His brain has been subtly
infected by the Puritanic perception of Law, without being warmed by
the Puritanic faith in Grace. Individually, he would much prefer to
have been one of his own "Seven Vagabonds" rather than one of the
austerest preachers of the primitive church of New England; but the
austerest preacher of the primitive church of New England would have
been more tender and considerate to a real Mr. Dimmesdale and a real
Hester Prynne than this modern romancer has been to their typical
representatives in the world of imagination. Throughout "The Scarlet
Letter" we seem to be following the guidance of an author who is
personally good-natured, but intellectually and morally relentless.
"The House of the Seven Gables," Hawthorne's next work, while it has
less concentration of passion and tension of mind than "The Scarlet
Letter," includes a wider range of observation, reflection, and
character; and the morality, dreadful as fate, which hung like a black
cloud over the personages of the previous story, is exhibited in more
relief. Although the book has no imaginative creation equal to little
Pearl, it still contains numerous examples of characterization at once
delicate and deep. Clifford, especially, is a study in psychology, as
well as a marvellously subtile delineation of enfeebled manhood.
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