The new turn of affairs of course made Hawthorne impatient to find some
employment more immediately productive than that with the pen. He was
profoundly dissatisfied, also, with his elimination from the active life
of the world. "I am tired of being an ornament!" he said with great
emphasis, to a friend. "I want a little piece of land of my own, big
enough to stand upon, big enough to be buried in. I want to have
something to do with this material world." And, striking his hand
vigorously upon a table that stood by: "If I could only make tables," he
declared, "I should feel myself more of a man."
President Van Buren had entered on the second year of his term, and Mr.
Bancroft, the historian, was Collector of the port of Boston. One
evening the latter was speaking, in a circle of whig friends, of the
splendid things which the democratic administration was doing for
literary men.
"But there's Hawthorne," suggested Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who was
present. "You've done nothing for him."
"He won't take anything," was the answer: "he has been offered places."
In fact, Hawthorne's friends in political life, Pierce and Jonathan
Cilley, had urged him to enter politics; and at one time he had been
offered a post in the West Indies, but refused it because he would not
live in a slaveholding community.
"I happen to know," said Miss Peabody, "that he would be very glad of
employment."
The result was that a small position in the Boston Custom House was
soon awarded to the young author. On going down from Salem to inquire
about it, he received another and better appointment as weigher and
gauger. His friend Pike was installed there at the same time. To
Longfellow, Hawthorne wrote in good spirits:--
"I have no reason to doubt my capacity to fulfil the duties; for I don't
know what they are. They tell me that a considerable portion of my time
will be unoccupied, the which I mean to employ in sketches of my new
experience, under some such titles as follows: 'Scenes In Dock,'
'Voyages at Anchor,' 'Nibblings of a Wharf Rat,' 'Trials of a
Tide-Waiter,' 'Romance of the Revenue Service,' together with an ethical
work in two volumes on the subject of Duties; the first volume to treat
of moral duties and the second of duties imposed by the revenue laws,
which I begin to consider the most important."
His hopes regarding unoccupied time were not fulfilled; he was unable to
write with freedom during his term of service in Boston, and the best
result of it for us is contained in those letters, extracts from which
Mrs. Hawthorne published in the first volume of the "American
Note-Books." The benefit to him lay in the moderate salary of $1,200,
from which the cheapness of living at that time and his habitual economy
enabled him to lay up something; and in the contact with others which
his work involved. He might have saved time for writing if he had
chosen; but the wages of the wharf laborers depended on the number of
hours they worked, and Hawthorne--true to his instinct of democratic
sympathy and of justice--made it a point to reach the wharf at the
earliest hour, no matter what the weather might be, solely for the
convenience of the men. "It pleased me," he says in one of his letters,
"to think that I also had a part to act in the material and tangible
business of life, and that a portion of all this industry could not have
gone on without my presence."
But when he had had two years of this sort of toil the Whigs elected a
President, and Hawthorne was dropped from the civil service. The project
of an ideal community just then presented itself, and from Boston he
went to Brook Farm, close by in Roxbury. The era of Transcendentalism
had arrived, and Dr. George Ripley, an enthusiastic student of
philosophy and a man of wide information, sought to give the new
tendencies a practical turn in the establishment of a modified
socialistic community. The Industrial Association which he proposed to
plant at West Roxbury was wisely planned with reference to the
conditions of American life; it had no affinity with the erratic views
of Enfantin or St. Simon, nor did it in the least partake of the errors
of Robert Owen regarding the relation of the sexes; although it agreed
with Fourier and Owen both, if I understand the aim rightly, in respect
of labor. Dr. Ripley's simple object was to distribute labor in such a
way as to give all men time for culture, and to free their minds from
the debasing influence of a merely selfish competition. "A few men of
like views and feelings," one of his sympathizers has said, "grouped
themselves around him, not as their master, but as their friend and
brother, and the community at Brook Farm was instituted." Charles A.
Dana and Minot Pratt were leading spirits in the enterprise; the young
Brownson, George William Curtis, and Horace Sumner (a younger brother of
Charles) were also engaged in it, at various times. The place was a
kind of granary of true grit. Hawthorne has characterized the community
in that remark which he applied to Blithedale: "They were mostly
individuals who had gone through such an experience as to disgust them
with ordinary pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered so
deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to come." Miss E. P.
Peabody had at that time left Salem and begun a publishing business in
Boston, being one of the first women of our time to embark in an
occupation thought to appertain exclusively to men; and at her rooms
some of the preliminary meetings of the new association were held. Thus
it happened that the scheme was speedily brought to Hawthorne's notice.
When his accession to the ranks was announced, Dr. Ripley, as he said to
the present writer, felt as if a miracle had occurred, "or as if the
heavens would presently be opened and we should see Jacob's Ladder
before us. But we never came any nearer to having _that_, than our old
ladder in the barn, from floor to hayloft." Besides his belief in the
theory of an improved condition of society, and his desire to forward
its accomplishment, Hawthorne had two objects in joining the community:
one of which was to secure a suitable and economical home after
marriage; the other, to hit upon a mode of life which should equalize
the sum of his exertions between body and brain. Many persons went
thither in just the same frame of mind.
From a distance, the life that was led there has a very pretty and
idyllic look. There was teaching, and there was intellectual talk; there
was hard domestic and farming work in pleasant companionship, and a
general effort to be disinterested. The various buildings in which the
associators found shelter were baptized with cheerful and sentimental
names; The Hive, The Pilgrim House, The Nest, The Eyrie, and The
Cottage. The young women sang as they washed the dishes, and the more
prepossessing and eligible of the yeomen sometimes volunteered to help
them with their unpoetic and saponaceous task. The costume of the men
included a blouse of checked or plaided stuff, belted at the waist, and
a rough straw hat; and the women also wore hats, in defiance of the
fashion then ruling, and chose calico for their gowns. In the evenings,
poems and essays composed by the members, or else a play of Shakespeare,
would be read aloud in the principal gathering held at one of the
houses. A great deal of individual liberty was allowed, and Hawthorne
probably availed himself of this to keep as much as possible out of
sight. One might fancy, on a casual glance, that Brook Farm was the
scene of a prolonged picnic. But it was not so at all. Hawthorne had
hoped that by devoting six hours a day to mechanical employments, he
could earn the time he needed for writing; but, as it proved, the manual
labor more nearly consumed sixteen hours, according to Dr. Ripley, who
declared of Hawthorne that "he worked like a dragon!"
Sundry of Hawthorne's common sense observations and conclusions upon the
advisability of his remaining at the farm are to be found in his
"Note-Books," and have often been quoted and criticised. They show that,
as might be expected in a person of candor and good judgment, he was
considering the whole phenomenon upon the practical side. There is an
instructive passage also in "The Blithedale Romance," which undoubtedly
refers to his own experience:--
"Though fond of society, I was so constituted as to need these
occasional retirements, even in a life like that of Blithedale, which
was itself characterized by a remoteness from the world. Unless renewed
by a yet further withdrawal towards the inner circle of self-communion,
I lost the better part of my individuality. My thoughts became of little
worth, and my sensibilities grew as arid as a tuft of moss ... crumbling
in the sunshine, after long expectance of a shower."
The whole thing was an experiment for everybody concerned, and Hawthorne
found it best to withdraw from a further prosecution thereof, as persons
were constantly doing who had come to see if the life would suit them.
He had contributed a thousand dollars (the chief part of his savings in
the Custom House) to the funds of the establishment; and, some time
after he quitted the place, an effort was made among the most
influential gentlemen of Brook Farm to restore this sum to him, although
they were not, I believe, bound to do so. Whether or not they ever
carried out this purpose has not been learned. The community flourished
for four years and was financially sound, but in 1844 it entered into
bonds of brotherhood with a Fourieristic organization in New York, began
to build a Phalanstery, attempted to enlarge its range of industry, and
came to grief. No one of its chief adherents has ever written its
history; but perhaps Mr. Frothingham is right in saying that
"Aspirations have no history."[6] At all events Hawthorne, in "The
Blithedale Romance," which explicitly disclaims any close adherence to
facts or any criticism on the experiment, has furnished the best
chronicle it has had, so far as the spirit of the scheme is concerned.
Having tried the utmost isolation for ten years in Salem, and finding
it unsatisfactory; and having made a venture in an opposite extreme at
Brook Farm, which was scarcely more to his liking, Hawthorne had
unconsciously passed through the best of preparation for that family
life of comparative freedom, and of solitude alternating with a gentle
and perfect companionship, on which he was about to enter. In July,
1842, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, received the following note,
dated from 54 Pinckney Street, which was the residence of Hawthorne's
friend, George S. Hillard:--
MY DEAR SIR,--Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to
request of you the greatest favor which I can receive from any man.
I am to be married to Miss Sophia Peabody; and it is our mutual
desire that you should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be
decidedly a rainy day, a carriage will call for you at half past
eleven o'clock in the forenoon.
Very respectfully yours,
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
The wedding took place quietly, and Hawthorne carried his bride to the
Manse at Concord, the old parsonage of that town. It belonged to the
descendants of Dr. Ezra Ripley, who had been pastor there at the close
of the last century; they were relatives of the George Ripley with whom
Hawthorne had so recently been associated at Brook Farm. Hawthorne had
succeeded in hiring the place for a time, and was happy in beginning his
married life in a house so well in keeping with his tastes. The best
account of this, his first sojourn in Concord, is to be found in the
"American Note-Books," and in the Introduction to the "Mosses from an
Old Manse." Here his first child was born, a daughter, to whom the name
of Una[7] was given, from "The Faërie Queen"; and here he saw something
of Emerson and of Margaret Fuller. Among his visitors, who were never
many, was George Stillman Hillard, a Democrat, a lawyer, an editor, an
orator in high favor with the Bostonians, and the author of several
works both of travel and of an educational kind. Mr. George P. Bradford,
with whom Hawthorne had talked and toiled at Brook Farm, was a cousin of
the Ripleys, and also came hither as a friend. Another Brook Farmer
appeared at the Manse, in the person of one Frank Farley, a man of some
originality, who had written a little book on natural scenery and had
been a frontiersman, but was subject to a mild, loquacious form of
insanity. (Mention of him as "Mr. F----" is made in the "American
Note-Books," under date of June 6 and June 10, 1844.) A writer in one of
the magazines has recorded the impression which Hawthorne left on the
minds of others who saw him during this period, but did not know him.
Among the villagers "a report was current that this man Hawthorne was
somewhat uncanny--in point of fact, not altogether sane. My friend, the
son of a Concord farmer and at that time a raw college youth, had heard
these bucolic whisperings as to the sanity of the recluse dweller at the
ancient parsonage; but he knew nothing of the man, had read none of his
productions, and of course took no interest in what was said or surmised
about him. And one day, casting his eye toward the Manse as he was
passing, he saw Hawthorne up the pathway, standing with folded arms in
motionless attitude, and with eyes fixed upon the ground. 'Poor
fellow,' was his unspoken comment: 'he does look as if he might be
daft.' And when, on his return a full hour afterward, Hawthorne was
still standing in the same place and attitude, the lad's very natural
conclusion was, 'The man _is_ daft, sure enough!'" Mr. Thomas Wentworth
Higginson has presented quite a different view, in his "Short Studies of
American Authors." He says:--
"The self-contained purpose of Hawthorne, the large resources, the
waiting power,--these seem to the imagination to imply an ample basis of
physical life; and certainly his stately and noble port is inseparable,
in my memory, from these characteristics. Vivid as this impression is, I
yet saw him but twice, and never spoke to him. I first met him on a
summer morning, in Concord, as he was walking along the road near the
Old Manse, with his wife by his side and a noble looking baby-boy in a
little wagon which the father was pushing. I remember him as tall, firm,
and strong in bearing.... When I passed, Hawthorne lifted upon me his
great gray eyes with a look too keen to seem indifferent, too shy to be
sympathetic--and that was all."[8]
Hawthorne's plan of life was settled; he was happily married, and the
problems of his youth were solved: his character and his genius were
formed. From this point on, therefore, his works and his "Note-Books"
impart the essentials of his career. The main business of the biographer
is, after this, to put together that which will help to make real the
picture of the author grappling with those transient emergencies that
constitute the tangible part of his history. A few extracts from
letters written to Horatio Bridge, heretofore unpublished, come under
this head.
_Concord, March_ 25, 1843.--"I did not come to see you, because I was
very short of cash--having been disappointed in money that I had
expected from three or four sources. My difficulties of this kind
sometimes make me sigh for the regular monthly payments of the Custom
House. The system of slack payments in this country is most
abominable.... I find no difference in anybody in this respect, for all
do wrong alike. ---- is just as certain to disappoint me in money
matters as any little pitiful scoundrel among the booksellers. For my
part, I am compelled to disappoint those who put faith in my
engagements; and so it goes round."
The following piece of advice with regard to notes for the "Journal of
an African Cruiser," by Mr. Bridge, which Hawthorne was to edit, is
worth observing and has never before been given to the public:--
"I would advise you not to stick too accurately to the bare facts,
either in your descriptions or your narratives; else your hand will be
cramped, and the result will be a want of freedom that will deprive you
of a higher truth than that which you strive to attain. Allow your fancy
pretty free license, and omit no heightening touches merely because they
did not chance to happen before your eyes. If they did not happen, they
at least ought--which is all that concerns you. This is the secret of
all entertaining travellers.... Begin to write always before the
impression of novelty has worn off from your mind; else you will soon
begin to think that the peculiarities which at first interested you are
not worth recording; yet these slight peculiarities are the very things
that make the most vivid impression upon the reader." In this same
letter (May 3, 1843) he reverts to the financial difficulty, and speaks
of a desire to obtain office again, but adds: "It is rather singular
that I should need an office; for nobody's scribblings seem to be more
acceptable to the public than mine; and yet I still find it a tough
match to gain a respectable living by my pen."
By November of 1844 he had put things seriously in train for procuring
another government position; Polk having been elected to the Presidency.
There was a rumor that Tyler had actually fixed upon Hawthorne for the
postmastership of Salem, but had been induced to withdraw the name; and
this was the office upon which he fixed his hope; but a hostile party
made itself felt in Salem, which raised all possible obstacles, and
apparently Hawthorne's former chief, Mr. Bancroft,--it may have been for
some reason connected with political management,--opposed his
nomination. Early in October, 1845, Hawthorne made his farewell to the
Old Manse, never to return to the shelter of its venerable and
high-shouldered roof. Once more he went to Salem, and halted in Herbert
Street. The postmastership had proved unattainable, but there was a
prospect of his becoming Naval Officer or Surveyor. The latter position
was given him at length; but not until the spring of 1846. On first
arriving at Salem, he wrote to Bridge: "Here I am, again established--in
the old chamber where I wasted so many years of my life. I find it
rather favorable to my literary duties; for I have already begun to
sketch out the story for Wiley & Putnam," an allusion to something
intended to fill out a volume of the "Mosses," already negotiated for.
After his installation as Surveyor he wrote, speaking of his "moderate
prosperity," and said further: "I have written nothing for the press
since my entrance into office, but intend to begin soon. My 'Mosses'
seem to have met with good acceptance." Time went on, however, and he
remained, so far as literary production was concerned, inert. He had
left the Manning homestead and hired a house in Chestnut Street, which
he kept for a year and a half. During this period Mrs. Hawthorne went to
Boston for a time, and in Carver Street, Boston, was born their second
child and only son, Mr. Julian Hawthorne, who has since made a
reputation for himself as a novelist. From Chestnut Street he went to
another house, in Mall Street; and it was there that "The Scarlet
Letter" was finished, in 1850, four years after he had announced to
Bridge that he intended soon to begin composition. The Custom House
routine disturbed his creative moods and caused a gradual postponement
of literary effort. Of the figure that he made while fulfilling the
functions assigned to him, slight traces have been left. We are told,
for example, that two Shakers, leaders in their community, visited the
Custom House one day, and were conducted through its several
departments. On the way out, they passed Hawthorne, and no sooner had
they left his room than, the door being shut behind them, the elder
brother asked with great interest who that man was. After referring to
the strong face, "and those eyes, the most wonderful he had ever
beheld," he said: "Mark my words, that man will in some way make a deep
impression upon the world." It is also remembered that a rough and
overbearing sea-captain attempted to interfere with Hawthorne's exercise
of his duty as an inspector of the customs, in charge of the ship. His
attempt "was met with such a terrific uprising of spiritual and physical
wrath that the dismayed captain fled up the wharf" and took refuge with
the Collector, "inquiring with a sailor's emotion and a sailor's tongue:
'What in God's name have you sent on board my ship for an inspector?'"
Unexpectedly, in the winter of 1849, he was deprived of his
surveyorship; a great surprise to him, because he had understood certain
of his fellow-citizens of Salem to have given a pledge that they would
not seek his removal, and it appeared that they had, notwithstanding,
gone to work to oust him.
On finding himself superseded, he walked away from the Custom House,
returned home, and entering sat down in the nearest chair, without
uttering a word. Mrs. Hawthorne asked him if he was well.
"Well enough," was the answer.
"What is the matter, then?" said she. "Are you 'decapitated?'"
He replied with gloom that he was, and that the occurrence was no joke.
"Oh," said his wife, gayly, "now you can write your Romance!" For he had
told her several times that he had a romance "growling" in him.
"Write my Romance!" he exclaimed. "But what are we to do for bread and
rice, next week?"
"I will take care of that," she answered. "And I will tell Ann to put a
fire in your study, now."
Hawthorne was oppressed with anxiety as to means of support for his wife
and children; the necessity of writing for immediate returns always had
a deterrent and paralyzing effect on his genius; and he was amazed that
Mrs. Hawthorne should take his calamity with so much lightness. He
questioned her again regarding the wherewithal to meet their current
needs, knowing well that he himself had no fund in reserve. His habit
had been to hand her the instalments of salary as they came to him from
the office; and when he was in need of money for himself he drew again
upon her for it. He therefore supposed that everything had been used up
from week to week. But Mrs. Hawthorne now disclosed the fact that she
had about a hundred and fifty dollars, a sum which for them was a
considerable one, their manner of living being extremely plain. Greatly
astonished, he asked her where she had obtained so much.
"You earned it," she replied, cheerily.
Mrs. Hawthorne was in fact overjoyed, on his account, that he had lost
his place; feeling as she did that he would now resume his proper
employment. The fire was built in the study, and Hawthorne, stimulated
by his wife's good spirits, set at once about writing "The Scarlet
Letter."
Some six months of time were required for its completion, and Mrs.
Hawthorne, who was aware that her savings would be consumed in a third
of that space, applied herself to increasing the small stock of cash, so
that her husband's mind might remain free and buoyant for his writing.
She began making little cambric lamp-shades, which she decorated with
delicate outline drawings and sent to Boston for sale. They were readily
purchased, and, by continuing their manufacture, this devoted wife
contrived to defray the expenses of the household until the book was
finished.
Mr. James T. Fields, the publisher, who was already an acquaintance,
and eventually became a friend, of Hawthorne's had been told of the
work, and went down to Salem to suggest bringing it out. This was before
the story had been fully elaborated into its present form. Hawthorne had
written steadily all day, and every day, from the start, but,
remembering in what small quantity his books sold, he had come to
consider this new attempt a forlorn hope. Mr. Fields found him
despondent, and thus narrates the close of the interview:--
"I looked at my watch and found that the train would soon be starting
for Boston, and I knew there was not much time to lose in trying to
discover what had been his literary work during these last few years in
Salem. I remember that I pressed him to reveal to me what he had been
writing. He shook his head, and gave me to understand that he had
produced nothing. At that moment I caught sight of a bureau or set of
drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately it occurred to me
that, hidden away somewhere in that article of furniture, was a story or
stories by the author of the 'Twice-Told Tales,' and I became so
confident that I charged him vehemently with the fact. He seemed
surprised, I thought, but shook his head again; and I rose to take my
leave, begging him not to come into the cold entry, saying I would come
back and see him again in a few days. I was hurrying down the stairs
when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a moment.
Then, quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of manuscript in his
hands, he said: 'How in Heaven's name did you know this thing was here?
As you have found me out, take what I have written, and tell me, after
you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything. It
is either very good or very bad--I don't know which.' On my way up to
Boston I read the germ of 'The Scarlet Letter;' before I slept that
night I wrote him a note all aglow with admiration of the marvellous
story he had put into my hands."
In a letter to Bridge (April 10, 1850), the author said: "'The Scarlet
Letter' has sold well, the first edition having been exhausted in ten
days, and the second (5,000 in all) promising to go off rapidly."
Speaking of the excitement created among his townspeople by the
introductory account of the Custom House, he continued: "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, on two false indictments, without hardly a
voice being raised on my behalf; and then sending one of their false
witnesses to Congress and choosing another as their Mayor. I feel an
infinite contempt for them, and probably have expressed more of it than
I intended; for my preliminary chapter has caused the greatest uproar
that ever happened here since witch-times. If I escape from town without
being tarred and feathered, I shall consider it good luck. I wish they
_would_ tar and feather me--it would be such an entirely new distinction
for a literary man! And from such judges as my fellow-citizens, I should
look upon it as a higher honor than a laurel-crown." In the same letter
he states that he has taken a house in Lenox, and shall move to it on
the 1st of May: "I thank Mrs. Bridge for her good wishes as respects my
future removals from office; but I should be sorry to anticipate such
bad fortune as ever again being appointed to me."
Previous to this, he had written: "I long to get into the country, for
my health latterly is not quite what it has been for many years past. I
should not long stand such a life of bodily inactivity and mental
exertion as I have led for the last few months. An hour or two of daily
labor in a garden, and a daily ramble in country air or on the
sea-shore, would keep me all right. Here I hardly go out once a week....
I detest this town so much, that I hate to go into the streets, or to
have the people see me. Anywhere else I should at once be another man."
It was not a very comfortable home, that small red wooden house at
Lenox, overlooking the beautiful valley of the Housatonic and surrounded
by mountains; but both Hawthorne and his wife bravely made the best of
it. Mrs. Hawthorne ornamented an entire set of plain furniture, painted
a dull yellow, with copies from Flaxman's outlines, executed with great
perfection; and, poor as the place was, it soon became invested by its
occupants with something of a poetic atmosphere. After a summer's rest,
Hawthorne began "The House of the Seven Gables;" writing to Bridge in
October:--
"I am getting so deep into my own book, that I am afraid it will be
impossible for me to attend properly to my editorial duties" (connected
with a new edition of Lieutenant Bridge's "Journal of an African
Cruiser").... "Una and Julian grow apace, and so do our chickens, of
which we have two broods. There is one difficulty about these chickens,
as well as about the older fowls. We have become so intimately
acquainted with every individual of them, that it really seems like
cannibalism to think of eating them. What is to be done?"
[Illustration: Letter to Mr. Fields.