and the time of writing "Septimius," must be gathered from a sketch
found among the author's papers, the date of which it is not possible to
determine with precision, though both its matter and form indicate that
it must have been written subsequently to the journal above mentioned.
Herein are curiously mingled certain features of both "Septimius" and
the "Dolliver Romance." So far as is consistent with the essential
privacy of the manuscript, I shall give a general outline of its
contents. It consists of two sections, in the second of which a lapse of
some years is implied. In the first of these chapters, for they hardly
exceed that limit, the most prominent figure is that of a singular,
morose old man, who inhabits a house overlooking a New England
graveyard. But though his situation resembles in this particular that of
Grandsir Dolliver, his characteristics resemble more those of Dr.
Portsoaken. He is constantly accompanied, too, by brandy-and-water and a
cloud-compelling pipe; and his study, like the doctor's chamber in
"Septimius," is tapestried with spider-webs; a particularly virulent
spider which dangles over his head, as he sits at his writing-desk,
being made to assume the aspect of a devilish familiar. On the other
hand, his is a far richer and less debased nature than that of
Portsoaken. Hawthorne appears subsequently to have divided him,
straining off from the rank sediments which settle into the character of
Dr. Portsoaken the clear sweetness of good Grandsir Dolliver. This "grim
doctor," as he is almost invariably styled in the manuscript, seems to
have originated in Hawthorne's knowledge of a Mr. Kirkup, painter,
spiritualist and antiquarian, of Florence, [Footnote: French and Italian
Note-Books, Vol. II.] who also probably stood as a model for Grandsir
Dolliver. Not that either of these personages is copied from Mr. Kirkup;
but the personality and surroundings of this quaint old gentleman had
some sort of affinity with the author's idea, which led him to maintain
a certain likeness between him and his own fictitious persons. As in the
case of the Florentine antiquary, a little girl dwells in the house of
the doctor, her chief playmate being, like that of Mr. Kirkup's adopted
daughter, a very beautiful Persian kitten. There is much about her like
Pansie, of the "Dolliver" fragment, but she is still only dimly brought
out. The boy is described as of superior nature, but strangely addicted
to revery. Though his traits are but slightly indicated, he suggests in
general the character of Septimius, and may very easily have grown into
him, at a later period. At first he is much neglected by the doctor, but
afterwards, by resolute and manly behavior in questioning his mysterious
guardian as to his own origin, and the connection subsisting between
them, he secures greater consideration. The doctor gradually hints to
him the fact of his descent from an old English family, and frequent
mention is made of the ancestral hall, the threshold of which is stained
by the imprint of a bloody footstep marking the scene of some dark
tragedy, which, in the superstitious haze thrown over it by time,
assumes various and uncertain forms. At different times two strangers
are introduced, who appear to have some obscure knowledge of, and
connection with, the ghastly footstep; and, finally, a headstone is
discovered in the neighboring cemetery, marking the spot where an old
man had been buried many years since, and engraved with the likeness of
a foot. The grave has been recently opened to admit a new occupant, and
the children, in playing about it, discover a little silver key, which
the doctor, so soon as it is shown him, pockets, with the declaration
that it is of no value. After this, the boy's education is taken in hand
by his being sent to school; but presently the doctor sickens of life,
and characteristically resolving to abandon brandy-drinking, and die,
does so accordingly. Mention has previously been made of certain papers
which he had kept in a secret place, and these the youth now secures.
The second part describes his advent into England. He soon makes his way
to the old hall, but just as his connection with it and its inmates
begins, the manuscript terminates.
It will be noticed that in this fragment the scene is at first laid in
New England, whereas the journalized sketch opened the drama in England.
From this I infer that the former was written after the return to this
country. "The Marble Faun" appropriated the author's attention, after
the sketch of 1858; and in this, which was probably written just before
the commencement of the war, he had not yet clearly struck the key-note
of the story. When he recurred to it, in the autumn of 1861, on
beginning to "blot successive sheets as of yore," it was at last with
the definite design of uniting the legend of the deathless man with the
legend of Smithell's Hall. It is as if, having left England, he could no
longer write an English romance, but must give the book mainly an
American coloring again. There is a pathetic interest, too, in his thus
wavering between the two countries, which now so nearly equally divided
his affections, and striving to unite the Wayside with the far-off
English manor. Under the new design, everything began to fall into
place. The deathless man was made the hero; the English inheritance
became an inferior motive-power, on which, however, the romantic action
depends; the family papers and the silver key came well to hand for the
elucidation of the plot; the bloody footstep gained a new and deep
significance; and a "purple everlasting flower," presented in 1854 to
Mrs. Hawthorne by the gardener of Eaton Hall, blossomed out, with
supernatural splendor, as a central point in the design. The scene being
in Concord, and the time of writing that of war, the Revolutionary
association was natural. But the public phase of that epoch could not
assume an important place: it was sunk into the background, forming
merely a lurid field on which the figures of this most solemn and
terrific of all Hawthorne's works stand out in portentous relief. One
singular result of the historic location, however, is the use that was
now made of that tradition which Lowell had told him at the Old Manse,
concerning a boy who was chopping wood on the April morning of the
famous fight, and found a wounded British soldier on the field, whom he
killed with his axe. "Oftentimes, as an intellectual and moral exercise,
I have sought to follow that poor youth through his subsequent career,
and observe how his soul was tortured by the blood-stain.... This one
circumstance has borne more fruit for me than all that history tells us
of the fight." Thus had he written, fourteen years before; and now that
sombre study furnished him with the psychology of the death-scene in the
beginning of "Septimius."
But the romance, even in this form, was again abandoned, as we learn
from the prefatory note to Pierce in "Our Old Home," written in July,
1863. He there speaks of it as an "abortive project, utterly thrown
aside," which "will never now be accomplished." In November of that
year, "The Dolliver Romance" was announced for serial publication; and
in the first page of the isolated opening scene, published in July,
1864, occurs the mention of a certain potent cordial, from which the
good doctor had received great invigoration, and which we may well
suppose was destined to tincture the whole story. Another point from
which a connection with "Septimius Felton" may perhaps be traced is the
passing mention of Grandsir Dolliver's grandson Cornelius, by whom this
cordial had been compounded, he having displayed a great efficiency with
powerful drugs. Recalling that the author describes many nostrums as
having been attributed to Septimius, which he had perhaps chanced upon
in his unsuccessful attempts to distil the elixir of life, we may fairly
conjecture this posthumous character of Cornelius, this mere memory, to
be the remains of Septimius, who, it would seem, was to have been buried
by the author under the splendid monument of a still more highly wrought
and more aspiring form of the romance. The only remaining portions of
this latest form have been printed, and are lull of a silvery and
resonant promise. Unquestionably it was to have been as much a "Romance
of Immortality" as "Septimius"; and the exquisite contrast of the child
Pansie--who promised to be the author's most captivating feminine
creation--with the aged man, would no doubt have given us a theme of
celestial loveliness, as compared with the forbidding and remorseless
mournfulness of the preliminary work. In the manuscript sketch for
"Septimius" there is a note referring to a description in the "English
Note-Books" of two pine-trees at Lowood, on Windermere, "quite dead and
dry, although they have the aspect of dark, rich life. But this is
caused by the verdure of two great ivy-vines which have twisted round
them like gigantic snakes, ... throttling the life out of them, ... and
one feels that they have _stolen the life_ that belonged to the
pines." This does not seem to have been used; but the necessity of some
life being stolen in order to add to any other life more than its share,
is an idea that very clearly appears in the romance. In "Dolliver" the
same strain of feeling would probably have reappeared; but it would
there perhaps have been beautified, softened, expiated by the mutual
love of Pansie and the grandsire; each wishing to live forever, for the
other. Even in "Septimius" we can discern Hawthorne standing upon the
wayside hill-top, and, through the turbid medium of the unhappy hero,
tenderly diffusing the essence of his own concluding thoughts on art and
existence. Like Mozart, writing what he felt to be a requiem for his own
death, like Mozart, too, throwing down the pen in midmost of the melody,
leaving the strain unfinished, he labors on, prescient of the
overhanging doom. Genial and tender at times, amidst their sadness, his
reveries are nevertheless darkened by the shadow of coming death; and it
is not until the opening of "The Dolliver Romance" that the darkness
breaks away. Then, indeed, we feel once more the dewy freshness of the
long-past prime, with a radiance unearthly fair, besides, of some new,
undreamed-of morning. He who has gone down into the dark valley appears
for a brief space with the light of the heavenly city on his
countenance. Ah, prophet, who spoke but now so sadly, what is this new
message that we see brightening on your lips? Will it solve the riddle
of sin and beauty, at last? We listen intently; we seem to lean out a
little way from earth.
Only an eddying silence! And yet the air seems even now alive with his
last words.
XI.
PERSONALITY.
What has thus far been developed in this essay, concerning Hawthorne's
personality, though incidental, has, I hope, served the end in
view,--that of suggesting a large, healthy nature, capable of the most
profound thought and the most graceful and humorous mental play. The
details of his early life already given show how soon the inborn honor
of his nature began to shine. The small irregularities in his college
course have seemed to me to bring him nearer and to endear him, without
in any way impairing the dignity and beauty of character which prevailed
in him from the beginning. It is good to know that he shared the average
human history in these harmless peccadilloes; for they never hurt his
integrity, and they are reminders of that old but welcome truth, that
the greatest men do not need a constant diet of great circumstances. He
had many difficulties to deal with, as unpicturesque and harassing as
any we have to encounter in our daily courses,--a thing which people are
curiously prone to forget in the case of eminent authors. The way in
which he dealt with these throws back light on himself. We discover how
well the high qualities of genius were matched by those of character.
Fragmentary anecdotes have a value, but so relative that to attempt to
construct the subject's character out of them is hazardous. Conceptions
of a man derived only from such matter remind one of Charles Lamb's
ghosts, formed of the particles which, every seven years, are replaced
throughout the body by new ones. Likewise, the grossest errors have been
committed through the assumption that particular passages in Hawthorne's
writings apply directly and unqualifiedly to himself. There is so much
imagination interfused with them, that only a reverent and careful
imagination can apply them aright. Nor are private letters to be
interpreted in any other way than as the talk of the hour, very
inadequately representative, and often--unless read in many
lights--positively untrue, to the writer. It gives an entirely false
notion, for example, to accept as a trait of character this modest
covering up of a noble sentiment, which occurs in a letter refusing to
withdraw the dedication of "Our Old Home" to Pierce, in the time of the
latter's unpopularity:--
"Nevertheless, I have no fancy for making myself a martyr when it is
honorably and conscientiously possible to avoid it; and I always measure
out my heroism very accurately according to the exigencies of the
occasion, and should be the last man in the world to throw away a bit of
it needlessly."
Such a passage ought never to have been printed without some modifying
word; for it has been execrably misused. "I have often felt," Hawthorne
says, "that words may be a thick and darksome veil of mystery between
the soul and the truth which it seeks." What injustice, then, that he
should be judged by a literal construction of words quickly chosen for
the transient embodiment of a mood!
The first and most common opinion about the man Hawthorne is, that he
must have been extremely gloomy, because his mind nourished so many
grave thoughts and solemn fancies. But this merely proves that, as he
himself says, when people think he is pouring himself out in a tale or
an essay, he is merely telling what is common to human nature, not what
is peculiar to himself. "I sympathize with them, not they with me." He
sympathizes in the special direction of our darker side. A creative mind
of the higher order holds the thread which guides it surely through
life's labyrinths; but all the more on this account its attention is
called to the erratic movement of other travellers around it. The genius
who has the clew begins, therefore, to study these errors and to
describe them for our behoof. It is a great mistake to suppose that the
abnormal or preposterous phases which he describes are the fruit of
_self_-study,--personal traits disguised in fiction; yet this is
what has often been affirmed of Hawthorne. We don't think of attributing
to Dickens the multiform oddities which he pictures with such power, it
being manifestly absurd to do so. As Dickens raises the laugh against
them, we at once perceive that they are outside of himself. Hawthorne is
so serious, that we are absorbed in the sober earnest of the thing, and
forget to apply the rule in his case. Dickens's distinct aim is to
excite us with something uncommon; Hawthorne's, to show us that the
elements of all tragedies lie within our individual natures; therefore
we begin to attribute in undue measure to _his_ individual nature
all the abnormal conditions that he has shown to be potential in any of
us. But in truth he was a perfectly healthy person.
"You are, intellectually speaking, quite a puzzle to me," his friend
George Hillard wrote to him, once. "How comes it that, with so
thoroughly healthy an organization as you have, you have such a taste
for the morbid anatomy of the human heart, and such a knowledge of it,
too? I should fancy, from your books, that you were burdened with some
secret sorrow, that you had some blue chamber in your soul, into which
you hardly dared to enter yourself; but when I see you, you give me the
impression of a man as healthy as Adam in Paradise."
This very healthiness was his qualification for his office. By virtue of
his mental integrity and absolute moral purity, he was able to handle
unhurt all disintegrated and sinful forms of character; and when souls
in trouble, persons with moral doubts to solve and criminals wrote to
him for counsel, they recognized the healing touch of one whose pitying
immaculateness could make them well.
She who knew best his habitual tone through a sympathy such as has
rarely been given to any man, who lived with him a life so exquisitely
fair and high, that to speak of it publicly is almost irreverent, has
written:--
"He had the inevitable pensiveness and gravity of a person who possessed
what a friend has called his 'awful power of insight'; but his mood was
always cheerful and equal, and his mind peculiarly healthful, and the
airy splendor of his wit and humor was the light of his home. He saw too
far to be despondent, though his vivid sympathies and shaping
imagination often made him sad in behalf of others. He also perceived
morbidness wherever it existed instantly, as if by the illumination of
his own steady cheer."
His closest friends, too, speak with delight of his genial warmth and
ease in converse with them. He could seldom talk freely with more than
two or three, however, on account of his constitutional shyness, and
perhaps of a peculiarly concentrative cast of mind; though he possessed
a ready adaptability. "I talk with everybody: to Mrs. T---- good sense;
to Mary, good sense, with a mixture of fun; to Mrs. G----, sentiment,
romance, and nonsense." [Footnote: American Note-Books, 1837.] A
gentleman who was with him at Brook farm, and knew him well, tells me
that his presence was very attractive, and that he inspired great esteem
among all at the farm by his personal qualities. On a walking trip to
Wachusett, which they once made together, Hawthorne showed a great
interest in sitting in the bar-rooms of country taverns, to listen to
the talk of the attendant farmers and villagers. The manner in which he
was approached had a great deal to do with his response. If treated
simply and wisely, he would answer cordially; but he was entirely
dismayed, as a rule, by those who made demonstrations of admiration or
awe. "Why do they treat me so?" he asked a friend, in one case of this
sort. "Why, they're afraid of you." "But I tremble at _them_," he
said. "They think," she explained, "that you're imagining all sorts of
terrible things." "Heavens!" he answered; "if they only knew what I
_do_ think about." At one time, when he was visiting this same
friend, he was obliged to return some calls, and his companion in the
midst of conversation left him to continue it. He had previously asked
his hostess, in assumed terror, what he should talk about, and she
advised "climate." Accordingly, he turned to the naval officer whom he
was calling upon, and asked him if he had ever been to the Sandwich
Islands. "The man started," he said, on returning, "as if he had been
struck. He had evidently been there and committed some terrible crime,
which my allusion recalled. I had made a frightful mess of it. B---- led
me away to the door." This woful account was, of course, an imaginary
and symbolical representation of the terrors which enforced conversation
caused him; the good officer's surprise at the abrupt introduction of a
new subject had supplied him with the ludicrous suggestion. Mr. Curtis
has given an account of his demeanor on another occasion:--
"I had driven up with some friends to an aesthetic tea at Mr. Emerson's.
It was in the winter, and a great wood-fire blazed upon the hospitable
hearth. There were various men and women of note assembled; and I, who
listened attentively to all the fine things that were said, was for some
time scarcely aware of a man who sat upon the edge of the circle, a
little withdrawn, his head slightly thrown forward upon his breast, and
his black eyes ['black' is an error] clearly burning under his black
brow. As I drifted down the stream of talk, this person, who sat silent
as a shadow, looked to me as Webster might have looked had he been a
poet,--a kind of poetic Webster. He rose and walked to the window, and
stood there quietly for a long time, watching the dead-white landscape.
No appeal was made to him, nobody looked after him; the conversation
flowed steadily on, as if every one understood that his silence was to
be respected. It was the same thing at table. In vain the silent man
imbibed aesthetic tea. Whatever fancies it inspired did not flower at
his lips. But there was a light in his eye which assured me nothing was
lost. So supreme was his silence, that it presently engrossed me, to the
exclusion of everything else. There was very brilliant discourse, but
this silence was much more poetic and fascinating. Fine things were said
by the philosophers, but much finer things were implied by the dumbness
of this gentleman with heavy brows and black hair. When he presently
rose and went, Emerson, with the 'slow, wise smile' that breaks over his
face like day over the sky, said, 'Hawthorne rides well his horse of the
night.'"
He was not a lover of argumentation. "His principle seemed to be, if a
man cannot understand without talking to him, it is useless to talk,
because it is immaterial whether such a man understands or not." And the
same writer says:----
"His own sympathy was so broad and sure, that, although nothing had been
said for hours, his companion knew that not a thing had escaped his eye,
nor a single pulse of beauty in the day, or scene, or society, failed to
thrill his heart. In this way his silence was most social. Everything
seemed to have been said."
I am told that in his own home, though he was often silent, it was never
with sadness except in seasons of great illness in the house, the
prevailing effect of his manner being usually that of a cheerful and
almost humorous calm. Mr. Curtis gives perhaps one of the best
descriptions of his aspect, when he speaks of his "glimmering smile";
and of his atmosphere, when he says that at Emerson's house it seemed
always morning, but at Hawthorne's you passed into
"A land in which it seemed always afternoon."
Hawthorne's personal appearance is said by those who knew him to have
been always very impressive. He was tall and strongly built, with
beautiful and lustrous gray-blue eyes, and luxuriant dark brown hair of
great softness, which grew far back from his forehead, as in the early
engraved portrait of him. His skin had a peculiar fineness and delicacy,
giving unusual softness to his complexion. After his Italian sojourn he
altered much, his hair having begun to whiten, and a thick dark mustache
being permitted to grow, so that a wit described him as looking like a
"boned pirate." When it became imperative to shake off his reticence, he
seems to have had the power of impressing as much by speech as he had
before done by silence. It was the same abundant, ardent, but
self-contained and perfectly balanced nature that informed either phase.
How commanding was this nature may be judged from the fact related of
him by an acquaintance, that rude people jostling him in a crowd would
give way at once "at the sound of his low and almost irresolute voice."
The occasions on which he gave full vent to his indignation at anything
were very rare; but when these came, he manifested a strength of sway
only to be described as regal. Without the least violence, he brought a
searching sternness to bear that was utterly overwhelming, carrying as
it did the weight of perfect self-control. Something even of the
eloquent gift of old Colonel Hathorne seemed to be locked within him,
like a precious heirloom rarely shown; for in England, where his
position called for speech-making, he acquitted himself with brilliant
honor. But the effort which this compelled was no doubt quite
commensurate with the success. He never shrank, notwithstanding, from
effort, when obligation to others put in a plea. A member of his family
has told me that, when talking to any one not congenial to him, the
effect of the contact was so strong as to cause an almost physical
contraction of his whole stalwart frame, though so slight as to be
perceptible only to eyes that knew his habitual and informal aspects;
yet he would have sunk through the floor rather than betray his
sensations to the person causing them. Mr. Curtis, too, records the
amusement with which he watched Hawthorne paddling on the Concord River
with a friend whose want of skill caused the boat continually to veer
the wrong way, and the silent generosity with which he put forth his
whole strength to neutralize the error, rather than mortify his
companion by an explanation. His considerateness was always delicate and
alert, and has left in his family a reverence for qualities that have
certainly never been surpassed and not often equalled in sweetness.