A Study of Hawthorne

A Study Of Hawthorne, by
George Parsons Lathrop

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Title: A Study Of Hawthorne
Author: George Parsons Lathrop
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July 20, 2003]
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A STUDY OF HAWTHORNE
BY
GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP.
[Illustration]

CONTENTS.
I. POINT OF VIEW
II. SALEM
III. BOYHOOD.--COLLEGE DAYS.--FANSHAWE
IV. TWILIGHT OF THE TWICE-TOLD TALES
V. AT BOSTON AND BROOK FARM
VI. THE OLD MANSE

VII. THE SCARLET LETTER.
VIII. LENOX AND CONCORD: PRODUCTIVE PERIOD
IX. ENGLAND AND ITALY
X. THE LAST ROMANCE
XI. PERSONALITY
XII. POE, IRVING, HAWTHORNE
XIII. THE Loss AND THE GAIN
APPENDIX I.
APPENDIX II.
APPENDIX III.
INDEX

A STUDY OF HAWTHORNE.

I.
POINT OF VIEW.
This book was not designed as a biography, but is rather a portrait. And,
to speak more carefully still, it is not so much this, as my conception of
what a portrait of Hawthorne should be. For I cannot write with the
authority of one who had known him and had been formally intrusted
with the task of describing his life. On the other hand, I do not enter
upon this attempt as a mere literary performance, but have been
assisted in it by an inward impulse, a consciousness of sympathy with
the subject, which I may perhaps consider a sort of inspiration. My

guide has been intuition, confirmed and seldom confuted by research.
Perhaps it is even a favoring fact that I should never have seen Mr.
Hawthorne; a personality so elusive as his may possibly yield its traits
more readily to one who can never obtrude actual intercourse between
himself and the mind he is meditating upon. An honest report upon
personal contact always has a value denied to the reviews of after-
comers, yet the best criticism and biography is not always that of
contemporaries.
Our first studies will have a biographical scope, because a certain
grouping of facts is essential, to give point to the view which I am
endeavoring to present; and as Hawthorne's early life has hitherto been
but little explored, much of the material used in the earlier chapters is
now for the first time made public. The latter portion of the career may
be treated more sketchily, being already better known; though passages
will be found throughout the essay which have been developed with
some fulness, in order to maintain a correct atmosphere, compensating
any errors which mere opinions might lead to. Special emphasis, then,
must not be held to show neglect of points which my space and scope
prevent my commenting on. But the first outline requiring our attention
involves a distant retrospect.
The history of Hawthorne's genius is in some sense a summary of all
New England history.
From amid a simple, practical, energetic community, remarkable for its
activity in affairs of state and religion, but by no means given to
dreaming, this fair flower of American genius rose up unexpectedly
enough, breaking the cold New England sod for the emission of a light
and fragrance as pure and pensive as that of the arbutus in our woods,
in spring. The flower, however, sprang from seed that rooted in the old
colonial life of the sternly imaginative pilgrims and Puritans. Thrusting
itself up into view through the drift of a later day, it must not be
confounded with other growths nourished only by that more recent
deposit; though the surface-drift had of course its own weighty
influence in the nourishment of it. The artistic results of a period of
action must sometimes be looked for at a point of time long subsequent,

and this was especially sure to be so in the first phases of