Ever your affectionate M. E. M.
The “letter of praise and thanksgiving” referred to above is as follows: —
WALTON-ON-THAMES.
MY DEAR HAWTHORNE, — I can't resist the impulse to write a line to you, in order to thank you for the exquisite pleasure I have derived from your new romance. Everything that you have ever written, I believe, I have read many times; and I am particularly vain of having admired “Lights from a Steeple,” when I first read it in the “Boston Token,” several hundred years ago, when we were both younger than we are now; and of having detected and cherished, at a later day, an “Old Apple Dealer,” whom I believe that you have unhandsomely thrust out of your presence, now you are grown so great. But the romance of “Monte Beni” has the additional charm for me that it is the first book of yours that I have read since I had the privilege of making your personal acquaintance. My memory goes back at once to those (alas, not too frequent, but that was never my fault) walks we used to take along the Tiber or in the Campagna, during that dark period when your Una was the cause of such anxiety to your household and to all your friends; and it is delightful to get hold of the book now, and know that it is impossible for you any longer, after waving your wand, as you occasionally did then, indicating where the treasure was hidden, to sink it again beyond the plummet's sound. I admire the book exceedingly. I don't suppose that it is a matter of much consequence to you whether I do or not, but I feel as much disposition to say so as if it were quite an original and peculiar idea of my own, and as if the whole world were not just now saying the same thing. I suppose that your ears are somewhat stunned with your praises, appearing as you do after so long an interval; but I hope that, amid the din, you will not disdain the whisper from such sincere admirers as I am myself, and my wife and daughter are. I don't know which of the trio is the warmest one, and we have been fighting over the book, as it is one which, for the first reading at least, I did not like to hear aloud. I am only writing in a vague, maundering, uncritical way, to express sincere sympathy and gratitude, not to exhibit any dissenting powers, if I have any. If I were composing an article for a review, of course I should feel obliged to show cause for my admiration, but I am now only obeying an impulse. Permit me to say, however, that your style seems, if possible, more perfect than ever. Where, oh where is the godmother who gave you to talk pearls and diamonds? How easy it seems till anybody else tries! Believe me, I don't say to you half what I say behind your back; and I have said a dozen times that nobody can write English but you. With regard to the story, which has been slightly criticised, I can only say that to me it is quite satisfactory. I like those shadowy, weird, fantastic, Hawthornesque shapes flitting through the golden gloom which is the atmosphere of the book. I like the misty way in which the story is indicated rather than revealed. The outlines are quite definite enough, from the beginning to the end, to those who have imagination enough to follow you in your airy flights; and to those who complain, I suppose nothing less than an illustrated edition, with a large gallows on the last page, with Donatello in the most pensive of attitudes, his ears revealed at last through a white nightcap, would be satisfactory.
I beg your pardon for such profanation, but it really moves my spleen that people should wish to bring down the volatile figures of your romance to the level of an every-day novel. It is exactly the romantic atmosphere of the book in which I revel. You who could cast a glamour over the black scenery and personalities of ancient and of modern Massachusetts could hardly fail to throw the tenderest and most magical hues over Italy, and you have done so. I don't know that I am especially in love with Miriam or Hilda, or that I care very much what is the fate of Donatello; but what I do like is the air of unreality with which you have clothed familiar scenes without making them less familiar. The way in which the two victims dance through the Carnival on the last day is very striking. It is like a Greek tragedy in its effect, without being in the least Greek. As I said before, I can't single out any special scene, description, or personage by which to justify or illustrate my feeling about the book. That I could do better after a second reading, when it would be easy to be coldly critical. I write now just after having swallowed the three volumes almost at a draught; and if my tone is one of undue exhilaration, I can only say it was you gave me the wine. It is the book — as a whole — that I admire, and I hope you will forgive my saying so in four pages instead of four words.
Is there any chance of our seeing you this summer? We expect to be in London next month. It will be very shabby of you not to let us have a glimpse of you; but I know you to be capable of any meanness in that line. At any rate, you can have little doubt how much pleasure it will give us. Pray don't answer this if it is in the least a bore to you to do so. I know that you are getting notes of admiration by the bushel, and I have no right to expect to hear from you. At the same time it would be a great pleasure to me to hear from you, for old (alas, no, — new) acquaintance' sake.
I remain very sincerely yours,
J. L. MOTLEY.
Of the discussions about “Monte Beni” I remember hearing a good deal, as my mother laughingly rehearsed passages in letters and reviews which scolded about Hawthorne's tantalizing vagueness and conscienceless Catholicity. My parents tried to be lenient towards the public, whose excitement was so complimentary, if its usually heavy inability to analyze its best intellectual wine was fatiguing. My father never for a moment expected to be widely understood, although he no doubt hoped to be so in certain cases. He must have easily deduced something in the way of chances for appreciative analysis from prevalent literature. He struck me as a good deal like an innocent prisoner at the bar, and if I had not been a member of his family I might have been sorry for him. As it was, I felt convinced that he could afford to be silent, patient, indifferent, now that his work was perfected. My mother put into words all that was necessary of indignation at people's desire for a romance or a “penny dreadful” that would have been temporary and ineffective. Meantime, such rewards as Mr. Motley offered weighed down the already laden scales on the side of artistic wealth.
Perhaps it will not be impertinent for me to remark, in reference to this admirable and delightful letter, that its writer here exemplifies the best feelings about Hawthorne's art without quite knowing it. We see him bubbling glad ejaculations in the true style of an Omar Khayyam who has drained the magic cup handed to him. It is delicious to hear that he was not sure he cared about the personages of a story that had clutched his imagination and heart, until he reeled a little with responsive enchantment; though it is hard to say about what he cared if not about the romancer's powerful allies, who carried his meaning for him. Mr. Motley tries to attribute to the scenes he knew so well in reality, under their new guise of dreamy vividness, the spell which came, I believe, from the reality of moral grandeur, in both its sin and its holiness, but which we so entirely ignore every precious hour by sinking to the realities of bricks and common clay. Miriam and Donatello may seem at first glance like visions; but I have always been taught that their spell lay in our innate sense that they were ourselves, as we really are. The wine of great truth is at first the most heady of all, making its revelations shimmer.
CHAPTER XIV
THE WAYSIDE
In order to give an idea of how it happened that our family could return from Europe to Concord with a few great expectations, I will rehearse somewhat of the charm which had been found in the illustrious village when my father and mother first knew it. There a group of people conversed together who have left an echo that is still heard. There also is still heard “the shot fired round the world,” which of course returned to Concord on completing its circuit. But even the endless concourse of visitors, making the claims of any region wearisomely familiar, cannot diminish the simple solemnity of the town's historical as well as literary importance; and indeed it has so many medals for various merit that it is no wonder its residents have a way of speaking about it which some of us would call Bostonian. Em
erson, Thoreau, Channing, and Alcott dispersed a fragrance that attracted at once, and all they said was resonant with charity and courage.
The first flash of individuality from Emerson could hardly fail to suggest that he resembled the American eagle; and he presided over Concord in a way not unlike our glorious symbol, the Friend of Light. It must have been exhilarating to look forward to many years in Emerson's hamlet. My earliest remembered glimpse of him was when he appeared — tall, side-slanting, peering with almost undue questioning into my face, but with a smile so constant as to seem like an added feature, dressed in a solemn, slender, dark overcoat, and a dark, shadowing hat — upon the Concord highroad; the same yellow thoroughfare which reaches out to. Lexington its papyrus-strip of history. At the onset of Emerson — for psychic men do attack one with their superiority — awe took possession of me; and, as we passed (a great force and a small girl) I wondered if I should survive. I not only did so, but felt better than before. It then became one of my happiest experiences to pass Emerson upon the street. A distinct exaltation followed my glance into his splendid face. Yet I caviled at his self-consciousness, his perpetual smile. I complained that he ought to wait for something to smile at. I could not be sure that he was privately enjoying some joke from Greek fun-makers, remembered under a Concord elm. After a time, I realized that he always had something to smile for, if not to smile at; and that a cheerful countenance is heroic. By and by I learned that he always could find something to smile at, also; for he tells us, “The best of all jokes is the sympathetic contemplation of things by the understanding, from the philosopher's point of view.” But, in my unenlightened state, when I saw him begin to answer some question, however trivial, with this smile, slowly, very slowly growing, until it lit up his whole countenance with a refulgent beam before he answered (the whole performance dominated by a deliberation as great and brilliant as the dawn), I argued that this good cheer was out of proportion; that Emerson should keep back a smile so striking and circumstantial for rare occasions, such as enormous surprise; or, he should make it the precursor to a tremendous roar of laughter. I have yet to learn that any one heard him laugh aloud, — which pastime he has called, with certainly a familiar precision that indicates personal experience, a “pleasant spasm,” a “muscular irritation.”
In maturer years I believed that his smile brought refreshment, encouragement, and waves of virtue to those who saw it. To be sure, it was a sort of questioning; sometimes even quizzical; sometimes only a safeguard; but it was eminently kind, and no one else could do it. His manner was patronizing, in spite of its suavity; but it grew finer every spring, until it had become as exquisitely courteous as Sir Philip Sidney's must have been. The arch of his dark eyebrows sometimes seemed almost angry, being quickly lifted, and then bent in a scowl of earnestness; but as age advanced this sternness of brow grew to be, unchangeably, a calm sweep of infinite kindness.
It was never so well understood at The Wayside that its owner had retiring habits as when Alcott was reported to be approaching along the Larch Path, which stretched in feathery bowers between our house and his. Yet I was not aware that the seer failed at any hour to gain admittance, — one cause, perhaps, of the awe in which his visits were held. I remember that my observation was attracted to him curiously from the fact that my mother's eyes changed to a darker gray at his advents, as they did only when she was silently sacrificing herself. I clearly understood that Mr. Alcott was admirable; but he sometimes brought manuscript poetry with him, the dear child of his own Muse, and a guest more unwelcome than the enfant terrible of the drawing-room. There was one particularly long poem which he had read aloud to my mother and father; a seemingly harmless thing, from which they never recovered. Out of the mentions made of this effusion I gathered that it was like a moonlit expanse, quiet, somnolent, cool, and flat as a month of prairies. Rapture, conviction, tenderness, often glowed upon Alcott's features and trembled in his voice. I believe he was never once startled from the dream of illusive joy which pictured to him all high aims as possible of realization through talk. Often he was so happy that he could have danced like a child; and he laughed merrily like one; and the quick, upward lift of his head, which his great height induced him to hold, as a rule, slightly bent forward, — this rapid, playful lift, and the glance, bright and eager though not deep, which sparkled upon you, were sweet and good to see. Yet I have noticed his condition as pale and dolorous enough, before the event of his noble daughter's splendid success. But such was not his character; circumstances had enslaved him, and he appeared thin and forlorn by incongruous accident, like a lamb in chains. He might have been taken for a centenarian when I beheld him one day slowly and pathetically constructing a pretty rustic fence before his gabled brown house, as if at the unreasonable command of some latter-day Pharaoh. Ten years afterward he was, on the contrary, a Titan: gay, silvery-locked, elegant, ready to begin his life over again.
Alcott represented to me a fairy element in the up-country region in which I so often saw him. I heard that he walked the woods for the purpose of finding odd coils of tree-roots and branches, which would on the instant suggest to him an ingenious use in his art of rustic building. It was rumored that nobody's outlying curios in this line were safe under his eye, and that if you possessed an eccentric tree for a time, it was fated to close its existence in the keeping of Alcott. I imagined his slightly stooping, yet tall and well-grown figure, clothed in black, and with a picturesque straw hat, twining itself in and out of forest aisles, or craftily returning home with gargoyle-like stems over his shoulders. The magic of his pursuit was emphasized by the notorious fact that his handiwork fell together in the middle, faded like shadows from bronze to hoary pallor; its longevity was a protracted death. In short, his arbors broke under the weight of a purpose, as poems become doggerel in the service of a theorist. Truly, Alcott was completely at the beck of illusion; and he was always safer alone with it than near the hard uses of adverse reality. I well remember my astonishment when I was told that he had set forth to go into the jaws of the Rebellion after Louisa, his daughter, who had succumbed to typhus fever while nursing the soldiers. His object was to bring her home; but it was difficult to believe that he would be successful in entering the field of misery and uproar. I never expected to see him again. Almost the only point at which he normally met this world was in his worship of apple-trees. Here, in his orchard, he was an all-admirable human being and lovely to observe. As he looked upon the undulating arms or piled the excellent apples, red and russet, which seemed to shine at his glance, his figure became supple, his countenance beamed with a ruby and gold akin to the fruit. In his orchard by the highroad, with its trees rising to a great height from a basin-shaped side lawn (which may originally have been marshy ground), he seemed to me a perfect soul. We all enjoyed greatly seeing him there, as we wended to and from our little town. No doubt the garden of children at the beginning of his career inspired him likewise; and in it he must have shown the same tender solicitude and benevolence, and beamed upon his young scholars with a love which exquisitely tempered his fantastical suppositions.
He often spoke humbly, but he never let people think he was humble. His foibles appeared to me ridiculous, and provoked me exceedingly, — the brave cat of the proverb must be my excuse, — but I awakened to the eternal verity that some such husks are rather natural to persons of purely distinctive minds, perhaps shielding them. And I think one comes to value a bent blessed with earnest unconsciousness; a not too clever Argus vision; a childlike gullibility and spontaneity. This untarnished gullibility and gentle confidence, for all his self-laudations, Alcott had, and when he did not emerge either from his apple orchard or his inspirations he was essentially wholesome, full of an ardent simplicity, and a happy faith in the capacities given him by his Creator. So that his outline is one of much dignity, in spite of the somewhat capricious coloring of his character; the latter being not unlike the efforts of a nursery artist upon a print of “The Father of His Countr
y,” for whom, as he stands proudly upon the page, a green coat and purple pantaloons were not intended, and are only minor incidents of destiny.
Mr. Ellery Channing was, I am sure, the townsman who was most gladly welcome. My parents felt great admiration and friendliness for him, and it would be a sacrifice on my own part not to mention this companion of theirs, although I must beg his pardon for doing so. There is no doubt that Concord would have hung with several added pounds of weight upon our imaginations if it had not been for him. Over his tender-heartedness, as I saw him in the old days, played delicious eccentricities, phosphorescent, fitful, touch-me-not antics of feeling. I was glad to meet the long glance of his gray, dazzling eyes, lowered gracefully at last. The gaze seemed to pass through me to the wall, and beyond even that barrier to the sky at the horizon line. It did not disturb me; it had been too kindly to criticise, or so I thought. No doubt Mr. Channing had made his little regretful, uncomplimentary notes in passing, but it was characteristic of his exquisite comradeship towards all that we did not fear his eyes. I say comradeship, although the power which I believed touched him with its wand so mischievously had induced him to drop (as a boy loses successively all his marbles) all his devoted friends, without a word of explanation, because without a shadow of reason; the only thing to be said about it being that the loss was entirely voluntary on the part of this charming boy. He would cease to bow, as he passed. Then he found the marbles again, pocketed them as if nothing had happened, smiled, called, and hob-nobbed. A man's high-water mark is his calibre; and at high-water mark Mr. Channing's sea was to us buoyant, rich-tinted, sunlit; a great force, darkening and dazzling with beautiful emotions. He was in those days devoted to the outer air, and to the wonders of the nature we do not often understand, even when we trap it and classify it. He always invited his favorites to walk with him, and I once had the honor of climbing a very high hill by his side, in time to look at a Concord sunset, which I myself realized was the finest in the world.
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