The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

ich one peculiarity was, that under certain conditions, whoever held the lowest hand would win the count. This was called "Little Misery," and this was the k

ctful persons, very difficult to instruct. Undoubtedly there are many such, but the innocent have to suffer with the guilty. It is natural that a man who has not had a liberal education should object to employing a subordinate who knows Latin and Greek. Whether Hawthorne's Uncle Robert, who had thus far proved to be his guardian genius, would have educated him for a profession, we have no means of knowing. This would mean of course a partial support for years af

ven." One of these is said to have been based on the witchcraft delusion, and it is a pity that it should not have been preserved, but their feminine titles afford no indication of their character. He carried them to a publisher, who received him politely and promised to examine them, but one month passed after another without Hawthorne's heari

but here again he was destined to meet with a rebuff. After tendering it to a number of publishers without encouragement, he concluded to take the risk of publishing

er" ever produced such enthusiasm. It is quite as difficult to see why "Fanshawe" should not have proved a success. It lacks the grace and dignity of Hawthorne's mature style, but it has an ingenious plot, a lively action, and is written in sufficiently good English. One would suppose that its faults would have helped to make it popular, for portions of it are so exciting as to border closely on the sensational. It may be affirmed that when a novel becomes so exciting that we wish to turn over the pages and anticipate the conclusion, eithe

er against him, might have been characteristic of the Middle Ages, but is certainly not of modern life. Bowdoin College evidently served Hawthorne as a background to his plot, although removed some distance into the country, and it is likely that the portrait of the kindly professor might have been recognized there. Ward's Tavern serves for the public-hou

ved. Yet the scene in which he makes his noble renunciation of the woman who is devoted to him, purely from a sense of gratitude, is finely and tende

s family and fellow-citizens acquiesced in this, it became an established fact. His living relatives in the Manning family are unable to explain his reason for it. It may have been for the sake of euphony, or he may have had a fanciful notion, that s

llege associates, and they were all at a distance,-Pierce and Cilley both flourishing young lawyers, one at Concord, New Hampshire, and the other at Thomaston, Maine,-while Longfellow was teaching modern languages at Bowdoin. He had no lady friends to brighten his evenings for him, and if he went into society, it was only to be stared at for his personal beauty, like a jaguar in a menagerie. He had no fund of the small conversation which serves like oil to make the social machinery run smoothly. Like all deep natures, he found it difficult to

ainted, and he could people his room with forms from his own fancy, much more real to him than the palpable ignota whom he passed in the street. Beautiful visions came to him, instead of sermonizing ladies, patronizing money-changers, aggressive

has often been quoted; but it will have to be quoted again, for it cannot be

ly for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all,-at least, till I were in my grave. And sometimes it seemed as if I were already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled and benumbed. But oftener I was happy,-at least as happy as I then knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of being. By and by, the world found me out in my lonely chamber, and called me forth,-not indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, but rather with a still, small voice,-and forth I went, but

troubles and difficulties to Bridge, as he would to an elder brother. Bridge finally destroyed Hawthorne's letters, not so much on account of their complaining tone as for the personalities they contained; {Footnote: Horatio Bridge, 69.} and this suggests to us that there was stil

eir pens; both were assisted by most devoted friends, and both finally achieved a reputation among the highest in their own time. If there is sometimes a melancholy tinge in their writings, may we wonder at it? Pericles said, "We need the theatre to chase away the sadness of life," and it migh

ing never hurt him then, and he liked good things. In summer he ate something equivalent, finishing with fruit in the season of it. In the evening we discussed political affairs, upon which we differed in opinion; he being a Democrat, and I of the opposite party. I

tatement is that Hawthorne was in the habit of taking solitary rambles after dark,-an owlish practice, but very attractive to romantic minds. Human nature appears in a more pictorial guise by lamplight, after the day's work is over. The group

Cilley

in a mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never p

ation called the Token, who was himself better known in those days under the nom de plume of "Peter Parley." "The Wives of the Dead," "Roger Malvin's Burial," and "Major Molineaux" soon followed. In 1833 he published the "Seven Vagabonds," and some others. The New York Knickerbocker published the "Fountain of Youth" and "Edward Fayne's Rosebud." After 1833 the Token and the New England M

io, and Niagara Falls, in 1832, raised Hawthorne's spirits and stimulated

ford's house, and climbing Mt. Washington. I have not decided as to my future course. I

he describes in his story of "The Ambitious Guest," must have been in his own experience, and as he passed the monument of the ill-fated Willey family he may have thought th

their uncertainty of remuneration reacted on the contributors. Hawthorne was poorly paid, often obliged to wait a long time for his pay, and occasionally lost it altogether. For his story of "The Gentle Boy," one of the gems of literature, w

abstracts for his pitiful Peter Parley books, paying him a hundred dollars for the whole work, and securing for himself all the credit that appertained to it. Every

ability to make it,-which he probably knew or intended beforehand. Then, with true metropolitan assurance, he begged of Hawthorne the use of certain unpubli

from a penniless writer material incomparably better than any

rmed; neither do we know what Bridge replied to Hawthorne, who had closed his letter

d the knowledge of business and the self-assertion necessary to obtain even the modera

a magazine is wholly at his mercy, so far as that small piece of property is concerned. The author cannot make a bargain with the editor as he can with the publisher of his book, and is obliged to accept whatever the latter chooses to give him. Instances have been k

e to him on Chr

years; which, if you had improved by publishing, would long ago have given you

le. In the phraseology of Sir William Hamilton, the two vocations are "non-compossible." Bridge himself was undertaking a grandly unpractical project about this time: nothing less than an attempt to dam the Androscoggin, a river liable to devastating floods; and in this enterprise he was obliged

notice this paragraph conce

th no very remarkable talents, he at the age of thirty-four fills one of the highest stations in

in high positions so easily; and he continued to do this, although he had not distinguished himself particularly as a member of Congress, and h

ich they had made at college twelve years before. Bridge accordingly examined the documents which they had depo

144.} It is familiar and jocose, without being either witty or friendly, and he gives no intimation in i

ion of paying promptly; and if a bet grows old it grows cold. He wished me to propose to you to have it paid at Brunswick next Commencement, and to have as many of our classmates as cou

ately intending to do nothing. He was running for Congress at the time on the Van Buren ticket, and it is quite likely that the expen

dollars; {Footnote: Conway, 45.}but he soon discovered that he had embarked on a ship with a rotten hulk. He started off heroically, writing the whole of the first number with the help of his sister Elizabeth; but by midsummer the concern was ban

cles under an assumed name. He accordingly wrote to Goodrich-fortunately before his mill-dam gave way-suggesting the publication of a volume of Hawthorne's stories, and offered to guarantee the publisher against loss. This proposition was readily accepted, but Bridge might have made a much better bargain. What it amounted to was, the half-profit system without the half-profit. The necessary papers were exchanged and Hawtho

making a favorable arrangement with a man of capital who would edit the book; but Bridge did not know this, and he susp

aware that he has taken a good deal of interest in you, but when did he ever do anything for you without a quid pro quo? The magazine was given to you for $100 less than

e from the press the following spring, and proved an immediate success, although not a highly lucrative one for its author. With the help of Lon

give it his support, and there can be no doubt that they would have succeeded in obtaining the position for Hawthorne, but the expedition itself failed, for lack of a Congressional appropriation. The following year, 1838, the project was again brought forward by the administration, and Congress being in a more

of American, English and Italian note-books. In it we find records of what he saw and thought; descriptive passages, afterward made serviceable in his works of fiction, and perhaps written with that object in view; fanciful notions, jotted down on the impulse of the mom

, is only indigenous to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, and to a small lake near Augusta.} and was greatly entertained with the peculiarities of an idiomatic Frenchman, an itinerant teacher of that language, whom Bridge, in

h man by his manageable point, and using him for his own purpose, often without the man's suspecting that he is made a tool of; and yet, artificial as his character would seem to be, his conversation, at least to myself, was full of natural feeling, the expression of which can hardly be mistaken, and his revelations with regard to himself had really a great deal of frankness. A man of the most open nature might well have been more reserved to a friend, after twelve years separation, than -- was to me. Nevertheless, he is really a crafty man, concealing, like a murder

use of were concerned. He did not, however, prove to be as skilful a diplomat as Hawthorne seems to have supposed him. The duel between Cilley and Gra

quickly proved his ability in debate, attempted to set a back-fire by accusing Watson Webb, the editor of the Courier and Enquirer, of having been bribed to change the politics of his paper. The true facts of the case were, that the paper had been purchased by the Whigs, and Webb, of course, had a right to change his politics if he chose to; and the net r

knowledge that General Webb was a gentleman, and in consequence of this he received a second challenge the next day from Graves, brought by Henry A. Wise,

ble to prevent outbursts of temper, especially in hot climates, and a man's wife and children should also be considered. Andrew Jackson said at the clo

of his old acquaintance, which was published in the Democra

ief-that he threw away such a life in so miserable a cause! Why, as he was true to the Northern character

n connection with a somewhat similar i

him little credit if it could be proved,-a story that he challenged one of his friends to a duel,

ique of hers. He went to Washington for the purpose of challenging the gentleman, and it was only after ample explanation had been made, showing that his fr

ession that the affair took place about 1830, whereas Pierce and Cilley were not in Washington together till five or six years later-probably seven years later. Moreover, Hawthorne states in a letter to

d especially the reserved and modest Hawthorne? One can even imagine the aspect of horror on his face at such an unlady-like proceeding. The story would be an ignominious one for Hawthorne, if it were credible, but there is no occasion for