The
idea of the division of labor, the transcendental conversations, and many
of the incidents owe their origin to his sojourn at Brook Farm (p. 166).
Although _The Blithedale Romance_ does not equal the three romances already
described, it contains one character, Zenobia, who is the most original and
dramatic of Hawthorne's men and women, and some scenes which are as
powerful as any drawn by him.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.--Hawthorne gave the Puritan to literature. This
achievement suggests Irving's canonization of the Knickerbockers and
Cooper's of the pioneer and the Indian. Himself a Unitarian and out of
sympathy with the Puritans' creed, Hawthorne nevertheless says, "And yet,
let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have
intertwined themselves with mine." He and they had the same favorite
subject,--the human soul in its relation to the judgment day. He could no
more think of sin unrelated to the penalty, than of a serpent without shape
or color. Unlike many modern novelists, his work never wanders beyond a
world where the Ten Commandments rule. Critics have well said that he never
painted a so-called man of the world, because such a man, by Hawthorne's
definition, would really be a man out of the great moral world, which to
Hawthorne seemed the only real world.
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