THE LIVERPOOL CONSULATE: 1852-1854
Why Hawthorne returned to Concord in 1852 is more of a mystery than the
suicide of Zenobia. Horace Mann also left Newton, to be President of
Antioch College (and to die there in the cause of feminine education),
in the autumn of that year; but this could hardly have been expected
six months earlier. Hawthorne was not very favorably situated at Newton,
being rather too near the railroad; but there was plenty of land on the
top of the hill, where he might have built himself a house, and in the
course of twelve years his property would have quadrupled in value.
A poet will not be less of a poet, but more so, for understanding the
practical affairs of life. Or he might have removed to Cambridge, where
Longfellow, always foremost in kind offices, would have been like a
guardian angel to him, and where he could have made friends like Felton
and Agassiz, who would have been much more in harmony with his political
views. Ellery Channing was the only friend he appears to have retained
in Concord, and it was not altogether a favorable place to bring up his
children; but the natural topography of Concord is unusually attractive,
and it may be suspected that he was drawn thither more from the love of
its pine solitudes and shimmering waters, than from any other motive.
The house he purchased was nearly a mile from the centre of the
town, and has ever since been known by the name of the Wayside. After
Hawthorne’s return from Europe in 1860, he remodelled it somewhat, so
that it has a more dignified aspect than when he first took possession
of it. Alcott, who occupied it for some years previously, had adorned it
with that species of rustic architecture in which he was so skilful. The
house was half surrounded by a group of locust trees, much in fashion
seventy years ago, and had been set so close against the hill-side, that
a thicket of stunted pines and other wild growth rose above the roof
like a crest. Bronson Alcott was his next-door neighbor,--almost too
strong a contrast to him,--and Emerson’s house was half a mile away; so
that these three families formed a group by themselves in that portion
of Concord.
Hawthorne wrote a letter to his sister Elizabeth, describing his new
acquisition, and expressing satisfaction in it. It was the first house
that he had ever owned; and it is no small comfort to a man to live
under his own roof, even though it be a humble one. At this time,
however, he did not remain at the Wayside but a single year. After that,
the house stood empty until the untimely death of Horace Mann, August 2,
1859, when Mrs. Mann came to Concord with her three boys, and occupied
it until Hawthorne’s return from Europe.
[Illustration: THE WAYSIDE]
It may as well be noticed here, that, during the eight years which
Hawthorne spent altogether in Concord, he accomplished little literary
work, and none of any real importance. It is impossible to account for
this, except upon those psychological conditions which sometimes
affect delicately balanced minds. Whether the trouble was in the
social atmosphere of the place, or in its climatic conditions, perhaps
Hawthorne himself could not have decided; but there must have been a
reason for it of some description. Julian Hawthorne states that his
father had a plan at this time of writing another romance, of a more
cheerful tone than “The Blithedale Romance,” but the full current of his
poetic activity was suddenly brought to a standstill by an event that
nobody would have dreamed of.
Hawthorne had hardly established himself in his new abode, when Franklin
Pierce was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic party. The
whole country was astonished, for no such nomination had ever been made
before, and it is probable that Pierce himself shared largely in this.
The New Hampshire delegation had presented his name to the convention,
in order to procure him distinction in his own State, but without
expectation that he would become a serious candidate. Like the
nomination of Hayes in 1876, it resulted from the jealousy of the great
party leaders,--always an unfortunate position for a public man to be
placed in. Theodore Parker said, “Any one is now in danger of becoming
President.”
Hawthorne evidently felt this, for he wrote to Bridge, “I do not
consider Pierce the brightest man in the country, for there are twenty
more so.” It would have been a mild statement if he had said two
hundred. Pierce wanted him, of course, to write a campaign biography,
and communicated with him to that effect; but Hawthorne disliked
meddling in such matters, and at first declined to do it, although it
was expected to be highly remunerative. Pierce, however, insisted, for
Hawthorne’s reputation was now much beyond his own, and he felt that
a biography by so distinguished a writer would confer upon him great
dignity in the eyes of the world; and as Hawthorne felt already much
indebted to Pierce, he finally consented,--although a cheap spread-eagle
affair would have served the purpose of his party quite as well. The
book had to be written in haste, and just at the time when Hawthorne
wished to take a little leisure. There were so few salient points
in Pierce’s life, that it was almost like making a biography out of
nothing, and as for describing him as a hero, that was quite impossible.
It was fortunate that he knew so much of Pierce’s early life, and also
that Pierce had kept a diary during the Mexican War, which formed a
considerable portion of the biography.
The book is worth reading, although written in this prosaic manner.
Hawthorne states in the preface, frankly and manfully, that he objected
to writing it, and this ought to be an excuse sufficient for his doing
so--if excuse be needed. He does not attempt to represent his friend as
a great statesman, but rather as a patriotic country gentleman, who is
interested in public affairs, and who rises from one honorable position
to another through a well-deserved popularity. This would seem to have
been the truth; and yet there was a decided inconsistency in Franklin
Pierce’s life, which Hawthorne represents plainly enough, although he
makes no comment thereon.
Franklin Pierce’s father was captain of a militia company in 1798,
when war was declared against the French Directory, for seizing and
confiscating American merchant ships, contrary to the law of nations.
There could not have been a more just occasion for war, but Captain
Pierce resigned his commission, because he considered it wrong to fight
against a republic; and Hawthorne approves of him for this. Franklin
Pierce, however, resigned his seat in the Senate in 1842, on account of
the interests of his family, alleging that “he would never enter public
life again, unless the needs of his country imperatively demanded
it,” yet four years later he organized a regiment for the invasion of
Mexico,--not only for making war upon a republic, but an unjust and
indefensible war. General Grant’s opinion ought to be conclusive on this
latter point, for he belonged to the same political party as Pierce
and Hawthorne. Certainly, Pierce’s services were not required for the
defence of his native land.
To do Hawthorne justice, there can be no doubt that in his heart he
disapproved of this; for in one of his sketches written at the Old
Manse, he speaks censoriously of “those adventurous spirits who leave
their homes to emigrate to Texas.” He evidently foresaw that trouble
would arise in that direction, and perhaps Ellery Channing assisted him
in penetrating the true inwardness of the movement.
It will be remembered that in Franklin Pierce’s youth, he was
exceptionally interested in military manoeuvres, and this may have been
one of the inducements which led him into the Mexican War; but young men
who are fond of holiday epaulets do not, for obvious reasons, make the
best fighters. Pierce’s military career was not a distinguished one;
for, whether he was thrown from his horse in his first engagement, or,
as the Whigs alleged, fell from it as soon as he came under fire, it is
certain that he did not cover himself with glory, as the phrase was at
that time. But we can believe Hawthorne, when he tells us that Pierce
took good charge of the troops under his command, and that he was kind
and considerate to sick and wounded soldiers. That was in accordance
with his natural character.
It was impossible at that time to avoid the slavery question in dealing
with political subjects, and what Hawthorne said on this point, in the
life of General Pierce, attracted more attention than the book itself.
Like Webster he considered slavery an evil, but he believed it to be
one of those evils which the human race outgrows, by progress in
civilization,--like the human sacrifices of the Gauls perhaps,--and
he greatly deprecated the anti-slavery agitation, which only served to
inflame men’s minds and make them unreasonable.
There were many sensible persons in the Northern States at that time,
like Hawthorne and Hillard, who sincerely believed in this doctrine,
but they do not seem to have been aware that there was a pro-slavery
agitation at the South which antedated Garrison’s _Liberator_ and which
was much more aggressive and vehement than the anti-slavery movement,
because there were large pecuniary interests connected with it. The
desperate grasping of the slave-holders for new territory, first in the
Northwest and then in the Southwest, was not because they were in any
need of land, but because new slave States increased their political
power. Horatio Bridge says, relatively to this subject:
“No Northern man had better means for knowing the dangers impending,
previous to the outbreak of the war, than had General Pierce. Intimately
associated--as he was--with the strong men of the South, in his Cabinet
and in Congress, he saw that the Southerners were determined, at all
hazards, to defend their peculiar institution of slavery, which was
imperilled by the abolitionists.”
If Franklin Pierce was desirous of preserving the Union, why did he
give Jefferson Davis a place in his Cabinet, and take him for his chief
adviser? Davis was already a pronounced secessionist, and had been
defeated in his own State on that issue. In subserviency to Southern
interests, no other Northern man ever went so far as Franklin Pierce,
nor did Garrison himself accomplish so much toward the dissolution of
the Union. He was an instance in real life of Goldsmith’s “good-natured
man,” and the same qualities which assisted him to the position of
President prevented his administration from being a success. Presidents
ought to be made of firmer and sterner material.
Hawthorne had barely finished with the proofs of this volume, when he
received the saddest, most harrowing news that ever came to him. After
her mother’s death, in 1849, Louisa Hawthorne had gone to live with her
aunt, Mrs. John Dike; and in July, 1852, Mr. Dike went with her on an
excursion to Saratoga and New York City. On the morning of July 27,
they left Albany on the steamboat “Henry Clay,” which, as is well known,
never reached its destination. When nearing Yonkers, a fire broke
out near the engines, where the wood-work was saturated with oil, and
instantly the centre of the vessel was in a bright blaze. Mr. Dike
happened to be on the forward deck at the moment, but Louisa Hawthorne
was in the ladies’ cabin, and it was impossible to reach her. The
captain of the Henry Clay immediately ran the vessel on shore, so that
Mr. Dike and those who were with him escaped to land, but Louisa and
more than seventy others, who threw themselves into the water, were
drowned. It would seem to have been impossible to save her.
The death of Hawthorne’s mother may be said to have come in the course
of Nature, and his mind was prepared for it; but Louisa had been the
playmate of his childhood, and her death seemed as unnecessary as it
was sharp and sudden. It happened almost on the third anniversary of
his mother’s death, and these were the only two occasions in Hawthorne’s
life, when the Dark Angel hovered about his door.
Rebecca Manning says: “Louisa Hawthorne was a most delightful, lovable,
interesting woman--not at all ‘commonplace,’ as has been stated. Her
death was a great sorrow to all her friends. Her name was Maria Louisa,
and she was often called Maria by her mother and sister and aunts.”
Depressed and unnerved, in the most trying season of the year, Hawthorne
went in the latter part of August to visit Franklin Pierce at Concord,
New Hampshire; but there a severe torrid wave came on, so that Pierce
advised him to go at once to the Isles of Shoals, promising to follow in
a few days, if his numerous engagements would permit him.
The Isles of Shoals have the finest summer climate on the Atlantic
Ocean; an atmosphere at once quieting and strengthening, and always at
its best when it is hottest on the main-land. Hawthorne found a pair of
friends ready-made there, and prepared to receive him,--Levi Thaxter,
afterwards widely known as the apostle of Browning in America, and
his wife, Celia, a poetess in the bud, only sixteen, but very bright,
original, and pleasant. They admired Hawthorne above all living men, and
his sudden advent on their barren island seemed, as Thaxter afterward
expressed it, like a supernatural presence. They became good companions
in the next two weeks; climbing the rocks, rowing from one island to
another,--bald pieces of rock, like the summits of mountains rising
above the surface of the sea,--visiting the light-house, the monument
to Captain John Smith, Betty Moody’s Cave, the graves of the Spanish
sailors, the trap dikes of ancient lava, and much else. Every day
Hawthorne wrote a minute account in his diary of his various proceedings
there, including the observation of a live shark, which came into the
cove by the hotel, a rare spectacle on that coast. General Pierce
did not make his appearance, however, and on September 15, Hawthorne
returned to his own home.
The election of Pierce to the presidency was as remarkable as his
nomination. In 1848, General Taylor, the victor of a single battle, but
a man of little education, was nominated for the presidency over the
heads of the finest orators and ablest statesmen in America, and was
enthusiastically elected. General Scott, Franklin Pierce’s opponent,
defeated the Mexicans in four decisive battles, captured the capital of
the country, and conducted one of the most skilful military expeditions
of the past century. He was a man of rare administrative ability, and
there is no substantial argument against his character. We have
Grant’s testimony that it was pleasant to serve under him. Yet he
was overwhelmingly defeated at the polls by a militia general without
distinction, military or civil.
Hawthorne was naturally delighted at the result of the election;
unfortunate as it afterwards proved for his country. He derived a
threefold satisfaction from it, in the success of his friend, in the
defeat of the Whigs, and in the happy prospects which it opened for
himself. He could now return to the Salem Custom House in triumph,--as
the wisest man might be tempted to do,--but he looked forward to
something that would be more advantageous to his family. He had already
written on October 18 to Horatio Bridge:
“Before undertaking it [the biography] I made an inward resolution,
that I should accept no office from him; but, to say the truth, I doubt
whether it would not be rather folly than heroism to adhere to this
purpose, in case he should offer me anything particularly good. We shall
see. A foreign mission I could not afford to take. The consulship at
Liverpool, I might.” [Footnote: Bridge 130]
We may conclude from this, that Pierce had already intimated the
Liverpool consulate, which at that time was supposed to be worth
twenty-five thousand dollars a year in fees. It was an excellent plan
for the President of the United States to have such a gift at his
disposal, to reward some individual like Hawthorne, to whom the whole
nation was indebted to an extent that could never be repaid; but it is
a question whether it would not have been as well, in this particular
case, for Hawthorne to have remained in his own country. If he could
have written five or six romances more, this would have secured him
a good competency, and would have assured a sufficient income for his
family after his death. As it happened, the Liverpool consulate did not
prove so profitable as was anticipated.
With such “great expectations” before him, Hawthorne could do no serious
work that winter, so he occupied himself leisurely enough, with writing
a sequel to his “Wonder Book,” which he called “Tanglewood Tales,”
apparently after the thicket which surmounted the hill above his
residence. This was finished early in March, and given to Ticknor &
Company to publish when they saw fit. As it is a book intended for
children, the consideration of it need not detain us.
Early in April, 1853, Hawthorne was appointed and confirmed to the
Liverpool consulate, and on the 14th he went to Washington, as he tells
us, for the first time, to thank the President in person. Otherwise
he has divulged nothing concerning this journey, except that he was
introduced to a larger number of persons than he could remember the
names or faces of, and received ten times as many invitations as he
could accept. If Charles V. honored himself with posterity by picking up
the paint-brush which Titian had dropped on the floor, President Pierce
might have done himself equal credit by making Hawthorne his guest
at the White House; but if he did not go so far as this, it cannot
be doubted that he treated Hawthorne handsomely. There were giants at
Washington in those days. Webster and Clay were gone, but Seward was the
Charles Fox and Sumner the Edmund Burke of America; Chase and Marcy were
not much less in intellectual stature. Hawthorne must have met them, but
we hear nothing of them from him.
Hawthorne delayed his departure for England, until the most favorable
season arrived, for his fragile wife and infant children to cross the
“rolling forties.” At length, on July 6, two days after his forty-ninth
birthday, he sailed from Boston in the “Niagara,” and with _placida
onda prospero il vento_, in about twelve days they all arrived safely at
their destination.
The great stone docks of Liverpool, extending along its whole
water-front, give one a strong impression of the power and solidity of
England. Otherwise the city is almost devoid of interest, and travellers
customarily pass through it, to take the next train for Oxford or
London, without further observation, unless it be to give a look at the
conventional statue of Prince Albert on an Arab horse. Liverpool is
not so foggy a place as London, but it has a damper and less pleasant
climate, without those varied attractions and substantial enjoyments
which make London one of the most pleasant residences and most
interesting of cities.
London fog is composed of soft-coal smoke, which, ascending from
innumerable chimneys, is filtered in the upper skies, and then, mixed
with vapor, is cast back upon the city by every change of wind. It
is not unpleasant to the taste, and seems to be rather healthful than
otherwise; but all the vapors which sail down the Gulf Stream, and which
are not condensed on the Irish coast in the form of rain, collect
about the mouth of the Mersey, so that the adjacent country is the best
watered portion of all England, Cornwall possibly excepted. There is
plenty of wealth in Liverpool, and all kinds of private entertainments,
but in no other city of its size are there so few public entertainments,
and the only interesting occupation that a stranger might find there,
would be to watch the strange and curious characters in the lower
classes, faces and figures that cannot be caricatured, emerging from
cellar-ways or disappearing through side-doors. Go into an alehouse in
the evening and, beside the pretty barmaid, who deserves consideration
as much for her good behavior as for her looks, you will see plainly
enough where Dickens obtained his _dramatis personae_ for “Barnaby
Rudge” and “The Old Curiosity Shop.” Either in Liverpool or in London
you can see more grotesque comedy characters in a day, than you could
meet with in a year in America. These poor creatures are pressed down,
and squeezed out into what they are, under the superincumbent weight of
an enormous leisure class.
Such was the environment in which Hawthorne was obliged to spend the
ensuing four years. He soon, however, discovered a means to escape
from the monotonous and labyrinthine streets of the city, by renting an
imitation castle at Rock Ferry,--a very pretty place, much like Dobbs
Ferry, on the Hudson, although the river is not so fine,--where his
wife and children enjoyed fresh air, green grass, and all the sunshine
attainable, and whence he could reach the consulate every morning by the
Mersey boat. We find them located there before September 1.
Of the consulate itself, Hawthorne has given a minute pictorial
description in “Our Old Home,” from which the following extract is
especially pertinent to our present inquiry:
“The Consulate of the United States in my day, was located in Washington
Buildings (a shabby and smoke-stained edifice of four stories high,
thus illustriously named in honor of our national establishment), at the
lower corner of Brunswick Street, contiguous to the Goree Arcade, and
in the neighborhood of some of the oldest docks. This was by no means a
polite or elegant portion of England’s great commercial city, nor were
the apartments of the American official so splendid as to indicate the
assumption of much consular pomp on his part. A narrow and ill-lighted
staircase gave access to an equally narrow and ill-lighted passage-way
on the first floor, at the extremity of which, surmounting a door frame,
appeared an exceedingly stiff pictorial representation of the Goose
and Gridiron, according to the English idea of those ever-to-be-honored
symbols. The staircase and passage-way were often thronged of a morning,
with a set of beggarly and piratical-looking scoundrels (I do no wrong
to our countrymen in styling them so, for not one in twenty was a
genuine American), purporting to belong to our mercantile marine,
and chiefly composed of Liverpool Blackballers, and the scum of every
maritime nation on earth; such being the seamen by whose assistance we
then disputed the navigation of the world with England. These specimens
of a most unfortunate class of people were shipwrecked crews in quest
of bed, board, and clothing, invalids asking permits for the hospital,
bruised and bloody wretches complaining of ill-treatment by their
officers, drunkards, desperadoes, vagabonds, and cheats, perplexingly
intermingled with an uncertain proportion of reasonably honest men. All
of them (save here and there a poor devil of a kidnapped landsman in his
shore-going rags) wore red flannel shirts, in which they had sweltered
or shivered throughout the voyage, and all required consular assistance
in one form or another.”
The position of an American consul in a large foreign seaport,
especially at Liverpool, is anything but a sinecure, and in fact
requires a continual exercise of judgment much beyond the average duties
of a foreign minister. The difficulty also of being continually
obliged to distinguish between true and false applications for charity,
especially when the false are greatly in excess of the true, and among a
class of persons notably given to mendacious tricks, is one of the most
unpleasant conditions in which a tender-hearted man can find himself. As
curious studies in low life, the rascality of these nautical mendicants
may often have been interesting, and even amusing, to Hawthorne, but as
a steady pull they must have worn hard on his nerves, even though his
experienced clerk served as a breakwater to a considerable portion.
It has already been noticed that Hawthorne was a conscientious
office-holder, and he never trusted to others any duties which he was
able to attend to in person. Moreover, although he was a man of reserved
manners, there was an exceptionally tender, sympathetic heart behind
this impenetrable exterior, and it may be suspected that he relieved
many instances of actual distress, which could not be brought within the
government regulations. He may have suffered like the ghost in Dickens’s
“Haunted Man,” on account of those whom he could not assist. It is
certain that he aged more, in appearance at least, during these four
years, than at any similar period of his life.
It is no wonder, therefore, that, after a visit to the English lakes,
the following summer, Hawthorne wrote to his friend, Henry Bright, from
Liverpool:
“I have come back only for a day or two to this black and miserable
hole. I do not mean to apply these two adjectives to my consulate, but
to the whole of Liverpool.”
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 passing 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 associate on
equal terms with men who spend more than my whole income on the mere
entertainments and other trimmings 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 God’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.