jangle of the jews-harp is felt as an exquisite relief. With the volumes
on the special shelf I have spoken of, I am quite at home, and I feel
somehow as if they were at home with me. And as to-day the trees bend to
the blast, and the rain comes in dashes against my window, and as I have
nothing to do and cannot get out, and wish to kill the hours in as
pleasant a manner as I can, I shall even talk about them, as in sheer
liking a man talks about the trees in his garden, or the pictures on his
wall. I can't expect to say anything very new or striking, but I can
give utterance to sincere affection, and that is always pleasant to one's
self and generally not ungrateful to others.

First; then, on this special shelf stands Nathaniel Hawthorne's
"Twice-Told Tales."

It is difficult to explain why I like these short sketches and essays,
written in the author's early youth, better than his later, more
finished, and better-known novels and romances. The world sets greater
store by "The Scarlet Letter" and "Transformation" than by this little
book--and, in such matters of liking against the judgment of the world,
there is no appeal. I think the reason of my liking consists in
this--that the novels were written for the world, while the tales seem
written for the author; in these he is actor and audience in one.
Consequently, one gets nearer him, just as one gets nearer an artist in
his first sketch than in his finished picture. And after all, one takes
the greatest pleasure in those books in which a peculiar personality is
most clearly revealed. A thought may be very commendable as a thought,
but I value it chiefly as a window through which I can obtain insight on
the thinker; and Mr. Hawthorne's personality is peculiar, and specially
peculiar in a new country like America. He is quiet, fanciful, quaint,
and his humour is shaded by a meditativeness of spirit. Although a
Yankee, he partakes of none of the characteristics of a Yankee. His
thinking and his style have an antique air. His roots strike down
through the visible mould of the present, and draw sustenance from the
generations under ground. The ghosts that haunt the chamber of his mind
are the ghosts of dead men and women. He has a strong smack of the
Puritan; he wears around him, in the New England town, something of the
darkness and mystery of the aboriginal forest. He is a shy, silent,
sensitive, much ruminating man, with no special overflow of animal
s