The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-24

Hawthorne was naturally of healthy mind
and body. Hawthorne came of sturdy,
sea-faring stock; men OF handsome,
powerful frames. His grandfather was a
bold sailor, famous for the courage with
which he put down mutiny at sea, and
the famous novelist when boy was bold,
strong. imperious, fighting lad, giving no
sign, save a certain shy, dreamy habit at
times, of the imaginative genius he
possessed. Hawthorne never rayed and
howled over anything or anybody,
but when he was custom-house officer at
Salem. Mass he promptly knocked down
big stevedore who grossly insulted him,
and the old sea captains said the spirit of
the old grandfather who put down the
mutiny was still lurking devil in the
Hawthorne nature. Up to middle life
Hawthorne was conspicuous for his ath-
letic powers in running, jumping and
wrestling, when he cared to indulge the
mood, as is his son, Julian Hawthorne,
today.
1t was probably this healthiness of body
and mind that helped Hawthorne and his
wife to endure the trials and crosses of
married poverty with sweeter and more
patient spirit than did Carlyle. If Car
lyle's wife had been herself person of
sound, vigorous body it would have Jared
better with them both, for then she would
have laughed at great deal of storming,
cursing and bowling that she cried or wor-
ried over The inner life of Hawthorne,
as shown by his letters, was sweet, refined,
pure, sensible and strong. But Carlyle,
from a young man, never seems
to have had any zest for out
door life or exercise, and his
reflected in his mental moods that he has
been forcibly described as "a misanthrope
full of the milk of human kindness to-
wards his fellow-men, but for some reason
or another the milk was always sour"
The buzzing of saw, the Growing of
cock would set him frantic and make him
curse the world; he was nothing when he
was not full Of gall. Carlyle, happier by
far in his pecuniary circumstances than
Hawthorne. managed to make himself, his
wife and his whole life quite wretched
much of the time, while Hawthorne, in
poverty or comfort, in sickness or health,
in sorrow or in Joy, was always sweet,
strong, grand, self-contained, genial man,
who bore the ills and joys of life with
equaninity.
The explanation is largely found in the
fact that Hawthorne and his wife came
from fine stocks, sound minds in healthy
bodies, and in their early married life they
possessed good health, and above all were
blessed with bright, beautiful children.
Neither Carlyle nor his wife from the
start was person of good bodily or men
tai health, and their union was never
blessed with children. Such persons have
no business to marry. genius or no genius.
Two invalids in body and mind are not fit
for the married state, for the temper of an
angel is not proof against the incessant
faultfnding and vituperation of literary
invalid, and Mrs. Carlyle, while very
bright woman, had not the temper of an
angel, but was very bright, nervous wo-
man, gifted with more delicate but
hardly less caustic tongue than her dismal
imam of genius"
When we read Froude's Life and Let
ters of Carlyle" and Mrs. Carlyle's letters,
if We could forget that they were famous
folk, we should soon see that what they
lacked for happiness was good health.
Carlyle ought to have been married to a
big, strong, healthy, good-natured woman,
who would have only laughed at his dis
position to scold from morning to night;
she would have relished stirring him up,
for the sake of the wit that illumined his
cursing and his complaints. and when he
ceased to be entertaining she would have
quietly suffered him to boil and foam him.
self into exhaustion. Mrs. Carlyle ought
never to have married other than a calm.
strong, very unselfish, loving, caressing
man, who would have laughed at her
bright sallies and soothed her in her
nervous moods by his good-humored en-.
durance.