The Life and Genius of Nathaniel HawthorneStearns, Frank Preston
General
The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stearns, Frank Preston
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864; Novelists, American -- 19th century -- Biography
Longfellow associated with him, filing perpetually on the vital cord. It
was part of the enigmatic side of his nature.
The last ceremonies of respect to the earthly remains of Hawthorne
were performed at Concord on May 23, 1864, in the Unitarian Church, a
commodious building, [Footnote: In 1899 this building was burned to
the ground, and a new church has been erected on the same spot.] well
adapted to the great concourse of mourners who gathered there on this
occasion. Reverend James Freeman Clarke, who had united Hawthorne and
Sophia Peabody in marriage twenty-two years before, was now called upon
to preside over the last act in their married life. The simple eloquence
of his address penetrated to the heart of every person present.
“Hawthorne had achieved a twofold immortality,--and his immortality on
earth would be a comforting presence to all who mourned him. The noblest
men of the age had gathered there, to testify to his worth as a man
as well as to his genius as a writer.” Faces were to be seen in that
assembly that were never beheld in Concord before. Among these was the
soldierly figure and flashing eye of the poet Whittier. Longfellow,
Emerson, Lowell, Agassiz, Alcott and Hillard were present; and
ex-President Pierce shook hands with Judge Hoar over Hawthorne’s bier.
After the services the assembly of mourners proceeded to Sleepy Hollow
cemetery, and there the mortal remains of Hawthorne were buried under
the pine trees on the same hill-side where he and Emerson and Margaret
Fuller conversed together on the summer afternoon twenty years before.
He needs no monument, for he has found a place in the universal pantheon
of art and literature.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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