Where Hawthorne is known, he seems to be deemed a pleasant writer, with a pleasant style, - a sequestered, harmless man, from whom any deep and weighty thing would hardly be anticipated: - a man who means no meanings. But there is no man, in whom humor and love, like mountain peaks, soar to such a rapt height, as to receive the irradiations of the upper skies; - there is no man in whom humor and love are developed in that high form called genius; no such man can exist without also possessing, as the indispensable complement of these, a great, deep intellect, which drops down into the universe like a plummet. Or, love and humor are only the eyes, through which such an intellect views this world. The great beauty in such a mind is but the product of its strength.

Literature·Writing·Genius·Intellect