When Hawthorne's volume of "English
Sketches" was printed, he said, "It is pellucid, but not deep;" and he
cut out the dedication and letter to Franklin Pierce, which offended
him. The two men were so unlike that it seemed a strange fate which
brought them together in one small town. An understanding of each
other's methods or points of view was an impossibility. Emerson spoke
once with an intimate friend of the distance which separated Hawthorne
and himself. They were utterly at variance upon politics and every
theory of life.
Mr. Fields was suggesting to Emerson one day that he should give a
series of lectures, when, as they were discussing the topics to be
chosen, Emerson said: "One shall be on the Doctrine of Leasts, and one
on the Doctrine of Mosts; one shall be about Brook Farm, for ever
since Hawthorne's ghastly and untrue account of that community, in his
'Blithedale Romance,' I have desired to give what I think the true
account of it."
The sons of Henry James, Senior, being at school in Concord for a
period, Emerson invited Mr. James, who had gone to visit his boys, to
stay over and be present at one of Mr. Alcott's conversations, which
were already "an institution" of the time. Mr. Alcott began to speak
upon subjects which interested Mr. James; and the latter, not
understanding, naturally enough, that these so-called "Conversations"
were in truth monologues, replied to Mr. Alcott in his own striking
style.
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