Stories of Authors, British and American Part 17

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT From a photograph from life]

"Now it had happened only a short time before, that Dr. Bryant had been asked in Boston to urge his son to contribute to the newly established _North American Review_, and had written him a letter on the editor's behalf. Here was the opportunity of a proud father.

Without telling his son of his discovery or his purpose, he left the poems one day, together with some translations from _Horace_ by the same hand, at the office of _The North American_. The little package was addressed to his editorial friend, Mr. Willard Phillips, of whom tradition tells us that as soon as he read the poems he betook himself in hot haste to Cambridge to display his treasures to his a.s.sociates, Richard H. Dana and Edward T. Channing. 'Ah, Phillips,' said Dana, when he had heard the poems read, 'you have been imposed upon. No one on this side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such verse.' But Phillips, believing Dr. Bryant to be responsible for it, declared that he knew the writer, and that Dana could see him at once if he would go to the State House in Boston. Accordingly the young men posted into town, and Dana, unconvinced after looking long and carefully at Dr.

Bryant in his seat in the Senate, said, 'It is a good head, but I do not see _Thanatopsis_ in it.'"

Bryant is never thought of as a humorist, and his poetry is devoid of playfulness. But in this letter to his mother, in which he announces his marriage with Frances Fairchild, we have evidence that Bryant had a strong sense of humor.

DEAR MOTHER: I hasten to send you the melancholy intelligence of what has lately happened to me.

Early on the evening of the eleventh day of the present month I was at a neighboring house in this village. Several people of both s.e.xes were a.s.sembled in one of the apartments, and three or four others, with myself, were in another. At last came in a little elderly gentleman, pale, thin, with a solemn countenance, pleuritic voice, hooked nose, and hollow eyes. It was not long before we were summoned to attend in the apartment where he and the rest of the company were gathered.

We went in and took our seats; the little elderly gentleman with the hooked nose prayed, and we all stood up. When he had finished most of us sat down. The gentleman with the hooked nose then muttered certain cabalistic expressions, which I was too much frightened to remember, but I recollect that at the conclusion I was given to understand that I was married to a young lady by the name of Frances Fairchild, whom I perceived standing by my side, and I hope in the course of few months to have the pleasure of introducing to you as your daughter-in-law, which is a matter of some interest to the poor girl, who has neither father or mother in the world.

Next to _Thanatopsis_ the most widely-known and admired of Bryant's work is _To a Waterfowl_. There are two very interesting stories pertaining to this much quoted poem, one relating to the origin of the poem, the other recording its effect on two fastidious young Englishmen, Hartley Coleridge and Matthew Arnold.

Bryant was a young man with no a.s.surance as to what the future might have in store for him. He was journeying over the hills to Plainfield to see whether there might possibly be an opening for a young lawyer.

It was the 15th of December, 1816, and we can imagine that the gloom of the gathering twilight helped to deepen the youth's despondency.

But before the glimmering light of evening had given place entirely to the dark of night, the sky was transfigured with the bright rays of the setting sun. The New England sky was flooded for a moment with seas of chrysolite and opal. While young Bryant stopped to enjoy the brilliant scene, a solitary bird made its way across the sky. He watched it until it was lost in the distant horizon, and then went on with new courage as he thought the thoughts so beautifully expressed in the poem which he wrote after he reached the house where he was to stay for the night.

The incident in regard to Matthew Arnold is related by G.o.dwin in a letter to Bigelow:

"Once when the late Matthew Arnold, with his family, was visiting the ever-hospitable country home of Mr. Charles Butler, I happened to spend an evening there. In the course of it Mr. Arnold took up a volume of Mr. Bryant's poems from the table and turning to me said, 'This is the American poet, _facile princeps_'; and after a pause, he continued: 'When I first heard of him, Hartley Coleridge (we were both lads then) came into my father's house one afternoon considerably excited and exclaimed, 'Matt, do you want to hear the best short poem in the English language?' 'Faith, Hartley, I do,' was my reply. He then read a poem _To a Waterfowl_ in his best manner. And he was a good reader. As soon as he had done he asked, 'What do you think of that?' 'I am not sure but you are right, Hartley, is it your father's?' was my reply. 'No,' he rejoined, 'father has written nothing like that.' Some days after he might be heard muttering to himself,

The desert and illimitable air, Lone wandering but not lost."

LIII

CURTIS AND HAWTHORNE AT THE BROOK FARM

The social experiment known as the Brook Farm enterprise is one of the most interesting episodes in American literature. Mrs. Ora G. Sedgwick is one of the many writers who have written about the place and its inhabitants. She went there in June, 1841, and lived for some time at the Hive, the princ.i.p.al community edifice. She was then but a girl of sixteen, but the impressions on her youthful mind were strong enough to enable her recently to describe her life there. As to Curtis she has this to say:

"The arrival of George William Curtis, then a youth of eighteen, and his brother Burrill, two years his senior, was a noteworthy event in the annals of Brook Farm, at least in the estimation of the younger members. I shall never forget the flutter of excitement caused by Mr.

Ripley's announcing their expected coming in these words: 'Now we're going to have two young Greek G.o.ds among us.' ... On a bright morning in May, 1842, soon after Mr. Ripley's announcement, as I was coming down from the Eyrie to the Hive, I saw Charles A. Dana with two strange young men approaching my 'magic gate' from the direction of the Hive. Arriving at the gate before me, Mr. Dana threw it open with the flourish peculiar to his manner, and stood holding it back. His companions stood beside him, and all three waited for me to pa.s.s through. I saw at a glance that these must be 'the two young Greek G.o.ds.' They stood disclosed, not like Virgil's Venus, by their step, but by their beauty and bearing. Burrill Curtis was at that time the more beautiful. He had a Greek face, of great purity of expression, and curling hair. George too was very handsome--not so remarkably as in later life, but already with a man's virile expression.

"About George William Curtis there was a peculiar personal elegance and an air of great deference in listening to one whom he admired or looked up to. There was a certain remoteness (at times almost amounting to indifference) about him, but he was always courteous. His friends were all older than himself, and he appeared much older in manners and conversation than he was in years; more like a man of twenty-five than a youth of eighteen."

Mrs. Sedgwick also gives us a charming glimpse at the great American novelist, Hawthorne:

"I do not recollect Hawthorne's talking much at the table. Indeed, he was a very taciturn man. One day, tired of seeing him sitting immovable on the sofa in the hall, as I was learning some verses to recite at the evening cla.s.s for recitation formed by Charles A. Dana, I daringly took my book, pushed it into his hands, and said, 'Will you hear my poetry, Mr. Hawthorne?' He gave me a sidelong glance from his very shy eyes, took the book, and most kindly heard me. After that he was on the sofa every week to hear me recite.

"One evening he was alone in the hall, sitting on a chair at the farther end, when my room mate, Ellen Slade, and myself were going upstairs. She whispered to me, 'Let's throw the sofa pillows at Mr.

Hawthorne.' Reaching over the bannisters, we each took a cus.h.i.+on and threw it. Quick as a flash he put out his hand, seized a broom that was hanging near him, warded off our cus.h.i.+ons, and threw them back with sure aim. As fast as we could throw them at him he returned them with effect, hitting us every time, while we could hit only the broom.

He must have been very quick in his movements. Through it all not a word was spoken. We laughed and laughed, and his eyes shone and twinkled like stars. Wonderful eyes they were, and when anything witty was said I always looked quickly at Mr. Hawthorne; for his dark eyes lighted up as if flames were suddenly kindled behind them, and then the smile came down to his lips and over his grave face.

"My memories of Mr. Hawthorne are among the pleasantest of my Brook Farm recollections. His manners to children were charming and kind. I saw him one day walking, as was his custom, with his hands behind his back, head bent forward, the two little Bancrofts and other children following him with pleased faces, and stooping every now and then with broad smiles, after which they would rise and run on again behind him.

Puzzled at these maneuvers, I watched closely, and found that although he hardly moved a muscle except to walk, yet from time to time he dropped a penny, for which the children scrambled."

LIV

HAWTHORNE AND THE SCARLET LETTER

On June 8, 1849, Hawthorne walked out of the Salem Custom House--a man without a job. Taylor's Whig administration had come in, so our Democratic friend, Mr. Hawthorne, walked out. The job he left was not in our modern eyes a very lucrative one, it was worth $1,200 a year and Hawthorne had had it for three years. But he went out "mad," for he knew he had not meddled in politics and he thought that as an author--even if he was the "most obscure man of letters in America"--he was ent.i.tled to some consideration.

And then there were the wife and children! As he walked home to tell them the doleful news, he was much depressed by thoughts of them. He had paid his old debts; but he had saved nothing. He seemed to lack money, friends, and influence. He had written to a friend in Boston,--"I shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of itself.... Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to me. The intelligence has just reached me, and Sophia has not yet heard it. She will bear it like a woman,--that is to say better than a man." What a n.o.ble tribute to woman's fort.i.tude! Hawthorne's belief in the sustaining love of his wife reminds us of a tradition which says that he never read a letter from his wife without first was.h.i.+ng his hands.

To him the act was sacred, and like a priest of old before handling the symbols of love he performed the rites of purification.

His son tells us how the wife met the news with which he greeted her on his arrival at home, "that he had left his head behind." She exclaimed, "Oh, then you can write your book!" And when he with the prudence of a practical man wanted to know where the bread and rice were to come from while he was writing the book, she like all good wives--of olden times, at least--brought forth a "pile of gold" which she had saved from the household weekly expenses. When the pile of gold had been subjected to mathematical accuracy it dwindled to $150, but it was enough to tide over immediate wants.

It was in the early winter that James T. Fields, the publisher who plays such a prominent part in the early history of American literature, descended upon the quiet Salem household like the "G.o.dmother in a fairy story." Fields has told the story of his visit: "I found him alone in a chamber over the sitting-room of the dwelling; and as the day was cold, he was hovering near a stove. We fell into talk about his future prospects, and he was, as I feared I should find him, in a very desponding mood. 'Now,' said I, 'is the time for you to publish, for I know during these years in Salem you must have got something ready for the press.' 'Nonsense,' said he, 'what heart had I to write anything, when my publishers have been so many years trying to sell a small edition of the _Twice-told Tales_.' I still pressed upon him the good chances he would have now with something new. 'Who would risk publis.h.i.+ng a book for me, the most unpopular writer in America?' 'I would,' said I, 'and would start with an edition of 2,000 copies of anything you would write.' 'What madness!' he exclaimed.

'Your friends.h.i.+p for me gets the better of your judgment.' 'No, no!'

he continued, 'I have no money to indemnify a publisher's losses on my account.' I looked at my watch, and found that the train would be soon starting for Boston, and I knew that there was not much time to lose in trying to discover what had been his literary work during these last few years in Salem. I remember that I pressed him to reveal to me what he had been writing. He shook his head and gave me to understand that he had produced nothing. At that moment I caught sight of a bureau or set of drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately it occurred to me that hidden in that article of furniture was a story or stories by the author of _Twice-told Tales_; and I became so positive of it that I charged him vehemently with the fact. He seemed surprised, I thought, but shook his head again; and I rose to take my leave, begging him not to come into the cold entry, saying I would come back and see him again in a few days. I was hurrying down the stairs when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a moment. Then quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of MS. in his hands, he said: 'How in heaven's name did you know this thing was there? As you found me out, take what was written, and tell me, after you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything. It is either very good or very bad--I don't know which!' On my way to Boston I read the germ of _The Scarlet Letter_."

Hawthorne's original plan was to write a number of stories, of which this particular one was to be the longest. He was going to call his book of tales, _Old-Time Legends: together with Sketches, Experimental and Ideal_,--a t.i.tle which Woodberry calls "ghostly with the transcendental nonage of his genius." Fields urged that the tale be made longer and fuller and that it be published by itself. So the original plan was changed, as was also the t.i.tle. This was wise, for the c.u.mbersome original t.i.tle would have killed any book, but the present t.i.tle is nothing short of a stroke of genius.

About this time Hawthorne's friends, under the leading of Hillard, sent a kind letter and a considerable sum of money. Hawthorne replied,--"I read your letter in the vestibule of the Post Office; and it drew--what my troubles never have--the water to my eyes; so that I was glad of the sharply-cold west wind that blew into them as I came homeward, and gave them an excuse for being red and bleared." After saying it was sweet to be remembered, but bitter to need their aid, he concludes,--"The money, dear Hillard, will smooth my path for a long time to come. The only way in which a man can retain his self-respect, while availing himself of the generosity of his friends, is by making it an incitement to his utmost exertion, so that he may not need their help again. I shall look upon it so--nor will shun any drudgery that my hand shall find to do, if thereby I may win bread."

Four days after this letter was written, on February 3, 1850, he finished _The Scarlet Letter_. He writes to a friend saying he read the last scene to his wife, or rather tried to read it, "for my voice swelled and heaved, as if I were tossed up and down on an ocean as it subsides after a storm." Mrs. Hawthorne told a friend that her husband seemed depressed all during that winter. "There was a knot in his forehead all the time," said his wife. One day he told her he had a story that he wished to read to her. He read part of the work one evening. The next evening he continued. His wife followed the story with intense interest. Her excitement arose until when he was reading near the end of the book, where Arthur and Hester and the child meet in the forest, Mrs. Hawthorne sank from her low stool to the floor and said she could endure no more. Hawthorne stopped and said in wonder,--"Do you really feel it so much? Then there must be something in it."

Mrs. Hawthorne relates that on the day after the MS. was delivered to Fields, this publisher returned and when admitted to the house caught up her boy in his arms and said,--"You splendid little fellow, do you know what a father you have?" Then he ran upstairs to talk to Hawthorne, calling to her as he went that he had sat up all night to read the story. Soon her husband came down and walked about the room with a new light in his eyes.

Early in April the book was issued in an edition of 5,000 copies; this was soon exhausted, and Hawthorne was well started on that career of literary fame which led Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, a hundred years after the birth of Hawthorne, to call him "the foremost literary artist of America."

_The Scarlet Letter_, as Hawthorne himself tells us, is a story of "human frailty and sorrow." It is the story of one who has brooded long and faithfully upon the problem of evil. In it we read that man is the master of his fate. The great difference between ancient and modern literature is this: the old dramatists seem to believe that somewhere there is a power above and beyond the control of man, a blind, unreasoning force that seems to play with man as the football of chance. Whatever may be done by man will prove unavailing if Fate or Destiny has decreed otherwise. Out of such a philosophy of life comes the story of OEdipus. The modern conception is that expressed by Shakspere:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Still later Henley in his one great poem has expressed the thought with vigor,--

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever G.o.ds there be For my unconquerable soul!

With unfaltering aim Hawthorne shows that each character works out its own destiny. That man is helpless, the sport of G.o.ds, the football of Fate, is disproved by the patient transformation in the character of Hester.

Some one has well characterized _The Scarlet Letter_ as "a drama of the spirit." It is a story such as only one who had brooded deeply on the problem of evil could write. Hawthorne was a "solitary brooder upon life." Every one who knew him testified to this impression. When William Dean Howells, a young man from Ohio, knocked at the door of the Wayside Cottage, a letter of introduction in his hand, and a feeling of hero-wors.h.i.+p in his heart, he was ushered into the presence of the great romancer, who advanced "carrying his head with a heavy forward droop" and with pondering pace. His look was "somber and brooding--the look of a man who had dealt faithfully and therefore sorrowfully with that problem of evil which forever attracted and forever evaded Hawthorne."

Hawthorne impressed all who met him with his reserve and shyness. Many stories are told to ill.u.s.trate this quality. Hawthorne was once a visitor at a club where a number of literary men had gathered. The taciturnity of Hawthorne was more impressive than the loquacity of the witty Holmes. After Hawthorne had left Emerson said, "Hawthorne rides his dark horse well." George William Curtis relates this anecdote:

"...I recall the silent and preternatural vigor with which, on one occasion, he wielded his paddle to counteract the bad rowing of a friend who conscientiously considered it his duty to do something and not let Hawthorne work alone, but who with every stroke neutralized all Hawthorne's efforts. I suppose he would have struggled until he fell senseless rather than to ask his friend to desist. His principle seemed to be, if a man cannot understand without talking to him, it is quite useless to talk, because it is immaterial whether such a man understands or not."

Hawthorne's father was a man of the sea, a man of few words, and it is sometimes said that the romancer inherited his shy and reserved disposition from his father. But his mother was not behind the father in reserve. After her husband's death she shut herself up in Hindoo-like seclusion and lived the life of a hermit for more than forty years.

Hawthorne gives us an interesting account of his boyhood in an autobiographical note to his friend Stoddard. "When I was eight or nine years old, my mother, with her three children, took up her residence on the banks of the Sebago Lake, in Maine, where the family owned a large tract of land; and here I ran quite wild ... fis.h.i.+ng all day long, or shooting with an old fowling-piece; but reading a good deal too, on the rainy days, especially in _Shakspere_ and _The Pilgrim's Progress_."