Temperateness implies
the control of fierce elements; and in all management of volcanic
power we perceive sweetness and beauty.
When my father handled sin, it became uncontaminating tragedy; when he
handled vulgarity, as in "The Artist of the Beautiful," it became
inevitable pathos; when he handled suspicion, as in "The Birthmark"
and "Rappaccini's Daughter," it evolved devoted trust.
The frequent question as to whether Hawthorne drew from his family or
friends in portraying human nature shows an unfamiliarity with
literary art. Portraiture is not art, in literature, though a great
artist includes it, if he chooses, in the category of his productions.
To any one permeated by the atmosphere of art (though not quite of it)
as I was, it seems strange that a truly artistic work should be
thought to be an imitation of individual models. The distance of
inspiration is the distance of a heavenly fair day, or of a night made
luminous by mystery, giving a new quality and a new species of delight
to facts about us. In reading the sympathetic merriment of the
introduction to "The Scarlet Letter," and then the story itself, we
perceive the difference between the charm of a Dutch-like realism and
the thrill of imaginative creation, which uses material made
incomprehensibly wonderful by God in order to make it comprehensibly
wonderful to men. But, of course, the material thus transmuted by the
distance of inspiration is only new and fine to men who have ears to
hear and eyes to see.
Pages:
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428