his
own little daughter, Marigold, a fancy of Hawthorne's own, was also
converted into the same shining metal. We learn, too, the secrets of
many a hero and god of this realm of fancy which had been unsuspected
by any other historian of their deeds. Every child who reads _The
Wonder Book_ doubts not that Hawthorne had hobnobbed many a moonlit
night with Pan and Bacchus in their vine-covered grottos by the
riverside. This dainty, ethereal touch appears in all his work for
children.

A like quality gives distinction to his fourth great novel, which
deals with a man supposed to be a descendant of the old fauns. This
creation, named Donatello, from his resemblance to the celebrated
statue of the Marble Faun, is not wholly human, although he has
human interests and feeling. Hawthorne makes Donatello ashamed of his
pointed ears, though his spirit is as wild and untamed as that of his
rude ancestors. In this book there is a description of a scene where
Count Donatello joins in a peasant dance around a public fountain. And
so vividly is his half-human nature here brought out that Hawthorne
seems to have witnessed somewhere the mad revels of the veritable
fauns and satyrs in the days of their life upon the earth. Throughout
this story Hawthorne shows the same subtle sympathy with uncommon
natures, the mystery of such souls having the same fascination for
him that the secrets of the earth and air have for the scientist and
philosopher.

The book coming between _The House of the Seven Gables_ and _The
Marble Faun_ is called _The Blithedale Romance_. It is in part the
record of a period of Hawthorne's life when he joined a community
which hoped to improve the world by combining healthy manual labor
with intellectual pursuits, and proving that self-interest and all
differences in rank must be hurtful to the commonwealth. This little
society lived in a suburb of Boston, and called their association
Brook Farm. Each member performed daily some manual labor on the
farm or in the house, hours being set aside for study. Here Hawthorne
ploughed the fields and joined in the amusements, or sat apart while
the rest talked about art and literature, danced, sang, or read
Shakespeare aloud. Some of the cleverest men and women of New England
joined this community, the rules of which obliged the men to
wear plaid blouses and rough straw hats, and the women to content
themselves with plain calico gowns.

These serious-minded men and women, w