Urbana union. [volume] (Urbana, Ohio) 1862-1872, 1871-03-29
THE WIFE OF HAWTHORNE.

| We noticed briefly when it occurred
the death of the widow of Nathaniel
Hawthorne in England, and there per.
| haps it Is best that we should pause
When the gentle, quiet life of a woman
such as this Gibbs away into the gentlel
quiet of death, silence over her grave
has more meaning than any requiem.
| As q cheerful song, or @ happy day i'll
the Autumn fields, her memory becomes
q pleasant, tender reality with US foTeY-
er; but we cannot, if we would, impart
or share it with others. There is q NOR.
bid curiosity through the country, how
ever, about Hawthorne and all that sur
rounded him, arising out of the as vet
half acknowledged feeling that in him
America lost her greatest poet; and it is
only right that this curiosity should be
so far gratifed as to do Justice to this
woman, whom if he had never loved,
Hawthorne would in all probability have
died undeVeloped and unknown.
No biographer of the great romancer
can ever delineate the strange elements
of character that mixed themselves in
him, and were expressed in his figure
and face; the hereditary abnormal ten.
denotes toward solitude and gloom; the
almost insane dread Of contact with his
fellOW'men; the Oblique and shadOWed
aspect in which, as he stood apart, the
world appeared to him. Friendly hands
may give US the outside facts of his life,
the cut of his clothes, the attitude and
gestures which he used to those about
him while trying, out Of o keen fear of
being ridiculous, 70 fit himseIfWith their
alien habits Of thought and speech; but
the only glimpses left to US of the real
Hawthorne are in his books. The man
was Of his own blood, alone, in the world
Of thought, and has left no kinsnlen. Be-
tween him and the outer world came
only his wife, There was something at
once cOmical and pathetic in the dis
mayed appeal with which he turned to
her when the ordinary business of life
bewildered and Jared on him, aud the
alertness and bright gentleness with
which she served as his shield and shell
ter. She belonged TO one of those old
families in New England who have i'm
bibed culture with the air. She had an
intellect of quick and harmonious move
ment, which found apt and pleasant ex-
preston both by her pen and pencil
But there are so many of whom all this
may be said Now, when woman seeks
primarily self-development, there are so
many artists and authors Itmay do us
no ulfl 10 look IOE q moment At JllB
one who had no other aim than to be
simply q wife. There is q significance
to all women in the fact that, while the
genius and idiOsyncracies of her hus-
band placed him ON an entirely differ
ent intellectual level from her own, the
infinite love between them made them
one, and fitted her, with her keen tact
and wholesome sweetness of temper, to
interpret between him and the world. -
If ithad ann been for that cheerfulness
and sunny temper, which kept daylight
about him peTpetually, the moody geni- |
us Of Hawthorne would never have
struggled through its shadows into light. .
The world owed n great debt to this wo-
man, who was contented to be only a
wife.
There is pleasant hill-slOpe near
Concord, full of shady lanes and dusky |
with apple trees, where Hawthorne and /
his wife were used to walk at evening, /
cheerfnlly talking US they went. He /
sleeps there now alone. We cannot bear |
to think they will leave the gentle, |
lady to rest in one of the /
damp Churohyards Of foggy London
But however that may he, we think that