POINT OF VIEW.

This book was not designed as a biography, but is rather a portrait.
And, to speak more carefully still, it is not so much this, as my
conception of what a portrait of Hawthorne should be. For I cannot write
with the authority of one who had known him and had been formally
intrusted with the task of describing his life. On the other hand, I do
not enter upon this attempt as a mere literary performance, but have
been assisted in it by an inward impulse, a consciousness of sympathy
with the subject, which I may perhaps consider a sort of inspiration. My
guide has been intuition, confirmed and seldom confuted by research.
Perhaps it is even a favoring fact that I should never have seen Mr.
Hawthorne; a personality so elusive as his may possibly yield its traits
more readily to one who can never obtrude actual intercourse between
himself and the mind he is meditating upon. An honest report upon
personal contact always has a value denied to the reviews of after-
comers, yet the best criticism and biography is not always that of
contemporaries.

Our first studies will have a biographical scope, because a certain
grouping of facts is essential, to give point to the view which I am
endeavoring to present; and as Hawthorne's early life has hitherto been
but little explored, much of the material used in the earlier chapters
is now for the first time made public. The latter portion of the career
may be treated more sketchily, being already better known; though
passages will be found throughout the essay which have been developed
with some fulness, in order to maintain a correct atmosphere,
compensating any errors which mere opinions might lead to. Special
emphasis, then, must not be held to show neglect of points which my