" He
believes that this reader did once exist for him, and duly received the
scrolls he flung "upon whatever wind was blowing, in the faith that
they would find him out." "But," he questions, "is he extant now? In
these many years since he last heard from me, may he not have deemed
his earthly task accomplished, and have withdrawn to the paradise of
gentle readers, wherever it may be, to the enjoyments of which his
kindly charity on my behalf must surely have entitled him?" As we feel
assured that Hawthorne's reputation has been steadily growing with the
lapse of time, he has no cause to fear that the longevity of his gentle
reader will not equal his own. As long as he writes, there will be
readers enough to admire and appreciate.
The publication of this new romance seems to offer us a fitting
occasion to attempt some description of the peculiarities of the genius
of which it is the latest offspring, and to hazard some judgments on
its predecessors. It is more than twenty-five years since Hawthorne
began that remarkable series of stories and essays which are now
collected in the volumes of "Twice-Told Tales," "The Snow Image and
other Tales," and "Mosses from an Old Manse." From the first he was
recognized by such readers as he chanced to find as a man of genius,
yet for a long time he enjoyed, in his own words, the distinction of
being "the obscurest man of letters in America.
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