Hawthorne rarely repeats himself in details, and never in designs. Two of Dickens’s most interesting novels, “Oliver Twist” and “David Copperfield,” are constructed on the same theme, but each of the studies in this collection has a distinct individuality which appeals to the reader after a fashion of its own. Each has its moral, or rather central, idea to which all its component parts are related, and teaches a lesson of its own, so unobtrusively that we become possessed of it almost unawares. Some are intensely, even tragically, serious; others so light and airy that they seem as if woven out of gossamer. There are a few, however, that do not harmonize with the general tone and character of the rest,--especially “Mrs. Bull-Frog,” which Hawthorne himself confessed to having been an experiment, and which strangely enough is much more in the style of his son Julian. “Monsieur du Miroir” and “Sketches from Memory” are relics of his earlier writings; perhaps also “Feather-Top” and “The Procession of Life.” It would have been better perhaps if “Young Goodman Brown” had been used to light a fire at the Old Manse. “Monsieur du Miroir” is chiefly interesting as an example of Hawthorne’s faculty for elaborating the most simple subject until every possible phase of it has been exhausted. It may also throw some light scientifically on the origin of consciousness. We see ourselves reflected not only in the mirror, but on the blade of a knife, or a puddle in the road; and, if we look sharply enough, in the eyes of other men--even in the expression of their faces. In such manner does Nature force upon us a recognition of our various personalities--the nucleus of self-knowledge, and self-respect. Whittier once spoke of “Young Goodman Brown” as indicating a mental peculiarity in Hawthorne, which like the cuttle-fish rarely rises to the surface. The plot is cynical, and largely enigmatical. The very name of it (in the way Hawthorne develops the story) is a fearful satire on human nature. He may have intended this for an exposure of the inconsistency, and consequent hypocrisy, of Puritanism; but the name of Goodman Brown’s wife is Faith, and this suggests that Brown may have been himself intended for an incarnation of _doubt_, or _disbelief_ carried to a logical extreme. Whatever may have been Hawthorne’s design, the effect is decidedly unpleasant. Emerson talked in proverbs, and Hawthorne in parables. The finest sketches in this collection are parables. “The Birth Mark,” “Rappacini’s Daughter,” “A Select Party,” “Egotism,” and “The Artist of the Beautiful.” “The Celestial Railroad” is an allegory, a variation on “Pilgrim’s Progress.”