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There is a passage in Hawthorne's diary under date of October 4, 1840, which has often been quoted; but it will have to be quoted again, for it cannot be read too often, and no biography of him would be adequate without it.
Hawthorne's manuscript awaits his orders." The writer received it and burned it, to the chagrin of Andrews, who had hoped to bring out many works by the same hand.
He thought of his first visit to her, the open piano, "Proficiscere, anima Christiana," "The Scarlet Letter," and her quotation. What had she been thinking while she played Elgar's curiously unearthly music, while she read Hawthorne's pitiful book? She had been using art, no doubt, as so many use it, as a means of escape from life.
I wonder at your lack of recognition of my social propensities. I take so much delight in my friends, that a little intercourse goes a great way, and illuminates my life before and after.... Your friend, These seven years in Europe formed, outwardly, the most opulently happy part of Hawthorne's life.
She is very clear as to the beauty of the infant, even when only a week old, and remembers that "he was a pleasant child, quite handsome, with golden curls." She also tells me that Hawthorne's mother was a beautiful woman, with remarkable eyes, full of sensibility and expression, and that she was a person of singular purity of mind.
He said they looked exactly like tame geese, but as soon as he came in sight of them they flew away in a most surprising manner. Mr. Bradford, who is frequently mentioned in Hawthorne's note-book, looked sunburnt and very thin, and averred that milking the cows on a frosty morning was a chilly kind of business.
In "Earth's Holocaust" we get the first result of Hawthorne's insight into the demonianism of reformatory schemers who forget that the centre of every true reform is the heart. And, incidentally, this marks out the way to "The Scarlet Letter" on the one hand, and "The Blithedale Romance" on the other, in which the same theme assumes two widely different phases.
The historical view is that of intelligent criticism; but Hawthorne's effort was the harbinger and token of an original imagination. After the publication of "Fanshawe" and the destruction of his "Seven Tales," Hawthorne found himself advanced not so much as by a single footstep on the road to fame.
Gazing out over the lake through vistas of maple and beech we thought of Hawthorne's words: "It was a happy lot for the children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with the Great Stone Face before their eyes; for all of the features were noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections and had room for more."
The reviewers might pass over your novel, thinking it was only a new edition of Hawthorne's book." "Yes, that's quite true," said Lady Adela, thoughtfully. "Well, here is one," he continued. "'Sicily and South Kensington; that's odd; that's new; that might take the popular fancy."
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