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1878 Nathaniel Hawthorne: An oration delivered before the alumni of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, July 10, 1878 Joseph White Symonds

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Recommended Citation Symonds, Joseph White, "Nathaniel Hawthorne: An oration delivered before the alumni of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, July 10, 1878" (1878). Books and Publications. 132. https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/books_pubs/132

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--'~ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

AN ORATION

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

ALUMNI OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE,

BRUNSWICK, MAINE, JULY 10, 1878,

BY

JOSEPH W. SYMONDS.

PORTLAND : PUBLISHED BY THE ALUMNI. 1878. STgPllEN BEH.HY, PHlNTEH. ORATION.

BRETHREN OP TIIE BOWDOIN ALUMNI, LADIES AND GE~-

TJ,EMEN:

It is true, I appl'ehend, at least of those of us who after long absence l'evisit this seat of learuing, that we come to remember the dead, not less than to rejoin the living. We renew with deliglit our inti­ macy with those who retmn, while across the inter­ vening distances affection and memory go, to join hands with those who shall not return again. There are footsteps hure which rightcn out of the haunted dark­ ness; while forms of men, unknown or forgotten of the world, glide silently among the loitering stran­ gers who love of the sea was an inherited passion, which never expired. In 18GO, on his return from England, he said to a friend who was sea-sick: " I shonltl like to sail on and on forever, and never touch the shore again." He was not avcn;e to hooks, aucl, at an early age, an acciclental lameness, wl1ich held him a prisoner from his sports for 8eveml years, clonhtlc;;;; <1uickc11ed his NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 7 taste for reading. The books within his reach were those to be found in New England homes seventy years ago, unless we except Rousseau and the New­ gate Calendar, which he is said to have read before he was fourteen. Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Pope, Thomson and Spenser's Faerie Queene made part of his early reading, while over the Pilgrim's Progress he would muse by the hour without once speaking. The strength of this early impression, the profound influeuce of the story of Christian's pil­ i' I grimage upon his mind, is strikingly apparent in his · 1 works. "The Celestial Railroad,'' one of the "Mosses," on which, in a dream, he takes passage from the City of Destrnction to the Celestial City, i11 the pleasant company of one Mr. Smooth-it-away, is but a new chapter of Bunyan, with its moral for a later age. He lingers at V auity Fair, and wakes from his dream when the wheels of the ferry, at the farther end of the route, dash over him the spray from the cold waters of the river of death. But it is not in the form of his works tl1at the boy's deep musing over t,lie great allegory may be tracetl, so much as it i::; in the 1>1thjects to which it directed his attention anll the tone with which it iufusecl his thought. Sin, evil, outward-seeming 8 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

good with a nucleus of guilt at its heart, sorrow, calamity, death, the dark enigmas of life, a dusky throng, floated into view. He was early familiar with the Bible, and, in later life, often justified the use of a particular word by repeating a passage from it. There were thrown in his way, too, in those days, I imagine, more austere books, from the pages of which religion casts gloom, rather than light, 011 human life. But while he had all the healthfulness, and, in a certain sense, the happiness of childhood, there was early developed a love of solitude which abstracted him even from ·the ::;ociety of his fellows at school. Long rambles, alone, were his favorite school-boy pastime. His father, a sea captain, died abroad of fever in 1808. Hawthorne's earliest thought of him must have been of one who had sailed away never to return. It was an event that bore upon its gloomy wings not only the darkness of mystery, but the h11r

111 his reading, a gloomy hut picLuresque phrase always arrested his attenLion and remained in his memory. Oue of his favorite quotations was the line from Richarcl III:-

"Stand back, 111y lord, and /pt tlte co.ffi11 pass." Fancy was already flitting in dadc places. Among the mentnl visiton; were already they who veiled tlwir beiwty in sombre gnise. Hawthorne remembered his mother while she was yet young all(l beautiful, hut he may never lrnve seen her face when there was not a sadness even iu her smile. She livecl in tlie seclusion of mourning, never forgetti11g the momenL when, in place of the joyous hopes with whi<"h she had freighted her husbanalHl's memory, it is not strange, if it is true, that to her, in the midst of thiH experience, even religion spoke with new solemnity in its voice, was not free from gloom, and, in minute regard for days and forms and fasts, seemed to walk the darker ways of supeniti­ tion. Ilow profounc1ly Hawthorne was affee;tecl by his mother's grief, ancl the depth of his sympathy for her, may he seen in many passages of hi:; writing::;; 2 JO NATIIANIEL HAWTHORNE. perhaps most strikingly in the exquii,;ite pathos of the Twice-Told Talc, "The Wivei,; of the Dead." Mary, whose lmsl>antl ii,; reported drowned at r-;ea, i» cle»crihed ni,;lecp, with a look of rnotionle:'lH contenL­ meut upon her face, "ai,; if her heart, like a , at different tillH'8, inel11;c>. They werl' winter, when the moonlight wa>; on the i<:e, Hlrnte

Ill_\ g11n, r l'O

He has referred to this as the happiest period of his life. He grew tall and strong, and had the vigor an, "whence your faith came; but, while we were lads together at colll'ge, gatheri11g blue­ berries, in study hours, under those tall academic pines, or watching the great logs as they tumbled along the current of the An

Notwitlrntanding Lhe idleness to which he refers iu t.he letter to Bri

In "Fanshawe," an anonymous romance puhlisho

•Professor l'ncknrd. NATIIANIEL HAWTHORNE. 15 from the ancient classics, there was even then the promise of that matchless simplicity and brilliancy of style in which his later works are written ; a style so pure tlrnt it seems a new element, in which the airieRt creatures of the imagination may play at will, in all the lightness of motion, in the wavy grace of flowing and vanishing outlines. For twelve years after graduation, Hawthorne Jed a life of ah.;olute sedusion. Writing to Longfellow in 1837, alluding to their last meeting at Bowdoin, hf~ says: "Ever since that time I have secluded my­ »elf from society; and yet I never meant any such thing, nor dreamed what Rort of life I was going to lead. I have made a captive of myself, and put me into a dungeon, and now I cannot find the key to let myself out, ancl if the door were open I should be almost afraid to come out." "There is no fate in this world," be continues," so horrible as to have no share in either its joys or sorrowt:>. For the last ten years I have not Jived, but only dreamed of living. It may be true that there have l>een some unsubsfantial pleasuret:> in the shade, which I might have missed in the sunshine, but you cannot conceive how utterly devoid of satis­ faction all my retrospects are. I have laid up no treasnret:> of pleasant remembrances agai1rnt old age; 16 NATHANIEL IIAW'l'IIOR~E. but there is some comfort in thinking that future years can han11y fail to he more varied and, there­ fore, more tol crnhle than the pa-;L." Late in life he speaks of "the heavy se<'lm;iou in which I shut myself up fur twelve years after lced. But oftener I was happy-at least, as happy as l tben !mew how to be, or was aware of the possiLility of lJeing. By and hy the world foull(l me out in my lonely chamLer and called me forth-not, indeed, with a loud roar of acclamation, hut rather with a still, small voice-and fo1th I went, but foullll noth­ ing in the worlcl that I thought preferalJle to my old ::;olitude till now." Long, rnlitary walks at JJight, in the city or for :3 JH NATllANTEJ, llAW'l'JIOltNE. mile8 along the shore, tli vicle

"After it time,"' he ~my:; in the "Night Skdchcs," .. the visions vanish an of such sliausie

Tl1e intensity of his solilucle, cluring tl1is period. ean only he felt hy re:uling- his own recorcl of his inner life, ancl the :-;loric:-; in which :-;trang·e plta8C8 of it appear. " I was like a man talking to l1imself in a

or

alon~ ~L ai'l I walke

"I sat clown by the way-side of life," he wrote, in 1851, alluding to this early period, "like a man under enchantment, and a shrubbery sprang up arotuHl me, and the bushes grew to he sa.plings, and the saplings became trees, until no exit appeare

too open to Lhe view of all, for me to detain you 111 trneiug it here. The two year::; in lhc Bo::;ton Custom Ilon::;e, uncler nancrofl, the l1i::;torian, then collector of the port; tlH' year ;it Brnok Fann ; the fom year::;

of 1lelightfnl residenee, after his maniage, ;it, t !10 Ol literary form any one of the snhjects on which his mill(l hacl long heen engage(l; his 8n. \Yitli hut the most trifling exceptions, until he went to Englanlc•ments of strn11gc11pss, terror ancl gloom that wen· mixe(l in ilw spell. Ile stuclierl iL till thP figm·ps of that timP walked through his thought as 2(l N ATIIANJEf, IIAWTIIOltKE.

clearly as if he were to meet them in the historie places with which their presence was associated. In the "Twice-Toleription in many of hi:> stories. I know not where will ue found more miu1tte re­ pro1luetio11 of the 1lelaib of a pa:-;t epoeh, than iu Hawthorne':; lreatmcut of early New Engla111l life. It wa:; done, uot iu lov1:, 11or i11 hate, l>ttt iu a stern regard for trnth, wJiieh wa:> parl o[' hi:-; own i1i\10rit­ ance from Purita1t auce:>try. Iii:> own anee:>tors, a:-; you know, hail been prnmi11ent uwn of Lhe Colony, au1l among the forenwst in the pen;eclltion of Lhe wilehe:; anee111lanb;,-a tradition by whieh :>ome explained the fallen fortunes of the family. What dark fruitage wa:> borne, as this tradition 1leveloped in Hawthorne':-; thought! Yet, however conseiou::; he might lie of th<~ exe1~:-;ses of Puritan zeal, it wm; the Pmitan blood in hi:; veins that renderc1l the pernonagc:> of tho:-;e time:> :>o uear an1l rcal to him. That :;ubtlc analy:;i:; of spiritual mood:> whieh mat reee:;se:> of the humau h1:art, \011g rdlectiou upon

motives :-;es in miucb eo11:;eiou:-; of crime, :slll'e intuition of the law:> that govern them, a profound a11tl pcrlwp:> melancholy tl101tglitfulue:ss ::-< ATlL\.~rnr, II.A. WTHOR;>;E. upon the problems of religion, of good ;ind evil, guilt and sorrow, life and death, these are but new growths in later times of those thirk-veined leaves that grew of olcl upon the Puritan stalk. Every phase of early New England life, every type of early New England character, are familiar to him. The sea, the sky, the

Lorn; in 110 other air coul

'' Louk back," S

those familiar sights, * * * those clays that never brought any strange event; that life of sober week-clays, and a solemn Sabbath at the close;" although "the cloucls along the horizon will he the 011ly gallery of ftrt; "-from fir::;t to la::;t, hi::; history, his character, his thought auJ feeling, bear a deep tinge of New England color. The fair flower of his genius shot up, wild, from dark anonal and hable. Again::;t Hawthorne, the charge of being morbid, N ATHAxrnr, IIAWTJIOJ{~E. or mi,;antliropic, however eminent the authority in its support, I liclievo cannot justly lie prC'ferred. In a few of his ,;!orieH, perhaps, it seems as if a ,;lrange horrnr ficizP moral lies below. Tho nuwt•,.., and force of morn] law :tre again aucl again his tl1C'me. \Vhen once· the germ of

Pvil i::; sown, all Plsc iH ~L clark neec•ssity. It is "snre lo l>lossom

The great mystery of the existence of evil is one which this far-seeing man seems to strain his vision to probe. It is studied in the beautiful fable of the modern Faun, transformed hy crime and remorse. The question recurs again and again, in various forms, "Is sin, tlien,-which we deem such a dreadful blackness in the universe-is it, like sorrow, merely an element of human education, through which we struggle to a higher ancl purer state than we could otherwise have attaiuecl? Did Adam fall, that we might ultimately rise to a far loftier Paradise than his?" But each time the question is clismi::;sed, as containing deep and perilous matter on which it is not s:ife for men to set their feet.

\Ve must mrn;e long over this Look before we begin 5 NATHANIEL HAWTHOiiNE. to see its depth of meaning. If MiriM1 was guiltless until her eyes bade Donatello cast Father Antonio from the Rock, then her fate illustrates the terrible bondage into which the guilt of others may east an innocent person. "Free al:\ she seemed to be-beggar as he looked-the nameless vagrant was dragging the beautiful Miriam through the streets of Rome, fet­ terecl an cl shackled more crnclly than any eapti ve queen of yore, following in an Emperor's triumph." This very boudage becomes intolerable, arid hurries the innocent iu to crime. It is these remote relatious. the far-stretching resulls of an evil deed, that Haw­ thorne sketches so viviclly. That the crime of 011e i;houlcl involve the misery oC many is one of the clarkest ricltlles in human experience. lfowthorne not only paints the effect of crime uvon the actors tl.10mselves, ancl those who share in the guilt, but enforces the trnth that even the secret lrnowledge of another's crime is a thing hardly to be borne by a mind of unsullied innocence. There is uudoubteclly eoutairred in "The Marble Faun," llawthome's deep pondering over the story of Beatrice Cenci, ancl the name of Miriam will for­ ever remain the symbol of a::; brilliant beauty, as strnuge sorrow, as maddening experience, as mute isolatiou and remoteness from help, as dark a mystery NATHANIEL HAW'fIIORNE. 35 ancl doom as terrible, not upo11 the scaffold, but m the horror of her own heart. There is goocl in all lives. None are free from sin. We must, thereforr, accept our brotherhood with the guiltiest. These are the more ohvious truths upon wl1ich he falls hack, when the perilous theory that sin is l>ut a stage of discipline is rejected. But he never theorize:-;. Ile neither advocates nor ac­ cepts a theory. IIc opens great avenues of thought, along which he saunters, inviting us lo follow if we will. His impressions of Rome are singularly vivid and internse, as they glow upon the pages of" The ;\larhle Faun.'' Roman antiquity, like a pageant, passes in review before him, as he walks and lingen; amiu t.J,ie ruins of the imperial city. The mighty shade of the empire ham1t:-; its birth-place a11le spoil, :-;tn:ams arnl llauuts in hundred-fold suc;eession through the yeL st.al wart arch way. Cicero's foot may have stepped upon the half-worn pavement below, or Ilorncc :;trnllcu near l1y, ''making his foot.- NATIIANIEL JIAWTIIORNE. steps chime with the measure of the ode that was ringing in his mind." Then a dreary sense of the cfo;comfort and desola­ tion of modern Rome oppresses him. These wrecks ahont him are all that snrvivecl when barbarism, like a floorl, rolled in upon the glory of classical antiquity. All Rome has been swallowed up in the gulf into which Cnrtius precipitatecl himself in the vain hope of saving her. "The palace of the Cmsar::; hai; gone rlown thither, with a hollow, rumbling sound of its fragme11ts ! .\11 the temples have tumbled into it; and thousands of statues lrnve heen thrown after'. All tho armies and the triumphs have marchecl into the great chasm, with their martial m rn;ie playing, as they stepped over the hrink. All the heroes, the statesmen an

\Ve wish he were more lavii,;h in the use of his unlimitml resoureci,; (1f humor; alld lhc brilliancy of his wit sometinws makes more re.tl, as by a vivid flash, the dirnlless of the twilight iulo whieh he ha::; lu re with the same clear sight with wliid1 he wrote them, if we arc not happi('J', we shall at l<'ast lrn wi:-;('l' n1c11. To read hi:-; hi:-;lorical :-;k<·tuhn; is like wandering tl1rn11gh ollrccls Lhat have long disappcare

"It may not he too much to hope, that in the eyes of the puhlie at large, America11 literature may henceforth acquire a weight and value which have not heretofore been conceded to it ; time and in paths remote from the realm of letters that, at least where nicety is required, the cl1a11nels between thought aud expression, of which Shelley ::>pcaki:i, remain more or less ohslructe of my ;;entences arouncl them. Nor woul