Yet, ere we left the hill, we could not but regret that there is
nothing on its barren summit, no relic of old, nor lettered stone of
later days, to assist the imagination in appealing to the heart. We
build the memorial column on the height which our fathers made sacred
with their blood, poured out in a holy cause. And here, in dark,
funereal stone, should rise another monument, sadly commemorative of the
errors of an earlier race, and not to be cast down while the human heart
has one infirmity that may result in crime.
THE ANCESTRAL FOOTSTEP
Outlines of an English Romance.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
"Septimius Felton" was the outgrowth of a project, formed by Hawthorne
during his residence in England, of writing a romance, the scene of which
should be laid in that country; but this project was afterwards
abandoned, giving place to a new conception in which the visionary search
for means to secure an earthly immortality was to form the principal
interest. The new conception took shape in the uncompleted "Dolliver
Romance." The two themes, of course, were distinct, but, by a curious
process of thought, one grew directly out of the other: the whole history
constitutes, in fact, a chapter in what may be called the genealogy of a
romance.
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