The verbal style has few
marks of the maturer mould afterward impressed on it, except that there
is the preference always noticeable in Hawthorne for Latin wording. Two
or three phrases, however, show all the limpidness and ease for which he
gained fame subsequently. For instance, when Fanshawe is first surprised
by his love for Ellen, he returns to his room to study: "The books were
around him which had hitherto been to him like those fabled volumes of
magic, from which the reader could not turn away his eye, till death
were the consequence of his studies." This, too, is a pretty description
of Ellen: "Terror had at first blanched her as white as a lily.... Shame
next bore sway; and her blushing countenance, covered by her slender
white fingers, might fantastically be compared to a variegated rose,
with its alternate stripes of white and red." Its restraint is perhaps
the most remarkable trait of the novel; for though this comes of
timidity, it shows that Hawthorne, whether this be to his advantage or
not, was not of the order of young genius which begins with tumid and
excessive exhibition of power. His early acquaintance with books,
breeding a respect for literary form, his shy, considerate modes of
dealing with any intellectual problem or question requiring judgment,
and the formal taste of the period in letters, probably conspired to
this end.
IV.
TWILIGHT OF THE TWICE-TOLD TALES.
1828-1838.
We have now reached the point where the concealed foundations of
Hawthorne's life terminate, and the final structure begins to appear
above the surface, like the topmost portion of a coral island slowly
rising from the depths of a solitary ocean.
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