“Whence came you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips—lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the God-head is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. Now, sympathising with the paper, my angel turns over another leaf. You did not care a penny for the book. But, now and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled the book—and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel enough to praise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul. Once you hugged the ugly Socrates because you saw the flame in the mouth, and heard the rushing of the demon,—the familiar,—and recognised the sound; for you have heard it in your own solitudes.
“My dear Hawthorne, the atmospheric scepticisms steal over me now, and make me doubtful of my sanity in writing you thus. But, believe me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little stunning. Farewell. Don’t write me a word about the book. That would be robbing me of my miserable delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you—it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing. So, now, let us add Moby-Dick to our blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish;—I have heard of Krakens.
“This is a long letter, but you are not at all bound to answer it. Possibly if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you will missend it—for the very fingers that now guide this pen are not precisely the same that just took it up and put it to the paper. Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it is a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.
“What a pity that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so, good-bye to you, with my blessing.
“Herman.
“P. S. I can’t stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians, I’ll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an extra riband for foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand—a million—a billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the bigger? A foolish question—they are one.
“H.
“P. P. S. Don’t think that by writing me a letter, you shall always be bored with an immediate reply to it—and so keep both of us delving over a writing-desk eternally. No such thing! I sha’n’t always answer your letters and you may do just as you please.”
Hawthorne had written Melville a “plain, bluff letter,” and in reply was to be told, with “infinite fraternity,” that “the god-head is broken up like the bread at the Supper” and that he was one of the pieces. Melville had dedicated Moby-Dick to Hawthorne, and Hawthorne made some sort of acknowledgment of the tribute. Melville, shrewdly suspected him, however, of caring “not a penny” for the book, but in archangelical charity praising less the “imperfect body” than the “pervading thought” which “now and then” he understood.
Moby-Dick was an allegory, of course—but withal an allegory of a solidity and substance that must have appeared to Hawthorne little short of grossly shocking. Hawthorne had been praised from his “airy and charming insubstantiality.” And of himself he wrote, with engaging candour: “Whether from lack of power, or an unconquerable reserve, the Author’s touches have often an effect of tameness.” Hawthorne’s “reserve” is, of course, all myth. Both Hawthorne and Melville, though each a recluse in life, overflow to the reader. And as Brownell says of Hawthorne: “He does not tell very much, but apparently he tells everything.” But to Hawthorne, Melville’s overflowing, like a spring freshet, or a tidal wave, must have been little less than appalling. Hawthorne’s was eminently a neat, fastidious style, as free from any eccentricity or excess as from any particular pungency or colour. Melville’s was extravagant, capricious, vigorous, and “unliterary”: the energy of his undisciplined genius is its most significant quality. After all, was it possible for Hawthorne to feel any deep sympathy for Melville’s passionate enthusiasms, for Melville’s catholic toleration, for Melville’s quenchless curiosity, for Melville’s varied laughter, for Melville’s spiritual daring? It is true that Hawthorne found Story’s “Cleopatra”—inspired, it might appear, by a fancy of the young Victoria in discreet negligée—“a terrible, dangerous woman, quite enough for the moment, but very like to spring upon you like a tigress.” He never visited George Eliot because there was another Mrs. Lewes. He was much troubled by the nude in art. He pronounced Margaret Fuller’s “in many respects,” a “defective and evil nature,” and “Providence was kind in putting her and her clownish husband and their child on board that fated ship.” It is true that he wrote a graceful if not very genial introductory essay—once mistaken for a marvel quite eclipsing “Elia”—to relieve the dark tone of The Scarlet Letter. And it is also true that he accepted the adoration of his wife with the utmost gravity and appreciation. Mrs. Hawthorne, in one of her letters to her mother, by a transition in praise of Hawthorne’s eyes—“They give, but receive not”—comments at some length, on her husband’s “mighty heart,” that “opens the bosom of men.” “So Mr. Melville,” she says, “generally silent and incommunicative, pours out the rich floods of his mind and experience to him, so sure of appreciation, so sure of a large and generous interpretation.”