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 years, with the effect of a multiplicity of instances; yet at the end it is found that the worst wretch of all is the constant guest with the cold, unfeeling heart,—the climax of misery is not to have lived at all. The tale is carefully composed, especially in those points of keeping, balance, and contrast in which Hawthorne was expert, yet by some misadventure it fails to interpret itself clearly. In proportion, however, as imagination enters into these stories under the impulse of the artistic faculty, it will be seen that they lend themselves less readily to such definite classification as has thus far been attempted; the various elements of Hawthorne's genius and art draw together and combine, and in the group that remains to be noticed his originality is most conspicuous, and this requires a more flexible treatment, though without exception these tales fall under the head of the general life set forth reflectively in the forms of concrete imagination.

Probably in no one point is Hawthorne's peculiarity so obviously marked as in the persistency with which he clings to a physical image, vividly impressing it upon the mind, like a text which gathers atmosphere and discloses significance under the special treatment of the preacher. It is said that he had, artistically, the allegorizing temperament, and he in fact did use all those forms of imagery—the fable, apologue, parable—which belong to this mode of presentation; but in his most effective work the allegory is more subtly