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Hawthorne's Feathertop and R. L. R.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
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Professor randall stewart, while editing Hawthorne's American Notebooks from the manuscripts in the Pierpont Morgan Library, called my attention to the initials “N. B.—R. L. R.” in the following note and asked me if I could tell him to whom they referred. The present paper is a belated attempt to answer his question.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937
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page 503 note 1 I am indebted to Professor Stewart not only for suggesting the problem but also for aiding me in my attempted solution. My thanks are also due to Professor L. Wardlaw Miles and to Mr. Frank L. Crone of D. C. Heath & Co. for assistance in the preparation of the paper.
page 503 note 2 Hawthorne, American Notebooks, ed. Stewart, pp. 126; 304, n. 268.—All page references to the American Notebooks are to Stewart's edition, which is hereafter referred to merely as Notebooks. The note has also been printed in “Passages from Hawthorne's Note-Books,” Atlantic Monthly, xvm (1866), 692; Julian Hawthorne, Hawthorne and his Wife, i, 494; Arvin, Heart of Hawthorne's Journals, p. 131. In none of these were the initials reprinted. For the variations between the Atlantic Monthly version and the other two, see Kern, “Sources of Hawthorne's Feathertop,” PMLA, xlvi (1931), 1253.
page 503 note 3 See Vital Records of Salem, Vols, i–vi, Essex Institute (Salem, Mass., 1918); Seventh Census, Free Inhabitants, Massachusetts, Essex Co.
page 503 note 4 He does not usually begin the letter on the left of the upright stroke of the pen, as does the initial in question, but on the stroke itself; and he usually continues the lower loop of his letter across the upright stroke, shading it heavily. In the case of the initial in question the lower loop does not cross the upright stroke and is not shaded. See Lord, p. 95; Last p. 98; Lynn, p. 122; Lightning, p. 122; Lee, p. 123; Little, p. 125; Lowell, p. 126; Lenox, p. 129; Language, p. 130; Lowell, p. 131; Lobelia, p. 138; Laighton's, p. 257; Laighton, p. 257. The page references are to the Notebooks, since the words may be more easily traced in the manuscript if one starts from the printed version.
page 503 note 5 See Sherman, p. 123; Sir, p. 125; Sydney, p. 125; Springfield, p. 130; Strawberries, p. 130; Station, p. 245; States, p. 246; Spanish, p. 246; Scott, p. 246; Spring, p. 247; Street, p. 251; she took off, p. 252; Shoals, p. 259; Smith's, p. 263; Smutty, p. 269.
page 503 note 6 For the facsimile pages see pp. 201–202.—It should be especially noted that in the five instances in which the letter S is used as an initial in the Notebooks the author employs this form. See S.A.H., pp. 97–98; Sir F.S., p. 109; Mrs. S.J., p. 130; Mr. S. Ransom, p. 139. This is, I think, the strongest bit of evidence against the initial's being an S; it is not, however, by any means conclusive. The fact that in the five cases cited the S is in either an initial or an end position, whereas the initial in question is in the medial position, may perhaps suggest a reason for the variant form of the latter initial. L does not occur in the Notebooks as an initial save in the “R.L.R.” of the note.
page 503 note 7 Compare, for instance, the S of Set, p. 126, with the L of Lowell on the same page. Other examples are Scotch, p. 90; Sometimes, p. 91; Salem, p. 126; Salem, She, p. 127; Spring, p. 247.
page 503 note 8 See She, p. 82; She, p. 125; Septr, p. 126; Scotland, p. 129; Saturday, p. 132; Saturday, p. 140; Scott's, p. 140; Septr 2d, p. 131; Saturday, p. 232; Such, p. 233; Sunday, p. 250; Saturday, p. 258; Since, p. 264; Smutty, p. 268; Septr, p. 270; See, p. 275; Sacrament, p. 277; Samuel, p. 279; Septr 25, Shoals, or Susannah, pp. 279–280.
page 503 note 9 See Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Memories of Hawthorne, pp. 95–108; Julian Hawthorne, Hawthorne and his Wife, i, 336–340.—Julian Hawthorne prints the letter in “The Hawthornes in Lenox,”, Century Magazine, xlix (1894), 87, but omits the initials of the men concerned.
page 503 note 10 W. S. Nevins in “Nathaniel Hawthorne's Removal from the Salem Custom House,” Historical Collections of the Essex Institute, liii, 103, note, says: “Officials of the Treasury Department in Washington have searched for this petition, in vain.” A letter from the Chief Clerk of the Treasury Department confirms this statement. I am indebted to Professor T. H. English for calling my attention to the publications of the Essex Institute.
page 503 note 11 For an account of the Silsbee family, which had long been prominent in the life of Salem, see Perley, History of Salem, ii, 383–385, note.
page 503 note 12 For these facts and for a copy of the memorial, which was extremely unfair to Hawthorne, see Nevins, op. cit., pp. 105–106, 107 ff.
page 503 note 13 According to the Seventh Census (1850, Free Inhabitants, Massachusetts, Essex Co.) the only other male inhabitants of Salem with these initials were Richard Roork, age 27, laborer, p. 9; E. W. R. Ropes, age 30, grain dealer, p. 13; Richard Rooth, age 1, p. 18; Richard Rooth, age 36, carpenter, p. 62; Richard Rooth, Jr., age 6, p. 62; Robert Reed, age 32, mariner, pp. 76, 80; Robert Reeves, age 44, ropemaker, p. 146; Robert W. Reeves, age 8, p. 146; Richard D. Rogers, age 25, merchant (son of Richard S. Rogers), p. 217; Richard B. Reed, age 16, tanner, p. 367; Russell Rogers, age 32, laborer, p. 484; Russell Rogers, Jr., age 9, p. 485.
Ruth Ridout, age 58, is listed on page 418 as a male; no occupation is listed, nor any real estate holdings. I am inclined to think that the census taker's pen slipped in recording an “m” instead of an “f” and that she therefore should not be included in the above list. These and all other census citations in the article are the result of a complete, line by line examination of the 1850 census rolls of Salem, which was made in June, 1935, and checked by a similar examination in February, 1936.
page 503 note 14 For these facts see Vital Records of Salem, ii, 244; iv, 266; and the Seventh Census, Free Inhabitants, Massachusetts, Essex Co., p. 217.—The census gives Richard S. Rogers's age as fifty-five on August 4, 1850, but the baptismal record is probably more to be relied upon. According to the Seventh Census, of the 4,963 inhabitants of Salem in 1850 there were only twenty whose real estate holdings were valued at more than those of Rogers.
page 503 note 15 Rishah S. Rand, age 40, female (Seventh Census, &c., p. 258) is the only instance of the initials R.S.R. in the Salem census rolls for 1850; and even this is a bit doubtful, since the middle initial might possibly be a T. She was apparently the wife of Charles Rand, age 47, a teamster. Robert S. Rantoul was commissioned Collector of Customs in Salem by Abraham Lincoln in 1865 (Vital Records of Salem, x, 63), but apparently he was not living there in 1850 since his name does not appear in the census rolls.
page 503 note 16 The only persons of three initials the first and last of which are R who were living in Salem in 1850 are Robert W. Reeves, age 8; Richard B. Reed, a tanner, age 16; and Richard D. Rogers, the twenty-five year old son of Richard S. Rogers. For the page references to these names in the census rolls see Note 13. It is, of course, not certain that Hawthorne was referring to one of his fellow-townsmen, but all the probabilities point in that direction.
page 503 note 17 See Notebooks, pp. 125, 126; 330, n. 597.
page 503 note 18 See Athenaeum, August 10, 1889, p. 192; August 17, 1889, p. 225; Critic, xv, 105; Conway, Life of Hawthorne, pp. 111–114.
page 503 note 19 Morris, The Rebellious Puritan, p. 215; Hildegarde Hawthorne, A Romantic Rebel, p. 143.
page 503 note 20 See also Shakespeare's supposed caricature of Sir Thomas Lucy as Justice Shallow in 2 Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
page 503 note 21 See Notebooks, pp. xxii–xliii.—The “Notes” to the Notebooks contain numerous references to this habit of Hawthorne's.
page 503 note 22 “Hawthorne's process of working was such that in the creation of individual characters in his fiction after about 1850, the chief source material was supplied by prototypes and precursors in his own writings.” Notebooks p. lv.
page 503 note 23 Ibid., p. 297, n. 188.—For Hawthorne's depth of feeling against his fellow townsmen see the prefatory chapter of The Scarlet Letter and Woodberry, Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 203–204.
page 503 note 24 Morris, The Rebellious Puritan, p. 215.
page 503 note 25 See Julian Hawthorne, Hawthorne and his Wife, i, 339–340, 438; Woodberry, Nathaniel Hawthorne, pp. 174, 213–215; Notebooks, pp. liv; 288, n. 58.
page 503 note 26 The novel was begun in September, 1850, and was finished in January, 1851. See Lathrop, Study of Hawthorne, pp. 227–228.
page 503 note 27 See Notebooks, p. liv.—No one would think of seeing in Pearl of The Scarlet Letter a full length portrait of Hawthorne's daughter Una, and yet it is recognized that the former character is to some extent derived from the latter. See Julian Hawthorne, “The Making of The Scarlet Letter,” Bookman, Lxxiv (1931), 401–411; Notebooks, pp. xxix–xxx; 325, n. 479; 327, nn. 523, 529. As Julian Hawthorne wrote me, “It is even too strong to say that my sister was a ‘model’ for Pearl in The Scarlet Letter: but she helped along.”
page 503 note 28 Critic, xv, 116; Conway, Life of Hawthorne, pp. 112, 114.
page 503 note 29 Lathrop, Memories of Hawthorne, p. 100.
page 503 note 30 Julian Hawthorne, “The Hawthornes in Lenox,” Century Magazine, xlix (1894), 88. —Rose Lathrop Hawthorne in her Memories of Hawthorne, pp. 98–100, prints the letter with the omission of the names.
page 503 note 31 Notebooks, p. vii.
page 503 note 32 See Kern, “Sources of Hawthorne's Feathertop,” PMLA, xlvi (1931), 1253; Notebooks, p. 321, n. 416.
page 503 note 33 See Julian Hawthorne, Hawthorne and his Wife, i, 494; Arvin, Heart of Hawthorne's Journals, p. 131; Warren, Nathaniel Hawthorne, p. 363.
page 503 note 34 See Atlantic Monthly, xvm (1866), 692.