It only goes to prove how far away are the
influences which control our natures and our actions.
Whether, if Hawthorne had not been a shy man, afflicted with a sort of
horror of his species at times, always averse to letting himself go,
miserable and morbid, we should have been the inheritors of the great
fortune which he has left us, is not for us to decide. Whether we should
have owned "The Gentle Boy," the immortal "Scarlet Letter," "The House
with Seven Gables," "The Marble Faun," and all the other wonderful
things which grew out of that secluded and gifted nature, had he been
born a cheerful, popular, and sympathetic boy, with a dancing-school
manner, instead of an awkward and shy youth (although an exceedingly
handsome one), we can not tell. That is the great secret behind the
veil. The answer is not yet made, the oracle has not spoken, and we must
not invade the penumbra of genius.
WASHINGTON AND IRVING.
It has always been a comfort to the awkward and the shy that Washington
could not make an after-dinner speech; and the well-known anecdote--"Sit
down, Mr. Washington, your modesty is even greater than your
valor"--must have consoled many a voiceless hero. Washington Irving
tried to welcome Dickens, but failed in the attempt, while Dickens was
as voluble as he was gifted. Probably the very surroundings of
sympathetic admirers unnerved both Washington and Irving, although there
are some men who can never "speak on their legs," as the saying goes, in
any society.
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