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comparison with him all other romancers of the century, whether German, French, English, or American, seem to be superficial. The defect of his method was that he penetrated to such a depth into the human heart, and recorded so mercilessly its realities and possibilities of sin and selfishness as they appeared to his piercing, passionless vision of the movements of passion, that he rather frightened than pleased the ordinary novel-reader.

The intensity of impassioned imagination which flames through every page of The Scarlet Letter was unrelieved by those milder accompaniments which should have been brought in to soften the effect of a tragedy so awful in itself. Little Pearl, one of the most exquisite creations of imaginative genius, is introduced not to console her parents, but in her wild, innocent wilfulness to symbolize their sin, and add new torments to the slow-consuming agonies of remorse.1

In The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun, Hawthorne deepened the impression made by his previous writings that he did not possess his genius, but was possessed by it. The most powerful of his creations of character were inspired not by his sympathies, but his antipathies. Personally he was the most gentle and genial and hu

1 In a note upon The Scarlet Letter George Parsons Lathrop writes: "The introductory chapter on the Custom House, upon which Hawthorne relied to alleviate the sombreness of the story, successfully accomplished that result; but, at the time of its publication, its good-natured and harmless humor roused great ire in some of the Salem people, who recognized the sketches it contained of now forgotten officials. One individual, of considerable intelligence otherwise, was known to have firmly abstained from reading anything the author afterwards wrote; a curious revenge, which would seem to be designed expressly to injure the censor himself, without hurting or even being known to Hawthorne."

mane of men. He detested many of the characters in whose delineation he exerted the full force of his intellect and imagination; but he was so mentally conscientious that he never exercised the right of the novelist to kill the personages who displeased him at his own will and pleasure. So intensely did he realize his characters that to run his pen through them, and thus blot them out of existence, would have seemed to him like the commission of wilful murder. He watched and noted the operation of spiritual laws on the malignant or feeble souls he portrayed, but never interfered personally to divert their fatal course. In thus emphasizing the tragic element in Hawthorne's genius, we may have too much overlooked his deep and delicate humor, his ingenuity of playful fancy, his felicity in making a landscape visible to the soul as well as the eye by his charming power of description, and the throng of thoughts which accompany every step in the progress of his narrative. Not the least remarkable characteristic of this remarkable man was the prevailing simplicity, clearness, sweetness, purity, and vigor of his style.

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IT is a little remarkable, that though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends - an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favored the reader inexcusably, and for no earthly reason, that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine-with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And nowbecause, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion - I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience in a Custom House. The example of the famous "P. P., Clerk of this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him, better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such

confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed, only and exclusively, to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or his own.

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It will be seen likewise, that this Custom House sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recognized in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. This, in fact, a desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume, this, and no other is my true reason for assuming a personal relation with the public. In accomplishing the main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life not heretofore described, together with some of the characters that move in it, among whom the author happened to make one.

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In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf, but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood, — at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass, here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbor, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military post of Uncle Sam's government is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half a dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens, careful of their safety, against intruding on the

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