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 think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out and mellow the lights, and deepen and enrich the shadows, of the picture." This is good advice, no doubt, but not easy to follow. We can all understand, however, that the difficulties would be greatly lessened could we but command backgrounds of the European order. Thackeray, the Brontës, George Eliot, and others have written great stories, which did not have to be romances, because the literal conditions of life in England have a picturesqueness and a depth which correspond well enough with whatever moral and mental scenery we may project upon them. Hawthorne was forced to use the scenery and capabilities of his native town of Salem. He saw that he could not present these in a realistic light, and his artistic instinct showed him that he must modify or veil the realism of his figures in the same degree and manner as that of his accessories. No doubt, his peculiar genius and temperament eminently qualified him to produce this magical change; it was a remarkable instance of the spontaneous marriage, so to speak, of the means to the end; and even when, in Italy, he had an opportunity to write a story which should be accurate in fact, as well as faithful to "the truth of the human heart," he still preferred a subject which bore to the Italian environment the same relation that the "House of the Seven Gables" and the "Scarlet Letter" do to the American one; in other words, the conception of Donatello is removed as much further than Clifford or Hester Prynne from literal realism as the inherent romance of the Italian setting is above that of New England. The whole thing is advanced a step further towards pure idealism, the relative proportions being maintained.