And what remains? A weary and aimless life; a
long repentance of this hour; and at last an obscure grave, where they
will bury and forget me!'" There is also an allusion to the tales
founded on witchcraft: "I could believe, if I chose," says Oberon, "that
there is a devil in this pile of blotted papers. You have read them, and
know what I mean,--that conception in which I endeavored to embody the
character of a fiend, as represented in our traditions and the written
records of witchcraft. O, I have a horror of what was created in my own
brain, and shudder at the manuscripts in which I gave that dark idea a
sort of material existence!' You remember how the hellish thing used to
suck away the happiness of those who ... subjected themselves to his
power." This is curious, as showing the point from which Hawthorne had
resolved to treat the theme. He had instinctively perceived that the
only way to make the witchcraft delusion available in fiction was to
accept the witch as a fact, an actual being, and expend his art upon
developing the abnormal character; while other writers, who have
attempted to use the subject for romantic ends, have uniformly taken the
historical view, and sought to extract their pathos from the effect of
the delusion on innocent persons. The historical view is that of
intelligent criticism; but Hawthorne's effort was the harbinger and
token of an original imagination.
After the publication of "Fanshawe" and the destruction of his "Seven
Tales," Hawthorne found himself advanced not so much as by a single
footstep on the road to fame.
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