chapter on the Custom-House incensed some of his fellow-citizens of
Salem, terribly. There seems to have been a general civic clamor against
him, on account of it, though it would be hard to find any rational
justification therefor. In reference to the affair, Hawthorne wrote at
the time:--
"As to the Salem people, I really thought I had been exceedingly
good-natured in my treatment of them. They certainly do not deserve good
usage at my hands, after permitting me ... to be deliberately lied down,
not merely once, but at two separate attacks, and on two false
indictments, without hardly a voice being raised on my behalf."
This refers to political machinations of the party opposed to Hawthorne
as an official: they had pledged themselves, it was understood, not to
ask for his ejection, and afterward set to work to oust him without
cause. There is reason to believe that Hawthorne felt acute exasperation
at these unpleasant episodes for a time. But the annoyance came upon him
when he was worn out with the excitement of composing "The Scarlet
Letter"; and this ebullition of local hostility must moreover have been
especially offensive at a moment when the public everywhere else was
receiving him with acclaim as a person whose genius entitled him to
enthusiastic recognition. Hawthorne had generous admirers and sincere
friends in Salem, and his feeling was, I suppose, in great measure the
culmination of that smouldering disagreement which had harassed him in
earlier years, and had lurked in his heart in spite of the constant mild
affection which he maintained toward the town.
But the connection between Hawthorne and Salem was now to be finally
broken off. He longed for change, for the country, and for the
recreation that the Old Manse garden had given him. "I should not long
stand such a life of bodily inactivity and mental exertion as I have led
for the last few months," he wrote to Bridge. "Here I hardly go out once
a week." On this account, and because of his difficulty in writing while
in office, he did not so much regret losing his place. One of the plans
proposed at this time was that he should rent or buy the Sparhawk house,
a famous old colonial mansion on Goose Creek, at Kittery, in Maine,
which was then to be disposed of in some way. Hawthorne, I think, would
have found much that was suggestive and agreeable in the neighborhood.
After his return from abroad, he made a visit to the quaint and stately
little city of Portsmouth, and dined at one of the most beautiful old
houses in New England, the ancient residence of Governor Langdon, then
occupied by the Rev. Dr. Burroughs. A memorial of that visit remains, in
this bright note from his host:--
PORTSMOUTH, September, 1860.
MR. HAWTHORNE.
MY DEAR SIR:--There are no Mosses on our "Old Manse," there is no
Romance at our Blithedale; and this is no "Scarlet Letter." But you can
give us a "Twice-Told Tale," if you will for the second time be our
guest to-morrow at dinner, at half past two o'clock.
Very truly yours,
CHARLES BURROUGHS.
But, at present, Hawthorne's decision led him to Berkshire.
VIII.
LENOX AND CONCORD: PRODUCTIVE PERIOD.
1850-1853.
In the early summer, after the publication of "The Scarlet Letter,"
Hawthorne removed from Salem to Lenox, in Berkshire, where himself and
his family were ensconced in a small red house near the Stockbridge
Bowl. It was far from a comfortable residence; but he had no means of
obtaining a better one. Meantime, he could do what he was sent into the
world to do, so long as he had the mere wherewithal to live.
He was much interested in Herman Melville, at this time living in
Pittsfield. There was even talk of their writing something together, as
I judge from some correspondence; though this was abandoned.
Between this summer of 1850 and June, 1853, Hawthorne wrote "The House
of the Seven Gables," "The Blithedale Romance," "The Wonder-Book for
Boys and Girls," and "Tanglewood Tales," besides the story of "The Snow
Image" in the volume to which this supplies the title; and his short
"Life of Franklin Pierce." The previous paucity of encouragements to
literature, and the deterring effect of official duties and of the Brook
Farm attempt, were now removed, and his pen showed that it could pour a
full current if only left free to do so.
The industry and energy of this period are the more remarkable because
he could seldom accomplish anything in the way of composition during the
warm months. "The House of the Seven Gables" was under way by September,
1850.
"I shan't have the new story ready," he writes to his publisher on the
1st of October, "by November, for I am never good for anything in the
literary way till after the first autumnal frost, which has somewhat
such an effect on my imagination that it does on the foliage here about
me,--multiplying and brightening its hues; though they are likely to be
sober and shabby enough after all."
The strain of reflection upon the work in hand which he indulged one
month later is so important as to merit dwelling upon.
"I write diligently, but not so rapidly as I had hoped. I find the book
requires more care and thought than 'The Scarlet Letter'; also I have to
wait oftener for a mood. 'The Scarlet Letter' being all in one tone, I
had only to get my pitch, and could then go on interminably. Many
passages of this book ought to be finished with the minuteness of a
Dutch picture, in order to give them their proper effect. Sometimes,
when tired of it, it strikes me that the whole is an absurdity, from
beginning to end; but the fact is, in writing a romance, a man is
always, or always ought to be, careering on, the utmost verge of a
precipitous absurdity, and the skill lies in coming as close as
possible, without actually tumbling over. My prevailing idea is, that
the book ought to succeed better than 'The Scarlet Letter,' though I
have no idea that it will."
By the 12th of January, 1851, he was able to write: "My 'House of the
Seven Gables' is, so to speak, finished; only I am hammering away a
little at the roof, and doing up a few odd jobs that were left
incomplete"; and at the end of that month, he despatched the manuscript
to Boston, still retaining his preference for it over the preceding work.
"It has met with extraordinary success from that portion of the public
to whose judgment it has been submitted, viz. from my wife. I likewise
prefer it to 'The Scarlet Letter'; but an author's opinion of his book
just after completing it is worth little or nothing, he being then in
the hot or cold fit of a fever, and certain to rate it too high or too
low.
"It has undoubtedly one disadvantage, in being brought so close to the
present time; whereby its romantic improbabilities become more glaring."
He also wrote to Bridge, in July, after listening to the critics, and
giving his own opinion time to mature:--
"I think it a work more characteristic of my mind, and more proper and
natural for me to write, than 'The Scarlet Letter,'--but, for that very
reason, less likely to interest the public. Nevertheless, it appears to
have sold better than the former, and I think is move sure of retaining
the ground that it acquires. Mrs. Kemble writes that both works are
popular in England, and advises me to take out my copyright there."
His opinion of the superiority of the fresh production to his first
great romance is no doubt one that critics will coincide with as regards
artistic completeness; though his fear that it would not succeed so well
was not confirmed, because, as I have suggested, he had begun to acquire
that momentum of public favor which sets in after its first immense
inertia has once been overcome. Acting on the reports from England, he
made a suggestion to his publisher; and though this at first met with
discouragement, ten months later £200 were received from a London house
for "The Blithedale Romance." English editions of his works had already
become numerous. But Hawthorne began now to receive a more ethereal and
not less welcome kind of tribute from abroad, that of praise from the
makers and markers of literature. The critics welcomed him to a high
place; authors wrote to him, urging him to cross the sea; and Miss
Mitford--of whom he said, "Her sketches, long ago as I read them, are as
sweet in my memory as the scent of new hay"--sent special messages
expressive of her pleasure.
When the "Blithedale Romance" had come out, Mr. Hawthorne sent Miss
Mitford a copy, and she wrote in reply this cordial and delightful
note:--
SWALLOWFIELD, August 6,1852.
At the risk of troubling you, dear Mr. Hawthorne, I write again to tell
you how much I thank you for the precious volume enriched by your
handwriting, which, for its own sake and for yours, I shall treasure
carefully so long as I live. The story has your mark upon it,--the fine
tragic construction unmatched amongst living authors, the passion of the
concluding scenes, the subtle analysis of jealousy, the exquisite finish
of style. I must tell you what one of the cleverest men whom I have ever
known, an Irish barrister, the juvenile correspondent of Miss Edgeworth,
says of your style: "His English is the richest and most intense essence
of the language I know of; his words conveying not only a meaning, but
more than they appear to mean. They point onward or upward or downward,
as the case may be, and we cannot help following them with the eyes of
imagination, sometimes smiling, sometimes weeping, sometimes shuddering,
as if we were victims of the mesmeric influence he is so fond of
bringing to bear upon his characters. Three of the most perfect
Englishmen of our day are Americans,--Irving, Prescott, and this great
new writer, Mr. Hawthorne." So far my friend Mr. Hockey. I forget, dear
Mr. Hawthorne, whether I told you that the writer of whose works you
remind me, not by imitation, but by resemblance, is the great French
novelist, Balzac. Do you know his books? He is untranslated and
untranslatable, and it requires the greatest familiarity with French
literature to relish him thoroughly.... I doubt if he be much known
amongst you; at least I have never seen him alluded to in American
literature. He has, of course, the low morality of a Frenchman, but,
being what he is, Mrs. Browning and I used to discuss his personages
like living people, and regarded his death as a great personal calamity
to both.
I am expecting Mrs. Browning here in a few days, not being well enough
to meet her in London.... How I wish, dear Mr. Hawthorne, that you were
here to meet them! The day will come, I hope. It would be good for your
books to look at Europe, and all of Europe that knows our tongue would
rejoice to look at you.
Ever your obliged and affectionate friend,
M. R. MITFORD.
I must transcribe here, too, part of a letter from Herman Melville, who,
in the midst of his epistle, suddenly assumes the tone of a reviewer,
and discourses as follows, under the heading, "_The House of the Seven
Gables: A Romance. By Nathaniel Hawthorne_. 16_mo. pp._ 344."
"The contents of this book do not belie its clustering romantic title.
With great enjoyment we spent almost an hour in each separate gable.
This book is like a fine old chamber, abundantly but still judiciously
furnished with precisely that sort of furniture best fitted to furnish
it. There are rich hangings, whereon are braided scenes from tragedies.
There is old china with rare devices, set about on the carved beaufet;
there are long and indolent lounges to throw yourself upon; there is an
admirable sideboard, plentifully stored with good viands; there is a
smell of old wine in the pantry; and finally, in one corner, there is a
dark little black-letter volume in golden clasps, entitled _Hawthorne:
A Problem_....
"We think the book for pleasantness of running interest surpasses the
other work of the author. The curtains are now drawn; the sun comes in
more; genialities peep out more. Were we to particularize what has most
struck us in the deeper passages, we should point out the scene where
Clifford, for a minute, would fain throw himself from the window, to
join the procession; or the scene where the Judge is left seated in his
ancestral chair.
"Clifford is full of an awful truth throughout. He is conceived in the
finest, truest spirit. He is no caricature. He is Clifford. And here we
would say, that did the circumstances permit, we should like nothing
better than to devote an elaborate and careful paper to the full
consideration and analysis of the purpose and significance of what so
strongly characterizes all of this author's writing. There is a certain
tragic phase of humanity, which, in our opinion, was never more
powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne: we mean the tragicalness of human
thought in its own unbiased, native, and profound workings. We think
that into no recorded mind has the intense feeling of the whole truth
ever entered more deeply than into this man's. By whole truth, we mean
the apprehension of the absolute condition of present things as they
strike the eye of the man who fears them not, though they do their worst
to him."
This really profound analysis, Mr. Mellville professes to extract from
the "Pittsfield Secret Review," of which I wish further numbers could be
found.
But chief among the prizes of this season were letters from his friends
Lowell and Holmes. The latter's I insert, because it admirably
illustrates the cordial relation which has always distinguished the
famous writers of New England,--no pleasant illusion of distance, but a
notable and praiseworthy reality.
BOSTON, April 9, 1851.
MY DEAR SIR:--I have been confined to my chamber and almost to my bed,
for some days since I received your note; and in the mean time I have
received what was even more welcome, the new Romance "from the Author."
While I was too ill to read, my wife read it to me, so that you have
been playing physician to my heartaches and headaches at once, with the
magnetism of your imagination.
I think we have no romancer but yourself, nor have had any for this long
time. I had become so set in this feeling, that but for your last two
stories I should have given up hoping, and believed that all we were to
look for in the way of spontaneous growth were such languid, lifeless,
sexless creations as in the view of certain people constitute the chief
triumphs of a sister art as manifested among us.
But there is rich red blood in Hester, and the flavor of the sweet-fern
and the bayberry are not truer to the soil than the native sweetness of
our little Phoebe! The Yankee mind has for the most part budded and
flowered in pots of English earth, but you have fairly raised yours as a
seedling in the natural soil. My criticism has to stop here; the moment
a fresh mind takes in the elements of the common life about us and
transfigures them, I am contented to enjoy and admire, and let others
analyze. Otherwise I should be tempted to display my appreciating
sagacity in pointing out a hundred touches, transcriptions of nature, of
character, of sentiment, true as the daguerreotype, free as crayon
sketching, which arrested me even in the midst of the palpitating story.
Only one word, then, this: that the solid reality and homely
truthfulness of the actual and present part of the story are blended
with its weird and ghostly shadows with consummate skill and effect;
this was perhaps the special difficulty of the story.
I don't want to refuse anything you ask me to do. I shall come up, I
trust, about the 1st of June. I would look over the MS. in question, as
a duty, with as much pleasure as many other duties afford. To say the
truth, I have as great a dread of the _Homo Caudatus_ Linn.,
Anglicé, the Being with a Tale, male or female, as any can have.
"If foes they write, if friends they read me dead,"
said poor Hepzibah's old exploded poet. Still, if it must be, I will
stipulate to read a quantity not exceeding fifty-six pounds avoirdupois
by weight or eighteen reams by measure or "tale,"--provided there is no
locomotion in the case. The idea of visiting Albany does not enter into
my intentions. I do not know who would serve as a third or a second
member of the committee; Miss Sedgwick, if the Salic law does not
prevail in Berkshire, is the most natural person to do it. But the real
truth is, the little Albaneses want to see the author of "The Scarlet
Letter," and don't care a sixpence who else is on the committee. That is
what they are up to. So if you want two dummies, on the classical
condition _not to leave the country except in case of invasion_,
absentees, voters by proxy, potential but not personally present
bottle-holders, I will add my name to those of Latimer, Ridley, and Co.
as a Martyr in the cause of Human Progress.
Believe me, my dear sir,
Yours very sincerely,
O. W. Holmes.
Hawthorne's interest in Dr. Holmes's works was also very great, and one
of the last books which he read at all was "Elsie Venner," which he had
taken up for a second time shortly before his death.
Amid all the variety of thoughtful and thoughtless praise, or of other
comment on the new romance, he began to feel that necessity for
abstracting his attention entirely from what was said of his work in
current publications, which forces itself upon every creative mind
attempting to secure some centre of repose in a chattering and unprivate
age like the present. This feeling he imparted to Bridge, and it also
appears in one or two published letters. At the same time, it must be
remembered how careful a consideration he gave to criticism; and he
wrote of Edwin Whipple's reviewing of the "Seven Gables":--
"Whipple's notices have done more than pleased me, for they have helped
me to see my book. Much of the censure I recognize as just; I wish I
could feel the praise to be so fully deserved. Being better (which I
insist it is) than 'The Scarlet Letter,' I have never expected it to be
so popular."
In this same letter occurs the following:--
"---- ----, Esq., of Boston, has written to me, complaining that I have
made his grandfather infamous! It seems there was actually a Pyncheon
(or Pynchon, as he spells it) family resident in Salem, and that their
representative, at the period of the Revolution, was a certain Judge
Pynchon, a Tory and a refugee. This was Mr. ----'s grandfather, and (at
least, so he dutifully describes him) the most exemplary old gentleman
in the world. There are several touches in my account of the Pyncheons
which, he says, make it probable that I had this actual family in my
eye, and he considers himself infinitely wronged and aggrieved, and
thinks it monstrous that the 'virtuous dead' cannot be suffered to rest
quietly in their graves."
The matter here alluded to threatened to give Hawthorne almost as much
inconvenience as the tribulation which followed the appearance of "The
Custom-House." One of the complainants in this case, though objecting to
the use of the name Pyncheon, "respectfully suggests," with an ill-timed
passion for accuracy, that it should in future editions be printed with
the _e_ left out, because this was the proper mode in use by the
family.
There has been some slight controversy as to the original of the
visionary mansion described in this romance. Mr. Hawthorne himself said
distinctly that he had no particular house in mind, and it is also a
fact that none is recalled which fulfils all the conditions of that of
the "Seven Gables." Nevertheless, one party has maintained that the old
Philip English house, pulled down many years since, was the veritable
model; and others support the Ingersoll house, which still stands. The
Curwin, called the "Witch House," appears, by an antique painting from
which photographs have been made, to have had the requisite number of
peaks at a remote date; but one side of the structure being perforce
left out of the picture, there is room for a doubt. [Footnote: It is
from one of these photographs that the cut in the new edition of
Hawthorne's Works has been developed.]
In "The House of the Seven Gables" Hawthorne attained a connection of
parts and a masterly gradation of tones which did not belong, in the
same fulness, to "The Scarlet Letter." There is, besides, a larger range
of character, in this second work, and a much more nicely detailed and
reticulated portrayal of the individuals. Hepzibah is a painting on
ivory, yet with all the warmth of a real being. Very noticeable is the
delicate veneration and tenderness for her with which the author seems
to inspire us, notwithstanding the fact that he has almost nothing
definite to say of her except what tends to throw a light ridicule. She
is continually contrasted with the exquisite freshness, ready grace, and
beauty of Phoebe, and subjected to unfavorable comparisons in the mind
of Clifford, whose half-obliterated but still exact aesthetic perception
casts silent reproach upon her. Yet, in spite of this, she becomes in a
measure endeared to us. In the grace, and agreeableness too, with which
Hawthorne manages to surround this ungifted spinster, we find a unit of
measure for the beauty with which he has invested the more frightful and
tragic elements of the story. It is this triumph of beauty without
destroying the unbeautiful, that gives the romance its peculiar artistic
virtue. Judge Pyncheon is an almost unqualified discomfort to the
reader, yet he is entirely held within bounds by the prevailing charm of
the author's style, and by the ingenious manner in which the pleasanter
elements of the other characters are applied. At times the strong
emphasis given to his evil nature makes one suspect that the villain is
too deeply dyed; but the question of equity here involved is one of the
most intricate with which novelists have to deal at all. The
well-defined opposition between good and bad forces has always been a
necessity to man, in myths, religions, and drama. Heal life furnishes
the most absolute extremes of possession by the angel or the fiend; and
Shakespere has not scrupled to use one of these ultimate possibilities
in the person of Iago. Yet Hawthorne was too acutely conscious of the
downward bent in every heart, to let the Judge's pronounced iniquity
stand without giving a glimpse of incipient evil in another quarter.
This occurs in the temptation which besets Holgrave, when he finds that
he possesses the same mesmeric sway over Phoebe, the latest Pyncheon
offshoot, as that which his ancestor Matthew Maule exercised over Alice
Pyncheon. The momentary mood which brings before him the absolute power
which might be his over this fair girl, opens a whole new vista of
wrong, in which the retribution would have been transferred from the
shoulders of the Pyncheons to those of the Maules. Had Holgrave yielded
then, he might have damned his own posterity, as Colonel Pyncheon had
_his_. Thus, even in the hero of the piece, we are made aware of
possibilities as malicious and destructive as those hereditary faults
grown to such rank maturity in the Judge; and this may be said to offer
a middle ground between the side of justice and attractiveness, and the
side of injustice and repulsiveness, on which the personages are
respectively ranged.
The conception of a misdeed operating through several generations, and
righted at last solely by the over-toppling of unrestrained malevolence
on the one hand, and on the other by the force of upright character in
the wronged family, was a novel one at the time; this graphic depicture
of the past at work upon the present has anticipated a great deal of the
history and criticism of the following twenty-five years, in its close
conjunction of antecedent influences and cumulative effects.