“A dreadful secret to be communicated to several persons of various character—­grave or gay—­and they all to become insane, according to their characters, by the influence of the secret”

—­an idea modified and adapted in The Marble Faun.  “An ice-cold hand—­which people ever afterwards remember when once they have grasped it”—­is bestowed on the Wandering Jew, the owner of the marvellous Virtuoso’s Collection, whose treasures include the blood-encrusted pen with which Dr. Faustus signed away his salvation, Peter Schlemihl’s shadow, the elixir of life, and the philosopher’s stone.  The form of a vampire, who apparently never took shape on paper, flitted through the twilight of Hawthorne’s imagination: 

“Stories to be told of a certain person’s appearance in public, of his having been seen in various situations, and his making visits in private circles; but finally on looking for this person, to come upon his old grave and mossy tombstone.”

With so many alluring suggestions floating shadowwise across his mind, it is not wonderful that Hawthorne should have been fascinated by the dream of a human life prolonged far beyond the usual span—­a dream, which, if realised, would have enabled him to capture in words more of those “shapes that haunt thought’s wildernesses.”

Although among the sketches collected in Twice-Told Tales (vol. i. 1837, vol. ii. 1842) some are painted in gay and lively hues, the prevailing tone of the book is sad and mournful.  The light-hearted philosophy of the wanderers in The Seven Vagabonds, the pretty, brightly coloured vignettes in Little Annie’s Rambles, the quiet cheerfulness of Sunday at Home or The Rill from the Town Pump, only serve to throw into darker relief gloomy legends like that of Ethan Brand, the man who went in search of the Unpardonable Sin, or dreary stories like that of Edward Fane’s Rosebud, or the ghostly White Old Maid.  One of the most carefully wrought sketches in Twice-Told Tales is the weird story of The Hollow of the Three Hills.  By means of a witch’s spell, a lady hears the far-away voices of her aged parents—­her mother querulous and tearful, her father calmly despondent—­and amid the fearful mirth of a madhouse distinguishes the accents and footstep of the husband she has wronged.  At last she listens to the death-knell tolled for the child she has left to die.  The solemn rhythm of Hawthorne’s skilfully ordered sentences is singularly haunting and impressive: 

“The golden skirts of day were yet lingering upon the hills, but deep shades obscured the hollow and the pool, as if sombre night were rising thence to overspread the world.  Again that evil woman began to weave her spell.  Long did it proceed unanswered, till the knolling of a bell stole in among the intervals of her words, like a clang that had travelled far over valley