It is a brilliant
instance of the more ideal mind asserting its commanding power, by
admirable achievements in the inferior styles,--so that even in those he
was at once ranked with the most famous practiser of them,--and then
quietly reaching out and grasping a higher order of truths, which no one
had even thought of competing for. I suppose it is not assumed for a
moment that "Wolfert's Roost," the "Tales of a Traveller," the story of
"Rip Van Winkle," the "Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and the picturesque but
evanescent tales of "The Alhambra" can be brought into discussion on the
same terms with Hawthorne's romances, as works of art; and they
assuredly cannot be as studies of character, for of this they have next
to nothing. The only phases of character which Irving has any success in
dealing with are those of credulity and prejudice. The legendary
tendency of the two men has perhaps confused some readers. Both were
lovers of association, and turned naturally to the past for materials:
the New-Yorker found delightful sources of tradition or of ludicrous
invention in the past of that city, where his family held a
long-established and estimable footing; and the New-Englander, as we
have seen, drew also through the channel of descent from the dark tarn
of Puritan experience. But Irving turned his back upon everything else
when he entered the tapestried chamber of the past, while Hawthorne
sought that vantage-ground only to secure a more impressive view of
humanity.
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