Nathaniel Hawthorne | Page 6

HATHORNE.
P. S. The most beautiful poetry I think I ever saw begins:--
"She 'a gone to dwell in Heaven, my lassie, She's gone to dwell in
Heaven: Ye're ow're pure quo' a voice aboon For dwalling out of
Heaven."
It is not the words, but the thoughts. I hope you have read it, as I know
you would admire it.
A passage from a second letter, six months later, March 13, 1821, to his
mother, reveals the character of his relationship with her:--
I don't read so much now as I did, because I am more taken up in
studying. I am quite reconciled to going to college, since I am to spend
the vacations with you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a
great deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what profession I
shall have. The being a minister is of course out of the question. I
should not think that even you could desire me to choose so dull a way
of life. Oh, no, mother, I was not born to vegetate forever in one place,
and to live and die as calm and tranquil as--a puddle of water. As to
lawyers, there are so many of them already that one half of them (upon
a moderate calculation) are in a state of actual starvation. A physician,
then, seems to be "Hobson's choice;" but yet I should not like to live by
the diseases and infirmities of my fellow-creatures. And it would weigh
very heavily on my conscience, in the course of my practice, if I should
chance to send any unlucky patient "ad inferum," which being
interpreted is, "to the realms below." Oh that I was rich enough to live
without a profession! What do you think of my becoming an author,

and relying for support upon my pen? Indeed, I think the illegibility of
my handwriting is very author-like. How proud you would feel to see
my works praised by the reviewers, as equal to the proudest
productions of the scribbling sons of John Bull! But authors are always
poor devils, and therefore Satan may take them. I am in the same
predicament as the honest gentleman in "Espriella's Letters:"--
"I am an Englishman, and naked I stand here, A-musing in my mind
what garment I shall wear."
But as the mail closes soon, I must stop the career of my pen. I will
only inform you that I now write no poetry, or anything else. I hope
that either Elizabeth or you will write to me next week. I remain
Your affectionate son,
NATHL. HATHORNE.
Do not show this letter.
A third letter, June 19, 1821, also to his mother, on the eve of his
departure for college, is interesting for the solicitude it exhibits for her
happiness in the solitary life she had come to live.
"I hope, dear mother, that you will not be tempted by my entreaties to
return to Salem to live. You can never have so much comfort here as
you now enjoy. You are now undisputed mistress of your own house....
If you remove to Salem, I shall have no mother to return to during the
college vacations, and the expense will be too great for me to come to
Salem. If you remain at Raymond, think how delightfully the time will
pass, with all your children round you, shut out from the world, and
nothing to disturb us. It will be a second Garden of Eden.
'Lo, what an entertaining sight Are kindred who agree!'
"Elizabeth is as anxious for you to stay as myself. She says she is
contented to remain here for a short time, but greatly prefers Raymond
as a permanent place of residence. The reason for my saying so much

on this subject is that Mrs. Dike and Miss Manning are very earnest for
you to return to Salem, and I am afraid they will commission uncle
Robert to persuade you to it. But, mother, if you wish to live in peace, I
conjure you not to consent to it. Grandmother, I think, is rather in favor
of your staying."
A few weeks later, in the summer of 1821, being then seventeen years
old, Hawthorne left Salem for Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine,
by the mail stage from Boston eastward, and before reaching his
destination picked up by the way a Sophomore, Franklin Pierce,
afterwards President of the United States, and two classmates of his
own, Jonathan Cilley, who went to Congress and was the victim of the
well-remembered political duel with Graves, and Alfred Mason; he
made friends with these new companions, and Mason became his
room-mate for two years. Bowdoin was a small college, graduating at
that time about thirty students at its annual Commencement;