There is a difference in kind between a great work and a small one. A
good sonnet may be finished in an hour, and is a pleasant recreation;
but the composition of a tragedy requires a severe, protracted and
laborious effort. Goethe's finest songs were written in a moment, a
flash of inspiration; but Faust may be called the work of his lifetime.
He himself describes the difficulties which attend the composition of a
tragedy, in such a manner as may well deter others from attempting it.
How few, indeed, are the dramatic poets in all times and countries! Even
Byron did not succeed in this. Mrs. Hawthorne said that during the
period while her husband was occupied with the "Scarlet Letter," there
were a contraction of his brow, and a look of care and anxiety in his
face, which were reflected in her own nerves and made her unhappy,
although she knew little of what he was writing. Both these romances are
tragedies; and there is something in tragedy that places it at the top
of all literature. Their subjects also indicate that he was in full
sympathy with his own time, and perhaps understood the nineteenth
century better than it does itself.
Emerson has been called a Greek, but Hawthorne was more Hellenic than
he. This may be perceived in his version of the Greek legends in
"Tanglewood Tales." His style is much like that of Isocrates. Where
Webster or Emerson would use Saxon words, Hawthorne would use Greek or
Latin ones, and gain in grace and flexibility what he lost in force and
vigor.
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