~HENRY DAVID THOREAU . . . & NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
‘THIS EVER NEW SELF: THOREAU and HIS JOURNAL’
JUNE 2 – SEPT 10, 2017
MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM
see: ‘THIS EVER NEW SELF’ – EXHIBITION NOTES & IMAGES / MORGAN LIBRARY
LETTER FROM NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864) . . to HENRY D. THOREAU, dated: 19 FEB 1849.
Thoreau would be 32, Nathaniel . . 45.
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote ‘The Scarlet Letter’ in 1850.
EXHIBITION TEXT:
‘LECTURER . . .
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a friend and fellow author, wrote this letter to invite Thoreau to speak at the Salem Lyceum. Would he be prepared to deliver his “Indian Lecture”, or maybe another about his “Walden experiment”? Thoreau came of age during the heyday of the American lyceum – a public forum for adult education, entertainment, and debate. He often based lectures on entries he had written in his journal, tested out ideas on live audiences, and reworked the texts for publication. Thoreau accepted Hawthorne’s invitation and delivered a talk that would make its way, in revised form, into the second chapter of “Walden” (“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”) five years later.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
Letter to Henry D. Thoreau, dated Salem, Massachusetts, 19 February 1849.
The Morgan Library & Museum, Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909
the friendship of Thoreau and Hawthorne, was one of two first things that struck me like thunderbolts . . while touring this perfect storm of an exhibit. just the contemplation set my mind on a reverie. Hawthorne, a writer of such perfect, exquisite fiction, and Thoreau the observer-philosopher/realist/visionary.
the other was his . . BHAGAVAD-GITA !!
what a strange hub that Concord was. the intellectual life, (which was much umore ‘magical’ than the exhibit let on, bye the way ) – surrounding Thoreau was touched on in the exhibit, obviously. but on a very academic, and looking back: dry slant. esp for an exhibit on one who was essentially a home-grown, and might quirky, native son . . scholar recluse monk.
the relationship of Thoreau and Hawthorne, and likewise RALPH WALDO EMERSON the latter not much emphasized in this exhibit, must be the focus of many a scholarly project. as a newcomer to the subject . . .
it was the Hawthorne connect that – that first opened a further pathway in – for me.
Hawthorne moved from Boston to Concord in July of 1842, with his new bride, Sophia to a house he rented from Emerson & . .
“Thoreau had planted a vegetable garden next to the house as a wedding present.” Thoreau would have been . . 25 !!!!!
“Hawthorne’s appraisal of Thoreau’s physical appearance and social behavior .. was unflattering” – yet he praised his “scholarship; his good sense; the way he handled his skiff”.
“In his (Hawathorne’s) Sept 1, 1842 entry in ‘American Notebooks’
he describes his friend “ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and somewhat rustic, although courteous manners.”
In that same entry, however he cites Thoreau “as a keen and delicate observer of nature, — a genuine observer, — which I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness.”
source: HAWTHORN In SALEM – ELDRITCH press
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH