m many readers.

Even at that, he found the profession of letters so unprofitable that
he was glad to accept a position as weigher and gauger at the Boston
custom-house, but he lost the place two years later by a change in
administration; tried, for a while, living with the Transcendentalists
at Brook Farm, and finally, taking a leap into the unknown, married and
settled down in the old manse at Concord. It was a most fortunate step;
his wife proved a real inspiration, and in the months that followed, he
wrote the second series of "Twice-Told Tales," and "Mosses from an Old
Manse," which mark the culmination of his genius as a teller of tales.

Four years later, the political pendulum swung back again, and Hawthorne
was offered the surveyor-ship of the custom-house at Salem, accepted it,
and moved his family back to his old home. He held the position for four
years, completed his first great romance, and in 1850 gave to the world
"The Scarlet Letter," perhaps the most significant and vital novel
produced by any American. Hawthorne had, at last, "found himself." A
year later came "The House of the Seven Gables," and then, in quick
succession, "Grandfather's Chair," "The Wonder Book," "The Snow-Image,"
"The Blithedale Romance," and "Tanglewood Tales."

A queer product of his pen, at this time, was a life of Franklin Pierce,
the Democratic candidate for the Presidency; and when Pierce was
elected, he showed his gratitude by offering Hawthorne the consulship at
Liverpool, a lucrative position which Hawthorne accepted and which he
held for four years. Two years on the continent followed, and in 1860,
he returned home, his health breaking and his mind unsettled, largely by
the prospect of the Civil War into which the country was drifting. He
found himself unable to write, failed rapidly, and the end came in the
spring of 1864.

Of American novelists, Hawthorne alone shows that sustained power and
high artistry belonging to the masters of fiction; and yet his novels
have not that universal appeal which belongs to the few really great
ones of the world. Hawthorne was supremely the interpreter of old New
England, a subject of comparatively little interest to other peoples,
since old New England was distinguished principally by a narrow
spiritual conflict which other peoples find difficult to understand. The
subject of "The Scarlet Letter" is, indeed, one of universal appeal, and
is, in some form, the theme of nearly all great