2.

On my return I knew that data were not in themselves enough; they must be
used, and that I was not equipped to analyze Hawthorne's undergraduate
curriculum. During my two years in England I was asked by Stanley Williams
and Randall Stewart to collect Hawthorne's letters to English correspondents
and act as a junior member of the team. During my graduate career at Yale,
in between earning at least a part of my living, I edited Hawthorne's "French
and Italian Notebooks" as my dissertation for a doctorate in History, Arts,
and Letters which I received in 1941. Then came the war and four years and
more overseas. When I returned I knew that I hadn't said in my introduction
what I wanted to say. I realized too that administration ought not to be
even near-rhymed with relaxation. But letters continued to be gathered,
their availability established and serviced, while at the same time my
understanding of the Notebooks and the data supplied by new letters continued
to enlarge.

Stewart understandably thought of the collection of letters largely
in terms of his own biography of Hawthorne, and no one knew or knows as much
about the details of Hawthorne's life as Stewart did. "Suddenly in 1948,"
as I wrote in my foreword to *Regionalism and Beyond*, Stewart's collected
essays, "the life of Hawthorne published, Stewart wrote to thank me, as he
put it, for 'the accumulated richness of the years' and to say he could no
longer continue as an editor. 'It has been building up ever since I resumed
the editorial labor last summer. I have reached the end of the Hawthorne rope.
I have done three books in 20 years. Let them stand on the shelves, with all
their imperfections, downright errors, limitations or what have you. I am
drained of any desire to do more with Hawthorne, to look up another reference,

or write another footnote. I must take another tack in the years that
remain." But he knew and took satisfaction in my promised dedication to
him of the collected letters, a proper dedication, now in memory, to the
man who has done more for Hawthorne's new reputation than any other in
our century.

Where do the editions of the notebooks and the letters stand?
You must remember that they have been done single-handed and without financial
support other than from myself: travels throughout the country and abroad,
checking and rechecking transcriptions, sending photostats to scholars, answering
their questions by letter -- all of those things which make me more than others
anxious for publication. My life has been based on Hawthorne. I am an idealist
in what the final publications should contain. Perhaps wrongly, I have thought
of each as *sui generis*, with its own potential.

So where do we stand? What is the situation? The text of the
"French and Italian Notebooks" has long since been established, and to a
degree copy-edited as a guide. I myself went to the Huntington to check their
manuscripts against transcriptions taken from microfilms. Jay Leyda checked
the transcriptions from the manuscripts in the Morgan Library and the Berg
Collection. I checked Mr. Leyda's queries against the originals. To the body
of the journals have been added, as appendices, lengthy excerpts from the
journal-like letters of Ada Shepherd, the Hawthorne governess, which cover
periods when Hawthorne's own journal lapsed. Hawthorne's pocket diaries
were also added, but these are now being made available in the Ohio State
edition. The journal, however, of Maria Mitchell during the period of her
travel with the Hawthornes from France to Italy ought still to be included,
though not by Hawthorne himself. It is part of the story. As those of you

know who have used my dissertation, I look on the Italian notebooks as
having a special value. One can hold the journals in one hand (if he is
strong enough) and in the other hold The Marble Faun as the romance
carved from the stone. This unique situation requires special and extensive
annotation, different from a collation with Mrs. Hawthorne's understandably
shortened and undesirably edited version of her husband's fine Italian hand.
Yet importantly added to this value is the fact that the notebooks are the
best direct recording of American 19th century expatriate artists in Italy.
This too, demands special and extensive annotation, as well as generous
photographic illustrations of the works of art which Hawthorne discusses.

I am perhaps naive in hoping for a nearly definitive edition of
the letters. But here too I have thought of their annotation in a special
sense as providing material for future biographers to winnow, for psycho-
-analysts to ponder, and for all to enjoy who turn to a man's life as it
helps to determine the artifacts for which he is responsible. Information
in great detail can be relevant to a letter, yet carbuncular to a biography.
A biography should be shaped and glazed like a vase. There are over 1200
transcripts of letters in the files. Many have used them and their annotation,
-- both Americans and scholars from abroad. There are perhaps a dozen more
letters in Waller Barrett's collection, which I have not yet seen. And that
indefatigable collector and limitlessly generous friend, C. Frazer Clark
steadily comes up with a new manuscript letter to share. Yet both he and
I missed one letter sold only a few weeks ago. It must be scouted down.
I say that biographies should be shaped like a vase. But so should
editions of letters, even if to some they seem pot-bellied.

In two years I have to retire. Then in a life which has thus far