Nathaniel Hawthorne, 25 February 1856

HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel (1804-1864). Autograph letter signed ("Nathl Hawthorne") to Anna Maria Jones Heywood, "U.S. Consulate," Liverpool, 26 February 1856.

One page, 135 x 88mm (mild toning).

Hawthorne accepts an invitation to visit an English workhouse. A brief, yet consequential, acceptance written to a noted English hostess and philanthropist: "I shall be most happy to accompany you to the Workhouse, and will make my appearance at the hour prescribed." Hawthorne's visit with Mrs. Heywood took on a life of its own. He described the visit generally in his essay "Outside Glimpses of English Poverty" in Our Old Home in 1863. On this visit, an urchin attached himself to Hawthorne who responded by lifting the "wretched, pale, half-torpid little thing" up into his arms (see The English Notebooks, Centenary Edition,21:412-414). In light of Hawthorne's famed reticence, his family made much of this event. One of the most recent biographers of the Hawthorne Family, T. Walter Herbert, suggests that Sophia Hawthorne "was right to identify this moment as central to her husband's spirituality and to celebrate the compassion he displayed." (see Dearest Beloved: The Hawthornes and the Making of the Middle-Class Family, (1993) p. 279). Hawthorne's daughter Rose, who founded an order of Catholic nuns to work with cancer patients, wrote of the "deep impression" this incident made upon her young mind.

Anna Maria Jones Heywood (ca. 1803-1887), the aunt of Hawthorne's close friend Henry Bright, was well liked by the Hawthorne family and Nathaniel visited her several times at her estate, Norris Green—including directly after this visit to the workhouse. In "Outside Glimpses of English Poverty," however, Hawthorne reflects, "Is, or is not, the system wrong that gives one married pair so immense a superfluity of luxurious home, and shuts out a million others from any home whatever? One day or another ... the gentlemen of England will have to face this question." (Our Old Home, CE, 5:309). Not published in Letters, Centennial Edition.