Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated)

by Hawthorne, Nathaniel

  “I have made this account of the expedition to please Uncle Richard, who is an invalid and cannot get out to enjoy such sport, and wished me to describe everything just as it had happened, whether witty or silly, and give my own impressions. He has read my diary, and says that it interested him, which is all the reward I desire. And now I add these lines to keep in remembrance the peculiar satisfaction I received in hearing the conversation, especially of Mr. Deblois and Mr. Little. August, 1818, Raymond.”

  * * * * *

  These extracts from the Raymond Journal, if they be genuine, as in most respects I believe they must be, will furnish a clew, otherwise wanting, to the distinct turn which the boy's mind took toward authorship after his return to Salem, and on passing the propylon of classical culture. We can also see in them, I think, the beginning of that painstaking accumulation of fact, the effort to be first of all accurate, which is a characteristic of his maturer and authenticated note-books; very significant, too, is the dash of the supernatural and his tone concerning it. A habit of thus preserving impressions, and of communing with himself through the pen, so constant and assiduous as we know it to have been in his later years, — even when mind and time were preoccupied, — must have been formed early, to retain so strong a hold upon him. But there is another reason for supposing that he had begun to compose with care before coming from Raymond to Salem; and this is found in the fact that, in 1820, he began issuing (probably to a very small and intimate circle of subscribers) a neat little weekly paper printed with the pen on sheets of a much-curtailed note size, and written in an excellent style.

  The first number, dated Monday, August 21, 1820, opens with the Editor's

  Address: —

  “Our feelings upon sending into the world the first number of the Spectator may be compared to those of a fond Parent, when he beholds a beloved child about to embark on the troubled Ocean of public Life. Perhaps the iron hand of Criticism may crush our humble undertaking, ere it is strengthened by time. Or it may pine in obscurity neglected and forgotten by those, with whose assistance it might become the Pride and Ornament of our Country…. We beg leave farther to remark that in order to carry on any enterprise with spirit MONEY is absolutely necessary. Money, although it is the root of all evil, is also the foundation of everything great and good, and therefore our Subscribers … will please carefully to remember that the terms are two cents per month.”

  A little further on there is this allusion to the Scriptural proverb cited above: “We have been informed that this expression is incorrect, and that it is the love of Money which is the 'Root of all Evil.' But money is certainly the cause of the love of Money. Therefore, Money is the deepest 'Root of Evil.'“ (Observe, here, the young student's pride of reason, and the consciousness of a gift for casuistry!) Under the head of “Domestic News” occur some remarks on the sea-serpent, the deduction from various rumors about the monster being that “he seems to possess a strange and we think rather unusual faculty of appearing in different shapes to different eyes, so that where one person sees a shark, another beholds a nameless dragon.” (Here, too, is the humorously veiled distrust that always lurked beneath his dealings with the marvellous.) In the next columns there is found an advertisement of the Pin Society, which “will commence lending pins to any creditable person, on Wednesday, the 23d instant. No numbers except ten, twenty, and thirty will be lent”; and the rate of interest is to be one pin on every ten per day. This bold financial scheme is also carried on by the editor in person, — a combination which in these days would lay him open to suspicions of unfair dealing. I have seen a little manuscript book containing the remarkable constitution and by-laws of this society, in which there were but two members; and it is really a curious study of whimsical intricacy, the work of a mind perfectly accustomed to solitude and fertile in resources for making monotony various and delightful. It does not surprise one to meet with the characteristic announcement from this editor that he has “concluded not to insert deaths and marriages (except of very distinguished persons) in the Spectator. We can see but little use in thus giving to the world the names of the crowd who are tying the marriage knot, and going down to the silent tomb.” There is some poetry at the end of the paper, excellent for a boy, but without the easy inspiration of the really witty prose.

  It would seem that this weekly once made a beginning, which was also an end, before nourishing up into the series of which I have synopsized the first issue; for there is another Number One without date, but apparently earlier. This contains some exemplary sentiments “On Solitude,” with a touch of what was real profundity in so inexperienced a writer. “Man is naturally a sociable being,” he says; “and apart from the world there are no incitements to the pursuit of excellence; there are no rivals to contend with; and therefore there is no improvement…. The heart may be more pure and uncorrupted in solitude than when exposed to the influences of the depravity of the world; but the benefit of virtuous examples is equal to the detriment of vicious ones, and both are equally lost.” The “Domestic Intelligence” of this number is as follows: “The lady of Dr. Winthrop Brown, a son and Heir. Mrs. Hathorne's cat, Seven Kittens. We hear that both of the above ladies are in a state of convalescence.” Also, “Intentions of Marriage. The beautiful and accomplished Miss Keziah Dingley will shortly be united to Dominicus Jordan Esq.” (The young author appears to have allowed himself in this paragraph the stimulus of a little fiction respecting real persons. Dominicus Jordan is the pedler of the Raymond notes. Who Miss Keziah was I do not know, but from the name I guess her to have been a relative, by appellation at least, through Richard Manning's wife. If Hawthorne did not himself call Miss Dingley aunt, he may very likely have heard her commonly spoken of by that title. Did the old, boyish association perhaps unconsciously supply him with a name for the Indian aunt of “Septimius Felton”?) The next item is “DEATHS. We are sorry to be under the necessity of informing our readers that no deaths of importance have taken place, except that of the publisher of this Paper, who died of Starvation, owing to the slenderness of his patronage.” Notwithstanding this discouraging incident, one of the advertisements declares that “Employment will be given to any number of indigent Poets and Authors at this office.” But shortly afterward is inserted the announcement that “Nathaniel Hathorne proposes to publish by subscription a new edition of the Miseries of Authors, to which will be added a sequel, containing Facts and Remarks drawn from his own experience.”

  In Number Two of the new series, the editor speaks of a discourse by Dr. Stoughton, “on Tuesday evening…. With the amount of the contribution which was taken up … we are unacquainted, as, having no money in our pockets, we departed before it commenced.” This issue takes a despondent view of the difficulties that beset editors. There is a clever paragraph of “Domestic News” again. “As we know of no News,” it says, “we hope our readers will excuse us for not inserting any. The law which prohibits paying debts when a person has no money will apply in this case.” Next we have a very arch dissertation “On Industry”: “It has somewhere been remarked that an Author does not write the worse for knowing little or nothing of his subject. We hope the truth of this saying will be manifest in the present article. With the benefits of Industry we are not personally acquainted.” The desperate editor winds up his week's budget with a warning to all persons who may be displeased by observations in the Spectator, that he is going to take fencing lessons and practise shooting at a mark. “We also,” he adds, “think it advisable to procure a stout oaken cudgel to be the constant companion of our peregrinations.” The assumption of idleness in the essay on Industry, just quoted, breaks down entirely in a later number, when the editor — in apologizing for inaccuracies in the printing of his paper — enumerates his different occupations: “In the first place we study Latin and Greek. Secondly we write in the employment of William Manning Esq., [at that time proprietor of an extensive line of stagecoaches]. Thirdly, we are Secretary, Treasurer, and Manager of the 'Pin
Society'; Fourthly, we are editor of the Spectator; fifthly, sixthly, and lastly, our own Printers, Printing Press and Types.” But the young journalist carried on his labors unabatedly, for the term of some five weeks, and managed to make himself very entertaining. I take from an essay “On Benevolence” a fragment which has a touch of poetry out of his own life. Benevolence, he says, is “to protect the fatherless, and to make the Widow's heart sing for joy.” One of the most cherishable effusions is that “On Wealth,” in which the venerable writer drops into a charmingly confidential and reminiscent vein. “All men,” he begins, “from the highest to the lowest, desire to pursue wealth…. In process of time if we obtain possession” of a sum at first fixed as the ultimatum, “we generally find ourselves as far from being contented as at first…. When I was a boy, I one day made an inroad into a closet, to the secret recesses of which I had often wished to penetrate. I there discovered a quantity of very fine apples. At first I determined to take only one, which I put in my pocket. But those which remained were so very inviting that it was against my conscience to leave them, and I filled my pockets and departed, wishing that they would hold more. But alas! an apple which was unable to find space enough among its companions bounced down upon the floor before all the Family. I was immediately searched, and forced, very unwillingly, to deliver up all my booty.” In the same number which contains this composition appears the token of what was doubtless Hawthorne's first recognition in literature. It is a “Communication,” of tenor following: —

  “Mr. Editor: I have observed in some of your last papers, Essays on Various subjects, and am very much pleased with them, and wish you to continue them. If you will do this, you will oblige

  “MARIA LOUISA HATHORNE.”

  “We hail the above communication,” writes the editor with exaggerated gratitude, “as the dawn of a happy day for us.” In his next and final issue, though (September, 18, 1820), he satirically evinces his dissatisfaction at the want of a literary fraternity in his native land, through this “Request”: —

  “As it is part of the plan of the Spectator to criticise home-manufactured publications, we most earnestly desire some of our benevolent Readers to write a book for our special benefit. At present we feel as we were wont to do in the days of our Boyhood, when we possessed a Hatchet, without anything to exercise it upon. We engage to execute the Printing and Binding, and to procure the Paper for the Work, free of all expense to the Author. If this request should be denied us, we must infallibly turn our arms against our own writings, which, as they will not stand the test of criticism, we feel very unwilling to do. We do not wish that the proposed work should be too perfect; the Author will please to make a few blunders for us to exercise our Talents upon.”

  In these quotations one sees very clearly the increased maturity (though it be only by a year or two) of the lad, since the engrossing of his records at Raymond. We get in these his entire mood, catch gleams of a steady fire of ambition under the light, self-possessed air of assumed indifference, and see how easily already his humor began to play, with that clear and sweet ripeness that warms some of his more famous pages, like late sunshine striking through clusters of mellow and translucent grapes. Yet our grasp of his mental situation at this point would not be complete, without recognition of the graver emotions that sometimes throbbed beneath the surface. The doubt, the hesitancy that sometimes must have weighed upon his lonely, self-reliant spirit with weary movelessness, and all the pain of awakening ambition and departing boyhood, seem to find a symbol in this stanza from the fourth “Spectator”: —

  ”Days of my youth, ye fleet away,

  As fades the bright sun's cheering ray,

  And scarce my infant hours are gone,

  Ere manhood's troubled step comes on.

  My infant hours return no more,

  And all their happiness is o'er;

  The stormy sea of life appears,

  A scene of tumult and of tears.”

  Of the vexations of unfledged manhood the boy of sixteen did not speak without knowledge. Various sorts of pressure from uncongenial sources were now and then brought to bear upon him; there was present always the galling consciousness of depending on others for support, and of being less self-sustaining than approaching manhood made him wish to be. Allusion has been made to his doing writing for his uncle William. “I still continue,” he says in a letter of October, 1820, to his mother at Raymond, “to write for Uncle William, and find my salary quite convenient for many purposes.” This, to be sure, was a first approach to self-support, and flattering to his sense of proper dignity. But Hawthorne, in character as in genius, had a passion for maturity. An outpouring of his thoughts on this and other matters, directed to his sister, accompanies the letter just cited. Let us read it here as he wrote it more than a half-century ago: —

  DEAR SISTER: — I am very angry with you for not sending me some of your poetry, which I consider a great piece of ingratitude. You will not see one line of mine until you return the confidence which I have placed in you. I have bought the 'Lord of the Isles,' and intend either to send or to bring it to you. I like it as well as any of Scott's other poems. I have read Hogg's “Tales,” “Caleb Williams,” “St. Lean,” and “Mandeville.” I admire Godwin's novels, and intend to read them all. I shall read the “Abbot,” by the author of “Waverley,” as soon as I can hire it. I have read all Scott's novels except that. I wish I had not, that I might have the pleasure of reading them again. Next to these I like “Caleb Williams.” I have almost given up writing poetry. No man can be a Poet and a book-keeper at the same time. I do find this place most “dismal,” and have taken to chewing tobacco with all my might, which, I think, raises my spirits. Say nothing of it in your letters, nor of the “Lord of the Isles.” … I do not think I shall ever go to college. I can scarcely bear the thought of living upon Uncle Robert for four years longer. How happy I should be to be able to say, “I am Lord of myself!” You may cut off this part of my letter, and show the other to Uncle Richard. Do write me some letters in skimmed milk. [The shy spirit finds it thus hard, even thus early, to be under possible surveillance in his epistolary musings, and wants to write invisibly.] I must conclude, as I am in a “monstrous hurry!”

  Your affectionate brother, NATH. HATHORNE.

  P. S. The most beautiful poetry I think I ever saw begins: —

  ”She's gone to dwell in Heaven, my lassie,

  She's gone to dwell in Heaven:

  Ye're ow're pure quo' a voice aboon

  For dwalling out of Heaven.”

  It is not the words, but the thoughts. I hope you have read it, as I know you would admire it.

  As to the allusion to college, it is but a single ray let into the obscurity of a season when the sensitive, sturdy, proud young heart must have borne many a vigil of vexatious and bitter revery. And this must not be left out in reckoning the grains and scruples that were compounding themselves into his inner consciousness. But at last he struck a balance, wisely, among his doubts; and in the fall of 1821 he went to Bowdoin to become one of the famous class with Longfellow and Cheever, the memory of which has been enwreathed with the gentle verse of “Morituri Salutamus,” — a fadeless garland. In “Fanshawe,” an anonymous work of his youth, Hawthorne has pictured some aspects of the college at Brunswick, under a very slight veil of fiction.

  “From the exterior of the collegians,” he says, “an accurate observer might pretty safely judge how long they had been inmates of those classic walls. The brown cheeks and the rustic dress of some would inform him that they had but recently left the plough, to labor in a not less toilsome field. The grave look and the intermingling of garments of a more classic cut would distinguish those who had begun to acquire the polish of their new residence; and the air of superiority, the paler cheek, the less robust form, the spectacles of green, and the dress in general of threadbare black, would designate the highest class, who were understood to have acquired nearly all the science their Alma Mater could
bestow, and to be on the point of assuming their stations in the world. There were, it is true, exceptions to this general description. A few young men had found their way hither from the distant seaports; and these were the models of fashion to their rustic companions, over whom they asserted a superiority in exterior accomplishments, which the fresh, though unpolished intellect of the sons of the forest denied them in their literary competitions. A third class, differing widely from both the former, consisted of a few young descendants of the aborigines, to whom an impracticable philanthropy was endeavoring to impart the benefits of civilization.

  “If this institution did not offer all the advantages of elder and prouder seminaries, its deficiencies were compensated to its students by the inculcation of regular habits, and of a deep and awful sense of religion, which seldom deserted them in their course through life. The mild and gentle rule … was more destructive to vice than a sterner sway; and though youth is never without its follies, they have seldom been more harmless than they were here. The students, indeed, ignorant of their own bliss, sometimes wished to hasten the time of their entrance on the business of life; but they found, in after years, that many of their happiest remembrances, many of the scenes which they would with least reluctance live over again, referred to the seat of their early studies.”

  * * * * *

  He here divides the honors pleasantly between the forest-bred and city-trained youth, having, from his own experience, an interest in each class. Yet I think he must have sided, in fact, with the country boys. Horatio Bridge, his classmate, and throughout life a more confidential friend than Pierce, was brought up on his father's estate at Bridgton, north of Sebago Lake; and Franklin Pierce, in the class above him, his only other frequent companion, was a native of the New Hampshire hill-lands. He himself, in his outward bearing, perhaps gathered to his person something the look of both the seaport lads and the sturdy mountaineers and woodsmen. He was large and strong (in a letter to his uncle Robert, just before entering college, he gives the measure of his foot, for some new shoes that are to be sent; it is ten inches), but an interior and ruling grace removed all suspicion of heaviness. Being a sea-captain's son, he would naturally make his connections at college with men who had the out-of-doors glow about them; the simple and severe life at Raymond, too, had put him in sympathy with the people rather than with the patricians (although I see that the reminiscences of some of the old dwellers near Raymond describe the widow and her brother Richard as being exclusive and what was there thought “aristocratic”). Hawthorne, Pierce, and Bridge came together in the Athenaean Society, the newer club of the two college literary unions, and the more democratic; and the trio preserved their cordial relations intact for forty years, sometimes amid confusions and misconstructions, or between cross-fires of troublous counter-considerations, with a rare fidelity. Hawthorne held eminent scholarship easily within his grasp, but he and his two cronies seem to have taken their curriculum very easily, though they all came off well in the graduation. Hawthorne was a good Latinist. The venerable Professor Packard has said that his Latin compositions, even in the Freshman year, were remarkable; and Mr. Longfellow tells me that he recalls the graceful and poetic translations which his classmate used to give from the Roman authors. He got no celebrity in Greek, I believe, but he always kept up his liking for the Latin writers. Some years since a Latin theme of his was found, which had been delivered at an exhibition of the Athenaean Society, in December, 1823. [Footnote: See Appendix II.] It shows some niceties of selection, and the style is neat; I even fancy something individual in the choice of the words sanctior nec beatior, as applied to the republic, and a distinctly Hawthornesque distinction in the fulgor tantum fuit sine fervore; though a relic of this kind should not be examined too closely, and claims the same exemption that one gives to Shelley's school-compelled verses, In Horologium.