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1853 AD (search for this): chapter 2
p. 331. For twenty years he continued to be, according to his own statement, the obscurest man of letters in America. Goodrich testifies that it was almost impossible to find a publisher for Twice-told tales in 1837, and I can myself remember how limited a circle greeted the reprint in the enlarged edition of 1841. When Poe, about 1846, wrote patronizingly of Hawthorne, he added, It was never the fashion, until lately, to speak of him in any summary of our best authors. Poe's Works (ed. 1853), III. 189. Whittier once told me that when he himself had obtained, with some difficulty, in 1847, the insertion of one of Hawthorne's sketches in The National Era, the latter said quietly, There is not much market for my wares. It has always seemed to me the greatest triumph of his genius, not that he bore poverty without a murmur, -for what right has a literary man, who can command his time and his art, to sigh after the added enjoyments of mere wealth?-but that he went on doing work of
Leslie (search for this): chapter 2
II., p 269. that Hawthorne and Willis began to write together in The Token, in 1827, and that the now-forgotten Willis rose rapidly to fame, while Hawthorne's writings did not attract the slightest attention. The only recognition of his merits that I have been able to find in the contemporary criticism of those early years is in The New-England Magazine for October, 1834, where he is classed approvingly with those who were then considered the eminent writers of the day,--Miss Sedgwick, Miss Leslie, Verplanck, Greenwood, and John Neal. To them, the critic says, we may add an anonymous author of some of the most delicate and beautiful prose ever published this side of the Atlantic,--the author of The Gentle Boy. New-England Magazine, October, 1834, p. 331. For twenty years he continued to be, according to his own statement, the obscurest man of letters in America. Goodrich testifies that it was almost impossible to find a publisher for Twice-told tales in 1837, and I can myself
Willis (search for this): chapter 2
in terms of monosyllables. For all these merits he paid one high and inexorable penalty,--the utter absence of all immediate or dazzling success. His publisher, Goodrich, tells us, in his Reminiscences, Vol. II., p 269. that Hawthorne and Willis began to write together in The Token, in 1827, and that the now-forgotten Willis rose rapidly to fame, while Hawthorne's writings did not attract the slightest attention. The only recognition of his merits that I have been able to find in the coWillis rose rapidly to fame, while Hawthorne's writings did not attract the slightest attention. The only recognition of his merits that I have been able to find in the contemporary criticism of those early years is in The New-England Magazine for October, 1834, where he is classed approvingly with those who were then considered the eminent writers of the day,--Miss Sedgwick, Miss Leslie, Verplanck, Greenwood, and John Neal. To them, the critic says, we may add an anonymous author of some of the most delicate and beautiful prose ever published this side of the Atlantic,--the author of The Gentle Boy. New-England Magazine, October, 1834, p. 331. For twenty ye
Lowell (search for this): chapter 2
usical composer Jomelli went to a teacher to seek,--the art of not being embarrassed by his own ideas. Mrs. Hawthorne told me that her husband grappled alone all winter with The scarlet letter, and came daily from his study with a knot in his forehead; and yet his self-mastery was so complete that every sentence would seem to have crystallized in an atmosphere of perfect calm. We see the value of this element in his literary execution, when we turn from it to that of an author so great as Lowell, for instance, and see him often entangled and weighed down by his own rich thoughts, his style being overcrowded by the very wealth it bears. Hawthorne never needed Italic letters to distribute his emphasis, never a footnote for assistance. There was no conception so daring that he shrank from attempting it; and none that he could not so master as to state it, if he pleased, in terms of monosyllables. For all these merits he paid one high and inexorable penalty,--the utter absence of a
Shelley (search for this): chapter 2
h his wife by his side, and a noble-looking baby-boy in a little wagon which the father was pushing. I remember him as tall, firm, and strong in bearing; his wife looked pensive and dreamy, as she indeed was, then and always; the child was Julian, then known among the neighbors as the Prince. When I passed, Hawthorne lifted upon me his great gray eyes, with a look too keen to seem indifferent, too shy to be sympathetic-and that was all. But it comes back to memory like that one glimpse of Shelley which Browning describes, and which he likens to the day when he found an eagle's feather. Again I met Hawthorne at one of the sessions of a short-lived literary club; and I recall the imperturbable dignity and patience with which he sat through a vexatious discussion, whose details seemed as much dwarfed by his presence as if he had been a statue of Olympian Zeus. After his death I had a brief but intimate acquaintance with that rare person, Mrs. Hawthorne; and with one still more fin
Greenwood (search for this): chapter 2
orne and Willis began to write together in The Token, in 1827, and that the now-forgotten Willis rose rapidly to fame, while Hawthorne's writings did not attract the slightest attention. The only recognition of his merits that I have been able to find in the contemporary criticism of those early years is in The New-England Magazine for October, 1834, where he is classed approvingly with those who were then considered the eminent writers of the day,--Miss Sedgwick, Miss Leslie, Verplanck, Greenwood, and John Neal. To them, the critic says, we may add an anonymous author of some of the most delicate and beautiful prose ever published this side of the Atlantic,--the author of The Gentle Boy. New-England Magazine, October, 1834, p. 331. For twenty years he continued to be, according to his own statement, the obscurest man of letters in America. Goodrich testifies that it was almost impossible to find a publisher for Twice-told tales in 1837, and I can myself remember how limited a
Poe (search for this): chapter 2
conscientious fidelity of Puritanism in his veins, a thing equally important for literature and for life: without it he might have lavished and wasted himself like Poe. He had what Emerson once described as the still living merit of the oldest New-England families; The Dial, III.101. he had moreover the unexhausted wealth of tpossible to find a publisher for Twice-told tales in 1837, and I can myself remember how limited a circle greeted the reprint in the enlarged edition of 1841. When Poe, about 1846, wrote patronizingly of Hawthorne, he added, It was never the fashion, until lately, to speak of him in any summary of our best authors. Poe's Works Poe's Works (ed. 1853), III. 189. Whittier once told me that when he himself had obtained, with some difficulty, in 1847, the insertion of one of Hawthorne's sketches in The National Era, the latter said quietly, There is not much market for my wares. It has always seemed to me the greatest triumph of his genius, not that he bore poverty w
Emerson (search for this): chapter 2
dency is just now to the opposite fault,--to a distrust of all nice attention to form in writing, as being necessarily a weakness. Hawthorne happily escaped both these dangerous alternatives; and, indeed, it is hard to see that his genius was much affected by his surroundings, after all. He had, to be sure, the conscientious fidelity of Puritanism in his veins, a thing equally important for literature and for life: without it he might have lavished and wasted himself like Poe. He had what Emerson once described as the still living merit of the oldest New-England families; The Dial, III.101. he had moreover the unexhausted wealth of the Puritan traditions,--a wealth to which only he and Whittier have as yet done any justice. The value of the material to be found in contemporary American life he never fully recognized; but he was the first person to see that we really have, for romantic purposes, a past; two hundred years being really quite enough to constitute antiquity. This w
Hawthorne (search for this): chapter 2
Hawthorne. I do not know when I have been more surprised than on being asked, the other day, the neighbors as the Prince. When I passed, Hawthorne lifted upon me his great gray eyes, with a l he found an eagle's feather. Again I met Hawthorne at one of the sessions of a short-lived liteer on the surface, and could be no model for Hawthorne's. Yet from the time when the latter began tthe very highest types of artist. Through Hawthorne's journals we trace the mental impulses by wo it is in reading Septimius Felton. In all Hawthorne's completed works, the pencilling is rubbed peared. One of the most characteristic of Hawthorne's literary methods is his habitual use of gut being embarrassed by his own ideas. Mrs. Hawthorne told me that her husband grappled alone all ng overcrowded by the very wealth it bears. Hawthorne never needed Italic letters to distribute hi all coming time. The popular impression of Hawthorne as a shy and lonely man, gives but a part of[11 more...]
Napoleon Bonaparte (search for this): chapter 2
Hawthorne. I do not know when I have been more surprised than on being asked, the other day, whether Hawthorne was not physically very small. It seemed at the moment utterly unconceivable that he should have been any thing less than the sombre and commanding personage he was. Ellery Channing well describes him as a Tall, compacted figure, ably strung, To urge the Indian chase, or point the way. One can imagine any amount of positive energy that of Napoleon Bonaparte, for instance — as included within a small physical frame. But the self-contained purpose of Hawthorne, the large resources, the waiting power,--these seem to the imagination to imply an ample basis of physical life; and certainly his stately and noble port is inseparable, in my memory, from these characteristics. Vivid as this impression is, I yet saw him but twice, and never spoke to him. I first met him on a summer morning, in Concord, as he was walking along the road near the Old Manse, with his wife
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