The reputation of the author of "Twice-Told Tales" has been confined,
until very lately, to literary society; and I have not been wrong,
perhaps, in citing him as the example, par excellence, in this
country, of the privately admired and publicly-unappreciated man of
genius. Within the last year or two, it is true, an occasional critic
has been urged, by honest indignation, into very warm approval. Mr.
Webber,[4] for instance (than whom no one has a keener relish for that
kind of writing which Mr. Hawthorne has best illustrated), gave us, in
a late number of _The American Review_, a cordial and certainly a full
tribute to his talents; and since the issue of the "Mosses from an Old
Manse" criticisms of similar tone have been by no means infrequent in
our more authoritative journals. I can call to mind few reviews of
Hawthorne published before the "Mosses." One I remember in _Arcturus_
(edited by Matthews and Duyckinck[5]) for May, 1841; another in the
_American Monthly_ (edited by Hoffman[6] and Herbert) for March, 1838;
a third in the ninety-sixth number of _The North American Review_.
These criticisms, however, seemed to have little effect on the popular
taste--at least, if we are to form any idea of the popular taste by
reference to its expression in the newspapers, or by the sale of the
author's book. It was never the fashion (until lately) to speak of
him in any summary of our best authors....
[Footnote 3: From a review of Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales" and
"Mosses from an Old Manse," published in _Godey's Magazine_ in 1846.
Except for an earlier notice by Longfellow in _The North American
Review_, this was the first notable recognition Hawthorne's stories
received from a contemporary critic.]
[Footnote 4: Charles Wilkens Webber, magazine writer and author of a
dozen books now forgotten, was a native of Kentucky who settled in New
York. In 1855 he joined William Walker in his filibustering expedition
to Central America, and was killed in the battle of Rivas.]
[Footnote 5: Evert A. Duyckinck, joint editor with his brother of the
"Cyclopedia of American Literature."]
[Footnote 6: Charles Fenno Hoffman, poet, novelist, and critic, was
related to Mathilda Hoffman, the sweetheart of Washington Irving.]
Beyond doubt, this inappreciation of him on the part of the public
arose chiefly from the two causes to which I have referred--from the
facts that he is neither a man of wealth nor a quack; but these are
insufficient to account for the whole effect. No small portion of it
is attributable to the very marked idiosyncrasy of Mr. Hawthorne
himself. In one sense, and in great measure, to be peculiar is to be
original, and than the true originality there is no higher literary
virtue. This true or commendable originality, however, implies not the
uniform, but the continuous peculiarity--a peculiarity springing from
ever-active vigor of fancy--better still if from ever-present force of
imagination, giving its own hue, its own character to everything it
touches, and, especially, self-impelled to touch everything....
The pieces in the volumes entitled "Twice-Told Tales" are now in their
third republication, and, of course, are thrice-told. Moreover, they
are by no means all tales, either in the ordinary or in the legitimate
understanding of the term. Many of them are pure essays. Of the Essays
I must be content to speak in brief. They are each and all beautiful,
without being characterized by the polish and adaptation so visible in
the tales proper. A painter would at once note their leading or
predominant feature, and style it repose. There is no attempt at
effect. All is quiet, thoughtful, subdued. Yet this repose may exist
simultaneously with high originality of thought; and Mr. Hawthorne has
demonstrated the fact. At every turn we meet with novel combinations;
yet these combinations never surpass the limits of the quiet. We are
soothed as we read; and withal is a calm astonishment that ideas so
apparently obvious have never occurred or been presented to us before.
Herein our author differs materially from Lamb or Hunt or
Hazlitt--who, with vivid originality of manner and expression, have
less of the true novelty of thought than is generally supposed, and
whose originality, at best, has an uneasy and meretricious quaintness,
replete with startling effects unfounded in nature, and inducing
trains of reflection which lead to no satisfactory result. The essays
of Hawthorne have much of the character of Irving, with more of
originality, and less of finish; while, compared with the _Spectator_,
they have a vast superiority at all points. The Spectator, Mr. Irving
and Hawthorne have in common that tranquil and subdued manner which I
have chosen to denominate repose; but, in the ease of the two former,
this repose is attained rather by the absence of novel combination, or
of originality, than otherwise, and consists chiefly in the calm,
quiet, unostentatious expression of commonplace thoughts, in an
unambitious, unadulterated Saxon. In them, by strong effort, we are
made to conceive the absence of all. In the essays before me the
absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong
undercurrent of suggestion runs continuously beneath the upper stream
of the tranquil thesis. In short, these effusions of Mr. Hawthorne are
the product of a truly imaginative intellect, restrained, and in some
measure represt by fastidiousness of taste, by constitutional
melancholy, and by indolence.
But it is of his tales that I desire principally to speak. The tale
proper, in my opinion, affords unquestionably the fairest field for
the exercise of the loftiest talent which can be afforded by the wide
domains of mere prose. Were I bidden to say how the highest genius
could be most advantageously employed for the best display of its own
powers, I should answer, without hesitation--in the composition of a
rimed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour.
Within this limit alone can the highest order of true poetry exist. I
need only here say, upon this topic, that, in almost all classes of
composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the
greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity can not be
thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal can not be completed
at one sitting. We may continue the reading of a prose composition,
from the very nature of prose itself, much longer than we can
persevere, to any good purpose, in the perusal of a poem. This latter,
if truly fulfilling the demands of the poetic sentiment, induces an
exaltation of the soul which can not be long sustained. All high
excitements are necessarily transient. Thus a long poem is a paradox.
And, without unity of impression, the deepest effects can not be
brought about. Epics were the offspring of an imperfect sense of art,
and their reign is no more. A poem too brief may produce a vivid, but
never an intense or enduring impression. Without a certain continuity
of effort--without a certain duration or repetition of purpose--the
soul is never deeply moved. There must be the dropping of the water
upon the rock. De Beranger has wrought brilliant things--pungent and
spirit-stirring--but, like all impassive bodies, they lack momentum,
and thus fail to satisfy the poetic sentiment. They sparkle and
excite, but, from want of continuity, fail deeply to impress. Extreme
brevity will degenerate into epigrammatism; but the sin of extreme
length is even more unpardonable. _In medio tutissimus ibis._ Were I
called upon, however, to designate that class of composition which,
next to such a poem as I have suggested, should best fulfil the
demands of high genius--should offer it the most advantageous field of
exertion--I should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale, as Mr.
Hawthorne has here exemplified it. I allude to the short prose
narrative, requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its
perusal.
Of Mr. Hawthorne's "Tales" we would say, emphatically that they belong
to the highest region of art--an art subservient to genius of a very
lofty order.... We know of few compositions which the critic can more
honestly commend than these "Twice-Told Tales." As Americans, we feel
proud of the book.
Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination,
originality--a trait which, in the literature of fiction, is
positively worth all the rest. But the nature of the originality, so
far as regards its manifestation in letters, is but imperfectly
understood. The inventive or original mind as frequently displays
itself in novelty of tone as in novelty of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is
original in all points. It would be a matter of some difficulty to
designate the best of these tales; we repeat that, without exception,
they are beautiful.
He has the purest style, the finest taste, the most available
scholarship, the most delicate humor, the most touching pathos, the
most radiant imagination, the most consummate ingenuity; and with
these varied good qualities he has done well as a mystic. But is there
any one of these qualities which should prevent his doing doubly as
well in a career of honest, upright, sensible, prehensible and
comprehensible things? Let him mend his pen, get a bottle of visible
ink, come out from the "Old Manse," cut Mr. Alcott, hang (if possible)
the editor of The Dial, and throw out of the window to the pigs all
his odd numbers of _The North American Review_.