NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE was born at Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804, and he died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, May 19, 1864.
Hawthorne's ancestors spelled their name "Hathorne;" but in early manhood our author changed the spelling to the first form given above. William Hathorne, of Wilton, Wiltshire, England, who came to this country with Winthrop and his company, in 1630, stands at the head of the American branch of the family. Having grants of land at Dorchester, Massachusetts, he settled at that place. In about six years from his first settlement, he was offered grants of land at Salem, as an inducement for him to remove to that place. Salem offered the inducement, thinking that his presence in the town would be a public benefit. In his new home he soon became a leading man. He represented his town in the legislature, and as captain of the first regular troops organized in Salem, he led his company in a campaign against the Indians in Maine, gaining a victory. Later he became a magistrate, in which capacity he took an active part in the Quaker persecutions. William Hathorne died in old age, well respected, and leaving an ample fortune to his son John.
Inheriting the capacity as well as the fortune of his father, John became a legislator, a magistrate, a soldier, and a persecutor of witches. Before the death of Justice Hathorne in 1717, the destiny of the family suffered a sea-change, and they began to be noted as mariners. One of these seafaring Hathornes figured in the Revolution as a privateer, who had the good fortune to escape from a British prison-ship; and another, Captain Daniel Hathorne, has left his mark on early American ballad-lore. He, too, was a privateer, commanding the brig "Fair American," which, cruising off the coast of Portugal, fell in with a British scow laden with troops for General Howe. Hathorne and his valiant crew at once engaged the scow, and fought for over an hour, until the vanquished enemy was glad to cut the Yankee grapplings and quickly bear away. The last of the Hathornes with whom we are concerned, was a son of this sturdy old privateer, Nathaniel Hathorne. He was born in 1776, and about the beginning of the present century married Miss Elizabeth Clark Manning a daughter of Richard Manning, of Salem, whose ancestors emigrated to America about fifty years after the arrival of William Hathorne. Young Nathaniel took his hereditary place before the must, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, made voyages to the East and West Indies, Brazil, and Africa, and finally died of fever at Sarinam, in the spring of 1808. He was the father of three children, the second of whom, Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the subject of this sketch.
The above outline shows the characteristics of the family to which our author belongs. We know but little of Nathaniel's boyhood except that he was fond of taking long walks alone. Among the books which he is known to have studied while a child are Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and Thomson, "The Castle of Indolence" being a special favorite. In his fifteenth year his mother removed to Raymond, Cambridge County, Maine, to live with an uncle, Richard Manning. In his new home he retained his old custom of taking long and solitary walks, but they were along beautiful streams in the primeval wilderness, in exchange for the narrow streets of Salem. In the summertime he visited the woods and streams with gun and rod; and in the moonlight nights of winter he skated alone till past midnight. While thus alone he acquired some skill in writing by recording in a blank book an account of his wanderings and adventures. After a year's residence with his uncle he returned to Salem to prepare for college. At this period the vision of his life work seems to have been presented to him. He edited a manuscript paper called the "Spectator," in which his lively style and unusual talents were clearly manifested. In a letter to his mother he said: "I do not want to be a doctor and live by men's diseases, nor a minister to live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by their quarrels. So I do not see that there is anything left for me but to be an author. How would you like some day to see a whole shelf full of books, written by your son, with `Hawthorne's Works' printed on the backs?"
In 1821 he entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, where he graduated three years later. He distinguished himself in the classics, especially in Latin. His translations from the Roman poets were excellent, and he wrote several creditable English poems. In college he became acquainted with Henry W. Longfellow, and Franklin Pierce, afterward president of the United States. The college friendship, formed by the three young friends, held them together for life. Longfellow was among the first to point out the beauty of Hawthorne's style, and Pierce gave him a public office.
Having graduated, he returned to Salem and withdrew entirely from society. The forenoons he set aside for studying, the afternoons for writing and the evenings for long walks along the rocky coast. So completely isolated was he that at times his meals were left by his locked door. In this early period he wrote extensively but destroyed most of his manuscript. In 1824 he published a melodramatic story entitled "Fanshawe." For want of merit it was speedily forgotten. His reputation was partially made by his writings in "The Token," a holiday annual published for fourteen years by S. G. Goodrich, or "Peter Parley." Nearly all of the greatest American writers contributed to "The Token," but Hawthorne seems to have been the only one who gained any reputation through its columns. In 1835 Henry F. Chorley, one of the editors of the
"Athenaeum," an English journal, reprinted from "The Token" one of our author's best sketches, and gave a very favorable recognition of his genius. About the same time Mr. Goodrich engaged him to edit an "American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge," but paid him very poorly for his work. In 1837 his publishers brought out a collection of Hawthorne's writings under the title of "Twice-told Tales." The book did not sell well although Henry W. Longfellow reviewed it in the "North American Review," declaring that it came from the hand of a man of genius, and possessed a beauty of style which was as clear as running water.
His authorship, however, was not a pecuniary success, hence he was obliged to look for other means of support. Mr. George Bancroft, the historian, holding an appointment under President Van Buren, as collector of the port of Boston, offered Hawthorne an appointment as weigher in the custom house, at a salary of $1,200 per annum. The position was accepted but its duties were distasteful to him. A change in the national administration left him free again, after two years of faithful public service. He immediately returned to Salem, where, in 1841, he wrote a collection of children's stories, entitled "Grandfather's Chair." In order that he might have leisure for study he united with several others in forming a social Utopia. The Brook Farm, as it was called, was an industrial association located at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, in which labor was to be distributed equally among the members and each was to have a certain number of hours a day for study. The scheme appeared well on paper, but Hawthorne soon returned to the ordinary mode of living.
A new period in his life commenced in 1842, when he married Miss Sophia Peabody, and made a new home in an old manse at Concord, Massachusetts. His home was on historical ground, in sight of an old revolutionary battlefield, where he commenced his literary life in earnest. Contributions to the "Democratic Review" had given him a wide acquaintance, and gained for him the support of his entire party. In 1842 appeared a second portion of "Grandfather's Chair," and in 1845 a second volume of "Twice-told Tales." In the latter year he edited the "African Journals" of his college friend, Horatio Bridge, an officer of the navy. "Mosses from an Old Manse" appeared in 1846. Another change in the national administration secured for him the appointment as surveyor of the custom house of Salem, a position he held with distinction till the success of the Whigs retired him. While in office he wrote but little, having spent most of his time in studying. His next work, "The Scarlet Letter," appeared in 1850. This powerful romance at once settled forever all doubts as to Hawthorne's rank in the literary world; it placed him among the masters.
Removing his home to Lenox, Berkshire, Massachusetts, he wrote "The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Wonder-Book" in 1851. Changing his home again to West Newton, near Boston, he produced "The Blithedale Romance," "The Snow Image and other Twice-Told Tales," in 1852. Again taking up his home in Concord, he wrote a "Life of Franklin Pierce," his college friend, in 1852; and "Tanglewood Tales" in 1853. A reference to history shows that Pierce was the Democratic candidate for the presidency at the time Hawthorne became his biographer. Our author undertook the work upon the positive assurance that he would not accept an appointment under his friend if he were successful, lest it might compromise him. President Pierce, however, offered Hawthorne the-consulate at Liverpool, one of the best gifts at the president's disposal, and our author's friends finally prevailed upon him to accept.
In the summer of 1853 he departed for Europe to enter upon the duties of his office. He remained abroad for seven years, and within that time visited Scotland, the Lakes, and various other places, spending two years in France and Italy. As a result of his journey he produced "The Marble Faun" in 1860.
Returning to the United States he took up his abode at "The Wayside," his home at Concord, and sat down to his desk to write. This time he resumed his pen with a heavy heart. Indeed there were many sad hearts in 1860, for the black clouds of a civil strife were settling over our fair land. The fever of excitement was raging, and the pulse of the nation had quickened into a sharp, wiry throb. He was poor, and the attention of the public was so absorbed by other matters that ordinary literary labor was not likely to be rewarded. In the midst of the strife, in 1863, he published a volume of English impressions, entitled "Our Old Home." This was his last completed work. He commenced "Septimus Felton," but it was not published till after his death, when, in 1872, it was published by his daughter, together with a fragment of "Dolliver Romance." His health failed, his hair grew white as snow, and he sauntered idly on the hill behind his house. Starting on a Southern tour for his health, he reached Philadelphia, where he was shocked by the sudden death of his publisher, William D. Ticknor, who was accompanying him. He returned to The Wayside, and shortly afterward joined his friend, ex-President Pierce. His pen, however, was laid aside forever; for he died in May, and was buried at Sleepy Hollow, a beautiful cemetery at Concord, where he used to walk under the pines when he was living at the Old Manse, and where his ashes moulder under a simple stone, inscribed with the single word "Hawthorne."
Henry A. Page has published an interesting volume of "Memorials of Hawthorne." His widow edited and published "Passages from the American Note-book of Nathaniel Hawthorne" in two volumes in 1868, and "Passages from the English Note-book" in two volumes in 1870. While the "Scarlet Letter" may be regarded as his masterpiece, yet "Seven Gables" and "Blithedale" are among the best works of the kind in print.
"The writings of Hawthorne are marked by subtle imagination, curious power of analysis, and exquisite purity of diction. He studied exceptional developments of character and was fond of exploring secret crypts of emotion. His shorter stories are remarkable for originality and suggestiveness, and his longer ones are as absolute creations as `Hamlet' or `Undine.' Lacking the accomplishment of verse, he was in the highest sense a poet. His work is pervaded by a manly personality, and by an almost feminine delicacy and gentleness. He inherited the gravity of his Puritan ancestors without their superstitions, and learned in his solitary meditations a knowledge of the right-side of life which would have filled them with suspicion. A profound anatomist of the heart, he was singularly free from morbidness, and in his darkest speculations concerning evil, was robustly right-minded. He worshiped conscience with his intellectual as well as his moral nature; it is supreme in all he wrote. Besides these mental traits he possessed the literary quality of style--a grace, a charm, a perfection of language, which no other American writer over possessed in the same degree, and which places him among the great masters of English prose."
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