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The increased interest in, and more accurate knowledge of, our country in Europe of late is apparent from the greater attention and sympathy accorded the United States by the foreign press; it is evidenced by the enthusiastic welcome bestowed in every port and city upon our naval hero, and the honors lavished on our household poet; it is manifest in the candid and cordial acknowledgment of official merit and private enterprise, whether expressed in the parting compliments paid a retiring minister, or the prandial honors offered to the patient and persistent American actuary of the Atlantic telegraph; and it finds expression in hospitality on one side of the Channel, and the liberal interpretation of our national proclivities by publicists on the other. All these signs of the times give emphasis to our diplomatic influence, attest its renewed importance, and suggest its improvement. The London Spectator, alluding to our late minister at the Court of St. James, remarks:

"We can conceive of no career more likely to impress upon a public which is apt at times to talk with silly fluency of the superfluousness, in these days of popular government, of embassies and ambassadors, than the career of the Ambassador who for seven years has had to manage the relations of the two most popular governments on the globe, and but for whose personal wisdom and tact those two popular governments would probably at this moment be peppering each other with proclamations, orders in council, general orders, turret guns, and all the elaborate missiles of scientific war."

A leading British statesman, in a recent discussion of the English diplomatic system, declared in Parliament that, for every pound sterling paid to their foreign ministers, tens of thousands of pounds were saved to the treasury, by the avoidance of entangling disputes and misunderstandings between subjects abroad, which, through personal interviews between the ministers, in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred, were arranged amicably, and by the

strengthening of national good-will and developing commercial relations. In a subsequent debate, it was shown that the increased facilities of intercourse had added largely to the labor and expense of foreign representatives, while they increased the need and enlarged the sphere of their duties.

"After the acquisition of Russian America," says La Presse, “which increases their domains on the Pacific, the Americans have purchased from Denmark the island of St. Thomas. They annex, also, by the same process, the Bay of Samana. Then, as to Mexico, it is indisputable that one of the causes of the fall of Maximilian was, at first the covert, and afterwards open opposition of the Washington Cabinet; quite lately, General Prim was in treaty therewith to cede the pearl of the Antilles, Cuba. Even in South America, the Starry Banner presents itself as the guardian of the little local republics against European pretensions. There, also, the Monroe doctrine will produce its effects. The impartial America of Washington is dead. There is, now-adays, on the other side of the Atlantic, a people that wishes to extend its action over the whole world, and which, with this object, tends to become more and more unitarian." Thus, increase of territory and neighborhood seems to necessitate fresh wisdom in our diplomatic system, and to render it alike expedient, and morally as well as politically desirable that in this, as in every other national sphere of action, the solemn purpose and earnest aim of our government and people should be to have, always and everywhere, the right man in the right place.

Our brief diplomatic history opened most auspiciously with the name, character, and influence of Benjamin Franklin, who, to this day, is the most complete representative American, and is regarded abroad as the peerless expositor of the genius of our institutions; the philosopher and republican gaze fondly on his portrait at Versailles; young Italy buys his autobiography at a bookstall in Florence; and

the London printer and Berlin savant cherish the memory of his eminent success, attained through frugality and self-reliance, and his experimental research in a sphere of natural phenomena whose later developments are among the greatest marvels of science. The eulogies of Turgot and Helvetius of old are echoed by those of Brougham and Laboulaye to-day. To the bold attacks on superstition whereby Voltaire opened the way for the reception of vital truths and to the vindication of the original and pervasive sentiments of humanity, which made Rousseau the pioneer of social reform, Franklin added the practical, common-sense, and humanitarian element which gave to these efficiency; his discoveries as a natural philosopher, his example as a free citizen, and his bonhomic and simple personal habits gave prestige and effect to his services as an ambassador. As agent for the Colonies in London, as one of the Committee of Secret Correspondence during the Revolution, as the medium of the French Alliance, by his vigilance, his moderation, his patience, wisdom, firmness, and loyalty, he secured us European recognition and the sinews of war; while his social attractiveness and solidity of character were, with rare singleness of purpose, made to subserve patriotic ends. The elder Adams with his assiduous energy, Jay with his intrepid rectitude, Gouverneur Morris with his comprehensive mind and high tone, and Deane with his conciliatory tact, ushered in our foreign representation with dignity and moral emphasis. These men of intellectual scope and culture, of disinterested self-devotion, of legal acumen, republican faith, and courteous manners, gained for America, at the hour of her civic birth, the confidence and respect of the world. Nor were their immediate successors unworthy of such illustrious forerunners, for on the roll of our early ambassadors we read with justifiable pride such names as Rufus King, William Pinckney, Albert Gallatin, and Edward Livingston, followed at a subsequent era by those

of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, -names enshrined in the national heart and radiant on the page of history. Thenceforth the list becomes incongruous; here and there, now and then, preserving its original distinction, as worthily representative of a free and intelligent people, but too often degraded by mere political fortune-hunters, whose careers reflect no credit and whose appointments accuse the integrity of those in power. Not without memorable exceptions, however, is this perversion of diplomatic opportunities; we have fortunately had men always on the floor of Congress, and in the Executive chair and the Department of State, who "have kept steadily in view the honor and prosperity of the whole country," and, rising above partisan objects, have had the civic wisdom and courage to select as American ambassadors, envoys, and official agents, citizens of approved character and devoted to liberal studies, whose personal influence abroad has been auspicious, and whose diplomatic station has gained lustre and utility from their renown as intellectual benefactors. In this noble phalanx we can rank with patriotic satisfaction such men as Webster and Wheaton, Legaré and the Everetts, Bancroft, Irving, Motley, Walsh, Fay, Marsh, and Hawthorne; and while the social and official eminence of Bowdoin, Middleton, Rush, McLean, and others is gratefully remembered, the later and essential services of Charles Francis Adams and his national compeers in the diplomatic corps, during the late war, have already an historical recognition.

In what may be called the incidental fruits of diplomatic opportunities we are not without gratifying evidence, where these appointments have been judiciously made. Thus our graceful pioneer author gathered materials for his cherished bequest of literature; official position in England and Spain was of great practical value to Irving as an author; while the scholarship of Alexander H. Everett made him, when American minister in the latter country, an

excellent purveyor for Prescott. The and become intellectual benefactors as standard treatise on International Law well as patriotic representatives of our perhaps would never have been under- country. taken, and certainly not so ably achieved, but for Wheaton's diplomatic position at Copenhagen and Berlin. Soon after the Revolution the public spirit of such men as Humphreys and Barlow, while holding office abroad, made them benign coadjutors in many desirable enterprises; the former first imported our best breed of sheep, and the latter promoted the success of Fulton's inventions. Bancroft gleaned an historical harvest while at the Court of St. James; Hawthorne gave us the most finished picture of England since the SketchBook while consul at Liverpool; Kinney held counsel with Cavour and D'Azeglio at Turin, during the auspicious epoch of Italian unification, bringing to their encouragement, not only republican sympathy, but many educational and civic precedents to guide the experimental state reforms. From Peru, South America, China, the East, and many parts of Western Europe, interesting and valuable researches and records of observation have employed the leisure, and honored the of fices, of our diplomatic representatives; while one of the most popular and creditable histories which has enriched the literature of the day owes its existence in no small degree to the facilities afforded its accomplished author, by his residence and position abroad as a Minister of the United States. These and similar facts point to the expediency and desirableness, other things being equal, of selecting for such appointments scholars and men of science or lottered aptitudes. It is one of the few methods incident to our institutions, whereby not only a race of gentlemen, but a class of disinterested, social, artistic, and literary men can be fostered

As we write, a gifted native sculptor is putting the finishing touches to a statue of Commodore Matthew Perry, to commemorate the Expedition by which Japan was opened to the commerce of the world; and a group of Orientals are on a pilgrimage to the nations, with treaties of comity and trade, under the guidance and guardianship of an American selected for the office by their government from among the diplomatists of Europe, not less because of his personal qualifications, than in recognition of the independent position, harmonious relations, and liberal policy of his country; while the educational and economical progress of Greece, so dear to the American scholar, and so identified with our Christian enterprise, have just received the national recognition which the last and noblest offspring of Time owes to the primeval source of its culture, by the establishment of a mission at Athens, and the cordial reception of a minister from that classic land. In view of such facts, and in the recent efforts to elevate and systematize our diplomacy, we have reason to hope that the abuses which have succeeded its brilliant initiation will be reformed; that the more enlightened interpretations of the principles of international law, and the fresh sense of national responsibility induced by the costly sacrifices and second birth of the Republic, will inspire our legislators to aim at securing in the future, what the historian of our early diplomacy claimed therefor, that "we entered into the old and venerable circle of nations in no vulgar spirit, but calmly, as conscious of right, resolutely, as conscious of strength, gravely, as conscious of duty."

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THE GENIUS OF HAWTHORNE.

To understand the Marble Faun, or,

as the English publishers compelled Hawthorne to call their edition, "Transformation," it should be read in the atmosphere of Rome. Everything in that moral, or rather entirely im'moral, atmosphere serves to interpret the artistic work of an author in whom intellect and sensibility are one to a degree that scarcely can be predicated of any other; and whose power to express what he felt with his mind, and thought with his heart (we use these expressions advisedly), are unsurpassed, if not unsurpassable.

Every one, whether cultivated or uncultivated, acknowledges the charm of Hawthorne's style; but the most cultivated best appreciate the wonder of that power by which he wakes into clear consciousness shades of feeling and delicacies of thought, that perhaps have been experienced by us all, but were never embodied in words before.

We are not prepared to fully adopt the dogmatic statement of a recent critic, who declared prose composition a higher kind of expression than that which the world has hitherto united in calling poetry; but Hawthorne goes far to prove that language even without rhythm is an equal organ of that genius which, whether it speak in music, sculpture, painting, or measured words, is a still more ethereal image of the Infinite in the finite; an utterance of the divine by the human which may not always be understood at once, but which creates understanding within us more and more forever.

Judging by this standard,—the power of creating understanding within those whom he addresses, - Hawthorne takes rank with the highest order of artists. For it is not the material in which a man works that determines his place as an artist, but the elevation and fineness of the truth his work communicates. Was ever a more enduring house built by architectural genius, or made more

palpable to the senses of men, than

The House of the Seven Gables? Or did any sculptor ever uncover a statue of marble that will last longer than the form of Judge Pyncheon, over whose eyeball the fly crawls as he sits dead? And what painted canvas or frescoed wall by any master of color has preserved a more living, breathing image of the most evanescent moods of sensibility and delicacies of action than are immortalized in the sketches of Alice and of Clifford, and the tender nursing of the latter after the arrival of Phoebe ?

The House of the Seven Gables is a tragedy that takes rank by the side of the Trilogy of the Agamemnon, Choephoroi, and Eumenides, without the aid of the architecture, sculpture, verse, dancing, and music which Æschylus summoned to his aid to set forth the operation of the Fury of the house of Atrides that swept to destruction four generations of men. It takes two hundred years for the crime which the first Pynchcon perpetrated against the first Maule to work itself off, or, we should rather say, for the forces of the general humanity to overcome the inevitable consequences of one rampant individuality, that undertook to wield the thunderbolts of Omnipotence against a fellow-mortal possessing gifts not understood, and therefore condemned. The peaceful solution of the problem of fate in the modern tragedy is undoubtedly due to the Christian light which the noble heathen lacked; it is love, in every pure and unselfish form, that undoes the horrible spell which pride of possession and place and a pharisaic lust of rule laid upon the house of Pyncheon. As soon as the father of Phoebe freely followed out, in his own individual case, the genial impulse of nature, which consumed in its passionate glow the family pride that had proved so fatal, and thus admitted the general humanity into equality, or rather sued, as lovers wont, to be allied to it, even at the expense

of all the external advantages of his birthright, the good providence of God accepted and justified the deed, by sending into the first real home that a Pyncheon had made for himself one of those "angels that behold the face of the Father," who, in process of time, goes back to the desolate old house to bless it, without consciousness of the high place she holds among ministering spirits, or what a mighty deed she does by simply being the innocent, sweet, loving creature she is; while the corresponding last Maule in the light of the science which the general progress of society has given him finds an explanation of the peculiar power which the exceptional organization of his lineage had made hereditary; and, exercising it in a common-sense way, and with simple good feeling, the curse of the first Maule upon the first Pyncheon is at last replaced by a marriage blessing and bond, laying to sleep the Fury of Retribution, attendant on the crime which is the key-note of the whole story, and which had reappeared through so many generations, - for it makes the two families one.

In The Marble Faun we have a picture of Rome, not only as it appears to the senses and to the memory, but also to the spiritual apprehension which penetrates the outward show. Genius in Hawthorne was limited, as that of all men must be, by his temperament, but less than that of most men by his will. To "give his thought act" was not his impulse, but to represent it to other men. He was not, therefore, so much an effective power among other powers in the current life, as the quiet, open eye that gathers truth for other men to enact. His vocation was to set forth what he saw so clearly with such accuracy of outline, fulness of coloring, and in such dry light as would enable other men to interpret the phenomena about them as he did. He does not invent incidents, much less a dramatic narrative. He loved best to take some incident ready made to his hand, and to work out in thought the generation of it from eternal principles,

or the consequences of it in the spiritual experience of those concerned in it, whether actively or passively. Most writers of fiction not only tell you what their heroes and heroines do, but why; dogmatically stating how they feel and what they think. Hawthorne seldom does this. He does not seem to know much more about his heroes and heroines than he represents them to know of each other; but, recognizing the fact that most outward action is from mixed motives, and admits of more than one interpretation, he is very apt to suggest two or three quite diverse views, and, as it were, consult with his readers upon which may be the true one; and not seldom he gives most prominence to some interpretation which we feel pretty sure is not his own.

This characteristic peculiarity is nowhere more conspicuous than in The Marble Faun. He does not seem to know whether Donatello has pointed and furry ears or not. He touches the story of Miriam with such delicacy that those readers who are more interested in the gossip of temporary life than in the eternal powers which underlie it, generating a spiritual being which is never to pass away, are angry with the author, and accuse him of trifling with their feelings by raising curiosities which he does not gratify, and exciting painful sympathies which he does not soothe; they even call it a malicious use of a power which he ought to consecrate to increasing the enjoyment of his readers.

But few authors are really so little guilty as Hawthorne of any wanton use of their power over other minds. A work of literary art he did not view as merely an instrument for giving pleasure, but as a means to discover truth, or, rather, to put his readers on the track of discovering it in company with himself. What he especially seeks for are those great laws of human thought, feeling, and action which are apt to be covered from self-consciousness by transient emotions, and the force of outward circumstances of habit and general custom. In The Scarlet Let

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