Part 16 (1/2)

”To atte this event into consideration would be like trying to i seems less likely than that he should have accomplished his work in literature independently of her sympathy and companionshi+p Not that she afforded him any direct and literal assistance in the coifts holly unsuited to such employment, and no one apprehended enius, inso not far removed froard to his literary productions She believed in his inspiration, and her office was to promote, as far as in her lay, the favorableness of the conditions under which it should manifest itself”

It was to this that she devoted her life,--to couard from all outward annoyances, the poetical and sensitive man who believed in her so implicitly and leaned upon her so confidently They led a very quiet and secluded life during the most of his literary career, and seemed almost to resent any intrusion of the outside world upon theitating questions and pressing ideas

They took very slight interest in the questions which stirred New England life in their day, and held entirely aloof from the reforms which shook the social life around them from centre to foundation-stone

Indeed, he had a deep-seated dislike to the genus Reforsworth” Perhaps he had known sorew his dislike of the whole species At any rate, the land was full at that tih the hoarse trumpet of Reform”

never received much aid or sympathy from Nathaniel Hawthorne or his wife Nor will they, apparently, from his son, who says of his father, ”He was not a teetotaler any ”

But if their syo out very widely to the outside world, there was the most perfect sympathy and companionshi+p in the hoe has ever been made than this life of the Hawthornes presents Yes, it was a happy life they led, these two in their married isolation, despite poverty and obscurity and a lack of appreciation in the early time, and of trial, from ill-health and other causes, in later years He lived like Carlyle, a good deal in the shadows of his famous books, and was sometimes for months in the possession of the de ”The Marble Faun” he thus writes in a letter:

”I sternly shut rips with the ro to tear froed about his work, and needed a deal of cheering regarding it He says in one place:

”My own individual taste is for an altogether different class of books from what I write If I were to meet with such books as et through with theenial book, but the Devil hiet hiain:--

”Heaven sees fit to visit me with the unshakable conviction that all this series of articles is good for nothing I don't think that the public will bear with ”

His letters are often full of this leams of his humor For instance, he writes to Fields:--

”Do al,--in what part of the world it lies, and whether it is a Kingdo there, and whether the Minister would be much pestered with his own countrymen”

And later, when he was in Rome:--

”I bitterly detest this Rome, and shall rejoice to bid it adieu forever; and I fully acquiesce in all the mischief and ruin that has ever happened to it froration doard In fact, I wish the very site of it had been obliterated before I ever saw it”

His co to those people--and their na themselves He writes to Fields:--

”If you want old one, but one which will not get stiff and rheuood pen in reat multitude which no ain:--

”nobody ever suffered lad thatto a close”

In private conversation he enlivened his hts often with vivid surprises of expression; and he had aa severe remark, which re such a disturbance in the gallery of a theatre that the play could hardly proceed Cries of ”Throw him over!” arose from all parts of the house, and the noise becaentle ferew silent to hear:--

”No, I pray you,that you will not throw him over, but--kill him where he is!”

It was only in the company of intimate personal friends, froed in his natural buoyancy of spirits A them he occasionally condescended to uproarious fun But he was like Dr Johnson, hen indulging in a scene of wild hilarity, suddenly exclairave; here cohtest suspicion of there being a fool in the company Hawthorne alore his armor The pretentious and transcendental fools he hated worst of all; and the young ht the infinite was the thing for hi as of asphyxia

Hawthorne's atmosphere was really unhealthy for transcendentalists No doubt his dislike of Margaret Fuller arose fro a part, always straining after an effect He loved simple, natural, unaffected people, and the part of a sibyl was very distasteful to hiaret said, and very ungallantly pronounced her a hu But as he did this only upon the paper of his own private diary, with no thought of it ever being paraded before a critical and captious world, we should not blame him too severely And if he washer husband and her life in Roossip-loving friends in Roratuitous falsehoods upon the pages of one's private notebook about acquaintances, as a general rule