Preface - Page 2

action. The penetration, the subtlety,
the tenacity; the stubborn gripe which he lays upon his subject, like
that of Hercules upon the slippery Old Man of the Sea; the clear and
cool common-sense, controlling the audacity of a rich and ardent
imagination; the humorous gibes and strange expletives wherewith he
ridicules, to himself, his own failure to reach his goal; the immense
patience with which--again and again, and yet again--he "tries back,"
throwing the topic into fresh attitudes, and searching it to the marrow
with a gaze so piercing as to be terrible;--all this gives an
impression of power, of resource, of energy, of mastery, that
exhilarates the reader. So many inspired prophets of Hawthorne have
arisen of late, that the present writer, whose relation to the great
Romancer is a filial one merely, may be excused for feeling some
embarrassment in submitting his own uninstructed judgments to
competition with theirs. It has occurred to him, however, that these
undress rehearsals of the author of "The Scarlet Letter" might afford
entertaining and even profitable reading to the later generation of
writers whose pleasant fortune it is to charm one another and the
public. It would appear that this author, in his preparatory work at
least, has ventured in some manner to disregard the modern canons which
debar writers from betraying towards their creations any warmer feeling
than a cultured and critical indifference: nor was his interest in
human nature such as to confine him to the dissection of the moral
epidermis of shop-girls and hotel-boarders. On the contrary, we are
presented with the spectacle of a Titan, baring his arms and plunging
heart and soul into the arena, there to struggle for death or victory
with the superb phantoms summoned to the conflict by his own genius.
The men of new times and new conditions will achieve their triumphs in
new ways; but it may still be worth while to consider the methods and
materials of one who also, in his own fashion, won and wore the laurel
of those who know and can portray the human heart.

But let us return to the Romance, in whose clear though shadowy
atmosphere the thunders and throes of the preparatory struggle are
inaudible and invisible, save as they are implied in the fineness of
substance and beauty of form of the artistic structure. The story is
divided into two parts, the scene of the first being laid in America;
that of the second, in England. Internal evidence of various kinds goes
to show that the second part was the first written; or, in other words,
that the present first part is a rewriting of an original first part,
afterwards discarded, and of which the existing second part is the
continuation. The two parts overlap, and it