They drift to their doom by the same law by which they drifted across
the path of his vision. Individually, he abhors Hollingsworth, and
would like to annihilate Westervelt, yet he allows the superb Zenobia
to be their victim; and if his readers object that the effect of the
whole representation is painful, he would doubtless agree with them,
but profess his incapacity honestly to alter a sentence. He professes
to tell the story as it was revealed to him; and the license in which a
romancer might indulge is denied to a biographer of spirits. Show him a
fallacy in his logic of passion and character, point out a false or
defective step in his analysis, and he will gladly alter the whole to
your satisfaction; but four human souls, such as he has described,
being given, their mutual attractions and repulsions will end, he feels
assured, in just such a catastrophe as he has stated.
Eight years have passed since "The Blithedale Romance" was written, and
during nearly the whole of this period Hawthorne has resided abroad.
"The Marble Faun," which must, on the whole, be considered the greatest
of his works, proves that his genius has widened and deepened in this
interval, without any alteration or modification of its characteristic
merits and characteristic defects.
Pages:
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319