Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1904-07-11
HAWTHoRNE's FRIENDSHIP.
An Augusta Man Was One Of Those
Cloest to the Great Writer.

on "Hawthorne's Friendships" from
which we make the following interest
ing extracts:
With his college life a new era began
in the friendships Of Hawthorne. he
entered Bowdoin College at the age or
seventeen; it was n small school, ana
he was at the right age to form friend
ships. They We're not many. it would
seem. but very important ones, both 1or
his present enjoyment and the shaping
of his after life. They began almost
acidentally-the most important Chat
with Franklin Pierce, afterwards Sena-
tor and PresidenD in stagecoach as
he and Jonathan Cilley, afterwards
slain in a congressional duel, Joined at
Portsmouth Hawthorne and his first
roommate, Alfred Mason. on their way
to enter college at Brunswick in the
summer of 1921. All these youths eX-
cept Hawthorne We're from New lamp
shire; Pierce, a few months younger
than Hawthorne, was from Hillsoboro;
Cilley, two years older, from Noting
ham, and Mason, about HaWthornes
own age, from Portsmouth. Pierce,
| who had been carefully fitted for col
lege, entered year before the rest, and
throughout his course was a leader IN
the small student cOmmunity-com-
handing q cadet company of collegians
of which Hawthorne was a private.
Cilley, the grandson of Il distinguished
Revolutionary general, also served In
| this company, but i'm his class was
| leader, from his age and talents, ana
| by the severer traits of his nature, on
which Hawthorne commented, dozen
years after, with much frankness.
Mason was a studious youth, as de-
voted to science as his chum was to
| literature and sauntering. In the class
he found his most World-renoWned
| comrade-Henry Longfellow, a slender
youth of fourteen, who before gradu-
ating in 1926 was already poet of some
note, and who became at one time the
most widely read of all contemporary
poets that wrote English. Another
classmate was HOratiO Bridge, to
| whom. next to Pierce, Hawthorne was
| most attached, and who was one of the
last survivors of that college class OF
| thirty-eisht members. With these four
youths of an age near his own Haw-
| thorne continued intimate, so long as
he and they lived; and their friendship
until he fell in love with Miss Sohpia
| Peabody, of a Salem family living near
| his own, but with which, for years, lie
had little communication.
| These friends are mentioned by Haw-
thorne, both in the works that he
| published himself, and in the note
books not designed for publication, or
| letters that he left behind him. A con-
| trast sometimes appears in these
public and more private comments on
| them-very notable in the case of
| Cilley-which has occurred, too. with
regard to other friends, and has
brought upon Hawthorne some sus-
picion Of lack of loyalty in friendship.
| In truth, there appear to have been
| two cOntrasted natures in him-that of
| the intimate and affectionate COM
| panion; and that of the conscientious
| or severe judge: akin to that ancestor
| who sat on the bench when Quakeri
and hysterical women We're brought
before him, and whose verdict upon
| them has branded his name with the
| stigma of Puritan cruelty, enforced by
his own descendants comments there
| on This latter quality in the novelist
| may be viewed either as mark of the
critical observer and recorder, which
Hawthorne certainly was-or as Il
survival Of that immitigable Puritan
conscience, of which his son Julian has
| written.
The habits of young men in college.
four-score years ago. were what is
euphoniously termed "convival;" the
temperance reformation had not set in.
and Madeira wine was still abundant
along the coast of New England, and
| in her chief seaports. Consequently
there need be no surprise at the wager
made between Cilley and Hawthorne
in November, 1924 after Pierce had left
| Brunswick and gone to study law with
4 more profound jurist. Woodbury. of
Portsmouth. who had been judge and
governor in New Hampshire. The
papers in the case are singular. and
were lodged in the hands Of class
mate, Horatio Bridge of Augusta. the
Maine capital. then a small country
village. Mr.. Bridge, who became a
naval officer. and was promoted by
President Pierce. published them in
1892, and here they are. They show,
among other things. that Hawthorne
then. as his mother always did. signed
the mama "Hathorhe," only choosing
the present familiar form some years
later Mr.. Bridge said:
although Hawthorne. while COL
legian, rarely sought or accepted the
acquaintance of young ladies. he had
high appreciation of the sex. An
| early marriage. however. did not enter
into his plans of life. The evidence Of
this fact is among my papers, and runs
thus:
Bowdoin College, Nov. IA, 1924.
If Nathaniel Hathorne is neither
married man nor widower on the 18th
day of November, 1885, 1 bind myself
upon my honor to pay the said
Hathorne a barrel Of the best old
Madeira wine.
Witness my hand and seal.
| q. c. Jonathan Cilley.
(The same date) If 1 am a married
man or a widower, on the 14th day of
November, 1896, 1 bind myself. upon
my honor, to pay Jonathan Cilley a
barrel of the best old Madeira mine.
Witness my hand and seal.
IN Hl Nathaniel Hafharpo