Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Nathaniel Hawthorne, by George E. Woodberry

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Title: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Author: George E. Woodberry
Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7301] [This file was first posted on April 9, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
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NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
BY
GEORGE E. WOODBERRY

PREFACE
The narrative of Hawthorne's life has been partly told in the autobiographical passages of his writings which he himself addressed to his readers from time to time, and in the series of "Note Books," not meant for publication but included in his posthumous works; the remainder is chiefly contained in the family biography, "Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife" by his son Julian Hawthorne, "Memories of Hawthorne" by his daughter, Mrs. Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, and "A Study of Hawthorne," by his son-in-law, George Parsons Lathrop. Collateral material is also to be found abundantly in books of reminiscences by his contemporaries. These are the printed sources of the present biography.
The author takes pleasure in expressing his thanks to his publishers for the ample material they have placed at his disposal; and also to Messrs. Harper and Brothers for their permission to make extracts from Horatio Bridge's "Personal Recollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne," and to Samuel T. Pickard, Esq., author of "Hawthorne's First Diary," and to Dr. Moncure D. Conway, author of "Nathaniel Hawthorne" (Appleton's), for a like courtesy.
COLUMBIA COLLEGE, April 1, 1902.

CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. FIRST YEARS
II. THE CHAMBER UNDER THE EAVES
III. WEIGHER, GAUGER, AND FARMER
IV. THE OLD MANSE
V. THE SCARLET LETTER
VI. LITERARY LABORS
VII. LIFE ABROAD
VIII. LAST YEARS

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
* * * * *

I.
FIRST YEARS.
The Hathorne family stock, to name it with the ancient spelling, was English, and its old home is said to have been at Wigeastle, Wilton, in Wiltshire. The emigrant planter, William Hathorne, twenty-three years old, came over in the Arbella with Winthrop in 1630. He settled at Dorchster, but in 1637 removed to Salem, where he received grants of land; and there the line continued generation after generation with varying fortune, at one time coming into public service and local distinction, and at another lapsing again into the common lot, as was the case of the long settled families generally. The planter, William Hathorne, shared to the full in the vigor and enterprise of the first generation in New England. He was a leader in war and peace, trade and politics, with the versatility then required for leadership, being legislator, magistrate, Indian fighter, explorer, and promoter, as well as occasionally a preacher; and besides this practical force he had a temper to sway and incite, which made him reputed the most eloquent man in the public assembly. He possessed--and this may indicate another side to his character--a copy of Sir Philip Sidney's "Arcadia," certainly a rare book in the wilderness. He was best remembered, both in local annals and family tradition, as a patriot and a persecutor, for he refused to obey the king's summons to England, and he ordered Quaker women to be whipped through the country-side.
The next generation, born in the colony, were generally of a narrower type than their fathers, though in their turn they took up the work of the new and making world with force and conscience; and the second Hathorne, John, of fanatical memory, was as characteristically a latter-day Puritan as his father had been a pioneer. He served in the council and the field, but he left a name chiefly as a magistrate. His duty as judge fell in the witchcraft years, and under that adversity of fortune he showed those qualities of the Puritan temperament which are most darkly recalled; he examined and sentenced to death several of the accused persons, and bore himself so inhumanely in court that the husband of one of the sufferers cursed him,--it must have been dramatically done to have left so vivid a mark in men's minds,--him and his children's children. This was the curse that lingered in