The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1882-12-24

ing eye, would have seemed ripo for tho press.
No ono who is properly alive to tho psychology
ical problem presented by DR.. Grimshawe can
doubt that this extraordinary man. up to tho
discovery Of n superior title in Colcroft. did
honestly believe the boy Ned the rightful in
heritor Of the ltedcyfre name. II he had been
capable of forgery hc would have boon capable
of assuring its success by murder But as 1t
was. he was literally shaken to death through
the racking of his spirit by the temptation to
crimo of which no was morally incapable. and
by the sclf-imposed submission to the collapse
of plans whose ruin seemed at once to empty
his life OF purpose and Significance. But the
book "a published. docs not render justice to
the conception embodied In this remarkable
man, and no ono can know better than Mr.
Julian Hawthorne himself a novelist Of con-
spicuous ability. where the Illuminating touches
of his fathers hand are wanting.
But let us turn. with grateful recognition OF n
fresh indebtedness. from tho structural de-
fcicnces of q book left unfinished. to its strik-
ing revelations Of the authors power to search
out the mysteries Of being. to plunge us
in tho most solemn musings and play on
our most poignant sympathies. The same
conflict between passion and conscience which
was so forcbly depicted in the Scarlet Let
ter" Is here again spread before us. but
in stronger. larger lines. and in colors OF q
more lurh and fierce intensity. In the strug-
gle between the impulses toward good and evil
by which the central creation of this volume Is
convuscd. We behold tho depths of savagery
and the heights OF sef-conquest which lie
within the compass of a robust and wilful ma
turc; we are shown tho sinkings tho grovcl-
lings. and the celestial soarings Of which the
human soul is capnble we are made to watch
with spell-bound intcntness the sore travail
and long agony from which tho spirit energies
cleansed and triumphant but by which its
earthly tenement Is shattered and destroyed.
Seldom has the hand of any artist. whether in
prose fiction or in poetry. known how. with
materials so simple. to portray tho elemental
forces which sccthc and fiuctuate beneath the
crust of existence aud on whose outburst
subsection depends the fate of humanity. The
spiritual problems to which Hawthorne felt
himself irresistibly attracted, and which he
has here dealt with in a mastcriul fashion. are
not so much as stated by Dickens. by Thack-
cray. or by Waiter Scott: indeed. no writers of
fiction, except Ba2ac and George Eliot. have
shown themselves competent TO accompany
Hawthorne in his peculiar field.
1t would be absurd to compare with this giant
in psychological analysis and imaginative
creation the puny genre painters with whom
the cultivated public has made shift to content
itself since Hawhorne's death. We needed.
perhaps this touch OF the magicians wand to
brace and reinvigoratc our cmasculatcd taste.
to reopen our eyes to tho viric and splendid
possibilities of fiction. We had almost forgot
ten that the novelist has sometimes venturei
upon n higher function than the scrupulous
photography Of manners than the microscopic
study Of sophisticated sentiments anu Conyon-
tional ideas. 1t is well that this voice from the
grave should remind the dainty word-mongers
and smirkng experts in etiquette that their
place is with the lackeys in the anteroom of
literature. We seem to hear the grave
proved master. rs we sean these full-frcighted
pages. say to those who initiate his nice obser-
walton of superficial things, but who are impo-
tent to grasp the secret of his spiritual insight.
These things indeed ought ye to have done.
but not to have left the others undone.