A Book of Autographs
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864
English
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THE DOLIVER ROMANCE AND OTHER PIECES
TALES AND SKETCHES
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
A BOOK OF AUTOGRAPHS
We have before us a volume of autograph letters, chiefly of soldiers and
statesmen of the Revolution, and addressed to a good and brave man,
General Palmer, who himself drew his sword in the cause. They are
profitable reading in a quiet afternoon, and in a mood withdrawn from
too intimate relation with the present time; so that we can glide
backward some three quarters of a century, and surround ourselves with
the ominous sublimity of circumstances that then frowned upon the
writers. To give them their full effect, we should imagine that these
letters have this moment been brought to town by the splashed and way-
worn postrider, or perhaps by an orderly dragoon, who has ridden in a
perilous hurry to deliver his despatches. They are magic scrolls, if
read in the right spirit. The roll of the drum and the fanfare of the
trumpet is latent in some of them; and in others, an echo of the oratory
that resounded in the old halls of the Continental Congress, at
Philadelphia; or the words may come to us as with the living utterance
of one of those illustrious men, speaking face to face, in friendly
communion. Strange, that the mere identity of paper and ink should be
so powerful. The same thoughts might look cold and ineffectual, in a
printed book. Human nature craves a certain materialism and clings
pertinaciously to what is tangible, as if that were of more importance
than the spirit accidentally involved in it. And, in truth, the
original manuscript has always something which print itself must
inevitably lose. An erasure, even a blot, a casual irregularity of
hand, and all such little imperfections of mechanical execution, bring
us close to the writer, and perhaps convey some of those subtle
intimations for which language has no shape.
There are several letters from John Adams, written in a small, hasty,
ungraceful hand, but earnest, and with no unnecessary flourish. The
earliest is dated at Philadelphia, September 26, 1774, about twenty days
after the first opening of the Continental Congress. We look at this
old yellow document, scribbled on half a sheet of foolscap, and ask of
it many questions for which words have no response. We would fain know
what were their mutual impressions, when all those venerable faces, that
have since been traced on steel, or chiselled out, of marble, and thus
made familiar to posterity, first met one another's gaze! Did one
spirit harmonize them, in spite of the dissimilitude of manners between
the North and the South, which were now for the first time brought into
political relations? Could the Virginian descendant of the Cavaliers,
and the New-Englander with his hereditary Puritanism,--the aristocratic
Southern planter, and the self-made man from Massachusetts or
Connecticut,--at once feel that they were countrymen and brothers? What
did John Adams think of Jefferson?--and Samuel Adams of Patrick Henry?
Did not North and South combine in their deference for the sage
Franklin, so long the defender of the colonies in England, and whose
scientific renown was already world-wide? And was there yet any
whispered prophecy, any vague conjecture, circulating among the
delegates, as to the destiny which might be in reserve for one stately
man, who sat, for the most part, silent among them?--what station he was
to assume in the world's history?--and how many statues would repeat his
form and countenance, and successively crumble beneath his immortality?
The letter before us does not answer these inquiries. Its main feature
is the strong expression of the uncertainty and awe that pervaded even
the firm hearts of the Old Congress, while anticipating the struggle
which was to ensue. "The commencement of hostilities," it says, "is
exceedingly dreaded here. It is thought that an attack upon the troops,
even should it prove successful, would certainly involve the whole
continent in a war. It is generally thought that the Ministry would
rejoice at a rupture in Boston, because it would furnish an excuse to
the people at home" [this was the last time, we suspect, that John Adams
spoke of England thus affectionately], "and unite them in an opinion of
the necessity of pushing hostilities against us."
His next letter bears on the superscription, "Favored by General
Washington." The date is June 20, 1775, three days after the battle of
Bunker Hill, the news of which could not yet have arrived at
Philadelphia. But the war, so much dreaded, had begun, on the quiet
banks of Concord River; an army of twenty thousand men was beleaguering
Boston; and here was Washington journeying northward to take the
command. It seems to place us in a nearer relation with the hero, to
find him performing the little courtesy of leaving a letter between
friend and friend, and to hold in our hands the very document intrusted
to such a messenger. John Adams says simply, "We send you Generals
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