istinctive purpose of their own. Hawthorne, at any
rate, seems to have been mastered by his too powerful auxiliaries. A
human soul, even in America, is more interesting to us than all the
churches and picture-galleries in the world; and, therefore, it is as
well that Hawthorne should not be tempted to the too easy method of
putting fine description in place of sentiment.

But how was the task to be performed? How was the imaginative glow to be
shed over the American scenery, so provokingly raw and deficient in
harmony? A similar problem was successfully solved by a writer whose
development, in proportion to her means of cultivation, is about the
most remarkable of recent literary phenomena. Miss Bronte's bleak
Yorkshire moors, with their uncompromising stone walls, and the valleys
invaded by factories, are at first sight as little suited to romance as
New England itself, to which, indeed, both the inhabitants and the
country have a decided family resemblance. Now that she has discovered
for us the fountains of poetic interest, we can all see that the region
is not a mere stony wilderness; but it is well worth while to make a
pilgrimage to Haworth, if only to discover how little the country
corresponds to our preconceived impressions, or, in other words, how
much depends upon the eye which sees it, and how little upon its
intrinsic merits. Miss Bronte's marvellous effects are obtained by the
process which enables an 'intense and glowing mind' to see everything
through its own atmosphere. The ugliest and most trivial objects seem,
like objects heated by the sun, to radiate back the glow of passion with
which she has regarded them. Perhaps this singular power is still more
conspicuous in 'Villette,' where she had even less of the raw material
of poetry. An odd parallel may be found between one of the most striking
passages in 'Villette' and one in 'Transformation.' Lucy Snowe in one
novel, and Hilda in the other, are left to pass a summer vacation, the
one in Brussels and the other in pestiferous Rome. Miss Snowe has no
external cause of suffering but the natural effect of solitude upon a
homeless and helpless governess. Hilda has to bear about with her the
weight of a terrible secret, affecting, it may be, even the life of her
dearest friend. Each of them wanders into a Roman Catholic church, and
each, though they have both been brought up in a Protestant home, seeks
relief at the confessional. So far the cases are alike,