Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays

“ [42] how unnoticed remain things of such exquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame?” These Essays were published in a volume in 1823; and Willis records that when he was in Europe, ten years later, and just before Lamb's death, “it was difficult to light upon a person who had read Elia.”

This brings us to a contemporary instance. Willis and Hawthorne wrote early, side by side, in “The token,” about 1827, forty years ago. Willis rose at once to notoriety, but Mr. S. G. Goodrich, the editor of the work, states in his autobiography, that Hawthorne's contributions “did not attract the slightest attention.” Ten years later, in 1837, these same sketches were collected in a volume, as “Twice-told Tales” ; but it was almost impossible to find a publisher for them, and when published they had no success. I well remember the apathy with which even the enlarged edition of 1842 was received, in spite of the warm admiration of a few; nor was it until the publication of “The scarlet letter,” in 1850, that its author could fairly be termed famous. For twenty years he was, in his own words, “the obscurest man of letters in America” ; and it is the thought to which the mind must constantly recur, in thinking of Hawthorne,--How could any combination of physical and mental vigor enable a man to go on producing works of such a quality in an atmosphere so chilling?

Probably the truth is, that art precedes criticism, and that every great writer creates or revives the taste by which he is appreciated. True, we are wont to claim that “one touch of nature makes the whole world kin” ; but it sometimes takes the world a good while to acknowledge its poor relations. It seems hard for most persons