Books: Memories of Hawthorne

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To return to my mother's records:--

RHYL, NORTH WALES.

Dr. Drysdale thought we needed another change of air, and so we came
south this time. . . . The sun sinks just beside Great Orme's Head,
after turning the sea into living gold, and the heights into heaps of
amethyst. On the right is only sea, sea, sea. . . . I intended to go to
the Queen's Hotel, and knew nothing about the manner of living in the
lodging fashion. So we have to submit to German silver and the most
ordinary table service. . . . Ever since our marriage we have always
eaten off the finest French china, and had all things pretty and
tasteful; because, you know, I would never have second-best services,
considering my husband to be my most illustrious guest. But now! It is
really laughable to think of the appointments of the table at which
the Ambassador to Lisbon and the American Consul sat down last
Saturday, when they honored me with their presence. And we did laugh,
for it was of no consequence,--and the great bow window of our parlor
looked out upon the sea. We did not come here to see French china and
pure silver forks and spoons, but to walk on the beach, bathe in the
ocean, and drive to magnificent old castles,--and get rid of
whooping-cough. I had the enterprise to take all the children and
Mary, and come without Mr. Hawthorne; for he was in a great hurry to
get me off, fearing the good weather would not last. He followed on
Saturday with Mr. O'Sullivan, who arrived from Lisbon just an hour
before they both started for Rhyl. . . . Julian's worship of nature
and natural objects meets with satisfaction here. . . .

The following was also written from Rhyl:--

"While the carriage stopped I heard the rapturous warble of the
skylark, and finally discovered him, mounting higher still and higher,
pressing upwards, and pouring out such rich, delicious music that I
wanted to close my eyes and shut out the world, and listen to nothing
but that. Not even Shelley's or Wordsworth's words can convey an
adequate idea of this song. It seems as if its little throat were the
outlet of all the joy that had been experienced on the earth since
creation; and that with all its power it were besieging heaven with
gratitude and love for the infinite bliss of life. Life, joy, love.
The blessed, darling little bird, quivering, warbling, urging its way
farther and farther; and finally swooning with excess of delight, and
sinking back to earth! You see I am vainly trying to help you to an
idea of it, but I cannot do it. I do not understand why the skylark
should not rise from our meadows as well, and the nightingale sing to
our roses."

Society and the sternness of life were, however, but a hair's-breadth
away:--

"Monday evening Mr. Hawthorne went to Richmond Hill to meet Mr.
Buchanan. The service was entirely silver, plates and all, and in a
high state of sheen. The Queen's autograph letter was spoken of (which
you will see in the 'Northern Times' that goes with this); and as it
happens to be very clumsily expressed, Mr. Hawthorne was much
perplexed by Mr. Buchanan's asking him, before the whole company at
dinner, 'what he thought of the Queen's letter.' Mr. Hawthorne replied
that it showed very kind feeling. 'No,' persisted the wicked
Ambassador; 'but what do you think of the style?' Mr. Hawthorne was
equal to him, or rather, conquered him, however, for he said, 'The
Queen has a perfect right to do what she pleases with her own
English.' Mr. Hawthorne thought Miss Lane, Mr. Buchanan's niece, a
very elegant person, and far superior to any English lady present. The
next evening Mr. Hawthorne went to another dinner at Everton; so that
on Wednesday, when we again sat down together, I felt as if he had
been gone a month. This second dinner was not remarkable in any way,
except that when the ladies took leave they all went to him and
requested to shake hands with him!

"No act of the British people in behalf of the soldiers has struck me
as so noble and touching as that of the reformed criminals at an
institution in London. They wished to contribute something to the
Patriotic Fund. The only way they could do it was by fasting. So from
Sunday night till Tuesday morning they ate nothing, and the money
saved (three pounds and over) was sent to the Fund! Precious money is
this."

In Rockferry, my first remembered home, the personality of my father
was the most cheerful element, and the one which we all needed, as the
sunshine is needed by an English scene to make its happiness apparent.
If he was at all "morbid," my advice would be to adopt morbidness at
once. Perhaps he would have been a sad man if he had been an ordinary
one. Genius can make charming presences of characters that really are
gloomy and savage, being so magical in its transmutation of dry fact.
People were glad to be scolded by Carlyle, and shot down by Dr.
Johnson. But I am persuaded by reason that those who called Hawthorne
sad would have complained of the tears of Coriolanus or Othello; and,
with Coriolanus, he could say, "It is no little thing to make mine
eyes to sweat compassion." It was the presence of the sorrow of the
world which made him silent. Who dares to sneer at that? When I think
of my mother,--naturally hopeful, gently merry, ever smiling,--who,
while my father lived, was so glad a woman that her sparkling glance
was never dimmed, and when I have to acknowledge that even she did not
fill us children with the zest of content which he brought into the
room for us, I must conclude that genius and cheer together made him
life-giving; and so he was enchanting to those who were intimate with
him, and to many who saw him for but a moment. Dora Golden, my
brother's old nurse, has said that when she first came to the family
she feared my father was going to be severe, because he had a way of
looking at strangers from under bent brows. But the moment he lifted
his head his eyes flashed forth beautiful and kindly. She has told me
that my mother and she used to think at dusk, when he entered the room
before the lamps were lit, that the place was illuminated by his face;
his eyes shone, his whole countenance gleamed, and my mother simply
called him "our sunlight."

My sister's girlish letters are evidence of the enthusiasm of the
family for my father's companionship, and of our stanch hatred for the
Consulate because it took him away from us so much. He read aloud, as
he always had done, in the easiest, clearest, most genial way, as if
he had been born only to let his voice enunciate an endless procession
of words. He read "The Lady of the Lake" aloud about this time, and
Una wrote expressing our delight in his personality over and above
that in his usefulness: "Papa has gone to dine in Liverpool, so we
shall not hear 'Don Quixote' this evening, or have papa either."
Little references to him show how he was always weaving golden threads
into the woof of daily monotony. Julian, seven years old, writes to
his grandfather, "Papa has taught Una and me to make paper boats, and
the bureau in my room is covered with paper steamers and boats." I can
see him folding them now, as if it were yesterday, and how intricate
the newspapers became which he made into hulls, decks, and sails. At
one time Una bursts out, in recognition of the unbroken peace and good
will in the home, "It will certainly be my own fault if I am not
pretty good when I grow up, for I have had both example and precept."

The nurse to whom I have just referred has said that when Julian was
about four, sometimes he would annoy her while she was sewing; and if
his father was in the room, she would tell Julian to go to him and ask
him to read about Robbie, who was Robinson Crusoe. He would sit
quietly all the time his father read to him, no matter for how long.
But her master finally told Dora not to send Julian to him in this way
to hear "Robinson Crusoe," because he was "tired of reading it to
him." The nurse was a bit of a genius herself, in her way, and not to
be easily suppressed, and when her charge became fidgety, and she was
in a hurry, she made one more experiment with Robbie. Her master
turned round in his chair, and for the first time in four years she
saw an angry look on his face, and he commanded her "never to do it
again." At three years of age Julian played pranks upon his father
without trepidation. There was a "boudoir" in the house which had a
large, pleasant window, and was therefore thought to be agreeable
enough to be used as a prison-house for Una and Julian when they were
naughty. Julian conveyed his father into the boudoir, and shut the
door on him adroitly. It had no handle on the inner side, purposely,
and the astonished parent was caged. "You cannot come out," said
Julian, "until you have promised to be a good boy." Through the
persistent dignity with which Hawthorne behaved, and with which he was
always treated by the household, Julian had felt the down of playful
love.

Here are letters written to me while I was in Portugal with my mother,
in 1856:--

MY DEAR LITTLE ROSEBUD,--I have put a kiss for you in this nice, clean
piece of paper. I shall fold it up carefully, and I hope it will not
drop out before it gets to Lisbon. If you cannot find it, you must ask
Mamma to look for it. Perhaps you will find it on her lips. Give my
best regards to your Uncle John and Aunt Sue, and to all your kind
friends, not forgetting your Nurse. Your affectionate father,

N. H.

MY DEAR LITTLE ROSEBUD,--It is a great while since I wrote to you; and
I am afraid this letter will be a great while in reaching you. I hope
you are a very good little girl; and I am sure you never get into a
passion, and never scream, and never scratch and strike your dear
Nurse or your dear sister Una. Oh no! my little Rosebud would never do
such naughty things as those. It would grieve me very much if I were
to hear of her doing such things. When you come back to England, I
shall ask Mamma whether you have been a good little girl; and Mamma (I
hope) will say: "Yes; our little Rosebud has been the best and
sweetest little girl I ever knew in my life. She has never screamed
nor uttered any but the softest and sweetest sounds. She has never
struck Nurse nor Una nor dear Mamma with her little fist, nor
scratched them with her sharp little nails; and if ever there was a
little angel on earth, it is our dear little Rosebud!" And when Papa
hears this, he will be very glad, and will take Rosebud up in his arms
and kiss her over and over again. But if he were to hear that she had
been naughty, Papa would feel it his duty to eat little Rosebud up!
Would not that be very terrible?

Julian is quite well, and sends you his love. I have put a kiss for
you in this letter; and if you do not find it, you may be sure that
some naughty person has got it. Tell Nurse I want to see her very
much. Kiss Una for me.

Your loving PAPA.

The next letter is of later date, having been written while the rest
of the family were in Manchester:--

MY DEAR LITTLE PESSIMA,--I am very glad that Mamma is going to take
you to see "Tom Thump;" and I think it is much better to call him
Thump than Thumb, and I always mean to call him so from this time
forward. It is a very nice name, is Tom Thump. I hope you will call
him Tom Thump to his face when you see him, and thump him well if he
finds fault with it. Do you still thump dear Mamma, and Fanny, and
Una, and Julian, as you did when I saw you last? If you do, I shall
call you little Rose Thump; and then people will think that you are
Tom Thump's wife. And now I shall stop thumping on this subject.

Your friend little Frank Hallet is at Mrs. Blodget's. Do you remember
how you used to play with him at Southport, and how he sometimes beat
you? He seems to be a better little boy than he was then, but still he
is not so good as he might be. This morning he had some very nice
breakfast in his plate, but he would not eat it because his mamma
refused to give him something that was not good for him; and so, all
breakfast-time, this foolish little boy refused to eat a mouthful,
though I could see that he was very hungry, and would have eaten it
all up if he could have got it into his mouth without anybody seeing.
Was not he a silly child? Little Pessima never behaved so,--oh no!

There are two or three very nice little girls at Mrs. Blodget's, and
also a nice large dog, who is very kind and gentle, and never bites
anybody; and also a tabby cat, who very often comes to me and mews for
something to eat. So you see we have a very pleasant family; but, for
all that, I would rather be at home.

And now I have written you such a long letter that my head is quite
tired out; and so I shall leave off, and amuse myself with looking at
some pages of figures.

Be a good little girl, and do not tease Mamma, nor trouble Fanny, nor
quarrel with Una and Julian; and when I come home I shall call you
little Pessima (because I am very sure you will deserve that name),
and shall kiss you more than once. N. H.

If he said a few kind words to me, my father gave me a sense of having
a strong ally among the great ones of life; and if I were ill, I was
roused by his standing beside me to defy the illness. When I was
seriously indisposed, at the age of three, he brought me a black doll,
which I heard my mother say she thought would alarm me, as it was very
ugly, and I had never seen a negro. I remember the much-knowing smile
with which my father's face was indefinitely lighted up as he stood
looking at me, while I, half unconscious to most of the things of
this world, was nevertheless clutching his gift gladly to my heart.
The hideous darky was soon converted by my nurse Fanny (my mother
called her Fancy, because of her rare skill with the needle and her
rich decorations of all sorts of things) into a beautifully dressed
footman, who was a very large item in my existence for years. I
thought my father an intensely clever man to have hit upon Pompey, and
to have understood so well that he would make an angel. All his
presents to us Old People, as he called us, were either unusual or of
exquisite workmanship. The fairy quality was indispensable before he
chose them. We children have clung to them even to our real old age.
The fairies were always just round the corner of the point of sight,
with me, and in recognition of my keen delight of confidence in the
small fry my father gave me little objects that were adapted to them:
delicate bureaus with tiny mirrors that had reflected fairy faces a
moment before, and little tops that opened by unscrewing them in an
unthought-of way and held minute silver spoons. Once he brought home
to Julian a china donkey's head in a tall gray hat such as negroes and
politicians elect to wear, and its brains were composed entirely of
borrowed brilliancy in the shape of matches. We love the donkey still,
and it always occupies a place of honor. He brought me a little
Bacchus in Parian marble, wearing a wreath of grapes, and holding a
mug on his knee, and greeting his jolly stomach with one outspread
hand, as if he were inwardly smiling as he is outwardly. This is a
vase for flowers, and the white smile of the god has gleamed through
countless of my sweetest bouquets.

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 edition 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:--

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