Nobody knows where the Hawthornes lived in Newton. The oldest survivors of both families were only five years of age at that time. Mrs. Hawthorne’s father also resided in Newton that winter, and it is more than likely that they made their residence with him. Julian Hawthorne has a distinct recollection of the long freight-trains with their clouds of black smoke blowing across his father’s ground during the winter; so they could not have lived very far from the Worcester railroad. Horace Mann’s house is still standing, opposite a school-house on the road from the station, where a by-way meets it at an acute angle. The freight-trains and their anthracite smoke must have had a disturbing influence on Hawthorne’s sensibility.
The long-extended town of Newton, which is now a populous city, has much the best situation of any of the Boston suburbs—on a moderately high range of hills, skirted by the Charles River, both healthful and picturesque. It is not as hot in summer nor so chilly at other seasons as Concord, and enjoys the advantage of a closer proximity to the city. Its society is, and always has been, more liberal and progressive than Salem society in Hawthorne’s time. Its citizens, mainly professional and mercantile men, are active, intelligent, and sensible, without being too fastidious. It was a healthful change for Hawthorne, and we are not surprised to find that his literary work was affected by it. Mrs. L. Maria Child lived there at the time, and so did Celia Thaxter, although not yet known to fame. The sound, penetrating intelligence of Horace Mann may have also had its salutary effect.
“THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE”
Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book” and “The Snow Image” were expressed to Ticknor & Company before leaving Lenox, and “The Blithedale Romance” may also have been commenced before that change of base. We only know, from his diary, that it was finished on the last day of April, 1852, and that he received the first proof-sheets of it two weeks later—which shows what expedition publishers can make, when they feel inclined.
The name itself is somewhat satirical, for Hawthorne did not find the life at Brook Farm very blithesome, and in the story, with the exception of the sylvan masquerade, there is much more rue than heart’s-ease, as commonly happens in his stories. The tale ends tragically, and without the gleam of distant happiness which lights up the last scenes of “The Scarlet Letter.” It commences with a severe April snowstorm, an unfavorable omen; the same in which Hawthorne set out to join the West Roxbury community.
And yet the name is not without a serious meaning—a stern, sad moral significance. The earth is not naturally beautiful, for rank Nature ever runs to an excess. It is only beautiful when man controls and remodels it; but what man makes physically, he can unmake spiritually. We pass by a handsome estate, a grand arcade of elms over its avenue, spacious lawns, an elegant mansion, a luxurious flower-garden; but we are informed that happiness does not dwell there, that its owner is a misanthropic person, whose nature has been perverted by the selfishness of luxury; that there are no pleasant parties on the lawn, no happy wooing in that garden, no marriage festivals in those halls; and those possessions, which might have proved a blessing to generations yet unborn, are no better than a curse and a whited sepulchre. How many such instances could be named.
It may have occurred to Hawthorne, that, if George Ripley, instead of following after a will-o’-the-wisp notion, which could only lead him into a bog, had used the means at his disposal to cultivate Brook Farm in a rational manner, and had made it a hospitable rendezvous for intellectual and progressive people,—an oasis of culture amid the wide waste of commercialism,—the place might well have been called Blithedale, and Mr. Ripley would have inaugurated a movement as rare as it was beneficial. It was only at a city like Boston, whose suburbs were pleasant and easily accessible, that such a plan could be carried out; and it was only a man of Mr. Ripley’s scholarship and intellectual acumen who could have drawn together the requisite elements for it. It looks as if he missed an opportunity.
We should avoid, however, confounding George Ripley with Hawthorne’s Hollingsworth. It is quite possible that Hawthorne made use of certain traits in Ripley’s character for this purpose, and also that he may have had some slight collision with him, such as he represents in “The Blithedale Romance;” but Ripley was an essentially veracious nature, who, as already remarked, carried out his experiment to its logical conclusion. Hollingsworth, on the contrary, proposes to pervert the trust confided to him, in order to establish at Blithedale an institution for the reformation of criminals, by which proceeding he would, after a fashion, become a criminal himself. At the same time, he plays fast and loose with the affections of Zenobia and Priscilla, who are both in love with him, designing to marry the one who would make the most favorable match for his purpose. It is through the junction of these two streams of evil that the catastrophe is brought about.
Priscilla is evidently taken from the little seamstress whom Hawthorne mentions in his diary for October 9, 1841, and if she ever discovered this, she could hardly have been displeased, for she is one of his most lovable creations; not so much of an ideal as Phoebe Pyncheon, for she is older and has already seen hard fortune. Her quiet, almost submissive ways at first excite pity rather than admiration, but at length we discover that there is a spirit within her, which shines through its earthly envelope, like the twinkling of a star.
Zenobia has a larger nature and a more gifted mind than Priscilla, but also a more mixed character. Her name suggests a queenly presence and she is fully conscious of this. She does not acquire an equal influence over the other sex, for she is evidently in love with herself. She is described as handsome and attractive, but no sooner had “Blithedale” been published than people said, “Margaret Fuller” {Footnote: the name of Zenobia is not very remotely significant of Margaret Fuller. Palmyra was the centre of Greek philosophy in Zenobia’s time, and she also resembled Margaret in her tragical fate.}—although Margaret Fuller was rather plain looking, and never joined the Brook Farm association.