Mr. Pike told furthermore how a lady of truth and respectability--a
church member--averred to him that she had seen a ghost. She was
'sitting with an old gentleman, who was engaged in reading the
newspaper; and she saw the figure of a woman advance behind him and
look over his shoulder. The narrator then called to the old gentleman
to look around. He did so rather pettishly, and said, "Well, what do
you want me to look round for?" The figure either vanished or went out
of the room, and he resumed the reading of his newspaper. Again the
narrator saw the same figure of a woman come in and look over his
shoulder, bending forward her head. This time she did not speak, but
hemmed so as to attract the old gentleman's attention; and again the
apparition vanished. But a third time it entered the room, and glided
behind the old gentleman's chair, as before, appearing, I suppose, to
glance at the newspaper; and this time, if I mistake not, she nodded
or made some sort of sign to the woman. How the ghost vanished, I do
not recollect; but the old gentleman, when told of the matter,
answered very scornfully. Nevertheless, it turned out that his wife
had died precisely, allowing for the difference of time caused by
distance of place, at the time when this apparition had made its
threefold visit.

Mr. Pike is not an utter disbeliever in ghosts, and has had some
singular experiences himself:--for instance, he saw, one night, a
boy's face, as plainly as ever he saw anything in his life, gazing at
him. Another time--or, as I think, two or three other times--he saw
the figure of a man standing motionless for half an hour in Norman
Street, where the headless ghost is said to walk.

February 19. Mr. Pike is a shortish man, very stoutly built, with a
short neck--an apoplectic frame. His forehead is marked, but not
expansive, though large--I mean, it has not a broad, smooth quietude.
His face dark and sallow--ugly, but with a pleasant, kindly, as well
as strong and thoughtful expression. Stiff, black hair, which starts
bushy and almost erect from his forehead--a heavy, yet very
intelligent countenance. He is subject to the asthma, and moreover to
a sort of apoplectic fit, which compels [him] to sleep almost as erect
as he sits; and if he were to lie down horizontally in bed, he would
feel almost sure of one of these fits. When they seize him, he awakes
feeling as if [his] head were swelled to enormous size, and on the
point of bursting--with great pain. He has his perfect consciousness,
but is unable to call for assistance, or make any noise except by
blowing forcibly with his mouth, and unless this brings help, he must
die. When shaken violently, and lifted to a sitting posture, he
recovers. After a fit, he feels a great horror of going to bed again.
If one were to seize him at his boarding-house, his chance would be
bad, because if any heard his snortings, they would not probably know
what was the matter. These two afflictions might seem enough to make
one man miserable, yet he appears in pretty fair spirits.

He is a Methodist, has occasionally preached, and believes that he has
an assurance of salvation immediate from the Deity. Last Sunday, he
says, he gave religious instruction to a class in the State's Prison.

Speaking of his political hostilities, he said that he never could
feel ill will against a person when he personally met him, that he
was not capable of hatred, but of strong affection,--that he always
remembered that "every man once had a mother, and she loved him."
A strong, stubborn, kindly nature this.

The City-Crier, talking in a familiar style to his auditors--
delivering various messages to them, intermixed with his own
remarks. He then runs over his memory to see whether he has omitted
anything, and recollects a lost child--"We've lost a child," says he;
as if, in his universal sympathy for all who have wants, and seek the
gratification of them through his medium, he were one with the parents
of the child. He then tells the people, whenever they find lost
children, not to keep them overnight, but to bring them to his office.
"For it is a cruel thing"--to keep them; and at the conclusion of his
lecture, he tells them that he has already worn out his lungs, talking
to them of these things. He completely personifies the public, and
considers it as an individual with whom he holds converse,--he being
as important on his side, as they on theirs.

An old man fishing on Long Wharf with a pole three or four feet
long--just long enough to clear the edge of the wharf. Patched
clothes, old, black coat--does not look as if he fished for what he
might catch, but as a pastime, yet quite poor and needy looking.
Fishing all the afternoon, and takes nothing but a plaice or two,
which get quite sun-dried. Sometimes he hauls up his line, with as
much briskness as he can, and finds a sculpin on the hook. The boys
come around him, and eye his motions, and make pitying or impertinent
remarks at his ill-luck--the old man answers not, but fishes on
imperturbably. Anon, he gathers up his clams or worms, and his one
sun-baked flounder--you think he is going home--but no, he is merely
going to another corner of the wharf, where he throws his line under a
vessel's counter, and fishes on with the same deathlike patience as
before. He seems not quiet so much as torpid,--not kindly nor unkindly
feeling--but not to have anything to do with the rest of the world. He
has no business, no amusement, but just to crawl to the end of Long
Wharf, and throw his line over. He has no sort of skill in fishing,
but a peculiar clumsiness.

Objects on a wharf--a huge pile of cotton bales, from a New Orleans
ship, twenty or thirty feet high, as high as a house. Barrels of
molasses, in regular ranges; casks of linseed oil. Iron in bars
landing from a vessel, and the weigher's scales standing conveniently.
To stand on the elevated deck or rail of a ship, and look up the
wharf, you see the whole space of it thronged with trucks and carts,
removing the cargoes of vessels, or taking commodities to and from
stores. Long Wharf is devoted to ponderous, evil-smelling, inelegant
necessaries of life--such as salt, salt-fish, oil, iron, molasses,
etc.

Near the head of Long Wharf there is an old sloop, which has been
converted into a store for the sale of wooden ware, made at Hingham.
It is afloat, and is sometimes moored close to the wharf;--or, when
another vessel wishes to take its place, midway in the dock. It has
been there many years. The storekeeper lives and sleeps on board.

Schooners more than any other vessels seem to have such names as
Betsey, Emma-Jane, Sarah, Alice,--being the namesakes of the owner's
wife, daughter, or sweet-heart. They are a sort of domestic concern,
in which all the family take an interest. Not a cold, stately,
unpersonified thing, like a merchant's tall ship, perhaps one of half
a dozen, in which he takes pride, but which he does not love, nor has
a family feeling for. Now Betsey, or Sarah-Ann, seems like one of the
family--something like a cow.

Long flat-boats, taking in salt to carry it up the Merrimack canal, to
Concord, in New Hampshire. Contrast and similarities between a stout,
likely country fellow, aboard one of these, to whom the scenes of a
sea-port are entirely new, but who is brisk, ready, and shrewd in his
own way, and the mate of a ship, who has sailed to every port. They
talk together, and take to each other.

The brig Tiberius, from an English port, with seventy or thereabouts
factory girls, imported to work in our factories. Some pale and
delicate-looking; others rugged and coarse. The scene of landing them
in boats, at the wharf-stairs, to the considerable display of their
legs;--whence they are carried off to the Worcester railroad in hacks
and omnibuses. Their farewells to the men--Good-by, John, etc.,--with
wavings of handkerchiefs as long as they were in sight.

A pert, petulant young clerk, continually fooling with the mate,
swearing at the stevedores and laboring men, who regard him not.
Somewhat dissipated, probably.

The mate of a coal-vessel--a leathern belt round his waist, sustaining
a knife in a leathern sheath. Probably he uses it to eat his dinner
with; perhaps also as a weapon.

A young sailor, with an anchor handsomely traced on the back of his
hand--a foul anchor--and perhaps other naval insignia on his wrists
and breast. He wears a sky-blue silk short jacket, with velvet
collar--a bosom-pin, etc.

An old seaman, seventy years of age--he has spent seven years in the
British Navy (being of English birth) and nine in ours; has voyaged
all over the world--for instance, I asked if he had ever been in the
Red Sea, and he had, in the American sloop of war that carried General
Eaton, in 1803. His hair is brown--without a single visible gray hair
in it; and he would seem not much above fifty. He is of particularly
quiet demeanor--but observant of all things, and reflective--a
philosopher in a check shirt and sail-cloth trousers. Giving an
impression of the strictest integrity--of inability not to do his
duty, and his whole duty. Seemingly, he does not take a very strong
interest in the world, being a widower without children; but he feels
kindly towards it, and judges mildly of it; and enjoys it very
tolerably well, although he has so slight a hold on it that it would
not trouble him much to give it up. He said he hoped he should die at
sea, because then it would be so little trouble to bury him. Me is a
skeptic,--and when I asked him if he would not wish to live again, he
spoke doubtfully and coldly. He said that he had been in England
within two or three years--in his native county, Yorkshire--and
finding his brother's children in very poor condition, he gave them
sixty golden sovereigns. "I have always had too many poor friends," he
said, "and that has kept me poor." This old man kept tally of the
Alfred Tyler's cargo, on behalf of the Captain, diligently marking all
day long, and calling "tally, Sir," to me at every sixth tub. Often
would he have to attend to some call of the stevedores, or wheelers,
or shovelers--now for a piece of spun-yarn--now for a handspike--now
for a hammer, or some nails--now for some of the ship's molasses, to
sweeten water--the which the Captain afterwards reprehended him for
giving. These calls would keep him in about movement enough to give
variety to his tallying--he moving quietly about the decks, as if he
belonged aboard ship and nowhere else. Then sitting down he would
converse (though by no means forward to talk) about the weather, about
his recent or former voyages, etc., etc., etc., we dodging the intense
sun round the main mast.


Sophia writes to Hawthorne from Milton:--

Sunday A. M., May 30, 1841.

DEAREST,--The chilling atmosphere keeps me from church to-day. . . .
Since I saw you at the Farm, I wish far more than ever to have a home
for you to come to, after associating with men at the Farm [Brook
Farm] all day. A sacred retreat you should have, of all men. Most
people would not desire or like it, but notwithstanding your exquisite
courtesy and conformableness and geniality there, I could see very
plainly that you were not leading your ideal life. Never upon the face
of any mortal was there such a divine expression of sweetness and
kindliness as I saw upon yours during the various transactions and
witticisms of the excellent fraternity. Yet it was also the expression
of a witness and hearer, rather than of comradeship. Had I perceived a
particle of even the highest kind of pride in your manner, it would
have spoiled the perfect beauty and fitness.

M. L. Sturgis, in a little note, gives a glimpse of Sophia's world at
that date:--

"I have seen your 'Gentle Boy' to-night. I like it very much indeed.
The boy I love already. Do you see Mr. Hawthorne often? It was a shame
he did not talk more that night at the Farm. Just recall that
beautiful moon over the water, and those dear trees!"

Ellen Hooper, when the engagement is known, shows how people felt
about the new author:--

"Your note seems to require a mood quite apart from the 'every day' of
one's life, wherein to be read and answered. . . . I do not know Mr.
Hawthorne--and yet I do; and I love him with that eminently Platonic
love which one has for a friend in black and white [print]. He seems
very near to me, for he is not only a dreamer, but wakes now and then
with a pleasant 'Good-morrow' for shabby human interests. I am glad to
hear that he is healthful, for I profoundly admire this quality; and
particularly in one who is not entitled to it on the ground of being
stupid!"

Sophia's aptness for writing poetry led her to inclose this poem to
her future husband in one of her letters:--

  God granteth not to man a richer boon
  Than tow'rd himself to draw the waiting soul,
  Making it swift to pray this high control.
  Would with according grace its jars attune.
  And man on man the largest gift bestows
  When from the vision-mount he sings aloud,
  And pours upon the unascended crowd
  Pure Order's heavenly stream that o'er him flows.
  So thou, my friend, hast risen through thought supreme
  To central insight of eternal law.
  Thy golden-cadenced intuitions gleam
  From that new heaven which John of Patmos saw;
  And I my spirit lowly bend to thine,
  In recognition of thy words divine.

From Salem she writes to Elizabeth, her summer jaunt being over:--

"I have not touched a pencil since I came home. I cannot be grateful
enough that I can be hands and feet to the dearest mother in the
world, who has all my life been all things to me, so delicate as I
have been. There is pastime, pleasure, and a touch of the infinitely
beautiful to me in what is generally considered drudgery; and I find
there is nothing so inconsiderable in life that the moving of the
spirit of love over it does not commute it into essential beauty."




CHAPTER III

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE MARRIAGE


Just before her marriage, on July 9, 1842, and her residence in the
Old Manse, Sophia wrote to Mrs. Caleb Foote, of Salem:--

July 5.

MY DEAR MARY,--You mistake much when you say you will not hear from me
after I have gone to my own home. I shall tell those who are dear to
me that I love them still. I feel to-day like a rising Phoenix.

Mr. Hawthorne has been here, looking like the angel of the Apocalypse,
so powerful and gentle. It seems as if I were realizing the dreams of
the poets in my own person. Just think of the felicity of showing him
my inscriptions with pencil and sculpturing-tool--and he so just and
severe a critic! He is far the best critic I ever had. The agent of
Heaven in this Concord plan was Elizabeth Hoar; a fit minister on such
an errand, for minister means angel of God. Her interest has been very
great in every detail. . . . Yours affectionately,

SOPHIA.

The following note is descriptive of the real happiness in the
marriage, which was felt and often uttered by friends:--

DEAR SOPHIA,--I am not much used to expressing to others what I feel
about them, but I will give way to the feeling which prompts me to
tell you how much I think about you now. An event like your marriage
with Mr. Hawthorne is, like the presence of a few persons in this
world, precious to me as an assurance of the good we all long for. I
do not know your husband personally, but I care for him so much that I
could well do the thought of him a passing reverence, like the young
man who, I was told, uncovered his head as he passed Mr. Hawthorne's
house. Perhaps you are too much absorbed to recognize now, even in
thought, the greeting of a friend; perhaps we shall meet very little
hereafter, as indeed we have hardly been intimate heretofore; but I
shall remember you with interest. Affectionately yours,

E. S. HOOPER.

Mrs. Hawthorne's letters and journals while at the Old Manse now
portray a beautiful existence:--

CONCORD, December 18, 1842.

MY DEAR MARY [Mrs. Caleb Foote, of Salem],--I hoped I should see you
again, before I came home to our Paradise. I intended to give you a
concise history of my elysian life. Soon after we returned, my dear
lord began to write in earnest; and then commenced my leisure,
because, till we meet at dinner, I do not see him. I have had to sew,
as I did not touch a needle all summer, and far into the autumn, Mr.
Hawthorne not letting me have a needle or a pen in my hand. We were
interrupted by no one, except a short call now and then from Elizabeth
Hoar, who can hardly be called an earthly inhabitant; and Mr. Emerson,
whose face pictured the promised land (which we were then enjoying),
and intruded no more than a sunset, or a rich warble from a bird.

One evening, two days after our arrival at the Old Manse, George
Hillard and Henry Cleveland appeared for fifteen minutes, on their way
to Niagara Falls, and were thrown into raptures by the embowering
flowers and the dear old house they adorned, and the pictures of Holy
Mothers mild on the walls, and Mr. Hawthorne's Study, and the noble
avenue. We forgave them for their appearance here, because they were
gone as soon as they had come, and we felt very hospitable. We
wandered down to our sweet, sleepy river, and it was so silent all
around us and so solitary, that we seemed the only persons living. We
sat beneath our stately trees, and felt as if we were the rightful
inheritors of the old abbey, which had descended to us from a long
line. The treetops waved a majestic welcome, and rustled their
thousand leaves like brooks over our heads. But the bloom and
fragrance of nature had become secondary to us, though we were lovers
of it. In my husband's face and eyes I saw a fairer world, of which
the other was a faint copy. I fast ceased to represent Lilias Fay,
under the influence of happiness, peace, and rest. We explored the
woods. Sarah the maid was very tasty, and we had beautiful order; and
when we ran races down the avenue, or I danced before my husband to
the measures of the great music-box, she declared it did her heart
good to see us as joyful as two children.

December 30. Sweet, dear Mary, nearly a fortnight has passed since I
wrote the above. I really believe I will finish my letter to-day,
though I do not promise. That magician upstairs is very potent! In the
afternoon and evening I sit in the Study with him. It is the
pleasantest niche in our temple. We watch the sun, together,
descending in purple and gold, in every variety of magnificence, over
the river. Lately, we go on the river, which is now frozen; my lord to
skate, and I to run and slide, during the dolphin-death of day. I
consider my husband a rare sight, gliding over the icy stream. For,
wrapped in his cloak, he looks very graceful; perpetually darting from
me in long, sweeping curves, and returning again--again to shoot away.
Our meadow at the bottom of the orchard is like a small frozen sea,
now; and that is the present scene of our heroic games. Sometimes, in
the splendor of the dying light, we seem sporting upon transparent
gold, so prismatic becomes the ice; and the snow takes opaline hues,
from the gems that float above as clouds. It is eminently the hour to
see objects, just after the sun has disappeared. Oh, such oxygen as we
inhale! Often other skaters appear,--young men and boys,--who
principally interest me as foils to my husband, who, in the presence
of nature, loses all shyness, and moves regally like a king. One
afternoon, Mr. Emerson and Mr. Thoreau went with him down the river.
Henry Thoreau is an experienced skater, and was figuring dithyrambic
dances and Bacchic leaps on the ice--very remarkable, but very ugly,
methought. Next him followed Mr. Hawthorne who, wrapped in his cloak,
moved like a self-impelled Greek statue, stately and grave. Mr.
Emerson closed the line, evidently too weary to hold himself erect,
pitching headforemost, half lying on the air. He came in to rest
himself, and said to me that Hawthorne was a tiger, a bear, a
lion,--in short, a satyr, and there was no tiring him out; and he
might be the death of a man like himself. And then, turning upon me
that kindling smile for which he is so memorable, he added, "Mr.
Hawthorne is such an Ajax, who can cope with him!"

After the first snowstorm, before it was so deep, we walked in the
woods, very beautiful in winter, and found slides in Sleepy Hollow,
where we became children, and enjoyed ourselves as of old,--only more,
a great deal. Sometimes it is before breakfast that Mr. Hawthorne goes
to skate upon the meadow. Yesterday, before he went out, he said it
was very cloudy and gloomy, and he thought it would storm. In half an
hour, oh, wonder! what a scene! Instead of black sky, the rising sun,
not yet above the hill, had changed the firmament into a vast rose! On
every side, east, west, north, and south,--every point blushed roses.
I ran to the Study, and the meadow sea also was a rose, the reflection
of that above. And there was my husband, careering about, glorified by
the light. Such is Paradise.

In the evening we are gathered together beneath our luminous star, in
the Study, for we have a large hanging astral lamp, which beautifully
illumines the room, with its walls of pale yellow paper, its Holy
Mother over the fireplace, and pleasant books, and its pretty bronze
vase, on one of the secretaries, filled with ferns. Except once Mr.
Emerson, no one hunts us out in the evening. Then Mr. Hawthorne reads
to me. At present we can only get along with the old English writers,
and we find that they are the hive from which all modern honey is
stolen. They are thick-set with thought, instead of one thought
serving for a whole book. Shakespeare is preeminent; Spenser is music.
We dare to dislike Milton when he goes to heaven. We do not recognize
God in his picture of Him. There is something so penetrating and clear
in Mr. Hawthorne's intellect, that now I am acquainted with it, merely
thinking of him as I read winnows the chaff from the wheat at once.
And when he reads to me, it is the acutest criticism. Such a voice,
too,--such sweet thunder! Whatever is not worth much shows sadly,
coming through such a medium, fit only for noblest ideas. From reading
his books you can have some idea of what it is to dwell with Mr.
Hawthorne. But only a shadow of him is found in his books. The half is
not told there. Your true friend,

SOPHIA A. HAWTHORNE.

P. S. Mr. Hawthorne sends his love to your husband.

CONCORD, April 6, 1843.

MY DEAREST MARY,--I received your letter of April 2 late last evening.
It is one, I am sure, which might call a response out of a heart of
adamant; and mine, being of a tenderer substance, it answers with all
its chords. Dear, sweet, tender, loving Mary, you are more like
Herder's Swan than anything else I can think of. The spirits of your
translated babes bring you airs from heaven. What a lovely trinity of
souls; what a fair star they form, according to Swedenborg's beautiful
idea. I doubt not there is a path of descent, like that of Jacob's
ladder, from their Father's bosom to your heart, and they ascend and
descend, like those angels of his dream.

Dear Mary, just imagine my husband in reality, as faintly shadowed in
his productions. Fresh as a young fountain, with childlike,
transparent emotions; vivid as the flash of a sword in the sun with
sharp wit and penetration; of such an unworn, unworldly observance of
all that is enacted and thought under the sun; as free from prejudice
and party or sectarian bias as the birds, and therefore wise with a
large wisdom that is as impartial as God's winds and sunbeams. His
frolic is like the sport of Milton's "unarmed youth of heaven." But I
will not pretend to describe his intellect; and I have by no means yet
searched it out. I repose in it as upon some elemental force, which
always seems just created, though we cannot tell when it began to be.
Of his beautiful, genial, tender, and great nature I can still less
adequately discourse. His magnanimity, strength, and sweetness
alternately, and together, charm me. He fascinates, wins, and
commands.

We have passed the winter delightfully, reading to each other, and
lately studying German. I knew a little, just enough to empower me to
hold the rod, and be somewhat impertinent, and I have entire
preeminence in the way of pronunciation. But ever and anon I am made
quite humble by being helped out of thick forests by my knight,
instead of guiding him. So we teach each other in the most charming
manner, and I call it the royal road to knowledge, finally discovered
by us. Mr. Hawthorne writes all the morning. Do you see "The
Democratic Review"? In the March number is "The Procession of Life."
Mr. Jonathan Phillips told Elizabeth he thought it a great production,
and immediately undertook to read all else my husband had written.
"The Celestial Railroad," for the April number, is unique, and of deep
significance. It is a rare privilege to hear him read his manuscript
aloud with the true expression.

Elizabeth Hoar has taken tea with us only once this winter, and I have
seen her very rarely. The walking is so bad in the country in winter
that only tall boots can cope with it. Unawares one foot sinks down to
the Celestial Empire, and the other anchors in the moon. I have had to
confine myself principally to the avenue, through which our
Flibbertigibbet [or Imp] made a clear path for me. Mr. Thoreau has
been pretty often, and is very interesting. Mr. Emerson, from January,
was at the South; so Sirius was not visible to the eye for nearly
three months.

Among other things, I have been very much interested in teaching my
Irish angel to read and write. She is as bright as Burke, and repays
me an hundredfold by her progress. She is so sweet and generous and
gentle, that it is pleasant to happen upon her pretty face about the
house.

Mr. Hawthorne, says I must tell you that he shall be most happy to
meet you in heaven; but he wishes you would as a preliminary come and
spend a week with us this summer. He says this is the best way to get
acquainted with him.

To Mrs. Peabody, now living in Boston, Sophia writes:--

May.

DARLING MOTHER,--I find my heart cannot rest unless I send you an
enormous bunch of columbines; and so I have concluded to take my
cake-box and fill it with flowers. My husband and I have gathered all
these columbines since dinner, on the bank of the river, two fields
off from the battle-ground. Now I think of it, it is Lizzie's favorite
wildflower. I cannot bear to think of you as two prisoners in the
book-room, at this time. I do not know, however, as Elizabeth would be
happy to remain in the country, because men and women are her flowers,
and they do not grow on hills and slopes. But you were born to live in
a garden, where flowers at your tendance might gladlier grow
(according to Milton). We had a letter from Louisa Hawthorne to-day,
which says that the cat Beelzebub is dead. We are going to put our
Pigwiggin in mourning for her cousin. [Hawthorne was, as all his
family were, remarkably fond of cats. He had given Beelzebub his
name.]

Another letter now goes to Mrs. Foote:--

August 11.

BELOVED MARY,--I received your long expected letter during a visit
from the Hillards. I feared you were ill, but not that you had
forgotten me; for I have an imperturbable faith in the love of my
friends which appearances cannot affect.

No influenzas or epidemics of any kind reach our old abbey, though in
the village of Concord they often prevail. I think the angel who
descended with healing in his wings, and stirred the pool of Bethesda,
must purify the air around us. We have had a charming summer. At the
first flinging open of our doors my father made us a visit of a week,
and, according to his love of order, put everything out of doors in
place; moved patriarchal boards covered with venerable moss, and
vividly exercised all his mechanical powers. Among other things he
prepared the clay with which I mould men and heroes, so that I began
Mr. Hawthorne's bust. Next came Miss Anna Shaw [Mrs. S. G. Ward], in
full glory of her golden curls, flowing free over her neck and brows,
so that she looked like the goddess Diana, or Aurora. Everything
happened just right. The day she arrived, Mr. Emerson came to dine,
and shone back to the shining Anna. He was truly "tangled in the
meshes of her golden hair," for he reported in several places how
beautiful it was, afterwards. It was very warm, and after Mr. Emerson
left us, we went out upon the lawn under the shady trees, and Anna
extended herself on the grass, leaning her arms upon a low cricket,
and "Sydnian showers of sweet discourse" distilled upon us. Towards
sunset we went to the terrace on the bank of the river, and then there
was a walk to Sleepy Hollow. Afterwards, we again resorted to the
lawn, and the stars all came out over our heads with great brilliancy;
and Anna, again upon the grass, pointed out the most beautiful
constellations. Now we expect Louisa Hawthorne every day. Excepting
for the three weeks and a little more occupied by our friends, we have
been quite alone. The 9th of July, our wedding-day, was most heavenly,
and at night there was a most lustrous moon. That night Mr. Allston
died. Nature certainly arrayed herself in her most lovely guise, to
bid him farewell. Mr. Hawthorne has written a little, and cultivated
his garden a great deal; and as you may suppose, such vegetables never
before were tasted. It is a sober fact, dear Mary, that I never ate
any so good. When Apollos tend herds and till the earth, it is but
reasonable to expect unusual effects. I planted flowers, which grow
pretty well. We have voyaged on the river constantly, harvesting
water-lilies; and lately cardinal-flowers, which enrich the borders
with their superb scarlet mantles in great conclaves.

I have just finished Ranke's "History of the Popes." I stumbled quite
accidentally upon ecclesiastical history, lately. I asked my husband
to bring me any book that he chanced to touch upon from his Study, one
day, and it proved to be "Luther, and the Reformation." So I have gone
on and backwards, upon the same subject. I read several volumes of the
Theological Library, fretting all the time over the narrow spirit in
which great men were written about. Finally I took Ranke. He is
splendid and whole-sided, and has given me an idea of the state of
Europe from the first times.

Elizabeth Hoar came while Susan Hillard was here, looking as usual
like the Rose of Sharon, though thinner than ever. Ellery Channing and
E. live in a little red cottage on the road, with one acre attached,
upon which Ellery has worked very hard. E. keeps a small school for
little children. They are very happy, and Ellery is a very charming
companion. He talks very agreeably.

October 15.

BELOVED MARIE,--I received your requiem for Mrs. Peabody [not a near
connection of Mrs. Hawthorne's, but of Mr. George Peabody's, the
philanthropist] yesterday, and cannot delay responding to it. We talk
a great deal about the reality of Heaven and the shadowiness of earth,
but no one acts as if it were the truth. It seems as if the benign and
tender Father of men, in whose presence we rejoice and confide, became
suddenly changed into a dark power, and curtained Himself with gloom,
the instant death laid its hand upon our present bodies, and freed the
soul for another condition. And this, too, although Jesus Christ at
the hour when His spirit resigned the clay rent the veil from top to
bottom, and revealed to all eyes the golden cherubim and the Holy of
Holies. God alone knows whether I could act my belief in the greatest
of all possible earthly separations. But before I loved as I now do
heaven was dim to me in comparison. I cannot conceive of a separation
for one moment from my transfigured soul in him who is transfused with
my being. I am in heaven now. Oh, let me not doubt it, if for a little
while a shadow should wrap his material form from my sight.

I am in rejoicing and most vigorous health. After breakfast I paint
for two or three hours. I am now copying Mr. Emerson's divine
Endymion. After dinner we walk till about five.


The following letter refers to Sophia's sister Mary, who had become
Mrs. Horace Mann:--

DEAREST MARY,--I do not know whether you were ever aware of the
peculiar love I have felt from childhood for my precious sister, who
is now so blest. It has always been enthusiastic and profound. Her
still and perfect disinterestedness, her noiseless self-devotion, her
transparent truthfulness and all-comprehensive benevolence through
life! No words can ever express what a spear in my side it has been to
see her year after year toiling for all but herself, and growing thin
and pale with too much effort. Not that ever her heroic heart uttered
a word of complaint or depreciation. But so much the more did I feel
for her. I saw her lose her enchanting gayety, and become grave and
sad, yet could do nothing to restore her spirits. I was hardly aware,
until it was removed, how weighty had been the burden of her
unfulfilled life upon my heart. At her engagement, all my wings were
unfolded, and my body was light as air.

Mrs. Mann had been to Europe for her wedding-tour, and was thus
welcomed home:--


November 7.

BELOVED MARY,--Yesterday noon my dear husband came home from the
village but a few seconds--it seemed even to me--after he left me,
shining with glad tidings. They were, that the steamer had arrived
with you in it! Imagine my joy, for I cannot tell it. You will come
and see me, I am sure. I am especially commissioned by Mr. Emerson to
request my dear and honorable brother, Mr. Mann, to come to Concord to
lecture at the Lyceum as soon as he possibly can. He says that Mr.
Hoar told him he had never heard such eloquence from human lips as
from Mr. Mann's. "Therefore," says he, "this is the place of all
others for him to come and lecture." Tell me beforehand whether your
husband eats anything in particular, that I may have it all ready for
him. I am in the greatest hurry that mortal has been in since Absalom
ran from his pursuers. Your own

SOPHIECHEN.


The record for Sophia's mother goes on unfailingly:--


November 19.

My DEAREST MOTHER,--This Indian summer is very beautiful. The dulcet
air and stillness are lovely. This morning we watched the opal dawn,
and the stars becoming pale before it, as also the old moon, which
rose between five and six o'clock, and, in the form of a boat of pure
silvery-gold, floated up the sea of clear, rosy air. I am so very
early a riser that the first faint light usually finds me busy.

I wish you could see how charmingly my husband's Study looks now. As
we abandon our drawing-room this winter, I have hung on his walls the
two Lake Como and the Loch Lomond pictures, all of which I painted
expressly for him; and the little mahogany centre-table stands under
the astral lamp, covered with a crimson cloth. The antique
centre-table broke down one day beneath my dear husband's arms, with a
mighty sound, astonishing me in my studio below the Study. He has
mended it. On one of the secretaries stands the lovely Ceres, and
opposite it Margaret Fuller's bronze vase. In the afternoon, when the
sun fills the room and lights up the pictures, it is beautiful. Yet
still more, perhaps, in the evening, when the astral enacts the sun,
and pours shine upon all the objects, and shows, beneath, the noblest
head in Christendom, in the ancient chair with its sculptured back [a
chair said to have come over in the Mayflower, and owned by the
Hawthorne family]; and whenever I look up, two stars beneath a brow of
serene white radiate love and sympathy upon me. Can you think of a
happier life, with its rich intellectual feasts? That downy bloom of
happiness, which unfaithful and ignoble poets have persisted in
declaring always vanished at the touch and wear of life, is delicate
and fresh as ever, and must remain so if we remain unprofane. The
sacredness, the loftiness, the ethereal delicacy of such a soul as my
husband's will keep heaven about us. My thought does not yet compass
him. December. For the world's eye I care nothing; but in the
profound shelter of this home I would put on daily a velvet robe, and
pearls in my hair, to gratify my husband's taste. This is a true
wife's world. Directly after dinner my lord went to the Athenaeum; and
when he returned, he sat reading Horace Walpole till he went out to
the wood-house to saw and split wood. Presently I saw, hastening up
the avenue, Mr. George Bradford. He stayed to tea. His beautiful
character makes him perennial in interest. As my husband says, we can
see nature through him straight, without refraction. My water this
morning was deadly cold instead of livingly cold, and I knew the Imp
must have taken it from some already drawn, instead of right from the
well. The maid brought for me from Mrs. Emerson's "The Mysteries of
Paris," which I read all the evening. I have been to see E. Channing,
who looked very pretty. She has a dog named Romeo, which Mrs. S. G.
Ward gave them. I borrowed a book of E. about sainted women. In "The
Democratic Review" was my husband's "Fire Worship." I could not wait
to read it! It is perfectly inimitable, as usual. His wit is as subtle
as fire. This morning I got up by moonlight again, and sewed till Mary
brought my fresh-drawn water. The moon did not set till after dawn.
To-day I promenaded in the gallery with wadded dress and muff and
tippet on. After tea, my lord read Jones Very's criticism upon
"Hamlet." This morning was very superb, and the sunlight played upon
the white earth like the glow of rubies upon pearls. My husband was
entirely satisfied with the beauty of it. He is so seldom fully
satisfied with weather, things, or people, that I am always glad to
find him pleased. Nothing short of perfection can content him. How can
seraphs be contented with less? After breakfast, as I could not walk
out on account of the snow, I concluded to housewife. My husband
shoveled paths (heaps of snow being trifles to his might), and sawed
and split wood, and brought me water from the well. To such uses do
seraphs come when they get astray on earth. I painted till after one
o'clock. There was a purple and gold sunset. After dinner to-day Mr.
Hawthorne went to the village, and brought back "The Salem Gazette."
Some one had the impudence to speak of him in it as "gentle Nat
Hawthorne." I cannot conceive who could be so bold and so familiar.
Gentle he surely is, but such an epithet does not comprehend him, and
gives a false idea. As usual after sunset, he went out to find
exercise till quite dark. Then he read aloud part of "The Tempest,"
while I sewed. In the evening he told me about his early life in
Raymond [Maine], and he gave me some of Mr. Bridge's famous wine.
To-day my husband partly read "Two Gentlemen of Verona." I do not like
it much. What a queer mood Shakespeare must have been in, to write
it. He seems to be making fun. I wrote to Mrs. Follen, and made up a
budget of a paper from my husband for her "Child's Friend." It was the
incident of Mr. Raike's life, with regard to his founding of
Sunday-schools, most exquisitely told, and set in a frame of precious
jewels. Whatever my husband touches turns to gold in the intellectual
and spiritual world. I sewed on a purple blouse for him till dusk. We
have the luxury of our maid's absence, and Apollo helped me by making
the fires. I warmed rice for myself, and had the happiness of toasting
his bread. He read aloud "Love's Labour 's Lost," and said that play
had no foundation in nature. To-day there have been bright gleams,
but no steady sunshine. Apollo boiled some potatoes for breakfast.
Imagine him with that magnificent head bent over a cooking-stove, and
those star-eyes watching the pot boil! In consequence, there never
were such good potatoes before. For dinner we did not succeed in
warming the potatoes effectually; but they were edible, and we had
meat, cheese, and apples. This is Christmas Day, which I consider the
most illustrious and sacred day of the year. Before sunrise, a great,
dark blue cloud in the east made me suppose it was to be a dismal day;
but I was quite mistaken, for it has been uncommonly beautiful. Peace
has seemed brooding "with turtle wing" over the world, and no one
stirs, as if all men obeyed the command of the elements, which was,
"Be still, as we are." I intended to make a fine bowl of chocolate for
my husband's dinner, but he proposed to celebrate Christmas by having
no cooking at all. At one o'clock we went together to the village, my
husband going to the Athenaeum, and I to Mrs. Emerson's, where Mr.
Thoreau was dining. On the way home I saw in the distance the form of
forms approaching. We dined on preserved fruits and bread and
milk,--quite elegant and very nice. What a miracle my husband is! He
has the faculty of accommodating himself to all sorts of circumstances
with marvelous grace of soul. In the afternoon he brought me some
letters, one being from E. Hooper, with verses which she had written
after reading "Fire Worship." The motto is "Fight for your stoves!"
and the measure that of "Scots wha hae." It is very good. The maid
returned. This morning we awoke to a mighty snowstorm. The trees stood
white-armed all around us. In the afternoon some one knocked at the
front door. I was amazed, supposing no one could overcome the roads,
and thought it must be a government officer. As the door opened, I
heard a voice say, "Where is the man?" It was Ellery Channing, who
exclaimed, as he appeared at the Study, where we were, that it was the
very time to come,--he liked the snow. He looked like a shaggy bear;
but his face was quite shining, as usual. He brought some novels and
reviews, which Queen Margaret [Fuller] had sent to Ellen Channing [her
sister] to read. We had to leave him, while we dined, at three. He
would not join us, and made his exit while we were in the dining-room.
To-day as I painted the wind arose, and howled and swept about, and
clouded the sun, and wearied my spirits. I was obliged to put away my
palette at half past twelve o'clock, and then came up, and looked into
the Study at my husband. He was writing, and I was conscience-stricken
for having interrupted him. We went to walk, and a neighbor invited us
to drive to town in his sleigh. I accepted, but my husband did not.
The Imp sprang on, as we passed his house; and then I found that the
kind old man was Mr. Jarvis of the hill. I went to the post-office,
where my husband was reading a letter from Mr. Hillard. We stayed at
the Athenaeum till after two, and then braved the warring winds
homewards. We had no reading in the evening, for the wind was too
noisy.

January 1, 1844. A quiet morning at last; the wind had howled itself
dead, as if it were the breath of the Old Year, by midnight. On our
way home to-day from the Athenaeum, Dr. Bartlett met us, and offered
to take me along. On the way he spoke of George Bradford's worshiping
Mr. Hawthorne. I had a fine time painting, this morning. Everything
went right, and I succeeded quite to my mind. I felt sure my husband
above me must also be having a propitious morning. When he came to
dinner, he said he did not know as he ever felt so much like writing
on any one day. Mr. Emerson called.

January 9.

BELOVED MOTHER,--I dated all the documents I sent by Plato [Mr.
Emerson] a day too late. My husband will dispatch a budget to Mr.
Hillard's care, containing a paper which he is to send to Mr.
Griswold, editor of "Graham's Magazine." He wrote to my husband, when
he took the editorship, and requested him to contribute, telling him
he intended to make the magazine of a higher character, and therefore
ventured to ask, offering five dollars per page, and the liberty of
drawing for the money the moment the article was published. "The
Democratic Review" is so poor now that it can only offer twenty
dollars for an article of what length soever, so that Mr. Hawthorne
cannot well afford to give any but short stories to it; and it is
besides sadly dilatory about payment. The last paper he sent to it was
a real gift, as it was more than four pages; but he thought its
character better suited to the grave "Democrat" than for the other
publication. Why did not you send the last number? lie is quite
impatient for it. I also long to read again that terrific and true
picture of a cold heart. [The Bosom Serpent.] I do not know what the
present production is about, even; for I have made it a law to myself
never to ask him a word concerning what he is writing, because I
always disliked to speak of what I was painting. He often tells me;
but sometimes the story remains hidden till he reads it aloud to me,
before sending it away. I can comprehend the delicacy and tricksiness
of his mood when he is evolving a work of art. He waits upon the light
in such a purely simple way that I do not wonder at the perfection of
each of his stories. Of several sketches, first one and then another
come up to be clothed upon with language, after their own will and
pleasure. It is real inspiration, and few are reverent and patient
enough to wait for it as he does. I think it is in this way .that he
comes to be so void of extravagance in his style and material. He does
not meddle with the clear, true picture that is painted on his mind.
He lifts the curtain, and we see a microcosm of nature, so cunningly
portrayed that truth itself seems to have been the agent of its
appearance. Thus his taste is genuine--the most faultless I ever knew.
Now, behold! all unforeseen, a criticism upon the genius of Nathaniel
Hawthorne!

Dear mother, Louisa Hawthorne has sent me some exquisite silk flannel
for little shirts, but not quite enough. It is a dollar a yard. Mrs.
Emerson says that you will find it at Jacobs', on Tremont Street. I
could not refuse my child the luxury of feeling such a material over
its dear little bosom. I have to spend a great deal of time in darning
the small craters in my stockings.

January 21. In the hope of some unoccupied carrier-pigeon's straying
this way, I shall write to-day. The extreme cold freezes the ground,
and my lord will not consent to my putting foot out of doors, so I
remain a singing-bird in my happy cage, endeavoring by walks in the
long upper entry (which is enlivened by sundry winds rushing through a
broken window-pane) to make some amends for being deprived of the
outward world. Yesterday I felt as if I had dieted upon diamonds and
were sparkling with rainbow colors like an icicle in the sun. I
painted upon Endymion. My husband blasphemes the fierce winds and
extreme cold in a very picturesque manner; but the disapprobation he
feels is a moral ope, not a physical discomfort. He cleaves the air
like a Damascus blade, so finely attempered that he is unharmed. I
never knew any person in such fine health as he is; because he is not
obtusely well--he has no brute force; but every part of his frame
seems in perfect diapason, like a bird's. I should be afraid of him
if he were in ferocious health; but his health is heavenly. Endymion
will certainly be finished this week if I remain alive, and the sun
shines. [It is a picture in pale brown monochromes, of the most
remarkable perfection of finish and beauty of draughtsmanship.] I
shall ask Plato to carry it to Boston in his arms, unless my honorable
brother Horace [Mann] will take it when he comes to lecture. It will
be perfectly light, but cannot be given up to the stage-man. I do not
want it shown to any person until it be framed, with a glass over it.
Daggett must be made to hasten his work; but he is as obstinate and
cross as a mule; yet no one can make such superlative frames. The
price must be an hundred dollars independently of the frame; if it be
worth one cent, it is worth that. I dearly desire that some one I know
should possess it. I shall be glad some day to redeem it, for it has
come out of my soul. What a record it is of these happy, hopeful days!
The divine dream shining in Endymion's face, his body entranced in
sleep, his soul bathed in light, every curve flowing in consummate
beauty--in some way it is my life. But, for Endymion, I must look upon
a small bit of gold. [Her husband would not let her sell the picture,
after all.]

March 16.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,--The sumptuous boxful arrived, and the dressed beef
is most acceptable, and the wafers are very nice, Mr. Hawthorne liking
them exceedingly. Una went to see her father yesterday morning, the
nurse declaring that she looked as nice as silver and pretty as a
white rose. Great was his surprise to see his little daughter coming
to him! My husband wishes father would please go to the agents for
"The Democratic Review," and tell them he is on the free list. The
three last numbers have not been sent to him, they having stopped
sending at the printing of "The Christmas Banquet." Will father also
look into "Graham's Magazine" for March, and see whether it contains
"Earth's Holocaust," and if so, send it to us?

August.

Directly after you left us, baby went to sleep, and slept three hours,
during which time I accomplished wonders. We dined upon potatoes,
corn, carrots, and whortleberry pudding, quite sumptuously. Our cook
was Hyperion, whom we have engaged. He, with his eyes of light, his
arched brow, and "locks of lovely splendor," officiated even to
dish-washing, with the air of one making worlds. I, with babe on arm,
looked at him part of the time. No accident happened, except that a
sprigged saucer "came into halves;" and I found that Hyperion, in his
new office, had put the ivory handles of the knives into the water,
knowing no better, and left the silver to be washed last instead of
first. I dragged Una in her carriage in the avenue, and she was very
happy. She woke a little after four this morning, and when I first
opened my eyes upon her, her feet were "in the sky." I laid the
breakfast-table, and prepared everything for Hyperion to cook milk and
boil water. At breakfast, baby sat radiant in her coach. George
Prescott brought a hot Indian cake from his mother, while we were at
table. Before Hyperion had quite finished his kitchen-work, Colonel
Hall and his little son came to see him. The Colonel only stayed about
an hour, and could not come to dinner. The unhappy lamb was boiled,
together with some shelled beans and corn.

August 20. Your packet arrived last evening. I am much inclined to
have the black woman. My husband says he does not want me to
undertake to keep anybody who is apparently innocent, after my late
sore experience. He says the old black lady is probably as bad already
as she ever will be. If you find the blackey not disinclined to come
to such poor folks, I will take her in September. I cannot well ask
dear Mary to visit me while my Hyperion is cook and maid. He will not
let me go into his kitchen, hardly; but it is no poetry to cook, and
wash dishes; and I cannot let him do it for anybody but myself alone.
The only way we can make money now seems to be to save it; and as he
declares he can manage till September, we will remain alone till then.
It is beyond words enchanting to be so. But, I assure you, his office
is no sinecure. He actually does everything. And I sit upstairs, and
out of doors with baby, more of a queen than ever, for I have a king
to my servitor. It would cost too much to board; you know we cannot
live cheaper anywhere or anyhow than thus.

Again, a letter is sent to Mrs. Caleb Foote:--

The Promised Land.

MY DEAR MARY,--You are the most satisfactory person to draw for of any
one I know. [Sophia had sent one of her pictures as a present.] Your
letter gave me the purest pleasure, for it made me feel as if I had
caused two hearts to be glad, and that is worth living for, if it be
done but once in a life. . . . We have passed the happiest winter, the
long evenings lifted out of the common sphere by the magic of
Shakespeare. Mr. Hawthorne read aloud to me all the Plays. And you
must know how he reads, before you can have any idea what it was. I
can truly say I never comprehended Shakespeare before; and my husband
was pleased to declare that he never himself understood him so well,
though he has pored over the Plays all his life. All the magnificence,
the pomp, the cunning beauty, the wisdom and fine wit, and the grace
were revealed to me as by a new light. Every character is unfixed from
the page, and stands free in life. Meanwhile I sewed, and whenever a
little garment was finished, I held it up, and won a radiant smile for
it and the never-weary question (with the charming, arch glance)
"Pray, who is that for?"

We breakfast about nine o'clock, because we do not dine till three;
and we have no tea ceremony, because it broke our evenings too much. I
break my fast upon fruit, and we lunch upon fruit, and in the evening,
also, partake of that paradisaical food. Mr. Emerson, with his sunrise
smile, Ellery Channing, radiating dark light, and, very rarely,
Elizabeth Hoar, with spirit voice and tread, have alone varied our
days from without; but we have felt no want. My sweet, intelligent
maid sings at her work, with melodious note. I do not know what is in
store for me; but I know well that God is in the future, and I do not
fear, or lose the precious present by anticipating possible evil. I
remember Father Taylor's inspired words, "Heaven is not afar. We are
like phials of water in the midst of the ocean. Eternity, heaven, God,
are all around us, and we are full of God. Let the thin crystal
break, and it is all one." Mr. Mann came to Concord to lecture last
week. He looked happiest. What can he ask for more, having Mary for
his own? Hold me ever as Your true and affectionate friend,

SOPHIA.


The Hawthornes left the Old Manse for visits to their relatives.
Hawthorne went to Salem in advance of his wife, who writes to him:--


BOSTON, August 15.

. . . Yesterday your letter raised me to the eighth heaven--one heaven
beyond the imagination of the great poet. . . . I am very sorry you did
not come, for Mr. Atherton was to be at home at eight o'clock that
evening, hoping to see you, and Mr. Pierce was also in the city,
desiring to meet you. Una knew Mr. Atherton directly, when I took her
to call, and at once challenged him to run after her. Soon afterwards
a fine wooden singing-bird arrived, with a card on which was written
"for Una Hawthorne." Mrs. Williams called. She asked me to give you a
great deal of love. She wished we would visit her in Augusta, Maine. I
have taken Una upon the Common several times, and she runs after all
babies and dogs. She is so beautiful that I am astonished at her.
Frank Shaw says she is perfect, and like Raphael's ideal babies. This
morning a letter came to you from the Count [Mr. John O'Sullivan was
usually called by this title by the Hawthornes], who has some good
proposals. The offer from the "Blatant Beast" [name given by
Hawthorne to a certain publisher] of the--But I will send the letter;
it will not cost any more than mine alone, thanks to the new law.

Having gone to stay for a few days in Herbert Street, Mrs. Hawthorne
writes to her mother:--


SALEM, November 19.

. . . Father took most beautiful care of us, and did not leave us till
we were seated in the cars. Mr. Dike followed. I told him that if he
wished to see Una, he could do it by sitting behind. This he did, and
kept up a constant talking with her, all the way. She looked lofty and
grave, and unfathomable in her eyes; but finally had compassion on
him, and faintly smiled in that way which always makes her father say,
"Mightily gracious, madam!" An old man by the side of Mr. Dike asked
him whether Una were his grandchild! She liked the old man, and smiled
at him whenever he spoke to her. Upon arriving in Salem, Mr. Dike
went to find my husband; whom, however, I saw afar off in the crowd of
ugly men, showing like a jewel (pearl) in an Ethiop's ear, so fine and
pale, with the large lids cast down, and a radiant smile on his lips.

For the first time since my husband can remember, he dined with his
mother! This is only one of the miracles which the baby is to perform.
Her grandmother held her on her lap till one of us should finish
dining, and then ate her own meal. She thinks Una is a beauty, and, I
believe, is not at all disappointed in her. Her grandmother also says
she has the most perfect form she ever saw in a baby. She waked this
morning like another dawn, and smiled bountifully, and was borne off
to the penetralia of the house to see Madam Hawthorne and aunt
Elizabeth. My husband's muse is urging him now, and he is writing
again. He never looked so excellently beautiful. Una is to be dressed
as sumptuously as possible to-day, to visit her grandaunt Ruth
[Manning]. Louisa wants her to overcome with all kinds of beauty,
outward and inward. I feel just made. All are quite well here, and
enjoy the baby vastly.

To Hawthorne in Salem:--

BOSTON, December 19.

. . . If I asked myself strictly whether I could write to you this
evening, I should say absolutely no, for ten thousand different things
demand the precious moments while our baby sleeps. . . . I bless God for
such a destiny as mine; you satisfy me beyond all things. . . . Una is
now downstairs with her aunt Elizabeth, and she shines with perfection
of well-being. When she is near a chair, with both hands resting upon
it, she will suddenly let go, and for a few glorious seconds maintain
her equilibrium, and then down she sits upon the floor. C. Sturgis and
Anna Shaw have been to see her. I took her to William Story's
yesterday, and he thought her eyes very beautiful, and said he had
scarcely ever seen perfectly gray eyes before; and that such were the
finest eyes in the world, capable of the most expression. He added,
that her eyes were like those of an exquisite child of Raphael's,
which he had seen, in oils.

Mr. Colton has been again to see you. Perhaps it is quite fortunate
that you were guarded from an interview, since you would have refused
his offers. When will you come back? Mr. Hillard said you promised to
go there again. You can always come here.

Your loving wife, PHOEBE.

After returning home, Sophia writes:--

CONCORD, January 26, 1845.

BEST MOTHER (I like that Swedish epithet),--The jewel is precisely
what I wanted. It appears strange for us to make presents of precious
stones set in gold; but the occasion is sufficient to justify it. Mrs.
Prescott is perpetually doing for me what she will not allow me to pay
for, and often what I cannot pay for. She remains rich in
consciousness, but the burden of obligation is too great. She papered
my kitchen with her own hands, and would not let me even pay for the
paper; she also employed her man to put up a partition; and she is
stiff-necked as an Israelite on these points. She sends us Indian
cakes and milk bread, or any nicety she happens to have. George has
the pleasantest way of going of errands about which I cannot employ
the Imp, Ben, and he took excellent care of Leo, the dog, during our
absence, feeding him so sumptuously that he looked very superb when we
returned, only requiring to have an heroic soul to be the Doge of
dogs. I never imagined anything so enchanting as Una's rapid
development. Every morning, as soon as she is awake, she extends her
little hand to the Madonna. Then she points to Loch Lomond (which I
have moved to my room), and then to Abbotsford, each time observing
something about the pictures, as she gazes into my face. My replies I
always feel to be very stupid; but I do as well as I can, considering
that I am not now a baby. Another of her acts is to put up her
forefinger to my mouth, to be kissed; and often she puts up her own
mouth for a kiss, and then smiles with an expression of covert
fun--sub ridens, her father calls it. The other evening, while the
trees were still crystal chandeliers, it grew dusk before the lamps
were lighted; and all at once, behold the full moon rose up from
behind the hill "over against our house," exactly between the trees at
the entrance of our avenue. Picture to yourself the magnificence. The
sharp gleam of the crystals made it seem as if the stars had fallen,
and were caught by the branches, and a thousand shining scimitars
flashed into view. Una happened to be turned towards the scene. How I
wish you could have seen the wonder and gleam of her face! As the moon
rose higher and higher, she continued to talk about it, her hand
extended. We lighted no lamp that evening. The next morning I asked
her where the moon was, and she turned towards the window with a
questioning tone. Last evening my better than Epaminondas was
stretched upon the floor, for her entertainment. It was the prettiest
sight that ever was. Una is as strong as a little lion, and I could
dance at any moment. The half-hour glass that you gave me is a great
enchantment to my husband, and has already suggested some divine
production.

To Mrs. Foote, once more:--

Paradise Regained, May 4, 1845.

MY DEAR MARY,--My husband and I will be most happy to receive you, I
would say at once, but I must wait till these avenue trees are in
leaf, because I want you to see our quiet Eden in its full summer
dress. It has begun to array itself; and the Balm of Gilead, a
significant tree for us, is already in tender green, and the showerful
poplar, so mightily abused, is, this lovely morning, becoming golden
with new yellow foliage. But as this is our last year in the blessed
old abbey, you must see it in perfection. The lawn beneath the trees
is already a rich emerald, and large gold stars begin to spangle it.
You shall see my little darling running over the green grass, with a
continued song of exultation. She thinks this is the first Paradise,
and that her father is the primal Adam, and that she possesses the
earth, now that she is out of leading-strings.

December 7, 1845.

I was very glad of an answer to my volume of a letter, and that it
gave you satisfaction. Words are a poor portrait of Una, this ray of
light. The distinctness and intelligence of her language are a kind of
miracle. Her father said one day that she was the book of Revelation.
Once, I said for her Mother Goose's "Cushy cow bonny, let down your
milk!" and after hearing the whole verse several times she began to
repeat it to herself, but said, "Tushy tow bonny, let down Nona's milk!"
And she always corrects me if I omit her name. She often says,
"Bobby Shafto's done to sea; tome back, marry Nona!" with a very
facetious expression. Her father tells her that he shall not allow
Bobby to marry her.




CHAPTER IV

LIFE IN SALEM


The Hawthornes now moved to Salem, where they remained for several
years.

Washington's Birthday, 1846.

TRUE MOTHER,--Through the howling storm your little box of benefits
came safely. I was especially grateful to hear from you, because I had
read in the paper of Mr. Mann's walking into the dock, and feared he
might be very ill after it. I was exceedingly relieved to hear that
he was none the worse for such an unexpected baptism. I thought that
after getting tired and heated by lecturing, the transition might be
almost mortal for his delicate frame. I, in my old-fashioned
simplicity of faith, would have it that God saved him. My husband has
found "The Christmas Banquet," and he has made up the second volume,
which I send with this, for dear father to transmit to New York. The
second volume must be printed first, because he has not long enough
dreamed over the new tale or essay which is to commence the first
volume. From all question as to what this precious web may be, last
woven in the loom of his genius, I sacredly abstain till the fullness
of time. Oh, I am so glad that these scattered jewels are now to be
set together!

"Zuna" is spreading out her painted tea-set upon a little oval tray
that came from beyond sea, in her father's childhood. She plays
tea-drinking with infinite grace and skill. Last week Louisa Hawthorne
and I spent the day with Mrs. Dike, and Una behaved like a consummate
lady, although she frolicked like a child. Mrs. Dike gave her some
beautiful silver playthings, with which she had a tea-party. Rebecca
Manning [a little cousin] was there, and over their airy tea Una
undertook to be agreeable, and began of her own accord to converse,
and tell Rebecca about her life in Concord. She said, "In Tontord Zuna
went out into the orchard and picked apples in her little basket, for
papa and mamma to eat." And then, with a countenance and tone of
triumph, she exclaimed, "And papa's boat!"

A long letter written by George William Curtis is a bright ray from a
beautiful personality, containing these descriptions:--

ROME, January 14, 1847.

MY DEAR FRIENDS,--How often in the long sunny silence of that summer
voyage, when in the Atlantic all day the sea rippled as gently about
the ship as the waters of Walden pour against their shore, and in the
Mediterranean the moon would have no other mirror, but entranced its
waves to an oily calmness in which she shone unbroken, did I figure
you gliding with us on our fairy way to France, Italy, and in the next
summer, Switzerland! One day in our voyage we passed the Straits of
Gibraltar--seeing land for the first time in twenty-eight days. We
came so near and passed so rapidly, saw so distinctly the dusky gray
olive foliage of Spain and the little round towers whence the old
Spaniards looked for the Moors; and on the other side, so grim and
lonely, the intricate mountain outline of Africa, so distinctly, and
at night again, and for many days after, the same broad water; that it
lies more dreamily in my memory than anything else. . . . On the
forty-fifth day I stepped ashore in France; but not without more
regret than I thought possible, for the ship; and one of the crew, of
my own age, with whom I had seen the stars fade in the morning during
his watch, had become very dear to me. Yet in Marseilles everything
was quaint. . . . The same features I had always known in a
city,--men, houses, streets, squares; but with an expression unknown
before. At night, with my sailor friend, I threaded some of the
narrower streets, which were like corridors in an unshapely Titan
palace. At the doors of the smallest shops on each side sat the
spinsters in the moonlight, gossiping and knitting; while over them
bent old French tradesmen, in long yarn stockings and velvet
knee-breeches. The street was barely wide enough for a carriage, and
they talked across; and all was as gay and happy as Arcadia. Every day
[in Florence], I was in the galleries, which are freely open to every
one, and here saw the grandest works of Raphael in his middle and best
style. Of the wonderful feminine grace and tenderness of these, of
which no copy can give an idea, I cannot properly speak. From him only
have I received the idea of the Immaculate Mother--the union of
celestial superiority with human maternity. The innumerable other
Madonnas are beautiful pictures; but they are either mere mothers or
mere angels. It is the same union in kind with what you may observe in
his portrait, where masculine character is so blended and tempered
with feminine grace and flexibility. Raphael is the clear, deep,
beautiful eye, in which and through which is seen the undoubted
heaven. . . .

How glad I am that I have a right to send you a letter! I have left a
small space into which to squeeze a large love, which I send to Mrs.
H., with my thanks for her kind letter, which could not come too late,
and which I am very sure highly gratified Mr. Crawford. He desires to
make his especial regards to Mrs. H., and said that he should write
her a note, if it were not too great a liberty, which he would send in
a letter to Mrs. Howe. Mention my name to Una; for in some dim
remembrance of Concord meadows I may then figure as a shadowy faun. A
long, pleasant letter from George Bradford, the other day, gave me the
last news from our old home, which is very placid and beautiful in my
memory. I should love to see Ellery Channing's new book. But I am
sure that he will never forgive himself for coming to Rome for sixteen
days. I am sorry to say good-by. G. W. CURTIS.

While on a visit to her mother, Mrs. Hawthorne writes to her
husband:--

BOSTON, July.

. . . I received your most precious letter yesterday. I do not need to
stand apart from daily life to see how fair and blest our lot is.
Every mother is not like me--because not every mother has such a
father for her children; so that my cares are forever light. Am I not
eminently well, round, and rubicund? Even in the very centre of
simultaneous screams from both darling little throats, I am quite as
sensible of my happiness as when the most dulcet sounds are issuing
thence. I have suffered only for you, in my babydom. You ought not to
be obliged to undergo the wear and tear of the nursery; it is contrary
to your nature and your mood. You were born to muse, and through
undisturbed dreams to enlighten the world. Una mourns for you. "Oh, I
must go home to see my papa! Oh, when are we going to Salem?" Her
little heart has enough of mine in it to feel widowed without you.
Julian does not walk yet; but he understands everything, and talks a
great deal.

There was a sharp contrast between Mrs. Hawthorne's earlier life of
intercourse with trooping, charming friends, and devotion to art and
literature, and the toils of motherhood in poverty which now absorbed
her days. She refers to this new order of existence with joyful
patience in the following letters to Mrs. Peabody:--

SALEM, September, 1848.

Dora Golden [Julian's nurse] takes this to you. She deferred her
visit to Boston for my convenience, because Mr. Hawthorne thought of
going to Temple, to visit General Miller; but he did not go. Mr.
Hawthorne will contribute to Elizabeth's book, but not for pay. Mary
Chase took Una and me to Nahant to see Rebecca Kinsman at her cottage.
It was a dear little nest, on the brow of a hill commanding the
boundless sea. Una flew around like a petrel; only that her hair
floated golden in the sunshine, and the petrel's feathers are gray.
You are quite right; I am so happy that I require nothing more. No art
nor beauty can excel my daily life, with such a husband and such
children, the exponents of all art and beauty. I really have not even
the temptation to go out of my house to find anything better. Not
that I enjoy less any specimen of earthly or heavenly grace when I
meet it elsewhere; but I have so much in perpetual presence that I am
not hungry for such things.

November 19, 1848.

I intended almost every day last week to go to Boston, but was
detained by various circumstances. Among other things, Mr. Daniel
Webster was to come to lecture, and I thought I must wait to hear him.
I am glad I did, for it was a very useful lecture, and in some parts
quite grand. It was upon the Constitution--a noble subject. You know
he is particularly designated as the Expounder of the Constitution.
He stood like an Egyptian column, solid and without any Corinthian
grace, but with dignity and composed majesty. He gave a simple
statement of facts concerning the formation of our united government;
and towards the close, he now and then thundered, and his great
cavernous eyes lightened, as he eloquently showed how noble and
wonderful it was, and how astonishing the sagacity and insight of
those young patriots had been in the memorable Congress. The old Lion
walked the stage with a sort of repressed rage, when he referred to
those persons who cried out, "Down with the Constitution!" "Madmen! Or
most wicked if not mad!" said he, with a glare of fire, as he looked
about him. He had risen with his hat in his hand, and held it all the
time, making no gestures excepting once, when he referred to the
American eagle and flag. He then raised his hand and pointed as if the
eagle were cleaving the air; and he said, "Who calls this the
Massachusetts eagle, the Illinois eagle,--or this the Virginia flag,
or the New Hampshire flag? Are they not the American eagle and the
American flag? And wherever the flag waves, let him touch it who
dares!" His voice and glance as he pronounced these words were the
artillery of a storm; and they were followed by tremendous rolls of
applause. Mr. Hawthorne, who is one of the managers of the Lyceum (!)
was deputed to go on Monday to West Newton, to see Mr. Mann about
lecturing here.

Sophia writes to Mrs. Mann, then in Washington:--

"Is Congress behaving any worse than usual? The members are always
giving the lie and seizing each other by the collar, ever since the
grave and majestic days of the first Sessions, it seems to me. But we
have not got to being quite such monkeys as the French are in their
Assemblies. Mrs. George Peabody, a week or two ago, gave a great
ball, to which she invited us. I heard that Mr. Peabody had put his
magnificent Murillo picture in the finest light imaginable, having
built a temporary oratory for it, on the piazza upon which the library
opens. The library was dark as night, and as I entered it, the only
object I could see was this divine Madonna at the end of the
illuminated oratory. It is the Annunciation. There is not the
smallest glory of color in the picture. The power, the wonder of the
picture, is the beauty of the expression and features. Her eyes are
lifted and her hands crossed upon her bosom. The features seem hardly
material, such a fineness and spiritual light transfigure them. It is
the greatest picture I ever saw."

A fragment of a letter suggests a lecture and a great innovation.

"My husband bought a ticket for himself, and went with me!! Mr. Alcott
spent an evening with us a week or more ago, and was very interesting;
telling, at my request, about his youth, and peddling, etc. There were
six ladies and six gentlemen present last Monday evening. They
assembled at Mr. Stone's. Miss Hannah Hodges, Mrs. J. C. Lee, and two
ladies whom I did not know, besides Mrs. Stone and myself; Mr.
Frothingham, Mr. William Silsbee, Mr. Shackford, of Lynn, Mr. Pike,
Mr. Streeter, and my husband, besides Mr. Stone and his son. Mr.
Alcott said he would commence with the Nativity, and first read
Milton's Hymn. Then he retreated to his corner, and for about an hour
and three quarters kept up an even flow of thought, without a word
being uttered by any other person present. Then Mr. Stone questioned
him upon his use of the word 'artistic;' which provoked a fine
analysis from him of the word 'artist' as distinguished from
'artisan.' I thought the whole monologue very beautiful and clear.
This evening Mr. Thoreau is going to lecture, and will stay with us.
His lecture before was so enchanting; such a revelation of nature in
all its exquisite details of wood-thrushes, squirrels, sunshine, mists
and shadows, fresh, vernal odors, pine-tree ocean melodies, that my
ear rang with music, and I seemed to have been wandering through copse
and dingle! Mr. Thoreau has risen above all his arrogance of manner,
and is as gentle, simple, ruddy, and meek as all geniuses should be;
and now his great blue eyes fairly outshine and put into shade a nose
which I once thought must make him uncomely forever."

Several letters from Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne break in upon the usual
quietude with allusions to the real hardship of public misapprehension;
yet no false statements and judgments were ever more coolly received.
Still, Mrs. Hawthorne writes with an excited hand:--

June 8, 1849.

MY DEAR FATHER,--Mr. Hawthorne received news by telegraph to-day that
he is turned out of office headlong. I have written to mother, and
told her, fearing she would hear of it accidentally. We are not cast
down at all, and do not be anxious for us. You will see by my letter
to mother how we are hopeful and cheerful about it, and expect better
things. The cock is crowing the noon of night and I must to bed. I
have written a long letter to mother. We are all well. Your
affectionate daughter,

SOPHIA.

The letter to her mother has not been completely preserved, but
runs:--

. . . The telegraph to-day brought us news that would have made the
cottage [at Lenox] particularly acceptable, because we could have
lived there upon our own responsibility--for the Old General has
turned Mr. Hawthorne out of the Surveyorship. Do not be troubled;
for we are not.

Mr. Hawthorne never liked the office at all, and is rather relieved
than otherwise that it is taken out of his hands, and has an inward
confidence that something much better and more suitable for him will
turn up. As for me, you know I am composed of Hope and Faith, and
while I have my husband and the children I feel as if Montezuma's
diamonds and emeralds were spiritually in my possession. But we look
forward with a kind of rapture to the possibility of now going into
the country somewhere this summer, and setting Una down in a field,
where she so pines to go. Meantime, the newly appointed Surveyor's
commission has not arrived, and so Mr. Hawthorne is not yet out of
office.

I have not seen my husband happier than since this turning out. He has
felt in chains for a long time, and being a MAN, he is not alarmed at
being set upon his own feet again,--or on his head, I might say,--for
that contains the available gold, of a mine scarcely yet worked at
all. As Margaret [Fuller] truly said once, "We have had but a drop or
so from that ocean." We are both perfectly well, too, and brave with
happiness, and "a credence in our hearts, and esperance so absolutely
strong, as doth outvie the attest of eyes and ears." (So Shakespeare
somewhere speaks for us, somewhat so--but not verbatim, for I forget
one or two words.)

Above all, it has come in the way of an inevitable Providence to us
(whatever knavery some people may have to answer for, who have been
the agents in the removal), and I never receive inevitable Providences
with resignation merely; but with joy, as certainly, undoubtedly, the
best possible events that can happen for me--and immediately I begin
to weave the apparent straw into gold, like the maiden in the fairy
tale.

Good-by now, dear mother. Do not be anxious. I should not have told
you this now--fearing you might be troubled--but I was afraid you
might see the removal in the papers, or hear of it; and I thought it
best to let you know just how it is with us, so that you might not
have a shock. Your most affectionate child,

SOPHIA.

MY DEAR FATHER,--Here is a pretty business, discovered in an
unexpected manner to Mr. Hawthorne by a friendly and honorable Whig.
Perhaps you know that the President said before he took the chair that
he should make no removals, except for dishonesty and unfaithfulness.
So that all who voted for him after that declaration pledged
themselves to the same course. You know also doubtless that there has
never been such a succession of removals of honorable and honest men
since we were a nation as since the accession of President
Taylor,--not even under Jackson,--who, however, always removed people
because they were Whigs, without any covert implication of character.
This has been Democratic conduct--to remove for political reasons.

This conduct the Whigs always disapproved, and always said that no one
ought to be removed but from disability or dishonesty. So that now
when any one is removed, it is implied that the person is either a
shiftless or a dishonest man. It is very plain that neither of these
charges could be brought against Mr. Hawthorne. Therefore a most base
and incredible falsehood has been told--written down and signed and
sent to the Cabinet in secret. This infamous paper certifies among
other things (of which we have not heard)--that Mr. Hawthorne has been
in the habit of writing political articles in magazines and
newspapers!

This he has never done, as every one knows, in his life--not one word
of politics was ever written by him. His townsfolk, of course, know it
well. But what will surprise you more than this fact is to hear who
got up this paper, and perjured his soul upon it; who followed his
name with their signatures, and how it was indorsed. It was no less a
person than Mr. C. W. U.!!! who has thus proved himself a liar and a
most consummate hypocrite; for he has always professed himself the
warmest friend. He certifies the facts of the paper; and thirty other
gentlemen of Salem sign their names! Among whom are G. D. and young N.
S., and Mr. R. R.! Can you believe it? Not one of these gentlemen knew
this to be true, because it is not true; and yet, for party ends, they
have all perjured themselves to get away this office, and make the
President believe there were plausible pretexts; they had no idea it
could be found out. But the District Attorney saw the paper. He is a
Whig, but friendly to Mr. Hawthorne, on literary grounds; and the
District Attorney told a Salem gentleman, also a Whig and a personal
friend of Mr. Hawthorne's. Thus, the "murder" is out, through better
members of the same party.

Mr. Hawthorne took the removal with perfect composure and content,
having long expected it on account of his being a Democrat. But
yesterday, when he went to Boston and found out this, the lion was
roused in him. He says it is a cowardly attack upon his character,
done in such secrecy; and that he shall use his pen now in a way he
never has done, and expose the lie, addressing the public. Your child,

SOPHIA.

June 17.

MY BLESSED MOTHER,--Your most welcome and beautiful letter of the 11th
I very gladly received. You take our reverse of fortune in the way I
hoped you would. I feel "beyond the utmost scope and vision of
calamity" (as Pericles said to Aspasia), while my husband satisfies my
highest ideal, and while the graces of heaven fill the hearts of my
children. Everything else is very external. This is the immortal life
which makes flowers of asphodel bloom in my path, and no rude step can
crush them. I exult in my husband. He stands upon a table-land of
high behavior which is far above these mean and false proceedings,
with which a party of intriguers are now concerning themselves, and
covering themselves with the hopeless mud of Dante's Inferno. The
more harm they try to do, deeper down they plunge into the mire; and I
doubt if ever in this world some of them will be able to wash their
faces clean again. My husband supposed he was removed because he was a
Democrat (and you know very well how he has always been a Democrat,
not a Locofoco--if that means a lucifer match). Therefore he took it
as a matter of course in the way of politics; though it surprised me,
because General Taylor had pledged himself not to remove any person
for political opinions, but only for dishonesty and inefficiency. This
was why all Mr. Hawthorne's Whig as well as Democrat friends were sure
he would not be disturbed. He could not even have provoked hostility
by having taken any active part in politics,--never writing, never
speaking, never moving for the cause. But these intriguers secretly
carried out their plan. They wrote in letters false charges which they
sent to Washington, and thirty gentlemen signed their names to a paper
requesting the appointment of Mr. Putnam.

June 21, Thursday.

MY OWN DEAR MOTHER,--I am truly disappointed that you have not had
this letter before, but the tide of events has hurried me away from
it. Now I must write a few words. You never heard of such a time about
any one as there has been about Mr. Hawthorne. The whole country is
up in arms, and will not allow Mr. Hawthorne to be removed. And now I
have the good news to tell you that his removal is suspended at
Washington, and he is either to be reinstated if he will consent, or
to be presented with a better office. At Washington the Government was
deceived, and were not told that the person to be removed was Mr.
Hawthorne--so secret and cunning were these four gentlemen of Salem! I
cannot tell you all the abominable story now; and it is no matter,
since they are caught in their own toils, and defeated. Mr.
Hawthorne's name is ringing through the land. All the latent feeling
about him now comes out, and he finds himself very famous. Mr. Samuel
Hooper has been very active for him. Mr. Howes has done nothing else
for ten days but go back and forth to Boston, and come here to see my
husband, upon the subject. It has wholly roused him out of his deep
affliction for the death of Frederic [his brother], for whom he feels
as if he were acting now, so deep was Frederic's love and admiration
for Mr. Hawthorne. I wrote the above on my lap, following Julian
about, this hottest day. Now I can only say good-by, and implore you
to stay through July among the mountains. It is too hot in West Street
for you. We are all well, here, and there. When I see you, I will
tell you this long story about the removal, which has proved no
removal, as Mr. Hawthorne has not left the Custom House, and the
commission of the new officer has not arrived.

Your loving child,

SOPHIA.

P. S. Just to show to what a detail of meanness and cunning the
reverend person descends, I must tell you that he brought from
Washington a paper which he copied from the original memorial there;
which memorial was a testimony of the merchants of Salem in favor of
Colonel Miller's being Collector. This memorial Mr. Hawthorne, in
official capacity as Surveyor of the Port, and acquainted therefore
with the merchants, indorsed,--saying that, "to the best of his
recollection," these were all the principal merchants, and that they
were responsible persons. In the copy which Mr. U. made he left out
"to the best of his recollection," and made it read that these were
all the merchants of Salem. Stephen C. Phillips's name was not
signed. And so Mr. U. brings this to prove that Mr. Hawthorne is
impeachable for want of veracity! He tried hard to find that my
husband acted politically with regard to Colonel Miller's appointment;
and as this was impossible, he thought he would try to prove him a
false witness. Did you ever know of such pitiful evasions? But there
is no language to describe him. He is, my husband says, the most
satisfactory villain that ever was, for at every point he is
consummate. The Government had decided to reinstate Mr. Hawthorne
before Mr. U.'s arrival at Washington, and his representations changed
the purpose. I trust Mr. Everett will be enlightened about the latter,
so as to see what an unjust act he has committed by retracting his
first letter. "What!" said Charles Sumner of Mr. U., "that smooth,
smiling, oily man of God!"

Hawthorne has occasion to write to the

HON. HORACE MANN, M. C., WEST NEWTON, MASS.

SALEM, June 26, 1849.

MY DEAR SIR,--I have just received your note, in which you kindly
offer me your interest towards reinstating me in the office of
Surveyor.

I was perfectly in earnest in what I told Elizabeth, and should still
be very unwilling to have you enter into treaty with Mr. K., Mr. U.,
or other members of the local party, in my behalf. But, on returning
here, after an absence of two or three days, I found a state of things
rather different from what I expected, the general feeling being
strongly in my favor, and a disposition to make a compromise,
advantageous to me, on the part of some, at least, of those who had
acted against me. "The Essex Register," of yesterday, speaks of an
intention to offer me some better office than that of which I have
been deprived. Now, I do not think that I can, preserving my
self-respect, accept of any compromise. No other office can be offered
me that will not have been made vacant by the removal of a Democrat;
and, even if there were such an office, still, as charges have been
made against me, complete justice can be done only by placing me
exactly where I was before. This also would be the easiest thing for
the Administration to do, as they still hold my successor's commission
suspended. A compromise might indeed be made, not with me, but with
Captain Putnam, by giving him a place in this Custom House--which
would be of greater emolument than my office; and I have reason to
believe that the Collector would accede to such an arrangement.
Perhaps this idea might do something towards inducing Mr. Meredith to
make the reinstatement.

I did not intend to involve you in this business; nor, indeed, have I
desired any friend to take up my cause; but if, in view of the whole
matter, you should see fit to do as Mr. Mills advises, I shall feel
truly obliged. Of course, after consenting that you should use your
influence in my behalf, I should feel myself bound to accept the
reinstatement, if offered. I beg you to believe, also, that I would
not allow you to say a word for me, if I did not know that I have
within my power a complete refutation of any charges of official
misconduct that have been, or may be, brought against me.

Sophia and the children are well. The managers of the Lyceum desire to
know if you will deliver two lectures for them, before the session of
Congress.

Very truly yours,

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.


SALEM, July 2, 1849.

MY DEAR SIR,--I am inclined to think, from various suspicious
indications that I have noticed or heard of, between the Whigs and one
or two of my subordinate officers, that they are concocting, or have
already concocted, a new set of charges against me. Would it not be a
judicious measure for you to write to the Department, requesting a
copy of these charges, that I may have an opportunity of answering
them? There can be nothing (setting aside the most direct false
testimony, if even that) which I shall not have it in my power either
to explain, defend, or disprove. I had some idea of calling for these
charges through the newspapers, but it would bring on a controversy
which might be interminable, and would only, however clearly I should
prove my innocence, make my reinstatement the more difficult; so that
I judge it best to meet the charges in this way--always provided that
there are any.

It grieves me to give you so much trouble; but you must recollect that
it was your own voluntary kindness, and not my importunity, that
involves you in it. Very truly yours,

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

The following letter is fragmentary, because of the demands of some
autograph-hunter.

. . . It occurred to me, after sending off those documents, yesterday,
that I ought to have given you some particulars as to the political
character and standing of the gentlemen who signed them. B. Barstow,
Esq., is Vice-President of the Hickory Club, and a member of the
Democratic Town Committee. William B. Pike is Chairman of the
Democratic County Committee. T. Burchmore, Jr., Esq., is Chairman of
the Democratic Congressional District Committee. Dr. B. E. Browne
signs in his own official character as a member of the Democratic
State Committee. They have all been active in our local politics, and
thoroughly acquainted with the political . . . [mutilated for
autograph signature].

As respects the letter from T. Burchmore, Jr., to myself, I wish to
say a few words. Mr. Burchmore has, for twenty-five years past,
occupied a situation in the Custom House; and for a long time past,
though nominally only head clerk, has been the actual head of the
establishment, owing to his great business talent and thorough
acquaintance with all matters connected with the revenue. He is an
upright and honorable . . . [mutilated] . . . in my behalf; and I would
wish, therefore, in communicating with the Department, that you would
use him as tenderly as possible. Of course, his letter may be sent
on, but it would be best not to advert to his being connected with the
Custom House; and as he holds his office from the Collector, it is
very probable that the Department may not know him in an official
character.

My successor's commission has not yet arrived.

The enemy is very quiet, and I know little or nothing about their
motions.

Mrs. Mann's letter to Sophia arrived this morning.

P. S. The gentlemen above mentioned have a high social standing, as
well as a political one. Mr. Barstow, for instance, you may recollect
as Vice-President of the Salem Lyceum, where he was introduced to you.


SALEM, August 8, 1849.

MY DEAR SIR,--My case is so simple, and the necessary evidence comes
from so few sources, and is so direct in its application, that I think
I cannot mistake my way through it; nor do I see how it can be
prejudiced by my remaining quiet, for the present. I will sketch it to
you as briefly as possible.

Mr. U. accuses me of suspending one or more inspectors for refusing to
pay party subscriptions, and avers that I sent them a letter of
suspension by a messenger, whom he names, and that--I suppose after
the payment of the subscription--I withdrew the suspension.

I shall prove that a question was referred to me--as chief executive
officer of the Custom House--from the Collector's office, as to what
action should be taken on a letter from the Treasury Department,
requiring the dismissal of our temporary inspectors. We had two
officers in that position. They were Democrats, men with large
families and no resources, and irreproachable as officers; and for
these reasons I was unwilling that they should lose their situations.
In order, therefore, to comply with the spirit of the Treasury order,
without ruining these two men, I projected a plan of suspending them
from office during the inactive season of the year, but without
removing them, and in such a manner that they might return to duty
when the state of business should justify it. I wrote an order (which
I still have in my possession) covering these objects, which, however,
was not intended to be acted on immediately, but for previous
consultation with the Deputy Collector and the head clerk. On
consulting the latter gentleman, he was of opinion, for various
reasons which he cited, that the two inspectors might be allowed to
remain undisturbed until further orders from the Treasury; to which,
as the responsibility was entirely with the Collector's Department, I
made no objection. And here, so far as I had any knowledge or concern,
the matter ended.

But it is said that I notified the inspectors of their suspension by a
certain person, who is named. I have required an explanation of this
person, and he at once avowed that, being aware of this contemplated
movement, and being in friendly relations with these two men, he
thought it his duty to inform them of it; but he most distinctly
states that he did it without my authority or knowledge, and that he
will testify to this effect whenever I call upon him so to do. I did
not inquire what communication he had with the two inspectors, or with
either of them; for I look upon his evidence as clearing me, whatever
may have passed between him and them. But my idea is (I may be
mistaken, but it is founded on some observation of the manoeuvres of
small politicians, and knowing the rigid discipline of custom houses
as to party subscriptions) that there really was an operation, to
squeeze an assessment out of the recusant inspectors, under the terror
of an impending removal or suspension; that one of the inspectors
turned traitor, and was impelled, by the threats and promises of Mr.
U. and his coadjutors, to bring his evidence to a pretty direct point
on me; and that Mr. U., in his memorial to the Treasury Department,
defined and completed the lie, in such shape as I have given it above.
But I do not see how it can stand for a moment against my defense.

The head clerk (the same Mr. Burchmore whose letter I transmitted to
you) was turned out a week ago, and will gladly give his evidence at
any moment, proving the grounds on which I acted. The other person who
is said to have acted as messenger is still in office, a weigher and
gauger, at a salary of $1500 per annum. He is a poor man, having been
in office but two years, and expended all his income in paying debts
for which he was an indorser, and he now wishes to get a few hundred
dollars to carry him to California, or give him some other start in
life. Still, he will come forward if I call upon him, but, of course,
would rather wait for his removal, which will doubtless take place
before the session of Congress. Meantime, I have no object to obtain,
worth purchasing at the sacrifice which he must make. My surveyorship
is lost, and I have no expectation, nor any desire, of regaining it.
My purpose is simply to make such a defense to the Senate as will
insure the rejection of my successor, and thus satisfy the public that
I was removed on false or insufficient grounds. Then, if Mr. U. should
give me occasion,--or perhaps if he should not,--I shall do my best to
kill and scalp him in the public prints; and I think I shall succeed.

I mean soon to comply with your kind invitation to come and see you,
not on the above business, but because I think of writing a
schoolbook,--or, at any rate, a book for the young,--and should highly
prize your advice as to what is wanted, and how it should be achieved.
I mean, as soon as possible,--that is to say, as soon as I can find a
cheap, pleasant, and healthy residence,--to remove into the country,
and bid farewell forever to this abominable city; for, now that my
mother is gone, I have no longer anything to keep me here.

Sophia and the children are pretty well. With my best regards to Mrs.
Mann, I am, Very truly yours,

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

P. S. Do pardon me for troubling you with this long letter: but I am
glad to put you in possession of the facts, in case of accidents.

I will insert here some letters that relate to this time, though
written in 1884:--

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND, September 15.

DEAR MRS. LATHROP, . . . That matter of the memorial fountain, or
monument [in honor of "The Town Pump "], which the death of Mrs.
Brooks prevented our going on with, I trust may yet in the fullness of
time be accomplished. I have a plan which may fructify, although some
years may intervene before any decided steps can be taken. Perhaps it
will be just as well to wait, after all, until some of those wretches
who delight in vilifying your father perish from the face of the
earth. Let us have patience. They are fast becoming superannuated, and
the "venom of their spleen" will perish with them. They comprehend him
not, and are willfully blind and deaf. Dr. Wheatland estimates that
less than a score of these strange malignants are now to be met with
on the streets of Salem. But he has not like me

  "Unaware,
  Ranging the woods to start a hare,
  Come to the mouth of the dark lair,
  Where growling low, a fierce old bear,
  Lies amid bones and blood."

By the bye, I found once that Miss Savage had wholly forgotten
Hawthorne's reference to the Town Pump which closes his Custom House
chapter, and so I put "The Scarlet Letter" into my valise (she having
lost her copy), and two or three weeks ago I called at her house and
read her the passage. Afterwards, I dropped in to see Mullet, and I
left the book with him, as he had not read it for many years. I think
you will like to see a note he has written me, so I inclose it.

Faithfully yours,

GEORGE H. HOLDEN.


February 5.

MY DEAR MRS. LATHROP,--Rummaging among my papers, last evening, I ran
across another letter from our "bright-eyed" and noble-hearted friend
Mullet, which I think you will be glad to read, because Mullet wrote
it. I therefore inclose the letter. Mullet is very hard of hearing,
and on that account goes out but little. During the twelve years that
I lived in Salem I am sure I never once met him on the street. In
fact, I think I never heard of him, even, till after I moved to
Providence. I heard of him one day at the "Gazette" office, and
forthwith dug him out. He is a great reader. The Harpers have sent me
all of Rolfe's Shakespeare, and I found that I have duplicate copies
of three or four of the Plays. These duplicates I shall ask Mullet to
oblige me by accepting. Mullet is not the chap who bored your father
so fearfully by endless talk about Shakespeare and Napoleon, but he is
a prodigious admirer of the great dramatist. He has the Plays in one
huge, unwieldy volume, and for that reason reads them less than he
would if they were in a more handy form. Mullet is a great reader of
the old English poets (I don't mean so far back as Chaucer and
Spenser), and I suppose he can repeat from memory thousands of lines.
I have found no chance to call upon him since I fruitlessly rang his
doorbell, as stated in his letter.

Please remind me to tell you about an African fetich which Mullet gave
me one day, and a reminiscence of your father linked therewith. Ever
faithfully,

GEORGE H. HOLDEN.


SALEM, September 10, 1884.

DEAR MR. HOLDEN,--It was my good fortune during the year 1850 to be
presented with a copy of "The Scarlet Letter," together with "the
compliments of the author." Of course, the gift was highly prized; but
its fate was that of many other volumes, borrowed and never returned.
A volume of the same, from the late edition issued last year, proved a
most welcome visitor to my enforced seclusion. After the lapse of many
years I once more had the real pleasure of reading over that popular
work. The enjoyment derived from a fresh perusal of the introductory
chapter on the Custom House was great indeed. It seemed like living
over that period of my existence again. The scenes described in such a
masterly manner were vividly before me; and while reading I frequently
stopped to laugh at the scrupulously nice delineation. The zest with
which I read was heightened by the reproduction of the characters in
that superlative picture of word-painting, for they together with the
artist were vividly--I had almost said palpably--before me, as though
it were a thing of yesterday. How real the "patriarchal body of
veterans" appeared, "tipped back in chairs," and "at times asleep; but
occasionally might be heard talking together in voices between speech
and a snore. There was no more vivacity than in the drowsy drone of
so many bumblebees." However much others may be entertained by reading
that chapter of exquisite humor, those who were the daily witnesses of
the scenes for several years can best appreciate its nicety and
drollery. The "veteran shipmaster," concerning whom Hawthorne says,
"scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and
admiration by his marvelous gift as a story-teller," was Captain
Stephen Burchmore, the public storekeeper. The stories of themselves
were generally extravagant and grotesque. It was "the marvelous gift"
of narration that carried people off their legs. I have known the
company present to roar with laughter, and not one more convulsed than
Mr. Hawthorne. Truly yours,

GEORGE W. MULLET.


SALEM, October 1, 1883.

DEAR MR. HOLDEN,--You request me to "write the particulars about the
good turn I had done Hawthorne in sacrificing my own interests in his
behalf."

Mr. Hawthorne had not been thought of in connection with any office in
the Custom House until after arrangements were made to have them
filled with others. Richard Lindsay was supported for the surveyorship
and myself for the naval office. All necessary documents had been
forwarded to Washington, duly authenticated, and tidings of the
appointments daily looked for.

At this late stage Hawthorne was first suggested for Surveyor. The
matter was urgently pushed. To accomplish it, Lindsay must be
prevailed upon to withdraw. All were agreed that I was the one to
engineer the matter, Lindsay and myself being fast friends, and our
relations uninterruptedly pleasant. That he would willingly consent
was not expected, and indeed it was problematical if he would at all.
I felt exceedingly delicate about suggesting the business, as I had in
person been through the country obtaining signatures from resident
committees favoring his appointment. I therefore voluntarily offered
to withdraw my application for the naval office in favor of Hawthorne,
but that found no favor.

Finally, to secure the desideratum, I proposed that Lindsay and self
both withdraw, and have the offices filled with others. I desired my
friend should understand that I asked for no sacrifice I was not
willing to share. My withdrawal was stoutly opposed as entirely
unnecessary, but it was my ultimatum; on no other condition would I
move in the matter. The business was then broken by me to Lindsay, and
it required all the persuasion I could exercise to reconcile him to
the arrangement. The expedient of my own withdrawal brought it about;
otherwise it would not have been accomplished.

It now only remained for us to write to Washington, withdrawing our
candidatures, and transferring all our support to the applications of
Hawthorne for Surveyor and Howard for Naval Officer. Soon their
commissions came, and Lindsay and myself were subsequently appointed
as inspectors under Hawthorne.

At that time I regarded Hawthorne's appointment as decidedly popular
with the party, with men of letters, and with the increasing multitude
who admired him as one of the brightest stars in the literary
firmament.

Never have I experienced the least regret for waiving my own advantage
to bring the pleasing result about. For nearly four years it brought
me almost daily into proximity with him, either officially or
casually. The recollection well repays the little sacrifice made. His
port, his placidity, his hours of abstraction, his mild, pleasant
voice,--no sweeter ever uttered by mortal lips,--are all readily
recalled. Truly yours,

G. W. MULLET.




CHAPTER V

FROM SALEM TO BERKSHIRE


Plans for retiring into the depths of the country were made, and
Horatio Bridge was requested to see what chance there was for a home
near the ocean, to which Hawthorne always turned as to the most
desirable neighbor. Mr. Bridge responds in part:--

UNITED STATES NAVY YARD, PORTSMOUTH, N. H.

August 6, 1849.

DEAR HAWTHORNE,--. . . I have looked at a house, which you will probably
like . . . and it commands a fine sea view. If it can be hired, it is
just the place. . . . We are busy in fixing ourselves in our new
quarters, where we shall be most happy to see you. Mrs. Bridge joins
me in kind regards to Mrs. H. and yourself. Love to Una and the unseen
Julian.

Yours ever, H. B.

A letter from Mrs. Bridge, which does not mention the year, is a
specimen of many similar ones from other friends:--

PHILADELPHIA, July 1.

MY DEAR MRS. HAWTHORNE,--I heard yesterday by way of Africa that you
had not received a note which I left at the Winthrop House for you
last summer. You must have thought me very neglectful. I should have
acknowledged the receipt of any book you might have sent me; but most
sincerely did I thank you for that which had given me so much
pleasure. I remember very distinctly my past knowledge of Mr.
Hawthorne as an author, and the bitter tears I shed over "The Gentle
Boy." When I had read it until I thought myself quite hardened to its
influence, I offered to read it to our dear old nurse, who had been
the patient listener to the whole family for many a year. I prided
myself upon my nursery reputation for stoicism, which I should lose if
my voice faltered. I was beginning to doubt my ability to get calmly
through the next page, when the old lady exclaimed, in such a truly
yet ludicrously indignant tone, "Dretful creturs!" that I had a fair
right to laugh while she wiped the tears off of her spectacles. The
time gained placed me on a firmer footing, and I got safely through
thereby. I enjoy Mr. Hawthorne's writings none the less now that I
can laugh and cry when I am inclined. Will you give him my kindest
regards. He is very often mentioned by Mr. Bridge, who, by the way,
goes to the Mediterranean in September. I hope to join him there.

With much regard, truly yours,

C. M. BRIDGE.

Promptly, in their hour of misfortune, arrived a letter from one of
Mrs. Hawthorne's dearest friends, which I give here:--

STATEN ISLAND, September 10, 1849.

Thank you, my dear Sophia, for your letter. I have been thinking a
great deal of you lately, and was glad to know of your plans. Before I
heard from you, I had expended a great amount of indignation upon
"General Taylor" and his myrmidons, and politics and parties, and the
whole host of public blessings which produce private misfortunes. I
am glad you are going to Lenox, because it is such a beautiful place,
and you have so many warm friends there. Life is a pretty sad affair,
dear Sophia; at least, I find it so. . . . We have felt, that Bob
[Colonel Robert Shaw] required to be removed from home influences, as
he has no brothers; and, being unwilling to send him to a school of
the usual order, we chose the Jesuit College at Fordham, near New
York, where there are a hundred and fifty boys, and a great many holy
fathers to teach and take care of them. I inclose a check from Frank,
which he hopes Mr. Hawthorne will accept as it is offered, and as lie
would do if the fate had been reversed. He does not ask you to accept
his gift,--so pay it back when you don't want it, here or hereafter,
or never. I only wish it was a thousand. Dear Sophia, when I think of
such men as your husband, Page, and some others, so pinched and
cramped for this abominable money, it makes me outrageous. If it were
one of those trials that do people good, it would be bearable; but it
kills one down so. Shakespeare felt it when he said:--

 "Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As, to behold desert
a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity."

God bless you, dear Sophia,--as He has, notwithstanding General
Taylor. Believe me ever most affectionately your friend, S. B. S.

Miss Elizabeth Hoar, engaged to Mr. Emerson's brother Charles, who
died in youth, writes letters of regret for the departure of the
Hawthornes from Concord:--

. . . Remember me to Mr. Hawthorne and beautiful Una. That you three
have lived here in Concord for so many fair days is a page of romance
which I shall not forget; whatever happens, so much we have and cannot
lose. Affectionately always,

E. HOAR.

. . . I should like very much to see you and Mr. Hawthorne, and your Una
and her brother, and have made two unsuccessful efforts to spend a day
with you in Salem. I was in New Haven at the time of the publication
of the "Mosses," and all my friends were reading them. I found myself
quite a lion because I knew Mr. Hawthorne; and became a sort of author
in my turn, by telling stories of the inhabitants of the Old Manse,
omitted in the printed books. Father was charmed with them, and wrote
to me quite at length about them. Pray remember me to Mr. Hawthorne,
and give him my thanks for writing the book. Mr. Emerson is in Paris
from May 6th to joth, then lectures in London six times, and sees
everybody and everything. I am heartily glad. He has letters which are
to show him Lamartine.

Affectionately yours,

ELIZABETH HOAR.

The first Mrs. Lowell, who had long been an intimate friend of my
mother's, sends beautiful letters, from which I will make selections,
too lovely to be set aside:--

"How blessed it is that God sends these 'perpetual messiahs' among us,
to lead us back to innocence and free-heartedness and faith. . . . I
have seen a picture of the Annunciation in which Mary is reading the
prophecy of the Messiah's coming. . . . Mary is a type of all women,
and I love the Roman Catholic feeling that enshrines and appeals to
her. It has its root in the very deepest principle of life. . . .
James is very well, and to say that he is very happy, too, is
unnecessary to any one who knows his elastic, joyful nature. . . .
When I feel well and strong, I feel so well and strong that I could,
like Atlas, bear the world about with me. . . . I love to work with my
hands; to nail, to glue, to scour, to dig; all these satisfy a
yearning in my nature for something substantial and honest. My mother
often tells me I was born to be a poor man's wife, I have such an
aptitude for all trades."

. . . Is not June the crown of the year, the Carnival of Nature, when
the very trees pelt each other with blossoms, and are stirring and
bending when no wind is near them, because they are so full of inward
life, and must shiver for joy to feel how fast the sap is rushing up
from the ground? On such days can you sing anything but, "Oh,
beautiful Love"? Doesn't it seem as if Nature wore your livery and
wished to show the joy of your heart in every possible form? The
everlasting hum and seething of myriad life satisfies and soothes me.
I feel as if something were going on in the world, else why all this
shouting, and bedecking of every weed in its best, this endless strain
from every tiny weed or great oaken flute? All that cannot sing,
dances; the gnats in the air and the long-legged spiders on the water.
Even the ants and beetles, the workers that are quoted for examples by
hoarding men, run about doing nothing, putting their busy antennae
into everything, tumbling over the brown mould for sheer enjoyment,
and running home at last without the little white paper parcel in
their mouths which gives them so respectable an air. Doubtless the
poor things are scolded by their infirm parents, who sit sunning
themselves at the door of the house. . . . Beetles seem to me to have
a pleasant life, because they, who have fed for two or three years
underground upon the roots, come forth at last winged, and find their
nourishment in the blooms of the very same tree. It comforts me,
because we have ourselves to eat many bitter roots here, whose perfect
flower shall one day delight us. This, dear Sophia, has been a long
ramble. I promised to copy that sonnet of James's for you, so I
inclose it.

With true sympathy and love, Affectionately yours,

MARIA WHITE.

From George S. Hillard came the following letter. On the envelope my
father has written Hillard's name and "The Scarlet Letter," showing
with what interest he preserved this friend's criticism and praise. On
the other side of the envelope is written, "Foi, Foi, Faith." No one
ever was more faithful to, and consequently ever had more faith in,
his friends than my father.

BOSTON, March 28, 1850.

MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,--You have written a most remarkable book; in point
of .literary talent, beyond all your previous efforts; a book full of
tragic power, nice observation, delicate tact, and rare knowledge of
the human heart. I think it will take a place in our literature among
the highest efforts of what may be called the Tragic Muse of fiction.
You are, intellectually speaking, quite a puzzle to me. How comes it
that with so thoroughly healthy an organization as you have, you have
such a taste for the morbid anatomy of the human heart, and such
knowledge of it, too? I should fancy from your books that you were
burdened with secret sorrow; that you had some blue chamber in your
soul, into which you hardly dared to enter yourself; but when I see
you, you give me the impression of a man as healthy as Adam was in
Paradise. For my own taste, I could wish that you would dwell more in
the sun, and converse more with cheerful thoughts and lightsome
images, and expand into a story the spirit of the Town Pump. But while
waiting for this, let me be thankful for the weird and sad strain
which breathes from "The Scarlet Letter," which I read with most
absorbing interest. Yours ever,

GEO. S. HILLARD.

The owner of the cottage which the Hawthornes hired in Lenox sends a
welcome:--

DEAR SOPHIA,--Since we came up here, I have examined the little house
you think of taking, and cannot but hope you will take the red house
in preference; for although that is not so large or convenient as I
wish it were for you, it is much more so than the little garden house.
You have a rough plan of that, which Mr. Tappan drew for Mr.
Hawthorne, and I will give you one of this. There are four good
sleeping-rooms upstairs, but without fireplaces, and could only be
ameliorated in winter by an entry stove. The house is pleasantly
situated, having a view of the Lake, as you know. The road passing by
the red house is so little traveled that it is no annoyance. Perhaps
you and Mr. Hawthorne would like to come and see the houses for
yourselves; if so, we shall be very glad to have you stay with us. I
have no time to tell you how lovely it is here, or how glad we are you
are coming.

Affectionately yours,

CAROLINE TAPPAN.

The search for a desirable hillside or meadow space where they might
make a new home, away from city streets and the hurrying prisoners
upon them, was pleasantly ended for the Hawthornes. The transfer of
the little family to Lenox soon occurred, and to the "red house,"
which was in existence until lately. I will quote a description of the
cottage and the views about the spot, given in a Stockbridge paper not
long after the small dwelling disappeared:--

"On a stand in the curious old hotel in Stockbridge is a charred chunk
of an oaken house-beam that is as carefully treasured as if it were of
gold; and every guest strolling through the parlor wherein it is shown
halts and gazes at it with a singular interest. A placard pinned to
the cinder explains in these words why it is treasured and why the
people gaze at it: 'Relic from the Hawthorne Cottage.' The Hawthorne
Cottage stood half a mile out of Stockbridge on the road to Lenox. It
was burned two months ago. It was a little red story-and-a-half house
on a lonely farm, and an old farmer, himself somewhat of a bookworm,
dwelt in it with his family at the time it mysteriously took fire. The
cottage was a landmark, because Nathaniel Hawthorne dwelt therein in
1850 and 1851 for a year and a half. A great many people go out to
see the ruins of it.

"Drive along a lonely winding road through a homely New England
district several hundred yards west of the pretentious mansions of
Stockbridge, pass through a breezy open patch of pines, and one comes
to a characteristic hillside New England orchard, the branches of
whose trees just now are bright with ripening red apples. On the
hillslope in the middle of the orchard and overlooking the famous
'Stockbridge Bowl'--a round deep tarn among the hills--are the brick
cellar walls and brick underpinning of what was a very humble
dwelling--the Hawthorne Cottage. About the ruins is a quiet, modest,
New England neighborhood. There is not much to see at the site of the
Hawthorne Cottage, yet every day fashionable folk from New York and
Boston and a score of western cities drive thither with fine equipages
and jingling harness, halt, and look curiously for a minute or two at
the green turf of the dooryard and the crumbling brick walls of the
cottage site."

To go from Salem to Lenox was to contrast very forcibly the somewhat
oppressed spirits of historical association with the healthy grandeur
of nature. The books my father wrote here embrace this joy of
untheoried, peaceful, or gloriously perturbed life of sky and land.
Theory of plot or principle was as much beneath him as the
cobble-stones; from self-righteous harangues he turned as one who had
heard a divine voice that alone deserved to declare. He taught as
Nature does, always leading to thoughts of something higher than the
dictum of men, and nobler than their greatest beauty of action. He
said it was difficult for him to write in the presence of such a view
as the "little red house" commanded. It certainly must have been a
scene that expressed otherwise unutterable sublimity. But if my father
struggled to bring his human power forward in the presence of an
outlook that so reminded him of God, he did bring it forward there,
and we perceive the aroma and the color which his work could not have
gained so well in a town or a village covert.

Mrs. Hawthorne's letters, written for the pleasure of her family, in
spite of her growing cares, continue to be a source of intelligence to
us:--

MY DEAR LIZZIE,--I have just received your letter, for which I am very
glad. You say that mother may come to-night. I truly hope she will.
But as the heavy fog we had here this morning may have been a rain in
Boston, I write now, to request father to go to Oak Hall, or to some
ready-made linen-store, and buy Mr. Hawthorne two linen sacks, well
made, and good linen. He is a perfect bunch of rags, and he will not
let me make him anything to wear--absolutely will not. But he consents
that something shall be bought. If mother should be delayed beyond
Monday, this can be done; otherwise it cannot.

I am very sorry about the little books; but I do not see any help.
Ticknor & Co. were going to have illustrations drawn for them, and Mr.
Hawthorne thinks they are begun, that money has been expended, and
that it is too late to change the plan. He says, he is bound by his
engagement, and cannot recede; but that if you can change their
purposes independently of him,--if they are willing, he is. Mr. Fields
has not said a word about the Fairy Tales, and I do not know whether
Mr. H. intends to write them now. I never ask him what he is about.
But I know he is not writing seriously this hot weather. God bless
you all,

SOPHIECHEN.

Sunday.

MY DEAR MOTHER,--'This has been a dull "heaven's day" for the
children, who have not been so merry as on a sunny day. I have read to
them, and shown them my drawings of Flaxman's Iliad and Odysse and
Hesiod. I wish you could have seen them the other day, acting Giant
Despair and Mrs. Diffidence. They were sitting on chairs opposite the
doorsteps; Julian with one little leg over the other, in a nonchalant
attitude; Una also in negligent position. They were discussing their
prisoners, Hopeful and Christian, in very gruff and unamiable voices.
"Well, what had we better do with them?" "Oh, beat them pretty well,
every day!" The air of the two figures, and their tones, in comparison
with the faces and forms, were very funny. I heard Una telling Julian
that Christian's bundle was a "bunch of naughtiness." Julian became
Columbus all at once, on Friday, and ran in from out of doors to get
some blocks to build a cross on the island which he had discovered. He
said, "Where is my sword to hold in my hand when I get out of my
ship?" [He was between four and five years old.]

Sunday, 20th.

A famous snowstorm. I read from Spenser to the children, in the
morning, of St. George and Una, Una and the Lion, and Prince Arthur.
Then, Cinderella. They made an exquisite picture, with the
hobby-horse. Julian was upon the horse,--as a king; Una at his side,
presenting ambrosia. In the P. M. I read them Andersen's "Angel and
Child," "The Swineherd," and "Little Ida's Flowers;" and their father
read to them from "The Black Aunt." In the evening my husband read to
me the "Death of Adam and Eve," by Montgomery, and something of
Crabbe's.

Tuesday, 22d. Clear, splendid day. The children took their little
straw baskets and went to find flowers. They were gone a great while,
and came back with a charming bunch--arbutus, anemones, violets, and
houstonia.

They went to walk with their father in the afternoon, to the woods and
mountains, and brought home arbutus; and Julian, laurel for me to make
a wreath for papa's head,--laurel of last year.

23d. Julian arranged his cabinet of shells and animals, hammered, ran
like a wolf, told stories to himself, helped me make beds, and held
cotton for me to wind, watched Mr. Tappan at his young trees, and when
his father came down [from writing upstairs] played with him. I sewed
all the evening while my husband read the "Castle of Indolence," and
finished it.

DEAREST LIZZIE,--Mrs. Sedgwick takes the most kind and motherly
interest in my affairs. Both she and her husband come quite often,
and Mr. Sedgwick sends Mr. Hawthorne a great many papers. I wish you
would tell me whether you think Tall Ann is able to do our work; but
from what she said about being deprived of the Church services and
Holy Communion, I know she would not do without them. She would be as
quiet here as in heaven. There have been a succession of golden days
for a long while, and I have thought

  "Time had run back, and brought the age of gold,"

it has been so superb. It is now a golden and rose-colored twilight.
The most distant mountains are of the palest azure, and the Lake, pale
rose. It is haymaking season, and the children roam abroad with the
haymakers,--oh, such happy hours! The air is fragrant with the dying
breath of clover and sweet-scented grass. Julian is getting nut-brown.
He is a real chestnut. We are all wonderfully happy, and I can
conceive of no greater peace and content. Last Sunday afternoon we all
went to the Lake, and Una and I wove a laurel wreath, and Una crowned
her father. For mountain-laurel grows about us. We have now twelve
hens. Twice a day we all go and feed them. We go in single file. Mr.
Hawthorne called it to-day the procession of the equinoxes. The hens
have some of them been named: Snowdrop, Crown Imperial, Queenie, and
Fawn. Snowdrop is very handsome and white.

Mrs. Hawthorne's mother writes to her in this manner:--

June 8, 1850.

MY BELOVED,--Esther Sturgis brought me your letter yesterday. . . . I
hope you have time to enjoy this fine weather. I please myself with
imagining various enjoyments for you all in the peaceful scenes around
you, maugre the household cares that must fall to your lot. May the
spirit of inspiration drive all petty cares from your husband, and
fill his soul with thoughts that shall bear blessings to ages yet
unborn!' He must write--therefore you must court the love of the
humble, whose destiny it is to lighten the labors of the gifted ones
of the earth. I feel ashamed when I detect myself in thinking that a
kitchen-maid is lower in the scale of being than I am. What would the
learned and the gifted do if there was no humble one to make the bread
that supports life? Kiss your precious little ones, and tell them that
grandmamma thinks of them daily; that in spirit she joins in their
charming walks, in their search for flowers, in their admiration of
the woods, mountains, and fields, and in their holy inspirations while
gazing at the glories of the starlit heavens, or the rising or setting
sun. May God bless and keep you all.

YOUR MOTHER.

August 1.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,--I was more troubled at the hindrance Mr. Hawthorne
suffered by our being without help a fortnight than by anything else,
because he would not let me bear any weight of care or labor, but
insisted upon doing everything himself. Yet he says that he cannot
write deeply during midsummer, at any rate. He can only seize the
skirts of ideas and pin them down for further investigation. Besides,
he has not recovered his pristine vigor. The year ending in June was
the trying year of his life, as well as of mine [on account of
political calumny]. I have not yet found again all my wings; neither
is his tread yet again elastic. But the ministrations of nature will
have their effect in due time. Mr. Hawthorne thinks it is Salem which
he is dragging at his ankles still. . . . Yes, we find kindest friends
on every side. The truest friendliness is the great characteristic of
the Sedgwick family in all its branches. They seem to delight to make
happy, and they are as happy as summer days themselves. They really
take the responsibility of my being comfortable, as if they were
mother, father, brother, sister. We have fallen into the arms of
loving-kindness, and cannot suffer for any aid or support in
emergencies. This I know will give you a reposeful content concerning
us. Mr. Tappan is a horn of benefits. He seems to have the sweetest
disposition; and his shy, dark eyes are always gleaming with
hospitable smiles for us. We could not be in more agreeable
circumstances, very well,--only I feel rather too far from you all. I
want you to come, to avoid those terrible prostrations from heat.
Here, we will give you a fresh egg every morning, beaten up to a foam
with new milk; and you shall have honey in the comb, and sweetest
vegetables out of our garden, and currants to refresh your parched
mouth. And you shall have peace, and rest, and quiet walks in stately
woods; and you shall sit in the barn upon clover hay, and see the dear
children play about and rejoice in your presence. You shall see us
feed the hennipennies, and hear that most quiet sound of their
clucking and murmuring.

Last Saturday night who should appear but Mr. O' Sullivan! The last we
had heard of him was that he had the yellow fever at New Orleans, and
that he was arrested for some movements with regard to Cuba. He is now
on bail, and will return to be tried in December. He returned to
Stockbridge that night, and on Monday came in a double carriage and
took us there, to the house of Mrs. Field, an old friend of his
mother's. We were received with the most whole-hearted hospitality,
and Una and I stayed all night, and Mr. O'Sullivan brought Mr.
Hawthorne and Julian back, because Mr. Hawthorne did not wish to stay.
I stayed ostensibly to go to a torchlight festival in an ice glen, but
I wished more to see the O'Sullivans than the festival. We had a
charming visit. Mrs. Field carried me to the scene of the sacrifice of
Everell in "Hope Leslie," for it is upon her estate,--a superb hill
covered with laurels,--and this sacrifice rock near the summit, and
the council chambers beneath. That was where the noble Magawesca's
arm was stricken off. The children enjoyed themselves extremely, and
behaved so beautifully that they won all hearts. They thought that
there never was such a superb child as Julian, nor such a grace as
Una. "They are neither too shy, nor bold," said Mrs. Field, "but just
right." There was a huge black Newfoundland dog, Hero, which delighted
Julian, and he rode on its back; and a little white silk dog, Fay,
very piquant and intelligent. It was a large, rambling mansion, with
india-rubber rooms that always stretch to accommodate any number of
guests, Mr. O'Sullivan said, such is Mrs. Field's boundless
hospitality. The house stands in a bower of trees, and behind it is
the richest dell, out of which rises Laurel Hill, which in its season
is one of perfect bloom. Rustic seats are at hand all about, and the
prettiest winding .paths, and glimpses of the Housatonic River gem the
plain. It has not the wide scope and proud effect of our picture, but
it is the dearest, sweetest, lovingest retreat one can imagine. Mr.
O'Sullivan took me to see Mrs. Harry Sedgwick, in the evening; a noble
woman with a gleam in her face. I owed her a call. There I also saw
Mrs. Robert Sedgwick, and the Ashburners, who called upon us at
Highwood.

We went to a bridge where we could see the torchlight party come out
of the Ice Glen, and it looked as if a host of stars had fallen out of
the sky, and broken to pieces; so said the Count O'S. We waited till
they arrived to us, and then we saw Mrs. Charles Sedgwick and her
pretty school-girls embark in an endless open omnibus for Lenox. They
were all lighted up by the burning torches, and were dressed in
fantastic costumes of brilliant colors, scarlet being predominant.
Those girls looked like a bouquet of bright flowers, as they sat
waving farewells, and receiving with smiles the cheers of all the
young gentlemen, who raised their torches and shouted, "Hurrah!" Poor,
dear Mrs. Charles! She looked so warm and so flushed--just like a
torch, herself!--and so lovely, kind, and happy, in the midst of her
living roses. Above, serenely shone myriads of pale stars in the clear
sky; around the horizon, heat-lightning flashed. The moon was rising
in the east; and in the north, the aurora borealis bloomed like a vast
lily. It was really a rare scene. We returned to Mrs. Harry
Sedgwick's. There she stood, receiving the greetings of the members
of the party; every gentleman bearing a torch, which lighted up a rosy
face at his side. Such happiness as they enjoyed--such spirit and
such mirth! It was worth witnessing. I found that everybody of note in
Stockbridge dearly loves our friend, Mr. O'Sullivan. He is the "pet"
and "darling" and "the angelic" with them all. And through him we were
known to them.

Most affectionately,

SOPHIECHEN.

September 4.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,--To-day, Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. Melville have gone
to dine at Pittsfield. Mr. Tappan took them in his carriage. I went
to Highwood after breakfast, to ask for the carriage and horses, as
you know Mr. Tappan has put them at our disposition, if we will only
drive. I found James sitting in state at the gate, in the wagon, and
concluded that there was no hope. But behold, Mr. Tappan was just
about starting for Pittsfield, himself; and with the most beautiful
cordiality of hospitality he said he would come over to take the
gentlemen. This would have been no particular courtesy in some
persons, but for this shy dear, who particularly did not wish, for
some reason, to be introduced to Mr. Melville, it was very pretty. I
have no doubt he will be repaid by finding Mr. Melville a very
different man from what he imagines, and very agreeable and
entertaining. We find him so. A man with a true, warm heart, and a
soul and an intellect,--with life to his finger-tips; earnest,
sincere, and reverent; very tender and modest. And I am not sure that
he is not a very great man; but I have not quite decided upon my own
opinion. I should say, I am not quite sure that _I_ do not think him a
very great man; for my opinion is, of course, as far as possible from
settling the matter. He has very keen perceptive power; but what
astonishes me is, that his eyes are not large and deep. He seems to
see everything very accurately; and how he can do so with his small
eyes, I cannot tell. They are not keen eyes, either, but quite
undistinguished in any way. His nose is straight and rather handsome,
his mouth expressive of sensibility and emotion. He is tall and erect,
with an air free, brave, and manly. When conversing, he is full of
gesture and force, and loses himself in his subject. There is no grace
nor polish. Once in a while, his animation gives place to a singularly
quiet expression, out of these eyes to which I have objected; an
indrawn, dim look, but which at the same time makes you feel that he
is at that instant taking deepest note of what is before him. It is a
strange, lazy glance, but with a power in it quite unique. It does not
seem to penetrate through you, but to take you into himself. I saw him
look at Una so, yesterday, several times. He says it is Mr. Mathews
who is writing in "The Literary World" the visit to Berkshire. Mr.
Mathews calls Mr. Hawthorne "Mr. Noble Melancholy," in the next number
of the paper. You know, what you read was the introduction only. It is
singular how many people insist that Mr. Hawthorne is gloomy, since he
is not. He is pensive, perhaps, as all contemplative persons must be;
especially when, as in him, "a great heart is the household fire of a
grand intellect" (to quote his own words), because he sees and
sympathizes with all human suffering. He has always seemed to me, in
his remote moods, like a stray Seraph, who had experienced in his own
life no evil, but by the intention of a divine intellect, saw and
sorrowed over all evil.

[Among my mother's early letters to my father, this poem, written in
her fine, delicate hand upon old-fashioned fancy note paper, was
evidently her expression of this feeling.]

  THE SERAPH AND THE DOVE.

  A Seraph strayed to earth from upper spheres,
  Impelled by inward motion, vague yet strong:
  He knew not wherefore he must leave the throng
  Of kindred hierarchs for a world of tears:
  But, mailed in proof divine, he felt no fears,
  Obedient to an impulse clear of wrong:
  And so he ceased awhile his heavenly song,
  To measure his immortal life by years.
  His arched brow uprose, a throne of light,
  Where ordered thought a rule superior held;
  Within his eyes celestial splendors dwell'd,
  Ready to glow and bless with subject might,
  When he should find why God had sent him here,
  Shot like a star from out his native sphere.

  He was alone; he stood apart from men:
  His simple nature could not solve their ways;
  For he had lived a life of love and praise,
  And they forgot that God their Source had been.
  So mused he on the visions of his mind,
  Which, wondrous fair, recalled his home above:
  He wist not why he was to space confin'd,
  But waited, trusting in Omnific love.
  Then lo! came fluttering to his arms a Dove,
  Which for her foot had never yet found rest:
  The Seraph folded her within his breast,

And as he felt the brooding warmth, he conscious, smiled an

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