Page:Nathaniel Hawthorne (Woodbury).djvu/160

 the Calvinism of New England, its interest in the perversion of man's will, his sinful state, and the mysterious modes of salvation, is not the region of Hawthorne's imagination, as here disclosed. It is enough to note this, here, as bearing on his representative character. The most surprising thing, however, is that his genius is found to be so purely objective; he himself emphasized the objectivity of his art. From the beginning, as has been said, he had no message, no inspiration welling up within him, no inward life of his own that sought expression. He was not even introspective. He was primarily a moralist, an observer of life, which he saw as a thing of the outside, and he was keen in observation, cool, interested. If there was any mystery in his tales, it was in the object, not in the author's breast; he makes no confessions either direct or indirect,—he describes the thing he sees. He maintained that his tales were perfectly intelligible, and he meant this to apply not only to style but to theme. It is best to cite his own testimony. His personal temper is indicated in the fragmentary phrase in the "Note-Books;" "not that I have any love of mystery, but because I abhor it," he writes; and again in the oft-quoted passage, he describes perfectly the way in which his nature cooperated with his art to give the common ground of human sympathy, but without anything peculiar to himself being called into play:—

"A cloudy veil stretches over the abyss of my