An honest report upon
personal contact always has a value denied to the reviews of after-
comers, yet the best criticism and biography is not always that of
contemporaries.
Our first studies will have a biographical scope, because a certain
grouping of facts is essential, to give point to the view which I am
endeavoring to present; and as Hawthorne's early life has hitherto been
but little explored, much of the material used in the earlier chapters
is now for the first time made public. The latter portion of the career
may be treated more sketchily, being already better known; though
passages will be found throughout the essay which have been developed
with some fulness, in order to maintain a correct atmosphere,
compensating any errors which mere opinions might lead to. Special
emphasis, then, must not be held to show neglect of points which my
space and scope prevent my commenting on. But the first outline
requiring our attention involves a distant retrospect.
The history of Hawthorne's genius is in some sense a summary of all New
England history.
From amid a simple, practical, energetic community, remarkable for its
activity in affairs of state and religion, but by no means given to
dreaming, this fair flower of American genius rose up unexpectedly
enough, breaking the cold New England sod for the emission of a light
and fragrance as pure and pensive as that of the arbutus in our woods,
in spring. The flower, however, sprang from seed that rooted in the old
colonial life of the sternly imaginative pilgrims and Puritans.
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