The Scarlet Letter & A Scarlet Stigma (Illustrated Edition). Nathaniel Hawthorne
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don't know whether there is any other such office. Are you fond of brandy? Your strength of head (which you tell me you possess) may stand you in good stead in Washington; for most of these public men are inveterate guzzlers, and love a man that can stand up to them in that particular. It would never do to let them see you corned, however. But I must leave you to find your way among them. If you have never associated with them heretofore, you will find them a new class, and very unlike poets.
I have finished the "Tanglewood Tales," and they will make a volume about the size of the "Wonder-Book," consisting of six myths—"The Minotaur," "The Golden Fleece," "The Story of Proserpine," etc., etc., etc., done up in excellent style, purified from all moral stain, re-created good as new, or better—and fully equal, in their way, to "Mother Goose." I never did anything so good as those old baby-stories.
In haste,
Truly yours,
Nath. Hawthorne.
Nothing could more succinctly illustrate the readiness of Hawthorne's sympathies, and the companionable, cordial ease with which he treated a new friend who approached him in the right way, one who caught his fancy by a frank and simple independence, than this letter to Mr. Stoddard, whom he had spoken with only twice. At that very time his old disinclination to be intruded upon was as strong as ever; for Mr. Fields relates how, just before Hawthorne sailed for England, they walked together near the Old Manse and lay down in a secluded, grassy spot beside the Concord River, to watch the clouds and hear the birds sing. Suddenly, footsteps were heard approaching, and Hawthorne whispered in haste, with much solemnity: "Duck! or we shall be interrupted by somebody." So they were both obliged to prostrate themselves in the grass until the saunterer had passed out of sight.
The proposition to accept an office from Pierce was made to him as soon as the new President was inaugurated. Although Hawthorne had considered the possibility, as we have seen, and had decided what he could advantageously take if it were offered, he also had grave doubts with regard to taking any post whatever. When, therefore, the Liverpool consulate was tendered to him, he at first positively declined it. President Pierce, however, was much troubled by his refusal, and the intervention of Hawthorne's publisher, Mr. Ticknor, was sought. Mr. Ticknor urged him to reconsider, on the ground that it was a duty to his family; and Hawthorne, who also naturally felt a strong desire to see England, finally consented. His appointment was confirmed, March 26, 1853; but his predecessor was allowed, by resigning prospectively, to hold over for five months; so that the departure for England was not effected until the midsummer of 1853.
IV.
The twofold character of Hawthorne's mind is strongly manifested in the diverse nature of the interests which occupied him in Europe, and the tone with which he discussed them, alike in his journals, in his letters, in "Our Old Home," and "The Marble Faun." On the one side, we find the business-like official, attending methodically to the duties of his place, the careful father of a family looking out for his personal interests and the material welfare of his children in the future, the keen and cool-headed observer who is determined to contemplate all the novelties of strange scenes through no one's eyes but his own. On the other side, he presents himself to us as the man of reverie, whose observation of the actual constantly stimulates and brings into play a faculty that perceives more than the actual; the delicate artist, whose sympathies are ready and true in the appreciation of whatever is picturesque or suggestive, or beautiful, whether in nature or in art.
Some of the letters which he wrote from Liverpool to his classmate, Horatio Bridge, throw light upon his own affairs and the deliberate way in which he considered them. For instance, under date of March 30, 1854, he wrote:—
"I like my office well enough, but my official duties and obligations are irksome to me beyond expression. Nevertheless, the emoluments will be a sufficient inducement to keep me here for four years, though they are not a quarter part what people suppose them. The value of the office varied between ten and fifteen thousand dollars during my predecessor's term, and it promises about the same now. Secretary Guthrie, however, has just cut off a large slice, by a circular.... Ask —— to show you a letter of mine, which I send by this steamer, for possible publication in the newspapers. It contains a statement of my doings in reference to the San Francisco [steamship] sufferers. The "Portsmouth Journal," it appears, published an attack on me, accusing me of refusing all assistance until compelled to act by Mr. Buchanan's orders; whereas I acted extra-officially on my own responsibility, throughout the whole affair. Buchanan refused to have anything to do with it. Alas! How we public men are calumniated. But I trust there will be no necessity for publishing my letter; for I desire only to glide noiselessly through my present phase of life.
"It sickens me to look back to America. I am sick to death of the continual fuss and tumult, and excitement and bad blood, which we keep up about political topics. If it were not for my children, I should probably never return, but, after quitting office, should go to Italy, to live and die there. If you and Mrs. Bridge would go, too, we might form a little colony amongst ourselves, and see our children grow up together. But it will never do to deprive them of their native land, which, I hope, will be a more comfortable and happy residence in their day than it has been in ours. In my opinion we are the most miserable people on earth." It appears, further, that the appointment of a consul for Manchester was contemplated, which, Hawthorne says, by withdrawing some of the Liverpool perquisites, "would go far towards knocking this consulate in the head."
On April 17th, hearing that a bill had been introduced in Congress to put consuls upon salary, instead of granting them fees, he wrote:—
"I trust to Heaven no change whatever will be made in regard to the emoluments of the Liverpool consulate, unless indeed a salary is to be given in addition to the fees, in which case I should receive it very thankfully. This, however, is not to be expected.... A fixed salary (even if it should be larger than any salary now paid by government, with the exception of the President's own) will render the office not worth any man's holding. It is impossible (especially for a man with a family and keeping any kind of an establishment) not to spend a vast deal of money here. The office, unfortunately, is regarded as one of great dignity, and puts the holder on a level with the highest society, and compels him to associate on equal terms with men who spend more than my whole income on the mere entertainments and other trimmings and embroideries of their lives. Then I am bound to exercise some hospitality toward my own countrymen. I keep out of society as much as I decently can, and really practise as stern an economy as ever I did in my life; but nevertheless I have spent many thousands of dollars in the few months of my residence here, and cannot reasonably hope to spend less than $6,000 per annum, even after the expense of setting up an establishment is defrayed. All this is for the merely indispensable part of my living; and unless I make a hermit of myself and deprive my wife and children of all the pleasures and advantages of an English residence, I must inevitably exceed the sum named above.... It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to run in debt, even taking my income at $15,000" (out of which all the clerks and certain other office expenses had to be paid), ... "the largest sum that it ever reached in Crittenden's time. He had no family but a wife, and lived constantly at a boarding-house, and, nevertheless, went away (as he assured me) with an aggregate of only $25,000 derived from his savings.
"Now the American public can never be made to understand such a statement as the above; and they would grumble awfully if more than $6,000 per annum were allowed for a consul's salary." But Hawthorne concludes that it would not compensate him to retain the place with a salary even of $10,000; and that if the emoluments should be reduced from their then proportions, "the incumbent must be compelled to turn his official position to account by engaging in commerce—a course which ought not to be permitted, and which no Liverpool consul has ever adopted."
There are some references to President Pierce, in the Bridge correspondence, which possess exceptional interest; but I cite only one of them. The great honor of the immense publicity into which Pierce had come as the executive head of the nation, and the centre upon which many conflicting movements and machinations turned, created a danger of misunderstandings with some