be communicated to several
persons of various character--grave or gay--and they
all to become insane, according to their characters, by
the influence of the secret"

--an idea modified and adapted in _The Marble Faun_. "An ice-cold
hand--which people ever afterwards remember when once they have
grasped it"--is bestowed on the Wandering Jew, the owner of the
marvellous _Virtuoso's Collection_, whose treasures include the
blood-encrusted pen with which Dr. Faustus signed away his
salvation, Peter Schlemihl's shadow, the elixir of life, and the
philosopher's stone. The form of a vampire, who apparently never
took shape on paper, flitted through the twilight of Hawthorne's
imagination:

"Stories to be told of a certain person's appearance in
public, of his having been seen in various situations,
and his making visits in private circles; but finally
on looking for this person, to come upon his old grave
and mossy tombstone."

With so many alluring suggestions floating shadowwise across his
mind, it is not wonderful that Hawthorne should have been
fascinated by the dream of a human life prolonged far beyond the
usual span--a dream, which, if realised, would have enabled him
to capture in words more of those "shapes that haunt thought's
wildernesses."

Although among the sketches collected in _Twice-Told Tales_ (vol.
i. 1837, vol. ii. 1842) some are painted in gay and lively hues,
the prevailing tone of the book is sad and mournful. The
light-hearted philosophy of the wanderers in _The Seven
Vagabonds_, the pretty, brightly coloured vignettes in _Little
Annie's Rambles_, the quiet cheerfulness of _Sunday at Home_ or
_The Rill from the Town Pump_, only serve to throw into darker
relief gloomy legends like that of _Ethan Brand_, the man who
went in search of the Unpardonable Sin, or dreary stories like
that of _Edward Fane's Rosebud_, or the ghostly _White Old Maid_.
One of the most carefully wrought sketches in _Twice-Told Tales_
is the weird story of _The Hollow of the Three Hills_. By means
of a witch's spell, a lady hears the far-away voices of her aged
parents--her mother querulous and tearful, her father calmly
despondent--and amid the fearful mirth of a madhouse
distinguishes the accents and footstep of the husband she has
wronged. At last she listens to the death-knell tolled for the
child she has left to die. The solemn rhythm of Hawthorne's
skilfully ordered sentences is