From this I infer that the former was written after the return to this
country. "The Marble Faun" appropriated the author's attention, after
the sketch of 1858; and in this, which was probably written just before
the commencement of the war, he had not yet clearly struck the key-note
of the story. When he recurred to it, in the autumn of 1861, on
beginning to "blot successive sheets as of yore," it was at last with
the definite design of uniting the legend of the deathless man with the
legend of Smithell's Hall. It is as if, having left England, he could no
longer write an English romance, but must give the book mainly an
American coloring again. There is a pathetic interest, too, in his thus
wavering between the two countries, which now so nearly equally divided
his affections, and striving to unite the Wayside with the far-off
English manor. Under the new design, everything began to fall into
place. The deathless man was made the hero; the English inheritance
became an inferior motive-power, on which, however, the romantic action
depends; the family papers and the silver key came well to hand for the
elucidation of the plot; the bloody footstep gained a new and deep
significance; and a "purple everlasting flower," presented in 1854 to
Mrs. Hawthorne by the gardener of Eaton Hall, blossomed out, with
supernatural splendor, as a central point in the design. The scene being
in Concord, and the time of writing that of war, the Revolutionary
association was natural.
Pages:
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322