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"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe
containing a gold-colored liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye that
I could imagine it the elixir of life."

"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer; "or rather, the elixir of
immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in
this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at
whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would
determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the
midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life
if I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions
justified me in depriving him of it."

"Why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired Georgiana, in horror.

"Do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its
virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! here is
a powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water,
freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A
stronger infusion[7] would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave
the rosiest beauty a pale ghost."

"Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked
Georgiana, anxiously.

"O no," hastily replied her husband; "this is merely superficial. Your
case demands a remedy that shall go deeper."

In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute
inquiries as to her sensations, and whether the confinement of the
rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These
questions had such a particular drift that Georgiana began to
conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical
influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her
food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that
there was a stirring up of her system,--a strange, indefinite
sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully,
half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into
the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the
crimson birthmark stamped upon her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it
so much as she.

To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary
to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana
turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old
tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the
works of the philosophers of the Middle Ages, such as Albertus
Magnus[8], Cornelius Agrippa[9], Paracelsus[10], and the famous friar
who created the prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists
stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of
their credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined
themselves to have acquired from the investigation of nature a power
above nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly
less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the
Transactions of the Royal Society[11], in which the members, knowing
little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually
recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be
wrought.

But, to Georgiana, the most engrossing volume was a large folio from
her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of
his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its
development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances
to which either event was attributable. The book, in truth; was both
the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet
practical and laborious life. He handled physical details as if there
were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed
himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards
the infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul.
Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more
profoundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his
judgment than heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not
but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably
failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest
diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in
comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his
reach. The volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its
author, was yet as melancholy a record as over mortal hand had penned.
It was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the
shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and
working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature
at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps
every man of genius, in whatever sphere, might recognize the image of
his own experience in Aylmer's journal.

So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her
face upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she
was found by her husband.

"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile,
though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "Georgiana, there
are pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my
senses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you."

"It has made me worship you more than ever." said she.

"Ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you
will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come. I have
sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest."

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst
of his spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of
gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little
longer, and that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he
departed when Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She
had forgotten to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three
hours past had begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in
the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness
throughout her system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded for
the first time into the laboratory.

The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and
feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the
quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for
ages. There was a distilling-apparatus in full operation. Around the
room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of
chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate
use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with
gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of
science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its
naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as
Georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But
what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect
of Aylmer himself.

He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace
as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid
which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or
misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had
assumed for Georgiana's encouragement!

"Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully,
thou man of clay," muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his
assistant. "Now, If there be a thought too much or too little, it is
all over."

"Ho! ho!" mumbled Aminadab. "Look, master! look!"

Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler
than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized
her arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it.

"Why do you come thither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried
he, impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark
over my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman! go!"

"Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed
no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain.
You mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you
watch the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of
me, my husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that I shall
shrink: for my share in it is far less than your own."

"No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer, impatiently; "it must not be."

"I submit," replied she, calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever
draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would
induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand."

"My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the height and
depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know,
then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched
its grasp into your being with a strength of which I had no previous
conception. I have already administered agents powerful enough to do
aught except to change your entire physical system. Only one thing
remains to be tried. If that fail us we are ruined."

"Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she.

"Because, Georgiana," said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger."

"Danger? There is but one danger,--that this horrible stigma shall be
left upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it, remove it, whatever
be the cost, or we shall both go mad!"

"Heaven knows your words are too true," said Aylmer, sadly. "And now,
dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be
tested."

He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness
which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After
his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the
character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous
moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable
love,--so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than
perfection, nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier
nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was
such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the
imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy
love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and
with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might
satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment she
well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever
ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the
scope of the instant before.

The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal
goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be
the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the
consequence of a highly wrought state of mind and tension of spirit
than of fear or doubt.

"The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer
to Georgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived me, it
cannot fail."

"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I might
wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality
itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession
to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement
at which I stand. Were I weaker and blinder, it might be happiness.
Were I stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find
myself, methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die."

"You are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband.
"But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its
effect upon this plant."

On the window-seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow
blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small
quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little
time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the
unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure.

"There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the goblet.
I joyfully stake all upon your word."

"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid
admiration. "There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy
sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect."

She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand.

"It is grateful," said she, with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like
water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of
unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst
that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My
earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the
heart of a rose at sunset."

She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required
almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and
lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere
she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect
with the emotions proper to a man, the whole value of whose existence
was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood,
however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man
of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush
of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid,
a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,--such were the details
which, as the moments passed, he wrote down, in his folio volume.
Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that
volume; but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last.

While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand,
and not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable
impulse, he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in
the very act; and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved
uneasily, and murmured, as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed,
his watch. Nor was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first
had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's
cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than
ever; but the birthmark, with every breath that came and went, lost
somewhat of its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its
departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading
out of the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed
away.

"By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almost
irrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success!
And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of
blood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!"

He drew aside the window-curtain and suffered the light of natural day
to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he
heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant
Aminadab's expression of delight.

"Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of
frenzy, "you have served me well! Matter and spirit--earth and
heaven--have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses!
You have earned the right to laugh."

These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her
eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that
purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how
barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed
forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their
happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble and
anxiety that he could by no means account for.

"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she.

"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"

"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness,
"you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that, with
so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could
offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"

Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of
life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union
with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark--that
sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the parting
breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her
soul, lingering a moment, near her husband, took its heavenward
flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does
the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the
immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half-development,
demands the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a
profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness
which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with
the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he
failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for
all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.


NOTES

[1] Published in the March, 1843, number of _The Pioneer_, edited by
J. R. Lowell. Republished in _Mosses from an Old Manse_ in 1846.

[2] 154:29 "Eve," of Powers. A noted American sculptor (1805-1873).
"Eve," "The Fisher Boy," and "America" are some of his chief works.

[3] 168:28 Pygmalion. A sculptor and king of Cyprus.

[4] 181:16 recondite. Abstruse or secret.

[5] 168:27 corrosive. Destructive of tissue.

[6] 184:12 vitae. Of life.

[7] 166:3 infusion. The act of pouring in.

[8] 167:1 Albertus Magnus. A famous scholastic philosopher and member
of the Dominican order (1193-1280).

[9] 167:1 Cornelius Agrippa. A German philosopher and student of
alchemy and magic (1486-1535).

[10] 167:1 Paracelsus. A German-Swiss physician, and alchemist
(1492-1541).

[11] 167:10 Royal Society. An association for the advancement of
science, founded in London a little before 1660.


BIOGRAPHY

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804.
His ancestors were prominent in the affairs of the colony: John
Hawthorne was one of the judges who tried the witches in 1620; and
another John Hawthorne was a member of the dignified school committee
of Salem in 1796. Hawthorne's father, a ship captain, died in a
foreign land when his son was only four years old; his mother lived
for forty years after the death of her husband the life of a recluse
in her own house. The family's star was in the decline and the people
of Salem looked on Nathaniel as a lazy and very queer boy. He grew up
in a unique solitude. During these years of seclusion Hawthorne
acquired the habit of keeping silent on all occasions, and reading a
few books frequently and thoroughly. The _Newgate Calendar_ must have
supplied him with many subtle suggestions for his later writings on
sin and crime, for in almost all of his productions his imagination is
tinged with, this old Puritanic philosophy and theology.

He entered Bowdoin College in 1821 and graduated from this institution
in 1825. He had as classmates Longfellow, and Franklin Pierce, who
afterward became president of the United States. After his graduation
Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he lived with his mother and
sisters in almost absolute seclusion for fourteen years. During this
period he wrote daily, and spent his nights in burning what he had
written in the daytime.

He was clerk of the Boston Custom House from 1839 to 1841, when the
Whig party removed him for being ultra-partisan in behalf of the
Democrats. At this time Hawthorne wrote: "As to the Salem people, I
really thought I had been exceedingly good-natured in my treatment of
them. They certainly do not deserve good usage at my hands, after
permitting me to be deliberately lied down, not merely once, but at
two separate attacks, and on two false indictments, without hardly a
voice being raised in my behalf." He married Sophia Peabody, July 9,
1842. From 1842 until 1846 they lived in Concord in the house formerly
occupied by Emerson. These were the happiest years of his life. In
1846 he returned to Salem as surveyor in the Salem Custom House. He
retired from this office in 1850 and lived in Lenox, Massachusetts,
for two years. In 1852 he settled in Concord. President Pierce
appointed him consul at Liverpool in 1853, and he served in this
position until 1857.

After leaving Liverpool he travelled three years in England and on the
continent. He returned to Concord in 1860. He died in the White
Mountains, May 18, 1864. Although a silent man and a seeker of
solitude during his life, few writers have ever experienced such wide
publicity of their inmost lives as has Hawthorne since his death. The
publication of his _Notes_ has opened his desk and work-shop to every
one, and has revealed to us a magnanimous, sympathetic, and pure man,
who realized his responsibilities as a writer and improved all his
literary opportunities.


BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

_History of American Literature_, Moses Coit Tyler.

_Introduction to American Literature_, Henry S. Pancoast.

_Studies in American Literature_, Charles Noble.

_Introduction to American Literature_, Brander Matthews.

"Gloom and Cheer in Hawthorne," _Critic_, 45: 28-36.

"Hawthorne and his Circle," _Nation_, 77: 410-411.

"Hawthorne as seen by his Publisher," _Critic_, 45: 51-55.

"Hawthorne from an English Point of View." _Critic_, 45: 60-66.

"Hawthorne's Last Years," _Critic_, 45: 67-71.

"Life of Hawthorne," _Atlantic Monthly_, 90: 563-567,


CRITICISMS

Many influences in Hawthorne's environment served to condition and
mold him as a writer. Salem had reached its highest prosperity in all
lines and was just beginning its retrogression in Hawthorne's time;
the primeval forests of Maine produced a subtle and lasting influence
on him during his sojourn in Maine for his health; transcendentalism
was the ruling thought at the time when Hawthorne was in his most
plastic and solitary age; his interest in _Brook Farm_ brought him in
contact with all the good and bad points of that social movement; his
life in the _Old Manse_ in Concord and in the Berkshire Hills
contributed largely to the deepening of his convictions and
sympathies; and over all, like a sombre cloud, hung his ancestral
Puritanic training which penetrated and suffused all his writings. He
is the most native and the least imitative of all our fiction writers.

Hawthorne did not write on the common subjects and facts of his day,
but chose to have his readers go with him, away from prosaic life, out
into a world of mysteries where we may revel in all kinds of imaginary
sports. By this process he succeeded in producing poetic effects from
the most unpromising materials. His writings are fanciful. He enjoyed
subjects that deal with the occult, such as mesmerism, hypnotism, and
subtle suggestions. He harked back to the rigid beliefs and laws of
the Puritans, but he and his subjects are spiritually advanced far
above the crude, ponderous, and highly theological tenets of his
forefathers.

Hawthorne is very provincial. He travelled little until he was fifty
years old. He naturally loved the antique and poetic countries, but he
always qualified his admiration of these foreign lands by praising
something in his own New England. He conceded that there was little or
nothing in this prosperous and crude country to inspire a writer to
produce poetry, but his patriotism was so strong that he could never
free himself wholly from its provincial effects. All his works were
produced in the stress created by this pull of opposing forces--his
high poetic ideals and his love of country.

In form he tends toward the polish of a classicist; in quality and
freedom of thought he is very responsive to the mysteries of
romanticism. He is introspective in his thinking and symbolical in his
writing. Naturally he thinks abstractly, but is compelled to construct
concrete methods of presenting his ideas. He never describes a strong
emotion in detail, but delights in using suggestions and sidelights.
His pure and refined manhood, his delicate fancy and deep interest in
moral and religious questions, his conscience in its most artistic
form, all are presented to the reader in the choicest garb of well
chosen words and attuned to a subtle rhythm that adds beauty and
attractiveness to his style.


GENERAL REFERENCES

_Hours in a Library_, Leslie Stephen.

_A Literary History of America_, Barrett Wendell.

_American Literature_, William P. Trent.

_Makers of English Fiction_, W.J. Dawson.

_Leading American Novelists_, J. Erskine.

_Studies and Appreciations_, L.E. Gates.

"An Estimate," _Scribner's Magazine_, 43: 69-84.

"Unknown Quantity in Hawthorne's Personality," _Current Literature_,
42: 517-518.

COLLATERAL READINGS

_Biographical Stories for Children_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

_Mosses from an Old Manse_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

_The Wonder Boot_, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

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