It is
here that, while resembling Bunyan, he is so unlike him. But more
commonly we find in Hawthorne the two moods, the ethical and the
aesthetic, exerted in full force simultaneously; and the result seems to
be a perfection of unity. The opposing forces, like centripetal and
centrifugal attractions, produce a finished sphere. And in this, again,
though recalling Milton, he differs from him also. In Milton's epic the
tendency is to alternate these moods; and one works against the other.
In short, the two elder writers undergo a good deal of refinement and
proportioning, before mixing their qualities in Hawthorne's veins.
However great a controversialist Milton may be held, too, the very fact
of his engaging in the particular discussions and in the manner he
chose, while never to be deplored, may have something to do with the
want of fusion of the different qualities present in his poetry. We may
say, and doubtless it is so, that Hawthorne could never have written
such magnificent pamphlets as the "Eikonoklastes," the "Apology," the
"Tetrachordon": I grant that his refinement, though bringing him
something which Milton did not have, has cost him something else which
Milton possessed. But, for all that, the more deep-lying and inclusive
truths which he constantly entertained, and which barred him from the
temporary exertion of controversy, formed the sources of his completer
harmony. There is a kind of analogy, too, between the omnipresence of
Milton in his work, and that of Hawthorne in his.
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