Hawthorne

by Brenda Wineapple

  27   “GOD gives us”: n.d. [June 1843?], SH, joint notebooks, Morgan.

  28   “I am a husband!”: NH to SH, May 19, 1844, C XVI, p. 44.

  29   “At any rate”: John Louis O’Sullivan to NH, Mar. 21, 1845, quoted in NHHW, vol. 1, p. 285.

  30   He asked Evert Duyckinck: Hawthorne’s tale “A Select Party,” published in the July 1844 issue of the Democratic Review, also appeared in the first issue of the New York Morning News. Duyckinck solicited stories from Hawthorne for his magazine Arcturus 3 (Apr. 1842), p. 394.

  31   “By manufacturing you”: John Louis O’Sullivan to NH, Mar. 21, 1845, quoted in NHHW, vol. 1, p. 285.

  32   “A man in the midst”: n.d., AN, p. 253.

  33   “Hawthorne is in a state”: John Louis O’Sullivan to George Bancroft, Apr. 19, 1845, MHS.

  34   “The poet lives”: ED, “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” Democratic Review 16 (Apr. 1845), pp. 376–77.

  35   “Hawthorne is dying”: John Louis O’Sullivan to George Bancroft, May 10, 1845, MHS.

  36   “It sounds badly”: John Louis O’Sullivan to George Bancroft, May 31, 1845, MHS.

  37   “Robinson Crusoe solitude”: John Louis O’Sullivan to George Bancroft, July 11, 1845, MHS.

  38   “There could not possibly”: John Louis O’Sullivan to George Bancroft, July 11, 1845, MHS.

  39   “Such is his character”: John Louis O’Sullivan to George Bancroft, Aug. 24, 1845, MHS.

  40   Bridge would pay … Hawthorne would receive: See Personal Recollections, pp. 87–89.

  41   “In this point”: Horatio Bridge, Journal of an African Cruiser, ed. Nathaniel Hawthorne (New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1845), p. 164. The governor of Liberia was John Brown Russwurm, 1826 graduate of Bowdoin, fellow Athenaean, and acquaintance of Hawthorne and Bridge. See Patrick Brancaccio, “ ‘The Black Man’s Paradise’: Hawthorne’s Editing of the Journal of an African Cruiser,” New England Quarterly 53 (1980), pp. 23–41.

  42   “My husband says”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Mar. 6, 1845, Berg.

  43   “becomes less and less”: See [John O’Sullivan], “The Re-Annexation of Texas: In Its Influence on the Duration of Slavery,” Democratic Review 15 (July 1844), pp. 11–16. It’s important to note that O’Sullivan was a staunch supporter of Van Buren for the 1844 presidential nomination, which Van Buren, having opposed the annexation of Texas, lost. The pacifistic O’Sullivan also dreaded war with Mexico.

  44   “knew nothing about slavery”: EPP to HB, June 4, 1887, quoted in The Letters of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, p. 445.

  45   “a patriarchal” … “would have been better”: “Old News,” in Tales, p. 257, originally published in installments in the February, March, and May 1835 issues of the New-England Magazine.

  46   “Slavery, as it existed”: See “Old News,” in New-England Magazine 8 (Feb. 1835), pp. 81–88; (Mar. 1835), pp. 170–78; (May 1835), pp. 365–70. See also “Effect of Colour on Odours,” American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge 2 (July 1836), p. 468, where the author writes—with irony?—that “negroes should suffer more, in proportion to their numbers, than whites, by all sorts of pestilence, and unwholesome smell.” Even if ironic, the passage is cruel and unfunny.

  47   “When the white man”: Journal of an African Cruiser, p. 164.

  48   “It is quite an interesting”: See Emerson in His Journals, p. 356; Journal of an African Cruiser, p. 112.

  49   “A civilized and educated”: NH to HB, Apr. 1, 1845, C XVI, p. 26.

  50   “Though the burning”: Journal of an African Cruiser, p. 85.

  51   Emerson, who shrugged off: SH to NH, Sept. 7, 1845, Berg. See also RWE to Carolyn Sturgis, Aug. 2, 1845, in The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 8, 1845–59, ed. Eleanor M. Tilton (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1991), p. 44.

  52   “promptly and forcibly”: NH to GH, Sept. 6, 1845, C XVI, p. 119.

  53   Hawthorne eventually won: A fire destroyed much of the property at Brook Farm in March, just days before the suit was heard in Concord. Hawthorne claimed $800 in damages, and the court granted him $560.62 plus costs of $25.28. The judgment seems not to have been paid, then or later. See Hawthorne vs. Ripley and Dana, Mar. 9, 1846, University of Rochester Library. For a full discussion of Hawthorne’s suit, see Robert F. Metzdorf, “Hawthorne’s Suit Against Ripley and Dana,” American Literature 12 (1940), pp. 235–41.

  54   “We are actually”: SH to LH, Sept. 1, 1845, Berg.

  55   “I have got weaned”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Sept. 7, 1845, Berg.

  56   Uncertain as wandering Arabs: “The Old Manse,” in Tales, p. 1148.

  57   “with flying colors”: NH to HB, Oct. 7, 1845, C XVI, p. 122.

  58   “I besieged Heaven”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Sept. 7, 1845, Berg. Sophia would pay room and board to William Manning, Mary Manning’s beneficiary. After her, the rooms at Herbert Street unoccupied by the Hawthornes were owned and rented out by him.

  59   “Here I am again”: NH to HB, Oct. 7, 1845, C XVII, p. 122.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SALEM RECIDIVUS

  1     “I am turned out”: NH to GH, June 8, 1849, C XVI, p. 273.

  2     publishers of the Salem Advertiser: Varney Parsons & Co. to James K. Polk, Oct. 29, 1845, Personnel File of Nathaniel Hawthorne, record group 56, U.S. Treasury Department Records, National Archives and Records Service (hereafter cited as National Archives).

  3     Even Benjamin Browne: H. L. Conolly to Thomas Bowles, Oct. 25, 1845, National Archives.

  4     In gratitude, Hawthorne: Published in installments from January to September 1846. Hawthorne hoped to interest Duyckinck in their publication in book form, to no avail.

  5     “I have grown considerable”: NH to HB, Mar. 1, 1846, C XVI, p. 148.

  6     “Poor Hawthorne”: Charles Sumner to Elizabeth Bancroft, Jan. 9, 1846, [copy], MHS.

  7     “What a devil”: NH to HB, Feb. 21, 1846, C XVI, p. 142.

  8     “short stories that Evert Duyckinck … had solicited: ED to NH, Mar. 21, 1845, Duyckinck Family Papers, NYPL.

  9     “MSS! MSS!” ED to NH, Oct. 2, 1845, Bowdoin.

  10   “I have reached that point”: NH to ED, Dec. 24, 1845, C XVI, p.136.

  11   “It is rather”: NH to ED, Jan. 24, 1846, C XVI, p. 140.

  12   Then, in March: The political maneuvering had continued unabated. According to one Democratic Party member, G. W. Mullet, Hawthorne hadn’t been considered for the Custom House until arrangements had been concluded with others, which had to be undone. Mullet himself helped out by voluntarily withdrawing his application for the naval officer in favor of Hawthorne, and when the offer was rejected he managed to convince his friend Richard Lindsay to withdraw his name for surveyor, promising he’d do the same. They both then promoted Hawthorne’s candidacy for surveyor and that of Howard for naval officer. See G. W. Mullet to George Holden, Oct. 1, 1883, PE. See also Carl E. Prince and Mollie Keller, The U.S. Customs Service: A Bicentennial History (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Treasury, 1989), p. 109: “James Polk recognized a political ornament when he saw one.”

  13   “Ah,” writes Hawthorne: “The Old Manse,” in Tales, p. 1142.

  14   “subserve some useful”: “The Old Manse,” in Tales, p. 1126.

  15   “The treasure of intellectual gold”: The Old Manse,” in Tales, p. 1148.

  16   “As a storyteller”: “The Old Manse,” in Tales, p. 1148.

  17   In addition to the preface: Hawthorne continued to exclude “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” but not “Mrs. Bullfrog” or “Monsieur du Miroir,” both originally published in the 1837 Token, and “The Virtuoso’s Collection.” He did not, however, include more recent stories like “The Antique Ring,” “A Good Man’s Miracle,” or “A Book of Autographs.” The book sold in cloth as two-volumes-in
-one for $1.25 and also appeared in printed paper wrappers, with the volumes sold separately or together.

  18   “I am jogging”: NH to HB, Oct. 26, 1846, C XVI, p. 188.

  19   “No masks deceive him”: See NH to ED, July 1, 1845, C XVI, p. 106. See also H. T. Tuckerman, “Nathaniel Hawthorne,” Lippincott’s Magazine 5 (May 1870), p. 502, and [William Henry Channing], “Mosses from an Old Manse,” Harbinger 3 (June 27, 1846), pp. 43–44, quoted in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 76.

  20   “the specific remedy”: See [Charles Wilkins Webber], “Hawthorne,” American Whig Review 4 (Sept. 1846), pp. 296–316, quoted in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, pp. 79–93. In his long encomium, Webber elevated Hawthorne above all party lines, doubtless aware, all protestation to the contrary, of Hawthorne’s affiliation and friends. “We do not know, nor do we care, to what Party Nathaniel Hawthorne ostensibly belongs,” Webber postured, “—we should judge, not to any. If he has identified himself with any, it should be the Whig Party—for he is a Whig and can’t help himself. If it be the fact that he is ranked among the Loco-Focos [radical Democrats], it is the result of sheer accident or that indifference which is so characteristic of those Literary men of all countries who feel how much about the petty ends of Faction their sacred mission is, and accept from their Government—of whatever Party—whatever it has to offer, as a right.”

  21   In her large review: SH had already cooled to Fuller, resenting the latter’s call for female independence and equality in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, the book-length version of her essay in The Dial. “Altogether ignoble,” Sophia sneered. “I suspect a wife only can know how to speak with sufficient respect of man,” she told her mother, “—I think Margaret speaks of many things that should not be spoken of.” See SH to Mrs. EPP, Mar. 6, 1845, Berg.

  22   “Hawthorne intimates”: [MF], “Mosses from an Old Manse,” New York Daily Tribune, June 22, 1846, p. 1

  23   “the charm of womanhood” … “But she was not”: Apr. 3, 1858, FIN, pp. 156–57.

  24   “Get a bottle”: Edgar Allan Poe, “Tale-Writing: Nathaniel Hawthorne,” Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book 35 (Nov. 1847), p. 256.

  25   TO John Quincy Adams: See John L. O’Sullivan, “Annexation,” Democratic Review 17 (July—Aug. 1845), pp. 2–10.

  26   He liked his new life: NH to George William Curtis, June 12, 1846, courtesy Kent Bicknell.

  27   “as good liquor”: Frank Sanborn, reminiscence, Aug. 28, 1901, Sanborn Collection, Concord Free Public Library.

  28   Called the Black Prince: SH to Mrs. EPP, [Oct. 6, 1846], Huntington; Sophia’s letter contains the scribbling of names by NH: “Hawthorne Hawthorne Francis Hawthorne, Henry Hawthorne, Walter Hawthorne, Wilfred Hawthorne, George Hawthorne, Herbert Hawthorne, Arthur Hawthorne, Edward Hawthorne, Horace Hawthorne, Robert Hawthorne, Lionel Hawthorne, Bundleblock Hawthorne.” For the house on Chestnut Street, see Nevins S. Winfield, “The Homes and Haunts of Hawthorne,” New-England Magazine 9 (1893), p. 292.

  29   Salem shipping was: See Luther S. Luedtke, Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Romance of the Orient, p. 19.

  30   “This small income”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Dec. 19, 1847, Berg.

  31   “as quiet up there”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Sept. [9—]10, 1847, Berg.

  32   As a matter of fact: Hawthorne’s reviews and short pieces have been collected in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, C XXIII, pp. 235–57: “Melville’s Typee,” Mar. 25, 1846; “Calvert’s Scenes and Thoughts in Europe and Dickens’s Travelling Letters,” Apr. 29, 1846; “Simms’s Views and Reviews; Hood’s Poems,” May 2, 1846; “Whittier’s Supernaturalism of New England,” Apr. 17, 1847; “A Ball at Ballardvale,” Oct. 6, 1847; “Evangeline,” Nov. 13, 1847; “A Salem Theatrical,” May 3, 1848; “A Salem Theatrical,” May 10, 1848; and later “Webber’s The Hunter-Naturalist,” Dec. 10, 1851.

  33   Hawthorne asked Longfellow: NH to HWL, Nov. 11, 1847, C VI, p. 215; see Francis Shaw to NH, Jan. 26, 1848, Berg.

  34   Yet Hawthorne strolled: NH to HWL, Nov. 11, 1847, CVI, p. 215.

  35   “His taste was”: George Batchelor, “The Salem of Hawthorne’s Time,” Salem Gazette, Mar. 11 and 18, 1887.

  36   “high & dry”: SH to MM, Oct. 15, 1848, Berg.

  37   “I think your white guests”: SH to MM, Jan. [16], 1848, Berg. Though she was well intentioned, Mary Mann’s attitudes are not above reproach, for she contradictorily defended her action by noting that “the more I know of Miss Lee’s beautiful soul, which is snowy white before God … the more I mourn for her that it is clothed in such an integument, and the more glad I am, that I have had an opportunity of seating her at my table with the magnates of the land, and showing the respect I bear to merit irrespective of colour,” MM to SH, [Jan. 1848], Antioch.

  38   He did; but that table: RH, memoir, Morgan.

  39   “When shall you want”: NH to Charles Wilkins Webber, Dec. 14, 1848, C XVI, p. 251. The Centenary editors reasonably suggest that the story was “The Unpardonable Sin.” See J. Donald Crowley, “Historical Commentary” on The Snow-Image, C XI, pp. 382–83.

  40   “In short, I now” … “I’m tired”: June 20, 1847, AN, p. 398.

  41   “If it [language] is Babel”: Charles Kraitsir, Significance of the Alphabet (Boston: E. P. Peabody, 1846), p. 3.

  42   The alphabet and language: Despite its cursory and often erroneous assumptions, Patricia Crain’s The Story of “A” (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 2000.), chap. 5, attempts to deal with these issues.

  43   “But what shall we say”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 252.

  44   “has broken all”: See EPP to Ann Sargent Gage, [Mar. 1849]; EPP to Ann Sargent Gage, Feb. 15, 1849, Gage Family, Additional Papers, AAS.

  45   “I wonder he do”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Mar. 8–9, 1849, Berg.

  46   “Every body seems”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Mar. 8–9, 1849, Berg.

  47   “Though everybody respectable”: EPP to Ann Sargent Gage, Feb. 15, 1849, Gage Family, Additional Papers, AAS. Scandal clung to EPP, so much so that Henry James Jr., hearing of it, incorporated the Kraitsir affair into his fictionalized EPP in The Bostonians. See James, The Bostonians, p. 826: “There was a legend that an Hungarian had once possessed himself of her affections, and had disappeared after robbing her of everything she possessed. This, however, was very apocryphal, for she had never possessed anything, and it was open to grave doubt that she could have entertained a sentiment so personal.”

  48   “Wondrous strength”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 176.

  49   “The Photographic study”: SH to JTF, Aug. 19, 1866, BPL. Similarly, Norman Holmes Pearson believed Hawthorne “had started writing The Scarlet Letter before his dismissal (although not before the possibility of it became clear) and then put it aside as more suitable for a novel than a short tale.” See Norman Holmes Pearson to Dean A. Fales, Aug. 4, 1865, BY.

  50   “at odd times”: William D. Northend to Henry Johnson, Horace Conolly recollections, copy, Bowdoin. The ample parallels between both novels and the tales written during this period suggest Conolly is right. Compare, for instance, the attempt in “Main-Street” to “give a reflex of the very life that is flitting past us!” and the point of view, says Hawthorne in The House of the Seven Gables, “in which this Tale comes under the Romantic definition, lies in the attempt to connect a by-gone time with the very Present that is flitting away from us” (The House of the Seven Gables, p. 351).

  51   “rather went on with”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Mar. 8–9, 1849, Berg.

  52   “Kings, princes and potentates”: Armstrong, Fanny Kemble: A Passionate Victorian, p. 311. Her notorious divorce from Pierce Butler, who sued on the grounds of desertion, was argued by Hawthorne’s Whig ally in the Custom House fight, Rufus Choate, and it included allegations of Butler’s adultery as well as their fight over custody of the children; it may be
yet another source for The Scarlet Letter.

  53   “She will bear it”: NH to GH, June 8, 1849, CVI, p. 273.

  54   Foul, cried the press: The standard compilation of relevant data can be found in Stephen Nissenbaum, “The Firing of Nathaniel Hawthorne,” Essex Institute Historical Collections 114:2 (Apr. 1978), pp. 57–86.

  55   “Not one of Mr. Hawthorne’s”: Quoted in “The Removal of Mr. Hawthorne,” Salem Register, June 20, 1849, p. 2.

  56   “The office”; “I am satisfied”; Another supporter; “I should as soon”: Rufus Choate to William Meredith, June 9, 1849, National Archives; George Ticknor to William Meredith, June 19, 1849, National Archives; Amory Holbrook, June 12, 1849, National Archives; John O’Sullivan, June 22, 1849, National Archives.

  57   “If they will pay”: NH to HWL, June 5, 1849, CVI, p. 270.

  58   “He seems to be”: EPP to Mrs. EPP, June 15, 1849, Antioch.

  59   “He is either to be”: SH to Mrs. EPP, June 21, 1849, Berg.

  60   With Hawthorne intransigent: SH to Dr. Nathaniel Peabody (father), July 4, 1848, Berg.

  61   The Whig War Committee: Charles W. Upham to William Meredith, July 9, 1849, National Archives.

  62   “supported by all”: Charles Upham et al., to William Meredith, June 25, 1849, National Archives.

  63   “I was yesterday”: Edward Everett to William Meredith, June 27, 1849, MHS.

  64   “on account of an ancient”: SH to Dr. Nathaniel Peabody, July 4, 1849, Berg.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: SCARLET LETTERS

  1     “to make such a defence”: NH to Horace Mann, Aug. 8, 1849, C XVI, p. 293.

  2     “I tried to keep,” “I love my mother”: July 29, 1849, AN, p. 429.

  3     “There was the deepest”: SH to MM, Aug. 12, 1849, Berg.

  4     “And then I looked”: July 29, 1849, AN, p. 429.

  5     “I hope to get”: SH to MM, Nov. 4, 1849, Berg.

  6     “It is only paying”: GH to NH, Jan. 17, 1850, quoted in NHHW, vol. 1, pp. 354–55.