86 EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES. 



not left in the dark : her luxuriant hair is particularly 

 and frequently dwelt upon, and in the vividly drawn 

 forest scene it played a transforming part. From the 

 character of her hair-growth, I venture to imagine 

 with some confidence what were the characters of her 

 skin, and bones (and brain). 



Roger Chilling worth's character is not a little 

 curious. Probably Tie was not drawn from life, but 

 invented, or in some degree distorted for artistic pur- 

 poses. He was passionless in the affections, but 

 inconsistently passionate in vindictiveness. If Chilling- 

 worth ever existed in the flesh he was probably an 

 example of abnormal or degenerative change. Patho- 

 logical states are probably the only explanation of 

 certain historical and in some senses inexplicable 

 characters : Dean Swift was one of these. Who would 

 not rejoice if there existed a providence which joined 

 the Arthur Dimsdales to the Esther Prynnes, and 

 handed over the Eoger Chillingworths to the Dodson 

 sisters. 



It would be difficult to discover two writers more 

 strikingly opposed to each other than Hawthorne and 

 Dickens. By no possible training, under no possible 

 circumstance could the delineator of Skimpole and 

 Micawber have delineated Esther Prynne and Arthur 

 Dimsdale. Scantiness of face hair-growth, marked 

 dorsal curves and forward poise of head marked Dickens 

 as belonging to the active and less impassioned order 

 of beings. In his life and habits, in his artistic labours, 

 although endowed with marvellous gifts of observation 

 and description, of wit and humour, he nevertheless 

 distinctly lacked the deeper emotions. No writer of 

 clear vision and direct expression is wholly without 

 pathos ; but it may be, and Dickens's pathos was, an 



