Delphi Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated) (208 page)
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Authors: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”He had a sort of horror of violence, and of the strangeness that it should be done to him; this affected him more than the blow.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”Jokes occasionally about the schoolmaster's thinness and lightness, — how he might suspend himself from the spider's web and swing, etc.”
Note 3. Author's note
. — ”The Doctor and the Schoolmaster should have much talk about England.”
Note 4. Author's note
. — ”The children were at play in the churchyard.”
Note 5. Author's note
. — ”He mentions that he was probably buried in the churchyard there.”
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”Perhaps put this narratively, not as spoken.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”He was privately married to the heiress, if she were an heiress. They meant to kill him in the wood, but, by contrivance, he was kidnapped.”
Note 3. Author's note
. — ”They were privately married.”
Note 4. Author's note
. — ”Old descriptive letters, referring to localities as they existed.”
Note 5. Author's note
. — ”There should be symbols and tokens, hinting at the schoolmaster's disappearance, from the first opening of the scene.”
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”They had got up in remarkably good case that morning.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”The stranger may be the future master of the Hospital. — Describe the winter day.”
Note 3. Author's note
. — ”Describe him as clerical.”
Note 4. Author's note
. — ”Represent him as a refined, agreeable, genial young man, of frank, kindly, gentlemanly manners.”
Note 5.
Alternative reading: “A clergyman.”
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”Make the old grave-digger a
laudator temporis acti
, — especially as to burial customs.”
Note 2.
Instead of “written,” as in the text, the author probably meant to write “read.”
Note 3.
The MS. has “delight,” but “a light” is evidently intended.
Note 4. Author's note
. — ”He aims a blow, perhaps with his pipe, at the boy, which Ned wards off.”
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”No longer could play at quarter-staff with Ned.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”Referring to places and people in England: the Bloody Footstep sometimes.”
Note 3.
In the original the following occurs, but marked to indicate that it was to be omitted: “And kissed his hand to her, and laughed feebly; and that was the last that she or anybody, the last glimpse they had of Doctor Grimshawe alive.”
Note 4. Author's notes
. — ”A great deal must he made out of the spiders, and their gloomy, dusky, flaunting tapestry. A web across the orifice of his inkstand every morning; everywhere, indeed, except across the snout of his brandy-bottle. — Depict the Doctor in an old dressing-gown, and a strange sort of a cap, like a wizard's. — The two children are witnesses of many strange experiments in the study; they see his moods, too. — The Doctor is supposed to be writing a work on the Natural History of Spiders. Perhaps he used them as a blind for his real project, and used to bamboozle the learned with pretending to read them passages in which great learning seemed to be elaborately worked up, crabbed with Greek and Latin, as if the topic drew into itself, like a whirlpool, all that men thought and knew; plans to cultivate cobwebs on a large scale. Sometimes, after overwhelming them with astonishment in this way, he would burst into one of his laughs. Schemes to make the world a cobweb-factory, etc., etc. Cobwebs in his own brain. Crusty Hannah such a mixture of persons and races as could be found only at a seaport. There was a rumor that the Doctor had murdered a former maid, for having, with housewifely instinct, swept away the cobwebs; some said that he had her skeleton in a closet. Some said that he had strangled a wife with web of the great spider.”
— ”Read the description of Bolton Hall, the garden, lawn, etc., Aug. 8, '53. — Bebbington church and churchyard, Aug. 29, '53. — The Doctor is able to love, — able to hate; two great and rare abilities nowadays. — Introduce two pine trees, ivy-grown, as at Lowwood Hotel, July 16, '58. — The family name might be Redclyffe. — Thatched cottage, June 22, '55. — Early introduce the mention of the cognizance of the family, — the Leopard's Head, for instance, in the first part of the romance; the Doctor may have possessed it engraved as coat of arms in a book. — The Doctor shall show Ned, perhaps, a drawing or engraving of the Hospital, with figures of the pensioners in the quadrangle, fitly dressed; and this picture and the figures shall impress themselves strongly on his memory.”
The above dates and places refer to passages in the published “English
Note-Books.”
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”Compare it with Spenser's Cave of Despair. Put instruments of suicide there.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”Once, in looking at the mansion, Redclyffe is struck by the appearance of a marble inserted into the wall, and kept clear of lichens.”
Note 3. Author's note
. — ”Describe, in rich poetry, all shapes of deadly things.”
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”Conferred their best qualities”: an alternative phrase for “done their utmost.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”Let the old man have a beard as part of the costume.”
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”Describe him as delirious, and the scene as adopted into his delirium.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”Make the whole scene very dreamlike and feverish.”
Note 3. Author's note
. — ”There should be a slight wildness in the patient's remark to the surgeon, which he cannot prevent, though he is conscious of it.”
Note 4. Author's note
. — ”Notice the peculiar depth and intelligence of his eyes, on account of his pain and sickness.”
Note 5. Author's note
. — ”Perhaps the recognition of the pensioner should not be so decided. Redclyffe thinks it is he, but thinks it as in a dream, without wonder or inquiry; and the pensioner does not quite acknowledge it.”
Note 6.
The following dialogue is marked to be omitted or modified in the original MS.; but it is retained here, in order that the thread of the narrative may not be broken.
Note 7. Author's note
. — ”The patient, as he gets better, listens to the feet of old people moving in corridors; to the ringing of a bell at stated periods; to old, tremulous voices talking in the quadrangle; etc., etc.”
Note 8.
At this point the modification indicated in Note 5 seems to have been made operative: and the recognition takes place in another way.
Note 1.
This paragraph is left incomplete in the original MS.
Note 2.
The words “Rich old bindings” are interlined here, indicating, perhaps, a purpose to give a more detailed description of the library and its contents.
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”I think it shall be built of stone, however.”
Note 2.
This probably refers to some incident which the author intended to incorporate in the former portion of the romance, on a final revision.
Note 1.
Several passages, which are essentially reproductions of what had been previously treated, are omitted from this chapter. It belongs to an earlier version of the romance.
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”Redclyffe shows how to find, under the surface of the village green, an old cross.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”A circular seat around the tree.”
Note 3.
The reader now hears for the first time what Redclyffe recollected.
Note 1. Author's note
. — ”The dinner is given to the pensioners, as well as to the gentry, I think.”
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”For example, a story of three brothers, who had a deadly quarrel among them more than two hundred years ago for the affections of a young lady, their cousin, who gave her reciprocal love to one of them, who immediately became the object of the deadly hatred of the two others. There seemed to be madness in their love; perhaps madness in the love of all three; for the result had been a plot to kidnap this unfortunate young man and convey him to America, where he was sold for a servant.”
Note 1.
The following passage, though it seems to fit in here chronologically, is concerned with a side issue which was not followed up. The author was experimenting for a character to act as the accomplice of Lord Braithwaite at the Hall; and he makes trial of the present personage, Mountford; of an Italian priest, Father Angelo; and finally of the steward, Omskirk, who is adopted. It will be noticed that Mountford is here endowed (for the moment) with the birthright of good Doctor Hammond, the Warden. He is represented as having made the journey to America in search of the grave. This alteration being inconsistent with the true thread of the story, and being, moreover, not continued, I have placed this passage in the Appendix, instead of in the text.
Redclyffe often, in the dim weather, when the prophetic intimations of rain were too strong to allow an American to walk abroad with peace of mind, was in the habit of pacing this noble hall, and watching the process of renewal and adornment; or, which suited him still better, of enjoying its great, deep solitude when the workmen were away. Parties of visitors, curious tourists, sometimes peeped in, took a cursory glimpse at the old hall, and went away; these were the only ordinary disturbances. But, one day, a person entered, looked carelessly round the hall, as if its antiquity had no great charm to him; then he seemed to approach Redclyffe, who stood far and dim in the remote distance of the great room. The echoing of feet on the stone pavement of the hall had always an impressive sound, and turning his head towards the visitant Edward stood as if there were an expectance for him in this approach. It was a middle-aged man — rather, a man towards fifty, with an alert, capable air; a man evidently with something to do in life, and not in the habit of throwing away his moments in looking at old halls; a gentlemanly man enough, too. He approached Redclyffe without hesitation, and, lifting his hat, addressed him in a way that made Edward wonder whether he could be an Englishman. If so, he must have known that Edward was an American, and have been trying to adapt his manners to those of a democratic freedom.
“Mr. Redclyffe, I believe,” said he.
Redclyffe bowed, with the stiff caution of an Englishman; for, with
American mobility, he had learned to be stiff.
“I think I have had the pleasure of knowing — at least of meeting — you very long ago,” said the gentleman. “But I see you do not recollect me.”
Redclyffe confessed that the stranger had the advantage of him in his recollection of a previous acquaintance.
“No wonder,” said the other, “for, as I have already hinted, it was many years ago.”
“In my own country then, of course,” said Redclyffe.
“In your own country certainly,” said the stranger, “and when it would have required a penetrating eye to see the distinguished Mr. Redclyffe. the representative of American democracy abroad, in the little pale- faced, intelligent boy, dwelling with an old humorist in the corner of a graveyard.”
At these words Redclyffe sent back his recollections, and, though doubtfully, began to be aware that this must needs be the young Englishman who had come to his guardian on such a singular errand as to search an old grave. It must be he, for it could be nobody else; and, in truth, he had a sense of his identity, — which, however, did not express itself by anything that he could confidently remember in his looks, manner, or voice, — yet, if anything, it was most in the voice. But the image which, on searching, he found in his mind of a fresh- colored young Englishman, with light hair and a frank, pleasant face, was terribly realized for the worse in this somewhat heavy figure, and coarser face, and heavier eye. In fact, there is a terrible difference between the mature Englishman and the young man who is not yet quite out of his blossom. His hair, too, was getting streaked and sprinkled with gray; and, in short, there were evident marks of his having worked, and succeeded, and failed, and eaten and drunk, and being made largely of beef, ale, port, and sherry, and all the solidities of English life.
“I remember you now,” said Redclyffe, extending his hand frankly; and yet Mountford took it in so cold a way that he was immediately sorry that he had done it, and called up an extra portion of reserve to freeze the rest of the interview. He continued, coolly enough, “I remember you, and something of your American errand, — which, indeed, has frequently been in my mind since. I hope you found the results of your voyage, in the way of discovery, sufficiently successful to justify so much trouble.”
“You will remember,” said Mountford, “that the grave proved quite unproductive. Yes, you will not have forgotten it; for I well recollect how eagerly you listened, with that queer little girl, to my talk with the old governor, and how disappointed you seemed when you found that the grave was not to be opened. And yet, it is very odd. I failed in that mission; and yet there are circumstances that have led me to think that I ought to have succeeded better, — that some other person has really succeeded better.”
Redclyffe was silent; but he remembered the strange old silver key, and how he had kept it secret, and the doubts that had troubled his mind then and long afterwards, whether he ought not to have found means to convey it to the stranger, and ask whether that was what he sought. And now here was that same doubt and question coming up again, and he found himself quite as little able to solve it as he had been twenty years ago. Indeed, with the views that had come up since, it behooved him to be cautious, until he knew both the man and the circumstances.
“You are probably aware,” continued Mountford, — ”for I understand you have been some time in this neighborhood, — that there is a pretended claim, a contesting claim, to the present possession of the estate of Braithwaite, and a long dormant title. Possibly — who knows? — you yourself might have a claim to one or the other. Would not that be a singular coincidence? Have you ever had the curiosity to investigate your parentage with a view to this point?”
“The title,” replied Redclyffe, “ought not to be a very strong consideration with an American. One of us would be ashamed, I verily believe, to assume any distinction, except such as may be supposed to indicate personal, not hereditary merit. We have in some measure, I think, lost the feeling of the past, and even of the future, as regards our own lines of descent; and even as to wealth, it seems to me that the idea of heaping up a pile of gold, or accumulating a broad estate for our children and remoter descendants, is dying out. We wish to enjoy the fulness of our success in life ourselves, and leave to those who descend from us the task of providing for themselves. This tendency is seen in our lavish expenditure, and the whole arrangement of our lives; and it is slowly — yet not very slowly, either — effecting a change in the whole economy of American life.”
“Still,” rejoined Mr. Mountford, with a smile that Redclyffe fancied was dark and subtle, “still, I should imagine that even an American might recall so much of hereditary prejudice as to be sensible of some earthly advantages in the possession of an ancient title and hereditary estate like this. Personal distinction may suit you better, — to be an Ambassador by your own talent; to have a future for yourself, involving the possibility of ranking (though it were only for four years) among the acknowledged sovereigns of the earth; — this is very good. But if the silver key would open the shut up secret to-day, it might be possible that you would relinquish these advantages.”
Before Redclyffe could reply, (and, indeed, there seemed to be an allusion at the close of Mountford's speech which, whether intended or not, he knew not how to reply to,) a young lady entered the hall, whom he was at no loss, by the colored light of a painted window that fell upon her, translating her out of the common daylight, to recognize as the relative of the pensioner. She seemed to have come to give her fanciful superintendence to some of the decorations of the hall; such as required woman's taste, rather than the sturdy English judgment and antiquarian knowledge of the Warden. Slowly following after her came the pensioner himself, leaning on his staff and looking up at the old roof and around him with a benign composure, and himself a fitting figure by his antique and venerable appearance to walk in that old hall.
“Ah!” said Mountford, to Redclyffe's surprise, “here is an acquaintance — two acquaintances of mine.”
He moved along the hall to accost them; and as he appeared to expect that Redclyffe would still keep him company, and as the latter had no reason for not doing so, they both advanced to the pensioner, who was now leaning on the young woman's arm. The incident, too, was not unacceptable to the American, as promising to bring him into a more available relation with her — whom he half fancied to be his old American acquaintance — than he had yet succeeded in obtaining.
“Well, my old friend,” said Mountford, after bowing with a certain measured respect to the young woman, “how wears life with you? Rather, perhaps, it does not wear at all; you being so well suited to the life around you, you grow by it like a lichen on a wall. I could fancy now that you have walked here for three hundred years, and remember when King James of blessed memory was entertained in this hall, and could marshal out all the ceremonies just as they were then.”
“An old man,” said the pensioner, quietly, “grows dreamy as he wanes away; and I, too, am sometimes at a loss to know whether I am living in the past or the present, or whereabouts in time I am, — or whether there is any time at all. But I should think it hardly worth while to call up one of my shifting dreams more than another.”
“I confess,” said Redclyffe, “I shall find it impossible to call up this scene — any of these scenes — hereafter, without the venerable figure of this, whom I may truly call my benefactor, among them. I fancy him among them from the foundation, — young then, but keeping just the equal step with their age and decay, — and still doing good and hospitable deeds to those who need them.”
The old man seemed not to like to hear these remarks and expressions of gratitude from Mountford and the American; at any rate, he moved away with his slow and light motion of infirmity, but then came uneasily back, displaying a certain quiet restlessness, which Redclyffe was sympathetic enough to perceive. Not so the sturdier, more heavily moulded Englishman, who continued to direct the conversation upon the pensioner, or at least to make him a part of it, thereby bringing out more of his strange characteristics. In truth, it is not quite easy for an Englishman to know how to adapt himself to the line feelings of those below him in point of station, whatever gentlemanly deference he may have for his equals or superiors.
“I should like now, father pensioner,” said he, “to know how many steps you may have taken in life before your path led into this hole, and whence your course started.”
“Do not let him speak thus to the old man,” said the young woman, in a low, earnest tone, to Redclyffe. He was surprised and startled; it seemed like a voice that has spoken to his boyhood.
Note 2. Author's note
. — ”Redclyffe's place is next to that of the proprietor at table.”
Note 3. Author's note
. — ”Dwell upon the antique liveried servants somewhat.”
Note 4. Author's note
. — ”The rose-water must precede the toasts.”
Note 5. Author's note
. — ”The jollity of the Warden at the feast to be noticed; and afterwards explain that he had drunk nothing.”
Note 6. Author's note
. — ”Mention the old silver snuffbox which I saw at the Liverpool Mayor's dinner.”