"The epoch of rapping spirits, and all the wonders that have followed in their train--such as tables, upset by invisible agencies, bells, self-tolled at funerals, and ghostly music performed on jewsharps--had not yet arrived. Alas, my countrymen, methinks we have fallen on an evil age! If these phenomena have not humbug at the bottom, so much the worse for us. What can they indicate, in a spiritual way, except that the soul of man is descending to a lower point than it has ever before reached, while incarnate? We are pursuing a downward course, in the eternal march, and thus bring ourselves into the same range with beings whom death, in requital of their gross and evil lives, has degraded below humanity. To hold intercourse with spirits of this order, we must stoop, and grovel in some element more vile than earthly dust. These goblins, if they exist at all, are but the shadows of past mortality, outcasts, mere refuse-stuff, adjudged unworthy of the eternal world, and, on the most favorable supposition, dwindling gradually into nothingness. The less we have to say to them, the better; lest we share their fate!"
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance

Its all Bush's Fault!

This quote has soothed my soul. Keep up the globetrotting and bookwriting, and keep rocking hard polemically! you know how we do it.

What a bummer...
I prefer Carl Sagan:
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

I kinda always preferred this one:

"Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly."
-Batman costume warning label

Funny. I was recently rereading some passages by Whittaker Chambers, about his opinion that Western civilization is sick beyond saving, and comparing how that contrasts with much contemporary conservative braggadocio about its vitality. Thanks!

That may not have been worded properly. I do appreciate this excerpt, very much. The book is a study of the folly of utopianism?

The book is that, Jeremiah. It's a novel not-so loosely based on Hawthorne's brief stay at Brook Farm, the most famous in a long line of world-saving utopian communities. The experience turned off Hawthorne to crusaders, who, as Hawthorne indicates in the book, he believed would only stay your friend so long as you endorsed their crusade.

I love Hawthorne!

What a brilliant writer and perceptive critic of nineteenth-century American culture.

If you are asking about "Blithesdale Romance," Jeremiah, then the book is more than just a critique of utopianism but an expression of dissatisfaction with the understanding of human nature prevalent in Hawthorne's America (I don't think things have changed much either). Hawthorne finds the dominant 19th century dualist view of man as a conflict of "matter" and "spirit" unworkable, although he offered no resolution to the dichotomy. Thinkers like Emerson took the side of the "spirit" and touted idealism, while others saw the material side of man as the good side and became materialists (of Marxist or other varieties). Hawthorne just ended his life as a pessimist not seeing any resolution to the conflict and fearing only tragedy results from it.

An excellent work of literary criticism on him I have read is "The Angel and the Machine: The Rational Psychology of Nathaniel Hawthorne," by E. Michael Jones. Jones deals with 19th century philosophy and psychology in a most excellent fashion.

Not to stray too far afield, Brian: would you like to connect this in any way to Pascal's view of the person? It emphasizes the dualness of human nature and the conflict between the angel and the brute, thought and the mechanism. Would you put Pascal's view in the same troubled camp that you see Jones critiquing?

Captivating commentary here! Hawthorne in depth is new for me; Pascal, too.

I know Tolstoy tested this dualism in War and Peace through Pierre and Andrei - one a spiritualist by temperament, the other a rationalist. Late in life he wrote a novel, Resurrection - with obvious Christian tones and intentions - yet with his anti-state, anarchist-pacifist he donated the proceeds to what today would pretty like be called a religious cult - to help them, as a persecuted sect, to emigrate from Russia to Canada. Strange.

I haven't read much Pascal, embarrassingly I don't own a copy of "Pensees," but just going from your summary it would seem that Pascal at least starts with this common modern dualism. I know Pascal's defense of faith tends towards fideism, apparently in an effort to get as far from Cartesian rationalism as he could, or at least he is commonly taught that way.

The issue is how one resolves the fact, clear to everyone who reflects on their own manner of existing, that humans seem to most "be" their thoughts/consciousness, etc. (as Aristotle might say) while also being embodied/animal matter. I am not familiar enough with him to know if Pascal ONLY sets up the dichotomy in dualist terms or if he also resolves it by making the fateful choice to identify with one half or the other.

. . .

O.k., I found the Jones book on my shelf and looked Pascal up. Funny you mention the French philosopher as Jones ends his introduction by reference to Pascal. I quote: "'Man' writes Pascal uncannily describing the age of angelism and the one following it: 'is neither angel nor beast, and unfortunately the man who tries to live as though he were an angel ends by sinking to the level of the beast.'"

So from that quote, and Jones's manner of using it, I take it that Pascal perceives the same problem in a dualist misunderstanding of human nature as Hawthorne does and suspect he avoids the problem of reducing man to one or the other.

Brian: The Pascal quote from Jones is very similar to one of the themes of "Blithedale." Your earlier reference to Jones discussing the duality of "matter" and "spirit," I must admit, does not resemble the book that I read. I'm human, and novels sometimes get the better of me, so perhaps it just went over my head.

It's interesting that although Brook Farm, the commune that inspired The Blithedale Romance, is so intimately connected in the historical consciousness with transcendentalism, the two most famous transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau, declined to join and were quite critical of such social reform ventures in later speeches. Hawthorne, who's connected to the transcendentalists more by geography than ideology--but nevertheless is often grouped with them--came away bitter and owed quite a bit of money (which the communists never repaid).

Alright, I went ahead and reread Jones's chapter on it and he gives a quote from the narrator Coverdale (speaking for Hawthorne): "the yeoman and the man of finest moral culture, though not the man of sturdiest sense and integrity---are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or welded into one substance." He lists other quotes as well that show Hawthorne complaining about the apparent lack of integratedness of the dual nature of man, and the utopian commune fails because of it. Different characters represent different extremes. As you point out by likening the Pascal quote to the book, the idealist falsely tries to make man into something beyond the human, an angel or, heck, an "Uebermensch" I guess, but when this attempt fails man ends up degraded to worse than a beast.

Jones also covers the other main critical works on Hawthorne which apparently take note of the same dichotomies. I will send you a copy actually.

My take on Blithedale is really coming more from Jones anyway since I read his book on Hawthorne about 4 years ago and it left an decided impression on me (since I already adored Hawthorne) but I have to go back to high school and college as regards reading H's novels (except rereading Scarlet letter more recently).

Btw, his short stories are really fantastic, I have read some of those in more recent years. "Young Goodman Brown" is one favorite that it turns out is available many places online: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=young+goodman+brown+hawthorne

Actually, upon further googling much of his work is available online!

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/h/hawthorne/nathaniel/

I find a couple of things interesting about Hawthorne: 1). He was apparently an underacheiver, starting projects and never finishing them. I don't think he wrote many books, but he's obviously quite famous in spite of this. 2). Although I think the quote I use is beautifully written, I think Hawthorne--and I guess a lot of 19th-century writers--overuse adjectives, come off as 5th-grade girls penning "Dear diary" passages, and seek to impress readers with their vocabulary instead of using the best word available. I liked "Blithedale," but I couldn't help but think: no one, not even in mid-19th century New England, talked liked this.

Nice observations.

He also changed his name from Hathorne to Hawthorne in his early twenties when he discovered that he was a direct descendant of one of the judges by that name who was involved in the Salem Witch Trials. Interesting guy.