73 It seems a strange choice—except: His twenty-seven-year-old aunt, the beloved and intelligent Maria Manning, died May 20, 1814.
74 In one of his early: See “Sights from a Steeple,” in Tales, pp. 42–48.
75 Less than six weeks: EH to JTF, [Salem, Dec. 12, 1870], BPL.
76 “work at his Trade”: Joseph Lakeman to Nathaniel Wells, Feb. 25, 1814, BY. Wrote NH: “I had an Uncle John, who went a voyage to sea, about the beginning of the war of 1812, and has never returned to this hour” (EN, vol. 1, June 30, 1854, pp. 98–99).
77 With Grandfather Manning dead: EH to JTF, Dec. 13 and 16 [1870], BPL.
78 “Like a lame man”: “The Gentle Boy,” in Tales, p. 119; the story’s troubled depiction of Ilbrahim’s mother has been exhaustively examined elsewhere: see, for instance, Frederick C. Crews, The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne’s Psychological Themes (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1966), and Edwin Haviland Miller, Salem Is My Dwelling Place (Iowa City: Univ. of Iowa Press, 1991).
79 “Nathaniel was particularly”: EH to JTF, Dec. 12 [1870], BPL.
80 “Everybody thought”: EH to UH, Nov. 23, 1865, transcribed by JH, Bancroft.
81 Legend says: Elizabeth Manning, “The Boyhood of Hawthorne,” p. 503.
82 There was talk: See, for instance, Putnam, Chronicles of Old Salem, p. 54.
83 Robert and Priscilla Manning … sent all three: In 1808 both NH and EH were sent to Elizabeth Carlton, on Union Street, for instruction. During 1810–11, NH attended the school of Francis Moore, on Herbert Street. EH was instructed by Nathaniel’s future mother-in-law, Elizabeth Peabody, and then by her sister, the more orthodox Amelia P. Curtis, 1812–15. Receipts and, in the case of EH, certificates of merit may be found in PE and the Berg. Because no receipts are available for MLH, much less is known about her education, but eventually she too was taught by Mrs. Curtis.
84 “One of the peculiarities”: Quoted in NHHW, vol. 1, p. 95.
85 During school recess: Personal Recollections, pp. 34–35.
86 Taking refuge: JH, notes, PE.
87 “If he had been educated”: EH to UH, Nov. 12, 1865, transcribed by JH, Bancroft.
88 “He used to invent”: EH to JTF, Dec. 13 and 16 [1870], BPL.
89 By the winter of 1815: See Mary Manning to Richard Manning, Dec. 14, 1814, PE; ECH to Richard Manning, Jan. 20, 1815, Bowdoin.
90 Thrilled by the news: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Nov. 16, 1814.
CHAPTER THREE: THE FOREST OF ARDEN
1 Of the three Hathorne: NH to SH, Apr. 14, 1844, C XVI, p. 31.
2 “I have a better opinion”: EH to UH, Mar. 1, 1865, transcribed by JH, Bancroft.
3 “You are learning”: Robert Manning to EH, Aug. 14, 1813, Berg.
4 “Elizabeth in particular”; an early teacher: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Nov. 10, 1816, PE; Certificate of Merit, Oct. 1814, signed by A. P. Curtis, preceptoress, Berg. Amelia Curtis was Sophia Peabody’s aunt.
5 “Useful knowledge”; “if you ever”: EH to UH, June 19, 1868, transcribed by JH, Bancroft; EH to Rebecca Manning, n.d., PE.
6 “Elizabeth is not available”: SH to Mrs. EPP Sept. 27, 1849, Berg. Manning Hawthorne, “Aunt Ebe: Some Letters of Elizabeth M. Hawthorne,” New England Quarterly 1:20 (1947), p. 215.
7 She rose late: EH to UH, Dec. 20, 1865, transcribed by JH, Bancroft; EH to UH, Mar. 10 [1872], transcribed by JH, Bancroft.
8 “People can talk”: EH to Mary Manning, Aug. 1816, Bowdoin.
9 “The only argument”: EH to UH, Mar. 1, 1865, transcribed by JH, Bancroft.
10 “The very best way”: EH to UH, June 7, 1872, Huntington.
11 “I am something”: EH to Rebecca Manning, Aug. 7, 1875, PE.
12 “I should not like to feel”: EH to SH, June 15, 1842, Berg.
13 “it was a love disappointment”: JH, notebook, Morgan; see Norman Holmes Pearson, “Elizabeth Peabody on Hawthorne,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 94 (1958), p. 263.
14 “The beautiful Miss”: “Domestic Intelligence,” Jan. 1822, Spectator, in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 53.
15 Nathaniel may have: Briggs married Hepsebeth Collins, whose name anticipates Hepzibah Pyncheon’s in The House of the Seven Gables. Alluding to Elizabeth Hawthorne, the unwed “Hepzibah” devotes herself not to a Captain Briggs but to her brother. For information on Briggs, see “Catalogue of Portraits in the Museum of Salem,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 73 (1937), pp. 187–88.
16 As her nephew: JH, “My Aunt Elizabeth Hawthorne,” typescript, Bancroft.
17 “She is the most sensible”: NH to WDT, May 17, 1852, C XVIII, p. 456.
18 “The only thing I fear”: NHHW, vol. 1, p. 5.
19 “You must never expect”: NH to SH, Apr. 17, 1839, C XV, p. 298.
20 As children: Copybook, circa 1815, UVA. An untitled poem of Nathaniel’s reads: “The charms of sweet Music no pencil can paint/They calm the rude Savage, enliven the Saint,/Make sweeter our pleasures, more joyous our joy/With raptures we feel, yet those raptures ne’er cloy.” See Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 3.
21 “made it the habit”: EPP to Francis Henry Lee, n.y. [1885], PE.
22 If the Hathornes took: Rebecca Manning, “Some Facts about Hawthorne,” PE; Hawthorne-Manning, receipts, PE. They included boarding expenses dated from July 1, 1808, to July 1, 1815. Interestingly, NH’s board, at 1.50 per week, was the most expensive; EH cost her mother 28 pence per week, and Maria Louisa, 18 pence.
23 “improving property”: Mary Manning to Richard Manning, Dec. 14, 1814, PE.
24 “You say he is”: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, May 3, 1815, PE. Many of Richard Manning’s letters link him to NH, as the family no doubt did as well.
25 Linked once again: See EH to Richard Manning, May 29, 1815, Bowdoin.
26 Having married Susan Dingley …“Manning’s Folly”: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Aug. 16, 1815, PE; Ernest Knight, The Origin and History of Raymondtown (Norway, Maine: Oxford Hills Press, 1974), p. 81. Robert Manning shipped the glass from Salem; its origin is unknown.
27 “Stay here one summer”: EH to Mary Manning, Aug. 1816, Bowdoin.
28 “It is true we”: ECH to Priscilla Manning, Sept. 14, 1816, Bowdoin. A week earlier, in Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Sept. 9, 1816, PE, her brother had said that ECH has “almost concluded to send for her Furniture & remove with Samuel on the [Bridgton] Farm,” even though he would have preferred to see her settled in a more profitable place closer by.
29 To that end, she asked: EH to Miriam Manning, Oct. 28, 1816, Bowdoin.
30 The Hathornes packed: See Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Nov. 10, 1816, PE. It’s not clear where NH went to school at this time; Worcester had given up his classes, and even Ebe did not yet know when she wrote her grandmother in October asking for details. For some interesting speculations, see Moore, The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 85–86.
31 Plain, symmetrical: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Feb. 25, 1818, PE; Jeremiah Briggs to Robert Manning, Mar. 21, 1818, PE.
32 “I do not feel”: EH to Priscilla Manning Dike, Dec. 15, 1818, Bowdoin. Priscilla Manning had married John Dike the year before.
33 He tracked bears … Aunt Mary warned: Mary Manning to ECH, Nov. 17, 1818, PE.
34 One could live best: EH to UH, Feb. 14, 1862, Bancroft.
35 “I ran quite wild”: NHHW, vol. 1, pp. 95–96.
36 “It did him”: EH to JTF, Dec. 12 [1870], BPL.
37 “upon any and all”: Samuel T. Pickard, Hawthorne’s First Diary, With an Account of its Discovery and Loss (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
, 1897), p. 37. The date of the inscription is given as June 1, 1816, which accords with the Hathornes’ first visit to Raymond.
38 “clumsy,” “singularly destitute”: NHHW, vol. 1, p. 94.
39 She remembered … Uncle Robert Manning’s son: See Richard C. Manning to HB, Feb. 16, 1871, Bowdoin.
40 “a literary curiosity”: Samuel T. Pickard, “Is ‘Hawthorne’s First Diary’ a Forgery?,” Dial 33 (Apr. 16, 1902), p. 155; Samuel T. Pickard to Joseph McDonough, July 24, 1906, Univ. of Rochester Library.
41 Indeed it is: Pickard admitted, “I am puzzled, and have lost hope of ever solving the mystery.” Not only did Manning’s literate inscription seem suspect, but he had learned that one of the incidents recounted had not occurred until 1828. Pickard tentatively concluded, then, that only parts of the diary may have been genuine. See Pickard, “Is ‘Hawthorne’s First Diary’ a Forgery?,” p. 155. The matter remains a mystery despite Gloria Erlich’s meticulous case against Pickard, suggesting he was the author of the entire hoax. See “Who Wrote Hawthorne’s First Diary?” Nathaniel Hawthorne Journal, 1977, ed. C. E. Frazer Clark Jr., pp. 37–70.
42 “I have made”: Hawthorne’s First Diary, p. 97.
43 “This morning I saw”: Hawthorne’s First Diary, p. 68.
44 “Since the loss”: Hawthorne’s First Diary, p. 49.
45 “I was almost sorry”: Hawthorne’s First Diary, p. 88.
46 We glimpse Robert Manning: William H. Manning, The Manning Families of New England (Salem, Mass.: Salem Press, 1902), p. 729.
47 “An orchard has”: Preface to Mosses from an Old Manse, in Tales, p. 1130.
48 In it, Manning praises: Robert Manning, The Book of Fruits (Salem, Mass.: Ives & Jewett, 1838), p. 10.
49 “Though he had”: “Passages from a Relinquished Work,” in Tales, pp. 175–76.
50 He corrected the grammar: Mary Manning to Robert Manning, Dec. 1, 1818, PE.
51 “The older ‘dear uncle’ ”: Robert Manning to NH, Aug. 14, 1813, Berg.
52 Richard went to Portland; “dolefull complaints”: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Jan. [19], 1819, PE; Robert Manning to Miriam Manning, Mar. 9,1819, PE.
53 “I have no chance”: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Apr. 28, 1819, PE.
54 The Mannings ignored him: Richard Manning to Robert Manning, Dec. 18, 1820, PE.
55 “I am sorry”: NH to Robert Manning, May 16, 1819, C XV, p. 111.
56 “He sighs for”: Mary Manning to ECH, July 6 [1819], Bowdoin.
57 “I have no employment”: Robert Manning to MLH, Feb. 8, 1820, Bowdoin.
58 “Aunt Mary is continually” … “If I ever”: NH to ECH, Mar. 7, 1820, C XV p. 117.
59 “It seems very lonesome”: NH to Robert Manning, July 26, 1819, C XV, p. 112.
60 “How often do I”: NH to MLH, Mar. 21, 1820, C XV, p. 119.
61 “Oh how I wish”: NH to ECH, Mar. 7, 1820, C XV, p. 117.
62 “I shall never be”: NH to MLH, Sept. 28, 1819, C XV, p. 114.
63 “I dreamed the other”: NH to ECH, Mar. 13, 1821, C XV, p. 138.
64 “pressed to explain”: Mellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times, p. 611.
65 “having spent so much”: NHHW, vol. 1, p. 97.
66 “Tell Ebe she’s not”: NH to MLH, Sept. 28, 1819, C XV, p. 114.
67 A “Departed Genius”: See, for instance, NH to MLH, Sept. 28, 1819, C XV p. 114.
68 “that lone cottage”: “Poetry,” Aug. 21, 1820, Spectator, in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 24.
69 “and when Robin”: “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” in Tales, p. 80.
70 “Those may be my rhymes”: NH to MLH, Sept. 28, 1819, C XV, p. 114.
71 “One thing only”: ECH to Richard Manning Jan. 20, 1815, Bowdoin.
72 Salem offered: See NH to ECH, Mar. 6, 1821, C XV, p. 137.
73 “How far preferable”: Sept. 4, 1820, Spectator, in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 26.
74 “raises man above”: [Jan. 31, 1822], Spectator, in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, pp. 51, 52.
75 “What do you think”: NH to ECH, Mar. 13, 1821, C XV, p. 138–39.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS
1 “I have almost”: NH to EH, Oct. 31, 1820, C XV, p. 132.
2 “We must not have”: Mary Manning to ECH, Feb. 29, 1820, Bowdoin.
3 “So you are in”: NH to ECH, Mar. 7, 1820, C XV, p. 117.
4 “Much time & money”: Robert Manning to ECH, Oct. 24, 1820, PE.
5 “with all my might”: NH to EH, Oct. 31, 1820, C XV, p. 132.
6 “Do you not regret”: NH to ECH, Mar. 6, 1821, C XV, p. 137.
7 “Shall you want me”: NH to ECH, Mar. 7, 1821, C XV, p. 117.
8 “How proud you would”: NH to ECH, Mar. 13, 1821, C XV, pp. 138–39.
9 “An angel would fail”: EH to ECH, May 14, 1822, Bowdoin.
10 At Harvard: See Manning Hawthorne, “Nathaniel Hawthorne at Bowdoin,” New England Quarterly 13:1 (1940), p. 247; Bowdoin College Catalogue, 1825, Bowdoin.
11 “I am quite reconciled”; “shut out”: NH to ECH, Mar. 13, 1821, C XV, p. 138; NH to ECH, June 19, 1821, C XV, p. 150.
12 “I encouraged him”: Robert Manning to Miriam Lord Manning, Oct. 5, 1821, PE.
13 “a short, thick little”: NH to EH, Oct. 28, 1821, C XV, p. 159.
14 Uncle Robert hunted … paid the bill: Robert Manning to Miriam Lord Manning, Oct. 5, 1821, PE. In guaranteeing the payment of all NH’s expenses, Robert Manning was joined by his brother-in-law John Dike and his brother Samuel Manning, at least in 1823. See the expense contract sent to Bowdoin from these men, Sept. 28, 1823, PE. 46. “has money enough”: NH to William Manning, Oct. 9, 1821, C XV, p. 155.
15 “I am very well”: NH to EH, Oct. 28, 1821, C XV, p. 159.
16 “to induce your Son”: William Allen to ECH, May 5, 1822, PE.
17 He resented regulations: Laws of Bowdoin College, 1822, Bowdoin.
18 In 1826: Wilmot Brookings Mitchell, A Remarkable Bowdoin Decade (Brunswick, Maine: Bowdoin College, 1952), p. 25.
19 “Meeting for this day”: NH to EH, Oct. 28, 1821, C XV, p. 160.
20 Longfellow’s more dissolute: See Louis C. Hatch, The History of Bowdoin College (Portland, Maine: Loring, Short & Harmon, 1927), p. 310.
21 Nathaniel Hathorne, an Athenaean: Personal Recollections, p. 32.
22 One of them, Franklin Pierce: See Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1860–1866, ed. Linda Allandt, David Hill, et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1982), vol. 15, p. 361.
23 “noisy, foul-mouthed”: Quoted in Thomas Woodson, “Introduction,” C XV p. 35.
24 “I got it from Stowe’s”: Nehemiah Cleaveland, History of Bowdoin College, ed. Alpheus Spring Packard (Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1882), p. 92.
25 “seemed always,” “power of sympathy”: “Jonathan Cilley,” in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII p. 111. Commissioned by their friend John Louis O’Sullivan for the Democratic Review, this memorial to Cilley originally appeared in that publication in September 1838.
26 “elder brother,” “simplicity of one”: “Jonathan Cilley,” in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 116.
27 “If Nathaniel Hathorne”: Personal Recollections, p. 47.
28 “stretched in his own blood”: “Jonathan Cilley,” in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 118.
29 “shrinking almost”: Samuel P. Benson to JTF, Dec. 18, 1870, copy, Bowdoin.
30 “I know not
whence”: Preface to The Snow-Image, in Tales, p. 1155.
31 “stands and looks”: HWL, journals, Mar. 17 [1836 or 1838, Bridge on way to Washington], MS Am 1340(194), Houghton.
32 “Polished, yet natural”: July 5, 1837, AN, p. 33.
33 Bridge long remembered: Personal Recollections, p. 46.
34 “so much of danger”: Personal Recollections, p. 5.
35 “two idle lads”: Preface to The Snow-Image, in Tales, p. 1155.
36 “the best friend”: NH to HB, Feb. 8, 1838.
37 Then, after they ate: For admission, according to the Bowdoin College Catalogue, Mar. 1822, students were already expected “to write Latin grammatically, and to be well versed in Geography, in Walsh’s Arithmetic, Cicero’s Select Orations, the Bucolics, the Georgics, and the Aeneid of Virgil, Sallust, the Greek Testament and the Collectanea Graeca Minora [of the late Professor Andrew Dalzel]. They must produce certificates of their good moral character.” See also Jesse Appleton, “Miscellaneous and Literary Intelligence,” North American Review 2 (1816), p. 433.
38 By their senior year … They studied: See Bowdoin College Catalogue and Mitchell, A Remarkable Bowdoin Decade, pp. 17–18.
39 “timidity prevented”: Samuel P. Benson to JTF, Dec. 18, 1870, copy, Bowdoin.
40 “He stood hardly”: Personal Recollections, p. 33.
41 “In Latin and Greek”: Samuel P. Benson to JTF, Dec. 18, 1870, copy, Bowdoin.
42 Otherwise he shirked: See Richard Harwell, Hawthorne and Longfellow: A Guide to an Exhibit (Brunswick, Maine: Bowdoin College, 1966), p. 12.
43 “enchanting topicks”: Thomas C. Upham, American Sketches (New York: David Longworth, 1819), p. 11.
44 “reluctant step”: George Thomas Packard, “Bowdoin College,” Scribner’s Monthly 12 (1876), p. 52.
45 “I love Hawthorne”: Cleaveland, History of Bowdoin College, p. 303.
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