ity, his interfusion of genius with what I have
ventured to call the provincial quality, is most apparent. To an
American reader this later quality, which is never grossly manifested,
but pervades the Journals like a vague natural perfume, an odour of
purity and kindness and integrity, must always, for a reason that I
will touch upon, have a considerable charm; and such a reader will
accordingly take an even greater satisfaction in the Diaries kept
during the two years Hawthorne spent in Italy; for in these volumes
the element I speak of is especially striking. He resigned his
consulate at Liverpool towards the close of 1857--whether because he
was weary of his manner of life there and of the place itself, as may
well have been, or because he wished to anticipate supersession by the
new government (Mr. Buchanan's) which was just establishing itself at
Washington, is not apparent from the slender sources of information
from which these pages have been compiled. In the month of January of
the following year he betook himself with his family to the
Continent, and, as promptly as possible, made the best of his way to
Rome. He spent the remainder of the winter and the spring there, and
then went to Florence for the summer and autumn; after which he
returned to Rome and passed a second season. His Italian Note-Books
are very pleasant reading, but they are of less interest than the
others, for his contact with the life of the country, its people and
its manners, was simply that of the ordinary tourist--which amounts to
saying that it was extremely superficial. He appears to have suffered
a great deal of discomfort and depression in Rome, and not to have
been on the whole in the best mood for enjoying the place and its
resources. That he did, at one time and another, enjoy these things
keenly is proved by his beautiful romance, _Transformation_, which
could never have been written by a man who had not had many hours of
exquisite appreciation of the lovely land of Italy. But he took It
hard, as it were, and suffered himself to be painfully discomposed by
the usual accidents of Italian life, as foreigners learn to know it.
His future was again uncertain, and during his second winter in Rome
he was in danger of losing his elder daughter by a malady which he
speaks of as a trouble "that pierced to my very vitals." I may
mention, with regard to this painful episode, that Franklin Pierce,
whose presidential days were over, and who, li