My father's enjoyment of frolicking fun was as hilarious as that accorded by some of us to wildest comic opera. He had a delicate way of throwing himself into the scrimmage of laughter, and I do not for an instant attempt to explain how he managed it. I can say that he lowered his eye-lids when he laughed hardest, and drew in his breath half a dozen times with dulcet sounds and a murmur of mirth between. Before and after this performance he would look at you straight from under his black brows, and his eyes seemed dazzling. I think the hilarity was revealed in them, although his cheeks rounded in ecstasy. I was a little roguish child, but he was the youngest and merriest person in the room when he was amused. Yet he was never far removed from his companion, — a sort of Virgil, — his knowledge of sin and tragedy at our very hearthstones. It was with such a memory in the centre of home joys that the Pilgrim Fathers turned towards the door, ever and anon, to guard it from creeping Indian forms.
On Sundays, at sundown, when the winter rain had very likely dulled everybody's sense of more moderate humor, the blue law of quietness was lifted from the atmosphere; and between five and six o'clock we spread butterfly wings again, and had blind man's buff. We ran around the large centre-table, and made this gambol most tempestuously merry. If anything had been left upon the table before we began, it was removed with rapidity before we finished. There was a distinct understanding that our blindfolded father must not be permitted to touch any of us, or else we should be reduced forthwith to our original dust. The pulsing grasp of his great hands and heavy fingers, soft and springing in their manipulation of one's shoulders as the touch of a wild thing, was amusingly harmless, considering the howls with which his onslaught was evaded as long as our flying legs were loyal to us. My father's gentle laughter and happy-looking lips were a revelation during these bouts. I remember with what awe I once tied the blinding handkerchief round his head, feeling the fine crispness of his silky hair, full of electricity, as some people's is only on frosty days; yet without any of that crinkly resistance of most hair that is full of energy. But there were times when I used to stand at a distance and gaze at his peaceful aspect, and wonder if he would ever open the floodgates of fun in a game of romp on any rainy Sunday of the future. If a traveler caught the Sphinx humming to herself, would he not be inclined to sit down and watch her till she did it again?
I have referred to his large hand. I shall never see a more reassuring one than his. It was broad, generous, supple. It had the little depressions and the smoothness to be noticed in the hands of truest charity; yet it had the ample outlines of the vigorously imaginative temperament, so different from the hard plumpness of coarseness or brutality. At the point where the fingers joined the back of the hand were the roundings-in that are reminiscent of childhood's simplicity, and are to be found in many philanthropic persons. His way of using his fingers was slow, well thought out, and gentle, though never lagging, that most unpleasant fault indicative of self-absorbed natures. When he did anything with his hands he seemed very active, because thoroughly in earnest. He delighted me by the way in which he took hold of any material thing, for it proved his self-mastery. Strength of will joined to self-restraint is a combination always enjoyable to the onlooker; but it is also evidence of discomfort and effort enough in the heroic character that has won the state which we contemplate with so much approval. I remember his standing once by the fire, leaning upon the mantelpiece, when a vase on the shelf toppled over in some way. It was a cheap, lodging-house article, and yet my father tried to save it from falling to the floor as earnestly as he did anything which he set out to do. His hand almost seized the vase, but it rebounded; and three times he half caught it. The fourth time he rescued it as it was near the floor, having become flushed and sparkling with the effort of will and deftness. For years that moment came back to me, because his determination had been so valiantly intense, and I was led to carry out determinations of all sorts from witnessing his self-respect and his success in so small a matter. People of power care all the time. It is their life-blood to succeed; they must encourage their precision of eye and thought by repeated triumphs, which so soothe and rejoice the nerves.
He was very kind in amusing me by aid of my slate. That sort of pastime suited my hours of silence, which became less and less broken by the talkative vein. His forefinger rubbed away defects in the aspect of faces or animals with a lion-like suppleness of sweep that seemed to me to wipe out the world. We also had a delicious game of a labyrinth of lines, which it was necessary to traverse with the pencil without touching the hedges, as I called the winding marks. We wandered in and around without a murmur, and I reveled in delight because he was near.
Walking was always a great resource in the family, and it was a half-hearted matter for us unless we were at his side. His gait was one of long, easy steps which were leisurely and not rapid, and he cast an occasional look around, stopping if anything more lovely than usual was to be seen in sky or landscape. It is the people who love their race even better than themselves who can take into their thought an outdoor scene. In England the outdoor life had many enchantments of velvet sward upon broad hills and flowers innumerable and fragrant. A little letter of Una's not long after we arrived in Rockferry alludes to this element in our happiness: —
“We went to take a walk to-day, and I do not think I ever had such a beautiful walk before in all my life. Julian and I got some very pretty flowers, such as do not grow wild in America. I found some exquisite harebells by the roadside, and some very delicate little pink flowers. And I got some wild holly, which is very pretty indeed; it has very glossy and prickery leaves. I have seen a great many hedges made of it since I have been here; for nothing can get over it or get through it, for it is almost as prickery as the Hawthorne [the bush and the family name were always the same thing to us children], of which almost all the hedges in Liverpool, and everywhere I have been, are made; and there it grows up into high trees, so that nothing in the world can look through it, or climb over it, or crawl through it; and I am afraid our poor hedge in Concord will never look so well, because the earth round it is so sandy and dry, and here it is so very moist and rich. It ought to be moist, at any rate, for it rains enough.” But later she writes on “the eighteenth day of perfect weather,” and where can the weather seem so perfect as in England?
After breakfast on Christmas we always went to the places, in that parlor where Christmas found us (nomads that we were), where our mother had set out our gifts. Sometimes they were on the large centre-table, sometimes on little separate tables, but invariably covered with draperies; so that we studied the structure of each mound in fascinated delay, in order to guess what the humps and hubbies might indicate as to the nature of the objects of our treasure-trove. The happy-faced mother, who could be radiant and calm at once, — small, but with a sphere that was not small, and blessed us grandly, — received gifts that had been arranged by Una and the nurse after all the other El Dorados were thoroughly veiled, and our hearts stood still to hear her musical cry of delight, when, having directed the rest of us to our presents, she at last uncovered her own. Our treasures always exceeded in number and charm our wildest hopes, although simplicity was the rule. Whatever my mother interested herself about, she accomplished with a finish and spirit that distinguished her performance as a title on a reputation distinguishes common clay. She threw over it the faithful ardor which is akin to miracle: the simplest twig in her hand budded; her dewdrops were filled with all the colors of the rainbow, because with her the sun always shone. She writes a description of our happy first Christmas in England, in which are these passages: “We had no St. Nicholas or Christmas-tree; and so, after all had gone to bed, I arranged the presents upon the centre-table in the drawing-room. . . . From a vase in the middle a banner floated with an inscription upon it: 'A Merry Christmas to all!' Una had given Rose a little watch for her footman Pompey; Mrs. O'Sullivan had sent her a porcelain rosary, which was put in a little box; and Mr. Bright had sent her an illuminated edit
ion of 'This is the House that Jack Built.' Julian found a splendid flag from Nurse. This flag was a wonder. . . . The stripes were made of a rich red and white striped satin, which must have been manufactured for the express purpose of composing the American flag. The stars were embroidered in silver on a dark blue satin sky. On the reverse, a rich white satin lining bore Julian's cipher, surrounded with silver embroidery. . . . The children amused themselves with their presents all day. But first I took my new Milton and read aloud to them the Hymn of the Nativity, which I do every Christmas.” “How easy it is,” my mother writes of a Christmas-tree for poor children, “with a small thing to cause a great joy, if there is only the will to do it!” But most deeply did we delight in the presents given to our beloved parents, whom we considered to be absolutely perfect beings; and there was nothing which we ever perceived to make the supposition unreasonable. In one of Una's girlish letters she declares: “I will tell you what has given me almost — nay, quite as great pleasure as any I have had in England; that is, that Mamma has bought a gold watch-chain. She bought it yesterday at Douglas.” We had such thorough lessons in generosity that they sometimes took effect in a genuine self-effacement, like this. A letter from my mother joyfully records of my brother: —
“Julian was asking Papa for a very expensive toy, and his father told him he was very poor this year, because the Consulate had not much business, and that it was impossible to buy him everything that struck his fancy. Julian said no more; and when he went to bed he expressed great condolence, and said he would not ask his father for anything if he were so poor, but that he would give him all his own money (amounting to five-pence halfpenny). When he lay down, his face shone with a splendor of joy that he was able thus to make his father's affairs assume a brighter aspect. This enormous sum of money which Julian had he intended, at Christmas-time, to devote to buying a toy for baby or for Una. He intended to give his all, and he could no more. In the morning, he took an opportunity when I was not looking to go behind his father, and silently handed him the fivepence halfpenny over his shoulder. My attention was first attracted by hearing Mr. Hawthorne say, 'No, I thank you, my boy; when I am starving, I will apply to you!' I turned round, and Julian's face was deep red, and his lips were quivering as he took back the money. I was sorry his father did not keep it, however. I have never allowed the children to hoard money. I think the flower of sentiment is bruised and crushed by a strong-box; and they never yet have had any idea of money except to use it for another's benefit or pleasure. Julian saw an advertisement in the street of the loss of a watch, and some guineas reward. 'Oh,' said he, 'how gladly would I find that watch, and present it to the gentleman, and say, No reward, thank you, sir!'“ My sister, who was made quite delicate, at first, by the English climate, and acquired from this temporary check and the position of eldest child a pathetic nobility which struck the keynote of her character, writes from Rockferry: “This morning of the New Year was very pleasant. It was almost as good as any day in winter in America. I went out with Mamma and Sweet Fern [Julian]. The snow is about half a foot deep. Julian is out, now, playing. I packed him up very warmly indeed. I wish I could go out in the new snow very much. Julian is making a hollow house of snow by the rhododendron-tree.” What not to do we learned occasionally from the birds. “The little robins and a thrush and some little sparrows have been here this morning; and the thrush was so large that she ate up the crumbs very fast, and the other poor little birds did not dare to come near her till she had done eating.” My father used to treat the Old and the New Year with the deepest respect. I never knew the moments to be so immense as when, with pitying gentleness, we silently attended the Old Year across the ghostly threshold of midnight, and my father at last rose reverently from his chair to open the window, through which, at that breath, the first peals would float with new promise and remembering toll.
We children were expected to come into the presence of the grown people and enjoy the interesting guests whom we all loved. My father was skillful in choosing friends: they were rare, good men, and he and they really met; their loves and interests and his were stirred by the intercourse, as if unused muscles had been stretched. I could perceive that my father and his best cronies glowed with refreshment. Mr. Bennoch was a great favorite with us. He was short and fat, witty and jovial. He was so different in style and finish from the tall, pale, spiritual Henry Bright (whom my mother speaks of as “shining like a star” during an inspiring sermon) that I almost went to sleep in the unending effort to understand why God made so sharp a variety in types. Mr. Bennoch wrote more poetry than Mr. Bright did, even, and he took delight in breathing the same air with writers. But he himself had no capacity more perfected than that of chuckling like a whole brood of chickens at his own jokes as well as those of others. The point of his joke might be obscure to us, but the chuckle never failed to satisfy. He was a source of entire rest to the dark-browed, deep-eyed thinker who smiled before him. The only anecdote of Mr. Bennoch which I remember is of a Scotchman who, at an inn, was wandering disconsolately about the parlor while his dinner was being prepared. A distinguished traveler — Dickens, I think — was dashing off a letter at the centre-table, describing the weather and some of the odd fellows he had observed in his travels. “And,” he wrote, “there is in the room at the present moment a long, lank, red-headed, empty-brained nincompoop, who looks as if he had not eaten a square meal for a month, and is stamping about for his dinner. Now he approaches me as I sit writing, and I hear his step pause behind my chair. The fool is actually looking over my shoulder, and reading these words” — A torrent of Scotch burst forth right here: “It's a lee, sir, — it's a lee! I never read a worrd that yer wrort!” Screams from us; while Mr. Bennoch's sudden aspect of dramatic rage was as suddenly dropped, and he blazed once more with broad smiles, chuckling. I will insert here a letter written by this dear friend in 1861: —
80 WOOD STREET, LONDON.
MY DEAR HAWTHORNE, — A few lines just received from Mr. Fields remind me of my too long silence. Rest assured that you and yours are never long out of our thoughts, and we only wish you were here in our peaceful country, far removed from the terrible anxieties caused by wicked and willful men on one side, and on the other permitted by the incompetents set over you. How little you thought, when you suggested to me the propriety of old soldiers only going into battle, that you should have been absolutely predicting the unhappy course of events! Do you remember adding that “a premium should be offered for men of fourscore, as, with one foot in the grave, they would be less likely to run away”? I observe that the “Herald” advises that “the guillotine should be used in cropping the heads of a lot of the officers, beginning at the city of Washington, and so make room for the young genius with which the whole republic palpitates.” . . . Truly, my dear Hawthorne, it is a melancholy condition of things. Let us turn to a far more agreeable subject! It is pleasant to learn that, amid all the other troubles, your domestic anxieties have passed away so far as the health of your family is concerned. The sturdy youth will be almost a man, and Una quite a woman, while Rosebud will be opening day by day in knowledge and deep interest. I hear that your pen is busy, and that from your tower you are looking upon old England and estimating her influences and the character of her people. Recent experiences must modify your judgment in many ways. A romance laid in England, painted as you only can paint, must be a great success. I struggle on, and only wish I were worthy the respect my friends so foolishly exhibit.
With affectionate regards to all, ever yours truly, F. BENNOCH.
On November 17, 1854, my mother writes: — ”Last evening a great package came from Mr. Milnes [Lord Houghton], and it proved to be all his own works, and a splendid edition of Keats with a memoir by Mr. Milnes. This elegant gift was only a return of favors, as Mr. Hawthorne had just sent him some American books. He expended three notes upon my husband's going to meet him at Crewe Hall, two of entreaty and one of regret; but he declares he will have him at Yorkshi
re. Mrs. Milnes is Lord Crewe's sister. The last note says: 'The books arrived safely, and alas! alone. When I get to Yorkshire, to my own home, I shall try again for you, as I may find you in a more ductile mood. For, seriously, it would be a great injustice — not to yourself, but to us — if you went home without seeing something of our domestic country life: it is really the most special thing about our social system, and something which no other country has or ever will have.'“
Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated) Page 681