Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated)

by Hawthorne, Nathaniel

  “Well, Grandfather, I hope he sat in our chair,” said Clara.

  “He did,” replied Grandfather. “He had long been in the habit of visiting the barber's shop, where our venerable chair, philosophically forgetful of its former dignities, had now spent nearly eighteen not uncomfortable years. Such a remarkable piece of furniture, so evidently a relic of long-departed times, could not escape the notice of Samuel Adams. He made minute researches into its history, and ascertained what a succession of excellent and famous people had occupied it.”

  “How did he find it out?” asked Charley; “for I suppose the chair could not tell its own history.”

  “There used to be a vast collection of ancient letters and other documents in the tower of the Old South Church,” answered Grandfather. “Perhaps the history of our chair was contained among these. At all events, Samuel Adams appears to have been well acquainted with it. When he became governor, he felt that he could have no more honorable seat than that which had been the ancient chair of state. He therefore purchased it for a trifle, and filled it worthily for three years as governor of Massachusetts.” “And what next?” asked Charley.

  “That is all,” said Grandfather, heaving a sigh; for he could not help being a little sad at the thought that his stories must close here. “Samuel Adams died in 1803, at the age of above threescore and ten. He was a great patriot, but a poor man. At his death he left scarcely property enough to pay the expenses of his funeral. This precious chair, among his other effects, was sold at auction; and your Grandfather, who was then in the strength of his years, became the purchaser.”

  Laurence, with a mind full of thoughts that struggled for expression, but could find none, looked steadfastly at the chair.

  He had now learned all its history, yet was not satisfied.

  “Oh, how I wish that the chair could speak!” cried he. “After its long intercourse with mankind, — after looking upon the world for ages, — what lessons of golden wisdom it might utter! It might teach a private person how to lead a good and happy life, or a statesman how to make his country prosperous.”

  CHAPTER XI. GRANDFATHER'S DREAM.

  GRANDFATHER was struck by Laurence's idea that the historic chair should utter a voice, and thus pour forth the collected wisdom of two centuries. The old gentleman had once possessed no inconsiderable share of fancy; and even now its fading sunshine occasionally glimmered among his more sombre reflections.

  As the history of his chair had exhausted all his facts, Grandfather determined to have recourse to fable. So, after warning the children that they must not mistake this story for a true one, he related what we shall call Grandfather's Dream.

  Laurence and Clara, where were you last night? Where were you, Charley, and dear little Alice? You had all gone to rest, and left old Grandfather to meditate alone in his great chair. The lamp had grown so dim that its light hardly illuminated the alabaster shade. The wood-fire had crumbled into heavy embers, among which the little flames danced, and quivered, and sported about like fairies.

  And here sat Grandfather all by himself. He knew that it was bedtime; yet he could not help longing to hear your merry voices, or to hold a comfortable chat with some old friend; because then his pillow would be visited by pleasant dreams. But, as neither children nor friends were at hand, Grandfather leaned back in the great chair and closed his eyes, for the sake of meditating more profoundly.

  And, when Grandfather's meditations had grown very profound indeed, he fancied that he heard a sound over his head, as if somebody were preparing to speak.

  “Hem!” it said, in a dry, husky tone. “H-e-m! Hem!”

  As Grandfather did not know that any person was in the room, he started up in great surprise, and peeped hither and thither, behind the chair, and into the recess by the fireside, and at the dark nook yonder near the bookcase. Nobody could be seen.

  “Poh!” said Grandfather to himself, “I must have been dreaming.”

  But, just as he was going to resume his seat, Grandfather happened to look at the great chair. The rays of firelight were flickering upon it in such a manner that it really seemed as if its oaken frame were all alive. What! did it not move its elbow? There, too! It certainly lifted one of its ponderous fore legs, as if it had a notion of drawing itself a little nearer to the fire. Meanwhile the lion's head nodded at Grandfather with as polite and sociable a look as a lion's visage, carved in oak, could possibly be expected to assume. Well, this is strange!

  “Good evening, my old friend,” said the dry and husky voice, now a little clearer than before. “We have been intimately acquainted so long that I think it high time we have a chat together.”

  Grandfather was looking straight at the lion's head, and could not be mistaken in supposing that it moved its lips. So here the mystery was all explained.

  “I was not aware,” said Grandfather, with a civil salutation to his oaken companion, “that you possessed the faculty of speech. Otherwise I should often have been glad to converse with such a solid, useful, and substantial if not brilliant member of society.”

  “Oh!” replied the ancient chair, in a quiet and easy tone, for it had now cleared its throat of the dust of ages, “I am naturally a silent and incommunicative sort of character. Once or twice in the course of a century I unclose my lips. When the gentle Lady Arbella departed this life I uttered a groan. When the honest mint-master weighed his plump daughter against the pine-tree shillings I chuckled audibly at the joke. When old Simon Bradstreet took the place of the tyrant Andros I joined in the general huzza, and capered on my wooden legs for joy. To be sure, the by-standers were so fully occupied with their own feelings that my sympathy was quite unnoticed.”

  “And have you often held a private chat with your friends?” asked Grandfather.

  “Not often,” answered the chair. “I once talked with Sir William Phips, and communicated my ideas about the witchcraft delusion. Cotton Mather had several conversations with me, and derived great benefit from my historical reminiscences. In the days of the Stamp Act I whispered in the ear of Hutchinson, bidding him to remember what stock his countrymen were descended of, and to think whether the spirit of their forefathers had utterly departed from them. The last man whom I favored with a colloquy was that stout old republican, Samuel Adams.”

  “And how happens it,” inquired Grandfather, “that there is no record nor tradition of your conversational abilities? It is an uncommon thing to meet with a chair that can talk.”

  “Why, to tell you the truth,” said the chair, giving itself a hitch nearer to the hearth, “I am not apt to choose the most suitable moments for unclosing my lips. Sometimes I have inconsiderately begun to speak, when my occupant, lolling back in my arms, was inclined to take an after-dinner nap. Or perhaps the impulse to talk may be felt at midnight, when the lamp burns dim and the fire crumbles into decay, and the studious or thoughtful man finds that his brain is in a mist. Oftenest I have unwisely uttered my wisdom in the ears of sick persons, when the inquietude of fever made them toss about upon my cushion. And so it happens, that though my words make a pretty strong impression at the moment, yet my auditors invariably remember them only as a dream. I should not wonder if you, my excellent friend, were to do the same to-morrow morning.”

  “Nor I either,” thought Grandfather to himself. However, he thanked this respectable old chair for beginning the conversation, and begged to know whether it had anything particular to communicate.

  “I have been listening attentively to your narrative of my adventures,” replied the chair; “and it must be owned that your correctness entitles you to be held up as a pattern to biographers. Nevertheless, there are a few omissions which I should be glad to see supplied. For instance, you make no mention of the good knight Sir Richard Saltonstall, nor of the famous Hugh Peters, nor of those old regicide judges, Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell. Yet I have borne the weight of all those distinguished characters at one time or another.”

  Grandfather promised amendment
if ever he should have an opportunity to repeat his narrative. The good old chair, which still seemed to retain a due regard for outward appearance, then reminded him how long a time had passed since it had been provided with a new cushion. It likewise expressed the opinion that the oaken figures on its back would show to much better advantage by the aid of a little varnish.

  “And I have had a complaint in this joint,” continued the chair, endeavoring to lift one of its legs, “ever since Charley trundled his wheelbarrow against me.”

  “It shall be attended to,” said Grandfather.

  “And now, venerable chair, I have a favor to solicit. During an existence of more than two centuries you have had a familiar intercourse with men who were esteemed the wisest of their day. Doubtless, with your capacious understanding, you have treasured up many an invaluable lesson of wisdom. You certainly have had time enough to guess the riddle of life. Tell us, poor mortals, then, how we may be happy.”

  The lion's head fixed its eyes thoughtfully upon the fire, and the whole chair assumed an aspect of deep meditation. Finally it beckoned to Grandfather with its elbow, and made a step sideways towards him, as if it had a very important secret to communicate.

  “As long as I have stood in the midst of human affairs,” said the chair, with a very oracular enunciation, “I have constantly observed that Justice, Truth, and Love are the chief ingredients of every happy life.”

  “Justice, Truth, and Love!” exclaimed Grandfather. “We need not exist two centuries to find out that these qualities are essential to our happiness. This is no secret. Every human being is born with the instinctive knowledge of it.”

  “Ah!” cried the chair, drawing back in surprise. “From what I have observed of the dealings of man with man, and nation with nation, I never should have suspected that they knew this all-important secret. And, with this eternal lesson written in your soul, do you ask me to sift new wisdom for you out of my petty existence of two or three centuries?”

  “But, my dear chair “ — said Grandfather.

  “Not a word more,” interrupted the chair; “here I close my lips for the next hundred years. At the end of that period, if I shall have discovered any new precepts of happiness better than what Heaven has already taught you, they shall assuredly be given to the world.”

  In the energy of its utterance the oaken chair seemed to stamp its foot, and trod (we hope unintentionally) upon Grandfather's toe. The old gentleman started, and found that he had been asleep in the great chair, and that his heavy walking-stick had fallen down across his foot.

  “Grandfather,” cried little Alice, clapping her hand, “you must dream a new dream every night about our chair!”

  Laurence, and Clara, and Charley said the same. But the good old gentleman shook his head, and declared that here ended the history, real or fabulous, of GRANDFATHER'S CHAIR.

  APPENDIX TO GRANDFATHER’S CHAIR: PART III.

  A LETTER FROM GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON NARRATING THE DOINGS OF THE MOB.

  TO RICHARD JACKSON.

  BOSTON, Aug. 30, 1765.

  MY DEAR SIR, I came from my house at Milton, the 26 in the morning. After dinner it was whispered in town there would be a mob at night, and that Paxton, Hallowell, the custom-house, and admiralty officers' houses would be attacked; but my friends assured me that the rabble were satisfied with the insult I had received and that I was become rather popular. In the evening, whilst I was at supper and my children round me, somebody ran in and said the mob were coming. I directed my children to fly to a secure place, and shut up my house as I had done before, intending not to quit it; but my eldest daughter repented her leaving me, hastened back, and protested she would not quit the house unless I did. I could n't stand against this, and withdrew with her to a neighboring house, where I had been but a few minutes before the hellish crew fell upon my house with the rage of devils, and in a moment with axes split down the doors and entered. My son being in the great entry heard them cry: “Damn him, he is upstairs, we'll have him.” Some ran immediately as high as the top of the house, others filled the rooms below and cellars, and others remained without the house to be employed there.

  Messages soon came one after another to the house where I was, to inform me the mob were coming in pursuit of me, and I was obliged to retire through yards and gardens to a house more remote, where I remained until 4 o'clock, by which time one of the best finished houses in the Province had nothing remaining but the bare walls and floors. Not contented with tearing off all the wainscot and hangings, and splitting the doors to pieces, they beat down the partition walls; and although that alone cost them near two hours, they cut down the cupola or lanthorn, and they began to take the slate and boards from the roof, and were prevented only by the approaching daylight from a total demolition of the building. The garden-house was laid flat, and all my trees, etc., broke down to the ground.

  Such ruin was never seen in America. Besides my plate and family pictures, household furniture of every kind, my own, my children's, and servants' apparel, they carried off about £900 sterling in money, and emptied the house of everything whatsoever, except a part of the kitchen furniture, not leaving a single book or paper in it, and have scattered or destroyed all the manuscripts and other papers I had been collecting for thirty years together, besides a great number of public papers in my custody. The evening being warm, I had undressed me and put on a thin camlet surtout over my waistcoat. The next morning, the weather being changed, I had not clothes enough in my possession to defend me from the cold, and was obliged to borrow from my friends. Many articles of clothing and a good part of my plate have since been picked up in different quarters of the town, lint the furniture in general was cut to pieces before it was thrown out of the house, and most of the beds cut open, and the feathers thrown out of the windows. The next evening, I intended with my children to Milton, but meeting two or three small parties of the ruffians, who I suppose had concealed themselves in the country, and my coachman hearing one of them say, “There he is!” my daughters were terrified and said they should never be safe, and I was forced to shelter them that night at the Castle.

  The encouragers of the first mob never intended matters should go this length, and the people in general expressed the utter detestation of this unparalleled outrage, and I wish they could be convinced what infinite hazard there is of the most terrible consequences from such demons, when they are let loose in a government where there is not constant authority at hand sufficient to suppress them. I am told the government here will make me a compensation for my own and my family's loss, which I think cannot be much less than £3,000 sterling. I am not sure that they will. If they should not, it will be too heavy for me, and I must humbly apply to his majesty in whose service I am a sufferer; but this, and a much greater sum would be an insufficient compensation for the constant distress and anxiety of mind I have felt for some time past, and must feel for months to come. You cannot conceive the wretched state we are in. Such is the resentment of the people against the Stamp-Duty, that there can be no dependence upon the General Court to take any steps to enforce, or rather advise, to the payment of it. On the other hand, such will be the effects of not submitting to it, that all trade must cease, all courts fall, and all authority be at an end. Must not the ministry be excessively embarrassed? On the one hand, it will be said, if concessions are made, the Parliament endanger the loss of their authority over the Colony: on the other hand, if external forces should be used, there seems to be danger of a total lasting alienation of affection. Is there no alternative? May the infinitely wise God direct you.

  MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE

  First published in 1846, this short story collection includes several previously-published tales. The collection was named in honour of ‘The Old Manse’ where Hawthorne and his wife lived for the first three years of their marriage. Many of the tales are allegories and, typically of Hawthorne, they focus on the negative side of human nature.

  The first edition

&nb
sp; CONTENTS

  VOLUME I

  THE OLD MANSE.

  THE BIRTHMARK

  A SELECT PARTY

  YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN

  RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER

  MRS. BULLFROG

  FIRE WORSHIP

  BUDS AND BIRD VOICES

  MONSIEUR DU MIROIR

  THE HALL OF FANTASY

  THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD

  THE PROCESSION OF LIFE

  FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND

  VOLUME II

  THE NEW ADAM AND EVE

  EGOTISM; OR, THE BOSOM SERPENT

  THE CHRISTMAS BANQUET

  DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE

  THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE

  ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL

  P.'S CORRESPONDENCE

  EARTH'S HOLOCAUST

  PASSAGES FROM A RELINQUISHED WORK

  AT HOME

  A FLIGHT IN THE FOG.

  A FELLOW-TRAVELLER.

  THE VILLAGE THEATRE

  SKETCHES FROM MEMORY

  THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

  OUR EVENING PARTY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.

  THE CANAL-BOAT.

  THE OLD APPLE DEALER

  THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL

  A VIRTUOSO'S COLLECTION

  VOLUME I

  THE OLD MANSE.

  The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode.

  Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned from that gateway towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to pick up along the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between the door of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium, seen through which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to the material world. Certainly it had little in common with those ordinary abodes which stand so imminent upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of passing travellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In its near retirement and accessible seclusion, it was the very spot for the residence of a clergyman, — a man not estranged from human life, yet enveloped, in the midst of it, with a veil woven of intermingled gloom and brightness. It was worthy to have been one of the time-honored parsonages of England, in which, through many generations, a succession of holy occupants pass from youth to age, and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade the house and hover over it as with an atmosphere.