Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, where his birthplace

is now a museum. William Hathorne, who emigrated from England in 1630, was the first of
Hawthorne's ancestors to arrive in the colonies. After arriving, William persecuted Quakers.
William's son John Hathorne was one of the judges who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials. (One
theory is that having learned about this, the author added the "w" to his surname in his early
twenties, shortly after graduating from college.) Hawthorne's father, Nathaniel Hathorne, Sr.,
was a sea captain who died in 1808 of yellow fever, when Hawthorne was only four years old, in
Raymond, Maine. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College at the expense of an uncle from 1821
to 1824, befriending classmates Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future president Franklin
Pierce. While there he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. Until the publication of his
Twice-Told Tales in 1837, Hawthorne wrote in the comparative obscurity of what he called his
"owl's nest" in the family home. As he looked back on this period of his life, he wrote: "I have not
lived, but only dreamed about living." And yet it was this period of brooding and writing that had
formed, as Malcolm Cowley was to describe it, "the central fact in Hawthorne's career," his "term
of apprenticeship" that would eventually result in the "richly meditated fiction." Hawthorne was
hired in 1839 as a weigher and gauger at the Boston Custom House. He had become engaged
in the previous year to the illustrator and transcendentalist Sophia Peabody. Seeking a possible
home for himself and Sophia, he joined the transcendentalist utopian community at Brook Farm
in 1841; later that year, however, he left when he became dissatisfied with farming and the
experiment. (His Brook Farm adventure would prove an inspiration for his novel The Blithedale
Romance.) He married Sophia in 1842; they moved to The Old Manse in Concord,
Massachusetts, where they lived for three years. There he wrote most of the tales collected in
Mosses from an Old Manse. Hawthorne and his wife then moved to Salem and later to the
Berkshires, returning in 1852 to Concord and a new home The Wayside, previously owned by
the Alcotts. Their neighbors in Concord included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David
Thoreau. Like Hawthorne, Sophia was a reclusive person. She was bedridden with headaches
until her sister introduced her to Hawthorne, after which her headaches seem to have abated.
The Hawthornes enjoyed a long marriage, often taking walks in the park. Sophia greatly
admired her husband's work. In one of her journals, she writes: "I am always so dazzled and
bewildered with the richness, the depth, the... jewels of beauty in his productions that I am
always looking forward to a second reading where I can ponder and muse and fully take in the
miraculous wealth of thoughts." In 1846, Hawthorne was appointed surveyor (determining the
quantity and value of imported goods) at the Salem Custom House. Like his earlier appointment
to the custom house in Boston, this employment was vulnerable to the politics of the spoils
system. A Democrat, Hawthorne lost this job due to the change of administration in Washington
after the presidential election of 1848. Hawthorne's career as a novelist was boosted by The
Scarlet Letter in 1850, in which the preface refers to his three-year tenure in the Custom House
at Salem. The House of the Seven Gables (1851) and The Blithedale Romance (1852) followed
in quick succession. In 1852, he wrote the campaign biography of his old friend Franklin Pierce.
With Pierce's election as president, Hawthorne was rewarded in 1853 with the position of United
States consul in Liverpool. In 1857, his appointment ended and the Hawthorne family toured
France and Italy. They returned to The Wayside in 1860, and that year saw the publication of
The Marble Faun. Failing health (which biographer Edward Miller speculates was stomach
cancer) prevented him from completing several more romances. Hawthorne died in his sleep on
May 19, 1864, in Plymouth, New Hampshire while on a tour of the White Mountains with Pierce.
He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts. Wife Sophia and daughter
Una were originally buried in England. However, in June 2006, they were re-interred in plots
adjacent to Nathaniel. Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne had three children: Una, Julian, and
Rose. Una was a victim of mental illness and died young. Julian moved out west, served a jail
term for embezzlement and wrote a book about his father. Rose married George Parsons
Lathrop and they became Roman Catholics. After George's death, Rose became a Dominican
nun. She founded the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne to care for victims of incurable cancer. In
the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every
branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a
spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of
an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids
from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the
comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to
open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love
of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and
even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent
votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the
philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds
for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate
control over Nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies
ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove
the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and
uniting the strength of the latter to his own. Such a union accordingly took place, and was
attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very
soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that
grew stronger until he spoke. "Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark
upon your cheek might be removed?" "No, indeed," said she, smiling; but perceiving the
seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth it has been so often called
a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so." "Ah, upon another face perhaps it
might," replied her husband; "but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly
perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to
term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection."
"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary
anger, but then bursting into tears. "Then why did you take me from my mother's side? You
cannot love what shocks you!" To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the
centre of Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with
the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of her complexion—a healthy though
delicate bloom—the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape
amid the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and
finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant
glow. But if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson
stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its
shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size.
Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand
upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were
to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the
privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the
impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the difference of
temperament in the beholders. Some fastidious persons—but they were exclusively of her own
sex—affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of
Georgiana's beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it would be as
reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest
statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the
birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the
world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw.
After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,—Aylmer discovered that
this was the case with himself. Had she been less beautiful,—if Envy's self could have found
aught else to sneer at,—he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this
mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and
fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so
perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their
united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps
ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their
perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in
which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred
with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In
this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death,
Aylmer's sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing
him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given
him delight. At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably and without
intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic.
Trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and
modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened
his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat
together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering
with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have
worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the
peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike
paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on
the whitest marble. Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the
stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily took up the subject. "Do
you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "have you any
recollection of a dream last night about this odious hand?" "None! none whatever!" replied
Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the
real depth of his emotion, "I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had taken a pretty
firm hold of my fancy." "And you did dream of it?" continued Georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded
lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. "A terrible dream! I wonder that you
can forget it. Is it possible to forget this one expression?—'It is in her heart now; we must have it
out!' Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall that dream." The mind is in a
sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her
sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance
belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his
servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper
went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught
hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or
wrench it away. When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in his
wife's presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes
of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we
practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. Until now he had not been
aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which
he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace. "Aylmer," resumed
Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal
birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as
deep as life itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the
firm gripe of this little hand which was laid upon me before I came into the world?" "Dearest
Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily interrupted Aylmer. "I am
convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal." "If there be the remotest possibility of it,"
continued Georgiana, "let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for
life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,—life is a burden
which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life!
You have deep science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders.
Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this
beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?"
"Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife," cried Aylmer, rapturously, "doubt not my power. I have
already given this matter the deepest thought—thought which might almost have enlightened
me to create a being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever
into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as
its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what
Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed
life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be." "It is resolved, then," said Georgiana, faintly
smiling. "And, Aylmer, spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my
heart at last." Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek—her right cheek—not that which bore the
impress of the crimson hand. The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had
formed whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant watchfulness
which the proposed operation would require; while Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect
repose essential to its success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments
occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made
discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature that had roused the admiration of all the learned
societies in Europe. Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the
secrets of the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the
causes that kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of
fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others with such rich
medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. Here, too, at an earlier period, he had
studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which
Nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to
create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside
in unwilling recognition of the truth—against which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our
great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is
yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us
nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous
patentee, on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten
investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because
they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the
treatment of Georgiana. As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold
and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, but was so
startled with the intense glow of the birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not
restrain a strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted. "Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer,
stamping violently on the floor. Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low
stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the
vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer's underworker during his whole
scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and
the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the
details of his master's experiments. With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect,
and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical
nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the
spiritual element. "Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab," said Aylmer, "and burn a
pastil." "Yes, master," answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form of Georgiana;
and then he muttered to himself, "If she were my wife, I'd never part with that birthmark." When
Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating
fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene
around her looked like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms,
where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful
apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with
gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other species
of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their rich and ponderous
folds, concealing all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space.
For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the
sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place with
perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled radiance. He
now knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in
his science, and felt that he could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might
intrude. "Where am I? Ah, I remember," said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed her hand over
her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's eyes. "Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he.
"Do not shrink from me! Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since
it will be such a rapture to remove it." "Oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at
it again. I never can forget that convulsive shudder." In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it
were, to release her mind from the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of
the light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder lore. Airy
figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and danced before
her, imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct
idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough to
warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when
she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were answered,
the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. The scenery and the figures of
actual life were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference
which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the original.
When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of
earth. She did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant
shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded
themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely flower. "It is magical!" cried Georgiana. "I
dare not touch it." "Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer,—"pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while
you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed
vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself." But Georgiana had no
sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as
if by the agency of fire. "There was too powerful a stimulus," said Aylmer, thoughtfully. To make
up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait by a scientific process of his
own invention. It was to be effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal.
Georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to find the features of the
portrait blurred and indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek
should have been. Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive acid.
Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of study and chemical
experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence,
and spoke in glowing language of the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty
of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden
principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the
plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover this
longsought medium; "but," he added, "a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the
power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." Not less singular were his
opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a
liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord
in Nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause
to curse. "Aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked Georgiana, looking at him with amazement and
fear. "It is terrible to possess such power, or even to dream of possessing it." "Oh, do not
tremble, my love," said her husband. "I would not wrong either you or myself by working such
inharmonious effects upon our lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison,
is the skill requisite to remove this little hand." At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as
usual, shrank as if a redhot iron had touched her cheek. Again Aylmer applied himself to his
labors. She could hear his voice in the distant furnace room giving directions to Aminadab,
whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or growl
of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer reappeared and proposed that
she should now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural treasures of the earth.
Among the former he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle
yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the breezes that blow across a
kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he
threw some of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and invigorating delight.
"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe containing a gold-colored
liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye that I could imagine it the elixir of life." "In one sense it is,"
replied Aylmer; "or, rather, the elixir of immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was
concocted in this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might
point your finger. The strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out years,
or drop dead in the midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if I, in
my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it."
"Why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired Georgiana in horror. "Do not mistrust me,
dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But
see! here is a powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be
washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A stronger infusion would take the blood out
of the cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale ghost." "Is it with this lotion that you intend to
bathe my cheek?" asked Georgiana, anxiously. "Oh, no," hastily replied her husband; "this is
merely superficial. Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper." In his interviews with
Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to her sensations and whether the
confinement of the rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These
questions had such a particular drift that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was already
subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her
food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her
system—a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully,
half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld
herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her cheek. Not even
Aylmer now hated it so much as she. To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found
it necessary to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana turned over the
volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old tomes she met with chapters full of romance
and poetry. They were the works of philosophers of the middle ages, such as Albertus Magnus,
Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the prophetic Brazen Head. All
these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their
credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from
the investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual
world. Hardly less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the
Royal Society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were
continually recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be wrought. But to
Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which
he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted
for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event
was attributable. The book, in truth, was both the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious,
imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. He handled physical details as if there were nothing
beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong
and eager aspiration towards the infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul.
Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more profoundly than ever, but with
a less entire dependence on his judgment than heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she
could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if
compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles,
and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond
his reach. The volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as
melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad confession and continual
exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and
working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably
thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius in whatever sphere might recognize
the image of his own experience in Aylmer's journal. So deeply did these reflections affect
Georgiana that she laid her face upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she
was found by her husband. "It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile,
though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "Georgiana, there are pages in that
volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my senses. Take heed lest it prove as
detrimental to you." "It has made me worship you more than ever," said she. "Ah, wait for this
one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of
it. But come, I have sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest." So she poured
out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. He then took his leave with a
boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer,
and that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when Georgiana felt
irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for
two or three hours past had begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal
birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her system. Hastening after
her husband, she intruded for the first time into the laboratory. The first thing that struck her eye
was the furnace, that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the
quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a
distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles,
and other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use.
The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been
tormented forth by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of the
apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana
had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely,
drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. He was pale as death, anxious and
absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether
the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How
different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana's
encouragement! "Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man
of clay!" muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. "Now, if there be a thought too
much or too little, it is all over." "Ho! ho!" mumbled Aminadab. "Look, master! look!" Aylmer
raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding
Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his
fingers upon it. "Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried he,
impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my labors? It is not well
done. Go, prying woman, go!" "Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she
possessed no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. You mistrust your
wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch the development of this experiment.
Think not so unworthily of me, my husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that I shall
shrink; for my share in it is far less than your own." "No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer,
impatiently; "it must not be." "I submit," replied she calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever
draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce me to take a dose of
poison if offered by your hand." "My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the
height and depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, that this
crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of
which I had no previous conception. I have already administered agents powerful enough to do
aught except to change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that
fail us we are ruined." "Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she. "Because, Georgiana,"
said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger." "Danger? There is but one danger—that this
horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it, remove it, whatever
be the cost, or we shall both go mad!" "Heaven knows your words are too true," said Aylmer,
sadly. "And now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested." He conducted
her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words
how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She
considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment.
Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love—so pure and lofty that it would accept
nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he
had dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind
which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to
holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she
prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer
than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever
ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant
before. The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal goblet containing a
liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale;
but it seemed rather the consequence of a highly-wrought state of mind and tension of spirit
than of fear or doubt. "The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to
Georgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail." "Save on your
account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I might wish to put off this birthmark of
mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad
possession to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I
stand. Were I weaker and blinder it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might be endured
hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die." "You are
fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband "But why do we speak of dying? The
draught cannot fail. Behold its effect upon this plant." On the window seat there stood a
geranium diseased with yellow blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a
small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the roots of the
plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living
verdure. "There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the goblet I joyfully stake
all upon your word." "Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid admiration.
"There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect."
She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. "It is grateful," said she with a placid
smile. "Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of
unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many
days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves
around the heart of a rose at sunset." She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it
required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering
syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by
her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man the whole value of whose
existence was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was
the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the minutest symptom
escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the
eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,—such were the details which, as the
moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon
every previous page of that volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the
last. While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not without a
shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse he pressed it with his lips. His spirit
recoiled, however, in the very act, and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved
uneasily and murmured as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it
without avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon the marble
paleness of Georgiana's cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale
than ever; but the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its former
distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of
the rainbow fading out the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. "By
Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. "I can
scarcely trace it now. Success! success! And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest
flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!" He drew aside the
window curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her
cheek. At the same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his
servant Aminadab's expression of delight. "Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in
a sort of frenzy, "you have served me well! Matter and spirit—earth and heaven —have both
done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right to laugh." These
exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror
which her husband had arranged for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she
recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with
such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought
Aylmer's face with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for. "My poor
Aylmer!" murmured she. "Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!" "My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more
than human tenderness, "you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with
so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest
Aylmer, I am dying!" Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life,
and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last
crimson tint of the birthmark—that sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the
parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a
moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was
heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the
immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness of
a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung
away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the
celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the
shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the
present.