s no serious attempt to hide the identity of Roger
Chillingworth or the guilt of the minister. The only surprise in The
House of the Seven Gables consists in the revelation of the fact that
Maule reappears after several generations in the person of his modern
descendant. The structure of The Blithedale Romance appears more
complicated; but that is mainly because, in a masterly manner, the
author keeps the structural lines out of sight and concentrates
attention upon the interplay of character. The scaffolding upon which
are hung the splendid draperies of The Marble Faun is, again, of the
simplest formation, though the nature of the materials is unfamiliar.

This is a digression; the present volume, as I have already stated,
is not designed to include--except incidentally-anything in the way of
literary criticism.

Blithedale having been finished and published, the question of where to
settle down permanently once more came up for an answer. Of course, our
sojourn at Mr. Mann's house had been a temporary expedient only; and for
that matter, the Manns, following the example of most Americans before
and since, had rented the place merely as a stepping-stone to something
else. My father's eyes again turned with longing towards the sea-shore;
but the fitting nook for him there still failed to offer itself. People
are naturally disposed to return to places in which they have formerly
lived, and Concord could not but suggest itself to one who had passed
some of the happiest years of his life among its serene pastures and
piney forests. This suggestion, moreover, was supplemented by the
urgent invitations of his old friends there, and Mr. Emerson, who was a
practical man as well as a philosopher, substantiated his arguments by
throwing into the scale a concrete dwelling. It was an edifice which
not even the most imaginative and optimistic of house-agents would have
found it easy to picture as a sumptuous country-seat; it was just four
wooden walls and a roof, and they had been standing for a hundred years
at least. The occupants of this house had seen the British march past
from Boston on the 19th of April, 1775, and a few hours later they had
seen them return along the same dusty highway at a greatly accelerated
pace and under annoying circumstances. There was a legend that a man had
once lived there who had announced that death was not an indispensable
detail of life, and that he for his part intended never to die; but
after