The historical project is, of course, that which resulted in the famous "Peter Parley" work. "Our pay as historians of the universe," says a letter written six days later, "will be about one hundred dollars, the whole of which you may have. It is a poor compensation, but better than the Token; because the writing is so much less difficult." He afterward carried out the design, or a large part of it, and the book has since sold by millions, for the benefit of others. There are various little particulars in this ingenious abridgment which recall Hawthorne, especially if one is familiar with his "Grandfather's Chair" and "True Stories" for children; though the book has probably undergone some changes in successive editions. This passage about George IV. is, however, remembered as being his: "Even when he was quite an old man, this king cared as much about dress as any young coxcomb. He had a great deal of taste in such matters, and it is a pity that he was a king, for he might otherwise have been an excellent tailor."
Up to this time (May 12) he had received only twenty dollars for four months' editorial labor. "And, as you may well suppose," he says, "I have undergone very grievous vexations. Unless they pay me the whole amount shortly, I shall return to Salem, and stay there till they do." It seems a currish fate that puts such men into the grasp of paltry and sordid cares like these! But there is something deeper to be felt than dissatisfaction at the author-publisher's feeble though annoying scheme of harnessing in this rare poet to be his unpaid yet paying hack. This deeper something is the pathos of such possibilities, and the spectacle of so renowned and strong-winged a genius consenting thus to take his share of worldly struggle; perfectly conscious that it is wholly beneath his plane, but accepting it as a proper part of the mortal lot; scornful, but industrious and enduring. You who have conceived of Hawthorne as a soft-marrowed dweller in the dusk, fostering his own shyness and fearing to take the rubs of common men, pray look well at all this. And you, also, who discourse about the conditions essential to the development of genius, about the milieu and the moment, and try to prove America a vacuum which the Muse abhors, will do well to consider the phenomenon. "It is a poor compensation, yet better than the Token"; so he wrote, knowing that his unmatched tales were being coined for even a less reward than mere daily bread. He took the conditions that were about him, and gave them a dignity by his own fine perseverance. It is this inspired industry, this calm facing of the worst and making it the best, which has formed the history of all art. You talk of the ages, and choose this or that era as the only fit one. You long for a cosey niche in the past; but genius crowds time and eternity into the present, and says to you, "Make your own century!"
Meanwhile, if he received no solid gain from his exertions, Hawthorne was winning a reputation. In January he had written home: "My worshipful self is a very famous man in London, the 'Athenaeum' having noticed all my articles in the last Token, with long extracts." This refers to the 'Athenaeum' for November 7, 1835, which mentioned "The Wedding Knell" and "The Minister's Black Veil" as being stories "each of which has singularity enough to recommend it to the reader," and gave three columns to a long extract from "The Maypole of Merry Mount"; the notice being no doubt the work of the critic Chorley, who afterward met Hawthorne in England. Thus encouraged, he thought of collecting his tales and publishing them in volume form, connected by the conception of a travelling story-teller, whose shiftings of fortune were to form the interludes and links between the separate stories. A portion of this, prefatory to "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," has been published in the "Mosses," with the heading of "Passages from a Relinquished Work." Goodrich was not disposed to lavish upon his young beneficiary the expense of bringing out a book for him, and the plan of reprinting the tales with this framework around them was given up. The next year Bridge came to Goodrich and insisted on having a simple collection issued, himself taking the pecuniary risk. In this way the "Twice-Told Tales" were first brought collectively before the world; and for the second time this faithful comrade of Hawthorne laid posterity under obligation to himself. It was not till long afterward, however, that Hawthorne knew of his friend's interposition in the affair.
Mr. Bridge had not then entered the navy, and was engaged in a great enterprise on the Androscoggin; nothing less than an attempt to dam up that river and apply the water-power to some mills. In July of 1837, Hawthorne went to visit him at Bridgton, and has described his impressions fully in the Note-Books. It was probably his longest absence from Salem since graduating at Bowdoin. "My circumstances cannot long continue as they are," he writes; "and Bridge, too, stands between high prosperity and utter ruin."
The change in his own circumstances which Hawthorne looked for did not come through his book. It sold some six or seven hundred copies in a short time, but was received quietly, [Footnote: Some of the sketches were reprinted in England; and "A Rill from the Town Pump" was circulated in pamphlet form by a London bookseller, without the author's name, as a temperance tract.] though Longfellow, then lately established in his Harvard professorship, and known as the author of "Outre-Mer," greeted it with enthusiasm in the "North American Review," which wielded a great influence in literary affairs.
On March 7, 1837, Hawthorne sent this note to his former classmate, to announce the new volume.
"The agent of the American Stationer's Company will send you a copy of a book entitled 'Twice-Told Tales,'—of which, as a classmate, I venture to request your acceptance. We were not, it is true, so well acquainted at college, that I can plead an absolute right to inflict my 'twice-told' tediousness upon you; but I have often regretted that we were not better known to each other, and have been glad of your success in literature and in more important matters." Returning to the tales, he adds: "I should like to flatter myself that they would repay you some part of the pleasure which I have derived from your own 'Outre-Mer.'
"Your obedient servant,
"NATH. HAWTHORNE."
Longfellow replied warmly, and in June Hawthorne wrote again, a long letter picturing his mood with a fulness that shows how keenly he had felt the honest sympathy of the poet.