The Isles of Shoals have the finest summer climate on the Atlantic Ocean; an atmosphere at once quieting and strengthening, and always at its best when it is hottest on the main-land. Hawthorne found a pair of friends ready-made there, and prepared to receive him,—Levi Thaxter, afterwards widely known as the apostle of Browning in America, and his wife, Celia, a poetess in the bud, only sixteen, but very bright, original, and pleasant. They admired Hawthorne above all living men, and his sudden advent on their barren island seemed, as Thaxter afterward expressed it, like a supernatural presence. They became good companions in the next two weeks; climbing the rocks, rowing from one island to another,—bald pieces of rock, like the summits of mountains rising above the surface of the sea,—visiting the light-house, the monument to Captain John Smith, Betty Moody’s Cave, the graves of the Spanish sailors, the trap dikes of ancient lava, and much else. Every day Hawthorne wrote a minute account in his diary of his various proceedings there, including the observation of a live shark, which came into the cove by the hotel, a rare spectacle on that coast. General Pierce did not make his appearance, however, and on September 15, Hawthorne returned to his own home.
The election of Pierce to the presidency was as remarkable as his nomination. In 1848, General Taylor, the victor of a single battle, but a man of little education, was nominated for the presidency over the heads of the finest orators and ablest statesmen in America, and was enthusiastically elected. General Scott, Franklin Pierce’s opponent, defeated the Mexicans in four decisive battles, captured the capital of the country, and conducted one of the most skilful military expeditions of the past century. He was a man of rare administrative ability, and there is no substantial argument against his character. We have Grant’s testimony that it was pleasant to serve under him. Yet he was overwhelmingly defeated at the polls by a militia general without distinction, military or civil.
Hawthorne was naturally delighted at the result of the election; unfortunate as it afterwards proved for his country. He derived a threefold satisfaction from it, in the success of his friend, in the defeat of the Whigs, and in the happy prospects which it opened for himself. He could now return to the Salem Custom House in triumph,—as the wisest man might be tempted to do,—but he looked forward to something that would be more advantageous to his family. He had already written on October 18 to Horatio Bridge:
“Before undertaking it {the biography} I made an inward resolution, that I should accept no office from him; but, to say the truth, I doubt whether it would not be rather folly than heroism to adhere to this purpose, in case he should offer me anything particularly good. We shall see. A foreign mission I could not afford to take. The consulship at Liverpool, I might.” {Footnote: Bridge 130}
We may conclude from this, that Pierce had already intimated the Liverpool consulate, which at that time was supposed to be worth twenty-five thousand dollars a year in fees. It was an excellent plan for the President of the United States to have such a gift at his disposal, to reward some individual like Hawthorne, to whom the whole nation was indebted to an extent that could never be repaid; but it is a question whether it would not have been as well, in this particular case, for Hawthorne to have remained in his own country. If he could have written five or six romances more, this would have secured him a good competency, and would have assured a sufficient income for his family after his death. As it happened, the Liverpool consulate did not prove so profitable as was anticipated.
With such “great expectations” before him, Hawthorne could do no serious work that winter, so he occupied himself leisurely enough, with writing a sequel to his “Wonder Book,” which he called “Tanglewood Tales,” apparently after the thicket which surmounted the hill above his residence. This was finished early in March, and given to Ticknor & Company to publish when they saw fit. As it is a book intended for children, the consideration of it need not detain us.
Early in April, 1853, Hawthorne was appointed and confirmed to the Liverpool consulate, and on the 14th he went to Washington, as he tells us, for the first time, to thank the President in person. Otherwise he has divulged nothing concerning this journey, except that he was introduced to a larger number of persons than he could remember the names or faces of, and received ten times as many invitations as he could accept. If Charles V. honored himself with posterity by picking up the paint-brush which Titian had dropped on the floor, President Pierce might have done himself equal credit by making Hawthorne his guest at the White House; but if he did not go so far as this, it cannot be doubted that he treated Hawthorne handsomely. There were giants at Washington in those days. Webster and Clay were gone, but Seward was the Charles Fox and Sumner the Edmund Burke of America; Chase and Marcy were not much less in intellectual stature. Hawthorne must have met them, but we hear nothing of them from him.
Hawthorne delayed his departure for England, until the most favorable season arrived, for his fragile wife and infant children to cross the “rolling forties.” At length, on July 6, two days after his forty-ninth birthday, he sailed from Boston in the “Niagara,” and with placida onda prospero il vento, in about twelve days they all arrived safely at their destination.
The great stone docks of Liverpool, extending along its whole water-front, give one a strong impression of the power and solidity of England. Otherwise the city is almost devoid of interest, and travellers customarily pass through it, to take the next train for Oxford or London, without further observation, unless it be to give a look at the conventional statue of Prince Albert on an Arab horse. Liverpool is not so foggy a place as London, but it has a damper and less pleasant climate, without those varied attractions and substantial enjoyments which make London one of the most pleasant residences and most interesting of cities.
London fog is composed of soft-coal smoke, which, ascending from innumerable chimneys, is filtered in the upper skies, and then, mixed with vapor, is cast back upon the city by every change of wind. It is not unpleasant to the taste, and seems to be rather healthful than otherwise; but all the vapors which sail down the Gulf Stream, and which are not condensed on the Irish coast in the form of rain, collect about the mouth of the Mersey, so that the adjacent country is the best watered portion of all England, Cornwall possibly excepted. There is plenty of wealth in Liverpool, and all kinds of private entertainments, but in no other city of its size are there so few public entertainments, and the only interesting occupation that a stranger might find there, would be to watch the strange and curious characters in the lower classes, faces and figures that cannot be caricatured, emerging from cellar-ways or disappearing through side-doors. Go into an alehouse in the evening and, beside the pretty barmaid, who deserves consideration as much for her good behavior as for her looks, you will see plainly enough where Dickens obtained his dramatis personae for “Barnaby Rudge” and “The Old Curiosity Shop.” Either in Liverpool or in London you can see more grotesque comedy characters in a day, than you could meet with in a year in America. These poor creatures are pressed down, and squeezed out into what they are, under the superincumbent weight of an enormous leisure class.