But
there is even a subtler cause at work toward this end. The touches of
assumed repugnance toward his Puritan forefathers, which appear here and
there in his writings, are not only related to his ingrained shyness,
which would be cautious of betraying his deeper and truer sentiment
about them, but are the ensigns of a proper modesty in discoursing of
his own race, his own family, as it were. He shields an actual
veneration and a sort of personal attachment for those brave earlier
generations under a harmless pretence that he does not think at all too
tenderly of them. It is a device frequently and freely practised, and so
characteristically American, and especially Hawthornesque, that it
should not have been overlooked for even a moment. By these means, too,
he takes the attitude of admitting the ancestral errors, and throws
himself into an understanding with those who look at New England and the
Puritans merely from the outside. Here is a profound resort of art, to
prepare a better reception for what he is about to present, by not
seeming to insist on an open recognition from his readers of the
reigning dignity and the noble qualities in the Puritan colony, which he
himself, nevertheless, is always quietly conscious of. And in this way
he really secures a broader truth, while reserving the pride of locality
and race intact; a broader truth, because to the world at large the most
pronounced feature of the Puritans is their austerity.
But if other reason were wanted to account for his dwelling on the
shadows and severities of the Puritans so intently, it might be found in
his family history and its aspects to his brooding mind.
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