The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne Part 15

Yet it should be recollected that there were nearly a million of persons in Liverpool, who were obliged to spend their lives there, for good and evil fortune; and, as Emerson says, we can never think too lightly of our own difficulties.

Neither did Hawthorne find the news from America particularly interesting. On March 30, 1854, he wrote to Bridge:

"I like my office well enough, but my official duties and obligations are irksome to me beyond expression. Nevertheless, the emoluments will be a sufficient inducement to keep me here, though they are not above a quarter part what some people suppose them.

"It sickens me to look back to America. I am sick to death of the continual fuss and tumult and excitement and bad blood which we keep up about political topics. If it were not for my children, I should probably never return, but--after quitting office--should go to Italy, and live and die there. If Mrs. Bridge and you would go too, we might form a little colony amongst ourselves, and see our children grow up together. But it will never do to deprive them of their native land, which I hope will be a more comfortable and happy residence in their day than it has been in ours."

[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 65.]

The last sentence in this ought to be printed in italics, for it is the essence of patriotism. The "fuss and tumult" in America were due, for the time being, to the apple of discord which Douglas had cast into the Senate, by his Kansas-Nebraska bill. Hawthorne was too far away to distinguish the full force and insidious character of that measure, but if he had been in Concord, we believe he would have recognized (as so many did who never had before) the imminent danger to the Union, from the repeated concessions to the slave power. After he had become disenthralled from his allegiance to party, we find him in his letters to Bridge, taking broad views on political subjects.

An event was soon to happen, well calculated to disenthrall him. The Congress of 1854, after pa.s.sing the Kansas-Nebraska bill, resolved, in order to prove its democratic spirit, to economize in the representation of our government to foreign powers. On April 14, the good-hearted, theoretical O'Sullivan arrived in Liverpool, on his way to be minister to Portugal, and warned Hawthorne that there was a bill before Congress to reduce the consulate there to a salaried position. This was a terrible damper on Hawthorne's great expectations, and on April 17 he wrote again to Bridge, protesting against the change: [Footnote: Bridge, 135, 136.]

"I trust, in Heaven's mercy, that no change will be made as regards the emoluments of the Liverpool consulate--unless indeed a salary is to be given in addition to the fees, in which case I should receive it very thankfully. This, however, is not to be expected; and if Liverpool is touched at all, it will be to limit its emoluments by a fixed salary--which will render the office not worth any man's holding. It is impossible (especially for a man with a family and keeping any kind of an establishment) not to spend a vast deal of money here. The office, unfortunately, is regarded as one of great dignity, and puts the holder on a level with the highest society, and compels him to a.s.sociate on equal terms with men who spend more than my whole income on the mere entertainments and other tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and embroidery of their lives. Then I feel bound to exercise some hospitality towards my own countrymen. I keep out of society as much as I decently can, and really practice as stern an economy as I ever did in my life; but, nevertheless, I have spent many thousands of dollars in the few months of my residence here, and cannot reasonably hope to spend less than six thousand per annum, even after all the expenditure of setting up an establishment is defrayed."

In addition to this, he states that his predecessor in office, John J.

Crittenden, never received above fifteen thousand dollars in fees, of which he saved less than half.

We can trust this to be the plain truth in regard to the Liverpool consulate, and if twenty-five thousand a year was ever obtained from it, there must have been some kind of deviltry in the business. Congress proved inexorable,--as it might not have been, had Hawthorne possessed the influence of a prominent politician like Crittenden. It was a direct affront to the President from his own party, and Pierce did not dare to veto the bill.

What O'Sullivan said to Hawthorne on other subjects may be readily inferred from Hawthorne's next letter to Bridge, in which he begs him to remain in Washington for Pierce's sake, and says:

"I feel a sorrowful sympathy for the poor fellow (for G.o.d's sake don't show him this), and hate to have him left without one true friend, or one man, who will speak a single honest word to him."

It is not very clear how Horatio Bridge could counteract the influence of Jefferson Davis and Caleb Cushing, but this shows that Franklin Pierce's weakness as an administrator was already painfully apparent to his friends, and that even Hawthorne could no longer disguise it to himself.

CHAPTER XIII

HAWTHORNE IN ENGLAND: 1854-1858

Hawthorne's life in England was too generally monotonous to afford many salient points to his biographer. It was monotonous in his official duties, in his pleasure-trips, and in his social experiences. He found one good friend in Liverpool, Mr. Henry Bright, to whom he had already been introduced in America, and he soon made another in Mr. Francis Bennoch, who lived near the same city. They were both excellent men, and belonged to that fine cla.s.s of Englishmen who possess a comfortable income, but live moderately, and prefer cultivating their minds and the society of their friends, to clubs, yachting, horse-racing, and other forms of external show. They were not distinguished, and were too sensible to desire distinction. Henry Bright may have been the more highly favored in Hawthorne's esteem, but they both possessed that tact and delicacy of feeling which is rare among Englishmen, and by accepting Hawthorne simply as a man like themselves, instead of as a celebrity, they won that place in his confidence from which so many had been excluded.

Otherwise, Hawthorne contracted no friendships among distinguished Englishmen of letters, like that between Emerson and Carlyle; and from first to last he saw little of them. He had no sooner landed than he was greeted with a number of epistles from sentimental ladies, or authors of a single publication, who claimed a spiritual kinship with him, because of their admiration for his writings. One of them even addressed him as "My dear brother." These he filed away with a mental reservation to give the writers as wide a circuit as he possibly could. He attended a respectable number of dinner parties in both Liverpool and London, at which he remained for the most part a silent and un.o.btrusive guest. He was not favored with an invitation to Holland House, although he met Lady Holland on one occasion, and has left a description of her, not more flattering than others that have been preserved for us. He also met Macaulay and the Brownings at Lord Houghton's; but for once Macaulay would not talk. Mrs. Browning evidently pleased Hawthorne very much.

[Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 129.]

The great lights of English literature besides these,--Tennyson, Carlyle, Ruskin, Thackeray, d.i.c.kens,--he was never introduced to, although he saw Tennyson in a picture-gallery at Manchester, and has left a description of him, such as might endure to the end of time.

Neither did he make the acquaintance of those three luminaries, Froude, Marian Evans, and Max Muller, who rose above the horizon, previous to his return to America. That he was not presented at Court was a matter of course. There was nothing which he could have cared for less.

After his return he published a volume of English sketches, which he ent.i.tled "Our Old Home," but he seems to have felt actually less at home in England than in any other country that he visited. In that book, and also in his diary, the even tenor of his discourse is interrupted here and there by fits of irritability which disclose themselves in the use of epithets such as one would hardly expect from the pen of Hawthorne.

If we apply to him the well-known proverb with respect to the Russians, we can imagine that under similar conditions an inherited sailor-like tendency in him came to the surface. We only remember one such instance in his American Note-book, that in which he speaks of Th.o.r.eau's having a face "as homely as sin."

[Footnote: The general effect of Th.o.r.eau's face was by no means unpleasant.]

Hawthorne did not carry with him to Europe that narrow provincialism, which a.s.serts itself in either condemning or ridiculing everything that differs essentially from American ways and methods. On the contrary, when he compares the old country with the new,--for instance, the English scenery with that of New England,--Hawthorne is usually as fair, discriminating, and dispa.s.sionate as any one could wish, and perhaps more so than some would desire. His judgment cannot be questioned in preferring the American elm, with its wine-gla.s.s shape, to the rotund European species; but he admires the English lake country above anything that he has seen like it in his own land. "Centuries of cultivation have given the English oak a domestic character," while American trees are still to be cla.s.sed with the wild flowers which bloom beneath their outstretched arms.

Matthew Arnold spoke of his commentaries on England as the writing of a man chagrined; but what could have chagrined Hawthorne there? The socially ambitious man may become chagrined, if he finds that doors are closed to him, and so may an unappreciated would-be genius. But Hawthorne's position as an author was already more firmly established than Matthew Arnold's ever could be; and as for social ambition, no writer since Shakespeare has been so free from it. It seems more probable that the difficulty with Hawthorne in this respect was due to his old position on the slavery question, which now began to bear bitter fruit for him. All Englishmen at that time, with the exception of Carlyle, Froude, and the n.o.bility, were very strongly anti-slavery,--the more so, as it cost them nothing to have other men's slaves liberated,--and the English are particularly blunt, not to say _gauche_, in introducing topics of conversation which are liable to become a matter of controversy. At the first dinner-party I attended in London some thirty-odd years ago, I had scarcely tasted the soup, before a gentleman opposite asked me: "What progress are you making in the United States toward free trade? Can you tell me, sir?" He might as well have asked me what progress we were making in the direction of monarchy.

Fortunately for Hawthorne, his good taste prevented him from introducing the slavery question in his publications, excepting in the life of Pierce, but for this same reason his English acquaintances in various places were obliged to discover his opinions at first hand, nor is it very likely that they were slow to do this. Phillips and Garrison had been to England and through England, and their dignified speeches had made an excellent impression. Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell and Whittier had spoken with no uncertain sound, protesting against what they considered a great national evil. How did it happen that Hawthorne was an exception?

Through his kind friend Mr. Bennoch, he fell in with a worthy whom it would have been just as well to have avoided--the proverbial-philosophy poet, Martin Farquhar Tupper; not a genuine poet, nor considered as such by trustworthy critics, but such a good imitation, that he persuaded himself and a large portion of the British public, including Queen Victoria, that he was one. Hawthorne has given an account of his visit to this man, [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 114.] second only in value to his description of Tennyson; for it is quite as important for us to recognize the deficiencies of the one, as it is to know the true appearance of the other. It is an unsparing study of human nature, but if a man places himself on a pedestal for all people to gaze at, it is just this and nothing more that he has to expect. Hawthorne represents him as a kindly, domestic, affectionate, bustling little man, who kept on bustling with his hands and tongue, even while he was seated--a man of no dignity of character or perception of his deficiency of it. This all does well enough, but when Hawthorne says, "I liked him, and laughed in my sleeve at him, and was utterly weary of him; for certainly he is the a.s.s of a.s.ses," we feel that he has gone too far, and suspect that there was some unpleasantness connected with the occasion, of which we are not informed. The word "a.s.s," as applied to a human being, is not current in good literature, unless low comedy be ent.i.tled to that position, and coming from Hawthorne, of all writers, it seems like an oath from the mouth of a woman. Tupper, who was quite proud of his philanthropy, was also much of an abolitionist, and he may have trodden on Hawthorne's metaphysical toes half a dozen times, without being aware of what he was doing. Altogether, it seems like rather an ill return for Tupper's hospitality; but Hawthorne himself did not intend it for publication, and on the whole one does not regret that it has been given to the public. We have been, however, antic.i.p.ating the order of events.

During the summer of 1854, the Hawthorne family made a number of unimportant expeditions, visiting mediaeval abbeys and ruinous castles,--especially one to Chester and Eton Hall, which was not quite worth the fees they paid to the janitors. An ancient walled city is much of a novelty to an American for the first time, but, having seen one, you have seen them all, and Chester Cathedral does not stand high in English architecture. On September 14, O'Sullivan appeared again, and they all went into the Welsh mountains, where they examined the old fortresses of Rhyl and Conway, which were built by Edward Longshanks to hold the Welshmen in check. Those relics of the feudal system are very impressive, not only on account of their solidity and the great human forces which they represent, but from a peculiar beauty of their own, which modern fortifications do not possess at all. They seem to belong to the ground they stand on, and the people who live about them look upon them as cherished landmarks. They are the monuments of an heroic age, and Hawthorne's interest in them was characteristic of his nature.

O'Sullivan returned to Lisbon early in October, and on the 5th of that month, Hawthorne found himself obliged to make a speech at an entertainment on board a merchant vessel called the "James Barnes,"

which had been built in Boston for a Liverpool firm of ship-owners.

He considered this the most serious portion of his official duty,--the necessity of making after-dinner speeches at the Mayor's or other public tables. He writes several pages on the subject in a humorously complainant tone, congratulating himself that on the present occasion he has succeeded admirably, for he has really said nothing, and that is precisely what he intended to do. After-dinner speeches are like soap-bubbles: they are made of nothing, signify nothing, float for a moment in the air, attract a momentary attention, and then disappear.

But the difficulty is, to make an apparent something out of nothing, to say nothing that will offend anybody, and to say something that will be different from what others say. It is truly a hard situation in which to place even a very talented man, and, as Longfellow once remarked, those were most fortunate who made their speeches first, and could then enjoy their dinner, while their successors were writhing in agony. However, there are those who like it, and having practised it to perfection, can do it better than anything else. Hawthorne a.n.a.lyzes his sensations, after finishing his speech, with rare self-perception. "After sitting down, I was conscious of an enjoyment in speaking to a public a.s.sembly, and felt as if I should like to rise again. It is something like being under fire,--a sort of excitement, not exactly pleasure, but more piquant than most pleasures." Was it President Jackson, or Senator Benton, who said that fighting a duel was very much like making one's maiden speech?

Mrs. Hawthorne thus describes the residence of the President of the Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool: [Footnote: Mrs. Lathrop, 238.] "We were ushered into the drawing-room, which looked more like a brilliant apartment in Versailles than what I had expected to see. The panels were richly gilt, with mirrors in the centre, and hangings of gilded paper; and the broad windows were hung with golden-colored damask; the furniture was all of the same hue; with a carpet of superb flowers; and vases of living flowers standing everywhere; and a chandelier of diamonds (as to indefatigable and vivid shining), and candlesticks of the same,--not the long prisms like those on Mary's astral, but a network of crystals diamond-cut."

This was the coa.r.s.e commercial taste of the time, previous to the reforms of Ruskin and Eastlake. The same might be said of Versailles.

There is no true elegance in gilding and gla.s.s-work, including mirrors, unless they be sparingly used.

The Hawthornes were equally overpowered by a dinner-party given by a millionaire and country squire of Liscard Vale; "two enormous silver dish-covers, with the gleam of Damascus blades, putting out all the rest of the light;" and after the fish, these were replaced by two other enormous dishes of equal brilliancy. The table was shortly covered with an array of silver dishes, reflecting the lights above in dazzling splendor. At one end of the table was a roast goose and at the other a boiled turkey; while "cutlets, frica.s.sees, ragouts, tongue, chicken-pies," and much else, filled the intermediate s.p.a.ces, and the sideboard groaned under a round of beef "like the dome of St. Peter's."

It was fortunate that the American consul came to this Herculean repast with an excellent appet.i.te.

Henry Bright was their chief refuge from this flummery, as Hawthorne called it; "an extremely interesting, sincere, earnest, independent, warm and generous hearted man; not at all dogmatic; full of questions, and with ready answers. He is highly cultivated, and writes for the _Westminster_,"--a man who respected formalities and could preserve decorum in his own household, but liked a simple, unostentatious mode of living--in brief, he was a true English gentleman. Mrs. Hawthorne has drawn his portrait with only less skill than her husband:

"His eyes are large, bright, and prominent, rather indicating great facility of language, which he has. He is an Oxford scholar, and has decided literary tastes. He is delicately strung, and is as transparent-minded and pure-hearted as a child, with great enthusiasm and earnestness of character; and, though a Liberal, very loyal to his Queen and very admiring of the aristocracy."

He appears to have been engaged in the Australian carrying trade, and owned the largest sailing vessel afloat.

Hawthorne went to an exhibition of English landscape paintings, and he remarked that Turner's seemed too ethereal to have been painted by mortal hands,--the finest compliment that Turner could have received, for in delicate effects of light and shade,--in painting the atmosphere itself,--he has no rival.

In January, James Buchanan, who was then minister to England, came to visit Hawthorne, and talked with him about the presidency,--for which he considered himself altogether too old; but at the same time he did not suggest the renomination of Franklin Pierce. This, of course, disclosed his own ambition, and as Hawthorne's impartial pen-and-ink sketch of him may not be recognized by many readers, on account of the form in which it appears in the note-books, we append it here, with the regret that Hawthorne could not have treated his friend Pierce in an equally candid manner.

"I like Mr.--. He cannot exactly be called gentlemanly in his manners, there being a sort of rusticity about him; moreover, he has a habit of squinting one eye, and an awkward carriage of his head; but, withal, a dignity in his large person, and a consciousness of high position and importance, which give him ease and freedom. Very simple and frank in his address, he may be as crafty as other diplomatists are said to be; but I see only good sense and plainness of speech,--appreciative, too, and genial enough to make himself conversable. He talked very freely of himself and of other public people, and of American and English affairs.

He returns to America, he says, next October, and then retires forever from public life."

A certain amount of rusticity would seem to have been essential to a presidential candidate during the middle of the past century.

During this dismal winter Hawthorne was beset more than ever, by nautical mendicants of all countries,--Hungarians, Poles, Cubans, Spanish Americans, and French Republicans, who, unhappily for him, had discovered that the American consul was a tender-hearted man. He had, beside, to deal with a number of difficult cases of maltreated American sailors,--the more difficult, because both parties to the suits were greatly given to lying, even on occasions when it would have been more expedient for them to tell the truth. He has recorded one such in his diary, that deserves more than a superficial consideration.

An American bark was on the point of sailing, when the captain cast ash.o.r.e a bruised and battered-looking man, who made his way painfully to the consulate, and begged Hawthorne for a permit to be placed in the hospital. He called himself the son of a South Carolina farmer, and stated that he had gone on board this vessel with a load of farm products, but had been impressed by the captain for the voyage, and had been so maltreated, that he thought he would die,--and so he did, not long afterward, at the hospital. Letters were found upon him, substantiating the statement concerning his father, but it was discovered, from the same source, that he was a jail-bird, and the tattooed figures upon his arms showed that he had been a sailor of many years' standing, although he had denied this to the consul. Hawthorne speaks of him as an innocent man, the victim of criminal brutality little less than murder; it is certainly difficult to account for such severe ill-treatment, but the man was clearly a bad character, and it is also true that sea-captains do not interfere with their deck-hands without some kind of provocation. The man clung desperately to life up to the last moment, and the letters he carried with him indicated that he was more intelligent than the average of the nautical fraternity.

In June, Hawthorne went with his family to Leamington, of which he afterward published an account in the _Atlantic Monthly_, criticised at the time for the manner in which he referred to English ladies, as "covering a large area of Nature's foot-stool"; but this element in Hawthorne's English writing has already been considered. From Leamington he went, early in July, to the English lakes, especially Windermere, and fortunately found time to thoroughly enjoy them. He enjoyed them not only for their scenery, which he preferred to that of New England, but also as ill.u.s.trations to many descriptive pa.s.sages in Wordsworth's poetry, which serves the same purpose in the guidebook of that region, as "Childe Harold" serves in the guidebooks for Italy and Greece.

Hawthorne also was interested in such places for the sake of their a.s.sociations. He describes Wordsworth's house, the grounds about it, and the cemetery where he lies, with the accuracy of a scientific report.

He finds the gra.s.s growing too high about the head-stone of Wordsworth's grave, and plucks it away with his own hands, reflecting that it may have drawn its nourishment from his mortal remains. We may suppose that he preserved this gra.s.s, and it is only from such incidental circ.u.mstances that we discover who were Hawthorne's favorites among poets and other distinguished writers. He twice visited Wordsworth's grave.

Their first two winters in Liverpool had not proved favorable to Mrs.

Hawthorne's health She had contracted a disorder in her throat from the prevailing dampness, which threatened to become chronic, and her husband felt that it would not be prudent for her to remain there another winter. He thought of resigning and returning to America. Then he thought of exchanging his consulship for one in southern Europe, although the salaries of the more southern consulates were hardly sufficient to support a married man. Then he thought of exchanging places with O'Sullivan, but he hardly knew languages well enough for an amba.s.sador. The doctors, however, had advised Mrs. Hawthorne to spend a winter at Madeira, and she courageously solved the problem by proposing to go there alone with her daughters, for which Lisbon and O'Sullivan would serve as a stepping-stone by the way. There are wives who would prefer such an expedition to spending a winter in England with their husbands, but Mrs. Hawthorne was not of that mould, and in her case it was a brave thing to do.

Accordingly, on the second Monday in October, Mrs. Hawthorne and her two daughters sailed for Lisbon. She was presented at court there; concerning which occasion she wrote a lengthy and very interesting account to her husband, published in her son's biography. The King of Portugal held a long conversation with her and Minister O'Sullivan, and she describes him as dressed in a flamboyant manner,--a scarlet uniform, lavishly ornamented with diamonds. With how much better taste did the Empress of Austria receive the President of the French Republic,--in a simple robe of black velvet, fastened at her throat with a diamond brooch. One can envy Mrs. Hawthorne a winter at Madeira, for there is no place in Europe pleasanter for that purpose, unless it be Rome.

Meanwhile, her husband spent the winter with his son (who was now old enough to be trusted safely about the streets), at a sea-captains'

boarding-house in Liverpool. There, as in Salem, he felt himself most companionable in such company, as he had been accustomed to it from boyhood; and it appears that at this time he was in the habit of composing fables for the entertainment of Julian, not unlike the yarns which sailors often spin to beguile landsmen. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, ii. 75.]