In this series of posthumous manuscripts there is a unique opportunity for making a study of the esoteric qualities of my father's style and methods, and on a future occasion I hope to present the result of my investigations in this direction. There is, furthermore, in connection with them, a mass of material of a yet more interesting and interior character. While writing the Grimshawe, he was deeply perplexed by certain details of the plot; the meaning of the Pensioner, and his proper function in the story, was one of these stumbling-blocks. But the prosperity of the tale depended directly upon the solution of this problem. Constantly, therefore, in the midst of the composition, he would break off and enter upon a wrestling-match with the difficulty. These wrestling-matches are of an absorbing significance; they reveal to us the very inmost movements of the author's mind. He tries, and tries again, to get at the idea that continues to elude him; he forms innumerable hypotheses; he sets forth on the widest excursions; he gets out of patience with himself and with his Pensioner, and often damns the latter in good set terms; but he will not give up the struggle; his resolve to conquer is adamantine, and the conflict is always renewed. And there it all stands in black and white; one of the most instructive chapters in literary criticism in the world--the battle of a great writer with himself. The final issue, after all, was hardly decisive, for although a tolerable modus vivendi was reached and a truce declared, it is evident that Hawthorne regarded the entire scheme of the story as a mistake, and it is concluded in a perfunctory and indifferent manner. But it may be doubted whether anything of this sort ever took place in the making of any of the other stories. These depend but in a subordinate degree upon what is called technically plot interest. The author's method was to take a natural, even a familiar incident, and to transmute it into immortal gold by simply elucidating its inner spiritual significance. The Scarlet Letter is a mere plain story of love and jealousy; there is no serious attempt to hide the identity of Roger Chillingworth or the guilt of the minister. The only surprise in The House of the Seven Gables consists in the revelation of the fact that Maule reappears after several generations in the person of his modern descendant. The structure of The Blithedale Romance appears more complicated; but that is mainly because, in a masterly manner, the author keeps the structural lines out of sight and concentrates attention upon the interplay of character. The scaffolding upon which are hung the splendid draperies of The Marble Faun is, again, of the simplest formation, though the nature of the materials is unfamiliar. This is a digression; the present volume, as I have already stated, is not designed to include--except incidentally-anything in the way of literary criticism.