The Dolliver Romance

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dolliver Romance, by Nathaniel Hawthorne #10 in our series by NathanielHawthorneCopyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country beforedownloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do notchange or edit the header without written permission.Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom ofthis file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. Youcan also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts****eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971*******These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****Title: The Dolliver RomanceAuthor: Nathaniel HawthorneRelease Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7119] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file wasfirst posted on March 12, 2003]Edition: 10Language: English*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE ***Produced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.THE DOLLIVER ROMANCEBYNATHANIEL HAWTHORNECONTENTS.INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE DOLLIVER ROMANCEA SCENE ...

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Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne[RYeeles,a swee Daartee :m Doreec ethmabne ro,n 2e 0y0e4a [r EaBhoeoakd #o7f119]schedule] [This file was first posted on March 12,2]300Edition: 10Language: English*E**B OSTOAK RTT HOE FD TOHLEL IPVREOR JREOCMT AGNUCTEE *N**BERGProduced by Mark Zinthefer, Eric Eldred, CharlesFranks and the Online Distributed ProofreadingeTma.

THE DOLLIVER ROMAYBNATHANILE AWHOTHRNENCE

CONTENTS.INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE DOLLIVERROMANCEA SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVER ROMANCEANOTHER SCENE FROM THE DOLLIVERROMANCEANOTHER FRAGMENT OF THE DOLLIVERROMANCE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.THE DOLLIVER ROMANCE.In "The Dolliver Romance," only three chapters ofwhich the author lived to complete, we get anintimation as to what would have been the ultimateform given to that romance founded on the Elixir ofLife, for which "Septimius Felton" was thepreliminary study. Having abandoned this study,and apparently forsaken the whole scheme in1862, Hawthorne was moved to renew hismeditation upon it in the following year; and as theplan of the romance had now seemingly developedto his satisfaction, he listened to the publisher'sproposal that it should begin its course as a serialstory in the "Atlantic Monthly" for January, 1864—the first instance in which he had attempted such amode of publication.But the change from England to Massachusettshad been marked by, and had perhaps in partcaused, a decline in his health. Illness in his family,the depressing and harrowing effect of the CivilWar upon his sensibilities, and anxiety with regardto pecuniary affairs, all combined to make stillfurther inroads upon his vitality; and so early as theautumn of 1862 Mrs. Hawthorne noted in herprivate diary that her husband was looking"miserably ill." At no time since boyhood had hesuffered any serious sickness, and his strong

constitution enabled him to rally from this firstattack; but the gradual decline continued. Aftersending forth "Our Old Home," he had littlestrength for any employment more arduous thanreading, or than walking his accustomed pathamong the pines and sweetfern on the hill behindThe Wayside, known to his family as the Mount ofVision. The projected work, therefore, advancedbut slowly. He wrote to Mr. Fields:—"I don't see much probability of my having the firstchapter of the Romance ready so soon as youwant it. There are two or three chapters ready tobe written, but I am not yet robust enough tobegin, and I feel as if I should never carry itthrough."fTohuen dpreeds. eHneti mhaedn t pprreovivoeuds ltyo wbreit toennly: —too well"There is something preternatural in my reluctanceto begin. I linger at the threshold, and have aperception of very disagreeable phantasms to beencountered if I enter. I wish God had given methe faculty of writing a sunshiny book."And again, in November, he says: "I foresee thatthere is little probability of my getting the firstchapter ready by the 15th, although I have aresolute purpose to write it by the end of themonth." He did indeed send it by that time, but itbegan to be apparent in January that he could notgo on."Seriously," he says, in one letter, "my mind has,

"Seriously," he says, in one letter, "my mind has,for the present, lost its temper and its fine edge,and I have an instinct that I had better keep quiet.Perhaps I shall have a new spirit of vigor if I waitquietly for it; perhaps not." In another: "I hardlyknow what to say to the public about this abortiveRomance, though I know pretty well what the casewill be. I shall never finish it…. I cannot finish itunless a great change comes over me; and if Imake too great an effort to do so, it will be mydeath."Finally, work had to be given over indefinitely. InApril he went southward with Mr. Ticknor, thesenior partner of his publishing house; but Mr.Ticknor died suddenly in Philadelphia, andHawthorne returned to The Wayside more feeblethan ever. He lingered there a little while. Then,early in May, came the last effort to recover tone,by means of a carriage-journey, with his friend Ex-President Pierce, through the southern part of NewHampshire. A week passed, and all was ended: atthe hotel in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where heand his companion had stopped to rest, he died inthe night, between the 18th and the 19th of May,1864. Like Thackeray and Dickens, he wastouched by death's "petrific mace" before he hadhad time to do more than lay the groundwork andbegin the main structure of the fiction he had inhand; and, as in the case of Thackeray, thesuddenness of his decease has never been clearlyaccounted for. The precise nature of his maladywas not known, since with quiet hopelessness hehad refused to take medical advice. His friend Dr.Oliver Wendell Holmes was the only physician who

had an opportunity to take even a cursory view ofhis case, which he did in the course of a brief walkand conversation in Boston before Hawthornestarted with Mr. Pierce; but he was unable, withthat slight opportunity, to reach any definiteconclusion. Dr. Holmes prescribed and had put upfor him a remedy to palliate some of the poignantsymptoms, and this Hawthorne carried with him;but "I feared," Dr. Holmes writes to the editor, "thatthere was some internal organic—perhapsmalignant—disease; for he looked wasted and as ifstricken with a mortal illness."The manuscript of the unfinished "DolliverRomance" lay upon his coffin during the funeralservices at Concord, but, contrary to theimpression sometimes entertained on this point,was not buried with him. It is preserved in theConcord Public Library. The first chapter waspublished in the "Atlantic" as an isolated portion,soon after his death; and subsequently the secondchapter, which he had been unable to revise,appeared in the same periodical. Between this andthe third fragment there is a gap, for bridging whichno material was found among his papers; but, afterhesitating for several years, Mrs. Hawthornecopied and placed in the publishers' hands thatfinal portion, which, with the two parts previouslyprinted, constitutes the whole of what Hawthornehad put into tangible form.Hawthorne had purposed prefixing a sketch ofThoreau, "because, from a tradition which he toldme about this house of mine, I got the idea of a

deathless man, which is now taking a shape verydifferent from the original one." This refers to thetradition mentioned in the editor's note to"Septimius Felton," and forms a link in theinteresting chain of evidence connecting thatromance with the "Dolliver Romance." With theplan respecting Thoreau he combined the idea ofwriting an autobiographical preface, wherein TheWayside was to be described, after the manner ofhis Introduction to the "Mosses from an OldManse"; but, so far as is known, nothing of thiswas ever actually committed to paper.Beginning with the idea of producing an Englishromance, fragments of which remain to us in "TheAncestral Footstep," and the incomplete workknown as "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret," hereplaced these by another design, of which"Septimius Felton" represents the partial execution.But that elaborate study yielded, in its turn, to "TheDolliver Romance." The last- named work, had theauthor lived to carry it out, would doubtless havebecome the vehicle of a profound and patheticdrama, based on the instinctive yearning of manfor an immortal existence, the attemptedgratification of which would have been set forth in avariety of ways: First, through the selfish oldsensualist, Colonel Dabney, who greedily seizedthe mysterious elixir and took such a draught of itthat he perished on the spot; then, through thesimple old Grandsir, anxious to live for Pansie'ssake; and, perhaps, through Pansie herself, who,coming into the enjoyment of some ennobling love,would wish to defeat death, so that she might

always keep the perfection of her mundanehappiness,—all these forms of striving to be madethe adumbration of a higher one, the shadow-playthat should direct our minds to the true immortalitybeyond this world.G. P. L.

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