"We hail the above communication," writes the editor with exaggerated gratitude, "as the dawn of a happy day for us." In his next and final issue, though (September, 18, 1820), he satirically evinces his dissatisfaction at the want of a literary fraternity in his native land, through this "Request":—
"As it is part of the plan of the Spectator to criticise home-manufactured publications, we most earnestly desire some of our benevolent Readers to write a book for our special benefit. At present we feel as we were wont to do in the days of our Boyhood, when we possessed a Hatchet, without anything to exercise it upon. We engage to execute the Printing and Binding, and to procure the Paper for the Work, free of all expense to the Author. If this request should be denied us, we must infallibly turn our arms against our own writings, which, as they will not stand the test of criticism, we feel very unwilling to do. We do not wish that the proposed work should be too perfect; the Author will please to make a few blunders for us to exercise our Talents upon."
In these quotations one sees very clearly the increased maturity (though it be only by a year or two) of the lad, since the engrossing of his records at Raymond. We get in these his entire mood, catch gleams of a steady fire of ambition under the light, self-possessed air of assumed indifference, and see how easily already his humor began to play, with that clear and sweet ripeness that warms some of his more famous pages, like late sunshine striking through clusters of mellow and translucent grapes. Yet our grasp of his mental situation at this point would not be complete, without recognition of the graver emotions that sometimes throbbed beneath the surface. The doubt, the hesitancy that sometimes must have weighed upon his lonely, self-reliant spirit with weary movelessness, and all the pain of awakening ambition and departing boyhood, seem to find a symbol in this stanza from the fourth "Spectator":—
"Days of my youth, ye fleet away,
As fades the bright sun's cheering ray,
And scarce my infant hours are gone,
Ere manhood's troubled step comes on.
My infant hours return no more,
And all their happiness is o'er;
The stormy sea of life appears,
A scene of tumult and of tears."
Of the vexations of unfledged manhood the boy of sixteen did not speak without knowledge. Various sorts of pressure from uncongenial sources were now and then brought to bear upon him; there was present always the galling consciousness of depending on others for support, and of being less self-sustaining than approaching manhood made him wish to be. Allusion has been made to his doing writing for his uncle William. "I still continue," he says in a letter of October, 1820, to his mother at Raymond, "to write for Uncle William, and find my salary quite convenient for many purposes." This, to be sure, was a first approach to self-support, and flattering to his sense of proper dignity. But Hawthorne, in character as in genius, had a passion for maturity. An outpouring of his thoughts on this and other matters, directed to his sister, accompanies the letter just cited. Let us read it here as he wrote it more than a half-century ago:—
DEAR SISTER:—I am very angry with you for not sending me some of your poetry, which I consider a great piece of ingratitude. You will not see one line of mine until you return the confidence which I have placed in you. I have bought the 'Lord of the Isles,' and intend either to send or to bring it to you. I like it as well as any of Scott's other poems. I have read Hogg's "Tales," "Caleb Williams," "St. Lean," and "Mandeville." I admire Godwin's novels, and intend to read them all. I shall read the "Abbot," by the author of "Waverley," as soon as I can hire it. I have read all Scott's novels except that. I wish I had not, that I might have the pleasure of reading them again. Next to these I like "Caleb Williams." I have almost given up writing poetry. No man can be a Poet and a book-keeper at the same time. I do find this place most "dismal," and have taken to chewing tobacco with all my might, which, I think, raises my spirits. Say nothing of it in your letters, nor of the "Lord of the Isles." … I do not think I shall ever go to college. I can scarcely bear the thought of living upon Uncle Robert for four years longer. How happy I should be to be able to say, "I am Lord of myself!" You may cut off this part of my letter, and show the other to Uncle Richard. Do write me some letters in skimmed milk. [The shy spirit finds it thus hard, even thus early, to be under possible surveillance in his epistolary musings, and wants to write invisibly.] I must conclude, as I am in a "monstrous hurry!"
Your affectionate brother, NATH. HATHORNE.
P. S. The most beautiful poetry I think I ever saw begins:—
"She's gone to dwell in Heaven, my lassie,
She's gone to dwell in Heaven:
Ye're ow're pure quo' a voice aboon
For dwalling out of Heaven."
It is not the words, but the thoughts. I hope you have read it, as I know you would admire it.