NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

By GRACE E. SELLON

NE of the most daring of those who engaged in the sea-fights of the American Revolution was Daniel Hawthorne, commander of a privateer, a man whose courage and enterprise won for him the title of "Bold Daniel." He came of one of the earliest American families, one that had been established in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1637, and had contributed not a little to the fame of that seaport, for his ancestors had been leaders among those whose stern and narrow views of justice had led them to persecute the Quakers and later to put to death innocent people during the awful period of the Salem witchcraft. Yet the same hardihood and fearless uprightness that had won esteem for Daniel Hawthorne had distinguished the family from the very first, and was passed on to the brave commander's descendants. His son Nathaniel, like the long line of notable men who had gone before him, possessed a strict sense of right and wrong, much courage and an especial fondness for the adventurous life on the sea. Though he contributed nothing to the celebrity of his forefathers, his son and namesake, the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, born in Salem, on July 4, 1804, gained for the old New England family a glory that will last.

It was in the home built by his father's father that Nathaniel was born and that he spent the first four years of his life. Yet he was never privileged to hear from the old captain's lips of the exciting sea-skirmishes in which the "Fair America," under the command of "Bold Daniel," had encountered and held her own against British vessels, for his grandfather had died many years before. Nor did the young boy ever know the pleasure of companionship with his father, who died in South America in 1808. In a great measure, too, he was deprived of association with his mother from the time when, following her husband's death, she removed with her children to her father's home, in another part of Salem. So deeply did she feel her loss that she shut herself away from the world during the remainder of her lifetime, and kept such strict privacy that she did not even take her meals with her family. The children were naturally quiet and reserved, and with the example of their mother's seclusion always before them, they took little part in the life outside of their home. Nathaniel did not like school, and, being under the care of relatives who allowed him much freedom, he missed a considerable part of the early school training that most boys receive. Yet his time was not wasted, for there were good books in his home, and these he read of his own free will.

When he was about eight or nine years of age, his mother took her children to live for a time upon property owned by her family on the shore of Lake Sebago, in Maine. Then began a period of great delight for the young boy and his sisters. As the land was mostly covered with woods and the settle

ments were far apart, there were endless opportunities for fishing and hunting and roaming about the woods or spending long, uninterrupted hours with favorite authors. In the winter Nathaniel passed much time in skating on Lake Sebago, feeling wholly free and at home in the midst of the wild life of nature.

So far as the boy's wishes were concerned, these days in Maine might have continued indefinitely; but his mother, feeling that he needed the discipline of regular study, sent him back to Salem to be prepared by a private teacher for entrance into Bowdoin College. The result of this training was that when he was about eighteen he became a member of the class at Bowdoin to which Longfellow and Horatio Bridge belonged, and thus began a career at college in which he proved himself a somewhat wayward student. The grind and drudgery of courses uninteresting to him he shunned, yet he would not let himself fail in any work that he undertook. Subjects that he liked he mastered readily.

Though he found no pleasure in breaking college rules, yet he made no pretensions to being a model student. He played cards in his room when he might have been studying, and would go off on a fishing trip when the fancy took him, without much regard for unfinished lessons. He looked forward with undisguised pleasure to his vacations spent at home, and on one occasion was so overcome by his desire to bring his studies to an end and leave Brunswick that, a short time before the close of the term, he wrote to his sister Louisa demanding that she invent an excuse for his return home. After

stating five reasons for thus quitting Bowdoin, he continued:

"If you are at a loss for an excuse, say that mother is out of health; or that Uncle R. is going a journey on account of his health, and wishes me to attend him; or that Elizabeth is on a visit at some distant place, and wishes me to come and bring her home; or that George Archer has just arrived from sea, and is to sail again immediately, and wishes to see me before he goes; or that some of my relations are to die or be married, and my presence is necessary on the occasion. And lastly, if none of these excuses will suit you, and you can think of no other, write and order me to come home without any. If you do not, I shall certainly forge a letter, for I will be at home within a week. Write the very day you receive this. If Elizabeth were at home, she would be at no loss for a good excuse. If you will do what I tell you, I shall be Your affectionate brother,

NATH. HAWTHORNE.

"My want of decent clothes will prevent my calling at Mrs. Sutton's. Write immediately, write immediately, write immediately.

"Haste, haste, post-haste, ride and run, until these shall be delivered. You must and shall and will do as I desire. If you can think of a true excuse, send it; if not, any other will answer the same purpose. If I do not get a letter by Monday, or Tuesday at farthest, I will leave Brunswick without liberty."

It is an interesting fact that this impetuous young student was regarded as the finest-looking man at Bowdoin. He was not much less than six feet tall,

and was strong, supple and well proportioned. His dark hair waved back from a handsomely formed face; and his deep blue eyes, under their heavy brows, impressed one with their remarkable brightness and expressiveness.

Though it may seem surprising, it is true that Nathaniel Hawthorne was not at all conscious in his early youth of the great possibilities that lay in him to become a writer, and that not until he had advanced in his college course did he form the purpose of making literature a profession. As early as sixteen years of age he had written verses that had been published; yet he was far from believing that he had poetic power. That he did not at this time take very seriously his ability as a writer, may be judged from this passage in a letter to his mother written in March, 1821:

"I am quite reconciled to going to college, since I am to spend the vacations with you. Yet four years of the best part of my life is a great deal to throw away. I have not yet concluded what profession I shall have.

"The being a minister is of course out of the question. I should not think that even you could desire me to choose so dull a way of life. Oh, no, mother, I was not born to vegetate forever in one place, and to live and die as calm and tranquil as— a puddle of water.

'As to lawyers, there are so many of them already that one half of them (upon a moderate calculation) are in a state of actual starvation.

"A physician, then, seems to be 'Hobson's choice;' but yet I should not like to live by the diseases and infirmities of my fellow-creatures. And it would