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Iwf U o 11 pH v T1 >/ H M iff 11/ II ®m fl 111 M 11/ II n K XX uHL fj XX UXVI\- □ILw Ir v 'WWWWi lWw\.Mw i’®F nl» W wwVwwai* T. L. MITCHELL. Publisher. Vol, 6—No, 10. For Woman’s Work. WrN the preceding paper allusion has been -A- made to the little community at Brook X Farm. It is interesting to note what i Hawthorne himself says of his life there. Under date of April 14th, 1841: “I have not yet taken my first lesson in agriculture, except that I went to see our cows foddered yesterday afternoon. We have eight of our own, and the number is now increased by a transcendental heifer belonging to Miss Margaret Fuller. She is very fractious, I believe, and apt to kick over the milk-pail.” By degrees our young Brook Farmer learned to milk, chop wood, turn the grind-stone, and cut fodder for the cattle. Though in his transforming mind cabbage and squashes took on poetic shapes, and it was “one of the most bewitch ing sights in the world to ob serve a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping forth suffi ciently to trace a line of deli cate green,” his life at Brook Farm soon grew so distasteful to him that he resolved to break away from it. Under date of the 12th. of August he wrote: “Even my cus tom-house experience was not such a thralldom and weari ness; my mind and heart were free. Oh, labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becom ing proportionately brutified I “Is it a praiseworthy matter that I have spent five golden months in providing food for cows and horses? It is not so.” And again, on Septem ber 3rd., he writes: “It al ready looks like a dream be hind me. The real me was never an associate of the com munity; there has been a spec tral appearance there, sound ing the horn at day-break, and milking the cows, and hoeing potatoes and raking hay, toiling in the sun, and doing me the honor to assume my name; but this spectre was not myself.” Accordingly, Hawthorne returned to Boston. Two purposes drew him thither; one was the publication of the second vol ume of Twice-Told-Tales, the other, and by far the more important, was his mar riage with Miss Sophia Peabody, which was solemnized in July, 1842. Hawthorne’s personal appearance was anything but suggestive of that natural timidity which, even in his best days, it was hard for him to overcome, so that “talking with him was almost like love-making, and his shy, beautiful soul had to be wooed from its bashful pudency, like an un schooled maiden.” He was tall, broad shouldered, deep chested; a massive head, luxuriant black hair, and large, dark eyes. Wherever he went he attracted at tention by his imposing presence. He looked like an athlete, or the stroke-oar in a university boat. But, on the other hand, history does not record a man who had more of the femi nine element than he. He was endowed with a fineness of perception, a keenness of insight, a delicate shyness and reserve, a susceptibility to beauty, entirely feminine. It was this rare combination of masculine and feminine qualities that enabled him to understand woman so completely, and to paint with so exquisiteand ethereal a pen cil, the spotless Hilda among the doves in the tower, and with equal power the noble hard-bestead Miriam. His shyness was so great, that the thought of making a social call would keep him awake in his bed. “At breakfast he could not lay a {>iece of butter on a lady’s plate without a ittle trembling of the hand.” Among his friends he was very diffident, being less easy in the presence of two than of only one. In view of this quality of his, it has always been a matter of much interest to us to know how this great timid, shrink'- A WOMAN’S WORK—AH, HOW MANY LIFE HISTORIES MAY BE INFLUENCED BY IT; Nathaniel Hawthorne: Second Paper. gli' he Uiißlffll lt ATHENS, GEORGIA, OCTOBER, 1893. ing man found courage to propose to his lady-love. That he did so, and was ac cepted, was the most fortunate occurrence of his life, for it brought into his hitherto one-sided and solitary life, a companion at once charming and helpful. She was his first audience. It was her kindly sympa thy that aroused his dormant powers, and encouraged him to produce some of his best works. The young couple went to Concord to live in the parsonage, which Hawthorne has rendered famous as Old Manse. This house is sought by all tourists, not only by reason of its picturesque and historic surroundings, but also for the antiquity of Ker Woman’s Work. I’d ask but one home—O would I could sing Os events most sweet its mem’ry would bring! Ot joys safe embalmed within my heart’s home. From childhood’s brief path to wifehood’s wide roam. The fairest life-scene, the truest life-tie About the old home unceasingly lie, No grief half so mild, no pleasure so great, As viewing old home in permanent state. Could now I behold the pink myrtle’s sway, And breathe its mild essence while daily at play; Or cull the dianthus, painted so bright. Or the scarlet verbena’s umbels of light! Ah! How I should love those soft lilac tints, The beauty of which Dame Nature ne’er stints; Note swift humming birds and droll bumble bees, Sip sweet pollen cups from Flora-lade trees! the house itself. Never before had it been occupied by a layman. “A priest had built it, a priest had succeeded to it, other priestly men from time to time had dwelt in it, and children born in its chambers had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to reflect how many sermons- must have been written there. * * * * I took shame to my self for having been so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse, well worth those hoards of long-hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses.” Hawthorne took great delight in the lit tle nook he called his study. Here Emer son had written “Nature” some years be fore. The two little windows on the western side peeped through willow branches into the orchard, with here and I’D ASK BUT ONE HOME. there flashes of the river beyond; the window facing northward commanded a broader view of the sluggish Concord and the field “Where onee the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world.” When Hawthorne first saw the room, its walls were black and grimy with the smoke of unnumbered years, and made still more so by the grim prints of stern old Puritan Ministers hung here and there. He brightened it up with a cheerful coat of paint and golden-tinted paper, replacing the grim prints by the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael’s Madonnas, and two pretty little views of the Lake of Como. The only other decora tions were a pair of vases containing flowers and ferns. Here Hawthorne dreamed and wrote, and here his friends came to rest themselves in the seclusion and quiet of the Old Manse. “In one re spect,” he writes, “our precincts were like The pink apple blooms, the orchard gra c s green. White drooping racemes from plum trees there seen, Commingled with peach, quince, cherry and pear— Enchantment’s retreat—naught seemethso rare. The same old wood walls with pencilings queer, The deep fingermarks, tho’ soiled, would bedear; Each cut and each gash by mischievous hands, Would cast beamy rays o’er Time’s clouded strands. Around my hearthstone the same cheerful fire, Os hick’ry and oak my muse would inspire: The green cedar boughs I’d twine just the same, And powder with white for Kris Kringle’s game. The old cushioned lounge, the black mantel shelf, The high, gilded clock, the framed flower elf. The big “lumber-room,” the tree-swing Ah! How I should love them now, were they but here! Zula B. Cook. the Enchanted Ground through which the pilgrim traveled on his way to the Celes tial City. The guests, each and all, felt a slumbrous influence upon them; they fell asleep in chairs, or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen stretched among the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily through the boughs.’’ His orchard and kitchen garden em ployed him a few hours each day, and when wearied with literary labors, it is pleasant to think of him as wandering through the orchard, like the old minister before him, picking up here and there the wealth of golden fruit which nature in her infinite generosity provides, or in his gar den, standing in deep contemplation over some of his vegetable progeny. When the sulky rain drenched the out side world for days at a time, he would betake himself to the mouldy o ] d garret to burrow among its dreary trash “in search of any living truth which should burn like KATE GARLAND, Ed<trkss. 50 Cts. per Year, a coal of fire, or glow like an in-extinguish able gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long hidden it.” When some friend—perhaps Emerson to-day, to-morrow Channing, or Lowell, or Thoreau—visited him, they were off for a walk, or would float lazily down the mildly flowing Concord at the rear of the Manse. This was the happiest period of Hawthorne’s life, and how he revelled in home and home-life is beautifully told in the first of the “Mosses.” The Haw thornes, now three in number—for a daughter, Una by name, had been born to them—passed three happy years in the Old Manse, when hints came to their ears that the owner was pining for his native air. Carpenters appeared, strewing the green grass with pine-shavings, clearing away all the old mosses, and there were horrible whispers about brushing up the external walls with a coat of paint, “In fine,” Hawthorne says, “we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea in our pleas ant little breakfast-room—del icately fragrant tea, an unpur chasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fal len like dew upon us—and passed forth between the tall stone gate posts, as uncer tain as tho wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while I am writing, from the O!d Manse into a custom hou-e. As a story-teller, A. have often contrived strange vicissitudes forf my imaginary personages, but none like this.” And so they went reluctantly forth, this “New Adam and Eve.” Though Hawthorne neglect ed his Note Books, from 1846 to 1849, the period of his Salem custom-house expe rience, yet he has preserved to us in that matchless piece of autobiographic writing, the Prologue to the “Scarlet Let ter,” all that was best in it. Little did those wearisome old souls, the surveyor’s officers, think that an eye, like a blind man’s finger, was continusl ! y upon them, or that at the hands of this dark browed man they were to enjoy an anony mous immortality! The next presidential election decapita ted our Democratic Surveyor; this was a most happy circumstance for him, for it gave him a release from duties which were always irksome to him. He says: “In view of my previous weariness of office and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and although beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered.” It was fortunate for us in that it gave us the “Scarlet Letter,” which was published in 1850, and secured forever the fame which had been so long withheld from him. Yet it was only upon the most ear nest solicitation of his friend and publish er, James T. Fields, that theauther finally consented to give his story to the world. Os all his works, this is entitled to first place in point of creative power and tragic grandeur. Here his genius for searching and analyzing dark bosoms finds its high est expression; and so painful is the im pression left by a perusal of the work, that one scarce can read it a second time. Released from office, Hawthorne cast about for a home, and finally settled at Lenox, in the western part of Massachu setts. The unqualified success of the ‘ Scarlet Letter” imparted new zest to his literary labors, took the numbness out ot his fingers, as it were, and be felt j rstifl°d in devoting himself to literature—here 0 fore the pleasure, not the business, of his life. We find this the most productive period of his life. “The House of the Seven Gable?,’’ published in 1851, was so warm’y received by the public that he set about writing another at once; this time it was