38 She gave him: SH to EPP, July 23, 1838, Berg.
39 “a flower”: JH, notebook, Morgan.
40 “He has him in his mind”: EPP to SH, [May 1838], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
41 “a rose bathed”: [Park Benjamin], “Twice-told Tales,” American Monthly Magazine 5 (Mar. 1838), pp. 281–83.
42 What did Benjamin: [EPP], “Twice-told Tales,” p. 1.
43 “I was astonished”: SH to EPP, [spring 1838], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
44 “coquetting”: EPP to EH, fragment, [fall 1838], Berg.
45 But that spring: “Lost Notebook,” June 15 [1838], in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 202.
46 “On visiting”: “Lost Notebook” [spring 1838], in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 208.
47 “A story to show”: “Lost Notebook” [entry written circa 1838], in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 192.
48 “break off all intercourse”: NH to John Louis O’Sullivan, Nov. 5, 1838, C XV p. 278.
49 “sense that all”: NH to John Louis O’Sullivan, Nov. 5, 1838, C XV, pp. 278–79.
50 Much like Hawthorne’s: SH to NH, Dec. [6, 1838], UVA.
51 “See if I don’t!”: “Lost Notebook,” in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, CXXIII, p. 214.
52 The “fervor scribendi”: SH to EPP, [June 1838], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
53 Inspired by Sophia’s account: SH to EPP, May 14 and 28, 1838, Berg. For superb analyses of history and art in “Tales of the Province-House,” see Evan Carton, “Hawthorne and the Province of Romance,” ELH 4 (1980), pp. 331–54, and on Hawthorne and history, see Colacurcio, The Province of Piety, part 3.
54 “Never, surely”: “Lady Eleanore’s Mantle,” in Tales, p. 656.
55 Yet Helwyse: According to family legend, the Hawthorne ancestor Ebenezer Hathorne delivered smallpox into Salem in 1717.
56 “pale, ethereal creature,” “enthusiasm”: “Edward Randolph’s Portrait,” in Tales, p. 642. Her name also suggests the tolerant colonial governor Sir Henry Vane.
57 “We are no longer”: “Old Esther Dudley,” in Tales, p. 677.
58 The terrible conflict: See also Colacurcio, The Province of Piety, part 3. In his otherwise intelligent study of Hawthorne and history, Michael Colacurcio condescends toward John O’Sullivan and the Democratic Review, partly to render Hawthorne, as an author, more canny than O’Sullivan, which he was—as an author. But not as a politician. O’Sullivan was a complex, shrewd man who should not be dismissed by facile retrospective or wishful readings. It is not true that Hawthorne wrote for O’Sullivan under duress or without any very real commitment to Democratic politics. Hawthorne’s allegiance to the Democrats and to O’Sullivan (not Bancroft), as well as his ironic sense of history and grim view of human nature, present the compelling paradox that is his character. Colacurcio’s analysis, moreover, derives from several biographical falsehoods, such as the undocumented assertion that Elizabeth Peabody delivered O’Sullivan’s invitation to Hawthorne to write for the Democratic Review. Even Elizabeth Peabody, who told several different but related versions of her meeting Hawthorne, does not suggest as much. See, for instance, EPP to Francis Lee [1885], in The Letters of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, pp. 420–21. Moreover, the evidence suggests, as Peabody does, that Hawthorne introduced Peabody to O’Sullivan, who corresponded with her through Hawthorne. Assuming the opposite, Colacurcio then deduces that Bancroft, via Peabody, had already been jockeying on Hawthorne’s behalf for a political appointment; this happened somewhat later, though not by much. In any event, the proleptic interpretation of Hawthorne’s politics and Colacurcio’s mistaking O’Sullivan for Bancroft, plus his misunderstanding Hawthorne’s relation to both of them, seriously mar his argument, although much of his interpretation of the Province-House tales and of Hawthorne’s irony is sensitive—and the best to date.
59 “Your life has been”: “Old Esther Dudley,” in Tales, p. 676. Published after I wrote this chapter, David T. Haberly’s “Hawthorne in the Province of Women,” New England Quarterly 74 (Dec. 2001), pp. 580–621, presents an argument about “Old Esther Dudley” somewhat similar to mine, although his biographical speculations are dubious.
60 “not to show”: “Old Esther Dudley,” in Tales, p. 677.
CHAPTER TEN: ROMANCE OF THE REVENUE SERVICE
1 “I rejoice”: SH to EPP, Nov. 25 [1838], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
2 “thousand brothers in one”: SH to EPP, Nov. 25 [1838], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
3 “I wish you could”: MM to Sally Gardiner, Dec. 10, 1838, MHS.
4 Hawthorne’s sacred “Word”: SH to EPP, Nov. 25 [1838], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
5 And back on Charter Street: SH to EPP, Nov. 25 [1838], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
6 “No two could be”: MM to Sally Gardiner, Dec. 10 [1838], Antioch.
7 “If, after so high”: NH, The Gentle Boy (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1838).
8 “Now does that not”: SH to NH, Dec. 6–7, 1838, UVA.
9 “I am afraid” … “Besides”: EPP to EH, [Oct. 19, 1838], PE; see Norman Holmes Pearson, “A Good Thing for Hawthorne,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 100 (Oct. 1964), p. 304.
10 “sort of man”: EPP to EH, [Oct. 19, 1838], PE.
11 “the quiet of nature” … “as a matter”: EPP to Elizabeth Bliss Bancroft, Nov. 6, 1838, LC.
12 Sitting in the square parlor: MM to SH, Jan. 5, 1839, Berg.
13 “He wants to come”: SH to EPP, Feb. [1839], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
14 “January Fourth 1839”: “Lost Notebook,” in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, p. 218.
15 “I had a parting”: NH to SH, Mar. 6, 1839, C XV, p. 290.
16 “My surest hope”: NH to SH, Apr. 30, 1839, C XV, p. 305. 130. “How did I live”: NH to SH, Apr. 30, 1839, C XV, p. 303. 130. “It is I who”: NH to SH, May 26, 1839, C XV, p. 317.
17 “I felt it”: NH to SH, July 3, 1839, C XV, p. 320; July 24, 1839, C XV, p. 329.
18 “naughty” … “with pent-up love”: NH to SH, Aug. 8, 1839, C XV, pp. 333, 335.
19 In fact, they wouldn’t: Edwin Haviland Miller, in Salem Is My Dwelling Place, p. 165, oddly asserts that the lovers kept their engagement a secret to protect their two mothers. However, Hawthorne seems not to have concealed his intentions regarding Mary Silsbee, and Sophia Peabody had openly courted and rejected earlier suitors. As always, James Mellow is more temperate and reasoned in his speculations, suggesting Hawthorne could hardly afford to support a wife and, besides, still suffered embarrassment over his recent affair with Mary Silsbee (although he did not seem fazed when he announced to O’Sullivan that he’d fallen in love with Sophia). See Mellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times, pp. 159–60. Arlin Turner offers no explanation for the secrecy.
20 “brother measurers”: NH to SH, July 3, 1839, p. 323.
21 Such elaborate chicanery: Word of the engagement remained part of Boston scuttlebutt for many years. See, for example, Johnson to AF, July 7, 1864, Laura Winthrop Johnson Papers, NYPL, and chap. 8.
22 “I have great comfort”: NH to SH, Apr. 30, 1839, C XV, p. 305.
23 “What a trustful”: [June 1853], AN, C VIII, p. 552.
24 “having fallen in love”: NH to John Louis O’Sullivan, May 19, 1839, C XV, p. 312.
25 “She is a good old soul”: NH to John Louis O’Sullivan, May 19, 1839, C XV, p. 312.
26 “a thing I had set”: EPP to SH, June 23, 1839, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
27 “I am very sorry”: SH to EPP, June 29, 1839, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
28 “to enjoy such
elements”: EPP to SH, June 23, 1839, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
29 “I have often doubted”: SH to EPP, July [1839], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
30 “We will wait”: NH to SH, July 24, 1839, C XV, p. 329.
31 “The world might”: NH to SH, July 24, 1839, C XV, p. 330.
32 “It is true”: EPP to Amelia Boelte, May 2, 1886, quoted in The Letters of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, pp. 431–32.
33 “with as much confidence,” Tongue in cheek: NH to HWL, Jan. 12, 1838, C XV, p. 287.
34 But he was still: See NH to George P. Morris, [Jan. 11, 1839], C XV, p. 285; NH to HWL, Jan. 1839, C XV, p. 288. 132. “Uncle Sam is rather”: NH to HWL, May 16, 1839, C XV, p. 310.
35 “TO stand on”: Feb. 19 [1839], AN, p. 193.
36 “Henceforth forever”: NH to SH, July 3, 1839, C XV, p. 320.
37 “If I ever come”: NH to John Louis O’Sullivan, May 19, 1839, C XV, p. 312.
38 “It was exhilarating”: NH to SH, Apr. 3, 1840, C XV, pp. 434–35.
39 “I think, too”: NH to John Louis O’Sullivan, May 19, 1839, C XV, p. 314.
40 “Tell it down”: EPP to SH, June 23, 1839, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
41 “What fame!”: SH to EPP, July 5 [1839], courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.
42 “Does Mr. Hawthorne ever”: ED to HWL, Nov. 14, 1840, bMS Am 1340. 2 (1734), Houghton.
43 In the fall of 1839: Christian Examiner 27 (Sept. 1839), pp. 132–35.
44 “I have a note”; he informed Longfellow: NH to SH, Dec. 18, 1839, C XV, p. 388; HWL, journal, Jan. 4, 1840, MS Am 1340(195), Houghton.
45 He also earned: See Franklin B. Sanborn to Samuel T. Pickard, June 18, 1901, Autograph File, Houghton.
46 Hawthorne liked: Feb. 19 [1839], AN, p. 191.
47 “As long as there”: NH to William Pike, Feb. 10, 1840, C XV, p. 410.
48 Recalled Pike: “The Dinner,” Norman Holmes Pearson manuscripts file, n.d., BY.
49 “I will retire”: NH to John Louis O’Sullivan, Mar. 15, 1840, C XV, p. 418–19.
50 “effect—which”: “The Custom House,” in The Scarlet Letter, p. 153.
51 “he thinks matters”: NH to SH, Oct. 23, 1839, C XV, p. 358.
52 “the most beautiful”: SH to George Peabody, Nov. 3–5, 1839, Berg.
53 “bought” he said: NH to SH, Dec. 11, 1839, C XV, pp. 385–86.
54 “I do not get”: NH to SH, Nov. 17, 1839, C XV, p. 364.
55 “Thou only has”: NH to SH, Oct. 4, 1840, C XV, p. 495.
56 “Indeed, we are but”: NH to SH, Oct. 4, 1840, C XV, p. 495.
57 “Your wisdom is not”: NH to SH, 1839, C XV, p. 343.
58 “grant me freedom”: NH to SH, July 30 [1839], C XV, p. 332.
59 “Thy husband is”: NH to SH, Mar. 30, 1840, C XV, p. 431.
60 “Lights and shadows”: NH to SH, May 19, 1840, C XV, p. 462.
61 “I cannot gush”: NH to SH, Feb. 27, 1842, C XV, pp. 611–12.
62 “untoward circumstances”: NH to SH, June 2, 1840, C XV, p. 469.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE WORLD FOUND OUT
1 Salem artist Charles Osgood: “The portrait came home a fortnight ago,” Louisa Hawthorne writes Hawthorne, “and gives great delight”: see LH to NH, May 10, 1841, Berg. Most scholars speculate that Robert Manning commissioned the portrait, although Hawthorne’s mother may have. For a good discussion, see Rita Gollin, Portraits of Nathaniel Hawthorne: An Iconography (De Kalb: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1983), p. 20.
2 “We never had”: Quoted in Margaret Armstrong, Fanny Kemble: A Passionate Pilgrim (New York: Macmillan, 1938), p. 326. Although Holmes had not yet published his famous poems, in 1831 and 1832 he used the phrase in two essays published in the New-England Magazine.
3 “A revolution of all Human”: See EPP to John S. Dwight, Sept. 20, 1840, BPL; Bronson Alcott to Samuel J. May, Aug. 10, 1840, in The Letters of Bronson Alcott, ed. Richard L. Hernnstadt (Ames: Univ. of Iowa Press, 1969), p. 53.
4 “God incarnates”: Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The Divinity School Address,” in Selected Writings, ed. Brooks Atkinson (New York: Modern Library, 2000), p. 67.
5 Soon these seekers: The best introduction to the transcendental movement is Barbara L. Packer, “The Transcendentalists,” in The Cambridge History of American Literature, ed. Sacvan Bercovitch (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995), pp. 329–603.
6 “Did you ever hear”: SH to Mrs. EPP, July 4, 1841, Berg.
7 “The true democratic”: George Ripley to George Bancroft, Sept. 20, 1837, MHS.
8 Politics and political: For the subsequent discussion of Brook Farm, I have drawn on the invaluable material contained in Zoltán Haraszti, The Idyll of Brook Farm as Revealed by Unpublished Letters (Boston: Boston Public Library, 1937); Henry Sams, Autobiography of Brook Farm (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1958); John Van der Zee Sears, My Friends at Brook Farm (New York: Desmond FitzGerald, 1912); Lindsay Swift, Brook Farm (1900; reprint, New York: Corinth Books, 1961); Anne C. Rose, Transcendentalism as a Social Movement, 1830–1850 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1981); and Carl J. Guarneri, The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1991), as well as Joel Myerson, “James Burrill Curtis and Brook Farm,” New England Quarterly 51:3 (Sept. 1978), pp. 396–423; Joel Myerson, “An Ungathered Sanborn Lecture on Brook Farm,” American Transcendental Quarterly, suppl. (spring 1975), pp. 1–10; Joel Myerson, “Two Unpublished Reminiscences of Brook Farm,” New England Quarterly 48:2 (June 1975): pp. 253–60; Amelia Russell, “Home Life of the Brook Farm Association,” Atlantic Monthly 42 (Oct.—Nov. 1878), pp. 458–66, 556–63; Ora Gannett Sedgwick, “A Girl of Sixteen at Brook Farm,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 85 (1949), pp. 394–404. Interested readers should also consult The Brook Farm Book: A Collection of First-Hand Accounts of the Community, ed. Joel Myerson (New York: Garland, 1987).
9 “We talk of savages”: Bentley, Diary, vol. 4, p. 71.
10 “The expression [seven gables]”: NH to Horace Conolly, May 1840, C XV p. 456.
11 But he seized: As early as 1838, he had proposed a similar idea to Longfellow for their collaboration on a book of fairy tales. “Ought there not to be a slender thread of story running through the book, as a connecting medium for the other stories?” NH to HWL, Mar. 21, 1838, C XV, p. 266.
12 The gifted author: [MF], “Grandfather’s Chair: A History for Youth,” Dial 3 (Jan. 1841), p. 405.
13 “dullest of all books”: NH to SH, Nov. 27 [1840], C XV, p. 504.
14 “We are all”: The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle, ed. Joseph Slater (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1964), pp. 283–84.
15 “It is astonishing”: Sarah Clarke to James Freeman Clarke, Dec. 6, 1840, bMS Am 1569.3(12), Houghton.
16 “more natural union”: George Ripley to RWE, Nov. 9, 1840, quoted in Sams, Autobiography of Brook Farm, p. 6.
17 “Thought would preside”: Sams, Autobiography of Brook Farm, pp. 3, 8.
18 “His own mind”: MF to William Henry Channing, Oct. 25–28, 1840, quoted in The Letters of Margaret Fuller, ed. Robert N. Hudspeth (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1983–94), vol. 2, p. 174.
19 “The farming” … “There are to be”: Sarah Clarke to James Freeman Clarke, Dec. 6, 1840, bMS Am 1569.3(12), Houghton.
20 “Can I not get”: RWE to William Emerson, The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 2, 1836–1841, ed. Ralph Rusk (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1939), p. 365. Sarah Clarke informed her brother that because the Brook Farm venture brought Emerson “to a crisis”—of conscience—he wished to adopt the Alcott family into his own,
improve his own property for their support, and unite everyone, including servants, in common and equal labor. See Sarah Clarke to James Freeman Clarke, Dec. 23, 1840, bMS Am 1569.3(12), Houghton.
21 “Whenever I return”: NH to SH, Jan. 27, 1841, C XV, p. 517.
22 “Here sits thy husband” … “He ought to make”: NH to SH, Oct. 4, 1840, C XV, p. 494.
23 “Think that I”: NH to SH, Apr. 13, 1841, C XV, p. 527.
24 “The whole experience”: Swift, Brook Farm, p. 174.
25 “solitary characters”: Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, ed. RWE, William H. Channing, and James Freeman Clarke (London: Richard Bentley, 1852), vol. 2, p. 269 (henceforward given as Memoirs).
26 “the essential equality”: [John O’Sullivan], “Dr. Channing’s Recent Writings,” Democratic Review 9:40 (Oct. 1841), p. 319.
27 “A true democracy”: [O’Sullivan], “Dr. Channing’s Recent Writings,” p. 320; [John O’Sullivan], “The Course of Civilization,” Democratic Review 6:21 (Sept. 1839), p. 215.
28 “The community aims”: EPP, “Plan of the West Roxbury Community,” Dial 2 (Jan. 1842), p. 364.
29 “I doubt they will”: MF to William H. Channing, Mar. 29, 1841, The Letters of Margaret Fuller, p. 194.
30 “Spring and summer”: NH to SH, Apr. 13, 1841, C XV, p. 526.
31 Teasing the Brook Farm: Sears, My Friends at Brook Farm, p. 117; Ora Gannett Sedgwick, “A Girl of Sixteen at Brook Farm,” Atlantic Monthly 85:400 (Mar. 1900), pp. 395–97.
32 “He was a sort”: The Journals of Charles King Newcomb, ed. Judith Kennedy Johnson (Providence, R.I.: Brown Univ. Press, 1946), pp. 149, 151.
33 “Hawthorne has taken hold”: EPP to John S. Dwight, Apr. 26, 1841, BPL, quoted in The Letters of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, p. 250.
34 “defiles the hands”: NH to SH, May 4, 1841, C XV, p. 542.
35 “What is the use”: LH to NH, June 11, 1841, Berg.
36 “I have never felt”: NH to David Mack, July 18, 1841, C XV, p. 552.
37 “there are private”: NH to David Mack, July 18, 1841, C XV, p. 552.
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