Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Short Story, ‘The Ambitious Guest’

An avalanche hits a family in a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (Lysogor Roman/Shutterstock)

On Aug. 28, 1826, an avalanche in New Hampshire’s White Mountains killed the entire Willey family. This incident shook 19th-century America, and people everywhere tried to figure out how and why this disaster happened.

Prominent writer Nathaniel Hawthorne joined in the contemplation of the Willey Disaster. His short story, “The Ambitious Guest,” is based upon the tragedy, although details vary from the actual event. Hawthorne reflects on the family who welcome an ambitious young man into their cozy mountain home.

The family lives in a small cabin “in the Notch of the White Hills,  ... a cold spot and a dangerous one, for a mountain towers above their heads so steep that the stones will often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight.” Yet, despite the dangerous surroundings in which they live, the family is content. There in the mountain pass, they have found the “herb heart’s-ease.”

One cold evening in the mountain’s shadow, the family sit contentedly as on other evenings and gladly accept all the mountain’s bounty. On their hearth, they have “the driftwood of mountain-streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing down the precipice.”

An Ambitious Guest

As the family laughs and talks around the fire, the wind heralds a young man entering their cabin, trying to escape the cold weather. The family often welcomes travelers who come through the mountains so, hearing the young man come in, the family stand to greet him.

The young man walks in with a melancholy air, but quickly cheers up with the warmth of the fire and the family’s kind welcome. Though usually reserved, the young man opens up to the family. The young man reveals that he has a very ambitious nature: “The secret of the young man’s character is a high and abstracted ambition. He could have borne to live an undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave.”

The young man’s hopes and dreams soon affect everyone in the family. The father wishes for a safer home and a squireship. The children dream of drinking water from the Flume, a brook deep in the Notch. The daughter sighs with loneliness as she thinks of love. Even the grandmother wishes that she would look presentable in her coffin.

A family makes a fateful choice when an avalanche occurs. “The Avalanche,” 1886, by Gerolamo Induno. (Public Domain)

Hearing and seeing all the family’s aspirations, the young man says: “Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments.” As he finishes speaking, the family hears a loud, dreadful sound. The mountain is crumbling, and an avalanche is heading straight for them. What they do next seals their fate.

Misery Is Our Decision

When danger struck, the family was influenced by a young man full of illusions. In this story, Hawthorne acknowledges that, though dreaming for a better life is natural in humans, accepting what is given leads to a secure and lasting life.

Hawthorne’s story echoes Boethius’s words in “The Consolation of Philosophy”: “Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.” Contentment allows a new, grateful, and beautiful perspective, which sees the world as a place full of blessings and opportunities.

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