not render less apparent the interesting character of Hawthorne's
efforts. As for the _Twice-Told Tales_ themselves, they are an old
story now; every one knows them a little, and those who admire them
particularly have read them a great many times. The writer of this
sketch belongs to the latter class, and he has been trying to forget
his familiarity with them, and ask himself what impression they would
have made upon him at the time they appeared, in the first bloom of
their freshness, and before the particular Hawthorne-quality, as it
may be called, had become an established, a recognised and valued,
fact. Certainly, I am inclined to think, if one had encountered these
delicate, dusky flowers in the blossomless garden of American
journalism, one would have plucked them with a very tender hand; one
would have felt that here was something essentially fresh and new;
here, in no extraordinary force or abundance, but in a degree
distinctly appreciable, was an original element in literature. When I
think of it, I almost envy Hawthorne's earliest readers; the sensation
of opening upon _The Great Carbuncle_, _The Seven Vagabonds_, or _The
Threefold Destiny_ in an American annual of forty years ago, must have
been highly agreeable.

Among these shorter things (it is better to speak of the whole
collection, including the _Snow Image_, and the _Mosses from an Old
Manse_ at once) there are three sorts of tales, each one of which has
an original stamp. There are, to begin with, the stories of fantasy
and allegory--those among which the three I have just mentioned would
be numbered, and which on the whole, are the most original. This is
the group to which such little masterpieces as _Malvin's Burial_,
_Rappacini's Daughter_, and _Young Goodman Brown_ also belong--these
two last perhaps representing the highest point that Hawthorne reached
in this direction. Then there are the little tales of New England