(Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Celestial Railroad and Other Stories

Hawthorne’s alle­gor­i­cal short sto­ries were, in some ways, the ances­tors of some of the grim­mer Twi­light Zone episodes. This col­lec­tion includes sto­ries writ­ten between 1832 and 1851, and includes the most famous ones, “Young Good­man Brown” , “Ethan Brand”, “Rap­pac­cini’s Daugh­ter”, and “Dr. Hei­deg­ger’s Exper­i­ment”. All fine sto­ries, but the one that tick­led my fan­cy was the less well known “The May­pole of Mer­ry Mount”. It’s a sort of 1836 ver­sion of The Wick­er Man, except that the Puri­tans, not the Pagans, tri­umph. It is all the more inter­est­ing because Hawthorne seems to have been well aware of things that would not be part of com­mon knowl­edge until James Fraz­er pub­lished The Gold­en Bough.

In this pecu­liar sto­ry, it is explained that one vil­lage in New Eng­land was not set­tled by the usu­al grim Puri­tans, but by men who “imag­ined a wild phi­los­o­phy of plea­sure, and came thith­er to act out their day­dream.”

This sets the stage for a con­flict that has played out in Amer­i­can cul­ture, appar­ent­ly, since the 17th cen­tu­ry, when this sto­ry is set.:

All the hered­i­tary pas­times of Old Eng­land were trans­plant­ed hith­er. The King of Christ­mas was duly crowned, and the Lord of Mis­rule bore potent sway. On the Eve of St. John, they felled whole acres of the for­est to make bon­fires, and danced by the blaze all night, crowned with gar­lands, and throw­ing flow­ers into the flame. At har­vest time, though their crop was of the small­est, they made an image with the sheaves of Indi­an corn, and wreathed it with autum­nal gar­lands, and bore it home tri­umphant­ly. But what chiefly char­ac­ter­ized the colonists of Mer­ry Mount was their ven­er­a­tion for the May­pole. It has made their true his­to­ry a poet­’s tale. Spring decked the hal­lowed emblem with young blos­soms and fresh green boughs; sum­mer brought ros­es of deep­est blush, and the per­fect­ed foliage of the for­est; autumn enriched it with that red and yel­low gor­geous­ness which con­verts each wild­wood leaf into a paint­ed flower; and win­ter sil­vered it with sleet, and hung it round with ici­cles, til it flashed in the cold sun­shine, itself a frozen sun­beam. Thus each alter­nate sea­son did homage to the May­pole, and paid it a trib­ute of its own rich­est splen­dor. Its votaries danced round it, once, at least, in every month; some­times they called it their reli­gion, or their altar; but always, it was the ban­ner staff of Mer­ry Mount.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there were men in the new world of stern­er faith than these May­pole wor­shipers. Not far from Mer­ry Mount was a set­tle­ment of Puri­tans, most dis­mal wretch­es, who said their prayers before day­light, and then wrought in the for­est or the corn­field till evening made it prayer time again. Their weapons were always at hand to shoot down the strag­gling sav­age. When they met in con­clave, it was nev­er to keep up the old Eng­lish mirth, but to hear ser­mons three hours long, or to pro­claim boun­ties on the heads of wolves and the scalps of Indi­ans. Their fes­ti­vals were fast days, and their chief pas­time the singing of psalms. Woe to the youth or maid­en who did but dream of a dance! The select­man nod­ded to the con­sta­ble; and there sat the light-heeled repro­bate in the stocks; or if he danced, it was round the whip­ping post, which might be termed the Puri­tan Maypole.

The Puri­tans mount a vio­lent assault on Pagan Mer­ry Mount, while the rev­ellers are danc­ing around the May­pole, dressed in ani­mal cos­tumes. Hawthorne’s descrip­tive pow­er is mar­velous. At the cen­ter of the sto­ry stand two beau­ti­ful youths, the nup­tial King and Queen of the May, “But nev­er had their youth­ful beau­ty seemed so pure as when its glow was chas­tened by adver­si­ty.” They melt the hearts of even the sternest Puri­tan, Endi­cott, who spares them death.

Who can read this fable and not see in it the bipo­lar mad­ness of North Amer­i­can soci­ety? Hawthorne’s sto­ry was, it seems, based loose­ly on an actu­al inci­dent in New Eng­land his­to­ry, Endi­cott was a real per­son, and the may­pole exist­ed, but what exact­ly hap­pened, I can­not say. All Hawthorne’s alle­gories were craft­ed to care­ful­ly bal­ance the mun­dane and the fan­tas­tic, and to erase the bar­ri­er between life and dreams. He was simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as fan­tas­magoric as Poe, and a metic­u­lous­ly obser­vant realist.

There is, by the way, a fine musi­cal treat­ment of the sto­ry by the com­pos­er Howard Han­son. His opera Mer­ry Mount pre­miered in 1934. Though it was pop­u­lar in its time, it nev­er remained in the stan­dard reper­toire. A pleas­ant suite from the opera gets fair­ly reg­u­lar play.

con­tents:

16121. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Roger Malvin’s Bur­ial [sto­ry]
16122. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) My Kins­man, Major Molineux [sto­ry]
16123. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Wives of the Dead [sto­ry]
16124. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Gray Com­pan­ion [ato­ry]
16125. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Wake­field [sto­ry]
16126. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Ambi­tious Guest [sto­ry]
16127. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Young Good­man Brown [sto­ry]
16128. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Minister’s Black Veil [sto­ry]
16129. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The May­pole of Mer­ry Mount [sto­ry]
16130. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Great Car­bun­kle [sto­ry]
16131. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Dr. Heidegger’s Exper­i­ment [sto­ry]
16132. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Lady Eleanore’s Man­tle [sto­ry]
16133. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Ego­tism, or, The Bosom Ser­pent [sto­ry]
16134. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Celes­tial Rail­road [sto­ry]
16135. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Birth­mark [sto­ry]
16136. [2] (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Rappaccini’s Daugh­ter [sto­ry]
16137. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) The Snow Image: A Child­ish Mir­a­cle [sto­ry]
16138. (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Ethan Brand [sto­ry]
16139. (R. P. Black­mur) After­word [arti­cle]

Leave a Comment