The orchards were
blossoming; the roadside-banks were blue with violets, and the lilies of
the valley, which were Hawthorne's favorites among the flowers, had come
forth in quiet companies, to look their last on his face, so white and
quiet too. So, while the batteries that had murdered him roared sullenly
in the distant South, the rites of burial were fulfilled over the dead
poet. Like a clear voice beside the grave, as we look back and listen,
Longfellow's simple, penetrating chant returns upon the ear.
In vain to sum up, here, the loss unspeakable suffered in Hawthorne's
death; and no less vain the attempt to fix in a few words the
incalculable gain his life has left with us. When one remembers the
power that was unexhausted in him still, one is ready to impeach cold
Time and Fate for their treason to the fair prospect that lay before us
all, in the continuance of his career. We look upon these few great
works, that may be numbered on the fingers of a hand, and wonder what
good end was served by the silent shutting of those rich pages that had
just begun to open. We remember the tardy recognition that kept the
fountain of his spirit so long half concealed, and the necessities that
forced him to give ten of his best years to the sterile industry of
official duties. But there are great compensations. Without the youthful
period of hopes deferred, Hawthorne, as we have seen, would not have
been the unique force, the high, untrammelled thinker that be became
through that fortunate isolation; wanting the uncongenial contact of his
terms at Boston and Salem and Liverpool, it may be that he could not
have developed his genius with such balance of strength as it now shows;
and, finally, without the return to his native land, the national fibre
in him would have missed its crowning grace of conscientiousness.
Pages:
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373