Vol. II. No. 7. Five cents. 
 
 Per Year, Fifty cents 
 
 to tbe Ibomea of 
 Hmcrican Hiitbora 
 
 Ibawtborne 
 
 BY 
 
 George William Curtis 
 
 JULY. 1896 
 
 Ne'vy York and London : (5. |P. 
 
 Iputnam's Sons ^ ^ 
 
 New Rochelle, N. Y, The 
 
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Xittle 3ourne^0 
 
 SERIES FOR 1896 
 
 Xittle 5ournci25 to tbc "Ibomes of 
 amecican autbors 
 
 The papers below specified, were, with the 
 exception of that contributed by the editor, 
 Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late 
 G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a series entitled 
 Homes of American Authors. It is now 
 nearly half a century since this series (which 
 won for itself at the time a very noteworthy 
 prestige) was brought before the public ; an^^ 
 the present publishers feel that no apology i? 
 needed in presenting to a new generation of 
 American readers papers of such distinctive 
 biographical interest and literary value. 
 
 No. I, Emerson, by Geo. W. Curtis. 
 " 2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland. 
 " 3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard. 
 " 4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs. 
 *• 5, Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant. 
 ** 6, Walt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard. 
 " 7, Hawthorne, by Geo. W^m. Curlis. 
 " 8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin. 
 " 9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman. 
 
 *• 10, Longfellow by Geo. Wm. Curtis. 
 
 " II, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard. 
 
 *' 12, Bancroft, by Geo. W. Greene. 
 
 The above papers, which will form the 
 series of Little Journeys for the year 1896, 
 will be issued monthly, beginning January, 
 in the same general style as the series of 
 1895, at sects, a year. Single copies, 5 cts., 
 postage paid. 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, New Rochelle, N. Y., 
 as second class matter 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 27 * 29 West 230 Street, New York 
 
 24 Bedford Street, Strand, London 
 
 The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochelle, N. Y. 
 

 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 
 
 197 
 
" It was sometimes the case, ' ' continued Grand- 
 father, "that affrays happened between such 
 wUd young men as these and small parties of the 
 soldiers. No weapons had hitherto been used 
 except fists or cudgels. But when men have 
 loaded muskets in their hands, it is easy to fore- 
 tell that they will soon be turned against the 
 bosoms of those who provoke their anger." 
 
 " Grandfather," said little Alice, looking fear- 
 fully into his face, " your voice sounds as though 
 you were going to tell us something awful ! " 
 Grandfather's Chair. 
 
 198 
 
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 
 
 BY GEORGE WII,I,IAM CURTIS.* 
 
 HAWTHORNE has himself drawn 
 the picture of the " Old Manse " 
 in Concord. He has given to it 
 that quiet richness of coloring which 
 ideally belongs to an old country man- 
 sion. It seems so fitting a residence for 
 one who loves to explore the twilight of 
 antiquity — and the gloomier the better — 
 that the visitor, among the felicities of 
 whose life was included the freedom of 
 the Manse, could not but fancy that our 
 author's eyes first saw the daylight en- 
 chanted by the slumberous orchard be- 
 
 * Written in 1853 for Putnam's Homes of Ameri- 
 can Authors. 
 
 199 
 
IRatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 hind the house, cr tranquillized into 
 twilight by the spacious avenue in front. 
 The character of his imagination, and 
 the golden gloom of its blossoming, com- 
 pletely harmonize with the rusty, gable- 
 roofed old house upon the river side, and 
 the reader of his books would be sure 
 that his boyhood and youth knew no 
 other friends than the dreaming river, 
 and the melancholy meadows and droop- 
 ing foliage of its vicinity. 
 
 Since the reader, however, would 
 greatly mistake if he fancied this, in 
 good sooth, the ancestral halls of the 
 Hawthomes, — the genuine Hawthorn- 
 den, — he will be glad to save the credit 
 of his fancy by knowing that it was here 
 our author's bridal tour, — which com- 
 menced in Boston, then three hours 
 away, — ended, and his married life be- 
 gan. Here, also, his first child was born, 
 and here those sad and silver mosses ac- 
 cumulated upon his fancy, from which 
 he heaped so soft a bed for our dreaming. 
 "Between two tall gate-posts of rough 
 
 200 
 
Batbanlel Ibavvtborne 
 
 hewn stone (the gate itself having fallen 
 from its hinges at some unknown epoch) 
 we beheld the gray front of the old 
 parsonage, terminating the vista of an 
 avenue of black ash trees." It was a 
 pleasant spring day in the year 1843, and 
 as they entered the house, nosegays of 
 fresh flowers, arranged by friendly hands, 
 welcomed them to Concord and summer. 
 The dark-haired man, who led his wife 
 along the avenue that afternoon, had 
 been recently an officer of the customs in 
 Boston, before which he had led a soli- 
 tary life in Salem. Graduated with 
 Longfellow at Bowdoin College, in 
 Maine, he had lived a hermit in respect- 
 able Salem, an absolute recluse even from 
 his own family, walking out by night 
 and writing wild tales by day, most of 
 which were burnt in his bachelor fire, 
 and some of which, in newspapers, maga- 
 zines, and annuals, led a wandering, un- 
 certain , and mostly unnoticed life. Those 
 tales, among this class, which were at- 
 tainable, he collected into a small vol- 
 201 
 
•Watbanicl Ibawtbocnc 
 
 ume, and apprising the world that they 
 were " twice-told," sent them forth anew 
 to make their own way, in the year 1841. 
 But he piped to the world, and it did not 
 dance. He wept to it, and it did not 
 mourn. The book, however, as all good 
 books do, made its way into various 
 hearts. Yet the few penetrant minds 
 which recognized a remarkable power 
 and a method of strange fascination in 
 the stories, did not make the public, nor 
 influence the public mind. " I was," he 
 says in the last edition of these tales, 
 ** the most unknown author in America." 
 Full of glancing wit, of tender satire, of 
 exquisite natural deception, of subtle and 
 strange analysis of human life, darkly 
 passionate and weird, they yet floated un- 
 bailed barques upon the sea of publicity, 
 — unbailed, but laden and gleaming at 
 every crevice with the true treasure of 
 Cathay. 
 
 Bancrofl:, then Collector in Boston, 
 prompt to recognize and to honor tal- 
 ent, made the dreaming story-teller a 
 202 
 
Batbaniel Ibawtbornc 
 
 surveyor in the custom-house, thus open- 
 ing to him a new range of experience. 
 From the society of phantoms he stepped 
 upon Long Wharf and plumply con- 
 fronted Captain Cuttle and Dirck Hat- 
 teraick. It was no less romance to our 
 author. There is no greater error of 
 those who are called " practical men," 
 than the supposition that life is, or can 
 be, other than a dream to a dreamer. 
 Shut him up in a counting-room, barri- 
 cade him with bales of merchandise and 
 limit his library to the leger and cash- 
 book, and his prospect to the neighboring 
 signs ; talk " Bills receivable " and " Sun- 
 dries Dr. to Cash" to him forever, and 
 you are only a very amusing or very 
 annoying phantom to him. The mer- 
 chant prince might as well hope to make 
 himself a poet, as the poet a practical or 
 practicable man. He has laws to obey 
 not at all the less stringent because men 
 of a different temperament refuse to ac- 
 knowledge them, and he is held to a 
 loyalty quite beyond their conceptions. 
 203 
 
Batbanfel Ibawtbornc 
 
 So Captain Cuttle and Dirck Hatter- 
 aick were as pleasant figures to our author 
 in the picture of life, as any others. He 
 went daily upon the vessels, looked, and 
 listened, and learned ; was a favorite of 
 the sailors, as such men always are, — did 
 his work faithfully, and having dreamed 
 his dream upon Long Wharf, was married 
 and slipped up to the Old Manse, and a 
 new chapter in the romance. It opened 
 in *'the most delightful little nook of a 
 study that ever offered its snug seclusion 
 to a scholar." Of the three years in the 
 Old Manse the prelude to the Mosses 
 is the most perfect history, and of the 
 quality of those years the '* Mosses " 
 themselves are sufficient proof They 
 were mostly written in the little study, 
 and originally published in the Demo- 
 cratic Review^ then edited by Haw- 
 thorne's friend O'SuUivan. 
 
 To the inhabitants of Concord, how- 
 ever, our author was as much a phantom 
 and a fable as the old Pastor of the parish, 
 dead half a century before, and whose 
 204 
 
IRatbanfel Ibawtborne 
 
 faded portrait in the attic was gradually 
 rejoining its original in native dust. The 
 gate, fallen from its hinges in a remote 
 antiquity, was never re-hung. The 
 wheel-track leading to the door re- 
 mained still overgrown with grass. No 
 bold villager ever invaded the sleep 
 of the glimmering shadows in the 
 avenue. At evening no lights gleamed 
 from the windows. Scarce once in many 
 months did the single old knobby-faced 
 coachman at the railroad bring a fare to 
 "Mr. Hawthorne's." ''Is there any- 
 body in the old house ? ' ' sobbed the old 
 ladies in despair, imbibing tea of a livid 
 green. The knocker, which everybody 
 had enjoyed the right of lifting to sum- 
 mon the good old Pastor, no temerity 
 now dared touch. Heavens ! what if the 
 figure in the mouldy portrait should peer, 
 in answer, over the eaves, and shake 
 solemnly his decaying surplice ! Nay, 
 what if the mysterious man himself 
 should answer the summons and come to 
 the door ! It is easy to summon spirits, 
 205 
 
matbanfel Ibawtborne 
 
 — but if they come ? Collective Concord, 
 
 mowing in the river meadows, embraced 
 
 the better part of valor and left the 
 
 knocker untouched. A cloud of romance 
 
 suddenly fell out of the heaven of fancy 
 
 and enveloped the Old Manse : 
 
 In among the bearded barley 
 The reaper reaping late and early 
 
 did not glance more wistfully toward the 
 island of Shalott and its mysterious lady 
 than the reapers of Concord rye looked 
 at the Old Manse and wondered over its 
 inmate. 
 
 Sometimes, in the forenoon, a darkly 
 clad figure was seen in the little garden- 
 plot putting in com or melon seed, and 
 gravely hoeing. It was a brief apparition . 
 The farmer passing toward town and see- 
 ing the solitary cultivator, lost his faith 
 in the fact and believed he had dreamed, 
 when, upon returning, he saw no sign of 
 life, except, possibly, upon some Monday, 
 the ghostly skirt of a shirt flapping 
 spectrally in the distant orchard. Day 
 dawned and darkened over the lonely 
 206 
 
IRatbanicl fbawtborne 
 
 house. Summer with "buds and bird- 
 voices " came singing in from the South, 
 and clad the old ash trees in deeper green, 
 the Old Manse, in profounder mystery. 
 Gorgeous autumn came to visit the story- 
 teller in his little western stud}^, and de- 
 parting, wept rainbows among his trees. 
 "Winter impatiently swept down the hill 
 opposite, rifling the trees of each last 
 clinging bit of Summer, as if thrusting 
 aside opposing barriers and determined 
 to search the mystery. But his white 
 robes floated around the Old Manse, 
 ghostly as the decaying surplice of the 
 old Pastor's portrait, and in the snowy 
 seclusion of Winter the mystery was as 
 mysterious as ever. 
 
 Occasionally Emerson, or Bllery Chan- 
 ning, or Henry Thoreau, — some Poet, as 
 once Whittier, journeying to the Merri- 
 mac, or an old Brook Farmer who re- 
 membered Miles Coverdale, with Arca- 
 dian sympathy, — went down the avenue 
 and disappeared in the house. Some- 
 times a close observer, had he been am- 
 207 
 
flatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 bushed among the long grasses of the 
 orchard, might have seen the host and 
 one of his guests emerging at the back 
 door, and sauntering to the river-side, 
 step into the boat, and float off until 
 they faded in the shadow. The spectacle 
 would not have lessened the romance. 
 If it were afternoon, — one of the spec- 
 trally sunny afternoons which often be- 
 witch that region, — he would be only the 
 more convinced that there was some- 
 thing inexplicable in the whole matter 
 of this man whom nobody knew, who 
 was never once seen at town-meeting, 
 and concerning whom it was whispered 
 that he did not constantly attend church 
 all day, although he occupied the rever- 
 end parsonage of the village, and had 
 unmeasured acres of manuscript sermons 
 in his attic, beside the nearly extinct 
 portrait of an utterly extinct clergyman. 
 Mrs. RadcliflFe and Monk Lewis were 
 nothing to this ; and the awe-stricken 
 observer, if he could creep safely out of 
 the long grass, he did not fail to do so 
 208 
 
Batbaniel t)awtl)orne 
 
 quietly, fortifying his courage by remem- 
 bering stories of the genial humanity of 
 the last old Pastor who inhabited the 
 Manse, and who for fifty years was the 
 bland and beneficent Pope of Concord. 
 A genial, gracious old man, whose mem- 
 ory is yet sweet in the village, and who, 
 wedded to the grave traditions of New 
 England theology, believed of his young 
 relative, Waldo Emerson, as Miss Flighty, 
 touching her forehead, said of her land- 
 lord, that he was " m, quite m," but was 
 proud to love in him the hereditary integ- 
 rity of noble ancestors. 
 
 This old gentleman, — an eminent fig- 
 ure in the history of the Manse, and in 
 all reminiscences of Concord, — partook 
 sufficiently of mundane weaknesses to 
 betray his mortality. Hawthorne de- 
 scribes him watching the battle of Con- 
 cord, from his study window. But when 
 the uncertainty of that dark moment 
 had so happily resulted, and the first 
 battle-ground of the Revolution had be- 
 come a spot of hallowed and patriotic 
 209 
 
flatbaniel Ibawtbornc 
 
 consideration, it was a pardonable pride 
 in the good old man to order his servant, 
 whenever there was company, to assist 
 him in reaping the glory due to the 
 owner of a spot so sacred. Accordingly, 
 when some reverend or distinguished 
 guest sat with the Pastor in his little 
 parlor, or, of a summer evening, at the 
 hospitable door under the trees, Jere- 
 miah or Nicodemus, the cow-boy, would 
 deferentially approach and inquire : 
 
 *' Into what pasture shall I turn the cow 
 to-night, Sir?" 
 
 And the old gentleman would audibly 
 reply : 
 
 *'Into the battle-field, Nicodemus, into 
 the battle-field ! " 
 
 Then naturally followed wonder, in- 
 quiry, a walk in the twilight to the river- 
 bank, the old gentleman's story, the 
 corresponding respect of the listening 
 visitor, and the consequent quiet com- 
 placency and harmless satisfaction in the 
 clergyman's bosom. That throb of pride 
 was the one drop of peculiar advantage 
 
 2IO 
 
naatbantel Ibawtborn^ 
 
 which the Pastor distilled from the revo- 
 lution. He could not but fancy that he 
 had a hand in so famous a deed accom- 
 plished upon land now his own, and de- 
 meaned himself, accordingly, with conti- 
 nental dignity. 
 
 The pulpit, however, was his especial 
 sphere. There he reigned supreme ; there 
 he exhorted, rebuked, and advised, as in 
 the days of Mather. There he inspired 
 that profound reverence, of which he was 
 so proud, and which induced the matrons 
 of the village, when he was coming to 
 make a visit, to bedizen the children in 
 their Sunday suits, to parade the best 
 tea-pot, and to offer the most capacious 
 chair. In the pulpit he delivered every- 
 thing with the pompous cadence of the 
 elder New England clergy, and a sly joke 
 is told at the expense of his even temper, 
 that on one occasion, when loftily read- 
 ing the hymn, he encountered a blot upon 
 the page quite obliterating the word, 
 but without losing the cadence, although 
 in a very vindictive tone at the truant 
 
 211 
 
matbanfel Ibawtborne 
 
 •word, or the culprit who erased it, — he 
 finished the reading as follows : 
 
 He sits upon the throne above, 
 
 Attending- angels bless, 
 While Justice, Mercy, Truth, and— (an- 
 other word which is blotted out) 
 
 Compose his princely dress. 
 
 We linger around the old Manse and 
 its occupants as fondly as Hawthorne, 
 but no more fondly than all who have 
 been once within the influence of its 
 spell. There glimmers in my memory a 
 few hazy days, of a tranquil and half-pen- 
 sive character, which I am conscious were 
 passed in and around the house, and their 
 pensiveness I know to be only that touch 
 of twilight which inhered in the house 
 and its associations. Beside the few 
 chance visitors I have named, there were 
 city friends, occasionally, figures quite 
 unknown to the village, who came pre- 
 ceded by the steam-shriek of the locomo- 
 tive, were dropped at the gate-posts, and 
 were seen no more. The owner was as 
 much a vague name to me as any one. 
 
 During Hawthorne's first year's resi- 
 
 212 
 
•Katbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 dence in Concord, I had driven up witli 
 some friends to an aesthetic tea at Mr. 
 Emerson's. It was in the winter and a 
 great wood-fire blazed upon the hos- 
 pitable hearth. There were various men 
 and women of note assembled, and I, 
 who listened attentively to all the fine 
 things that were said, was for some time 
 scarcely aware of a man who sat upon 
 the edge of the circle, a little withdrawn, 
 his head slightly thrown forward upon 
 his breast, and his bright eyes clearly 
 burning under his black brow. As I 
 drifted down the stream of talk, this per- 
 son, who sat silent as a shadow, looked 
 to me, as Webster might have looked had 
 he been a poet, — a kind of poetic Web- 
 ster. He rose and walked to the win- 
 dow, and stood quietly there for a long 
 time, watching the dead white landscape. 
 No appeal was made to him, nobody 
 looked after him, the conversation flowed 
 steadily on as if everyone understood 
 that his silence was to be respected. It 
 was the same thing at table. In vain the 
 
 2X3 
 
IPlatbaniel Ibawtbotne 
 
 silent man imbibed aesthetic tea. What- 
 ever fancies it inspired did not flower at 
 his lips. But there was a light in his eye 
 which assured me that nothing was lost. 
 So supreme was his silence that it pres- 
 ently engrossed me to the exclusion of 
 everything else. There was very bril- 
 liant discourse, but this silence was much 
 more poetic and fascinating. Fine things 
 were said by the philosophers, but much 
 finer things were implied by the dumb- 
 ness of this gentleman with heavy brows 
 and black hair. When he presently rose 
 and went, Emerson, with the " slow, wise 
 smile " that breaks over his face like day 
 over the sky, said : 
 
 "Hawthorne rides well his horse of the 
 night." 
 
 Thus he remained in my memory, a 
 shadow, a phantom, until more than a 
 year afterward. Then I came to live in 
 Concord. Bvery day I passed his house, 
 but when the villagers, thinking that 
 perhaps I had some clue to the mystery, 
 said : 
 
 214 
 
IRatbaniel Ibawtbocnc 
 
 *' Do you kuow this Mr. Hawthorne ? " 
 I said : ** No," and trusted to Time. 
 
 Time justified my confidence and one 
 day I, too, went down the avenue, and 
 disappeared in the house. I mounted 
 those mysterious stairs to that apocry- 
 phal study. I saw *' the cheerful coat of 
 paint, and golden-tinted paper-hangings, 
 lighting up the small apartment ; while 
 the shadow of a willow tree, that swept 
 against the overhanging eaves, atem- 
 pered the cheery western sunshine." I 
 looked from the little northern window 
 whence the old Pastor watched the bat- 
 tle, and in the small dining-room beneath 
 it, upon the first floor there were 
 
 Dainty chicken, snow-white bread, 
 
 and the golden juices of Italian vine- 
 yards, which still feast insatiable mem- 
 ory." 
 
 Our author occupied the Old Manse 
 
 for three years. During that time he 
 
 was not seen probably, by more than a 
 
 dozen of the villagers. His walks could 
 
 215 
 
matbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 easily avoid the town, and upon the river 
 he was always sure of solitude. It was 
 his favorite habit to bathe every evening 
 in the river, after nightfall, and in that 
 part of it over which the old bridge 
 stood, at which the battle was fought. 
 Sometimes, but rarely, his boat accom- 
 panied another up the stream, and I re- 
 call the silent and preternatural vigor 
 with which, on one occasion, he wielded 
 his paddle to counteract the bad rowing 
 of a friend who conscientiously consid- 
 ered it his duty to do something and not 
 let Hawthorne work alone ; but who, 
 with every stroke, neutralized all Haw- 
 thorne's efforts. I suppose he would 
 have struggled until he fell senseless 
 rather than ask his friend to desist. His 
 principle seemed to be, if a man cannot 
 understand without talking to him, it is 
 quite useless to talk, because it is imma- 
 terial whether such a man understands 
 or not. His own sympathy was so broad 
 and sure, that although nothing had been 
 said for hours, his companion knew that 
 2i6 
 
•flatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 not a tiling had escaped his eye, nor had 
 a single pulse of beauty in the day, or 
 scene, or society, failed to thrill his heart. 
 In this way his silence was most social. 
 Everything seemed to have been said. 
 It was a Barmecide feast of discourse, 
 from which a greater satisfaction resulted 
 than from an actual banquet. 
 
 When a formal attempt was made to 
 desert this style of conversation, the re- 
 sult was ludicrous. Once Emerson and 
 Thoreau arrived to pay a call. They 
 were shown into the little parlor upon 
 the avenue, and Hawthorne presently 
 entered. Each of the guests sat upright 
 in his chair like a Roman senator ; to 
 them, Hawthorne, like a Dacian king. 
 The call went on, but in a most melan- 
 choly manner. The host sat perfectly 
 still, or occasionally propounded a ques- 
 tion which Thoreau answered accurately, 
 and there the thread broke short off. 
 Emerson delivered sentences that only 
 needed the setting of an essay to charm 
 the world ; but the whole visit was a 
 217 
 
IRatbanlel Ibawtborne 
 
 vague ghost of the Monday Kvening Club 
 at Mr. Emerson's, — it was a great failure. 
 Had they all been lying idly upon the 
 river brink, or strolling in Thoreau's 
 blackberry pastures, the result would 
 have been utterly dififerent. But impris- 
 oned in the proprieties of a parlor, each 
 a wild man in his way, with a necessity 
 of talking inherent in the nature of the 
 occasion, there was only a waste of treas- 
 ure. This was the only " call " in which 
 I ever knew Hawthorne to be involved. 
 
 In Mr. Emerson's house, I said it 
 seemed always morning. But Haw- 
 thorne's black-ash trees and scraggy ap- 
 ple-boughs shaded ** A land in which 
 it seemed always afternoon." I do not 
 doubt that the lotus grew along the 
 grassy marge of the Concord behind his 
 house, and that it was served, subtly con- 
 cealed, to all his guests. The house, its 
 inmates, and its life, lay, dream-like, 
 upon the edge of the little village. You 
 fancied that they all came together, and 
 were glad that at length some idol of 
 218 
 
matbanlel Ibawtborne 
 
 your imagination, some poet whose spell 
 had held you, and would hold you, for 
 ever, was housed as such a poet should be. 
 During the lapse of the three years 
 since the bridal tour of twenty miles 
 ended at the " two tall gate-posts of rough 
 hewn stone," a little wicker wagon had 
 appeared at intervals upon the avenue, 
 and a placid babe, whose eyes the soft 
 Concord day had touched with the blue 
 of its beauty, lay looking tranquilly up 
 at the grave old trees, which sighed lofty 
 lullabies over hsr sleep. The tranquillity 
 of the golden-haired Una was the living 
 and breathing type of the dreamy life of 
 the old Manse. Perhaps, that being at- 
 tained, it was as well to go. Perhaps our 
 author was not surprised nor displeased 
 when the hints came, ** growing more 
 and more distinct, that the owner of the 
 old house was pining for his native air." 
 One afternoon I entered the study, and 
 learned from its occupant that the last 
 story he should ever write there was 
 written . The son of the old pastor yearned 
 219 
 
IRatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 for his homestead. The light of another 
 summer would seek its poet in the Old 
 Manse, but in vain. 
 
 While Hawthorne had been quietly 
 writing in the ** most delightful nook of 
 a study," Mr. Polk had been elected 
 President, and Mr. Bancroft in the Cabi- 
 net did not forget his old friend the sur- 
 veyor in the custom-house. There came 
 suggestions and offers of various attrac- 
 tions. Still loving New England, would 
 he tarry there, or, as inspector of woods 
 and forests in some far-away island of the 
 Southern Sea, some hazy strip of distance 
 seen from Florida, would he taste the 
 tropics ? He meditated all the chances, 
 without immediately deciding. Gather- 
 ing up his household gods, he passed out 
 of the Old Manse as its heir entered, and 
 before the end of summer was domesti- 
 cated in the custom-house of his native 
 town of Salem. This was in the year 
 1846. 
 
 Upon leaving the Old Manse he pub- 
 lished the Mosses, announcing that it was 
 220 
 
IRatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 the last collection of tales he should put 
 forth. Those who knew him and recog- 
 nized his value to our literature, trembled 
 lest this was the last word from one who 
 spoke only pearls and rubies. It was a 
 foolish fear. The sun must shine — the 
 sea must roll — the bird must sing, and 
 the poet write. During his life in Salem, 
 of which the introduction to the Scarlet 
 Letter describes the official aspect, he 
 wrote that romance. It is inspired by 
 the spirit of the place. It presents more 
 vividly than any history the gloomy pic- 
 turesqueness of early New England life. 
 There is no strain in our literature so 
 characteristic or more real than that 
 which Hawthorne had successfully at- 
 tempted in several of his earlier sketches, 
 and of which the Scarlet Letter is the 
 great triumph. It became immediately 
 popular, and directly placed the writer of 
 stories for a small circle among the 
 world's masters of romance. 
 
 Times meanwhile changed, and Presi- 
 dents with them. General Tyler was 
 
 221 
 
Iftatbaniel fbawtborne 
 
 elected, and the Salem Collector retired. 
 It is one of the romantic points of Haw- 
 thorne's quiet life, that its changes have 
 been so frequently determined by politi- 
 cal events, which, of all others, are the 
 most entirely foreign to his tastes and 
 habits. He retired to the hills of Berk- 
 shire, the eye of the world now regard- 
 ing his movements. There he lived a 
 year or two in a little red cottage upon 
 the "Stockbridge Bowl," as a small lake 
 near that town is called. In this retreat 
 he wrote the House of the Seven Gables, 
 which more deeply confirmed the literary 
 position already acquired for him by the 
 first romance. The scene is laid in Salem, 
 as if he could not escape a strange fasci- 
 nation in the witch-haunted town of our 
 early history. It is the same black can- 
 vas upon which plays the rainbow-flash 
 of his fancy, never, in its brightest mo- 
 ment, more than illuminating the gloom. 
 This marks all his writings. They have 
 a terrible beauty, like the Siren, and their 
 fascination is sure. 
 
 222 
 
IRatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 After six years of absence, Hawthorne 
 has returned to Concord, where he has 
 purchased a small house formerly occu- 
 pied by Orphic Alcott. When that phi- 
 losopher came into possession, it was a 
 miserable house of two peaked gables. 
 But the genius which recreated itself in 
 devising graceful summer-houses, like 
 that for Mr. Emerson, already noticed, 
 soon smoothed the new residence into 
 some kind of comeliness. It was an old 
 house when Mr. Alcott entered it, but 
 his tasteful finger touched it with pic- 
 turesque grace. Not like a tired old 
 drudge of a house, rusting into unhon- 
 ored decay, but with a modest freshness 
 that does not belie the innate sobriety of 
 a venerable New England farm-house, 
 the present residence of our author stands 
 withdrawn a few yards from the high 
 road to Boston, along which marched the 
 British soldiers to Concord bridge. It 
 lies at the foot of a wooded hill, a neat 
 house of a ''rusty olive hue," with a 
 porch in front, and a central peak and a 
 223 
 
IRatbanfel Ibawtborne 
 
 piazza at each end. The genius for sum- 
 mer-houses has had full play upon the 
 hill behind. Here, upon the homely 
 steppes of Concord, is a strain of Persia. 
 Mr. Alcott built terraces, and arbors, and 
 pavilions, of boughs and rough stems of 
 trees, revealing — somewhat inadequately, 
 perhaps — the hanging gardens of delight 
 that adorn the Babylon of his Orphic 
 imagination. The hill-side is no unapt 
 emblem of his intellectual habit, which 
 garnishes the arid commonplaces of life 
 with a cold poetic aurora, forgetting that 
 it is the inexorable law of light to de- 
 form as well as adorn. Treating life as a 
 grand epic poem, the philosopher Alcott 
 forgets that Homer must nod, or we 
 should all fall asleep. The world would 
 not be very beautiful nor interesting, if it 
 were all one huge summit of Mont Blanc. 
 Unhappily, the terraced hill-side, like 
 the summer-house upon Mr. Emerson's 
 lawn, "lacks technical arrangement," 
 and the wild winds play with these archi- 
 tectural toys of fancy, like lions with 
 224 
 
matbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 humming-birds. They are gradually fall- 
 ing, shattered, — and disappearing. Fine 
 locust-trees shade them, and ornament 
 the hill with perennial beauty. The hang- 
 ing gardens of Semiramis were not more 
 fragrant than Hawthorne's hill-side dur- 
 ing the June blossoming of the locusts. 
 A few young elms, some white pines and 
 young oaks complete the catalogue of 
 trees. A light breeze constantly fans the 
 brow of the hill, making harps of the 
 tree-tops, and singing to our author, who 
 "with a book in my hand, or an unwrit- 
 ten book in my thoughts," lies stretched 
 beneath them in the shade. 
 
 From the height of the hill the eye 
 courses, unrestrained, over the solitary 
 landscape of Concord, broad and still, 
 broken only by the slight wooded undu- 
 lations of insignificant hillocks. The 
 river is not visible, nor any gleam of 
 lake. Walden Pond is just behind the 
 wood in front, and not far away over the 
 meadows sluggishly steals the river. It 
 is the most quiet of prospects. Kight 
 225 
 
IRatbanlel Ibawtborne 
 
 acres of good land lie in front of the 
 house, across the road, and in the rear 
 the estate extends a little distance over 
 the brow of the hill. 
 
 This latter is not good garden- ground, 
 but it yields that other crop which the 
 poet ** gathers in a song." Perhaps the 
 world will forgive our author that he is 
 not a prize farmer, and makes but an in- 
 different figure at the annual cattle-show. 
 We have seen that he is more nomadic 
 than agricultural. He has wandered 
 from spot to spot, pitching a temporary- 
 tent, then striking it for ** fresh fields 
 and pastures new." It is natural, there- 
 fore, that he should call his house * * The 
 Wayside," — a bench upon the road where 
 he sits for a while before passing on. If 
 the wayfarer finds him upon that bench 
 he shall have rare pleasure in sitting 
 with him, yet shudder while he stays. 
 For the pictures of our poet have more 
 than the shadows of Rembrandt. If you 
 listen to his story, the lonely pastures 
 and dull towns of our dear old homely 
 226 
 
IRatbanlel Ibawtborne 
 
 New England shall become suddenly as 
 radiant with grace and terrible with trag- 
 edy as any country and any time. The 
 waning afternoon in Concord, in which 
 the blue-frocked farmers are reaping and 
 hoeing, shall set in pensive glory. The 
 woods will forever after be haunted with 
 strange forms. You will hear whispers, 
 and music *'i' the air." In the softest 
 morning you will suspect sadness ; in the 
 most fervent noon, a nameless terror. It 
 is because the imagination of our author 
 treads the almost imperceptible line be- 
 tween the natural and the supernatural. 
 We are all conscious of striking it some- 
 times. But we avoid it. We recoil and 
 hurry away, nor dare to glance over our 
 shoulders lest we should see phantoms. 
 What are these tales of supernatural ap- 
 pearances, as well authenticated as any 
 news of the day,— and what is the sphere 
 which they imply? What is the more 
 subtle intellectual apprehension of fate 
 and its influence upon imagination and 
 life? Whatever it is, it is the mystery 
 227 
 
IRatbanlel Ibawtborne 
 
 of the fascination of these tales. They 
 converse with that dreadful realm as with 
 our real world. The light of our sun is 
 poured by genius upon the phantoms we 
 did not dare to contemplate, and lo? 
 they are ourselves, unmasked, and play- 
 ing our many parts. An unutterable sad- 
 ness seizes the reader, as the inevitable 
 black thread appears. For here Genius 
 assures us what we trembled to suspect, 
 but could not avoid suspecting, that the 
 black thread is inwoven with all forms 
 of life, with all development of char- 
 acter. 
 
 It is for this peculiarity, which harmo- 
 nizes so well with ancient places, whose 
 pensive silence seems the trance of mem- 
 ory musing over the young and lovely 
 life that illuminated its lost years, — that 
 Hawthorne is so intimately associated 
 with the " Old Manse." Yet that was 
 but the tent of a night for him. Already 
 with the Blithedale Romance, which is 
 dated from Concord, a new interest be- 
 gins to cluster around "The Wayside." 
 228 
 
IFlatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 I know not how I can more fitly con- 
 clude these reminiscences of Concord and 
 Hawthorne, whose own stories have al- 
 ways a saddening close, than by relating 
 an occurrence which blighted to many 
 hearts the beauty of the quiet Concord 
 river, and seemed not inconsonant with 
 its lonely landscape. It has the further 
 fitness of typifying the operation of our 
 author's imagination : a tranquil stream, 
 clear and bright with sunny gleams, 
 crowned with lilies and graceful with 
 swaying grass, yet doing terrible deeds 
 inexorably, and therefore forever after, 
 of a shadowed beauty. 
 
 Martha was the daughter of a plain 
 Concord farmer, a girl of delicate and 
 shy temperament, who excelled so much 
 in study that she was sent to a fine acad- 
 emy in a neighboring town, and won all 
 the honors of the course. She met at 
 the school, and in the society of the 
 place, a refinement and cultivation, a 
 social gayety and grace, which were en- 
 tirely unknown in the hard life she had 
 229 
 
IRatbanlel Ibawtborne 
 
 led at home, and which by their very 
 novelty, as well as because they harmo- 
 nized with her own nature and dreams, 
 were doubly beautiful and fascinating. 
 She enjoyed this life to the full, while 
 her timidity kept her only a spectator ; 
 and she ornamented it with a fresher 
 grace, suggestive of the woods and fields, 
 when she ventured to engage in the airy 
 game. It was a sphere for her capacities 
 and talents. She shone in it, and the 
 consciousness of a true position and 
 genial appreciation gave her the full use 
 of all her powers. She admired and was 
 admired. She was surrounded by grati- 
 fications of taste, by the stimulants and 
 rewards of ambition. The world was 
 happy, and she was worthy to live in it. 
 But at times a cloud suddenly dashed 
 athwart the sun — a shadow stole, dark 
 and chill, to the very edge of the charmed 
 circle in which she stood. She knew well 
 what it was, and what it foretold, but she 
 would not pause nor heed. The sun 
 shone again ; the future smiled ; youth, 
 230 
 
IFlatbanicl Ibawtborne 
 
 beauty, and all gentle hopes and thoughts 
 bathed the moment in lambent light. 
 
 But school-days ended at last, and with 
 the receding town in which they had 
 been passed, the bright days of life dis- 
 appeared, and forever. It is probable 
 that the girl's fancy had been fed, per- 
 haps indiscreetly pampered, by her ex- 
 perience there. But it was no fairy-land. 
 It was an academy town in New Eng- 
 land, and the fact that it was so alluring 
 is a fair indication of the kind of life 
 from which she had emerged, and to 
 which she now returned. What could 
 she do ? In the dreary round of petty 
 details, in the incessant drudgery of a 
 poor farmer's household, with no com- 
 panions of any sympathy — for the family 
 of a hard-working New England farmer 
 are not the Chloes and Clarissas of pas- 
 toral poetry, nor are cow-boys Corydons, 
 — with no opportunity of retirement and 
 cultivation, for reading and studying, 
 which is always voted "stuff" under 
 such circumstances, — the light suddenly 
 231 
 
Batbaniel Ibavvtborne 
 
 quenched out of life, what was she to 
 do? 
 
 "Adapt herself to her circumstances. 
 Why had she shot from her sphere in this 
 silly way?" demands unanimous com- 
 mon sense in valiant heroics. 
 
 The simple answer is, that she had 
 only used all her opportunities, and that, 
 although it was no fault of hers that the 
 routine of her life was in every way re- 
 pulsive, she did struggle to accommodate 
 herself to it, — and failed. When she 
 found it impossible to drag on at home, 
 she became an inmate of a refined and 
 cultivated household in the village, where 
 she had opportunity to follow her own 
 fancies, and to associate with educated 
 and attractive persons. But even here 
 she could not escape the feeling that it 
 was all temporary, that her position was 
 one of dependence ; and her pride, now 
 grown morbid often drove her from the 
 very society which alone was agreeable 
 to her. This was all genuine. There 
 was not the slightest strain of the femnie 
 
 232 
 
IWatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 incomprise in her demeanor. She was 
 always shy and silent, with a touching 
 reserve which won interest and confi- 
 dence, but left also a vague sadness in 
 the mind of the observer. After a few 
 months she made another effort to rend 
 the cloud which was gradually darken- 
 ing around her, and opened a school for 
 young children. But although the in- 
 terest of friends secured for her a partial 
 success, her gravity and sadness failed 
 to excite the sympathy of her pupils, who 
 missed in her the playful gayety always 
 most winning to children. Martha, how- 
 ever, pushed bravely on, a figure of tragic 
 sobriety to all who watched her course. 
 The farmers thought her a strange girl, 
 and wondered at the ways of a farmer's 
 daughter who was not content to milk 
 cows, and chum butter, and fry pork, 
 without further hope or thought. The 
 good clergyman of the town, interested 
 in her situation, sought a confidence she 
 did not care to bestow, and so, doling 
 out a, b^ c, to a wild group of boys and 
 233 
 
IWatbanfel Ibawtborne 
 
 girls, she found that she could not untie 
 the Gordian knot of her life, and felt, 
 with terror, that it must be cut. 
 
 One summer evening she left her 
 father's house and walked into the fields 
 alone. Night came, but Martha did not 
 return. The family became anxious, 
 inquired if anyone had noticed the di- 
 rection in which she went, learned from 
 the neighbors that she was not visiting, 
 that there was no lecture nor meeting to 
 detain her, and wonder passed into ap- 
 prehension. Neighbors went into the 
 adjacent woods and called, but received 
 no answer. Every instant the awful 
 shadow of some dread event solemnized 
 the gathering groups. Everyone thought 
 what no one dared to whisper, until a 
 low voice suggested " the river." Then, 
 with the swiftness of certainty, all friends, 
 far and near, were roused, and thronged 
 along the banks of the stream. Torches 
 flashed in boats that put off in the terrible 
 search. Hawthorne, then living in the 
 Old Manse, was summoned, and the man 
 234 
 
IRatbaniel Ibawtborne 
 
 whom the villagers had only seen at 
 morning as a musing spectre in his gar- 
 den, now appeared among them at night 
 to devote his strong arm and steady heart 
 to their service. The boats drifted slowly 
 down the stream — the torches flared 
 strangely upon the black repose of the 
 water, and upon the long, slim grasses 
 that, weeping, fringed the marge. Upon 
 banks, silent and awe-stricken crowds 
 hastened along, eager and dreading to 
 find the slightest trace of what they 
 sought. Suddenly they came upon a 
 few articles of dress, heavy with the 
 night dew. No one spoke, for no one 
 had doubted the result. It was clear that 
 Martha had strayed to the river, and 
 quietly gained the repose she sought. 
 The boats gathered round the spot. 
 With every implement that could be 
 of service the melancholy task began. 
 Long intervals of fearful silence ensued, 
 but at length, toward midnight, the sweet 
 face of the dead girl was raised more 
 
 235 
 
Tlatbanlel Ibawtborne 
 
 placidly to the stars than ever it had been 
 
 to the sun. 
 
 Oh I is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,— 
 
 A tress o' gfolden hair, 
 
 O' drownM maiden's hair, 
 
 Above the nets at sea ? 
 "Was never salmon yet that shone so fair 
 
 Among the stakes on Dee. 
 
 So ended the village tragedy. The 
 reader may possibly find in it the origi- 
 nal of the thrilling conclusion of the 
 Blithedale Romance, and learn anew 
 that dark as is the thread with which 
 Hawthorne weaves his spells, it is no 
 darker than those with which tragedies 
 are spun, even in regions apparently so 
 torpid as Concord. 
 
 236 
 
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