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English Men of Letters

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY

HAWTHORNE

BY

Henry James, Jun^r.

London

MACMILLAN AND CO

1879

CONTENTS.

HAWTHORNE.

[1]

CHAPTER I.

EARLY YEARS.

It will be necessary, for several reasons, to give this short sketchthe form rather of a critical essay than of a biography. The data fora life of Nathaniel Hawthorne are the reverse of copious, and even ifthey were abundant they would serve but in a limited measure thepurpose of the biographer. Hawthorne's career was probably as tranquiland uneventful a one as ever fell to the lot of a man of letters; itwas almost strikingly deficient in incident, in what may be called thedramatic quality. Few men of equal genius and of equal eminence can