.. throttling the life out of them, ... and
one feels that they have _stolen the life_ that belonged to the
pines." This does not seem to have been used; but the necessity of some
life being stolen in order to add to any other life more than its share,
is an idea that very clearly appears in the romance. In "Dolliver" the
same strain of feeling would probably have reappeared; but it would
there perhaps have been beautified, softened, expiated by the mutual
love of Pansie and the grandsire; each wishing to live forever, for the
other. Even in "Septimius" we can discern Hawthorne standing upon the
wayside hill-top, and, through the turbid medium of the unhappy hero,
tenderly diffusing the essence of his own concluding thoughts on art and
existence. Like Mozart, writing what he felt to be a requiem for his own
death, like Mozart, too, throwing down the pen in midmost of the melody,
leaving the strain unfinished, he labors on, prescient of the
overhanging doom. Genial and tender at times, amidst their sadness, his
reveries are nevertheless darkened by the shadow of coming death; and it
is not until the opening of "The Dolliver Romance" that the darkness
breaks away. Then, indeed, we feel once more the dewy freshness of the
long-past prime, with a radiance unearthly fair, besides, of some new,
undreamed-of morning. He who has gone down into the dark valley appears
for a brief space with the light of the heavenly city on his
countenance. Ah, prophet, who spoke but now so sadly, what is this new
message that we see brightening on your lips? Will it solve the riddle
of sin and beauty, at last? We listen intently; we seem to lean out a
little way from earth.
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