THE WIVES OF THE DEAD

- By Nathaniel Hawthorne
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American author (1804–1864) Nathaniel HawthorneHawthorne in the 1860sBornNathaniel Hathorne(1804-07-04)July 4, 1804Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.DiedMay 19, 1864(1864-05-19) (aged 59)Plymouth, New Hampshire, U.S.Alma materBowdoin CollegeSpouse Sophia Peabody ​(m. 1842)​Children3, including Julian Hawthorne, Rose Hawthorne LathropSignature Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associated with that town. Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824,[1] and graduated in 1825. He published his first work in 1828, the novel Fanshawe; he later tried to suppress it, feeling that it was not equal to the standard of his later work.[2] He published several short stories in periodicals, which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The following year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at the Boston Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment as consul took Hawthorne and family to Europe before their return to Concord in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864. Much of Hawthorne's writing centers on New England, many works featuring moral metaphors with an anti-Puritan inspiration. His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity. His published works include novels, short stories, and a biography of his college friend Franklin Pierce, written for his 1852 campaign for President of the United States, which Pierce won, becoming the 14th president. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Charles Osgood, 1841 (Peabody Essex Museum) Nathaniel Hathorne, as his name was originally spelled, was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts; his birthplace is preserved and open to the public.[3] His great-great-great-grandfather, William Hathorne, was a Puritan and the first of the family to emigrate from England. He settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, before moving to Salem. There he became an important member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and held many political positions, including magistrate and judge, becoming infamous for his harsh sentencing.[4] William's son, Hawthorne's great-great-grandfather, John Hathorne was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem witch trials. Hawthorne probably added the "w" to his surname in his early twenties, shortly after graduating from college, in an effort to dissociate himself from his notorious forebears.[5] Hawthorne's father Nathaniel Hathorne Sr. was a sea captain who died in 1808 of yellow fever in Dutch Suriname;[6] he had been a member of the East India Marine Society.[7] After his death, his widow moved with young Nathaniel, his older sister Elizabeth, and their younger sister Louisa to live with relatives named the Mannings in Salem,[8] where they lived for 10 years. Young Hawthorne was hit on the leg while playing "bat and ball" on November 10, 1813,[9] and he became lame and bedridden for a year, though several physicians could find nothing wrong with him.[10] Nathaniel Hawthorne's childhood home in Raymond, ME In the summer of 1816, the family lived as boarders with farmers[11] before moving to a home recently built specifically for them by Hawthorne's uncles Richard and Robert Manning in Raymond, Maine, near Sebago Lake.[12] Years later, Hawthorne looked back at his time in Maine fondly: "Those were delightful days, for that part of the country was wild then, with only scattered clearings, and nine tenths of it primeval woods."[13] In 1819, he was sent back to Salem for school and soon complained of homesickness and being too far from his mother and sisters.[14] He distributed seven issues of The Spectator to his family in August and September 1820 for fun. The homemade newspaper was written by hand and included essays, poems, and news featuring the young author's adolescent humor.[15] Hawthorne's uncle Robert Manning insisted that the boy attend college, despite Hawthorne's protests.[16] With the financial support of his uncle, Hawthorne was sent to Bowdoin College in 1821, partly because of family connections in the area, and also because of its relatively inexpensive tuition rate.[17] Hawthorne met future president Franklin Pierce on the way to Bowdoin, at the stage stop in Portland, and the two became fast friends.[16] Once at the school, he also met future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, future congressman Jonathan Cilley, and future naval reformer Horatio Bridge.[18] He graduated with the class of 1825, and later described his college experience to Richard Henry Stoddard: I was educated (as the phrase is) at Bowdoin College. I was an idle student, negligent of college rules and the Procrustean details of academic life, rather choosing to nurse my own fancies than to dig into Greek roots and be numbered among the learned Thebans.[19] Early career[edit] Boston Custom House, Custom House Street, where Hawthorne worked c. 1839–40[20] Hawthorne's first published work, Fanshawe: A Tale, based on his experiences at Bowdoin College, appeared anonymously in October 1828, printed at the author's own expense of $100.[21] Although it received generally positive reviews, it did not sell well. He published several minor pieces in the Salem Gazette.[22] In 1836, Hawthorne served as the editor of the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge. At the time, he boarded with poet Thomas Green Fessenden on Hancock Street in Beacon Hill in Boston.[23] He was offered an appointment as weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House at a salary of $1,500 a year, which he accepted on January 17, 1839.[24] During his time there, he rented a room from George Stillman Hillard, business partner of Charles Sumner.[25] Hawthorne wrote in the comparative obscurity of what he called his "owl's nest" in the family home. As he looked back on this period of his life, he wrote: "I have not lived, but only dreamed about living."[26] He contributed short stories to various magazines and annuals, including "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil", though none drew major attention to him. Horatio Bridge offered to cover the risk of collecting these stories in the spring of 1837 into the volume Twice-Told Tales, which made Hawthorne known locally.[27] Marriage and family[edit] Portrait of Sophia Peabody Hawthorne by Chester Harding, 1830 (Peabody Essex Museum) While at Bowdoin, Hawthorne wagered a bottle of Madeira wine with his friend Jonathan Cilley that Cilley would get married before Hawthorne did.[28] By 1836, he had won the bet, but he did not remain a bachelor for life. He had public flirtations with Mary Silsbee and Elizabeth Peabody,[29] then he began pursuing Peabody's sister, the illustrator and transcendentalist Sophia Peabody. He joined the transcendentalist Utopian community at Brook Farm in 1841, not because he agreed with the experiment but because it helped him save money to marry Sophia.[30] He paid a $1,000 deposit and was put in charge of shoveling the hill of manure referred to as "the Gold Mine".[31] He left later that year, though his Brook Farm adventure became an inspiration for his novel The Blithedale Romance.[32] Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody on July 9, 1842, at a ceremony in the Peabody parlor on West Street in Boston.[33] The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts,[34] where they lived for three years. His neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson invited him into his social circle, but Hawthorne was almost pathologically shy and stayed silent at gatherings.[35] At the Old Manse, Hawthorne wrote most of the tales collected in Mosses from an Old Manse.[36] Una, Julian, and Rose c. 1862 Like Hawthorne, Sophia was a reclusive person. Throughout her early life, she had frequent migraines and underwent several experimental medical treatments.[37] She was mostly bedridden until her sister introduced her to Hawthorne, after which her headaches seem to have abated. The Hawthornes enjoyed a long and happy marriage. He referred to her as his "Dove" and wrote that she "is, in the strictest sense, my sole companion; and I need no other—there is no vacancy in my mind, any more than in my heart ... Thank God that I suffice for her boundless heart!"[38] Sophia greatly admired her husband's work. She wrote in one of her journals: I am always so dazzled and bewildered with the richness, the depth, the ... jewels of beauty in his productions that I am always looking forward to a second reading where I can ponder and muse and fully take in the miraculous wealth of thoughts.[39] Poet Ellery Channing came to the Old Manse for help on the first anniversary of the Hawthornes' marriage. A local teenager named Martha Hunt had drowned herself in the river and Hawthorne's boat Pond Lily was needed to find her body. Hawthorne helped recover the corpse, which he described as "a spectacle of such perfect horror ... She was the very image of death-agony".[40] The incident later inspired a scene in his novel The Blithedale Romance. The Hawthornes had three children. Their first was daughter Una, born March 3, 1844; her name was a reference to The Faerie Queene, to the displeasure of family members.[41] Hawthorne wrote to a friend, "I find it a very sober and serious kind of happiness that springs from the birth of a child ... There is no escaping it any longer. I have business on earth now, and must look about me for the means of doing it."[42] In October 1845, the Hawthornes moved to Salem.[43] In 1846, their son Julian was born. Hawthorne wrote to his sister Louisa on June 22, 1846: "A small troglodyte made his appearance here at ten minutes to six o'clock this morning, who claimed to be your nephew."[44] Daughter Rose was born in May 1851, and Hawthorne called her his "autumnal flower".[45] Middle years[edit] Daguerrotype of Hawthorne, Whipple & Black, 1848 In April 1846, Hawthorne was officially appointed the Surveyor for the District of Salem and Beverly and Inspector of the Revenue for the Port of Salem at an annual salary of $1,200.[46] He had difficulty writing during this period, as he admitted to Longfellow: I am trying to resume my pen ... Whenever I sit alone, or walk alone, I find myself dreaming about stories, as of old; but these forenoons in the Custom House undo all that the afternoons and evenings have done. I should be happier if I could write.[47] This employment, like his earlier appointment to the custom house in Boston, was vulnerable to the politics of the spoils system. Hawthorne was a Democrat and lost this job due to the change of administration in Washington after the presidential election of 1848. He wrote a letter of protest to the Boston Daily Advertiser which was attacked by the Whigs and supported by the Democrats, making Hawthorne's dismissal a much-talked about event in New England.[48] He was deeply affected by the death of his mother in late July, calling it "the darkest hour I ever lived".[49] He was appointed the corresponding secretary of the Salem Lyceum in 1848. Guests who came to speak that season included Emerson, Thoreau, Louis Agassiz, and Theodore Parker.[50] Hawthorne returned to writing and published The Scarlet Letter in mid-March 1850,[51] including a preface that refers to his three-year tenure in the Custom House and makes several allusions to local politicians—who did not appreciate their treatment.[52] It was one of the first mass-produced books in America, selling 2,500 volumes within ten days and earning Hawthorne $1,500 over 14 years.[53] The book was pirated by booksellers in London[citation needed] and became a best-seller in the United States;[54] it initiated his most lucrative period as a writer.[53] Hawthorne's friend Edwin Percy Whipple objected to the novel's "morbid intensity" and its dense psychological details, writing that the book "is therefore apt to become, like Hawthorne, too painfully anatomical in his exhibition of them",[55] while 20th-century writer D. H. Lawrence said that there could be no more perfect work of the American imagination than The Scarlet Letter.[56] Hawthorne and his family moved to a small red farmhouse near Lenox, Massachusetts, at the end of March 1850.[57] He became friends with Herman Melville beginning on August 5, 1850, when the authors met at a picnic hosted by a mutual friend.[58] Melville had just read Hawthorne's short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse, and his unsigned review of the collection was printed in The Literary World on August 17 and August 24 titled "Hawthorne and His Mosses".[59] Melville wrote that these stories revealed a dark side to Hawthorne, "shrouded in blackness, ten times black".[60] He was composing his novel Moby-Dick at the time,[60] and dedicated the work in 1851 to Hawthorne: "In token of my admiration for his genius, this book is inscribed to Nathaniel Hawthorne."[61] Hawthorne's time in the Berkshires was very productive.[62] While there, he wrote The House of the Seven Gables (1851), which poet and critic James Russell Lowell said was better than The Scarlet Letter and called "the most valuable contribution to New England history that has been made."[63] He also wrote The Blithedale Romance (1852), his only work written in the first person.[32] He also published A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys in 1851, a collection of short stories retelling myths which he had been thinking about writing since 1846.[64] Nevertheless, poet Ellery Channing reported that Hawthorne "has suffered much living in this place".[65] The family enjoyed the scenery of the Berkshires, although Hawthorne did not enjoy the winters in their small house. They left on November 21, 1851.[62] Hawthorne noted, "I am sick to death of Berkshire ... I have felt languid and dispirited, during almost my whole residence."[66] The Wayside and Europe[edit] External videos Booknotes interview with Brenda Wineapple on Hawthorne: A Life, January 4, 2004, C-SPAN In May 1852, the Hawthornes returned to Concord where they lived until July 1853.[43] In February, they bought The Hillside, a home previously inhabited by Amos Bronson Alcott and his family, and renamed it The Wayside.[67] Their neighbors in Concord included Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.[68] That year, Hawthorne wrote The Life of Franklin Pierce, the campaign biography of his friend, which depicted him as "a man of peaceful pursuits".[69] Horace Mann said, "If he makes out Pierce to be a great man or a brave man, it will be the greatest work of fiction he ever wrote."[69] In the biography, Hawthorne depicts Pierce as a statesman and soldier who had accomplished no great feats because of his need to make "little noise" and so "withdrew into the background".[70] He also left out Pierce's drinking habits, despite rumors of his alcoholism,[71] and emphasized Pierce's belief that slavery could not "be remedied by human contrivances" but would, over time, "vanish like a dream".[72] Commemorative plaque in Blackheath, London With Pierce's election as President, Hawthorne was rewarded in 1853 with the position of United States consul in Liverpool shortly after the publication of Tanglewood Tales.[73] The role was considered the most lucrative foreign service position at the time, described by Hawthorne's wife as "second in dignity to the Embassy in London".[74] During this period he and his family lived in the Rock Park estate in Rock Ferry in one of the houses directly adjacent to Tranmere Beach on the Wirral shore of the River Mersey.[75][76] Thus to attend his place of employment at the United States consulate in Liverpool, Hawthorne would have been a regular passenger on the steamboat operated Rock Ferry to Liverpool ferry service departing from the Rock Ferry Slipway at the end of Bedford Road.[77] His appointment ended in 1857 at the close of the Pierce administration. The Hawthorne family toured France and Italy until 1860. During his time in Italy, the previously clean-shaven Hawthorne grew a bushy mustache.[78] The family returned to The Wayside in 1860,[79] and that year saw the publication of The Marble Faun, his first new book in seven years.[80] Hawthorne admitted that he had aged considerably, referring to himself as "wrinkled with time and trouble".[81] Later years and death[edit] Grave of Nathaniel Hawthorne At the outset of the American Civil War, Hawthorne traveled with William D. Ticknor to Washington, D.C., where he met Abraham Lincoln and other notable figures. He wrote about his experiences in the essay "Chiefly About War Matters" in 1862. Failing health prevented him from completing several more romance novels. Hawthorne was suffering from pain in his stomach and insisted on a recuperative trip with his friend Franklin Pierce, though his neighbor Bronson Alcott was concerned that Hawthorne was too ill.[82] While on a tour of the White Mountains, he died in his sleep on May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire. Pierce sent a telegram to Elizabeth Peabody asking her to inform Mrs. Hawthorne in person. Mrs. Hawthorne was too saddened by the news to handle the funeral arrangements herself.[83] Hawthorne's son Julian, a freshman at Harvard College, learned of his father's death the next day; coincidentally, he was initiated into the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity on the same day by being blindfolded and placed in a coffin.[84] Longfellow wrote a tribute poem to Hawthorne published in 1866 called "The Bells of Lynn".[85] Hawthorne was buried on what is now known as "Authors' Ridge" in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts.[86] Pallbearers included Longfellow, Emerson, Alcott, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., James T. Fields, and Edwin Percy Whipple.[87] Emerson wrote of the funeral: "I thought there was a tragic element in the event, that might be more fully rendered—in the painful solitude of the man, which, I suppose, could no longer be endured, & he died of it."[88] His wife Sophia and daughter Una were originally buried in England. However, in June 2006, they were reinterred in plots adjacent to Hawthorne.[89] Writings[edit] Statue of Hawthorne in Salem, Massachusetts, by Bela Lyon Pratt and dedicated in 1925 William H. Getchell's 1861 photograph of Hawthorne which inspired the sculpture[90] Hawthorne had a particularly close relationship with his publishers William Ticknor and James T. Fields.[91] Hawthorne once told Fields, "I care more for your good opinion than for that of a host of critics."[92] In fact, it was Fields who convinced Hawthorne to turn The Scarlet Letter into a novel rather than a short story.[93] Ticknor handled many of Hawthorne's personal matters, including the purchase of cigars, overseeing financial accounts, and even purchasing clothes.[94] Ticknor died with Hawthorne at his side in Philadelphia in 1864; according to a friend, Hawthorne was left "apparently dazed".[95] Literary style and themes[edit] Further information: Romance (literary fiction) Hawthorne's works belong to romanticism or, more specifically, dark romanticism,[96] cautionary tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of humanity.[97] Many of his works are inspired by Puritan New England,[98] combining historical romance loaded with symbolism and deep psychological themes, bordering on surrealism.[99] His depictions of the past are a version of historical fiction used only as a vehicle to express common themes of ancestral sin, guilt and retribution.[100] His later writings also reflect his negative view of the Transcendentalism movement.[101] Hawthorne was predominantly a short story writer in his early career. Upon publishing Twice-Told Tales, however, he noted, "I do not think much of them," and he expected little response from the public.[102] His four major romances were written between 1850 and 1860: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Marble Faun (1860). Another novel-length romance, Fanshawe, was published anonymously in 1828. Hawthorne defined a romance as being radically different from a novel by not being concerned with the possible or probable course of ordinary experience.[103] In the preface to The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne describes his romance-writing as using "atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture".[104] The picture, Daniel Hoffman found, was one of "the primitive energies of fecundity and creation."[105] Critics have applied feminist perspectives and historicist approaches to Hawthorne's depictions of women. Feminist scholars are interested particularly in Hester Prynne: they recognize that while she herself could not be the "destined prophetess" of the future, the "angel and apostle of the coming revelation" must nevertheless "be a woman."[106] Camille Paglia saw Hester as mystical, "a wandering goddess still bearing the mark of her Asiatic origins ... moving serenely in the magic circle of her sexual nature".[107] Lauren Berlant termed Hester "the citizen as woman [personifying] love as a quality of the body that contains the purest light of nature," her resulting "traitorous political theory" a "Female Symbolic" literalization of futile Puritan metaphors.[108] Historicists view Hester as a protofeminist and avatar of the self-reliance and responsibility that led to women's suffrage and reproductive emancipation. Anthony Splendora found her literary genealogy among other archetypally fallen but redeemed women, both historic and mythic. As examples, he offers Psyche of ancient legend; Heloise of twelfth-century France's tragedy involving world-renowned philosopher Peter Abelard; Anne Hutchinson (America's first heretic, circa 1636), and Hawthorne family friend Margaret Fuller.[109] In Hester's first appearance, Hawthorne likens her, "infant at her bosom", to Mary, Mother of Jesus, "the image of Divine Maternity". In her study of Victorian literature, in which such "galvanic outcasts" as Hester feature prominently, Nina Auerbach went so far as to name Hester's fall and subsequent redemption, "the novel's one unequivocally religious activity".[110] Regarding Hester as a deity figure, Meredith A. Powers found in Hester's characterization "the earliest in American fiction that the archetypal Goddess appears quite graphically," like a Goddess "not the wife of traditional marriage, permanently subject to a male overlord"; Powers noted "her syncretism, her flexibility, her inherent ability to alter and so avoid the defeat of secondary status in a goal-oriented civilization".[111] Aside from Hester Prynne, the model women of Hawthorne's other novels—from Ellen Langton of Fanshawe to Zenobia and Priscilla of The Blithedale Romance, Hilda and Miriam of The Marble Faun and Phoebe and Hepzibah of The House of the Seven Gables—are more fully realized than his male characters, who merely orbit them.[112] This observation is equally true of his short-stories, in which central females serve as allegorical figures: Rappaccini's beautiful but life-altering, garden-bound, daughter; almost-perfect Georgiana of "The Birth-Mark"; the sinned-against (abandoned) Ester of "Ethan Brand"; and goodwife Faith Brown, linchpin of Young Goodman Brown's very belief in God. "My Faith is gone!" Brown exclaims in despair upon seeing his wife at the Witches' Sabbath.[citation needed]. Perhaps the most sweeping statement of Hawthorne's impetus comes from Mark Van Doren: "Somewhere, if not in the New England of his time, Hawthorne unearthed the image of a goddess supreme in beauty and power."[113] Hawthorne also wrote nonfiction. In 2008, the Library of America selected Hawthorne's "A show of wax-figures" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.[114] Critical reception[edit] Hawthorne's writings were well received at the time. Contemporary response praised his sentimentality and moral purity while more modern evaluations focus on the dark psychological complexity.[115] Herman Melville wrote a passionate review of Mosses from an Old Manse, titled "Hawthorne and His Mosses", arguing that Hawthorne "is one of the new, and far better generation of your writers." Melville describes an affinity for Hawthorne that would only increase: "I feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, and further, shoots his strong New-England roots into the hot soil of my Southern soul."[116] Edgar Allan Poe wrote important reviews of both Twice-Told Tales and Mosses from an Old Manse. Poe's assessment was partly informed by his contempt for allegory and moral tales, and his chronic accusations of plagiarism, though he admitted: The style of Mr. Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective—wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes ... We look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth.[117] John Neal's magazine The Yankee published the first substantial public praise of Hawthorne, saying in 1828 that the author of Fanshawe has a "fair prospect of future success."[118] Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "Nathaniel Hawthorne's reputation as a writer is a very pleasing fact, because his writing is not good for anything, and this is a tribute to the man."[119] Henry James praised Hawthorne, saying, "The fine thing in Hawthorne is that he cared for the deeper psychology, and that, in his way, he tried to become familiar with it."[120] Poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote that he admired the "weird and subtle beauty" in Hawthorne's tales.[121] Evert Augustus Duyckinck said of Hawthorne, "Of the American writers destined to live, he is the most original, the one least indebted to foreign models or literary precedents of any kind."[122] Beginning in the 1950s, critics have focused on symbolism and didacticism.[123] The critic Harold Bloom wrote that only Henry James and William Faulkner challenge Hawthorne's position as the greatest American novelist, although he admitted that he favored James as the greatest American novelist.[124][125] Bloom saw Hawthorne's greatest works to be principally The Scarlet Letter, followed by The Marble Faun and certain short stories, including "My Kinsman, Major Molineux", "Young Goodman Brown", "Wakefield", and "Feathertop".[125] Selected works[edit] The Midas myth, from A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. Illustration by Walter Crane for the 1893 edition. According to Hawthorne scholar Rita K. Gollin, the "definitive edition"[126] of Hawthorne's works is The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by William Charvat and others, published by The Ohio State University Press in twenty-three volumes between 1962 and 1997.[127] Tales and Sketches (1982) was the second volume to be published in the Library of America, Collected Novels (1983) the tenth.[128] Novels[edit] Fanshawe (published anonymously, 1828)[129] The Scarlet Letter, A Romance (1850) The House of the Seven Gables, A Romance (1851) The Blithedale Romance (1852) The Marble Faun: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni (1860) (as Transformation: Or, The Romance of Monte Beni, UK publication, same year) The Dolliver Romance (1863) (unfinished) Septimius Felton; or, the Elixir of Life (unfinished, published in the Atlantic Monthly, 1872) Doctor Grimshawe's Secret: A Romance (unfinished, with preface and notes by Julian Hawthorne, 1882) Short story collections[edit] Twice-Told Tales (1837) Legends of the Province House (1838–1839) Grandfather's Chair (1840) Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys (1851) The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales (1852) Tanglewood Tales (1853) The Dolliver Romance and Other Pieces (1876) The Great Stone Face and Other Tales of the White Mountains (1889) Selected short stories[edit] "The Hollow of the Three Hills" (1830) "Roger Malvin's Burial" (1832) "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" (1832) "Young Goodman Brown" (1835) "The Gray Champion" (1835) "The White Old Maid" (1835) "Wakefield" (1835) "The Ambitious Guest" (1835) "The Minister's Black Veil" (1836) "The Man of Adamant" (1837) "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" (1837) "The Great Carbuncle" (1837) "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" (1837) "A Virtuoso's Collection" (May 1842) "The Birth-Mark" (March 1843) "The Celestial Railroad" (1843) "Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent" (1843) "Earth's Holocaust" (1844) "Rappaccini's Daughter" (1844) "P.'s Correspondence" (1845) "The Artist of the Beautiful" (1846) "Fire Worship" (1846) "Ethan Brand" (1850) "The Great Stone Face" (1850) "Feathertop" (1852) Nonfiction[edit] Life of Franklin Pierce (1852) Our Old Home (1863) Passages from the English Note-Books (1870) Passages from the French and Italian Note-Books (1871) Passages from the American Note-Books (1879) Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny, a Diary (written 1851, published 1904), an excerpt from Passages from the American Note-Books. See also[edit] Biography portalChildren's literature portalPolitics portal Gothic fiction Young America movement References[edit] Notes[edit] ^ Who Belongs To Phi Beta Kappa Archived January 3, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed Oct 4, 2009 ^ Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1828). Fanshawe. Boston: Marsh & Capen. ISBN 9781404713475. ^ Haas, Irvin. Historic Homes of American Authors. Washington, DC: The Preservation Press, 1991: 118. ISBN 0891331808. ^ Miller, 20–21 ^ McFarland, 18 ^ Wineapple, 20–21 ^ Edward B. Hungerford (1933). "Hawthorne Gossips about Salem". New England Quarterly. 6 (3): 445–469. doi:10.2307/359552. JSTOR 359552. ^ McFarland, 17 ^ Miller, 47 ^ Mellow, 18 ^ Mellow, 20 ^ Miller, 50 ^ Mellow, 21 ^ Mellow, 22 ^ Miller, 57 ^ a b Edwards, Herbert. "Nathaniel Hawthorne in Maine Archived December 28, 2019, at the Wayback Machine", Downeast Magazine, 1962 ^ Wineapple, 44–45 ^ Cheever, 99 ^ Miller, 76 ^ George Edwin Jepson. "Hawthorne in the Boston Custom House". The Bookman. August 1904. ^ Mellow 1980, pp. 41–42. ^ ""Hawthorne in Salem", North Shore Community College". ^ Wineapple, 87–88 ^ Miller, 169 ^ Mellow, 169 ^ Letter to Longfellow, June 4, 1837. ^ McFarland, 22–23 ^ Manning Hawthorne, "Nathaniel Hawthorne at Bowdoin", The New England Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 1940): 246–279. ^ Cheever, 102 ^ McFarland, 83 ^ Cheever, 104 ^ a b McFarland, 149 ^ Wineapple, 160 ^ McFarland, 25 ^ Schreiner, 123 ^ Miller, 246–247 ^ Mellow, 6–7 ^ McFarland, 87 ^ January 14, 1851, Journal of Sophia Hawthorne. Berg Collection NY Public Library. ^ Schreiner, 116–117 ^ McFarland, 97 ^ Schreiner, 119 ^ a b Reynolds, 10 ^ Mellow, 273 ^ Miller, 343–344 ^ Miller, 242 ^ Miller, 265 ^ Cheever, 179 ^ Cheever, 180 ^ Miller, 264–265 ^ Miller, 300 ^ Mellow, 316 ^ a b McFarland, 136 ^ Cheever, 181 ^ Miller, 301–302 ^ Miller, 284 ^ Miller, 274 ^ Cheever, 96 ^ Miller, 312 ^ a b Mellow, 335 ^ Mellow, 382 ^ a b Wright, John Hardy. Hawthorne's Haunts in New England. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2008: 93. ISBN 978-1596294257 ^ Mellow, 368–369 ^ Miller, 345 ^ Wineapple, 241 ^ Wineapple, 242 ^ McFarland, 129–130 ^ McFarland, 182 ^ a b Miller, 381 ^ Schreiner, 170–171 ^ Mellow, 412 ^ Miller, 382–383 ^ McFarland, 186 ^ Mellow, 415 ^ Urquhart, Peter (Spring 2011). "Nathaniel Hawthorne's Home in Rock Park". Nathaniel Hawthorne Review. 37 (1): 133–142. JSTOR 10.5325/nathhawtrevi.37.1.0133. Retrieved November 9, 2020. ^ Shaw, George (1906). "Nathaniel Hawthorne's House in Rock Park (Letter dated 1903-11-14 to the Liverpool Mercury)" (PDF). Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire & Cheshire. 58: 109–112. Retrieved November 9, 2020. ^ "Rock Ferry Slipway". Historic England. June 4, 2007. Retrieved November 9, 2020. ^ McFarland, 210 ^ McFarland, 206 ^ Mellow, 520 ^ Schreiner, 207 ^ Wineapple, 372 ^ Miller, 518 ^ Matthews, Jack (August 15, 2010). "Nathaniel Hawthorne's Untold Tale". The Chronicle Review. Retrieved August 17, 2010. ^ Wagenknecht, Edward. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Portrait of an American Humanist. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966: 9. ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Locations 20433–20434). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition. ^ Baker, Carlos. Emerson Among the Eccentrics: A Group Portrait. New York: Viking Press, 1996: 448. ISBN 067086675X. ^ McFarland, 297 ^ Mishra, Raja and Sally Heaney. "Hawthornes to be reunited", The Boston Globe. June 1, 2006. Accessed July 4, 2008 ^ Gollin, Rita K. (1983). Portraits of Nathaniel Hawthorne. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. p. 85. ISBN 0875800874. Retrieved October 1, 2021. ^ Madison, 9 ^ Miller, 281 ^ Charvat, William. Literary Publishing in America: 1790–1850. Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 (first published 1959): 56. ISBN 0870238019 ^ Madison, 15 ^ Miller, 513–514 ^ Reynolds, David S. Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1988: 524. ISBN 0674065654 ^ Wayne, Tiffany K. "Nathaniel Hawthorne", Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2006: 140. ISBN 0816056269. ^ Bell, Michael Davitt. Hawthorne and the Historical Romance of New England. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980: 173. ISBN 069106136X ^ Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007: 633. ISBN 978-0195078947. ^ Crews, 28–29 ^ Galens, David, ed. Literary Movements for Students, Vol. 1. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2002: 319. ISBN 0787665177 ^ Miller, 104 ^ Porte, 95 ^ Wineapple, 237 ^ Hoffman, 356 ^ The Scarlet Letter Ch XXIV "Conclusion" ^ Paglia, Sexual Personae, 581, 583 ^ Berlant, The Anatomy of National Fantasy, 94, 148, 175 ^ Splendora, "Psyche and Hester", 2, 5, 18 ^ Auerbach, Woman and the Demon, 150, 166 ^ Powers, The Heroine in Western Literature, 144 ^ Splendora, "Psyche and Hester", 12 ^ Van Doren 19 ^ True Crime: An American Anthology, Library of America website, accessed Jan 30, 2018 ^ Person, Leland S. "Bibliographical Essay: Hawthorne and History", collected in A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Oxford University Press, 2001: 187. ISBN 0195124146. ^ "Hawthorne and His Mosses" The Literary World August 1850. ^ McFarland, 88–89 ^ Lease, Benjamin (1972). That Wild Fellow John Neal and the American Literary Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 129, 133. ISBN 0226469697. ^ Nelson, Randy F. (editor). The Almanac of American Letters. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc., 1981: 150. ISBN 086576008X. ^ Porte, 97 ^ Woodwell, Roland H. John Greenleaf Whittier: A Biography. Haverhill, Massachusetts: Trustees of the John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead, 1985: 293. ^ McFarland, 88 ^ Crews, 4 ^ Nathaniel Hawthorne by Harold Bloom (2000) p. 9 ^ a b Nathaniel Hawthorne by Harold Bloom p. xii ^ Rita K. Gollin, Hawthorne, Nathaniel, American National Biography Online Feb. 2000 ^ Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1962). The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. ISBN 978-0814200599. OCLC 274693. ^ "Library of America Series". ^ Publication info on books from Editor's Note to The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne; Page Books, accessed June 11, 2007. Sources[edit] Auerbach, Nina, Woman and the Demon: The Life of a Victorian Myth (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 1982) Berlant, Lauren. The Anatomy of National Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press 1991) Cheever, Susan. American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau; Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work. Detroit: Thorndike Press, 2006. Large print edition. ISBN 078629521X. Crews, Frederick. The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne's Psychological Themes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966; reprinted 1989. ISBN 0520068173. Hoffman, Daniel G. Form and Fable in American Fiction. University of Virginia Press 1994. Madison, Charles A. Irving to Irving: Author-Publisher Relations 1800–1974. New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1974. McFarland, Philip. Hawthorne in Concord. New York: Grove Press, 2004. ISBN 0802117767. Mellow, James R. (1980). Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395276020. Miller, Edwin Haviland. Salem Is My Dwelling Place: A Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1991. ISBN 0877453322. Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (New York: Vintage 1991) Porte, Joel. The Romance in America: Studies in Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and James. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1969. Powers, Meredith A. The Heroine in Western Literature: The Archetype and Her Reemergence in Modern Prose (Jefferson, North Carolina and London: McFarland 1991) Reynolds, Larry J. "Hawthorne's Labors in Concord". The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Edited by Richard H. Millington. Cambridge, UK; New York; and Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 052180745X Schreiner, Samuel A. Jr. The Concord Quartet: Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, Thoreau, and the Friendship that Freed the American Mind. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2006. ISBN 0471646636. Splendora, Anthony. "Psyche and Hester, or Apotheosis and Epitome: Natural Grace, La Sagesse Naturale", The Rupkatha Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2014), pp. 1–34 Volume V, Number 3, 2013 – Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities. Van Doren, Mark. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Critical Biography. 1949; New York: Vintage 1957. Wineapple, Brenda. Hawthorne: A Life. Random House: New York, 2003. ISBN 0812972910. Further reading[edit] Bell, Michael Davitt. Hawthorne and the Historical Romance of New England. Princeton University Press (2015). Forster, Sophia. "Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Emergence of American Literary Realism." Studies in the Novel 48.1 (2016): 43–64. online Greven, David. Gender Protest and Same-Sex Desire in Antebellum American Literature: Margaret Fuller, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville (2015). Hallock, Thomas. "'A' is for Acronym: Teaching Hawthorne in a Performance-Based World." ESQ: A Journal of Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture 62#1 (2016): 116–121. Hawthorne, Julian. Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife: A Biography (2 vols.). Cambridge University Press (1884); Boston: James R. Osgood and Company (1885). Hawthorne, Julian. Hawthorne and His Circle. New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers (1903). Hawthorne, Julian. The Memoirs of Julian Hawthorne, Edited by His Wife Edith Garrigues Hawthorne. New York: The Macmillan Company (1938). Levin, Harry (1980). The Power of Blackness: Hawthorne, Poe, Melville. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. ISBN 9780821405819. Reynolds, Larry J., ed. A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Oxford University Press (2001). Salwak, Dale. The Life of the Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell (2022). ISBN 978-1-119-77181-4 Scribner, David, ed. Hawthorne Revistied: Honoring the Bicentennial of the Author's Birth. Lenox, Massachusetts: Lenox Library Association (2004). Ticknor, Caroline. Hawthorne and His Publisher. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company (1913). Williamson, Richard Joseph. "Friendship, politics, and the literary imagination: The impact of Franklin Pierce on Hawthorne's work" (PhD dissertation, University of North Texas, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 1996. 9638512). Young, Philip. Hawthorne's Secret: An Un-Told Tale. Boston: David R. Godine (1984). External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wikiquote has quotations related to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wikisource has original works by or about:Nathaniel Hawthorne About Hawthorne The Hawthorne in Salem website Nathaniel Hawthorne at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database C. E. Frazer Clark collection of Nathaniel Hawthorne at the University of South Carolina Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Henry James's book-length study, Hawthorne (1879) Second copy at Project Gutenberg Hawthorne Family Papers, c. 1825–1929, housed in the Department of Special Collections at Stanford University Libraries "Writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne" from C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History Hawthorne: Science, Progress, and Human Nature, series of essays on Hawthorne stories at The New Atlantis. Passages from the American Note-Books Archived October 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Sophia Hawthorne, 1868, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1883 (volume IX of the 13-volume Riverside Edition of the Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne). Joint diary of Sophia and Nathaniel Hawthorne at The Morgan Library & Museum Nathaniel Hawthorne Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. 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THE WIVES OF THE DEAD

"Sisters" by Stephen Harlan is licensed under CC by 2.0.

The following story, the simple and domestic incidents of which may be deemed scarcely worth relating, after such a lapse of time, awakened some degree of interest, a hundred years ago, in a principal seaport of the Bay Province. The rainy twilight of an autumn day; a parlor on the second floor of a small house, plainly furnished, as beseemed the middling circumstances of its inhabitants, yet decorated with little curiosities from beyond the sea, and a few delicate specimens of Indian manufacture, - these are the only particulars to be premised in regard to scene and season. Two young and comely women sat together by the fireside, nursing their mutual and peculiar sorrows. They were the recent brides of two brothers, a sailor and a landsman, and two successive days had brought tidings of the death of each, by the chances of Canadian warfare, and the tempestuous Atlantic. The universal sympathy excited by this bereavement, drew numerous condoling guests to the habitation of the widowed sisters. Several, among whom was the minister, had remained till the verge of evening; when one by one, whispering many comfortable passages of Scripture, that were answered by more abundant tears, they took their leave and departed to their own happier homes. The mourners, though not insensible to the kindness of their friends, had yearned to be left alone. United, as they had been, by the relationship of the living, and now more closely so by that of the dead, each felt as if whatever consolation her grief admitted, were to be found in the bosom of the other. They joined their hearts, and wept together silently. But after an hour of such indulgence, one of the sisters, all of whose emotions were influenced by her mild, quiet, yet not feeble character, began to recollect the precepts of resignation and endurance, which piety had taught her, when she did not think to need them. Her misfortune, besides, as earliest known, should earliest cease to interfere with her regular course of duties; accordingly, having placed the table before the fire, and arranged a frugal meal, she took the hand of her companion.

"Come, dearest sister; you have eaten not a morsel to-day," she said. "Arise, I pray you, and let us ask a blessing on that which is provided for us."

Her sister-in-law was of a lively and irritable temperament, and the first pangs of her sorrow had been expressed by shrieks and passionate lamentation. She now shrunk from Mary's words, like a wounded sufferer from a hand that revives the throb.

"There is no blessing left for me, neither will I ask it," cried Margaret, with a fresh burst of tears. "Would it were His will that I might never taste food more."

Yet she trembled at these rebellious expressions, almost as soon as they were uttered, and, by degrees, Mary succeeded in bringing her sister's mind nearer to the situation of her own. Time went on, and their usual hour of repose arrived. The brothers and their brides, entering the married state with no more than the slender means which then sanctioned such a step, had confederated themselves in one household, with equal rights to the parlor, and claiming exclusive privileges in two sleeping rooms contiguous to it. Thither the widowed ones retired, after heaping ashes upon the dying embers of their fire, and placing a lighted lamp upon the hearth. The doors of both chambers were left open, so that a part of the interior of each, and the beds with their unclosed curtains, were reciprocally visible. Sleep did not steal upon the sisters at one and the same time. Mary experienced the effect often consequent upon grief quietly borne, and soon sunk into temporary forgetfulness, while Margaret became more disturbed and feverish, in proportion as the night advanced with its deepest and stillest hours. She lay listening to the drops of rain, that came down in monotonous succession, unswayed by a breath of wind; and a nervous impulse continually caused her to lift her head from the pillow, and gaze into Mary's chamber and the intermediate apartment. The cold light of the lamp threw the shadows of the furniture up against the wall, stamping them immovably there, except when they were shaken by a sudden flicker of the flame. Two vacant arm-chairs were in their old positions on opposite sides of the hearth, where the brothers had been wont to sit in young and laughing dignity, as heads of families; two humbler seats were near them, the true thrones to that little empire, where Mary and herself had exercised in love, a power that love had won. The cheerful radiance of the fire had shone upon the happy circle, and the dead glimmer of the lamp might have befitted their reunion now. While Margaret groaned in bitterness, she heard a knock at the street-door.

"How would my heart have leapt at that sound but yesterday!" thought she, remembering the anxiety with which she had long awaited tidings from her husband. "I care not for it now; let them be gone, for I will not arise."

But even while a sort of childish fretfulness made her thus resolve, she was breathing hurriedly, and straining her ears to catch a repetition of the summons. It is difficult to be convinced of the death of one whom we have deemed another self. The knocking was now renewed in slow and regular strokes, apparently given with the soft end of a doubled fist, and was accompanied by words, faintly heard through several thicknesses of wall. Margaret looked to her sister's chamber, and beheld her still lying in the depths of sleep. She arose, placed her foot upon the floor, and slightly arrayed herself, trembling between fear and eagerness as she did so.

"Heaven help me!" sighed she. "I have nothing left to fear, and methinks I am ten times more a coward than ever."

Seizing the lamp from the hearth, she hastened to the window that overlooked the street-door. It was a lattice, turning upon hinges; and having thrown it back, she stretched her head a little way into the moist atmosphere. A lantern was reddening the front of the house, and melting its light in the neighboring puddles, while a deluge of darkness overwhelmed every other object. As the window grated on its hinges, a man in a broad brimmed hat and blanket-coat, stepped from under the shelter of the projecting story, and looked upward to discover whom his application had aroused. Margaret knew him as a friendly innkeeper of the town.

"What would you have, Goodman Parker?" cried the widow.

"Lack-a-day, is it you, Mistress Margaret?" replied the innkeeper. "I was afraid it might be your sister Mary; for I hate to see a young woman in trouble, when I haven't a word of comfort to whisper her."

"For Heaven's sake, what news do you bring?" screamed Margaret.

"Why, there has been an express through the town within this half hour," said Goodman Parker, "travelling from the eastern jurisdiction with letters from the governor and council. He tarried at my house to refresh himself with a drop and a morsel, and I asked him what tidings on the frontiers. He tells me we had the better in the skirmish you wot of, and that thirteen men reported slain are well and sound, and your husband among them. Besides, he is appointed of the escort to bring the captivated Frenchers and Indians home to the province jail. I judged you wouldn't mind being broke of your rest, and so I stept over to tell you. Good night."

So saying, the honest man departed; and his lantern gleamed along the street, bringing to view indistinct shapes of things, and the fragments of a world, like order glimmering through chaos, or memory roaming over the past. But Margaret staid not to watch these picturesque effects. Joy flashed into her heart, and lighted it up at once, and breathless, and with winged steps, she flew to the bedside of her sister. She paused, however, at the door of the chamber, while a thought of pain broke in upon her.

"Poor Mary!" said she to herself. "Shall I waken her, to feel her sorrow sharpened by my happiness? No; I will keep it within my own bosom till the morrow."

She approached the bed to discover if Mary's sleep were peaceful. Her face was turned partly inward to the pillow, and had been hidden there to weep; but a look of motionless contentment was now visible upon it, as if her heart, like a deep lake, had grown calm because its dead had sunk down so far within. Happy is it, and strange, that the lighter sorrows are those from which dreams are chiefly fabricated. Margaret shrunk from disturbing her sister-in-law, and felt as if her own better fortune, had rendered her involuntarily unfaithful, and as if altered and diminished affection must be the consequence of the disclosure she had to make. With a sudden step, she turned away. But joy could not long be repressed, even by circumstances that would have excited heavy grief at an other moment. Her mind was thronged with delightful thoughts, till sleep stole on and transformed them to visions, more delightful and more wild, like the breath of winter, (but what a cold comparison!) working fantastic tracery upon a window.

When the night was far advanced, Mary awoke with a sudden start. A vivid dream had latterly involved her in its unreal life, of which, however, she could only remember that it had been broken in upon at the most interesting point. For a little time, slumber hung about her like a morning mist, hindering her from perceiving the distinct outline of her situation. She listened with imperfect consciousness to two or three volleys of a rapid and eager knocking; and first she deemed the noise a matter of course, like the breath she drew; next, it appeared a thing in which she had no concern; and lastly, she became aware that it was a summons necessary to be obeyed. At the same moment, the pang of recollection darted into her mind; the pall of sleep was thrown back from the face of grief; the dim light of the chamber, and the objects therein revealed, had retained all her suspended ideas, and restored them as soon as she unclosed her eyes. Again, there was a quick peal upon the street-door. Fearing that her sister would also be disturbed, Mary wrapped herself in a cloak and hood, took the lamp from the hearth, and hastened to the window. By some accident, it had been left unclasped, and yielded easily to her hand.

"Who's there?" asked Mary, trembling as she looked forth.

The storm was over, and the moon was up; it shone upon broken clouds above, and below upon houses black with moisture, and upon little lakes of the fallen rain, curling into silver beneath the quick enchantment of a breeze. A young man in a sailor's dress, wet as if he had come out of the depths of the sea, stood alone under the window. Mary recognized him as one whose livelihood was gained by short voyages along the coast; nor did she forget, that, previous to her marriage, he had been an unsuccessful wooer of her own.

"What do you seek here, Stephen?" said she.

"Cheer up, Mary, for I seek to comfort you," answered the rejected lover. "You must know I got home not ten minutes ago, and the first thing my good mother told me was the news about your husband. So, without saying a word to the old woman, I clapt on my hat, and ran out of the house. I couldn't have slept a wink before speaking to you, Mary, for the sake of old times."

"Stephen, I thought better of you!" exclaimed the widow, with gushing tears, and preparing to close the lattice; for she was no whit inclined to imitate the first wife of Zadig.

"But stop, and hear my story out," cried the young sailor. "I tell you we spoke a brig yesterday afternoon, bound in from Old England. And who do you think I saw standing on deck, well and hearty, only a bit thinner than he was five months ago?"

Mary leaned from the window, but could not speak.

"Why, it was your husband himself," continued the generous seaman. "He and three others saved themselves on a spar when the Blessing turned bottom upwards. The brig will beat into the bay by daylight, with this wind, and you'll see him here tomorrow. There's the comfort I bring you, Mary, and so good night."

He hurried away, while Mary watched him with a doubt of waking reality, that seemed stronger or weaker as he alternately entered the shade of the houses, or emerged into the broad streaks of moonlight. Gradually, however, a blessed flood of conviction swelled into her heart, in strength enough to overwhelm her, had its increase been more abrupt. Her first impulse was to rouse her sister-in-law, and communicate the new-born gladness. She opened the chamber-door, which had been closed in the course of the night, though not latched, advanced to the bedside, and was about to lay her hand upon the slumberer's shoulder. But then she remembered that Margaret would awake to thoughts of death and woe, rendered not the less bitter by their contrast with her own felicity. She suffered the rays of the lamp to fall upon the unconscious form of the bereaved one. Margaret lay in unquiet sleep, and the drapery was displaced around her; her young check was rosy-tinted, and her lips half opened in a vivid smile; an expression of joy, debarred its passage by her sealed eyelids, struggled forth like incense from the whole countenance.

"My poor sister! you will waken too soon from that happy dream," thought Mary.

Before retiring, she set down the lamp and endeavored to arrange the bed-clothes, so that the chill air might not do harm to the feverish slumberer. But her hand trembled against Margaret's neck, a tear also fell upon her cheek, and she suddenly awoke.

Current Page: 1

GRADE:11

Additional Information:

Rating: B Words in the Passage: 1160 Unique Words: 937 Sentences: 123
Noun: 662 Conjunction: 213 Adverb: 136 Interjection: 2
Adjective: 178 Pronoun: 232 Verb: 429 Preposition: 323
Letter Count: 10,722 Sentiment: Positive / Positive / Positive Tone: Neutral Difficult Words: 558
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