hands to work with; he personally did three-fourths of the labor on his vineyard, and every grape-vine had his separate care. He was married and had three children, amiable but less interesting than himself. He had, also, a tremendous temper, evidenced by his heavy and high-arched eyebrows, and once in a while he let slip upon his helpers in the vineyard this formidable wrath, which could easily be heard in our peaceful precincts, like sounds of distant battle. He often came over and sat with my father in the summer-house on the hill, and there talked about politics, sociology (though under some other name, probably), morals, and human nature, with an occasional lecture on grape-culture. He permitted my sister and me to climb the fence and eat all the grapes we could hold; it seems to me he could hardly have realized our capacity. During our second summer he built a most elaborate fence along the road-front of his estate; it must have been three hundred yards long and it was as high as a man could reach; the palings, instead of being upright, were criss-crossed over one another, leaving small diamond-shaped interstices. The whole was painted brilliant white, to match the liliputian cottage in which the Bull family contrived (I know not how) to ensconce itself. When the fence was built, Mr. Bull would every day come forth and pace slowly up and down the road, contemplating it with the pride of a parent; indeed, it was no puny achievement, and when I revisited Concord, thirty years later, the great white fence was still there, with a few gaps in it, but still effective. But the builder, and the grapes—where were they? Where are Cheops, and the hanging gardens of Babylon?
Among many visitors came Richard Henry Stoddard, already a poet, but anxious to supplement the income from his verses by a regular stipend from the big pocket of Uncle Sam. His first coming was in summer, and he and my father went up on the hill and sat in the summer-house there, looking out upon the wide prospect of green meadows and distant woods, but probably seeing nothing of them, their attention being withdrawn to scenes yet fairer in the land of imagination and memory. Stoddard was then, as always, a handsome man, strong and stanch, black-haired and black-bearded, with strong eyes that could look both fierce and tender. He was masculine, sensitive, frank, and humorous; his chuckle had infinite merriment in it; but, as his mood shifted, there might be tears in his eyes the next moment. He was at that time little more than five-and-twenty years old, and he looked hardly that; he was a New England country youth of genius. Nature had kindled a fire in him which has never gone out. Like my father, he was affiliated with the sea, and had its freshness and daring, though combined with great modesty, and he felt honored by the affection with which he inspired the author of The Scarlet Letter. It was not until his second visit, in the winter, that the subject of a custom-house appointment for him came up; for my father, being known as a close friend of the President, whose biography he had written for the campaign, became the object of pilgrimages other than literary ones. He received sound advice, and introductions, which aided him in getting the appointment, and he held it for nearly twenty years—more to the benefit of the custom-house than of poetry, no doubt, though he never let poetry escape him, and he is to-day a mine of knowledge and wisdom on literary subjects. There is an immense human ardor, power, and pathos in Stoddard; better than any other American poet does he realize the conception of his great English brother—the love of love, the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn. The world has proved impotent to corrupt his heroic simplicity; he loved fame much, but truth more. He is a boy in his heart still, and he has sung songs which touch whatever is sweetest, tenderest, and manliest in the soul of man.
[IMAGE: EDWIN P. WHIFFLE]
E. P. Whipple, essentially a man of letters, and famous in his day as a critic of literature, appeared often in "The Wayside." His verdict on a book carried weight; it was an era when literary criticism was regarded seriously, and volumes devoted to critical studies had something more than, a perfunctory vogue. He had written penetrating and cordial things about my father's books, and foretold the high place which he would ultimately occupy in our Pantheon. He was rich in the kind of Attic salt which, was characteristic of Boston in the middle century; the product of an almost excessive culture erected on sound, native brains. He had abounding wit; not only wit of the sort that begets mirth, but that larger and graver wit which Macaulay notices in Bacon's writings—a pure, irradiating, intellectual light. It had often the effect of an actual physical illumination cast upon the topic. He was magnificent as a dinner-table companion. He was rather a short, thick-shouldered man, with a big head on a short neck, a broad, projecting forehead, prominent eyes, defended by shiny spectacles, and bushy whiskers. He is not remembered now, probably because he never produced any organic work commensurate with his huge talent. Analyses of the work of others, however just, useful, and creative, do not endure unless they are associated with writing of the independent sort. Whipple, with all his ability and insight, never entered the imaginative field on his own account, and in the press of wits he falls behind and is forgotten.
My father had come to Concord with the idea of a new romance in his mind; he designed it to be of a character more cheerful than the foregoing ones. It was never written, and but the slightest traces of what it might have been are extant. Herman Melville had spent a day with us at Concord, and he had suggested a story to Hawthorne; but the latter, after turning it over in his mind, came to the conclusion that Melville could treat the subject better than he could; but Melville finally relinquished it also. It seems likely, however, that this projected tale was not the one which Hawthorne had originally been meditating. At all events, it was postponed in favor of a new book of wonder-stories from Greek mythology—the first one having had immediate popularity, and by the time this was finished, the occasion had arrived which led to the writing of Pierce's biography. This, in turn, was followed by the offer by the President to his friend of the Liverpool consulate, then the most lucrative appointment in the gift of the administration; and Hawthorne's acceptance of it caused all literary projects to be indefinitely abandoned.
But even had there been time for the writing of another book, the death of Hawthorne's sister Louisa would doubtless have unfitted him for a while from undertaking it. This was the most painful episode connected with his life; Louisa was a passenger on a Hudson River steamboat which was burned. She was a gentle, rather fragile woman, with a playful humor and a lovable nature; she had not the intellectual force either of her brother or of her sister Elizabeth; but her social inclinations were stronger than theirs. She was a delightful person to have in the house, and her nephew and niece were ardently in love with her. She was on her way to "The Wayside" when the calamity occurred, and we were actually expecting her on the day she perished. Standing on the blazing deck, with the panic and the death-scenes around her, the gentle woman had to make the terrible choice between the river and the fire. She was alone; there was none to advise or help her or be her companion in inevitable death. Her thoughts must have gone to her brother, with his strength and courage, his skill as a swimmer; but he was far away, unconscious of her desperate extremity. She had to choose, and the river was her choice. With that tragic conception of the drowning of Zenobia fresh in his mind, the realization of his sister's fate must have gained additional poignancy in my father's imagination. He was hard hit, and the traces of the blow were manifest on him. After about a month, he made a journey to the Isles of Shoals with Franklin Pierce, and in that breezy outpost of the land he spent some weeks, much to his advantage. This was in the autumn of 1852, and I recall well enough the gap in things which his long absence made for me, and my perfect joy when the whistle of the train at the distant railway station signalled his return. Twenty minutes had to elapse before the railroad carriage could bring him to our door; they were long and they were brief, after the manner of minutes in such circumstances. He came, and there was a moment of indescribable glory while he leaped from the carriage and faced the situation on the doorstep of his home. His countenance was glowing with health and the happiness of home-coming. I thought him, as I always did, the most beautiful of human beings, by which I do not mean beautiful in feature, for of that I was not competent to hold an opinion; but beautiful in the feelings which he aroused in me beholding him. He was beautiful to be with, to hear, touch, and experience. Such is the effect of the spiritual sphere of good men, in whom nature and character are harmonious. My father got his appointment from Washington in the following March, 1853. His wife had but one solicitude in leaving America; her mother was aged and in delicate health, and their parting might be forever in this world. But a month before the appointment was confirmed, her mother quietly and painlessly died. It was as if she had wished not
