" There is certainly one quality
linking the two nations together which has not yet been commented on, in
relation to Hawthorne; and this is the natural growth of the weird in
the popular mind, both here and in Scotland. It is not needful to enter
into this at all at length. In the chapter on Salem I have suggested
some of the immediate factors of the weird element in Hawthorne's
fiction; but it deserves remark that only Scott and Hawthorne, besides
George Sand, among modern novelists, have used the supernatural with
real skill and force; and Hawthorne has certainly infused it into his
work by a more subtle and sympathetic gift than even the magic-loving
Scotch romancer owned. After this digressive prelude, the reader will be
ready to hear me announce that "Fanshawe" was a faint reflection from
the young Salem recluse's mind of certain rays thrown across the
Atlantic from Abbotsford. But this needs qualification.
Hawthorne indeed admired Scott, when a youth; and after he had returned
from abroad, in 1860, he fulfilled a tender purpose, formed on a visit
to Abbotsford, of re-reading all the Waverley novels. Yet he had long
before arrived at a ripe, unprejudiced judgment concerning him. The
exact impression of his feeling appears in that delightfully humorous
whimsey, "P.'s Correspondence," which contains the essence of the best
criticism. [Footnote: See Mosses from an Old Manse, Vol. II.] In
allusion to Abbotsford, Scott, he says, "whether in verse, prose, or
architecture, could achieve but one thing, although that one in infinite
variety.
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