American Men of Mind

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

HAWTHORNE

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a direct descendant of that William Hawthorne who came from England in 1630 with John Winthrop in the "Arabella," and was born at Salem, Massachusetts, the family's ancestral home, in 1804. He was a classmate of Longfellow at Bowdoin College, graduating without especial distinction, and spending the twelve succeeding years at Salem, living a secluded life in accordance with his abnormally shy and sensitive disposition. He was already resolved on the literary life, and spent those years in solitary writing. The result was a morbid novel, "Fanshawe," and a series of short stories, none of which attracted especial attention or gave indication of more than average talent. Not until 1837 did he win any measure of success, but that year saw the publication of the first series of "Twice-Told Tales," which, by their charm and delicacy, won him many readers.

Even at that, he found the profession of letters so unprofitable that he was glad to accept a position as weigher and gauger at the Boston custom-house, but he lost the place two years later by a change in administration; tried, for a while, living with the Transcendentalists at Brook Farm, and finally, taking a leap into the unknown, married and settled down in the old manse at Concord. It was a most fortunate step; his wife proved a real inspiration, and in the months that followed, he wrote the second series of "Twice-Told Tales," and "Mosses from an Old Manse," which mark the culmination of his genius as a teller of tales.

Four years later, the political pendulum swung back again, and Hawthorne was offered the surveyor-ship of the custom-house at Salem, accepted it, and moved his family back to his old home. He held the position for four years, completed his first great romance, and in 1850 gave to the world "The Scarlet Letter," perhaps the most significant and vital novel produced by any American. Hawthorne had, at last, "found himself." A year later came "The House of the Seven Gables," and then, in quick succession, "Grandfather's Chair," "The Wonder Book," "The Snow-Image," "The Blithedale Romance," and "Tanglewood Tales."

A queer product of his pen, at this time, was a life of Franklin Pierce, the Democratic candidate for the Presidency; and when Pierce was elected, he showed his gratitude by offering Hawthorne the consulship at Liverpool, a lucrative position which Hawthorne accepted and which he held for four years. Two years on the continent followed, and in 1860, he returned home, his health breaking and his mind unsettled, largely by the prospect of the Civil War into which the country was drifting. He found himself unable to write, failed rapidly, and the end came in the spring of 1864.

Of American novelists, Hawthorne alone shows that sustained power and high artistry belonging to the masters of fiction; and yet his novels have not that universal appeal which belongs to the few really great ones of the world. Hawthorne was supremely the interpreter of old New England, a subject of comparatively little interest to other peoples, since old New England was distinguished principally by a narrow spiritual conflict which other peoples find difficult to understand. The subject of "The Scarlet Letter" is, indeed, one of universal appeal, and is, in some form, the theme of nearly all great novels; but its setting narrowed this appeal, and Hawthorne's treatment of his theme, symbolical rather than simple and concrete, narrowed it still further. Yet with all that, it possesses that individual charm and subtlety which is apparent, in greater or less degree, in all of his imaginative work.

Contemporary with Hawthorne, and surviving him by a few years, was another novelist who had, in his day, a tremendous reputation, but who is now almost forgotten, William Gilmore Simms. We shall consider him—for he was also a maker of verse—in the next chapter, in connection with his fellow-townsmen, Henry Timrod and Paul Hamilton Hayne. So we pause here only to remark that the obscurity which enfolds him is more dense than he deserves, and that anyone who likes frontier fiction, somewhat in the manner of Cooper, will enjoy reading "The Yemassee," the best of Simms's books.

Hawthorne stands so far above the novelists who come after him that one rather hesitates to mention them at all. With one, or possibly two, exceptions, the work of none of them gives promise of permanency—so far as can be judged, at least, in looking at work so near that it has no perspective. Prophesying has always been a risky business, and will not be attempted here. But, whether immortal or not, there are some five or six novelists whose work is in some degree significant, and who deserve at least passing study.

Harriet Beecher Stowe is one of these. Born in 1811, the daughter of Lyman Beecher, and perhaps the most brilliant member of a brilliant family, beginning to write while still a child, and continuing to do so until the end of her long life, Mrs. Stowe's name is nevertheless connected in the public mind with a single book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a book which has probably been read by more people than any other ever written by an American author. Mrs. Stowe had lived for some years in Cincinnati and had visited in Kentucky, so that she had some surface knowledge of slavery; she was, of course, by birth and breeding, an abolitionist, and so when, early in 1851, an anti-slavery paper called the "National Era" was started at Washington, she agreed to furnish a "continued story."

The first chapter appeared in April, and the story ran through the year, attracting little attention. But its publication in book form marked the beginning of an immense popularity and an influence probably greater than that of any other novel ever written. It crystallized anti-slavery sentiment, it was read all over the world, it was dramatized and gave countless thousands their first visualization of the slave traffic. That her presentation of it was in many respects untrue has long since been admitted, but she was writing a tract and naturally made her case as strong as she could. From a literary standpoint, too, the book is full of faults; but it is alive with an emotional sincerity which sweeps everything before it. She wrote other books, but none of them is read to-day, except as a matter of duty or curiosity.