The St. Charles herald. [volume] (Hahnville, La.) 1873-1993, 1885-05-09

The interesting thing in the life of
Nathaniel Hawthorne Gas told in two
volumes by his son JULIAN is his court
ship. The mother was a widow and
a recluse. The Hawthorne children,
Elizabeth and Nathaniel, played timid-
ly with the Peabody children, and, as
they grew older, it became apparent
that Nathaniel was getting his heart
entangled in the charms of Sophia
Peabody. But the road of their happi-
ness was full of thorns and stones.
Elizabeth Peabody, who was older
than the rest, tells how she read in the
Neo0 England Magazine, between 1880
and 1886, some stories that attracted
her attention. She thought they were
written by a "'New Light Quaker,
who had outgrown some of the peculi-
arities of the sect, and she went so far
as to write letter to the supposed
"old man asking him how he knew
''that sensitive natures are espec-
tally apt to be malicious. The
next year she discovered that the
Hawthorne boy was the author
of the stories. Another year passed
before the two families attained visit
ing acquaintance with each other. One
evening Nathaniel and his sister Eliza
beth called on the Peabodys. Sophia
Peabody was i'll, and Elizabeth went
up to her room and begged her to come
down to see the callers. ''You never
saw anything so splendid as he is-he
is handsomer than Lord Byron" The
sick girl was not to be so easily won.
She declined to make the effort to see
the rising novelist. Miss Peabody re-
calls the "beauty of the outline of his
features, the pure complexion, the
wonderful eyes, like mountain lakes
rejecting the sky"
OF course he called again and then
Sophia saw him. 1t was fatal attack
on both sides. ''As we went on talk
ing she would frequently interpose a
remark in her low, sweet voice. Every
time she did so he would look at her
again with the same piercing, indraw-
ing gaze. | was struck with it and
thought what if he should fall in love
with her, and the thought troubled me,
for she had often told me that nothing
would ever tempt her to marry and in
flict on husband the care of an in
valid Years afterward Mrs. Haw-
thorne used to tell her children how the
presence of the young writer exercised
upon her from the beginning so
strong a magnetic attraction that in
stinctively and in self-defense she drew
back and repealed him. Both found
the courage to confess that they had
been in love from their first meeting.
The determined retirement of Nine
Hawthorne made it very difficult for
the son to introduce his friends to her,
and the Peabodys called with some
hesitation long before it was suspected
by any one that the families were to be
so closely united.
The widowed mother was a woman
of strong will and fine individuality.
Shewore antique costumes and always
looked as if she had stepped out of an
old picture. Her face ''had a lovely
sensibility and great brightness. :"
There was no sentimental confidence
between her and her son, although
they held each other in mutual esteem
and affection. Nathaniel confided to
nobody that he had asked Sophia Pea
body to be his wife as soon as he was
able to provide for her, and the secret
of their engagement was kept for
three years, He had petty position
in the Boston OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES of
weigher-but he could not marry on it,
and when he was dismissed from it by
the change of administration in 1841 he
entered upon the Brook Farm expert
ment to see what promise it embodied
for him and his promised wife. His
rather more prosaic son says that the
chief advantage it brought him was
''that it taught him how to plant corn
and squashes and to buy and sell at the
produce market; and that it provided
him with an Invaluable background for
his 'Blithedale Romance, written about
ten years afterward."
He had no money, but the lovers grew
tired waiting for fortune. "Rents We're
low in New England them" and they
married His mothers attitude toward
his wife proved an agreeable surprise
She told him that she had known of hi;
engagement almost as long as he haC
known it himself, and that Sophia Pea
body was just the wife she would have
chosen for him. And how did he make
love for himself, this teller of the love
making OF imaginary men and paidsl