The most characteristic way, perhaps, in which this American nurture
acted was by contrast; for the universal matter-of-fact tone which he
found among his fellow-citizens was an incessant spur to him to maintain
a counteracting idealism. Thus, singularly enough, the most salient
feature of the new American product was its apparent denial of the
national trait of practical sagacity. It is not to be supposed that
Hawthorne adhered consciously to the aim of asserting the American
nature in fiction. These things can be done only half consciously, at
the most. Perhaps it is well that the mind on which so much depends
should not be burdened with all the added anxiety of knowing how much is
expected from it by the ages. Therefore, we owe the triumphant assertion
of the American quality in this novel genius to Hawthorne's quiet,
unfaltering, brave endurance of the weight that was laid upon him,
unassisted by the certainty with which we now perceive that a great end
was being served by it. But, although unaware of this end at the time,
he afterward saw some of the significance of his youth. Writing in 1840,
he speaks thus of his old room in Union Street:--
"This claims to be called a haunted chamber, for thousands upon
thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some few of them
have become visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he
ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs, because so
much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and _here my mind and
character were formed_; and here I have been glad and hopeful, and
here I have been despondent.
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