e and impalpable than that which is
embodied to the senses. What that something is, hardly two persons will
agree. The most obvious interpretation of the types is, that in Zanoni
the author depicts to us humanity, perfected, sublimed, which lives
not for self, but for others; in Mejnour, as we have before said, cold,
passionless, self-sufficing intellect; in Glyndon, the young Englishman,
the mingled strength and weakness of human nature; in the heartless,
selfish artist, Nicot, icy, soulless atheism, believing nothing, hoping
nothing, trusting and loving nothing; and in the beautiful, artless
Viola, an exquisite creation, pure womanhood, loving, trusting and
truthful. As a work of art the romance is one of great power. It is
original in its conception, and pervaded by one central idea; but
it would have been improved, we think, by a more sparing use of the
supernatural. The inevitable effect of so much hackneyed diablerie--of
such an accumulation of wonder upon wonder--is to deaden the impression
they would naturally make upon us. In Hawthorne's tales we see with what
ease a great imaginative artist can produce a deeper thrill by a far
slighter use of the weird and the mysterious.

The chief interest of the story for the ordinary reader centres, not in
its ghostly characters and improbable machinery, the scenes in Mejnour's
chamber in the ruined castle among the Apennines, the colossal and
appalling apparitions on Vesuvius, the hideous phantom with its burning
eye that haunted Glyndon, but in the loves of Viola and the mysterious
Zanoni, the blissful and the fearful scenes through which they pass,
and their final destiny, when the hero of the story sacrifices his
own "charmed life" to save hers, and the Immortal finds the only true
immortality in death. Among the striking passages in the work are the
pathetic sketch of the old violinist and composer, Pisani, with his
sympathetic "barbiton" which moaned, groaned, growled, and laughed
responsive to the feelings of its master; the description of Viola's and
her father's triumph, when "The Siren," his masterpiece, is performed at
the San Carlo in Naples; Glyndon's adventure at the Carnival in Naples;
the death of his sister; the vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in
Paris, closing with the downfall of Robespierre and his satellites; and
perhaps, above all, the thrilling scene where Zanoni leaves Viola asleep
in prison when his guards call him to execution, and she, uncon