" There is, besides, a larger range
of character, in this second work, and a much more nicely detailed and
reticulated portrayal of the individuals. Hepzibah is a painting on
ivory, yet with all the warmth of a real being. Very noticeable is the
delicate veneration and tenderness for her with which the author seems
to inspire us, notwithstanding the fact that he has almost nothing
definite to say of her except what tends to throw a light ridicule. She
is continually contrasted with the exquisite freshness, ready grace, and
beauty of Phoebe, and subjected to unfavorable comparisons in the mind
of Clifford, whose half-obliterated but still exact aesthetic perception
casts silent reproach upon her. Yet, in spite of this, she becomes in a
measure endeared to us. In the grace, and agreeableness too, with which
Hawthorne manages to surround this ungifted spinster, we find a unit of
measure for the beauty with which he has invested the more frightful and
tragic elements of the story. It is this triumph of beauty without
destroying the unbeautiful, that gives the romance its peculiar artistic
virtue. Judge Pyncheon is an almost unqualified discomfort to the
reader, yet he is entirely held within bounds by the prevailing charm of
the author's style, and by the ingenious manner in which the pleasanter
elements of the other characters are applied. At times the strong
emphasis given to his evil nature makes one suspect that the villain is
too deeply dyed; but the question of equity here involved is one of the
most intricate with which novelists have to deal at all.
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