Hawthorne

by Brenda Wineapple

  7     “It is something else”: NH to GH, Jan. 20, 1850, C XVI, p. 310.

  8     “He writes immensely”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Sept. 27, 1849, Berg.

  9     Slated for a collection: NH to JTF, Jan. 15, 1850, C XVI, p. 306; see Yesterdays, pp. 48–51.

  10   “I have heard”: SH to Richard Manning, Feb. 12, 1871, PE. Some years after Hawthorne’s death, Sophia accused Fields of cheating her of Hawthorne’s royalties.

  11   “In the process of writing”: NH to JTF, Jan. 15, 1850, C XVI, p. 305.

  12   “the inmost Me”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 121.

  13   “My imagination,” “a little pile,” “I endeavored,” “that of a person”: The Scarlet Letter, pp. 148, 152, 153, 155.

  14   “as if the devil”: NH to Horace Conolly, June 17, 1850, C XVI, p. 345.

  15   “a citizen of somewhere else”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 157.

  16   “What is he?” The Scarlet Letter, p. 127.

  17   “neutral territory,” “so they lose,” “the cold”: The Scarlet Letter, pp. 149, 150.

  18   “all in one tone”: NH to JTF, Nov. 3, 1850, C XVI, p. 371.

  19   “zeal for God’s glory”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 232.

  20   “we have wronged”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 182.

  21   “Mr. Dimmesdale, whose”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 229.

  22   The literary sources of The Scarlet Letter: See also Larry J. Reynolds, “The Scarlet Letter and Revolutions Abroad,” American Literature 57 (1985), pp. 44–67, for a cogent account of Hawthorne’s use of the revolutions of 1848.

  23   In his 1837 tale: Early journal entries tell of the woman who, “by the old colony law, was condemned always to wear the letter A, sewn on her garment, in token of her having committed adultery.” See n.d., AN, p. 254. Hawthorne doubtless read of the practice in Joseph Felt’s Annals of Salem.

  24   “What we did had”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 286.

  25   “None so ready,” “In all season”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 256.

  26   “It is remarkable,” “Was existence worth”: The Scarlet Letter, pp. 259–60.

  27   “The world’s law,” “essential to keep her”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 259.

  28   “beloved, but gone hence”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 149.

  29   “There was wild and ghastly”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 261.

  30   “of her own free,” “mutual happiness”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 344.

  31   To some readers: See, for instance, the enormously influential Sacvan Bercovitch, The Office of “The Scarlet Letter” (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1991); see also Gary Scharnhorst, ed., The Critical Response to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1992).

  32   “A book one reads”: MM to Horace Mann, Mar. 20, 1850, MHS.

  33   “To tell you the truth”: NH to HB, Feb. 4, 1850, C XVI, p. 311.

  34   “Mr. Fields!”: SH to EPP, [Feb. 3, 1850], Berg.

  35   Exhilarated, Fields: See SH to EPP, [Feb. 3, 1850], Berg.

  36   “Nathaniel’s fame”: SH to LH, Apr. 28, 1850, Berg.

  37   “Glorious” … “& raise”: JTF to ED, Mar. 5, 1850, Duyckinck Family Papers, NYPL.

  38   “If I escape”: NH to HB, Apr. 13, 1850, C XVI, p. 329.

  39   “The only remarkable”: The Scarlet Letter, p. 119.

  40   “directly through”: [Edwin Percy Whipple], “Review of New Books,” Graham’s Magazine 36:5 (May 1850), pp. 345–46, quoted in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 124.

  41   “He perpetuates bad morals”: [Arthur Cleveland Coxe], “The Writings of Hawthorne,” Church Review and Ecclesiastical Register 3:4 (Jan. 1851), in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 146.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE UNEVEN BALANCE

  1     “Thou didst much amiss”: NH to SH, Apr. 26, 1850, C XVI, p. 333.

  2     And with the children: Letters from MM to Horace Mann, Mar. [15]—23, 1850, MHS, do not suggest that Sophia Hawthorne had suffered another miscarriage, as sometimes alleged. See Miller, Salem Is My Dwelling Place, p. 551.

  3     “I detest this town”: NH to Horace Mann, Aug. 8, 1849, C XVI, p. 293; NH to HB, Feb. 4, 1850, C XVI, p. 312.

  4     “To give up the ocean”: Quoted in NHHW, vol. 1, p. 353, Sept. 2, 1849.

  5     “I infinitely prefer”: NH to Caroline Sturgis Tappan, Sept. 5, 1851, C XVI, p. 481.

  6     “Had this wish”: HHC, p. 20.

  7     “Belladonna finally conquered”: SH to Mrs. EPP, June 9, 1850, Berg.

  8     “with uneven floors”: Quoted in Franklin B. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years (Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1909), vol. 2, p. 523.

  9     She hung her reproductions … In the background: SH described it thus, SH to EPP, Aug. 8, 1850, Berg. See also Oct. 13 [1850], AN, p. 298.

  10   “I find it very agreeable”: NH to Zachariah Burchmore, June 9, 1850, C XVI, p. 340.

  11   “Perhaps he may remain”: HB to FP, Nov. 4, 1850, LC.

  12   “Mr. Hawthorne thinks”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Aug. 1, 1850, Berg.

  13   “the daily bulletin”: Quoted in The Letters of Margaret Fuller, vol. 5, p. 194.

  14   “Think of the dry”: Fanny Longfellow, Mrs. Longfellow: Selected Letters and Journals of Fanny Appleton Longfellow, ed. Edward Wagenecht (New York: Longmans, Green, 1956), p. 159.

  15   “I pity those”: Quoted in The Letters of Margaret Fuller, vol. 6, p. 77.

  16   Approaching Fire Island: Details of the shipwreck in various books often contradict one another, so I have reconstructed events from various newspaper accounts in the New York press.

  17   “Oh was ever any thing”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Aug. 1, 1850, Berg.

  18   “I am really glad”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Sept. 10, 1850, Berg.

  19   Evert Duyckinck, soon to visit: ED to Margaret Duyckinck, Aug. 9, 1850, Duyckinck Family Papers, NYPL.

  20   The date was set: See Cornelius Mathews, “Several Days in Berkshire,” Literary World 7 (Aug. 24 and 31 and Sept. 7, 1850), pp. 145–47, 166, 185–86.

  21   Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes: Mathews, “Several Days in Berkshire,” p. 145.

  22   Later James Fields: Yesterdays, pp. 52–53; in addition to Mathews and Fields, I have used J. T. Headley, “Berkshire Scenery,” New-York Observer, Sept. 14, 1850, and the letters of ED to Margaret Duyckinck, NYPL, and SH to EPP, [summer 1850], Berg, to reconstruct events.

  23   “remarkable literary column”; “Hawthorne was among”: See Headley, “Berkshire Scenery”; Yesterdays, p. 53.

  24   “as if the Devil”: SH to EPP, Aug. 8, 1850, Berg.

  25   “Mr. Typee is interesting”: SH to EPP, Aug. 8, 1850, Berg.

  26   Defoe on the ocean: ED to George Duyckinck, Sept. 5, 1849, Duyckinck Family Papers, NYPL.

  27   “He is married”: SH to EPP, [Sept. 1850], Berg.

  28   “We landsmen”: NH to HB, [Dec. 1846], C XVI, p. 195.

  29   “tolerant of codes”: HM, Correspondence, ed. Lynn Horth (Chicago: Northwestern Univ. Press and Newberry Library, 1993), p. 186; “Melville’s Typee,” in Miscellaneous Prose and Verse, CXXIII, p. 235.

  30   Melville was no landsman: NH to HB, [Dec. 1846], C XVI, p. 195.

  31   “Already I feel,” “He expands”: “Hawthorne and His Mosses, by a Virginian spending July in Vermont,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 112.

  32   “the rich and rare”: “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 106.

  33   “Some may start,” “For in this world”: “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 108.

  34   “For spite
of all”: “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 108. For a cogent discussion of the racial implications of this metaphor, see Bruce Neal Simon, “The Race for Hawthorne” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Univ., 1998).

  35   “derives its force”: “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, pp. 107–8.

  36   “What I feel most moved”: HM to NH, [June 1], 1851, in Melville, Correspondence, p. 192.

  37   Recognizing a fellow traveler: “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 110.

  38   “Let him write”: “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 111.

  39   “For genius, all over”: “Hawthorne and His Mosses,” in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 111.

  40   “There were few”: HHC, p. 33.

  41   “A man with a true”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Sept. 4, 1850, Berg.

  42   “careful not to interrupt”: SH to EPP, [Sept. 1850], Berg.

  43   “He is an invaluable”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Oct. 24, 1852, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.

  44   “When conversing, he is full”: Jay Leyda, The Melville Log: A Documentary Life of Herman Melville (1951; reprint, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1969), vol. 1, pp. 393–94.

  45   “No writer ever put”: NH to ED, Aug. 29, 1850, C XVI, p. 362.

  46   During the next fifteen months: See also Brenda Wineapple, “Hawthorne and Melville; or, The Ambiguities,” ESQ 46:1, 2 (2000), pp. 75–98. Although this issue is devoted in its entirety to the Hawthorne-Melville friendship, it focuses primarily on Melville’s end of the equation, repeating much of the tired speculation of Miller. More useful is Hershel Parker, Herman Melville, vol. 2, 1851–1891 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2001), pp. 130–32, 136–61.

  47   “had never lost”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 504.

  48   “There was something of the woman”: The Blithedale Romance, p. 667.

  49   He likely burned them: See HM to NH, July 22, 1851, in Melville, Correspondence, p. 199, where Melville suggests Hawthorne’s letters to him were unguarded, lengthy, and well received.

  50   “They shiver”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 472.

  51   “their deeper meanings”: HM to ED, Feb. 12, 1851, quoted in Melville, Correspondence, p. 181.

  52   Hawthorne called Moby-Dick: A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, C VII, p. 169: “On the hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his ‘White Whale,’ while the gigantic shape of Graylock looms upon him from his study-window.”

  53   “You are aware”: JTF to NH, Aug. 20, 1850, Berg.

  54   “I must not pull”: NH to JTF, Aug. 23, 1850, C XVI, p. 359.

  55   “His form is only”: JTF to Mary Russell Mitford, Sept. 30, 1851, quoted in James C. Austin, Fields of the Atlantic Monthly (San Marino, Calif.: Huntington Library, 1953), p. 209.

  56   “We intend to push”: JTF to NH, Jan. 14, 1851, Berg.

  57   “with the minuteness” … He also wished: NH to JTF, Nov. 3, 1850, C XVI, p. 371.

  58   “There are points”: NH to JTF, Dec. 9, 1850, C XVI, p. 378.

  59   He did compose …“for a good many years”: Preface to Twice-told Tales, in Tales, p. 1150.

  60   “Instead of passion”: Preface to Twice-told Tales, in Tales, pp. 1151, 1152.

  61   “The book, if you would”: Preface to Twice-told Tales, in Tales, pp. 1151–52.

  62   “Every sentence, so far”: Preface to Twice-told Tales, in Tales, p. 1152.

  63   “The spirit of my”: See, for instance, EN, vol. 1, p. 193.

  64   “Nobody would think”: NH to SH, Jan. 1, 1840, C XVI, p. 395.

  65   “on the internal evidence”: Preface to Twice-told Tales, in Tales, p. 1153.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE HIDDEN LIFE OF PROPERTY

  1     “The book is an affliction”: quoted in Joel Pfister, The Production of Personal Life (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 1991), p. 157.

  2     “a great deal more”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 353.

  3     “I’m no more a witch”: Loggins, The Hawthornes, p. 133.

  4     “The impalpable claim”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 366. More recently the Hathorne clan included an eccentric sister and a brother, both unmarried, and a quarrel over a will that mysteriously disappeared.

  5     “The wrong-doing of one generation”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 352.

  6     “is to be transformed”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 383.

  7     “where everything is free”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 508.

  8     “In this republican country”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 384.

  9     Ebe saw the Reverend Charles Upham: EH to NH, May 3, 1851, Berg. So did others. See George Holden, Aug. 18, 1883, notes, PE: according to Elizabeth Peabody (an unreliable source), Upham was annoyed that Hawthorne didn’t attend his church, although the Hawthorne family had a pew. Another story, also from Peabody, has Upham advising Hawthorne before his marriage that “a wife should be kept in subjection and brought up to wait upon the husband, [but] that this would be found especially desirable in the case of Sophia, as she had been in delicate health, and therefore petted and indulged at home.” Hearing this, Hawthorne was indignant—again, according to Peabody.

  10   “I dwell in it”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 510.

  11   “Shall we never”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 509. See also N.d., AN, p. 252: “To represent the influence which Dead Men have among living affairs;—for instance, a Dead Man controls the disposition of wealth; a Dead Man sits on the judgment-seat, and the living judges do but repeat his decisions; Dead Men’s opinions in all things control the living truth; we believe in Dead Men’s religion; we laugh at Dead Men’s jokes; we cry at Dead Men’s pathos; everywhere and in all matters, Dead Men tyrannize inexorably over us.”

  12   “once in every half century”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 511.

  13   “a house and a moderate”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 486.

  14   “No great mistake”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 621.

  15   Doubtless begun as one: See NH to JTF, Jan. 15, 1850, C XVI, p. 306. He counted circa two hundred manuscript pages to be included with “The Scarlet Letter” for a volume of tales. See Chapter 15.

  16   “a cough took up”: Quoted in Edward W. Emerson, The Early Years of the Saturday Club (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918), p. 211.

  17   “There is still a faint”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 589. The passage seems to me to anticipate the “Time Passes” section of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse; Woolf clearly knew of Hawthorne’s work, and her father, Leslie Stephen, wrote eloquently of him in “Hawthorne and the Lessons of Romance,” Cornhill Magazine 26 (Dec. 1872), pp. 717–34.

  18   “There is a certain”: HM to NH, [Apr. 16], 1851, in Melville, Correspondence, p. 186.

  19   “his atmospherical medium”: The House of the Seven Gables, p. 351.

  20   “a more natural and healthy”: NH to ED, Apr. 27, 1851, C XVI, p. 421. See Holgrave’s observation, when he reads from a story he’d written: “As one method of throwing it [his emotion] off, I have put an incident of the Pyncheon family-history, with which I happen to be acquainted, into the form of a legend, and mean to publish it in a magazine” (The House of the Seven Gables, p. 512).

  21   “How slowly I have”: NH to HB, Mar. 15, 1851, C XVI, p. 407.

  22   “There is a grand truth”: HM to NH, [Apr. 16], 1851, in Melville, Correspondence, p. 186.

  23   “mulled wine”: HM to NH, [Jan. 1851], in Melville, Correspondence, p. 176.

  24
  “I mean to continue”: HM to NH, [June 1851], in Melville, Correspondence, p. 190.

  25   “fresh, sincere” … “much of concession”: SH, Apr. 11, 1851, diary, Berg; SH to EPP, May 10, 1851, Berg.

  26   “So upon the whole”: HM to NH, [June i], 1851, in Melville, Correspondence, p. 193.

  27   “Though I wrote”: HM to NH, [June i], 1851, in Melville, Correspondence, p. 192.

  28   But he approved: HM to NH, [Apr. 16], 1851, in Melville, Correspondence, p. 185.

  29   “A weird, wild book”; “for having shown”: HWL, journal, Apr. 16, 1851, MS Am 1340(204), Houghton; NHHW, vol. 1, p. 391

  30   “his lantern”: [ED], “House of the Seven Gables,” Literary World 8 (Apr. 26, 1851), p. 334.

  31   From England: “The House of the Seven Gables,” Athenaeum 24 (May 1851), in Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Contemporary Reviews, p. 164.

  32   “It is evident”: EH to NH, May 3, 1851, courtesy Evelyn Hamby; Stanford.

  33   “the daughter of my age”: NH to HB, July 22, 1851, C XVI, p. 462; NH to EPP May 25, 1851, C XVI, p. 441.

  34   “Mr. Hawthorne’s passions”: JH, notebook, Morgan.

  35   “I have never yet seen”: NH to EPP, May 25, 1851, C XVI, p. 440.

  36   Hawthorne, who earned: See The Cost Books of Ticknor and Fields, 1832–1858, ed. W. S. Tryon and William Charvat (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1949), pp. 188–203.

  37   “I feel remote”: NH to HWL, May 8, 1851, C XVI, p. 431.

  38   “Mr. Hawthorne, even for a man”: Godfrey Greylock [Joseph E. A. Smith], Taghconic; or, Letters and Legends about our Summer Home (Boston: Redding, 1852), p. 101; The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. 8, p. 265.

  39   “I dare say”: SH to Mrs. EPP, Sept. 7, 1851, Berg.

  40   “He seems older”: Ellery Channing to Ellen Channing, Oct. 30, 1851, MHS.

  41   “time and eternity”: Aug. 1, 1851, AN, p. 448.

  42   Should his writing: SH to EPP, Oct. 2, 1851, Berg; NH to HB, July 22, 1851, C XVI, p. 462.

  43   “I find that”: July 29 [1851], AN, p. 439.