George P. Bradford, and a few others, enjoyed the life at Brook Farm, and would have liked to remain there longer. John S. Dwight, the translator of Goethe's and Schiller's ballads, [Footnote: One of the most musical translations in any language.] said in his old age that if he were a young man, he would be only too glad to return there; and it is undeniable that such a place is suited to a certain class of persons, both men and women. It cannot be repeated too often, however, that the true object of life is not happiness, but development. It is our special business on this planet, to improve the human race as our progenitors improved it, and developed it out of we know not what. By doing this, we also improve ourselves and happiness comes to us incidentally; but if we pursue happiness directly, we soon become pleasure-seekers, and, like Faust, join company with Mephistopheles. Happiness comes to a philosopher, perhaps while he is picking berries; to a judge, watching the approach of a thunder-storm; to a merchant, teaching his boy to skate. It came to Napoleon listening to a prayer- bell, and to Hawthorne playing games with his children. [Footnote: Perhaps also in his kindliness to the terrapin.] Happiness flies when we seek it, and steals upon us unawares.
George P. Bradford's account of Brook Farm in the “Memorial History of Boston” [Footnote: Vol. iv. 330.] is not so satisfactory as it might have been if he had given more specific details in regard to its management. The general supposition has been that there was an annual deficit in the accounts of the association, which could only be met by Mr. Ripley himself, who ultimately lost the larger portion of his investment. It is difficult to imagine how such an experiment could end otherwise, and the final conflagration of the principal building, or “The Hive,” as it was called, served as a fitting consummation of the whole enterprise, — a truly dramatic climax. George Ripley went to New York to become literary editor of the Tribune, and was as distinguished there for the excellence of his reviews, and the elegance of his turnout in Central Park as he had been for the use of the spade and pitchfork at West Roxbury.
Mr. Bradford returned to the instruction of young ladies in French and Latin; and John S. Dwight became one of the civilizing forces of his time, by editing the Boston Journal of Music. None of them were the worse for their agrarian experiment.
Even if the West Roxbury commune had proved a success for two or three generations, it would not have sufficed for a test of Fourier's theory for it would have been a republic within a republic, protected by the laws and government of the United States, without being subjected to the inconvenience of its own political machinery. The only fair trial for such a system would be to introduce it in some tract of country especially set apart and made independent for the purpose; but the chances are ten to one that a community organized in this manner would soon be driven into the same process of formation that other colonies have passed through under similar conditions. The true socialism is the present organization of society, and although it might be improved in detail, to revolutionize it would be dangerous. Yet the interest that has been aroused at various times by discussions of the Brook Farm project, shows how strong the undercurrent is setting against the present order of things; and this is my chief excuse for making such a long digression on the subject.
During these last months of his bachelorhood, Hawthorne appears to us somewhat in the light of a hibernating bear; for we hear nothing of him at that season at all. Between the last of October, 1841, and July, 1842, there are a large number of odd fancies, themes for romances, and the like, published from his diary, but no entries of a personal character. We hear incidentally that he was at Brook Farm during a portion of the spring, which is not surprising in view of the fact that Doctor Nathaniel Peabody had removed from Salem to Boston in the mean time. One conclusion Hawthorne had evidently arrived at during the winter months, and it was that his engagement to Miss Sophia Peabody ought to be terminated in the way all such affairs should be; viz., by matrimony. Their prospects in life were not brilliant, but it was difficult to foresee any advantage in waiting longer, and there were decided disadvantages in doing so. It was accordingly agreed that they should be married at, or near, the summer solstice, the most suitable of all times for weddings — or engagements. On June 20, he wrote to his fiancée from Salem, reminding her that within ten days they were to become man and wife, and added this significant reflection: “Nothing can part us now; for God himself hath ordained that we shall be one. So nothing remains but to reconcile yourself to your destiny. Year by year we shall grow closer to each other; and a thousand years hence, we shall be only in the honeymoon of our marriage.”
Yet we find him writing again the tenderest and most graceful of love- letters on June 30. [Footnote: J. Hawthorne, i. 241.] The wedding has evidently been postponed; but two days later he is in Boston, and finds a pleasant recreation watching the boys sail their toy boats on the Frog Pond. The ceremony finally was performed on July 9, and it was only the day previous that Hawthorne wrote the following letter, which is dated from 54 Pinckney Street:
“MY DEAR SIR:
“Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to request of you the greatest favor which I can receive from any man. I am to be married to Miss Sophia Peabody to-morrow, and it is our mutual desire that you should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be decidedly a rainy day, a carriage will call for you at half-past eleven o'clock in the forenoon.
”Very respectfully yours,
”NATH. HAWTHORNE.
“REV. JAMES F. CLARKE,
”Chestnut St.”
George S. Hillard lived on Pinckney Street, and Hawthorne may have been visiting him at the moment. The Peabodys attended service at Mr. Clarke's church in Indiana Place, where Hawthorne may also have gone with them. He could not have made a more judicious choice; but, singularly enough, although Mr. Clarke became Elizabeth Peabody's life- long friend, and even went to Concord to lecture, he and Hawthorne never met again after this occasion.
The ceremony was performed at the house of Sophia Peabody's father, No. 13 West Street, a building of which not one stone now rests upon another. It was a quiet family wedding (such as oftenest leads to future happiness), and most deeply impressive to those concerned in it. What must it have been to Hawthorne, who had known so much loneliness, and had waited so long for the comfort and sympathy which only a devoted wife can give?
Time has drawn a veil over Hawthorne's honeymoon, but exactly four weeks after the wedding, we find him and his wife installed in the house at Concord, owned by the descendants of Reverend Dr. Ripley. It will be remembered that Hawthorne had invested his only thousand dollars in the West Roxbury Utopia, whence it was no longer possible to recover it. He had, however, an unsubstantial Utopian sort of claim for it, against the Association, which he placed in the hands of George S. Hillard, and subsequent negotiation would seem to have resulted in giving Hawthorne a lease of the Ripley house, or “Old Manse,” in return for it. It was already classic ground, for Emerson had occupied the house for a time and had written his first book there; and thither Hawthorne went to locate himself, determined to try once more if he could earn his living by his pen.
[Illustration: THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY]
CHAPTER VIII
CONCORD AND THE OLD MANSE: 1842-1845
The Ripley house dates back to the times of Captain Daniel Hathorne, or even before him, and at Concord Fight the British left wing must have extended close to it. Old and unpainted as it is, it gives a distinct impression of refinement and good taste. Alone, I believe, among the Concord houses of former times, it is set back far enough from the country-road to have an avenue leading to it, lined with balm of Gilead trees, and guarded at the entrance by two tall granite posts somewhat like obelisks. On the further side of the house, Dr. Ripley had planted an apple orchard, which included some rare varieties, especially the blue pearmain, a dark-red autumn apple with a purple bloom upon it like the bloom upon the rye. A high rounded hill on the northeast partially shelters the house from the storms in that di
rection; and on the opposite side the river sweeps by in a magnificent curve, with broad meadows and rugged hills, leading up to the pale-blue outline of Mount Wachusett on the western horizon. The Musketequid or Concord River has not been praised too highly. Its clear, gently flowing current, margined by bulrushes and grassy banks, produces an effect of mental peacefulness, very different from the rushing turbulent waters and rocky banks of Maine and New Hampshire rivers. From whatever point you approach the Old Manse, it becomes the central object in a charming country scene, and it does not require the peculiar effect of mouldering walls to make it picturesque. It has stood there long, and may it long remain.
There was formerly an Indian encampment on the same ground, — a well- chosen position both strategically and for its southern exposure. Old Mrs. Ripley had a large collection of stone arrow-heads, corn-mortars, and other relics of the aborigines, which she used to show to the young people who came to call on her grandchildren; and there were among them pieces of a dark-bluish porphyry which she said was not to be found in Massachusetts, but must have been brought from northern New England. There was no reason why they should not have been. The Indians could go from Concord in their canoes to the White Mountains or the Maine lakes, and shoot the deer that came down to drink from the banks of the river; but the deer disappeared before the advance of the American farmer, and the Indians went with them. Now a grandson of Madam Ripley, in the bronze likeness of a minuteman of 1775, stands sentinel at “The Old North Bridge.”
Hawthorne ascended the hill opposite his house and wrote of the view from it:
“The scenery of Concord, as I beheld it from the summit of the hill, has no very marked characteristics, but has a great deal of quiet beauty, in keeping with the river. There are broad and peaceful meadows, which, I think, are among the most satisfying objects in natural scenery. The heart reposes on them with a feeling that few things else can give, because almost all other objects are abrupt and clearly defined; but a meadow stretches out like a small infinity, yet with a secure homeliness which we do not find either in an expanse of water or air.”
The great cranberry meadows below the north bridge are sometimes a wonderful place in winter, when the river overflows its banks and they become a broad sheet of ice extending for miles. There one can have a little skating, an exercise of which Hawthorne was always fond.
It was now, and not at Brook Farm, that he found his true Arcadia, and we have his wife's testimony that for the first eighteen months or more at the Old Manse, they were supremely happy. Every morning after breakfast he donned the blue frock, which he had worn at West Roxbury, and went to the woodshed to saw and split wood for the daily consumption. After that he ascended to his study in the second story, where he wrote and pondered until dinner-time. It appears also that he sometimes assisted in washing the dishes — like a helpful mate. After dinner he usually walked to the post-office and to a reading-room in the centre of the town, where he looked over the Boston Post for half an hour. Later in the afternoon, he went rowing or fishing on the river, but his wife does not seem to have accompanied him in these excursions, for Judge Keyes, who often met him in his boat, does not mention seeing her with him. In the evenings he read Shakespeare with Mrs. Hawthorne, commencing with the first volume, and going straight through to the end, “Titus Andronicus” and all, — and this must have occupied them a large portion of the winter. How can a man fail to be happy in such a mode of life!
Hawthorne also went swimming in the river when the weather suited — rather exceptional in Concord for a middle-aged gentleman; but there were two very attractive bathing places near the Old Manse, one, a little above on the opposite side of the river, and the other, afterwards known as Simmons's Landing, where there was a row of tall elms a short distance below the bridge. It is probable that Hawthorne frequented the latter place, as being more remote from human habitations. He did not take to his gun again, although he could see the wild ducks in autumn, flying past his house. There were grouse and quail in the woods, and woodcock were to be found along the brook which ran through Emerson's pasture; but perhaps Hawthorne had become too tenderhearted for field-sports.
If Boston is the hub of the universe, Concord might be considered as the linchpin which holds it on. Its population was originally derived from Boston, and it must be admitted that it retains more Bostonian peculiarities than most other New England towns. It does not assimilate readily to the outside world. Nor is it surprising that few local visitors called upon the Hawthornes at the Old Manse. Emerson, always hospitable and public-spirited, went to call on them at once; and John Keyes, also a liberal-minded man, introduced Hawthorne at the reading- club. Margaret Fuller came and left a book for Hawthorne to read, which may have annoyed him more than anything she could have said. Elizabeth Hoar, a woman of exalted character, to whose judgment Emerson sometimes applied for a criticism of his verses, also came sometimes; but the Old Manse was nearly a mile away from Emerson's house, and also from what might be called the “court end” of the town. Hawthorne's nearest neighbor was a milk-farmer named George L. Prescott, afterward Colonel of the Thirty-second Massachusetts Volunteers. He not only brought them milk, but also occasionally a bouquet culled out of his own fine nature, as a tribute to genius. A slightly educated man, he was nevertheless one of Nature's gentlemen, and his death in Grant's advance on Richmond was a universal cause of mourning at a time when so many brave lives were lost.
Hawthorne, as usual, was on the lookout for ghosts, and there could not have been a more suitable abode for those airy nothings, than the Old Manse. Mysterious sounds were heard in it repeatedly, especially in the nighttime, when the change of temperature produces a kind of settlement in the affairs of old woodwork. Under date of August 8 he writes in his diary:
“We have seen no apparitions as yet, — but we hear strange noises, especially in the kitchen, and last night, while sitting in the parlor, we heard a thumping and pounding as of somebody at work in my study. Nay, if I mistake not (for I was half asleep), there was a sound as of some person crumpling paper in his hand in our very bedchamber. This must have been old Dr. Ripley with one of his sermons.”
Evidently he would have preferred seeing a ghost to receiving an honorary degree from Bowdoin College, and if the shade of Doctor Ripley had appeared to him in a dissolving light, like the Röntgen rays, Hawthorne would certainly have welcomed him as a kindred spirit and have expressed his pleasure at the manifestation.
Another idiosyncrasy of his, which seems like the idiom in a language, was his total indifference to distinguished persons, simply as such. It was not that he considered all men on a level, for no one recognized more clearly the profound inequalities of human nature; but he was quite as likely to take an interest in a store clerk as in a famous writer. It is not necessary to suppose that a man is a parasite of fame because he goes to a President's reception, or wishes to meet a celebrated English lecturer. It is natural that we should desire to know how such people appear — their expression, their tone of voice, their general behavior; but Hawthorne did not care for this. At the time of which we write, Doctor Samuel G. Howe, the hero of Greek independence and the mental liberator of Laura Bridgman, was a more famous man than Emerson or Longfellow. He came to Concord with his brilliant wife, and they called at the Old Manse, where Mrs. Hawthorne received them very cordially, but they saw nothing of her husband, except a dark figure gliding through the entry with his hat over his eyes. One can only explain this by one of those fits of exceeding bashfulness that sometimes overtake supersensitive natures. School- girls just budding into womanhood often behave in a similar manner; and they are no more to be censured for it than Hawthorne, — to whom it may have caused moments of poignant self-reproach in his daily reflections. But Doctor Howe was the man of all men whom Hawthorne ought to have known, and half an hour's conversation might have made them friends for life.
George William Curtis was a remarkably brilliant young man, and gave even better promise for the f
uture than he afterwards fulfilled, — as the editor of a weekly newspaper. He was at Brook Farm with Hawthorne, and afterward followed him to Concord, but is only referred to by Hawthorne once, and then in the briefest manner. Neither has Hawthorne much to say of Emerson; but Thoreau and Ellery Channing evidently attracted his attention, for he refers to them repeatedly in his diary, and he has left the one life-like portrait of Thoreau — better than a photograph — that now exists. He surveys them both in rather a critical manner, and takes note that Thoreau is the more substantial and original of the two; and he is also rather sceptical as to Channing's poetry, which Emerson valued at a high rate; yet he narrowly missed making a friend of Channing, with whom he afterward corresponded in a desultory way.
We should not have known of Hawthorne's skating at Concord, but for Mrs. Hawthorne's “Memoirs,” from which we learn that he frequently skated on the overflowed meadows, where the Lowell railway station now stands. She writes: “Wrapped in his cloak, he moved like a self- impelled Greek statue, stately and grave.” This is the manner in which we should imagine Hawthorne to have skated; but all others were a foil to her husband in the eyes of his wife. [Footnote: “Memories of Hawthorne,” 52.] He was evidently a fine skater, gliding over the ice in long sweeping curves. Emerson was also a dignified skater, but with a shorter stroke, and stopping occasionally to take breath, or look about him, as he did in his lectures. Thoreau came sometimes and performed rare glacial exploits, interesting to watch, but rather in the line of the professional acrobat. What a transfiguration of Hawthorne, to think of him skating alone amid the reflections of a brilliant winter sunset!
Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated) Page 609