Forgetting for a moment the immense spiritual meaning of this noble quartet of romances, and regarding them as works of art in the straiter sense, they are felt to be practically blameless examples of the principle of adapting means to a desired end. As befits the nature of the themes, the movement in each case is slow, pregnant with significance, cumulative in effect, the tempo of each in exquisite accord with the particular motive: compared with "The Scarlet Letter," "The House of The Seven Gables" moves somewhat more quickly, a slight increase to suit the action: it is swiftest of all in "The Blithedale Romance," with its greater objectivity of action and interest, its more mundane air: while there is a cunning unevenness in the two parts of "The Marble Faun," as is right for a romance which first presents a tragic situation (as external climax) and then shows in retarded progress that inward drama of the soul more momentous than any outer scene or situation can possibly be. After Donatello's deed of death, because what follows is psychologically the most important part of the book, the speed slackens accordingly. Quiet, too, and unsensational as Hawthorne seems, he possessed a marked dramatic power. His denouements are overwhelming in grip and scenic value: the stage effect of the scaffold scene in "The Scarlet Letter," the murder scene in the "Marble Faun," the tragic close of Zenobia's career in "The Blithedale Romance," such scenes are never arbitrary and detached; they are tonal, led up to by all that goes before. The remark applies equally to that awful picture in "The House of The Seven Gables," where the Judge sits dead in his chair and the minutes are ticked off by a seemingly sentient clock. An element in this tonality is naturally Hawthorne's style: it is the best illustration American literature affords of excellence of pattern in contrast with the "purple patch" manner of writing so popular in modern diction.

Congruity, the subjection of the parts to the whole, and to the end in view—the doctrine of key—Hawthorne illustrates all this. If we do not mark passages and delectate over phrases, we receive an exquisite sense of harmony—and harmony is the last word of style. It is this power which helps to make him a great man-of-letters, as well as a master of romance. One can imagine him neither making haste to furnish "copy" nor pausing by the way for ornament's sake. He knew that the only proper decoration was an integral efflorescence of structure. He looked beyond to the fabric's design: a man decently poor in this world's gear, he was more concerned with good work than with gain. Of such are art's kingdom of heaven.

Are there flaws in the weaving? They are small indeed. His didacticism is more in evidence in the tales than in the romances, where the fuller body allows the writer to be more objective: still, judged by present-day standards, there are times when he is too obviously the preacher to please modern taste. In "The Great Stone Face," for instance, it were better, one feels, if the moral had been more veiled, more subtly implied. As to this, it is well to remember that criticism changes its canons with the years and that Hawthorne simply adapted himself (unconsciously, as a spokesman of his day) to contemporaneous standards. His audience was less averse from the principle that the artist should on no account usurp the pulpit's function. If the artist-preacher had a golden mouth, it was enough. This has perhaps always been the attitude of the mass of mankind.

A defect less easy to condone is this author's attempts at humor. They are for the most part lumbering and forced: you feel the effort. Hawthorne lacked the easy manipulation of this gift and his instinct served him aright when he avoided it, as most often he did. A few of the short stories are conceived in the vein of burlesque, and such it is a kindness not to name. They give pain to any who love and revere so mighty a spirit. In the occasional use of humor in the romances, too, he does not always escape just condemnation: as where Judge Pincheon is described taking a walk on a snowy morning down the village street, his visage wreathed in such spacious smiles that the snow on either side of his progress melts before the rays.

For some the style of Hawthorne may now be felt to possess a certain artificiality: the price paid for that effect of stateliness demanded by the theme and suggestive also of the fact that the words were written over half a century ago. In these days of photographic realism of word and idiom, our conception of what is fit in diction has suffered a sea-change. Our ear is adjusted to another tune. Admirable as have been the gains in broadening the native resources of speech by the introduction of old English elements, the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth can still teach us, and it is not beyond credence that the eventual modern ideal of speech may react to an equilibrium of mingled native and foreign-fetched words. In such an event a writer like Hawthorne will be confirmed in his mastery.

Remarkable, indeed, and latest in time has been the romantic reaction from the extremes of realistic presentation: it has given the United States, even as it has England, some sterling fiction. This we can see, though it is a phenomenon too recent to offer clear deductions as yet. What appears to be the main difference between it and the romantic inheritance from Scott and Hawthorne? One, if not the chief divergence, would seem to be the inevitable degeneration which comes from haste, mercantile pressure, imitation and lack of commanding authority. There is plenty of technique, comparatively little personality. Yet it may be unfair to the present to make the comparison, for the incompetents buzz in our ears, while time has mercifully stilled the bogus romances of G.P.R. James, et id omne genus.

But allowing for all distortion of time, a creative figure like that of Hawthorne still towers, serene and alone, above the little troublings of later days, and like his own Stone Face, reflects the sun and the storm, bespeaking the greater things of the human spirit.

THE END