of the institution, a venerable, amiable,
unworldly, and henpecked, scholar. Here she becomes very naturally an
object of interest to two of the students; in regard to whom I cannot
do better than quote Mr. Lathrop. One of these young men "is Edward
Wolcott, a wealthy, handsome, generous, healthy young fellow from one
of the sea-port towns; and the other Fanshawe, the hero, who is a poor
but ambitious recluse, already passing into a decline through
overmuch devotion to books and meditation. Fanshawe, though the deeper
nature of the two, and intensely moved by his new passion, perceiving
that a union between himself and Ellen could not be a happy one,
resigns the hope of it from the beginning. But circumstances bring him
into intimate relation with her. The real action of the book, after
the preliminaries, takes up only some three days, and turns upon the
attempt of a man named Butler to entice Ellen away under his
protection, then marry her, and secure the fortune to which she is
heiress. This scheme is partly frustrated by circumstances, and
Butler's purpose towards Ellen thus becomes a much more sinister one.
From this she is rescued by Fanshawe, and knowing that he loves her,
but is concealing his passion, she gives him the opportunity and the
right to claim her hand. For a moment the rush of desire and hope is
so great that he hesitates; then he refuses to take advantage of her
generosity, and parts with her for a last time. Ellen becomes engaged
to Wolcott, who had won her heart from the first; and Fanshawe,
sinking into rapid consumption, dies before his class graduates." The
story must have had a good deal of innocent lightness; and it is a
proof of how little the world of observation lay open to Hawthorne, at
this time, that he should have had no other choice than to make his
little drama go forward between the rather naked walls of Bowdoin,
where the presence of his heroine was an essential incongruity. He was
twenty-four years old, but the "world," in its social sense, had not
disclosed itself to him. He had, however, already, at moments, a very
pretty writer's touch, as witness this passage, quoted by Mr. Lathrop,
and which is worth transcribing. The heroine has gone off with the
nefarious Butler, and the good Dr. Melmoth starts in pursuit of her,
attended by young Wolcott.

"'Alas, youth, these are strange times,' observed the
President, 'when a doctor of divinity and an undergraduate
set fo