Books: Memories of Hawthorne

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Oh, these fogs! If you have read "Bleak House," you have read a
description of a London fog; but still you could scarcely have a true
image of it. Out of doors one feels hooded with fog, and cannot see
his own hand. It is just as if one should jump into a great bag of
cotton-wool,--not lamb's wool, for that is a little pervious. Our
fogs here are impervious. Mr. Ogden (the large-hearted western
gentleman whom Elizabeth knows) called at the Consulate upon Mr.
Hawthorne, and Mr. Hawthorne invited him to make us a visit. He is
overflowing with life, and seems to have the broad prairies in him. He
entertained me very much with an account of the Lord Mayor's dinner in
London, and other wonders he had seen. At the dinner he had a
peculiarly pleasant, clever, and amiable group immediately around him
of baronets. He told us about going with Miss Bacon to the old city of
Verulam to see Lord Bacon's estate and his tomb. They went into the
vault of the church where the family is buried, but they could not
prevail upon the beadle to open the brick sepulchre where Lord Bacon
himself is supposed to be interred. The ruins of the castle in which
Lord Bacon lived show that it was very rich and sumptuous; and the
very grove in which he used to walk and meditate and study stands
unmolested,--a grand old grove of stately trees planted by man, for
they are in regular rows. When Mr. Hawthorne came home the next
evening, he brought me a superb bouquet of flowers, which he said was
a parting gift to me from Mr. Ogden, who actually followed him to the
boat with them. They are a bright and fragrant memory of that
agreeable and excellent gentleman.

From the "Westminster Review" which lies on the table I will extract
for you one passage: "Few have observed mankind closely enough to be
able to trace through all its windings the tortuous course of a man
who, having made one false step, finds himself thereby compelled to
leave the path of truth and uprightness, and seldom regains it. We
can, however, refer to at least one living author who has done so; and
in 'The Scarlet Letter' by Hawthorne, the greatest of American
novelists, Mr. [Wilkie] Collins might see the mode in which the moral
lesson from examples of error and crime ought to be drawn. There is a
tale of sin, and its inevitable consequences, from which the most pure
need not turn away." In another paper in the same number the reviewer
speaks of some one who "writes with the pure poetry of Nathaniel
Hawthorne." As I have entered upon the subject of glorification, I
will continue a little. From London an American traveler writes to
Mr. Hawthorne: "A great day I spent with Sir William Hamilton, and two
blessed evenings with De Quincey and his daughters. In De Quincey's
house yours is the only portrait. They spoke of you with the greatest
enthusiasm, and I was loved for even having seen you. Sir William
Hamilton has read you with admiration, and says your 'House of the
Seven Gables' is more powerful in description than 'The Scarlet
Letter.'" Did I tell you once of an English lady who went to the
Consulate to see Mr. Hawthorne, and introduced herself as a literary
sister, and who had never been in Liverpool before, and desired Mr.
Hawthorne to show her the lions, and he actually escorted her about?
An American lady, who knows this Englishwoman, sent the other day a
bit of a note, torn off, to Mr. Hawthorne, and on this scrap the
English lady says, "I admire Mr. Hawthorne, as a man and as an
author, more than any other human being."

I have diligently taken cold these four months, and now have a hard
cough. It is very noisy and wearying. Mr. Hawthorne does not mind fog,
chill, or rain. He has no colds, feels perfectly well, and is the only
Phoebus that shines in England.

I told you in my last of Lord Dufferin's urgent invitation to Mr.
Hawthorne to go to his seat of Clandeboye, in Ireland, four or five
hours from Liverpool. Mr. Hawthorne declined, and then came another
note. The first was quite formal, but this begins:--

"MY DEAR MR. HAWTHORNE,--. . . Mrs. Norton [his aunt, the Honorable
Mrs. Norton] hopes . . . that you will allow her to have the pleasure
of receiving you at her house in Chesterfield Street; and I trust you
will always remember that I shall esteem it an honor to be allowed to
receive you here whenever you may be disposed to pay this country a
visit. Believe me, my dear Mr. Hawthorne,

"Yours very truly,

"DUFFERIN."

"CLANDEBOYE, HOLYWOOD."

Now have I not given you a fine feast of homage,--"flummery" Mr.
Hawthorne calls it?

To-morrow is Thanksgiving Day. We are going to observe it in memory of
the fatherland. Mr. Bright will dine with us by his own invitation,
not knowing it was a festival day with us. He has long been projecting
a visit, and finally proposed coming this week. He will remain all
night, as Sandheys is on the other side of Liverpool, and his mamma
does not wish him to cross the river [usually foggy] in the dark.

The English people, the ladies and gentlemen with whom we have become
acquainted, are very lovely and affectionate and friendly. They seem
lifelong acquaintances. I suppose there is no society in the world
that can quite compare to this. It is all stereotyped, crystallized,
with the repose and quiet in it of an immovable condition of caste.
There is such a simplicity, such an ease, such an entire cordiality,
such sweetness, that it is really beautiful to see. It is only when
looking at the matter outside--or rather out of it--that one can see
any disadvantage or unloveliness. It is a deep and great
question,--this about rank. Birth and wealth often are causes of the
superior cultivation and refinement that are found with them. In this
old civilization there seems to be no jealousy, no effort to alter
position. . . . Provided that the lowest orders could be redeemed from
the brutal misery in which they are plunged, there could be a little
more enjoyment in contemplating and mingling with the higher. But it
seems as if everything must be turned upside down rather than for one
moment more to tolerate such suffering, such bestiality. There have
been one or two individual cases that went before the courts that
really make it almost wicked ever to smile again. . . . As Mr. Hawthorne
delays to go to London, London is beginning to come to him, for Mr.
Holland says he must inevitably be mobbed in England. Two Londoners
called lately,--one a Mr. William Jerdan, about seventy years old, a
literary man, who for fifty years has been familiar with the best
society in London, and knows everybody for whom one cares to ask. He
is a perfect mine of rich memories. He pleased me mightily, and made
me think of Dr. Johnson. Rose sat on his knee, and gazed with
unwinking, earnest eyes into his face. He said he never saw anything
like it except the gaze of Talleyrand (whom he knew very well). He
said that Talleyrand undertook to look at a man and not allow a man to
look into him,--he always fixed such a glance as that upon one.
Imperturbably, baby continued to gaze, without any smile; and he kept
dodging from her and making funny contortions, but she was not in the
least moved. "Why," he exclaimed, "you would be an admirable judge,
and I should not like to be the fellow who would take sentence from
your Lordship when you get on your black cap!" At last she smiled
confidingly at him. "There," he said, "now I have it! She loves me,
she loves me!" At eight they left us for London, intending not to
shoot through that night, but sleep at Birmingham, halfway. "Oh," said
Mr. Jerdan, "I make nothing of going out to dine an hundred miles and
returning!" The gentleman with him was Mr. Bennoch, a patron of poets
and artists, and as pleasant, merry, and genial as possible. He told
Julian that, if he would go to London with him, he should have a pony
as low as the table and a dog as high as the pony; but Julian would
not, even in prospect of possessing what his heart desireth most.

December 8.

Yesterday who should come to see me but Mr. James Martineau and his
wife! I have the greatest admiration for him as a divine, and I do not
know what I expected to see in the outward man. But I was well
pleased with his aspect as I found it. He is not tall, and he is pale,
though not thin, with the most perfectly simple manners and beautiful
expression. It seemed as if he had always been my brother; as if I
could find in him counselor, friend, saint, and sage; and I have no
doubt it is so, so potent is the aroma of character, without a word or
sign. How worse than folly it is to imagine that character can either
be cried up or cried down! No veil can conceal, no blazonry exalt,
either the good or the evil. A man has only to come in and sit down,
and there he is, for better, for worse. I, at least, am always, as it
were, hit by a person's sphere; and either the music of the spheres or
the contrary supervenes, and sometimes also nothing at all, if there
is not much strength of character. Mr. Martineau did not say much;
but his voice was very pleasant and sympathetic, and he won regard
merely by his manner of being. Mrs. Martineau sat with her back to the
only dim light there was, and I could receive no impression from her
face; but she seemed pleasant and friendly. Mrs. Martineau said she
wished very much that we would go to her party on the 19th, which was
their silver wedding day. She said we should meet Mrs. Gaskell, the
author of "Mary Barton," "Ruth," and "Cranford," and several other
friends. It is the greatest pity that we cannot go; but it would be
madness to think of going out at night in these solid fogs with my
cough. They live beyond Liverpool, in Prince's Park. Mrs. Martineau
showed herself perfectly well-bred by not being importunate. It was a
delightful call; and I feel as if I had friends indeed and in need
just from that one interview. Mr. Martineau said Una would be homesick
until she had some friends of her own age, and that he had a daughter
a little older, who might do for one of them. They wished to see Mr.
Hawthorne, and came pretty near it, for they could not have got out of
the lodge gate before he came home! Was not that a shame?

I must tell you that there is a splendid show which Mr. Jerdan wants
us to see at Lord Warremore de Tabley's; it is a vast salt mine of
twenty acres, cut into a symmetrical columned gallery! He says it
shall be lighted up, so that we shall walk in a diamond corridor. Mr.
Jerdan said that salt used to be the medium of traffic in those
districts; and I think Lord de Tabley [1] is a beauty for having his
mines cut in the form of art, instead of hewed and hacked as a Vandal
would have done. Mr. Jerdan said that on account of some circumstance
he was called Lord de Tableau for a pseudonym, and in the sense I have
heard people exclaim to a good child, "Oh, you picture!"

[1] Mr. Hawthorne's severe taste is annoyed by that expression, but I
must let it go for the sake of what follows.

In the "North British Review" this week is a review of Mr. Hawthorne's
three last romances. It gives very high praise.

December 18.

I went to Liverpool yesterday for a Christmas present for you, and got
a silver pen in a pearl handle, which you will use for Una's sake.
While I was gone, Mr. Martineau and Mrs. Gaskell called! I was very
sorry to lose the visit. They left a note from the Misses Yates
inviting us to dine to-day and stay all night, and go to Mrs.
Martineau's evening party to-morrow! It would be a charming
visitation, if it were possible. Mr. Bright cannot find language to
express the Misses Yates' delightsomeness, and was wishing that we
knew them.

By this steamer Mr. Ticknor has sent us a Christmas present of a
barrel of apples. I wish you could see Rosebud with her bright cheeks
and laughing eyes. A lady thought her four years old, the other day!
Julian has to-day gone with his father to the Consulate. Una is in the
drawing-room reading Miss Edgeworth. Rose is on the back of my chair.

On Christmas night the bells chimed in the dawn, beginning at twelve
and continuing till daybreak. I wish you could hear this chiming of
bells. It is the most joyful sound you can imagine,--the most hopeful,
the most enlivening. I waked before light, and thought I heard some
ineffable music. I thought of the song of the angels on that blessed
morn; but while listening, through a sudden opening in the air, or
breeze blowing towards us, I found it was not the angels, but the
bells of Liverpool. One day when I was driving through Liverpool with
Una and Julian, these bells suddenly broke forth on the occasion of a
marriage, and I could scarcely keep the children in the carriage. They
leaped up and down, and Una declared she would be married in England,
if only to hear the chime of the bells. The mummers stood at our gate
on Christmas morning and sang in the dawn, acting the part of the
heavenly host. The Old Year was tolled out and the New Year chimed in
also, and again the mummers sang at the gate.

Perhaps you have heard of Miss Charlotte Cushman, the actress? The
summer before we left America, she sent a note to Mr. Hawthorne,
requesting him to sit to a lady for his miniature, which she wished to
take to England. Mr. Hawthorne could not refuse, though you can
imagine his repugnance on every account. He went and did penance, and
was then introduced to Miss Cushman. He liked her for a very sensible
person with perfectly simple manners. The other day he met her in
Liverpool, and she told him she had been intending to call on me ever
since she had been at her sister's at Rose Hill Hall, Woolton, seven
miles from Liverpool. Mr. Hawthorne wished me to invite her to dine
and pass the night. I invited her to dine on the 29th of December.
She accepted and came. I found her tall as her famous character, Meg
Merrilies, with a face of peculiar, square form, most amiable in
expression, and so very untheatrical in manner and bearing that I
should never suspect her to be an actress. She has left the stage now
two years, and retires upon the fortune she has made; for she was a
very great favorite on the English stage, and retired in the height of
her fame. The children liked her prodigiously, and Rose was never
weary of the treasures attached to her watch-chain. I could not
recount to you the gems clustered there,--such as a fairy tiny gold
palette, with all the colors arranged; a tiny easel with a colored
landscape, quarter of an inch wide; a tragic and comic mask, just big
enough for a gnome; a cross of the Legion of Honor; a wallet, opening
with a spring, and disclosing compartments just of a size for the
Keeper of the Privy Purse of the Fairy Queen; a dagger for a pygmy;
two minute daguerreotypes of friends, each as large as a small pea, in
a gold case; an opera-glass; Faith, Hope, and Charity represented by a
golden heart and anchor, and I forget what,--a little harp; I cannot
remember any more. These were all, I think, memorials of friends. In
the morning she sat down to 'Una's beautifully toned piano, and sang
one of Lockhart's Spanish ballads, with eloquent expression, so as to
make my blood tingle.

Hospitality was quite frequent now in our first English home, as many
letters affirm. The delightful novelty to my small self of a peep at
the glitter of little dinner-parties was as surprising to me as if I
could have had a real consciousness of its contrast to all the former
simplicity of my parents' life. Down the damask trooped the splendid
silver covers, entrancingly catching a hundred reflections from
candle-flame and cut-glass, and my own face as I hovered for a moment
upon the scene while the butler was gliding hither and thither to
complete his artistic arrangements. On my father's side of the family
there had been a distinct trait of material elegance, appearing in
such evidences as an exquisite tea-service, brought from China by my
grandfather, with the intricate monogram and dainty shapes and
decoration of a hundred years ago; and in a few chairs and tables that
could not be surpassed for graceful design and finish; and so on. As
for my mother's traits of inborn refinement, they were marked enough,
but she writes of herself to her sister at this time, "You cannot
think how I cannot be in the least tonish, such is my indomitable
simplicity of style." Her opinion of herself was always humble; and I
can testify to the distinguished figure she made as she wore the first
ball-dress I ever detected her in. I was supposed to be fast asleep,
and she had come to look at me before going out to some social
function, as she has told me she never failed to do when leaving the
house for a party. Her superb brocade, pale-tinted, low-necked, and
short-sleeved, her happy, airy manner, her glowing though pale face,
her dancing eyes, her ever-hovering smile of perfect kindness, all
flashed upon me in the sudden light as I roused myself. I insisted
upon gazing and admiring, yet I ended by indignantly weeping to find
that my gentle little mother could be so splendid and wear so
triumphant an expression. "She is frightened at my fine gown!" my
mother exclaimed, with a changed look of self-forgetting concern; and
I never lost the lesson of how much more beautiful her noble glance
was than her triumphant one. A faded bill has been preserved, for the
humor of it, from Salem days, in which it is recorded that for the
year 1841 she ordered ten pairs of number two kid slippers,--which was
not precisely economical for a young lady who needed to earn money by
painting, and who denied herself a multitude of pleasures and comforts
which were enjoyed by relatives and friends.

In our early experience of English society, my mother's suppressed
fondness for the superb burst into fruition, and the remnants of such
indulgence have turned up among severest humdrum for many years; but
soon she refused to permit herself even momentary extravagances. To
those who will remember duty, hosts of duties appeal, and it was not
long before my father and mother began to save for their children's
future the money which flowed in. Miss Cushman's vagary of an amusing
watch-chain was exactly the sort of thing which they never imitated;
they smiled at it as the saucy tyranny over a great character of great
wealth. My father's rigid economy was perhaps more un broken than my
mother's. Still, she has written, "I never knew what charity meant
till I knew my husband." There are many records of his having heard
clearly the teaching that home duties are not so necessary or loving
as duty towards the homeless.

Julian came home from Liverpool with papa one afternoon with four
masks, with which we made merry for several days. One was the face of
a simpleton, and that was very funny upon papa,--such a
transformation! A spectacled old beldame, looking exactly like a
terrific auld wife at Lenox, was very diverting upon Julian, turning
him into a gnome; and Una was irresistible beneath the mask of a
meaningless young miss, resembling a silly-looking doll. Julian put on
another with a portentous nose, and then danced the schottische with
Una in her doll's mask. Hearing this morning that a gentleman had sent
to some regiments 50 pounds worth of postage stamps, he said he
thought it would be better to have an arrangement for all the
soldiers' letters to go and come free. I do not know but he had better
send this suggestion to the "London Times."

March 12.

Mr. Hawthorne dined at Aigbarth, one of the suburbs of Liverpool, with
Mr. Bramley Moore, an M. P. Mr. Moore took an effectual way to secure
Mr. Hawthorne, for he went one day himself to his office, and asked
him for the very same evening, thus bearding the lion in his den and
clutching him. And Mrs. H., the aunt of Henry Bright, would not be
discouraged. She could not get Mr. Hawthorne to go to her splendid
fancy ball, to meet Lord and Lady Sefton and all the aristocracy of
the county . . . but wrote him a note telling him that if he wished
for her forgiveness he must agree with me upon a day when we would go
and dine with her. Mr. Hawthorne delayed, and then she wrote me a
note, appointing the 16th of March for us to go and meet the
Martineaus and Brights and remain all night. There was no evading
this, so he is going; but I refused. Her husband is a mighty banker,
and she is sister of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, W. E.
Gladstone, and they are nobly connected all round. . . . Mr. Hawthorne
does not want to go, and especially curses the hour when white muslin
cravats became the sine qua non of a gentleman's full dress. Just
think how reverend he must look! I believe he would even rather wear a
sword and cocked hat, for he declares a white muslin cravat the last
abomination, the chief enormity of fashion, and that all the natural
feelings of a man cry out against it; and that it is alike abhorrent
to taste and to sentiment. To all this I reply that he looks a great
deal handsomer with white about his throat than with a stiff old black
satin stock, which always to me looks like the stocks, and that it is
habit only which makes him prefer it. . . .

March 16.

Mr. Hawthorne has gone to West Derby to dine . . . and stay all night.
He left me with a powerful anathema against all dinner-parties,
declaring he did not believe anybody liked them, and therefore they
were a malicious invention for destroying human comfort. Mr. Bramley
Moore again seized Mr. Hawthorne in the Consulate, the other clay, and
dragged him to Aigbarth to dine with Mr. Warren, the author of "Ten
Thousand a Year" and "The Diary of a Physician." Mr. Hawthorne liked
him very well. Mr. Warren commenced to say something very
complimentary to Mr. Hawthorne in a low tone, across an intermediate
gentleman, when Mr. Bramley Moore requested that the company might
have the benefit of it, so Mr. Warren spoke aloud; and then Mr.
Hawthorne had to make a speech in return! We expected Mr. Warren here
to dine afterwards, but he has gone home to Hull.

Mrs. Sanders again sent a peremptory summons for us all to go to
London and make her a visit. I wish Mr. Hawthorne could leave his
affairs and go, for she lives in Portman Square, and Mr. Buchanan
would get us admitted everywhere. Mr. Sanders has been rejected by
the Senate; but I do not suppose he cares much, since he is worth a
half million of dollars.

Sir Thomas Talfourd, the author of "Ion," suddenly died the other day,
universally mourned. I believe his brother Field, who came to England
with us, is again in America, now. I trust the rest of the notable men
of England will live till I have seen them. This gentleman wished
very much to meet Mr. Hawthorne.

March 30.

Mr. Hawthorne went to Norris Green and dined with the H----s,
Martineaus, and Brights, and others, and stayed all night, as
appointed. He declared that, when he looked in the glass before going
down to dinner, he presented the appearance of a respectable butler,
with his white cravat--and thought of hiring himself out. He liked Mr.
H. . . . He gives away 7000 pounds a year in charity! Mrs. H. is good,
too, for she goes herself and sees into the condition of a whole
district in Liverpool, though a dainty lady of fashion. She showed Mr.
Hawthorne a miniature of the famous Sir Kenelm Digby, who was her
ancestor; and so through his family she is connected with the Percys
and the Stanleys, Earls of Derby. Everything was in sumptuous fashion,
served by gorgeous footmen. Mr. Hawthorne was chief guest. . . . Mrs.
H. has sense, and is rather sentimental, too. She has no children, and
had the assurance to tell Mr. Hawthorne she preferred chickens to
children.

The next day Mr. Bright invited Mr. Hawthorne to drive. Mr. Bright
wanted to call on his cousin, Sir Thomas Birch. And as he was the
nearest neighbor of the Earl of Derby, he took them to Knowsley, Lord
Derby's seat. At Sir Thomas's, Mr. Hawthorne saw a rookery for the
first time; and a picture of Lady Birch, his mother, painted by Sir
Thomas Lawrence, but not quite finished. It is said to be one of his
best pictures. Mr. Hawthorne was disappointed in the house at
Knowsley. It was lower than he had imagined, and of various eras, but
so large as to be able to entertain an hundred guests.

April 14, Good Friday.

MY DEAR FATHER,--This is a day of great and solemn fast in England;
when all business is suspended, and no work is done in house or
street; when there is really a mighty pause in worldly affairs, and
all people remind themselves that Christ was crucified, and died for
us. From early morning till late evening, all churches are open and
service is performed.

I wish you could be undeceived about the income of this Consulate. Mr.
Hawthorne now knows actually everything about it. . . . He goes from us
at nine, and we do not see him again till five!!! I only wish we could
be pelted within an inch of our lives with a hailstorm of sovereigns,
so as to satisfy every one's most gorgeous hopes; but I am afraid we
shall have but a gentle shower, after all. . . . I am sorry I have had
the expectation of so much, because I am rather disappointed to be so
circumscribed. With my husband's present constant devotion to the
duties of his office, he could no more write a syllable than he could
build a cathedral. . . . He never writes by candle-light. . . . Mr.
Crittendon tells Mr. Hawthorne that he thinks he may save $5000 a year
by economy. He himself, living in a very quiet manner, not going into
society, has spent $4000 a year. He thinks we must spend more. People
will not let Mr. Hawthorne alone, as they have Mr. Crittendon,
because they feel as if they had a right to him, and he cannot well
forego their claim. "The Scarlet Letter" seems to have placed him on a
pinnacle of fame and love here. . . . It will give you pleasure, I
think, to hear that Mr. Cecil read a volume of "The Scarlet Letter"
the other day which was one of the thirty-fifth thousand of one
publisher. Is it not provoking that the author should not have even
one penny a volume?

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