His sphere stretches out no
connecting tendrils to the spheres of others; he seems to Us dead in
spirit; he will tell you he believes in no one's true friendship, and
wishes for no companionship; we do not know how to touch his heart,
nor in what language to make him hear when we call,--he is in Mars.
But the sentinel, still as marble, or moving like a well-adjusted
machine that will not defy law--he stirs us by his energy, his
laboring vigilance. His care for others would make him surrender his
life at once. The trusted soldier has left selfishness and cowardice
on the first tenting-ground, and works hard, though he stands
statue-like. It is his business to be of use, and he is never
useless. So with a great artist. He is brother to gentleman or churl.
Hawthorne had not an atom of the poison of contempt. As I have said
before, if he did not love stupidity, he forgave it.
He was fond of using his hands for work, too; and he had skill in
whatever he did. His activity of this manual sort may be inferred from
the fact that when a young man he gradually whittled away one of the
leaves of his writing-table, while musing over his stories. He did not
know, unpleasantly, that he was doing it. What fun he must have had!
Think of the rich scenery of thought that spread about him, the
people, the subtle motives, the eerie truths, the entrancing outlooks
into divine beauty, that entertained him as his sharp blade carved and
sliced his table, which gladly gave itself up to such destruction!
When he was writing "The Scarlet Letter," as Julian's nurse Dora long
delighted to tell, his wife with her dainty care in sewing was making
the little boy a shirt of the finest linen, and was putting in one
sleeve, while the other lay on the table.
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