This early tale of Hawthorne's (first published in
The Token, 1832) was deemed by Longfellow “the finest thing he ever wrote.” I do not share Longfellow's opinion, for this long short story is too diffuse and sentimental to rank with Hawthorne's best. Nonetheless, the tale has undeniable power. There are ironies here to balance the sentimentality, and the story embodies classic Hawthornean themes.
It is set in 1656, during Puritan persecution of the Quakers. Tobias, a kindly Puritan who finds the orphan Quaker Ibrahim mourning over the grave of his executed father, takes the boy home, and he and his wife Dorothy raise the boy as their own. But the other Puritans—and their children—are not kind to young Ibrahim; his life is difficult, and his naturally joyous temper tour so eventually to melancholy.
Hawthorne refuses to take sides between the Quakers and the Puritans. The Quakers—at least the 17th century variety—are unbalanced in their enthusiasm, occasionally (as in the case of Ibrahim's mother Catharine) close to madness. The Puritans, on the other hand, let cold intellect not only to demarcate the limits of correct religious doctrine, but allow it also to circumscribe the limits of their compassion. Both would benefit by a union of the head with the heart.
This is an affecting, inspiring tale, filled with sadness yet touched by optimism, for we see how the Puritan culture in general—and Tobias and Dorothy in particular—subtly grow in tolerance and warmth as a result of what they have done and seen.
