The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

airs. Soon after breakfast, Mrs. Hawthorne espied them coming through the gateway. She had never met Pierce, but she recognized Bridge's tall, elegant figure, when he waved his hat t

eting of old friends. Mrs. Hawthorne was favorably impressed with Franklin Pierce's personality; while Horatio Bridge danced about and acted an impromptu pant

for the President's better information. George Bancroft was now in the Cabinet, and could easily have obtained a lucrative post for Hawthorne, but it is plain that Bancroft was not over-friendly to him and that Hawthorne was fully aware of this. Hawthorne had suggested the Salem postmastership, but when O'Sullivan mentioned this, Bancroft objected on the gro

ert Manning's house in Salem, where he could always count on a warm welcome. There he spent the winter with his wife and child, u

by the importers or by his own subordinates; and it required a pretty sharp eye to do this. All the appointments, even to his own clerks, were made by outside politicians, and when a reduction of employees was necessary, Hawthorne consulted with the local Democratic Committee, and followed their advice. Such a method was not to the advantage of the public service, but it saved Hawthorne from an annoying

HAWTHORNE WAS EMPLOYED AS SURVEYOR OF THE FORT OF S

er season, and then crawled out during the warm days of spring to draw their pay and perform those pretended duties, for which they were engaged." There were formerly large numbers of moss-grown loafers in the government service, with whiskey-reddened noses and greasy old clothing, who would sun themselves on the door-steps, and tell a

with her own mother during her confinement. {Footnote: At the age of thirty-five, Julian resembled his father so closely that Nathaniel Hawthorne's old friends were sometimes startled by him, as if they had seen an apparition.

es and dinners occasionally. Dr. Loring's wife was her cousin. Other friends were the Misses Howes, one of whom is now Mrs. Cabot of Boston. Mrs. Foote, who was a daughter of Judge White, was a friend, and I remember some Silsbees who were also her friends. Hawthorne's wi

strumental in bringing Webster to Salem,-where he had not been popular since the trial of the two Knapps,-to deliver an oratio

referred to those persons who cried out, 'Down with the Constitution

ered by the Southern rebellion,-much less by the small band of origin

to affect Hawthorne's political views, except to encourage him in the direction to which he had always tended. Four years earlier, Doctor Loring had been on cordial terms with Longfellow and Sumner, being a refined and intellectual sort of man, but like Hillard, had withdrawn from them on account of political differences. He was an able public speaker, and became a Democratic politician, unt

ife. He invited him to Lenox when he resided there, and Mrs. Lathrop recollects seeing him at the Wayside in Concord, after Hawthorne's return from Europe. She discribes him as a "short, sturdy, phlegmati

ooked upon the invasion of Mexico as a piratical attempt of the Democratic leaders to secure the permanent ascendency of their party, and this was probably the true reason for Franklin Pierce's joining it. In their eyes, Hawthorne was the representative of a corrupt administration, and they would have been more than human if they had not wished him to feel this. The Salem gentry could not draw him into an argument very well, but they could look daggers at him on the street and exhibit their coldness toward him when they went on business to the Custom House. It is evident that he was made to suffer in some such manne

et Letter" was written. Hawthorne's study or workshop was the front room in the third story, an apartment of some width but with a ceiling in direct contradiction to the elevated thoughts of the writer. There is an ominous silence in the American Note-book between 1846 and 1850, which is rather increased than diminished by the publication from his diary of a number o

Mrs. Hawthorne w

to Him through love, all other submission will follow with heavenly effect upon the character. God never

elf was not troubled with such fancies. Alcott, who was his nearest neighbor at the Wayside, once remarked that there was only one will in the Hawthorne family, and that was Nathaniel's. His will was law and no one thought of disputing i

ion of military glory is one of their Gallic traits. It happened that the two highest positions in the army were both held by Whig generals, and the victory of Buena Vista carried Zachary Taylor into the White House, in spite of the opposition of Webster and Clay, as

n the general out-turning, as a distinguished writer and an inoffensive partisan, and this indicates how loath he was to relinquish his comfortable position. Let us place ourselves in his situation and we shall not wonder at it. He

s in a somewhat similar predicament. At this time Elizabeth Peabody was keeping a small foreign book-store in a room of her father's house

er, that is always likely to be m

an those of my Democratic brethren; but who can see an inch into

nce. He was not relieved from duty until June 14, 1849; that is, he was given a hundred days of grace, which is much more than officeholders commonly are favored with, in such cases. We may consider it morally certain that Hillard did what he could in Hawthorne's behalf. He was well acquainted with Webster

oo widely credited. The most important of these-for it has seriously compromised a number of Salem gentlemen-was never explained until the publication of Mrs.

zines and newspapers!" So it appears that the gutta-percha formula {Footnote: By which eighty-eight per cent, of the classified service were removed.} of President Cleveland in regard to "offensive partisanship" was really invented forty years before his time, and had as much value in one case as in the other. It is possible that such a document as Mrs. Hawthorne describes was circulated, signed, and sent to Washington, to make the way easy for President Taylor's advisers, and if so it was a highly contemptible proceeding; but the statement rests wholly on the affirmation of a single witness, whose name has al

chief clerk as to what it might be best to do, and they agreed upon suspending two of the supervisors who might suffer less from it than some others. As it happened, the Department considered Hawthorne's report favorably, and no suspension took place; but his clerk betrayed the secret to the two men concerned, who hated Hawthorne in consequence, and afterward c

There were, however, several old shipmasters in the Salem Custom House who had seen Calcutta, Canton, and even a hurricane or two; men who had lived close to reality, with a vein of true heroism in them, moreover; and if Hawthorne preferred their conversation to that of the shipowners, who had spent their lives in calculating the profits of commercial adventures, there

I will earn bread for us with my pencil and paint-brush." {Footnote: Mrs. George S. Hillard.} Besides this, she brought forward two or three hundred dollars, which she had saved from his salary unbeknown to him; but who would not have been encouraged by

, etc., it could not come at a better time. Perhaps Epes Sargent, who is a friend of mine, would know of something. I shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of its

nothing more simply pathetic than this,-that an immortal writer should feel obliged to apply for a subordinate position in a counting-room, a description of wor

-eloquent manner. But we do not hear of him again until the new year. Meanwhile Madam Hawthorne fell into her last illness and departed this life on July 31; a solemn event even to a hard-hearted son-how much more to such a man as she had brought into the wor

om a few of his Boston admirers. It was only from such a good friend as Hillard that Hawthorne would have accepted assistance in this form; but he always considered it in the character of a loan, and afterward insisted on repaying it to the original subscribers,-Professor Ticknor, Judge Curtis, and others. Hillard also persuaded James T. Fields, the younger partner of Ticknor & Company, to take an interest in Hawthorne as an author who required to be encouraged, and perhaps coaxed a little, in order to bring out the best that was in him. Fields accordingly went to Salem soon afterward, and has given an account of his first interview with Hawthorne in "Yesterdays with Authors," which seems rather melodramatic: "found him cowering ov

or the romance to be finished, but sent it to the press at

s at Boston, while the other was in my head here at Salem; so

s taken up within a month, and after this Hawthorne suffered no more financial embarrassments. The succeeding twelve years of his life were as prosperous and cheerful as his frie

CARLET

y comic description of the Puritan penitentiary,-in the public square,-where, among others, a good-looking young woman was exposed with a red letter A on her breast, which she had embroidered herself, so elegantly that it seemed as if it was

thence to the common Gaol, to be Scourged not exceeding Forty Stripes. And forever after to wear a Capital A of two inches long, of a contrary colour to their cloathes, sewed on their

aditions, as poets and painters always have done, and the manuscript which he pretends to have discovered in his office at the Custom House, written by one of his predecessors there, is a piece of pure imagination, which serves to give additional credibility to his narrative. He knew well enough how large a portion of what is called history is fiction after all, and the

ilization. Was it through a natural attraction for the primeval granite that they landed on the New England coast? Their severe self-discipline was certainly well adapted to their situation, but, while it built up their social edifice on an enduring foundation, its

gone off on a wild expedition in pursuit of objects which he evidently cares for, more than for his wife. She has not heard from him for over a year, and knows not whether he has deserted her, or if he is no longer living. She is alone in a strange wild country, and it is natural that she should seek counsel and encouragement from the young clergyman, who is

ife. There are certain highly improbable circumstances woven in the tissue of "The Vicar of Wakefield," which a prudent, reflective reader finds it difficult to surmount. It is rather surprising that the Vicar should not have discovered the true social position of his friend Mr. Burchell, which must have been known to every farmer in the vicinity; and still more so that Mr. Burchell should have permitted the father of a young woman in whom he was deeply interested, to be carried to prison for debt

s not collapse into a pitiful nonentity, like Scott's Effie Deans, nor is she maddened to crime like George Eliot's "Hetty Sorrel"; {Footnote: A name apparently compounded from Hester Prynne and Schiller's Agnes Sorrel.} but from the outset she forms definite resolutions,-first to rehabilitate her own character, and next to protect the partner of her shame. This last may seem to be a mistaken devotion, and contrary to his true interest, for th

r sense of purity; and it is very difficult to persuade a woman that she could be wrong in obeying the dictates of her heart. Hester perceives that her former lover is being tortured to death by the silent tyranny of Chillingworth; the tide of affection so long restrained flows back into her soul; and her own reputation is as nothing compared with the life of the man she hopes to save. There

nessed one of the noblest of women uniting herself, for life and death, to a man whom she could not marry on account of purely legal objections. Whe

ence; but do we not all live in a continual state of sinning, and self-correction? That is the road to self-improvement, and those who adhere most closely to inflexible rules of conduct discover at length that the rules themselves have become an evil. Manki

re communication between man and the domestic animals than between animals of the same species. The understanding between an Arab and his horse is almost perfect, and so is that between a sportsman and his setters. Even the sluggish ox knows the word of command. Then what shall we say of the sympathetic relation between a mother and her child? Who can describe it-that clairvoyant sensibility, intangible, too swift for words? Wh

man himself, although tongues were not wanting to blame Hawthorne for it. Who Hester may have been still remains a mystery; but it was evidently some one with whom the author was well acquainted,-perhaps his younger sister. So Rubens painted his own wife at one time an angel, and at another in the likeness of Herodias. It is still more probable that Pearl is a picture of Hawthorne's own daughter, who was of the right age for such a study, and whose sprightly, fitful, and impulsive actions corre

found, for the least self-consciousness spoils the effect. Hawthorne in this only followed the example of the best authors and dramatists; and those who