Remarkable, indeed, and latest in time has been the romantic reaction from the extremes of realistic presentation: it has given the United States, even as it has England, some sterling fiction. This we can see, though it is a phenomenon too recent to offer clear deductions as yet. What appears to be the main difference between it and the romantic inheritance from Scott and Hawthorne? One, if not the chief divergence, would seem to be the inevitable degeneration which comes from haste, mercantile pressure, imitation and lack of commanding authority. There is plenty of technique, comparatively little personality. Yet it may be unfair to the present to make the comparison, for the incompetents buzz in our ears, while time has mercifully stilled the bogus romances of G.P.R. James, et id omne genus. But allowing for all distortion of time, a creative figure like that of Hawthorne still towers, serene and alone, above the little troublings of later days, and like his own Stone Face, reflects the sun and the storm, bespeaking the greater things of the human spirit. THE END End of Project Gutenberg's Masters of the English Novel, by Richard Burton