In 1904, declining an invitation to attend the Hawthorne centennial in Salem, Massachusetts, Henry James paused to consider the question of why certain writers last. “It is the addition of all the limitations and depressions and difficulties of genius that makes always—with the 
factor of Time thrown in—the sum total of posthumous glory,” he told the centennial’s organizer, Robert Rantoul. But the “factor of Time”—though thrown in between parentheses—was not to be undervalued. Such “things” as The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables and The Blithedale Romance acquire their “final value,” James insisted, through the work of “later developments”; the years had made an “eloquent plea” on Hawthorne’s behalf.
Read Full Article »
