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rank of general in the Mexican War, was nominated by the democratic party for the presidency of the United States, at the time when the romancer had established himself in this humble but charming old abode; and it became manifest that the candidate wanted Hawthorne to write a life of him, for use in the campaign. Hawthorne, on being pressed, consented to do so, and a letter which he addressed to Bridge, October 13, 1852, contains some extremely interesting confidences on the subject, which will be entirely new to readers. As they do Hawthorne credit, if considered fairly, and give a striking presentment of the impartiality with which he viewed all subjects, it seems to be proper to print them here.
He begins by speaking of "The Blithedale Romance," regarding which he says: "I doubt whether you will like it very well; but it has met with good success, and has brought me (besides its American circulation) a thousand dollars from England, whence likewise have come many favorable notices. Just at this time, I rather think your friend stands foremost there as an American fiction-monger. In a day or two I intend to begin a new romance, which, if possible, I intend to make more genial than the last.
"I did not send you the Life of Pierce, not considering it fairly one of my literary productions.... I was terribly reluctant to undertake this work, and tried to persuade Pierce, both by letter and vivâ voce, that I could not perform it as well as many others; but he thought differently, and of course after a friendship of thirty years it was impossible to refuse my best efforts in his behalf, at the great pinch of his life. It was a bad book to write, for the gist of the matter lay in explaining how it happened, that with such extraordinary opportunities for eminent distinction, civil and military, as he has enjoyed, this crisis should have found him so obscure as he certainly was, in a national point of view. My heart absolutely sank at the dearth of available material. However, I have done the business, greatly to Frank's satisfaction; and, though I say it myself, it is judiciously done; and, without any sacrifice of truth, it puts him in as good a light as circumstances would admit. Other writers might have made larger claims for him, and have eulogized him more highly; but I doubt whether any other could have bestowed a better aspect of sincerity and reality on the narrative, and have secured all the credit possible for him without spoiling all by asserting too much. And though the story is true, yet it took a romancer to do it.
"Before undertaking it, I made an inward resolution that I would accept no office from him; but to say the truth, I doubt whether it would not be rather folly than heroism to adhere to this purpose, in case he should offer me anything particularly good. We shall see. A foreign mission I could not afford to take;—the consulship at Liverpool I might.... I have several invitations from English celebrities to come over there; and this office would make all straight. He certainly owes me something; for the biography has cost me hundreds of friends here at the North, who had a purer regard for me than Frank Pierce or any other politician ever gained, and who drop off from me like autumn leaves, in consequence of what I say on the slavery question. But they were my real sentiments, and I do not now regret that they are on record."
After discussing other topics, he observes further of Pierce: "I have come seriously to the conclusion that he has in him many of the chief elements of a great man; and that if he wins the election he may run a great career. His talents are administrative; he has a subtle faculty of making affairs roll around according to his will, and of influencing their course without showing any trace of his action." Hawthorne did not feel very confident of his friend's election. "I love him," he adds, "and, oddly enough, there is a kind of pitying sentiment mixed with my affection for him just now."
Mr. Richard Henry Stoddard has set down his reminiscences of two visits paid to Hawthorne at the beginning and after the end of the campaign. In the summer of 1852, Mr. Stoddard was making a short stay in Boston, and dropped in at the Old Corner Bookstore to call upon Mr. Fields, who then had his headquarters there. He found Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, the lecturer and critic, sitting with the publisher.
"'We are going to see Hawthorne,' Mr. Fields remarked, in an off-hand way, as if such a visit was the commonest thing in the world. 'Won't you come along?' He knew my admiration for Hawthorne, and that I desired to meet him, if I could do so without being considered an infliction. 'To be sure I will,' I replied.... When we were fairly seated in the train we met a friend of Hawthorne, whom Mr. Fields knew—a Colonel T. I. Whipple—who, like ourselves, was en route for Concord, ... and as General Pierce was then the democratic candidate for the presidency, he was going to see Hawthorne, in order to furnish materials for that work.
"We reached The Wayside, where Hawthorne, who had no doubt been expecting visitors, met us at the door. I was introduced to him as being the only stranger of the party, and was greeted warmly, more so than I had dared to hope, remembering the stories I had heard of his unconquerable shyness. He threw open the door of the room on the left, and, telling us to make ourselves at home, disappeared with Colonel Whipple and his budget of biographical memoranda. We made ourselves at home, as he had desired, in what I suppose was the parlor—a cosy but plainly furnished room, with nothing to distinguish it from a thousand other "best rooms" in New England, except a fine engraving on the wall of one of Raphael's Madonnas. We chatted a few moments, and then, as he did not return, we took a stroll over the grounds, under the direction of Mr. Fields.
"We had ascended the hill, and from its outlook were taking in the historic country about, when we were rejoined by Hawthorne in the old rustic summer-house. As I was the stranger, he talked with me more than with the others, largely about myself and my verse-work, which he seemed to have followed with considerable attention; and he mentioned an architectural poem of mine and compared it with his own modest mansion.
"'If I could build like you,' he said, 'I, too, would have a castle in the air.'
"'Give me The Wayside,' I replied, 'and you shall have all the air castles I can build.'
"As we rambled and talked, my heart went out towards this famous man, who did not look down upon me, as he might well have done, but took me up to himself as an equal and a friend. Dinner was announced and eaten, a plain country dinner, with a bottle or two of vin ordinaire, and we started back to Boston."
Pierce having become President-Elect, Mr. Stoddard made another trip to Concord, in the winter of 1852-3, to ask Hawthorne's advice about getting a place in the Custom House. He was taken into the study (at that time in the southeast corner, on the ground-floor and facing the road), where there was a blazing wood-fire. The announcement of dinner cut short their conversation, but after dinner they again retired to the study, where, as Mr. Stoddard says, Hawthorne brought out some cigars, "which we smoked with a will and which I found stronger than I liked. Custom House matters were scarcely touched upon, and I was not sorry, for while they were my ostensible errand there, they were not half so interesting as the discursive talk of Hawthorne. He manifested a good deal of curiosity in regard to some old Brook Farmers whom I knew in a literary way, and I told him what they were doing, and gave him my impressions of the individuality of each. He listened, with an occasional twinkle of the eye, and I can see now that he was amused by my out-spoken detestation of certain literary Philistines. He was out-spoken, too, for he told me plainly that a volume of fairy stories I had just published was not simple enough for the young.
"What impressed me most at the time was not the drift of the conversation, but the graciousness of Hawthorne. He expressed the warmest interest in my affairs, and a willingness to serve me in every possible way. In a word, he was the soul of kindness, and when I forget him I shall have forgotten everything else."
When Mr. Stoddard got back to New York, he received this letter:—
Concord, March 16th, 1853.
Dear Stoddard:
I beg your pardon for not writing before; but I have been very busy and not particularly well. I enclose a letter to Atherton. Roll up and pile up as much of a snow-ball as you can in the way of political interest; for there never was a fiercer time than this among the office-seekers....
Atherton is a man of rather cold exterior; but has a good heart—at least for a politician of a quarter of a century's standing. If it be certain that he cannot help you, he will probably tell you so. Perhaps it would be as well for you to apply for some place that has a literary fragrance about it—librarian to some department—the office that Lanman