a newspaper. Every female
born under the stars and stripes comes into the world prepared to write
a novel. No study, no preparation whatever is needed. When the Irishman
was asked if he could play upon the French horn, he responded, "Shure,
it looks aisy;" and a love story looks so easy that every little girl is
ready to produce one.

Of the pile before us we of course seize first on that under the name of
Julian Hawthorne. The admiration felt by all for the father, to say
nothing of the love that yet lingers in memory for the man, makes the
name of Hawthorne sacred. It brings to mind the noble, handsome,
Caesarian head of the master, that was made winning by the shy, gentle,
and affectionate manner--so little understood by the many, so
fascinating to the few. Then lived our greatest genius in the world of
fiction. When one realizes the nature of the material upon which he had
to work, the cold, barren soil of New England, the hard, unsympathetic
characters, with no background of romance on which to build, the mighty
power of the magician looms up before us. The touch of his pen wrought
such strange wonders that the very hardness of the groundwork seemed to
play into his hand, and from the _Twice-Told Tales_ to that grandest of
all tragedies in the English language, _The Scarlet Letter_, one is held
spellbound.

Well, it is not belittling Julian to say that it is a misfortune that he
should be the son of his father. We read his charming stories by the
light of a past that can never again be renewed, and all the time the
memory of the mighty master dwarfs the work of the son. In this way I
read aloud to my dear invalid _A Dream and a Forgetting_. Had there been
any other name upon the title-page than Hawthorne, we should have been
charmed with the book that Belford, Clarke & Co. have gotten up so
beautifully. As it was, we could not help looking for the sunlight
through rifts that, alas! can never come again. It is singular to note,
however, the Hawthornish traits that yet linger in the son. The same
boldness that made the elder Hawthorne accept and use without hesitation
the most unpromising characters, and make them not only acceptable but
attractive, belongs to the younger. It is this which drives him not only
to depict Fairfax Boardwine, but to make his hero such a weak, selfish
creature. After all, he is only a foil to Mary Gault, and the true work
in the artist lies in the clear yet delicate prominence he gives to