Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark—that sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment, near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half-development, demands the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. NOTES [1] Published in the March, 1843, number of _The Pioneer_, edited by J. R. Lowell. Republished in _Mosses from an Old Manse_ in 1846. [2] 154:29 "Eve," of Powers. A noted American sculptor (1805-1873). "Eve," "The Fisher Boy," and "America" are some of his chief works. [3] 168:28 Pygmalion. A sculptor and king of Cyprus. [4] 181:16 recondite. Abstruse or secret. [5] 168:27 corrosive. Destructive of tissue. [6] 184:12 vitae. Of life. [7] 166:3 infusion. The act of pouring in. [8] 167:1 Albertus Magnus. A famous scholastic philosopher and member of the Dominican order (1193-1280). [9] 167:1 Cornelius Agrippa. A German philosopher and student of alchemy and magic (1486-1535). [10] 167:1 Paracelsus. A German-Swiss physician, and alchemist (1492-1541). [11] 167:10 Royal Society. An association for the advancement of science, founded in London a little before 1660. BIOGRAPHY Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. His ancestors were prominent in the affairs of the colony: John Hawthorne was one of the judges who tried the witches in 1620; and another John Hawthorne was a member of the dignified school committee of Salem in 1796. Hawthorne's father, a ship captain, died in a foreign land when his son was only four years old; his mother lived for forty years after the death of her husband the life of a recluse in her own house. The family's star was in the decline and the people of Salem looked on Nathaniel as a lazy and very queer boy. He grew up in a unique solitude. During these years of seclusion Hawthorne acquired the habit of keeping silent on all occasions, and reading a few books frequently and thoroughly. The _Newgate Calendar_ must have supplied him with many subtle suggestions for his later writings on sin and crime, for in almost all of his productions his imagination is tinged with, this old Puritanic philosophy and theology.