NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE [transcribed by Anne Higginson], Description of His Daughter Una

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE [transcribed by Anne Higginson], Description of His Daughter Una

This is a copy of a description Hawthorne wrote of his daughter Una. In it, he notes the complexity of her character, laden with both angelic and devious qualities.  This helps us gain insight into the mixed nature of Hawthorne’s child characters. While they can appear unblemished and pure, they also seem to possess a darkness that goes beyond innocence.

Boston Public Library, Rare Books & Manuscripts

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE [transcribed by Anne Higginson], Description of His Daughter Una

“There is something that frightens me about the child. I know not whether elfish or angelic, but at all events supernatural. She steps so boldly into the midst of every thing, shrinks from nothing; has such comprehension of every thing; seeming at times to have but little delicacy; and anon shows that she possesses the finest essence of it; now so hard, now so tender; now so perfectly unreasonable, soon again so wise. In short, I now and then catch an aspect of her in which I cannot believe her to be my own human child, but a spirit strangely mingled with good and evil, haunting the house where I dwell.”