citements are necessarily transient. Thus a long poem is a paradox.
And, without unity of impression, the deepest effects can not be
brought about. Epics were the offspring of an imperfect sense of art,
and their reign is no more. A poem too brief may produce a vivid, but
never an intense or enduring impression. Without a certain continuity
of effort--without a certain duration or repetition of purpose--the
soul is never deeply moved. There must be the dropping of the water
upon the rock. De Beranger has wrought brilliant things--pungent and
spirit-stirring--but, like all impassive bodies, they lack momentum,
and thus fail to satisfy the poetic sentiment. They sparkle and
excite, but, from want of continuity, fail deeply to impress. Extreme
brevity will degenerate into epigrammatism; but the sin of extreme
length is even more unpardonable. _In medio tutissimus ibis._ Were I
called upon, however, to designate that class of composition which,
next to such a poem as I have suggested, should best fulfil the
demands of high genius--should offer it the most advantageous field of
exertion--I should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale, as Mr.
Hawthorne has here exemplified it. I allude to the short prose
narrative, requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its
perusal.

Of Mr. Hawthorne's "Tales" we would say, emphatically that they belong
to the highest region of art--an art subservient to genius of a very
lofty order.... We know of few compositions which the critic can more
honestly commend than these "Twice-Told Tales." As Americans, we feel
proud of the book.

Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination,
originality--a trait which, in the literature of fiction, is
positively worth all the rest. But the nature of the originality, so
far as regards its manifestation in letters, is but imperfectly
understood. The inventive or original mind as frequently displays
itself in novelty of tone as in novelty of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is
original in all points. It would be a matter of some difficulty to
designate the best of these tales; we repeat that, without exception,
they are beautiful.

He has the purest style, the finest taste, the most available
scholarship, the most delicate humor, the most touching pathos, the
most radiant imagination, the most consummate ingenuity; and with
these varied good qualities he has done well as a mystic. But is there
any one of these qualities which should p