Memories of Hawthorne Part 28

A friend of Mr. Bright's pardons my father's unfeeling indifference by a request:--

WALTHAM HOUSE, WALTHAM CROSS, August 10, 1861.

DEAR MR. HAWTHORNE,--Am I not showing my Christian charity when, in spite of the terrible disappointment which I felt at your broken promise to come with Bright to smoke a cigar with me about this time last year, I entreat you, in greeting Mr. Anthony Trollope, who with his wife is about to visit America, to give him an extra welcome and shake of the hand, for the sake of yours most sincerely and respectfully,

W. W. SYNGE.

I will quote two letters from Mr. Chorley, written before we left England, to show that even writers and friends there could be a trifle irksome in comment. My mother amused me sometimes by telling me how she had written warringly to this noted critic (a cherished acquaintance), when he had printed a disquisition upon "Monte Beni"

which did not hit the bull's-eye. But the last supplementary chapter in the Romance was due to his fainting desire for more revelation,--a chapter which my father and mother looked upon as entirely useless, and British.

13 EATON PLACE, WEST, March 6, '60.

DEAR MRS. HAWTHORNE,--I cannot but affectionately thank you for your remembrance of me, and your patience with my note.--If I do not return on my own critical fancies about the "Romance" (and pray, recollect, I am the last who would a.s.sume that critics wear a mail celestial, and as such can do no wrong)--it may be from some knowledge, that those who have lived with a work while it is growing--and those who greet it, when it is born, complete into life,--cannot see with the same eyes. I don't think, if we three sate together, and could talk the whole dream out, a matter, by the way, hardly possible, we should have so much difference as you fancy--so much did I enjoy, and so deeply was I stirred by the book, that (let alone past a.s.sociations and predilections) I neither read, nor wrote (meant to write, that is) in a caviling spirit: but that which simply and clearly seemed to present itself in regard to a book which had possessed me (for better for worse) in no common degree--by one on whom (I think is known) I set no common store.--If I have seemed to yourselves hasty or superficial or flippant--all I can say is, such was not my meaning.--Surely the best things can bear the closest looking at,--whether as regards beauty or blemish.--

I repeat that, while I thank you affectionately for the trouble you have taken to expostulate with my frowardness (if so it be)--I am just as much concerned if what was printed gave any pain. But, when I look again (I have been interrupted twenty times since I began this)--did I not say that Hilda was "cousin"--that is, family likeness, not ident.i.ty--though it means, what I meant, the same sort of light of purity and grace, and redemption let into a maze, through somewhat the same sort of c.h.i.n.k.--I totally resist any idea of mannerism, dear friend Hawthorne,--on your part,--and as to the story growing on you, as you grow into it: well, I dare' say that has happened ere this:--the best creations have come by chance: and if Hawthorne did not mean to excite an interest when he wanted merely to make a Roman idyl, why did we go into those Catacombs?--

Might I say (like Moliere's old woman) how earnestly I desire, that for a second edition, a few more openings of the door should be added to the story--towards its close?

You have been so kind in bearing with me,--in coming to me when in London,--and in remembering the nothing I could do here to make you welcome, as I fancied you might like best to be welcomed,--that I venture to send you this letter out of my heart,--and if there be nonsense in it, or what may seem spectacled critical pedantry, I must trust to your good nature to allow for them.

Won't you come to town again? and wont you eat another cosy dinner at my table?--And pray, dear friend Hawthorne, don't be so long again:--and pray, once for all, recollect that you have no more faithful nor real literary friend (perhaps, too, in other ways might I show it) Than yours as always,

HENRY N. CHORLEY.

P. S. This is a sort of salad note, written both to "He" and "She" (as they said in old duetts)--once again, excuse every incoherence. I am still very ill--and have all the day been interrupted.

13 EATON PLACE, WEST, March 10, '60.

DEAR MRS. HAWTHORNE,--I a.s.sure you I feel the good nature not to be on my side of the treaty. It is not common for a critic to get any kind construction, or to be credited with anything save a desire to show ingenuity, no matter whether just or unjust.--Most deeply, too, do I feel the honor of having a suggestion such as mine adopted,--I thought when my letter had gone that I had written in a strange, random humor, and that had I got a "Mind your own business" sort of answer, it was no more than such unasked-for meddling might expect. I am glad with all my heart at what you tell me about the success of the tale. But we really will not wait so long for number five?

To-day's train takes you my Italian story:--I had every trouble in the world to find a publisher for it: having the gift of no-success in a very remarkable degree. The dedication tells its own story. It was begun in 1848:--and ended not before the Italian war broke out.--Some of my few readers (within a dozen) are aggrieved at my having only told part of the story of Italian patriotism.--I meant it merely as a picture of manners: and have seen too much of the cla.s.s "refugee," not to have felt how they have as a cla.s.s r.e.t.a.r.ded, not aided, the cause of real freedom and high morals. I should have sent it before, but I always feel, like Teresa Panza, when she sent acorns to the d.u.c.h.ess.

You will come to town, and eat in my quiet corner before you go, I know:--Perhaps, I may call on you at Easter: as there is just a chance of my being at Birmingham.

There is an old house, Compton Wingates, that I very much want to see.

Has Hawthorne seen it?

Once more thank you affectionately,--these sort of pa.s.sages are among the very few set-offs to the difficulties of a harsh life and all ungracious career. My seeing you face to face was, I a.s.sure you, one of my best pleasures in 1859. Ever yours faithfully,

HENRY N. CHORLEY.

Hawthorne had returned, for the purpose of cherishing American loyalty in his children, from a scene that was after his own heart, even to the actors in it. He had hoped for quietude and the inimitable flavor of home, of course; but this hope was chiefly a self-persuasion. The t.i.tle of his first book after returning, "Our Old Home," was a concise confession. He would have considered it a base resource to live abroad during the war, bringing up his son in an alien land, however dear and related it might be to our bone and sinew; and if his children did not enjoy the American phase of the universe in its crude stage, he, at any rate, had done his best to make them love it. His loyalty was always something flawless. A friend might treat him with the grossest dishonor, but he would let you think he was himself deficient in perception or in a proper regard for his money before he would let you guess that his friend should be denounced. With loyal love, he had, for his part, wound about New England the purple haze of which Dr.

Holmes spoke in ecstasy, because he had found his country standing only half appreciated, though with a wealth of virtue and meaning that makes her fairer every year. With love, also, he came home, after having barely tasted the delights of London and Oxford completeness.

In Concord he entered upon a long renunciation. Of necessity this was beneficial to his art. He was now fully primed with observation, and "The Dolliver Romance," hammered out from several beginnings that he successively cast aside, appeared so exquisitely pure and fine because of the hush of fasting and reflection which environed the worker. It is the unfailing history of great souls that they seem to destroy themselves most in relation to the world's happiness when they most deserve and acquire a better reward. He was starving, but he steadily wrote. He was weary of the pinched and unpromising condition of our daily life, but he smiled, and entertained us and guided us with unflagging manliness, though with longer and longer intervals of wordless reserve. I was never afraid to run to him for his sympathy, as he sat reading in an easy-chair, in some one of those positions of his which looked as if he could so sit and peruse till the end of time. I knew that his response would be so cordially given that it would brim over me, and so melodiously that it would echo in my heart for a great while; yet it would be as brief as the single murmurous stroke of one from a cathedral tower, half startling by its intensity, but which attracts the birds, who wing by preference to that lofty spot. A source of deep enjoyment to my father was a long visit from his sister, Ebie Hawthorne (he having given her that pretty t.i.tle instead of any other abbreviation of Elizabeth). I came to know her very well in after-years, and was astonished at her magic resemblance to my father in many ways. I always felt her unmistakable power. She was chock-full of worldly wisdom, though living in the utmost monastic retirement, only allowing herself to browse in two wide regions,--the woods and literature. She knew the latest news from the papers, and the oldest cla.s.sics alongside of them. She was potentially, we thought, rather hazardous, or perverse. But language refuses to explain her. Her brother seemed not to dream of this, yet no doubt relished the fact that a nature as unique as any he had drawn sparkled in his sister. She was a good deal unspiritual in everything; but all besides in her was fine mind, wisdom, and loving-kindness of a lazy, artistic sort. That is to say, she was unregenerate, but excellent; and she fascinated like a wood-creature seldom seen and observant, refined and untrained. My sister was devoted to her, and says, for the hundredth time, in a pa.s.sage among many pages of their correspondence bequeathed to me:--

My OWN DEAR AUNTIE,--I was made very happy by your letter this week.

What perfectly charming letters you write! Now, don't laugh and say I am talking nonsense; it is really true. You make the simplest things interesting by your way of telling them; and your observations and humor are so keen that I often feel sorry the world does not know something of them. I never remember you to have told me anything twice, and that can be said of very few people; but there are few enough people in the least like you, my dearest auntie. . . .

Aunt Ebie did not look romantic, or, exactly mysterious, as I first saw her. But she puzzled me splendidly nevertheless. She was knitting some very heavy blue socks in our library, and her needles were extremely large and shining. I do not know why she had undertaken this prosaic occupation. Everybody was, to be sure, knitting socks for the soldiers at that time; but somehow aunt Ebie did not strike me as absolutely benevolent, and I doubt if she would have labored very eagerly for a soldier whom she had never seen. She desired to teach me to knit; and, as I was really afraid of her, I pretended to be anxious to learn.

I had been told that it was almost an impossibility to get her to travel even a few miles; that the excitement of change and crowds, and danger from steam and horse, made her extremely tremulous and wretched. I was the more impressed by these quavers in her because I also knew that she had sufficient strength of character to upset a kingdom, if she chose; that she could use a sceptre of keen sarcasm which made heads roll off on all sides; that there was nothing which her large, l.u.s.trous eyes could not see, and nothing they could not conceal. To think, then, that she trembled beside a steam-engine made her a problem.

She wore a quaintly round dress of lightish-brown mohair, which would not fall into graceful folds. So there she sat in the little library, knitting t.i.tanically; and I sat alone with her, learning to round Hatteras at the heel in a swirl of contradictory impressions. I felt that she ought to have been dressed in soft dark silks, with a large, half-idle fan before her lips.

She quickly saw that I was a miniature mystery/ myself, and presently got me out into the woods. Here I came into contact with her for the first time.

She stepped along under the trees with great deliberation, holding up the inflexible mohair skirt as if it could tear on brambles or in gales, and looking around quickly and ardently at the sound of a bird-note or the glance of a squirrel-leap; her great eyes peering for a moment from their widely opened lids, and then disappearing utterly again under those white veils. Her dark brown, long lashes and broadly sweeping eyebrows were distinct against the pallor of her skin, which was so delicately clear, yet vigorous, that I felt its gleam as one feels the moon, even if I were not looking directly at her. By and by her cheeks took on a dawn-flush of beautiful pink. The perfection of her health was shown, until her last sickness, by this girlish glow of color in her wood-rambles.

Long before we had arrived at a particularly nice flower or species of moss, she knew it was to be found, and gathered it up as Fate makes a clean sweep of all its opportunities. I was almost as happy when out of doors with her as when I was with my father. She had the same eloquence in her silences; and when she spoke, it was with a sympathy that played upon one's whole perception, as a harp is swept inclusively of every string by an eager hurry of music. Still, aunt Ebie seemed to love moss and leaves as much as some people love souls, and I thought she had chosen them as the least dangerous objects of affection; whereas my father seemed most to love souls, and would have saved mine or another's at the expense of all the forests and vines of Eden.

To Miss Peabody I wrote of this visit in a manner which shows its reviving effect upon me:--

MY DEAR AUNT LIZZIE,--I like to get your letters, as they tell about everything which everybody does not do. What a pleasant time I did have with aunt Ebie Hawthorne last summer! It was last summer; and all the lovely flowers were nodding, and the sun shone with all its might, and we each took a basket and a book and stayed all the afternoon. We brought home heaps of flowers and greens. I never had such a pleasant time here in the woods. In England my nurse f.a.n.n.y and I used to take long walks on Sunday through the lanes, or into the parks; and take baskets and pick baskets full of daisies, pink-and-white. Then we went into the endless lanes, long, without a single sign of house or cottage (until we came to walk so far as to come to a little village).

n.o.body came along in rattling gigs or carriages; on Sunday you would not meet a person. With great ditches on each side, filled with tall gra.s.s as high as yourself, if you chose to get down into it. But I used to jump across, to get wild hawthorn and rose and honeysuckle and wall-flowers, and make great bunches of them. And then the b.u.t.tercups and daisies and violets in the green gra.s.s! For in the lanes there was not a sign of earth,--all high, green gra.s.s. The sun shining so hot that you could go in your house-dress but for the properness of it.

But I cannot explain and you cannot imagine; you must go to the place and look for yourself, and then you will know all about it. The parks are not level at all, but are nothing but high hills all together,--dear!--so lovely to run down and roll over on, and skip rope and jump!

My father began to express his wishes in regard to provision for our aunt in case of his death; to burn old letters; and to impart to my mother and Una all that he particularly desired to say to them, among other things his dislike of biographies, and that he forbade any such matter in connection with himself in any distance of the future. This command, respected for a number of years, has been, like all such forcible and prophetic demurs, most signally set aside. It would take long to explain my own modifications of opinion from arguments of fierce resistance to the request for a biographical handling of him; and it matters, no doubt, very little. Such a man must be thoroughly known, as great saints are always sooner or later known, though endeavoring to hide their victories of holiness and charity. Certainly my father did not like to die, though he now wished to do so. My mother, later, often spoke, in consolation for us and for herself, of his dread of helpless old age; and she tried to be glad that his desire to disappear before decrepitude had been fulfilled. But such wise wishes are not carried out as we might choose. The sudden transformation which took place in my father after his coming to America was like an instant's change in the atmosphere from sunshine to dusky cold. I have never had the least difficulty in explaining it to myself.

One large item in the sum of his regrets was his unexpectedly narrowed means. It would have required a generous amount of money to put The Wayside and its grounds into the delectable order at first contemplated, to bring them into any sort of English perfection, and my parents found that they could not afford it; and so all resulted in semi-comfort and rough appearances. This narrowing of means was caused not a little by the want of veracity of a person whom my father had trusted with entire affection and a very considerable loan, about which we none of us ever heard again. A crust becomes more than proverbially dry under these circ.u.mstances.

My mother bore every reverse n.o.bly. She writes, after her husband's death: "I have 'enjoyed life,' and 'its hard pinches' have not too deeply bitten into my heart. But this has been because I am not only hopeful and of indomitable credence by nature, but because this temperament, together with the silent ministry of pain, has helped me to the perfect, the unshadowed belief in the instant providence of G.o.d; in his eternal love, patience, sweetness; in his shining face, never averted. It is because I cannot be disappointed on account of this belief. To stand and wait after doing all that is legitimate is my instinct, my best wisdom, my inspiration; and I always hear the still, small voice at last. If man would not babble so much, we could much oftener hear G.o.d. The lesson of my life has been patience. It has only made me feel the more humble that G.o.d has been so beyond count benignant to me. I have been cushioned and pillowed with tender love from the cradle. Such a mother seldom falls to the lot of mortals. She was the angel of my life. Her looks and tones and her acts of high-bred womanhood were the light and music and model of my childhood. Then G.o.d joined my destiny with him who was to be all relations in one. Pain pa.s.sed away when my husband came. Poverty was lighter than a thistle-down with such a power of felicity to uphold it. With 'lowering clouds' I have never been long darkened, because the sun above has been so penetrating that their tissue has directly become silvered and goldened. Our own closed eyelids are too often the only clouds between us and the ever-shining sun. I hold all as if it were not mine, but G.o.d's, and ready to resign it."

It seemed to me a terrible thing that one so peculiarly strong, sentient, luminous, as my father should grow feebler and fainter, and finally ghostly still and white. Yet when his step was tottering and his frame that of a wraith, he was as dignified as in the days of greater pride, holding himself, in military self-command, even more erect than before. He did not omit to come in his very best black coat to the dinner-table, where the extremely prosaic fare had no effect upon the distinction of the meal. He hated failure, dependence, and disorder, broken rules and weariness of discipline, as he hated cowardice. I cannot express how brave he seemed to me. The last time I saw him, he was leaving the house to take the journey for his health which led suddenly to the next world. My mother was to go to the station with him,--she who, at the moment when it was said that he died, staggered and groaned, though so far from him, telling us that something seemed to be sapping all her strength; I could hardly bear to let my eyes rest upon her shrunken, suffering form on this day of farewell. My father certainly knew, what she vaguely felt, that he would never return.

Like a snow image of an unbending but an old, old man, he stood for a moment gazing at me. My mother sobbed, as she walked beside him to the carriage. We have missed him in the sunshine, in the storm, in the twilight, ever since.