he sympathized with the northern feeling, but his sympathy has still the air of remoteness. After the war began he wrote: “I approve the war as much as any man; but I don't quite see what we are fighting for.” He was still a spectator, not an actor. A little later he despaired of the restoration of the Union, and in the spring of 1862 he went to Washington and wrote a paper for the “Atlantic Monthly,” called “Chiefly about War-Matters.” The tone of this paper was half-bantering, a tone perfectly natural to the man whom the situation harassed and angered as much as it pained. But the editor felt that such a tone would jar harshly upon the public mind, and made excisions, which were described good-humoredly in foot-notes written as if by the editor, but by the author himself.
Just before the visit to Washington he wrote to Bridge that he had begun another romance. This was probably “Dr. Grimshawe's Secret.” He concluded some papers begun in England, and contributed to the “Atlantic Monthly,” which in 1863 were issued with others in a volume called “Our Old Home.” This he dedicated to his friend Pierce; but public feeling was so strong against the ex-president that his publishers begged the author not to imperil thus the success of the book. Hawthorne replied that “if the public of the north see fit to ostracize me for this, I can only say that I would gladly sacrifice a thousand or two dollars rather than retain the good-will of such a herd of dolts and mean-spirited scoundrels.” This was said without any passion. While the matter was still pending, on 20 July, 1863, he wrote to a friend: “The dedication can hurt nobody but my book and myself. I know that it will do that, but am content to take the consequences rather than go back from what I deliberately judge it right to do.” In the same letter he says that the war should have been avoided, and that the best settlement would be a separation “giving us the west bank of the Mississippi and a boundary-line affording as much southern soil as we can hope to digest into freedom in another century.” The dedication was published, and neither the book nor the author was ostracized. The title “Our Old Home” expresses the strong filial feeling of the genuine son of New England for the old England of his ancestors, a feeling very natural and common among the truest Americans. The book is a series of shrewd and delightful descriptive sketches, with some frank criticisms upon English life, which were not altogether relished in England. The first part of “The Dolliver Romance” was published in the “Atlantic Monthly,” in July, 1864, but the author had died more than a month before, and some unrevised parts were found among his papers. The motive of the tale is earthly immortality, which was always attractive to Hawthorne. It appears in “Dr. Heidegger's Experiment,” in “Twice-told Tales,” and there is a hint of it in the “Virtuoso's Collection.” The legend of an indelible bloody footprint he heard first in 1855, at Smithell's Hall, Lancashire, England. This led to the sketch of the “Ancestral Footstep” and to “Dr. Grimshawe's Secret,” and the more elaborate study of “Septimius Felton.” “The Dolliver Romance” was the ultimate form of the romance founded on the elixir of life. “Septimius Felton” was deciphered from the loose manuscripts by his eldest daughter Una, with the assistance of Robert Browning, and published in London and Boston in 1871, and “Dr. Grimshawe's Secret,” an incomplete sketch, was published by his son Julian in 1882. In the spring of 1864 Hawthorne's health failed rapidly. He was deeply depressed, and felt that his work was done. In April he went to Philadelphia with his publisher, William D. Ticknor, whose sudden death while they lingered in that city greatly shocked the enfeebled author. By one of the coincidences that always profoundly impressed Hawthorne, and which in his own case is very pathetic, the sudden death of his friend Ticknor upon a journey with him prefigured his own death upon a similar journey with another friend. In May he went with his friend, ex-President Pierce, to the White mountains. On the 18th they reached Plymouth, N. H., and in the night and in his sleep Hawthorne died. On the 24th of May, 1864,
| “——— that one bright day In the long week of rain,” |
he was buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, Concord.
The graves of Emerson and Thoreau are very near
Hawthorne's. The historic and beautiful town of
Concord has a twofold title to renown. It was the
scene of the first armed and orderly resistance to
British aggression on 19 April, 1775, and it was
the home and it is the burial-place of Emerson and
Hawthorne. The genius of both, although very
unlike, was among the most exquisite blossoms of the
New England
Puritan stock. A
fanciful analogy may
be traced, perhaps,
between the sunny
and serene and
lofty tone of
Emerson and the muse
of the young Puritan
Milton, while
the weird imagination
of Hawthorne,
brooding over the
mysteries of
human life and character and bodying forth his
musings in literary form, vivid, subtle, and original,
may recall the later strain of the poet dealing
with fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute. The
three men of the same race, but in widely separate
countries and times, and of genius so genuine but
so dissimilar, signally illustrate the richness and
variety of the Puritan tradition and character.
|
Hawthorne, as Coleridge said of Wordsworth, was “a noticeable man.” His face was singularly handsome and romantic, the outline full and rounded, the features symmetrical and strong, the brow broad and massive, and the whole refined head powerful and poetic. His smile was very sweet, and his laugh ready but not excessive. His manner was that of a very shy man, but it was self-possessed and never familiar. With others he was generally silent, and in conversation he talked quietly without effusiveness or ardor. He lived habitually within himself, and seemed, as his son Julian said, to find no better society. His dress was dark and plain. He walked rapidly, but with no air of effort, and his frame, well-knit and sturdy, gave his movement an easy swing, which implied great endurance. The photograph known as the Bennoch portrait (because it was procured by Francis Bennoch, a friend in England) is one of the most satisfactory likenesses of Hawthorne. There are several portraits of him, and the earlier likenesses reveal the singular gentleness of his strong nature. There is one painted in 1840 by Charles Osgood, in the possession of his cousin, Richard C. Manning, of Salem. In 1850 Cephas G. Thompson painted a portrait which is owned by Julian Hawthorne. Rouse drew in crayon, after his return from Europe, a likeness now in the possession of Mrs. James T. Fields, and Leutze painted
