The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

ut more like whist, in which the cards we hold represent our fortunes at the beginning, but the result of the game depends also on the skill wi

ave proved an unfavorable difference to the mind of a young man who was not greatly inclined to his studies; but Harvard College is only eighteen miles from Salem, and he could have returned to his home once a week if he had chosen to do so, and this is a decided moral and social advantage

smal and discouraging. Their class is a medley of strangers, their studies are a dry routine, and if they are not hazed by the Sophomores, they are at least

o through with before they are old enough to realize how disagreeable it is. It appears to have been a light attack, however, and in three weeks he was able to attend recitations again. He made no complaint of it, only writing

is mother, who is still at Sebago, that he is mightily pleased with it, and that it enables him "to cut a great d

awthorne's friends and associates during these four years of his app

one year at Bowdoin, and at that time there was not the same caste feeling between Sophomores and Freshmen-or at least very little of it-that has since arisen in American colleges. He was amiable and kindly, and possessed the rare gift of personal magnetism. Nature sometimes endows men and women with this quality in lieu of all other advantages, and such would seem to have been the case with Franklin Pierce. He was not much above the average in intellect, and, as Hawthorne afterward confessed, not particularly attractive in appearance; with a stiff military neck, features strong but small, and opaque gray

's friend, but the latter saw little of him and rarely heard from him after they had graduated. The one letter of his which has been

l some weeks later, but he proved to be the best friend of them all, and Hawthorne's most constant companion during the four years they remained tog

ght have felt an equal sympathy, with whom he could have matured a more enduring fellowship? It might have been a friendship like that of Beaumont and Fletcher, or, better still, like that of Goethe and Schiller,-but it was not written in the book of Fate. Longfellow also had tried his hand on the Sebago region, and was fond of the woods and of a gun; but he was too precocious to adapt himself easily to persons of his own age, o

BRIDGE. FROM THE PORT

an and the Athen?an, and the difference between them might be described by the words "citified" and "countrified," without taking either of those terms in an objectionable sense. Pierce was already a leading character in the Athen?an, and was soon followed by Cilley, Bridge and Hawt

f-hand sketches of Hawthorne, Pierce and Longfellow are invaluable. Never has such a group o

ait of him as a lad is extant. On one occasion, in our senior years, the class wished to have their profiles cut in silhouette by a wandering artist of the scissors, and interchanged by all the thirty-eight. Hawthorne disapproved the proposed plan, and steadily r

ved. A fashionable boy of the present day might have seen something to amuse him in the new student's appearance; but had he indicated this he would have rued it, for Haw

was carried too far. After bearing it awhile, Hawthorne singled out the one among us who had the reputation of being the best pugilist, and in a few words quietly told him that he would not permit the

r youth, for his whole figure was in keeping with the structure of his head. It is more likely that he had a spare figure. Persons of a lively imagination have always been apt to hold their heads on o

fellow precisely wh

lads on first leaving the salutary restraints of home. He was diligent, conscientious, and most attentive to all his college duties, whether in the recitation-

r, the vigorous anti-slavery preacher, were members of this class. Three others, Cilley, Benson and Sawtelle, were afterward members of the Un

the close of his second year he found himself at the very foot of the rank list. The fact became known through the college, and Pierce was so chagrined that he concluded to withdraw from Bowdoin altogether, and it was only by the urgent persuasion of his friends that he was induced to continue his course. "If I remain, however," he said, "you will witness a change in me." For months together he burned midnight oil in order to recover lost ground. During his last two years at co

aring, active, and always bright and cheerful. In character he was impulsive, not rash; generous, not lavish; c

d proficiency; but he was slow in mathematics, as artistic minds usually are, and in his other studies he only exerted himself sufficiently to pass his examinations in a creditable manner. We may presume that he took the juice and left the rind; which was the sensible thing to do. As might be expected, his themes and forensics were beautifully written, although the arguments in them were not always logical; but it is significant that he never could be prevailed upon to make a declamation. There have been sensitive men, like Sumner and George W. Curtis, who were not at all afraid of the platform, but they

e trout-brooks in the neighborhood, and formerly the woods of Maine were traversed by vast flocks of passenger pigeons, which with the large gray squirrels afforded excellent shooting. How skilful Hawthorne became with his fowling-piece we have not been informed, but it is evident from passages

larger stream. This was the Paradise Spring, which deserves much more than its present celebrity for the absolute purity of its waters. Of

to linger for hours to watch the giant pine-logs (for there were giants in those days) from the far-off forests, floating by hundr

to their good entertainment. The old crone knew her business well, especially the art of giving sufficient variety of detail to the same old story. For a nine-pence she would predict a beautiful blond wife for Hawthorne, and an equally handsome dark-complexioned one for Bridge. Riches were of course thrown in by the handful; and Bridge remarks that al

d of reckless ebullition. Punch-bowl societies exist in all our colleges, and many who disapprove of them join them for the sake of popularity. Hawthorne may have been as grave and well-behaved on these occasions as he was customarily. We have Bridge's word for this; and the matter would hardly be worth mentioning if it had not led to more serious proceedings. May 29, 1822, President Allen wrote to Mrs. Hathorne at Salem that her son had been fined fifty c

K, May 30

lieve the President intends to write to the friends of all the delinquents. Should that be the case, you must show the letter to nobody. If I am again detected, I shall have the honor of being suspended. When the President asked what we played for, I thought it proper to inform him it was fifty cents, although it happened to

vior. Some of the others were not so fortunate. One young man, whose name is properly withheld from us, was expelled from the institution. He was supposed to have been the ringleader in this dubious business, but Hawthorne manfully resented

oung men write under similar conditions. At the age when it is so difficult to decide whether we have become men or are still boys, all our actions partake of a similar uncertainty, an

is, it seems as if Jonathan Cilley made rather a hazardous wager with Hawthorne, before leaving Bowdoin,-a wager of a cask of Madeira, that Hawthorne would become a married man within the next twelve years. Papers to that effect were duly signed by the respective parties, sealed, and delivered for safe-keeping to Horatio Bridge, who preserved them faithful

frontier interest included all the unsettled and continually shifting elements in the country, so that Jackson had nearly as strong a support in the East as in the West. Bridge says, "We were all enthusiastic supporters of old Hickory." It was evidently Pierce who led them into this, and although it proved in a material sense fo

class of thirty-eight, but this was not sufficient to give him a part in the commencement exercises. {Footnote: The President informed him that his rank in the class would have entitled him to a part if it had not been for his neglect of declamations; and Hawthorne wrote to his mother that he was perfectly satisfied with this, for it

d him in this manner long after he had graduated. His degree was made out in the name

unities for education in former times, while our greatly improved universities have not graduated an orator like Webster, a poet like L

y; and every man has to find his place in some machine or other, or he is thrown out of line. Individual effort, as well as independence of thought and action, is everywhere frowned upon; but without freedom of thought and action there can be no great individualities, which is the same as saying that there can be no poets like Longfellow, or writers like Hawthorne and Emerson. Spontaneity is the l