mate addressed him in a somewhat formal letter
of thanks as "Dear Sir." Later the relations of the two became closer,
though never perhaps intimate. It was Hawthorne who handed over to
Longfellow that story of the dispersion of the Acadian exiles of
Grandpre, which became "Evangeline": a story which his friend Conolly
had suggested to Hawthorne, as mentioned in "The American Note Books."
The point which arrested Hawthorne's attention was the incident in the
Bayou Teche, where Gabriel's boat passes in the night within a few feet
of the bank on which Evangeline and her company are sleeping.

This was one of those tricks of destiny that so often engaged
Hawthorne's imagination: like the tale of "David Swan" the farmer's boy
who, on his way to try his fortune in the city, falls asleep by a
wayside spring. A rich and childless old couple stop to water their
horse, are taken by his appearance and talk of adopting him, but drive
away on hearing someone approaching. A young girl comes by and falls so
much in love with his handsome face that she is tempted to waken him
with a kiss, but she too is startled and goes on. Then a pair of tramps
arrive and are about to murder him for his money, when they in turn are
frightened off. Thus riches and love and death have passed him in his
sleep; and he, all unconscious of the brush of the wings of fate,
awakens and goes his way. Again, our romancer had read the common
historical accounts of the great landslide which buried the inn in the
Notch of the White Mountains. The names were known of all who had been
there that night and had consequently perished--with one exception. One
stranger had been present, who was never identified: Hawthorne's fancy
played with this curious problem, and he made out of it his story of
"The Ambitious Guest," a youth just starting on a brilliant career,
entertaining the company around the fire, with excited descriptions of
his hopes and plans; and then snuffed out utterly by ironic fate, and
not even numbered among the missing.

Tales like these are among the most characteristic and original of the
author's works. And wherever we notice this quality in a story, we call
it Hawthornish. "Peter Rugg, the Missing Man," is Hawthornish; so is
"Peter Schemil, the Man without a Shadow"; or Balzac's "Peau de
Chagrin"; or later work, some of it manifestly inspired by Hawthorne,
like Stevenson's tale of a double personality, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde"; or Edward Bellamy'