kind of false beauty obtained by artistic
monotony. However, we cannot but feel that he would weave his spell
over us--as would the Grimms and Aesop. We feel as much under magic as
the "Enchanted Frog." This is part of the artist's business. The effect
is a part of his art-effort in its inception. Emerson's substance and
even his manner has little to do with a designed effect--his
thunderbolts or delicate fragments are flashed out regardless--they may
knock us down or just spatter us--it matters little to him--but
Hawthorne is more considerate; that is, he is more artistic, as men say.

Hawthorne may be more noticeably indigenous or may have more local
color, perhaps more national color than his Concord contemporaries. But
the work of anyone who is somewhat more interested in psychology than
in transcendental philosophy, will weave itself around individuals and
their personalities. If the same anyone happens to live in Salem, his
work is likely to be colored by the Salem wharves and Salem witches. If
the same anyone happens to live in the "Old Manse" near the Concord
Battle Bridge, he is likely "of a rainy day to betake himself to the
huge garret," the secrets of which he wonders at, "but is too reverent
of their dust and cobwebs to disturb." He is likely to "bow below the
shriveled canvas of an old (Puritan) clergyman in wig and gown--the
parish priest of a century ago--a friend of Whitefield." He is likely
to come under the spell of this reverend Ghost who haunts the "Manse"
and as it rains and darkens and the sky glooms through the dusty attic
windows, he is likely "to muse deeply and wonderingly upon the
humiliating fact that the works of man's intellect decay like those of
his hands" ... "that thought grows moldy," and as the garret is in
Massachusetts, the "thought" and the "mold" are likely to be quite
native. When the same anyone puts his poetry into novels rather than
essays, he is likely to have more to say about the life around
him--about the inherited mystery of the town--than a poet of philosophy
is.

In Hawthorne's usual vicinity, the atmosphere was charged with the
somber errors and romance of eighteenth century New England,--ascetic
or noble New England as you like. A novel, of necessity, nails an
art-effort down to some definite part or parts of the earth's
surface--the novelist's wagon can't always be hitched to a star. To say
that Hawthorne was more deeply interested than some of the other
Concord w