No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick--on account of the dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I reerected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. _In pace requiescat!_ II OF HAWTHORNE AND THE SHORT STORY[3] The reputation of the author of "Twice-Told Tales" has been confined, until very lately, to literary society; and I have not been wrong, perhaps, in citing him as the example, par excellence, in this country, of the privately admired and publicly-unappreciated man of genius. Within the last year or two, it is true, an occasional critic has been urged, by honest indignation, into very warm approval. Mr. Webber,[4] for instance (than whom no one has a keener relish for that kind of writing which Mr. Hawthorne has best illustrated), gave us, in a late number of _The American Review_, a cordial and certainly a full tribute to his talents; and since the issue of the "Mosses from an Old Manse" criticisms of similar tone have been by no means infrequent in our more authoritative journals. I can call to mind few reviews of Hawthorne published before the "Mosses." One I remember in _Arcturus_ (edited by Matthews and Duyckinck[5]) for May, 1841; another in the _American Monthly_ (edited by Hoffman[6] and Herbert) for March, 1838; a third in the ninety-sixth number of _The North American Review_. These criticisms, however, seemed to have little effect on the popular taste--at least, if we are to form any idea of the popular taste by reference to its expression in the newspapers, or by the sale of the author's book. It was never the fashion (until lately) to speak of him in any summary of our best authors.... [Footnote 3: From a review of Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales" and "Mosses from an Old Manse," published in _Godey's Magazine_ in 1846. Except for an earlier notice by Longfellow in _The North American Review_, this was the first notable recognition Hawthorne's stories received from a contemporary critic.] [Footnote 4: Charles Wilkens Webber, magazine writer and author of a dozen books now forgotten, was a native of Kentucky who settled in New York. In 1855 he joined William Walker in his filibustering expedition to Central America, and was killed in the battle of Rivas.] [Footnote 5: Evert A. Duyckinck, joint editor with his brother of the "Cyclopedia of American Literature."] [Footnote 6: Charles Fenno Hoffman, poet, novelist, and critic, was related to Mathilda Hoffman, the sweetheart of Washington Irving.]