PASSAGES FROM THE AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS
OF
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
VOL. I.
Salem, June 15, 1835.--A walk down to the Juniper. The shore of the coves
strewn with bunches of sea-weed, driven in by recent winds. Eel-grass,
rolled and bundled up, and entangled with it,--large marine vegetables,
of an olive-color, with round, slender, snake-like stalks, four or five
feet long, and nearly two feet broad: these are the herbage of the deep
sea. Shoals of fishes, at a little distance from the shore, discernible
by their fins out of water. Among the heaps of sea-weed there were
sometimes small pieces of painted wood, bark, and other driftage. On the
shore, with pebbles of granite, there were round or oval pieces of brick,
which the waves had rolled about till they resembled a natural mineral.
Huge stones tossed about, in every variety of confusion, some shagged all
over with sea-weed, others only partly covered, others bare. The old
ten-gun battery, at the outer angle of the Juniper, very verdant, and
besprinkled with white-weed, clover, and buttercups. The juniper-trees
are very aged and decayed and moss-grown. The grass about the hospital
is rank, being trodden, probably, by nobody but myself. There is a
representation of a vessel under sail, cut with a penknife, on the corner
of the house.
Returning by the almshouse, I stopped a good while to look at the pigs,--a
great herd,--who seemed to be just finishing their suppers. They
certainly are types of unmitigated sensuality,--some standing in the
trough, in the midst of their own and others' victuals,--some thrusting
their noses deep into the food,--some rubbing their backs against a
post,--some huddled together between sleeping and waking, breathing
hard,--all wallowing about; a great boar swaggering round, and a big sow
waddling along with her huge paunch. Notwithstanding the unspeakable
defilement with which these strange sensualists spice all their food, they
seem to have a quick and delicate sense of smell. What
ridiculous-looking animals! Swift himself could not have imagined
anything nastier than what they practise by the mere impulse of natural
genius. Yet the Shakers keep their pigs very clean, and with great
advantage. The legion of devils in the herd of swine,--what a scene it
must have been!
Sunday evening, going by the jail, the setting sun kindled up the windows
most cheerfully; as if there were a bright, comfortable light within its
darksome stone wall.
June 18th.--A walk in North Salem in the decline of yesterday afternoon,
--beautiful weather, bright, sunny, with a western or northwestern wind
just cool enough, and a slight superfluity of heat. The verdure, both of
trees and grass, is now in its prime, the leaves elastic, all life. The
grass-fields are plenteously bestrewn with white-weed, large spaces
looking as white as a sheet of snow, at a distance, yet with an
indescribably warmer tinge than snow,--living white, intermixed with
living green. The hills and hollows beyond the Cold Spring copiously
shaded, principally with oaks of good growth, and some walnut-trees, with
the rich sun brightening in the midst of the open spaces, and mellowing
and fading into the shade,--and single trees, with their cool spot of
shade, in the waste of sun: quite a picture of beauty, gently
picturesque. The surface of the land is so varied, with woodland
mingled, that the eye cannot reach far away, except now and then in
vistas perhaps across the river, showing houses, or a church and
surrounding village, in Upper Beverly. In one of the sunny bits of
pasture, walled irregularly in with oak-shade, I saw a gray mare feeding,
and, as I drew near, a colt sprang up from amid the grass,--a very small
colt. He looked me in the face, and I tried to startle him, so as to
make him gallop; but he stretched his long legs, one after another,
walked quietly to his mother, and began to suck,--just wetting his lips,
not being very hungry. Then he rubbed his head, alternately, with each
hind leg. He was a graceful little beast.
I bathed in the cove, overhung with maples and walnuts, the water cool
and thrilling. At a distance it sparkled bright and blue in the breeze
and sun. There were jelly-fish swimming about, and several left to melt
away on the shore. On the shore, sprouting amongst the sand and gravel,
I found samphire, growing somewhat like asparagus. It is an excellent
salad at this season, salt, yet with an herb-like vivacity, and very
tender. I strolled slowly through the pastures, watching my long shadow
making grave, fantastic gestures in the sun. It is a pretty sight to see
the sunshine brightening the entrance of a road which shortly becomes
deeply overshadowed by trees on both sides. At the Cold Spring, three
little girls, from six to nine, were seated on the stones in which the
fountain is set, and paddling in the water. It was a pretty picture, and
would have been prettier, if they had shown bare little legs, instead of
pantalets. Very large trees overhung them, and the sun was so nearly
gone down that a pleasant gloom made the spot sombre, in contrast with
these light and laughing little figures. On perceiving me, they rose up,
tittering among themselves. It seemed that, there was a sort of playful
malice in those who first saw me; for they allowed the other to keep on
paddling, without warning her of my approach. I passed along, and heard
them come chattering behind.
June 22d.--I rode to Boston in the afternoon with Mr. Proctor. It was a
coolish day, with clouds and intermitting sunshine, and a pretty fresh
breeze. We stopped about an hour at the Maverick House, in the sprouting
branch of the city, at East Boston,--a stylish house, with doors painted
in imitation of oak; a large bar; bells ringing; the bar-keeper calls
out, when a bell rings, "Number--"; then a waiter replies, "Number--
answered"; and scampers up stairs. A ticket is given by the hostler, on
taking the horse and chaise, which is returned to the bar-keeper when the
chaise is wanted. The landlord was fashionably dressed, with the whitest
of linen, neatly plaited, and as courteous as a Lord Chamberlain.
Visitors from Boston thronging the house,--some, standing at the bar,
watching the process of preparing tumblers of punch,--others sitting at
the windows of different parlors,--some with faces flushed, puffing
cigars. The bill of fare for the day was stuck up beside the bar.
Opposite this principal hotel there was another, called "The Mechanics,"
which seemed to be equally thronged. I suspect that the company were
about on a par in each; for at the Maverick House, though well dressed,
they seemed to be merely Sunday gentlemen,--mostly young fellows,--clerks
in dry-goods stores being the aristocracy of them. One, very fashionable
in appearance, with a handsome cane, happened to stop by me and lift up
his foot, and I noticed that the sole of his boot (which was exquisitely
polished) was all worn out. I apprehend that some such minor
deficiencies might have been detected in the general showiness of most of
them. There were girls, too, but not pretty ones, nor, on the whole,
such good imitations of gentility as the young men. There were as many
people as are usually collected at a muster, or on similar occasions,
lounging about, without any apparent enjoyment; but the observation of
this may serve me to make a sketch of the mode of spending the Sabbath by
the majority of unmarried, young, middling-class people, near a great
town. Most of the people had smart canes and bosom-pins.
Crossing the ferry into Boston, we went to the City Tavern, where the
bar-room presented a Sabbath scene of repose,--stage-folk lounging in
chairs half asleep, smoking cigars, generally with clean linen and other
niceties of apparel, to mark the day. The doors and blinds of an oyster
and refreshment shop across the street were closed, but I saw people
enter it. There were two owls in a back court, visible through a
window of the bar-room,--speckled gray, with dark-blue eyes,--the
queerest-looking birds that exist,--so solemn and wise,--dozing away the
day, much like the rest of the people, only that they looked wiser than
any others. Their hooked beaks looked like hooked noses. A dull scene
this. A stranger, here and there, poring over a newspaper. Many of the
stage-folk sitting in chairs on the pavement, in front of the door.
We went to the top of the hill which formed part of Gardiner Greene's
estate, and which is now in the process of levelling, and pretty much
taken away, except the highest point, and a narrow path to ascend to it.
It gives an admirable view of the city, being almost as high as the
steeples and the dome of the State House, and overlooking the whole mass
of brick buildings and slated roofs, with glimpses of streets far below.
It was really a pity to take it down. I noticed the stump of a very
large elm, recently felled. No house in the city could have reared its
roof so high as the roots of that tree, if indeed the church-spires did
so.
On our drive home we passed through Charlestown. Stages in abundance
were passing the road, burdened with passengers inside and out; also
chaises and barouches, horsemen and footmen. We are a community of
Sabbath-breakers.
August 31st.--A drive to Nahant yesterday afternoon. Stopped at Rice's,
and afterwards walked down to the steamboat wharf to see the passengers
land. It is strange how few good faces there are in the world,
comparatively to the ugly ones. Scarcely a single comely one in all this
collection. Then to the hotel. Barouches at the doors, and gentlemen
and ladies going to drive, and gentlemen smoking round the piazza. The
bar-keeper had one of Benton's mint-drops for a bosom-brooch! It made a
very handsome one. I crossed the beach for home about sunset. The tide
was so far down as just to give me a passage on the hard sand, between
the sea and the loose gravel. The sea was calm and smooth, with only the
surf-waves whitening along the beach. Several ladies and gentlemen on
horseback were cantering and galloping before and behind me.
A hint of a story,--some incident which should bring on a general war;
and the chief actor in the incident to have something corresponding to
the mischief he had caused.
September 7th--A drive to Ipswich with B------. At the tavern was an
old, fat, country major, and another old fellow, laughing and playing off
jokes on each other,--one tying a ribbon upon the other's hat. One had
been a trumpeter to the major's troop. Walking about town, we knocked,
for a whim, at the door of a dark old house, and inquired if Miss Hannah
Lord lived there. A woman of about thirty came to the door, with rather
a confused smile, and a disorder about the bosom of her dress, as if she
had been disturbed while nursing her child. She answered us with great
kindness.
Entering the burial-ground, where some masons were building a tomb, we
found a good many old monuments, and several covered with slabs of red
freestone or slate, and with arms sculptured on the slab, or an inlaid
circle of slate. On one slate gravestone, of the Rev. Nathl. Rogers,
there was a portrait of that worthy, about a third of the size of life,
carved in relief, with his cloak, band, and wig, in excellent
preservation, all the buttons of his waistcoat being cut with great
minuteness,--the minister's nose being on a level with his cheeks. It
was an upright gravestone. Returning home, I held a colloquy with a
young girl about the right road. She had come out to feed a pig, and was
a little suspicious that we were making fun of her, yet answered us with
a shy laugh and good-nature,--the pig all the time squealing for his
dinner.
Displayed along the walls, and suspended from the pillars of the original
King's Chapel, were coats-of-arms of the king, the successive governors,
and other distinguished men. In the pulpit there was an hour-glass on a
large and elaborate brass stand. The organ was surmounted by a gilt
crown in the centre, supported by a gilt mitre on each side. The
governor's pew had Corinthian pillars, and crimson damask tapestry. In
1727 it was lined with china, probably tiles.
Saint Augustin, at mass, charged all that were accursed to go out of the
church. "Then a dead body arose, and went out of the church into the
churchyard, with a white cloth on its head, and stood there till mass was
over. It was a former lord of the manor, whom a curate had cursed
because he refused to pay his tithes. A justice also commanded the dead
curate to arise, and gave him a rod; and the dead lord, kneeling,
received penance thereby." He then ordered the lord to go again to his
grave, which he did, and fell immediately to ashes. Saint Augustin
offered to pray for the curate, that he might remain on earth to confirm
men in their belief; but the curate refused, because he was in the place
of rest.
A sketch to be given of a modern reformer,--a type of the extreme
doctrines on the subject of slaves, cold water, and other such topics.
He goes about the streets haranguing most eloquently, and is on the point
of making many converts, when his labors are suddenly interrupted by the
appearance of the keeper of a mad-house, whence he has escaped. Much may
be made of this idea.
A change from a gay young girl to an old woman; the melancholy events,
the effects of which have clustered around her character, and
gradually imbued it with their influence, till she becomes a lover of
sick-chambers, taking pleasure in receiving dying breaths and in laying
out the dead; also having her mind full of funeral reminiscences, and
possessing more acquaintances beneath the burial turf than above it.
A well-concerted train of events to be thrown into confusion by some
misplaced circumstance, unsuspected till the catastrophe, yet exerting
its influence from beginning to end.
On the common, at dusk, after a salute from two field-pieces, the smoke
lay long and heavily on the ground, without much spreading beyond the
original space over which it had gushed from the guns. It was about the
height of a man. The evening clear, but with an autumnal chill.
The world is so sad and solemn, that things meant in jest are liable, by
an overpowering influence, to become dreadful earnest,--gayly dressed
fantasies turning to ghostly and black-clad images of themselves.
A story, the hero of which is to be represented as naturally capable of
deep and strong passion, and looking forward to the time when he shall
feel passionate love, which is to be the great event of his existence.
But it so chances that he never falls in love, and although he gives up
the expectation of so doing, and marries calmly, yet it is somewhat
sadly, with sentiments merely of esteem for his bride. The lady might be
one who had loved him early in life, but whom then, in his expectation of
passionate love, he had scorned.
The scene of a story or sketch to be laid within the light of a
street-lantern; the time, when the lamp is near going out; and the
catastrophe to be simultaneous with the last flickering gleam.
The peculiar weariness and depression of spirits which is felt after a
day wasted in turning over a magazine or other light miscellany,
different from the state of the mind after severe study; because there
has been no excitement, no difficulties to be overcome, but the spirits
have evaporated insensibly.
To represent the process by which sober truth gradually strips off all
the beautiful draperies with which imagination has enveloped a beloved
object, till from an angel she turns out to be a merely ordinary woman.
This to be done without caricature, perhaps with a quiet humor
interfused, but the prevailing impression to be a sad one. The story
might consist of the various alterations in the feelings of the absent
lover, caused by successive events that display the true character of his
mistress; and the catastrophe should take place at their meeting, when he
finds himself equally disappointed in her person; or the whole spirit of
the thing may here be reproduced.
Last evening, from the opposite shore of the North River, a view of the
town mirrored in the water, which was as smooth as glass, with no
perceptible tide or agitation, except a trifling swell and reflux on the
sand, although the shadow of the moon danced in it. The picture of the
town perfect in the water,--towers of churches, houses, with here and
there a light gleaming near the shore above, and more faintly glimmering
under water,--all perfect, but somewhat more hazy and indistinct than the
reality. There were many clouds flitting about the sky; and the picture
of each could be traced in the water,--the ghost of what was itself
unsubstantial. The rattling of wheels heard long and far through the
town. Voices of people talking on the other side of the river, the tones
being so distinguishable in all their variations that it seemed as if
what was there said might be understood; but it was not so.
Two persons might be bitter enemies through life, and mutually cause the
ruin of one another, and of all that were dear to them. Finally, meeting
at the funeral of a grandchild, the offspring of a son and daughter
married without their consent,--and who, as well as the child, had been
the victims of their hatred,--they might discover that the supposed
ground of the quarrel was altogether a mistake, and then be wofully
reconciled.
Two persons, by mutual agreement, to make their wills in each other's
favor, then to wait impatiently for one another's death, and both to be
informed of the desired event at the same time. Both, in most joyous
sorrow, hasten to be present at the funeral, meet, and find themselves
both hoaxed.
The story of a man, cold and hard-hearted, and acknowledging no
brotherhood with mankind. At his death they might try to dig him a
grave, but, at a little space beneath the ground, strike upon a rock, as
if the earth refused to receive the unnatural son into her bosom. Then
they would put him into an old sepulchre, where the coffins and corpses
were all turned to dust, and so he would be alone. Then the body would
petrify; and he having died in some characteristic act and expression, he
would seem, through endless ages of death, to repel society as in life,
and no one would be buried in that tomb forever.
Cannon transformed to church-bells.
A person, even before middle age, may become musty and faded among the
people with whom he has grown up from childhood; but, by migrating to a
new place, he appears fresh with the effect of youth, which may be
communicated from the impressions of others to his own feelings.
In an old house, a mysterious knocking might be beard on the wall, where
had formerly been a doorway, now bricked up.
It might be stated, as the closing circumstance of a tale, that the body
of one of the characters had been petrified, and still existed in that
state.
A young man to win the love of a girl, without any serious intentions,
and to find that in that love, which might have been the greatest
blessing of his life, he had conjured up a spirit of mischief which
pursued him throughout his whole career,--and this without any revengeful
purposes on the part of the deserted girl.
Two lovers, or other persons, on the most private business, to appoint a
meeting in what they supposed to be a place of the utmost solitude, and
to find it thronged with people.
October 17th.--Some of the oaks are now a deep brown red; others are
changed to a light green, which, at a little distance, especially in the
sunshine, looks like the green of early spring. In some trees, different
masses of the foliage show each of these hues. Some of the walnut-trees
have a yet more delicate green. Others are of a bright sunny yellow.
Mr. ------ was married to Miss ------ last Wednesday. Yesterday Mr.
Brazer, preaching on the comet, observed that not one, probably, of all
who heard him, would witness its reappearance. Mrs. ------ shed tears.
Poor soul! she would be contented to dwell in earthly love to all
eternity!
Some treasure or other thing to be buried, and a tree planted directly
over the spot, so as to embrace it with its roots.
A tree, tall and venerable, to be said by tradition to have been the
staff of some famous man, who happened to thrust it into the ground,
where it took root.
A fellow without money, having a hundred and seventy miles to go,
fastened a chain and padlock to his legs, and lay down to sleep in a
field. He was apprehended, and carried gratis to a jail in the town
whither he desired to go.
An old volume in a large library,--every one to be afraid to unclasp and
open it, because it was said to be a book of magic.
A ghost seen by moonlight; when the moon was out, it would shine and melt
through the airy substance of the ghost, as through a cloud.
Prideaux, Bishop of Worcester, during the sway of the Parliament, was
forced to support himself and his family by selling his household goods.
A friend asked him, "How doth your lordship?" "Never better in my life,"
said the Bishop, "only I have too great a stomach; for I have eaten that
little plate which the sequestrators left me. I have eaten a great
library of excellent books. I have eaten a great deal of linen, much of
my brass, some of my pewter, and now I am come to eat iron; and what will
come next I know not."
A scold and a blockhead,--brimstone and wood,--a good match.
To make one's own reflection in a mirror the subject of a story.
In a dream to wander to some place where may be heard the complaints of
all the miserable on earth.
Some common quality or circumstance that should bring together people the
most unlike in all other respects, and make a brotherhood and sisterhood
of them,--the rich and the proud finding themselves in the same category
with the mean and the despised.
A person to consider himself as the prime mover of certain remarkable
events, but to discover that his actions have not contributed in the
least thereto. Another person to be the cause, without suspecting it.
October 25th.--A person or family long desires some particular good. At
last it comes in such profusion as to be the great pest of their lives.
A man, perhaps with a persuasion that he shall make his fortune by some
singular means, and with an eager longing so to do, while digging or
boring for water, to strike upon a salt-spring.
To have one event operate in several places,--as, for example, if a man's
head were to be cut off in one town, men's heads to drop off in several
towns.
Follow out the fantasy of a man taking his life by instalments, instead
of at one payment,--say ten years of life alternately with ten years of
suspended animation.
Sentiments in a foreign language, which merely convey the sentiment
without retaining to the reader any graces of style or harmony of sound,
have somewhat of the charm of thoughts in one's own mind that have not
yet been put into words. No possible words that we might adapt to them
could realize the unshaped beauty that they appear to possess. This is
the reason that translations are never satisfactory,--and less so, I
should think, to one who cannot than to one who can pronounce the
language.
A person to be writing a tale, and to find that it shapes itself against
his intentions; that the characters act otherwise than he thought; that
unforeseen events occur; and a catastrophe comes which he strives in vain
to avert. It might shadow forth his own fate,--he having made himself
one of the personages.
It is a singular thing, that, at the distance, say, of five feet, the
work of the greatest dunce looks just as well as that of the greatest
genius,--that little space being all the distance between genius and
stupidity.
Mrs. Sigourney says, after Coleridge, that "poetry has been its own
exceeding great reward." For the writing, perhaps; but would it be so
for the reading?
Four precepts: To break off customs; to shake off spirits ill-disposed;
to meditate on youth; to do nothing against one's genius.
Salem, August 31st, 1836.--A walk, yesterday, down to the shore, near the
hospital. Standing on the old grassy battery, that forms a semicircle,
and looking seaward. The sun not a great way above the horizon, yet so
far as to give a very golden brightness, when it shone out. Clouds in
the vicinity of the sun, and nearly all the rest of the sky covered with
clouds in masses, not a gray uniformity of cloud. A fresh breeze blowing
from land seaward. If it had been blowing from the sea, it would have
raised it in heavy billows, and caused it to dash high against the rocks.
But now its surface was not at all commoved with billows; there was only
roughness enough to take off the gleam, and give it the aspect of iron
after cooling. The clouds above added to the black appearance. A few
sea-birds were flitting over the water, only visible at moments, when
they turned their white bosoms towards me,--as if they were then first
created. The sunshine had a singular effect. The clouds would interpose
in such a manner that some objects were shaded from it, while others were
strongly illuminated. Some of the islands lay in the shade, dark and
gloomy, while others were bright and favored spots. The white lighthouse
was sometimes very cheerfully marked. There was a schooner about a mile
from the shore, at anchor, laden apparently with lumber. The sea all
about her had the black, iron aspect which I have described; but the
vessel herself was alight. Hull, masts, and spars were all gilded, and
the rigging was made of golden threads. A small white streak of foam
breaking around the bows, which were towards the wind. The shadowiness
of the clouds overhead made the effect of the sunlight strange, where it
fell.
September.--The elm-trees have golden branches intermingled with their
green already, and so they had on the first of the month.
To picture the predicament of worldly people, if admitted to paradise.
As the architecture of a country always follows the earliest structures,
American architecture should be a refinement of the log-house. The
Egyptian is so of the cavern and mound; the Chinese, of the tent; the
Gothic, of overarching trees; the Greek, of a cabin.
"Though we speak nonsense, God will pick out the meaning of it,"--an
extempore prayer by a New England divine.
In old times it must have been much less customary than now to drink pure
water. Walker emphatically mentions, among the sufferings of a
clergyman's wife and family in the Great Rebellion, that they were forced
to drink water, with crab-apples stamped in it to relish it.
Mr. Kirby, author of a work on the History, Habits, and Instincts of
Animals, questions whether there may not be an abyss of waters within the
globe, communicating with the ocean, and whether the huge animals of the
Saurian tribe--great reptiles, supposed to be exclusively antediluvian,
and now extinct--may not be inhabitants of it. He quotes a passage from
Revelation, where the creatures under the earth are spoken of as distinct
from those of the sea, and speaks of a Saurian fossil that has been found
deep in the subterranean regions. He thinks, or suggests, that these may
be the dragons of Scripture.
The elephant is not particularly sagacious in the wild state, but becomes
so when tamed. The fox directly the contrary, and likewise the wolf.
A modern Jewish adage,--"Let a man clothe himself beneath his ability,
his children according to his ability, and his wife above his ability."
It is said of the eagle, that, in however long a flight, he is never seen
to clap his wings to his sides. He seems to govern his movements by the
inclination of his wings and tail to the wind, as a ship is propelled by
the action of the wind on her sails.
In old country-houses in England, instead of glass for windows, they used
wicker, or fine strips of oak disposed checkerwise. Horn was also used.
The windows of princes and great noblemen were of crystal; those of
Studley Castle, Holinshed says, of beryl. There were seldom chimneys;
and they cooked their meats by a fire made against an iron back in the
great hall. Houses, often of gentry, were built of a heavy timber frame,
filled up with lath and plaster. People slept on rough mats or straw
pallets, with a round log for a pillow; seldom better beds than a
mattress, with a sack of chaff for a pillow.
October 25th.--A walk yesterday through Dark Lane, and home through the
village of Danvers. Landscape now wholly autumnal. Saw an elderly man
laden with two dry, yellow, rustling bundles of Indian corn-stalks,--a
good personification of Autumn. Another man hoeing up potatoes. Rows of
white cabbages lay ripening. Fields of dry Indian corn. The grass has
still considerable greenness. Wild rose-bushes devoid of leaves, with
their deep, bright red seed-vessels. Meeting-house in Danvers seen at a
distance, with the sun shining through the windows of its belfry.
Barberry-bushes,--the leaves now of a brown red, still juicy and healthy;
very few berries remaining, mostly frost-bitten and wilted. All among
the yet green grass, dry stalks of weeds. The down of thistles
occasionally seen flying through the sunny air.
In this dismal chamber FAME was won. (Salem, Union Street.)
Those who are very difficult in choosing wives seem as if they would take
none of Nature's ready-made works, but want a woman manufactured
particularly to their order.
A council of the passengers in a street: called by somebody to decide
upon some points important to him.
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important in
some respects, whether he chooses to be so or not.
