All's Well That Ends Well

Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman

Horror writers with longstanding records as bestselling authors are not exempt from writing novels with unsatisfying endings. When the novelist is Stephen King, whose novels typically run as many as eight hundred pages (sometimes more), an unsatisfying ending is more than annoying; it's horrible.

Many of King's novels do end poorly, as It, Under the Dome, Revival, and many others attest. After reading hundreds of pages in which reality seems fairly real (other than the presence of the centuries-old, shape-shifting “It”), only to discover that the universe isn't a product of the Big Bang, as astronomers apparently mistakenly believe, but that it resulted from a gigantic turtle's need to vomit—well, readers are apt to think the effect is anything but agreeable. In fact, readers might think they'll be sick enough themselves to vomit a universe of their own. Likewise, the ending of Under the Dome is beyond frustrating. After plodding through hundreds of pages (many of which are devoted to King's Democratic progressivism and his obsessive hatred of Republicans and of President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney in particular), readers discover that the invisible and impenetrable dome that cuts off Chester's Mill, Maine, is the result of a gigantic, mischievous female adolescent alien who placed an inverted dome over the town, much as a mischievous Earthling might invert a bowl over an anthill. Consequently, readers are likely to work out until they've acquired sufficient strength to rip this ridiculous novel page from page. While writing Desperation, King seemed to find nothing amiss with the views of Christian fundamentalists. He even sought out one of them, a pastor, as his adviser. But, as The Regulators, the companion novel to Desperation, indicates, King likes to turn the tables on himself. He does just this in Revival. He'd had no problem with the beliefs and teachings of Christian fundamentalists when he wrote Desperation, but, while writing Revival, he said he couldn't stomach the Christian fundamentalists' idea of hell, as it's described in the Bible. He doesn't cite chapter and verse, but here are a few passages, from the King James Version of the Bible, concerning hell, that most Christian fundamentalists would probably accept:

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains (Deuteronomy 32:22).

The sorrows of hell compassed me about . . . (Samuel 22:6).

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (Isaiah 14:15).

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell (Mathew 5:29).

And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (Matthew 10:28).

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18).

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? (Matthew 23:33).

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched (Mark 9:23).

And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments . . . (Luke 16:23).

For . . . God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment . . . (2 Peter 2:4).

According to these verses, hell, an expression of divine wrath, is a locked pit below the earth. Made of several layers, it's a place of eternal darkness and everlasting fire, in which the damned, who are cast therein bodily, are beset by sorrows and live in constant torment (although both body and soul can be destroyed in hell). It's occupied by both fallen angels and by human sinners, and it's set against the kingdom of heaven, which shall overcome it.

This is the conception of hell that King finds ridiculous. In its place, he offers something so extremely absurd that it's laughable, and it is with this, his own conception of hell, which he believes is superior to the Biblical depiction of hell, that he concludes Revival, describing hell as a gigantic anthill full of gigantic, ravenous ants. Huh?

Somehow, King sees a huge anthill in which huge ants crush sinners with their huge jaws as superior to the depiction of hell provided in the Bible, the King James Version of which is, without argument, one of the greatest literary masterpieces of the English language. With judgment this poor, it is truly a wonder that King ever managed to write his much better, earlier work.

The endings of the stories by Bentley Little, another prolific horror novelist, are as bad as those of King's worst books. They're tacked-on, rather than being integral to the plot, and, typically, they explain nothing concerning what has transpired in the hundreds of pages preceding them. They seem to hint at an explanation, but, as there is no actual explanation at which to hint, the intimation itself is nothing more than a half-hearted, meaningless gesture. Read virtually any of Little's novels, including the one for which he won the dubious Bram Stoker Award, and you'll see what I mean—but be prepared for a major disappointment. For example, The Resort suggests the bizarre incidents which occur at the present resort are somehow linked to those which occurred at an earlier, nearby resort, which now lies in ruins. How and why the two resorts might have shared some common causal link is unclear because unexplained. Therefore, readers are within reason to assume that there never was such a link. Likely, they will feel cheated of the time, effort, and money they spent in reading the novel.

Horror master Edgar Allan Poe offered a solution to the dilemma of the sloppy ending 172 years ago. In “The Philosophy of Composition” (1846), he explains how he wrote his narrative poem “The Raven.” First, he decided how the story would end. Then, he selected everything—every word, every image, every figure of speech, every point of the plot, every character, every line of dialogue, every nuance of the setting—so that the final result, the story's effect, would be inevitable, given what came before and led up to it. It seems clear that neither King nor Little (nor many other writers, of the horror genre and of other genres, have any idea where their stories are going or why, but write only in the moment, making up the plot as they go.

Poe applied his technique not only to “The Raven,” but to most of his stories and other narrative poems. One story for which the ending isn't as clear and fitting as the conclusions of his other tales is “Ligeia.” As Kevin J. Hayes points out, in The Annotated Poe:

The ending leaves many questions unanswered. The reappearance of Ligeia can be interpreted as a phantasmagoric illusion [an image projected by the so-called magic lantern, a type of early projector], an opium-induced hallucination [the narrator uses laudanum], a psychological fantasy, a modern recurrence of a traditional transformation legend, or an actual event. . . .

Comments Poe made concerning the story's problematic ending indicate that he'd intended the story to have a supernatural ending. A friend of his, Pendleton Cooke, asked about the story's resolution. In response, Poe “suggested how he might have improved it”:

One point I have not fully carried out—I should have intimated that the will did not perfect its intention—there should have been a relapse—a final one—and Ligeia (who had only succeeded in so much as to convey an idea of the truth to the narrator) should be at length entombed as Rowena—the bodily alterations having gradually faded away.

It seems that Poe, unlike King, Little, and a host of other writers, learned his lesson about writing sloppy endings. He was careful, from then on, to plan more carefully the outcomes of his stories, the vast majority of which have the unified structure and the single effect for which he has become famous. For example, “The Pit and the Pendulum” is based an article, “Anecdote towards the History of the Spanish Inquisition.” According to this article, “when General Lasalle entered Toledo, he immediately visited the Palace of the Inquisition,” where he tested a torture device, which he found to be in good order.

As Hayes observes, the way in which the article recounted the story was ineffective from “a dramatic point of view,” so Poe reversed its chronology:

Though fascinated by the story, Poe nevertheless recognized what was wrong with it, at least from a dramatic point of view: it was backwards. By having Lasalle arrive in the first sentence, the article destroys all possibilities for tension and terror. Poe turned the story around, describing what happens to one particular prisoner while saving Lasalle's timely intervention for the final paragraph.”

Poe had learned the lesson that he would teach in “The Philosophy of Composition” and exemplify in the majority of his own short stories, essays, and narrative poems: in the words of the bard, “All's well that ends well.”

A Sidebar Approach to Writing

Copyright 2011 by Gary L. Pullman

Many book-length commentaries and analyses of popular entertainment products offer, more or less as fillers, occasional sidebars that provide behind-the-scenes information, summaries, or little-known facts about the various topics that the commentaries routinely cover in their murders to dissect. Dusted: The Unauthorized Guide to Buffy the Vampire Slayer is no exception, offering, as it does, 22 such sidebars, among them speculations concerning “Spike’s Nature,” an account of “The Unaired Pilot,” and a “Vampire History.”

From a writer’s perspective, perhaps some of the more interesting (and potentially valuable) sidebars are those that deal with characters’ back stories, histories regarding settings, and proposed plotlines. These items present a handy, dandy way of enriching one’s own narratives: pretend that you are a fan of your own work and that, as such, you buy a book (or a magazine) about the narrative of which you are an aficionado. Imagine, also, that you are the writer (or one of the writers) of the commentary and develop sidebars of the sort that you think fans of the narrative you’re writing your commentary about might enjoy, particularly ones associated with characters’ back stories, histories regarding settings, and proposed plotlines. Write them about your story, and, presto!, you’ve developed some ideas for future chapters of your novel in progress or (should you be so lucky) your ongoing series of novels.

For example, let’s assume that your story takes place in ancient Rome and that you want to create a sense of horror mingled with terror. Perhaps you decide to have a present-day visitor to the catacombs get stranded in the underground burial chambers overnight. This situation (and setting) cries out for a sidebar treatment in which you summarize the history of the local catacombs and given a succinct, but ghastly, description of the place.

If your character is (or knows) a famous person of the period, a sidebar concerning the famous man or woman--perhaps he is an emperor of a visiting queen--will help keep your fictitious portrait of him or her both accurate and intriguing, provided that the sidebar contains not only pertinent facts but also a spicy anecdote or two concerning the historical figure.

An artifact could also deserve sidebar treatment. Again, the facts and anecdotes you include in your sidebar will help you to stay on track and be interesting as you describe and explain the significance of the relic or objet d’art.

Narrative and Dramatic Technique

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Lately, I have become more and more interested in narrative and dramatic technique, in the use of the more sophisticated, less apparent methods by which authors and filmmakers convey meaning and nuance in the tales they show and tell. Some of these techniques include incongruity, juxtaposition, symbolism, metaphor, and imagery. Indeed, on occasion, two or m ore of these techniques are combined, one as the vehicle of the other. For example, image or juxtaposition often conveys symbolism. In Deleuze and Horror Film, Anna Powell offers an interesting and insightful explication of Stanley Kubrick’s use of imagery both to set the tone of the movie and to symbolize the state of protagonist Jack Torrance’s mind:

Inflation and detachment shape the cerebral aesthetic of The Shining and its virtual experience by the viewer. The wide-angle lens and overblown strains of Berlioz plunge us sensorially into a world of inflated grandeur. Extremely wide vistas of the mountainous landscape induce a cold, detached and depersonalized perspective. Humans are unimportant in this vast physical, and metaphysical, terrain. The mechanic motion of an uncannily independent camera surveys the landscape in an omniscient gliding motion. We experience the perspective of an eagle’s eye, or a divine power, as we become-god. Mental detachment and ego-inflation key in the delusions of Jack Torrance. The disturbed writer’s deranged consciousness forms and is formed by the film’s mise-en-scene and cinematography.

The landscape, like the music, has a sublime grandeur yet the ominous chords and the dizzying, extra-human perspective render it sinister. It threatens to engulf the small, insect-like car, leading it ever upwards into a land of eternal snow. As the narrative moves inexorably onwards, it mobilizes a process of becoming-frozen. Jack undergoes a freezing of emotional warmth and empathy. His blood runs cold, both figuratively and literally, as he becomes one with the forces of winter and death (43-44).

Powell’s analysis is powerful and insightful, and Kubrick’s use of the external world to reflect the internal world extends beyond the mountainous countryside to the interior-exterior world of the Overlook Hotel as well, which, like the landscape without, also conveys, even mirrors, the unstable state of Torrance’s mind:

Shining as affective force dominates the mise-en-scene. The interior of the Overlook Hotel is lit and coloured preternaturally. No daylight can penetrate, and fire, candles and electricity replace natural light. Polished surfaces like metal, glossy paint and marble magnify their impact by varying degrees of reflection and refraction. These artificial light qualities objectify Jack’s derangement. They highlight the colours and tones of gold that express and modify the power of light itself. The hotel’s gold function room is the locus of vampiric energy. Its tonal quality spreads through the building to drain the human life force. Light grows brighter and colours grow richer enhanced by the psychic horror it generates.

A distinctive light quality reinforces the cold white of the larder / cold storage room, lit by a fluorescent tube that drains all other colours. This space is the cold heart of the building, where Jack is trapped until his final murderous apotheosis. . . . As well as the qualities and tones of colours, light evokes tactility, we virtually feel the snow’s bitter coldness. This is effected by Kubrick’s use of cold blue light and a back-lit mist that rises as the snow’s surface evaporates. In his dying, Jack becomes completely overwhelmed by blueness and light in a becoming-ice (45-46).

In a previous post, I explained how, in “Dracula’s Guest,” Bram Stoker’s inclusion of potentially hallucinatory perceptions as part of descriptions within descriptions of persons (characters), places (settings), and things, from the point of view of the story’s protagonist, creates almost-subliminal tension and anxiety in the reader as this device produces, in the reader’s consciousness, a cognitive double-take, so to speak. In another article, posted previously, I explain how H. P. Lovecraft’s various descriptions, always in different terms, of the same monstrous entity increases the horrific character of the monster in the reader’s imagination as he or she strives, in vain, to make sense of the puzzling series of differing descriptions of the same creature.  In yet another previously posted essay, I comment upon the disturbing effect of Stephen King’s offhanded inclusion of nonsense words and phrases in the otherwise-normal dialogue of a character, Junior Rennie, who is losing his grip on reality (and, as it turns out, is suffering from an as-yet-undiagnosed brain tumor).  All of these techniques are ways by which horror writers have conveyed both convey meaning and nuance as well as horror and repulsion in the tales they tell.

Writers have discovered or (more often) created yet other techniques, too, for suggesting subtle shades of horror and tones of terror. My essay, previously posted, concerning the symbolic nature of the ogre-like monsters in The Descent (they appear to represent aborted fetuses who torment the women who descend into the more extreme depths of feminist demands for “choice,” even when such exercises of free will result in haunting guilt concerning one’s decision to end the lives of children growing in the womb) indicates yet another authorial means of conveying horrific meanings within a text or, in this case, a film.  Ray Bradbury often effects horror through characterization. The protagonist of his short story “Heavyset“ is frightening, indeed, simply because of who he is. Shirley Jackson, like Flannery O’Connor, uses a measured cadence to march her readers ever forward, through her often absurd situations and past her usually grotesque characters; her matter-of-fact, somehow insistent rhythm keeps readers reading as much as if they were participants in a parade.  In “Bad Girls,” an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Faith accidentally kills Deputy Mayor Allan Finch; before this horrific incident, the viewer is warned about imminent danger as Faith and Buffy walk down a dark alley, splashed with crimson as, on a nearby construction sawhorse, an amber caution light flashes.

Horror writers can learn from authors of other genres of fiction, too, appropriating for their own purposes the narrative and dramatic techniques that their peers have developed in the service of their own storytelling ends. Images can bracket the action of a story, forming bookends, as it were, and transforming a narrative or a drama into a frame story, as the car wrecks that begin and end Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool do.

Imagery can provide an antithesis to the nature of a character, as do the thick glasses that the visionary Hollywood producer Stanley Motss wears in Wag the Dog. Images can symbolize the transcendent subhuman nature of a character, as the soulless Man With No Eyes’ mirrored sunglasses do in Stuart Rosenberg’s Cool Hand Luke or a character’s transcendent qualities, as the snapping turtle that “won’t let go” even when it’s “deader than hell” does, in the same film. The mirrored sunglasses prevent anyone from seeing the “walking boss’” eyes and suggest that he has no eyes to see--in other words, that he is inhuman. The eyes are the mirrors of the soul, but rather than mirroring the Man With No Eyes’ Soul, the sunglasses mirror only the eyes (and the souls) of those whom the walking boss’ sunglasses reflect. The turtle symbolizes Luke’s own refusal, as it were, to “let go” his hold on his fellow convicts, whom he inspires even more after he is “deader than hell” than he did when he was alive in their midst. Horror writers can use similar devices to frame stories or typify, or even deify, characters.

Establishing Verisimilitude

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

Imagine a woman sitting on her porch, reading a letter. Across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched, but we do not see the watcher.

Who is this woman? Who wrote the letter, and what is in it? How does she react to its contents? Does she smile, laugh, sigh, weep, shake her head, nod, shrug?

Who is watching her? A man? A woman? Why is he or she watching the woman? Is the watcher a police detective? A mobster? A stalker? A secret protector? Does he or she mean the woman harm or good?

The answers to these questions (which will suggest additional questions) depends on the genre of the story that one is writing. Is it an action-adventure story? A detective or mystery story? Espionage? Fantasy? Romance? Science fiction? Western?

Or horror?

If it’s a horror story, the watcher could be either a predator or a protector. If a predator, it could be an alien (extraterrestrial), an animal, a demon, a ghost, a madman, a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a zombie, or some other kind of monster, human or otherwise. Depending upon what kind of menace the watcher is, he, she (or it) may or many not respond to the woman’s reading of the letter and to her reaction to its contents.

Were I developing a plot about such a situation, I would opt to make the threat a human one or an intelligent entity, at least, because such an antagonist could respond to the situation, including the woman’s reaction to the letter, and if she is going to be described as reading and reacting to a letter, it would be seem desirable to the make the most of the emotional and dramatic potential of such a scene. Otherwise, why have her read a letter at all? She could just as easily be watched while she waters the flowers, takes a walk, or does any of a hundred other things. Therefore, my watcher must be one of the following: an alien, a demon, a madman, a vampire, or a witch (or, possibly, a ghost). Eliminated would be the animal, the werewolf, the zombie and any type of subhuman monster.

If, on the other hand, the watcher was the woman’s secret protector (secret because, if she know of him, he wouldn’t have to observe her from hiding), he (or she) would have to have a motive that seems feasible to readers. His or her role may or may not be related to the monstrous antagonist. If it is related, perhaps the protective character is a government agent, a demon hunter, a psychiatrist, a vampire slayer, a clergyman, or a ghost hunter or psychic. Obviously, if such were the case, this character would be present to protect the woman from the monster. Perhaps the protector’s awareness that the woman is due to receive a letter from a particular correspondent is the reason that he or she is watching the woman. Maybe the protector wants to see how the woman reacts to the letter’s contents (which, of course, implies that he or she is him- or herself aware of these contents).

The letter’s contents could be the device that links the three characters: the woman, the protector, and the antagonist. Does it announce the protector’s mission (to protect the woman) from a threatening entity (the antagonist)? Does it explain the true situation of which the woman is to play an integral part, a fact of which, until her reading of the letter, she has been unaware? Does the letter warn the woman of the monster that threatens her or will begin to threaten her, if it has not done so before? Could the woman be subject to a post-hypnotic command expressed in the letter she reads?

Why does the antagonist want to abduct or kill the woman? What is the antagonist’s motive for doing so? Is the villain acting alone or as part of a group?

The woman’s role in the situation must not be forgotten. In fact, it is likely that either she or the protective character is the story’s protagonist (unless there is no monster and the watcher is him- or herself the narrative’s antagonist). Was she expecting the letter she now reads or did it come to her out of the blue, as it were? Is the letter from a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, or a stranger? What does the letter say? Why does she react to its contents in the way that she does? Is her reaction appropriate or inappropriate to the news, and why? What else does the reader need to know about her? Is she single? Married? Separated? Divorced? Widowed? Does she work? Is she between jobs (“redundant,” as the British say)? Is she retired or independently wealthy? What predicament is she in? (She must be in some sort of predicament, of course, either now or very soon, for, as Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren point out in Understanding Fiction, “no conflict, no story.”)

Of course, the basic situation with which we started--that of a woman’s sitting on her porch, reading a letter while, across a bed of bright petunias, she is being watched by an unseen watcher--could be developed in several ways besides the one I set forth as an example, and the story would, as a result, develop differently in each case, but, by linking the woman, the antagonist, and the watchful protector through the letter, we attain coherence among the characters, which establishes both a sense of narrative logic and believability, or a sense of verisimilitude, as writers and critics--mostly critics--are fond of saying.

Guest Speaker: Edgar Allan Poe on Nathaniel Hawthorne

Note: In Graham’s Magazine (May, 18842, pp. 298-300, Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) reviewed Nathaniel Hawthorne’s (1804-1864) Twice-Told Tales, an anthology, published in 1837, which, among others, contains the following short stories: “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” “Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe,” “Wakefield,” “The Great Carbuncle,” “The Hollow if the Three Hills,” “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment,” and “The Ambitious Guest.” The tales were reprints of earlier publications. Poe’s review of Hawthorne’s Twice-Told Tales follows.



We said a few hurried words about Mr. Hawthorne in our last number, with the design of speaking more fully in the present. We are still, however, pressed for room, and must necessarily discuss his volumes more briefly and more at random than their high merits deserve.

The book professes to be a collection of tales, yet is, in two respects, misnamed. These pieces are now in their third publication, and, of course, are thrice-told. Moreover, they are by no means all tales, either in the ordinary or in the legitimate understanding of the term. Many of them are pure essays, for example, "Sights from a Steeple," "Sunday; Home," "Little Annie's Ramble," "A Rill from the Town Pump," "The Toll-Gatherer's Day," "The Haunted Mind," "The Sister Years," "Snow-Flakes," "Night Sketches," and "Foot-Prints on the Sea-Shore." We mention these matters chiefly on account of their discrepancy with that marked precision and finish by which the body of the work is distinguished.

Of the essays just named, we must be content to speak briefly. They are each and all beautiful, without being characterized by the polish and adaptation so visible in the tales proper. A painter would at once note their leading or predominant feature, and style it repose. There is no attempt at effect. All is quiet, thoughtful, subdued. Yet this repose may exist simultaneously with high originality of thought; and Mr. Hawthorne has demonstrated the fact. At every turn we meet with novel combinations; yet these combinations never surpass the limits of the quiet. We are soothed as we read; and withal is a calm astonishment that ideas so apparently obvious have never occurred or been presented to us before. Herein our author differs materially from Lamb or Hunt or Hazlitt--who, with vivid originality of manner and expression, have less of the true novelty of thought than is general supposed, and whose originality, at best, has an uneasy or meretricious quaintness, replete with startling effects unfounded in nature, and inducing trains of reflection which lead to no satisfactory result. The essays of Hawthorne have much of the character of Irving, with more of originality, and less of finish; while, compared with the Spectator, they have vast superiority at all points. The Spectator, Mr. Irving, and Mr. Hawthorne have in common that tranquil and subdued manner which we have chosen to denominate repose; but, the case of the two former, this repose is attained rather by the absence of novel combination, or of originality, than otherwise, and consists chiefly in the calm, quiet, unostentatious expression of commonplace thoughts, in an unambitious unadulterated Saxon. In them, by strong effort, we are made to conceive the absence of all. In the essays before us the absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong undercurrent of suggestion runs continuously beneath the upper stream of the tranquil thesis. In short, these effusions of Mr. Hawthorne are the product of a truly imaginative intellect, restrained, and in some measure repressed, by fastidiousness of taste, by constitutional melancholy and by indolence.

But it is of his tales that we desire principally to speak. The tale proper, in our opinion, affords unquestionably the fairest field for the exercise of the loftiest talent, which can be afforded by the wide domains of mere prose. Were we bidden to say how the highest genius could be most advantageously employed for the best display of its own powers, we should answer, without hesitation--in the composition of a rhymed poem, not to exceed in length what might be perused in an hour. Within this limit alone can the highest order of true poetry exist. We need only here say, upon this topic, that, in almost all classes of composition, the unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting. We may continue the reading of a prose composition, from the very nature of prose itself, much longer than we can persevere, to any good purpose, in the perusal of a poem. This latter, if truly fulfilling the demands of the poetic sentiment, induces an exaltation of the soul which cannot be long sustained. All high excitements are necessarily transient. Thus a long poem is a paradox. And, without unity of impression, the deepest effects cannot be brought about. Epics were the Spring of an imperfect sense of Art, and their reign is no more. A poem too brief may produce a vivid, but never an intense or enduring impression. Without a certain continuity of effort--without a certain duration or repetition of purpose--the soul is never deeply moved. There must be the water upon the rock. De Beranger has things--pungent and spirit-stirring--but, like all immassive bodies, they lack momentum, and thus fail to satisfy the Poetic Sentiment. They sparkle and excite, but, from want of continuity, fail deeply to impress. Extreme brevity will degenerate into epigrammatism; but the sin of extreme length is even more unpardonable. In medio tutissimus ibis.

Were we called upon however to designate that class of composition which, next to such a poem as we have suggested, should best fulfill the demands of high genius--should offer it the most advantageous field of exertion--we should unhesitatingly speak of the prose tale, as Mr. Hawthorne has here exemplified it. We allude to the short prose narrative, requiring from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal. The ordinary novel is objectionable, from its length, for reasons already stated in substance. As it cannot be read at one sitting, it deprives itself, of course, of the immense force derivable from totality. Worldly interests intervening during the pauses of perusal, modify, annul, or counteract, in a greater or less degree, the impressions of the book. But simple cessation in reading would, of itself, be sufficient to destroy the true unity. In the brief tale, however, the author is enabled to carry out the fullness of his intention, be it what it may. During the hour of perusal the soul of the reader is at the writer's control. There are no external or extrinsic influences--resulting from weariness or interruption.

A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents--he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. And by such means, with such care and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of him who contemplates it with a kindred art, a sense of the fullest satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished, because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel. Undue brevity is just as exceptionable here as in the poem; but undue length is yet more to be avoided.

We have said that the tale has a point of superiority even over the poem. In fact, while the rhythm of this latter is an essential aid in the development of the poem's highest idea--the idea of the Beautiful--the artificialities of this rhythm are an inseparable bar to the development of all points of thought or expression which have their basis in Truth. But Truth is often, and in very great degree, the aim of the tale. Some of the finest tales are tales of ratiocination. Thus the field of this species of composition, if not in so elevated a region on the mountain of Mind, is a table-land of far vaster extent than the domain of the mere poem. Its products are never so rich, but infinitely more numerous, and more appreciable by the mass of mankind. The writer of the prose tale, in short, may bring to his theme a vast variety of modes or inflections of thought and expression--(the ratiocinative, for example, the sarcastic or the humorous) which are not only antagonistical to the nature of the poem, but absolutely forbidden by one of its most peculiar and indispensable adjuncts; we allude of course, to rhythm. It may be added, here, par parenthese, that the author who aims at the purely beautiful in a prose tale is laboring at great disadvantage. For Beauty can be better treated in the poem. Not so with terror, or passion, or horror, or a multitude of such other points. And here it will be seen how full of prejudice are the usual animadversions against those tales of effect many fine examples of which were found in the earlier numbers of Blackwood. The impressions produced were wrought in a legitimate sphere of action, and constituted a legitimate although sometimes an exaggerated interest. They were relished by every man of genius: although there were found many men of genius who condemned them without just ground. The true critic will but demand that the design intended be accomplished, to the fullest extent, by the means most advantageously applicable.

We have very few American tales of real merit--we may say, indeed, none, with the exception of "The Tales of a Traveller" of Washington Irving, and these "Twice-Told Tales" of Mr. Hawthorne. Some of the pieces of Mr. John Neal abound in vigor and originality; but in general, his compositions of this class are excessively diffuse, extravagant, and indicative of an imperfect sentiment of Art. Articles at random are, now and then, met with in our periodicals which might be advantageously compared with the best effusions of the British Magazines; but, upon the whole, we are far behind our progenitors in this department of literature.

Of Mr. Hawthorne's Tales we would say, emphatically, that they belong to the highest region of Art--an Art subservient to genius of a very lofty order. We had supposed, with good reason for so supposing, that he had been thrust into his present position by one of the impudent cliques which beset our literature, and whose pretensions it is our full purpose to expose at the earliest opportunity; but we have been most agreeably mistaken. We Know of few compositions which the critic can more honestly commend then these Twice-Told Tales." As Americans, we feel proud of the book.

Mr. Hawthorne's distinctive trait is Invention, creation, imagination, originality--a trait which, in the literature of fiction, is positively worth all the rest. But the nature of originality, so far as regards its manifestation in letters, is but imperfectly understood. The inventive or original mind as frequently displays itself in novelty of tone as in novelty of matter. Mr. Hawthorne is original at all points.

It would be a matter of some difficulty to designate the best of these tales; we repeat that, without exception, they are beautiful. "Wakefield" is remarkable for the skill with which an old idea--a well-known incident--is worked up or discussed. A man of whims conceives the purpose of quitting his wife and residing incognito, for twenty years, in her immediate neighborhood. Something of this kind actually happened in London. The force of Mr. Hawthorne's tale lies m the analysis of the motives which must or might have impelled the husband to such folly, in the first instance, with the possible causes of his perseverance. Upon this thesis a sketch of singular power has been constructed.

"The Wedding Knell" is full of the boldest imagination--an imagination fully controlled by taste. The most captious critic could find no flaw in this production.

"The Minister's Black Veil" is a masterly composition of in which the sole defect is that to the rabble its exquisite skill will be caviare. The obvious meaning of this article will be found to smother its insinuated one. The moral put into the mouth of the dying minister will be supposed to convey the true import of the narrative; and that a crime of dark dye, (having reference to the "young lady") has been committed, is a point which only minds congenial with that of the author will perceive.

"Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe" is vividly original and managed most dexterously.

"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" is exceedingly well imagined, and executed with surpassing ability. The artist breathes in every line of it.

"The White Old Maid" is objectionable, even more than the "Minister's Black Veil," on the score of its mysticism Even with the thoughtful and analytic, there will be much trouble in penetrating its entire import.

"The Hollow of the Three Hills" we would quote in full, had we space;--not as evincing higher talent than any of the other pieces, but as affording an excellent example of the author s peculiar ability. The subject is common-place. A witch subjects the Distant and the Past to the view of a mourner. It has been the fashion to describe, in such cases, a mirror in which the images of the absent appear; or a cloud of smoke is made to arise, and thence the figures are gradually unfolded. Mr. Hawthorne has wonderfully heightened his effect by making the ear, in place of the eye, the medium by which the fantasy Is conveyed. The head of the mourner is enveloped m the cloak of the witch, and within its magic folds there arise sounds which have an all-sufficient intelligence. Throughout this article also, the artist is conspicuous--not more in positive than in negative merits. Not only is all done that should be done, but (what perhaps is an end with more difficulty attained) there is nothing done which should not be. Every word tells, and there is not a word which does not tell.

In "Howe's Masquerade" we observe something which resembles a plagiarism--but which may he a very flattering coincidence of thought. We quote the passage in question.

"With a dark flush of wrath upon his brow they saw the general draw his sword and advance to meet the figure in the cloak before the latter had stepped one pace upon the floor.

" 'Villain, unmuff le yourself ' cried he, 'you pass no farther!'

"The figure, without blenching a hair's breadth from the sword which was pointed at his breast, made a solemn pause, and lowered the cape of the cloak from his face, yet not sufficiently for the spectators to catch a glimpse of it. But Sir William Howe had evidently seen enough. The sternness of his countenance gave place to a look of wild amazement, if not horror, while he recoiled several steps from the figure, and let fall his sword upon the floor."--See vol. 2, page 20.

The idea here is, that the figure in the cloak is the phantom or reduplication of Sir William Howe; but in an article called "William Wilson," one of the "Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque," we have not only the same idea, but the same idea similarly presented in several respects. We quote two paragraphs, which our readers may compare with what has been already given. We have italicized, above, the immediate particulars of resemblance.

"The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce, apparently, a material change in the arrangement at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror, it appeared to me, now stood where none had been perceptible before: and as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced with a feeble and tottering gait to meet me.

"Thus it appeared I say, but was not. It was Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of dissolution. Not a line in all the marked and singular lineaments of that face which was not even identically mine own. His mask and cloak lay where he had thrown them' upon the floor."--Vol. 2. p. 57.

Here it will be observed that, not only are the two general conceptions identical, but there are various points of similarity. In each case the figure seen is the wraith or duplication of the beholder. In each case the scene is a masquerade. In each case the figure is cloaked. In each, there is a quarrel -- that is to say, angry words pass between the parties. In each the beholder is enraged. In each the cloak and sword fall upon the floor. The "villain, unmuffle yourself," of Mr. H. is precisely paralleled by a passage at page 56 of "William Wilson."

In the way of objection we have scarcely a word to say of these tales. There is, perhaps, a somewhat too general or prevalent tone--a tone of melancholy and mysticism.. The subjects are insufficiently varied. There is not so much of versatility evinced as we might well be warranted in expecting from the high powers of Mr. Hawthorne. But beyond these trivial exceptions we have really none to make. The style is purity itself. Force abounds. High imagination gleams from every page. Mr. Hawthorne is a man of the truest genius. We only regret that the limits of our Magazine will not permit us to pay him that full tribute of commendation, which, under other circumstances, we should be so eager to pay.