Fall into Human Light: Hawthorne’s Vision of Love

Abstract

As Hawthorne articulates his love for Sophia Peabody, whom he called variously his Dove and his Sophie, he adopts the conventional division of maiden from temptress, but he does so to subvert such division, reminding us that human nature — and human love — is a wonderful commixture of opposites. Hawthorne delights in holding her ‘divided’ character in an exquisitely unified love:

There is an unaccountable fascination about that Sophie Hawthorne — whatever she chooses to do or say, whether reasonable or unreasonable, I am forced to love her the better for it. Not that I love her better than my Dove; but then it is right and natural that the Dove should awaken infinite tenderness, because she is a bird of Paradise, and has a perfect and angelic nature — so that love is her inalienable right. And yet my wayward heart will love this naughty Sophie Hawthorne; — yes, its affection for the Dove is doubled, because she is inseparably united with naughty Sophie. I have one love for them both, and it is infinitely intensified, because they share it together.¹

‘Love is the true magnetism’

Hawthorne to Sophia, 1841