"
And on the eve of sailing, he wrote to another friend:--
"I shall go home, I fear, with a heavy heart, not expecting to be very
well contented there."
But his sense of duty, stronger than that of many Americans under
similar circumstances, was rigorously obeyed. We shall see what sort of
reward this fidelity to country won from public opinion at home.
X.
THE LAST ROMANCE.
1860-1863.
There are in the "English Note-Books" several dismal and pathetic
records of tragic cases of brutality or murder on shipboard, which it
was Hawthorne's duty as consul to investigate. These things, as one
might have divined they would, made a very strong and deep impression
upon him; and he tried strenuously to interest the United States
government in bettering the state of the marine by new laws. But though
this evil was and is still quite as monstrous as that of slavery, there
was no means of mixing up prejudice and jealousy with the reform, to
help it along, and he could effect nothing. He resolved, on returning
home, to write some articles--perhaps a volume--exposing the horrors so
calmly overlooked; but the slavery agitation, absorbing everybody,
perhaps discouraged him: the scheme was never carried out. It is a pity;
for, aside from the weight which so eminent a name might have given to a
good cause, the work would have clearly proven the quick, responsive,
practical nature of his humanity--a quality which some persons have seen
fit to deny him--in a case where no question of conflicting rights
divided his sense of duty.
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