Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Intelligence Office (Illustrated) Nathaniel Hawthorne

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, Emersonlived 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...