SOPHIA.
The letter to her mother has not been completely preserved, but runs:—
. . . The telegraph to-day brought us news that would have made the cottage [at Lenox] particularly acceptable, because we could have lived there upon our own responsibility—for the Old General has turned Mr. Hawthorne out of the Surveyorship. Do not be troubled; for we are not.
Mr. Hawthorne never liked the office at all, and is rather relieved than otherwise that it is taken out of his hands, and has an inward confidence that something much better and more suitable for him will turn up. As for me, you know I am composed of Hope and Faith, and while I have my husband and the children I feel as if Montezuma's diamonds and emeralds were spiritually in my possession. But we look forward with a kind of rapture to the possibility of now going into the country somewhere this summer, and setting Una down in a field, where she so pines to go. Meantime, the newly appointed Surveyor's commission has not arrived, and so Mr. Hawthorne is not yet out of office.
I have not seen my husband happier than since this turning out. He has felt in chains for a long time, and being a MAN, he is not alarmed at being set upon his own feet again,—or on his head, I might say,—for that contains the available gold, of a mine scarcely yet worked at all. As Margaret [Fuller] truly said once, "We have had but a drop or so from that ocean." We are both perfectly well, too, and brave with happiness, and "a credence in our hearts, and esperance so absolutely strong, as doth outvie the attest of eyes and ears." (So Shakespeare somewhere speaks for us, somewhat so—but not verbatim, for I forget one or two words.)
Above all, it has come in the way of an inevitable Providence to us (whatever knavery some people may have to answer for, who have been the agents in the removal), and I never receive inevitable Providences with resignation merely; but with joy, as certainly, undoubtedly, the best possible events that can happen for me—and immediately I begin to weave the apparent straw into gold, like the maiden in the fairy tale.
Good-by now, dear mother. Do not be anxious. I should not have told you this now—fearing you might be troubled—but I was afraid you might see the removal in the papers, or hear of it; and I thought it best to let you know just how it is with us, so that you might not have a shock. Your most affectionate child,
SOPHIA.
MY DEAR FATHER,—Here is a pretty business, discovered in an unexpected manner to Mr. Hawthorne by a friendly and honorable Whig. Perhaps you know that the President said before he took the chair that he should make no removals, except for dishonesty and unfaithfulness. So that all who voted for him after that declaration pledged themselves to the same course. You know also doubtless that there has never been such a succession of removals of honorable and honest men since we were a nation as since the accession of President Taylor,—not even under Jackson,—who, however, always removed people because they were Whigs, without any covert implication of character. This has been Democratic conduct—to remove for political reasons.
This conduct the Whigs always disapproved, and always said that no one ought to be removed but from disability or dishonesty. So that now when any one is removed, it is implied that the person is either a shiftless or a dishonest man. It is very plain that neither of these charges could be brought against Mr. Hawthorne. Therefore a most base and incredible falsehood has been told—written down and signed and sent to the Cabinet in secret. This infamous paper certifies among other things (of which we have not heard)—that Mr. Hawthorne has been in the habit of writing political articles in magazines and newspapers!