34. Nathaniel Hawthorne

There came to the old town of Salem, in the Province of Massachusetts, in the early part of the seventeenth century, an English family named Hawthorne—Puritans, like all the other inhabitants of that growing town. They proved their fidelity to Puritan principles by entering readily into all the superstitions of the day, and became noted for the zeal with which they persecuted the Quakers and hung the witches. The head of the family was a sea captain, and for many generations the men of the family followed the same avocation, "a gray-haired shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blustered against his sire and grandsire."

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Of such a race came Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was born at Salem, on the 4th, of July, 1804. His father was a sea captain, and died of the yellow fever at Havana, in 1810. His mother was a woman of great beauty and extreme sensibility, and it was from her that Nathaniel derived the peculiarities of character which distinguished him through life. The death of her husband filled her with the profoundest grief, and though the violence of her sorrow subsided with time, she passed the remainder of her life in strict seclusion, constantly grieving in her quiet way for her departed lord. Her son grew up to the age of ten in this sad and lonely house, passing four of the most susceptible years of his life in the society of his sorrowful mother. He became a shy boy, and avoided the company of other children. His health began to suffer from the effects of such an unnatural state of affairs, and at the age of ten he was sent to live on a farm belonging to the family, on the shore of Sebago Lake, in Maine. The active out-door life which he led here entirely restored his health, which was naturally strong and vigorous; here, also, he acquired that fondness for boating which was his chief amusement in after years. Returning to Salem, he completed his studies in the preparatory schools, after which he entered Bowdoin College, where he graduated in 1825, at the age of twenty-one. He was a classmate of Longfellow and George B. Cheever, with whom he was only slightly acquainted; and he formed a warm and lasting friendship with Franklin Pierce, who was in the class next before him. Longfellow has preserved a recollection of him in his student days as "a shy youth in a bright-buttoned coat, flitting across the college grounds."

After graduating, he went back to his home in Salem, where he resided for many years, leading a life of seclusion, which he passed in meditation and study. His strong literary inclination now vented itself in efforts which were in every way characteristic of the man. He wrote numerous wild tales, the most of which he burned, but a few of which found their way into the newspapers and magazines of the country. They were full of a wild gloominess, and were told with a power which proved that their author was no ordinary man. Few, however, dreamed that they were the work of the pale recluse of Salem, for he led a life of such strict seclusion that not even the members of his own family could tell with certainty what he did. His days were passed in his chamber, and at night he took long walks alone on the sea-shore or into the woods. He shunned all society, and seemed to find companionship only in nature, and in the creations of his fancy. Yet he was not a morose or unhappy man. On the contrary, he seems to have been a very happy one, full of generous and kindly feelings, and finding only a strange pleasure where others would have found bitterness and cynicism. Like the melancholy Jacques, he might have said of his pensive shyness, "It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects; ... which, by often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness."

In 1837 he collected his published tales, which, while they had charmed a few cultivated readers, had scarcely been noticed by the masses, and published them in a volume to which he gave the name of "Twice-Told Tales." The book was well received by the public, but its circulation was limited, although Mr. Longfellow warmly welcomed it in the "North American Review," and pronounced it the "work of a man of genius and a true poet." Still it was neglected by the masses, and Hawthorne says himself that he was at that time "the most unknown author in America." There was more truth in this assertion than lies on its face, for the people who read the book supposed that the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne was merely a pseudonyme, and declared that as Nathaniel was evidently selected by the author because of the fondness of the old-time Puritans for Scripture names, so Hawthorne was chosen by him as expressive of one of the most beautiful features of the New England landscape. The merits of the book were too genuine, however, for it to lack admirers, and the small class which greeted its first appearance with delight gradually increased, and finally the demand for the book became so great that in 1842 Hawthorne ventured to issue a second series of "Twice-Told Tales," the most of which had appeared in the "Democratic Review," then edited by his friend O'Sullivan. Of these volumes, Mr. George William Curtis says: "They are full of glancing wit, of tender satire, of exquisite natural description, of subtle and strange analysis of human life, darkly passionate and weird."

In 1838 George Bancroft was Collector of the Port of Boston, and, having been deeply impressed with the genius displayed in the first volume of "Twice-Told Tales," sought out Hawthorne and offered him a place in the Boston Custom-House as weigher and gauger. Hawthorne accepted the position, and at once entered upon his duties. Leaving his solitude and the weird phantoms that had been his companions for so long, he passed immediately into the busy bustle of the great New England port. It was a new world to him, and one which interested him keenly. His duties kept him constantly on the wharf, and threw him daily into contact with captains and sailors from all parts of the world. He became a great favorite with these, and they told him many a strange story of their adventures and of the sights they had seen in distant lands, and these, as they were listened to by him, took each a distinctive form in his imagination. Not less interesting to him were the men among whom his duties threw him. They were more to him than the ordinary beings that thronged the streets of the great city, for they had been victorious in many a battle with the mighty deep, and they had looked on the wondrous sights of the far-off lands of the Old World. Queer people they were, too, each a Captain Cuttle or a Dirk Hatteraick in himself, and many an hour did the dreamy writer spend with them, apparently listening to their rude stories, but really making keen studies of the men themselves.

He discharged his duties faithfully in the Boston Custom-House, performing each with an exactness thoroughly characteristic of him, until 1841, when the accession of President Harrison to power obliged him to withdraw to make way for a Whig.

Contents