Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated) (777 page)

This morning Mary came in and threw at me a beautiful handful of flowers, which I crowed over for a time, and then arose. I worked a little while at my painting, and then Mary Channing came gliding in upon me, like a dream, with more flowers, the Scotch rose and many rare things among them. Mr. Doughty [the artist, who had consented to give Sophia lessons] came, as bright as possible. The cool breezes, the flowers, etc., put him into excellent humor. He said it was luxury to sit and paint here. He created a glowing bank in broad sunshine. Mr. Russell called, and came up into my studio. He thought such a studio and such an occupation must cure the headache. Then I prepared to make several calls, but on my way was arrested by Mr. George Hillard, who was altogether too agreeable to leave. He is amazingly entertaining, to be sure. He remarked what a torment of his life Mr. Reed, the postmaster in Cambridge, was. He is an old man, about a hundred and forty years old, who always made him think of the little end of nothing sharpened off into a point. He had but one joke — to tell people sometimes when they asked for a letter that they must pay half a dollar for it; and then, if in their simplicity they gave it, he would laugh, and say it was a joke. After Mr. Hillard went away, Sally Gardiner came in with an armful of roses, which she poured upon me, taken from Judge Jackson's garden. She had just returned from Milton, and was overflowing with its grandeur and beauty.

Yours affectionately,

SOPHIE.

The somewhat invalided little artist was highly and widely admired; and to illustrate the happy fact I quote this letter, written by her spirited sister Mary: —

BOSTON, June 19, 1833.

MY DEAREST, — I went to Dr. Channing's yesterday afternoon and carried him your drawings, with which he was so enchanted that I left them for him to look at again. He gathered himself up in a little striped cloak, and all radiant with that soul of his, said with his most divine inflection, “This is a great and noble undertaking, and will do much for us here.” And then he rolled his orbs upon me in that majestic way of his, which, when it melts into loveliness as it sometimes does, so takes captivity captive. In short, he was quite in an ecstasy with you and your notions. [Probably drawings illustrating auxiliary verbs.] He inquired very particularly for you, and showed me all the new books he had just received from England, which he thought a great imposition, they being big books. Edward [his brother] came in, and they greeted affectionately. After a long survey of the Professor, he exclaimed, “Why, Edward, you look gross — take care of the intellect!” Then he handed him one of the great books, just arrived, which was an edition of Thomas Belsham's works, with a likeness of the author. “There,” said he, “is a man who had not quite the dimensions of a hogshead; but he was the largest man I ever saw.” Edward looked rather uneasy. “William,” he replied, “I don't think you are any judge of large men. Last week I looked quite thin, but to-day my head and face are very much swelled.” The Doctor, in the simplicity of his heart, never thinks of feelings, only of things, as Plato would say. Your affectionate sister,

MARY.

Sophia writes to Elizabeth in Boston, in 1838, of her daily life, as follows: —

“I went to my hammock [in the studio] with Xenophon. Socrates was divinest, after Jesus Christ, I think. He lived up to his thought. . . . After dinner, Mary went out 'to take the fresh,' intending to finish the afternoon by a walk with Miss Hawthorne, and I commissioned her to bring home both her and her brother, if he should go, that I might give him my fragrant violets. . . .

“Miss Hawthorne came to walk, and remarked to Mary how beautiful the crocuses were which I had given to her brother. Mary told her that I sent them
to her
. 'That is a pretty story,' she replied. 'He never told me so.'

“Just after seven Mr. Hawthorne came. He looked very brilliant. . . . His coming here is one sure way of keeping you in mind, and it must be excessively tame for him after his experience of your society and conversation; so that, I think, you will shine the more by contrast.”

One evening, she says, she “showed him Sarah Clarke's picture of the island, and that gorgeous flower in the Chinese book of which there is a mighty tree in Cuba. And then I turned over the pictures of those hideous birds, which diverted him exceedingly. One he thought deserved study. . . .

“I was to go to see his sister Elizabeth that afternoon, and he had heard about it. He asked if I could go, and said he should have waited for me to come if he had not supposed the east wind would prevent me. I said that it would. He wanted to know if I would come the next day. I meant to call Mary, but he prevented me by saying he could not stay long enough. . . . [He seldom stayed unless he found Sophia alone.]

“Last evening Mr. Hawthorne came for Mary to go with him to Miss
Burley's [to a club which met every week]. Mary could not go. It
seemed a shame to refuse him. I came down to catch a glimpse of him.
He has a celestial expression which I do not like to lose. . . .

“The children have just come in, and brought me a host of odorous violets. I made George a visit in the afternoon, in the midst of my battle with headache, and to my question of 'How dost?' he replied, for the first time, 'Pretty fair,' instead of the unvarying 'Middling.' Skeptics surely cannot disbelieve in one thing that is invisible, and that is Pain.”

May, 1838.

After my siesta I went down to Herbert Street with the book I wished to leave, and when I opened the gate [of the Hawthornes' house] the old woman with her hood on [an aunt of the Hawthornes] was stooping over a flower-bed, planting seeds. She lifted her smiling face, which must have been very pretty in her youth, and said, “How do you do, Miss Peabody?” Yet I never saw her in my life before. She begged me to walk in, but I refused, and gave her my message of thanks for the book.

Ever thine wholly,

SOPHIECHEN.

May 14, 1838.

To-day I was tempted to trot about the room and arrange all my vases, and give an air to the various knickknacks. I am much more easily tired than ever before. My walk to Castle Hill before February did not make me feel so hopelessly tired as it now does to walk as far as the Hawthornes'. Mr. Hawthorne had declined to come to dine with you on your arrival, but was to be here directly after dinner. When he came I happened to be the only one ready to go down. His first question was, “Where is Elizabeth?” He was not at all inclined to bear the disappointment of your not being here, after all. He thought it “too bad,” “insufferable,” “not fair,” and wondered what could be the reason. I told him your excuse, and that there was a letter for him, which Mary soon brought. He put it into his pocket without breaking the seal. He looked very handsome, and was full of smiles. I assured him the morning was the best time to do creative work. He said he believed he would go and take a walk in South Salem. “Won't you go?” he asked of me. But the wind was east.

MY DEAR LIZZIE, — I can think of nothing now but Charles Emerson. A sudden gloom seems to overshadow me. I hope you will tell us to-morrow whether he is dangerously ill. We had an exquisite visit from Waldo. It was the warbling of the Attic bird. The gleam of his
diffused
smile; the musical thunder of his voice; his repose, so full of the essence of life; his simplicity — just think of all these, and of my privilege in seeing and hearing him. He enjoyed everything we showed him so much. He talked so divinely to Raphael's Madonna del Pesce. I vainly imagined I was very quiet all the while, preserving a very demure exterior, and supposed I was sharing his oceanic calm. But the next day I was aware that I had been in a very intense state. I told Mary, that night after he had gone, that I felt like a gem; that was the only way I could express it. I don't know what Mary hoped to get from him, but I was sure of drinking in that which would make me paint Cuban skies better than even my recollections could have made me, were they as vivid as the rays of the sun in that sunniest of climates. He made me feel as Eliza Dwight did once, when she looked uncommonly beautiful and animated. I felt as if her beauty was all about the room, and that I was in it, and therefore beautiful too. It seemed just so with Waldo's soul-beauty. Good-by,

SOPHY.

June 1, 1838.

One afternoon Elizabeth Hawthorne came to walk with Mary, and mother went with her instead. She first came up into my chamber, and seemed well pleased with it, but especially admired the elm-tree outside. She looked very interesting. Mother took her to the cold spring, and they did not return till just at dark, loaded with airy anemones and blue violets and a few columbines. They had found Mr. John King and his daughter at the spring, looking for wild-flowers, and mother introduced Miss Hawthorne; but she hung her head and scarcely answered, and did not open her lips again, though Mr. King accompanied them all the way home. He gave mother some columbines, and after a while said, “I must make your bunch like Mrs. Peabody's, my dear,” and so put some more into Miss Hawthorne's hand.

The day before Mr. Hawthorne had called at noon to see our ladyships, and I never saw him look so brilliantly rayonnant. He said to me, “Your story will be finished soon, Sophia — to-morrow or next day.” I was surprised to have the story so appropriated, and I do long to see it. [Probably Edward Randolph's Portrait.] He proposed to Mary to go to the beach the same day, and she consented. He said that he had not spoken to his sister about it, but would do so as soon as he went home. He wished to go early, and have a good walk. Only think what progress! To come and propose a walk at mid-day!

He said he had a letter nearly written to you, but should not finish it till you wrote. He seemed quite impatient to hear from you, and remarked that he had not heard since you were here. Mary went to Herbert Street to join Miss Hawthorne for the walk, but did not see her. Her mother said Elizabeth did not want to go because it was windy, and the sun was too hot, and clouds were in the south! (It was the loveliest day in the world.) Was it not too bad to disappoint her brother so? I could have whipped her. When Mary went the next day with the tulips, Louisa told her that Elizabeth was very sorry afterwards that she did not go.

A successful visit, almost accidental, upon Ebie Hawthorne pleased
Sophia very much, and she writes: —

“She was very agreeable, and took the trouble to go and get some engravings of heads to show me, Wordsworth among the number, which I had never seen before.

“Elizabeth also inquired particularly for George, and gave me more books for him. She asked if we did not miss you exceedingly. I should like to have stayed for two or three hours. She came downstairs with me, and out of the door, and talked about the front yard, where her aunt is going to make a garden.”

Elizabeth Peabody's letters are always delight-, fully direct, and varied in quality of emotion, being equally urgent over philosophy or daily bread, as the ensuing one will show in part: —

53 MYRTLE STREET, BOSTON, 1838.

MY DEAR SOPHIA, — Your beautiful letters require an answer, but I cannot possibly answer them in kind. This evening, notwithstanding the storm, George and Susan Hillard have gone to a singing-school, and left me to amuse myself. I hoped Mr. Hawthorne would come in. I have not seen him yet. Last night I took tea with Sally Gardiner and Miss Jackson, who are still enjoying your Flaxman drawings. Why do not you Salem folks have a hencoop and keep hens! five or six hens would overwhelm you with eggs all the year round. I like to hear the little items about Hawthorne. I had a nice talk with Mr. Capen about him to-day. He has him in his mind, and I hope it will come to some good purpose for the public.

Yours truly and ever, E. P. P.

Sophia writes: —

July 23, 1838.

William White arrived on Saturday. Why did not you send Stuart's Athens by him? He said that he had heard it remarked that Mr. Emerson expected another Messiah. Your slight account of Mr. E.'s “Address” is enough to wake the dead, and I do not know what the original utterance must have done. I told Mary I thought Mr. Emerson was the Word again. She exclaimed, “You blasphemer!” “Do you really think it blasphemy?” said I. “Oh no,” she replied. “It is the gospel according to you.” Was not that a happy saying? While the maid was at Miss Hurley's on an errand, she saw Mr. Hawthorne enter, probably for a take-leave call. He was here also, looking radiant. He said he took up my Journal [written in Cuba] to bring it back, but my “works were so voluminous that he concluded to send them!”

Elizabeth Peabody makes, upon her return to 'Salem for the winter, an heroic move towards gaining a still more affectionate advantage over the solitaries in Herbert Street. A little smile must have given her face its most piquant expression as she wrote: —