ok context: Melville & Hawthorne exchange letters back and forth for about 2 years (1851-52). weāve got some of the ones M sent to H, but the ones H sent in return are gone. H was a fairly retiring dude, and as anyone who has ever read any Melville knows, Melville isā¦ the opposite of that. Melville is the definition of Extra. for a while, they lived only 6 miles apart. even when Hawthorne moved, their friendship lasted a number of years, but they fell out of touch about 7 years before he died. you can read them onlineĀ here, and iāve pulled some of my favorite bits out below.
p.s. Melville addresses him asĀ āMy Dear Hawthorneā in almost every one.
29 january 1851, melville tries to convince hawthorne to bring the whole family to stay overnight (hawthorneās wife sophia has been resistant)
āFear not that you will cause the slightest trouble to usā¦ I keep the wordĀ āWelcomeā all the time in my mouth, so as to be ready on the instant when you cross the threshold.ā
āHark ā There is some excellent Montado Sherry awaiting you & some most potent Port. We will have mulled wine with wisdom, and buttered toast with story-telling & crack jokes & bottles from morning till night.āĀ
āCome ā no nonsence. If you dont - I will send Constables after you.ā
āThis is not a letter, or even a note ā but only a passing word said to you over your garden gate. I thank you for your easy-flowing long letter (received yesterday) which flowed through me, and refreshed all my meadowsā¦ā
17 november 1851 (the Big Oneā¦ Hawthorne writes him a letter of praise abt Moby Dick)
(upon reading the letter):Ā āI felt pantheistic then - your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in Godās.ā
āWhence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips ā lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces.ā Ā GET IT TOGETHER HERMAN
āDonāt write a word about the book. That would be robbing me of my miserly delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote anything about you ā it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have done nothing.ā (those last 2 sentences are one of my favorite melville quotes ever)
āAh! itās a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you.ā
āP.S. I canāt stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of Magians, Iāll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand ā a million ā billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the biggest? A foolish question ā they are One.ā
fromĀ āhawthorne and his mosses,ā an 1850 review in which melville literally goes on anon and pretends heās a farmer from virginia and has never met hawthorne before
āThe soft ravishments of the man spun me round in a web of dreams, and when the book was closed, when the spell was over, this wizard ādismissed me with but misty reminiscences, as if I had been dreaming of him.āā
Ā āI already feel that this Hawthorne has dropped germinous seeds into my soul. He expands and deepens down, the more I contemplate him; and further, further, shoots his strong New-England Ā roots into the hot soil of my Southern soulā Ā L M F A O
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