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- 1572
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- 1515
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- fail, or seem to fail, then, in the words of my Carolina cousin, let
us clap him on the shoulder and back him against all Europe for his
second round. The truth is, that in one point of view this matter of
a national literature has come to pass with us, that in some sense we
must turn bullies, else the day is lost, or superiority so far beyond
us, that we can hardly say it will ever be ours.
And now, my countrymen, as an excellent author of your own flesh
and blood,--an unimitating, and, perhaps, in his way, an inimitable
man--whom better can I commend to you, in the first place, than
Nathaniel Hawthorne. He is one of the new, and far better generation of
your writers. The smell of young beeches and hemlocks is upon him; your
own broad prairies are in his soul; and if you travel away inland into
his deep and noble nature, you will hear the far roar of his Niagara.
Give not over to future generations the glad duty of acknowledging him
for what he is. Take that joy to yourself, in your own generation; and
so shall he feel those grateful impulses on him, that may possibly
prompt him to the full flower of some still greater achievement in
your eyes. And by confessing him you thereby confess others; you brace
the whole brotherhood. For genius, all over the world, stands hand in
hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.
In treating of Hawthorne, or rather of Hawthorne in his writings (for
I never saw the man; and in the chances of a quiet plantation life,
remote from his haunts, perhaps never shall); in treating of his works,
I say, I have thus far omitted all mention of his _Twice Told Tales_,
and _Scarlet Letter_. Both are excellent, but full of such manifold,
strange, and diffusive beauties, that time would all but fail me to
point the half of them out. But there are things in those two books,
which, had they been written in England a century ago, Nathaniel
Hawthorne had utterly displaced many of the bright names we now revere
on authority. But I am content to leave Hawthorne to himself, and to
the infallible finding of posterity; and however great may be the
praise I have bestowed upon him, I feel that in so doing I have served
and honored myself, than him. For, at bottom, great excellence is
praise enough to itself; but the feeling of a sincere and appreciative
love and admiration towards it, this is relieved by utterance, and
warm, honest praise ever leaves a pleasant flavor in the mouth; and it
is an honorable thing to confess to what is honorable in others.
But I cannot leave my subject yet. No man can read a fine author, and
relish him to his very bones while he reads, without subsequently
fancying to himself some ideal image of the man and his mind. And if
you rightly look for it, you will almost always find that the author
himself has somewhere furnished you with his own picture. For poets
(whether in prose or verse), being painters by nature, are like their
brethren of the pencil, the true portrait-painters, who, in the
multitude of likenesses to be sketched, do not invariably omit their
own; and in all high instances, they paint them without any vanity,
though at times with a lurking something that would take several pages
to properly define.
I submit it, then, to those best acquainted with the man personally,
whether the following is not Nathaniel Hawthorne;--and to himself,
whether something involved in it does not express the temper of his
mind,--that lasting temper of all true, candid men--a seeker, not a
finder yet:
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