as sailors before the mast"; and "so long as any of the race were to be
found, they had been marked out from other men--not strikingly, nor as
with a sharp line, but with an effect that was felt, rather than spoken
of--by an hereditary character of reserve. Their companions, or those
who endeavored to become such, grew conscious of a circle round about
the Maules, within the sanctity or the spell of which, in spite of an
exterior of sufficient frankness and good-fellowship, it was impossible
for any man to step." The points of resemblance here may be easily
distinguished. In the "American Note-Books" occurs an anecdote which
recalls the climax of the romance. It concerns Philip English, who had
been tried for witchcraft by John Hathorne, and became his bitter enemy.
On his death-bed, he consented to forgive him; "But if I get well," said
he, "I'll be damned if I forgive him!" One of English's daughters (he
had no sons) afterward married a son of John Hathorne. How masterly is
the touch of the artist's crayon in this imaginative creation, based
upon the mental and moral anatomy of actual beings! It is a delicate
study of the true creative art to follow out this romantic shape, and
contrast it with the real creatures and incidents to which it has a sort
of likeness. With perfect choice, the artist selects, probably not
consciously, but through association, whatever he likes from the real,
and deviates from it precisely where he feels this to be fitting; adds a
trait here, and transfers another there; and thus completes something
having a unity and inspiration of its own, neither a simple reproduction
nor an unmixed invention, the most subtile and harmonious product of the
creative power. It is in this way that "The House of the Seven Gables"
comes to be not merely fancifully a romance typical of Salem, but in the
most essentially true way representative of it. Surely no one could have
better right to thus embody the characteristics of the town than
Hawthorne, whose early ancestors had helped to magnify it and defend it,
and whose nearer progenitors had in their fallen fortunes almost