Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1881 — Hawthorne's Diffidence. [ARTICLE]

Hawthorne's Diffidence.

Miss Peabody, who probably knew Hawthorne longer and more intimate- ! ly than any person now living, spoke ! of his mingled aversion to society and i interest in it. When he lived in Salem he used to go with his wife to the door of a friend’s house, then leave her, but await her return with .eager curiosity, ami sit up halt the night to hear the story of the evening. Mr. Aleott told some amusing stories of what he called Hawthorne’s diffidence. He lived next to him for three years, but lie never naw him in the street, and during that time Hawthorne was In Mr. Aieott's house but twice, anil then by stratagem. There wen* some young women, guests of Mr. Aleott, who one <iav iM-rsuadeil Hawthorne to step into the wtudy. ; But after a litth-, while beating his I liars all the time, lie said, sudiienly, “The stove is too hot,” ami vantaheii. I Once more the sirens took him in their j net, but when thevliad landed him he sai<l, “The clock ticks so loud I must go,” and again he disappeanwl. But Miss Pealsidy objected to Mr. Aieott’s won! difthfence as applied to Hawthorne. He had, she said, gn'at sensibility, and lie hail not the kind of intercourse with society which gives self-possession. But lie liked to s** |Ms»ple. He was immensely sociable, anil lie rvpn»ai-hed his wife when she kept persons away. Yet we should hardly coil him “aoeiable” in the usual sense of the wonl. iss Peabody says that in Sympathizing society be felt no shyness. But in Mr. Emerson’s library, among a circle of neighlsirs and friends, we have seen him standi ing by the winter afternoon with a I remote and solitary air, xs if he were | longing for the wings of a dove.

This didpositiou of seclusion is shown by s!iss Peabody to have been lieredftary. Hawthorne’s sister, sljie says, shut herself up when she was eighteen years old, and saw si'iircely nny-one u»r twenty years; and Miss Pealssly’sdescription of llawtliornc’s mother recalls Miss Haversham, in Dii'ken’s “tlreat Ex|ieetations.” lliat the mother was, as Miss I‘ealssly, says, a person of very fine common sense, with a strung, dear mind, would not Is* inferred from the fad that after her husItand’s death, she seduilts! herself il Iter own room, amkilrcssisl alt<»gether in. white—a custom which broke up every family arrangement. Hawthorne did not renieinlier sitting at table with his mother until after lie was married, when she herself prop»wi>d that her grand-dauglitiT should retueiiilier her first Thanksgiving din-net-as eaten with her grand-mother. But Hawthorne laugiied when his wife said that she wouldmake his mother laugh at table. All this Seems to indicate a rather g. im domestic interior; ami we rememlier hearing Hawthorne say that in the early days, after leaving college, when lie was at home in Salem, the members of the family livi-d much by themsdves. For his )»art, he the day in his' room, writing stories, which he subsequently burned, and he went out to walk after nightfall, this kind of life with the tem|»erament to which it was largely due, readily explains the furtive way, in the hotel and dn the vessel, in which alone he enjoyed society afterward. — Harjter.