Hawthorne and Tieck do show certain similarities, as in the use of the dream element, the employment of the allegory as a medium for teaching moral truths, and the choice of the legend as a literary form. Both use somewhat the same dreamy supernaturalism, yet in style as in subject-matter Hawthorne is much the superior and improved whatever he may have borrowed from Tieck. Hawthorne's vague mystery, cloudy symbolism, and deep spiritualism are individual in their effect and give to his supernaturalism an unearthly charm scarcely found elsewhere. Hawthorne's theme in _The Marble Faun_, of the attaining to a soul by human suffering, is akin to the idea in Fouqué's _Undine_. There the supernaturalism is franker, while that of Hawthorne's novel is more evasive and delicate, yet the same suggestion is present in each case. Lowell in his _Fable for Critics_ speaks of Hawthorne as "a John Bunyan Fouqué, a Puritan Tieck." There are still more striking similarities to be pointed out between the work of Poe and that of E. T. A. Hoffmann. As Hawthorne was, to a slight extent, at least, affected by German legends and wonder tales, Poe was influenced by Hoffmann's horror stories. Poe has been called a Germanic dreamer, and various German and English critics mention the debt that he owes to Hoffmann. Mr. Palmer Cobb[38] brings out some interesting facts in connection with the two romanticists. He says: The verification of Poe's indebtedness to German is to be sought in the similarity of the treatment of the same motives in the work of both authors. The most convincing evidence is furnished by the way in which Poe has combined the themes of mesmerism, metempsychosis, dual existence, the dream element, and so forth, in exact agreement with the grouping employed by Hoffmann. Notable examples of this are the employment of the idea of double existence in conjunction with the struggle of good and evil forces in the soul of the individual, and the combination of mesmerism and metempsychosis as leading motives in one and the same story. [38] _The Influence of E. T. A. Hoffmann on Edgar Allan Poe._