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    Biographical Sketches (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces")
    Biographical Sketches (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces")
    Biographical Sketches (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces")
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    Biographical Sketches (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces")

    By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Biographical Sketches (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces")
    Author

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) was an American writer whose work was aligned with the Romantic movement. Much of his output, primarily set in New England, was based on his anti-puritan views. He is a highly regarded writer of short stories, yet his best-known works are his novels, including The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of Seven Gables (1851), and The Marble Faun (1860). Much of his work features complex and strong female characters and offers deep psychological insights into human morality and social constraints.

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      Biographical Sketches (From - Nathaniel Hawthorne

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Biographical Sketches, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: Biographical Sketches

      Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne

      Posting Date: December 23, 2010 [EBook #9245] Release Date: November, 2005 First Posted: September 25, 2003 Last Updated: February 8, 2007

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES ***

      Produced by David Widger. HTML version by Al Haines.

      FANSHAWE AND OTHER PIECES

      By Nathaniel Hawthorne

      BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES

      CONTENTS:

           Mrs. Hutchinson

           Sir William Phips

           Sir William Pepperell

           Thomas Green Fessenden

           Jonathan Cilley

      MRS. HUTCHINSON.

      The character of this female suggests a train of thought which will form as natural an Introduction to her story, as most of the Prefaces to Gay's Fables, or the tales of Prior; besides that, the general soundness of the moral may excuse any want of present applicability. We will not look for a living resemblance of Mrs. Hutchinson, though the search might not be altogether fruitless. But there are portentous indications, changes gradually taking place in the habits and feelings of the gentle sex, which seem to threaten our posterity with many of those public women, whereof one was a burden too grievous for our fathers. The press, however, is now the medium through which feminine ambition chiefly manifests itself; and we will not anticipate the period (trusting to be gone hence ere it arrive) when fair orators shall be as numerous as the fair authors of our own day. The hastiest glance may show how much of the texture and body of cisatlantic literature is the work of those slender fingers from which only a light and fanciful embroidery has heretofore been required, that might sparkle upon the garment without enfeebling the web. Woman's intellect should never give the tone to that of man; and even her morality is not exactly the material for masculine virtue. A false liberality, which mistakes the strong division-lines of Nature for arbitrary distinctions, and a courtesy, which might polish criticism, but should never soften it, have done their best to add a girlish feebleness to the tottering infancy of our literature. The evil is likely to be a growing one. As yet, the great body of American women are a domestic race; but when a continuance of ill-judged incitements shall have turned their hearts away from the fireside, there are obvious circumstances which will render female pens more numerous and more prolific than those of men, though but equally encouraged; and (limited, of course, by the scanty support of the public, but increasing indefinitely within those limits) the ink-stained Amazons will expel their rivals by actual pressure, and petticoats wave triumphantly over all the field. But, allowing that such forebodings are slightly exaggerated, is it good for woman's self that the path of feverish hope, of tremulous success, of bitter and ignominious disappointment, should be left wide open to her? Is the prize worth her having, if she win it? Fame does not increase the peculiar respect which men pay to female excellence, and there is a delicacy (even in rude bosoms, where few would think to find it) that perceives, or fancies, a sort of impropriety in the display of woman's natal mind to the gaze of the world, with indications by which its inmost secrets may be searched out. In fine, criticism should examine with a stricter, instead of a more indulgent eye, the merits of females at its bar, because they are to justify themselves for an irregularity which men do not commit in appearing there; and woman, when she feels the impulse of genius like a command of Heaven within her, should be aware that she is relinquishing a part of the loveliness of her sex, and obey the inward voice with sorrowing reluctance, like the Arabian maid who bewailed the gift of prophecy. Hinting thus imperfectly at sentiments which may be developed on a future occasion, we proceed to consider the celebrated subject of this sketch.

      Mrs. Hutchinson was a woman of extraordinary talent and strong imagination, whom the latter quality, following the general direction taken by the enthusiasm of the times, prompted to stand forth as a reformer in religion. In her native country, she had shown symptoms of irregular and daring thought, but, chiefly by the influence of a favorite pastor, was restrained from open indiscretion. On the removal of this clergyman, becoming dissatisfied with the ministry under which she lived, she was drawn in by the great tide of Puritan emigration, and visited Massachusetts within a few years after its first settlement. But she bore trouble in her own bosom, and could find no peace in this chosen land. She soon began to promulgate strange and dangerous opinions, tending, in the peculiar situation of the colony, and from the principles which were its basis, and indispensable for its temporary support, to eat into its very existence. We shall endeavor to give a more practical idea of this part of her course.

      It is a summer evening. The dusk has settled heavily upon the woods, the waves, and the Trimountain peninsula, increasing that dismal aspect of the embryo town, which was said to have drawn tears of despondency from Mrs. Hutchinson, though she believed that her mission thither was divine. The houses, straw thatched and lowly roofed, stand irregularly along streets that are yet roughened by the roots of the trees, as if the forest, departing at the approach of man, had left its reluctant footprints behind. Most of the dwellings are lonely and silent: from a few we may hear the reading of some sacred text, or the quiet voice of prayer; but nearly

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