[88]. ministerial hôtel: house of the minister or cabinet officer.
[92]. facilis descensus Averni: a misquotation from Vergil's "Aeneid," Book VI, line 126. It should be "facilis descensus Averno," easy is the descent to Avernus. Catalani: Angelica Catalani (1779-1849). An Italian singer. monstrum horrendum: (Latin) a horrible monster, the epithet applied to the one-eyed giant, Polyphemus, in Vergil's "Aeneid," Book III, line 658. Un dessein, etc.: (French). A design so fatal, if it is not worthy of Atrée, it is worthy of Thyeste. Crébillon's "Atrée": Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1674-1762). A French tragic poet. His play, "Atrée et Thyeste," bears the date 1707.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Nathaniel Hawthorne, or Hathorne, as it was spelled before he changed it, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. His family, settled in New England since 1630, had played its part in the activities of the land in various capacities, including the persecution of so-called witches. His father, a sea-captain, died on a voyage when the lad was four years old. The excessive mourning then in vogue made the widow practically seclude herself in her room, throwing a consequent gloom over the household and affecting the boy's spirits. From this depressing atmosphere he found relief in an early developed taste for reading. In 1818 the family moved to a lonely part of Maine, where in roaming the lonely woods he gained a liking for solitude as well as for nature. He returned to Salem in 1819 to prepare for Bowdoin College, which he entered in 1821. After an undistinguished course he went back to his native town, whither his mother had also returned.
In Salem he remained for twelve years, a recluse in a family of recluses, devoting himself to reading and writing. In 1828 his first book, "Fanshawe," was published at his own expense. Its failure caused him to destroy all the copies he could find. Some of the stories which he wrote during this period were published in the annuals, then fashionable, and in The New England Magazine, but without making much impression.
This hermit-like existence was healthily broken in 1836 by his becoming the editor of an obscure magazine, though it was hack work and lasted but a short time. The anonymity to which he had stubbornly clung was also dispelled by one friend, and the publication of his "Twice-Told Tales" was arranged for by another, his classmate, Horatio Bridge. These two facts made him known and mark the beginning of the disappearance of his solitary depression, which was ended by his engagement to Sophia Peabody.
In January, 1839, he became a weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, a position which he lost in April, 1841, owing to a change in the political administration. Then for a few months he was a member of the Brook Farm Community, a group of reformers who tried to combine agriculture and education. In the Custom House and at Brook Farm he worked so hard as to have little energy for literature, publishing only some children's books. On July 9, 1842, occurred his marriage.
For the next three years Hawthorne resided in Concord at the Old Manse. In this retired town, where such eminent people as Emerson and Thoreau were to be met, he lived a very happy, quiet life, given to musing and observation. But he had lost a considerable sum of money in the Brook Farm experiment, the failure of The Democratic Review prevented payment for his contributions, and he began to feel the pinch of poverty. At this juncture his college mates, Bridge and Pierce, came to the rescue, and on March 23, 1846, he was appointed surveyor of the port of Salem, that spot in which the Hawthorne family was so firmly rooted, whither he had previously returned with his wife and daughter, Una, born in Concord in 1844.
Though happy for a short time at getting into the stir of actual life, the routine and sordidness soon palled and he began to fret in the harness. This mood kept him from composition till he forced from himself, in 1848, the last of his short stories, including "The Great Stone Face" and "Ethan Brand." Despite the effort, the stories rank well. In 1849 he was dismissed from office by a change of political administration, not because of inefficiency. He took this dismissal hard because some of his townspeople had been opposed to him. Again he was in money difficulties from which he was released by a donation from his loyal friends. The leisure thus made possible was devoted to the production of his greatest work, a novel, "The Scarlet Letter," which is a study in the darker side of Puritanism. Its publication in April, 1850, brought him fame. In the same year he moved to the Berkshire Hills.
The year and a half in the hills was thoroughly happy. He had the incentive of success, the tranquillity of mind due to sufficient means, physical comfort, and a loving household now enlarged by the birth of a second daughter, Rose. During this time he wrote and published (1851) his novel, "The House of the Seven Gables," the study of an inherited curse, made pleasing as a story by means of its realistic portrayal of ordinary life. He also put many of the stories of classical mythology into a form understandable by children, publishing the results in "A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys" (1852) and "Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys" (1853). In 1852 appeared "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales," containing hitherto uncollected contributions to various magazines.