Early in April the book was issued in an edition of 5,000 copies; this was soon exhausted, and Hawthorne was well started on that career of literary fame which led Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, a hundred years after the birth of Hawthorne, to call him "the foremost literary artist of America." _The Scarlet Letter_, as Hawthorne himself tells us, is a story of "human frailty and sorrow." It is the story of one who has brooded long and faithfully upon the problem of evil. In it we read that man is the master of his fate. The great difference between ancient and modern literature is this: the old dramatists seem to believe that somewhere there is a power above and beyond the control of man, a blind, unreasoning force that seems to play with man as the football of chance. Whatever may be done by man will prove unavailing if Fate or Destiny has decreed otherwise. Out of such a philosophy of life comes the story of OEdipus. The modern conception is that expressed by Shakspere: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Still later Henley in his one great poem has expressed the thought with vigor,-- Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods there be For my unconquerable soul! With unfaltering aim Hawthorne shows that each character works out its own destiny. That man is helpless, the sport of gods, the football of Fate, is disproved by the patient transformation in the character of Hester. Some one has well characterized _The Scarlet Letter_ as "a drama of the spirit." It is a story such as only one who had brooded deeply on the problem of evil could write. Hawthorne was a "solitary brooder upon life." Every one who knew him testified to this impression. When William Dean Howells, a young man from Ohio, knocked at the door of the Wayside Cottage, a letter of introduction in his hand, and a feeling of hero-worship in his heart, he was ushered into the presence of the great romancer, who advanced "carrying his head with a heavy forward droop" and with pondering pace. His look was "somber and brooding--the look of a man who had dealt faithfully and therefore sorrowfully with that problem of evil which forever attracted and forever evaded Hawthorne." Hawthorne impressed all who met him with his reserve and shyness. Many stories are told to illustrate this quality. Hawthorne was once a visitor at a club where a number of literary men had gathered. The taciturnity of Hawthorne was more impressive than the loquacity of the witty Holmes. After Hawthorne had left Emerson said, "Hawthorne rides his dark horse well." George William Curtis relates this anecdote: