The opinion was sometimes
advanced by him that without a certain mixture of uncongenial labor he
might not have done so much with the pen; but in this he perhaps
underestimated the leisure in his blood, which was one of the elements
of his power. Men of smaller calibre are hollowed out by the fire of
ideas, and decay too quickly; but this trait preserved him from such a
fate. Combined with his far-reaching foresight, it may have had
something to do with his comparative withdrawal from practical affairs
other than those which necessity connected him with. Of Holgrave he
writes:--
"His error lay in supposing that this age more than any past or future
one is destined to see the garments of antiquity exchanged for a new
suit, instead of gradually renewing themselves by patchwork; ... and
more than all, in fancying that it mattered anything to the great end in
view whether he himself should contend for it or against it."
The implied opinion of the author, here, is not that of a fatalist, but
of an optimist (if we must connect him with any "ism") who has a very
profound faith in Providence; not in any "special providence," but in
that operation of divine laws through unexpected agencies and
conflicting events, which is very gradually approximating human affairs
to a state of truthfulness. Hawthorne was one of the great believers of
his generation; but his faith expressed itself in the negative way of
showing how fragile are the ordinary objects of reverence in the world,
how subject the best of us are to the undermining influence of very
great sin; and, on the other hand, how many traits of good there are, by
consequence, even in the worst of us.
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