d in a volume in 1823; and Willis records that when
he was in Europe, ten years later, and just before Lamb's death, "it was
difficult to light upon a person who had read Elia."

This brings us to a contemporary instance. Willis and Hawthorne wrote
early, side by side, in "The Token," about 1827, forty years ago. Willis
rose at once to notoriety, but Mr. S. G. Goodrich, the editor of the
work, states in his autobiography, that Hawthorne's contributions "did
not attract the slightest attention." Ten years later, in 1837, these
same sketches were collected in a volume, as "Twice-Told Tales"; but it
was almost impossible to find a publisher for them, and when published
they had no success. I well remember the apathy with which even the
enlarged edition of 1842 was received, in spite of the warm admiration
of a few; nor was it until the publication of "The Scarlet Letter," in
1850, that its author could fairly be termed famous. For twenty years he
was, in his own words, "the obscurest man of letters in America"; and it
is the thought to which the mind must constantly recur, in thinking of
Hawthorne, How could any combination of physical and mental vigor enable
a man to go on producing works of such a quality in an atmosphere so
chilling?

Probably the truth is, that art precedes criticism, and that every great
writer creates or revives the taste by which he is appreciated. True, we
are wont to claim that "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin";
but it sometimes takes the world a good while to acknowledge its poor
relations. It seems hard for most persons to recognize a touch of nature
when they see it. The trees have formed their buds in autumn every year
since trees first waved; but you will find that the great majority of
persons have never made that discovery, and suppose that Nature gets up
those ornaments in spring. And if we are thus blind to what hangs
conspicuously before our eyes for the whole long winter of every year,
how unobservant must we be of the rarer phases of earthly beauty and of
human life? Keep to the conventional, and you have something which all
have seen, even if they disapprove; copy Nature, and her colors make art
appear incredible. If you could paint the sunset before your window as
gorgeous as it is, your picture would be hooted from the walls of the
exhibition. If you were to write into fiction the true story of the man
or woman you met yesterday, it would be scouted as too wildly unrea