[Footnote: It is unquestionable that Hawthorne contributed to annuals
and periodicals anonymous tales and sketches that he never claimed, as
he states in the preface to _Twice-Told Tales_ and in a letter to
Fields in which he beseeches him not to revive them. The identification
of such work, however, is beset with much temptation to find a tale
genuine, if it can be plausibly so represented, and in few cases can the
proof be conclusive. Mr. F. B. Sanborn presents the fullest list, all
from _The Token_, which he accepts as genuine, as follows: _The
Adventures of a Raindrop_, 1828, _The Young Provincial_, 1830,
_The Haunted Quack_ and _The New England Village_, 1831, _My
Wife's Novel_, 1832, _The Bald Eagle_, 1833, _The Modern
Job_, or _The Philosopher's Stone_, 1834. The correspondence
with Goodrich does not indicate that Hawthorne contributed to _The
Token_ before the issue for 1831. _The Young Provincial_ seems
to be the same sort of a tale as _The Downer's Banner_, as has been
intimated above: yet it would, perhaps, be more readily accepted,
together with _The Haunted Quack_ and _The Modern Job_. The
latest edition of Hawthorne includes all of these tales, given above,
except the first and last, but its editor does not vouch for their
authenticity.] ascribed to him on internal evidence and contributed to
"The Token," an annual published at Boston, for its issue of 1830. The
story relates the adventures of a youthful Revolutionary soldier who had
handed down to his descendants a "grandfather's gun;" it tells of Bunker
Hill, of imprisonment at Halifax and of escape, and it may be from
Hawthorne's pen. It must have been written early in 1829, if not before,
and it is noticed in the review of "The Token" in Willis's Boston
periodical, "The American Monthly Magazine" for September, 1829, where
it is described as a "pleasing story, told quite inartificially," and is
illustrated by a brief extract. It may not be irrelevant to observe that
a similar "provincial tale" appeared in this number of the magazine,
"The Downer's Banner," and if it was not by the same youthful author, it
shows that the same kind of subject had singularly interested two
writers in that neighborhood. It is, however, only in "The Token" that
Hawthorne can be further traced.
The editor of this annual, which was intended as a literary gift-book
for Christmas, was S. G. Goodrich, famous as "Peter Parley" in after
days, and to him belongs the honor of being Hawthorne's first literary
friend, and he always remained a faithful one. He was a promoter of
publishers' enterprises, in that part of the field of literature which
is distinctly pervaded with business; and in it he was successful, as
the millions of the Peter Parley books abundantly attest. At this time
he was sincerely interested, it must be believed, in furthering the
interests of American writers and artists, according to his lights and
means, and Griswold, who was a good judge, said of him, "It is
questionable whether any other person has done as much to improve the
style of the book manufacture or to promote the arts of engraving." With
such ambitions he had begun, in 1828, the issue of the annual, which is
now best remembered, and which in its own day longest survived the
changes of public taste. The nature of these volumes, of which there
were many in different publishing centres, is well described by a writer
in Willis's "Magazine" for 1829: "A few years ago, an elegant taste,
joined, perhaps, to a love of 'filthy lucre,' induced some English
publishers to give to the world the first specimens of those souvenirs
and 'Forget Me Nots' which are now so common through our country. How
beautiful they were at their first appearance, the eagerness with which
they were read will testify. How rapid was their increase, may be seen
by referring to the counters of every book-store. America, ready and
willing as she ever is to acknowledge the excellence, and imitate the
example of the parent country in every good thing, has imitated and
improved upon the plan. We can now boast of a species of literature,
which is conducted almost wholly by young men, and which has merited the
affection, because it has developed the power of our native genius.
Those who have made their first essays in literature, through the medium
of the pages of a Souvenir, will gain confidence in proportion as they
have tested their own strength. The American annuals do not profess to
be the works of the most finished or most accomplished writers of this
country. They should not be taken as specimens of what our literature
is, but as indications of what it may one day be. They are not the
matured fruits, but the bright promise and blossoming of genius; and
thus far they have been an honor to the taste and talent of American
writers, and monuments of the swift progress of our artists towards
excellence in their profession."
Such was the contemporary view of the annuals, and it is justified,
perhaps, by the fact that Longfellow, for example, was then contributing
to the "Atlantic Souvenir" of Philadelphia, the first of the brood, and
that Hawthorne found in "The Token" the principal opportunity to obtain
a hearing for himself in his first productive years.
Mr. Goodrich, in his "Recollections," states that he sought out
Hawthorne. "I had seen," he says, "some anonymous publications which
seemed to me to indicate extraordinary powers. I inquired of the
publishers as to the writer, and through them a correspondence ensued
between me and 'N. Hawthorne.' This name I considered a disguise, and it
was not till after many letters had passed, that I met the author, and
found it to be a true title, representing a very substantial personage."
This correspondence began, as nearly as can be judged, in 1829, and in
the course of it Hawthorne had already sent to Goodrich "The Young
Provincial," if that is to be accepted as by him, and also "Roger
Malvin's Burial," and, apparently later than this last, at least three
other tales, "The Gentle Boy," "My Uncle Molineaux," and "Alice Doane."
He had presented these as specimens of the "Provincial Tales," for which
he desired a publisher. Goodrich acknowledges these, January 19, 1830,
from Hartford, Connecticut, where he lived, and promises in the note to
endeavor to find a publisher for the book when he returns to Boston in
April. He adds, "Had 'Fanshawe' been in the hands of more extensive
dealers, I do believe it would have paid you a profit;" from which it
may be inferred that "Fanshawe" was the anonymous work which had
attracted Goodrich's attention. He praises the tales, and offers
thirty-five dollars for "The Gentle Boy" to be used in "The Token." The
first letter from Hawthorne, in respect to the matter, which has come to
light, is on May 6, 1830, and is given in Derby's "Fifty Years."
"I send you the two pieces for 'The Token.' They were ready some days
ago, but I kept them in expectation of hearing from you. I have complied
with your wishes in regard to brevity. You can insert them (if you think
them worthy a place in your publication) as by the author of 'Provincial
Tales,'--such being the title I propose giving my volume. I can conceive
no objection to your designating them in this manner, even if my tales
should not be published as soon as 'The Token,' or, indeed, if they
never see the light at all. An unpublished book is not more obscure than
many that creep into the world, and your readers will suppose that the
'Provincial Tales' are among the latter." The "two pieces" to which he
refers were clearly not members of the series he proposed to publish in
the book, and perhaps they should be identified as "Sights from a
Steeple," certainly, and for the other either "The New England Village"
or "The Haunted Quack," both which, besides the first, were published in
"The Token" for 1831, and have been ascribed to Hawthorne on internal
evidence of the same sort as that on which "The Young Provincial" has
been accepted.
Goodrich did not find a publisher for the "Provincial Tales," and
Hawthorne allowed him to use such as he desired for "The Token" for
1832. The publication of this annual, it should be observed, was
prepared for early in the preceding year, and the tales which it
contained must be regarded as at least a year old when issued. Thus, in
respect to the issue for 1832, just mentioned, Goodrich writes May 31,
1831: "I have made a very liberal use of the privilege you gave me as to
the insertion of your pieces in 'The Token.' I have already inserted
four of them; namely, 'The Wives of the Dead,' 'Roger Malvin's Burial,'
'Major Molineaux,' and 'The Gentle Boy;'" and he adds that they are as
good if not better than anything else he gets; and in a later note,
written on the publication of the volume, in October, he says, "I am
gratified to find that all whose opinion I have heard agree with me as
to the merit of the various pieces from your pen." In this issue,
besides the four mentioned, the story "My Wife's Novel" has also been
attributed to Hawthorne.
The project of the "Provincial Tales" had by this time been abandoned,
temporarily at least, and the author's mind turned to other kinds of
writing. He had already opened new veins in attempting to sketch
contemporary scenes, either after the fashion of the pleasant meditative
essay, such as "Sights from a Steeple," or else in the way of humorous
description. The scenes he looked down on, in fancy, in this first
paper, were the roof-tops and streets and horizon of Salem; but he had
wandered in other parts of his native land also, though not widely, and
he used these journeys in his compositions. It is noticeable that
Hawthorne always used all his material, consumed it, and made stories,
essays, and novels of it, except the slag. It was his characteristic
from youth. There is the same dubiousness about these journeys, his
earliest ventures in the world, as about his first attempts in the field
of authorship. He himself says, in the autobiographical notes he
furnished to Stoddard, that he left Salem "once a year or thereabouts,"
for a few weeks; and in his sketches there are traces of these
excursions, as at Martha's Vineyard, for example; but their times and
localities are verifiable only to a slight degree. It is stated that the
fact that his uncles, the Mannings, were interested in stage-lines gave
him some privileges as a traveller, or perhaps this only gave occasion
for a journey now and then, in which he joined his uncles on some
convenient business; thus, it was in company with his uncle Samuel, that
he was in New Hampshire in 1831, and visited the Shaker community at
Canterbury. Another known journey was in 1830, and took him through
Connecticut; and it is said, probably on conjecture, that it was at this
time that he went on, by the canal, to Niagara, and visited Ticonderoga
on his return. If his writings, in which he described these places, are
to be taken literally, he even embarked for Detroit; but information in
respect to the whole Niagara excursion is of the scantiest. All that is
known is that in some way, during his long stay at Salem in these years,
he made himself acquainted with portions of Connecticut, Vermont, New
York, and New Hampshire, to add to his knowledge of Massachusetts and
Maine; within this rather limited circle his wanderings were confined;
and the period when he went about with most freedom and vivacity of
impression was the summer of 1830 and, perhaps, the next year or two.
These experiences gave him the suggestion and in part the scene of his
next compositions, "The Canterbury Pilgrims" and "The Seven Vagabonds,"
the one a New Hampshire, the other a Connecticut tale, and in
Connecticut, too, is laid "The Bald Eagle," a humorous sketch of a
reception of Lafayette which failed to come off, attributed to Hawthorne
on the same grounds as the other doubtful pieces of these years; these
three appeared in "The Token" for 1833, "The Seven Vagabonds" as by the
author of "The Gentle Boy," the others anonymously, and, in addition,
that issue also contained the historical sketch, "Sir William
Pepperell," described as by the author of "Sights from a Steeple." If
"The Haunted Quack," which had already appeared in 1831, be regarded as
Hawthorne's, the journey by the canal which it records must have taken
place as early as 1829, in order for the manuscript to have been ready
in time for publication. The particular times and stories, however, are
of less importance; nor are these provincial travels noteworthy except
for the fact that Hawthorne found in them, whenever or wherever they
occurred, suggestions for his pen.
The idea which was the germ of his next conception for a book arose out
of this country rambling before the days of railroads. At the end of
"The Seven Vagabonds," he represented himself as taking up the character
of an itinerant story-teller on the impulse of the moment. To this he
now returned, and proposed to write a series of tales on the thread of
the adventures of this vagrant, and call it "The Story-Teller." The
work, such as he here conceived it, exists only as a fragment, "Passages
from a Relinquished Work," though he doubtless used elsewhere the
stories he intended to incorporate into it. In the young man as he is
sketched in the opening passage there is, notwithstanding the
affectation of levity, a touch of Hawthorne's own position:--
"I was a youth of gay and happy temperament, with an incorrigible levity
of spirit, of no vicious propensities, sensible enough, but wayward and
fanciful. What a character was this, to be brought in contact with the
stern old Pilgrim spirit of my guardian! We were at variance on a
thousand points; but our chief and final dispute arose from the
pertinacity with which he insisted on my adopting a particular
profession; while I, being heir to a moderate competence, had avowed my
purpose of keeping aloof from the regular business of life. This would
have been a dangerous resolution, anywhere in the world; it was fatal,
in New England. There is a grossness in the conceptions of my
countrymen; they will not be convinced that any good thing may consist
with what they call idleness; they can anticipate nothing but evil of a
young man who neither studies physic, law, nor gospel, nor opens a
store, nor takes to farming, but manifests an incomprehensible
disposition to be satisfied with what his father left him. The principle
is excellent, in its general influence, but most miserable in its effect
on the few that violate it. I had a quick sensitiveness to public
opinion, and felt as if it ranked me with the tavern-haunters and
town-paupers,--with the drunken poet, who hawked his own Fourth of July
odes, and the broken soldier who had been good for nothing since the
last war. The consequence of all this was a piece of light-hearted
desperation."
The youth then takes up the character of the writer of "The Seven
Vagabonds," saying, "The idea of becoming a wandering story-teller had
been suggested, a year or two before, by an encounter with several merry
vagabonds in a showman's wagon, where they and I had sheltered
ourselves, during a summer shower;" and he announces that he determined
to follow that life, the account of which he proceeds to give with this
preliminary word of explanation:--
"The following pages will contain a picture of my vagrant life,
intermixed with specimens, generally brief and slight, of that great
mass of fiction to which I gave existence, and which has vanished like
cloud-shapes. Besides the occasions when I sought a pecuniary reward, I
was accustomed to exercise my narrative faculty, wherever chance had
collected a little audience, idle enough to listen. These rehearsals
were useful in testing the strong points of my stories; and, indeed, the
flow of fancy soon came upon me so abundantly, that its indulgence was
its own reward; though the hope of praise, also, became a powerful
incitement. Since I shall never feel the warm gush of new thought, as I
did then, let me beseech the reader to believe, that my tales were not
always so cold as he may find them now. With each specimen will be given
a sketch of the circumstances in which the story was told. Thus my
air-drawn pictures will be set in frames, perhaps more valuable than the
pictures themselves, since they will be embossed with groups of
characteristic figures, amid the lake and mountain scenery, the villages
and fertile fields, of our native land. But I write the book for the
sake of its moral, which many a dreaming youth may profit by, though it
is the experience of a wandering story-teller."
He makes the acquaintance of another itinerant, a preacher, Eliakim
Abbott, drawn after the fashion of that crude grotesque which is found
in Hawthorne's early work, and is not without a reminiscence of Scott in
the literary handling; and the two become fellows of the road, the one
with a sermon, the other with a story, and their fortune with their
audiences is related. The only adventure of note, however, is the
appearance of the Story-Teller as an attraction of a traveling
theatrical company, by special engagement, announced by posters, which
also bear on a pasted slip of paper a notice of Eliakim Abbott's
religious meeting. On this occasion he recited with great applause the
tale of "Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe." With this the fragment ends.
It is plain that Hawthorne intended by this scheme to unite with his
stories sketches of country life and scenes as he had noticed their
features in his wayside travels, and use the latter as the background
for his imaginative and fanciful work. These were the two sides of his
literary faculty, so far as he had tried his hand, and he would have the
benefit of both in one work, which would thereby gain variety and unity.
The success of the experiment cannot be thought striking, and it is
doubtful how far he carried the actual composition of the intervening
scenes. He confided the plan to Goodrich, who did not encourage it, so
far as can be judged, but took the opening chapters to the editors of
"The New England Magazine" on Hawthorne's behalf. This periodical, which
had three years before absorbed Willis's "Magazine," had been conducted
on somewhat grave and serious lines, as a kind of Boston cousin, as it
were, of the "North American," and was now in a state of change. Mr.
Buckingham relinquished the editorship, and the magazine went into the
hands of Dr. Samuel G. Howe and John O. Sargent. It was at this
favorable moment that Goodrich appeared with Hawthorne's manuscript; the
piece was accepted; and it was published, half in the first and half in
the second number issued by the new editors, in November and December,
1834. The connection proved a fortunate one for Hawthorne, and "The New
England Magazine" [Footnote: In the Riverside edition of Hawthorne's
works a paper, _Hints to Young Ambition_, which appeared in _The
New England Magazine,_ 1832, signed "H.," is included. The piece is
one of several, with the same signature, and there can he little
hesitation in rejecting it, as Goodrich would hardly have needed to
introduce Hawthorne to a magazine to which he already contributed. The
other pieces are not in his vein, and "H." is a common signature in the
periodicals of the time. At all events, Hawthorne would have gone
further afield for a pseudonym than the initial of his own name, which
he is not known ever to have used.] now became equally with "The Token"
a constant medium for the publication of his writings of all sorts. Park
Benjamin, who was soon associated with Howe and Sargent in the
editorship, took sole charge in March, 1835, and was from the first, and
always remained, a firm admirer of the new author's genius. To him, next
to Goodrich, Hawthorne owed his introduction to such readers as he then
had.
If Hawthorne made any effort to break a way for himself in reaching the
public, it has not been traced, except that one letter exists, January
27, 1832, in which he offers his pen to the "Atlantic Souvenir" of
Philadelphia; but that annual was bought out by Goodrich the same year
and merged with "The Token," so that Hawthorne's venture only brought
him back to the old stand. In 1833 his connection with Goodrich appears
to have been temporarily broken, as "The Token" for 1834, which appeared
that fall, contains nothing by him. For 1835 he contributed to it "The
Haunted Mind" and "The Mermaid, A Revery," now known as "The Village
Uncle," anonymously, and "Alice Doane's Appeal" as by the author of "The
Gentle Boy." In "Youth's Keepsake" for the same year appeared "Little
Annie's Ramble." These stories were published in the fall of 1834,
before the venture of "The Story-Teller." Early in 1835 he furnished for
the next year's "Token," 1836, "The Wedding Knell" and "The Minister's
Black Veil" as by the author of "Sights from a Steeple," and "The
May-pole of Merry Mount" as by the author of "The Gentle Boy." What
there was left in his hands must have gone almost as a block to "The New
England Magazine," and perhaps his stock of unused papers was thus
exhausted. To complete the record, he published in this magazine "The
Gray Champion" as by the author of "The Gentle Boy," in January; "Old
News" anonymously, in February, March, and May; "My Visit to Niagara,"
in February; "Young Goodman Brown," in April; "Wakefield," in May; "The
Ambitious Guest," in June, and in the same month, anonymously in both
instances, "Graves and Goblins" and "A Bill from the Town Pump;" "The
Old Maid in the Winding Sheet," now known as "The White Old Maid," in
July; "The Vision of the Fountain," in August; "The Devil in Manuscript"
as by "Ashley A. Royce," in November; "Sketches from Memory" as by "A
Pedestrian," in November and December. All these pieces, except as
stated above, are given as by the author of "The Gray Champion." It may
fairly be thought that he had emptied his desk of its accumulations,
though a few tales may have been reserved for Goodrich.
Hawthorne had now been before the public with increasing frequency for
five years, but he had made little impression, and his success as an
author must have remained as doubtful to him as at the start. Goodrich,
in the passage already quoted from his "Recollections," went on to
describe him during this early time of their acquaintance, and shows how
slight was his progress in winning attention:--
"At this period he was unsettled as to his views; he had tried his hand
in literature, and considered himself to have met with a fatal rebuff
from the reading world. His mind vacillated between various projects,
verging, I think, toward a mercantile profession. I combated his
despondence, and assured him of triumph if he would persevere in a
literary career. He wrote numerous articles which appeared in 'The
Token;' occasionally an astute critic seemed to see through them, and to
discover the soul that was in them; but in general they passed without
notice. Such articles as 'Sights from a Steeple,' 'Sketches beneath an
Umbrella,' 'The Wives of the Dead,' 'The Prophetic Pictures,' now
universally acknowledged to be productions of extraordinary depth,
meaning, and power, extorted hardly a word of either praise or blame,
while columns were given to pieces since totally forgotten. I felt
annoyed, almost angry, indeed, at this. I wrote several articles in the
papers, directing attention to these productions, and finding no echo to
my views, I recollect to have asked John Pickering to read some of them,
and give me his opinion of them. He did as I requested; his answer was
that they displayed a wonderful beauty of style, with a kind of double
vision, a sort of second sight, which revealed, beyond the outward forms
of life and being, a sort of Spirit World."