Even this dignity of grave belief, combined with the charm of the writer, would not excuse unskilful playing. But Hawthorne is as dexterous on his chosen instrument as Poe on his, and as consciously an artist as Stevenson, who indeed, in _Markheim_, plays, no more skilfully than he, Hawthorne's peculiar tune. In the preface to _The House of the Seven Gables_ there is a paragraph that, though long, it is not impertinent to quote. It shows how carefully he had thought out the possibilities, and how scrupulously he had defined the limits, of his chosen art. [Romance and Novel.] 'When a writer calls his work a Romance it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former--while, as a work of art, it must subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he thinks fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights, and deepen and enrich the shadows of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use of the privileges here stated, and especially to mingle the Marvellous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavour, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime, even if he disregard this caution.' There is a hint here of the provincial pedant; 'dishes offered to the public' are a little out of date; but the principles are sound. Hawthorne could not give clear outlines to the results of his 'burrowings in our common nature' unless he set them in an atmospherical medium that made such outlines possible for things so vague and so mysterious. Romance left him free to do so. He could make a world to fit them, a patterned world, coloured to suggest New England, Italy, or Nowhere. He was never forced to shock us by introducing them into quite ordinary life. He never loses command over his 'atmospherical medium,' and never weakens the importance of his characters by letting them escape from the dominion of morals. And yet his stories are not 'impaled on texts.' Moral feeling makes them alive, but it is treated like the Marvellous--'mingled as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavour.' No artist had ever such tricky balances to keep. No artist keeps his balance more successfully. [Devices of craftsmanship.]