Class _:5.Si,A2._ 
 
 Book.^ Ji'^ 
 
 Copightl^°_ 
 
 COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 AMERICAN ESSAYS 
 
 EDITED BY 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Jr., Ph.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND LOGIC IN UNION COLLEGE 
 
 GLOBE SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK AND CHICAGO 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS, 
 Two C0WE8 Received 
 
 lUL. 5 1902 
 
 ^CoWfilOHT ENTRY 
 
 ICLASS ^ XXa NO 
 
 h L ^ ^ ^ 
 
 COPY B, 
 
 75 4?a. 
 
 Copyright, 1902, by 
 Globe School Book Company. 
 
 M. p. I 
 
 
 • .• ••" • 
 
 MANHATTAN PRESS 
 
 474 WEST BROADWAY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
! PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 s 
 
 S" This volume follows a plan slightly different 
 from that of its companion, " English Essays," for 
 a reason noted in the Introduction. It gives 
 something from our very best essayists, however. 
 It will seem that Emerson cannot be wholly un- 
 derstood by a young reader. But it is well for 
 any one to read something of Emerson, even if 
 he do not understand it thoroughly. Lowell's 
 essay is a good apology for offering Emerson to 
 those who cannot grasp his whole thought. The 
 notes are few. Emerson and Lowell would per- 
 mit many, but we have here helps only in places 
 that did not seem themselves to offer the clew to 
 explanation. 
 
 E. E. H., Jr. 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 The extracts from " Emerson the Lecturer " 
 and "A Great Public Character," by James Rus- 
 sell Lowell, are used by special arrangement with 
 and permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Com- 
 pany, the authorized publishers of Lowell's works. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction . . . . . . . . vii 
 
 From "The Sketch Book/' by Washington Irving: 
 
 Christmas 1 
 
 The Stage-coach 9 
 
 Christmas Eve 19 
 
 Christmas Day ....... 36 
 
 The Christmas Dinner 57 
 
 Westminster Abbey 77 
 
 From *' Prue and I," by George William Curtis : 
 
 Dinner Time 95 
 
 Sea from Shore 118 
 
 Titbottom's Spectacles 149 
 
 From ''My Study Windows," by James Eussell 
 Lowell : 
 
 Emerson the Lecturer 187 
 
 A Great Public Character .... 201 
 
 From '^ Essays: First Series," by Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson : 
 
 History . . . ^ 223 
 
 V 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Ik our volume on " English Essayists " we have 
 described the essay in what may be said to be the 
 stricter sense of the word, or, more correctly, the 
 original sense, that of attempt or experiment. 
 We there saw that the essay of Addison, Gold- 
 smith, Lamb, Thackeray, was no formal treatment 
 of some subject, but the easy following out of 
 one's idea, whatever it were, without precision or 
 particularity, but with the pleasant leisure that 
 gives such a taste of the personality of the writer. 
 The word " essay " is, of course, now correctly 
 used for a wide variety of short pieces of prose, 
 from the matured and well-weighed aphorisms of 
 Bacon to the brilliant and picturesque studies 
 of Macaulay ; indeed, for any treatment that does 
 not aim at being finished and complete. But 
 what we should call the true essay character is 
 that of such writing as we have in the ''Essays 
 of Elia" and the "Spectator." 
 
 Of such essays the literature of our own country 
 has comparatively little. It may be for many 
 reasons. Perhaps Americans, as a nation, are too 
 practical to take pleasure in what might be called 
 
 vii 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 intellectual idling; it may be that they feel the 
 necessity of accomplishing something, or, to put 
 the matter in another way, it may be that they 
 have not leisure enough either to write anything 
 of such an idle character as the essay, or to read 
 it. Whatever be the reason, we have on our side 
 of the water not many collections like those by 
 English writers which may be easily found. 
 
 It is not unnatural, however, that among the 
 true essayists should be found Washington Irving. 
 Irving was the first great representative man of 
 letters in America. This title would belong to 
 Franklin were it not that with Franklin literature 
 was always something secondary. Franklin was 
 a man of action, a practical man. He always 
 wanted to accomplish something, and he valued 
 his power with his pen, his genius for letters and 
 scholarship, according as it helped him to bring 
 about his plans in statesmanship and everyday 
 life. With Irving it was not so. He was not a 
 practical man. It is true that he studied law, 
 and that for a time he transacted business, but 
 the real interest of his life was literature. He 
 devoted himself to literature at first carelessly, 
 and, finally, with his whole heart ; and he was 
 regarded as essentially a man of letters. Like 
 Franklin, he represented his country at one of the 
 courts of Europe, but in his case the position of 
 minister was offered to him as a compliment to 
 him and to the country of which he had written 
 
INTRODUCTION IX 
 
 SO excellently, and not, as with Franklin, on 
 account of the ability to transact difhcult matters 
 better than anybody else. 
 
 As a professed man of letters, then, it was not 
 remarkable that Irving should have at first ex- 
 pressed himself chiefly in essays. He was inter- 
 ested in history, and later in life he was noted as 
 a historian. He was interested in fiction, too, 
 and in his short stories he set a fashion in which 
 his countrymen have distinguished themselves. 
 He was a humorist, also, but his ambitions rose 
 rather above merely humorous writing. He had 
 also before him when he began to write, as great 
 models of English style, Addison and Goldsmith. 
 It was natural that his earlier work should have 
 been the essay. But for whatever reason, even in 
 the essay his thoughts took rather a more definite 
 form than those of his great contemporary. Lamb. 
 It is true that his first collection, ''The Sketch 
 Book," was made up of miscellaneous essays and 
 stories, yet even there a number of his sketches 
 were strung together upon the account of his visit 
 to Bracebridge Hall, and later he generally took 
 some subject, as Bracebridge Hall again, or the 
 Alhambra, as a center around which to group 
 stories or essays, and he always was quite definite 
 in treating his subject. Yet though, in a way, not 
 such pure essays as those of Elia, the essays of 
 Irving are very attractive bits of writing, and 
 carry us along with the writer through all the 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 festivities and traditions associated with Christ- 
 mas, for instance, with much the same interest 
 and attraction that would be had by Lamb or 
 Montaigne. 
 
 Another of our typical essayists is George Wil- 
 liam Curtis. Toward the end of his life Curtis 
 wrote every month, for Harper's Magazine^ a paper 
 called ''The Editor's Easy Chair." These were 
 true essays, not unlike in character Thackeray's 
 ''Roundabout Papers." Each month he thought 
 of some subject around which he might weave his 
 ideas and fancies, and the result was a collection 
 full of character and thought. But these were 
 not Curtis's first experiments in this direction. In 
 " Prue and I " we have a series of papers which, 
 though put in the form of reveries (shall we call 
 them ?) of an old bookkeeper, are quite as much 
 essays as if Curtis had written them in his own 
 person. Some of them are more of an exercise 
 of fancy, it is true, but there is thought in them 
 too, perhaps as much as he afterwards put into 
 his lay sermons from "The Editor's Easy Chair." 
 
 The essay is a purely literary form, and there 
 is no greater man of letters in our own literature 
 than James Russell Lowell. Yet his essays, like 
 those of his famous contemporary, Macaulay, are 
 too definite treatments of specific subjects to be 
 called essays in the narrower sense. Lowell wrote 
 on Democracy or on Chaucer, on the birds of his 
 garden or the books on his shelves, because he was 
 
INTRODUCTION XI 
 
 absorbed for the time in those things; he rarely 
 allowed his thoughts to wander where they would, 
 without guide or goal. Lowell was in truth a 
 good deal of a scholar ; he was always interested 
 in telling what was the fact about the man, for 
 instance, of whom he wrote. He was interested 
 in the man's work, and he was always curious as 
 to his character, wished to know it and write of 
 it. Much of his writing, however, has the true 
 essay-quality, for his mind was richly stored, and 
 he could never get very far without reminiscence 
 or allusion. And sometimes when he left the 
 criticism of one or another author and took some 
 less definite subject, his work might almost be 
 thought of as an essay in the narrower sense. 
 
 But probably the most famous of American 
 essays, the most widely known, are those of Emer- 
 son. They have certainly something of the true 
 essay-quality about them. They move freely; 
 they are unconstrained. But still, like the essays 
 of Bacon, they are a little too concise or too epi- 
 grammatic to be quite the free movement of 
 thought. They are also a little too carefully set 
 together. It is not the disinterested thinking of 
 the man who likes to think ; Emerson was far too 
 practical for that. We may always think of him 
 as an idealist, but he was very practical too. He 
 always seems to have^ in mind the desire to en- 
 courage and strengthen and help our better nature. 
 He was no idler or man of leisure; his earnest 
 
xii INTRODUCTION 
 
 desire was to make America more vigorous, strong, 
 and manly in its living and thinking. It is true 
 that he never attempted a definitely systematic 
 work on morals or human nature : he put his 
 essays together without much thought of care- 
 fully arranged plan, well satisfied if each piece of 
 writing contained the spirit of its topic and the 
 incentive to a more lively and active appreciation 
 of it. This gives us something of the true man- 
 ner of his thought, although the movement of his 
 style hardly seems the free movement of the 
 essayist. But his essays are very personal, as 
 indeed the sincere writing of any man must tend 
 to be who has a strong personality. 
 
 Thus in each of our four essayists we have 
 found something of the true essay-quality, in each 
 case with a good deal of something else. We 
 may appreciate it surely, this common quality, 
 without losing sight of what each one particularly 
 has for us, — the old-fashioned ease of Irving, the 
 charm of grave and gay imagination that makes 
 us wonder why Curtis was not a poet, the richly 
 reminiscent mind of Lowell, the surcharged in- 
 tensity of Emerson. It is well to read them 
 together; for though they have all something in 
 common, the general character, yet their own 
 traits are by no means lost in the background. 
 
FROM ^^THE SKETCH BOOK" 
 
 CHRISTMAS 
 
 But is old, old, good old Christmas gone ? Nothing but the 
 hair of his good, gray, old head and beard left ? Well, I will 
 have that, seeing I cannot have more of him. 
 
 Hue and Cry after Christmas. 
 
 A man might then behold 
 
 At Christmas, in each hall, 
 Good fires to curb the cold. 
 
 And meat for great and small. 
 The neighbors were friendly bidden, 
 
 And all had welcome true. 
 The poor from the gates were not chidden, 
 
 When this old cap was new. 
 
 Old Song. 
 
 There is nothing in England that exercises a 
 more delightful spell over my imagination than 
 the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural 
 games of former times. They recall the pictures 
 my fancy used to draw in the May morning of 
 life, when as yet I only knew the world through 
 books, and believed it to be all that poets had 
 painted it ; and they bring with them the flavor 
 of those honest days of yore, in which, perhaps 
 with equal fallacy, I am apt to think the world 
 
2 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 was more homebred, social, and joyous than at 
 present. I regret to say that they are daily grow- 
 ing more and more faint, being gradually worn 
 away by time, but still more obliterated by modern 
 fashion. They resemble those picturesque morsels 
 of Gothic architecture, which we see crumbling in 
 various parts of the country, partly dilapidated 
 by the waste of ages, and partly lost in the addi- 
 tions and alterations of latter days. Poetry, how- 
 ever, clings with cherishing fondness about the 
 rural game and holiday revel, from which it has 
 derived so many of its themes — as the ivy winds 
 its rich foliage about the Gothic arch and molder- 
 ing tower, gratefully repaying their support, by 
 clasping together their tottering remains, and, as 
 it were, embalming them in verdure. 
 
 Of all the old festivals, however, that of Christ- 
 mas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt 
 associations. There is a tone of solemn and 
 sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality, 
 and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and ele- 
 vated enjoyment. The services of the church 
 about this season are extremely tender and in- 
 spiring : they dwell on the beautiful story of the 
 origin of our faith, and the pastoral scenes that 
 accompanied its announcement ; they gradually 
 increase in fervor and pathos during the season 
 of Advent, until they break forth in full jubilee 
 on the morning that brought peace and good- will 
 to men. I do not know a grander effect of music 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 3 
 
 on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir 
 and the pealing organ performing a Christmas 
 anthem in a cathedral, and filling every part of 
 the vast pile with triumphant harmony. 
 
 It is a beautiful arrangement, also, derived from 
 days of yore, that this festival, which commemo- 
 rates the announcement of the religion of peace 
 and love, has been made the season for gathering 
 together of family connections, and drawing closer 
 again those bands of kindred hearts, which the 
 cares and pleasures and sorrows of the world are 
 continually operating to cast loose ; of calling 
 back the children of a family, who have launched 
 forth in life, and wandered widely asunder, once 
 more to assemble about the paternal hearth, that 
 rallying-place of the affections, there to grow 
 young and loving again among the endearing 
 mementos of childhood. 
 
 There is something in the very season of the 
 year, that gives a charm to the festivity of Christ-' 
 mas. At other times, we derive a great portion 
 of our pleasures from the mere beauties of nature. 
 Our feelings sally forth and dissipate themselves 
 over the sunny landscape, and we ''live abroad 
 and everywhere.'' The song of the bird, the 
 murmur of the stream, the breathing fragrance 
 of spring, the soft voluptuousness of summer, the 
 golden pomp of autumn ; earth with its mantle of 
 refreshing green, and heaven with its deep, deli- 
 cious blue and its cloudy magnificence, — all fill 
 
4 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 US with mute but exquisite delight, and we revel 
 in the luxury of mere sensation. But in the 
 depth of winter, when nature lies despoiled of 
 every charm, and wrapped in her shroud of sheeted 
 snow, we turn for our .gratifications to moral 
 sources.^ The dreariness and desolation of the 
 landscape, the short, gloomy days and darksome 
 nights, while they circumscribe our wanderings, 
 shut in our feelings also from rambling abroad, 
 and make us more keenly disposed for the pleas- 
 ures of the social circle. Our thoughts are 
 more concentrated ; our friendly sympathies more 
 aroused. We feel more sensibly the charm of 
 each other's society, and are brought more closely 
 together by dependence on each other for enjoy- 
 ment. Heart calleth unto heart, and we draw 
 our pleasures from the deep wells of living kind- 
 ness which lie in the quiet recesses of our bosoms ; 
 and which, when resorted to, furnish forth the 
 pure element of domestic felicity. 
 
 The pitchy gloom without makes the heart 
 dilate on entering the room filled with the glow 
 and warmth of the evening fire. The ruddy 
 blaze diffuses an artificial summer and sunshine 
 through the room, and lights up each countenance 
 in a kindlier welcome. Where does the honest 
 face of hospitality expand into a broader and more 
 cordial smile — where is the shy glance of love 
 more sweetly eloquent — than by the winter fire- 
 
 1 One should read Lowell's " A Good Word for Winter " here. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 5 
 
 side ? and as the hollow blast of wintry wind 
 rushes through the hall, claps the distant door, 
 whistles about the casement, and rumbles down 
 the chimney, what can be more grateful than that 
 feeling of sober and sheltered security, with which 
 we look round upon the comfortable chamber and 
 the scene of domestic hilarity ? 
 
 The English, from the great prevalence of rural 
 habits throughout every class of society, have 
 always been fond of those festivals and holidays 
 which agreeably interrupt the stillness of country 
 life ; and they were in former days particularly 
 observant of the religious and social rights of 
 Christmas. It is inspiring to read even the dry 
 details which some antiquaries have given of the 
 quaint humors, the burlesque pageants, the com- 
 plete abandonment to mirth and good fellowship, 
 with which this festival was celebrated. It 
 seemed to throw open every door, and unlock 
 every heart. It brought the peasant and the 
 peer together, and blended all ranks in one warm 
 generous flow of joy and kindness. The old halls 
 of castles and manor-houses resounded with the 
 harp and the Christmas carol, and their ample 
 boards groaned under the weight of hospitality. 
 Even the poorest cottage welcomed the festive 
 season with green decorations of bay and holly — 
 the cheerful fire glanced its rays through the 
 lattice, inviting the passenger to raise the latch, 
 and join the gossip knot huddled round the hearth 
 
6 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 beguiling the long evening with legendary jokes^ 
 and oft-told Christmas tales. 
 
 One of the least pleasing effects of modern re- 
 finement is the havoc it has made among the 
 hearty old holiday customs. It has completely 
 taken off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs 
 of these embellishments of life, and has worn down 
 society into a more smooth and polished, but cer- 
 tainly a less characteristic surface. Many of the 
 games and ceremonials of Christmas have entirely 
 disappeared, and, like the sherris sack of old Fal- 
 staff, are becoming matters of speculation and 
 dispute among commentators. They flourished in 
 times full of spirit and lustihood, when men en- 
 joyed life roughly, but heartily and vigorously : 
 times wild and picturesque, which have furnished 
 poetry with its richest materials, and the drama 
 with its most attractive variety of characters and 
 manners. The world has become more worldly. 
 There is more of dissipation and less of enjoyment. 
 Pleasure has expanded into a broader, but a shal- 
 lower stream, and has forsaken many of those 
 deep and quiet channels, where it flowed sweetly 
 through the calm bosom of domestic life. Society 
 has acquired a more enlightened and elegant tone ; 
 but it has lost many of its strong local peculiari- 
 ties, its homebred feelings, its honest fireside 
 delights. The traditionary customs of golden- 
 hearted antiquity, its feudal hospitalities, and 
 lordly wassailings, have passed away with the 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 7 
 
 baronial castles and stately manor-houses in which 
 they were celebrated. They comported with the 
 shadowy hall, the great oaken gallery, and the 
 tapestried parlor, but are unfitted for the light, 
 showy saloons and gay drawing-rooms of the 
 modern villa. 
 
 Shorn, however, as it is, of its ancient and fes- 
 tive honors, Christmas is still a period of delight- 
 ful excitement in England. It is gratifying to 
 see that home feeling completely aroused which 
 holds so powerful a place in every English bosom. 
 The preparations making on every side for the 
 social board that is again to unite friends and 
 kindred — the presents of good cheer passing and 
 repassing, those tokens of regard and quickeners 
 of kind feelings — the evergreens distributed 
 about houses and churches, emblems of peace 
 and gladness — all these have the most pleasing 
 effect in producing fond associations, and kindling 
 benevolent sympathies. Even the sound of the 
 Waits, rude as may be their minstrelsy, breaks 
 upon the midwatches of a winter night with the 
 effect of perfect harmony. As I have been awak- 
 ened by them in that still and solemn hour "when 
 deep sleep falleth upon man," I have listened with 
 a hushed delight, and connecting them with the 
 sacred and joyous occasion, have almost fancied 
 them into another celestial choir, announcing 
 peace and good- will to mankind. How delight- 
 fully the imagination, when wrought upon by 
 
8 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 these moral influences, turns everything to 
 melody and beauty ! The very crowing of the 
 cock, heard sometimes in the profound repose of 
 the country, ''telling the nightwatches to his 
 feathery dames," was thought by the common 
 people to announce the approach of the sacred 
 festival : — • 
 
 " Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 
 Wherein our Saviour's birth was celebrated, 
 This bird of dawning singe th all night long : 
 And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad ; 
 The nights are w^holesome — then no planets strike, 
 No fairy takes, no witch hath power to charm. 
 So hallowed and so gracious is the time." 
 
 Hamlet, I., i., 158-164. 
 
 Amidst the general call to happiness, the bustle 
 of the spirits, and stir of the affections, which 
 prevail at this period, what bosom can remain 
 insensible ? It is, indeed, the season of regener- 
 ated feeling — the season for kindling not merely 
 the fire of hospitality in the hall, but the genial 
 flame of charity in the heart. The scene of early 
 love again rises green to memory beyond the ster- 
 ile waste of years, and the idea of home, fraught 
 with the fragrance of home-dwelling joys, reani- 
 mates the drooping spirit, as the Arabian breeze 
 will sometimes waft the freshness of the distant 
 fields to the weary pilgrim of the desert. 
 
 Stranger and sojourner as I am in the land — 
 though for me no social hearth may blaze, no 
 hospitable roof throw open its doors, nor the 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 9 
 
 warm grasp of friendship welcome me at the 
 threshold — yet I feel the influence of the season 
 beaming into my soul from the happy looks of 
 those around me. Surely happiness is reflective, 
 like the light of heaven ; and every countenance 
 bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent 
 enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the 
 rays of a supreme and ever shining benevolence. 
 He who can turn churlishly away from contem- 
 plating the felicity of his fellow-beings, and can 
 sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness 
 when all around is joyful, may have his moments 
 of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but 
 he wants the genial and social sympathies which 
 constitute the charm of a merry Christmas. 
 
 THE STAGE-COACH. 
 
 Omne bene 
 
 Sine poenS 
 Tempus est ludendi. 
 
 Venit hora 
 
 Absque mora 
 Libros deponendi.^ 
 
 Old Holiday School Song. 
 
 In the preceding paper, I have made some 
 general observations on the Christmas festivities 
 
 1 A free translation would run something as follows :— 
 Tasks and troubles all are done ; 
 
 And the time tor play, 
 Long delayed, is now begun : 
 
 Put the books away. 
 
10 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 of England, and am tempted to illustrate them 
 by some anecdotes of a Christmas passed in the 
 country; in perusing which, I would most courte- 
 ously invite my reader to lay aside the austerity 
 of wisdom, and to put on that genuine holiday 
 spirit, which is tolerant of folly and anxious only 
 for amusement. 
 
 In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, 
 I rode for a long distance in one of the public 
 coaches, on the day preceding Christmas. The 
 coach was crowded, both inside and out, with 
 passengers, who, by their talk, seemed principally 
 bound to the mansions of relations or friends, to 
 eat the Christmas dinner. It was loaded also 
 with hampers of game, and baskets and boxes of 
 delicacies ; and hares hung dangling their long 
 ears about the coachman's box, presents from 
 distant friends for the impending feast. I had 
 three fine rosy-cheeked school-boys for my fellow- 
 passengers inside, full of the buxom health and 
 manly spirit which I have observed in the children 
 of this country. They were returning home for 
 the holidays, in high glee, and promising them- 
 selves a world of enjoyment. It was delightful 
 to hear the gigantic plans of pleasure of the little 
 rogues, and the impracticable feats they were to 
 perform during their six weeks' emancipation from 
 the abhorred thralldom of book, birch, and peda- 
 gogue. They were full of the anticipations of the 
 meeting with the family and household, down to 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 11 
 
 the very cat and dog ; and of the joy they were to 
 give their sisters by the presents with which their 
 pockets were crammed ; but the meeting to which 
 they seemed to look forward with the greatest im- 
 patience was with Bantam, which I found to be a 
 pony, and according to their talk, possessed of 
 more virtues than any steed since the days of 
 Bucephalus. How he could trot ! how he could 
 run ! and then such leaps as he would take — 
 there was not a hedge in the whole country thait 
 he could not clear. 
 
 They were under the particular guardianship of 
 the coachman, to whom, whenever an opportunity 
 presented, they addressed a host of questions, and 
 pronounced him one of the best fellows in the 
 whole world. Indeed, I could not but notice the 
 more than ordinary air of bustle and importance 
 of the coachman, who wore his hat a little on one 
 side, and had a large bunch of Christmas greens 
 stuck in the button-hole of his coat. He is always 
 a personage full of mighty care and business ; but 
 he is particularly so during this season, having so 
 many commissions to execute in consequence of 
 the great interchange of presents. And here, per- 
 haps, it may not be unacceptable to my untraveled 
 readers, to have a sketch that may serve as a gen- 
 eral representation of this very numerous and im- 
 portant class of functionaries, who have a dress, a 
 manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, 
 and prevalent throughout the fraternity ; so that, 
 
12 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 wherever an English stage-coachman may be seen, 
 he cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or 
 mystery. 
 
 He has commonly a broad full face, curiously 
 mottled with red, as if the blood had been forced 
 by hard feeding into every vessel of the skin ; he 
 is swelled into jolly dimensions by frequent pota- 
 tions of malt liquors, and his bulk is still farther 
 increased by a multiplicity of coats, in which he is 
 buried like a cauliflower, the upper one reaching 
 to his heels. He wears a broad-brimmed, low- 
 crowned hat, a huge roll of colored handkerchief 
 about his neck, knowingly knotted and tucked in 
 at the bosom ; and has in summer-time a large 
 bouquet of flowers in his button-hole, the present, 
 most probably, of some enamored country lass. 
 His waistcoat is commonly of some bright color, 
 striped, and his small-clothes extend far below the 
 knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach 
 about half-way up his legs. 
 
 All this costume is maintained with much pre- 
 cision ; he has a pride in having his clothes of ex- 
 cellent materials, and notwithstanding the seeming 
 grossness of his appearance, there is still discernible 
 that neatness and propriety of person, which is 
 almost inherent in an Englishman. He enjoys 
 great consequence and consideration along the 
 road ; has frequent conferences with the village 
 housewives, who look upon him as a man of great 
 trust and dependence ; and he seems to have a 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 13 
 
 good understanding with every bright-eyed coun- 
 try lass. The moment he arrives where the horses 
 are to be changed, he throws down the reins with 
 something of an air, and abandons the cattle to 
 the care of the hostler ; his duty being merely to 
 drive them from one stage to another. When off 
 the box, his hands are thrust in the pockets of his 
 great-coat, and he rolls about the inn-yard with an 
 air of the most absolute lordliness. Here he is 
 generally surrounded by an admiring throng of 
 hostlers, stable-boys, shoeblacks, and those name- 
 less hangers-on, that infest inns and taverns, and 
 run errands, and do all kind of odd jobs, for the 
 privilege of battening on the drippings of the 
 kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room. These 
 all look up to him as to an oracle ; treasure up his 
 cant phrases ; echo his opinions about horses and 
 other topics of jockey lore ; and, above all, en- 
 deavor to imitate his air and carriage. Every 
 ragamuffin that has a coat to his back, thrusts his 
 hands in the pockets, rolls in his gait, talks slang, 
 and is an embryo Coachey. 
 
 Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing 
 serenity that reigned in my own mind, that I fan- 
 cied I saw cheerfulness in every countenance 
 throughout the journey. A stage-coach, how- 
 ever, carries animation always with it, and puts 
 the world in motion as it whirls along. The horn, 
 sounded at the entrance of a village, produces a 
 general bustle. Some hasten forth to meet friends ; 
 
14 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 some with bundles and bandboxes to secure places, 
 and in the hurry of the moment can hardly take 
 leave of the group that accompanies them. In the 
 mean time, the coachman has a world of small com- 
 missions to execute ; sometimes he delivers a hare 
 or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel or 
 newspaper to the door of a public house ; and 
 sometimes with knowing leer and words of sly im- 
 port, hands to some half -blushing, half-laughing 
 housemaid, an odd-shaped billet-doux from some 
 rustic admirer. As the coach rattles through the 
 village, every one runs to the window, and you 
 have glances on every side of fresh country faces, 
 and blooming giggling girls. At the corners are 
 assembled juntos of village idlers and wise men, 
 who take their stations there for the important 
 purpose of seeing company pass : but the sagest 
 knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to whom the 
 passing of the coach is an event fruitful of much 
 speculation. The smith, with the horse's heel in 
 his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by ; the cy clops ^ 
 round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers, 
 and suffer the iron to grow cool ; and the sooty 
 spectre in brown paper cap, laboring at the bel- 
 lows, leans on the handle for a moment, and per- 
 mits the asthmatic engine to heave a long-drawn 
 sigh, while he glares through the murky smoke 
 and sulphureous gleams of the smithy. 
 
 Perhaps the impending holiday might have 
 
 1 The'Cyclopes were the workmen of Vulcan's stithy. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 15 
 
 given a more than usual animation to the country, 
 for it seemed to me as if everybody was in good 
 looks and good spirits. Game, poultry, and other 
 luxuries of the table, were in brisk circulation in 
 the villages ; the grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' 
 shops were thronged with customers. The house- 
 wives were stirring briskly about, putting their 
 dwellings in order ; and the glossy branches of 
 holly, with their bright red berries, began to ap- 
 pear at the windows. The scene brought to mind 
 an old writer's account of Christmas preparations. 
 '' Now capons and hens, besides turkeys, geese, 
 and ducks, with beef and mutton, must all die 
 — for in twelve days a multitude of people will 
 not be fed with a little. Now plums and spice, 
 sugar and honey, square it among pies and broth. 
 Now or never must music be in tune, for the youth 
 must dance and sing to get them a heat, while the 
 aged sit by the fire. The country maid leaves 
 half her market, and must be sent again, if she 
 forgets a pair of cards on Christmas eve. Great 
 is the contention of Holly and Ivy, whether master 
 or dame wears the breeches. Dice and cards bene- 
 fit the butler ; and if the cook do not lack wit, he 
 will sweetly lick his fingers." 
 
 I was roused from this fit of luxurious medi- 
 tation by a shout from my little traveling com- 
 panions. They had been looking out of the coach- 
 windows for the last few miles, recognizing every 
 tree and cottage as they approaclied home, and 
 
16 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 now there was a general burst of joy — '^ There's 
 John ! and there's old Carlo ! and there's Ban- 
 tam ! " cried the happy little rogues, clapping 
 their hands. 
 
 At the end of a lane, there was an old sober- 
 looking servant in livery, waiting for them ; he 
 was accompanied by a superannuated pointer, and 
 by the redoubtable Bantam, a little old rat of a 
 pony, with a shaggy mane and long rusty tail, who 
 stood dozing quietly by the road-side, little dream- 
 ing of the bustling times that awaited him. 
 
 I was pleased to see the fondness with which the 
 little fellows leaped about the steady old footman, 
 and hugged the pointer, who wriggled his whole 
 body for joy. But Bantam was the great object 
 of interest ; all wanted to mount at once, and it 
 was with some difficulty that John arranged that 
 they should ride by turns, and the eldest should 
 ride first. 
 
 Off they set at last ; one on the pony, with the 
 dog bounding and barking before him, and the 
 others holding John's hands ; both talking at once 
 and overpowering him with questions about home, 
 and with school anecdotes. I looked after them 
 with a feeling in which I do not know whether 
 pleasure or melancholy predominated ; for I was 
 reminded of those days when, like them, I had 
 neither known care nor sorrow, and a holiday was 
 the summit of earthly felicity. We stopped a few 
 moments afterwards, to water the horses ; and on 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 17 
 
 resuming our route, a turn of the road brought us 
 in sight of a neat country-seat. I could just dis- 
 tinguish the forms of a lady and two young girls 
 in the portico, and I saw my little comrades, with 
 Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping along the 
 carriage road. I leaned out of the coach-window, 
 in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a 
 grove of trees shut it from my sight. 
 
 In the evening we reached a village where I had 
 determined to pass the night. As we drove into 
 the great gateway of the inn, I saw, on one side, 
 the light of a rousing kitchen fire beaming through 
 a window. I entered, and admired for the hun- 
 dredth time, that picture of convenience, neatness, 
 and broad honest enjoyment, the kitchen of an 
 English inn. It was of spacious dimensions, hung 
 round with copper and tin vessels highly polished, 
 and decorated here and there with a Christmas 
 green. Hams, tongues, and flitches of bacon were 
 suspended from the ceiling ; a srnoke-jack made 
 its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, and a 
 clock ticked in one corner. A well-scoured deal 
 table extended along one side of the kitchen, with 
 a cold round of beef, and other hearty viands, 
 upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale 
 seemed mounting guard. Travelers of inferior 
 order were preparing to attack this stout repast, 
 whilst others sat smoking and gossiping over their 
 ale on two high-backed, oaken settles beside the 
 fire. Trim housemaids were hurrying backwards 
 
18 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 and forwards, under the directions of a bustling 
 landlady ; but still seizing an occasional moment 
 to exchange a flippant word, and have a rallying 
 laugh, with the group round the fire. The scene 
 completely realized Poor Robin's humble idea of 
 the comforts of mid-winter : — 
 
 Now trees their leafy hats do bare 
 To reverence Winter's silver hair ; 
 A handsome hostess, merry host, 
 A pot of ale and now a toast. 
 Tobacco and a good coal fire, 
 Are things this season doth require.^ 
 
 I had not been long at the inn, when a post- 
 chaise drove up to the door. A young gentleman 
 stepped out, and by the light of the lamps I caught 
 a glimpse of a countenance which I thought I knew. 
 I moved forward to get a nearer view, when his 
 eye caught mine. I was not mistaken ; it was 
 Frank Bracebridge, a sprightly, good-humored, 
 young fellow, with whom I had once traveled on 
 the continent. Our meeting was extremely cor- 
 dial, for the countenance of an old fellow-traveler 
 always brings up the recollection of a thousand 
 pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excellent 
 jokes. To discuss all these in a transient inter- 
 view at an inn, was impossible ; and finding that 
 I was not pressed for time and was merely making 
 a tour of observation, he insisted that I should 
 give him a day or two at his father's country-seat, 
 
 1 Poor Robin's Almanack, 1694. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 19 
 
 to which he was going to pass the holidays, and 
 which lay at a few miles' distance. '' It is better 
 than eating a solitary Christmas dinner at an inn," 
 said he, "and I can assure you of a hearty wel- 
 come, in something of the old-fashioned style." 
 His reasoning was cogent, and I must confess the 
 preparation I had seen for universal festivity and 
 social enjoyment, had made me feel a little impa- 
 tient of my loneliness. I closed, therefore, at once, 
 with his invitation; the chaise drove up to the 
 door, and in a few moments I was on my way to 
 the family mansion of the Bracebridges. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE 
 
 Saint Erancis and Saint Benedight 
 Blesse this house from wicked wight ; 
 From the night-mare and the goblin, 
 That is hight good fellow Robin ; 
 Keep it from all evil spirits, 
 Fairies, weasels, rats, and ferrets : 
 
 From curfew-time 
 
 To the next prime. 
 
 Cartwright. 
 
 It was a brilliant moonlight night, but ex- 
 tremely cold; our chaise whirled rapidly over 
 the frozen ground ; the post-boy smacked his 
 whip incessantly, and a part of the time his horses 
 were on a gallop. " He knows where he is going," 
 said my companion, laughing, ''and is eager to 
 
\ 
 
 20 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS ' 
 
 arrive in time for some of the merriment an|^ good 
 cheer of the servants' hall. My father, you^^ must 
 know, is a bigoted devotee of the old school, and 
 prides himself upon keeping up something of old 
 English hospitality. He is a tolerable specimen 
 of what you will rarely meet with nowadays in 
 its purity, — the old English country gentleman ; 
 for our men of fortune spend so much of their 
 time in town, and fashion is carried so much into 
 the country, that the strong rich peculiarities of 
 ancient rural life are almost polished away: My 
 father, however, from early years, took honest 
 Peacham ^ for his text-book, instead of Chester- 
 field ; he determined in his own mind, that there 
 was no condition more truly honorable and envi- 
 able than that of a country gentleman on his pater- 
 nal lands, and, therefore, passes the whole of his 
 time on his estate. He is a strenuous advocate 
 for the revival of the old rural games and holiday 
 observances, and is deeply read in the writers, 
 ancient and modern, who have treated on the sub- 
 ject. Indeed, his favorite range of reading is 
 among the authors who flourished at least two 
 centuries since; who, he insists, wrote and thought 
 more like true Englishmen than any of their suc- 
 cessors. He even regrets sometimes that he had 
 not been born a few centuries earlier, when Eng- 
 land was itself, and had its peculiar manners and 
 customs. As he lives at some distance from the 
 
 iPeacham's "Complete Gentleman," 1622. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 21 
 
 main road, in rather a lonely part of the country, 
 without any rival gentry near him, he has that 
 most enviable of all blessings to an Englishman, 
 an opportunity of indulging the bent of his own 
 humor without molestation. Being representa- 
 tive of the oldest family in the neighborhood, and 
 a great part of the peasantry being his tenants, he 
 is much looked up to, and, in general, is known 
 simply by the appellation of ' The 'Squire' ; a title 
 which has been accorded to the head of the family 
 since time immemorial. I think it best to give 
 you these hints about my worthy old father, to 
 prepare you for any little eccentricities that might 
 otherwise appear absurd." 
 
 We had passed for some time along the wall 
 of a park, and at length the chaise stopped at the 
 gate. It was in a heavy magnificent old style, of 
 iron bars, fancifully wrought at top into flourishes 
 and flowers. The huge square columns that sup- 
 ported the gate were surmounted by the family 
 crest. Close adjoining was the porter's lodge, 
 sheltered under dark fir trees, and almost buried 
 in shrubbery. 
 
 The post-boy rang a large porter's bell, which 
 resounded through the still frosty air, and was 
 answered by the distant barking of dogs, with 
 which the mansion-house seemed garrisoned. An 
 old woman immediately appeared at the gate. 
 As the moonlight fell strongly upon her, I had a 
 full view of a little primitive dame, dressed very 
 
22 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 much in antique taste, with a neat kerchief and 
 stomacher, and iier silver hair peeping from under 
 a cap of snowy whiteness. She came courtesying 
 forth with many expressions of simple joy at see- 
 ing her young master. Her husband, it seemed, 
 was up at, the house, keeping Christmas eve in the 
 servants' hall ; they could not do without him, as 
 he was the best hand at a song and story in the 
 household. 
 
 My friend proposed that we should alight, and 
 walk through the park to the Hall, which was at 
 no great distance, while the chaise should follow 
 on. Our road wound through a noble avenue of 
 trees, among the naked branches of which the 
 moon glittered as she rolled through the deep 
 vault of a cloudless sky. The lawn beyond was 
 sheeted with a slight covering of snow, which here 
 and there sparkled as the moon-beams caught a 
 frosty crystal ; and at a distance might be seen a 
 thin transparent vapor, stealing up from the low 
 grounds, and threatening gradually to shroud the 
 landscape. 
 
 My companion looked round him with trans- 
 port : — ''How often," said he, ''have I scam- 
 pered up this avenue, on returning home on school 
 vacations ! How often have I played under these 
 trees when a boy ! I feel a degree of filial rever- 
 ence for them, as we look up to those who have 
 cherished us in childhood. My father was always 
 scrupulous in exacting our holidays, and having us 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 23 
 
 around him on family festivals. He used to direct 
 and superintend our games with the strictness that 
 some parents do the studies of their children. He 
 was very particular that we should play the old 
 English games according to their original form ; 
 and consulted old books for precedent and author- 
 ity for every ' merrie disport ' ; yet, I assure you, 
 there never was pedantry so delightful. It was 
 the policy of the good old gentleman to make his 
 children feel that home was the happiest place in 
 the world, and I value this delicious home-feeling 
 as one of the choicest gifts a parent could bestow." 
 We were interrupted by the clamor of a troop 
 of dogs of all sorts and sizes, " mongrel, puppy, 
 whelp and hound, and curs of low degree," that, 
 disturbed by the ringing of the porter's bell and 
 the rattling of the chaise, came bounding open- 
 mouthed across the lawn. 
 
 " The little dogs and all, 
 
 Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me ! " 
 
 cried Bracebridge, laughing. At the sound of his 
 voice, the bark was changed into a yelp of delight, 
 and in a moment he was surrounded and almost 
 overpowered by the caresses of the faithful ani- 
 mals. 
 
 We had now come in full view of the old family 
 mansion, partly thrown in deep shadow, and partly 
 lit up by the cold moonshine. It was an irregular 
 building of some magnitude, and seemed to be of 
 
24 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 the architecture of different periods. One wing 
 was evidently very ancient, with lieavy stone- 
 shafted bow windows jutting out and overrun 
 with ivy, from among the foliage of which the 
 small diamond-shaped panes of glass glittered with 
 the moon-beams. The rest of the house was in 
 the French taste of Charles the Second's time, 
 having been repaired and altered, as my friend 
 told me, by one of his ancestors, who returned 
 with that monarch at the Restoration. The 
 grounds about the house were laid out in the old 
 formal manner of artificial flower-beds, clipped 
 shrubberies, raised terraces, and heavy stone bal- 
 ustrades, ornamented with urns, a leaden statue 
 or two, and a jet of water. The old gentleman, I 
 was told, was extremely careful to preserve this 
 obsolete finery in all its original state. He ad- 
 mired this fashion in gardening ; it had an air of 
 magnificence, was courtly and noble, and befitting 
 good old family stjde. The boasted imitation of 
 nature and modern gardening had sprung up w^ith 
 modern republican notions, but did not suit a mon- 
 archical government ; it smacked of the leveling 
 system. I could not help smiling at this introduc- 
 tion of politics into gardening, though I expressed 
 some apprehension that I should find the old gen- 
 tleman rather intolerant in his creed. Frank 
 assured me, however, that it was almost the only 
 instance in which he had ever heard his father 
 meddle with politics ; and he believed he had got 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 25 
 
 this notion from a member of Parliament, who 
 once passed a few weeks with him. The 'Squire 
 was glad of any argument to defend his clipped 
 yew trees and formal terraces, which had been 
 occasionally attacked by modern landscape gar- 
 deners. 
 
 As we approached the house, we heard the 
 sound of music, and now and then a burst of 
 laughter, from one end of the building. This, 
 Bracebridge said, must proceed from the servants' 
 hall, where a great deal of revelry was permitted, 
 and even encouraged, by the 'Squire, throughout 
 the twelve days of Christmas, provided every 
 thing was done conformably to ancient usage. 
 Here were kept up the old games of hoodman 
 blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the 
 white loaf, bob-apple, and snap-dragon ; the Yule 
 clog, and Christmas candle, were regularly burnt, 
 and the mistletoe, with its white berries, hung up, 
 to the imminent peril of all the pretty house- 
 maids.^ 
 
 So intent were the servants upon their sports, 
 that we had to ring repeatedly before we could 
 make ourselves heard. On our arrival being 
 announced, the 'Squire came out to receive us, 
 accompanied by his two other sons : one a young 
 officer in the army, home on leave of absence ; 
 
 iThe mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens, at 
 Christmas ; and the young men have the privilege of kissing the 
 girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When 
 the berries are all plucked, the privilege ceases. — Irving's Note. 
 
26 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 the other an Oxonian, just from the university. 
 The 'Squire was a fine, healthy-looking, old gen- 
 tleman, with silver hair curling lightly round an 
 open florid countenance ; in which a physiogno- 
 mist, with the advantage, like myself, of a pre- 
 vious hint or two, might discover a singular 
 mixture of whim and benevolence. 
 
 The family meeting was warm and affectionate ; 
 as the evening was far advanced, the 'Squire 
 would not permit us to change our traveling 
 dresses, but ushered us at once to the company, 
 which was assembled in a large, old-fashioned hall. 
 It was composed of different branches of a numer- 
 ous familj^ connection, where there were the usual 
 proportions of old uncles and aunts, comfortable 
 married dames, superannuated spinsters, blooming 
 country cousins, half-fledged striplings, and bright- 
 eyed boarding-school hoydens. They were vari- 
 ously occupied : some at a round game of cards ; 
 others conversing round the fire-place ; at one end 
 of the hall was a group of the young folks, some 
 nearly grown up, others of a more tender and bud- 
 ding age, fully engrossed by a merry game ; and 
 a profusion of wooden horses, penny trumpets, 
 and tattered dolls about the floor, showed traces 
 of a troop of little fairy beings, who, having frol- 
 icked through a happy day, had been carried off 
 to slumber through a peaceful night. 
 
 While the mutual greetings were going on be- 
 tween young Bracebridge and his relatives, I had 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 27 
 
 time to scan the apartment. I have called it a 
 hall, for so it had certainly been in old times, and 
 the 'Squire had evidently endeavored to restore it 
 to something of its primitive state. Over the 
 heavy projecting fire-place was suspended a pic- 
 ture of a warrior in armor, standing by a white 
 horse, and on the opposite wall hung a helmet, 
 buckler, and lance. At one end an enormous pair 
 of antlers were inserted in the wall, the branches 
 serving as hooks on which to suspend hats, whips, 
 and spurs ; and in the corners of the apartment 
 were fowling-pieces, fishing-rods, and other sport- 
 ing implements. The furniture was of the cum- 
 brous workmanship of former days, though some 
 articles of modern convenience had been added, 
 and the oaken floor had been carpeted ; so that 
 the whole presented an odd mixture of parlor and 
 hall. 
 
 The grate had been removed from the wide 
 overwhelming fire-place, to make way for a fire of 
 wood, in the midst of which was an enormous log, 
 glowing and blazing, and sending forth a vast vol- 
 ume of light and heat ; this I understood was the 
 yule clog, which the 'Squire was particular in 
 having brought in and illumined on a Christmas 
 eve, according to ancient custom. ^ 
 
 iThe yule clog is a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a 
 tree, brought into the house with great ceremony, on Christmas 
 eve, laid in the fire-place, and lighted with the brand of last year's 
 clog. While it lasted, there were great drinking, singing, and tell- 
 ing of tales. Sometimes it was accompanied by Christmas caudles ; 
 
28 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 It was really delightful to see the old 'Squire, 
 seated in his hereditary elbow-chair, by the hospi- 
 table fireside of his ancestors, and looking around 
 him like the sun of a system, beaming warmth and 
 gladness to every heart. Even the very dog that 
 lay stretched at his feet, as he lazily shifted his 
 position and yawned, would look fondly up in his 
 master's face, wag his tail against the floor, and 
 stretch himself again to sleep, confident of kind- 
 ness and protection. There is an emanation from 
 the heart in genuine hospitality, which cannot be 
 described, but is immediately felt, and puts the 
 stranger at once at his ease. I had not been 
 seated many minutes by the comfortable hearth of 
 the worthy old cavalier, before I found myself as 
 much at home as if I had been one of the family. 
 
 Supper was announced shortly after our arrival. 
 
 but in the cottages, the only light was from the ruddy blaze of the 
 great wood fire. The yule clog was to burn all night ; if it went 
 out, it was considered a sign of ill luck. 
 
 Herrick mentions it in one of his songs : — 
 
 Come bring with a noise, 
 My merrie, merrie boys. 
 The Christmas log to the firing ; 
 While my good dame she 
 Bids ye all be free. 
 And drink to your hearts desiring. 
 The yule clog is still burnt in many farm-houses and kitchens in 
 England, particularly in the north ; and there are several supersti- 
 tions connected with it among the peasantry. If a squinting person 
 come to the house while it is burning, or a person barefooted, it is 
 considered an ill omen . The brand remaining from the yule clog is 
 carefully put away to light the next year's Christmas fire. 
 
 Irving's Note. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 29 
 
 It was served up in a spacious oaken chamber, the 
 panels of which shone with wax, and around which 
 were several family portraits decorated with holly 
 and ivy. Beside the accustomed lights, two great 
 wax tapers, called Christmas candles, wreathed 
 with greens, were placed on a highly polished 
 beaufet among the family plate. The table was 
 abundantly spread \Yith substantial fare ; but the 
 'Squire made his supper of frumenty, a dish made 
 of wheat cakes boiled in milk with rich spices, be- 
 ing a standing dish in old times for Christmas eve. 
 I was happy to find my old friend, mince-pie, in 
 the retinue of the feast ; and finding him to be 
 perfectly orthodox, and that I need not be ashamed 
 of my predilection, I greeted him with all the 
 warmth wherewith we usually greet an old and 
 very genteel acquaintance. 
 
 The mirth of the company was greatly promoted 
 by the humors of an eccentric personage whom 
 Mr. Bracebridge always addressed with the quaint 
 appellation of Master Simon. He was a tight, 
 brisk little man, with an air of an arrant old 
 bachelor. His nose was shaped like the bill of a 
 parrot ; his face slightly pitted with the small-pox, 
 with a dry perpetual bloom on it, like a frost-bitten 
 leaf in autumn. He had an eye of great quick- 
 ness and vivacity, with a drollery and lurking 
 waggery of expression that was irresistible. He 
 was evidently the wit of the family, dealing very 
 much in sly jokes and innuendoes with the ladies, 
 
30 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 and making infinite merriment by harping upon 
 old themes ; which, unfortunately, my ignorance 
 of the family chronicles did not permit me to en- 
 joy. It seemed to be his great delight, during 
 supper, to keep a young girl next him in a con- 
 tinual agony of stifled laughter, in spite of her awe 
 of the reproving looks of her mother, who sat 
 opposite. Indeed he was the idol of the younger 
 part of the company, who laughed at everything 
 he said or did, and at every turn of his countenance. 
 I could not wonder at it ; for he must have been 
 a miracle of accomplishments in their eyes. He 
 could imitate Punch and Judy ; make an old 
 woman of his hand, with the assistance of a burnt 
 cork and pocket-handkerchief ; and cut an orange 
 into such a ludicrous caricature, that the young 
 folks were ready to die with laughing. 
 
 I was let briefly into his history by Frank 
 Bracebridge. He was an old bachelor, of a small 
 independent income, which, by careful manage- 
 ment, Avas sufficient for all his wants. He revolved 
 through the family system like a vagrant comet 
 in its orbit, sometimes visiting one branch, and 
 sometimes another quite remote, as is often the 
 case with gentlemen of extensive connections and 
 small fortunes in England. He had a chirping, 
 buoj^ant disposition, always enjoying the present 
 moment ; and his frequent change of scene and 
 company prevented his acquiring those rusty, un- 
 accommodating habits, with which old bachelors 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 31 
 
 are so uncharitably charged. He was a com- 
 plete family chronicle, being versed in the gene- 
 alogy, history, and intermarriages of the whole 
 house of Bracebridge, which made him a great 
 favorite with the old folks ; he was a beau of all 
 the elder ladies and superannuated spinsters, 
 among whom he was habitually considered rather 
 a young fellow, and he was master of the revels 
 among the children ; so that there was not a more 
 popular being in the sphere in which he moved, than 
 Mr. Simon Bracebridge. Of late years, he had 
 resided almost entirely with the 'Squire, to whom 
 he had become a factotum, and whom he particu- 
 larly delighted by jumping w4th his humor in 
 respect to old times, and by having a scrap of an 
 old song to suit every occasion. We had presently 
 a specimen of his last-mentioned talent ; for no 
 sooner was supper removed, and spiced wines and 
 other beverages peculiar to the season introduced, 
 than Master Simon was called on for a good old 
 Christmas song. He bethought himself for a mo- 
 ment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye, and a 
 voice that was by no means bad, excepting that it 
 ran occasionally into a falsetto, like the notes of a 
 split reed, he wavered forth a quaint old ditty : — 
 
 Now Christmas is come, 
 
 Let us beat up the drum, 
 And call all our neighbors together : 
 
 And when they^ appear, 
 
 Let us make such a cheer, 
 As will keep out the wind and the weather, etc. 
 
32 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 The supper had disposed every one to gayety, 
 and an old harper was summoned from the serv- 
 ants' hall, where he had been strumming all the 
 evening, and to all appearance comforting him- 
 self with some of the 'Squire's liome-brewed. He 
 was a kind of hanger-on, I was told, of the 
 establishment, and though ostensibly a resident 
 of the village, was oftener to be found in the 
 'Squire's kitchen than his own home ; the old 
 gentleman being fond of the sound of " harp in 
 hall." 
 
 The dance, like most dances after supper, was a 
 merry one : some of the older folks joined in it, 
 and the 'Squire himself figured down several couple 
 with a partner with whom he afRrmed that he had 
 danced at every Christmas for nearly half a cen- 
 tury. Master Simon, who seemed to be a kind 
 of connecting link between the old times and the 
 new, and to be withal a little antiquated in the 
 taste of his accomplishments, evidently piqued 
 himself on his dancing, and was endeavoring to 
 gain credit by the heel and toe, rigadoon, and 
 other graces of the ancient school : but he had 
 unluckily assorted himself with a little romping 
 girl from boarding-school, who, by her wild viva- 
 city, kept him continually on the stretch, and 
 defeated all his sober attempts at elegance : — 
 such are the ill-sorted matches to Avhich antique 
 gentlemen are unfortunately prone ! 
 
 The young Oxonian, on the contrary, had led out 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 33 
 
 one of his maiden aunts, on whom the rogue played 
 a thousand little knaveries with impunity ; he was 
 full of practical jokes, and his delight was to tease 
 his aunts and cousins ; yet, like all madcap young- 
 sters, he was a universal favorite among the women. 
 The most interesting couple in the dance was the 
 young officer, and a ward of the 'Squire's, a beau- 
 tiful blushing girl of seventeen. From several 
 shy glances which I had noticed in the course of 
 the evening, I suspected there was a little kind- 
 ness growing up between them ; and, indeed, the 
 young soldier was just the hero to captivate a 
 romantic girl. He was tall, slender, and hand- 
 some ; and, like most young British officers of late 
 years, had picked up various small accomplish- 
 ments on the continent; — he could talk French and 
 Italian — draAv landscapes — sing very tolerably 
 — dance divinely ; but, above all, he had been 
 wounded at Waterloo ; — what girl of seventeen, 
 well read in poetry and romance, could resist such 
 a mirror of chivalry and perfection ? 
 
 The moment the dance was over, he caught up 
 a guitar, and lolling against the old marble fire- 
 place, in an attitude which I am half inclined to 
 suspect was studied, began the little French air 
 of the Troubadour. The 'Squire, however, ex- 
 claimed against having anything on Christmas 
 eve but good old English ; upon which the young 
 minstrel, casting up his eye for a moment, as if 
 in an effort of memory, struck into another strain, 
 
34 UAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 and with a charming air of gallantry, gave Her- 
 rick's '' Night-Piece to Julia " : ^ — 
 
 Her eyes the glow-worm lend thee, 
 The shooting stars attend thee, 
 
 And the elves also, 
 
 Whose little eyes glow 
 Like the sparks of fire, befriend thee. 
 
 No Will-o'-th'-Wisp mislight thee ; 
 Nor snake or slow- worm bite thee ; 
 
 But on, on thy way. 
 
 Not making a stay. 
 Since ghost there is none to affright thee. 
 
 Then let not the dark thee cumber ; 
 What though the moon does slumber, . 
 
 The stars of the night 
 
 Will lend thee their light. 
 Like tapers clear without number. 
 
 Then, Julia, let me woo thee. 
 Thus, thus to come unto me : 
 
 And when I shall meet 
 
 Thy silvery feet, 
 My soul I'll pour into thee. 
 
 The song might or might not have been intended 
 in compliment to the fair Julia, for so I found his 
 partner was called; she, however, was certainly 
 unconscious of any such application; for she 
 never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes 
 cast upon the floor ; her face was suffused, it is 
 
 1 When Irving wrote, the poems of Herrick were less well known 
 than now. But this is one of the most charming, and we need not 
 grudge it space even if we know it well, nor its fellows, indeed, in 
 the following pages. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 35 
 
 true, with a beautiful blush, and there was a 
 gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that was 
 doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance : 
 indeed, so great was her indifference, that she 
 was amusing herself with plucking to pieces a 
 choice bouquet of hot-house flowers, and by the 
 time the song was concluded the nosegay lay in 
 ruins on the floor. 
 
 The party now broke up for the night with the 
 kind-hearted old custom of shaking hands. As 
 I passed through the hall on my way to my 
 chamber, the dying embers of the yule clog still 
 sent forth a dusky glow ; and had it not been 
 the season when '^ no spirit dares stir abroad," 
 I should have been half tempted to steal from 
 my room at midnight, and peep whether the 
 fairies might not be at their revels about the 
 hearth. 
 
 My chamber was in the old part of the man- 
 sion, the ponderous furniture of which might 
 have been fabricated in the days of the giants. 
 The room was paneled, with cornices of heavy 
 carved work, in which flowers and grotesque 
 faces were strangely intermingled, and a row of 
 black-looking portraits stared mournfully at me 
 from the walls. The bed was of rich, though 
 faded damask, with a lofty tester, and stood in 
 a niche opposite a bow-window. I had scarcely 
 got into bed when a strain of music seemed to 
 break forth in the air just below the window ; 
 
36 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 I listened, and found it proceeded from a band, 
 which I concluded to be the waits from some 
 neighboring village. They went round the house, 
 plajdng under the windows. I drew aside the 
 curtains, to hear them more distinctly. The 
 moonbeams fell through the upper part of the 
 casement, partially lighting up the antiquated 
 apartment. The sounds, as they receded, became 
 more soft and aerial, and seemed to accord with 
 quiet and moonlight. I listened and listened — 
 they became more and more tender and remote, 
 and, as they gradually died away, my head sunk 
 upon the pillow, and I fell asleep. 
 
 CHRISTMAS DAY : 
 
 Dark and dull night flie hence away, 
 And give the honor to this day 
 That sees December turned to May. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Why does the chilling winter's morne 
 Smile like a field beset with corn ? 
 Or smell like to a meade new-shorne, 
 Thus on a sudden ? — come and see 
 The cause, why things thus fragrant be. 
 
 Herrick. 
 
 When I woke the. next morning, it seemed as 
 if all the events of the preceding evening had 
 been a dream, and nothing but the identity of 
 the ancient chamber convinced me of their real- 
 ity. While I lay musing on my pillow, I heard 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 37 
 
 the sound of little feet pattering outside of the 
 door, and a whispering consultation. Presently 
 a choir of small voices chanted forth an old 
 Christmas carol, the burden of which was — 
 
 Rejoice, our Saviour he was born 
 On Christmas day in the morning. 
 
 I rose softly, slipped on my clothes, opened the 
 door suddenly, and beheld one of the most beau- 
 tiful little fairy groups that a painter could imag- 
 ine. It consisted of a boy and two girls, the 
 eldest not more than six, and lovely as seraphs. 
 They were going the rounds of the house, sing- 
 ing at every chamber door, but my sudden appear- 
 ance frightened them into mute bashful ness. They 
 remained foi* a moment playing on their lips with 
 their fingers, and now and then stealing a shy 
 glance from under their eyebrows, until, as if by 
 one impulse, they scampered away, and as they 
 turned an angle of the gallery, I heard them 
 laughing in triumph at their escape. 
 
 Everything conspired to produce kind and 
 happy feelings, in this stronghold of old-fash- 
 ioned hospitality. The window of my chamber 
 looked out upon what in summer would have 
 been a beautiful landscape. There was a slop- 
 ing lawn, a line stream winding at the foot of it, 
 and a tract of park beyond, with noble clumps 
 of trees, and herds of de^r. At a distance was 
 a neat liamlet, with the smoke from the cottage 
 chimneys hanging over it ; and a church, with its 
 
38 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 dark spire in strong relief against the clear cold 
 sky. The house was surrounded with evergreens, 
 according to the English custom, which would have 
 given almost an appearance of summer; but the 
 morning was extremely frosty ; the light vapor 
 of the preceding evening had been precipitated 
 by the cold, and covered all the trees and every 
 blade of grass with its fine crystallizations. The 
 rays of a bright morning sun had a dazzling effect 
 among the glittering foliage. A robin perched 
 upon the top of a mountain ash, that hung its 
 clusters of red berries just before my window, 
 was basking himself in the sunshine, and piping 
 a few querulous notes ; and a peacock was dis- 
 playing all the glories of his train, and strutting 
 with the pride and gravity of a Spanish grandee 
 on the terrace-walk below. 
 
 I had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant 
 appeared to invite me to family prayers. He 
 showed me the way to a small chapel in the old 
 wing of the house, where I found the principal 
 part of the family already assembled in a kind 
 of gallery, furnished with cushions, hassocks, and 
 large prayer-books; the servants were seated on 
 benches below. The old gentleman read prayers 
 from a desk in front of the gallery, and Master 
 Simon acted as clerk and made the responses ; 
 and I must do him the justice to say, that he 
 acquitted himself with great gravity and decorum. 
 
 The service was followed by a Christmas carol, 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 39 
 
 which Mr. Bracebridge himself had constructed 
 from a poem of his favorite author, Herrick ; and 
 it had been adapted to a church melody by Master 
 Simon. As there were several good voices among 
 the household, the effect was extremely pleasing ; 
 but I was particularly gratified by the exaltation 
 of heart, and sudden sally of grateful feeling, with 
 which the worthy 'Squire delivered one stanza; 
 his eye glistening, and his voice rambling out of 
 all the bounds of time and tune : — 
 
 " 'Tis thou that crown' st my glittering hearth 
 
 With guiltless mirth, 
 And giv'st me Wassaile bowles to drink 
 
 Spiced to the brink : 
 Lord, 'tis thy plenty-dropping hand 
 
 That soiles my land : 
 And giv'st me for my bushell sowne, 
 
 Twice ten for one." 
 
 I afterwards understood that early morning ser- 
 vice was read on every Sunday and saint's day 
 throughout the year, either by Mr. Bracebridge or 
 some member of the family. It was once almost 
 universally the case at the seats of the nobility 
 and gentry of England, and it is much to be re- 
 gretted that the custom is falling into neglect; for 
 the dullest observer must be sensible of the order 
 and serenity prevalent in those households, where 
 the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of wor- 
 ship in the morning gives, as it were, the key-note 
 to every temper for the day, and attunes every 
 spirit to harmony. 
 
40 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 Our breakfast consisted of what the 'Squire 
 denominated true okl English fare. He indulged 
 in some bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts 
 of tea and toast, which he censured as among the 
 causes of modern effeminacy and weak nerves, 
 and the decline of old English heartiness : and 
 though he admitted them to his table to suit the 
 palates of his guests, yet there was a brave display 
 of cold meats, wine, and ale, on the sideboard. 
 
 After breakfast, I walked about the grounds 
 with Frank Bracebridge and Master Simon, or 
 Mr. Simon, as he was called by everybody but the 
 'Squire. We were escorted by a number of gen- 
 tlemanlike dogs, that seemed loungers about the 
 establishment ; from the frisking spaniel to the 
 steady old stag-hound— -the last of which was of 
 a race that had been in the family time out of 
 mind — they were all obedient to a dog-whistle 
 which hung to Master Simon's button-hole, and in 
 the midst of their gambols would glance an eye 
 occasionally upon a small switch lie carried in his 
 hand. 
 
 The old mansion had a still more venerable look 
 in the yellow sunshine than by pale moonlight ; 
 and I could not but feel the force of the 'Squire's 
 idea, that the formal terraces, heavily molded 
 balustrades, and clipped yew trees, carried with 
 them an air of proud aristocracy. 
 
 There appeared to be an unusual number of 
 peacocks about the place, and I was making some 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 41 
 
 remarks upon what I termed a flock of them that 
 were basking under a sunny wall, when I was 
 gently corrected in my phraseology by Master 
 Simon, who told me that according to the most 
 ancient and approved treatise on hunting, I must 
 say a muster of peacocks. '•' In the same way," 
 added he, with a slight air of pedantry, " we say 
 a flight of doves or swallows, a bevy of quails, a 
 herd of deer, or wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes, 
 or a building of rooks." He went on to inform 
 me that, according to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, 
 we ought to ascribe to this bird ''both understand- 
 ing and glory ; for, being praised, he will presently 
 set up his tail, chiefly against the sun, to the intent 
 you may the better behold the beauty thereof. 
 But at the fall of the leaf, when his tail falleth, he 
 will mourn and hide himself in corners, till his 
 tail come again as it was." 
 
 I could not help smiling at this display of small 
 erudition on so whimsical a subject ; but I found 
 that the peacocks were birds of some consequence 
 at the Hall ; for Frank Bracebridge informed me 
 that they were great favorites with his father, who 
 was extremely careful to keep up the breed, partly 
 because they belonged to chivalry, and were in 
 great request at the stately banquets of the olden 
 time ; and partly because they had a pomp and 
 magnificence about them l^iighly becoming an old 
 family mansion. Nothing, he was accustomed to 
 say, had .an air of greater state and dignity, than 
 
42 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 a peacock perched upon an antique stone balus- 
 trade. 
 
 Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an 
 appointment at the parish church with the village 
 choristers, who were to perform some music of his 
 selection. There was something extremely agree- 
 able in the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the 
 little man ; and I confess that I had been some- 
 what surprised at his apt quotations from authors 
 who certainly were not in the range of everyday 
 reading. I mentioned this last circumstance to 
 Frank Bracebridge, who told me with a smile that 
 Master Simon's whole stock of erudition was con- 
 fined to isome half a dozen old authors, which the 
 'Squire had put into his hands, and which he read 
 over and over, whenever he had a studious fit ; 
 as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or a long win- 
 ter evening. Sir Anthonj^ Fitzherbert's Book of 
 Husbandry ; Markham's Country Contentments ; 
 the Tretyse of Hunting, by Sir Thomas Cockayne, 
 Knight ; Isaac Walton's Angler, and two or three 
 more such ancient worthies of the pen, were his 
 standard authorities ; and, like all men who know 
 but a few books, he looked up to them with a kind 
 of idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions. 
 As to his songs, they were chiefly picked out of 
 old books in the 'Squire's library, and adapted to 
 tunes that were popular among tlie choice spirits 
 of the last century. His practical application of 
 scraps of literature, however, had caused him to 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 43 
 
 be looked upon as a prodigy of book-knowledge 
 by all the grooms, huntsmen, and small sportsmen 
 of the neighborhood. 
 
 While we were talking, we heard the distant 
 toll of the village bell, and I was told that the 
 'Squire was a little particular in having his house- 
 hold at church on a Christmas morning ; con- 
 sidering it a day of pouring out of thanks and 
 rejoicing ; for, as old Tusser observed, — 
 
 "At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal^ 
 And feast thy good neighbors, the great with the small." 
 
 ''If you are disposed to go to church," said 
 Frank Bracebridge, '' I can promise you a speci- 
 men of my cousin Simon's musical achievements. 
 As the church is destitute of an organ, he has 
 formed a band from the village amateurs, and 
 established a musical club for their improvement ; 
 he has also sorted a choir, as he sorted my father's 
 pack of hounds, according to the directions of 
 Jervaise Markham, in his Country Contentments ; 
 for the bass he has sought out all the ' deep, sol- 
 emn mouths,' and for the tenor the ' loud ringing 
 mouths,' among the country bumpkins ; and for 
 'sweet mouths,' he has culled with curious taste 
 among the prettiest lassies in the neighborhood ; 
 though these last, he affirms, are the most difficult 
 to keep in tune ; your pretty female singer being 
 exceedingly wayward and capricious, and very 
 liable to accident." 
 
 As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably 
 
44 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 fine and clear, the most of the family walked to 
 the church, which was a very old building of gray 
 stone, and stood near a village, about half a mile 
 from the park gate. Adjoining it was a low snug 
 parsonage, which seemed coeval with the church. 
 The front of it was perfectly matted with a yew 
 tree that had been trained against its walls, 
 through the dense foliage of which, apertures had 
 been formed to admit light into the small antique 
 lattices. As we passed this sheltered nest, the 
 parson issued forth and preceded us. 
 
 I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned 
 pastor, such as is often found in a snug living in 
 the vicinity of a rich patron's table, but I was 
 disappointed. The parson Avas a -little meagre, 
 black-looking man, with a grizzled wig that was 
 too wide, and stood off from each ear ; so that his 
 head seemed to have shrunk away within it, like 
 a dried filbert in its shell. He wore a rusty coat, 
 with great skirts, and pockets that would have 
 held the church Bible and prayer-book : and his 
 small legs seemed still smaller, from being planted 
 in large shoes, decorated with enormous buckles. 
 
 I was informed by Frank Bracebridge that the 
 parson had been a chum of his father's at Oxford, 
 and had received this living shortly after the 
 latter had come to his estate. He was a complete 
 black-letter hunter, and would scarcelj^ read a 
 work printed in the Roman character. The edi- 
 tions of Caxton and Wynkin de Worde were his 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 45 
 
 delight ; and he was indefatigable in his researches 
 after such old English writers as have fallen into 
 oblivion from their worthlessness. In deference, 
 perhaps, to the notions of Mr. Bracebridge, he had 
 made diligent investigations into the festive rites 
 and holiday customs of former times ; and had 
 been as zealous in the inquiry, as if he had been 
 a boon companion ; but it was merely with that 
 plodding spirit with which men of adust tempera- 
 ment follow up any track of study, merely because 
 it is denominated learning ; indifferent to its 
 intrinsic nature, whether it be the illustration of 
 the wisdom, or of the ribaldry and obscenity of 
 antiquity. He had pored over these old volumes 
 so intensely, that they seemed to have been reflected 
 into his countenance ; which, if the face be indeed 
 an index of the mind, might be compared ta a 
 title-page of black-letter. 
 
 On reaching the church-porch, we found the par- 
 son rebuking the gray-headed sexton for having used 
 mistletoe among the greens with which the church 
 was decorated. It was, he observed, an unholy 
 plant, profaned by having been used by the Druids 
 in their mystic ceremonies ; and though it might 
 be innocently employed in the festive ornament- 
 ing of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed 
 by the Fathers of the Church as unhallowed, and 
 totally unfit for sacred purposes. So tenacious 
 was he on this point, that the poor sexton was 
 obliged to strip down a great part of the humble 
 
46 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 trophies of his taste, before the parson would con- 
 sent to enter upon the service of the day. 
 
 The interior of the church was venerable, but 
 simple ; on the walls were several mural monuments 
 of the Bracebridges, and just beside the altar, was 
 a tomb of ancient workmanship, on which lay the 
 effigy of a warrior in armor, with his legs crossed, 
 a sign of his having been a crusader. I was told 
 it was one of the family who had signalized him- 
 self in the Holy Land, and the same whose picture 
 hung over the fire-place in the hall. 
 
 During service. Master Simon stood up in the 
 pew, and repeated the responses very audibly; 
 evincing that kind of ceremonious devotion punc- 
 tually observed by a gentleman of the old school, 
 and a man of old family connections. I observed, 
 too, that he turned over the leaves of a folio prayer- 
 book with something of a flourish, possibly to show 
 off an enormous seal-ring which enriched one of 
 his fingers, and which had the look of a family 
 relic. But he was evidently most solicitous about 
 the musical part of the service, keeping his eye 
 fixed intently on the choir, and beating time with 
 much gesticulation and emphasis. 
 
 The orchestra was in a small gallery, and pre- 
 sented a most whimsical grouping of heads, piled 
 one above the other, among which I particularly 
 noticed that of the village tailor, a pale fellow 
 with a retreating forehead and chin, who played 
 on the clarionet, and seemed to have blown his 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 47 
 
 face to a point ; and there was another, a short, 
 pursy man, stooping and laboring at a bass viol, 
 so as to show nothing but the top of a round bald 
 head, like the egg of an ostrich. There were two 
 or three pretty faces among the female singers, to 
 which the keen air of a frosty morning had given 
 a bright rosy tint : but the gentlemen choristers had 
 evidently been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, 
 more for tone than looks ; and as several had to 
 sing from the same book, there were clusterings 
 of odd physiognomies, not unlike those groups of 
 cherubs we sometimes see on country tombstones. 
 The usual services of the choir were managed 
 tolerably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a 
 little behind the instrumental, and some loitering 
 fiddler now and then making up for lost time by 
 traveling over a passage with prodigious celerity, 
 and clearing more bars than the keenest fox- 
 hunter, to be in at the death. But the great trial 
 was an anthem that had been prepared and arranged 
 by Master Simon, and on which he had founded 
 great expectation. Unluckily there was a blunder 
 at the very outset — the musicians became flur- 
 ried ; Master Simon was in a fever ; everything 
 went on lamely and irregularly, until they came to 
 a chorus beginning, '^Now let us sing with one 
 accord," which seemed to be a signal for parting 
 company : all became discord and confusion ; each 
 shifted for himself, and got to the end as well, or, 
 rather, as soon as he could ; excepting one old 
 
48 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 chorister, in a pair of horn spectacles bestriding 
 and pinching a long sonorous nose ; who, happen- 
 ing to stand a little apart, and being wrapped up 
 in his own melodj^, kept on a quavering course, 
 wriggling his head, ogling his book, and wind- 
 ing all up by a nasal solo of at least three bars' 
 duration. 
 
 The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on 
 the rites and ceremonies of Cliristmas, and the 
 propriety of observing it, not merely as a day of 
 thanksgiving, but of rejoicing ; supporting the 
 correctness of his opinions by the earliest usages 
 of the church, and enforcing them by the author- 
 ities of Theophilus of Cesarea, St. Cyprian, St. 
 Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and a cloud more of 
 Saints and Fathers, from whom he made copious 
 quotations. I was a little at a loss to perceive 
 the necessity of such a mighty array of forces to 
 maintain a point which no one present seemed 
 inclined to dispute ; but I soon found that the 
 good man had a legion of ideal adversaries to con- 
 tend with ; having, in the course of his researches 
 on the subject of Christmas, got completely em- 
 broiled in the sectarian controversies of the Revo- 
 lution, when the Puritans made such a fierce assault 
 upon the ceremonies of the church, and poor old 
 Christmas was driven out of the land by proclama- 
 tion of Parliament.^ The worthy parson lived 
 
 1 From the " Flying Eagle," a small Gazette, published Decem- 
 ber 24th, 1652 — "The House speut much time this day about the 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 49 
 
 but with times past, and knew but little of the 
 present. 
 
 Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in tlie retire- 
 ment of his antiquated little study, the pages of 
 old times were to him as the gazettes of the day ; 
 while the era of the Revolution was mere modern 
 history. He forgot that nearly two centuries had 
 elapsed since the fiery persecution of poor mince- 
 pie throughout the land ; when plum porridge 
 was denounced as '' mere popery," and roast beef 
 as anti-christian ; and that Christmas had been 
 brought in again triumphantly with the merry 
 court of King Charles at the Restoration. He 
 kindled into warmth with the ardor of his contest, 
 and the host of imaginary foes with whom he had 
 to combat ; he had a stubborn conflict with old 
 Prynne and two or three other forgotten cham- 
 pions of the Round Heads, on the subject of 
 Christmas festivity ; and concluded by urging 
 his hearers, in the most solemn and affecting man- 
 ner, to stand to the traditional customs of their 
 
 business of the Navy, for settling the affairs at sea, and before they 
 rose, were presented with a terrible remonstrance against Christ- 
 mas day, grounded upon divine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v. 16., 1 Cor. xv. 
 14, 17; and in honour of the Lord's Day, grounded upon these 
 Scriptures, John xx. 1., Rev. i. 10., Psalms, cxviii. 24., Lev. xx. iii. 7, 
 11., Mark, xv. 8., Psalms, Ixxxiv. 10 ; in which Christmas is called 
 Anti-christ's masse, and those Masse-mongers and Papists who 
 observe it, &c. In consequence of which Parliament spent some 
 time in consultation about the abolition of Christmas day, passed 
 orders to that effect, and resolved to sit on the following day which 
 was commonly called Christmas day." — Irving's Note. 
 
 E 
 
50 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 fathers, and feast and make merry on this joyful 
 anniversary of the church. 
 
 I have seldom known a sermon attended appar- 
 ently with more immediate effects ; for on leaving 
 the church, the congregation seemed one and all 
 possessed with the gayety of spirit so earnestly 
 enjoined by their pastor. The elder folks gath- 
 ered in knots in the churchyard, greeting and 
 shaking hands ; and the children ran about cry- 
 ing, "- Ule ! Ule ! " and repeating some uncouth 
 rhymes,^ which the parson, who had joined us, 
 informed me, had been handed down from days of 
 yore. The villagers doffed their hats to the 'Squire 
 as he passed, giving him tlie good wishes of the 
 season with every appearance of heartfelt sincerity, 
 and were invited by him to the hall, to take some- 
 thing to keep out the cold of the weather ; and I 
 heard blessings uttered by several of the poor, 
 which convinced me that, in the midst of his 
 enjoyments, the worthy old cavalier had not for- 
 gotten the true Christmas virtue of charity. 
 
 On our way homeward, his heart seemed over- 
 flowing with generous and happy feelings. As we 
 passed over a rising ground which commanded 
 something of a prospect, the sounds of rustic 
 merriment now and then reached our ears ; the 
 ^Squire paused for a few moments, and looked 
 
 i^'Ule ! Ule ! 
 
 Three puddings in a pule ; 
 Crack nuts and cry ule ! " 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 51 
 
 around with an air of inexpressible benignity. 
 The beauty of the day was, of itself, sufficient to 
 inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the frosti- 
 ness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless 
 journey had acquired sufficient power to melt 
 away the thin covering of snow from every south- 
 ern declivity, and to bring out the living green 
 which adorns an English landscape even in mid- 
 winter. Large tracts of smiling verdure, con- 
 trasted with the dazzling whiteness of the shaded 
 slopes and hollows. Every sheltered bank, on 
 which the broad rays rested, yielded its silver 
 rill of cold and limpid water, glittering through 
 the dripping grass ; and sent up slight exhalations 
 to contribute to the thin haze that hung just above 
 the surface of the earth. There was something 
 truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and 
 verdure over the frosty thralldom of winter ; it 
 was, as the Squire observed, an emblem of Christ- 
 mas hospitality, breaking through the chills of 
 ceremony and selfishness, and thawing every heart 
 into a flow. He pointed with pleasure to the 
 indications of good cheer reeking from the chim- 
 neys of the comfortable farm-houses, and low 
 thatched cottages. '^ I love," said he, ^' to see 
 this day well kept by rich and poor ; it is a great 
 thing to have one day in the year, at least, when 
 you are sure of being \)relcome wherever you go, 
 and of having, as it were, the world all thrown 
 open to you ; and I am almost disposed to join 
 
52 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 with poor Robin, in his malediction on every 
 churlish enemy to this honest festival : — 
 
 " ' Those who at Christmas do repine, 
 
 And would fain hence dispatch him, 
 May they with old duke Humphry dine, 
 Or else may 'Squire Ketch catch 'em.' " 
 
 The 'Squire went on to lament the deplorable 
 decay of the games and amusements which were 
 once prevalent at this season among the lower 
 orders, and countenanced by the higher ; when 
 the old halls of castles and manor-houses were 
 thrown open at day-light ; when the tables were 
 covered with brawn, and beef, and humming ale ; 
 when the harp and the carol resounded all day 
 long, and Avhen rich and poor were alike welcome 
 to enter and make merry.^ " Our old games and 
 local customs," said he, '4iad a great effect in 
 making the peasant fond of his home, and the 
 promotion of them by the gentry made him fond 
 of his lord. They made the times merrier, and 
 kinder, and better, and I can truly say with one 
 of our old poets : — 
 
 1 '' An Eno-lish gentleman at the opening of the great day, i.e. on 
 Christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neighbors 
 enter his hall by day-break. The strong beer was broached, and 
 the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar, and nut- 
 meg and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great sausage) 
 must be boiled by day-break, or else two young men must take the 
 maiden {i.e. the cook) by the arms and run her round the market 
 place till she is shamed of her laziness." — Round about our Sea- 
 Coal Fire ; Irving' s Note. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 53 
 
 '* I like them well — the curious preciseness 
 And all-pretended gravity of those 
 That seek to banish hence these harmless sports, 
 Have thrust away much ancient honesty." 
 
 " The nation," continned he, '' is altered ; we 
 have ahnost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. 
 They have broken asunder from the higher classes, 
 and seem to think their interests are separate. 
 They have become too knowing, and begin to read 
 newspapers, listen to alehouse politicians, and talk 
 of reform. I think one mode to keep them in 
 good humor in these hard times, would be for the 
 nobility and gentry to pass more time on their 
 estates, mingle more among the country people, 
 and set the merry old English games going again." 
 
 Such was the good 'Squire's project for mitigat- 
 ing public discontent : and, indeed, he had once 
 attempted to put his doctrine in practice, and a 
 few years before had kept open house during the 
 holidays in the old style. The country people, 
 however, did not understand how to play their 
 parts in the scene of hospitality ; many uncouth 
 circumstances occurred ; the manor was overrun 
 by all the vagrants of the country, and more 
 beggars drawn into the neighborhood in one week 
 than the parish officers could get rid of in a year. 
 Since then, he had contented himself with inviting 
 the decent part of the neighboring peasantry to 
 call at the Hall on Christmas day, and with dis- 
 tributing beef, and bread, and ale, among the 
 
54 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 poor, that thej^ might make merry in their own 
 dwellings. 
 
 We had not been long home, when the sound of 
 music was heard from a distance. A band of 
 country lads, without coats, their shirt-sleeves 
 fancifully tied with ribbons, their hats decorated 
 with greens, and clubs in their hands, were seen 
 advancing up the avenue, followed by a large 
 number of villagers and peasantry. They stopped 
 before the hall door, where the music struck up a 
 peculiar air, and the lads performed a curious and 
 intricate dance, advancing, retreating, and striking 
 their clubs together, keeping exact time to the 
 music ; while one, whimsically crowned with a 
 fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted down his 
 back, kept capering round the skirts of the dance, 
 and rattling a Christmas-box with many antic 
 gesticulations. 
 
 The 'Squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with 
 great interest and delight, and gave me a full 
 account of its origin, which he traced to the times 
 when the Romans held possession of the island ; 
 plainly proving that this was a lineal descendant 
 of the sword-dance of the ancients. " It was 
 now," he said, *' nearly extinct, but he had acci- 
 dentally met with traces of it in the neighborhood, 
 and had encouraged its revival ; though, to tell 
 the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by 
 rough cudgel-play, and broken heads, in the 
 evening." 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 65 
 
 After the dance was concluded, the whole party- 
 was entertained with brawn and beef, and stout 
 home-brewed. The 'Squire himself mingled 
 among the rustics, and was received with awk- 
 ward demonstrations of deference and regard. It 
 is true, I perceived two or three of the younger 
 peasants, as they were raising their tankards to 
 their mouths, when the 'Squire's back was turned, 
 making something of a grimace, and giving each 
 other the wink ; but the moment they caught my 
 eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly 
 demure. With Master Simon, however, they all 
 seemed more at their ease. His varied occupa- 
 tions and amusements had made him well known 
 throughout the neighborhood. He was a visitor 
 at every farm-house and cottage ; gossiped with 
 the farmers and their wives ; romped with their 
 daughters ; and, like that type of a vagrant 
 bachelor the humble-bee, tolled the sweets from 
 all the rosy lips of the country round. 
 
 The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way 
 before good cheer and affability. There is some- 
 thing genuine and affectionate in the gayety of 
 the lower orders, when it is excited by the bounty 
 and familiarity of those above them ; the warm 
 glow of gratitude enters into their mirth, and a 
 kind word or a small pleasantry frankly uttered 
 by a patron, gladdens the heart of the dependant 
 more than oil and wine.^ When the 'Squire had 
 retired, the merriment increased, and there was 
 
66 HAWTHOUNE CLASSICS 
 
 much joking and laughter, particularly between 
 Master Simon and a hale, ruddy-faced, white- 
 headed farmer, who appeared to be the wit of the 
 village ; for I observed all his companions to wait 
 with open mouths for his retorts, and burst into a 
 gratuitous laugh before they could well under- 
 stand them. 
 
 The whole house, indeed, seemed abandoned to 
 merriment ; as I passed to my room to dress for 
 dinner, I heard the sound of music in a small 
 court, and looking through a window that com- 
 manded it, I perceived a band of wandering 
 musicians, with pandean pipes, and tambourine ; 
 a pretty coquettish housemaid was dancing a jig 
 with a smart country lad, while several of the 
 other servants were looking on. In the midst of 
 her sport, the girl caught a glimpse of ray face at 
 the window, and coloring up, ran off with an air 
 of roguish affected confusion. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 57 
 
 THE CHRISTMAS DINNER 
 
 Lo, now is come our joyful'st feast ! 
 
 Let every man be jolly, 
 Each roome with yvie leaves is dressed, 
 And every post with holly. 
 Now all our neighbors' chimneys smoke, 
 And Christmas blocks are burning ; 
 
 Their ovens they with baked meats choke, 
 And all their spits are turning, 
 Without the door let sorrow lie 
 And if, for cold, it hap to die. 
 We'll bury 't in a Christmas pye. 
 And evermore be merry. 
 
 Wither, Juvenilia. 
 
 I HAD finished my toilet, and was loitering with 
 Frank Bracebridge in the library, when we heard 
 a distant thwacking sound, which he informed me 
 was a signal for the serving up of the dinner. 
 The 'Squire kept up old customs in kitchen as 
 well as hall ; and the rolling-pin struck upon the 
 dresser by the cook, summoned the servants to 
 carry in the meats. 
 
 Just in this nick the cook knocked thrice, 
 And all the waiters in a trice, 
 
 His summons did obey ; 
 Each serving man, with dish in hand. 
 Marched boldly up, like our train band, 
 
 Presented, and away.^ 
 
 The dinner was served up in the great hall, 
 where the 'Squire always held his Christmas ban- 
 
 1 Sir John Suckling : Ballad of a Wedding. 
 
58 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 quet. A blazing, crackling fire of logs had been 
 heaped on to warm the spacious apartment, and 
 the flame went sparkling and wreathing up the 
 wide-mouthed chimney. The great picture of 
 the crusader and his white horse had been pro- 
 fusely decorated with greens for the occasion ; 
 and holly and ivy had likewise been wreathed 
 round the helmet and weapons on the opposite 
 wall, which I understood were the arms of the 
 same warrior. I must own, by the bye, I had 
 strong doubts about the authenticity of the paint=- 
 ing and armor as having belonged to the crusader, 
 they certainly having the stamp of more recent 
 days ; but I was told that the painting had been 
 so considered time out of mind; and that, as to 
 the armor, it had been found in a lumber-room, 
 and elevated to its present situation by the 'Squire, 
 who at once determined it to be the armor of the 
 family hero ; and as he was absolute authority on 
 all such subjects in his own household, the matter 
 had passed into current acceptation. A sideboard 
 was set out just under this chivalric trophy, on 
 which was a display of plate that might have 
 vied (at least in variety) with Belshazzar's parade 
 of the vessels of the temple ; " flagons, cans, cups, 
 beakers, goblets, basins, and ewers ; " the gorgeous 
 utensils of good companionship that had gradually 
 accumulated through many generations of jovial 
 housekeepers. Before these stood the two yule 
 candles, beaming like two stars of the first magni- 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 59 
 
 tude ; other lights were distributed in branches, 
 and the whole array glittered like a firmament of 
 silver. 
 
 We were ushered into this banqueting scene 
 with the sound of minstrelsy ; the old harper being 
 seated on a stool beside the fire-place, and twang- 
 ing his instrument with a vast deal more power 
 than melody. Never did Christmas board display 
 a more goodly and gracious assemblage of counte- 
 nances ; those who were not handsome, were, at 
 least, happy ; and happiness is a rare improver of 
 your hard-favored visage. I always consider an 
 old English family as well worth studying as a 
 collection of Holbein's portraits, or Albert Durer's 
 prints. There is much antiquarian lore to be 
 acquired ; much knowledge of the physiognomies 
 of former times. Perhaps it may be from having 
 continually before their eyes those rows of old 
 family portraits, with which the mansions of this 
 country are stocked ; certain it is, that the quaint 
 features of antiquity are often most faithfully per- 
 petuated in these ancient lines ; and I have traced 
 an old family nose through a whole picture-gallery, 
 legitimately handed down from generation to gen- 
 eration, almost from the time of the Conquest. 
 Something of the kind was to be observed in the 
 worthy company around me. Many of their faces 
 had evidently originated in a Gothic age, and been 
 merely copied by succeeding generations; and 
 there was one little girl, in particular, of staid 
 
60 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 demeanor, with a high Roman nose, and an an- 
 tique vinegar aspect, who was a great favorite of 
 the 'Squire's, being, as he said, a Bracebridge all 
 over, and the very counterpart of one of his ances- 
 tors who figured in the court of Henry VIII. 
 
 The parson said grace, which was not a short 
 familiar one, such as is commonly addressed to 
 the Deity in these unceremonious days ; but a 
 long, courtly, well-worded one of the ancient 
 school. There was now a pause, as if something 
 was expected ; when suddenly the butler entered 
 the hall with some degree of bustle ; he was at- 
 tended by a servant on each side with a large wax- 
 light, and bore a silver dish, on which was an 
 enormous pig's head, decorated with rosemary, 
 with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with 
 great formality at the head of the table. The 
 moment this pageant made its appearance, the 
 harper struck up a flourish ; at the conclusion of 
 which the young Oxonian, on receiving a hint 
 from the 'Squire, gave, with an air of the most 
 comic gravity, an old carol, the first verse of which 
 was as follows : — 
 
 Caput apri defer o 
 
 Reddens laudes Domino. ^ 
 The boar's head in hand bring I, 
 With garlands gay and rosemary. 
 I pray you all synge merily 
 
 Qui estis in convivio.^ 
 
 1 The boar's head I bring, giving praise to the Lord. 
 
 2 Who are at this banquet. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 61 
 
 Though prepared to witness many of these little 
 eccentricities, from being apprised of the peculiar 
 hobby of mine host ; yet, I confess, the parade 
 with which so odd a dish was introduced some- 
 what perplexed me, until I gathered from the con- 
 versation of the 'Squire and the parson, that it 
 was meant to represent the bringing in of the 
 boar's head, — a dish formerly served up with 
 much ceremony, and the sound of minstrelsy and 
 song, at great tables on Christmas day. " I like 
 the old custom," said the 'Squire, "not merely 
 because it is stately and pleasing in itself, but 
 because it was observed at the college at Oxford, 
 at which I was educated. When I hear the old 
 song chanted, it brings to mind the time when I 
 was young and gamesome — and the noble old 
 college hall — and my fellow-students loitering 
 about in their black gowns ; many of whom, poor 
 lads, are now in their graves ! " 
 
 The parson, however, whose mind was not 
 haunted by such associations, and who was always 
 more taken up with the text than the sentiment, 
 objected to the Oxonian's version of the carol ; 
 which he affirmed was different from that sung at 
 college. He went on, with the dry perseverance 
 of a commentator, to give the college reading, 
 accompanied by sundry annotations ; addressing 
 himself at first to the company at large ; but find- 
 ing their attention gradually diverted to other 
 talk, and other objects, he lowered his tone as his 
 
62 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 number of auditors diminished, until he concluded 
 his remarks in an under voice, to a fat-headed old 
 gentleman next him, who was silently engaged in 
 the discussion of a huge plateful of turkey. 
 
 The table was literally loaded with good cheer, 
 and presented an epitome of country abundance, 
 in this season of overflowing larders. A distin- 
 guished post was allotted to " ancient sirloin," as 
 mine host termed it; being, as he added, ''the 
 standard of old English hospitality, and a joint of 
 goodly presence and full of expectation." There 
 were several dishes quaintly decorated, and which 
 had evidently something traditional in their embel- 
 lishments ; but about which, as I did not like to 
 appear over-curious, I asked no questions. 
 
 I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnifi- 
 cently decorated with peacocks' feathers, in imita- 
 tion of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed 
 a considerable tract of the table. This, the 'Squire 
 confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheas- 
 ant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the 
 most authentical ; but there had been such a mor- 
 tality among the peacocks this season, that he 
 could not prevail upon himself to have one killed. ^ 
 
 1 The peacock was anciently in great demand for stately enter- 
 tainments. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which 
 the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak 
 richly gilt ; at the other end the tail was displayed. Such pies were 
 served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when Knights-errant 
 pledged themselves to undertake any perilous enterprise, whence 
 came the ancient oath, used by Justice Shallow, " by cock and pie." 
 
 The peacock was also an important dish for the Christmas feast ; 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 63 
 
 It would be tedious, perhaps, to my wiser 
 readers, who may not have that foolish fondness 
 for odd and obsolete things to which I am a little 
 given, were I to mention the other make-shifts of 
 this worthy old humorist,^ by which he was en- 
 deavoring to follow up, though at humble distance, 
 the quaint customs of antiquity. I was pleased, 
 however, to see the respect shown to his whims by 
 his children and relatives ; who, indeed, entered 
 readily into the full spirit of them, and seemed all 
 well versed in their parts ; having doubtless been 
 present at many a rehearsal. I was amused, too, 
 at the air of profound gravity with which the 
 butler and other servants executed the duties 
 assigned them, however eccentric. They had an 
 old-fashioned look ; having, for the most part, 
 been brought up in the household, and grown into 
 keeping with the antiquated mansion, and the 
 humors of its lord ; and most probably looked 
 upon all his whimsical regulations as the estab- 
 lished laws of honorable housekeeping. 
 
 When the cloth was removed, the butler 
 brought in a huge silver vessel, of rare and 
 
 and Massinger, in his City Madam, gives some idea of the extrava- 
 gance with which this, as well as other dishes, was prepared for the 
 gorgeous revels of the olden times : — 
 
 Men may talk of Country Christmasses. 
 
 Their thirty pound buttered eggs, their pies of carps' tongues ; 
 
 Their pheasants drenched witli ambergris : the carcases of three 
 fat wethers bruised for gravy to make sauce for a single peacock I 
 — Irving's Note. 
 
 ' A man of humors or fancies. 
 
64 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 curious workmanship, which he placed before the 
 'Squire. Its appearance was hailed with accla- 
 mation ; being the Wassail Bowl, so renowned in 
 Christmas festivity. The contents had been pre- 
 pared by the 'Squire himself ; for it was a bever- 
 age, in the skillful mixture of which he particularly 
 prided himself ; alleging that it was too abstruse 
 and complex for the comprehension of an ordinary 
 servant. It was a potation, indeed, that might 
 well make the heart of a toper leap within him ; 
 being composed of the richest and raciest wines, 
 highly spiced and sweetened, with roasted apples 
 bobbing about the surface. ^ 
 
 The old gentleman's whole countenance beamed 
 with a serene look of indwelling delight, as he 
 stirred this mighty bowl. Having raised it to his 
 lips, with a hearty wish of a merry Christmas to 
 all present, he sent it brimming round the board, 
 for every one to follow his example according to 
 the primitive style ; pronouncing it '' the ancient 
 
 1 The Wassail Bowl was sometimes composed of ale instead of 
 wine ; with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, and roasted crabs ; in 
 this way the nut-brown beverage is still prepared in some old fam- 
 ilies, and round the hearth of substantial farmers at Christmas. It 
 is also called Lamb's Wool, and it is celebrated by Herrick in his 
 Twelfth Night : — 
 
 Next crowne the bowle full 
 
 With gentle Lamb's Wool, 
 Add sugar, nutmeg, and ginger, 
 
 With store of ale too 
 
 And thus ye must doe 
 To make the Wassaile a swinger. — Irving's Note. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 65 
 
 fountain of good feeling, where all hearts met 
 together." ^ 
 
 There was much laughing and rallying, as the 
 honest emblem of Christmas joviality circulated, 
 and was kissed rather coyly by the ladies. Bat 
 when it reached Master Simon, he raised it in both 
 hands, and with the air of a boon companion, 
 struck up an old Wassail Chanson : — 
 
 The brown bowle, 
 
 The merry browne bowle, 
 
 As it goes round about-a, 
 
 Fill 
 
 Still, 
 Let the world say what it will, 
 And drink your fill all out-a. 
 The deep canne, 
 The merry deep canne. 
 As thou dost freely quaff-a 
 
 Sing 
 
 Fling, 
 Be as merry as a king, 
 And sound a lusty laugh -a.^ 
 
 Much of the conversation during dinner turned 
 upon family topics, to which I was a stranger. 
 There was, however, a great deal of rallying of 
 Master Simon about some gay widow, with whom 
 he was accused of having a flirtation. This attack 
 
 1 "The custom of drinking out of the same cup gave place to 
 each having his cup. When the steward came to the doore with 
 the Wassel, he was to cry three times, Wassel, Wassel, Wassel, and 
 then the chappell (chaplain) was to answer with a song." —Archsd- 
 ologia. — Irving. 
 
 2 From Poor Robin's Ahiianack. — Irving. 
 
66 HAWTROBNE CLASSICS 
 
 was commenced by the ladies ; but it was con- 
 tinued throughout the dinner by the fat-headed 
 old gentleman next the parson, with the persever- 
 ing assiduity of a slow hound ; being one of these 
 long-winded jokers, who, though rather dull at 
 starting game, are unrivaled for their talents in 
 hunting it down. At every pause in the general 
 conversation, he renewed his bantering in pretty 
 much the same terms ; winking hard at me with 
 both eyes, whenever he gave Master Simon what 
 he considered a home thrust. The latter, indeed, 
 seemed fond of being teased on the subject, as old 
 bachelors are apt to be ; and he took occasion to 
 inform me, in an undertone, that the lady in ques- 
 tion was a prodigiously fine woman and drove her 
 own curricle. 
 
 The dinner-time passed away in this flow of in- 
 nocent hilarity, and though the old hall may have 
 resounded in its time with many a scene of broader 
 rout and revel, yet I doubt whether it ever wit- 
 nessed more honest and genuine enjoyment. How 
 easy it is for one benevolent being to diffuse pleas- 
 ure around him ; and how truly is a kind heart a 
 fountain of gladness, making everything in its 
 vicinity to freshen into smiles ! The joyous dis- 
 position of the worthy 'Squire was perfectly con- 
 tagious ; he was happy himself, and disposed to 
 make all the world happy ; and the little eccen- 
 tricities of his humor did but season, in a manner, 
 the sweetness of his philanthropy. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 67 
 
 When the ladies had retired, the conversation, 
 as usual, became still more animated : many good 
 things were broached which had been thought of 
 during dinner, but which would not exactly do for 
 a lady's ear ; and though I cannot positively affirm 
 that there was much wit uttered, yet I have cer- 
 tainly heard many contests of rare wit produce 
 much less laughter. Wit, after all, is a mighty 
 tart, pungent ingredient, and much too acid for 
 some stomachs ; but honest good-humor is the oil 
 and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no 
 jovial companionship equal to that, where the 
 jokes are rather small, and the laughter abundant. 
 
 The 'Squire told several long stories of early 
 college pranks and adventures, in some of which 
 the parson had been a sharer ; though in looking 
 at the latter, it required some effort of imagination 
 to figure such a little dark anatomy of a man, into 
 the perpetrator of a madcap gambol. Indeed, the 
 two college chums presented pictures of what men 
 may be made by their different lots in life ; the 
 'Squire had left the university to live lustily on 
 his paternal domains, in the vigorous enjoyment of 
 prosperity and sunshine, and had flourished on to 
 a hearty and florid old age ; whilst the poor par- 
 son, on the contrary, had dried and withered 
 away, among dusty tomes, in the silence and 
 shadows of his study. Still there seemed to be a 
 spark of almost extinguished fire, feebly glimmer- 
 ing in the bottom of his soul ; and, as the 'Squire 
 
68 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 hinted at a sly story of the parson and a pretty 
 milkmaid whom they once met on the banks of the 
 Isis,^ the old gentleman made an " alphabet of 
 faces," which, as far as I could decipher his physi- 
 ognomy, I verily believe was indicative of laugh- 
 ter ; — indeed, I have rarely met with an old 
 gentleman that took absolute offense at the im- 
 puted gallantries of his youth. 
 
 I f omid the tide of wine and wassail fast gaining 
 on the dry land of sober judgment. The company 
 grew merrier and louder, as their jokes grew 
 duller. Master Simon was in as chirping a liumor 
 as a grasshopper filled with dew ; his old songs 
 grew of a warmer complexion, and he began to 
 talk maudlin about the widow. He even gave a 
 long song about the wooing of a widow, which he 
 informed me he had gathered from an excellent 
 black-letter work entitled '' Cupid's Solicitor for 
 Love " ; containing store of good advice for bach- 
 elors, and which he promised to lend me ; the first 
 verse was to this effect : — 
 
 He that will woo a widow must not dally, 
 He must make hay while the sun doth shine, 
 
 He must not stand with her, shall I, shall I, 
 But boldly say, Widow, thou must be mine. 
 
 This song inspired the fat-headed old gentle- 
 man, who made several attempts to tell a rather 
 broad story of Joe Miller, that was pat to the pur- 
 pose ; but he always stuck in the middle, every- 
 
 iThe river which flows through Oxford. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 69 
 
 body recollecting the latter part excepting himself. 
 The parson, too, began to show the effects of good 
 cheer, having gradually settled down into a doze, 
 and his wig sitting most suspiciously on one side. 
 Just at this juncture, we were summoned to the 
 drawing-room, and I suspect, at the private insti- 
 gation of mine host, whose joviality seemed always 
 tempered with a proper love of decorum. 
 
 After the dinner-table was removed, the hall was 
 given up to the younger members of the family, 
 who, prompted to all kind of noisy mirth by the 
 Oxonian and Master Simon, made its old walls 
 ring with their merriment, as they played at romp- 
 ing games. I delight in witnessing the gambols 
 of children, and particularly at this happy holiday 
 season, and could not help stealing out of the 
 drawing-room on hearing one of their peals of 
 laughter. I found them at the game of blind- 
 man's-buff. Master Simon, who was the leader of 
 their revels, and seemed on all occasions to fulfill 
 the office of that ancient potentate, the Lord of 
 Misrule,^ was blinded in the midst of the hall. The 
 little beings were as busy about him as the mock 
 fairies about Falstaff ; pinching him, plucking at the 
 skirts of his coat, and tickling him with straws. 
 One fine blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with 
 
 1 At Christmas there was in the Kinges house, wheresoever hee 
 was lodged, a lorde of misrule, or mayster of merie disportes, and 
 the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honor, or good 
 worshippe, were he spirituall or temporall. — Stow, quoted by 
 Irving. 
 
70 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 her flaxen hair all in beautiful confusion, her 
 frolic face in a glow, her frock half torn off her 
 shoulders, a complete picture of a romp, was the 
 chief tormentor ; and from the slyness with 
 which Master Simon avoided the smaller game, 
 and hemmed this wild little nymph in corners, 
 and obliged her to jump shrieking over chairs, I 
 suspected the rogue of being not a whit more 
 blinded than was convenient. 
 
 When I returned to the drawing-room, I found 
 the company seated round the fire, listening to the 
 parson, who was deeply ensconced in a high-backed 
 oaken chair, the work of some cunning artificer of 
 yore, which had been brought from the library 
 for his particular accommodation. From this 
 venerable piece of furniture, with which his 
 shadowy figure and dark weazen face so admi- 
 rably accorded, he was dealing forth strange 
 accounts of the popular superstitions and legends 
 of the surrounding country, with which he had 
 become acquainted in the course of his antiquarian 
 researches. I am inclined to think that the old 
 gentleman was himself somewhat tinctured with 
 superstition, as men are very apt to be, who live a 
 recluse and studious life in a sequestered part of 
 the country, and pore over black-letter tracts, so 
 often filled with the marvelous and supernatural. 
 He gave us several anecdotes of the fancies of the 
 neighboring peasantry, concerning the effigy of 
 the crusader, which lay on the tomb by the church 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 71 
 
 altar. As it was the only monument of the kind 
 in that part of the country, it had always been 
 regarded with feelings of superstition by the good 
 wives of the village. It was said to get up from 
 the tomb and walk the rounds of the churchyard 
 in stormy nights, particularly when it thundered ; 
 and one old woman whose cottage bordered on the 
 churchyard, had seen it through the windows of 
 the church, when the moon shone, slowly pacing 
 up and down the aisles. It was the belief that 
 some wrong had been left unredressed by the 
 deceased, or some treasure hidden, which kept the 
 spirit in a state of trouble and restlessness. Some 
 talked of gold and jewels buried in the tomb, over 
 which the specter kept watch ; and there was a 
 story current of a sexton, in old times, who en- 
 deavored to break his way to the coffin at night ; 
 but just as he reached it received a violent blow 
 from the marble liand of the effigy, w^hich stretched 
 him senseless on the pavement. These tales were 
 often laughed at by some of the sturdier among 
 the rustics ; yet, when night came on, there were 
 many of the stoutest unbelievers that were shy of 
 venturing alone in the footpath that led across the 
 churchyard. 
 
 From these and other anecdotes that followed, 
 the crusader appeared to be the favorite hero of 
 ghost stories throughout the vicinity. His picture, 
 which hung up in the hall, was thought by the 
 servants to have something supernatural about it : 
 
72 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 for they remarked that, in whatever part of the hall 
 you went, the eyes of the warrior were still fixed on 
 you. The old porter's wife, too, at the lodge, who 
 had been born and brought up in the family, and 
 was a great gossip among the maid-servants, 
 affirmed, that in her young days she had often 
 heard say, that on Midsummer eve, when it was 
 well known all kinds of ghosts, goblins, and 
 fairies, become visible and walk abroad, the cru- 
 sader used to mount his horse, come down from 
 his picture, ride about the house, down the avenue, 
 and so to the church to visit the tomb ; on which 
 occasion the church door most civilly swung open 
 of itself ; not that he needed it — for he rode 
 through closed gates and even stone walls, and 
 had been seen by one of the dairy-maids to pass 
 between two bars of the great park gate, making 
 himself as thin as a sheet of paper. 
 
 All these superstitions I found had been very 
 much countenanced by the 'Squire, who though 
 not superstitious himself, was very fond of seeing 
 others so. He listened to every goblin tale of the 
 neighboring gossips with infinite gravity, and held 
 the porter's wife in high favor on account of her 
 talent for the marvelous. He was himself a great 
 reader of old legends and romances, and often 
 lamented that he could not believe in them ; for a 
 superstitious person, he thought, must live in a 
 kind of fairy land. 
 
 Whilst we were all attention to the patson's 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 73 
 
 stories, our ears were suddenly assailed by a burst 
 of heterogeneous sounds from the hall, in which 
 were mingled something like the clang of rude 
 minstrelsy, with the uproar of many small voices 
 and girlish laughter. The door suddenly flew 
 open, and a train came trooping into the room, 
 that might almost have been mistaken for the 
 breaking up of the court of Fairy. That indefat- 
 igable spirit. Master Simon, in the faithful dis- 
 charge of his duties as lord of misrule, had 
 conceived the idea of a Christmas mummery, or 
 masking ; and having called in to his assistance 
 the Oxonian and the young officer, who were 
 equally ripe for anything that should occasion 
 romping and merriment, they had carried it into 
 instant effect. The old housekeeper had been 
 consulted ; the antique clothes-presses and ward- 
 robes rummaged, and made to yield up the relics 
 of finery that had not seen the light for several 
 generations : the younger part of the company 
 had been privately convened from parlor and hall, 
 and the whole had been bedizened out, into a bur- 
 lesque imitation of an antique masque. ^ 
 
 Master Simon led the van as '' Ancient Christ- 
 mas," quaintly appareled in a ruff, a short cloak, 
 which had very much the aspect of one of the oUl 
 
 1 Maskings or mummeries were favorite sports at Christmas, in 
 old times, and the wardrobes at h^lls and manor-houses were often 
 laid under contribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings. 
 I strongly suspect Master Simon to have taken the idea of his from 
 Ben Jonson's '' Mask of Christmas."— Irving 's Note. 
 
74 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 housekeeper's petticoats, and a hat that might have 
 served for a village steeple, and must indubitably 
 have figured in the days of the Covenanters. From 
 under this, his nose curved boldly forth, flushed 
 with a frost-bitten bloom that seemed the very 
 trophy of a December blast. He was accompanied 
 by the blue-eyed romp, dished up as '' Dame Mince 
 Pie," in the venerable magnificence of faded bro- 
 cade, long stomacher, peaked hat and high-heeled 
 shoes. The young officer appeared as Robin Hood, 
 in a sporting dress of Kendal green, and a forag- 
 ing cap with a gold tassel. 
 
 The costume, to be sure, did not bear testimony 
 to deep research, and there was an evident eye to 
 the picturesque natural to a young gallant in pres- 
 ence of his mistress. The fair Julia hung on his 
 arm in a pretty rustic dress, as "Maid Marian." 
 The rest of the train had been metamorphosed in 
 various ways ; the girls trussed up in the finer}^ 
 of the ancient belles of the Bracebridge line, and 
 the striplings bewhiskered with burnt cork, and 
 gravely clad in broad skirts, hanging sleeves, 
 and full-bottomed wigs, to represent the char- 
 acters of Roast Beef, Plum Pudding, and other 
 worthies celebrated in ancient maskings. The 
 whole was under the control of the Oxonian, in 
 the appropriate character of Misrule ; and I ob- 
 served that he exercised rather a mischievous 
 sway with his wand over the smaller personages 
 of the pageant. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 75 
 
 The irruption of this motley crew, with beat of 
 drum, according to ancient custom, was the con- 
 summation of uproar and merriment. Master 
 Simon covered himself with glory by the stateli- 
 ness with which, as Ancient Christmas, he walked 
 a minuet with the peerless, though giggling, Dame 
 Mince Pie. It was followed by a dance from all 
 the characters, which, from its medley of costumes, 
 seemed as though the old family portraits had 
 skipped down from their frames to join in the 
 sport. Different centuries were figuring at cross- 
 hands and right and left; the dark ages were 
 cutting pirouettes and rigadoons ; and the days 
 of Queen Bess, jigging merrily down the middle, 
 through a line of succeeding generations. 
 
 The worthy 'Squire contemplated these fantas- 
 tic sports, and this resurrection of his old ward- 
 robe, with the simple relish of childish delight. 
 He stood chuckling and rubbing his hands, and 
 scarcely hearing a word the parson said, notwith- 
 standing that the latter was discoursing most 
 authentically on the ancient and stately dance 
 of the Pavon, or peacock, from which he con- 
 ceived the minuet to be derived.^ For my part, 
 
 1 Sir John Hawkins, speaking of the dance called the Pavon, 
 from pavo, a peacock, says, "It is a grave and majestic dance; the 
 method of dancing it anciently was by gentlemen dressed with 
 caps and swords, by those of the long robe in their gowns; by the 
 peers in their mantles, and by the ladies in gowns with long trains, 
 the motion whereof, in danchig, resembled that of a peacock.— 
 " History of Music," quoted by Irving. 
 
76 HAWTHORJSTE CLASSICS 
 
 I was in a continual excitement from the varied 
 scenes of whim and innocent gayety passing before 
 me. It was inspiring to see wild-eyed frolic and 
 warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among 
 the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throw- 
 ing off his apathy, and catching once more the 
 freshness of youthful enjoyment. I felt also an 
 interest in the scene, from the consideration that 
 these fleeting customs Avere posting fast into obliv- 
 ion, and that this was, perhaps, the only family in 
 England in which the whole of them were still 
 punctiliously observed. There was a quaintness, 
 too, mingled vv^ith all this revelry, that gave it 
 a peculiar zest : it was suited to the time and 
 place ; and as the old Manor-house almost reeled 
 with mirth and wassail, it seemed echoing back 
 the joviality of long-departed years. 
 
 But enough of Christmas and its gambols : it is 
 time for me to pause in this garrulity. Methinks 
 I hear the question asked by my graver readers, 
 "To what purpose is all this — how is the world 
 to be made wiser by this talk?" Alas! is there 
 not wisdom enough extant for the instruction of 
 the world? And if not, are there not thousands 
 of abler pens laboring for its improvement ? — It 
 is so much pleasanter to please than to instruct — 
 to play the companion rather than the preceptor. 
 
 What, after all, is the mite of wisdom that I 
 could throw into the mass of knowledge ; or how 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 77 
 
 am I sure that my sagest deductions may be safe 
 guides for the opinions of others ? But in writing 
 to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own dis- 
 appointment. If, however, I can by any lucky 
 chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle 
 from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart 
 of one moment of sorrow — if I can now and then 
 penetrate through the gathering film of misan- 
 thropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, 
 and make my reader more in good humor with his 
 fellow-beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall 
 not then have written entirely in vain. 
 
 WESTMINSTER ABBEY i 
 
 When I behold, with deep astonishment, 
 To famous Westminster how there resorte, 
 Living in brasse or stony monument. 
 The princes and the worthies of all sorte ; 
 Doe not I see reformde nobilitie, 
 Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation, 
 And looke upon offenseless majesty, 
 Naked of pomp or earthly domination ? 
 And how a play-game of a painted stone 
 Contents the quiet now and silent sprites, 
 Whome all the world which late they stood upon, 
 Could not content nor quench their appetite. 
 Life is a frost of cold felicitie, 
 And death the thaw of all our vanitie. 
 
 Christolero'' s Epigrams, by T. B., 1598. 
 
 1 The student will find it curious to compare this essay with 
 Addison's and Goldsmith's essays on the same subject in " English 
 Essays." Perhaps they will perceive a greater earnestness and 
 
78 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 On one of those sober and rather melancholy 
 days, in the latter part of autumn, when the 
 shadows of morning and evening almost mingle 
 together, and throw a gloom over the decline of 
 the year, I passed several hours in rambling about 
 Westminster Abbey. There was something con- 
 genial to the season in the mournful magnificence 
 of the old pile ; and as I passed its threshold, it 
 seemed like stepping back into the regions of 
 antiquity, and losing myself among the shades of 
 former ages. 
 
 I entered from the inner court of Westminster 
 school, through a long, low, vaulted passage, that 
 had an almost subterranean look, being dimly 
 lighted in one part by circular perforations in the 
 massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a 
 distant view of the cloisters, with the figure of an 
 old verger, in his black gown, moving along their 
 shadowy vaults, and seeming like a specter from 
 one of the neighboring tombs. 
 
 The approach to .the abbey through these gloomy 
 monastic remains, prepares the mind for its solemn 
 contemplation. The cloister still retains some- 
 thing of the quiet and seclusion of former days. 
 The gray walls are discolored by damps, and crum- 
 bling with age ; a coat of hoary moss has gathered 
 over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and 
 
 sincerity in the words of this stranger, who yet, as it were, was vis- 
 iting his old home. One should also read Thackeray's " Nil Nisi 
 Bonum." 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 79 
 
 obscured the death's heads, and other funeral em- 
 blems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone 
 from the rich tracery of the arches ; the roses 
 which adorned the key-stones have lost their 
 leafy beauty ; everything bears marks of the 
 gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has some- 
 thing touching and pleasing in its very decay. 
 
 The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal 
 ray into the square of the cloisters ; beaming upon 
 a scanty plot of grass in the center, and lighting 
 up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of 
 dusty splendor. From between the arcades, the 
 eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky, or a passing 
 cloud; and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the 
 abbey towering into the azure heaven. 
 
 As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplat- 
 ing this mingled picture of glory and decay, and 
 sometimes endeavoring to decipher the inscriptions 
 on the tombstones, which formed the pavement 
 beneath my feet, my eyes were attracted to three 
 figures, rudely carved in relief, but nearly worn 
 away by the footsteps of many generations. They 
 were the effigies of three of the early abbots ; the 
 epitaphs were entirely effaced ; the names alone 
 remained, having no doubt been renewed in later 
 times. (Vitalis. Abbas. 1082, and Gislebertus 
 Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Laurentius. Abbas. 
 1176.) I remained some little while, musing 
 over these casual relics of antiquity, thus left like 
 wrecks upon this distant shore of time, telling no 
 
80 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 tale but that such bemgs had been and had per- 
 ished ; teaching no moral but the futility of that 
 pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes, 
 and to live in an inscription. A little longer, and 
 even these faint records will be obliterated, and the 
 monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst 
 I was yet looking down upon the gravestones, I 
 was roused by the sound of the abbey clock, re- 
 verberating from buttress to buttress, and echoing 
 among the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear 
 this warning of departed time sounding among 
 the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, 
 like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the 
 grave. I pursued my walk to an arched door open- 
 ing to the interior of the abbey. On entering here, 
 the magnitude of the building breaks fully upon 
 the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the clois- 
 ters. The eye gazes with wonder at clustered 
 columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches 
 springing from them to such an amazing height ; 
 and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into 
 insignificance in comparison with his own handi- 
 work. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast 
 edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. 
 We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful 
 of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb; 
 while every footfall whispers along the walls, and 
 chatters among the sepulchers, making us more 
 sensible of the quiet we have interrupted. 
 
 It seems as if the awful nature of the place 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 81 
 
 presses down upon the soul, and hushes the be- 
 holder into noiseless reverence. We feel that we 
 are surrounded by the congregated bones of the 
 great men of past times, who have filled history 
 with their deeds, and the earth with their renown. 
 And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity 
 of human ambition, to see how they are crowded 
 together, and jostled in the dust ; what parsimony 
 is observed in doling out a scanty nook — a gloomy 
 corner — a little portion of earth, to those whom, 
 when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy : and how 
 many shapes, and forms, and artifices, are devised 
 to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and 
 save from forgetfulness, for a few short years, a 
 name which once aspired to occupy ages of the 
 world's thought and admiration. 
 
 I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occu- 
 pies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles 
 of the abbey. The monuments are generally 
 simple ; for the lives of literary men afford no 
 striking themes for a sculptor. Shakespeare and 
 Addison have statues erected to their memories ; 
 but the greater part have busts, medallions, and 
 sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding 
 the simplicity of these memorials, I have always 
 observed that the visitors to the abbey remain 
 longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling 
 takes place of that cold curiosity or vague admi- 
 ration with which they gaze on the splendid monu- 
 ments of the great and the heroic. They linger 
 
82 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 about these as about the tombs of friends and 
 companions ; for indeed there is something of 
 companionship between the author and the reader. 
 Other men are known to posterity only through 
 the medium of history, which is continually grow- 
 ing faint and obscure ; but the intercourse between 
 the author and his fellow-men is ever new, active, 
 and immediate. He has lived for them more than 
 for himself ; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoy- 
 ments, and shut himself up from the delights of 
 social life, that he might the more intimately com- 
 mune with distant minds and distant ages. Well 
 may the world cherish his renown ; for it has been 
 purchased, not by deeds of violence and blood, but 
 by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well 
 may posterity be grateful to his memory ; for he 
 has left it an inheritance, not of empty names and 
 sounding actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, 
 bright gems of thought, and golden veins of 
 language. 
 
 From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll 
 towards that part of the abbey which contains 
 the sepulchers of the kings. I wandered among 
 what once were chapels, but which are now occu- 
 pied by the tombs and monuments of the great. 
 At every turn, I met with some illustrious name, 
 or the cognizance of some powerful house re- 
 nowned in history. As the eye darts into these 
 dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of 
 quaint effigies : some kneeling in niches, as if in 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 83 
 
 devotion ; others stretched upon the tombs, with 
 hands piously pressed together ; warriors in armor, 
 as if reposing after battle ; prelates, with crosiers 
 and miters ; and nobles in robes and coronets, 
 lying as it were in state. In glancing over this 
 scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form 
 is so still and silent, it seems almost as if we were 
 treading a mansion of that fabled city, where every 
 being had been suddenly transmuted into stone. 
 
 I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay 
 the effigy of a knight in complete armor. A large 
 buckler was on one arm ; the hands were pressed 
 together in supplication upon the breast ; the face 
 was almost covered by the morion ; the legs were 
 crossed in token of the warrior's having been en- 
 gaged in the holy war. It was the tomb of a cru- 
 sader ; of one of those military enthusiasts, who 
 so strangely mingled religion and romance, and 
 whose exploits form the connecting link betw^een 
 fact and fiction — between the history and the 
 fairy tale. There is something extremely pictu- 
 resque in the tombs of these adventurers, deco- 
 rated as they are with rude armorial bearings and 
 Gothic sculpture. They comport with the anti- 
 quated chapels in which they are generally found ; 
 and in considering them, the imagination is apt to 
 kindle with the legendary associations, the roman- 
 tic fictions, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry, 
 which poetry has spread over the wars for the 
 Sepulcher of Christ. They are the relics of times 
 
84 HA WTHOENE CLA SSICS 
 
 utterly gone by ; of beings passed from recollec- 
 tion ; of customs and manners with which ours 
 have no affinity. They are like objects from some 
 strange and distant land of which we have no 
 certain knowledge, and about which all our con- 
 ceptions are vague and visionary. There is some- 
 thing extremely solemn and awful in those effigies 
 on Gothic tombs, extended as if in the sleep of 
 death, or in the supplication of the dying hour. 
 They have an effect infinitely more impressive on 
 my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the over- 
 wrought conceits, and allegorical groups, which 
 abound on modern monuments. I have been 
 struck, also, with the superiority of many of the 
 old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble 
 way, in former times, of saying things simply, and 
 yet saying them proudly : and I do not know an 
 epitaph that breathes a loftier consciousness of 
 family worth and honorable lineage, than one 
 which affirms, of a noble house, that "all the 
 brothers were brave, and all the sisters virtuous." 
 In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner, stands 
 a monument which is among the most renowned 
 achievements of modern art ; but which, to me, 
 appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the 
 tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The 
 bottom of the monument is represented as throw- 
 ing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton 
 is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his 
 fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his vie- 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 85 
 
 tim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's 
 arms, who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to 
 avert the blow. The whole is executed with terri- 
 ble truth and spirit ; we almost fancy we hear the 
 gibbering yell of triumph, bursting from the dis- 
 tended jaws of the specter. — But why should we 
 thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary ter- 
 rors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those 
 we love? The grave should be surrounded by 
 everything that might inspire tenderness and 
 veneration for the dead ; or that might win the 
 living to virtue. It is the place, not of disgust 
 and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation. 
 
 While wandering about these gloomy vaults and 
 silent aisles, studjdng the records of the dead, the 
 sound of busy existence from without occasionally 
 reaches the ear : the rumbling of the passing 
 equipage ; the murmur of the multitude ; or per- 
 haps the light laugh of pleasure. The contrast 
 is striking with the deathlike repose around ; 
 and it has a strange effect upon the feelings, 
 thus to hear the surges of active life hurrying 
 along and beating against the very walls of the 
 sepulcher. 
 
 I continued in this way to move from tomb to 
 tomb, and from chapel to chapel. The day was 
 gradually wearing away ; the distant tread of 
 loiterers about the abbey grew less and less fre- 
 quent ; the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to 
 evening prayers ; and I saw at a distance the 
 
86 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 choristers, in their white surplices, crossing the 
 aisle and entering the choir. I stood before 
 the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. A 
 flight of steps leads up to it, through a deep and 
 gloomy, but magnificent arch. Great gates of 
 brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily 
 upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit 
 the feet of common mortals into this most gorgeous 
 of sepulchers. 
 
 On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp 
 of architecture, and the elaborate beauty of sculp- 
 tured detail. The very walls are wrought into 
 universal ornament, incrusted with tracery, and 
 scooped into niches, crowded with the statues of 
 saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning 
 labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its 
 weight and density, suspended aloft, as if by magic, 
 and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful 
 minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. 
 
 Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls 
 of the Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak, 
 though with the grotesque decorations of Gothic 
 architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are 
 affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with 
 their scarfs and swords ; and above them are sus- 
 pended their banners, emblazoned with armorial 
 bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold and 
 purple and crimson, with the cold gray fretwork 
 of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum 
 stands the sepulcher of its founder, — his effigy, 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 87 
 
 with that of his queen, extended on a sumptuous 
 tomb, and the whole surrounded by a superbly 
 wrought brazen railing. 
 
 There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence ; 
 this strange mixture of tombs and trophies ; these 
 emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close 
 beside momentos which show the dust and oblivion 
 in which all must sooner or later terminate. 
 Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling 
 of loneliness, than to tread the silent and deserted 
 scene of former throng and pageant. On looking 
 round on the vacant stalls of the knights and their 
 esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous 
 banners that were once borne before them, my 
 imagination conjured up the scene when this hall 
 was bright with the valor and beauty of the land ; 
 glittering with the splendor of jeweled rank and 
 military array ; alive with the tread of many feet, 
 and the hum of an admiring multitude. All had 
 passed away ; the silence of death had settled 
 again upon the place ; interrupted only by the 
 casual chirping of birds, which had found their 
 way into the chapel, and built their nests among 
 its friezes and pendants — sure signs of solitariness 
 and desertion. When I read the names inscribed 
 on the banners, they were those of men scattered 
 far and wide about the world ; some tossing upon 
 distant seas ; some under arms in distant lands ; 
 some mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and 
 cabinets ; all seeking to deserve one more distinc- 
 
88 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 tion in this mansion of sliadowy honors — the 
 melancholy reward of a monument. 
 
 Two small aisles on each side of this chapel 
 present a touching instance of the equality of the 
 grave, which brings down the oppressor to a level 
 with the oppressed, and mingles the dust of the 
 bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepul- 
 cher of the haughty Elizabeth ; in the other is 
 that of her victim, the lovely and unfortunate 
 Mary.i Not an hour in the day, but some ejacula- 
 tion of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, 
 mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The 
 walls of Elizabeth's sepulcher continually echo 
 with the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave 
 of her rival. 
 
 A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle 
 where Mary lies buried. The light struggles 
 dimly through windows darkened by dust. The 
 greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and 
 the walls are stained and tinted by time and 
 weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched 
 upon the tomb, round which is an iron railing, 
 much corroded, bearing her national emblem — 
 the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and 
 sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolv- 
 ing in my mind the checkered and disastrous 
 story of poor Mary. 
 
 The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from 
 the abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the 
 
 1 Queen of Scots. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 89 
 
 distant voice of the priest repeating the evening 
 service, and the faint responses of the choir ; these 
 paused for a time, and all was hushed. The still- 
 ness, the desertion and obscurity that were gradu- 
 ally prevailing around, gave a deeper and more 
 solemn interest to the place : 
 
 For in the silent grave no conversation, 
 No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers. 
 No careful father's counsel — nothing's heard, 
 For nothing is, but all oblivion. 
 Dust, and an endless darkness. 
 
 Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ 
 burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and re- 
 doubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge 
 billows of sound. How well do their volume and 
 grandeur accord with this mighty building ! With 
 what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, 
 and breathe their awful harmony through these 
 caves of death, and make the silent sepulcher 
 vocal ! — And now they rise in triumphant accla- 
 mation, heaving higher and higher their accordant 
 notes, and piling sound on sound. — And now they 
 pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out 
 into sweet gushes of melody ; they soar aloft, and 
 warble along the roof, and seem to play about 
 these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. 
 Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling 
 thunders, compressing air into music, and roll- 
 ing it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn 
 cadences ! What solemn sweeping concords ! 
 
90 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 It grows more and more dense and powerful — 
 it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very 
 walls — the ear is stunned — the senses are over- 
 whelmed. And now it is winding up in full 
 jubilee — it is rising from the earth to heaven — 
 the very soul seems rapt away, and floated up- 
 wards on this swelling tide of harmony ! 
 
 I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie 
 which a strain of music is apt sometimes to in- 
 spire : the shadows of evening were gradually 
 thickening around me ; the monuments began to 
 cast deeper and deeper gloom ; and the distant 
 clock again gave token of the slowly waning day. 
 
 I arose, and prepared to leave the abbey. As I 
 descended the flight of steps which lead into the 
 body of the building, my eye was caught by the 
 shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended 
 the small staircase that conducts to it, to take 
 from thence a general survey of this wilderness of 
 tombs. The shrine is elevated upon a kind of 
 platform, and close around it are the sepulchers 
 of various kings and queens. From this eminence 
 the eye looks down between pillars and funeral 
 trophies to the chapels and chambers below, 
 crowded with tombs ; where warriors, prelates, 
 courtiers, and statesmen, lie moldering in "their 
 beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great 
 chair of coronation, rudely carved of oak, in the 
 barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The 
 scene seemed almost as if contrived, with theatri- 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 91 
 
 cal artifice, to produce an effect upon the beholder. 
 Here was a type of the beginning and the end of 
 human pomp and power ; here it was literally but 
 a step from tlie throne to the sepulcher. Would 
 not one think that these incongruous mementos 
 had been gathered together as a lesson to living 
 greatness ? — to show it, even in the moment of 
 its proudest exaltation, the neglect and dishonor 
 to which it must soon arrive ? how soon that 
 crown which encircles its brow must pass away ; 
 and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of 
 the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the 
 meanest of the multitude ? For, strange to tell, 
 even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. 
 There is a shocking levity in some natures, which 
 leads them to sport with awful and hallowed 
 things ; and there are base minds, which delight 
 to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject 
 homage and groveling servility which they pay to 
 the living. The coffin of Edward the Confessor 
 has been broken open, and his remains despoiled 
 of their funeral ornaments ; the scepter has been 
 stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, 
 and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. 
 Not a royal monument but bears some proof 
 how false and fugitive is the homage of man- 
 kind. Some are plundered, some mutilated ; some 
 covered with ribaldry and insult — all more or less 
 outraged and dishonored ! 
 
 The last beams of day were now faintly stream- 
 
92 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 ing through the painted windows in the high 
 vaults above me ; the lower parts of the abbey 
 were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. 
 The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. 
 The effigies of the kings faded into shadows ; the 
 marble figures of the monuments assumed strange 
 shapes in the uncertain light ; the evening breeze 
 crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the 
 grave ; and even the distant footfall of a verger, 
 traversing the Poet's Corner, had something 
 strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly re- 
 traced my morning's walk, and as I passed out 
 at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with 
 a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building 
 with echoes. 
 
 I endeavored to form some arrangement in my 
 mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but 
 found they were already falling into indistinctness 
 and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had 
 all become confounded in my recollection, though 
 I had scarcely taken my foot from off the thresh- 
 old. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of 
 sepulchers but a treasury of humiliation ; a huge 
 pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of 
 renown, and the certainty of oblivion ? It is, 
 indeed the empire of Death ; his great shadowy 
 palace; where he sits in state, mocking at the 
 relics of human glory, and spreading dust and 
 forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How 
 idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name ! 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 93 
 
 Time is ever silently turning over his pages ; we 
 are too much engrossed by the story of the present, 
 to think of the characters and anecdotes that give 
 interest to the past ; and each age is a volume 
 thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol 
 of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our 
 recollection ; and will, in turn, be supplanted by 
 his successor of to-morrow. " Our fathers," says 
 Sir Thomas Brown, " find their graves in our 
 short memories, and sadly tell us how we may 
 be buried in our survivors." History fades into 
 fable ; fact becomes clouded with doubt and con- 
 troversy ; the inscription molders from the tablet; 
 the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, 
 pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand — and 
 their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust ? 
 What is the security of a tomb, or the perpetuity 
 of an embalmment ? The remains of Alexander 
 the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his 
 empty sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a 
 museum. '' The Egyptian mummies, which Cam- 
 byses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth ; 
 Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for 
 balsams."^ 
 
 What then is to insure this pile, which now 
 towers above me from sharing the fate of mightier 
 mausoleums ? The time must come when its 
 gilded vaults which now spring so loftily, shall 
 lie in rubbish beneath the feet ; when instead of 
 
 1 Sir Thomas Browne. 
 
94 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 the sound of melody and praise, the winds shall 
 whistle through the broken arches, and the owl 
 hoot from the shattered tower, — when the garish 
 sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions 
 of death ; and the ivy twine round the fallen 
 columns ; and the fox-glove hand its blossoms 
 about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the 
 dead. Thus man passes away ; his name passes 
 from recollection ; his history is a tale that is told, 
 and his very monument becomes a ruin. 
 
FROM "PRUE AND I 
 
 ?> 
 
 DINNER TIME 
 
 '' Within this hour it will be dinner time ; 
 I'll view the manners of the town, 
 Peruse the traders, gaze upon the buildings." 
 
 Comedy of Errors. 
 
 In the warm afternoons of the early summer, it 
 is my pleasure to stroll about Washington Square 
 and along the Fifth Avenue,^ at the hour when 
 the diners-out are hurrying to the tables of the 
 wealthy and refined. I gaze with placid delight 
 upon the cheerful expanse of white waistcoat that 
 illumines those streets at that hour, and mark the 
 variety of emotions that swell beneath all that 
 purity. A man going out to dine has a singular 
 cheerfulness of aspect. Except for his gloves, 
 which fit so well, and which he has carefully but- 
 toned, that he may not make an awkward pause 
 in the hall of his friend's house, I am sure he 
 would search his pocket for a cent to give the wan 
 beggar at the corner. It is impossible just now, 
 my dear woman ; but God bless you ! 
 
 1 Fifth Avenue begins in Washington Square. 
 95 
 
96 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 It is pleasant to consider that simple suit of 
 black. If my man be young and only lately cog- 
 nizant of the rigors of the social law, he is a little 
 nervous at being seen in his dress suit — body coat 
 and black trousers — before sunset. For in the 
 last days of May the light lingers long over the 
 freshly leaved trees in the Square, and lies warm 
 along the Avenue. All winter the sun has not 
 been permitted to see dresscoats. They come out 
 only with the stars, and fade with ghosts, before 
 the dawn. Except, haply, they be brought home- 
 ward before breakfast in an early twilight of hack- 
 ney-coach. Now, in the budding and bursting 
 summer, the sun takes his revenge, and looks 
 aslant over the treetops and the chimneys upon 
 the most unimpeachable garments. A cat may 
 look upon a king. 
 
 I know my man at a distance. If I am chat- 
 ting with the nursery maids around the fountain, 
 I see him upon the broad walk of Washington 
 Square, and detect him by the freshness of his 
 movement, his springy gait. Then the white 
 waistcoat flashes in the sun. 
 
 '' Go on, happy youth," I exclaim aloud, to the 
 great alarm of the nursery maids, who suppose me 
 to be an innocent insane person suffered to go at 
 large, unattended — " go on, and be happy with 
 fellow-waistcoats over fragrant wines." 
 
 It is hard to describe the pleasure in this ami- 
 able spectacle of a man going out to dine. I, who 
 
AMEBIC AJSr ESSAYS 97 
 
 am a quiet family man, and take a quiet family 
 cut at four o'clock ; or, when I am detained down- 
 town by a false quantity in my figures, who run 
 into Delmonico's ^ and seek comfort in a cutlet, 
 am rarely invited to dinner, and have few white 
 waistcoats. Indeed, my dear Prue tells me that 
 1 have but one in the world, and I often want to 
 confront my eager young friends as they bound 
 along, and ask abruptly, "What do you think of 
 a man whom one white waistcoat suffices ? " 
 
 By the time I have eaten my modest repast, it 
 is the hour for the diners-out to appear. If the 
 day is unusually soft and sunny, I hurry my simple 
 meal a little, that I may not lose any of my favor- 
 ite spectacle. Then I saunter out. If you met 
 me you would see that I am also clad in black. 
 But black is my natural color, so that it begets no 
 false theories concerning my intentions. Nobody, 
 meeting me in full black, supposes that I am going 
 to dine out. That somber hue is professional with 
 me. It belongs to bookkeepers as to clergymen, 
 physicians, and undertakers. We wear it because 
 we follow solemn callings. Saving men's bodies 
 and souls, or keeping the machinery of business 
 well wound, are such sad professions that it is 
 becoming to drape dolefully those who adopt 
 them. 
 
 I wear a white cravat, too, but nobody supposes 
 
 1 Delmonico's has changed since it was a pleasant dining-place for 
 elderly book-keepers. 
 
98 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 that it is in any danger of being stained by La- 
 fitte.^ It is a limp cravat with a craven tie. It 
 has none of the dazzling dash of the white that 
 my young friends sport, or, I should say, sported ; 
 for the white cravat is now abandoned to the 
 somber professions of which I spoke. My young 
 friends suspect that the flunkeys of the British 
 noblemen wear such ties, and they have, therefore, 
 discarded them. I am sorry to remark, also, an 
 uneasiness, if not downright skepticism, about the 
 white waistcoat. Will it extend to shirts, I ask 
 myself with sorrow. 
 
 But there is something pleasarxter to contem- 
 plate during these quiet strolls of mine than the 
 men who are going to dine out, and that is, the 
 women. They roll in carriages to the happy 
 houses which they shall honor, and I strain my 
 eyes in at the carriage window to see their cheerful 
 faces as they pass. I have already dined ; upon 
 beef and cabbage, probably, if it is boiled day. 
 I am not expected at the table to which Aurelia 
 is hastening, yet no guest there shall enjoy more 
 than I enjoy — nor so much, if he considers the 
 meats the best part of the dinner. The beauty 
 of the beautiful Aurelia I see and worship as she 
 drives by. The vision of many beautiful Aure- 
 lias driving to dinner is the mirage of that pleas- 
 ant journey of mine along the avenue. I do not 
 envy the Persian poets, on those afternoons, nor 
 
 1 Or any other brand of claret. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 99 
 
 long to be an Arabian traveler. For I can walk 
 that street, finer than any of which the Ispahan 
 architects dreamed ; and I can see sultanas as 
 splendid as the enthusiastic and exaggerating 
 Orientals describe. 
 
 But not only do I see and enjoy Aurelia's 
 beauty. I delight in her exquisite attire. In 
 these warm days she does not wear so much as the 
 lightest shawl. She is clad only in the spring 
 sunshine. It glitters in the soft darkness of her 
 hair. It touches the diamonds, the opals, the pearls, 
 that cling to her arms, and neck, and fingers. 
 They flash back again, and the gorgeous silks 
 glisten, and the light laces flutter, until the stately 
 Aurelia seems to me, in tremulous radiance, 
 swimming by. 
 
 I doubt whether you who are to have the inex- 
 pressible pleasure of dining with her, and even of 
 sitting by her side, will enjoy more than I. For 
 my pleasure is inexpressible, also. And it is in 
 this greater than yours, that I see all the beautiful 
 ones who are to dine at various tables, while j^ou 
 only see your own circle, although that, I will not 
 deny, is the most desirable of all. 
 
 Besides, although my person is not present at 
 your dinner, my fancy is. I see Aurelia's carriage 
 stop, and behold white-gloved servants opening 
 wide doors. There is a brief glimpse of magnifi- 
 cence for the dull eyes of the loiterers outside ; 
 then the door closes. But my fancy went in with 
 
 LofC. 
 
100 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 Aurelia. With her, it looks at the vast mirror, 
 and surveys her form at length in the Psyche- 
 glass. It gives the final shake to the skirt, the 
 last flirt to the embroidered handkerchief, care- 
 fully held, and adjusts the bouquet, complete as a 
 tropic nestling in orange leaves. It descends with 
 her, and marks the faint blush upon her cheek at 
 the thought of her exceeding beauty ; the con- 
 sciousness of the most beautiful woman, that the 
 most beautiful woman is entering the room. There 
 is the momentary hush, the subdued greeting, the 
 quick glance of the Aurelias who have arrived ear- 
 lier, and who perceive in a moment the hopeless 
 perfection of that attire ; the courtly gaze of 
 gentlemen, who feel the serenity of that beauty. 
 All this my fancy surveys; my fancy, Aurelia's 
 invisible cavalier. 
 
 You approach with hat ^ in hand and the thumb 
 of your left hand in your waistcoat pocket. You 
 are polished and cool, and have an irreproachable 
 repose of manner. There are no improper wrinkles 
 in your cravat ; your shirt-bosom does not bulge ; 
 the trousers are accurate about your admirable 
 boot. But you look very stiff and brittle. You 
 are a little bullied by your unexceptionable shirt 
 collar, which interdicts perfect freedom of move- 
 ment in your head. You are elegant, undoubtedly, 
 but it seems as if you might break and fall to 
 
 1 It must have been the fashion to carry an opera-hat in to din- 
 ner or perhaps only to the drawing-room. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 101 
 
 pieces, like a porcelain vase, if you were roughly 
 shaken. 
 
 Now, here, I have the advantage of you. My 
 fancy quietly surveying the scene is subject to 
 none of these embarrassments. My fancy will 
 not utter commonplaces. That will not say to 
 tlie superb lady, who stands with her flowers, 
 incarnate May, '' What a beautiful day. Miss 
 Aurelia." That will not feel constrained to say 
 something, when it has nothing to say ; nor will 
 it be obliged to smother all the pleasant things 
 that occur, because they would be too flattering 
 to express. My fancy perpetually murmurs in 
 Aurelia's ear, "• Those flowers would not be fair 
 in your hand, if you yourself were not fairer. 
 That diamond necklace would be gaudy, if your 
 eyes were not brighter. That queenly move- 
 ment would be awkward, if your soul were not 
 queenlier." 
 
 You could not say such things to Aurelia, 
 although, if you are worthy to dine at her side, 
 they are the very things you are longing to say. 
 What insufferable stuff you are talking about 
 the weather, and the opera, and Alboni's deli- 
 cious voice, and Newport, and Saratoga ! They 
 are all very pleasant subjects, but do you sup- 
 pose Ixion^ talked Thessalian politics when he 
 was admitted to dine with Juno? 
 
 I almost begin to pity you, and to believe that 
 
 1 Ixion lived long ago, in the days of the Greek Mythology. 
 
102 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 a scarcity of white waistcoats is true wisdom. 
 For now dinner is announced, and you, O rare 
 felicity, are to hand down Aurelia. But you 
 run the risk of tumbling her expansive skirt, 
 and you have to drop your hat upon a chance 
 chair, and wonder, en passant^ who will wear it 
 home, which is annoying. My fancy runs no 
 such risk ; is not at all solicitous about its hat, 
 and glides by the side of Aurelia, stately as she. 
 There! you stumble on the stair, and are vexed 
 at your own awkwardness, and are sure you saw 
 the ghost of a smile glimmer along that superb 
 face at your side. My fancy doesn't tumble 
 downstairs, and what kind of looks it sees upon 
 Aurelia's face are its own secret. 
 
 Is it any better, now you are seated at table ? 
 Your companion eats little because she wishes 
 little. You eat little because you think it is 
 elegant to do so. It is a shabby, second-hand 
 elegance, like your brittle behavior. It is just 
 as foolish for you to play with the meats, when 
 you ought to satisfy your healthy appetite gen- 
 erously, as it is for you, in the drawing room, 
 to affect that cool indifference when you have 
 real and noble interests. 
 
 I grant you that fine manners, if you please, 
 are a fine art. But is not monotony the destruc- 
 tion of art? Your manners, O happy Ixion, ban- 
 queting with Juno, are Egyptian. They have no 
 perspective, no variety. They have no color, no 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 103 
 
 shading. They are all on a dead level ; they are 
 flat. Now, for you are a man of sense, you are 
 conscious that those wonderful eyes of Aurelia see 
 straight through all this network of elegant man- 
 ners in which you have entangled yourself, and 
 that consciousness is uncomfortable to you. It is 
 another trick in the game for me, because those 
 eyes do not pry into my fancy. How can they, 
 since Aurelia does not know of my existence? 
 
 Unless, indeed, she should remember the first 
 time I saw her. It was only last year, in May. 
 I had dined, somewhat hastily, in consideration 
 of the fine day, and of my confidence that many 
 would be wending dinnerwards that afternoon. 
 I saw my Prue comfortably engaged in seating 
 the trousers of Adoniram, our eldest boy, — an 
 economical care to which my darling Prue is 
 not unequal, even in these days and in this 
 town, — and then hurried toward the avenue. 
 It is never much thronged at that hour. The 
 moment is sacred to dinner. As I paused at 
 the corner of Twelfth Street, hj the church, you 
 remember, I saw an apple-woman, from whose 
 stores I determined to finish my dessert, which 
 had been imperfect at home. But, mindful of 
 meritorious and economical Prue, I was not the 
 man to pay exorbitant prices for apples, and while 
 still haggling with the wrinkled Eve who had 
 tempted me, I became suddenly aware of a car- 
 riage approaching, and, indeed, already close by. 
 
104 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 I raised my eyes, still munching an apple which 
 I held in one hand, while the other grasped my 
 walking stick (true to my instincts of dinner 
 guests, as young women to a passing wedding 
 or old ones to a funeral), and beheld Aurelia! 
 
 Old in this kind of observation as I am, there 
 was something so graciously alluring in the look 
 that she cast upon me, as unconsciously, indeed, 
 as she would have cast it upon the church, that, 
 fumbling hastily for my spectacles to enjoy the 
 boon more fully, I thoughtlessly advanced upon 
 the apple-stand, and, in some indescribable man- 
 ner, tripping, down we all fell into the street, old 
 woman, apples, baskets, stand, and I, in promiscu- 
 ous confusion. As I struggled there, somewhat 
 bewildered, yet sufficiently self-possessed to look 
 after the carriage, I beheld that beautiful woman 
 looking at us through the back window (you could 
 not have done it ; the integrity of your shirt collar 
 would have interfered), and smiling pleasantly, 
 so that her going around the corner was like a 
 gentle sunset, so seemed she to disappear in her 
 own smiling ; or — if j^ou choose, in view of the 
 apple difficulties — like a rainbow after a storm. 
 
 If the beautiful Aurelia recalls that event, she 
 may know of my existence ; not otherwise. And 
 even then she knows me only as a funny old 
 gentleman, who, in his eagerness to look at her, 
 tumbled over an apple woman. 
 
 My fancy from that moment followed her. How 
 
AMEBIC AW ESSAYS 105 
 
 grateful I was to the wrinkled Eve's extortion, 
 and to the untoward tumble, since it procured me 
 the sight of that smile. I took my sweet revenge 
 from that. For I knew that the beautiful Aurelia 
 entered the house of her host with beaming eyes, 
 and my fanc}^ heard her sparkling story. You 
 consider yourself happy because you are sitting 
 by her and helping her to a lady-finger, or a maca- 
 roon, for which she smiles. But I was her theme 
 for ten mortal minutes. She was my bard, my 
 blithe historian. She was the Homer of my luck- 
 less Trojan fall. She set my mishap to music, in 
 telling it. Think what it is to have inspired 
 Urania ; ^ to have called a brighter beam into the 
 eyes of Miranda; and do not tliink so much of 
 passing Aurelia the mottoes, my dear young 
 friend. 
 
 There was the advantage of not going to that 
 dinner. Had I been invited, as you were, I should 
 have pestered Prue about the buttons on my white 
 waistcoat, instead of leaving her placidly piercing 
 adolescent trousers. She would have been flus- 
 tered, fearful of being too late, of tumbling the 
 garment, of soiling it, fearful of offending me in 
 some way (admirable woman !), I, in my natural 
 impatience, might have let drop a thoughtless 
 word, which would have been a pang in her heart 
 and a tear in her eye, for weeks afterward. 
 
 As I walked nervously up the avenue (for I am 
 
 1 The Heavenly Muse. 
 
106 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 unaccustomed to prandial recreations), I should 
 not have had that solacing image of quiet Prue, 
 and the trousers, as the background in the pic- 
 tures of the gay figures I passed, making each, by 
 contrast, fairer. I should have been wondering 
 what to say and do at the dinner. I should surely 
 have been very warm, and yet not have enjoyed 
 the rich, waning sunlight. Need I tell you that 
 I should not have stopped for apples, but instead 
 of economically tumbling into the street with 
 apples and apple women, whereby I merely rent 
 my trousers across the knee, in a manner that 
 Prue can readily, and at little cost, repair, I should, 
 beyond perad venture, have split a new dollar-pair 
 of gloves in the effort of straining my large hands 
 into them, which would, also, have caused me 
 additional redness in the face, and renewed flut- 
 tering. 
 
 Above all, I should not have seen Aurelia pass- 
 ing in her carriage, nor would she have smiled at 
 me, nor charmed my memory with her radiance, 
 nor the circle at dinner with the sparkling Iliad 
 of my woes. Then, at the table, I should not have 
 sat by her. You would have had that pleasure; 
 I should have led out the maiden aunt from the 
 country, and have talked poultry, when I talked 
 at all. Aurelia would not have remarked me. 
 Afterward, in describing the dinner to her virtu- 
 ous parents, she would have concluded, " and one 
 old gentleman, whom I didn't know." 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 107 
 
 No, my polished friend, whose elegant repose of 
 manner I yet greatly commend, I am content, if 
 you are. How much better it was that I was not 
 invited to that dinner, but was permitted, by a 
 kind fate, to furnish a subject for Aurelia's wit. 
 
 There is one other advantage in sending your 
 fancy to dinner, instead of going yourself. It is, 
 that then the occasion remains wholly fair in your 
 memory. You, who devote yourself to dining out, 
 and who are to be daily seen affably sitting down 
 to such feasts, as I know mainly by hearsay — by 
 the report of waiters, guests, and others who were 
 present — you cannot escape the little things that 
 spoil the picture, and which the fancy does not 
 see. 
 
 For instance, in handing you the potage a la 
 Bisque^ at the very commencement of this dinner 
 to-day, John, the waiter, who never did such a 
 thing before, did this time suffer the plate to tip, 
 so that a little of that rare soup dripped into your 
 lap — just enough to spoil those trousers, which is 
 nothing to you, because you can buy a great many 
 more trousers, but which little event is inharmoni- 
 ous with the fine porcelain dinner service, with the 
 fragrant wines, the glittering glass, the beautiful 
 guests, and the mood of mind suggested by all of 
 these. There is, in fact, if you will pardon a free 
 use of the vernacular, there is a grease spot upon 
 your remembrance of this dinner. 
 
 Or, in the same way, and with the same kind of 
 
108 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 mental result, you can easily imagine the meats a 
 little tough ; a suspicion of smoke somewhere in 
 the sauces ; too much pepper, perhaps, or too little 
 salt ; or there might be the graver dissonance of 
 claret not properly attempered, or a choice Rhen- 
 ish below the average mark, or the spilling of 
 some of that Arethusa Madeira, marvelous for its 
 innumerable circumnavigations of the globe, and 
 for being as dry as the conversation of the host. 
 These things are not up to the high level of the 
 dinner ; for wherever Aurelia dines, all accessories 
 should be as perfect in their kind as she, the prin- 
 cipal, is in hers. 
 
 That reminds me of a possible dissonance worse 
 than all. Suppose that soup had trickled down 
 the unimaginable berthe of Aurelia's dress (since 
 it might have done so), instead of wasting itself 
 upon your trousers ! Could even the irreproach- 
 able elegance of your manners have contemplated, 
 unmoved, a grease spot upon your remembrance 
 of the peerless Aurelia ? 
 
 You smile, of course, and remind me that that 
 lady's manners are so perfect that, if she drank 
 poison, she would wipe her mouth after it as 
 gracefully as ever. How much more then, you 
 say, in the case of such a slight contretemps as 
 spotting her dress, would she appear totally 
 unmoved. 
 
 So she would, undoubtedly. She would be, and 
 look, as pure as ever ; but, my young friend, her 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 109 
 
 dress would not. Once I dropped a pickled oyster 
 in the lap of my Prue, who wore, on the occasion, 
 her sea-green silk gown. I did not love my Prue 
 the less ; but there certainly was a very unhand- 
 some spot upon her dress. And although I know 
 my Prue to be spotless, yet, whenever I recall that 
 day, I see her in a spotted gown, and I would pre- 
 fer never to have been obliged to think of her in 
 such a garment. 
 
 Can you not make the application to the case, 
 very likely to happen, of some disfigurement of 
 that exquisite toilette of Aurelia's ? In going 
 downstairs, for instance, why should not heavy 
 old Mr. Carbuncle, who is coming close behind 
 with Mrs. Peony, both very eager for dinner, 
 tread upon the hem of that garment which my 
 lips would grow pale to kiss ? The august Aure- 
 lia, yielding to natural laws, would be drawn sud- 
 denly backward — a very undignified movement 
 — and the dress would be dilapidated. There 
 would be apologies, and smiles, and forgiveness, 
 and pinning up the pieces, nor would there be the 
 faintest feeling of awkwardness or vexation in 
 Aurelia's mind. But to you, looking on, and, 
 beneath all that pure show of waistcoat, cursing 
 old Carbuncle's carelessness, this tearing of dresses 
 and repair of the toilette is by no means a poetic 
 and cheerful spectacle. Nay, the very impatience 
 that it produces in your mind jars upon the har- 
 mony of the moment. 
 
110 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 You will respond, with proper scorn, that you 
 are not so absurdly fastidious as to heed the little 
 necessary drawbacks of social meetings, and that 
 you have not much regard for ''the harmony of 
 the occasion " (which phrase I fear you will repeat 
 in a sneering tone). You will do very right in 
 saying this ; and it is a remark to which I shall 
 give all the hospitality of my mind, and I do so 
 because I heartily coincide in it. I hold a man to 
 be very foolish who will not eat a good dinner 
 because the tablecloth is not clean, or who cavils 
 at the spots upon the sun. But still a man who 
 does not apply his eye to a telescope, or some kind 
 of prepared medium, does not see those spots, while 
 he has just as much light and heat as he who does. 
 
 So it is with me. I walk in the avenue, and 
 eat all the delightful dinners, without seeing the 
 spots upon the tablecloth, and behold all the beau- 
 tiful Aurelias without swearing at old Carbuncle. 
 I am the guest who, for the small price of invisi- 
 bility, drinks only the best wines, and talks only 
 to the most agreeable people. That is something, 
 I can tell you, for you might be asked to lead out 
 old Mrs. Peony. My fancy slips in between you 
 and Aurelia, sit you never so closely together. It 
 not only hears what she says, but it perceives what 
 she thinks and feels. It lies like a bee in her 
 flowery thoughts, sucking all their honey. If 
 there are unhandsome or unfeeling guests at 
 table, it will not see them. It knows only the 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 111 
 
 good and fair. As I stroll in the fading light and 
 observe the stately houses, my fancy believes the 
 host equal to his house, and the courtesy of his 
 wife more agreeable than her conservatory. 
 
 It will not believe that the pictures on the wall 
 and the statues in the corners shame the guests. 
 It will not allow that they are less than noble. It 
 hears them speak gently of error, and warmly of 
 worth. It knows that they commend heroism and 
 devotion, and reprobate insincerity. My fancy is 
 convinced that the guests are not only feasted 
 upon the choicest fruits of every land and season, 
 but are refreshed by a consciousness of greater 
 loveliness and grace in human character. 
 
 Now you, who actually go to the dinner, may 
 not entirely agree with the view my fancy takes 
 of that entertainment. Is it not, therefore, rather 
 your loss? Or, to put it in another way, ought I 
 to envy you the discovery that the guests are 
 shamed by the statues and pictures ; — yes, and by 
 the spoons and forks also, if they should chance 
 neither to be so genuine nor so useful as those 
 instruments? And, worse than this, when your 
 fancy wishes to enjoy the picture which mine forms 
 of that feast, it cannot do so, because you have 
 foolishly interpolated the fact between the dinner 
 and your fancy. 
 
 Of course, by this time it is late twilight, and 
 the spectacle I enjoyed is almost over. But not 
 quite, for as I return slowly along the streets, the 
 
112 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 windows are open, and only a thin haze of lace or 
 muslin separates me from the paradise within. 
 
 I see tlie graceful cluster of girls hovering over 
 the piano, and the quiet groups of the elders in 
 easy chairs, around little tables. I cannot hear 
 what is said, nor plainly see the faces. But some 
 hoyden evening wind, more daring than I, abruptly 
 parts the cloud to look in, and out comes a gush 
 of light, music, and fragrance, so that I shrink 
 away into the dark, that I may not seem, even by 
 chance, to have invaded that privacy. 
 
 Suddenly there is singing. It is Aurelia, who 
 does not cope with the Italian prima donna, nor 
 sing indifferently to-night, what was sung superbly 
 last evening at the opera. She has a strange, low, 
 sweet voice, as if she only sang in the twilight. It 
 is the ballad of " Allan Percy " that she sings. 
 There is no dainty applause of kid gloves, when it 
 is ended, but silence follows the singing, like a tear. 
 
 Then you, my young friend, ascend into the 
 drawing room, and, after a little graceful gossip, 
 retire ; or you wait, possibly, to hand Aurelia into 
 her carriage, and arrange a waltz for to-morrow 
 evening. She smiles, you bow, and it is over. 
 But it is not yet over with me. My fancy still 
 follows her, and, like a prophetic dream, rehearses 
 her destiny. For, as the carriage rolls away into 
 the darkness and I return homeward, how can my 
 fancy help rolling away also, into the dim future, 
 watching her go down the years ? 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 113 
 
 Upon my way home I see her m a thousand new- 
 situations. My fancy says to me, " The beauty 
 of this beautiful woman is heaven's stamp upon 
 virtue. She will be equal to every chance that 
 shall befall her, and she is so radiant and charm- 
 ing in the circle of prosperity, only because she 
 has that irresistible simplicity and fidelity of char- 
 acter, which can also pluck the sting from adver- 
 sity. Do you not see, you wan old bookkeeper in 
 faded cravat, that in a poor man's house this 
 superb Aurelia would be more stately than sculp- 
 ture, more beautiful than painting, and more 
 graceful than the famous vases ? Would her hus- 
 band regret the opera if she sang ' Allan Percy ' to 
 him in the twilight? Would he not feel richer 
 than the Poets, when his eyes rose from their 
 jeweled pages, to fall again dazzled by the splen- 
 dor of his wife's beauty? " 
 
 At this point in my reflections I sometimes run, 
 rather violently, against a lamp post, and then 
 proceed along the street more sedately. 
 
 It is yet early when I reach home, where my 
 Prue awaits me. The children are asleep, and the 
 trousers mended. The admirable woman is patient 
 of my idiosyncrasies, and asks me if I have had a 
 pleasant walk, and if there were many fine dinners 
 to-day, as if I had been expected at a dozen tables. 
 She even asks me if I have seen the beautiful 
 Aurelia (for there is always some Aurelia), and 
 inquires what dress she wore. I respond, and 
 
114 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 dilate upon what I have seen. Prue listens, as the 
 children listen to her fairy tales. We discuss 
 the little stories that penetrate our retirement, of 
 the great people who actually dine out. Prue, 
 with fine womanly instinct, declares it a shame 
 
 that Aurelia should smile for a moment upon , 
 
 yes, even upon you, my friend of the irreproach- 
 able manners ! 
 
 " I know him," says my simple Prue ; " I have 
 watched his cold courtesy, his insincere devotion. 
 I have seen him acting in the boxes at the opera, 
 much more adroitly than the singers upon the 
 stage. I have read his determination to marry 
 Aurelia; and I shall not be surprised," concludes 
 my tender wife sadly, " if he wins her at last, by 
 tiring her out, or, by secluding her by his constant 
 devotion from the homage of other men, convinces 
 her that she had better marry him, since it is so 
 dismal to live on unmarried." 
 
 And so, my friend, at the moment when the 
 bouquet you ordered is arriving at Aurelia's house, 
 and she is sitting before the glass while her maid 
 arranges the last flower in her hair, my darling 
 Prue, whom you will never hear of, is shedding 
 tears over your probable union, and I am sitting 
 by, adjusting my cravat and incontinently clear- 
 ing my throat. 
 
 It is rather a ridiculous business, I allow; yet you 
 will smile at it tenderly, rather than scornfully, if 
 you remember that it shows how closely linked we 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 115 
 
 creatures are, without knowing it, and that more 
 hearts than we dream of enjoy our happiness and 
 share our sorrow. 
 
 Thus, I dine at great tables uninvited, and, 
 unknown, converse with the famous beauties. If 
 Aurelia is at last engaged (but who is worthy ?) 
 she will, with even greater care, arrange that won- 
 drous toilette, will teach that lace a fall more 
 alluring, those gems a sweeter light. But even 
 then, as she rolls to dinner in her carriage, glad 
 that she is fair, not for her own sake nor for the 
 world's, but for that of a single youth (who I hope, 
 has not been smoking at the club all the morn- 
 ing), I, sauntering upon the sidewalk, see her pass, 
 I pay homage to her beauty, and her lover can do 
 no more ; and if, perchance, my garments — which 
 must seem quaint to her, with their shining knees 
 and carefully brushed elbows ; my white cravat, 
 careless, yet prim ; my meditative movements, as 
 I put my stick under my arm to pare an apple, and 
 not, I hope, this time to fall into the street — 
 should remind her, in her spring of youth, and 
 beauty, and love, that there are age, and care, and 
 poverty, also ; then, perhaps, the good fortune of 
 the meeting is not wholly mine. 
 
 For, O beautiful Aurelia, two of these things, 
 at least, must come even to you. There will be a 
 time when you will no longer go out to dinner, or 
 only very quietly, in the family. I shall be gone 
 then ; but other old bookkeepers in white cravats 
 
116 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 will inherit my tastes, and saunter, on summer 
 afternoons, to see what I loved to see. 
 
 They will not pause, I fear, in buying apples, to 
 look at the old lady in venerable cap, who is roll- 
 ing by in the carriage. They will worship another 
 Aurelia. You will not wear diamonds or opals 
 any more, only one pearl upon your blue-veined 
 finger — your engagement ring. Grave clergy- 
 men and antiquated beaux will hand you down to 
 dinner, and the group of polished youth, who 
 gather around the yet unborn Aurelia of that day, 
 will look at you sitting quietly upon the sofa, and 
 say softly, " She must have been very handsome in 
 her time." 
 
 All this must be : for consider how few years 
 since it was your grandmother who was the belle, 
 by whose side the handsome young men longed to 
 sit and pass expressive mottoes. Your grand- 
 mother was the Aurelia of a half-century ago, 
 although you cannot fancy her young. She is 
 indissolubly associated in your mind with caps and 
 dark dresses. You can believe Mary Queen of 
 Scots, or Nell Gwyn, or Cleopatra, to have been 
 young and blooming, although they belong to old 
 and dead centuries, but not your grandmother. 
 Think of those who shall believe the same of you 
 — you, who to-day are the very flower of youth. 
 
 Might I plead with you, Aurelia — I, who would 
 be too happy to receive one of those graciously 
 beaming bows that I see you bestow upon young 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 117 
 
 men, in passing — I would ask you to bear that 
 thought with you, always, not to sadden your 
 sunny smile, but to give it a more subtle grace. 
 Wear in your summer garland this little leaf of 
 rue. It will not be the skull at the feast, it will 
 rather be the tender thoughtfulness in the face of 
 the young Madonna. 
 
 For the years pass like summer clouds, Aurelia, 
 and the children of yesterday are the wives and 
 mothers of to-day. Even I do sometimes discover 
 the mild eyes of my Prue fixed pensively upon my 
 face, as if searching for the bloom which she re- 
 members there in the days, long ago, when we 
 were young. She will never see it there again, 
 any more than the flowers she held in her hand, in 
 our old spring rambles. Yet the tear that slowly 
 gathers as she gazes, is not grief that the bloom has 
 faded from my cheek, but the sweet consciousness 
 that it can never fade from my heart ; and as her 
 eyes fall upon her work again, or the children 
 climb her lap to hear the old fairy tales they 
 already know by heart, my wife Prue is dearer to 
 me than the sweetheart of those days long ago. 
 
118 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 SEA FROM SHORE 
 
 *' Come unto these yellow sands." 
 
 The Tempest. 
 
 *' Argosies of magic sails, 
 Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales." 
 
 Locksley Hall. 
 
 In the month of June, Prue and I like to walk 
 upon the Battery toward sunset, and watch the 
 steamers, crowded with passengers, bound for the 
 pleasant places along the coast where people pass 
 the hot months. Seaside lodgings are not very 
 comfortable, I am told ; but who would not be a 
 little pinched in his chamber, if his windows 
 looked upon the sea ? 
 
 In such praises of the ocean do I indulge at 
 such times, and so respectfully do I regard the 
 sailors who may chance to pass, that Prue often 
 says, with her shrewd smiles, that my mind is a 
 kind of Greenwich Hospital,^ full of abortive ma- 
 rine hopes and wishes, broken-legged intentions, 
 blind regrets, and desires whose hands have been 
 shot away in some hard battle of experience, so 
 that they cannot grasp the results toward which 
 they reach. 
 
 She is right, as usual. Such hopes and inten- 
 tions do lie, ruined and hopeless now, strewn about 
 the placid contentment of my mental life, as the 
 
 1 An old-sailors' hospital in England. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 119 
 
 old pensioners sit about the grounds at Greenwich, 
 maimed and musing in the quiet morning sun- 
 shine. Many a one among them thinks what a 
 Nelson he would have been if both his legs had 
 not been prematurely carried away ; or in what a 
 Trafalgar of triumph he would have ended, if, 
 unfortunately, he had not happened to have been 
 blown blind by the explosion of that unlucky 
 magazine. 
 
 So I dream, sometimes, of a straight scarlet 
 collar, stiff with gold lace, around my neck, in- 
 stead of this limp white cravat ; and I have even 
 brandished my quill at the office so cutlass-wise, 
 that Titbottom ^ has paused in his additions and 
 looked at me as if he doubted whether I should 
 come out quite square in my petty cash. Yet he 
 understands it. Titbottom was born in Nantucket. 
 
 That is the secret of my fondness for the sea ; I 
 was born by it. Not more surely do Savoyards 
 pine for the mountains, or Cockneys for the sound 
 of Bow bells,2 than those who are born within 
 sight and sound of the ocean to return to it and 
 renew their fealty. In dreams the children of the 
 sea hear its voice. I have read in some book of 
 travels that certain tribes of Arabs have no name 
 for the ocean, and that when they came to the 
 shore for the first time, they asked with eager sad- 
 
 1 A fellow bookkeeper. 
 
 2 The bells of the Church of St. Mary le Bow on Clieapside 
 London, 
 
120 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 ness, as if penetrated by the conviction of a supe- 
 rior beauty, '' What, is that desert of water more 
 beautiful than the land ? " 
 
 And in the translations of German stories which 
 Adoniram and the other children read, and into 
 which I occasionally look in the evening when they 
 are gone to bed — for I like to know what interests 
 my children — I find that the Germans, who do 
 not live near the sea, love the fairy lore of water, 
 and tell the sweet stories of Undine and Melusina, 
 as if they had especial charm for them, because 
 their country is inland. 
 
 We who know the sea have less fairy feeling 
 about it, but our realities are romance. My ear- 
 liest remembrances^ are of a long range of old 
 half -dilapidated stores ; red brick stores with 
 steep wooden roofs, and stone window frames and 
 door frames, which stood upon docks built as if 
 for immense trade with all quarters of the globe. 
 
 Generally they were only a few sloops moored 
 to the tremendous posts, which I fancied could 
 easily hold fast a Spanish Armada in a tropical 
 hurricane. But sometimes a great ship, an East 
 Indiaman, with rusty, seamed, blistered sides, and 
 dingy sails, came slowly moving up the harbor, 
 with an air of indolent self-importance and con- 
 sciousness of superiority, which inspired me with 
 profound respect. If the ship had ever chanced to 
 run down a rowboat, or a sloop, or any specimen 
 
 1 Curtis was born in Providence, Rhode Island. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 121 
 
 of smaller craft, I should only have wondered at 
 the temerity of any floating thing in crossing the 
 path of such supreme majesty. The ship was 
 leisurely chained and cabled to the old dock, and 
 then came the disemboweling. 
 
 How the stately monster had been fattening 
 upon foreign spoils ! How it had gorged itself 
 (such galleons did never seem to me of the femi- 
 nine gender) with the luscious treasures of the 
 tropics ! It had lain its lazy length along the 
 shores of China, and sucked in whole flowery har- 
 vests of tea. The Brazilian sun flashed through 
 the strong wicker prisons, bursting with bananas 
 and nectarean fruits that eschew the temperate 
 zone. Steams of camphor, of sandal wood, arose 
 from the hold. Sailors chanting cabalistic strains, 
 that had to my ear a shrill and monotonous pathos, 
 like the uniform rising and falling of an autumn 
 wind, turned cranks that lifted the bales, and 
 boxes, and crates, and swung them ashore. 
 
 But to my mind, the spell of their singing raised 
 the fragrant freight, and not the crank. Mada- 
 gascar and Ceylon appeared at the mystic bidding 
 of the song. The placid sunshine of the docks 
 was perfumed with India. The universal calm of 
 southern seas poured from the bosom of the ship 
 over the quiet, decaying old northern port. 
 
 Long after the confusion of unloading was over, 
 and the ship lay as if all voyages were ended, I 
 dared to creep timorously along the edge of the 
 
122 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 dock, and at great risk of falling in the black 
 water of its huge shadow, I placed my hand upon 
 the hot hulk, and so established a mystic and ex- 
 quisite connection with Pacific islands, with palm 
 groves and all the passionate beauties they em- 
 bower ; with jungles, Bengal tigers, pepper, and 
 the crushed feet of Chinese fairies. I touched 
 Asia, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Happy 
 Islands. I would not believe that the heat 1 felt 
 w^as of our northern sun ; to my finer sympathy it 
 burned with equatorial fervors. 
 
 The freight was piled in the old stores. I be- 
 lieve that many of them remain, but they have lost 
 their character. When I knew them, not only was 
 I younger, but partial decay had overtaken the 
 town ; at least the bulk of its India trade had 
 shifted to New York and Boston. But the appli- 
 ances remained. There was no throng of busy 
 traffickers, and after school, in the afternoon, I 
 strolled by and gazed into the solemn interiors. 
 
 Silence reigned within, — silence, dimness, and 
 piles of foreign treasure. Vast coils of cable, like 
 tame boa-constrictors, served as seats for men with 
 large stomachs and heavy watch seals, and nankeen 
 trousers, who sat looking out of the door toward 
 the ships, with little other sign of life than an occa- 
 sional low talking, as if in their sleep. Huge hogs- 
 heads perspiring brown sugar and oozing slow 
 molasses, as if nothing tropical could keep within 
 bounds, but must continually expand, and exude, 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 123 
 
 and overflow, stood against the walls, and had an 
 architectural significance, for they darkly re- 
 minded me of Egyptian prints, and in the dusk- 
 iness of the low-vaulted store seemed cyclopean 
 columns incomplete. Strange festoons and heaps 
 of bags, square piles of square boxes cased in mats, 
 bales of airy summer stuffs, which, even in winter, 
 scoffed at cold, and shamed it by audacious assump- 
 tion of eternal sun ; little specimen boxes of pre- 
 cious dyes that even now shine through my 
 memory, like old Venetian schools unpainted, — 
 these were all there in rich confusion. 
 
 The stores had a twilight of dimness, the air 
 was spicy with mingled odors. I liked to look 
 suddenly in from the glare of sunlight outside, 
 and then the cool sweet dimness was like the pal- 
 pable breath of the far-off island groves ; and if 
 only some parrot or macaw hung within, would 
 flaunt with glistening plumage in his cage, and as 
 the gay hue flashed in a chance sunbeam, call in 
 his hard, shrill voice, as if thrusting sharp sounds 
 upon a glistening wire from out that grateful 
 gloom, then *the enchantment was complete, and, 
 without moving, I was circumnavigating the 
 globe. 
 
 From the old stores and the docks slowly crum- 
 bling, touched, I know not why or how, by the 
 pensive air of past prosperity, I rambled out of 
 town on those well-remembered afternoons, to the 
 fields that lay upon hillsides over the harbor, and 
 
124 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 there sat, looking out to sea, fancying some dis- 
 tant sail proceeding to the glorious ends of the 
 earth, to be my type and image, who would so sail, 
 stately and successful, to all the glorious ports of 
 the Future. Going home, I returned by the 
 stores, which black porters were closing. But I 
 stood long looking in, saturating my imagination, 
 and as it appeared, my clothes, with the spicy sug- 
 gestion. For when I reached home, my thrifty 
 mother — another Prue — came snuffing and smell- 
 ing about me. 
 
 " Why ! my son (snuffs snuff')^ where have you 
 been ? {snuffs snuff). Has the baker been making 
 (^snuff} gingerbread ? You smell as if you'd been 
 in {snuffs ^^^j^) ^ bag of cinnamon." 
 
 "I've only been on the wharves, mother." 
 
 " Well, my dear, I hope you haven't stuck up 
 your clothes with molasses. Wharves are dirty 
 places, and dangerous. You must take care of 
 yourself, my son. Really this smell is Qsnuff^ 
 snuff) very strong." 
 
 But I departed from the maternal presence, 
 proud and happy. I was aromatic. I bore about 
 me the true foreign air. Whoever smelled me 
 smelled distant countries. I liad nutmeg, spices, 
 cinnamon, and cloves, without the jolly red nose. 
 I pleased myself with being the representative of 
 the Indies. I was in good odor with myself and 
 all the world. 
 
 I do not know how it is, but surely nature makes 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 125 
 
 kindly provision. An imagination so easily ex- 
 cited as mine could not have escaped disappoint- 
 ment if it had had ample opportunity and 
 experience of the lands it so longed to see. 
 Therefore, although I made the India voyage, 
 I have never been a traveler, and saving the little 
 time I was ashore in India, I did not lose the 
 sense of novelty and romance which the first sight 
 of foreign lands inspires. 
 
 That little time was all my foreign travel. I 
 am glad of it. I see now that I should never 
 have found the country from which the East 
 Indiaman of my early days arrived. The palm 
 groves do not grow with which that hand laid 
 upon the ship placed me in magic connection. 
 As for the lovely Indian maid whom the palmy 
 arches bowered, she has long since clasped some 
 native lover to her bosom, and, ripened into mild 
 maternity, how should I know her now ? 
 
 "You would find her quite as easily now as 
 then," says my Prue, when I speak of it. 
 
 She is right again, as usual, that precious 
 woman; and it is therefore I feel that if the 
 chances of life have moored me fast to a book- 
 keeper's desk, they have left all the lands I longed 
 to see fairer and fresher in my mind than they 
 could ever be in my memory. Upon my only 
 voyage I used to climb into the top and search the 
 horizon for the shore. But now in a moment of 
 calm thought I see a more Indian India than ever 
 
126 ' HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 mariner discerned, and do not envy the youths 
 who go there and make fortunes, who w^ear grass- 
 cloth jackets, drink iced beer, and eat curry ; 
 whose minds fall asleep, and whose bodies have 
 liver complaints. 
 
 Unseen by me forever, nor ever regretted, shall 
 wave the Egyptian palms and the Italian pines. 
 Untrodden by me, the Forum shall still echo with 
 the footfall of imperial Rome, and the Parthenon, 
 unrifled of its marbles, look, perfect, across the 
 Egean blue. 
 
 My young friends return from their foreign 
 tours elate with the smiles of a nameless Italian 
 or Parisian belle. I know not such cheap de- 
 lights; I am a suitor of Vittoria Colonna; I 
 walk with Tasso along the terraced garden of the 
 Villa d'Este, and look to see Beatrice smiling 
 down the rich gloom of the cypress shade. You 
 stayed at the Hotel Europa, in Venice, at Danielli's, 
 or the Leone bianco; I am the guest of Marino 
 Faliero,^ and I whisper to his wife as we climb the 
 giant staircase in the summer moon-light : — 
 
 *' Ah ! senza amare 
 Andare sul mare, 
 Col sposa del mare, 
 Non puo consolare." 2 
 
 It is for the same reason that I did not care to 
 dine with you and Aurelia, that I am content not 
 
 1 Doge of Venice, 1354. 
 
 2 " Ah to go upon the sea without love, cannot delight, even with 
 the bride of the sea." 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 127 
 
 to stand in St. Peter's. Alas ! if I could see the 
 end of it, it would not be St. Peter's. For those 
 of us whom Nature means to keep at home, she 
 provides entertainment. One man goes four thou- 
 sand miles to Italy, and does not see it, he is so 
 short-sighted. Another is so far-sighted that he 
 stays in his room and sees more than Italy. 
 
 But for this very reason that it washes the 
 shores of my possible Europe and Asia, the sea 
 draws me constantly to itself. Before I came to 
 New York, while I was still a clerk in Boston, 
 courting Prue, and living out of town, I never 
 knew of a ship sailing for India or even for 
 England and France, but I went up to the State 
 House cupola or to the observatory on some 
 friend's house in Roxbury, where I could not be 
 interrupted, and there watched the departure. 
 
 The sails hung ready ; the ship lay in the 
 stream ; busy little boats and puffing steamers 
 darted about it, clung to its sides, paddled away 
 from it, or led the way to sea, as minnows 
 might pilot a whale. The anchor was slowly 
 swung at the bow; I could not hear the sailors' 
 song ; but I knew they were singing. I could not 
 see the parting friends, but I knew farewells were 
 spoken. I did not share the confusion, although 
 I knew what bustle there was, what hurry, what 
 shouting, what creaking, what fall of ropes and 
 iron, what sharp oaths, low laughs, whispers, sobs. 
 But I was cool, high, separate. To me it was 
 
128 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 " A painted ship 
 Upon a painted ocean." 
 
 The sails were shaken out, and the ship began 
 to move. It was a fair breeze, perhaps, and no 
 steamer was needed to tow her away. She re- 
 ceded down the bay. Friends turned back — I 
 could not see them — and waved their hands, 
 and wiped their eyes, and went home to dinner. 
 Farther and farther from the ships at anchor, 
 the lessening vessel became single and solitary 
 upon the water. The sun sank in the west ; 
 but 1 watched her still. Every flash of her 
 sails, as she tacked and turned, thrilled my 
 heart. 
 
 Yet Prue was not on board. I had never seen 
 one of the passengers or the crew. I did not 
 know the consignees, nor the name of the vessel. 
 I had shipped no adventure, nor risked any insur- 
 ance, nor made any bet, but my eyes clung to her 
 as Ariadne's to the fading sail of Theseus. The 
 ship was freighted with more than appeared upon 
 her papers, yet she was not a smuggler. She bore 
 all there was of that nameless lading, yet the next 
 ship would carry as much. She was freighted 
 with fancy. My hopes, and wishes, and vague 
 desires, were all on board. It seemed to me a 
 treasure not less rich than that which filled the 
 East Indiaman at the old dock in my boyhood. 
 
 When, at length, the ship was a sparkle upon 
 the horizon, I waved my hand in last farewell, I 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 129 
 
 strained my eyes for a last glimpse. My mind 
 had gone to sea, and had left noise behind. But 
 now I heard again the multitudinous murmur of 
 the city, and went down rapidly, and threaded the 
 short, narrow streets to the office. Yet, believe 
 it, every dream of that day, as I watched the 
 vessel, was written at night to Prue. She knew 
 my heart had not sailed away. 
 
 Those days are long past now, but still I walk 
 upon the Battery and look toward the Narrows, 
 and know that beyond them, separated only by 
 the sea, are many of whom I would so gladly 
 know and so rarely hear. The sea rolls between 
 us like the lapse of dusky ages. They trusted 
 themselves to it, and it bore them away far and 
 far as if into the past. Last night I read of 
 Antony, but I have not heard from Christopher 
 these many months, and by so much farther 
 away is he, so much older and more remote, 
 than Antony. As for William, he is as vague 
 as any of the shepherd kings of ante-Pharaonic 
 dynasties. 
 
 It is the sea that has done it, it has carried 
 them off and put them away upon its other side. 
 It is fortunate the sea did not put them upon its 
 underside. Are they hale and happy still? Is 
 their hair gray, and have they mustachios ? Or 
 have they taken to wigs and crutches ? Are they 
 popes or cardinals yet? Do they feast with Lu- 
 crezia Borgia, or preach red republicanism to the 
 
 K 
 
130 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 Council of Ten? Do they sing, "Behold how 
 brightly breaks the morning" with Masaniello? 
 Do they laugh at Ulysses and skip ashore to the 
 Sirens ? Has Mesrour, chief of the Eunuchs, caught 
 them with Zobeide in the Caliph's garden, or have 
 they made cheesecakes without pepper ? Friends 
 of my youth, where in your wanderings have you 
 tasted the blissful Lotus, that you neither come 
 nor send us tidings ? 
 
 Across the sea also came idle rumors, as false 
 reports steal into history and defile fair fame. 
 Was it longer ago than yesterday that I walked 
 with my cousin, then recently a widow, and talked 
 with her of the countries to which she meant to 
 sail? She was young, and dark-eyed, and wore 
 great hoops of gold, barbaric gold, in her ears. 
 The hope of Italy, the thought of living there, 
 had risen like a dawn in the darkness of her 
 mind. I talked and listened by rapid turns. 
 
 Was it longer ago than yesterday that she told 
 me of her splendid plans, how palaces tapestried 
 with gorgeous paintings should be cheaply hired, 
 and the best of teachers lead her children to the 
 completest and most various knowledge; how — 
 and with her slender pittance ! she should have 
 a box at the opera, and a carriage, and liveried 
 servants, and in perfect health and youth, lead 
 a perfect life in a perfect climate? 
 
 And now what do I hear? Why does a tear 
 sometimes drop so audibly upon my paper, that 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 131 
 
 Titbottom looks across with a sort of mild rebuk- 
 ing glance of inquiry, whether it is kind to let 
 even a single tear fall, when an ocean of tears is 
 pent up in hearts that would burst and overflow 
 if but one drop should force its way out? Why 
 across the sea come faint gusty stories, like low 
 voices in the wind, of a cloistered garden and 
 sunny seclusion — and a life of unknown and un- 
 explained luxury. What is this picture of a pale 
 face showered with streaming black hair, and large 
 sad eyes looking upon lovely and noble children 
 playing in the sunshine — and a brow pained with 
 thought straining into their destiny ? Who is this 
 figure, a man tall and comely, with melting eyes 
 and graceful motion, who comes and goes at pleas- 
 ure, who is not a husband, yet has the key of the 
 cloistered garden ? 
 
 I do not know. They are secrets of the sea. 
 The pictures pass before my mind suddenly and 
 unawares, and I feel the tears rising that I would 
 gladly repress. Titbottom looks at me, then 
 stands by the window of the office, and leans his 
 brow against the cold iron bars, and looks down 
 into the little square paved court. I take my hat 
 and steal out of the office for a few minutes, and 
 slowly pace the hurrying streets. Meek-eyed 
 Alice ! magnificent Maud ! sweet baby Lilian ! 
 why does the sea imprison you so far away, when 
 will you return, where do you linger ? The water 
 laps idly about the docks, — lies calm, or gayly 
 
132 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 heaves. Why does it bring me doubts and fears 
 now, that brought such bounty of beauty in the 
 days long gone ? 
 
 I remember that the day when my dark-haired 
 cousin, with hoops of barbaric gold in her ears, 
 sailed for Italy, was quarter day, and we balanced 
 the books at the office. It was nearly noon, and 
 in my impatience to be away I had not added my 
 columns with sufficient care. The inexorable hand 
 of the office clock pointed sternly toward twelve, 
 and the remorseless pendulum ticked solemnly to 
 noon. 
 
 To a man whose pleasures are not many, and 
 rather small, the loss of such an event as saying 
 farewell and wishing godspeed to a friend going 
 to Europe, is a great loss. It was so to me, espe- 
 cially, because there was always more to me, in 
 every departure, than the parting and the farewell. 
 I was gradually renouncing this pleasure, as I saw 
 small prospect of ending before noon, when Tit- 
 bottom, after looking at me a moment, came to my 
 side of the desk, and said : — 
 
 " I should like to finish that for you." 
 
 I looked at him ; poor Titbottom ! he had no 
 friends to wish godspeed upon any journey. I 
 quietly wiped my pen, took down my hat, and 
 went out. It was in the days of sail packets and 
 less regularity, when going to Europe was more of 
 an epoch in life. How gayly my cousin stood 
 upon the deck and detailed to me her plan ! How 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 133 
 
 merrily the children shouted and sang ! How 
 long I held my cousin's little hand in mine, and 
 gazed into her great eyes, remembering that they 
 would see and touch the things that were invisible 
 to me forever, but all the more precious and fair ! 
 She kissed me — I was younger then — there were 
 tears, I remember, and prayers, and promises, a 
 waving handkerchief — a fading sail. 
 • It was only the other day that I saw another 
 parting of the same kind. I was not a principal, 
 only a spectator; but so fond am I of sharing, 
 afar off, as it were, and unseen, the sympathies of 
 human beings, that I cannot avoid often going to 
 the dock upon steamer days, and giving myself to 
 that pleasant and melancholy observation. There 
 is always a crowd, but this day it was almost im- 
 possible to advance through the masses of people. 
 The eager faces hurried by ; a constant stream 
 poured up the gangway into the steamer, and the 
 upper deck, to which I gradually made my way, 
 was crowded with the passengers and their friends. 
 There was one group upon which my eyes first 
 fell, and upon which my memory lingers. A 
 glance, brilliant as daybreak — a voice, 
 
 " Her voice's music — call it the welPs bubbling, the bird's 
 warble," 
 
 a goddess girdled with flowers, and smiling fare- 
 well upon a circle of worshipers, to each one of 
 whom that gracious ' calmness made the smile 
 sweeter, and the farewell more sad — other figures, 
 
134 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 other flowers, an angel face — all these I saw in 
 that group as I was swaj^ed up and down the deck 
 by the eager swarm of people. The hour came, 
 and I went on shore with the rest. The plank 
 was drawn away — the captain raised his hand — 
 the huge steamer slowly moved — a cannon was 
 fired — the ship was gone. 
 
 The sun sparkled upon the water as they sailed 
 away. In five minutes the steamer was as much 
 separated from the shore as if it had been at sea a 
 thousand years. 
 
 I leaned against a post upon the dock and 
 looked around. Ranged upon the edge of the 
 wharf stood that band of worshipers, waving 
 handkerchiefs and straining their eyes to see the 
 last smile of farewell — did any eager selfish eye 
 hope to see a tear ? They to whom the handkerchiefs 
 were waved stood high upon the stern, holding 
 flowers. Over them hung the great flag, raised by 
 the gentle wind into the graceful folds of a canopy 
 — say rather a gorgeous gonfalon waved over the 
 triumphant departure, over that supreme youth, 
 and bloom, and beauty, going out across the mys- 
 tic ocean to carry a finer charm and more human 
 splendor into those realms of my invagination be- 
 yond the sea. 
 
 " You will return, O youth and beauty ! " I 
 said to my dreaming and foolish self, as I con- 
 templated those fair figures, "richer than Alex- 
 ander with Indian spoils. All that historic 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 135 
 
 association, that copious civilization, those gran- 
 deurs and graces of art, that variety and pictur- 
 esqueness of life, will mellow and deepen your 
 experience even as time silently touches those 
 old pictures into a more persuasive and pathetic 
 beauty, and as this increasing summer sheds ever 
 softer luster upon the landscape. You will return 
 conquerors and not conquered. You will bring 
 Europe, even as Aurelian brought Zenobia captive, 
 to deck your homeward triumph. I do not wonder 
 that these clouds break away, I do not wonder that 
 the sun presses out and floods all the air, and land, 
 and water, with light that graces with happy omens 
 your stately farewell." 
 
 But if my faded face looked after them with 
 such earnest and longing emotion, — I, a solitary 
 old man, unknown to those fair beings, and stand- 
 ing apart from that band of lovers, yet in that 
 moment bound more closely to them than they 
 knew, — how was it with those whose hearts sailed 
 away with that youth and beauty ? I watched 
 them closely from behind my post. I knew that 
 life had paused with them ; that the world stood 
 still. I knew that the long, long summer would 
 be only a yearning regret. I knew that each 
 asked himself the mournful question, " Is this 
 parting typical — this slow, sad, sweet recession ? " 
 And I knew that they did not care to ask whether 
 they should meet again, nor dare to contemplate 
 the chances of the sea. 
 
136 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 The steamer swept on, she was near Staten 
 
 Island, and a final gun boomed far and low across 
 
 the water. The crowd was dispersing, but the 
 
 little group remained. Was it not all Hood had 
 
 sung ? 
 
 " I saw thee, lovely Inez 
 Descend along the shore 
 With bands of noble gentlemen, 
 And banners waved before ; 
 And gentle youths and maidens gay, 
 And snowy plumes they wore ; 
 It would have been a beauteous dream, 
 If it had been no more ! " 
 
 " O youth ! " I said to them without speaking, 
 "be it gently said, as it is solemnly thought, 
 should they return no more, yet in your memories 
 the high hour of your loveliness is forever en- 
 shrined. Should they come no more they never 
 will be old, nor changed to you. You will wax 
 and wane, you will suffer, and struggle, and grow 
 old ; but this summer vision will smile, immortal, 
 upon your lives, and those fair faces shall shed, 
 forever from under that slowly waving flag, hope 
 and peace." 
 
 It is so elsewhere ; it is the tenderness of Nature. 
 Long, long ago we lost our firstborn, Prue and I. 
 Since then, we have grown older and our children 
 with us. Change comes, and grief, perhaps, and 
 decay. We are happy, our children are obedient 
 and gay. But should Prue live until she has lost 
 us all, and laid us, gray and weary, in our graves, 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 137 
 
 she will have always one babe in her heart. 
 Every mother who has lost an infant, has gained 
 a child of immortal youth. Can you find comfort 
 here, lovers, whose mistress has sailed away ? 
 
 I did not ask the question aloud, I thought it only, 
 as I watched the youths, and turned away while 
 they still stood gazing. One, I observed, climbed 
 a post and waved his black hat before the white- 
 washed side of the shed over the dock, whence 
 I supposed he would tumble into the water. 
 Another had tied a handkerchief to the end of a 
 somewhat baggy umbrella, and in the eagerness of 
 gazing, had forgotten to wave it, so that it hung 
 mournfully down, as if overpowered with grief it 
 could not express. The entranced youth still 
 held the umbrella aloft. It seemed to me as if he 
 had struck his flag ; or as if one of my cravats 
 were airing in that sunlight. A negro carter was 
 joking with an apple-woman at the entrance of 
 the dock. The steamer was out of sight. 
 
 I found that I was belated and hurried back to 
 mj'' desk. Alas ! poor lovers ; 1 wonder if they 
 are watching still ? Has he fallen exhausted from 
 the post into the water? Is that handkerchief, 
 bleached and rent, still pendant upon that some- 
 what baggy umbrella ? 
 
 "Youth and beauty went to Europe to-day," 
 said I to Prue, as I stirred my tea at evening. 
 
 As I spoke, our youngest daughter brought me 
 the sugar. She is just eighteen, and her name 
 
138 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 should be Hebe. I took a lump of sugar and 
 looked at her. She had never seemed so lovely, 
 and as I dropped the lump in my cup, I kissed her. 
 I glanced at Prue as I did so. The dear woman 
 smiled, but did not answer my exclamation. 
 
 Thus without traveling, I travel, and share the 
 emotions of those I do not know. But sometimes 
 the old longing comes over me as in the days when 
 I timidly touched the huge East Indiaman, and 
 magnetically sailed round the world. 
 
 It was but a few days after the lovers and I 
 waved farewell to the steamer, and while the 
 lovely figures standing under the great gonfalon 
 were as vivid in my mind as ever, that a day of 
 premature sunny sadness, like those of the Indian 
 summer, drew me away from the office early in 
 the afternoon ; for fortunately it is our dull sea- 
 son now, and even Titbottom sometimes leaves 
 the office by five o'clock. Although why he should 
 leave it, or where he goes, or what he does, I do 
 not well know. Before I knew him, I used some- 
 times to meet him with a man whom I was after- 
 ward told was Bartleby, the scrivener. Even then 
 it seemed to me that they rather clubbed their 
 loneliness than made society for each other. Re- 
 cently I have not seen Bartleby ; but Titbottom 
 seems no more solitary because he is alone. 
 
 I strolled into the Battery as I sauntered about. 
 Staten Island looked so alluring, tender-hued with 
 summer and melting in the haze, that I resolved 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 139 
 
 to indulge myself in a pleasure-trip. It was a 
 little selfish, perhaps, to go alone, but I looked at 
 my watch, and saw that if I should hurry home 
 for Prue the trip would be lost ; then I should be 
 disappointed, and she would be grieved. 
 
 Ought I not rather (I like to begin questions, 
 which I am going to answer affirmatively, with 
 ought^ to take the trip and recount my adventures 
 to Prue upon my return, whereby I should actu- 
 ally enjoy the excursion and the pleasure of telling 
 her ; while she would enjoy my, story and be glad 
 that I was pleased? Ought I willfully to deprive 
 us both of this various enjoyment by aiming at a 
 higher, which, in losing, we should lose all? 
 
 Unfortunately, just as I was triumphantly answer- 
 ing " Certainly not ! " another question marched 
 into my mind, escorted by a very defiant ought, 
 
 " Ought I to go when I have such a debate 
 about it?" 
 
 But while I was perplexed, and scoffing at my 
 own scruples, the ferry-bell suddenly rang, and 
 answered all my questions. Involuntarily I hur- 
 ried on board. The boat slipped from the dock. 
 I went up on deck to enjoy the view of the city 
 from the bay, but just as I sat down, and meant 
 to have said " How beautiful ! " I found myself 
 asking : — 
 
 " Ought I to have come? " 
 
 Lost in perplexing debate, I saw little of the 
 scenery of the bay ; but the remembrance of Prue 
 
140 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 and the geutle influence of the day plunged me 
 into a mood of pensive reverie which nothing 
 tended to destroy, until we suddenly arrived at 
 the landing. 
 
 As I was stepping ashore, I was greeted by Mr. 
 Bourne, who passes the summer on the island, and 
 who hospitably asked if I were going his way. 
 His way was toward the southern end of the 
 island, and I said yes. His pockets were full of 
 papers and his brow of wrinkles ; so when we 
 reached the point where he should turn off, I 
 asked him to let me alight, although he was 
 very anxious to carry me wherever I was going. 
 
 "I am only strolling about," I answered, as I 
 clambered carefully out of the wagon. 
 
 ''Strolling about?" asked he, in a bewildered 
 manner ; " do people stroll about, nowadays ? " 
 
 " Sometimes," I answered, smiling, as I pulled 
 my trousers down over my boots, for they had 
 dragged up, as I stepped out of the wagon, " and 
 besides, what can an old bookkeeper do better in 
 the dull season than stroll about this pleasant 
 island, and watch the ships at sea?" 
 
 Bourne looked at me with his weary eyes. 
 
 "- I'd give five thousand dollars a year for a dull 
 season," said he, ''but as for strolling, I've for- 
 gotten how." 
 
 As he spoke his eyes wandered dreamily across 
 the fields and woods, and were fastened upon the 
 distant sails. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 141 
 
 " It is pleasant," he said musingly, and fell into 
 silence. But I had no time to spare, so I wished 
 him good-afternoon. 
 
 " I hope your wife is well," said Bourne to me, 
 as I turned away. Poor Bourne ! He drove on 
 alone in his wagon. 
 
 But I made haste to the most solitary point upon 
 the southern shore, and there sat, glad to be so 
 near the sea. There was that warm, sympathetic 
 silence in the air that gives to Indian summer days 
 almost a human tenderness of feeling. A delicate 
 haze, that seemed only the kindly air made visible, 
 hung over the sea. The water lapped languidly 
 among the rocks, and the voices of children, in a 
 boat beyond, rang musically, and gradually re- 
 ceded, until they were lost in the distance. 
 
 It was some time before I was aware of the out- 
 line of a large ship, drawn vaguely upon the mist, 
 which I supposed, at first, to be only a kind of 
 mirage. But the more steadfastly I gazed, the 
 more distinct it became, and I could no longer 
 doubt that I saw a stately ship lying at anchor, 
 not more than half a mile from the land. 
 
 " It is an extraordinary place to anchor," I said 
 to myself, " or can she be ashore ? " 
 
 There were no signs of distress ; the sails were 
 carefully clewed up, and there were no sailors in 
 the tops nor upon the shrouds. A flag, of which 
 I could not see the 'device or the nation, hung 
 heavily at the stern, and looked as if it had fallen 
 
142 ' HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 asleep. My curiosity began to be singularly 
 excited. The form of the vessel seemed not to 
 be permanent; but within a quarter of an hour, 
 I was sure that I had seen half a dozen different 
 ships. As I gazed, I saw no more sails nor masts, 
 but a long range of oars, flashing like a golden 
 fringe, or straight and stiff, like the legs of a sea- 
 monster. 
 
 "It is some bloated crab, or lobster, magnified 
 by the mist," I said to myself complacently. 
 
 But, at the same moment, there was a concen- 
 trated flashing and blazing in one spot among the 
 rigging, and it was as if I saw a beautified ram, or, 
 more truly, a sheepskin splendid as the Hair of 
 Berenice.^ 
 
 " Is that the golden fleece? " I thought. '' But 
 surely, Jason and the Argonauts have gone home 
 long since. Do people go on gold-fleecing expedi- 
 tions now? " I asked myself in perplexity. '' Can 
 this be a California steamer? " 
 
 How could I have thought it a steamer? Did I 
 not see those sails, " thin and sere " ? Did I not 
 feel the melancholy of that solitary bark? It had 
 a mystic aura ; a boreal brilliancy shimmered in its 
 wake, for it was drifting seaward. A strange fear 
 curdled along my veins. That summer sun shone 
 cool. The weary, battered ship was gashed, as if 
 gnawed by ice. There was terror in the air, as a 
 " skinny hand so brown " waved to me from the 
 
 1 One of the constellations. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 143 
 
 deck. I lay as one bewitched. The hand of the 
 ancient mariner seemed to be reaching for me, like 
 the hand of death. 
 
 Death? Why, as I was inly praying Prue's for- 
 giveness for my solitary ramble and consequent 
 demise, a glance like the fullness of summer splen- 
 dor gushed over me ; the odor of flowers and of 
 Eastern gums made all the atmosphere. I breathed 
 the Orient, and lay drunk with balm, while that 
 strange ship, a golden galley now, with glittering 
 draperies festooned with flowers, paced to the 
 measured beat of oars along the calm, and Cleo- 
 patra smiled alluringly from the great pageant's 
 heart. 
 
 Was this a barge for summer waters, this pecul- 
 iar ship I saw? It had a ruined dignity, a cum- 
 brous grandeur, although its masts were shattered 
 and its sails rent. It hung preternaturally still 
 upon the sea, as if tormented and exhausted by 
 long driving and drifting. I saw no sailors, but a 
 great Spanish ensign floated over, and waved, a 
 funeral plume. I knew it then. The armada was 
 long since scattered ; but, floating far 
 
 " on desolate, rainy seas," 
 
 lost for centuries, and again restored to sight, here 
 lay one of the fated ships of Spain. The huge 
 galleon seemed to fill all the air, built up against 
 the sky, like the gilded ships of Claude Lorraine 
 against the sunset. 
 
144 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 But it fled, for now a black flag fluttered at the 
 mast head — a long, low vessel darted swiftly 
 where the vast ship lay ; there came a shrill pip- 
 ing whistle, the clash of cutlasses, fierce ringing 
 oaths, sharp pistol cracks, the thunder of com- 
 mand, and over all the gusty yell of a demoniac 
 chorus, 
 
 " My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed." 
 
 — There were no clouds longer, but under a 
 serene sky I saw a bark moving with festal pomp, 
 thronged with grave senators in flowing robes, 
 and one with ducal bonnet in the midst, holding a 
 ring. The smooth bark swam upon a sea like that 
 of southern latitudes. I saw the Bucentoro and 
 the nuptials of Venice and the Adriatic. 
 
 Who were those coming over the side? Who 
 crowded the boats and sprang into the water, men 
 in old Spanish armor, with plumes and swords, 
 and bearing a glittering cross? Who was he 
 standing upon the deck with folded arms and 
 gazing toward the shore, as lovers on their mis- 
 tresses, and martyrs upon heaven? Over what 
 distant and tumultuous seas had this small craft 
 escaped from other centuries and distant shores? 
 What sounds of foreign hymns, forgotten now, 
 w:ere these, and what solemnity of debarkation? 
 Was this grave form Columbus? 
 
 Yet these were not so Spanish as they seemed 
 just now. This group of stern-faced men with 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 145 
 
 higli-peaked hats, who knelt upon the cold deck 
 and looked out upon a shore which, I could see 
 by their joyless smile of satisfaction, was rough, 
 and bare, and forbidding. In that soft afternoon, 
 standing in mournful groups upon the small deck, 
 why did they seem to me to be seeing the sad 
 shores of wintry New England ? That phantom- 
 ship could not be the Mayflower ! 
 
 I gazed long upon the shifting illusion. 
 
 " If I should board this ship," I asked myself, 
 " where should I go ? whom should I meet ? what 
 should I see ? Is not this the vessel that shall 
 carry me to my Europe, my foreign countries, my 
 impossible India, the Atlantis that I have lost ? " 
 
 As I sat staring at it I could not but wonder 
 whether Bourne had seen this sail when he looked 
 upon the water ? Does he see ^uch sights every 
 day, because he lives here ? Is it not perhaps a 
 magic yacht of his ; and does he slip off privately 
 after business hours to Venice, and Spain, and 
 Egypt, perhaps to El Dorado ? Does he run races 
 with Ptolemy Philopater, and Hiero of Syracuse, 
 race regattas on fabulous seas ? 
 
 Why not ? He is a rich man, too, and why 
 should not a New York merchant do what a Syra- 
 cuse tyrant and an Egyptian prince did? Has 
 Bourne's yacht those sumptuous chambers, like 
 Philopater's galley, of which the greater part was 
 made of split cedar, and of Milesian cypress ; and 
 has he twenty doors put together with beams of 
 
146 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 citron-wood, with many ornaments ? Has the roof 
 of his cabin a carved golden face, and is his sail 
 linen with a purple fringe ? 
 
 " I suppose it is so," I said to myself, as I looked 
 wistfully at the ship, which began to glimmer and 
 melt in the haze. 
 
 " It certainly is not a fishing smack ? " I asked 
 doubtfully. 
 
 No, it must be Bourne's magic yacht ; I was 
 sure of it. I could not help laughing at poor old 
 Hiero, whose cabins were divided into man}^ rooms, 
 with floors composed of mosaic work, of all kinds 
 of stones tessellated. And, on this mosaic, the 
 whole story of the Iliad was depicted in a mar- 
 velous manner. He had gardens " of all sorts of 
 most wonderful beauty enriched with all sorts of 
 plants, and shadowed by roofs of lead or tiles. 
 And, besides this, there were tents roofed with 
 boughs of white ivy and of the vine, the roots 
 of which derived their moisture from casks full of 
 earth, and were watered in the same manner as 
 the gardens. There were temples, also, with doors 
 of ivory and citron-wood, furnished in the most 
 exquisite manner, with pictures and statues, and 
 with goblets and vases of every form and shape 
 imaginable." 
 
 "- Poor Bourne ! " I said, "J suppose his is finer 
 than Hiero's, which is a thousand years old. 
 Poor Bourne ! I don't wonder that his eyes are 
 weary, and that he would pay so dearly for a day 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 147 
 
 of leisure. Dear me ! is it one of the prices that 
 must be paid for wealth, the keeping up a magic 
 yacht ? " 
 
 Involuntarily, I had asked the question aloud. 
 
 "The magic yacht is not Bourne's," answered 
 a familiar voice. I looked up, and Titbottom 
 stood by my side. '' Do you not know that all 
 Bourne's money would not buy the yacht ? " asked 
 he. " He cannot even see it. And if he could, it 
 would be no magic yacht to him, but only a bat- 
 tered and solitary hulk." 
 
 The haze blew gently away, as Titbottom spoke, 
 and there lay my Spanish galleon, my Bucentoro^ 
 my Cleopatra's galley, Columbus' Santa Maria^ 
 and the Pilgrim's Mayflower^ an old bleaching 
 wreck upon the beacli. 
 
 '' Do you suppose any true love is in vain ? " 
 asked Titbottom solemnly, as he stood bare-headed 
 and the soft sunset wind played with his few 
 hairs. " Could Cleopatra smile upon Antony, and 
 the moon upon Endymion, and the sea not love its 
 lovers ? " 
 
 The fresh air breathed upon our faces as he 
 spoke. I might have sailed in Hiero's ship, or in 
 Roman galleys, had I lived centuries ago, and 
 been born a nobleman. But would it be so sweet 
 a remembrance, that of lying on a marble couch, 
 under a golden -faced roof, and within doors of 
 citron-wood and ivory, and sailing in that state 
 to greet queens who are mummies now, as that of 
 
148 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 seeing those fair figures standing under tlie great 
 gonfalon, themselves as lovely as Egyptian belles, 
 and going to see more than Egypt dreamed? 
 
 The yacht was mine, then, and not Bourne's. 
 I took Titbottom's arm, and we sauntered toward 
 the ferry. What sumptuous sultan was I, with 
 this sad vizier ? My languid odalisque, the sea, 
 lay at my feet as we advanced, and sparkled all 
 over with a sunset smile. Had I trusted myself 
 to her arms, to be borne to the realms that I 
 shall never see, or sailed long voyages toward 
 Cathay, I am not sure I should have brought a 
 more precious present to Prue, than the story of 
 that afternoon. 
 
 ''Ought I to have gone alone ? " I asked her, as 
 I ended. 
 
 " I ought not to have gone with you," she 
 replied, '' for I had work to do. But how strange 
 that you should see such things at Staten Island. 
 I never did, Mr. Titbottom," said she, turning to 
 my deputy, whom I had asked to tea. 
 
 "Madam," answered Titbottom, with a kind of 
 wan and quaint dignity, so that I could not help 
 thinking he must have arrived in that stray 
 ship from the Spanish armada, " neither did Mr. 
 Bourne." 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 149 
 
 TITBOTTOM'S SPECTACLES 
 
 " In my mind's eye, Horatio." 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Prue and I do not entertain much ; our means 
 forbid it. In truth, other people entertain for us. 
 We enjoy that hospitality of which no account is 
 made. We see the show, and hear the music, and 
 smell the flowers, of great festivities, tasting, as it 
 were, the drippings from rich dishes. 
 
 Our own dinner service is remarkably plain, our 
 dinners, even on state occasions, are strictly in 
 keeping, and almost our only guest is Titbottom. 
 I buy a handful of roses as I come up from the 
 office, perhaps, and Prue arranges them so prettily 
 in a glass dish for the center of the table, that, 
 even when I have hurried out to see Aurelia step 
 into her carriage to go out to dine, I have thought 
 that the bouquet she carried was not more beauti- 
 ful because it was more costly. 
 
 I grant that it was more harmonious with her 
 superb beauty and her rich attire. And I have no 
 doubt that if Aurelia knew the old man whom she 
 must have seen so often watching her, and his 
 wife, who ornaments her sex with as much sweet- 
 ness, although with less splendor, than Aurelia 
 herself, she would also acknowledge that the nose- 
 gay of roses was as fine and fit upon their table, 
 as her own sumptuous bouquet is for herself. I 
 
150 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 have so much faith in the perception of that lovely 
 lady. 
 
 It is my habit — I hope I may say, my nature 
 — to believe the best of people, rather than the 
 worst. If I thought that all this sparkling set- 
 ting of beauty, — this fine fashion, — these blazing 
 jewels, and lustrous silks, and airy gauzes, embel- 
 lished with gold-threaded embroidery and wrought 
 in a thousand exquisite elaborations, so that I can- 
 not see one of those lovely girls pass me by, with- 
 out thanking God for the vision, — if I thought 
 that this was all, and that, underneath her lace 
 flounces and diamond bracelets, Aurelia was a sul- 
 len, selfish woman, then I should turn sadly home- 
 ward, for I should see that her jewels were flashing 
 scorn upon tlie object they adorned, that her laces 
 were of a more exquisite loveliness than the 
 woman whom they merely touched with a super- 
 ficial grace. It would be like a gayly decorated 
 mausoleum, — bright to see, but silent and dark 
 within. 
 
 " Great excellences, my dear Prue," I sometimes 
 allow myself to say, " lie concealed in the depths 
 of character, like pearls at the bottom of the sea. 
 Under the laughing, glancing surface, how little 
 they are suspected ! Perhaps love is nothing else 
 than the sight of them by one person. Hence 
 every man's mistress is apt to be an enigma to 
 everybody else. 
 
 '' I have no doubt that when Aurelia is engaged, 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 151 
 
 people will say she is a most admirable girl, cer- 
 tainly, but they cannot understand why any man 
 should be in love with her. As if it were at all 
 necessary that they should ! And her lover, like 
 a boy who finds a pearl in the public street, and 
 wonders as much that others did not see it as that 
 he did, will tremble until he knows his passion is 
 returned ; feeling, of course, that the whole world 
 must be in love with this paragon, who cannot 
 possibly smile upon anything so unworthy as he. 
 
 '^I hope, therefore, my dear Mrs. Prue," I con- 
 tinue, and my wife looks up, with pleased pride, 
 from her work, as if I were such an irresistible 
 humorist, " you will allow me to believe that the 
 depth may be calm, although the surface is danc- 
 ing. If you tell me that Aurelia is but a giddy 
 girl, I shall believe that you think so. But I shall 
 know, all the while, what profound dignity, and 
 sweetness, and peace, lie at the foundation of her 
 character." 
 
 I say such things to Titbottom, during the dull 
 season at the office. And I have known him some- 
 times to reply, with a kind of dry, sad humor, not 
 as if he enjoyed the joke, but as if the joke must 
 be made, that he saw no reason why I should be 
 dull because the season was so. 
 
 " And what do I know of Aurelia, or any other 
 girl ? " he says to me with that abstracted air, " I, 
 whose Aurelias were of another century, and an- 
 other zone." 
 
152 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 Then he falls into a silence which it seems quite 
 profane to interrupt. But as we sit upon our high 
 stools, at the desk, opposite each other, I leaning 
 upon my elbows, and looking at him, he, with 
 sidelong face, glancing out of the window, as if it 
 commanded a boundless landscape, instead of a 
 dim, dingy office court, I cannot refrain from 
 saying : 
 
 " Well ! " 
 
 He turns slowly, and I go chatting on, — a little 
 too loquacious, perhaps, about those young girls. 
 But I know that Titbottom regards such an excess 
 as venial, for his sadness is so sweet that you could 
 believe it the reflection of a smile from long, long 
 years ago. 
 
 One day, after I had been talking for a long 
 time, and we had put up our books, and were pre- 
 paring to leave, he stood for some time by the 
 window, gazing with a drooping intentness, as if 
 he really saw something more than the dark court, 
 and said slowly : — 
 
 " Perhaps you would have different impressions 
 of things, if you saw them through my spectacles." 
 
 There was no change in his expression. He 
 still looked from the window, and I said : — 
 
 "Titbottom, I did not know that you used 
 glasses. I have never seen you wearing spec- 
 tacles." 
 
 " No, I don't often wear them. I am not very 
 fond of looking through them. But sometimes an 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 153 
 
 irresistible necessity compels me to put them on, 
 and I cannot help seeing." 
 
 Titbottom sighed. 
 
 " Is it so grievous a fate to see ? " inquired I. 
 
 " Yes ; through my spectacles," he said, turning 
 slowly, and looking at me with wan solemnity. 
 
 It grew dark as we stood in the office talking, 
 and, taking our hats, we went out together. The 
 narrow street of business was deserted. The heavy 
 iron shutters were gloomily closed over the win- 
 dows. From one or two offices struggled the dim 
 gleam of an early candle, by whose light some per- 
 plexed accountant sat belated, and hunting for his 
 error. A careless clerk passed, whistling. But 
 the great tide of life had ebbed. We heard its 
 roar far away, and the sound stole into that silent 
 street like the murmur of the ocean into an inland 
 dell. 
 
 " You will come and dine with us, Titbottom ? " 
 
 He assented by continuing to walk with me, and 
 I think we were both glad when we reached the 
 house, and Prue came to meet us, saying : — 
 
 '' Do you know, I hoped you would bring Mr. 
 Titbottom to dine." 
 
 Titbottom smiled gently, and answered : — 
 
 '' He might have brought his spectacles with 
 him, and have been a happier man for it." 
 
 Prue looked a little puzzled. 
 
 " My dear," I said; " you must know that our 
 friend, Mr. Titbottom, is the happy possessor of a 
 
154 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 pair of wonderful spectacles. I have never seen 
 them, indeed ; and, from what he says, I should 
 be rather afraid of being seen by them. Most 
 short-sighted persons are very glad to have the 
 help of glasses ; but Mr. Titbottom seems to find 
 very little pleasure in his." 
 
 "It is because they make him too far-sighted, 
 perhaps," interrupted Prue, quietly, as she took 
 the silver soup-ladle from the sideboard. 
 
 We sipped our wine after dinner, and Prue took 
 her work. Can a man be too far-sighted ? I did 
 not ask the question aloud. The very tone in which 
 Prue had spoken convinced me that he might. 
 
 " At least," I said, " Mr. Titbottom will not 
 refuse to tell us the history of his mysterious 
 spectacles. I have known plenty of magic in 
 eyes (and I glanced at the tender blue eyes of 
 Prue), but I have not heard of any enchanted 
 glasses." 
 
 " Yet you must have seen the glass in which 
 your Avife looks every morning, and, I take it, 
 that glass must be daily enchanted," said Titbot- 
 tom, with a bow of quaint respect to my wife. 
 
 I do not think I have seen such a blush upon 
 Prue's cheek since — well, since a great many 
 years ago. 
 
 '' I will gladly tell you the history of my spec- 
 tacles," began Titbottom. '' It is very simple ; 
 and I am not at all sure that a great many other 
 people have not a pair of the same kind. I have 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 155 
 
 never, indeed, heard of them by the gross, like 
 those of our young friend Moses, the son of the 
 Vicar of Wakefield. In fact, I think a gross 
 would be quite enough to supply the world. It 
 is a kind of article for which the demand does not 
 increase with use. If we should all wear spec- 
 tacles like mine, we should never smile any more. 
 Or — I am not quite sure — we should all be very 
 happy." 
 
 '' A very important difference," said Prue, count- 
 ing her stitches. 
 
 " You know my grandfather Titbottom was a 
 West Indian. A large proprietor, and an easy 
 man, he basked in the tropical sun, leading his 
 quiet, luxurious life. He lived much alone, and 
 was what people called eccentric ^- by which I un- 
 derstand that he was very much himself, and, refus- 
 ing the influence of other people, they had their 
 revenges, and called him names. It is a habit not 
 exclusively tropical. I think I have seen the same 
 thing even in this city. 
 
 " But he was greatly beloved — my bland and 
 bountiful grandfather. He was so large-hearted 
 and open-handed. He was so friendly, and thought- 
 ful, and genial that even his jokes had the air of 
 graceful benedictions. He did not seem to grow 
 old, and he was one of those who never appear to 
 have been very young. He flourished in a peren- 
 nial maturity, an immortal middle age. 
 
 '' My grandfatlier lived upon one of the small 
 
156 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 islands — St. Kitt's perha^ps — and his domain 
 extended to the sea. His house, a rambling 
 West Indian mansion, was surrounded with deep, 
 spacious piazzas, covered with luxurious lounges, 
 among which one capacious chair was his peculiar 
 seat. They tell me, he used sometimes to sit 
 there for the whole day, his great, soft, brown 
 eyes fastened upon the sea, watching the specks 
 of sails that flashed upon the horizon, while the 
 evanescent expressions chased each other over his 
 placid face as if it reflected the calm and changing 
 sea before him. 
 
 " His morning costume was an ample dressing- 
 gown of gorgeously flowered silk, and his morning 
 was very apt to last all day. He rarely read ; but 
 he would pace the great piazza for hours, with his 
 hands buried in the pockets of his dressing-gown, 
 and an air of sweet reverie, which any book must 
 be a very entertaining one to produce. 
 
 " Society, of course, he saw little. There was 
 some slight apprehension that, if he were bidden 
 to social entertainments, he might forget his coat, 
 or arrive without some other essential part of his 
 dress ; and there is a sly tradition in the Titbottom 
 family that once, having been invited to a ball in 
 honor of a new governor of the island, my grand- 
 father Titbottom sauntered into the hall toward 
 midnight wrapped in the gorgeous flowers of his 
 dressing-gown, and with his hands buried in the 
 pockets, as usual. There was great excitement 
 
 ^ 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 157 
 
 among the guests, and immense deprecation of 
 gubernatorial ire. Fortunately, it happened that 
 the governor and my grandfather were old friends, 
 and there was no offense. But, as they were con- 
 versing together, one of the distressed managers 
 cast indignant glances at the brilliant costume of 
 my grandfather, who summoned him, and asked 
 courteously : — 
 
 '^' Did you invite me, or my coat ? ' 
 
 " ' You in a proper coat,' replied the manager. 
 
 '^ The governor smiled approvingly, and looked 
 at my grandfather. 
 
 " ' My friend,' said he to the manager, ' I beg 
 your pardon, I forgot.' 
 
 " The next day, my grandfather was seen prom- 
 enading in full ball dress along the streets of the 
 little town. 
 
 " ' They ought to know,' said he, ' that I have a 
 proper coat, and that not contempt, nor poverty, 
 but f orgetf ulness, sent me to a ball in my dressing- 
 gown.' 
 
 " He did not much frequent social festivals after 
 this failure, but he always told the story with sat- 
 isfaction and a quiet smile. 
 
 " To a stranger, life upon those little islands is 
 uniform even to weariness. But the old native 
 dons, like my grandfather, ripen in the prolonged 
 sunshine, like the turtle upon the Bahama banks, 
 nor know of existenbe more desirable. Life in 
 the tropics I take to be a placid torpidity. 
 
158 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 "• During the long, warm mornings of nearly 
 half a century, my grandfather Titbottom had sat 
 in his dressing-gown, and gazed at the sea. But 
 one calm June day, as he slowly paced the piazza 
 after breakfast, his dreamy glance was arrested by 
 a little vessel, evidently nearing the shore. He 
 called for his spyglass, and, surveying the craft, 
 saw that she came from the neighboring island. 
 She glided smoothly, slowly, over the summer sea. 
 The warm morning air was sweet with perfumes, 
 and silent with heat. The sea sparkled languidly, 
 and the brilliant blue sky hung cloudlessly over. 
 Scores of little island vessels had my grandfather 
 seen coming over the horizon, and cast anchor in 
 the port. Hundreds of summer mornings had the 
 white sails flashed and faded, like vague faces 
 through forgotten dreams. But this time he laid 
 down the spyglass, and leaned against a column of 
 the piazza, and watched the vessel with an intent- 
 ness that he could not explain. She came nearer 
 and nearer, a graceful specter in the dazzling 
 morning. 
 
 " ' Decidedly, I must step down and see about 
 that vessel,' said my grandfather Titbottom. 
 
 " He gathered his ample dressing gown about 
 him, and stepped from the piazza, with no other 
 protection from the sun than the little smoking- 
 cap upon his head. His face wore a calm, beam- 
 ing smile, as if he loved the whole world. He 
 was not an old man ; but there was almost a patri- 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 159 
 
 archal pathos in his expression, as he sauntered 
 along in the sunshine toward the shore. A 
 group of idle gazers Avas collected, to watch the 
 arrival. The little vessel furled her sails, and 
 drifted slowly landward, and, as she was of very 
 light draft, she came close to the shelving shore. 
 A long plank was put out from her side, and the 
 debarkation commenced. 
 
 " My grandfather Titbottom stood looking on, 
 to see the passengers as they passed. There were 
 but a few of them, and mostly traders from the 
 neighboring island. But suddenly the face of a 
 young girl appeared over the side of the vessel, 
 and she stepped upon the plank to descend. My 
 grandfather Titbottom instantly advanced, and, 
 moving briskly, reached the top of the plank at 
 the same moment, and with the gold tassel of his 
 cap flashing in the sun, and one hand in the pocket 
 of his dressing-gown, with the other he handed the 
 young lady carefully down the plank. That young 
 lady was afterward my grandmother Titbottom. 
 
 "For, over the gleaming sea which he had 
 watched so long, and which seemed thus to reward 
 his patient gaze, came his bride that sunny morn- 
 ing. 
 
 " ' Of course, we are happy,' he used to say to 
 her, after they were married : ' for you are the 
 gift of the sun I have loved so long and so well.' 
 And my grandfather Titbottom would lay his 
 liand so tenderly upon the golden hair of his 
 
160 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 young bride, that you could fancy him a devout 
 Parsee,! caressing sunbeams. 
 
 " There were endless festivities upon occasion 
 of the marriage ; and my grandfather did not go 
 to one of them in his dressing-gown. The gentle 
 sweetness of his wife melted every heart into love 
 and sympathy. He was much older than she, 
 without doubt. But age, as he used to say with a 
 smile of immortal youth, is a matter of feeling, 
 not of years. 
 
 '' And if, sometimes, as she sat by his side on 
 the piazza, her fancy looked through her eyes 
 upon that summer sea, and saw a younger lover, 
 perhaps some one of those graceful and glowing 
 heroes who occupy the foreground of all young 
 maidens' visions by the sea, yet she could not find 
 one more generous and gracious, nor fancy one 
 more worthy and loving, than my grandfather 
 Titbottom. 
 
 " And if, in the moonlit midnight, while he lay 
 calmly sleeping, she leaned out of the window, and 
 sank into vague reveries of sweet possibility, and 
 watched the gleaming path of the moonlight upon 
 the water, until the dawn glided over it, — - it was 
 only that mood of nameless regret and longing, 
 which underlies all human happiness ; or it was 
 the vision of that life of cities and the world, 
 which she had never seen, but of which she had 
 often read, and which looked very fair and allur- 
 
 1 Because the Parsees are Sun-worshipers. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 161 
 
 ing across the sea, to a girlish imagination, which 
 knew that it should never see that reality. 
 
 " These West Indian years were the great days 
 of the family," said Titbottom, with an air of 
 majestic and regal regret, pausing, and musing, 
 in our little parlor, like a late Stuart ^ in exile, 
 remembering England. 
 
 Prue raised her eyes from her work, and looked 
 at him with subdued admiration ; for I have 
 observed that, like the rest of her sex, she has a 
 singular sympathy with the representative of a 
 reduced family. 
 
 Perhaps it is their finer perception, which leads 
 these tender-hearted women to recognize the divine 
 right of social superiority so much more readily 
 than we ; and yet, much as Titbottom was en- 
 hanced in my wife's admiration by the discovery 
 that his dusky sadness of nature and expression 
 was, as it were, the expiring gleam and late twi- 
 light of ancestral splendors, I doubt if Mr. Bourne 
 would have preferred him for bookkeeper a mo- 
 ment sooner upon that account. In truth, I have 
 observed, down town, that the fact of your ances- 
 tors doing nothing is not considered good proof 
 that you can do anything. 
 
 But Prue and her sex regard sentiment more 
 than action, and I understand easily enough why 
 she is never tired of hearing me read of Prince 
 
 ^ Like the Henry IX. of p. 201, elder brother of the Prince Charlie 
 of p. 202. 
 
 ai 
 
162 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 Charlie. If Titbottom had been only a little 
 younger, a little liandsomer, a little more gallantly 
 dressed — in fact a little more of a Prince Charlie, 
 I am sure her eyes would not have fallen again 
 upon her work so tranquilly, as he resumed his 
 storJ^ 
 
 " I can remember my grandfather Titbottom, 
 although I was a very young child, and he was a 
 very old man. My young mother and my young 
 grandmother are very distinct figures in my mem- 
 ory, ministering to the old gentleman, wrapped in 
 his dressing-gown, and seated upon the piazza. I 
 remember his white hair, and his calm smile, and 
 how, not long before he died, he called me to him, 
 and laying his hand upon my head said to me : — 
 
 " ' My child, the world is not this great sunny 
 piazza, nor life the fairy stories which the women 
 tell you here, as you sit in their laps. I shall 
 soon be gone, but I want to leave with you some 
 memento of my love for you, and I know of noth- 
 ing more valuable than these spectacles, which 
 your grandmother brought from her native island, 
 when she arrived here one fine summer morning, 
 long ago. I cannot tell whether, when you grow 
 older, you will regard them as a gift of the greatest 
 value, or as something you had been happier never 
 to have possessed.' 
 
 '' ' But, grandpapa, I am not short-sighted.' 
 
 " ' My son, are you not human ? ' said the old 
 gentleman ; and how shall I ever forget the 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 163 
 
 thoughtful sadness with which, at the same time, 
 he handed me the spectacles. 
 
 " Instinctively I put them on, and looked at my 
 grandfather. But I saw no grandfather, no piazza, 
 no flowered dressing-gown ; I saw only a luxuri- 
 ant palm tree, waving broadly over a tranquil 
 landscape ; pleasant homes clustered around it ; 
 gardens teeming with fruit and flowers ; flocks 
 quietly feeding ; birds wheeling and chirping. I 
 heard children's voices, and the low lullaby of 
 happy mothers. The sound of cheerful singing 
 came wafted from distant fields upon the light 
 breeze. Golden harvests glistened out of sight, 
 and I caught their rustling whispers of prosperity. 
 A warm, yellow atmosphere bathed the whole. 
 
 " I have seen copies of the landscapes of the 
 Italian painter Claude, which seemed to me faint 
 reminiscences of that calm and happy vision. But 
 all this peace and prosperity seemed to flow from 
 the spreading palm as from a fountain. 
 
 " I do not know how long I looked, but I had, 
 apparently, no power, as I had no will, to remove 
 the spectacles. What a wonderful island must 
 Nevis be, thought I, if people carry such pictures 
 in their pockets, only by buying a pair of specta- 
 cles ! What wonder that my dear grandmother 
 Titbottom has lived such a placid life, and has 
 blessed us all with her sunny temper, where she 
 has lived surrounded 'by such images of peace ! 
 
 " My grandfather died. But still, in the warm 
 
164 HAWTHOBJSr^ CLASSICS 
 
 morning sunshine upon the piazza, I felt his placid 
 presence, and as I crawled into his great chair, 
 and drifted on in reverie through the still tropical 
 day, it was as if his soft dreamy eye had passed 
 into my soul. My grandmother cherished his 
 memory with tender regret. A violent passion of 
 grief for his loss was no more possible than for the 
 pensive decay of the year. 
 
 " We have no portrait of him, but I see always, 
 when I remember him, that peaceful and luxuriant 
 palm. And I think to have known one good old 
 man — one man who, through the chances and 
 rubs of a long life, has carried his heart in his 
 hand, like a palm branch, waving all discords into 
 peace — helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in 
 each other, more than many sermons. I hardly 
 know whether to be grateful to my grandfather for 
 the spectacles ; and yet when I remember that it 
 is to them I owe the pleasant image of him which 
 I cherish, I seem to myself sadly ungrateful. 
 
 " Madam," said Titbottom to Prue, solemnly, 
 " my memory is a long and gloomy gallery, and 
 only remotely, at its further end, do I see the 
 glimmer of soft sunshine, and only there are the 
 pleasant pictures hung. They seem to me very 
 happy along whose gallery the sunlight streams 
 to their very feet, striking all the pictured walls 
 into unfading splendor." 
 
 Prue had laid her work in her lap, and as Tit- 
 bottom paused a moment, and I turned toward 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 165 
 
 her, I found her mild eyes fastened upon my face, 
 and glistening with many tears. I knew that the 
 tears meant that she felt herself to be one of those 
 who seemed to Titbottom very happy. 
 
 "Misfortunes of many kinds came heavily upon 
 the family after the head was gone. The great 
 house was relinquished. My parents were both 
 dead, and my grandmother had entire charge of 
 me. But from the moment that I received the 
 gift of the spectacles, I could not resist their fasci- 
 nation, and I withdrew into myself, and became a 
 solitary boy. There were not many companions for 
 me of my own age, and they gradually left me, or, 
 at least, had not a hearty sympathy with me ; for, 
 if they teased me, I pulled out my spectacles and 
 surveyed them so seriously that they acquired a 
 kind of awe of me, and evidently regarded my 
 grandfather's gift as a concealed magical weapon 
 which might be dangerously drawn upon them at 
 any moment. Whenever, in our games, there 
 were quarrels and high words, and I began to feel 
 about my dress and to wear a grave look, they all 
 took the alarm, and shouted, ' Look out for Tit- 
 bottom's spectacles,' and scattered like a flock of 
 scared sheep. 
 
 " Nor could I wonder at it. For, at first, before 
 they took the alarm, I saw strange sights when I 
 looked at them through the glasses. 
 
 " If two were quarreling about a marble or a 
 ball, I had only to go behind a tree where I was 
 
166 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 concealed and look at them leisurely. Then the 
 scene changed, and it was no longer a green 
 meadow with boys playing, but a spot which I 
 did not recognize, and forms that made me shud- 
 der, or smile. It was not a big boy bullying a 
 little one, but a young wolf with glistening teeth 
 and a lamb cowering before him ; or it was a dog 
 faithful and famishing — or a star going slowly 
 into eclipse — or a rainbow fading — or a flower 
 blooming — or a sun rising — or a waning moon. 
 
 " The revelations of the spectacles determined 
 my feeling for the boys, and for all whom I saw 
 through them. No shyness, nor awkwardness, 
 nor silence, could separate me from those who 
 looked lovely as lilies to my illuminated eyes. 
 But the vision made me afraid. If I felt myself 
 warmly drawn to any one, I struggled with the 
 fierce desire of seeing him through the spectacles, 
 for I feared to find him something else than I 
 fancied. I longed to enjoy the luxury of ignorant 
 feeling, to love without knowing, to float like a 
 leaf upon the eddies of life, drifted now to a sunny 
 point, now to a solemn shade — now over glitter- 
 ing ripples, now over gleaming calms, — and not 
 to determined ports, a trim vessel with an inexo- 
 rable rudder. 
 
 " But sometimes, mastered after long struggles, 
 as if the unavoidable condition of owning the 
 spectacles were using them, I seized them and 
 sauntered into the little town. Putting them to 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 167 
 
 my eyes, I peered into the houses and at the 
 people who passed me. Here sat a family at 
 breakfast, and I stood at the window looking in. 
 
 motley meal ! fantastic vision ! The good 
 mother saw her lord sitting opposite, a grave, 
 respectable being, eating muffins. But I saw 
 only a bank-bill, more or less crumpled and 
 tattered, marked with a larger or lesser figure. 
 If a sharp wind blew suddenly, I saw it tremble 
 and flutter ; it was thin, flat, impalpable. I 
 removed my glasses, and looked with my eyes at 
 the wife. I could have smiled to see the humid 
 tenderness with which she regarded her strange 
 viS'd-vis, Is life only a game of blindman's buff ? 
 of droll cross-purposes ? 
 
 "- Or I put them on again, and then looked at the 
 wives. How many stout trees I saw, — how 
 many tender flowers, — how many placid pools ; 
 yes, and how many little streams winding out of 
 sight, shrinking before the large, hard, round 
 eyes opposite, and slipping off into solitude and 
 shade, with a low, inner song for their own 
 solace. 
 
 " In many houses I thought to see angels, 
 nymphs, or, at least, women, and could only find 
 broomsticks, mops, or kettles, hurrying about, 
 rattling and tinkling, in a state of shrill activity. 
 
 1 made calls upon elegant ladies, and after I had 
 enjoyed the gloss of silk, and the delicacy of lace, 
 and the glitter of jewels, I slipped on my spec- 
 
168 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 tacles, and saw a peacock's feather, flounced, and 
 furbelowed, and fluttering ; or an iron rod, thin, 
 sharp, and hard ; nor could I possibly mistake the 
 movement of the drapery for any flexibility of the 
 thing draped. 
 
 ^' Or, mysteriously chilled, 1 saw a statue of 
 perfect form, or flowing movement, it might be 
 alabaster, or bronze, or marble, — but sadly often 
 it was ice ; and I knew that after it had shone a 
 little, and frozen a few eyes with its despairing 
 perfection, it could not be put away in the niches 
 of palaces for ornament and proud family tradi- 
 tion, like the alabaster, or bronze, or marble, 
 statues, but would melt, and shrink, and fall 
 coldly away in colorless and useless Avater, be 
 absorbed in the earth and utterly forgotten. 
 
 " But the true sadness was rather in seeing 
 those who, not having the spectacles, thought 
 that the iron rod was flexible, and the ice statue 
 warm. I saw many a gallant heart, which seemed 
 to me brave and loyal as the crusaders, pursuing, 
 through days and nights, and a long life of devo- 
 tion, the hope of lighting at least a smile in the 
 cold eyes, if not a fire in the icy heart. I watched 
 the earnest, enthusiastic sacrifice. I saw the pure 
 resolve, the generous faith, the fine scorn of doubt, 
 the impatience of suspicion. I watched the grace, 
 the ardor, the glory of devotion. Through those 
 strange spectacles how often I saw the noblest 
 heart renouncing all other hope, all other ambi- 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 169 
 
 tion, all other life, than the possible love of some 
 one of those statues. 
 
 " Ah ! me, it was terrible, but they had not the 
 love to give. The face was so polished and 
 smooth, because there was no sorrow in the heart, 
 — and drearily, often, no heart to be touched. I 
 could not wonder that the noble heart of devotion 
 was broken, for it had dashed itself against a stone. 
 I wept, until my spectacles were dimmed, for those 
 hopeless lovers ; but there was a pang beyond tears 
 for those icy statues. 
 
 "Still a boy, I was thus too much a man in 
 knowledge, — I did not comprehend the sights 1 
 was compelled to see. I used to tear my glasses 
 away from my eyes, and, frightened at myself, 
 run to escape my own consciousness. Reaching 
 the small house where we then lived, I plunged 
 into my grandmother's room, and, throwing myself 
 upon the floor, buried my face in her lap ; and 
 sobbed myself to sleep with premature grief. 
 
 " But when I awakened, and felt her cool hand 
 upon my hot forehead, and heard the low sweet 
 song, or the gentle story, or the tenderly told 
 parable from the Bible, with which she tried to 
 soothe me, I could not resist the mystic fascination 
 that lured me, as I lay in her lap, to steal a glance 
 at her through the spectacles. 
 
 " Pictures of the Madonna have not her rare 
 and pensive beauty.' Upon the tranquil little 
 islands her life had been eventless, and all the 
 
170 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 fine possibilities of her nature were like flowers 
 that never bloomed. Placid were all her years ; 
 yet I have read of no 'heroine, of no woman great 
 in sudden crises, that it did not seem to me she 
 might have been. The wife and widow of a man 
 who loved his home better than the homes of 
 others, I have yet heard of no queen, no belle, no 
 imperial beauty, whom in grace, and brilliancy, 
 and persuasive courtesy she might not have 
 surpassed. 
 
 " Madam," said Titbottom to my wife, whose 
 heart hung upon his story, " your husband's young 
 friend, Aurelia, wears sometimes a camellia in her 
 hair, and no diamond in the ball-room seems so 
 costly as that perfect flower, which women envy, 
 and for whose least and withered petal men sigh ; 
 yet, in the tropical solitudes of Brazil, how many 
 a camellia bud drops from the bush that no eye 
 has ever seen, which, had it flowered and been 
 noticed, would have gilded all hearts with its 
 memory. 
 
 " When I stole these furtive glances at my 
 grandmother, half fearing that they were wrong, 
 I saw only a calm lake, whose shores were low, 
 and over which the sun hung unbroken, so that 
 the least star was clearly reflected. It had an 
 atmosphere of solemn twilight tranquillity, and so 
 completely did its unruffled surface blend with 
 the cloudless, star-studded sky, that, when I 
 looked through my spectacles at my grand- 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 171 
 
 mother, the vision seemed to me all heaven and 
 stars. 
 
 '' Yet, as I gazed and gazed, I felt what stately 
 cities might well have been built upon those 
 shores, and have flashed prosperity over the calm, 
 like coruscations of pearls. I dreamed of gorgeous 
 fleets, silken-sailed, and blown by perfumed winds, 
 drifting over those depthless waters and through 
 those spacious skies. I gazed upon the twilight, 
 the inscrutable silence, like a God-fearing dis- 
 coverer upon a new and vast sea bursting upon 
 him through forest glooms, and in the fervor of 
 whose impassioned gaze a millennial and poetic 
 world arises, and man need no longer die to be 
 happy. 
 
 "My companions naturally deserted me, for I 
 had grown wearily grave and abstracted : and, 
 unable to resist the allurements of my spectacles, 
 I was constantly lost in the world, of which those 
 companions were part, yet of which they knew 
 nothing. 
 
 " I grew cold and hard, almost morose ; people 
 seemed to me so blind and unreasonable. They 
 did the wrong thing. They called green, yellow ; 
 and black, white. Young men said of a girl, 
 ' What a lovely, simple creature ! ' I looked, and 
 there was only a glistening wisp of straw, dry and 
 hollow. Or they said, ' What a cold, proud 
 beauty ! ' I looked, and lo ! a Madonna, whose 
 heart held the world. Or they said, ' What a 
 
172 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 wild, giddy girl ! ' and I saw a glancing, dancing 
 mountain stream, pure as the virgin snows whence 
 it flowed, singing through sun and shade, over 
 pearls and gold dust, slipping along unstained by 
 weed or rain, or heavy foot of cattle, touching the 
 flowers with a dewy kiss, — a beam of grace, a 
 happy song, a line of light, in the dim and troubled 
 landscape. 
 
 '' My grandmother sent me to school, but I 
 looked at the master, and saw that he was a 
 smooth, round ferule, or an improper noun, or a 
 vulgar fraction, and refused to obey him. Or he 
 was a piece of string, a rag, a willow wand, and I 
 had a contemptuous pity. But one was a well of 
 cool, deep water, and looking suddenly in, one day, 
 I saw the stars. 
 
 '' That one gave me all my schooling. With 
 him I used to walk by the sea, and, as we strolled 
 and the waves plunged in long legions before us, 
 I looked at him through the spectacles, and as his 
 eyes dilated with the boundless view, and his 
 chest heaved with an impossible desire, I saw 
 Xerxes and his army, tossed and glittering, rank 
 upon rank, multitude upon multitude, out of sight, 
 but ever regularly advancing, and, with confused 
 roar of ceaseless music, prostrated themselves in 
 abject homage. Or, as with arms outstretched and 
 hair streaming on the wind, he chanted full lines of 
 the resounding Iliad, I saw Homer pacing the Egean 
 sands of the Greek sunsets of forgotten times. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 173 
 
 " My grandmother died, and I was thrown into 
 the world without resources, and with no capital 
 but my spectacles. I tried to find employment, 
 but everybody was shy of me. There was a vague 
 suspicion that I was either a little crazed, or a 
 good deal in league with the prince of darkness. 
 My companions, who would persist in calling a 
 piece of painted muslin a fair and fragrant flower, 
 had no difficulty ; success waited for them around 
 every corner, and arrived in every ship. 
 
 " I tried to teach, for I loved children. But if 
 anything excited a suspicion of my pupils, and 
 putting on my spectacles, I saw that I was fond- 
 ling a snake, or smelling at a bud with a worm in 
 it, I sprang up in horror and ran away; or, if it 
 seemed to me, through the glasses, that a cherub 
 smiled upon me, or a rose was blooming in my but- 
 ton-hole, then I felt myself imperfect and impure, 
 not fit to be leading and training what was so 
 essentially superior to myself, and I kissed the 
 children and left them weeping and wondering. 
 
 " In despair I went to a great merchant on the 
 island, and asked him to employ me. 
 
 " ' My dear young friend,' said he, 'I understand 
 that you have some singular secret, some charm, 
 or spell, or amulet, or something, I don't know 
 what, of which people are afraid. Now, you know, 
 my dear,' said tlie merchant, swelling up, and 
 apparently prouder of his great stomach than of 
 his large fortune, ' I am not of that kind. I am 
 
174 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 not easily frightened. You may spare yourself 
 the pain of trying to impose upon me. People 
 who propose to come to time before I arrive, are 
 accustomed to arise very early in the morning,' 
 said he, thrusting his thumbs in the armholes of 
 his waistcoat, and spreading the fingers like two 
 fans, upon his bosom. 'I think I have heard 
 something of your secret. You have a pair of 
 spectacles, I believe, that you value very much, 
 because your grandmother brought them as a mar- 
 riage portion to your grandfather. Now, if you 
 think fit to sell me those spectacles, I will pay 
 you the largest market price for them. What do 
 you say ? ' 
 
 "- 1 told him I had not the slightest idea of sell- 
 ing my spectacles. 
 
 " ' My young friend means to eat them, I sup- 
 pose,' said he, with a contemptuous smile. 
 
 " I made no reply, but was turning to leave the 
 office, when the merchant called after me : — 
 
 " ' My young friend, poor people should never 
 suffer themselves to get into pets. Anger is an 
 expensive luxury, in which only men of a certain 
 income can indulge. A pair of spectacles and a 
 hot temper are not the most promising capital for 
 success in life. Master Titbottom.' 
 
 " I said nothing, but put my hand upon the 
 door to go out, when the merchant said more 
 respectfully : — 
 
 '^ ' Well, you foolish boy, if you will not sell 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 176 
 
 your spectacles, perhaps you will agree to sell the 
 use of them to me. That is, you shall only put 
 them on when I direct you, and for my purposes. 
 Hallo ! you little fool ! ' cried he, impatiently, as 
 he saw that I intended to make no reply. 
 
 "But I had pulled out my spectacles and put 
 them on for my own purposes, and against his 
 wish and desire. I looked at him, and saw a huge, 
 bald-headed, wild boar, with gross chaps and a leer- 
 ing eye — only the more ridiculous for the high- 
 arch, gold-bowed spectacles that straddled his 
 nose. One of his fore-hoofs was thrust into the 
 safe, where his bills receivable were hived, and 
 the other into his pocket, among the loose change 
 and bills there. His ears were pricked forward 
 with a brisk, sensitive smartness. In a world 
 where prize pork was the best excellence, he 
 would have carried off all the premiums. 
 
 " I stepped into the next office in the street, and 
 a mild-faced, genial man, also a large and opulent 
 merchant, asked me my business in such a tone, 
 that I instantly looked through my spectacles, and 
 saw a land flowing with milk and honey. There 
 I pitched my tent, and stayed till the good man 
 died, and his business was discontinued. 
 
 " But while there," said Titbottom, and his 
 voice trembled away into a sigh, '' I first saw 
 Preciosa. Despite the spectacles, I saw Preciosa. 
 For days, for weeks, for months, I did not take 
 my spectacles with me. I ran away from them, 
 
176 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 I threw them up on high shelves, I tried to make 
 up my mind to throw them into the sea, or down 
 the well. I could not, I would not, I dared not 
 look at Preciosa through the spectacles. It was 
 not possible for me deliberately to destroy them ; 
 but I awoke in the night, and could almost have 
 cursed my dear old grandfather for his gift. 
 
 " I sometimes escaped from the office, and sat 
 for whole days with Preciosa. I told her the 
 strange things I had seen with my mystic glasses. 
 The hours were not enough for the wild romances 
 which I raved in her ear. She listened, aston- 
 ished and appalled. Her blue eyes turned upon 
 me with sweet deprecation. She clung to me 
 and then withdrew, and fled fearfully from the 
 room. 
 
 " But she could not stay away. She could not 
 resist my voice, in whose tones burnt all the love 
 that filled my heart and brain. The very effort 
 to resist the desire of seeing her as I saw everybody 
 else, gave a frenzy and an unnatural tension to my 
 feeling and my manner. I sat by her side, look- 
 ing into her eyes, smoothing her hair, folding her 
 to my heart, which was sunken deep and deep — 
 why not forever? — in that dream of peace. I ran 
 from her presence, and shouted, and leaped with 
 joy, and sat the whole night through, thrilled into 
 happiness by the thought of her love and loveli- 
 ness, like a wind-harp, tightly strung, and answer- 
 ing the airiest sigh of the breeze with music. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 177 
 
 " Then came calmer days — the conviction of 
 deep love settled upon our lives — as after the 
 hurrying, heaving days of spring comes the bland 
 and benignant summer. 
 
 '^ ' It is no dream, then, after all, and we are 
 happy,' I said to her, one day ; and there came no 
 answer, for happiness is speechless. 
 
 " ' We are happy, then,' I said to myself, ' there 
 is no excitement now. How glad I am that I can 
 now look at her through my spectacles.' 
 
 " I feared lest some instinct should warn me to 
 beware. I escaped from her arms, and ran home 
 and seized the glasses, and bounded back again to 
 Preciosa. As I entered the room I was heated, 
 my head was swimming with confused apprehen- 
 sions, my eyes must have glared. Preciosa was 
 frightened, and rising from her seat, stood with 
 an inquiring glance of surprise in her eyes. 
 
 " But I was bent with frenzy upon my purpose. 
 I was merely aware that she was in the room. I 
 saw nothing else. I heard nothing. I cared for 
 nothing, but to see her through that magic glass, 
 and feel at once all the fullness of blissful perfec- 
 tion which that would reveal. Preciosa stood before 
 the mirror, but alarmed at my wild and eager move- 
 ments, unable to distinguish what I had in my 
 hands, and seeing me raise them suddenlj^ to my 
 face, she shrieked with terror, and fell fainting 
 upon the floor, at the very moment that I placed 
 the glasses before my eyes, and beheld — myself^ 
 
178 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 reflected in the mirror, before which she had been 
 standing. 
 
 '' Dear madam," cried Titbottom, to my wife, 
 springing up and falling back again in his chair, 
 pale and trembling, while Prue ran to him and 
 took his hand, and I poured out a glass of water 
 — "I saw myself." 
 
 There was silence for many minutes. Prue laid 
 her hands gently upon the head of our guest, 
 whose eyes were closed, and who breathed softly 
 like an infant in sleeping. Perhaps, in all the 
 long years of anguish since that hour, no tender 
 hand had touched his brow, nor wiped away the 
 damps of a bitter sorrow. Perhaps the tender, 
 maternal fingers of my wife soothed his weary 
 head with the conviction that he felt the hand of 
 his mother playing with the long hair of her boy 
 in the soft West India morning. Perhaps it was 
 only the natural relief of expressing a pent-up 
 sorrow. 
 
 When he spoke again, it was with the old sub- 
 dued tone, and the air of quaint solemnity. 
 
 '' These things were matters of long, long ago, 
 and I came to this country soon after. I brought 
 with me, premature age, a past of melancholy 
 memories, and the magic spectacles. I had become 
 their slave. I had nothing more to fear. Having 
 seen myself, I was compelled to see others, properly 
 to understand my relations to them. The lights 
 that cheer the future of other men had gone out 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS. 179 
 
 for me ; my eyes were those of an exile turned 
 backwards upon the receding shore, and not for- 
 wards with hope upon the ocean. 
 
 " I mingled with men, but with little pleasure. 
 There are but many varieties of a few types. I 
 did not find those I came to clearer sighted than 
 those I had left behind. I heard men called 
 shrewd and wise, and report said they were highly 
 intelligent and successful. My finest sense de- 
 tected no aroma of purity and principle ; but I 
 saw only a fungus that had flattened and spread 
 in a night. They went to the theaters to see 
 actors upon the stage. I went to see actors in the 
 boxes, so consummately cunning, that others did 
 not know they were acting, and they did not sus- 
 pect it themselves. 
 
 "Perhaps you wonder it did not make me mis- 
 anthropical. My dear friends, do not forget that 
 I had seen myself. That made me compassionate, 
 not cynical. 
 
 " Of course, I could not value highly the ordi- 
 nary standards of success and excellence. When I 
 went to church and saw a thin, blue, artificial 
 flower, or a great sleepy cushion, expounding the 
 beauty of holiness to pews full of eagles, half- 
 eagles, and three-pences, however adroitly con- 
 cealed they might be in broadcloth and boots, or 
 saw an onion in an Easter bonnet weeping over 
 the sins of Magdalen,^ I did not feel as they felt 
 who saw in all this, not only propriety, but piety. 
 
180 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 " Or when at public meetings an eel stood up 
 on end, and wriggled and squirmed litliely in 
 every direction, and declared that, for his part, he 
 went in for rainbows and hot water, — how could 
 I help seeing that he was still black and loved a 
 slimy pool? 
 
 " I could not grow misanthropical when I saw 
 in the eyes of so many who were called old, the 
 gushing fountains of eternal youth, and the light 
 of an immortal dawn, or when I saw those who 
 were esteemed unsuccessful and aimless, ruling a 
 fair realm of peace and plenty, either in their own 
 hearts, or in another's — a realm and princely 
 possession for which they had well renounced a 
 hopeless search and a belated triumph. 
 
 " I knew one man who had been for years a 
 byword for having sought the philosopher's stone. 
 But I looked at him through the spectacles and 
 saw a satisfaction in concentrated energies and a 
 tenacity arising from devotion to a noble dream 
 which was not apparent in the youths who pitied 
 him in the aimless effeminacy of clubs, nor in the 
 clever gentlemen who cracked their thin jokes 
 upon him over a gossiping dinner. 
 
 " And there was your neighbor over the way, 
 who passes for a woman who has failed in her 
 career, because she is an old maid. People wag 
 solemn heads of pity, and say that she made so 
 great a mistake in not marrying the brilliant and 
 famous man who was for long years her suitor. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 181 
 
 It is clear that no orange flower will ever bloom 
 for her. The young people make their tender 
 romances about her as they watch her, and think 
 of her solitary hours of bitter regret and wasting 
 longing, never to be satisfied. 
 
 " When I first came to town I shared this sym- 
 pathy, and pleased my imagination with fancying 
 her hard struggle with the conviction that she had 
 lost all that made life beautiful. I supposed that 
 if I had looked at her through my spectacles, I 
 should see that it was only her radiant temper 
 which so illuminated her dress, that we did not 
 see it to be heavy sables. 
 
 " But when, one day, I did raise my glasses, and 
 glanced at her, I did not see the old maid whom 
 we all pitied for a secret sorrow, but a woman 
 whose nature was a tropic, in which the sun shone, 
 and birds sang, and flowers bloomed forever. 
 There were no regrets, no doubts and half wishes, 
 but a calm sweetness, a transparent peace. I saw 
 her blush when that old lover passed by, or paused 
 to speak to her, but it was only the sign of deli- 
 cate feminine consciousness. She knew his love, 
 and honored it, although she could not under- 
 stand it nor return it. I looked closely at her, 
 and I saw that, although the world had ex- 
 claimed at her indifference to such homage, and 
 had declared it was astonishing she should lose 
 so fine a match, shenvould only say simply and 
 quietly : — 
 
182 BAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 u i 
 
 If Shakespeare loved me and I did not love 
 him, how could I marry him?' 
 
 "Could I be misanthropical when I saw such 
 fidelity, and dignity, and simplicity ? 
 
 " You may believe that I was especially curious 
 to look at that old lover of hers through my 
 glasses. He was no longer young, you know, 
 when I came, and his fame and fortune were 
 secure. Certainly I have heard of few men more 
 beloved, and of none more worthy to be loved. 
 He had the easy manner of a man of the world, 
 the sensitive grace of a poet, and the charitable 
 judgment of a wide traveler. He was accounted 
 the most successful and most unspoiled of men. 
 Handsome, brilliant, wise, tender, graceful, accom- 
 plished, rich, and famous, I looked at him, without 
 the spectacles, in surprise and admiration, and 
 wondered how your neighbor over the way had 
 been so entirely untouched by his homage. I 
 watched their intercourse in society, I saw her 
 gay smile, her cordial greeting ; I marked his 
 frank address, his lofty courtesy. Their manner 
 told no tales. The eager world was balked, and I 
 pulled out my spectacles. 
 
 "• I had seen her already, and now I saw him. 
 He lived only in memory, and his memory was a 
 spacious and stately palace. But he did not often- 
 est frequent the banqueting hall, where were end- 
 less hospitality and feasting, — nor did he loiter 
 much in the reception rooms, where a throng of 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 183 
 
 new visitors was forever swarming, — nor did he 
 feed his vanity by haunting the apartment in 
 which were stored the trophies of his varied tri- 
 umphs, — nor dream much in the great gallery 
 hung with pictures of his travels. 
 
 " From all these lofty halls of memory he con- 
 stantly escaped to a remote and solitary chamber^ 
 into which no one had ever penetrated. But my 
 fatal eyes, behind the glasses, followed and entered 
 with him, and saw that the chamber was a chapel. 
 It was dim, and silent, and sweet with perpetual 
 incense, that burned upon an altar before a picture 
 forever veiled. There, whenever I chanced to 
 look, I saw him kneel and pray ; and there, by day 
 and by night, a funeral hymn was chanted. 
 
 " I do not believe you will be surprised that I 
 have been content to remain a deputy bookkeeper. 
 My spectacles regulated my ambition, and I early 
 learned that there were better gods than Plutus. 
 The glasses have lost much of their fascination 
 now, and I do not often use them. But some- 
 times the desire is irresistible. Whenever I am 
 greatly interested, I am compelled to take them 
 out and see what it is that I admire. 
 
 ''And yet — and yet," said Titbottom, after a 
 pause, " I am not sure that I thank my grand- 
 father." 
 
 Prue had long since laid away her work, and 
 had heard every word of the story. I saw that 
 the dear woman had yet one question to ask, and 
 
184 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 had been earnestly hoping to hear something that 
 would spare her the necessity of asking. But 
 Titbottom had resumed his usual tone, after the 
 momentary excitement, and made no further allu- 
 sion to himself. We all sat silently; Titbot- 
 tom's eyes fastened musingly upon the carpet, 
 Prue looking wistfully at him, and I regarding 
 both. 
 
 It was past midnight, and our guest arose to go. 
 He shook hands quietly, made his grave Spanish 
 bow to Prue, and, taking his hat, went toward the 
 front door. Prue and I accompanied him. I saw 
 in her eyes that she would ask her question. 
 And as Titbottom opened the door, I heard the 
 low words : — 
 
 "And Preciosa?" 
 
 Titbottom paused. He had just opened the 
 door, and the moonlight streamed over him as he 
 stood, turning back to us. 
 
 " I have seen her but once since. It was in 
 church, and she was kneeling, with her eyes closed, 
 so that she did not see me. But I rubbed the glasses 
 well, and looked at her, and saw a white lily, 
 whose stem was broken, but which was fresh, and 
 luminous, and fragrant still." 
 
 " That was a miracle," interrupted Prue. 
 
 " Madam, it was a miracle," replied Titbottom, 
 '' and for that one sight I am devoutly grateful 
 for my grandfather's gift. I saw that, although 
 a flower may have lost its hold upon earthly 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 185 
 
 moisture, it may still bloom as sweetly, fed by the 
 dews of heaven." 
 
 The door closed, and he was gone. But as Prue 
 put her arm in mine, and we went upstairs together, 
 she whispered in my ear : — 
 
 "How glad I am that you don't wear spec- 
 tacles." 
 
 What did Curtis mean by those spectacles ? 
 
 It is a thankless task to explain what should be obvious to every 
 one, and it is not a very certain benefit to explain a poem that may 
 not quite explain itself. A poem is not merely a thought. We are 
 too apt to think that if we seize the thought and make it clear-cut 
 in our mind and definite, we shall have the chief thing in the poem: 
 too often we have thus missed the chief thing, for we have lost the 
 poetic atmosphere and feeling. We must not be too eager to reduce 
 poetry to thought. Now an allegory is poetical in character, and 
 this story of Titbottom's spectacles is allegorical. We must, there- 
 fore, touch it gently. Still it seems to us that it is very possible 
 that at a first reading one will not get the full intent of the writer. 
 To get the full intent, do we not need more than a recollection of 
 that series of pictures that Titbottom saw ? Do we not need the 
 idea that lies at bottom ? 
 
 What did Titbottom see through his spectacles ? did he see the 
 truth? Surely not abstract truth. Instead of his grandfather, he 
 saw the calm peace of West Indian life; instead of his grand- 
 mother, he saw the tranquil peace of the lake at twilight ; instead 
 of the man of business, he saw a wild boar with gold spectacles ; 
 instead of Preciosa, he saw the broken lily with miraculous life. 
 Instead of each thing as it appeared to the world, he saw it as 
 something else ; not as it was, but otherwise. Shall we call that 
 seeing the truth ? 
 
 Perhaps we may not at first think that it is, and yet we should 
 probably admit that Titbottom looked beneath the surface and saw 
 life more as it truly was. That man of business, for instance ; we 
 feel that we get more of his true nature when we think of him as 
 the cruel and ravenous boar than when we think of him in his 
 general human appearance^in a coat and trousers. Other men who 
 were outwardly like him were very different at heart, and Tit- 
 
186 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 bottom's glasses showed him the difference. So of Preciosa when 
 he looked at her. Outwardly she looked like any beautiful woman 
 who is absorbed in religious contemplation. But as Titbottom 
 knew, some such were merely onions in Easter bonnets. When 
 Titbottom looked at Preciosa, he saw that she had all the purity 
 and beauty and vitality of the lily, and that she had all these 
 although her life was broken in two. 
 
 But if Titbottom saw the truth, he saw it as a poet ; he saw it in 
 picture, not in sentence ; he saw it in image, not in thought. Per- 
 haps the story itself is a caution not to be satisfied with under- 
 standing it^ 
 
FROM "MY STUDY WINDOWS" 
 
 ■♦o*- 
 
 EMERSON THE LECTURER i 
 
 It is a singular fact, that Mr. Emerson is the 
 most steadily attractive lecturer in America. Into 
 that somewhat cold-waterish region adventurers 
 of the sensational kind come down now and then 
 with a splash, to become disregarded King Logs 
 before the next season. But Mr. Emerson always 
 draws. A lecturer now^ for something like a 
 third of a century, one of the pioneers of the 
 lecturing system, the charm of his voice, his 
 manner, and his matter has never lost its power 
 over his earlier hearers, and continually winds 
 new ones in its enchanting meshes. What they 
 do not fully understand they take on trust, and 
 
 1 Copyright, 1871, by James Russell Lowell ; 1899, by Mabel 
 Burnett. 
 
 2 This essay was written, as appears later, in 1868, when it was 
 still common for eminent men of letters to use the lecture-platform 
 as a means of publication. We do not now often think of Emerson 
 as a lecturer: his lectures liave become essays. But Lowell has so 
 exactly hit the true spirit of Emerson that his criticism is almost 
 as useful as it was on the day it was written. 
 
 187 
 
188 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 listen, saying to themselves, as the old poet of 
 Sir Philip Sidney : — 
 
 "A sweet, attractive, kind of grace, 
 A full assurance given by looks, 
 Continual comfort in a face. 
 The lineaments of gospel books." 
 
 We call it a singular fact, because we Yankees 
 are thought to be fond of the spread-eagle style, 
 and nothing can be more remote from that than 
 his. We are reckoned a practical folk, who would 
 rather hear about a new air-tight stove than about 
 Plato ; yet our favorite teacher's practicality is 
 not in the least of the Poor Richard ^ variety. If 
 he have any Buncombe constituency, it is that 
 unrealized commonwealth of philosophers which 
 Plotinus proposed to establish ; and if he were 
 to make an almanac, his directions to farmers 
 would be something like this : " October : In- 
 dian Summer; now is the time to get in your 
 early Vedas."^ What, then, is his secret? Is it 
 not that he out- Yankees us all? that his range 
 includes us all? that he is equally at home with 
 the potato-disease and original sin, with pegging 
 shoes and the Over-soul?^ that, as we try all 
 trades, so has he tried all cultures? and above 
 all, that his mysticism gives us a counterpoise 
 to our super-practicality? 
 
 1 Into whose mouth Franklin put the practical wisdom for which 
 he was famous. 
 
 2 Sacred books of the East. 
 
 3 The title of one of Emerson's essays. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 189 
 
 There is no man living to whom, as a writer, 
 so many of us feel and thankfully acknowledge 
 so great an indebtedness for ennobling impulses, 
 — none whom so many cannot abide. What does 
 he mean? ask these last. Where is his system? 
 What is the use of it all? What the deuce have 
 we to do with Brahma ? ^ I do not propose to 
 write an essay on Emerson at this time. I will 
 only say that one may find grandeur and con- 
 solation in a starlit night without caring to ask 
 what it means, save grandeur and consolation; 
 one may like Montaigne, as some ten generations 
 before us have done, without thinking him so 
 systematic as some more eminently tedious (or 
 shall we say tediously eminent?) authors; one 
 may think roses as good in their way as cabbages, 
 though the latter would make a better show in 
 the witness-box, if cross-examined as to their use- 
 fulness ; and as for Brahma, why, he can take 
 care of himself, and won't bite us at any rate. 
 
 The bother with Mr. Emerson is, that, though 
 he writes in prose, he is essentially a poet. If 
 you undertake to paraphrase what he says, and 
 to reduce it to words of one syllable for infant 
 minds, you will make as sad work of it as the 
 good monk with his analysis of Homer in the 
 "Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum."^ We look 
 
 1 One of Emerson's poems is on Brahma. 
 
 2 "Epistles of Obscure Men," a famous series of satires during 
 the Reformation. 
 
190 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 upon him as one of the few men of genius 
 whom our age has produced, and there needs 
 no better proof of it than his masculine faculty 
 of fecundating other minds. Search for his elo- 
 quence in his books and you will perchance miss 
 it, but meanwhile you will find that it has kindled 
 all your thoughts. For choice and pith of lan- 
 guage he belongs to a better age than ours, and 
 might rub shoulders with Fuller and Browne, — 
 though he does use that abominable word reliable. 
 His eye for a fine, telling phrase that will carry 
 true is like that of a backwoodsman for a rifle ; 
 and he will dredge you up a choice word from 
 the mud of Cotton Mather himself. A diction 
 at once so rich and so homely as his I know not 
 where to match in these days of writing by the 
 page; it is like homespun cloth-of-gold. The 
 many cannot miss his meaning, and only the few 
 can find it. It is the open secret of all true 
 genius. It is wholesome to angle in those pro- 
 found pools, though one be rewarded with noth- 
 ing more than the leap of a fish that flashes his 
 freckled side in the sun and as suddenly absconds 
 in the dark and dreamy waters again. There is 
 keen excitement, though there be no ponderable 
 acquisition. If we carry nothing home in our 
 baskets, there is ample gain in dilated lungs and 
 stimulated blood. What does he mean, quotha? 
 He means inspiring hints, a divining-rod to your 
 deeper nature. No doubt, Emerson, like all origi- 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 191 
 
 nal men, has his peculiar audience, and yet I know 
 none that can hold a promiscuous crowd in pleased 
 attention so long as he. As in all original men, 
 there is something for every palate. ''Would you 
 know," says Goethe, "the ripest cherries? Ask the 
 boys and the blackbirds." 
 
 The announcement that such a pleasure as a 
 new course of lectures by him is coming, to people 
 as old as I am, is something like those forebodings 
 of spring that prepare us every year for a familiar 
 novelty, none the less novel, when it arrives, be- 
 cause it is familiar. We know perfectly well 
 what we are to expect from Mr. Emerson, and 
 yet what he says always penetrates and stirs us, 
 as is apt to be the case with genius, in a very 
 unlooked-for fashion. Perhaps genius is one of 
 the few things which we gladly allow to repeat 
 itself, — one of the few that multiply rather than 
 weaken the force of their impression by iteration? 
 Perhaps some of us hear more than the mere 
 words, are moved by something deeper than the 
 thoughts? If it be so, we are quite right, for it 
 is thirty years and more of " plain living and high 
 thinking " ^ that speak to us in this altogether 
 unique lay-preacher. We have shared in the 
 beneficence of this varied culture, this fearless 
 impartiality in criticism and speculation, this mas- 
 culine sincerity, this sweetness of nature which 
 
 1 A phrase from one of Wordsworth's sonnets, taken as a motto 
 by New England culture. 
 
192 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 rather stimulates than cloys, for a generation 
 long. If ever there was a standing testimonial 
 to the cumulative power and value of Character 
 (and we need it sadly in these days), we have it 
 in this gracious and dignified presence. What 
 an antiseptic is a pure life ! At sixty-five (or 
 two years beyond his grand climacteric, as he 
 would prefer to call it) he has that privilege of 
 soul which abolishes the calendar, and presents 
 him to us always the unwasted contemporary of 
 his own prime. I do not know if he seem old 
 to his younger hearers, but we Avho have known 
 him so long wonder at the tenacity with which 
 he maintains himself even in the outposts of 
 youth. I suppose it is not the Emerson of 1868 
 to whom we listen. For us the whole life of the 
 man is distilled in the clear drop of every sen- 
 tence, and behind each word we divine the force 
 of a noble character, the weight of a large capital 
 of thinking and being. We do not go to hear 
 what Emerson says so much as to hear Emerson. 
 Not that we perceive any falling-off in anything 
 that ever was essential to the charm of Mr. Emer- 
 son's peculiar style of thought or phrase. The 
 first lecture, to be sure, was more disjointed even 
 than common. It was as if, after vainly trying 
 to get his paragraphs into sequence and order, 
 he had at last tried the desperate expedient of 
 shuffling them. It was chaos come again, but it 
 was a chaos full of shooting-stars, a jumble of 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 193 
 
 creative forces. The second lecture, on " Criti- 
 cism and Poetry," was quite up to the level of 
 old times, full of that power of strangely subtle 
 association whose indirect approaches startle the 
 mind into almost painful attention, of those flashes 
 of mutual understanding between speaker and 
 hearer that are gone ere one can say it lightens. 
 The vice of Emerson's criticism seems to be, that 
 while no man is so sensitive to what is poetical, 
 few men are less sensible than he of what makes 
 a poem. He values the solid meaning of thought 
 above the subtler meaning of style. He would 
 prefer Donne, I suspect, to Spenser, and some- 
 times mistakes the queer for the original. 
 
 To be young is surely the best, if the most pre- 
 carious, gift of life ; yet there are some of us who 
 would hardly consent to be young again, if it were 
 at the cost of our recollection of Mr. Emerson's 
 first lectures during the consulate of Van Buren.^ 
 We used to walk in from the country to the Ma- 
 sonic Temple (I think it was), through the crisp 
 winter night, and listen to that thrilling voice of 
 his, so charged with subtle meaning and subtle 
 music, as shipwrecked men on a raft to the hail of 
 a ship that came with unhoped-for food and rescue. 
 Cynics might say what they liked. Did our own 
 imaginations transfigure dry remainder-biscuit into 
 
 lA reminiscence of a phrase (consule Planco) in which Horace 
 refers to his youth. Van Buren was President from 1837 to 1841, 
 when Lowell was just out of college, 
 o 
 
194 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 ambrosia ? At any rate he brought us Ufe^ which, 
 on the whole, is no bad tiling. Was it all tran- 
 scendentalism ? magic-lantern pictures on mist ? 
 As you will. Those, then, were just what we 
 wanted. But it was not so. The delight and the 
 benefit were that he put us in communication with 
 a larger style of thought, sharpened our wits with 
 a more pungent phrase, gave us ravishing glimpses 
 of an ideal under the dry husk of our New Eng- 
 land ; made us conscious of the supreme and ever- 
 lasting originality of whatever bit of soul might 
 be in any of us ; freed us, in short, from the stocks 
 of prose in which we had sat so long that we had 
 grown well-nigh contented in our cramps. And 
 who that saw the audience will ever forget it, 
 where every one still capable of fire, or longing to 
 renew in them the half-forgotten sense of it, was 
 gathered ? Those faces, young and old, agleam 
 with pale intellectual light, eager with pleased 
 attention, flash upon me once more from the deep 
 recesses of the years with an exquisite pathos. 
 Ah, beautiful young eyes, brimming with love and 
 hope, wholly vanished now in that other world we 
 call the Past, or peering doubtfully through the 
 pensive gloaming of memory, your light impover- 
 ishes these cheaper days ! I hear again that rustle 
 of sensation, as they turned to exchange glances 
 over some pithier thought, some keener flash of 
 that humor which always played about the horizon 
 of his mind like heat-lightning, and it seems now 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 195 
 
 like the sad whisper of the autumn leaves that are 
 whirling around me. But would my picture be 
 complete if I forgot that ample and vegete coun- 
 tenance of Mr. R of W , — how, from its 
 
 regular post at the corner of the front bench, it 
 turned in ruddy triumph to the profaner audience 
 as if he were the inexplicably appointed fugleman 
 of appreciation ? I was reminded of him by those 
 hearty cherubs in Titian's Assumption that look 
 at you as who should say, '*• Did you ever see a 
 Madonna like that? Did you ever behold one 
 hundred and fifty pounds of womanhood mount 
 heavenward before like a rocket ? " 
 
 To some of us that long-past experience remains 
 as the most marvelous and fruitful we have ever 
 had. Emerson awakened us, saved us from the 
 body of this death. It is the sound of the trum- 
 pet that the young soul longs for, careless what 
 breath may fill it. Sidney heard it in the ballad of 
 " Chevy Chase," and Ave in Emerson. Nor did it 
 blow retreat, but called to us with assurance of vic- 
 tory. Did they say he was disconnected ? So were 
 the stars, that seemed larger to our eyes, still keen 
 with that excitement, as we walked homeward with 
 prouder stride over the creaking snow. And were 
 they not knit together by a higher logic than our 
 mere sense could master ? Were we enthusiasts ? 
 I hope and believe we were, and am thankful to 
 the man who made us" worth something for once in 
 our lives. If asked what was left ? what we car- 
 
196 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 ried home ? we should not have been careful for 
 an answer. It would have been enough if we had 
 said that something beautiful had passed that way. 
 Or we might have asked in return what one brought 
 away from a symphony of Beethoven? Enough 
 that he had set that ferment of wholesome discon- 
 tent at work in us. There is one, at least, of those 
 old hearers, so many of whom are now in the frui- 
 tion of that intellectual beauty of which Emerson 
 gave them both the desire and the foretaste, who 
 will always love to repeat : — 
 
 *' Che in la mente m'6 fitta, ed or m'accuora 
 La cara e buona immagine paterna 
 Di voi, quando nel mondo ad ora ad ora 
 M'insegnavaste come I'uom s'eterna." ^ 
 
 I am unconsciously thinking, as I write, of the 
 third lecture of the present course, in which Mr. 
 Emerson gave some delightful reminiscences of the 
 intellectual influences in whose movement he had 
 shared. It was like hearing Goethe read some 
 passages of the " Wahrheit aus seinem Leben." 
 Not that there was not a little Dichtung^^ too, here 
 and there, as the lecturer built up so lofty a ped- 
 estal under certain figures as to lift them into a 
 prominence of obscurity, and seem to masthead 
 them there. Everybody was asking his neighbor 
 
 1 Who formed in me my mind, and now endears to me his 
 dear and good paternal image, as when he taught me hour by hour, 
 how man may grow immortal. 
 
 '^ " Wahrheit und Dichtung," Truth and Poetry, is the name given 
 by Goethe to the story of his early life. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 197 
 
 who this or that recondite great man was, in the 
 faint hope that somebody might once have heard 
 of him. There are those who call Mr. Emerson 
 cold. Let them revise their judgment in presence 
 of this loyalty of his that can keep warm for half 
 a century, that never forgets a friendship, or fails 
 to pay even a fancied obligation to the uttermost 
 farthing. This substantiation of shadows was but 
 incidental, and pleasantly characteristic of the man 
 to those who know and love him. The greater 
 part of the lecture was devoted to reminiscences 
 of things substantial in themselves. He spoke of 
 Everett, fresh from Greece and Germany ; of 
 Channing ; of the translations of Margaret Fuller, 
 Ripley, and D wight ; of the Dial and Brook Farm. 
 To what he said of the latter an undertone of 
 good-humored irony gave special zest. But what 
 everyone of his hearers felt was that the protagonist 
 in the drama was left out. The lecturer was no 
 JEneas to babble the quorum magna pars fui^^ and, 
 as one of his listeners, I cannot help wishing to 
 say how each of them was commenting the story 
 as it went along, and filling up the necessary gaps 
 in it from his own private store of memories. His 
 younger hearers could not know how much they 
 owed to the benign impersonality, the quiet scorn 
 of everything ignoble, the never-sated hunger of 
 self-culture, that were personified in the man be- 
 fore them. But the 'older knew how much the 
 
 i-Of which I was a great part. 
 
198 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 country s intellectual emancipation was due to the 
 stimulus of his teaching and example, how con- 
 stantly he had kept burning the beacon of an ideal 
 life above our lower region of turmoil. To him 
 more than to all other causes together did the 
 young martyrs of our civil war owe the sustaining 
 strength of thoughtful heroism that is so touching 
 in every record of their lives. Those who are 
 grateful to Mr. Emerson, as many of us are, for 
 what they feel to be most valuable in their culture, 
 or perhaps 1 should say their impulse, are grateful 
 not so much for any direct teachings of his as for 
 that inspiring lift which only genius can give, and 
 without which all doctrine is chaff. 
 
 This was something like the caret which some 
 of us older boys wished to fill up on the margin 
 of the master's lecture. Few men have been so 
 much to so many, and through so large a range of 
 aptitudes and temperaments, and this simply be- 
 cause all of us value manhood beyond any or all 
 other qualities of character. We may suspect in 
 him, here and there, a certain thinness and vague- 
 ness of quality, but let the waters go over him as 
 they list, this masculine fiber of his will keep its 
 lively color and its toughness of texture. I have 
 heard some great speakers and some accomplished 
 orators, but never any that so moved and per- 
 suaded men as he. There is a kind of undertow 
 in that rich barytone of his that sweeps our minds 
 from their foothold into deeper waters w4th a drift 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 199 
 
 we cannot and would not resist. And how art- 
 fully (for Emerson is a long-studied artist in these 
 things) does the deliberate utterance, that seems 
 waiting for the fit word, appear to admit us part- 
 ners in the labor of thought and make us feel as if 
 the glance of humor were a sudden suggestion, as 
 if the perfect phrase lying written there on the 
 desk were as unexpected to him as to us ! In 
 that closely-filed speech of his at the Burns cen- 
 tenary dinner every word seemed to have just 
 dropped down to him from the clouds. He looked 
 far away over the heads of his hearers, with a 
 vague kind of expectation, as into some private 
 heaven of invention, and the winged period came 
 at last obedient to his spell. '' My dainty Ariel ! " 
 he seemed murmuring to himself as he cast down 
 his eyes as if in deprecation of the frenzy of 
 approval and caught another sentence from the 
 Sibylline leaves that lay before him ambushed 
 behind a dish of fruit and seen only by nearest 
 neighbors. Every sentence brought down the 
 house, as I never saw one brought down before, 
 — and it is not so easy to hit Scotsmen with a 
 sentiment that has no hint of native brogue in it. 
 I watched, for it was an interesting study, how 
 the quick sympathy ran flashing from face to face 
 down the long tables, like an electric spark thrill- 
 ing as it went, and then exploded in a thunder of 
 plaudits. I watched fill tables and faces vanished, 
 for I too found myself caught up in the common 
 
200 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 enthusiasm, and my excited fancy set me under 
 the be77ia^ listening to him who fulmined over 
 Greece. I can never help applying to him what 
 Ben Jonson said of Bacon : " There happened in 
 my time one noble speaker, who was full of gravity 
 in his speaking. His language was nobly censori- 
 ous. No man ever spake more neatly, more pressly, 
 more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idle- 
 ness, in what he uttered. No member of his speech 
 but consisted of his own graces. His hearers could 
 not cough, or look aside from him, without loss. 
 He commanded where he spoke." Those who 
 heard him while their natures were yet plastic, 
 and their mental nerves trembled under the slight- 
 est breath of divine air, will never cease to feel 
 and say : — 
 
 *' Was never eye did see that face, 
 
 Was never ear did hear that tongue, 
 Was never mind did mind his grace, 
 
 That ever thought the travail long ; 
 But eyes, and ears, and every thought. 
 Were with his sweet perfections caught." 
 
 1 From which spoke Demosthenes. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 201 
 
 A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER *i 
 
 It is the misfortune of American biography that 
 it must needs be more or less provincial, and that, 
 contrary to what might have been predicted, this 
 quality in it predominates in proportion as the 
 country grows larger. Wanting any great and 
 acknowledged center of national life and thought, 
 our expansion has hitherto been rather aggrega- 
 tion than growth ; reputations must be hammered 
 out thin to cover so wide a surface, and the sub- 
 stance of most hardly holds out to the boundaries 
 of a single State. Our very history wants unity, 
 and down to the Revolution the attention is wearied 
 and confused by having to divide itself among thir- 
 teen parallel threads, instead of being concentered 
 on a single clew. A sense of remoteness and seclu- 
 sion comes over us as we read, and we cannot help 
 asking ourselves, " Were not these things done in 
 a corner ? " Notoriety may be achieved in a nar- 
 row sphere, but fame demands for its evidence a 
 more distant and prolonged reverberation. To 
 the world at large we were but a short column of 
 figures in the corner of a blue-book. New England 
 
 * Copyright, 1871, by James Russell Lowell : 1899, by Mabel 
 Burnett. 
 
 1 This extract is the beginning of a review of " The Life of 
 Josiah Quincy by his Son." -- The whole essay is not precisely of a 
 character to come appropriately into our volume, so we stop, perhaps 
 a little abruptly, after the more general introduction. 
 
202 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 exporting so much salt-fish, timber, and Medford 
 rum, Virginia so many hogsheads of tobacco, and 
 buying with the proceeds a certain amount of Eng- 
 lish manufactures. The story of our early colo- 
 nization had a certain moral interest, to be sure, 
 but was altogether inferior in picturesque fascina- 
 tion to that of Mexico or Peru. The lives of our 
 worthies, like that of our nation, are bare of those 
 foregone and far-reacliing associations with names, 
 the divining-rods of fancy, which the soldiers and 
 civilians of the Old World get for nothing by the 
 mere accident of birth. Their historians and biog- 
 raphers have succeeded to the good will, as well as 
 to the long-established stand, of the shop of glory. 
 Time is, after all, the greatest of poets, and the 
 sons of Memory stand a better chance of being 
 the heirs of Fame. The philosophic poet^ may 
 find a proud solace in saying, 
 
 " Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante 
 Tritasolo;"2 
 
 but all the while he has the splendid centuries of 
 Greece and Rome behind him, and can begin his 
 poem with invoking a goddess from whom legend 
 derived the planter of his race. His eyes looked 
 out on a landscape saturated with glorious recol- 
 lections ; he had seen Caesar, and heard Cicero. 
 But who shall conjure with Saugus or Cato Four 
 
 1 Lucretius. 
 
 2 I seek the trackless regions of the Muses, pressed by no foot 
 before. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 20^ 
 
 Corners, — with Israel Putnam or Return Jona- 
 than Meigs? We have been transplanted, and 
 for us the long hierarchical succession of history 
 is broken. The Past has not laid its venerable 
 hands upon us in consecration, conveying to us 
 that mysterious influence whose force is in its con- 
 tinuity. We are to Europe as the Church of Eng- 
 land to her of Rome. The latter old lady may be 
 the Scarlet Woman, or the Beast with ten horns, 
 if you will, but hers are all the heirlooms, hers 
 that vast spiritual estate of tradition, nowhere yet 
 everywhere, whose revenues are none the less fruit- 
 ful for being levied on the imagination. We may 
 claim that England's history is also ours, but it is 
 a de jure^ and not a de facto property that we have 
 in it, — something that may be proved indeed, yet 
 is a merely intellectual satisfaction, and does not 
 savor of the realty. Have we not seen the mock- 
 ery crown and scepter of the exiled Stuarts in 
 St. Peter's? the medal struck so lately as 1784, 
 with its legend, Hen IX Mag Brit et Hib Rex,i 
 whose contractions but faintly typify the scantness 
 of the fact ? 
 
 As the novelist complains that our society wants 
 that sharp contrast of character and costume which 
 comes of caste, so in the narrative of our historians 
 we miss what may be called background and per- 
 spective, as if the events and the actors in them 
 
 1 Henry IX., King of Great Britain and Ireland. This was Henry 
 Stuart, grandson of James II. 
 
204 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 failed of that cumulative interest which only a 
 long historical entail can give. Relatively, the 
 crusade of Sir William PepperelP was of more 
 consequence than that of St. Louis, and yet for- 
 give us, injured shade of the second American 
 baronet, if we find the narrative of Joinville more 
 interesting than your despatches to Governor 
 Shirley. Relatively, the insurrection of that 
 Daniel whose Irish patronymic Shea was eupho- 
 nized into Sliays,^ as a set-off for the debasing of 
 French chaise into shay^ was more dangerous than 
 that of Charles Edward ; but for some reason or 
 other (as vice sometimes has the advantage of 
 virtue) the latter is more enticing to the imagina- 
 tion, and the least authentic relic of it in song or 
 story has a relish denied to the painful industry 
 of Minot. Our events seem to fall short of that 
 colossal proportion which befits the monumental 
 style. Look grave as we will, there is something 
 ludicrous in Counsellor Keane's pig being the 
 pivot of a revolution.^ We are of yesterday, and 
 it is to no purpose that our political augurs divine 
 from the flight of our eagles that to-morrow shall 
 be ours, and flatter us with an all-hail hereafter. 
 Things do really gain in greatness by being acted 
 on a great and cosmopolitan stage, because there 
 is inspiration in the thronged audience, and the 
 
 1 The capture of Louisburg. 
 
 2 Shays 's war so called ; a rebellion in 1786 in western Massachu- 
 setts. 
 
 3 In the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 205 
 
 nearer match that puts men on their mettle« 
 Webster was more largely endowed by nature than 
 Fox, and Fisher Ames not much below Burke as a 
 talker ; but what a difference in the intellectual 
 training, in the literary culture and associations, 
 in the whole social outfit, of the men who were 
 their antagonists and companions ! It should seem 
 that, if it be collision with other minds and with 
 events that strikes or draws the fire from a man, 
 then tiie quality of those might have something 
 to do with the quality of the fire, — whether it 
 shall be culinary or electric. We have never 
 known the varied stimulus, the inexorable criti- 
 cism, the many-sided opportunity of a great 
 metropolis, the inspiring reenforcement of an un- 
 divided national consciousness. In everything but 
 trade we have missed the invigoration of foreign 
 rivalrj^ We may prove that we are this and that 
 and the other, — our Fourth-of- July orators have 
 proved it time and again, — the census has proved 
 it ; but the Muses are women, and have no great 
 fancy for statistics, though easily silenced by them. 
 We are great, we are rich, we are all kinds of 
 good things ; but did it never occur to you that 
 somehow we are not interesting, except as a phe- 
 nomenon ? It may safely be affirmed that for one 
 cultivated man in this country who studies Ameri- 
 can, there are fifty who study European history, 
 ancient or modern. 
 
 Till within a year or two we have been as dis- 
 
206 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 tant and obscure to the eyes of Europe as Ecuador 
 to our own. Every day brings us nearer, enables 
 us to see the Old World more clearly, and by 
 inevitable comparison to judge ourselves with some 
 closer approach to our real value. This has its 
 advantage so long as our culture is, as for a long 
 time it must be, European ; for we shall be little 
 better than apes and parrots till we are forced to 
 measure our muscle with the trained and prac- 
 ticed champions of that elder civilization. We 
 have at length established our claim to the noblesse 
 of the sword, the first step still of every nation 
 that would make its entry into the best society of 
 history. To maintain ourselves there, we must 
 achieve an equality in the more exclusive circle of 
 culture, and to that end must submit ourselves to 
 the European standard of intellectual weights and 
 measures. That we have made the hitherto big- 
 gest gun might excite apprehension (were there a 
 dearth of iron) but can never exact respect. That 
 our pianos and patent reapers have won medals 
 does naught but confirm us in our mechanic and 
 material measure of merit. We must contribute 
 something more than mere contrivances for the 
 saving of labor, which we have been only too ready 
 to misapply in the domain of thought and the 
 higher kinds of invention. In those Olympic 
 games where nations contend for truly immortal 
 wreaths, it may well be questioned whether a 
 mowing machine would stand much chance in the 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 207 
 
 chariot-races, — whether a piano, though made by 
 a chevalier, could compete successfully for the prize 
 of music.i 
 
 We shall have to be content for a good while 
 yet with our provincialism, and must strive to 
 make the best of it. In it lies the germ of nation- 
 ality, and that is, after all, the prime condition of 
 all thoroughbred greatness of character. To this 
 choicest fruit of a healthy life, well rooted in 
 native soil, and drawing prosperous juices thence, 
 nationality gives the keenest flavor. Mr. Lincoln 
 was an original man, and in so far a great man ; 
 yet it was the Americanism of his every thought, 
 word, and act which not only made his influence 
 equally at home in East and West, but drew the 
 eyes of the outside world, and was the pedestal 
 that lifted him where he could be seen by them. 
 Lincoln showed that native force may transcend 
 local boundaries, but the growth of such nation- 
 ality is hindered and hampered by our division 
 into so many half-independent communities, each 
 with its objects of county ambition, and its public 
 men great to the borders of their district. In this 
 way our standard of greatness is insensibly debased. 
 To receive any national appointment, a man must 
 have gone through precisely the worst training for 
 it ; he must have so far narrowed and belittled 
 himself with State politics as to be acceptable at 
 home. In this way a man may become chairman 
 
 1 Quite as good reading in 1902 as in 1869. 
 
208 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, because he 
 knows how to pack a caucus in Catawampus 
 County, or be sent ambassador to Barataria, be- 
 cause he has drunk bad whisky with every voter 
 in Wildcat City. Should we ever attain to a con- 
 scious nationality, it will have the advantage of 
 lessening the number of our great men, and widen- 
 ing our appreciation to the larger scale of the two 
 or three that are left, — if there should be so 
 many. Meanwhile we offer a premium to the 
 production of great men in a small way, by invit- 
 ing each State to set up the statues of two of its 
 immortals in the Capitol. What a niggardly per- 
 centage ! Already we are embarrassed, not to 
 find the two, but to choose among the crowd of 
 candidates. Well, seventy-odd heroes in about as 
 many years is pretty well for a young nation. We 
 do not envy most of them their eternal martyrdom 
 in marble, their pillory of indiscrimination. We 
 fancy even native tourists pausing before the 
 greater part of the effigies, and, after reading the 
 names, asking desperately, '-' Who was he ? " Nay, 
 if they should say, " Who the devil was he ? " it 
 were a pardonable invocation, for none so fit as 
 the Prince of Darkness to act as cicerone among 
 such palpable obscurities. We recall the court- 
 yard of the Uffizi at Florence. That also is 
 not free of parish celebrities ; but Dante, Galileo, 
 Michael Angelo, Macchiavelli, — shall the inventor 
 of the sewing-machine, even with the button-holing 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 209 
 
 improvement, let us say, match with these, or with 
 far lesser than these ? Perhaps he was more prac- 
 tically useful than any one of these, or all of them 
 together, but the soul is sensible of a sad difference 
 somewhere. These also were citizens of a provin- 
 cial capital ; so were the greater part of Plutarch's 
 heroes. Did they have a better chance than we 
 moderns, — than we Americans? At any rate they 
 have the start of us, and we must confess that 
 
 " By bed and table they lord it o'er us, 
 Our elder brothers, but one in blood." 
 
 Yes, one in blood ; that is the hardest part of it. 
 Is our provincialism then in some great measure 
 due to our absorption in the practical, as we politely 
 call it, meaning the material, — to our habit of 
 estimating greatness by the square mile and the 
 hundred weight ? Even during our war, in the 
 midst of that almost unrivalled stress of soul, 
 were not our speakers and newspapers so enslaved 
 to the vulgar habit as to boast ten times of the 
 thousands of square miles it covered with armed 
 men, for once that they alluded to the motive that 
 gave it all its meaning and its splendor ? Per- 
 haps it was as well that they did not exploit that 
 passion of patriotism as an advertisement in the 
 style of Barnum or Perham. " I scale one hun- 
 dred and eighty pounds, but when I'm mad I 
 weigh two ton," said the Kentuckian, with a true 
 notion of moral avoirdupois. That ideal kind of 
 
210 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 weight is wonderfully increased by a national feel- 
 ing, whereby one man is conscious that thirty 
 millions of men go into the balance with him. 
 The Roman in ancient, and the Englishman in 
 modern times, have been most conscious of this 
 representative solidity, and wherever one of them 
 went there stood Rome or England in his shoes. 
 We have made some advance in the right direc- 
 tion. Our civil war, by the breadth of its pro- 
 portions and the implacability of its demands, 
 forced us to admit a truer valuation, and gave 
 us, in our own despite, great soldiers and sailors, 
 allowed for such by all the world. The harder prob- 
 lems it has left behind may in time compel us to 
 have great statesmen, with views capable of reach- 
 ing beyond the next election. The criticism of 
 Europe alone can rescue us from the provincialism 
 of an over or false estimate of ourselves. Let us 
 be thankful, and not angry, that we must accept it 
 as our touchstone. Our stamp has so often been 
 impressed upon base metal, that we cannot expect 
 it to be taken on trust, but we may be sure that 
 true gold will be equally persuasive the world 
 over. Real manhood and honest achievement are 
 nowhere provincial, but enter the select society of 
 all time on an even footing. 
 
 Spanish America might be a good glass for us 
 to look into. Those Catharine- wheel republics, 
 always in revolution while the powder lasts, and 
 sure to burn the fingers of whoever attempts inter- 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 211 
 
 vention, have also their great men, as placidly 
 ignored bj^ us as our own by jealous Europe. 
 The following passage from the life of Don Simon 
 Bolivar might allay many motus animorum^ if 
 rightly pondered. Bolivar, then a youth, was 
 traveling in Italy, and his biographer tells us 
 that "near Castiglione he was present at the 
 grand review made by Napoleon of the columns 
 defiling into the plain large enough to contain 
 sixty thousand men. The throne was situated on 
 an eminence that overlooked the plain, and Napo- 
 leon on several occasions looked through a glass 
 at Bolivar and his companions, who were at the 
 base of the hill. The hero Ci^sar could not 
 imagine that he beheld the liberator of the world 
 of Columbus ! " And small blame to him, one 
 would say. We are not, then, it seems, the only 
 foundling of Columbus, as we are so apt to take 
 for granted. The great Genoese did not, as we 
 supposed, draw that first star-guided furrow across 
 the vague of waters with a single eye to the future 
 greatness of the United States. And have we not 
 sometimes, like the enthusiastic biographer, fancied 
 the Old World staring through all its telescopes at 
 us, and wondered that it did not recognize in us 
 what we were fully persuaded we were going to be 
 and do ? 
 
 Our American life is dreadfully barren of those 
 elements of the social picturesque which give 
 piquancy to anecdote. And without anecdote, 
 
212 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 what is biography, or even history, which is only 
 biography on a larger scale ? Clio,^ though she 
 take airs on herself, and pretend to be "- philoso- 
 phy teaching by example," is, after all, but 
 a gossip who has borrowed Fame's speaking- 
 trumpet, and should be figured with a teacup in- 
 stead of a scroll in her hand. How much has she 
 not owed of late to the tittle-tattle of her gillflirt 
 sister Thalia ? ^ In what gutters has not Macaulay 
 raked for the brilliant bits with which he has put 
 together his admirable mosaic picture of England 
 under the last two Stuarts ? Even Mommsen him- 
 self, who dislikes Plutarch's method as. much as 
 Montaigne loved it, cannot get or give a lively 
 notion of ancient Rome, without running to the 
 comic poets and the anecdote-mongers. He gives 
 us the very beef-tea of history, nourishing and 
 even palatable enough, excellently portable for a 
 memory that must carry her own packs, and can 
 afford little luggage ; but for our own part, we 
 prefer a full, old-fashioned meal, with its side- 
 dishes of spicy gossip, and its last relish, the 
 Stilton of scandal, so it be not too high. One 
 volume of contemporary memoirs, stuffed though 
 it be with lies (for lies to be good for anything 
 must have a potential probability, must even be 
 true so far as their moral and social setting is con- 
 cerned), will throw more light into the dark back- 
 ward of time than the gravest Camden or Thuanus. 
 
 1 The Muse of History. 2 The Muse of Gaiety and Comedy. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 218 
 
 If St. Simon is not accurate, is he any the less 
 essentially true ? No history gives us so clear an 
 understanding of the moral condition of average 
 men after the restoration of the Stuarts as the 
 unconscious blabbings of the Puritan tailor's son,^ 
 with his two consciences, as it were, — an inward, 
 still sensitive in spots, though mostly toughened 
 to India-rubber, and good rather for rubbing out 
 old scores than retaining them, and an outward, 
 alert, and termagantly effective in Mrs. Pepys. 
 But we can have no St. Simons or Pepyses till we 
 have a Paris or London to delocalize our gossip 
 and give it historic breadth. All our capitals are 
 fractional, merely greater or smaller gatherings of 
 men, centers of business rather than of action or 
 influence. Each contains so many souls, but is 
 not, as the word '' capital " implies, the true head 
 of a community and seat of its common soul. 
 
 Has not life itself perhaps become a little more 
 prosaic than it once was? As the clearing away 
 of the woods scants the streams, may not our 
 civilization have dried up some feeders that 
 helped to swell the current of individual and 
 personal force ? We have sometimes thought 
 that the stricter definition and consequent seclu- 
 sion from each other of the different callings in 
 modern times, as it narrowed the chance of devel- 
 oping and giving variety to character, lessened 
 also the interest of biography. Formerly arts and 
 
 1 Samuel Pepys, the writer of a famous Diary. 
 
214 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 arms were not divided by so impassable a barrier 
 as now. There was hardly such a thing as a 
 pekin,^ Caesar gets up from writing his Latin 
 Grammar to conquer Gaul, change the course of 
 history, and make so many things possible, — 
 among the rest our English language and Shake- 
 speare. Horace had been a colonel ; and from 
 jEschylus, who fought at Marathon, to Ben Jonson, 
 who trailed a pike in the Low Countries, the list 
 of martial civilians is a long one. A man's educa- 
 tion seems more complete who has smelt hostile 
 powder from a less aesthetic distance than Goethe. 
 It raises our confidence in Sir Kenelm Digby as a 
 physicist, that he is able to illustrate some theory of 
 acoustics in his '' Treatise of Bodies" by instancing 
 the effect of his guns in a sea-fight off Scanderoon. 
 One would expect the proportions of character to 
 be enlarged by such variety and contrast of experi- 
 ence. Perhaps it will by and by appear that our 
 own Civil War has done something for us in this 
 w^ay. Colonel Higginson^ comes down from his 
 pulpit to draw on his jack-boots, and thenceforth 
 rides in our imagination alongside of John Bunyan 
 and Bishop Compton. To have stored moral 
 capital enough to meet the drafts of Death at 
 sight, must be an unmatched tonic. We saw our 
 light-hearted youth come back with the modest 
 
 1 A soldier's semi-contemptuous term for a civilian. 
 
 2 Thomas Wentworth Higginson was colonel of one of the first 
 colored regiments enlisted in the Civil War. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 215 
 
 gravity of age, as if they had fearned to throw out 
 pickets against a surprise of any weak point in 
 their temperament. Perhaps that American shifti- 
 ness, so often complained of, may not be so bad a 
 thing, if, by bringing men acquainted with every 
 humor of fortune and human nature, it puts them 
 in fuller possession of themselves. 
 
 But with whatever drawbacks in special circum- 
 stances, the main interest of biography must always 
 lie in the amount of character or essential manhood 
 which the subject of it reveals to us, and events 
 are of import only as means to that end. It is 
 true that lofty and far-seen exigencies may give 
 greater opportunity .to some men, whose energy 
 is more sharply spurred by the shout of a multi- 
 tude than by the grudging Well done! of con- 
 science. Some theorists have too hastily assumed 
 that, as the power of public opinion increases, the 
 force of private character, or what we call original- 
 ity, is absorbed into and diluted by it. But we 
 think Horace was right in putting tyrant and mob 
 on a level as the trainers and tests of a man's solid 
 quality. The amount of resistance of which one 
 is capable to whatever lies outside the conscience, 
 is of more consequence than all other faculties 
 together ; and democracy, perhaps, tries this by 
 pressure in more directions, and with a more con- 
 tinuous strain, than any other form of society. In 
 Josiah Quincy we haVe an example of character 
 trained and shaped, under the nearest approach to 
 
216 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 a pure democracy £he world has ever seen, to a 
 firmness, unity, and self-centered poise that recall 
 the finer types of antiquity, in whom the public 
 and private man were so wholly of a piece that 
 they were truly everywhere at home, for the same 
 sincerity of nature that dignified the hearth carried 
 also a charm of homeliness into the forum. The 
 phrase '' a great public character," once common, 
 seems to be going out of fashion, perhaps because 
 there are fewer examples of the thing. It fits 
 Josiah Quincy exactly. Active in civic and aca- 
 demic duties till beyond the ordinary period of 
 man, at fourscore and ten his pen, voice, and ven- 
 erable presence were still efficient in public affairs. 
 A score of years after the energies of even vigor- 
 ous men are declining or spent, his mind and 
 character made themselves felt as in their prime. 
 A true pillar of house and state, he stood unflinch- 
 ingly upright under whatever burden might be 
 laid upon him. The French Revolutionists aped 
 what was itself but a parody of the elder republic, 
 with their hair a la Brutus and their pedantic 
 moralities a la Cato Minor, but this man uncon- 
 sciously was the antique Roman they laboriously 
 went about to be. Others have filled places more 
 conspicuous, few have made the place they filled 
 so conspicuous by an exact and disinterested per- 
 formance of duty. 
 
 In the biography of Mr. Quincy by his son there 
 is something of the provincialism of which we have 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 217 
 
 spoken as inherent in most American works of the 
 kind. His was a Boston life in the strictest sense. 
 But provincialism is relative, and where it has a 
 flavor of its own, as in Scotland, it is often agree- 
 able in proportion to its very intensity. The 
 Massachusetts in which Mr. Quincy's habits of 
 thought were acquired was a very different Massa- 
 chusetts from that in which we of later generations 
 have been bred. Till after he had passed middle 
 life, Boston was more truly a capital than any other 
 city in America, before or since, except possibly 
 Charleston. The acknowledged head of New 
 England, with a population of well-nigh purely 
 English descent, mostlj^ derived from the earlier 
 emigration, with ancestral traditions and inspiring 
 memories of its own, it had made its name familiar 
 in both worlds, and was both historically and polit- 
 ically more important than at any later period. 
 The Revolution had not interrupted, but rather 
 given a freer current to the tendencies of its past. 
 Both by its history and position, the town had 
 what the French call a solidarity, an almost per- 
 sonal consciousness, rare anywhere, rare especially 
 in America, and more than ever since our enor- 
 mous importation of fellow-citizens to whom Amer- 
 ica means merely shop, or meat three times a day. 
 Boston has been called the '' American Athens." 
 ^sthetically, the comparison is ludicrous, but 
 politically it was moi^e reasonable. Its population 
 was homogeneous, and there were leading families ; 
 
218 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 while the form of government by town-meeting, 
 and the facility of social and civic intercourse, 
 gave great influence to popular personal qualities 
 and opportunity to new men. A wide commerce, 
 while it had insensibly softened the asperities of 
 Puritanism and imported enough foreign refine- 
 ment to humanize, not enough foreign luxury to 
 corrupt, had not essentially qualified the native 
 tone of the town. Retired sea-captains (true 
 brothers of Chaucer's Shipman) whose exploits 
 had kindled the imagination of Burke, added a 
 not unpleasant savor of salt to society. They 
 belonged to the old school of Gilbert, Hawkins, 
 Frobisher, and Drake, parcel -soldiers all of them, 
 who had commanded armed ships and had tales to 
 tell of gallant fights with privateers or pirates, 
 truest representatives of those Vikings who, if 
 trade in lumber or peltry was dull, would make 
 themselves Dukes of Dublin or Earls of Orkney. 
 If trade pinches the mind, commerce liberalizes 
 it; and Boston was also advantaged with the 
 neighborhood of the country's oldest College, 
 which maintained the wholesome traditions of 
 culture, — where Homer and Horace are familiar 
 there is a certain amount of cosmopolitanism, — 
 and would not allow bigotry to become despotism. 
 Manners were more self-respectful, and therefore 
 more respectful of others, and personal sensitive- 
 ness was fenced with more of that ceremonial with 
 which society armed itself when it surrendered the 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 219 
 
 ruder protection of the sword. We had not then 
 seen a Governor in his chamber at the State-house 
 with his hat on, a cigar in his mouth, and his feet 
 upon the stove. Domestic service, in spite of the 
 proverb, was not seldom an inheritance, nor was 
 household peace dependent on the whim of a 
 foreign armed neutrality in the kitchen. Servant 
 and master were of one stock; there was decent 
 authority and becoming respect ; the tradition of 
 the Old World lingered after its superstition had 
 passed away. There was an aristocracy such as 
 is healthful in a well-ordered community, founded 
 on public service, and hereditary so long as the 
 virtue which was its patent was not escheated. 
 The clergy, no longer hedged by the reverence 
 exacted by sacerdotal caste, were more than repaid 
 by the consideration willingly paid to superior 
 culture. What changes, many of them for the 
 better, some of them surely for the worse, and all 
 of them inevitable, did not Josiah Quincy see in 
 that well-nigh secular life which linked the war of 
 independence to the war of nationality ! We 
 seemed to see a type of them the other day in a 
 colored man standing with an air of comfortable 
 self-possession while his boots were brushed by a 
 youth of catholic neutral tint, but whom nature 
 had planned for white. The same eyes that had 
 looked on Gage's redcoats, saw Colonel Shaw's 
 negro regiment march out of Boston in the national 
 blue. Seldom has a life, itself actively associated 
 
220 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 with public affairs, spanned so wide a chasm for 
 the imagination. Oglethorpe's offers a parallel, 
 — the aid-de-camp of Prince Eugene calling on 
 John Adams, American Ambassador to England. 
 Most long lives resemble those threads of gos- 
 samer, the nearest approach to nothing unmean- 
 ingly prolonged, scarce visible pathway of some 
 worm from his cradle to his grave ; but Quincy's 
 was strung with seventy active years, each one a 
 rounded bead of usefulness and service. 
 
 Mr. Quincy was a Bostonian of the purest type. 
 Since the settlement of the town, there had been a 
 colonel of the Boston regiment in every generation 
 of his family. He lived to see a grandson bre- 
 vetted with the same title for gallantry in the 
 field. Only child of one among the most eminent 
 advocates of the Revolution, and who but for his 
 untimely death would have been a leading actor in 
 it, his earliest recollections belonged to the heroic 
 period in the history of his native town. With 
 that history his life was thenceforth intimately 
 united by offices of public trust, as Representative 
 in Congress, State Senator, Maj^or, and President 
 of the University, to a period beyond the ordinary 
 span of mortals. Even after he had passed ninety, 
 he would not claim to be emeritus^ but came for- 
 ward to brace his townsmen with a courage and 
 warm them with a fire younger than their own. 
 The legend of Colonel Goffe at Deerfield became a 
 reality to the eyes of this generation. The New 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 221 
 
 England breed is running out, we are told ! This 
 was in all ways a beautiful and fortunate life, — 
 fortunate in the goods of this world, — fortunate, 
 above all, in the force of character which makes 
 fortune secondary and subservient. We are fond 
 in this country of what are called self-made men 
 (as if real success could ever be other); and this 
 is all very well, provided they make something 
 worth having of themselves. Otherwise it is not 
 so well, and the examples of such are at best but 
 stuff for the Alnaschar dreams of a false democracy. 
 The gist of the matter is, not where a man starts 
 from, but where he comes out. We are glad to 
 have the biography of one who, beginning as a 
 gentleman, kept himself such to the end, — who, 
 with no necessity of labor, left behind him an 
 amount of thoroughly done work such as few have 
 accomplished with the mighty help of hunger. 
 Some kind of pace may be got out of the veriest 
 jade by the near prospect of oats; but the thor- 
 oughbred has the spur in his blood. 
 
 In the remainder of his essay, Lowell gives us something of a 
 sketch of the life of Josiah Quincy, following along the diary of 
 which he excellently says: " Thus many a door into the past, long 
 irrevocably shut on us, is set ajar, and we of the younger genera- 
 tion on the landing catch peeps of distinguished men, and bits of 
 their table talk." We of a generation younger still will like the 
 glimpses of Washington, of Hancock, of Adams, and Ave could 
 hardly have any one better than Lowell to give us an account 
 of what he thought most entertaining. The style of the diary 
 itself is vigorous and not unattractive. '* It needs the magic of no 
 Dr. Heidegger," writes Lowell, thinking of one of Hawthorne's 
 stories, **to make these dried roses that drop from between a 
 
222 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 volume shut for seventy years bloom again in all their sweetness." 
 That is a pretty figure, very much in Lowell's best vein, and there 
 are two or three more in the essay which follows through the 
 career of Josiah Quincy, through various distinguished positions, 
 '' a figure that w^e can contemplate with more than satisfaction, — 
 a figure of admirable example in a democracy as that of a model 
 citizen." 
 
FROM "ESSAYS: FIRST SERIES" 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 '' There is no great and no small 
 To the Soul that maketh all : 
 And where it cometh, all things are ; 
 And it cometh everywhere." 
 
 There is one mind common to all individual 
 men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to 
 all of the same. He that is once admitted to the 
 right of reason is made a freeman of the whole 
 estate. What Plato has thought, he may think ; 
 what a saint has felt, he may feel ; what at any 
 time has befallen any man, he can understand. 
 Who hath access to this universal mind, is a party 
 to all that is or can be done, for this is the only 
 and sovereign agent. 
 
 Of the works of this mind history is the record. 
 Its genius is illustrated by the entire series of 
 days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all 
 his history. Without hurry, without rest, the 
 human spirit goes forth from the beginning to 
 embody every faculty, every thought, every emo- 
 
 223 
 
224 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 tioii, which belongs to it in appropriate events. 
 But always the thought is prior to the fact ; all 
 the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws. 
 Each law in turn is made by circumstances pre- 
 dominant, and the limits of nature give power to 
 but one at a time. A man is the whole encyclo- 
 pedia of facts. The creation of a thousand forests 
 is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, 
 Britain, America, lie folded already in the first 
 man. Epoch after epoch, camp, kingdom, empire, 
 republic, democracy, are merely the application of 
 his manifold spirit to the manifold world. 
 
 This human mind wrote historv and this must 
 read it. The Sphinx must solve her own riddle. 
 If the whole of history is in one man, it is all to 
 be explained from individual experience. There 
 is a relation between the hours of our life and the 
 centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn 
 from the great repositories of nature, as the light 
 on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions 
 of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends 
 on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal 
 forces, so the hours should be instructed by the 
 ages, and the ages explained by the hours. Of 
 the universal mind each individual man is one 
 more incarnation. All its properties consist in 
 him. Every step in liis private experience flashes 
 a light on what great bodies of men have done, 
 and the crises of his life refer to national crises. 
 Every revolution was first a thought in one man's 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 225 
 
 mind, and when the same thought occurs to another 
 man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was 
 once a private opinion, and w^hen it shall be pri- 
 vate opinion again, it will solve the problem of the 
 age. The fact narrated must correspond to some- 
 thing in me to be credible or intelligible. We as 
 we read must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, 
 priest, and king, martyr and executioner, must 
 fasten these images to some reality in our secret 
 experience, or we shall see nothing, learn nothing, 
 keep nothing. What befell Asdrubal or Caesar 
 Borgia, is as much an illustration of the mind's 
 powers and depravations as what has befallen us. 
 Each new law and political movement has meaning 
 for you. Stand before each of its tablets and say, 
 '' Here is one of my coverings. Under this fan- 
 tastic, or odious, or graceful mask, did my Proteus 
 nature hide itself." This remedies the defect of 
 our too great nearness to ourselves. This throws 
 our own actions into perspective : and as crabs, 
 goats, scorpions, the balance and the waterpot, lose 
 all their meanness^ when hung as signs in the 
 zodiac, so I can see my own vices without heat in 
 the distant persons of Solomon, Alcibiades, and 
 Catiline. 
 
 It is this universal nature which gives worth to 
 particular men and things. Human life as con- 
 taining this is mysterious and inviolable, and we 
 hedge it round with'penalties and laws. All laws 
 
 1 Commonplace, ordinary character. 
 Q 
 
226 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 derive hence their ultimate reason, all express at 
 last reverence for some command of their supreme 
 illimitable essence. Property also holds of the 
 soul, covers great spiritual facts, and instinctively 
 we at first hold to it with swords and laws, and 
 wide and complex combinations. The obscure 
 consciousness of this fact is the light of all our 
 day, the claim of claims ; the plea for education, 
 for justice, for charity, the foundation of friend- 
 ship and love, and of the heroism and grandeur 
 which belongs to acts of self-reliance. It is re- 
 markable that involuntarily we always read as 
 superior beings. Universal history, the poets, the 
 romancers, do not in their stateliest pictures, — 
 in the sacerdotal, the imperial palaces, in the tri- 
 umphs of will, or of genius, anywhere lose our 
 ear, anywhere make us feel that we intrude, that 
 this is for our betters, but rather is it true that 
 in their grandest strokes, there we feel most at 
 home. All that Shakespeare says of the king, 
 yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner, 
 feels to be true of himself. We sympathize in 
 the great moments o'f history, in the great discov- 
 eries, the great resistances, the great prosperities 
 of men ; because there law was enacted, the sea 
 was searched, the land was found, or the blow 
 was struck for us^ as we ourselves in that place 
 would have done or applauded. 
 
 So is it in respect to condition and character. 
 We honor the rich because they have externally 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 227 
 
 the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to 
 be proper to man, proper to us. So all that is 
 said of the wise man by stoic ^ or oriental or mod- 
 ern essayist, describes to each man his own idea, 
 describes his unattained but attainable self. All 
 literature writes the character of the wise man. 
 All books, monuments, pictures, conversation, are 
 portraits in which the wise man finds the linea- 
 ments he is forming. The silent and the loud 
 praise him, and accost him, and he is stimulated 
 wherever he moves as by personal allusions. A 
 wise and good soul, therefore, never needs look 
 for allusions personal and laudatory in discourse. 
 He hears the commendation, not of himself, but 
 more sweet, of that character he seeks, in every 
 word that is said concerning character, yea, 
 further, in every fact that befalls, — in the run- 
 ning river, and the rustling corn. Praise is 
 looked, homage tendered, love flows from mute 
 nature, from the mountains and the lights of the 
 firmament. 
 
 These hints, dropped as it were from sleep and 
 night, let us use in broad day. The student is to 
 read history actively and not passively ; to esteem 
 his own life the text, and -books the commentary. 
 Thus compelled, the muse of history will utter 
 oracles, as never to those who do not respect 
 themselves. I have no expectation that any man 
 will read history aright, who thinks that what 
 
 1 Classic philosophy, speaking generally. 
 
228 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 was done in a remote age, by men whose names 
 have resounded far, has any deeper sense than 
 what he is doing to-day. 
 
 The world exists for the education of each man. 
 There is no age or state of society or mode of 
 action in history, to which there is not somewhat 
 corresponding in his life. Everything tends in a 
 most wonderful manner to abbreviate itself and 
 yield its whole virtue to him. He should see 
 that he can live all history in his own person. 
 He must sit at home with might and main, and 
 not suffer himself to be bullied by kings and em- 
 pires, but know that he is greater than all the 
 geography and all the government of the world ; 
 he must transfer the point of view from which 
 history is commonly read, from Rome and Athens 
 and London to himself, and not deny his convic- 
 tion that he is the Court,^ and if England or Egypt 
 have anything to say to him, he will try the case ; 
 if not, let them forever be silent. He must attain 
 and maintain that lofty sight where facts yield 
 their secret sense, and poetry and annals are alike. 
 The instinct of the mind, the purpose of nature, 
 betrays itself in the use we make of the signal 
 narrations of history. Time dissipates to shining 
 ether the solid angularity of facts. No anchor, no 
 cable, no fences avail to keep a fact a fact. Baby- 
 lon and Troy and Tyre and even early Rome are 
 passing already into fiction. The garden of Eden, 
 
 1 For himself, the only judge. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 229 
 
 the Sun standing still in Gibeon, is poetry thence- 
 forward to all nations. Who cares what the fact 
 was, when we have thus made a constellation of 
 it to hang in heaven an immortal sign ? London 
 and Paris and New York must go the same way. 
 " What is History," said Napoleon, '' but a fable 
 agreed upon ? " This life of ours is stuck round ^ 
 with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, England, War, Coloni- 
 zation, Church, Court, and Commerce, as with so 
 many flowers and wild ornaments, grave and gay. 
 I will not make more account of them. I believe 
 in Eternity. I can find Greece, Palestine, Italy, 
 Spain, and the Islands, — the genius and creative 
 principle of each and of all areas in my own 
 mind. 
 
 We are always coming up with the facts that 
 have moved us in history in our private experi- 
 ence, and verifying them here. All history 
 becomes subjective ; in other words, there is 
 properly no History ; only Biography. Every 
 soul must know the whole lesson for itself — must 
 go over the whole ground. What it does not see, 
 what it does not live, it will not know. What 
 the former age has epitomized into a formula or 
 rule for manipular convenience, it will lose all the 
 good of verifying for itself, by means of the wall 
 of that rule. Somewhere or other, some time or 
 other, it will demand and find compensation for 
 that loss by doing the work itself. Ferguson dis- 
 
 1 So that we can hardly see the real thing for the ornaments. 
 
230 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 covered many things in astronomy which had long 
 been known. The better for him. 
 
 History must be this or it is nothing. Every 
 law which the state enacts, indicates a fact in 
 human nature ; that is all. We must in our own 
 natures see the necessary reason for every fact — 
 see how it could and must be. So stand before 
 every public, every private work ; before an ora- 
 tion of Burke, before a victory of Napoleon, 
 before a martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, of Sid- 
 ney, of Marmaduke Robinson, before a French 
 Reign of Terror, and a Salem hanging of witches, 
 before a fanatic Revival, and the Animal Magnet- 
 ism ^ in Paris, or in Providence. We assume that 
 we under like influence should be alike affected, 
 and should achieve the like ; and we aim to 
 master intellectually the steps, and reach the same 
 height or the same degradation that our fellow, 
 our proxy has done. 
 
 All inquiry into antiquity, — all curiosity re- 
 specting the pyramids, the excavated cities, — 
 Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles,^ Mexico, Memphis, 
 is the desire to do away this wild, savage, and pre- 
 posterous There and Then, and introduce in its 
 place the Here and the Now. It is to banish the 
 ]}^ot me^ and supply the Me, It is to abolish dif- 
 ference and restore unity. Belzoni digs and meas- 
 
 1 The name given by Mesmer to a series of phenomena, even now 
 only partly understood, of which the hypnotic element is the best 
 known. 
 
 2 The Mounds. 
 
AMEBIC AN ESSAYS 231 
 
 ures in the mummy-pits and pyramids of Thebes, 
 until he can see the end of the difference between 
 the monstrous work and himself. When he has 
 satisfied himself, in general and in detail, that it 
 was made by -such a person as himself, so armed 
 and so motived, and to ends to which he himself 
 in given circumstances should also have worked, 
 the problem is then solved ; his thought lives 
 along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and 
 catacombs, passes through them all like a creative 
 soul, with satisfaction, and they live again to the 
 mind, or are now, 
 
 A Gothic cathedral affirms that it was done by 
 us, and not done by us. Surely it was by man, 
 but we find it not in our man. But we apply 
 ourselves to the history of its production. We 
 put ourselves into the place and historical state of 
 the builder. We remember the forest dwellers, 
 the first temples, the adherence to the first type, 
 and the decoration of it as the wealth of the 
 nation increased ; the value which is given to 
 wood by carving led to the carving over the 
 whole mountain of stone of a cathedral. When 
 we have gone through this process, and added 
 thereto the Catholic Church, its cross, its music, 
 its processions, its Saints' days, and image-worship, 
 we have, as it were, been the man that made the 
 minster ; we have seen how it could and must be. 
 We have the sufficient reason. 
 
 The difference between men is in their princi- 
 
232 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 pie of association. Some men classify objects by 
 color and size and other accidents of appearance ; 
 others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of 
 cause and effect. The progress of the intellect 
 consists in the clearer vision of causes which over- 
 looks surface differences. To the poet, to the 
 philosopher, to the saint, all things are fiiendly 
 and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all 
 men divine. For the eye is fastened on the life, 
 and slights the circumstance. Every chemical 
 substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, 
 teaches the unity of cause, the variety of ap- 
 pearance. 
 
 Why, being as we are surrounded by this all- 
 creating nature, soft and fluid as a cloud or the 
 air, should we be such hard pedants, and magnify 
 a few forms ? Why should we make account of 
 time, or of magnitude, or of form ? The soul 
 knows them not, and genius, obeying its law, 
 knows how to play with them as a young child 
 plays with graybeards and in churches. Genius 
 studies the casual thought, and far back in the 
 womb of things, sees the rays parting from one 
 orb, that diverge ere they fall by infinite diame- 
 ters. Genius watches the monad through all his 
 masks as he performs the metempsychosis of 
 nature. Genius detects through the flj^, through 
 the caterpillar, through the grub, through the 
 egg^ the constant type of the individual ; through 
 countless individuals the fixed species ; through 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 233 
 
 many species the genus ; through all genera the 
 steadfast type; through all the kmgdoms of or- 
 ganized life the eternal unity. Nature is a muta- 
 ble cloud, which is always, and never the same. 
 She casts the same thought into troops of forms, 
 as a poet makes twenty fables with one moral. 
 Beautifully shines a spirit through the bruteness 
 and toughness of matter. Alone omnipotent, it 
 converts all things to its own end. The adamant 
 streams into softest but precise form before it, 
 but, whilst I look at it, its outline and texture 
 are changed altogether. Nothing is so fleeting 
 as form. Yet never does it quite deny itself. 
 In man we still trace the rudiments or hints of 
 all that we esteem badges of servitude in the 
 lower races, yet in him they enhance his noble- 
 ness and grace ; as lo, in ^schylus, transformed 
 to a cow, offends the imagination, but how 
 changed when an Isis in Egypt she meets Jove, 
 a beautiful woman, with nothing of the meta- 
 morphosis left but the lunar horns as the splen- 
 did ornament of her brows. 
 
 The identity of history is equally intrinsic, the 
 diversity equally obvious. There is at the surface 
 infinite variety of things ; at the center there is 
 simplicity and unity of cause. How many are the 
 acts of one man in which we recognize the same 
 character. See the variety of the sources of our 
 information in respect to the Greek genius. Thus 
 at first we have the civil history of that people, as 
 
234 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch have 
 given it — a very sufficient account of what manner 
 of persons they were, and what they did. Then we 
 have the same soul expressed for us again in their 
 literature ; in poems, drama, and philosophy : a 
 very complete form. Then we have it once more in 
 their architecture — the purest sensuous beauty — 
 the perfect medium never overstepping the limit 
 of charming propriety and grace. Then we have 
 it once more in sculpture — '' the tongue on the bal- 
 ance of expression," those forms in every action, 
 at every age of life ranging through all the scale 
 of condition, from god to beast, and never trans- 
 gressing the ideal of serenity, but in convulsive ex- 
 ertion^ the liege of order and of law. Thus, of the 
 genius of one remarkable people, we have a four- 
 fold representation — the most various expression 
 of one moral thing : and to the senses what more 
 unlike than an ode of Pindar, a marble Centaur, 
 the peristyle of the Parthenon, and the last actions 
 of Phocian ? Yet do these varied external expres- 
 sions proceed from one national mind. 
 
 Every one must have observed faces and forms 
 which, without any resembling feature, make a 
 like impression on the beholder. A particular 
 picture or copy of verses, if it do not awaken the 
 same train of images, will yet superinduce the same 
 sentiment as some wild mountain walk, although 
 
 1 As for instance in the statue of the Discus-thrower. Emerson 
 more probably has in mind the Laocoon. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 235 
 
 the resemblance is nowise obvious to the senses, 
 but is occult and out of the reach of the under- 
 standing. Nature is an endless combination and 
 repetition of a very few laws. She hums the old 
 well-known air through innumerable variations. 
 
 Nature is full of a sublime family likeness 
 throughout her works. She delights in startling 
 us with resemblances in the most unexpected 
 quarters. I have seen the head of an old sachem 
 of the forest, which at once reminded the eye of 
 a bald mountain summit, and the furrows of the 
 brow suggested the strata of the rock. There 
 are men whose manners have the same essential 
 splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on 
 the friezes of the Parthenon, and the remains of 
 the earliest Greek art. And there are composi- 
 tions of the same strain to be found in the books 
 of all ages. What is Guido's Rospigliosi Aurora 
 but a morning thought, as the horses in it are 
 only a morning cloud. If any one will but take 
 pains to observe the variety of actions to which 
 he is equally inclined in certain moods of mind, 
 and those to which he is averse, he will see how 
 deep is the chain of affinity. 
 
 A painter told me that nobody could draw a 
 tree without in some sort becoming . a tree ; or 
 draw a child by studying the outlines of its form 
 merely, — but, by watching for a time his motions 
 and plays, the painter enters into his nature, and 
 can then draw him at will in every attitude. So 
 
236 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 Roos '' entered into the utmost nature of a sheep." 
 I knew a draughtsman employed in a public sur- 
 vey, who found that he could not sketch the rocks 
 until their geological structure was first explained 
 to him. 
 
 What is to be inferred from these facts but 
 this, that in a certain state of thought is the 
 common origin of very diverse works ? It is the 
 spirit and not the fact that is identical. By de- 
 scending far down into the depths of the soul, 
 and not primarily by a painful acquisition of 
 many manual skills, the artist attains the power 
 of awakening other souls to a given activity. 
 
 It has been said that " common souls pay with 
 what they do ; nobler souls with that which they 
 are." And why? Because a soul, living from 
 a great depth of being, awakens in us by its ac- 
 tions and words, by its very looks and manners, 
 the same power and beauty that a gallery of sculp- 
 ture, or of pictures, are wont to animate. 
 
 Civil history, natural history, the history of art, 
 and the history of literature — all must be ex- 
 plained from individual history, or must remain 
 words. There is nothing but is related to us, 
 nothing that does not interest us — kingdom, col- 
 lege, tree, horse, or iron shoe, the roots of all 
 things are in man. It is in the soul that archi- 
 tecture exists. Santa Croce^ and the Dome of 
 St. Peter's are lame copies after a divine model. 
 
 1 A famous church m Florence. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 237 
 
 Strasburg Cathedral is a material counterpart of 
 the soul of Erwin of Steinbach. The true poem 
 is the poet's mind ; the true ship is the ship- 
 builder. In the man, could we lay him open, 
 we should see the sufficient reason for the last 
 flourish and tendril of his work, as every spine 
 and tint in the sea-shell preexist in the secreting 
 organs of the fish. The whole of heraldry and of 
 chivalry is in courtesy. A man of fine manners 
 shall pronounce your name with all the ornament 
 that titles of nobility could ever add. 
 
 The trivial experience of every day is always 
 verifying some old prediction to us, and convert- 
 ing into things for us also the words and signs 
 which we had heard and seen without heed. Let 
 me add a few examples, such as fall within the 
 scope of every man's observation, of trivial facts 
 which go to illustrate great and conspicuous facts. 
 
 A lady, with whom I was riding in the forest, 
 said to me, that the woods always seemed to her 
 to wait^ as if the genii who inhabit them suspended 
 their deeds until the wayfarer had passed onward. 
 This is precisely the thought which poetry has 
 celebrated in the dance of the fairies which breaks 
 off on the approach of human feet. The man who 
 has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds 
 at midnight, has been present, like an archangel 
 at the creation of light and of the world. I 
 remember that being' abroad one summer day, my 
 companion pointed out to me a broad cloud, which 
 
238 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 might extend a quarter of a mile parallel to the 
 horizon, quite accurately in the form of a cherub 
 as painted over churches, — a round block in the 
 center which it was easy to animate with eyes and 
 mouth, supported on either side by wide stretched 
 symmetrical wings. What appears once in the 
 atmosphere may appear often, and it was undoubt- 
 edly the archetype of that familiar ornament. I 
 have seen in the sky a chain of summer lightning 
 which at once revealed to me that the Greeks 
 drew from nature when they painted the thunder- 
 bolt in the hand of Jove. I have seen a snow- 
 drift along the sides of the stone wall which 
 obviously gave the idea of the common architec- 
 tural scroll to abut a tower. 
 
 By simply throwing ourselves into new circum- 
 stances we do continually invent anew the orders 
 and the ornaments of architecture, as we see how 
 each people merely decorated its primitive abodes. 
 The Doric temple still presents the semblance 
 of the wooden cabin in which the Dorian dwelt. 
 The Chinese pagoda is plainly a Tartar tent. 
 The Indian and Egyptian temples still betray the 
 mounds and subterranean houses of their fore- 
 fathers. " The custom of making houses and 
 tombs in the living rock " (says Heeren, in his 
 " Researches on the Ethiopians " ) " determined 
 very naturally the principal character of the Nubian 
 Egyptian architecture to the colossal form which 
 it assumed. In these caverns already prepared by 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 239 
 
 nature, the eye was accustomed to dwell on huge 
 shapes and masses, so that when art came to the 
 assistance of nature, it could not move on a 
 small scale without degrading itself. What 
 would statues of the usual size or neat porches 
 and wings have been, associated with those gigan- 
 tic halls before which only Colossi could sit as 
 watchmen, or lean on the pillars of the interior?" 
 
 The Gothic church plainly originated in a rude 
 adaptation of the forest trees with all their boughs 
 to a festal or solemn arcade, as the bands about 
 the cleft pillars still indicate the green withes 
 that tied them. No one can walk in a road cut 
 through pine woods, without being struck with 
 the architectural appearance of the grove, espe- 
 cially in winter, when the bareness of all other 
 trees shows the low arch of the Saxons. In the 
 woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily 
 the origin of the stained glass window with which 
 the Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors 
 of the western sky seen through the bare and cross- 
 ing branches of the forest. Nor can any lover of 
 nature enter the old piles of Oxford and the Eng- 
 lish cathedrals without feeling that the forest over- 
 powered the mind of the builder, and that his chisel, 
 his saw, and plane still reproduced its ferns, its 
 spikes of flowers, its locust, its pine, its oak, its 
 fir, its spruce. 
 
 The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone 
 subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in 
 
240 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 man. The mountain of granite blooms into an 
 eternal flower with the lightness and delicate 
 finish as well as the aerial proportions and per- 
 spective of vegetable beauty. 
 
 In like manner all public facts are to be indi- 
 vidualized, all private facts are to be generalized. 
 Then at once History becomes fluid and true, and 
 Biography deep and sublime. As the Persian 
 imitated in the slender shafts and capitals of his 
 architecture the stem and flower of the lotus and 
 palm, so the Persian Court in its magnificent era 
 never gave over the Nomadism of its barbarous 
 tribes, but traveled from Ecbatana, where the 
 spring was spent, to Susa in summer, and to Baby- 
 lon for the winter. 
 
 In the early history of Asia and Africa, Nomad- 
 ism and Agriculture are the two antagonistic facts. 
 The geography of Asia and Africa necessitated a 
 nomadic life. But the nomads were the terror of 
 all those whom the soil or the advantages of a 
 market had induced to build towns. Agriculture, 
 therefore, was a religious injunction because of the 
 perils of the state from nomadism. And in these 
 late and civil countries of England and Africa, the 
 contest of these propensities still fights out the old 
 battle in each individual. We are all rovers and 
 all fixtures by turns, and pretty rapid turns. The 
 nomads of Africa are constrained to wander by 
 the attacks of the gad-fly, which drives the cattle 
 mad, and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 241 
 
 rainy season and drive off the cattle to the higher 
 sandy regions. The nomads of Asia follow the 
 pasturage from month to month. In America 
 and Europe the nomadism is of trade and curi- 
 osity. A progress certainly from the gad-fly of 
 Astaboras to the Anglo and Italomania of Boston 
 Bay.i The difference between men in this respect 
 is the faculty of rapid domestication, the power to 
 find his chair and bed everywhere, which one man 
 has, and another has not. Some men have so 
 much of the Indian left, have constitutionally such 
 habits of accommodation, that at sea, or in the 
 forest, or in the snow, they sleep as warm, and 
 dine with as good appetite, and associate as hap- 
 pily, as in their own house. And to push this 
 old fact still one degree nearer, we may find it 
 a representative of a permanent fact in human 
 nature, — the intellectual nomadism in the faculty 
 of objectiveness or of eyes which everywhere 
 feed themselves. Who hath such eyes, every- 
 where falls into easy relations with his fellow- 
 men. Every man, everything is a prize, a study, 
 a property to him, and this love smooths his 
 brow, joins him to men and makes him beauti- 
 ful and beloved in their sight. His house is a 
 wagon ; he roams through all latitudes as easily 
 as a Calmuc. 
 
 Everything the individual sees without him 
 corresponds to his < states of mind, and every- 
 
 1 The American passion for rushing away to England and Italy. 
 
242 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 thing is in turn intelligible to him as his on- 
 ward thinking leads him into the truth to 
 which that act or series belongs. 
 
 The primeval Avorld, the Fore-world, as the 
 Germans say, — I can dive to it in myself as well 
 as grope for it with researching fingers in cata- 
 combs, libraries, and the broken reliefs and torsos 
 of ruined villas. 
 
 What is the foundation of that interest all men 
 feel in Greek historj^, letters,, art, and poetry, in 
 all its periods, from the heroic or Homeric age, 
 down to the domestic life of the Athenians and 
 Spartans, four or five centuries later ? This 
 period draws us because we are Greeks. It is 
 a state through which every man in some sort 
 passes. The Grecian state is the era of the 
 bodily nature, the perfection of the senses, — 
 of the spiritual nature unfolded in strict unity 
 with the body. In it existed {hose human forms 
 which supplied the sculptor with his models of 
 Hercules, Phcebus, and Jove; not like the forms 
 abounding in the streets of modern cities, wherein 
 the face is a confused blur of features, but com- 
 posed of incorrupt, sharply defined and symmet- 
 rical features, whose eye-sockets are so formed 
 that it would be impossible for such eyes to 
 squint, and take furtive glances on this side and 
 on that, but they must turn the whole head. 
 
 The manners of that period are plain and fierce. 
 The reverence exhibited is for personal qualities, 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 243 
 
 courage, address, self-command, justice, strength, 
 swiftness, a loud voice, a broad chest. Luxury is 
 not known, nor elegance. A sparse population 
 and want make every man his own valet, cook, 
 butcher, and soldier, and the habit of supplying 
 his own needs educates the body to wonderful 
 performances. Such are, the Agamemnon and 
 Diomed of Homer, and not far different is the 
 picture Xenophon gives of himself and his com- 
 patriots in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand.^ 
 '' After the army had crossed the river Teleboas 
 in Armenia, there fell much snow, and the troops 
 lay miserably on the ground, covered with it. 
 But Xenophon arose naked, and taking an axe, 
 began to split wood ; whereupon others rose and 
 did the like." Throughout his army seemed to 
 be a boundless liberty of speech. They quarrel 
 for plunder, they wrangle with the generals on 
 each new order, and Xenophon is as sharp-tongued 
 as any, and sharper- tongued than most, and so 
 gives as good as he gets. Who does not see that 
 this is a gang of great boys with such a code of 
 honor and such lax discipline as great boys have ? 
 The costly charm of the ancient tragedy and 
 indeed of all the old literature is, that the persons 
 speak simply, — speak as persons who have great 
 good sense without knowing it, before yet the 
 reflective habit has become the predominant habit 
 of the mind. Our admiration of the antique is 
 
 1 The retreat of the Greek mercenaries after the battle of Cimaxa. 
 
244 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 not admiration of the old, but of the natural. 
 The Greeks are not reflective but perfect in their 
 senses, perfect in their health, with the finest phys- 
 ical organization in the world. Adults acted with 
 the simplicity and grace of boys. They made 
 vases, tragedies, and statues such as healthy senses 
 should, — that is, in good taste. Such things have 
 continued to be made in all ages, and are now, 
 wherever a healthy physique exists, but, as a 
 class, from their superior organization, they have 
 surpassed all. They combine the energy of man- 
 hood with the engaging unconsciousness of child- 
 hood. Our reverence for them is our reverence 
 for childhood. Nobody can reflect upon an uncon- 
 scious act with regret or contempt. Bard or hero 
 cannot look down on the word or gesture of a 
 child. It is as great as they. The attraction 
 of these manners is, that they belong to man, and 
 are known to every man in virtue of his being 
 once a child ; beside that always there are indi- 
 viduals who retain these characteristics. A per- 
 son of childlike genius and inborn energy is still 
 a Greek, and revives our love of the muse of 
 Hellas. A great boy, a great girl, with good 
 sense, is a Greek. Beautiful is the love of nature 
 in the " Philoctetes." ^ But in reading those fine 
 apostrophes to sleep, to the stars, rocks, moun- 
 tains, and waves, I feel time passing away as an 
 ebbing sea. I feel the eternity of man, the iden- 
 
 1 Oue of the tragedies of Sophocles. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 246 
 
 tity of his thought. The Greek had, it seems, 
 the same fellow-beings as I. The sun and moon, 
 water and fire, met his heart precisely as they 
 meet mine. Then the vaunted distinction between 
 Greek and English, between classic and romantic 
 schools seems superficial and pedantic. When a 
 thought of Plato becomes a thought to me, — 
 when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires 
 mine, time is no more. When I feel that we two 
 meet in a perception, that our two souls are tinged 
 with the same hue, and do, as it were, run into 
 one, why should I measure degrees of latitude, 
 why should I count Egyptian years? 
 
 The student interprets the age of chivalry by 
 his own age of chivalry, and the days of maritime 
 adventure and circumnavigation by quite parallel 
 miniature experiences of his own. To the sacred 
 history of the world, he has the same key. When 
 the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity 
 merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy, 
 a prayer of his youth, he then pierces to the truth 
 through all the confusion of tradition and carica- 
 ture of institutions. 
 
 Rare, extravagant spirits come by us at inter- 
 vals, who disclose to us new facts in nature. I 
 see that men of God have always, from time to 
 time, walked among men and made their commis- 
 sion felt in the heart and soul of the commonest 
 hearer. Hence, evidently, the tripod, the priest, 
 the priestess inspired by the divine afflatus. 
 
246 HAWTHOBNE CLASSICS 
 
 Jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. 
 They cannot unite him to history or reconcile him 
 with themselves. As they come to revere their 
 intuitions and aspire to live holily, their own i)iety 
 explains every fact, every word. 
 
 How easily these old worships of Moses, of 
 Zoroaster, of Menu, of Socrates, domesticate them- 
 selves in the mind. I cannot find any antiquity 
 in them. They are mine as much as theirs. 
 
 Then I have seen the first monks and anchorets 
 without crossing seas or centuries. More than 
 once some individual has appeared to me with 
 such negligence of labor and such commanding 
 contemplation, a haughty beneficiary, begging in 
 the name of God, as made good to the nineteenth 
 century Simeon the Stylite, the Thebais,^ and the 
 first Capuchins. 
 
 The priestcraft of the East and West, of the 
 Magian, Brahmin, Druid, and Inca, is expounded 
 in the individual's private life. The cramping 
 influence of a hard formalist on a young child in 
 repressing his spirits and courage, paralyzing the 
 understanding, and that without producing indig- 
 nation, but only fear and obedience, and even 
 much sympathy with the tyranny, — is a familiar 
 fact explained to the child when he becomes a 
 man, only by seeing that the oppressor of his youth 
 is himself a child tyrannized over by those names 
 and words and forms, of whose influence he was 
 
 1 The abode of Egyptian hermits and anchorites. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS . 247 
 
 merely the organ to the youth. The fact teaches 
 him how Belus was worshiped, and how the pyra- 
 mids were built, better than the discovery by 
 Champollion of the names of all the workmen 
 and the cost of every tile. He finds Assyria and 
 the mounds of Cholula at his door, and himself 
 has laid the courses. 
 
 Again in that protest which each considerate 
 person makes against the superstition of his time, 
 he reacts step for step the part of old reformers, 
 and in the search after truth finds like them new 
 perils to virtue. He learns again what moral 
 vigor is needed to supply the girdle of a supersti- 
 tion. A great licentiousness treads on the heels 
 of a reformation. How many times in the history 
 of the world has the Luther of the day had to 
 lament the decay of piety in his own household. 
 " Doctor," said his wife to Martin Luther one day, 
 '^ how is it that whilst subject to papacy, we prayed 
 so often and with such fervor, whilst now we pray 
 with the utmost coldness and very seldom ? " 
 
 The advancing man discovers how deep a prop- 
 erty he hath in all literature, — in all fable as well 
 as in all history. He finds that the poet was no 
 odd fellow who described strange and impossible 
 situations, but that universal man wrote by his 
 pen a confession true for one and true for all. 
 His own secret biography he finds in lines wonder- 
 fully intelligible to* him, yet dotted down before 
 he was born. One after another he comes up in 
 
248 , HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 his private adventures with every fable of ^sop, 
 of Homer, of Hafiz, of Ariosto, of Chaucer, of Scott, 
 and verifies them with his own head and hands. 
 
 The beautiful fables of the Greeks, being proper 
 creations of the Imagination and not of the Fancy, 
 are universal verities. What a range of meanings 
 and what perpetual pertinence has the story of 
 Prometheus ! Beside its primary value as the first 
 chapter of the history of Europe (the mythology 
 thinly veiling authentic facts, the invention of 
 the mechanic arts, and the migration of colonies), 
 it gives the history of religion with some closeness 
 to the faith of later ages. Prometheus is the 
 Jesus of the old mythology. He is the friend of 
 man ; stands between the unjust " justice " of the 
 Eternal Father, and the race of mortals ; and 
 readily suffers all things on their account. But 
 where it departs from the Calvinistic Christianity, 
 and exhibits him as the defier of Jove, it repre- 
 sents a state of mind which readily appears wher- 
 ever the doctrine of Theism is taught in a crude, 
 objective form, and which seems the self-defense 
 of man against this untruth, namely, a discontent 
 with the believed fact that a God exists, and a 
 feeling that the obligation of reverence is onerous. 
 It would steal, if it could, the fire of the Creator, 
 and live apart from him, and independent of him. 
 The " Prometheus Vinctus " ^ is the romance of 
 skepticism. Not less true to all time are all 
 
 1 Of JEschylus. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 249 
 
 details of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the 
 flocks of Admetus, said the poets. Every man is 
 a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It 
 seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into 
 our world as to an asylum, and here they will break 
 out into their native music and utter at intervals 
 the words they have heard in heaven; then the 
 mad fit returns, and they mope and wallow like 
 dogs. When the gods come among men, they 
 are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and 
 Shakespeare were not. Antseus was suffocated 
 by the grip of Hercules, but every time he 
 touched his mother earth, his strength was re- 
 newed. Man is the broken giant, and in all 
 his weakness, both his body and his mind are 
 invigorated by habits of conversation with nature. 
 The power of music, the power of poetry to unfix, 
 and, as it were, clap wings to all solid nature, 
 interprets the riddle of Orpheus, which was to 
 his childhood an idle tale. The philosophical 
 perception of identity through endless mutations 
 of form makes him know the Proteus. What 
 else am I who laughed or wept yesterday, who 
 slept last night like a corpse, and this morning 
 stood and ran? And what see I on any side 
 but the transmigrations of Proteus? I can sym- 
 bolize my thought by using the name of any crea- 
 ture, of any fact, because every creature is man, 
 agent or patient. ' Tantalus is but a name for 
 you and me. Tantalus means the impossibility 
 
260 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 of drinking the waters of thought which are 
 always gleaming and waving within sight of 
 the soul. The transmigration of souls : that too 
 is no fable. I would it were; but men and 
 women are only half human. Every animal of 
 the barn-yard, the field and the forest, of the 
 earth and of the waters that are under the 
 earth, has contrived to get a footing and to 
 leave the print of its features and form in some 
 one or other of these upright, heaven-facing 
 speakers. Ah, brother, hold fast to the man 
 and awe the beast; stop the ebb of thy soul — 
 ebbing downward into the forms into whose 
 habits thou hast now for many years slid. As 
 near and proper to us is also that old fable of 
 the Sphinx, who was said to sit in the roadside 
 and put riddles to every passenger. If the man 
 could not answer she swallowed him alive. If 
 he could solve the riddle, the Sphinx was slain. 
 What is our life but an endless flight of winged 
 facts or events ! In splendid variety these changes 
 come, all putting questions to the human spirit. 
 Those men who cannot answer by a superior 
 wisdom these facts or questions of time, serve 
 them. Facts incumber them, tyrannize over 
 them, and make the men of routine, the men of 
 sense^ in whom a literal obedience to facts has 
 extinguished every spark of that light by which 
 man is truly man. But if the man is true to 
 his better instincts or sentiments, and refuses 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 251 
 
 the dominion of facts, as one that comes of a 
 higher race, remains fast by the soul and sees 
 the principle, then the facts fall aptly and supple 
 into their places ; they know their master, and 
 the meanest of them glorifies him. 
 
 See in Goethe's " Helena " ^ the same desire that 
 every word should be a thing. These figures, he 
 would say, the Chirons, Griffins, Pliorkyas, Helen, 
 and Leda, are somewhat, and do exert a specific 
 influence on the mind. So far then are they eter- 
 nal entities, as real to-day as in the first Olympiad. 
 Much revolving them, he writes out freely his 
 humor, and gives them body to his own imagina- 
 tion. And although that poem be as vague and 
 fantastic as a dream, yet it is much more attractive 
 than the more regular dramatic pieces of the same 
 author, for the reason that it operates a wonderful 
 relief to the mind from the routine of customary 
 images, — awakens the reader's invention and 
 fancy by the wild freedom of the design, and by 
 the unceasing succession of brisk shocks of surprise. 
 
 The universal nature, too strong for the petty 
 nature of the bard, sits on his neck and writes 
 through his hand; so that when he seems to vent 
 a mere caprice and wild romance, the issue is an 
 exact allegory. Hence Plato said that ''poets 
 utter great and wise things which they do not 
 themselves understand." All the fictions of the 
 Middle Age explain themselves as a masked or 
 
 1 The second part of '' Faust." 
 
252 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 frolic expression of that which in grave earnest 
 the mind of that period toiled to achieve. Magic, 
 and all that is ascribed to it, is manifestly a deep 
 presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes 
 of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of 
 subduing the elements, of using the secret virtues 
 of minerals, of understanding the voices of birds, 
 are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right di- 
 rection. The preternatural prowess of the hero, 
 the gift of perpetual youth, and the like, are alike 
 the endeavor of the human spirit "to bend the 
 shows of things to the desires of the mind." 
 
 In " Perceforest " and " Amadis de Gaul," a gar- 
 land and a rose bloom on the head of her who is 
 faithful, and fade on the brow of the inconstant. 
 In the story of " The Boy and the Mantle," even a 
 mature reader may be surprised with a glow of 
 virtuous pleasure at the triumph of the gentle 
 Genelas ; and indeed, all the postulates of elfin an- 
 nals, that the Fairies do not like to be named ; that 
 their gifts are capricious and not to be trusted ; 
 that w^ho seeks a treasure must not speak ; and the 
 like, I find true in Concord, however they might 
 be in Cornwall or Bretagne. 
 
 Is it otherwise in the newest romance ? I read 
 "The Bride of Lammermoor." Sir William Ash- 
 ton is a mask for a vulgar temptation. Ravens wood 
 Castle, a fine name for proud poverty, and the 
 foreign mission of state only a Bunyan disguise ^ 
 
 1 Only an allegorical expression. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 253 
 
 for honest industry. We may all shoot a wild 
 bull that would toss the good and beautiful, by 
 fighting down the unjust and sensual. Lucy Ash- 
 ton is another name for fidelity, which is always 
 beautiful and always liable to calamity in this 
 world. 
 
 But along with the civil and metaphysical his- 
 tory of man, another history goes daily forward 
 — that of the external world — in which he is not 
 less strictly implicated. He is the compend of 
 time : he is also the correlative of nature. The 
 power of man consists in the multitude of his 
 affinities, in the fact that his life is intertwined 
 with the whole chain of organic and inorganic 
 being. In the age of the Caesars, out from the 
 Forum at Rome proceeded the great highways 
 north, south, east, west to the center of every 
 province of the empire, making each market-town 
 of Persia, Spain, and Britain, pervious to the sol- 
 diers of the capital ; so out of the human heart 
 go, as it were, highways to the heart of every 
 object in nature, to reduce it under the dominion 
 of man. A man is a bundle of relations, a knot 
 of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world. 
 All his faculties refer to natures out of him. All 
 his faculties predict the world he is to inhabit, 
 as the fins of the fish foreshow that water exists, 
 or the wings of an eagle in the egg presuppose a 
 medium like air. > Insulate and you destroy him. 
 He cannot live without a world. Put Napoleon 
 
254 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 in an island prison, let his faculties find no men 
 to act on, no Alps to climb, no stake to play for, 
 and he would beat the air and appear stupid. 
 Transport him to large countries, dense popula- 
 tion, complex interests, and antagonistic power, 
 and you shall see that the man Napoleon, bounded, 
 that is, by such a profile and outline, is not the 
 virtual Napoleon. This is but Talbot's shadow : — 
 
 '' His substance is not here : 
 For what you see is but the smallest part, 
 And least proportion of humanity : 
 But were the whole frame here, 
 It is of such a spacious, lofty pitch, 
 Your roof were not sufficient to contain it." 
 
 Henry IV. 
 
 Columbus needs a planet to shape his course 
 upon. Newton and Laplace need myriads of 
 ages and thick-strown celestial areas. One may 
 say a gravitating solar system is already prophe- 
 sied in the nature of Newton's mind. Not less 
 does the brain of Davy and Gay Lussac from 
 childhood exploring always the afiinities and 
 repulsions of particles, anticipate the laws of or- 
 ganization. Does not the eye of the human em- 
 bryo predict the light ? the ear of Handel predict 
 the witchcraft of harmonic sound ? Do not the 
 constructive fingers of Watt, Fulton, Whittemore, 
 Arkwright predict the fusible, hard, and temper- 
 able texture of metals, the properties of stone, 
 water, and wood ? the lovely attributes of the 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 255 
 
 maiden child predict the refinements and decora- 
 tions of civil society ? Here also we are reminded 
 of the action of man on man. A mind might pon- 
 der its thoughts for ages, and not gain so much 
 self-knowledge as a passion of love shall teach 
 it in a day. Who knows himself before he has 
 been thrilled with indignation at an outrage, or 
 has heard an eloquent tongue, or has shared the 
 throb of thousands in a national exultation or 
 alarm ? No man can antedate his experience, or 
 guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall 
 unlock, any more than he can draw to-day the 
 face of a person whom he shall see to-morrow for 
 the first time. 
 
 I will not now go behind the general statement 
 to explore the reason of this correspondency. 
 Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, 
 namely, that the mind is One, and that nature 
 is its correlative, history is to be read and 
 written. 
 
 Thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and 
 reproduce its treasures for each pupil, for each 
 new-born man. He, too, shall pass through the 
 whole cycle of experience. He shall collect into 
 a focus the rays of nature. History no longer 
 shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in 
 every just and wise man. You shall not tell me 
 by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes 
 you have read, You shall make me feel what 
 periods you have lived. A man shall be the Tern- 
 
256 HAWTHORNE CLASSICS 
 
 pie of Fame.^ He shall walk, as the poets have 
 described that goddess, in a robe painted all over 
 with wonderful events and experiences ; his own 
 form and features by their exalted intelligence 
 shall be that variegated vest. I shall find in him 
 the Fore-world ; in his childhood the Age of 
 Gold ; the Apples of Knowledge ; the Argonautic 
 Expedition ; the calling of Abraham ; the build- 
 ing of the Temple ; the Advent of Christ ; Dark 
 Ages ; the Revival of Letters ; the Reformation ; 
 the discovery of new lands, the opening of new 
 sciences, and new regions in man. He shall be 
 the priest of Pan,^ and bring with him into hum- 
 ble cottages the blessing of the morning stars and 
 all the recorded benefits of heaven and earth. 
 
 Is there somewhat overweening in this claim ? 
 Then I reject all I have written, for what is the 
 use of pretending to know what we know not? 
 But it is the fault of our rhetoric that Ave cannot 
 strongly state one fact without seeming to believe 
 some other. I hold our actual knowledge very 
 cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, see the lizard 
 on the fence, the fungus under foot, the lichen 
 on the log. What do I know sympathetically, 
 morally, of either of these worlds of life ? As 
 long as the Caucasian man — perhaps longer — 
 these creatures have kept their counsel beside 
 
 1 He shall himself have experienced the great things done by 
 great men. 
 
 2 Emerson thinks of him according to his name, as the god of all 
 things. 
 
AMERICAN ESSAYS 257 
 
 him, and there is no record of any word or sign 
 that has passed from one to the other. Nay, 
 what does history yet record of the metaphysical 
 annals of man ? What light does it shed on those 
 mysteries which we hide under the names Death 
 and Immortality? Yet every history should be 
 written in a wisdom which divined the range of 
 our affinities and looked on facts as symbols. I 
 am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale 
 our so-called History is. How many times we 
 must say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople ? 
 What does Rome know of rat and lizard ? What 
 are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighbor- 
 ing systems of being ? Nay, what food or experi- 
 ence or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal 
 hunter, for the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisher- 
 man, the stevedore, the porter? 
 
 Broader and deeper we must write our annals 
 — from an ethical reformation, from an influx of 
 the ever new, ever sanative conscience — if we 
 would trulier express our central and wide-related 
 nature, instead of this old chronology of selfish- 
 ness and pride to which we have too long lent 
 our eyes. Already that day exists for us, shines 
 in on us at unawares, but the path of science and 
 of letters is not the way into nature, but from 
 it, rather. The idiot, the Indian, the child, and 
 unschooled farmer's boy, come much nearer to 
 these, — understand them better than the dis- 
 sector or the antiquary. 
 
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