The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Appendix to Volume XII: Tales, Sketches, and other Papers by Nathaniel Hawthorne with a Biographical Sketch by George Parsons Lathrop: Biographical Sketch of Nathaniel HawthorneLathrop, George Parsons
General
The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Appendix to Volume XII: Tales, Sketches, and other Papers by Nathaniel Hawthorne with a Biographical Sketch by George Parsons Lathrop: Biographical Sketch of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Lathrop, George Parsons
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864; Novelists, American -- 19th century -- Biography
men."[12]
The earlier portraits of Hawthorne show the gentleness and the feminine
traits in his disposition much more distinctly than those that are best
known to the world. There is one, now owned by his cousin, Mr. Richard
C. Manning, of Salem, which was painted in 1840 by Charles Osgood, an
artist of Salem, and induced this comment from his sister Louisa: "The
color is a little too high, to be sure, but perhaps it is a modest
blush at the compliments which are paid to your pen." Another, painted
by a Mr. C. G. Thompson, at Boston, in 1850 (now owned by Mr. Julian
Hawthorne), resembles this, and presents, one would say, the ideal
Hawthorne of the "Twice-Told Tales" and "The House of the Seven Gables."
The face is smooth shaven and the cheeks are somewhat slender, making
all the lines and features contribute to an effect of greater length and
of more oval contour than that given by the later representations. The
color is delicate; the large eyes look forth with peculiarly fascinating
power from beneath a forehead of exceptional height and harmonious
prominence. The hair is long, and recedes slightly on both sides of the
forehead; a single lock in the middle curving over and drooping forward.
There is less firmness about the lips than was characteristic of them in
his latter years; they close softly, yet even in their pictured repose
they seem to be mobile and ready to quiver with response to some emotion
still undefined but liable to make itself felt at any instant. In its
surrounding of long hair, and of a collar rising above the jaws, with a
large black tie wound about the throat in the manner of a stock but
terminating in a large bow at the front, the beardless countenance is
stamped with a sort of prevalent aspect of the period when it was
painted, which gives it what we call the old-fashioned look. It is, none
the less, a striking one; one that arrests the glance immediately, and
holds it by a peculiar spell. There is no suggestion of a smile or of
cheeriness about it; the eyes even look a little weary, as with too much
meditation in the brain behind them; there is not a trace discernible of
that sturdy, almost military, resoluteness so marked in the familiar
crayon portrait by Rowse, executed after Hawthorne's return from Italy
and England. Here the face is pensive, timid, fresh and impressionable
as that of some studious undergraduate unusually receptive of ideas,
sentiments, and observations: it is, indeed, quiet and thoughtful to the
verge of sadness. Longfellow kept always in his study a black-and-white
copy from this portrait, and in speaking of it and of the subject's
extreme shyness, said that to converse with Hawthorne was like talking
to a woman. The Thompson picture was reproduced in 1851, in a steel
engraving of considerable merit, and Hawthorne, thanking Mr. Fields for
some of the prints, wrote from Lenox: "The children recognized their
venerable sire with great delight. My wife complains somewhat of a want
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account