Of Mr. Hawthorne's "Tales" we would say, emphatically that they belong to the highest region of art--an art subservient to genius of a very lofty order.... We know of few compositions which the critic can more honestly commend than these "Twice-Told Tales." As Americans, we feel proud of the book. Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is invention, creation, imagination, originality--a trait which, in the literature of fiction, is positively worth all the rest. But the nature of the originality, so far as regards its manifestation in letters, is but imperfectly understood. The inventive or original mind as frequently displays itself in novelty of tone as in novelty of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is original in all points. It would be a matter of some difficulty to designate the best of these tales; we repeat that, without exception, they are beautiful. He has the purest style, the finest taste, the most available scholarship, the most delicate humor, the most touching pathos, the most radiant imagination, the most consummate ingenuity; and with these varied good qualities he has done well as a mystic. But is there any one of these qualities which should prevent his doing doubly as well in a career of honest, upright, sensible, prehensible and comprehensible things? Let him mend his pen, get a bottle of visible ink, come out from the "Old Manse," cut Mr. Alcott, hang (if possible) the editor of The Dial, and throw out of the window to the pigs all his odd numbers of _The North American Review_. III OF WILLIS, BRYANT, HALLECK, AND MACAULAY[7]