hings (it is better to speak of the whole
collection, including the _Snow Image_, and the _Mosses from an Old
Manse_ at once) there are three sorts of tales, each one of which has
an original stamp. There are, to begin with, the stories of fantasy
and allegory--those among which the three I have just mentioned would
be numbered, and which on the whole, are the most original. This is
the group to which such little masterpieces as _Malvin's Burial_,
_Rappacini's Daughter_, and _Young Goodman Brown_ also belong--these
two last perhaps representing the highest point that Hawthorne reached
in this direction. Then there are the little tales of New England
history, which are scarcely less admirable, and of which _The Grey
Champion_, _The Maypole of Merry Mount_, and the four beautiful
_Legends of the Province House_, as they are called, are the most
successful specimens. Lastly come the slender sketches of actual
scenes and of the objects and manners about him, by means of which,
more particularly, he endeavoured "to open an intercourse with the
world," and which, in spite of their slenderness, have an infinite
grace and charm. Among these things _A Rill from the Town Pump_, _The
Village Uncle_, _The Toll-Gatherer's Day_, the _Chippings with a
Chisel_, may most naturally be mentioned. As we turn over these
volumes we feel that the pieces that spring most directly from his
fancy, constitute, as I have said (putting his four novels aside), his
most substantial claim to our attention. It would be a mistake to
insist too much upon them; Hawthorne was himself the first to
recognise that. "These fitful sketches," he says in the preface to the
_Mosses from an Old Manse_, "with so little of external life about
them, yet claiming no profundity of purpose--so reserved even while
they sometimes seem so frank--often but half in earnest, and never,
even when most so, expressing satisfactorily the thoughts which they
profess to image--such trifles, I truly feel, afford no solid basis
for a literary reputation." This is very becomingly uttered; but it
may be said, partly in answer to it, and partly in confirmation, that
the valuable element in these things was not what Hawthorne put into
them consciously, but what passed into them without his being able to
measure it--the element of simple genius, the quality of imagination.
This is the real charm of Hawthorne's writing--this purity and
spontaneity and naturalness of fancy. For the rest, it i