"The war, strange to say, has had a beneficial effect upon my spirits,
which were flagging woefully before it broke out. But it was delightful
to share in the heroic sentiment of the time, and to feel that I had a
country, a consciousness which seemed to make me young again. One thing
as regards this matter I regret, and one thing I am glad of. The
regrettable thing is that I am too old to shoulder a musket myself, and
the joyful thing is that Julian is too young. He drills constantly with
a company of lads, and means to enlist as soon as he reaches the minimum
age. But I trust we shall either be victorious or vanquished by that
time. Meantime, though I approve the war as much as any man, I don't
quite see what we are fighting for or what definite result can be
expected. If we pommel the South ever so hard, they will love us none
the better for it; and even if we subjugate them, our next step should
be to cut them adrift, if we are fighting for the annihilation of
slavery. To be sure, it may be a wise object, and offers a tangible
result and the only one which is consistent with a future union between
North and South. A continuance of the war would soon make this plain to
us, and we should see the expediency of preparing our black brethren for
future citizenship, by allowing them to fight for their own liberties
and educating them through heroic influences. Whatever happens next, I
must say that I rejoice that the old Union is smashed. We never were one
people, and never really had a country since the Constitution was
formed."
Thus, then, Hawthorne, who had been brought up politically within the
democratic party and thrice held office under its _régime_, had reached
the conclusion, four years in advance of the event, that it was time for
the North to "make a stand"; and now, while muskets rattled their grim
prelude to a long and deadly conflict, he planted himself firmly on the
side of the government--was among the first, moreover, to resolve upon
that policy of arming the negroes, which was so bitterly opposed and so
slow of adoption among even progressive reformers at the North. In his
solitude, out of the current of affairs, trying to pursue his own
peaceful, artistic calling, and little used to making utterances on
public questions, it was not incumbent upon him nor proper to his
character to blazon his beliefs where every one could see them. But,
these private expressions being unknown, his silence was construed
against him. One more reference to the war, occurring in a letter of
October 12, 1861, to Lieutenant Bridge, should be recorded in this
place:--
"I am glad you take such a hopeful view of our national prospects, so
far as regards the war.... For my part, I don't hope (nor indeed wish)
to see the Union restored as it was; amputation seems to me much the
better plan, and all we ought to fight for is the liberty of selecting
the point where our diseased members shall be lopped off. I would fight
to the death for the Northern Slave-States, and let the rest go.... I
have not found it possible to occupy my mind with its usual trash and
nonsense during these anxious times; but as the autumn advances, I find
myself sitting down to my desk and blotting successive sheets of paper,
as of yore. Very likely I may have something ready for the public long
before the public is ready to receive it."
It will be seen that he was not hopeful as to the restoration of the
entire Union, adhered to his first view indeed, that the scission of a
part would be preferable. In declining a cordial invitation from Bridge
to come to Washington, in February, 1862, he gave renewed emphasis to
this opinion. "I am not very well," he said, "being mentally and
physically languid; but I suppose there is an even chance that the trip
and change of scene might supply the energy which I lack." He announced
that he had begun a new romance, and then turning to the questions of
the day, remarked that he "should not much regret an ultimate
separation," and that soon; adding that if a strong Union sentiment
should not set in at the South, we ought to resolve ourselves into two
nations at once. He was evidently growing despondent; a fact which may
have been due in part to the physical and mental languor of which he
told his friend. Misfortune had once more entered his household; for one
of his children was suffering from a peculiarly distressing malady,
which imposed a heavy strain upon his nerves and troubled his heart.
More than this, he mourned over the multitude of private griefs which he
saw or apprehended on every side--griefs resulting from the slaughter
that was going on at the seat of war--as acutely as if they had been his
own losses. He could not shut out, by any wall of patriotic fire, the
terrible shapes of fierce passion and the pathetic apparitions of those
whose lives had been blasted by the tragedies of the field. His health,
we have already noticed, had begun to falter while he was still abroad.
Neither was he free from pecuniary anxieties. He had laid up a modest
accumulation from his earnings in the consulate; but the additions to
his house, unambitious though they were, had cost a sum which was large
in proportion to his resources; the expense of living was increased by
the war, and his pen was for the time being not productive. His income
from his books was always scanty. He was too scrupulous to be willing to
draw upon the principal which had been invested for the future support
of his family; and there were times when he was harassed by the need of
money. All these causes conspired to reduce his strength; but the
omnipresent misery of the war, and the destruction of the Union, which
he believed to be inevitable, were perhaps the chief adverse factors in
the case. "Hawthorne's life," Mr. Lowell has said to me, "was shortened
by the war."
The romance mentioned as having been begun during this winter of
1861-62, was probably "Dr. Grimshawe's Secret," the first scheme of
which appears as "The Ancestral Footstep;" and it was afterwards merged
in "Septimius Felton." Hawthorne, however, did not make satisfactory
progress with this work; and throughout the summer of 1862 he seems to
have given such energies as he could command to the preparation of the
chapters of travel subsequently collected under the title, "Our Old
Home." The latter volume appeared at a time of fervid, nay, violent
public excitement, caused by the critical state of military matters, the
unpopularity of the draft, the increasing boldness of the democratic
party at the North in opposing the war and demanding its cessation. To
Hawthorne it appeared no more than just that he should dedicate his book
to the friend whose public act, in sending him abroad in the government
service, had made it possible for him to gather the materials he had
embodied in these reminiscences. But his publisher, Mr. Fields, knowing
that ex-President Pierce was very generally held to be culpable for his
deference towards Southern leaders who had done much to bring on the
war, and that he was ranked among the men who were ready to vote against
continuing the attempt to conquer the Confederacy, foresaw the clamor
which would be raised against Hawthorne if, at such a moment, he linked
his name publicly with that of Pierce. He remonstrated upon the proposed
dedication. But Hawthorne was not to be turned aside from his purpose by
any dread of an outcry which he considered unjust. "I find," he
replied, "that it would be a piece of poltroonery in me to withdraw
either the dedication or the dedicatory letter, ... and if he [Pierce]
is so exceedingly unpopular that his name is enough to sink the volume,
there is so much the more need that an old friend should stand by him. I
cannot, merely on account of pecuniary profit or literary reputation, go
back from what I have deliberately felt and thought it right to do; and
if I were to tear out the dedication, I should never look at the volume
again without remorse and shame.... If the public of the North see fit
to ostracize me for this, I can only say that I would gladly sacrifice a
thousand or two of dollars rather than retain the good-will of such a
herd of dolts and mean-spirited scoundrels." The language did not lack
vigor and warmth; but Dr. Loring has stated that he spoke of the matter
to the same effect, "not in the heat of passion, but with a calm and
generous courage." The dedicatory letter was printed, of course, and
drew down upon Hawthorne abundant condemnation; but he had maintained
his integrity.
The shock of such an accident was by no means the right sort of tonic
for a man of Hawthorne's sensitive disposition when he was already
feeble and almost ill. In April, 1862, he had been to Washington, and
the things that impressed him there were noted down in an "Atlantic
Monthly" paper, entitled "Chiefly About War Matters." At Washington,
also, Leutze painted a portrait of him for General Pierce. In July, he
took a brief trip with his son to the Maine coast, and began a new
journal. There were no other changes of scene for him; the monotony of
his life at The Wayside was seldom broken. That this period was for him
one of unmitigated gloom cannot truthfully be predicated; he enjoyed
his home, he had the society of his wife and children; he had many small
and quiet pleasures. But there was likewise much to make him sorrowful,
and the tide of vitality was steadily ebbing away. In May, 1863, James
Russell Lowell invited him to Elmwood, and Hawthorne agreed to go, but
he was finally prevented from doing so by a troublesome cold. The slow
and mysterious disease, which was to prove fatal within a year,
continued to make inroads upon his constitution. After the publication
of "Our Old Home," in the autumn of 1863, there is no certain record of
his condition or his proceedings, beyond this, that he went on
declining, and that--having abandoned the two preceding phases of his
new fiction--he attempted to write the resultant form of it, which was
to have been brought out as "The Dolliver Romance."
Although the title had not yet been determined upon, he consented to
begin a serial publication of the work in the "Atlantic Monthly" for
January, 1864. But he wrote to Mr. Fields: "I don't see much probability
of my having the first chapter of the Romance ready so soon as you want
it. There are two or three chapters ready to be written, but I am not
yet robust enough to begin, and I feel as if I should never carry it
through.... I can think of no title for the unborn Romance. Always
heretofore I have waited till it was quite complete, before attempting
to name it, and I fear I shall have to do so now." On the 1st of
December, he dispatched the manuscript of the first chapter, with the
title of the whole. But he could not follow it up with more, and wrote,
about the middle of January, 1864: "I am not quite up to writing yet,
but shall make an effort as soon as I see any hope of success." At the
end of February: "I hardly know what to say to the public about this
abortive Romance, though I know pretty well what the case will be. I
shall never finish it..., I cannot finish it unless a great change comes
over me; and if I make too great an effort to do so, it will be my
death." From this time on he accomplished no work which he was willing
to send to the press, although he had among his papers the two
fragmentary scenes from "The Dolliver Romance" that were posthumously
printed.
The wife of ex-President Pierce died in December, 1863, and Hawthorne
went to New Hampshire to attend the funeral. When he passed through
Boston, on his return, he appeared to Mr. Fields ill and more nervous
than usual. Dreary events seemed to thicken around his path. In the last
days of March, 1864, Mr. Fields saw him again; and by this time his
appearance had greatly changed. "The light in his eye was as beautiful
as ever, but his limbs were shrunken, and his usual stalwart vigor [was]
utterly gone." A photograph taken not long before that date represents
him with cheeks somewhat emaciated, and a worn, strangely anxious,
half-appealing expression, which, while singularly delicate and noble,
is extremely sad. Soon after this, in March, he set out for Washington
with Mr. William Ticknor, Mr. Fields's senior partner in the publishing
firm of Ticknor & Fields. The travelling companions spent two or three
days in New York, and had got as far as Philadelphia, when Mr. Ticknor
was taken suddenly ill, at the Continental Hotel, and died the next day.
Stunned, wellnigh shattered by this sinister event, Hawthorne was almost
incapacitated for action of any sort; but there were kind and ready
friends in Philadelphia who came to his aid, and relieved him from the
melancholy duty which he would else have had to meet. He returned to
Concord, in what forlorn state an extract from a letter of Mrs.
Hawthorne's may best convey: "He came back unlooked for, that day; and
when I heard a step on the piazza, I was lying on a couch and feeling
quite indisposed. But as soon as I saw him I was frightened out of all
knowledge of myself,--so haggard, so white, so deeply scored with pain
and fatigue was the face, so much more ill than ever I saw him before."
Mrs. Hawthorne still hoped for some favorable turn, if he could but
obtain a complete change of scene and escape from the austere New
England spring, into some warmer climate. "He has not smiled since he
came home till to-day," she wrote, "when I made him laugh, with
Thackeray's humor, in reading to him." She was constant in her care; she
would scarcely let him go up and down stairs alone. But not the most
tender solicitude, nor any encouragement of unquenchable hope, could now
avail to help him.
The only stratagem that could be devised to win back health and strength
was the plan proposed by General Pierce, to take Hawthorne with him on
an easy journey by carriage into New Hampshire. They started in
May,--the two old college-mates; the ex-President so lately widowed and
still in the shadow of his own bereavement, with the famous romancer so
mournfully broken, who was never more to be seen in life by those to
whom he was dearest. From the Pemigewasset House at Plymouth, New
Hampshire, where they had stopped for the night, General Pierce sent the
news on May 19, that Hawthorne was dead. "He retired last night," wrote
the General, "soon after nine o'clock, and soon fell into a quiet
slumber.... At two o'clock I went to H----'s bedside; he was apparently
in a sound sleep; and I did not place my hand upon him. At four o'clock
I went into his room again, and, as his position was unchanged, I placed
my hand upon him and found that life was extinct.... He must have passed
from natural slumber to that from which there is no waking, without the
slightest movement."
Hawthorne was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery at Concord, on the 24th
of May, 1864. The grave was made beneath the shadowing pines of a hill
near one of the borders of the beautiful, wooded burial-ground, whence
there is a peaceful view over the valley of the Concord River. It was
close to the slope where Thoreau now lies, and not far away is the
grassy resting-place of Emerson. The spot was one for which Hawthorne
had cherished an especial fondness. Emerson, that day, stood beside the
grave, and with him Longfellow and Lowell were present; Agassiz, Holmes,
James Freeman Clarke, Edwin Whipple, Pierce, and Hillard, had all
assembled to pay their last reverence. A great multitude of people
attended the funeral service at the old Unitarian First Church in the
village, and Mr. Clarke, who had performed the marriage ceremony for
Hawthorne, conducted the rites above him dead. It was a perfect day of
spring; the roadside banks were blue with violets, the orchards were in
bloom; and lilies of the valley, which were Hawthorne's favorites among
flowers, had blossomed early as if for him, and were gathered in masses
about him. Like a requiem chant, the clear strains that Longfellow wrote
in memory of that hour still echo for us its tender solemnity:--
"How beautiful it was, that one bright day
In the long week of rain!
Though all its splendor could not chase away
The omnipresent pain.
"The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,
And the great elms o'erhead
Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms,
Shot through with golden thread.
"Across the meadows, by the gray old manse,
The historic river flowed;
I was as one who wanders in a trance,
Unconscious of his road.
"The faces of familiar friends seemed strange;
Their voices I could hear,
And yet the words they uttered seemed to change
Their meaning to the ear.
"For the one face I looked for was not there,
The one low voice was mute;
Only an unseen presence filled the air,
And baffled my pursuit.
"Now I look back, and meadow, manse, and stream
Dimly my thought defines;
I only see--a dream within a dream--
The hill-top hearsed with pines.
"I only hear above his place of rest
Their tender undertone,
The infinite longings of a troubled breast,
The voice so like his own.
"There in seclusion and remote from men
The wizard hand lies cold,
Which at its topmost speed let fall the pen,
And left the tale half told.
"Ah, who shall lift that wand of magic power,
And the lost clue regain?
The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower
Unfinished must remain!"