In “The House of the Seven Gables,” Hawthorne returns to the present and studies the workings of heredity. Less gloomy than the earlier story, this one is still sombre and in part removed from the world of objective reality. Real enough, to be sure, are the commonplace features of daily life at the Seven Gables, the pinched features and heroic heart of Hepzibah, and the homely philosophising of Uncle Venner; but Jaffrey and Clifford Pyncheon are at best shadowy and unreal. Holgrave, too, belongs to a type which, common enough in the days of Brook Farm Fourierism, has now well-nigh passed away. Phœbe Pyncheon is one of the most delicate and exquisite of all Hawthorne’s portraits; as Dr. Holmes wrote to the author, “the flavour of the sweet-fern and the bayberry are not truer to the soil than the native sweetness of our little Phœbe.” It is interesting to note that when the book appeared Hawthorne wrote to his friend Horatio Bridge:
“The House of the Seven Gables,” in my opinion, is better than “The Scarlet Letter”; but I should not wonder if I had refined upon the principal character a little too much for popular appreciation, nor if the romance of the book should be somewhat at odds with the humble and familiar scenery in which I invest it. But I feel that portions of it are as good as anything I can hope to write.
More able critics than one have pronounced “The Blithedale Romance” the most perfect of Hawthorne’s stories. Although he wrote to George William Curtis that the story had essentially nothing to do with Brook Farm, it is certain that the community formed more than a background for the story, and furnished some of its incidents and the traits of some of the characters. Thus the romance may be said to approach more closely to real life than any other of the greater works. The characters are drawn with great distinctness of outline: Hollingsworth the reformer, earnest, stern, engrossed in his reform undertaking to the point of selfishness; Miles Coverdale, the dreamer, who bears the ear-marks of his artist creator, always a spectator of, rather than a participant in, the life at Blithedale; Priscilla, the timid maid who seemed to have dropped down from the clouds and sought protection in this retreat; Zenobia with her splendid beauty, her refinement, her ardour, her despair when disillusionment comes—all these are highly individualised. It has been complained, and with justice, that neither Zenobia nor Priscilla is a typical New England girl; but something may perhaps be conceded to the romantic atmosphere of the tale; the author did not promise a transcript from prosaic real life. The plot halts now and then, and does not move steadily and convincingly to its climax. The inserted story of “The Veiled Lady” does not materially further the plot. Yet as a whole the romance is a searching and remarkable presentment of Hawthorne’s views of reform. He was never a reformer; he distrusted the excess of zeal, the narrowness of vision too often characteristic of the more ardent reformers of his day; and with great skill he has here set forth the illusory hopes, the discouragement, the sense of impotence and defeat that must attend the outcome of radical schemes for human improvement which are not grounded on sound and wide knowledge of man’s nature.
Probably the most popular, as it was the most ambitious, of all the romances, has been “The Marble Faun.” With consummate skill the author maintains the mystery necessary for the romantic atmosphere and at the same time draws in clear outlines the four characters in the little drama—this miniature world-tragedy, this “story of the fall of man repeated,” as Miriam says. As Mr. Lathrop has pointed out, moreover, with the main theme, itself of abiding interest, is joined a study of the psychology of Beatrice Cenci’s story; but, without stopping where Shelley stopped, Hawthorne went on to show how Miriam and Donatello might “work out their purification.” Thus while the romance may, as one critic avers, “begin in mystery and end in mist,” the end is nevertheless full of hope.
Hawthorne has never been, and doubtless never will be, a popular novelist. His stories are for the few, the thoughtful readers who are willing to read old favourites over and over again. But there will always be such persons, haply in increasing numbers; and for them Hawthorne will continue to be a unique personality, the “high untrammelled thinker,” the interpreter of spiritual mysteries.
Charles Sealsfield.—Although not mentioned by most historians of American literature, the Austrian novelist Carl Postl (“Charles Sealsfield,” 1793–1864) deserves to be recalled here from the fact that his works deal chiefly with American life and in their English form enjoyed considerable popularity in America. Born in Poppitz, Moravia, he became at first a priest of the order of the Kreuzherren von Pöltenberg; but, having broken with Catholic dogma, he fled from the cloister and arrived in New York in 1823 as Charles Sealsfield. He remained in America until 1832, travelling extensively and making close studies of life and character. His first novel, “Tokeah, or The White Rose; an Indian Tale” (Philadelphia, 1828), was republished at Zurich in 1833 as “Der Legitime und die Republikaner”; while never a popular story in America, it seems, as Professor Faust has discovered,[9] to have furnished Mrs. Jackson with some hints for her “Ramona” and Charles F. Hoffman with a motif for his “Vigil of Faith.” After his return to Europe Sealsfield published, among other things, “Transatlantische Reiseskizzen” (1833), translated as “Life in the New World, or Sketches of American Society” (1844), which originally appeared in The New York Mirror in 1827–8 and which furnished Simms with some scenes for “Guy Rivers”; “Nathan der Squatter Regulator” (1837), translated as “Life in Texas” (1845); “Der Virey und die Aristokraten, oder Mexiko im Jahre 1812” (1834); “Morton, oder Die grosse Tour” (1835); “Das Cajütenbuch, oder Nationale Charakteristiken” (1841), translated as “The Cabin Book” (1844), which furnished Mayne Reid with the last ten chapters of his “Wild Life” without change; and “Süden und Norden” (1842–3), translated as “North and South, or Scenes and Adventures in Mexico” (1844). In his vigorous delineations of the crude American life of the twenties and thirties, Sealsfield exhibited great enthusiasm, a wide range of observation which overlooked nothing and which measured impartially, and a comprehension of the true inwardness of our young institutions such as no native American of his day possessed. If his exaggerating brush failed of the touch of an artist, he created some characters, such as Morton and Nathan Strong, who deserve immortality as typical Americans, and described with inimitable fidelity “the dauntless squatter and sturdy pioneer, the Southern planter and patriarchal slave-holder, the grasping millionaire and his emissaries, the New York dandy and the society belle, the taciturn Yankee sea-captain and the hot-blooded Kentuckian, the utilitarian alcalde and the reformed desperado.”
William Leggett (1802–39), after spending some time at Georgetown College, accompanied his family in 1819 to make a settlement on the prairies of Illinois. He spent the years 1822–26 as a midshipman in the navy. His experiences of pioneer and sea life were graphically portrayed in “The Rifle,” published in 1828 in The Atlantic Souvenir, and in “Tales by a Country Schoolmaster” (1835). For the remainder of his life he was engaged in journalism, from 1829 till 1836 as one of the editors of The Evening Post.
Southern Novelists.—Thus far we have considered no native Southern writer of fiction. The novel ripened late in the South; indeed, only one writer of fiction of the first rank was produced by the South before the Civil War. Yet in the varied and picturesque life of the aristocratic planters, the frontiersmen, the “poor whites,” and the negroes there were rich materials for the artist and the story-teller, who in due time began to avail themselves of their opportunity. “The Valley of the Shenandoah” (1824) by George Tucker (1775–1861), though reprinted in England and translated into German, possesses slight worth, and little more can be said of his “Voyage to the Moon” (1827), a satirical romance; yet these works gave promise of better things from the South. William A. Carruthers (1806–72), a voluminous contributor to magazines, wrote two novels, “The Cavaliers of Virginia” (1832) and “The Knights of the Horseshoe” (1845), which, in spite of serious defects, deal with colonial days in Virginia in a genial, vigorous, and unhackneyed manner.
“Davy” Crockett (1786–1836), crude, unlettered hunter, backwoodsman, and Congressman, published, in his “Autobiography” (1834), a collection of thrilling narratives of adventure remarkable for directness, vividness, and virility. The “Georgia Scenes, Characters, and Incidents” (1835) of Augustus B. Longstreet (1790–1870), who was for many years a college president, revealed the curious traits of the poor whites or “Crackers” of Georgia. “The Partisan Leader” (1836) by Nathaniel Beverley Tucker (1784–1851) dealt with the encroachments of the Federal Government upon the rights of the States, and prophesied with startling and accurate logic the terrible disruption which occurred a quarter of a century later. If artistically imperfect, it is a stirring tale, intense in its action, and of heroic strain. But it can scarcely be said that any of these works now survive. They are mainly important as illustrating the evolution of Southern fiction. With Kennedy and Simms, however, the South takes a high place in the fiction of America.