Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1868-11-25


happy,-at least, as happy as then knew
how to be, or was aware OF the possibility
of being. BY and fly, the world found me
out in my lonely chamber, and called me
forth,-not, indeed, with a loud roar Of
acclamation. but rather with still, small
voice, and forth went. but found moth
ing in the world that thought preferable
to my old solitude till now. And now
begin to understand why was imprisoned
so many years in this lonely chamber
and why could never break through the
viewless bolts and bars; for if [ had
sooner made my escape into the world,
should have grown hard and rough, and
been covered with earthly dust, and my
encounters with the multitude. But living
in solitude till the fullness of time was
come, [ still kept the dew of my youth
and the freshness of my heart"
/ When this was written. Hawthorne was
custom-house officer in Boston under
George Bancroft, then collector of the
port. Six months later he was at Brook
Farm-Nan Buren having gone out of
Office in the meantime, and Bancroft and
Hawthorne along with him. The latter
took refuge with George Ripley and the
rest, in their West Roxbury paradise,
where Hawthorne, like the others, MIXED
COWS, chopped wood, turned the grind
stone, welded the dung-fork, which he
called working in our gold mine, ~
raked hay, and became generally disgusted
with manual labor. After four months of
it, he cries, 80. labor is the curse of the
world, and nobody can meddle with it
without becoming proportionably bruti-
fed" Yet he remained at Brook Farm
for two or three months longer, and wrote
down in his journal some of the best des-
criptions of the idyllic life there-half
romance and half drudgery. There arc
many glances at life in Boston, too, both
then and earlier.
In July, 1912, Immediately after his
marriage to Miss Sophia Peabody, he went
for the first time to Concord, where the
new-married pair took up their abode in
DR.. Ripley's parsonage-house, close by
the river. This is the place SO charmingly
described by Hawthorne, under the name
he gave 1t in the preface to his " Moses
from an old Manse," and pictured more
in detail in the volumes before us. Here
he remained nearly three years. and it is
of Concord and its people that some of
the best of these pages tell. He succeeded
to the ownership of Henry Thoreau's boat,
in which the famous Week on the Con-
cord and Merrimack " had been voyaged
and in this, with Thoreau and Ellery
Charming for guides. he explored the
Musketaquid and the Assabet rivers,
while, on foot, with Charming or Emerson,
or alone, he wandered about the Concord
woods and meadows and upland pastures
Many of the sketches in these volumes at
this period relate to living persons, and
will not always be read with pleasure by
those to whom they relate. What is said
of those who have passed away-of Mar
garet Fuller, Thoreau and the rest-is al
ways interesting. If not entirely Just,
and the descriptions of Concord scenery
are all characterized by delicate beauty
that only Hawthorne could give them. but
less true to nature than the more mascu-
line touches of Thoreau, and the profounde-
poetical giimpses of Ellery Charming,
writing of the same landscape
Passing over the interval between 1S44
and 1850, the note books open in that year
with more pictures of Boston, among them
cne of Parker's old rooms In Court-sauare,
a. this grog-shop of Parker's, as Haw-
thorne calls it, which is exquisite in its
way. Such places, and kindred ones
tavern bar-rooms, cheap hotels, low thea
ters and the like-were occasionally fire.
queuted by this man of genius, and from
them he drew many of his studies in hu-
70 good eating and drinking. and could
keep company with men of all sorts. In
/ S51 the scene changes to Lenox, and in the
next year to Concord again, where Haw-
thorne had bought small estate, (once the
property of Mr., Alcott,l styled by its last
owner. " The Wayside." There is next
to nothing in these volumes, however,
which was written III the last home of the
author On his return from Europe, IN
1860. he rebuilt the house, and it is this,
now offered for sale. that his family have
Just left to visit Europe once more.
The traits of Hawthorne's character
shown in this autobiography will surprise
some of his readers, but not those who
have read him with discernment He was
throughout life, but notably SO in his youth .
and early middle life, an aristocrat, though /
,lassed politically with the Democratic /
party. His naughty feeling towards the |
mass Of men shows itself in these pages,
aud has not been softened at ali by the
editor, vino has omitted so much that she !
must have found in the journals Not
this anti-Amercan sentiment,
few men have ever identified themselves
more completely with American life, or un-
ierstood certain phases of it better,-and
t is not often that book is published SO
'ich IN material for those who would study
he New England character, as the one be-
ore us. Page after page might be quo
ed, and would be as charming as any of
romances, for they share the
anne qualities Of his genius. Moreover,
low that he is gone-prematurely as it
Gems. though he was in his sixtieth year
when he died-these pages are precious
IS showing us the inner life of the author,
md his manner of working,-for here are
he materials from which he wrought his
.range effects. His fame SO long in find
ng him out, increases year by year, and
hese volumes, like those already pub
ished, will be more and more sought and
cad, until more positive and masculine
ype of literature, such as Walt Whit
mans verses G i've some hint of, replaces
he dreamy and feminine grace of Haw-
horne's books
How Ladies Should Dress. 4
AS you look from your window in Paris.
bserve the first fifty women that pass Y