Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1890-05-21
BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

BY JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
My father was scholar of profound
eruditlon and marvellous attainments;
he penetrated further into the arena Of
philosophy than any man of his gener-
alton; but he was totally destitute of
personal ambition, and never could be
induced to put his discoveries and spec
ulations into literary form.
NY mother was of another stamp.
She was beautiful, dark, and passionate;
as fierce in her loving as in her hating.
I have seen ner throw herself upon my
fathers herculean breast, her swarthy
cheek against his fair and ruddv one,
her jet-blac hair upon his yellow
beard; her wild, black eyes gazing into
the steady blue Of his, clinging there
Ikea snake, and kissing him as the ad-
der strikes poison into bis victim. But
her hate-that is scarcely to be de-
ecribed. Had destiny made her ruler
Of nations, like Semiramis or Cleopatra,
she would have made their revenges
look pale by contrast with hers; her
cruelty toward those who had kindled
her resentment was as raging and i'm
placable as fire.
[ was their only child, and I in
herited from both. NV fathers brain
dwelt in the nature of my mother, but
the two influences counteracted each
other. / had not his careless serenity
nor her concentration and vividness of
emotional manifestation. I appeared
cold and ascetic; my passions we're in
tense, but they were silent and hidden.
The only fire which [ permitted to re-
veal itself was that which famed in the
e all
resolve to know and fathom all things.
And, indeed, [ absorbed knowledge
with an ease and swiftness that as
tonished everyone.
One faculty | possessed that neither
my father nor my mother ever mani
tested-that unexplained power OF the
soul TO be free, at will, from the preju-
dice of time and space and the wells of
physical substance This endowed me
with singular control over the thoughts
and impressions of others, and showed
me upon how simple a foundation the
magic exploits of the wizards of all
epochs are based. But magic is only
seeming-a, spacious illusion wrought
on sense. My aim was to make the
seeming an actuality. / wished to Gre
ate and annihilate, not to trifle with
phantoms ard iuggleries.
kept gray Russian wolf in my gar
den-one of the most savage of its
species. He was chained to tree; not
that I feared him. but that / wished his
savageness 10 remain undated. Daily
visited him, stared into his mad eyes,
and studied his nature. The wolf, the
widest and most relentless of all savage
beasts, is the mos closely allied of all
to the foundations of human nature.
After contemplating him for awhile I
xuau1d foo yovcolf onforipn into bic
stincts and cravings-aye. and outdoing
hin in ferocity and brutal bloodthirsti-
ness. NV comprehension of him cowed
him; he would crouch, and howl, and
strive to break his chain, lest I should
spring upon him ard rend him. That
which in man we call love, is in the
wolf-the undeveloped man-fear and
hatred. He feared and hated me, and
I loved him for his fear and hatred.
The scent of his hot breath and shaggy
fur soothed and pleased me, the glare
of his yellow eyes moved me to laugh
ter, and his snarling and whining
tickled my very heart. From such
communions I returned refreshed and
me kindly and genial. Man, like a
fool, would ever keep himself within
his own narrow castle. Let him emerge
and invite to himself the wild forces of
nature, which, 1ndeed,s is but his in
choate self, and the springs of his life
will become as the exhaustess wells of
Artesia, which are fed from the hidden
reservoirs of the planet ITSELF.
1t is affirmed by philosophers that the
love of woman enfeebles the actions of
the mind of man and balks ambition. I
meditated much upon this dogma,
doubling its soundness. Woman is TO
man as bis own self-as that which is
supremacy dear and intimate to him.
We yearn to endow ourselves with ali
powers and pleasures, and by making
woman ours when yet she wears a sep
arate form and aspect, We enjoy her
pleasure in our gifts. while not forfeit
ing our own delight therein. What is
woman but the concrete mani estation
of that metaphysical subtlety. mans
selthood-that which distinguishes him
from the animal-the unconscious being
for whom is no choice, no right or
wrong, no conscience In loving wo-
man we love the human quality in our
selves-the person that each of us is,
and that burns to subJugate and Guido
all rival persons. Were 1t not for her
we should forget orr separateness as in
dividuals and relapse into the universal
man. who knows no difference between
himself and that which surrounds him.
Now, [ hold that the loye-yea, the wor-
ship-of self is at the root of ali great
achievements, and therefore that the
union with or absorption into myself
OF a woman tremendously endowed
would strengthen, and not weaken, my
faculties and designs. Those imbeciles
indeed who permit the woman to draw
them away from the pursuit of their
proper ends, and to bewilder them with
mere sensuous beauty and charm-of
them [ speak not. But he who knows
how to aggrandise his own being to the
extern of that of the woman surely
may invite her with confidence and en-
Joy her with profit.
I had arrived at this conclusion before
met Irene, and go could not have been
influenced to it by any consideration of
the freshness and splendor of her love-
illness. No woman more nearly perfect