It was a life of hardship; of social starvation almost like exile.
It tested his courage, his faith in human nature, to the utmost. How
difficult were the earlier years of Irving and Bryant and Longfellow.
That he remained always true to himself and never lost sight of that
ideal of excellence which was his guiding-star.
We are not surprised to learn that his difficulties were rather
augmented than diminished by matrimony. Even in plain, rural Concord he
found at the end of three years, that his expenses had exceeded his
income by what seemed to him quite a formidable debt. This distressed
him the more because he had not yet learned that all men must lose in
some manner, and that the whole community is bound to take a share in
such losses as are honestly incurred. This is what charity and
philanthropy, as well as the various forms of insurance, finally result
in. But Hawthorne was the last man to apply such a principle to his own
case. He had continually hoped that when a balance-sheet was drawn up at
Brook Farm some portion of his investment there would be returned to
him; but this resource also failed him.
At last Bancroft the historian, whom James K. Polk strangely enough had
made secretary of the navy, heard of his situation, and had him
appointed collector of the port at Salem. He was again removed from that
position by President Taylor, and it has been said that his wife
heroically supported him by her skill in drawing and painting until the
"Scarlet Letter" could be finished and money procured from its
publication.
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