THE SNOW-IMAGE
AND
OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES
OLD NEWS
By
Nathaniel Hawthorne
There is a volume of what were once newspapers each on a small half-
sheet, yellow and time-stained, of a coarse fabric, and imprinted with
a rude old type. Their aspect conveys a singular impression of
antiquity, in a species of literature which we are accustomed to consider
as connected only with the present moment. Ephemeral as they were
intended and supposed to be, they have long outlived the printer and his
whole subscription-list, and have proved more durable, as to their
physical existence, than most of the timber, bricks, and stone of the
town where they were issued. These are but the least of their triumphs.
The government, the interests, the opinions, in short, all the moral
circumstances that were contemporary with their publication, have passed
away, and left no better record of what they were than may be found in
these frail leaves. Happy are the editors of newspapers! Their
productions excel all others in immediate popularity, and are certain to
acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They scatter their
leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity collects them, to be
treasured up among the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty pens
they write for immortality.
It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy halfsheets between the
thumb and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety years
ago, held it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of
the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. There he sits, a
major, a member of the council, and a weighty merchant, in his high-
backed arm-chair, wearing a solemn wig and grave attire, such as befits
his imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little finery, except a
huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved. Observe the awful
reverence of his visage, as he reads his Majesty's most gracious speech;
and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders over some paragraph of
provincial politics, and the keener intelligence with which he glances at
the ship-news and commercial advertisements. Observe, and smile! He may
have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the wisdom of the politician
appears like folly, because we can compare its prognostics with actual
results; and the old merchant seems to have busied himself about
vanities, because we know that the expected ships have been lost at sea,
or mouldered at the wharves; that his imported broadcloths were long ago
worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that
the most precious leaves of his ledger have become waste-paper. Yet, his
avocations were not so vain as our philosophic moralizing. In this world
we are the things of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary things,
with here and there a thought that stretches mistily towards eternity,
and perhaps may endure as long. All philosophy that would abstract
mankind from the present is no more than words.
The first pages of most of these old papers are as soporific as a bed of
poppies. Here we have an erudite clergyman, or perhaps a Cambridge
professor, occupying several successive weeks with a criticism on Tate
and Brady, as compared with the New England version of the Psalms. Of
course, the preference is given to the native article. Here are doctors
disagreeing about the treatment of a putrid fever then prevalent, and
blackguarding each other with a characteristic virulence that renders the
controversy not altogether unreadable. Here are President Wigglesworth
and the Rev. Dr. Colman, endeavoring to raise a fund for the support of
missionaries among the Indians of Massachusetts Bay. Easy would be the
duties of such a mission now! Here--for there is nothing new under the
sun--are frequent complaints of the disordered state of the currency, and
the project of a bank with a capital of five hundred thousand pounds,
secured on lands. Here are literary essays, from the Gentleman's
Magazine; and squibs against the Pretender, from the London newspapers.
And here, occasionally, are specimens of New England honor, laboriously
light and lamentably mirthful, as if some very sober person, in his zeal
to be merry, were dancing a jig to the tune of a funeral-psalm. All this
is wearisome, and we must turn the leaf.
There is a good deal of amusement, and some profit, in the perusal of
those little items which characterize the manners and circumstances of
the country. New England was then in a state incomparably more
picturesque than at present, or than it has been within the memory of
man; there being, as yet, only a narrow strip of civilization along the
edge of a vast forest, peopled with enough of its original race to
contrast the savage life with the old customs of another world. The
white population, also, was diversified by the influx of all sorts of
expatriated vagabonds, and by the continual importation of bond-servants
from Ireland and elsewhere, so that there was a wild and unsettled
multitude, forming a strong minority to the sober descendants of the
Puritans. Then, there were the slaves, contributing their dark shade to
the picture of society. The consequence of all this was a great variety
and singularity of action and incident, many instances of which might be
selected from these columns, where they are told with a simplicity and
quaintness of style that bring the striking points into very strong
relief. It is natural to suppose, too, that these circumstances affected
the body of the people, and made their course of life generally less
regular than that of their descendants. There is no evidence that the
moral standard was higher then than now; or, indeed, that morality was so
well defined as it has since become. There seem to have been quite as
many frauds and robberies, in proportion to the number of honest deeds;
there were murders, in hot-blood and in malice; and bloody quarrels over
liquor. Some of our fathers also appear to have been yoked to unfaithful
wives, if we may trust the frequent notices of elopements from bed and
board. The pillory, the whipping-post, the prison, and the gallows, each
had their use in those old times; and, in short, as often as our
imagination lives in the past, we find it a ruder and rougher age than
our own, with hardly any perceptible advantages, and much that gave life
a gloomier tinge. In vain we endeavor to throw a sunny and joyous air
over our picture of this period; nothing passes before our fancy but a
crowd of sad-visaged people, moving duskily through a dull gray
atmosphere. It is certain that winter rushed upon them with fiercer
storms than now, blocking up the narrow forest-paths, and overwhelming
the roads along the sea-coast with mountain snow drifts; so that weeks
elapsed before the newspaper could announce how many travellers had
perished, or what wrecks had strewn the shore. The cold was more
piercing then, and lingered further into the spring, making the chimney-
corner a comfortable seat till long past May-day. By the number of such
accidents on record, we might suppose that the thunder-stone, as they
termed it, fell oftener and deadlier on steeples, dwellings, and
unsheltered wretches. In fine, our fathers bore the brunt of more raging
and pitiless elements than we. There were forebodings, also, of a more
fearful tempest than those of the elements. At two or three dates, we
have stories of drums, trumpets, and all sorts of martial music, passing
athwart the midnight sky, accompanied with the--roar of cannon and rattle
of musketry, prophetic echoes of the sounds that were soon to shake the
land. Besides these airy prognostics, there were rumors of French fleets
on the coast, and of the march of French and Indians through the
wilderness, along the borders of the settlements. The country was
saddened, moreover, with grievous sicknesses. The small-pox raged in
many of the towns, and seems, though so familiar a scourge, to have been
regarded with as much affright as that which drove the throng from Wall
Street and Broadway at the approach of a new pestilence. There were
autumnal fevers too, and a contagious and destructive throat-distemper,--
diseases unwritten in medical hooks. The dark superstition of former
days had not yet been so far dispelled as not to heighten the gloom of
the present times. There is an advertisement, indeed, by a committee of
the Legislature, calling for information as to the circumstances of
sufferers in the "late calamity of 1692," with a view to reparation for
their losses and misfortunes. But the tenderness with which, after above
forty years, it was thought expedient to allude to the witchcraft
delusion, indicates a good deal of lingering error, as well as the
advance of more enlightened opinions. The rigid hand of Puritanism might
yet be felt upon the reins of government, while some of the ordinances
intimate a disorderly spirit on the part of the people. The Suffolk
justices, after a preamble that great disturbances have been committed by
persons entering town and leaving it in coaches, chaises, calashes, and
other wheel-carriages, on the evening before the Sabbath, give notice
that a watch will hereafter be set at the "fortification-gate," to
prevent these outrages. It is amusing to see Boston assuming the aspect
of a walled city, guarded, probably, by a detachment of church-members,
with a deacon at their head. Governor Belcher makes proclamation against
certain "loose and dissolute people" who have been wont to stop
passengers in the streets, on the Fifth of November, "otherwise called
Pope's Day," and levy contributions for the building of bonfires. In
this instance, the populace are more puritanic than the magistrate.
The elaborate solemnities of funerals were in accordance with the sombre
character of the times. In cases of ordinary death, the printer seldom
fails to notice that the corpse was "very decently interred." But when
some mightier mortal has yielded to his fate, the decease of the
"worshipful" such-a-one is announced, with all his titles of deacon,
justice, councillor, and colonel; then follows an heraldic sketch of his
honorable ancestors, and lastly an account of the black pomp of his
funeral, and the liberal expenditure of scarfs, gloves, and mourning
rings. The burial train glides slowly before us, as we have seen it
represented in the woodcuts of that day, the coffin, and the bearers,
and the lamentable friends, trailing their long black garments, while
grim Death, a most misshapen skeleton, with all kinds of doleful
emblems, stalks hideously in front. There was a coach maker at this
period, one John Lucas, who scents to have gained the chief of his
living by letting out a sable coach to funerals. It would not be fair,
however, to leave quite so dismal an impression on the reader's mind;
nor should it be forgotten that happiness may walk soberly in dark
attire, as well as dance lightsomely in a gala-dress. And this reminds
us that there is an incidental notice of the "dancing-school near the
Orange-Tree," whence we may infer that the salutatory art was
occasionally practised, though perhaps chastened into a characteristic
gravity of movement. This pastime was probably confined to the
aristocratic circle, of which the royal governor was the centre. But we
are scandalized at the attempt of Jonathan Furness to introduce a more
reprehensible amusement: be challenges the whole country to match his
black gelding in a race for a hundred pounds, to be decided on Metonomy
Common or Chelsea Beach. Nothing as to the manners of the times can be
inferred from this freak of an individual. There were no daily and
continual opportunities of being merry; but sometimes the people
rejoiced, in their own peculiar fashion, oftener with a calm, religious
smile than with a broad laugh, as when they feasted, like one great
family, at Thanksgiving time, or indulged a livelier mirth throughout
the pleasant days of Election-week. This latter was the true holiday
season of New England. Military musters were too seriously important in
that warlike time to be classed among amusements; but they stirred up
and enlivened the public mind, and were occasions of solemn festival to
the governor and great men of the province, at the expense of the field-
offices. The Revolution blotted a feast-day out of our calendar; for
the anniversary of the king's birth appears to have been celebrated with
most imposing pomp, by salutes from Castle William, a military parade, a
grand dinner at the town-house, and a brilliant illumination in the
evening. There was nothing forced nor feigned in these testimonials of
loyalty to George the Second. So long as they dreaded the
re-establishment of a popish dynasty, the people were fervent for the
house of Hanover: and, besides, the immediate magistracy of the country
was a barrier between the monarch and the occasional discontents of the
colonies; the waves of faction sometimes reached the governor's chair,
but never swelled against the throne. Thus, until oppression was felt
to proceed from the king's own hand, New England rejoiced with her whole
heart on his Majesty's birthday.
But the slaves, we suspect, were the merriest part of the population,
since it was their gift to be merry in the worst of circumstances; and
they endured, comparatively, few hardships, under the domestic sway of
our fathers. There seems to have been a great trade in these human
commodities. No advertisements are more frequent than those of "a negro
fellow, fit for almost any household work"; "a negro woman, honest,
healthy, and capable"; "a negro wench of many desirable qualities";
"a negro man, very fit for a taylor." We know not in what this natural
fitness for a tailor consisted, unless it were some peculiarity of
conformation that enabled him to sit cross-legged. When the slaves of a
family were inconveniently prolific,--it being not quite orthodox to
drown the superfluous offspring, like a litter of kittens,--notice was
promulgated of "a negro child to be given away." Sometimes the slaves
assumed the property of their own persons, and made their escape; among
many such instances, the governor raises a hue-and-cry after his negro
Juba. But, without venturing a word in extenuation of the general
system, we confess our opinion that Caesar, Pompey, Scipio, and all such
great Roman namesakes, would have been better advised had they stayed at
home, foddering the cattle, cleaning dishes,--in fine, performing their
moderate share of the labors of life, without being harassed by its
cares. The sable inmates of the mansion were not excluded from the
domestic affections: in families of middling rank, they had their places
at the board; and when the circle closed round the evening hearth, its
blaze glowed on their dark shining faces, intermixed familiarly with
their master's children. It must have contributed to reconcile them to
their lot, that they saw white men and women imported from Europe as they
had been from Africa, and sold, though only for a term of years, yet as
actual slaves to the highest bidder. Slave labor being but a small part
of the industry of the country, it did not change the character of the
people; the latter, on the contrary, modified and softened the
institution, making it a patriarchal, and almost a beautiful, peculiarity
of the times.
Ah! We had forgotten the good old merchant, over whose shoulder we were
peeping, while he read the newspaper. Let us now suppose him putting on
his three-cornered gold-laced hat, grasping his cane, with a head inlaid
of ebony and mother-of-pearl, and setting forth, through the crooked
streets of Boston, on various errands, suggested by the advertisements of
the day. Thus he communes with himself: I must be mindful, says he, to
call at Captain Scut's, in Creek Lane, and examine his rich velvet,
whether it be fit for my apparel on Election-day,--that I may wear a
stately aspect in presence of the governor and my brethren of the
council. I will look in, also, at the shop of Michael Cario, the
jeweller: he has silver buckles of a new fashion; and mine have lasted me
some half-score years. My fair daughter Miriam shall have an apron of
gold brocade, and a velvet mask,--though it would be a pity the wench
should hide her comely visage; and also a French cap, from Robert
Jenkins's, on the north side of the town-house. He hath beads, too, and
ear-rings, and necklaces, of all sorts; these are but vanities,
nevertheless, they would please the silly maiden well. My dame desireth
another female in the kitchen; wherefore, I must inspect the lot of Irish
lasses, for sale by Samuel Waldo, aboard the schooner Endeavor; as also
the likely negro wench, at Captain Bulfinch's. It were not amiss that I
took my daughter Miriam to see the royal waxwork, near the town-dock,
that she may learn to honor our most gracious King and Queen, and their
royal progeny, even in their waxen images; not that I would approve of
image-worship. The camel, too, that strange beast from Africa, with two
great humps, to be seen near the Common; methinks I would fain go
thither, and see how the old patriarchs were wont to ride. I will tarry
awhile in Queen Street, at the bookstore of my good friends Kneeland &
Green, and purchase Dr. Colman's new sermon, and the volume of discourses
by Mr. Henry Flynt; and look over the controversy on baptism, between the
Rev. Peter Clarke and an unknown adversary; and see whether this George
Whitefield be as great in print as he is famed to be in the pulpit. By
that time, the auction will have commenced at the Royal Exchange, in King
Street. Moreover, I must look to the disposal of my last cargo of West
India rum and muscovado sugar; and also the lot of choice Cheshire
cheese, lest it grow mouldy. It were well that I ordered a cask of good
English beer, at the lower end of Milk Street.
Then am I to speak with certain dealers about the lot of stout old
Vidonia, rich Canary, and Oporto-wines, which I have now lying in the
cellar of the Old South meeting-house. But, a pipe or two of the rich
Canary shall be reserved, that it may grow mellow in mine own
wine-cellar, and gladden my heart when it begins to droop with old age.
Provident old gentleman! But, was he mindful of his sepulchre? Did he
bethink him to call at the workshop of Timothy Sheaffe, in Cold Lane, and
select such a gravestone as would best please him? There wrought the man
whose handiwork, or that of his fellow-craftsmen, was ultimately in
demand by all the busy multitude who have left a record of their earthly
toil in these old time-stained papers. And now, as we turn over the
volume, we seem to be wandering among the mossy stones of a
burial-ground.
