[Illustration: THE OLD MANSE, RESIDENCE OF DR. RIPLEY.]
There was a certain Dutch artist who made a specialty of sheep, and
painted them so well that Goethe said of him, "This painter so entered
into the life of his subject that I think he must have been a sheep, and
I shall become one if I continue to look at his pictures." In the same
way Hawthorne had such penetrating sympathy for all living things, that
he unconsciously absorbed certain qualities from those with which he was
most familiar. He would sometimes write a letter to his publisher, Mr.
Fields, which was almost like what Mr. Fields would have written to him.
Venomous creatures appeared to have been especially interesting to him,
and he even fancied a poisonous influence in the Roman sunshine. Perhaps
his liking for spiders may account for a certain cobwebby feeling which
comes over one at times while reading his books. There can be no doubt
of this, for when I once spoke of it, a lawyer who was present replied,
"I have said the same myself; and when I was in Paris reading a French
newspaper, I had a feeling as if cobwebs were being drawn across my
face, and looking down to the end of the column, I saw that it was a
translation from Hawthorne." But these peculiarities are like the soil
which gives flavor to the grape, and the wine that comes from the grape.
If the reader thinks that in these few paragraphs Hawthorne has hardly
received proper justice, he may not be far wrong.
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