Chapter 19

"I shall not pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy with Whittier's excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect ever to shrink so unutterably from any apothegm of a sage, whose happy lips have uttered a hundred golden sentences, as from that saying (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source), that the death of this blood-stained fanatic has 'made the Gallows as venerable as the Cross!' Nobody was ever more justly hanged. He won his martyrdom fairly, and took it firmly. He himself, I am persuaded (such was his natural integrity), would have acknowledged that Virginia had a right to take the life which he had staked and lost; although it would have been better for her, in the hour that is fast coming, if she could generously have forgotten the criminality of his attempt in its enormous folly. On the other hand, any common-sensible man, looking at the matter unsentimentally, must have felt a certain intellectual satisfaction in seeing him hanged, if it were only in requital of his preposterous miscalculation of possibilities."

Whatever one may think of this as the truth of common-sense, its publication in the summer of 1862 in Massachusetts showed an impenetrable self-possession in the author, and it is doubtless true, as has been said, that no other Northern man could have written such an article as this, so disengaged from the realities, the passion and prejudices of the time, so cold in observation and so impartial in feeling, so free from any participation in the scene.

It was during the winter of this year and the spring of 1863 that Hawthorne renewed his literary work by contributing to "The Atlantic Monthly" the papers afterwards published as "Our Old Home." [Footnote: _Our Old Home_. A Series of English Sketches. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1863. 12mo. Pp. 398.] The contents of this volume have already been spoken of, and it need only be remarked here that some allowance may fairly be made for their tone and manner on the score of the depression of the time, arising from Hawthorne's increasing ill-health as well as from public confusion. The one memorable incident connected with the new book is the adherence of the author to his design of dedicating it to Franklin Pierce, to whom indeed it fitly belonged. Fields, however, was doubtful how the public would look on a compliment paid to the unpopular ex-President, and on communicating his views to Hawthorne he received this answer:--

"I thank you for your note of the 15th instant, and have delayed my reply thus long in order to ponder deeply on your advice, smoke cigars over it, and see what it might be possible for me to do towards taking it. I find that it would be a piece of poltroonery in me to withdraw either the dedication or the dedicatory letter. My long and intimate personal relations with Pierce render the dedication altogether proper, especially as regards this book, which would have had no existence without his kindness; and if he is so exceedingly unpopular that his name is enough to sink the volume, there is so much the more need that an old friend should stand by him. I cannot, merely on account of pecuniary profit or literary reputation, go back from what I have deliberately felt and thought it right to do; and if I were to tear out the dedication, I should never look at the volume again without remorse and shame. As for the literary public, it must accept my book precisely as I think fit to give it, or let it alone."

Hawthorne's decision was in the line of his character, and the dedication itself was in excellent taste.

The imaginative work of these last years was considerable in bulk, but it was never brought to any perfection; and though it has been published, the entire mass of it is only a bundle of more or less rough or uncompleted sketches and studies. It is comprised in the group of half-wrought tales, "The Ancestral Footstep," "Septimius Felton," "Dr. Grimshawe's Secret," and "The Dolliver Romance," which are all various shapes of the one work that Hawthorne was trying to evoke from his mind. They are interesting illustrations of the operation of his imagination, of his methods of thought, construction and elaboration, and in general of the manner in which a romance might grow under the hand; but there is little probability, so far as can be judged, that Hawthorne ever before worked in this experimental and ineffectual way. He had sketched an English romance "The Ancestral Foot-Step," in 1858, before his Italian experiences, and laid it aside. It was after his return to Concord that he again took up the scheme, and he attempted to join it with another plan involving a different idea. The four states in which the romance exists are the results of his various efforts, but in none of them is it anything more than inchoate. The idea on the English side of the story sprang from the imprint of a bloody footstep at the foot of the great staircase at Smithell's Hall; on the American side it sprang from a tradition which Thoreau reported about the Concord house, to the effect that a man had lived there in the Revolution who sought the elixir of life. But neither of these two topics developed satisfactorily. The physical type which had served Hawthorne so well hitherto no longer responded to his art; neither the bloody footstep, nor the flower that grew upon the grave, which was after all only a fungus and not the real flower of life, had any story in them, either alone or together, and the figure of Sylph, who embodies allegorically this graveyard flower, has no power to win credence such as other, earlier, symbolic characters had won. The power of narration, the rich surface of romantic art, the character of the physician and the child, the scene of the Revolutionary morning, the English chamber, the white-haired old man, the treasure chest with its secret of golden hair,--all these things are in one or another of these studies, and there is much loveliness of detail; but there is no vitality in any of these; that element of life which has been spoken of before, as the germinal power in Hawthorne's imaginative work, is gone; here are only relics and fragments, the costume and settings, the figures, the sentiment, the beauty of surface, the atmosphere of romance, but the story has refused to take life. Whether it was due to Hawthorne's failing powers or to inherent incapacities of the theme, is immaterial; he was not to finish this last work, and he knew it. He had gone so far as to give Fields the promise of "The Dolliver Romance," as if it were in that form that he meant to reduce the whole; but he did so with no confidence, as appears from his successive notes:--

"There is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. I linger at the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable phantoms to be encountered if I enter.... I don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the Romance ready as soon as you want it. There are two or three chapters ready to be written, but I am not robust enough to begin, and I feel as if I should never carry it through." And he writes again: "I am not quite up to writing yet, but shall make an effort as soon as I see any hope of success. You ought to be thankful that (like most other broken-down authors) I do not pester you with decrepit pages, and insist upon your accepting them as full of the old spirit and vigor. That trouble, perhaps, still awaits you, after I shall have reached a further stage of decay. Seriously, my mind has, for the present, lost its temper and its fine edge, and I have an instinct that I had better keep quiet. Perhaps I shall have a new spirit of vigor, if I wait quietly for it; perhaps not."

In February, 1864, he advises that some notice be given the readers of the magazine that he cannot furnish the promised romance, and he tries to touch the subject with humor, but it is too plain that his spirits are ill at ease:--

"I hardly know what to say to the public about this abortive romance, though I know pretty well what the case will be. I shall never finish it. Yet it is not quite pleasant for an author to announce himself, or to be announced, as finally broken down as to his literary faculty.... I cannot finish it unless a great change comes over me; and if I make too great an effort to do so, it will be my death; not that I should care much for that, if I could fight the battle through and win it, thus ending a life of much smoulder and a scanty fire in a blaze of glory. But I should smother myself in mud of my own making.... I am not low-spirited, nor fanciful, nor freakish, but look what seem to me realities in the face, and am ready to take whatever may come. If I could but go to England now, I think that the sea-voyage and the 'old Home' might set me all right."

At the end of March he started south with Ticknor, in hopes of some improvement by the change of air and scene; his companion, who was expected rather to have the care of Hawthorne, was himself taken ill and suddenly died in Philadelphia. The shock to Hawthorne in his state of health was a great one, and he returned home excited and nervous. He failed rapidly, and his family and friends became anxious about him, though they did not anticipate the suddenness of the end. In the middle of May Frank Pierce proposed that they should go to the New Hampshire lakes and up the Pemigewasset, by carriage, and Hawthorne consented. He bade his wife and children good-by, and was perhaps convinced that he would never return; whatever thoughts were in his mind, he kept silence concerning them. The narrative of the journey, with its end, is given by Pierce in a letter to Bridge:--

"I met H. at Boston, Wednesday (11th), came to this place by rail Thursday morning, and went to Concord, N. H., by evening train. The weather was unfavorable, and H. feeble; and we remained at C. until the following Monday. We then went slowly on our journey, stopping at Franklin, Laconia, and Centre Harbor, and reaching Plymouth Wednesday evening (18th). We talked of you, Tuesday, between Franklin and Laconia, when H. said--among other things--'We have, neither of us, met a more reliable friend.' The conviction was impressed upon me, the day we left Boston, that the seat of the disease from which H. was suffering was in the brain or spine, or both; H. walked with difficulty, and the use of his hands was impaired. In fact, on the 17th I saw that he was becoming quite helpless, although he was able to ride, and, I thought, more comfortable in the carriage with gentle motion than anywhere else; for whether in bed or up, he was very restless. I had decided, however, not to pursue our journey beyond Plymouth, which is a beautiful place, and thought, during our ride Wednesday, that I would the next day send for Mrs. Hawthorne and Una to join us there. Alas! there was no next day for our friend.

"We arrived at Plymouth about six o'clock. After taking a little tea and toast in his room, and sleeping for nearly an hour upon the sofa, he retired. A door opened from my room to his, and our beds were not more than five or six feet apart. I remained up an hour or two after he fell asleep. He was apparently less restless than the night before. The light was left burning in my room--the door open--and I could see him without moving from my bed. I went, however, between one and two o'clock to his bedside, and supposed him to be in a profound slumber. His eyes were closed, his position and face perfectly natural. His face was towards my bed. I awoke again between three and four o'clock, and was surprised--as he had generally been restless--to notice that his position was unchanged,--exactly the same that it was two hours before. I went to his bedside, placed my hand upon his forehead and temple, and found that he was dead. He evidently had passed from natural sleep to that sleep from which there is no waking, without suffering, and without the slightest movement."

The funeral took place at Concord on May 24, 1864, and he was buried in Sleepy Hollow; on his coffin lay his unfinished romance, and his friends stood about the open grave, for he was almost the first of the distinguished group to which he belonged to lay down the pen. Emerson and others whose names have been frequent in this record now lie with him in that secluded spot, which is a place of long memory for our literature. His wife survived him a few years and died in London in 1871; perhaps even more than his genius the sweetness of his home life with her, as it is so abundantly shown in his children's memories, lingers in the mind that has dwelt long on the story of his life.

INDEX

Advertisement, the tenth Muse. ∆sthetic Papers, Hawthorne's contributions to. Alcott, Amos Bronson. Aliston, Washington. American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, The, Hawthorne edits. American Monthly Magazine, The; Hawthorne's contributions to; Benjamin writes of Hawthorne in. Andrews, Ferdinand, a Salem printer. Androscoggin Loo Club. Annuals, contemporary opinion of. Arbella, the ship. Athenśum Society at Bowdoin College. Athenśum, The London, favorable notice of Hawthorne in. Atherton, Senator Charles G., meets Hawthorne. Atlantic Monthly, The, Hawthorne's contributions to. Atlantic Souvenir, The, Philadelphia. Augusta, Maine, Hawthorne visits Bridge at. Austin, William, so-called "American predecessor" of Hawthorne.

Bacon, Delia, Hawthorne's kindness to. Bancroft, George, appoints Hawthorne weigher and ganger in Boston Custom House; offers Hawthorne a clerkship in Charlestown Navy Yard. Benjamin, Park, recognizes Hawthorne's genius; coolness of Hawthorne toward. Bewick Company, The, Boston. Blithedale Romance, The, estimate of; external realism of. Blodgett, Mrs., with whom Hawthorne boarded at Liverpool. Boston American Stationers' Company. Boston Athenśum. Boston Miscellany, The, "A Virtuoso's Collection" published in. Bowditch family, the. Bowdoin College; simplicity of; Hawthorne's distinguished classmates in. Boys' and Girls' Magazine, The, Hawthorne's contributions to. Bradford, George P. Bradley, Rev. Caleb, Hawthorne tutored by. Bremer, Fredrika. Bridge, Horatio, Hawthorne's early confidant; Hawthorne's letters to, quoted; his friendship for; guarantees publication of "Twice-Told Tales"; again aids Hawthorne; Hawthorne assists in revising "Journal of an African Cruiser"; his "naval picnic," _note_; visits Hawthorne in Berkshire; "a reliable friend,". Bright, Henry, his "Song of Consul Hawthorne," Brook Farm; Hawthorne at; broken up. Brown, Charles Brockden, so-called "American predecessor" of Hawthorne. Brownings, the, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett. Bryant, William Cullen. Buchanan, James. Buckingham, Joseph Tinker. Barley, Miss Susan, of Salem.

Canterbury, Shaker Community in. Carlyle, Thomas, wherein Hawthorne resembled. Casa Bella, Hawthorne's residence in Florence. Chamber under the Eaves, the. Charming, Ellery. Channing, William Ellery. Choate, Rufus. Chorley, Henry F. Cilley, Jonathan, classmate of Hawthorne; elected to Congress; shot in a duel. Clark, S. Gaylord, editor Knickerbocker Magazine. Concord, Mass., Hawthorne moves to Old Manse in; literary work in; hard conditions of Hawthorne's life in; Hawthorne settles at The Wayside in. Cooper, James Fenimore. Custom House, Boston. Custom House, Salem, Hawthorne appointed surveyor; his sketch of; an antidote to Transcendentalism.

Democratic Review, The, Hawthorne's contributions to. Dewey, Rev. Orville. Dial, The, transcendental publication. Diary, Hawthorne's first, _note_. Dickens, Charles, his manner suggested in "House of the Seven Gables". Dike, Mrs. Priscilla Manning. Duyckinck, Evert Augustus. Dwight, Mrs. William (Eliza White).

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, his visit to Sophia Peabody; relations with Hawthorne. Everett, Edward.

FaŽrie Queene, The, Hawthorne's first book purchase. Fairfield, Senator John, meets Hawthorne at Portsmouth Navy Yard. Farley, Frank. Fesseuden, Thomas Green. Fields, James T., quoted; his wise suggestion; good advice; Hawthorne writes to, from MontaŁto; from Rome; regarding dedication to "Life of Franklin Pierce"; about "The Dolliver Romance". Fuller, Margaret, Hawthorne's hard judgment of.

Gardner family, the. Giddings family, the. Goodrich, Samuel Griswold, "Peter Parley"; his "Recollections," quoted; transactions with Hawthorne; Hawthorne's ungenerous view of. Graham's Magazine, Hawthorne's contributions to. Graves, William J., his duel with Jonathan Cilley. "Greenwood, Grace" (Sara Jane Lippincott), Hawthorne's comment on. Griswold, Rufus Wilmot.

Hathorne, family stock of. Hathorne, Daniel, of Revolutionary ballad fame. Hathorne, Judge John, of witchcraft memory. Hathorne, Joseph. Hathorne, William, emigrant planter. Hathorne, Nathaniel. Hawthorne, Elizabeth; her mental resemblance to Nathaniel; quoted; "an invisible entity,". Hawthorne, Julian; quoted. Hawthorne, Louisa; letter from Nathaniel to, quoted; no recluse; letters to Nathaniel quoted; death of. Hawthorne, Mrs., mother of Nathaniel; relations with her son; her solitary life; Elizabeth Peabody's description of; delight in her grandchildren; her home in Herbert Street; moves to Mall Street; death. Hawthorne, Nathaniel parentage; date of birth; life at Raymond, Me; returns to Salem; early reading; preparation for college; letters to his sisters and mother; considers choice of profession; enters Bowdoin College; youthful characteristics; excels in Latin and English; narrow circumstances; early friendships; changes spelling of his name; aspirations; manner of life in Salem; a born Solitary; drifts into authorship; choice of subjects; literary ventures; yearly journeys; basis of imaginative work; discouragement; first substantial gains; a close observer; editor of American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge; editorial difficulties; quarrels with Benjamin; his anonymity dispelled; Bridge guarantees publication of "Twice-Told Tales"; Goodrich's services to; reception of "Twice-Told Tales"; Pierce suggests South Sea Exploring Expedition; challenges a man to a duel; his solitude broken; meets Miss Sophia Peabody; is appointed weigher and gauger in Boston Custom House; bids farewell to Herbert Street; practical life wearies; his courtship; loses place in Boston Custom House; reasons for joining Brook Farm; life there; letter to Sophia Peabody; averse to literary society; barren years; marriage; Paradise in the Old Manse, Concord; Una's birth; straits for money; Bridge and Pierce assist; temperament and art analyzed; literary faculty; permanently influenced by Scott; prime qualities in his work; provincial note; primary element in genius; allegorizing temperament; vivid symbolism; his objectivity; a moralist; essentially an artist; capacity for idleness; his democracy; "obscurest man of letters in America,"; made surveyor of the port of Salem; his feeling for Salem; as a government official; literary revenge; gossip concerning; imagination languishes; Julian born; home happiness; dismissed from office; his resentment; his susceptibility; applies to Hillard; his mother's death; visited by Fields; a bitter experience, letter to Hillard; finishes "Scarlet Letter"; fame established; characteristics of his genius; stoicism; unsympathetic as an artist; farewell to Salem; family life in Berkshire; productive period; "House of the Seven Gables" written and published; power of realistic detail; marvelous art; no sympathy with reform; fatalistic trait; Rose born; delight in his children; his "spiritual sense of life"; narrow intellectual interests; temporary residence in West Newton; "Blithedale Romance" written; purchases "The Wayside"; objects to writing Pierce's "Life"; friendship for Pierce; an unsparing critic; accepts Liverpool consulate; life at Liverpool; notable official action; his opinion of philanthropy; kindly received in England; good after-dinner speaker; alien in England; excursions; competence secured; resigns consulate; life in Italy; its influence; begins "Marble Faun"; describes Villa MontaŁto; Una's illness; leaves Rome and finishes "Marble Faun"; height of his literary power; sensitive temperament; creative genius; defective technique; his fullest expression; returns to Concord; health fails; despairs of the Union; mental attitude in politics; last days;