Hawthorne in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life,Drawn from Recollections,Interviews, and Memoirs by Family,Frie

“ Hawthorne” ( 1864)

[124] “Hawthorne” (1864) Oliver Wendell Holmes Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) was among the few people who saw Hawthorne on the day he left Boston for his final journey with Franklin Pierce. A Harvard graduate, practicing physician, Unitarian reformer, New England’s resident autocrat, professor, and poet “at the breakfast-table,” and a Boston Brahmin of the first order, Holmes enjoyed a cordial relationship with Hawthorne —far more cordial, in fact, than either might have imagined at first glance. Whether occasionally meeting at the Saturday Club or among a few of their mutual friends, such as Emerson, Longfellow, Fields, and James Russell Lowell, Holmes seemed more than willing to leave Hawthorne to his silences, and he never probed too deeply into the “calm despondency” or “backwardness and hesitancy” that gave hint of Hawthorne’s troubled inner life and family history (99). Although they disagreed over the Civil War, Holmes knew that Hawthorne was opposed to slavery, and while they may not have discussed it in person, their writings disclose that they came fairly close to being of one mind on the behavior and ideas of many of their Transcendental acquaintances, whose excesses and eccentricities had been encouraged by their beliefs. As a distant sequel to the sympathetic obituary reminiscence that follows, in his “At the Saturday Club” (Atlantic Monthly 53 [January 1884]: 68–71), Holmes remembered Hawthorne twenty years after his death. Among the versified ghosts of Longfellow, Agassiz, and Emerson gathered in the club’s old meeting room at the Parker House, Hawthorne suddenly appears: But who is he whose massive frame belies The maiden shyness of his downcast eyes? Who broods in silence till, by questions pressed, Some answer struggles from his laboring breast? An artist Nature meant to dwell apart, Locked in his studio with a human heart, Tracking its caverned passions to their lair, And all its throbbing mysteries laying bare. [124] [124] XZ Oliver Wendell Holmes [125] Count it no marvel that he broods alone Over the heart he studies—’t is his own; So in his page whatever shape it wear, The Essex wizard’s shadowed self is there, The great Romancer, hid beneath his veil Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. (70) It is with a sad pleasure that the readers of this magazine will see in its pages the first chapter of “The Dolliver Romance,” the latest record of Nathaniel Hawthorne meant for the public eye.The charm of his description and the sweet flow of his style will lead all who open upon it to read on to the closing paragraph. With its harmonious cadences the music of this quaint, mystic overture is suddenly hushed, and we seem to hear instead the tolling of a bell in the far distance.The procession of shadowy characters which was gathering in our imaginations about the ancient man and the little child who come so clearly before our sight seems to fade away, and in its place a slowpacing train winds through the village-road and up the wooded hillside until it stops at a little opening among the tall trees.There the bed is made in which he whose dreams had peopled our common life with shapes and thoughts of beauty and wonder is to take his rest. This is the end of the first chapter we have been reading, and of that other first chapter in the life of an Immortal, whose folded pages will be opened, we trust, in the light of a brighter day. It was my fortune to be among the last of the friends who looked upon Hawthorne’s living face. Late in the afternoon of the day before he left Boston on his last journey I called upon him at the hotel where he was staying. He had gone out but a moment before. Looking along the street, I saw a figure at some distance in advance which could only be his,—but how changed from his former port and figure! There was no mistaking the long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look of the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken in all his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble step, as if every movement were an effort. I joined him, and we walked together half an hour, during which time [125] hawthorne in his own time [126...