Page:Nathaniel Hawthorne (Woodbury).djvu/137

 well as smallness of proportion. It is the simplest of trifles, as a composition; and, like much of Hawthorne's writing, has a curious accent of the school reader, as if it were meant for that, so well is it adjusted to ready comprehension, so mild is its interest, so matter-of-fact yet playful in fancy is its substance, and so immediate is its village charm. He was proud of it as a piece of writing, and justly enough, for though it may seem like one of the books of Lilliput, it perfectly accomplishes its little life. The type once struck out in this clear way, Hawthorne returned to it again and again, and always with the same happiness in execution and the same delight in the thing itself. In such a frame he would set the miniature of a day, as in "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," or "Footprints on the Sea-Shore," or "Sunday at Home;" or he would enclose a portrait, of Dutch faithfulness in detail, and suggestive also of the school in other ways, as in "The Old Apple Dealer," or with greater breadth of life, in "The Village Uncle." "A Rill from the Town Pump" and "Main Street" belong to the same kind of writing; and most akin to it, at least, are such mingled nature and home pieces as "Snowflakes," "Buds and Bird Voices," and "Fire Worship." These titles cover the whole period of the tales, but there is no change in the manner or quality,—they are all of one kind.

To make sketches so slight as these interesting, much more to embalm them in literature, requires