Hawthorne is a clear-sighted dweller in the ideal world, whose imagination is not rendered unintelligible and uncommunicative by complexity of either subject or expression. When Hawthorne speaks to the little one, the simplicity of genius meets the simplicity of nature, and the child's mind is enkindled, without the artist's mind having stooped. Uniike so many unwise writers for the young, he does not lower the subject or expression to suit the child's powers and taste;— he simplifies it; and besides the evident proof of this in the conception and wording of his exquisite stories, his own words for it: — "The author," he says, "has not always thought it necessary to write downward, in order to meet the comprehension of children. He has generally suffered the theme to soar, whenever such was its tendency, and when he himself was buoyant enough to follow without an effort. Children possess an unestimated sensibility to whatever is deep or high in imagination or feeling, so long as it is simple, likewise. It is only the artificial and the complex that bewilder them."

...a few more words and more specifically about "Grandfather's Chair" as critiqued by "The Boston Quarterly Review":

— This is a delightful little book, the production of true genius, and which will fetch a response alike from youth and age, from the unlettered and the learned. We assure Mr. Hawthorne that we thank him both for our own and our children's sake for appearing again in print; and would beg him to proceed with all reasonable dispatch in the wonderful and touching adventures of Grandfather's Chair. He will find us in the attitude to listen, or if not, he will soon compel us to listen.

****

16 Illustrations are included from the Houghton, Mifflin and Co. edition of 1896.