Books: Memories of Hawthorne

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This morning Mary came in and threw at me a beautiful handful of
flowers, which I crowed over for a time, and then arose. I worked a
little while at my painting, and then Mary Channing came gliding in
upon me, like a dream, with more flowers, the Scotch rose and many
rare things among them. Mr. Doughty [the artist, who had consented to
give Sophia lessons] came, as bright as possible. The cool breezes,
the flowers, etc., put him into excellent humor. He said it was luxury
to sit and paint here. He created a glowing bank in broad sunshine.
Mr. Russell called, and came up into my studio. He thought such a
studio and such an occupation must cure the headache. Then I prepared
to make several calls, but on my way was arrested by Mr. George
Hillard, who was altogether too agreeable to leave. He is amazingly
entertaining, to be sure. He remarked what a torment of his life Mr.
Reed, the postmaster in Cambridge, was. He is an old man, about a
hundred and forty years old, who always made him think of the little
end of nothing sharpened off into a point. He had but one joke--to
tell people sometimes when they asked for a letter that they must pay
half a dollar for it; and then, if in their simplicity they gave it,
he would laugh, and say it was a joke. After Mr. Hillard went away,
Sally Gardiner came in with an armful of roses, which she poured upon
me, taken from Judge Jackson's garden. She had just returned from
Milton, and was overflowing with its grandeur and beauty.

Yours affectionately,

SOPHIE.

The somewhat invalided little artist was highly and widely admired;
and to illustrate the happy fact I quote this letter, written by her
spirited sister Mary:--

BOSTON, June 19, 1833.

MY DEAREST,--I went to Dr. Channing's yesterday afternoon and carried
him your drawings, with which he was so enchanted that I left them for
him to look at again. He gathered himself up in a little striped
cloak, and all radiant with that soul of his, said with his most
divine inflection, "This is a great and noble undertaking, and will do
much for us here." And then he rolled his orbs upon me in that
majestic way of his, which, when it melts into loveliness as it
sometimes does, so takes captivity captive. In short, he was quite in
an ecstasy with you and your notions. [Probably drawings illustrating
auxiliary verbs.] He inquired very particularly for you, and showed me
all the new books he had just received from England, which he thought
a great imposition, they being big books. Edward [his brother] came
in, and they greeted affectionately. After a long survey of the
Professor, he exclaimed, "Why, Edward, you look gross--take care of
the intellect!" Then he handed him one of the great books, just
arrived, which was an edition of Thomas Belsham's works, with a
likeness of the author. "There," said he, "is a man who had not quite
the dimensions of a hogshead; but he was the largest man I ever saw."
Edward looked rather uneasy. "William," he replied, "I don't think you
are any judge of large men. Last week I looked quite thin, but to-day
my head and face are very much swelled." The Doctor, in the simplicity
of his heart, never thinks of feelings, only of things, as Plato would
say. Your affectionate sister,

MARY.

Sophia writes to Elizabeth in Boston, in 1838, of her daily life, as
follows:--

"I went to my hammock [in the studio] with Xenophon. Socrates was
divinest, after Jesus Christ, I think. He lived up to his thought. . . .
After dinner, Mary went out 'to take the fresh,' intending to
finish the afternoon by a walk with Miss Hawthorne, and I commissioned
her to bring home both her and her brother, if he should go, that I
might give him my fragrant violets. . . .

"Miss Hawthorne came to walk, and remarked to Mary how beautiful the
crocuses were which I had given to her brother. Mary told her that I
sent them _to her_. 'That is a pretty story,' she replied. 'He never
told me so.'

"Just after seven Mr. Hawthorne came. He looked very brilliant. . . .
His coming here is one sure way of keeping you in mind, and it must be
excessively tame for him after his experience of your society and
conversation; so that, I think, you will shine the more by contrast."

One evening, she says, she "showed him Sarah Clarke's picture of the
island, and that gorgeous flower in the Chinese book of which there is
a mighty tree in Cuba. And then I turned over the pictures of those
hideous birds, which diverted him exceedingly. One he thought deserved
study. . . .

"I was to go to see his sister Elizabeth that afternoon, and he had
heard about it. He asked if I could go, and said he should have waited
for me to come if he had not supposed the east wind would prevent me.
I said that it would. He wanted to know if I would come the next day.
I meant to call Mary, but he prevented me by saying he could not stay
long enough. . . . [He seldom stayed unless he found Sophia alone.]

"Last evening Mr. Hawthorne came for Mary to go with him to Miss
Burley's [to a club which met every week]. Mary could not go. It
seemed a shame to refuse him. I came down to catch a glimpse of him.
He has a celestial expression which I do not like to lose. . . .

"The children have just come in, and brought me a host of odorous
violets. I made George a visit in the afternoon, in the midst of my
battle with headache, and to my question of 'How dost?' he replied,
for the first time, 'Pretty fair,' instead of the unvarying
'Middling.' Skeptics surely cannot disbelieve in one thing that is
invisible, and that is Pain."

May, 1838.

After my siesta I went down to Herbert Street with the book I wished
to leave, and when I opened the gate [of the Hawthornes' house] the
old woman with her hood on [an aunt of the Hawthornes] was stooping
over a flower-bed, planting seeds. She lifted her smiling face, which
must have been very pretty in her youth, and said, "How do you do,
Miss Peabody?" Yet I never saw her in my life before. She begged me to
walk in, but I refused, and gave her my message of thanks for the
book.

Ever thine wholly,

SOPHIECHEN.

May 14, 1838.

To-day I was tempted to trot about the room and arrange all my vases,
and give an air to the various knickknacks. I am much more easily
tired than ever before. My walk to Castle Hill before February did not
make me feel so hopelessly tired as it now does to walk as far as the
Hawthornes'. Mr. Hawthorne had declined to come to dine with you on
your arrival, but was to be here directly after dinner. When he came I
happened to be the only one ready to go down. His first question was,
"Where is Elizabeth?" He was not at all inclined to bear the
disappointment of your not being here, after all. He thought it "too
bad," "insufferable," "not fair," and wondered what could be the
reason. I told him your excuse, and that there was a letter for him,
which Mary soon brought. He put it into his pocket without breaking
the seal. He looked very handsome, and was full of smiles. I assured
him the morning was the best time to do creative work. He said he
believed he would go and take a walk in South Salem. "Won't you go?"
he asked of me. But the wind was east.

MY DEAR LIZZIE,--I can think of nothing now but Charles Emerson. A
sudden gloom seems to overshadow me. I hope you will tell us to-morrow
whether he is dangerously ill. We had an exquisite visit from Waldo.
It was the warbling of the Attic bird. The gleam of his _diffused_
smile; the musical thunder of his voice; his repose, so full of the
essence of life; his simplicity--just think of all these, and of my
privilege in seeing and hearing him. He enjoyed everything we showed
him so much. He talked so divinely to Raphael's Madonna del Pesce. I
vainly imagined I was very quiet all the while, preserving a very
demure exterior, and supposed I was sharing his oceanic calm. But the
next day I was aware that I had been in a very intense state. I told
Mary, that night after he had gone, that I felt like a gem; that was
the only way I could express it. I don't know what Mary hoped to get
from him, but I was sure of drinking in that which would make me paint
Cuban skies better than even my recollections could have made me, were
they as vivid as the rays of the sun in that sunniest of climates. He
made me feel as Eliza Dwight did once, when she looked uncommonly
beautiful and animated. I felt as if her beauty was all about the
room, and that I was in it, and therefore beautiful too. It seemed
just so with Waldo's soul-beauty. Good-by,

SOPHY.

June 1, 1838.

One afternoon Elizabeth Hawthorne came to walk with Mary, and mother
went with her instead. She first came up into my chamber, and seemed
well pleased with it, but especially admired the elm-tree outside. She
looked very interesting. Mother took her to the cold spring, and they
did not return till just at dark, loaded with airy anemones and blue
violets and a few columbines. They had found Mr. John King and his
daughter at the spring, looking for wild-flowers, and mother
introduced Miss Hawthorne; but she hung her head and scarcely
answered, and did not open her lips again, though Mr. King accompanied
them all the way home. He gave mother some columbines, and after a
while said, "I must make your bunch like Mrs. Peabody's, my dear," and
so put some more into Miss Hawthorne's hand.

The day before Mr. Hawthorne had called at noon to see our ladyships,
and I never saw him look so brilliantly rayonnant. He said to me,
"Your story will be finished soon, Sophia--to-morrow or next day." I
was surprised to have the story so appropriated, and I do long to see
it. [Probably Edward Randolph's Portrait.] He proposed to Mary to go
to the beach the same day, and she consented. He said that he had not
spoken to his sister about it, but would do so as soon as he went
home. He wished to go early, and have a good walk. Only think what
progress! To come and propose a walk at mid-day!

He said he had a letter nearly written to you, but should not finish
it till you wrote. He seemed quite impatient to hear from you, and
remarked that he had not heard since you were here. Mary went to
Herbert Street to join Miss Hawthorne for the walk, but did not see
her. Her mother said Elizabeth did not want to go because it was
windy, and the sun was too hot, and clouds were in the south! (It was
the loveliest day in the world.) Was it not too bad to disappoint her
brother so? I could have whipped her. When Mary went the next day
with the tulips, Louisa told her that Elizabeth was very sorry
afterwards that she did not go.

A successful visit, almost accidental, upon Ebie Hawthorne pleased
Sophia very much, and she writes:--

"She was very agreeable, and took the trouble to go and get some
engravings of heads to show me, Wordsworth among the number, which I
had never seen before.

"Elizabeth also inquired particularly for George, and gave me more
books for him. She asked if we did not miss you exceedingly. I should
like to have stayed for two or three hours. She came downstairs with
me, and out of the door, and talked about the front yard, where her
aunt is going to make a garden."

Elizabeth Peabody's letters are always delight-, fully direct, and
varied in quality of emotion, being equally urgent over philosophy or
daily bread, as the ensuing one will show in part:--

53 MYRTLE STREET, BOSTON, 1838.

MY DEAR SOPHIA,--Your beautiful letters require an answer, but I
cannot possibly answer them in kind. This evening, notwithstanding
the storm, George and Susan Hillard have gone to a singing-school, and
left me to amuse myself. I hoped Mr. Hawthorne would come in. I have
not seen him yet. Last night I took tea with Sally Gardiner and Miss
Jackson, who are still enjoying your Flaxman drawings. Why do not you
Salem folks have a hencoop and keep hens! five or six hens would
overwhelm you with eggs all the year round. I like to hear the little
items about Hawthorne. I had a nice talk with Mr. Capen about him
to-day. He has him in his mind, and I hope it will come to some good
purpose for the public.

Yours truly and ever, E. P. P.

Sophia writes:--

July 23, 1838.

William White arrived on Saturday. Why did not you send Stuart's
Athens by him? He said that he had heard it remarked that Mr. Emerson
expected another Messiah. Your slight account of Mr. E.'s "Address" is
enough to wake the dead, and I do not know what the original utterance
must have done. I told Mary I thought Mr. Emerson was the Word again.
She exclaimed, "You blasphemer!" "Do you really think it blasphemy?"
said I. "Oh no," she replied. "It is the gospel according to you." Was
not that a happy saying? While the maid was at Miss Hurley's on an
errand, she saw Mr. Hawthorne enter, probably for a take-leave call.
He was here also, looking radiant. He said he took up my Journal
[written in Cuba] to bring it back, but my "works were so voluminous
that he concluded to send them!"

Elizabeth Peabody makes, upon her return to 'Salem for the winter, an
heroic move towards gaining a still more affectionate advantage over
the solitaries in Herbert Street. A little smile must have given her
face its most piquant expression as she wrote:--

Saturday, November 10, 1838.

DEAR LOUISA,--You know I want to knit those little stockings and
shoes,--I think I will do it in the course of time at your house,--and
would thank you to buy the materials for me, and I will pay you what
they cost, when I know what it is. I suppose the four or five evenings
which I shall anticipate spending with you (in the course of the
winter!) will complete the articles.

When Elizabeth wakes, please give her this note and rose and book; and
when Nathaniel comes to dinner please give him the note I wrote to
him. He said he was going to write to-day, and therefore I should
prefer that he should not be interrupted on purpose to read it. We
will not interrupt the bird in his song. I wonder what sort of a
preparation he finds an evening of whist, for the company of the Muse!

Yours ever truly,

E. P. PEABODY.

It is delightful to picture the commotion in the fernlike seclusion
which enveloped the women of the Hawthorne household when this note
was opened and read. Squirrels aroused, owls awakened, foxes startled,
would have sympathized. Louisa, the only really active member of the
trio, wonderfully deft in finest sewing and embroidery, generously
willing to labor for all the relatives when illness required, may not
have felt faint or fierce. But Mrs. Hawthorne, even in the covert of
her chamber, where she chiefly resided, no doubt drew back; and
Elizabeth's beautiful eyes must have shone superbly. However, to prove
that the trio among the ferns (guarding, as testimony proves,
Hawthorne himself with unasked care) could serve the needs of others
on occasion,

I will insert a little letter of a much earlier date, from Louisa.

TO MISS MARY MANNING, RAYMOND, MAINE, CARE OF RICHARD MANNING, ESQ.

SALEM, March 3, 1831.

MY DEAR AUNT,--Uncle Sammie has returned from Boston, and has taken up
his abode for the present at uncle Robert's [his brother, who
befriended Hawthorne in his early youth], and is much better than we
expected to see him. We should have been glad to have him with us,
and would have done everything in our power to make him happy. We are
so near that he can at any time command our services and our company.
Nathaniel goes in to see him, and I am there a great part of the time.
Mother has kept about all winter. There have been worse storms than I
ever remember; the roads were absolutely impassable, and the
snow-banks almost as high as the house. I would write more, but my
time is much taken up now. I remain yours, With much affection,

M. L. HATHORNE.

That the reluctance to be genial with very genial folk was bravely
overcome (to some extent) the ensuing notes prove:--

DEAR ELIZABETH,--As you were out on Saturday evening, I hope you will
be able to come and spend to-morrow evening with us--will you not? I
should be extremely happy to see Mary, though I despair of it; and
though I cannot venture to ask Sophia, perhaps you can for me. Pray
tell me particularly how your father is; we are all anxious to hear;
and whether George is as he was when we heard last.

I am, in haste, E, M. H.

DEAR ELIZABETH,--Shall we go to the beach? If so, I propose that we
set off instanter. I think a sea-breeze would be most refreshing this
afternoon. Truly yours,

M. T. P.

Don't forget to ask your brother.

MY DEAR E.,--I am afraid I shall not be able to go and spend an
evening with you while the girls are gone. To-morrow, you know, is the
eclipse. I wish you would come here in the afternoon. The graveyard
is an open place to see it from, and I should be very glad of your
company. Yesterday I heard of Nathaniel. A gentleman was shut up with
him on a rainy day in a tavern in Berkshire, and was perfectly charmed
with his luck. In haste, yours,

E. P. P.

By and by Elizabeth Peabody returns to Boston, and Sophia goes on with
letters:--

I do not think I am subject to my imagination; I can let an idea go to
the grave that I see is false. When I am altogether true to the light
I have, I shall be in the heaven where the angelic Very now is. I went
to see dear Miss Burley, who sent for me to go to her room. She
insisted upon accompanying me all the way downstairs, limping
painfully, and would open the outer door for me, and bow me out with
as much deference as if I had been Victoria, or Hawthorne himself! So
much for the Word uttering itself through my fingers in the face of
Ilbrahim. [She had just finished illustrating "The Gentle Boy" by a
drawing which was greatly praised.]

Jones Very came to tea that afternoon. He was troubled at first, but
we comforted him with sympathy. His conversation with George was
divine, and such level rays of celestial light as beamed from his face
upon George, every time he looked up at him, were lovely to behold. We
told him of our enjoyment of his sonnets. He smiled, and said that,
unless we thought them beautiful because we also heard the Voice in
reading them, they would be of no avail. "Since I have shown you my
sonnets," said he to me, "I think you should show me your paintings,"
Mary brought my drawing-book and "AEschylus" [wonderfully perfect
drawings from Flaxman's illustrations]. He deeply enjoyed all. I told
him of my Ilbrahim. He said he delighted in the "Twice-Told Tales."
Yesterday Mr. Hawthorne came in, and said, "I am going to Miss
Hurley's, but you must not go. It is too cold. You certainly must not
go." I assured him I should go, and was sorry I was not wanted. He
laughed, and said I was not. But I persisted. He knew I should be made
sick; that it was too cold. Meanwhile I put on an incalculable
quantity of clothes. Father kept remonstrating, but not violently, and
I gently imploring. When I was ready, Mr. Hawthorne said he was glad I
was going. Mary was packed up safely, also. I was very animated, and
felt much better than on either of the previous club nights. Mr.
Hawthorne declared it must be the spirit of contradiction that made me
so; and I told him it was nothing but fact. We walked quite fast, for
I seemed stepping on air. It was partly because I had not got tired
during the day. It was splendid moonlight. I was not in the least
cold, except my thumb and phiz. Mr. H. said he should have done
admirably were it not for his nose. He did not believe but that it
would moderate, "For God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, and when
you go out we may expect mild weather!" Was not that sweet? Mr. II.
and I went into the parlor together, and Miss Burley looked delighted.
He was exquisitely agreeable, and talked a great deal, and looked
serene and happy and exceedingly beautiful. Miss Burley showed Mary
and me some botanical specimens, and he came to the table and added
much to the lights. But oh, we missed you so much; Miss Burley said
so, and I felt it. They do not understand Very, there. When we were
taking leave, Mr. Howes said to Mr. Hawthorne that he hoped nothing
would prevent his coming next Saturday.

"Oh no," replied he. "It is so much a custom, now, that I cannot do
without it." Was not that delightful for Miss Burley's ears? I was so
glad he said it. When we came out it was much more moderate, and we
got home very comfortably. Mr. H. said he thought of coming for me to
walk on Friday, but was afraid the walking was not good enough. I told
him how we were all disappointed at his vanishing that night, and he
laughed greatly. He said he should not be able to come this evening to
meet Very, because he had something to read, for he was engaged Monday
and Tuesday evening and could not read then. I am so sorry.

Yours affectionately, SOPHIE.

CHAPTER II

THE DAYS OF THE ENGAGEMENT

The engagement of Hawthorne to his future wife was now a fact, but it
was not spoken of except to one or two persons. Sophia had slipped
away for a visit to friends in Boston; but as Elizabeth was at present
in Newton, her letters to the latter continued as follows:--

WEST STREET, BOSTON, May 19, 1839.

DEAREST LIZZIE,--Two days ago Mr. Hawthorne came. He said that there
was nothing to which he could possibly compare his surprise, to find
that the bird had flown when he went to our house. He said he sat for
half an hour in the parlor before he knocked to announce his presence,
feeling sure I would know he was there, and descend,--till at last he
was 'tired of waiting. "Oh, it was terrible to find you gone," he
said. And it was such a loss, to be sure, to me not to see him. I am
glad you enjoyed his visit so much. He told me he should be at the
picture-gallery the next morning [Sophia went very early to avoid the
crowd], and there I found him at eight o'clock. He came home with me
through a piercing east wind, which he was sure would 'make me ill for
a week. In the evening he came to see if it had given me a cold, but
it had not. Caroline [Tappan] was busy with her children, and did not
come down for half an hour. When she did, she was very agreeable, and
so was Mr. Hawthorne. She admired him greatly. He said he should be at
the gallery this morning, if possible. I went before eight, and found
the room empty, except for Mr. William Russell. Mr. IT. arrived at
nine, for, as it was cloudy weather until then, he thought I would not
be there, and he came with the sunshine. At ten it began to grow
crowded, and we went out. He peremptorily declared I should ride.

Washington Allston had a great regard for Sophia's talent in art.
Elizabeth refers to it in a letter written while visiting the
Emersons:--

CONCORD, MASS., June 23, 1839.

Here I am on the Mount of Transfiguration, but very much in the
condition of the disciples when they were prostrate in the dust. I got
terribly tired in Boston. I went to the Athenaeum Gallery on Monday
morning, and in the evening Hawthorne came and said that he went to
the Allston gallery on Saturday afternoon. I went to Allston's on
Tuesday evening. He was in delightful spirits, but soft as a summer
evening. He seemed transported with delight on hearing of your
freedom from pain, and was eager to know what you were going to paint.
I said you had several things a-going, but did not like to tell of
your plans. He said, then you would be more likely to execute them,
and that it was a good thing to have several paintings at once,
because that would save time, as you could rest yourself by change. I
carried to him a volume of "Twice-Told Tales," to exchange for mine.
He said he thirsted for imaginative writing, and all the family had
read the book with great delight. I am really provoked that I did not
bring "The Token" with me, so as to have "The Mermaid" and "The
Haunted Mind" to read to people. I was hardly seated here, after tea
yesterday, before Mr. Emerson asked me what I had to say of Hawthorne,
and told me that Mr. Bancroft said that Hawthorne was the most
efficient and best of the Custom House officers. Pray tell that down
in Herbert Street. Mr. Emerson seemed all congenial about him, but has
not yet read his writings. He is in a good mood to do so, however, and
I intend to bring him to his knees in a day or two, so that he will
read the book, and all that Hawthorne has written. He is in a
delightful state of mind; not yet rested from last winter's undue
labors, but keenly industrious. He has uttered no heresies about Mr.
Allston, but only beautiful things,--dwelling, however, on his highest
merits least. He says Very forbids all correcting of his verses; but
nevertheless he [Emerson] selects and combines with sovereign will,
"and shall," he says, "make out quite a little gem of a volume."
"But," says he, "Hawthorne says he [Very] is always vain. I find I
cannot forget that dictum which you repeated; but it is continually
confirmed by himself, amidst all his sublimities." And then he
repeated some of Very's speeches, and told how he dealt with him. I am
very stupid. I have been awake for about two months! Mr. Emerson is
very luminous, and wiser than ever. Oh, he is beautiful, and good, and
great! Your sister, E.

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