Memories of Hawthorne

by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

I send you Mr. Tappan's answer, so noble and beautiful. Mr. Hawthorne wrote him a beautiful note in reply, in which he said: "My dear sir, I trust you will not put more weight than it deserves upon a letter which I wrote rather to relieve Sophia of what might have disturbed her, than because I look upon the affair in a serious light. Your own letter is of a character to make one ashamed of any narrower or ignobler sentiment than those of universal beneficence and good will; and I freely confess that the world will not deserve to be called a world of bargain and sale so long as it shall include men like yourself. With much regard truly yours, N. H."

Two letters to Mrs. Peabody describe the Lenox scene:—

September 7, Sunday.

MY DEAREST MOTHER,—It is heaven's day, to-day, and the Lord's day, and now baby sleeps and Una is at Highwood and Julian at play, and I will begin at least to answer your sweet, patient, wise, and tender letters. Yesterday and to-day have been tropical in heat and richness and expansiveness, and I feel as if it is on such days only that we really live and know how good is GOD. I wish I knew that you enjoy such warmth and are not made languid by it. You will perhaps remember that I am always strongest at 98 degrees Fahrenheit. I delight to think that you also can look forth as I do now upon a broad valley and a fine amphitheatre of hills, and are about to watch the stately ceremony of sunset from your piazza. But you have not this lovely Lake, nor I suppose the delicate purple mist which folds these slumbering mountains in airy veils.

Mr. Hawthorne has been lying down in the sunshine, slightly fleckered with the shadows of a tree, and Una and Julian have been making him look like the mighty Tan by covering his chin and breast with long grass-blades, that looked like a verdant and venerable beard. I walked down to them a moment, leaving baby asleep, and while there Una exclaimed, "Oh, how I wish Georgie was here!" [George C. Mann, her cousin.] Thus the dear little boy harmonizes with the large and dreamy landscape, so that his presence would only help the beauty of this peerless day. I never heard Una wish for any one before, when enjoying Elemental life, and her father. Baby Rose has had a carriage for a week or more, and we took her one day down to the Lake. I wish you could have seen her in the wood, when I held her in my arms. She smiled and smiled and smiled, at the trees and the Lake and the wood-land sounds, till she transported mamma almost out of the proprieties. "To kiss her all to pieces," "to hug her to death," "to devour her," were processes to which she rendered herself fearfully liable. How wonderful is this love for which there is no mortal expression, but which we can only shadow forth by death and destruction. Julian has begun to speak to the baby now. He exclaims, "Oh, you darling!" and holds her on his lap, with such a look of bountiful and boundless tenderness and care as would charm you to see. I should as soon expect an angel from the sky to descend to a rough scuffle with a desperado as for Julian to disturb or annoy the little Rosebud. Sometimes we go down to the wood near, and baby sleeps in the carriage to the music of pine-tree murmurs and cricket-chirpings, and once in a while of birds, while Una and Julian build piles of tiny sticks for the fairies' winter fuel, and papa and mamma sit and muse in the breathless noon. But it is seldom warm enough. These last two days are warm enough, and my soul seems to "expand and grow like corn and melons," and I remember all beautiful behavior and noble deeds and grand thoughts and high endeavors'; and the whole vast Universe seems to blend in one single, unbroken recognition of the "Higher Law." Can there be wrong, hate, fraud, injustice, cruelty, war, in such a lovely, fair world as this before my eyes? Cannot cities be abolished, so that men may realize the beauty of love and peace by contemplating the broad and genial spaces where there is no strife? In the country they would see that sunbeams do not wrangle, that forests of trees agree together, that no flower disturbs another flower. I have written and the sun has set; and the moon has risen, and reveals the fine sculpture of nature. Una and Julian and Baby Rose are all in profound repose. Not a sound can be heard but my pen-strokes, and the ever welcome voice of the cricket, which seems expressly created to announce silence and peace. . . . It is very singular how much more we are in the centre of society in Lenox than we were in Salem, and all literary persons seem settling around us. But when they get established here I dare say we shall take flight. . . . Our present picture is Julian, lying on an ottoman in the boudoir, looking at drawings of Grecian gems; and just now he is filled with indignation at the man who sent Hercules the poisoned shirt, because he is contemplating that superb head of the "Suffering Hercules." He says he hopes that man is dead; and I assure him that he is dead, dead, dead, and can send no more poisoned shirts to anybody. It happened to be a woman, however, sad to tell, but I thought I would not reveal to him the terrible story of Dejanira and the wicked Nessus. Una is whittling, but at this instant runs off to help Mary Beekman to do something. Mr. Hawthorne has retired to his Study. Baby sleeps. Good-by, dear mother. Love to your household. Your loving child, SOPHIA.

DEAREST MOTHER,—To-day I took Julian for a walk. He waited to speak to his beloved Mr. Tappan, who was in his field. Julian picked up one sheaf after another, and carried them to him, calling, "Mr. Tappan! Mr. Tappan! Here are your oats!" Mr. Tappan turned at last, smiling, and thanked him for his help. The afternoon was so beautiful that every incident seemed like a perfect jewel on a golden crown. The load of yellow sheaves, the rainbow child, the Castilian with his curls and dark smiling eyes [Mr. Tappan]—every object was a picture which Murillo could not paint. I waited for Julian till he ran to me; and when we came into our yard, there was lady baby in her carriage, in a little azure robe, looking like a pale star on a blue sky. We came into the dining-room, and out of the window there was this grand and also exquisite picture—lake, meadow, mountains; forever new, forever changing; now so rich with this peculiar autumn sunshine, like which my husband says there is nothing in the world. The children enjoy, very much, this landscape, while they eat their supper. Una ate hers, and went upstairs to see grand-mamma; and Julian sat on my lap, very tired with play, eating a cold buckwheat cake, and gazing out. "Mamma! Mountain! Lake!" he kept ejaculating. Wise child! What could be added, in the way of adjective, that would enhance? "Thou eye among the blind!" thought his mother. At last he was so weary with sport that he slipped down upon the floor, and lay upon his back, till he finished eating his buckwheat cake. Then I put him to bed. Me clasped his blessed little arms so tightly around my neck, with such an energetic kiss, that we both nearly lost breath. One merry gleam from his eyes was succeeded by a cloud of sleepiness, and he was soon with the angels. For he says the angels take him, when he goes to sleep, and bring him back in the morning. Then I began this letter. Dear little harp-souled Una—whose love for her father grows more profound every day, as her comprehending intellect and heart perceive more and more fully what he is—was made quite unhappy because he did not go at the same time with her to the Lake. His absence darkened all the sunshine to her; and when I asked her why she could not enjoy the walk as Julian did, she replied, "Ah, he does not love papa as I do!" But when we arrived, there sat papa on a rock, and her face and figure were transfigured from a Niobe's to an Allegra's instantly. After I put Julian to bed, I went out to the barn to see about the chickens, and she wished to go. There sat papa on the hay, and like a needle to a magnet she was drawn, and begged to see papa a little longer, and stay with him. Now she has come, weary enough; and after steeping her spirit in this rose and gold of twilight, she has gone to bed. With such a father, and such a scene before her eyes, and with eyes to see, what may we not hope of her? I heard her and Julian talking together about their father's smile, the other day. They had been speaking of some other person's smile—Mr. Tappan's, I believe; and presently Una said, "But you know, Julian, that there is no smile like papa's!" "Oh no," replied Julian. "Not like papas!" Una has such an intuitive perception of spheres, that I do not wonder at her feeling about her father. She can as yet hardly tell why she is so powerfully attracted; but her mother can sympathize,—and knows very well.

Do not wait an hour to procure the two last numbers of "The Literary World," and read a new criticism on Mr. Hawthorne. At last some one speaks the right word of him. I have not before heard it. I have been wearied and annoyed hitherto with hearing him compared to Washington Irving and other American writers, and put, generally, second. At last some one dares to say what in my secret mind I have often thought—that he is only to be mentioned with the Swan of Avon; the great heart and the grand intellect combined. I know you will enjoy the words of this ardent Virginian as I do. But it is funny to see how he does not know how this heart and this intellect are enshrined.

It was decided to return to the neighborhood of Boston, and for a short time the family remained in West Newton:—

November 28.

MY DEAR ELIZABETH,—Here we are, in possession of Mary Mann's house and effects. I took baby on a sledge to see her grandmother Peabody on Thanksgiving Day, who was charmed with my smiling, fair baby. Una reads her grandmother "The Wonder-Book," very sweetly, when she is there. Mother says she could never tire of listening to her.