Memories of Hawthorne Part 9

"Tired with all these, for restful death I cry, As, to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity."

G.o.d bless you, dear Sophia,--as He has, notwithstanding General Taylor. Believe me ever most affectionately your friend, S. B. S.

Miss Elizabeth h.o.a.r, engaged to Mr. Emerson's brother Charles, who died in youth, writes letters of regret for the departure of the Hawthornes from Concord:--

. . . Remember me to Mr. Hawthorne and beautiful Una. That you three have lived here in Concord for so many fair days is a page of romance which I shall not forget; whatever happens, so much we have and cannot lose. Affectionately always,

E. h.o.a.r.

. . . I should like very much to see you and Mr. Hawthorne, and your Una and her brother, and have made two unsuccessful efforts to spend a day with you in Salem. I was in New Haven at the time of the publication of the "Mosses," and all my friends were reading them. I found myself quite a lion because I knew Mr. Hawthorne; and became a sort of author in my turn, by telling stories of the inhabitants of the Old Manse, omitted in the printed books. Father was charmed with them, and wrote to me quite at length about them. Pray remember me to Mr. Hawthorne, and give him my thanks for writing the book. Mr. Emerson is in Paris from May 6th to joth, then lectures in London six times, and sees everybody and everything. I am heartily glad. He has letters which are to show him Lamartine.

Affectionately yours,

ELIZABETH h.o.a.r.

The first Mrs. Lowell, who had long been an intimate friend of my mother's, sends beautiful letters, from which I will make selections, too lovely to be set aside:--

"How blessed it is that G.o.d sends these 'perpetual messiahs' among us, to lead us back to innocence and free-heartedness and faith. . . . I have seen a picture of the Annunciation in which Mary is reading the prophecy of the Messiah's coming. . . . Mary is a type of all women, and I love the Roman Catholic feeling that enshrines and appeals to her. It has its root in the very deepest principle of life. . . .

James is very well, and to say that he is very happy, too, is unnecessary to any one who knows his elastic, joyful nature. . . .

When I feel well and strong, I feel so well and strong that I could, like Atlas, bear the world about with me. . . . I love to work with my hands; to nail, to glue, to scour, to dig; all these satisfy a yearning in my nature for something substantial and honest. My mother often tells me I was born to be a poor man's wife, I have such an apt.i.tude for all trades."

. . . Is not June the crown of the year, the Carnival of Nature, when the very trees pelt each other with blossoms, and are stirring and bending when no wind is near them, because they are so full of inward life, and must shiver for joy to feel how fast the sap is rushing up from the ground? On such days can you sing anything but, "Oh, beautiful Love"? Doesn't it seem as if Nature wore your livery and wished to show the joy of your heart in every possible form? The everlasting hum and seething of myriad life satisfies and soothes me.

I feel as if something were going on in the world, else why all this shouting, and bedecking of every weed in its best, this endless strain from every tiny weed or great oaken flute? All that cannot sing, dances; the gnats in the air and the long-legged spiders on the water.

Even the ants and beetles, the workers that are quoted for examples by h.o.a.rding men, run about doing nothing, putting their busy antennae into everything, tumbling over the brown mould for sheer enjoyment, and running home at last without the little white paper parcel in their mouths which gives them so respectable an air. Doubtless the poor things are scolded by their infirm parents, who sit sunning themselves at the door of the house. . . . Beetles seem to me to have a pleasant life, because they, who have fed for two or three years underground upon the roots, come forth at last winged, and find their nourishment in the blooms of the very same tree. It comforts me, because we have ourselves to eat many bitter roots here, whose perfect flower shall one day delight us. This, dear Sophia, has been a long ramble. I promised to copy that sonnet of James's for you, so I inclose it.

With true sympathy and love, Affectionately yours,

MARIA WHITE.

From George S. Hillard came the following letter. On the envelope my father has written Hillard's name and "The Scarlet Letter," showing with what interest he preserved this friend's criticism and praise. On the other side of the envelope is written, "Foi, Foi, Faith." No one ever was more faithful to, and consequently ever had more faith in, his friends than my father.

BOSTON, March 28, 1850.

MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,--You have written a most remarkable book; in point of .literary talent, beyond all your previous efforts; a book full of tragic power, nice observation, delicate tact, and rare knowledge of the human heart. I think it will take a place in our literature among the highest efforts of what may be called the Tragic Muse of fiction.

You are, intellectually speaking, quite a puzzle to me. How comes it that with so thoroughly healthy an organization as you have, you have such a taste for the morbid anatomy of the human heart, and such knowledge of it, too? I should fancy from your books that you were burdened with secret sorrow; that you had some blue chamber in your soul, into which you hardly dared to enter yourself; but when I see you, you give me the impression of a man as healthy as Adam was in Paradise. For my own taste, I could wish that you would dwell more in the sun, and converse more with cheerful thoughts and lightsome images, and expand into a story the spirit of the Town Pump. But while waiting for this, let me be thankful for the weird and sad strain which breathes from "The Scarlet Letter," which I read with most absorbing interest. Yours ever,

GEO. S. HILLARD.

The owner of the cottage which the Hawthornes hired in Lenox sends a welcome:--

DEAR SOPHIA,--Since we came up here, I have examined the little house you think of taking, and cannot but hope you will take the red house in preference; for although that is not so large or convenient as I wish it were for you, it is much more so than the little garden house.

You have a rough plan of that, which Mr. Tappan drew for Mr.

Hawthorne, and I will give you one of this. There are four good sleeping-rooms upstairs, but without fireplaces, and could only be ameliorated in winter by an entry stove. The house is pleasantly situated, having a view of the Lake, as you know. The road pa.s.sing by the red house is so little traveled that it is no annoyance. Perhaps you and Mr. Hawthorne would like to come and see the houses for yourselves; if so, we shall be very glad to have you stay with us. I have no time to tell you how lovely it is here, or how glad we are you are coming.

Affectionately yours,

CAROLINE TAPPAN.

The search for a desirable hillside or meadow s.p.a.ce where they might make a new home, away from city streets and the hurrying prisoners upon them, was pleasantly ended for the Hawthornes. The transfer of the little family to Lenox soon occurred, and to the "red house,"

which was in existence until lately. I will quote a description of the cottage and the views about the spot, given in a Stockbridge paper not long after the small dwelling disappeared:--

"On a stand in the curious old hotel in Stockbridge is a charred chunk of an oaken house-beam that is as carefully treasured as if it were of gold; and every guest strolling through the parlor wherein it is shown halts and gazes at it with a singular interest. A placard pinned to the cinder explains in these words why it is treasured and why the people gaze at it: 'Relic from the Hawthorne Cottage.' The Hawthorne Cottage stood half a mile out of Stockbridge on the road to Lenox. It was burned two months ago. It was a little red story-and-a-half house on a lonely farm, and an old farmer, himself somewhat of a bookworm, dwelt in it with his family at the time it mysteriously took fire. The cottage was a landmark, because Nathaniel Hawthorne dwelt therein in 1850 and 1851 for a year and a half. A great many people go out to see the ruins of it.

"Drive along a lonely winding road through a homely New England district several hundred yards west of the pretentious mansions of Stockbridge, pa.s.s through a breezy open patch of pines, and one comes to a characteristic hillside New England orchard, the branches of whose trees just now are bright with ripening red apples. On the hillslope in the middle of the orchard and overlooking the famous 'Stockbridge Bowl'--a round deep tarn among the hills--are the brick cellar walls and brick underpinning of what was a very humble dwelling--the Hawthorne Cottage. About the ruins is a quiet, modest, New England neighborhood. There is not much to see at the site of the Hawthorne Cottage, yet every day fashionable folk from New York and Boston and a score of western cities drive thither with fine equipages and jingling harness, halt, and look curiously for a minute or two at the green turf of the dooryard and the crumbling brick walls of the cottage site."

To go from Salem to Lenox was to contrast very forcibly the somewhat oppressed spirits of historical a.s.sociation with the healthy grandeur of nature. The books my father wrote here embrace this joy of untheoried, peaceful, or gloriously perturbed life of sky and land.

Theory of plot or principle was as much beneath him as the cobble-stones; from self-righteous harangues he turned as one who had heard a divine voice that alone deserved to declare. He taught as Nature does, always leading to thoughts of something higher than the dictum of men, and n.o.bler than their greatest beauty of action. He said it was difficult for him to write in the presence of such a view as the "little red house" commanded. It certainly must have been a scene that expressed otherwise unutterable sublimity. But if my father struggled to bring his human power forward in the presence of an outlook that so reminded him of G.o.d, he did bring it forward there, and we perceive the aroma and the color which his work could not have gained so well in a town or a village covert.

Mrs. Hawthorne's letters, written for the pleasure of her family, in spite of her growing cares, continue to be a source of intelligence to us:--

MY DEAR LIZZIE,--I have just received your letter, for which I am very glad. You say that mother may come to-night. I truly hope she will.

But as the heavy fog we had here this morning may have been a rain in Boston, I write now, to request father to go to Oak Hall, or to some ready-made linen-store, and buy Mr. Hawthorne two linen sacks, well made, and good linen. He is a perfect bunch of rags, and he will not let me make him anything to wear--absolutely will not. But he consents that something shall be bought. If mother should be delayed beyond Monday, this can be done; otherwise it cannot.

I am very sorry about the little books; but I do not see any help.

Ticknor & Co. were going to have ill.u.s.trations drawn for them, and Mr.

Hawthorne thinks they are begun, that money has been expended, and that it is too late to change the plan. He says, he is bound by his engagement, and cannot recede; but that if you can change their purposes independently of him,--if they are willing, he is. Mr. Fields has not said a word about the Fairy Tales, and I do not know whether Mr. H. intends to write them now. I never ask him what he is about.

But I know he is not writing seriously this hot weather. G.o.d bless you all,

SOPHIECHEN.

Sunday.

MY DEAR MOTHER,--'This has been a dull "heaven's day" for the children, who have not been so merry as on a sunny day. I have read to them, and shown them my drawings of Flaxman's Iliad and Odysse and Hesiod. I wish you could have seen them the other day, acting Giant Despair and Mrs. Diffidence. They were sitting on chairs opposite the doorsteps; Julian with one little leg over the other, in a nonchalant att.i.tude; Una also in negligent position. They were discussing their prisoners, Hopeful and Christian, in very gruff and unamiable voices.

"Well, what had we better do with them?" "Oh, beat them pretty well, every day!" The air of the two figures, and their tones, in comparison with the faces and forms, were very funny. I heard Una telling Julian that Christian's bundle was a "bunch of naughtiness." Julian became Columbus all at once, on Friday, and ran in from out of doors to get some blocks to build a cross on the island which he had discovered. He said, "Where is my sword to hold in my hand when I get out of my ship?" [He was between four and five years old.]

Sunday, 20th.

A famous snowstorm. I read from Spenser to the children, in the morning, of St. George and Una, Una and the Lion, and Prince Arthur.

Then, Cinderella. They made an exquisite picture, with the hobby-horse. Julian was upon the horse,--as a king; Una at his side, presenting ambrosia. In the P. M. I read them Andersen's "Angel and Child," "The Swineherd," and "Little Ida's Flowers;" and their father read to them from "The Black Aunt." In the evening my husband read to me the "Death of Adam and Eve," by Montgomery, and something of Crabbe's.

Tuesday, 22d. Clear, splendid day. The children took their little straw baskets and went to find flowers. They were gone a great while, and came back with a charming bunch--arbutus, anemones, violets, and houstonia.

They went to walk with their father in the afternoon, to the woods and mountains, and brought home arbutus; and Julian, laurel for me to make a wreath for papa's head,--laurel of last year.

23d. Julian arranged his cabinet of sh.e.l.ls and animals, hammered, ran like a wolf, told stories to himself, helped me make beds, and held cotton for me to wind, watched Mr. Tappan at his young trees, and when his father came down [from writing upstairs] played with him. I sewed all the evening while my husband read the "Castle of Indolence," and finished it.

DEAREST LIZZIE,--Mrs. Sedgwick takes the most kind and motherly interest in my affairs. Both she and her husband come quite often, and Mr. Sedgwick sends Mr. Hawthorne a great many papers. I wish you would tell me whether you think Tall Ann is able to do our work; but from what she said about being deprived of the Church services and Holy Communion, I know she would not do without them. She would be as quiet here as in heaven. There have been a succession of golden days for a long while, and I have thought

"Time had run back, and brought the age of gold,"

it has been so superb. It is now a golden and rose-colored twilight.

The most distant mountains are of the palest azure, and the Lake, pale rose. It is haymaking season, and the children roam abroad with the haymakers,--oh, such happy hours! The air is fragrant with the dying breath of clover and sweet-scented gra.s.s. Julian is getting nut-brown.

He is a real chestnut. We are all wonderfully happy, and I can conceive of no greater peace and content. Last Sunday afternoon we all went to the Lake, and Una and I wove a laurel wreath, and Una crowned her father. For mountain-laurel grows about us. We have now twelve hens. Twice a day we all go and feed them. We go in single file. Mr.

Hawthorne called it to-day the procession of the equinoxes. The hens have some of them been named: Snowdrop, Crown Imperial, Queenie, and Fawn. Snowdrop is very handsome and white.

Mrs. Hawthorne's mother writes to her in this manner:--

June 8, 1850.