His assumed brusquerie no longer
availed him; he was stricken with dismay; his face lost color, and took
on a warm paleness. All this was in a moment; but the daughter of the
house moved forward, and he was drawn within. Even then, though he
assumed a calm demeanor, his agitation was very great: he stood by a
table, and, taking up some small object that lay upon it, he found his
hand trembling so that he was forced to put it down again.
While friends were slowly penetrating his reserve in this way, he was
approached in another by Mr. Goodrich, who induced him to go to Boston,
there to edit the "American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining
Knowledge." This work, which only continued from 1834 to September,
1837, was managed by several gentlemen under the name of the Bewick
Company. One of these was Bowen, of Charlestown, an engraver; another
was Goodrich, who also, I think, had some connection with the American
Stationers' Company. The Bewick Company took its name from Thomas
Bewick, the English restorer of the art of wood-engraving, and the
magazine was to do his memory honor by its admirable illustrations. But,
in fact, it never did any one honor, nor brought any one profit. It was
a penny popular affair, containing condensed information about
innumerable subjects, no fiction, and little poetry. The woodcuts were
of the crudest and most frightful sort. It passed through the hands of
several editors and several publishers. Hawthorne was engaged at a
salary of five hundred dollars a year; but it appears that he got next
to nothing, and that he did not stay in the position long.
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