It comforts me,
because we have ourselves to eat many bitter roots here, whose perfect
flower shall one day delight us. This, dear Sophia, has been a long
ramble. I promised to copy that sonnet of James's for you, so I
inclose it.
With true sympathy and love, Affectionately yours,
MARIA WHITE.
From George S. Hillard came the following letter. On the envelope my
father has written Hillard's name and "The Scarlet Letter," showing
with what interest he preserved this friend's criticism and praise. On
the other side of the envelope is written, "Foi, Foi, Faith." No one
ever was more faithful to, and consequently ever had more faith in,
his friends than my father.
BOSTON, March 28, 1850.
MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,--You have written a most remarkable book; in point
of .literary talent, beyond all your previous efforts; a book full of
tragic power, nice observation, delicate tact, and rare knowledge of
the human heart. I think it will take a place in our literature among
the highest efforts of what may be called the Tragic Muse of fiction.
You are, intellectually speaking, quite a puzzle to me. How comes it
that with so thoroughly healthy an organization as you have, you have
such a taste for the morbid anatomy of the human heart, and such
knowledge of it, too? I should fancy from your books that you were
burdened with secret sorrow; that you had some blue chamber in your
soul, into which you hardly dared to enter yourself; but when I see
you, you give me the impression of a man as healthy as Adam was in
Paradise.
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