Chapter 12

"What do you think of my becoming an author, and relying for support upon my pen? Indeed, I think the illegibility of my handwriting is very author-like. How proud you would feel to see my works praised by the reviewers, as equal to the proudest productions of the scribbling sons of John Bull. But authors are always poor devils, and therefore Satan may take them. I am in the same predicament as the honest gentleman in 'Espriella's Letters,'--

'I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, A-musing in my mind what garment I shall wear.'"

However, by the time of his graduation from Bowdoin College he had laid aside his jesting and doubt, and in the following period of remarkable seclusion spent in his mother's home in Salem he gave himself to the work of composition. Thirteen years he passed thus in a sort of ideal world, so shut away from his neighbors that they scarcely knew of his existence.

Hawthorne always felt that these years of seclusion were peculiarly significant in his life, in that they enabled him to keep, as he said, "the dews of his youth and the freshness of his heart." Still, he realized that he had been much deceived in fancying that there, in his solitary chamber, he could imagine all passions, all feelings and states of the heart and mind.

Of all that was written in these years the author gave out for publication only the romance _Fanshawe,_ which he regarded later as a very inferior production, and the various stories published at length in the collection known as _Twice Told Tales._ Fame came very slowly. Though the worth of these writings was discovered by people of good literary judgment, it was not of the kind to make them widely popular. Sometimes the young author was so overcome by discouragement that it would seem as if only the confidence in his final success felt by his friends could save him from despair.

Relief from this situation came in a most wholesome way. In 1839 George Bancroft secured for Hawthorne a position as weigher and gauger in the Boston Customhouse, and thus his lonely life of brooding came to an end. In discharging his duties he came into much-needed everyday contact with practical men and affairs. This office he held for two years until the Whigs won the presidential election and the Democrats went out of power. Meanwhile he had written _Grandfather's Chair,_ a collection of children's stories concerning early New England history.

Somewhat previous to the appointment to the office in the Customhouse had taken place an event which was even more full of important meaning. While he was living in Salem he had become acquainted with the Peabody family and in their home had met the young woman who later became his wife, and who brought into his life the powerful influence for good that more than anything else developed the fine qualities of his nature and drew forth his powers as a writer. He had preferred to live hidden away from every one if he must give up the beauty and purity of the thought-world for the harshness and ugliness of the actual world without. But in his association with Sophia Peabody his faith in the reality that lay back of his beautiful visions was so strengthened that he felt a deep peace and joy never known to him before. The loveliness of her character is shown in her letters, and it is not surprising that Hawthorne should on one occasion write, in response to a letter from her, "I never, till now, had a friend who could give me repose; all have disturbed me, and, whether for pleasure or pain, it was still disturbance. But peace overflows from your heart into mine. Then I feel that there is a Now, and that Now must be always calm and happy, and that sorrow and evil are but phantoms that seem to flit across it."

In the summer of 1842 Hawthorne and Miss Peabody were married and went to live in the "Old Manse," in Concord. In the preceding year he had unfortunately invested money in a settlement known as the Brook Farm, where people of different classes of society were to live together on an equality, all sharing alike the duties of the farm life, and all contributing to the expenses of the common living. The experiment proved a failure and Hawthorne withdrew disgusted. With this hope of providing for himself and his wife destroyed, he found it necessary to work industriously, and as a result a new series of stories for children, the _Mosses from an Old Manse_, appeared in 1846.

In the same year he was made surveyor of the collection of revenue at the Salem Customhouse. Then for a time he ceased to write, until his discovery among some rubbish in the customhouse of an old manuscript that gave him excellent material for a greater work of fiction than he had ever before attempted, called him back to literary effort. The actual composition of the book was not begun, however, until the day on which Hawthorne lost his position as surveyor.

When he made known this unfortunate event to his wife, instead of becoming depressed, she exclaimed joyfully, "Oh, then, you can write your book!" and a little later, pulling open a drawer, showed him a considerable sum of money that she had been saving all unknown to him. Thus it became possible for him to devote himself to the work that proved to be his masterpiece, _The Scarlet Letter,_ published in 1850. The unusual excellence of the romance brought to the writer far-spread praise and popularity, and he became at length recognized as a foremost American man of letters.

The Hawthornes now went to live at Lenox, in the mountains of western Massachusetts. In their delightful home in this place the novelist produced a second great romance, _The House of the Seven Gables,_ and then gave up four months to rest. This vacation was largely a playtime spent with his two older children, Una and Julian, the younger daughter Rose being then only a baby. He had worked so hard that he was ready for plenty of fun, and this he and his two young playfellows found in excursions for wild flowers or nuts, in bathing in the lake or sending over its surface home-made toy sail-boats, in romping through the woods or reading or story-telling. After this happy period it is not surprising that Hawthorne should have written easily and with enjoyment the _Wonder Book_ for children, a simple and entertaining series of stories in which old legends are put into attractive new forms.

After the removal from Lenox in 1851, the family stayed for a short time in West Newton, where _The Blithedale Romance_ was written, and then settled at the Wayside, the second of the famous homes of Hawthorne in Concord. Not long afterward were published the _Tanglewood Tales_, which continue the _Wonder Book_ series; and a biography of his intimate friend, Franklin Pierce. When in 1853 Pierce became president of the United States, he appointed Hawthorne to be the consul at Liverpool, England, and thus came to an end the quiet life at Concord.

The publicity into which Hawthorne's duties as consul brought him was very disagreeable to one of his retiring disposition. He could feel at ease only among those whose gentle and sensitive natures responded to his own; hence attendance at formal dinners, speech making and other social obligations that forced him often into the company of more or less uncongenial people, seemed scarcely bearable to him. It was with relief then, that he resigned the consulate in 1857 and went to live in southern Europe. The greater part of his time until his return to America in 1860 was passed in Italy, and near Florence was written the last of his celebrated romances, _The Marble Faun_.

During the four remaining years of his life, spent at the Wayside, in Concord, Hawthorne's strength gradually ebbed away. Nevertheless, he was able to produce _Our Old Home,_ in which he described scenes from English life, as well as _Septimus Felton_ and parts of two other romances. In 1864, while traveling for his health through southern New Hampshire with his friend Franklin Pierce, Hawthorne died in the quiet, sudden way in which he had hoped that he should pass from earth. He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where a simple headstone marks his grave.

As the cheerfulness and simple beauty of Hawthorne's stories for children are as light among the gloom and sadness that overshadowed his works for older people, so his love for children and his delight in their companionship illumine his character and bring into view his rare gentleness and purity of nature. In recalling the days when she was a little girl, his daughter Rose has told us:

"My father's enjoyment of frolicking fun was as hilarious as that accorded by some of us to wildest comic opera. He had a delicate way of throwing himself into the scrimmage of laughter, and I do not for an instant attempt to explain how he managed it. I can say that he lowered his eyelids when he laughed hardest, and drew in his breath half a dozen times with dulcet sounds and a murmur of mirth between. Before and after this performance he would look at you straight from under his black brows, and his eyes seemed dazzling. I think the hilarity was revealed in them, although his cheeks rounded in ecstasy. I was a little roguish child, but he was the youngest and merriest person in the room when he was amused."

Though the suffering and wrong that he saw in the world deeply perplexed and saddened him, yet he found so much of happier meaning in life and expressed this with such marvelous power and grace that no one to-day holds a worthier place in American literature. That no successor can take this place nor imitate the subtle beauty of his style, we feel to be true as we read the lines written by the poet Longfellow, just after the death of Hawthorne:

"Now I look back, and meadow, manse and stream Dimly my thought defines; I only see--a dream within a dream-- The hill-top hearsed with pines.

"I only hear above his place of rest Their tender undertone, The infinite longings of a troubled breast, The voice so like his own.

"There in seclusion and remote from men The wizard hand lies cold, Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen, And left the tale half told.

"Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost dew regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain!"

THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS [Footnote: From _Grandfather's Chair._]

_By_ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Captain John Hull was the mint-master of Massachusetts, and coined all the money that was made there. This was a new line of business, for in the earlier days of the colony the current coinage consisted of gold and silver money of England, Portugal, and Spain. These coins being scarce, the people were often forced to barter their commodities instead of selling them.

For instance, if a man wanted to buy a coat, he perhaps exchanged a bear-skin for it. If he wished for a barrel of molasses, he might purchase it with a pile of pine boards. Musket-bullets were used instead of farthings. The Indians had a sort of money called wampum, which was made of clam-shells, and this strange sort of specie was likewise taken in payment of debts by the English settlers. Bank-bills had never been heard of. There was not money enough of any kind, in many parts of the country, to pay the salaries of the ministers, so that they sometimes had to take quintals of fish, bushels of corn, or cords of wood instead of silver or gold.

As the people grew more numerous and their trade one with another increased, the want of current money was still more sensibly felt. To supply the demand the general court passed a law for establishing a coinage of shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Captain John Hull was appointed to manufacture this money, and was to have about one shilling out of every twenty to pay him for the trouble of making them.

Hereupon all the old silver in the colony was handed over to Captain John Hull. The battered silver cans and tankards, I suppose, and silver buckles, and broken spoons, and silver buttons of worn-out coats, and silver hilts of swords that had figured at court,--all such curious old articles were doubtless thrown into the melting pot together. But by far the greater part of the silver consisted of bullion from the mines of South America, which the English buccaneers--who were little better than pirates--had taken from the Spaniards and brought to Massachusetts.

All this old and new silver being melted down and coined, the result was an immense amount of splendid shillings, sixpences, and threepences. Each had the date 1652 on the one side and the figure of a pine tree on the other. Hence they were called pine-tree shillings. And for every twenty shillings that he coined, you will remember, Captain John Hull was entitled to put one shilling into his own pocket.

The magistrates soon began to suspect that the mint-master would have the best of the bargain. They offered him a large sum of money if he would but give up that twentieth shilling which he was continually dropping into his own pocket. But Captain Hull declared himself perfectly satisfied with the shilling. And well he might be, for so diligently did he labor that in a few years his pockets, his money- bags, and his strong box were overflowing with pine-tree shillings.

When the mint-master had grown very rich a young man, Samuel Sewell by name, came a-courting to his only daughter. His daughter--whose name I do not know, but we will call her Betsey--was a fine, hearty damsel, by no means so slender as some young ladies of our own days. On the contrary, having always fed heartily on pumpkin pies, doughnuts, Indian puddings, and other Puritan dainties, she was as round and plump as a pudding herself. With this round, rosy Miss Betsey did Samuel Sewell fall in love. As he was a young man of good character, industrious in his business, and a member of the church, the mint-master very readily gave his consent.

"Yes, you may take her," said he, in his rough way, "and you'll find her a heavy burden enough."

On the wedding-day we may suppose that honest John Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons of which were made of pine-tree shillings. The buttons of his waist-coat were sixpences, and the knees of his small clothes were buttoned with silver threepences. Thus attired, he sat with great dignity in Grandfather's chair, and, being a portly old gentleman, he completely filled it from elbow to elbow. On the opposite side of the room, between her bridemaids, sat Miss Betsey. She was blushing with all her might, and looked like a full-blown peony or a great red apple.

There, too, was the bridegroom, dressed in a fine purple coat and gold- lace waistcoat, with as much finery as the Puritan laws and customs would allow him to put on. His hair was cropped close to his head, because Governor Endicott had forbidden any man to wear it below the ears. But he was a very personable young man, and so thought the bride- maids and Miss Betsey herself.

The mint-master also was pleased with his new son-in-law, especially as he had courted Miss Betsey out of pure love, and had said nothing at all about her portion. So, when the marriage ceremony was over, Captain Hull whispered a word to two of his men-servants, who immediately went out, and soon returned lugging in a large pair of scales. They were such a pair as wholesale merchants use for weighing bulky commodities, and quite a bulky commodity was now to be weighed in them.

"Daughter Betsey," said the mint-master, "get into one side of these scales."

Miss Betsey--or Mrs. Sewell, as we must now call her--did as she was bid, like a dutiful child, without any question of the why and wherefore. But what her father could mean, unless to make her husband pay for her by the pound (in which case she would have been a dear bargain), she had not the least idea.

"And now," said honest John Hull to the servants, "bring that box hither."

The box to which the mint-master pointed was a huge, square, iron-bound oaken chest; it was big enough, my children, for all four of you to play at hide-and-seek in. The servants tugged with might and main, but could not lift this enormous receptacle, and were finally obliged to drag it across the floor. Captain Hull then took a key from his girdle, unlocked the chest, and lifted its ponderous lid. Behold! it was full to the brim of bright pine-tree shillings fresh from the mint, and Samuel Sewell began to think that his father-in-law had got possession of all the money in the Massachusetts treasury. But it was only the mint-master's honest share of the coinage.

Then the servants, at Captain Hull's command, heaped double handfuls of shillings into one side of the scales while Betsey remained in the other. Jingle, jingle, went the shillings as handful after handful was thrown in, till, plump and ponderous as she was, they fairly weighed the young lady from the floor.

"There, son Sewell!" cried the honest mint-master, resuming his seat in Grandfather's chair, "take these shillings for my daughter's portion. Use her kindly and thank Heaven for her. It is not every wife that's worth her weight in silver."

LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS IN NEW ENGLAND

_By_ FELICIA BROWNE HEMANS

The breaking waves dash'd high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the woods against a stormy sky Their giant branches toss'd;

And the heavy night hung dark The hills and waters o'er, When a band of exiles moor'd their bark On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes, They, the true-hearted, came; Not with the roll of the stirring drums, And the trumpet that sings of fame;

Not as the flying come, In silence and in fear;-- They shook the depths of the desert gloom With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang, And the stars heard and the sea; And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthem of the free!

The ocean eagle soar'd From his nest by the white wave's foam; And the rocking pines of the forest roar'd-- This was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair Amidst that pilgrim band;-- Why had _they_ come to wither there, Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye, Lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow serenely high, And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?-- Bright jewels of the mine? The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod. They have left unstain'd what there they found-- Freedom to worship God.

THE SUNKEN TREASURE [Footnote: From _Grandfather's Chair._]

_By_ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Picture to yourselves, my dear children, a handsome old-fashioned room, with a large open cupboard at one end, in which is displayed a magnificent gold cup with some other splendid articles of gold and silver plate. In another part of the room, opposite to a tall looking- glass, stands our beloved chair, newly polished and adorned with a gorgeous cushion of crimson velvet tufted with gold.

In the chair sits a man of strong and sturdy frame, whose face has been roughened by northern tempests and blackened by the burning sun of the West Indies. He wears an immense periwig flowing down over his shoulders. His coat has a wide embroidery of golden foliage, and his waistcoat likewise is all flowered over and bedizened with gold. His red, rough hands, which have done many a good day's work with the hammer and adze, are half covered by the delicate lace ruffles at his wrists. On a table lies his silver-hilted sword, and in a corner of the room stands his gold-headed cane, made of a beautifully polished West India wood.

Somewhat such an aspect as this did Sir William Phipps present when he sat in Grandfather's chair after the king had appointed him governor of Massachusetts. Truly, there was need that the old chair should be varnished and decorated with a crimson cushion in order to make it suitable for such a magnificent-looking personage.

But Sir William Phipps had not always worn a gold-embroidered coat, nor always sat so much at his ease as he did in Grandfather's chair. He was a poor man's son, and was born in the province of Maine, where he used to tend sheep upon the hills in his boyhood and youth. Until he had grown to be a man he did not even know how to read and write. Tired of tending sheep, he next apprenticed himself to a ship-carpenter, and spent about four years in hewing the crooked limbs of oak trees into knees for vessels.

In 1673, when he was twenty-two years old, he came to Boston, and soon afterward was married to a widow who had property enough to set him up in business. It was not long, however, before he lost all the money that he had acquired by his marriage and became a poor man again. Still he was not discouraged. He often told his wife that some time or other he should be very rich and would build a "fair brick house" in the Green Lane of Boston.

Do not suppose, children, that he had been to a fortune-teller to inquire his destiny. It was his own energy and spirit of enterprise and his resolution to lead an industrious life that made him look forward with so much confidence to better days.

Several years passed away, and William Phipps had not yet gained the riches which he promised to himself. During this time he had begun to follow the sea for a living. In the year 1684 he happened to hear of a Spanish ship which had been cast away near the Bahama Islands, and which was supposed to contain a great deal of gold and silver. Phipps went to the place in a small vessel, hoping that he should be able to recover some of the treasure from the wreck. He did not succeed, however, in fishing up gold and silver enough to pay the expenses of his voyage.

But before he returned he was told of another Spanish ship or galleon which had been cast away near Porto de la Plata. She had now lain as much as fifty years beneath the waves. This old ship had been laden with immense wealth, and hitherto nobody had thought of the possibility of recovering any part of it from the deep sea which was rolling, and tossing it about. But, though it was now an old story, and the most aged people had almost forgotten that such a vessel had been wrecked, William Phipps resolved that the sunken treasure should again be brought to light.

He went to London and obtained admittance to King James, who had not yet been driven from his throne. He told the king of the vast wealth that was lying at the bottom of the sea. King James listened with attention, and thought this a fine opportunity to fill his treasury with Spanish gold. He appointed William Phipps to be captain of a vessel called the _Rose Algier_, carrying eighteen guns and ninety-five men. So now he was Captain Phipps of the English navy.

Captain Phipps sailed from England in the _Rose Algier_, and cruised for nearly two years in the West Indies, endeavoring to find the wreck of the Spanish ship. But the sea is so wide and deep that it is no easy matter to discover the exact spot where a sunken vessel lies. The prospect of success seemed very small, and most people would have thought that Captain Phipps was as far from having money enough to build a "fair brick house" as he was while he tended sheep.