The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Volume 6) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1888. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... was to ripen into "The Marble Faun," appears in the "French and Italian Note-Books," under the date of April 22, 1858. Setting down a brief account of his visit to the Capitol, Hawthorne says: -- "We afterwards went into the sculpture gallery, where I looked at the Faun of Praxiteles, and was sensible of a peculiar charm in it; a sylvan beauty and homeliness, friendly and wild at once. Tbe lengthened but not preposterous ears, and the little tail which we infer, have an exquisite effect, and make the spectator smile in his very heart. This race of fauns was the most delightful of all that antiquity imagined. It seems to me that a story, with all sorts of fun and pathos in it, might be contrived on the idea of their species having become intermingled with the human race . . . the pretty hairy ears should occasionally reappear in members of the family; and the moral instincts and intellectual characteristics of the faun might be most picturesquely brought out, without detriment to the human interest of the story. Fancy this combination in the person of a young lady " It is believed by a member of the author's family that one of the Counts of Montauto, whose personal appearance and grace were known to have made an impression on Hawthorne, furnished him with suggestions which established a connection between the Faun of Praxiteles and the Montauto villa as it afterward appeared, under the guise of Monte Beni. This living figure may also perhaps have assisted him in giving reality to his conception of Donatello. The young Italian of the romance, whose resemblance to the statue is made an important point, receives appropriately the name of a famous Italian sculptor; a name of which the associations form a link between the marble and the man. The assertion has often b...