The Intelligence Office

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

28 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. He is seen as a key figure in the development of American literature for his tales of the nation's colonial history.

Shortly after graduating from Bowdoin College, Hathorne changed his name to Hawthorne. Hawthorne anonymously published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. In 1837, he published Twice-Told Tales and became engaged to painter and illustrator Sophia Peabody the next year. He worked at a Custom House and joined a Transcendentalist Utopian community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment took Hawthorne and family to Europe before returning to The Wayside in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children.

Much of Hawthorne's writing centers around New England and many feature moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His work is considered part of the Romantic movement and includes novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend, the United States President Franklin Pierce.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, XIV (March, 1844), “The Intelligence Office” is one of Hawthorne’s more successful short allegories, particularly noteworthy for the fact that it is here Ralph Waldo Emerson, though disguised, makes an appearance.

Hawthorne and Emerson, although never close friends, knew and liked each other. They lived in the same town (Concord, Massachusetts) for three years; Hawthorne’s wife Sophia was a Transcendentalist and an admirer of Emerson, and the thirty-four-year-old Emerson, some ten years before the Hawthornes moved to Concord, composed Nature, the foundational work of Transcendental movement, in the same house--”The Old Manse”—where the Hawthorne’s would later live. Nevertheless, the great men’s work had little in common; Hawthorne dwelt in shadow, Emerson
lived in the light.

In “The Intelligence Office,” Hawthorne creates a small host of shadows, each seeking something from the “grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a pen behind his ear.” The office itself seems to be a cross between a help-wanted/ lost-and-found and a service which gives information and advice (“intelligence”) to people who have lost their way. The “grave figure” is approached by many people: a workingman looking for a tenement, a young gentleman for a boarding house, a woman for her vanished beauty, an author for his once stellar reputation. There is the an eager soul who wishes to find “my place in the world,” a young man and young woman who wish to give their hearts away to someone else (the author hints they find each other, not necessarily happily), a mournful man who has lost “the Pearl of Great Price,” an unscrupulous old business man who is willing to give a great estate to someone who will assume his moral burden, a (literal) old devil looking for a new master . . . and many more.

Then comes someone who looks something like Emerson:

His face was full of sturdy vigor, with some finer and keener attribute beneath; though harsh at first, it was tempered with the glow of a large, warm heart, which had force enough to heat his powerful intellect through and through. He advanced to the Intelligencer, and looked at him with a glance of such stern sincerity, that perhaps few secrets were beyond its scope.

"I seek for Truth," said he.

"It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has ever come under my cognizance," replied the Intelligencer, as he made the new inscription in his volume. "Most men seek to impose some cunning falsehood upon themselves for truth. But I can lend no help to your researches. You must achieve the miracle for yourself. . . .

[The enquirer] paused, and fixed his eyes upon the Intelligencer, with a depth of investigation that seemed to hold commerce with the inner nature of this being, wholly regardless of his external development.

"And what are you?" said he. "It will not satisfy me to point to this fantastic show of an Intelligence Office, and this mockery of business. Tell me what is beneath it, and what your real agency in life, and your influence upon mankind?"

"Yours is a mind," answered the Man of Intelligence, "before which the forms and fantasies that conceal the inner idea from the multitude, vanish at once, and leave the naked reality beneath. Know, then, the secret. My agency in worldly action--my connection with the press, and tumult, and intermingling, and development of human affairs--is merely delusive. The desire of man's heart does for him whatever I seem to do. I am no minister of action, but the Recording Spirit!"

[Vaishali · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if the deepest, desirous secret of every human being was filed at a tiny downtown office ? Meet the guy who works there.

What introspection ! Mr. Hawthorne, you are hands-down the best <3

"The great folio, in which the Man of Intelligence recorded all these freaks of idle hearts, and aspirations of deep hearts, and desperate longings of miserable hearts, and evil prayers of perverted hearts, would be curious reading were it possible to obtain it for publication."




.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5.

Hawthorne the observer of human life, here with one of his many note books in full use...

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mechanisms of capital are held within the desires and wishes of the people, unobtainable and gate-kept. Seek the truth..

[Sean Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hawthorne Hawks #68
Average yarn from Hawthorne not as engaging as some of his other yarns, still a reasonable tale, just not one that I enjoyed as much.