secret of whose magic was never communicated, and which,
precious in itself, is invaluable because the last, was published in the
summer of 1862--less than two years before its author's death. Its
title, "Chiefly about War Matters," suggests its character. It was, in
fact, a series of pictures of scenes in and about Washington at this
stage of the great contest.

The present writer attempts nothing here like a review of this
remarkable essay, entirely worthy as it was of its subject and its
author's genius; it is simply my purpose to call the reader's attention
to a production, which, more than anything else in Hawthorne's writings,
has kindled the hostile criticism of shallow and uncongenial minds.

So quaintly characteristic is its commencement that I am tempted to give
its opening paragraphs in full:--

"There is no remoteness of life and thought, no hermetically
scaled seclusion, except, possibly, that of the grave, into
which the disturbing influences of this war do not penetrate.
Of course, the general heart-quake of the country long ago
knocked at my cottage-door, and compelled me, reluctantly, to
suspend the contemplation of certain fantasies to which,
according to my harmless custom, I was endeavoring to give a
sufficiently lifelike aspect to admit of their figuring in a
romance. As I make no pretensions to statecraft or
soldiership, and could promote the common weal neither by valor
nor counsel, it seemed at first a pity that I should be
debarred from such unsubstantial business as I had contrived
for myself, since nothing more genuine was to be substituted
for it.

"But I magnanimously considered that there is a kind of treason
in inoculating one's self from the universal fear and sorrow,
and thinking one's idle thoughts in the dread time of civil
war; and could a man be so cold and hard-hearted, he would
better deserve to be sent to Fort Warren than many who have
found their way thither on the score of violent but misdirected
sympathies.

"I remember the touching rebuke administered by King Charles to
that rural squire, the echo of whose hunting-horn came to the
poor monarch's ear on the morning before a battle, where the
sovereignty and constitution of England were at stake. So I
gave myself up to reading newspapers, and listening to the
click of the telegraph, like