With less erudition than Goethe, but also less of the
freezing pride of art, he is infinitely more humane, sympathetic, holy.
His creations are statuesquely moulded like Goethe's, but they have the
same quick music of heart-throbs that Shakespere's have. Hawthorne is at
the same moment ancient and modern, plastic and picturesque. Another
generation will see more of him than we do; different interpreters will
reveal other sides. As a powerful blow suddenly descending may leave the
surface it touches unmarked, and stamp its impress on the substance
beneath, so his presence will more distinctly appear among those farther
removed from him than we. A single mind may concentrate your vision upon
him in a particular way; but the covers of any book must perforce shut
out something of the whole, as the trees in a vista narrow the
landscape.
Look well at these leaves I lay before you; but having read them throw
the volume away, and contemplate the man himself.
APPENDIX I.
In May, 1870, an article was published in the "Portland Transcript,"
giving some of the facts connected with Hawthorne's sojourn in Maine, as
a boy. This called out a letter from Alexandria, Va., signed "W. S.,"
and purporting to come from a person who had lived at Raymond, in
boyhood, and had been a companion of Hawthorne's. He gave some little
reminiscences of that time, recalling the fact that Hawthorne had read
him some poetry founded on the Tarbox disaster, already
mentioned.
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