A Few Pages From the Diaries of Mr. & Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne
These are the preserved copies of Nathanial and Sophia's shared diaries.
This passage is written by Sophia:
September 13th Monday. I have not written my journal since Friday. I was wholly exhausted on Saturday. I do not rememberany thing in the morning except that Mr. Buttrick brought two newspapers & that I in vain looked for a letter from my husband – & the next thing I remember was Ellen rushing up to me after dinner as I lay extended on the floor with the letter I wanted in her hand. The revulsion of joy was so immense that my head almost burst asunder & all the rest of the day it ached so desperately that I had to hold it together, while my heart was dancing for joy. But in the evening it subsided. I wrote another sheet to my husband, my dear truest husband & sent it by Mr Adams, (who brought his to me), & he mended the drawers of the bookshelves, mended the table, put up a curtain fixture, & made two doors shut properly. I asked him for his bill for all he had done for us, & he gave it to me. It amounted to only 18 dollars. He asked but $1.50 for making the old mahogany dining table look as good as new. It began to rain very hard after Mr Adams went away. Una gave him some apples in his handkerchief to carry home. Una dearly loves to give. Baby slept till five. Sunday 12th. Heavy rain & now we all wished for rain & wind & all that would make a grand storm for Papa at the Isle of Shoals, because he wanted to see one there. It entirely reconciled the children to being imprisoned within doors to know that the rain was what Papa desired. I read to them as long as I could articulate in Rosamond in the morning, & when baby went to bed, I craved permission to write some letters. Una said she must write to her godpapa & thereupon she wrote to him. I also wrote to him & to Mr Cohoes & to Miss Burroughs. In the afternoon, I was bound to read, but all the children suddenly disappeared, & not a sound was to be heard in or out of the house – & finally I discovered them all up in Ellen's chamber. Baby had waked me at dawn, & I went to bed very sleepy. I had worn the beloved letter all day in my bosom for consolation. The odic power kept penetrating my heart from it. It cleared off at sunset, & in the evening the stars came out. This morning baby waked me before light. It came to be a splendid day.
This passage was written by Nathaniel:
A rainy day—a rainy day—and I do verily believe there is no sunshine in this world, except what beams from my wife's eyes. At present, she has laid her strict command on me to take pen in hand; and, to ensure my obedience has banished me to the little ten-foot-square apartment, misnamed my study; but she must not be surprised, if the dismalness of the day, and the...
1842
August 5th. Fridaydulness of my solitude, should be the prominent characteristics of what I write. And what is there to write about at all? Happiness has no succession of events; because it is a part of eternity, and we have been living in eternity, ever since we came to this old Manse. Like Enoch, we seem to have been translated to the other state of being, without having passed through death. Our spirits must have flitted away, unconsciously, in the deep and quiet rapture of some long embrace; and we can only perceive that we have cast off our mortal part, by the more real and earnest life of our spirits. Externally, our Paradise has very much the aspect of a pleasant old domicile, on earth. The antique house (for it looks antique, though it was created by Providence expressly for our use, and at the precise time when we wanted it) stands behind a noble avenue of Balm of Gilead trees; and when we chance to observe a passing traveller, through the sunshine and the shadow of this long avenue, his figure appears too dim and remote to disturb our sense of blissful seclusion. Few, indeed are the mortals who venture within our sacred precincts. George Prescott—who has not yet grown earthly enough, I suppose, to be debarred from occasional visits to Paradise—comes daily to bring three pints of milk, from some ambrosial cow; —occasionally, also, he makes an offering of mortal flowers, at the shrine of a certain angelic personage. Mr. Emerson comes sometimes, and has been so far favored to be feasted (with a gnome, yclept Ellery Channing) on our nectar and ambrosia. Mr. Thorow has twice listened to the music of the spheres, which, for our private convenience, we have packed into a musical box. Elizabeth Hoar (who is much more at home among spirits than among [passage continues on following page] fleshly bodies) came hither a few times, merely to welcome us to the ethereal world; but latterly she has vanished into some other region of infinite space. One rash mortal, on the second Sunday after our arrival, obtruded himself upon us in a gig. There have since been three or four callers, who preposterously think that the courtesies of the lower world are to be responded to by people whose home is in Paradise.
