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n Hawthorne wrote a letter to Leonard Bacon, usingnvery carefully chosen words, informing him of his concerns regarding Delia’snwell-being, but Leonard’s subsequent letter to his sister was not so carefullyncouched. It appears to express all the right filial concerns until Leonardnfinally warms to his brotherly task; he commends Hawthorne and the value of hisnadvice to her, he makes sensible suggestions and even manages to admit that hernresearches could have value. Then he launches into the meat of things –
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n‘Thenfriends who humor your delusion, and permit you to believe that they thinknthere may be something in it, may have the kindest intentions, but they havenless confidence in you than I have shown by speaking frankly what they thinknwould be lost upon you.’n
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n‘Your theory about the authorship ofnShakspeare’s plays may after all be worth something if published as a fiction.’n
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nDelia took her brother’s words to heart. She turned on her delusion-humouringnfriends and cut herself off from most of them, with Hawthorne bearing the brunt of her fury.
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| Nathaniel Hawthorne |
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nShe accuses him ofnbetraying her confidences (which he hadn’t), falsely raising her hopes (whichnhe didn’t), and to all intents and purposes of laughing at her behind her backn(which he couldn’t). To his eternal credit, Hawthorne remained true to Delianand his word to her. Under the circumstances a lesser man might have droppednher cause like a hot potato but Hawthorne continued to approach publishers,ntrying to get the book into print. He wrote several prefaces for her and Delianrejected each of his efforts, except for the last, for a variety of reasons. He sent her detailednletters of his progress. He sent her money. And, from the omissions in hisnrecords, he destroyed any of the letters she sent to him that might havendamaged her future, potentional, reputation (we can infer this from comments madenin reply to her delusive imputations, in his letters to her).
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| Delia Bacon – The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespere Unfolded – 1857 |
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nThen, in early April 1857, The Philosophynof The Plays of Shakspere Unfolded. By Delia Bacon. With a Preface by NathanielnHawthorne, Author of ‘The Scarlet Letter, etc. was finally published, bothnin Britain and America. As many of the publishers who had turned the book downnhad predicted would happen, the critics savaged it. One, picked at random, fromnthe National Review July 1857, reads,
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n“We have met with nothing innthe range of literature so like the attempt to find a needle in a bundle ofnhay, as the task of extracting a definite meaning from the vast body of obscurenverbiage and inconsequential reasoning in which she has folded up her ideas.”n
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nAnd that’s not one of the most caustic. Her own countrymen were just asndismissive.
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n“On every page, nay, over almost every paragraph, we are forcednto exclaim: ‘O matter and impertinency, mixed reason in madness!”n
n[NorthnAmerican Review October 1857]n
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nIt is, it must be admitted, extremely hard going. There are few citations, which means that her examples are difficult to verify, and would have benefited from a sympathetic editing, as she throws in everything she has come across, regardless of relevance. For once in this blog, it is a book that I cannot recommend, however much you may sympathise with the fate of its author.
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nIn June 1857, Mr David Rice, a surgeon andnMayor of Stratford, wrote to the American Consul in Liverpool regarding thenmental health of an American lady living in the town. The Consul, (that’snNathaniel Hawthorne, remember) replied immediately, authorising whatevernexpenditure might be deemed suitable in the treatment of his countrywoman.nHawthorne sent letter after letter to Rice enquiring about his poor friend, whonhad been, so it seemed, finally broken by the disappointment at the receptionnof her great project. What letters he received back from Delia began withnthanks for his continued support but pretty soon the accusations and ingratitudenresurfaced, along with other delusions and hallucinations too. Delia SalternBacon’s sanity had finally departed from her forever.
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| Theodore Bacon – Delia Bacon – A Biographical Sketch – 1888 |
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nIn December she was movednto an asylum at Henley-in-Arden and in March 1859, it happened that a nephew,nGeorge Bacon, landed in England on his way back home to America on then‘Overland Route’, from his two-year voyage to the China Seas. He learned of hisnaunt’s condition and went immediately to her side. Shocked at what he found innthe Henley asylum, he postponed his departure for a week and rearrangedntransport home for himself and his aunt. They left five years after she hadnarrived for what was supposed to have been a summer’s visit. Back home innHartford, Connecticut, she was housed in the ‘Retreat’ where her condition continuednto decline as she fell further into violent mania. Late in August 1859, her twonremaining brothers and two remaining sisters came to her bedside and she seemednto muster, to the extent that she held lucid conversations with her siblings,nbut several days later, on September 2nd, she died with themnpresent at her bedside.
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| The Grave of Delia Bacon |
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n“What she may have suffered before her intellect gave way, we hadnbetter not try to imagine. No author had ever hoped so confidently as she; nonenever failed more utterly.”n
nNathaniel Hawthorne.n
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