NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864) With Nathaniel Hawthorne the Puritanism of New England, which on its esthetic side had for two centuries lain cold and sterile, burst suddenly into blossom, a pale night blossom as if from old decay and ruin. He had been born in old Salem, Massachusetts, center of the grimmest traditions of Puritanism. One ancestor had been a judge in the witchcraft trials; others had been sea captains in the days when Salem was a leading New England port. In the boyhood of Hawthorne the commerce of the port was dead, the docks were moldering away, and every where one felt the sense of a glory departed, of an old regime forever gone. The boy's early training was in accord with his surroundings and his inheritance. His father, a sea captain, had died in South America of fever, and his mother had taken her little four-years'-old son into a seclusion from the world that had its effect upon all his later life. He was fitted for college by a tutor, he spent many months almost alone on a half wild estate of the family in Maine, and, because of this estate, was attracted to the little Maine college of Bowdoin which he entered at length in the same class as Longfellow. Here again his life was shy and solitary. He was much alone pondering over a romance which took shape in his senior year and later was published under the title Fanshawe. After his graduation in 1825 he settled again in old Salem without aim or profession, writing, dreaming, wandering about the city at night.- strange career for a healthy young man just out of college. Much that he wrote he burned; some of it he sent to weekly papers to be published in the story columns with never a thought of payment. In 1837 he gathered up some of his old material from newspapers and magazines and annuals and issued it under the title Twice-Told Tales,- twice-told since they had already appeared once in maga zines or annuals. But such a life of seclusion without income could not last forever. In 1839 he secured a minor position in the Boston Custom House, remaining until 1841, when, attracted by the new Brook Farm propaganda which everywhere was arousing the thinking men of New England, he went with George Ripley and some fifteen others to the farm which Ripley had bought at West Roxbury and began that community life which forms such a picturesque part of his biography. The following year he left the farm and was married to Miss Sophia Peabody of Salem. The next four years he spent in the Old Manse at Concord leaving it in 1846 to become surveyor of customs at Salem, a post that he secured through his college mate, President Pierce. The spoils system displacing him in 1849, he lived for a time at Lenox, then at West Newton, Massachusetts, and finally in 1852 at Concord where he purchased the Wayside which was to be his permanent home. A year, and again he was on the move. He had been appointed Consul at Liverpool, and in England and on the Continent he lived for the next six years. His pen had been busy. Before his marriage in 1842 he had published books for children, at least four volumes headed by Grandfather's Chair. Now he began to write with more ambitious outlook. In 1842 appeared the second series of Twice-Told Tales, in 1846, Mosses from an Old Manse, in 1850 The Scarlet Letter, and in 1851 The House of the Seven Gables, The Wonder Book, the Snow Image, and True Stories, and in 1852 The Blithedale Romance. The fruit of Hawthorne's long residence abroad, aside from his note-books published after his death, was The Marble Faun, a tale of Italy, 1860, and Our Old Home, a series of English studies, 1863. On his return to America he entered upon what he believed was to be the great period of his literary career. He planned romance after romance, some of which like Septimius Felton, The Dolliver Romance, and Dr. Grimshawe's Secret he brought more or less near to completion, but the old skill had left him. Something, a subtle disease perhaps, a mysterious decay which no physician might diagnose, had laid hold upon him. In 1864, hoping that a tour of the White Mountains, which always had been his delight, might restore him, he set out with his old friend, President Pierce, for the valley of the Great Stone Face. But he was destined never to arrive there. He died May 18 at Plymouth, New Hampshire, just at the gateway of the mountains. At his funeral at Concord his unfinished manuscripts were laid upon his coffin and the poet Longfellow read most feelingly the poem that all now know so well, with its pathetic closing stanza: Ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, And the lost clue regain? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower SIGHTS FROM A STEEPLE 5 So! I have climbed high, and my reward is small. Here I stand, with wearied knees, earth, indeed, at a dizzy depth below, but heaven far, far beyond me still. O, that I could soar up into the very zenith, where man never breathed, nor eagle ever flew, and where the ethereal azure melts away from the eye, and ap- 10 pears only a deepened shade of nothingness! And yet I shiver at that cold and solitary thought. What clouds are gathering in the golden west, with direful intent against the brightness and warmth is of this summer afternoon! They are ponderous air ships, black as death, and freighted with the tempest; and at intervals their thunder, the signal guns of that unearthly squadron, rolls distant along 20 the deep of heaven. These nearer heaps of fleecy vapor methinks I could roll and toss upon them the whole day long! seem scattered here and there for the repose of tired pilgrims through the sky. 25 Perhaps for who can tell? beautiful spirits are disporting themselves there, and will bless my mortal eye with the brief appearance of their curly locks of golden light, and laughing faces, fair and faint 30 as the people of a rosy dream. Or, where the floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament, a slender foot and fairy limb, resting too heavily upon the frail support, may be thrust through, 35 and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. Yonder again is an airy archipelago, where the sunbeams love to linger in their journeyings through space. Every one of those little 40 clouds has been dipped and steeped in radiance, which the slightest pressure might disengage in silvery profusion, like water wrung from a seamaid's hair. Bright they are as a young man's visions, 45 and, like them, would be realized in chilliness, obscurity, and tears. I will look on them no more. In three parts of the visible circle, whose center is this spire, I discern cultivated so fields, villages, white country-seats, the waving lines of rivulets, little placid lakes, and here and there a rising ground, that would fain be termed a hill. On the fourth side is the sea, stretching away 55 towards a viewless boundary, blue and calm, except where the passing anger of a shadow flits across its surface, and is gone. Hitherward, a broad inlet penetrates far into the land; on the verge of the harbor, formed by its extremity, is a town; and over it am I, a watchman, allheeding and unheeded. O, that the multitude of chimneys could speak, like those of Madrid, and betray, in smoky whispers, the secrets of all who, since their first foundation, have assembled at the hearths within! O, that the Limping Devil of Le Sage would perch beside me here, extend his wand over this contiguity of roofs, uncover every chamber, and make me familiar with their inhabitants! The most desirable mode of existence might be that of a spiritual Paul Pry, hovering invisible round man and woman, witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar to himself. But none of these things are possible; and if I would know the interior of brick walls, or the mystery of human bosoms, I can but guess. -- Yonder is a fair street, extending north and south. The stately mansions are placed each on its carpet of verdant grass, and a long flight of steps extends from every door to the pavement. Ornamental trees - the broad-leafed horse-chestnut, the elm so lofty and bending, the graceful but infrequent willow, and others whereof I know not the names grow thrivingly among brick and stone. The oblique rays of the sun are intercepted by these green citizens, and by the houses, so that one side of the street is a shaded and pleasant walk. On its whole extent there is now but a single passenger, advancing from the upper end; and he, unless distance and the medium of a pocket spyglass do him more than justice, is a fine young man of twenty. He saunters slowly forward, slapping his left hand with his folded gloves, bending his eyes upon the pavement, and sometimes raising them to throw a glance before him. Certainly, he has a pensive air. Is he in doubt, or in debt? Is he, if the question be allowable, in love? Does he strive to be melancholy and gentleman-like? Or, is he merely overcome by the heat? But I bid him farewell for the present. The door of one of the houses · an aristocratic edifice, with curtains of purple and gold waving from the windows, is now opened, and down the stens come two ladies, swinging their parasols, and lightly arrayed for a summer ramble. Both are young, both are pretty, but methinks the left-hand lass is the fairer of the twain; and, though she be so serious at this moment, I could swear that there is a treasure of gentle fun within her. They stand talking a little while upon the steps, and finally proceed up the street. Meantime, as their faces are now turned from me, I may look elsewhere. 5 self on the inner side of the pavement, nearest the Venus to whom I — enacting, on a steeple-top, the part of Paris on the top of Ida-adjudged the golden apple. In two streets, converging at right angles towards my watch-tower, I distinguish three different processions. One is a proud array of voluntary soldiers, in bright uniform, resembling, from the 10 height whence I look down, the painted veterans that garrison the windows of a toy-shop. And yet, it stirs my heart; their regular advance, their nodding plumes, the sun-flash on their bayonets and musket barrels, the roll of their drums ascending past me, and the fife ever and anon piercing through these things have wakened a warlike fire, peaceful though I be. Close to their rear marches a battalion of schoolboys, ranged in crooked and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin, and ridiculously aping the intricate manoeuvers of the foremost band. Nevertheless, as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church spire, one might be tempted to ask, 'Which are the boys? or rather, Which the men?' But, leaving these, let us turn to the third Upon that wharf, and down the corresponding street, is a busy contrast to the quiet scene which I have just noticed. Business evidently has its center there, and many a man is wasting the summer 15 afternoon in labor and anxiety, in losing riches or in gaining them, when he would be wiser to flee away to some pleasant country village, or shaded lake in the forest, or wild and cool sea-beach. I see ves- 20 sels unloading at the wharf, and precious merchandise strewn upon the ground, abundantly as at the bottom of the sea, the market whence no goods return, and where there is no captain nor supercargo 25 to render an account of sales. Here the clerks are diligent with their paper and pencils, and sailors ply the block and tackle that hang over the hold, accompan"ing their toil with cries, long drawn and 30 procession, which, though sadder in outroughly melodious, till the bales and puncheons ascend to upper air. At a little distance a group of gentlemen are assembled round the door of a warehouse. Grave seniors be they, and I would wager 35 - if it were safe in these times to be responsible for any one that the least eminent among them might vie with the old Vicentio, that incomparable trafficker of Pisa. I can even select the wealthiest 40 of the company. It is the elderly personage, in somewhat rusty black, with powdered hair, the superfluous whiteness of which is visible upon the cape of his coat. His twenty ships are wafted on some of 45 their many courses by every breeze that blows, and his name I will venture to say, though I know it not is a familiar sound among the far separated merchants of Europe and the Indies. 50 But I bestow too much of my attention in this quarter. On looking again to the long and shady walk, I perceive that the two fair girls have encountered the young man. After a sort of shyness in the 55 recognition, he turns back with them. Moreover, he has sanctioned my taste in regard to his companions by placing him ward show, may excite identical reflections in the thoughtful mind. It is a funeral. A hearse, drawn by a black and bony steed, and covered by a dusty pall; two or three coaches rumbling over the stones, their drivers half asleep; a dozen couple of careless mourners in their every-day attire; such was not the fashion of our fathers, when they carried a friend to his grave. There is now no doleful clang of the bell to proclaim sorrow to the town. Was the King of Terrors more awful in those days than in our own, that wisdom and philosophy have been able to produce this change? Not so. Here is a proof that he retains his proper majesty. The military men and the military boys are wheeling round the corner, and meet the funeral full in the face. mediately the drum is silent, all but the tap that regulates each simultaneous footfall. The soldiers yield the path to the dusty hearse and unpretending train, and the children quit their ranks, and cluster on the sidewalks, with timorous and instinctive curiosity. The mourners enter the churchyard at the base of the steeple, and pause by an open grave among Im How various are the situations of the people covered by the roofs beneath me, 10 and how diversified are the events at this moment befalling them! The new-born, the aged, the dying, the strong in life, and the recent dead are in the chambers of these many mansions. The full of hope, 15 the happy, the miserable, and the desperate dwell together within the circle of my glance. In some of the houses over which my eyes roam so coldly, guilt is entering into hearts that are still tenanted 20 by a debased and trodden virtue,- guilt is on the very edge of commission, and the impending deed might be averted; guilt is done, and the criminal wonders if it be irrevocable. There are broad thoughts 25 struggling in my mind, and, were I able to give them distinctness, they would make their way in eloquence. Lo! the raindrops are descending. Their footsteps are supported by the risen dust, the wind lends them its velocity,they fly like three sea-birds driven landward by the tempestuous breeze. The ladies would not thus rival Atalanta, if they but knew that anyone were at leisure to observe them. Ah! as they hasten onward, laughing in the angry face of nature, a sudden catastrophe has chanced. At the corner where the narrow lane enters the street, they come plump against the old merchant, whose tortoise motion has just brought him to that point. He likes not the sweet encounter; the darkness of the whole air gathers speedily upon his visage, and there is a pause on both sides. Finally, he thrusts aside the youth with little courtesy, seizes an arm of each of the two girls, and plods onward, like a magician with a prize of captive fairies. All this is easy to be understood. How disconsolate the poor lover stands ! regardless of the rain that threatens an exceeding damage to his well-fashioned habiliments, till he catches a backward glance of mirth from a bright eye, and turns away with whatever comfort it conveys. The old man and his daughters are safely housed, and now the storm lets loose its fury. In every dwelling I perceive the faces of the chambermaids as they shut down the windows, excluding the impetuous shower, and shrinking away from the quick, fiery glare. The large drops descend with force upon the slated roofs, and rise again in smoke. There is a rush and roar, as of a river through the air, and muddy streams bubble majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa sink. I love not my station here aloft, in the midst of the tumult which I am powerless to direct or quell, with the blue The clouds, within a little time, have 30 gathered over all the sky, hanging heavily, as if about to drop in one unbroken mass upon the earth. At intervals, the lightning flashes from their brooding hearts, quivers, disappears, and then comes the 35 thunder, traveling slowly after its twinborn flame. A strong wind has sprung up, howls through the darkened streets, and raises the dust in dense bodies, to rebel against the approaching storm. The 40 disbanded soldiers fly, the funeral has already vanished like its dead, and all people hurry homeward - all that ha e a home; while a few lounge by the corners, or trudge on desperately, at their leisure. 45 lightning wrinkling on my brow, and the In a narrow lane, which communicates with the shady street, I discern the rich old merchant, putting himself to the top of his speed, lest the rain should convert his hair powder to a paste. Unhappy gen- 50 tleman! By the slow vehemence and painful moderation wherewith he journeys, it is but too evident that Podagra has left its thrilling tenderness in his great toe. But yonder, at a far more rapid pace, 55 come three other of my acquaintance, the two pretty girls and the young man, unseasonably interrupted in their walk. thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. I will descend. Yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness, or boils up in far distant points, like snowy mountain-tops in the eddies of a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain and little hills of the country, over which the giant of the storm is striding in robes of mist, and at the town, whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a city of the dead; and turning a single moment reach him; the dust did not yet arise from the road after the heavy rain of yesterday; and his grassy lair suited the young man better than a bed of down. The spring 5 murmured drowsily beside him; the branches waved dreamily across the blue sky overhead; and a deep sleep, perchance hiding dreams within its depths, fell upon David Swan. But we are to relate events 10 which he did not dream of. We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life, and our final des- 20 tiny. There are innumerable other events While he lay sound asleep in the shade, other people were wide awake, and passed to and fro, afoot, or horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, along the sunny road Dy 15 his bedchamber. Some looked neither to the right hand nor the left, and knew not that he was there; some merely glanced that way, without admitting the slumberer among their busy thoughts; some laughed to see how soundly he slept; and several, whose hearts were brimming full of scorn, ejected their venomous superfluity on David Swan. A middle-aged widow, when nobody else was near, thrust her head a little way into the recess, and vowed that the young fellow looked charming in his sleep. A temperance lecturer saw him, and wrought poor David into the texture of his evening's discourse, as an awful instance of dead drunkenness by the roadside. But censure, praise, merriment, scorn, and indifference were all one, or rather all nothing, to David Swan. if such they may be called — which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even betraying their near approach, by the reflection of any light or 25 shadow across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may 30 be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan. We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city 35 of Boston, where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him behind the counter. Be it enough to say that he was a native of New Hampshire, born of respectable parents, and had received an 40 ordinary school education, with a classic finish by a year at Gilmanton Academy. After journeying on foot from sunrise till nearly noon of a summer's day, his weariness and the increasing heat determined 45 him to sit down in the first convenient shade, and await the coming up of the stage-coach. As if planted on purpose for him, there soon appeared a little tuft of maples, with a delightful recess in the 50 midst, and such a fresh, bubbling spring that it seemed never to have sparkled for any wayfarer but David Swan. Virgin or not, he kissed it with his thirsty lips, and then flung himself along the brink, pillow- 55 ing his head upon some shirts and a pair of pantaloons, tied up in a striped cotton handkerchief. The sunbeams could not He had slept only a few moments when a brown carriage, drawn by a handsome pair of horses, bowled easily along, and was brought to a standstill nearly in front of David's resting place. A linch-pin had fallen out, and permitted one of the wheels to slide off. The damage was slight, and occasioned merely a momentary alarm to an elderly merchant and his wife, who were returning to Boston in the carriage. While the coachman and a servant were replacing the wheel, the lady and gentleman sheltered themselves beneath the maple-trees, and there espied the bubbling fountain, and David Swan asleep beside it. Impressed with the awe which the humblest sleeper usually sheds around him, the merchant trod as lightly as the gout would allow; and his spouse took heed not to rustle her silk gown, lest David should start up all of a sudden. 'How soundly he sleeps!' whispered the old gentleman. 'From what a depth he draws that easy breath! Such sleep as |