show the marks of
having lasted. I will add that Holgrave is one of the few figures, among
those which Hawthorne created, with regard to which the absence of the
realistic mode of treatment is felt as a loss. Holgrave is not sharply
enough characterised; he lacks features; he is not an individual, but a
type. But my last word about this admirable novel must not be a
restrictive one. It is a large and generous production, pervaded with
that vague hum, that indefinable echo, of the whole multitudinous life
of man, which is the real sign of a great work of fiction.

After the publication of _The House of the Seven Gables_, which
brought him great honour, and, I believe, a tolerable share of a more
ponderable substance, he composed a couple of little volumes, for
children--_The Wonder-Book_, and a small collection of stories
entitled _Tanglewood Tales_. They are not among his most serious
literary titles, but if I may trust my own early impression of them,
they are among the most charming literary services that have been
rendered to children in an age (and especially in a country) in which
the exactions of the infant mind have exerted much too palpable an
influence upon literature. Hawthorne's stories are the old Greek
myths, made more vivid to the childish imagination by an infusion of
details which both deepen and explain their marvels. I have been
careful not to read them over, for I should be very sorry to risk
disturbing in any degree a recollection of them that has been at rest
since the appreciative period of life to which they are addressed.
They seem at that period enchanting, and the ideal of happiness of
many American children is to lie upon the carpet and lose themselves
in _The Wonder-Book_. It is in its pages that they first make the
acquaintance of the heroes and heroines of the antique mythology, and
something of the nursery fairy-tale quality of interest which
Hawthorne imparts to them always remains.

I have said that Lenox was a very pretty place, and that he was able
to work there Hawthorne proved by composing _The House of the Seven
Gables_ with a good deal of rapidity. But at the close of the year in
which this novel was published he wrote to a friend (Mr. Fields, his
publisher,) that "to tell you a secret I am sick to death of
Berkshire, and hate to think of spending another winter here.... The
air and climate do not agree with my health at all, and for the first
time since I was a boy I have felt