Having tried the utmost isolation for ten years in Salem, and finding it unsatisfactory; and having made a venture in an opposite extreme at Brook Farm, which was scarcely more to his liking, Hawthorne had unconsciously passed through the best of preparation for that family life of comparative freedom, and of solitude alternating with a gentle and perfect companionship, on which he was about to enter. In July, 1842, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, received the following note, dated from 54 Pinckney Street, which was the residence of Hawthorne's friend, George S. Hillard:—
My Dear Sir,—Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to request of you the greatest favor which I can receive from any man. I am to be married to Miss Sophia Peabody; and it is our mutual desire that you should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be decidedly a rainy day, a carriage will call for you at half past eleven o'clock in the forenoon.
Very respectfully yours,
Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The wedding took place quietly, and Hawthorne carried his bride to the Manse at Concord, the old parsonage of that town. It belonged to the descendants of Dr. Ezra Ripley, who had been pastor there at the close of the last century; they were relatives of the George Ripley with whom Hawthorne had so recently been associated at Brook Farm. Hawthorne had succeeded in hiring the place for a time, and was happy in beginning his married life in a house so well in keeping with his tastes. The best account of this, his first sojourn in Concord, is to be found in the "American Note-Books," and in the Introduction to the "Mosses from an Old Manse." Here his first child was born, a daughter, to whom the name of Una[7] was given, from "The Faërie Queen"; and here he saw something of Emerson and of Margaret Fuller. Among his visitors, who were never many, was George Stillman Hillard, a Democrat, a lawyer, an editor, an orator in high favor with the Bostonians, and the author of several works both of travel and of an educational kind. Mr. George P. Bradford, with whom Hawthorne had talked and toiled at Brook Farm, was a cousin of the Ripleys, and also came hither as a friend. Another Brook Farmer appeared at the Manse, in the person of one Frank Farley, a man of some originality, who had written a little book on natural scenery and had been a frontiersman, but was subject to a mild, loquacious form of insanity. (Mention of him as "Mr. F——" is made in the "American Note-Books," under date of June 6 and June 10, 1844.) A writer in one of the magazines has recorded the impression which Hawthorne left on the minds of others who saw him during this period, but did not know him. Among the villagers "a report was current that this man Hawthorne was somewhat uncanny—in point of fact, not altogether sane. My friend, the son of a Concord farmer and at that time a raw college youth, had heard these bucolic whisperings as to the sanity of the recluse dweller at the ancient parsonage; but he knew nothing of the man, had read none of his productions, and of course took no interest in what was said or surmised about him. And one day, casting his eye toward the Manse as he was passing, he saw Hawthorne up the pathway, standing with folded arms in motionless attitude, and with eyes fixed upon the ground. 'Poor fellow,' was his unspoken comment: 'he does look as if he might be daft.' And when, on his return a full hour afterward, Hawthorne was still standing in the same place and attitude, the lad's very natural conclusion was, 'The man is daft, sure enough!'" Mr. Thomas Wentworth Higginson has presented quite a different view, in his "Short Studies of American Authors." He says:—
"The self-contained purpose of Hawthorne, the large resources, the waiting power,—these seem to the imagination to imply an ample basis of physical life; and certainly his stately and noble port is inseparable, in my memory, from these characteristics. Vivid as this impression is, I yet saw him but twice, and never spoke to him. I first met him on a summer morning, in Concord, as he was walking along the road near the Old Manse, with his wife by his side and a noble looking baby-boy in a little wagon which the father was pushing. I remember him as tall, firm, and strong in bearing.... When I passed, Hawthorne lifted upon me his great gray eyes with a look too keen to seem indifferent, too shy to be sympathetic—and that was all."[8]
Hawthorne's plan of life was settled; he was happily married, and the problems of his youth were solved: his character and his genius were formed. From this point on, therefore, his works and his "Note-Books" impart the essentials of his career. The main business of the biographer is, after this, to put together that which will help to make real the picture of the author grappling with those transient emergencies that constitute the tangible part of his history. A few extracts from letters written to Horatio Bridge, heretofore unpublished, come under this head.
Concord, March 25, 1843.—"I did not come to see you, because I was very short of cash—having been disappointed in money that I had expected from three or four sources. My difficulties of this kind sometimes make me sigh for the regular monthly payments of the Custom House. The system of slack payments in this country is most abominable.... I find no difference in anybody in this respect, for all do wrong alike. —— is just as certain to disappoint me in money matters as any little pitiful scoundrel among the booksellers. For my part, I am compelled to disappoint those who put faith in my engagements; and so it goes round."
The following piece of advice with regard to notes for the "Journal of an African Cruiser," by Mr. Bridge, which Hawthorne was to edit, is worth observing and has never before been given to the public:—
"I would advise you not to stick too accurately to the bare facts, either in your descriptions or your narratives; else your hand will be cramped, and the result will be a want of freedom that will deprive you of a higher truth than that which you strive to attain. Allow your fancy pretty free license, and omit no heightening touches merely because they did not chance to happen before your eyes. If they did not happen, they at least ought—which is all that concerns you. This is the secret of all entertaining travellers.... Begin to write always before the impression of novelty has worn off from your mind; else you will soon begin to think that the peculiarities which at first interested you are not worth recording; yet these slight peculiarities are the very things that make the most vivid impression upon the reader." In this same letter (May 3, 1843) he reverts to the financial difficulty, and speaks of a desire to obtain office again, but adds: "It is rather singular that I should need an office; for nobody's scribblings seem to be more acceptable to the public than mine; and yet I still find it a tough match to gain a respectable living by my pen."
By November of 1844 he had put things seriously in train for procuring another government position; Polk having been elected to the Presidency. There was a rumor that Tyler had actually fixed upon Hawthorne for the postmastership of Salem, but had been induced to withdraw the name; and this was the office upon which he fixed his hope; but a hostile party made itself felt in Salem, which raised all possible obstacles, and apparently Hawthorne's former chief, Mr. Bancroft,—it may have been for some reason connected with political management,—opposed his nomination. Early in October, 1845, Hawthorne made his farewell to the Old Manse, never to return to the shelter of its venerable and high-shouldered roof. Once more he went to Salem, and halted in Herbert Street. The postmastership had proved unattainable, but there was a prospect of his becoming Naval Officer or Surveyor. The latter position was given him at length; but not until the spring of 1846. On first arriving at Salem, he wrote to Bridge: "Here I am, again established—in the old chamber where I wasted so many years of my life. I find it rather favorable to my literary duties; for I have already begun to sketch out the story for Wiley & Putnam," an allusion to something intended to fill out a volume of the "Mosses," already negotiated for. After his installation as Surveyor he wrote, speaking of his "moderate prosperity," and said further: "I have written nothing for the press since my entrance into office, but intend to begin soon. My 'Mosses'