Alcott was a romance character of exceptional value, and Hawthorne recognized this, but did not succeed in inventing a plot that would suit the subject. The only one of Hawthorne’s preparatory sketches given to the public—in which we see his genius in the “midmost heat of composition”—supposes a household in which an old man keeps a crab-spider for a pet, a deadly poisonous creature; and in the same family there is a boy whose fortunes will be mysteriously affected in some manner by this dangerous insect. He did not proceed sufficiently to indicate for us how this would turn out, but he closes the sketch with the significant remark, “In person and figure Mr. Alcott”; from which it may be inferred that the crab-spider was intended to symbolize Alcott’s philosophy, and the catastrophe of the romance would naturally result from the unhealthy mental atmosphere in which the boy grew up,—a catastrophe which in Alcott’s family was averted by the practical sagacity of his daughters. The idea, however, became modified in its application.
It is with regret that we do not allot a larger space to this important sketch, for it is clearly an original study (like an artist’s drawing) of the unfinished romance which was published in 1883 under the title of “Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret.” Long lost sight of in the mass of Hawthorne’s manuscripts, this last of his posthumous works was reviewed by the critics with some incredulity, and Lathrop had the hardihood to publicly assert that no such romance by Hawthorne’s pen existed, thereby casting a gratuitous slander on his own brother-in-law. We may have our doubts in regard to the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays, for we have no absolute standard by which to judge of Shakespeare’s style, but the “style, the matter, and the drift” of “Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret” are so essentially Hawthornish that a person experienced in judging of such matters should not hesitate long in deciding that it belongs in the same category with “Fanshawe” and “The Dolliver Romance.” It is even possible to determine, from certain peculiarities in its style, the exact period at which it was written; which must have been shortly after Hawthorne’s return from Europe. In addition to this, if further evidence were required, its close relationship to the aforementioned sketch is a fact which no sophistry can reason away. {Footnote: This sketch was published in the Century, January, 1883.}
The bloody footstep suggested to Hawthorne by the antediluvian print in the stone step at Smithell’s Hall, in Lancashire, serves as the key-note of this romance; but the eccentric recluse, the big crab-spider, the orphaned grandchild, and even Bronson Alcott also appear in it. Alcott, however,—and his identity cannot be mistaken,—does not play the leading part in the piece, but comes in at the fifth chapter, only to disappear mysteriously in the eighth; the orphan boy is companioned by a girl of equal age, and these two bright spirits, mutually sustaining each other, cast a radiance over the old Doctor in his dusty, frowsy, cobwebby study, which brings out the external appearance and internal peculiarities of the man, in the most vivid manner. The dispositions and appearances of the two children are also contrasted, as Raphael might have drawn and contrasted them, if he had painted a picture on a similar subject.
The crab-spider is one of the most horrible of Nature’s creations. Hawthorne saw one in the British Museum and it seems to have haunted his imagination ever afterward. Why the creature should have been introduced into this romance is not very clear, for it plays no part in the development of the plot. The spider hangs suspended over the old Doctor’s head like the sword of Damocles, and one would expect it to descend at the proper moment in the narrative, and make an end of him with its nippers; but Doctor Grimshawe dies a comparatively natural death, and the desiccated body of the spider is found still clinging to the web above him. The man and the insect were too closely akin in the modes and purposes of their lives for either to outlast the other. There is nothing abnormal in the fact of Doctor Grimshawe’s possessing this dangerous pet; for all kinds of poisonous creatures have a well-known fascination for the medical profession. Doctor Holmes amused himself with a rattlesnake.
In spite of its unpleasant associations with spiders and blood-stains, “Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret” is one of the most interesting of Hawthorne’s works, containing much of his finest thought and most characteristic description. The portrait of the grouty old Doctor himself has a solidity of impast like Shakespeare’s Falstaff, and the grave-digger, who has survived from colonial times, carries us back involuntarily to the burial scene in “Hamlet.” Alcott, whose name is changed to Colcord, is not treated realistically, but rather idealized in such kindly sympathetic manner as might prevent all possibility of offence at the artistic theft of his personality. The plot, too, is a most ingenious one, turning and winding like a hare, and even diving out of sight for a time; but only to reappear again, as the school-master Colcord does, with a full and satisfactory explanation of its mysterious course. To judge from the appearance of the manuscript, this romance was written very rapidly, and there are places in the text which intimate this; but it vies in power with “The Scarlet Letter,” and why Hawthorne should have become dissatisfied with it,—why he should have failed to complete, revise, and publish it—can only be accounted for by the mental or nervous depression which was now fastening itself upon him.
It is noticeable, however, that where the plot is transferred to English ground Hawthorne’s writing has much the same tone and quality that we find in “Our Old Home.” External appearances seem to impede his insight there; but this is additional proof of the authenticity of the work. {Footnote: There are many other evidences; such as, “after-dinner speeches on the necessity of friendly relations between England and the United States,” and “the whistling of the railway train, two or three times a day."}
Shortly after the battle of Bull Run Hawthorne went with his boy to recuperate at Beverly Farms, leaving his wife and daughters at the Wayside, and the letters which passed between these two divisions of the family, during his absence, give some very pretty glimpses of their idyllic summer life. Mrs. Hawthorne “cultivated her garden,” and gave drawing lessons to the neighbors’ children, while her husband, forty miles away, was fishing and bathing. The Beverly shore has not a stimulating climate, but is very attractive in summer to those who do not mind a few sultry nights from land breezes. It was near enough to Salem for Hawthorne to revive the reminiscences of his youth (which become more and more precious after the age of fifty), without obtruding himself on the gaze of his former townsmen or of the young lady “who wished she could poison him.” {Footnote: W. D. Howells’ Memoirs.} It is to be hoped that he saw something of his sister Elizabeth again, the last remnant of his mother’s household, who for some inscrutable reason had never visited him at Concord.
We note here a curious circumstance; namely, that Hawthorne appears to have lost the art of writing short sketches. It will be recollected that twenty years earlier he did not feel equal to anything beyond this, and that it cost him a strenuous effort to escape from the habit. Now when he would have liked to return to that class of composition he could not do so. Fields would have welcomed anything from his pen (so severe a critic he was of himself), but his name does not appear in the Atlantic Monthly from July, 1861, to June, 1862, and it cannot be doubted that with the education of his son before him, the remuneration would have been welcome. It was not until nearly a year later that he conceived the idea of cutting his English Note-book into sections, and publishing them as magazine articles.
From this time forth, one discouragement followed another. In the autumn of 1861 the illness of his daughter, which he had expected and predicted, came to pass in a violent form. The old Roman virus, kept under in her blood, for a time, by continual changes of air and climate, at last gained the mastery, and brought her once more in danger of her life. She had to be removed to the house of her aunt, Mrs. Mann, who lived in the centre of the town, on account of her father’s nerves, so that the Concord doctor could attend her at night when necessary. It was the severest and most protracted case of fever that the physician had ever known to be followed by a recovery. Miss Una did recover, but the mental strain upon her father was even more exhausting than that which her previous illness had caused, and he was not in an equal condition to bear it.
“Septimius Felton” may have been written about this time (perhaps during his daughter’s convalescence), but his family knew nothing of it, until they discovered the manuscript after his death. When it was published ten years later, the poet Whittier spoke of it as a failure, and Hawthorne would seem to have considered it so; for he left it in an unfinished condition, and immediately began a different story on the same theme,—the elixir of life. It has no connection with the sketch already mentioned, in which Alcott’s personality becomes the mainspring, but with another abortive romance, called “The Ancestral Footstep,” which Hawthorne commenced while he was in England. It is invaluable for the light it throws on his method of working. Descriptive passages are mentioned in it “to be inserted” at a later time, meanwhile concentrating his energy on more important portions of the narrative. Half way through the story he changed his original plan, transforming the young woman who previously had been Septimius’s sweetheart to Septimius’s sister; and it may have been the difficulty of adjusting this change to the portion previously written, that discouraged Hawthorne from completing the romance. But the work suffers also from a tendency to exaggeration. The name of Hagburn is unpleasantly realistic, and Doctor Portsoaken, with his canopy of spider-webs hanging in noisome festoons above his head, is closely akin to the repulsive. The amateur critic who averred that he could not read Hawthorne without feeling a sensation as if cobwebs were drawn across his face, must have had “Septimius Felton” in mind. Yet there are refreshing passages in it, and the youthful English officer who kisses Septimius’s sweetheart before his eyes, and afterward fights an impromptu duel with him, dying as cheerfully as he had lived, is an original and charming character. The scene of the story has a peculiar interest, from the fact that it is laid at Hawthorne’s own door; the Feltons are supposed to have lived at the Wayside and the Hagburns in the Alcott house.