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THE SCARLET LETTER by Nathaniel HawthorneINTRODUCTORY THE CUSTOM-HOUSE. INTRODUCTORY TO "THE SCARLET LETTER". IT is a little remarkable, that- though disinclined to talk overmuchof myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personalfriends- an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life havetaken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time wasthree or four years since, when I favoured the reader- inexcusably,and for no earthly reason, that either the indulgent reader or theintrusive author could imagine- with a description of my way of lifein the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now- because, beyond mydeserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the formeroccasion- I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my threeyears' experience in a Custom-House. The example of the famous "P. P.,Clerk of this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truthseems to be, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth upon thewind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside hisvolume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him,better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors,indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in suchconfidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed,only and exclusively, to the one heart and mind, of perfectsympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world,were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's ownnature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him intocommunion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all,even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen andutterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relationwith his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, akind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listeningto our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genialconsciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us,and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil.To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may beautobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights orhis own. It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has acertain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, asexplaining how a large portion of the following pages came into mypossession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of anarrative therein contained. This, in fact- a desire to put myselfin my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolixamong the tales that make up my volume- this, and no other, is my truereason for assuming a personal relation with the public. Inaccomplishing the main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a fewextra touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life notheretofore described, together with some of the characters that movein it, among whom the author happened to make one. In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago,in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf- but which isnow burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or nosymptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-waydown its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, aNova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood- at thehead, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide oftenoverflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the rowof buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border ofunthrifty grass- here, with a view from its front windows adown thisnot very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, standsa spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof,during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats ordroops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with thethirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, andthus indicating that a civil, and not a military post of Uncle Sam'sgovernment is here established. Its front is ornamented with a porticoof half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath whicha flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over theentrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, withoutspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollectaright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in eachclaw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterises thisunhappy fowl, she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye,and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief tothe inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens,careful of their safety, against intruding on the premises which sheovershadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, manypeople are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves underthe wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosomhas all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she hasno great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner orlater- oftener soon than late- is apt to fling off her nestlings, witha scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from herbarbed arrows. The pavement round about the above-described edifice- which we mayas well name at once as the Custom-House of the port- has grass enoughgrowing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been wornby any multitudinous resort of business. In some months of the year,however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onwardwith a livelier tread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizenof that period before the last war with England, when Salem was a portby itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants andship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin, while theirventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty floodof commerce at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when three orfour vessels happen to have arrived at once- usually from Africa orSouth America- or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward,there is a sound of frequent feet, passing briskly up and down thegranite steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you maygreet the sea-flushed shipmaster, just in port, with his vessel'spapers under his arm, in a tarnished tin box. Here, too, comes hisowner, cheerful or sombre, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly ashis scheme of the now accomplished voyage has been realised inmerchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried himunder a bulk of incommodities, such as nobody will care to rid him of.Here, likewise- the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded,care-worn merchant- we have the smart young clerk, who gets thetaste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sendsadventures in his master's ships, when he had better be sailingmimic-boats upon a mill-pond. Another figure in the scene is theoutward-bound sailor, in quest of a protection; or the recentlyarrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital.Nor must we forget the captains of the rusty little schooners thatbring firewood from the British provinces; a rough-looking set oftarpaulins, without the alertness of the Yankee aspect, butcontributing an item of no slight importance to our decaying trade. Cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, withother miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for the timebeing, it made the Custom-House a stirring scene. More frequently,however, on ascending the steps, you would discern- in the entry, ifit were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms, if wintry orinclement weather- a row of venerable figures, sitting inold-fashioned chairs, which were tipped on their hind legs backagainst the wall. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionallymight be heard talking together, in voices between speech and a snore,and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants ofalms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence oncharity, on monopolised labour, or anything else but their ownindependent exertions. These old gentlemen- seated, like Matthew, atthe receipt of customs, but not very liable to be summoned thence,like him, for apostolic errands- were Custom-House officers. Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front door, is acertain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a loftyheight; with two of its arched windows commanding a view of theaforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrowlane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpsesof the shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, andship-chandlers; around the doors of which are generally to be seen,laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such otherwharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself iscobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with greysand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; andit is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place,that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools ofmagic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. In the way offurniture, there is a stove with a voluminous funnel; an old pinedesk, with a three-legged stool beside it; two or threewooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and- not toforget the library- on some shelves, a score or two of volumes ofthe Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue Laws. A tinpipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocalcommunication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some sixmonths ago- pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on thelong-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyeswandering up and down the columns of the morning newspaper- youmight have recognised, honoured reader, the same individual whowelcomed you into his cheery little study, where the sunshineglimmered so pleasantly through the willow branches, on the westernside of the Old Manse. But now, should you go thither to seek him, youwould inquire in vain for the Locofoco Surveyor. The besom of reformhas swept him out of office; and a worthier successor wears hisdignity, and pockets his emoluments. This old town of Salem- my native place, though I have dwelt muchaway from it, both in boyhood and maturer years- possesses, or didpossess, a hold on my affections, the force of which I have neverrealised during my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far asits physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface,covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend toarchitectural beauty- its irregularity, which is neither picturesquenor quaint, but only tame- its long and lazy street, loungingwearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with GallowsHill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the alms-house at theother- such being the features of my native town, it would be quite asreasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarrangedchecker-board. And yet, though invariably happiest elsewhere, there iswithin me a feeling for old Salem, which, in lack of a betterphrase, I must be content to call affection. The sentiment is probablyassignable to the deep and aged roots which my family has struckinto the soil. It is now nearly two centuries and a quarter sincethe original Briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made hisappearance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement, which has sincebecome a city. And here his descendants have been born and died, andhave mingled their earthy substance with the soil; until no smallportion of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal framewherewith, for a little while, I walk the streets. In part, therefore,the attachment which I speak of is the mere sensuous sympathy ofdust for dust. Few of my countrymen can know what it is; nor, asfrequent transplantation is perhaps better for the stock, need theyconsider it desirable to know. But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The figure of thatfirst ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and duskygrandeur, was present to my boyish imagination, as far back as I canremember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feelingwith the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the presentphase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence hereon account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked and steeple-crownedprogenitor- who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, andtrod the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large afigure, as a man of war and peace- a stronger claim than for myself,whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was a soldier,legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all thePuritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitterpersecutor; as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in theirhistories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a womanof their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than anyrecord of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too,inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous inthe martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said tohave left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his olddry bones, in the Charter Street burial-ground, must still retainit, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whetherthese ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardonof Heaven, for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning underthe heavy consequences of them, in another state of being. At allevents, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby takeshame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred bythem- as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition ofthe race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist- may benow and henceforth removed. Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browedPuritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution forhis sins, that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of thefamily tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne,as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have evercherished, would they recognise as laudable; no success of mine- ifmy life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened bysuccess- would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positivelydisgraceful. "Where is he?" murmurs one grey shadow of myforefathers to the other. "A writer of story-books! What kind of abusiness in life- what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable tomankind in his day and generation- may that be? Why, the degeneratefellow might as well have been a fiddler!" Such are the complimentsbandied between my great-grandsires and myself, across the gulf oftime! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits oftheir nature have intertwined themselves with mine. Planted deep, in the town's earliest infancy and childhood, by thesetwo earnest and energetic men, the race has ever since subsisted here;always, too, in respectability; never, so far as I have known,disgraced by a single unworthy member; but seldom or never, on theother hand, after the first two generations, performing anymemorable deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to publicnotice. Gradually, they have sunk almost out of sight; as oldhouses, here and there about the streets, get covered half-way tothe eaves by the accumulation of new soil. From father to son, forabove a hundred years, they followed the sea; a grey-headedshipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck tothe homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary placebefore the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which hadblustered against his sire and grandsire. The boy, also, in duetime, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuousmanhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die,and mingle his dust with the natal earth. This long connection of afamily with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates akindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent ofany charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him.It is not love, but instinct. The new inhabitant- who came himselffrom a foreign land, or whose father or grandfather came- has littleclaim to be called a Salemite; he has no conception of the oyster-liketenacity with which an old settler, over whom his third century iscreeping, clings to the spot where his successive generations havebeen imbedded. It is no matter that the place is joyless for him; thathe is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead levelof site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of socialatmospheres; all these, and whatever faults besides he may see orimagine, are nothing to the purpose. The spell survives, and just aspowerfully as if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. So has itbeen in my case. I felt it almost as a destiny to make Salem myhome; so that the mould of features and cast of character which hadall along been familiar here- ever, as one representative of therace lay down in his grave, another assuming, as it were, hissentry-march along the main street- might still in my little day beseen and recognised in the old town. Nevertheless, this very sentimentis an evidence that the connection, which has become an unhealthy one,should at least be severed. Human nature will not flourish, any morethan a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a seriesof generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have hadother birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within mycontrol, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth. On emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly this strange,indolent, unjoyous attachment for my native town, that brought me tofill a place in Uncle Sam's brick edifice, when I might as well, orbetter, have gone somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not thefirst time, nor the second, that I had gone away- as it seemed,permanently- but yet returned, like the bad halfpenny; or as ifSalem were for me the inevitable centre of the universe. So, onefine morning, I ascended the flight of granite steps, with thePresident's commission in my pocket, and was introduced to the corpsof gentlemen who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility, as chiefexecutive officer of the Custom-House. I doubt greatly- or, rather, I do not doubt at all- whether anypublic functionary of the United States, either in the civil ormilitary line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veteransunder his orders as myself. The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitantwas at once settled, when I looked at them. For upwards of twentyyears before this epoch, the independent position of the Collector hadkept the Salem Custom-House out of the whirlpool of politicalvicissitude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile.A soldier- New England's most distinguished soldier- he stood firmlyon the pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in thewise liberality of the successive administrations through which he hadheld office, he had been the safety of his subordinates in many anhour of danger and heartquake. General Miller was radicallyconservative; a man over whose kindly nature habit had no slightinfluence; attaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and withdifficulty moved to change, even when change might have broughtunquestionable improvement. Thus, on taking charge of my department, Ifound few but aged men. They were ancient sea-captains, for the mostpart, who, after being tossed on every sea, and standing up sturdilyagainst life's tempestuous blast, had finally drifted into thisquiet nook; where, with little to disturb them, except theperiodical terrors of a Presidential election, they one and allacquired a new lease of existence. Though by no means less liable thantheir fellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently sometalisman or other that kept death at bay. Two or three of theirnumber, as I was assured, being gouty and rheumatic, or perhapsbed-ridden, never dreamed of making their appearance at theCustom-House during a large part of the year; but, after a torpidwinter, would creep out into the warm sunshine of May or June, golazily about what they termed duty, and, at their own leisure andconvenience, betake themselves to bed again. I must plead guilty tothe charge of abbreviating the official breath of more than one ofthese venerable servants of the republic. They were allowed, on myrepresentation, to rest from their arduous labours, and soonafterwards- as if their sole principle of life had been zeal for theircountry's service; as I verily believe it was- withdrew to a betterworld. It is a pious consolation to me, that, through my interference,a sufficient space was allowed them for repentance of the evil andcorrupt practices, into which, as a matter of course, everyCustom-House officer must be supposed to fall. Neither the front northe back entrance of the Custom-House opens on the road to Paradise. The greater part of my officers were Whigs. It was well for theirvenerable brotherhood that the new Surveyor was not a politician, and,though a faithful Democrat in principle, neither received nor held hisoffice with any reference to political services. Had it beenotherwise- had an active politician been put into this influentialpost, to assume the easy task of making head against a Whig Collector,whose infirmities withheld him from the personal administration of hisoffice- hardly a man of the old corps would have drawn the breath ofofficial life within a month after the exterminating angel had come upthe Custom-House steps. According to the received code in suchmatters, it would have been nothing short of duty, in a politician, tobring every one of those white heads under the axe of theguillotine. It was plain enough to discern, that the old fellowsdreaded some such discourtesy at my hands. It pained, and at thesame time amused me, to behold the terrors that attended my advent; tosee a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half a century of storm,turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an individual as myself;to detect, as one or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice,which, in long-past days, had been wont to bellow through aspeaking-trumpet, hoarsely enough to frighten Boreas himself tosilence. They knew, these excellent old persons, that, by allestablished rule- and, as regarded some of them, weighed by their ownlack of efficiency for business- they ought to have given place toyounger men, more orthodox in politics, and altogether fitter thanthemselves to serve our common Uncle. I knew it too, but could neverquite find in my heart to act upon the knowledge. Much anddeservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to thedetriment of my official conscience, they continued, during myincumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down theCustom-House steps. They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep intheir accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back against thewall; awaking, however, once or twice in a forenoon, to bore oneanother with the several thousandth repetition of old sea-stories, andmouldy jokes, that had grown to be passwords and countersigns amongthem. The discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the new Surveyor had nogreat harm in him. So, with lightsome hearts, and the happyconsciousness of being usefully employed- in their own behalf, atleast, if not for our beloved country- these good old gentlemen wentthrough the various formalities of office. Sagaciously under theirspectacles, did they peep into the holds of vessels! Mighty wastheir fuss about little matters, and marvellous, sometimes, theobtuseness that allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers!Whenever such a mischance occurred- when a waggon-load of valuablemerchandise had been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, anddirectly beneath their unsuspicious noses- nothing could exceed thevigilance and alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, anddouble-lock, and secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the avenuesof the delinquent vessel. Instead of a reprimand for their previousnegligence, the case seemed rather to require an eulogium on theirpraiseworthy caution, after the mischief had happened; a gratefulrecognition of the promptitude of their zeal, the moment that therewas no longer any remedy. Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, it is myfoolish habit to contract a kindness for them. The better part of mycompanion's character, if it have a better part, is that which usuallycomes uppermost in my regard, and forms the type whereby I recognisethe man. As most of these old Custom-House officers had good traits,and as my position in reference to them, being paternal andprotective, was favourable to the growth of friendly sentiments, Isoon grew to like them all. It was pleasant, in the summerforenoons- when the fervent heat, that almost liquefied the rest ofthe human family, merely communicated a genial warmth to theirhalf-torpid systems- it was pleasant to hear them chatting in the backentry, a row of them all tipped against the wall, as usual; whilethe frozen witticisms of past generations were thawed out, and camebubbling with laughter from their lips. Externally, the jollity ofaged men has much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect,any more than a deep sense of humour, has little to do with thematter; it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, andimparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch, and grey,mouldering trunk. In one case, however, it is real sunshine; in theother, it more resembles the phosphorescent glow of decaying wood. It would be sad injustice, the reader must understand, torepresent all my excellent old friends as in their dotage. In thefirst place, my coadjutors were not invariably old; there were menamong them in their strength and prime, of marked ability andenergy, and altogether superior to the sluggish and dependent modeof life on which their evil stars had cast them. Then, moreover, thewhite locks of age were sometimes found to be the thatch of anintellectual tenement in good repair. But, as respects the majority ofmy corps of veterans, there will be no wrong done, if I characterisethem generally as a set of wearisome old souls, who had gatherednothing worth preservation from their varied experience of life.They seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practicalwisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting,and most carefully to have stored their memories with the husks.They spoke with far more interest and unction of their morning'sbreakfast, or yesterday's, to-day's, or to-morrow's dinner, than ofthe shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonderswhich they had witnessed with their youthful eyes. The father of the Custom-House- the patriarch, not only of thislittle squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, of the respectablebody of tide-waiters all over the United States- was a certainpermanent Inspector. He might truly be termed a legitimate son ofthe revenue system, dyed in the wool, or, rather, born in thepurple; since his sire, a Revolutionary colonel, and formerlycollector of the port, had created an office for him, and appointedhim to fill it, at a period of the early ages which few living men cannow remember. This Inspector, when I first knew him, was a man offourscore years, or thereabouts, and certainly one of the mostwonderful specimens of winter-green that you would be likely todiscover in a lifetime's search. With his florid cheek, his compactfigure, smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his briskand vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether heseemed- not young, indeed- but a kind of new contrivance of MotherNature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no businessto touch. His voice and laugh, which perpetually reechoed throughthe Custom-House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of anold man's utterance; they came strutting out of his lungs, like thecrow of a cock, of the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as ananimal- and there was very little else to look at- he was a mostsatisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and wholesomenessof his system, and his capacity, at that extreme age, to enjoy all, ornearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at, or conceivedof. The careless security of his life in the Custom-House, on aregular income, and with but slight and infrequent apprehensions ofremoval, had no doubt contributed to make time pass lightly overhim. The original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rareperfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of intellect,and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients;these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keepthe old gentleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no powerof thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities;nothing, in short, but a few commonplace instincts, which, aided bythe cheerful temper that grew inevitably out of his physicalwell-being, did duty very respectably, and to general acceptance, inlieu of a heart. He had been the husband of three wives, all longsince dead; the father of twenty children, most of whom, at everyage of childhood or maturity, had likewise returned to dust. Here, onewould suppose, might have been sorrow enough to imbue the sunniestdisposition, through and through, with a sable tinge. Not so withour old Inspector! One brief sigh sufficed to carry off the entireburden of these dismal reminiscences. The next moment, he was as readyfor sport as any unbreeched infant; far readier than the Collector'sjunior clerk, who, at nineteen years, was much the elder and graverman of the two. I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, Ithink, livelier curiosity than any other form of humanity therepresented to my notice. He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon; soperfect in one point of view; so shallow, so delusive, soimpalpable, such an absolute nonentity, in every other. Myconclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no mind; nothing, as Ihave already said, but instincts: and yet, withal, so cunningly hadthe few materials of his character been put together, that there wasno painful perception of deficiency, but, on my part, an entirecontentment with what I found in him. It might be difficult- and itwas so- to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so earthly andsensuous did he seem; but surely his existence here, admitting that itwas to terminate with his last breath, had been not unkindly given;with no higher moral responsibilities than the beasts of the field,but with a larger scope of enjoyment than theirs, and with all theirblessed immunity from the dreariness and duskiness of age. One point, in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footedbrethren, was his ability to recollect the good dinners which it hadmade no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. Hisgourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk ofroast-meat was as appetising as a pickle or an oyster. As he possessedno higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritualendowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve thedelight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me tohear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's meat, and themost eligible methods of preparing them for the table. Hisreminiscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actualbanquet, seemed to bring the savour of pig or turkey under one'svery nostrils. There were flavours on his palate, that had lingeredthere not less than sixty or seventy years, and were stillapparently as fresh as that of the mutton-chop which he had justdevoured for his breakfast. I have heard him smack his lips overdinners, every guest at which, except himself, had long been foodfor worms. It was marvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone mealswere continually rising up before him; not in anger or retribution,but as if grateful for his former appreciation, and seeking torepudiate an endless series of enjoyment, at once shadowy and sensual.A tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a spare-rib of pork, aparticular chicken, or a remarkably praiseworthy turkey, which hadperhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder Adams, would beremembered; while all the subsequent experience of our race, and allthe events that brightened or darkened his individual career, had goneover him with as little permanent effect as the passing breeze. Thechief tragic event of the old man's life, so far as I could judge, washis mishap with a certain goose, which lived and died some twenty orforty years ago; a goose of most promising figure, but which, attable, proved so inveterately tough that the carving-knife wouldmake no impression on its carcass, and it could only be divided withan axe and handsaw. But it is time to quit this sketch; on which, however, I should beglad to dwell at considerably more length, because, of all men whomI have ever known, this individual was fittest to be a Custom-Houseofficer. Most persons, owing to causes which I may not have space tohint at, suffer moral detriment from this peculiar mode of life. Theold Inspector was incapable of it; and, were he to continue inoffice to the end of time, would be just as good as he was then, andsit down to dinner with just as good an appetite. There is one likeness, without which my gallery of Custom-Houseportraits would be strangely incomplete; but which my comparativelyfew opportunities for observation enable me to sketch only in themerest outline. It is that of the Collector, our gallant oldGeneral, who, after his brilliant military service, subsequently towhich he had ruled over a wild Western territory, had come hither,twenty years before, to spend the decline of his varied and honourablelife. The brave soldier had already numbered, nearly or quite, histhreescore years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of hisearthly march, burdened with infirmities which even the martialmusic of his own spirit-stirring recollections could do little towardslightening. The step was palsied now, that had been foremost in thecharge. It was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaninghis hand heavily on the iron balustrade, that he could slowly andpainfully ascend the Custom-House steps, and, with a toilsome progressacross the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace.There he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect atthe figures that came and went; amid the rustle of papers, theadministering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the casualtalk of the office; all which sounds and circumstances seemed butindistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to make their wayinto his inner sphere of contemplation. His countenance, in thisrepose, was mild and kindly. If his notice was sought, an expressionof courtesy and interest gleamed out upon his features; proving thatthere was light within him, and that it was only the outward medium ofthe intellectual lamp that obstructed the rays in their passage. Thecloser you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder itappeared. When no longer called upon to speak, or listen, either ofwhich operations cost him an evident effort, his face would brieflysubside into its former not uncheerful quietude. It was not painful tobehold this look; for though dim, it had not the imbecility ofdecaying age. The framework of his nature, originally strong andmassive, was not yet crumbled into ruin. To observe and define his character, however, under suchdisadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace out and build upanew, in imagination, an old fortress, like Ticonderoga, from a viewof its grey and broken ruins. Here and there, perchance, the walls mayremain almost complete; but elsewhere may be only a shapeless mound,cumbrous with its very strength, and overgrown, through long yearsof peace and neglect, with grass and alien weeds. Nevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affection- for, slightas was the communication between us, my feeling towards him, like thatof all bipeds and quadrupeds who knew him, might not improperly betermed so- I could discern the main points of his portrait. It wasmarked with the noble and heroic qualities which showed it to be notby a mere accident, but of good right, that he had won a distinguishedname. His spirit could never, I conceive, have been characterised byan uneasy activity; it must, at any period of his life, haverequired an impulse to set him in motion; but, once stirred up, withobstacles to overcome, and an adequate object to be attained, it wasnot in the man to give out or fail. The beat that had formerlypervaded his nature, and which was not yet extinct, was never of thekind that flashes and flickers in a blaze; but, rather, a deep, redglow, as of iron in a furnace. Weight, solidity, firmness; this wasthe expression of his repose, even in such decay as had crept untimelyover him, at the period of which I speak. But I could imagine, eventhen, that, under some excitement which should go deeply into hisconsciousness- roused by a trumpet-peal, loud enough to awaken allof his energies that were not dead, but only slumbering- he was yetcapable of flinging off his infirmities like a sick man's gown,dropping the staff of age to seize a battle-sword, and starting uponce more a warrior. And, in so intense a moment, his demeanourwould have still been calm. Such an exhibition, however, was but to bepictured in fancy; not to be anticipated, nor desired. What I saw inhim- as evidently as the indestructible ramparts of, OldTiconderoga, already cited as the most appropriate simile- were thefeatures of stubborn and ponderous endurance, which might well haveamounted to obstinacy in his earlier days; of integrity, that, likemost of his other endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and wasjust as unmalleable and unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and ofbenevolence, which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at Chippewaor Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a stamp as whatactuates any or all the polemical philanthropists of the age. He hadslain men with his own hand, for aught I know- certainly, they hadfallen, like blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe, before thecharge to which his spirit imparted its triumphant energy- but, bethat as it might, there was never in his heart so much cruelty aswould have brushed the down off a butterfly's wing. I have not knownthe man, to whose innate kindliness I would more confidently make anappeal. Many characteristics- and those, too, which contribute not the leastforcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch- must have vanished, orbeen obscured, before I met the General. All merely gracefulattributes are usually the most evanescent; nor does Nature adornthe human ruin with blossoms of new beauty, that have their rootsand proper nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of decay, asshe sows wall-flowers over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga.Still, even in respect of grace and beauty, there were points wellworth noting. A ray of humour, now and then, would make its waythrough the veil of dim obstruction, and glimmer pleasantly upon ourfaces. A trait of native elegance, seldom seen in the masculinecharacter after childhood or early youth, was shown in the General'sfondness for the sight and fragrance of flowers. An old soldiermight be supposed to prize only the bloody laurel on his brow; buthere was one, who seemed to have a young girl's appreciation of thefloral tribe. There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General used to sit;while the Surveyor- though seldom, when it could be avoided, takingupon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation- wasfond of standing at a distance, and watching his quiet and almostslumberous countenance. He seemed away from us, although we saw himbut a few yards off; remote, though we passed close beside hischair; unattainable, though we might have stretched forth our handsand touched his own. It might be that he lived a more real life withinhis thoughts, than amid the unappropriate environment of theCollector's office. The evolutions of the parade; the tumult of thebattle; the flourish of old, heroic music, heard thirty years before;-such scenes and sounds, perhaps, were all alive before hisintellectual sense. Meanwhile, the merchants and shipmasters, thespruce clerks and uncouth sailors, entered and departed; the bustle ofthis commercial and Custom-House life kept up its little murmurround about him; and neither with the men nor their affairs did theGeneral appear to sustain the most distant relation. He was as muchout of place as an old sword- now rusty, but which had flashed once inthe battle's front, and showed still a bright gleam along its blade-would have been, among the inkstands, paper-folders, and mahoganyrulers, on the Deputy Collector's desk. There was one thing that much aided me in renewing and recreatingthe stalwart soldier of the Niagara frontier- the man of true andsimple energy. It was the recollection of those memorable words ofhis- "I'll try, sir!"- spoken on the very verge of a desperate andheroic enterprise, and breathing the soul and spirit of New Englandhardihood, comprehending all perils, and encountering all. If, inour country, valour were rewarded by heraldic honour, this phrase-which it seems so easy to speak, but which only he, with such a taskof danger and glory before him, has ever spoken- would be the best andfittest of all mottoes for the General's shield of arms. It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectualhealth, to be brought into habits of companionship with individualsunlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere andabilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. The accidents of mylife have often afforded me this advantage, but never with morefulness and variety than during my continuance in office. There wasone man, especially, the observation of whose character gave me anew idea of talent. His gifts were emphatically those of a man ofbusiness; prompt, acute, clear-minded; with an eye that saw throughall perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement that made themvanish, as by the waving of an enchanter's wand. Bred up fromboyhood in the Custom-House, it was his proper field of activity;and the many intricacies of business, so harassing to theinterloper, presented themselves before him with the regularity of aperfectly comprehended system. In my contemplation, be stood as theideal of his class. He was, indeed, the Custom-House in himself; or,at all events, the mainspring that kept its variously revolving wheelsin motion; for, in an institution like this, where its officers areappointed to subserve their own profit and convenience, and seldomwith a leading reference to their fitness for the duty to beperformed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dexterity which isnot in them. Thus, by an inevitable necessity, as a magnet attractssteel-filings, so did our man of business draw to himself thedifficulties which everybody met with. With an easy condescension, andkind forbearance towards our stupidity- which, to his order of mind,must have seemed little short of crime- would he forthwith, by themerest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear asdaylight. The merchants valued him not less than we, his esotericfriends. His integrity was perfect; it was a law of nature with him,rather than a choice or a principle; nor can it be otherwise thanthe main condition of an intellect so remarkably clear and accurate ashis, to be honest and regular in the administration of affairs. Astain on his conscience, as to anything that came within the rangeof his vocation, would trouble such a man very much in the same way,though to a far greater degree, than an error in the balance of anaccount, or an ink-blot on the fair page of a book of record. Here, ina word- and it is a rare instance in my life- I had met with aperson thoroughly adapted to the situation which he held. Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected.I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I wasthrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and setmyself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had.After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with thedreamy brethren of Brook Farm; after living for three years within thesubtile influence of an intellect like Emerson's; after those wild,free days on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, besideour fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking withThoreau about pine-trees and Indian relics, in his hermitage atWalden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classicrefinement of Hillard's culture; after becoming imbued with poeticsentiment at Longfellow's hearth-stone- it was time, at length, that Ishould exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myselfwith food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. Even the oldInspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had knownAlcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, or asystem naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of athorough organisation, that, with such associates to remember, I couldmingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and nevermurmur at the change. Literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little momentin my regard. I cared not, at this period, for books; they wereapart from me. Nature- except it were human nature- the nature that isdeveloped in earth and sky, was, in one sense, hidden from me; and allthe imaginative delight, wherewith it had been spiritualised, passedaway out of my mind. A gift, a faculty, if it had not departed, wassuspended and inanimate within me. There would have been somethingsad, unutterably dreary, in all this, had I not been conscious that itlay at my own option to recall whatever was valuable in the past. Itmight be true, indeed, that this was a life which could not, withimpunity, be lived too long; else, it might make me permanentlyother than I had been, without transforming me into any shape which itwould be worth my while to take. But I never considered it as otherthan a transitory life. There was always a prophetic instinct, a lowwhisper in my ear, that, within no long period, and whenever a newchange of custom should be essential to my good, a change would come. Meanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Revenue, and, so far asI have been able to understand, as good a Surveyor as need be. A manof thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the Surveyor'sproportion of those qualities) may, at any time, be a man ofaffairs, if he will only choose to give himself the trouble. Myfellow-officers, and the merchants and sea-captains with whom myofficial duties brought me into any manner of connection, viewed me inno other light, and probably knew me in no other character. None ofthem, I presume, had ever read a page of my inditing, or would havecared a fig the more for me, if they had read them all; nor would ithave mended the matter, in the least, had those same unprofitablepages been written with a pen like that of Burns or of Chaucer, eachof whom was a Custom-House officer in his day, as well as I. It is agood lesson- though it may often be a hard one- for a man who hasdreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among theworld's dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrowcircle in which his claims are recognised, and to find how utterlydevoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves,and all he aims at. I know not that I especially needed the lesson,either in the way of warning or rebuke; but, at any rate, I learned itthoroughly: nor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as itcame home to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or require to bethrown off in a sigh. In the way of literary talk, it is true, theNaval Officer- an excellent fellow, who came into office with me andwent out only a little later- would often engage me in a discussionabout one or the other of his favourite topics, Napoleon orShakespeare. The Collector's junior clerk, too- a young gentleman who,it was whispered, occasionally covered a sheet of Uncle Sam'sletter-paper with what (at the distance of a few yards) looked verymuch like poetry- used now and then to speak to me of books, asmatters with which I might possibly be conversant. This was my allof lettered intercourse; and it was quite sufficient for mynecessities. No longer seeking nor caring that my name should be blazonedabroad on title-pages, I smiled to think that it had now anotherkind of vogue. The Custom-House marker imprinted it, with a stenciland black paint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, andcigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, intestimony that these commodities had paid the impost, and goneregularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehicle of fame, aknowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carriedwhere it had never been before, and, I hope, will never go again. But the past was not dead. Once in a great while, the thoughts, thathad seemed so vital and so active, yet had been put to rest soquietly, revived again. One of the most remarkable occasions, when thehabit of bygone days awoke in me, was that which brings it withinthe law of literary propriety to offer the public the sketch which Iam now writing. In the second story of the Custom-House, there is a large room, inwhich the brick-work and naked rafters have never been covered withpanelling and plaster. The edifice- originally projected on a scaleadapted to the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with an ideaof subsequent prosperity destined never to be realised- contains farmore space than its occupants know what to do with. This airy hall,therefore, over the Collector's apartments, remains unfinished to thisday, and, in spite of the aged cobwebs that festoon its dusky beams,appears still to await the labour of the carpenter and mason. At oneend of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels, piled one uponanother, containing bundles of official documents. Large quantities ofsimilar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was sorrowful to think howmany days, and weeks, and months, and years of toil, had been wastedon these musty papers, which were now only an encumbrance on earth,and were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more to beglanced at by human eyes. But, then, what reams of othermanuscripts- filled not with the dulness of official formalities,but with the thought of inventive brains and the rich effusion of deephearts- had gone equally to oblivion; and that, moreover, withoutserving a purpose in their day, as these heaped-up papers had, and-saddest of all- without purchasing for their writers the comfortablelivelihood which the clerks of the Custom-House had gained by theseworthless scratchings of the pen! Yet not altogether worthless,perhaps, as materials of local history. Here, no doubt, statisticsof the former commerce of Salem might be discovered, and memorialsof her princely merchants- old King Derby, old Billy Gray, old SimonForrester, and many another magnate in his day- whose powdered head,however, was scarcely in the tomb, before his mountain-pile ofwealth began to dwindle. The founders of the greater part of thefamilies which now compose the aristocracy of Salem might here betraced, from the petty and obscure beginnings of their traffic, atperiods generally much posterior to the Revolution, upward to whattheir children look upon as long-established rank. Prior to the Revolution, there is a dearth of records; the earlierdocuments and archives of the Custom-House having, probably, beencarried off to Halifax, when all the King's officials accompaniedthe British army in its flight from Boston. It has often been a matterof regret with me; for, going back, perhaps, to the days of theProtectorate, those papers must have contained many references toforgotten or remembered men, and to antique customs, which wouldhave affected me with the same pleasure as when I used to pick upIndian arrow-heads in the field near the Old Manse. But, one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to make a discoveryof some little interest. Poking and burrowing into the heaped-uprubbish in the corner; unfolding one and another document, and readingthe names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted atthe wharves, and those of merchants, never heard of now on 'Change,nor very readily decipherable on their mossy tombstones; glancing atsuch matters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest whichwe bestow on the corpse of dead activity- and exerting my fancy,sluggish with little use, to raise up from these dry bones an image ofthe old town's brighter aspect, when India was a new region, andonly Salem knew the way thither- I chanced to lay my hand on a smallpackage, carefully done up in a piece of ancient yellow parchment.This envelope had the air of an official record of some period longpast, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirography on moresubstantial materials than at present. There was something about itthat quickened an instinctive curiosity, and made me undo the fadedred tape, that tied up the package, with the sense that a treasurewould here be brought to light. Unbending the rigid folds of theparchment cover, I found it to be a commission, under the hand andseal of Governor Shirley, in favour of one Jonathan Pue, as Surveyorof his Majesty's Customs for the port of Salem, in the Province ofMassachusetts Bay. I remembered to have read (probably in Felt'sAnnals) a notice of the decease of Mr. Surveyor Pue, about fourscoreyears ago; and likewise, in a newspaper of recent times, an account ofthe digging up of his remains in the little graveyard of St. Peter'sChurch, during the renewal of that edifice. Nothing, if I rightly callto mind, was left of my respected predecessor, save an imperfectskeleton, and some fragments of apparel, and a wig of majesticfrizzle; which, unlike the head that it once adorned, was in verysatisfactory preservation. But, on examining the papers which theparchment commission served to envelop, I found more traces of Mr.Pue's mental part, and the internal operations of his head, than thefrizzled wig had contained of the venerable skull itself. They were documents, in short, not official, but of a privatenature, or, at least, written in his private capacity, andapparently with his own hand. I could account for their being includedin the heap of Custom-House lumber only by the fact, that Mr. Pue'sdeath had happened suddenly; and that these papers, which heprobably kept in his official desk, had never come to the knowledge ofhis heirs, or were supposed to relate to the business of therevenue. On the transfer of the archives to Halifax, this package,proving to be of no public concern, was left behind, and hadremained ever since unopened. The ancient Surveyor- being little molested, I suppose, at thatearly day, with business pertaining to his office- seems to havedevoted some of his many leisure hours to researches as a localantiquarian, and other inquisitions of a similar nature. Thesesupplied material for petty activity to a mind that would otherwisehave been eaten up with rust. A portion of his facts, by-the-bye,did me good service in the preparation of the article entitled "MAINSTREET," included in the present volume. The remainder may perhapsbe applied to purposes equally valuable, hereafter; or notimpossibly may be worked up, so far as they go, into a regular historyof Salem, should my veneration for the natal soil ever impel me toso pious a task. Meanwhile, they shall be at the command of anygentleman, inclined, and competent, to take the unprofitable labouroff my hands. As a final disposition, I contemplate depositing themwith the Essex Historical Society. But the object that most drew my attention, in the mysteriouspackage, was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn andfaded. There were traces about it of gold embroidery, which,however, was greatly frayed and defaced; so that none, or very little,of the glitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive,with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured byladies conversant with such mysteries)- gives evidence of a nowforgotten art, not to be recovered even by the process of pickingout the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth- for time, and wear, anda sacrilegious moth, had reduced it to little other than a rag- oncareful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was the capitalletter A. By an accurate measurement, each limb proved to be preciselythree inches and a quarter in length. It had been intended, therecould be no doubt, as an ornamental article of dress; but how it wasto be worn, or what rank, honour, and dignity, in by-past times,were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are thefashions of the world in these particulars) I saw little hope ofsolving. And yet it strangely interested me. My eyes fastenedthemselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside.Certainly, there was some deep meaning in it, most worthy ofinterpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from themystic symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, butevading the analysis of my mind. While thus perplexed- and cogitating, among other hypotheses,whether the letter might not have been one of those decorationswhich the white men used to contrive, in order to take the eyes ofIndians- I happened to place it on my breast. It seemed to me- thereader may smile, but must not doubt my word- it seemed to me, then,that I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so,as of burning heat; and as if the letter were not of red cloth, butred-hot iron. I shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon thefloor. In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, I had hithertoneglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which ithad been twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find,recorded by the old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably completeexplanation of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets,containing many particulars respecting the life and conversation ofone Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthypersonage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished duringthe period between the early days of Massachusetts and the close ofthe seventeenth century. Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr.Surveyor Pue, and from whose oral testimony he had made up hisnarrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a very old, but notdecrepit woman, of a stately and solemn aspect. It had been her habit,from an almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind ofvoluntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might;taking upon herself, likewise, to give advice in all matters,especially those of the heart; by which means, as a person of suchpropensities inevitably must, she gained from many people thereverence due to an angel, but, I should imagine, was looked upon byothers as an intruder and a nuisance. Prying further into themanuscript, I found the record of other doings and sufferings ofthis singular woman, for most of which the reader is referred to thestory entitled "THE SCARLET LETTER"; and it should be bornecarefully in mind, that the main facts of that story are authorisedand authenticated by the document of Mr Surveyor Pue. The originalpapers, together with the scarlet letter itself- a most curious relic-are still in my possession, and shall be freely exhibited towhomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative, may desirea sight of them. I must not be understood as affirming, that, in thedressing up of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes ofpassion that influenced the characters who figure in it, I haveinvariably confined myself within the limits of the old Surveyor'shalf-a-dozen sheets of foolscap. On the contrary, I have allowedmyself, as to such points, nearly or altogether as much license asif the facts had been entirely of my own invention. What I contend foris the authenticity of the outline. This incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its old track.There seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. It impressed me asif the ancient Surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, andwearing his immortal wig- which was buried with him, but did notperish in the grave- had met me in the deserted chamber of theCustom-House. In his port was the dignity of one who had borne hisMajesty's commission, and who was therefore illuminated by a ray ofthe splendour that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike,alas! the hang-dog look of a republican official, who, as theservant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and belowthe lowest of his masters. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurelyseen but majestic figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol, andthe little roll of explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice,he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial dutyand reverence towards him- who might reasonably regard himself as myofficial ancestor- to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrationsbefore the public. "Do this," said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue,emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within itsmemorable wig, "do this, and the profit shall be all your own! Youwill shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was in mine,when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. But,I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to yourpredecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due!" And Isaid to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, "I will!" On Hester Prynne's story, therefore, I bestowed much thought. It wasthe subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to andfro across my room, or traversing, with a hundred-fold repetition, thelong extent from the front-door of the Custom-House to theside-entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness andannoyance of the old Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whoseslumbers were disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of mypassing and returning footsteps. Remembering their own formerhabits, they used to say that the Surveyor was walking thequarter-deck. They probably fancied that my sole object- and,indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could ever put himselfinto voluntary motion- was, to get an appetite for dinner. And tosay the truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind thatgenerally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result ofso much indefatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmosphere ofa Custom-House to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that,had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubtwhether the tale of "The Scarlet Letter" would ever have beenbrought before the public eye. My imagination was a tarnishedmirror. It would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, thefigures with which I did my best to people it. The characters of thenarrative would not be warmed and rendered malleable by any heatthat I could kindle at my intellectual forge. They would takeneither the glow of passion nor the tenderness of sentiment, butretained all the rigidity of dead corpses, and stared me in the facewith a fixed and ghastly grin of contemptuous defiance. "What have youto do with us?" that expression seemed to say. "The little power youmight once have possessed over the tribe of unrealities is gone! Youhave bartered it for a pittance of the public gold. Go, then, and earnyour wages!" In short, the almost torpid creatures of my own fancytwitted me with imbecility, and not without fair occasion. It was not merely during the three hours and a half which UncleSam claimed as his share of my daily life, that this wretched numbnessheld possession of me. It went with me on my sea-shore walks, andrambles into the country, whenever- which was seldom andreluctantly- I bestirred myself to seek that invigorating charm ofNature, which used to give me such freshness and activity ofthought, the moment that I stepped across the threshold of the OldManse. The same torpor, as regarded the capacity for intellectualeffort, accompanied me home, and weighed upon me in the chamberwhich I most absurdly termed my study. Nor did it quit me, when,late at night, I sat in the deserted parlour, lighted only by theglimmering coal-fire and the moon, striving to picture forth imaginaryscenes, which, the next day, might flow out on the brightening page inmany-hued description. If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, itmight well be deemed a hopeless case. Moonlight, in a familiar room,falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures sodistinctly- making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike amorning or noontide visibility- is a medium the most suitable for aromance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. There isthe little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment; the chairs,with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sustaining aworkbasket, a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; thebookcase; the picture on the wall- all these details, so completelyseen, are so spiritualised by the unusual light, that they seem tolose their actual substance, and become things of intellect. Nothingis too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquiredignity thereby. A child's shoe; the doll, seated in her little wickercarriage; the hobby-horse- whatever, in a word, has been used orplayed with, during the day, is now invested with a quality ofstrangeness and remoteness, though still almost as vividly present asby daylight. Thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room hasbecome a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world andfairyland, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbueitself with the nature of the other. Ghosts might enter here withoutaffrighting us. It would be too much in keeping with the scene toexcite surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form,beloved, but gone hence, now sitting quietly in a streak of this magicmoonshine, with an aspect that would make us doubt whether it hadreturned from afar, or had never once stirred from our fireside. The somewhat dim coal-fire has an essential influence in producingthe effect which I would describe. It throws its unobtrusive tingethroughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls andceiling, and a reflected gleam from the polish of the furniture.This warmer light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of themoonbeams, and communicates, as it were, a heart and sensibilitiesof human tenderness to the forms which fancy summons up. It convertsthem from snow-images into men and women. Glancing at thelooking-glass, we behold- deep within its haunted verge- thesmouldering glow of the half-extinguished anthracite, the whitemoonbeams on the floor, and a repetition of all the gleam and shadowof the picture, with one remove farther from the actual, and nearer tothe imaginative. Then, at such an hour, and with this scene beforehim, if a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, andmake them look like truth, he need never try to write romances. But, for myself, during the whole of my Custom-House experience,moonlight and sunshine, and the glow of firelight, were just alikein my regard; and neither of them was of one whit more avail thanthe twinkle of a tallow-candle. An entire class of susceptibilities,and a gift connected with them- of no great richness or value, but thebest I had- was gone from me. It is my belief, however, that, had I attempted a different order ofcomposition, my faculties would not have been found so pointless andinefficacious. I might, for instance, have contented myself withwriting out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of theInspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not to mention, sincescarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter andadmiration by his marvellous gifts as a story-teller. Could I havepreserved the picturesque force of his style, and the humorouscolouring which nature taught him how to throw over hisdescriptions, the result, I honestly believe, would have beensomething new in literature. Or I might readily have found a moreserious task. It was a folly, with the materiality of this dailylife pressing so intrusively upon me, to attempt to fling myselfback into another age; or to insist on creating the semblance of aworld out of airy matter, when, at every moment, the impalpable beautyof my soap-bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actualcircumstance. The wiser effort would have been, to diffuse thought andimagination through the opaque substance of to-day, and thus to makeit a bright transparency; to spiritualise the burden that began toweigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true and indestructiblevalue that lay hidden in the petty and wearisome incidents, andordinary characters, with which I was now conversant. The fault wasmine. The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull andcommonplace, only because I had not fathomed its deeper import. Abetter book than I shall ever write was there; leaf after leafpresenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the realityof the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only becausemy brain wanted the insight and my hand the cunning to transcribeit. At some future day, it may be, I shall remember a few scatteredfragments and broken paragraphs, and write them down, and find theletters turn to gold upon the page. These perceptions have come too late. At the instant, I was onlyconscious that what would have been a pleasure once was now a hopelesstoil. There was no occasion to make much moan about this state ofaffairs. I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor tales andessays, and had become a tolerably good Surveyor of the Customs.That was all. But, nevertheless, it is anything but agreeable to behaunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away; orexhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial; sothat, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatileresiduum. Of the fact there could be no doubt; and, examining myselfand others, I was led to conclusions, in reference to the effect ofpublic office on the character, not very favourable to the mode oflife in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may hereafter developthese effects. Suffice it here to say, that a Custom-House officer, oflong continuance, can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectablepersonage, for many reasons; one of them, the tenure by which he holdshis situation, and another, the very nature of his business, which-though, I trust, an honest one- is of such a sort that he does notshare in the united effort of mankind. An effect- which I believe to be observable, more or less, inevery individual who has occupied the position- is, that, while heleans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strengthdeparts from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to theweakness or force of his original nature, the capability ofself-support. If he possess an unusual share of native energy, orthe enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon him, hisforfeited powers may be redeemable. The ejected officer- fortunatein the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggle amid astruggling world- may return to himself, and become all that he hasever been. But this seldom happens. He usually keeps his ground justlong enough for his own ruin, and is then thrust out, with sinewsall unstrung, to totter along the difficult footpath of life as hebest may. Conscious of his own infirmity- that his tempered steeland elasticity are lost- he forever afterwards looks wistfully abouthim in quest of support external to himself. His pervading andcontinual hope- a hallucination, which, in the face of alldiscouragement, and making light of impossibilities, haunts himwhile he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of thecholera, torments him for a brief space after death- is, that finally,and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, heshall be restored to office. This faith, more than anything else,steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he maydream of undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at so muchtrouble to pick himself up out of the mud, when, in a little whilehence, the strong arm of his Uncle will raise and support him? Whyshould he work for his living here, or go to dig gold in California,when he is so soon to be made happy, at monthly intervals, with alittle pile of glittering coin out of his Uncle's pocket? It issadly curious to observe how slight a taste of office suffices toinfect a poor fellow with this singular disease. Uncle Sam's gold-meaning no disrespect to the worthy old gentleman- has, in thisrespect, a quality of enchantment like that of the Devil's wages.Whoever touches it should look well to himself, or he may find thebargain to go hard against him, involving, if not his soul, yet manyof its better attributes; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy,its truth, its self-reliance, and all that gives the emphasis to manlycharacter. Here was a fine prospect in the distance! Not that the Surveyorbrought the lesson home to himself, or admitted that he could be soutterly undone, either by continuance in office, or ejectment. Yetmy reflections were not the most comfortable. I began to growmelancholy and restless; continually prying into my mind, todiscover which of its poor properties were gone, and what degree ofdetriment had already accrued to the remainder. I endeavoured tocalculate how much longer I could stay in the Custom-House, and yet goforth a man. To confess the truth, it was my greatest apprehension- asit would never be a measure of policy to turn out so quiet anindividual as myself, and it being hardly in the nature of a publicofficer to resign- it was my chief trouble, therefore, that I waslikely to grow grey and decrepit in the Surveyorship, and becomemuch such another animal as the old Inspector. Might it not, in thetedious lapse of official life that lay before me, finally be withme as it was with this venerable friend- to make the dinner-hour thenucleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old dogspends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade? A dreary lookforward this, for a man who felt it to be the best definition ofhappiness to live throughout the whole range of his faculties andsensibilities! But, all this while, I was giving myself veryunnecessary alarm. Providence had meditated better things for methan I could possibly imagine for myself. A remarkable event of the third year of my Surveyorship- to adoptthe tone of "P. P."- was the election of General Taylor to thePresidency. It is essential, in order to a complete estimate of theadvantages of official life, to view the incumbent at the incomingof a hostile administration. His position is then one of the mostsingularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable, that awretched mortal can possibly occupy; with seldom an alternative ofgood, on either hand, although what presents itself to him as theworst event may very probably be the best. But it is a strangeexperience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that hisinterests are within the control of individuals who neither love norunderstand him, and by whom, since one or the other must needs happen,he would rather be injured than obliged. Strange, too, for one who haskept his calmness throughout the contest, to observe thebloodthirstiness that is developed in the hour of triumph, and to beconscious that he is himself among its objects! There are few ugliertraits of human nature than this tendency- which I now witnessed inmen no worse than their neighbours- to grow cruel, merely because theypossessed the power of inflicting harm. If the guillotine, asapplied to office-holders, were a literal fact, instead of one ofthe most apt of metaphors, it is my sincere belief, that the activemembers of the victorious party were sufficiently excited to havechopped off all our heads, and have thanked Heaven for theopportunity! It appears to me- who have been a calm and curiousobserver, as well in victory as defeat- that this fierce and bitterspirit of malice and revenge has never distinguished the many triumphsof my own party as it now did that of the Whigs. The Democrats takethe offices, as a general rule, because they need them, and becausethe practice of many years has made it the law of political warfare,which, unless a different system be proclaimed, it were weakness andcowardice to murmur at. But the long habit of victory has made themgenerous. They know how to spare, when they see occasion; and whenthey strike, the axe may be sharp, indeed, but its edge is seldompoisoned with ill-will; nor is it their custom ignominously to kickthe head which they have just struck off. In short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best, I saw muchreason to congratulate myself that I was on the losing side, ratherthan the triumphant one. if, heretofore, I had been none of thewarmest of partisans, I began now, at this season of peril andadversity, to be pretty acutely sensible with which party mypredilections lay; nor was it without something like regret and shame,that, according to a reasonable calculation of chances, I saw my ownprospect of retaining office to be better than those of myDemocratic brethren. But who can see an inch into futurity, beyond hisnose? My head was the first that fell! The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I aminclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life.Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even soserious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, ifthe sufferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of theaccident which has befallen him. In my particular case, theconsolatory topics were close at hand, and, indeed, had suggestedthemselves to my meditations a considerable time before it wasrequisite to use them. In view of my previous weariness of office, andvague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resembled that of aperson who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and,although beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered. Inthe Custom-House, as before in the Old Manse, I had spent three years;a term long enough to rest a weary brain; long enough to break off oldintellectual habits, and make room for new ones; long enough, andtoo long, to have lived in an unnatural state, doing what was reallyof no advantage nor delight to any human being, and withholding myselffrom toil that would, at least, have stilled an unquiet impulse in me.Then, moreover, as regarded his unceremonious ejectment, the lateSurveyor was not altogether ill-pleased to be recognised by theWhigs as an enemy; since his inactivity in political affairs- histendency to roam, at will, in that broad and quiet field where allmankind may meet, rather than confine himself to those narrow pathswhere brethren of the same household must diverge from one another-had sometimes made it questionable with his brother Democratswhether he was a friend. Now, after he had won the crown ofmartyrdom (though with no longer a head to wear it on), the pointmight be looked upon as settled. Finally, little heroic as he was,it seemed more decorous to be overthrown in the downfall of theparty with which he had been content to stand, than to remain aforlorn survivor, when so many worthier men were falling; and, atlast, after subsisting for four years on the mercy of a hostileadministration, to be compelled then to define his position anew,and claim the yet more humiliating mercy of a friendly one. Meanwhile the press had taken up my affair, and kept me, for aweek or two, careering through the public prints, in my decapitatedstate, like Irving's Headless Horseman; ghastly and grim, andlonging to be buried, as a politically dead man ought. So much formy figurative self. The real human being, all this time, with his headsafely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the comfortableconclusion that everything was for the best; and, making an investmentin ink, paper, and steel-pens, had opened his long-disusedwriting-desk, and was again a literary man. Now it was that the lucubrations of my ancient predecessor, Mr.Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty through long idleness, some littlespace was requisite before my intellectual machinery could bebrought to work upon the tale, with an effect in any degreesatisfactory. Even yet, though my thoughts were ultimately muchabsorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye, a stern and sombreaspect; too much ungladdened by genial sunshine; too little relievedby the tender and familiar influences which soften almost everyscene of nature and real life, and, undoubtedly, should soften everypicture of them. This uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to theperiod of hardly accomplished revolution, and still seethingturmoil, in which the story shaped itself. It is no indication,however, of a lack of cheerfulness in the writer's mind; for he washappier, while straying through the gloom of these sunlessfantasies, than at any time since he had quitted the Old Manse. Someof the briefer articles, which contribute to make up the volume,have likewise been written since my involuntary withdrawal from thetoils and honours of public life, and the remainder are gleaned fromannuals and magazines, of such antique date that they have goneround the circle, and come back to novelty again. Keeping up themetaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be considered asthe POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF A DECAPITATED SURVEYOR; and the sketchwhich I am now bringing to a close, if too autobiographical for amodest person to publish in his life-time, will readily be excusedin a gentleman who writes from beyond the grave. Peace be with all theworld! My blessing on my friends! My forgiveness to my enemies! ForI am in the realm of quiet! The life of the Custom-House lies like a dream behind me. The oldInspector- who, by-the-bye, I regret to say, was overthrown and killedby a horse, some time ago; else he would certainly have lived forever-he, and all those other venerable personages who sat with him at thereceipt of custom, are but shadows in my view; white-headed andwrinkled images, which my fancy used to sport with, and has nowflung aside forever. The merchants- Pingree, Phillips, Shepard, Upton,Kimball, Bertram, Hunt- these, and many other names, which had sucha classic familiarity for my ear six months ago- these men of traffic,who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world- howlittle time has it required to disconnect me from them all, not merelyin act, but recollection! It is with an effort that I recall thefigures and appellations of these few. Soon, likewise, my old nativetown will loom upon me through the haze of memory, a mist broodingover and around it; as if it were no portion of the real earth, but anovergrown village in cloudland, with only imaginary inhabitants topeople its wooden houses, and walk its homely lanes; and theunpicturesque prolixity of its main street. Henceforth, it ceases tobe a reality of my life, I am a citizen of somewhere else. My goodtownspeople will not much regret me; for- though it has been as dearan object as any, in my literary efforts, to be of some importancein their eyes, and to win myself a pleasant memory in this abode andburial-place of so many of my forefathers- there has never been, forme, the general atmosphere which a literary man requires, in orderto ripen the best harvest of his mind. I shall do better amongst otherfaces; and these familiar ones, it need hardly be said, will do justas well without me. It may be, however- oh, transporting and triumphant thought!- thatthe great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think kindlyof the scribbler of bygone days, when the antiquary of days to come,among the sites memorable in the town's history, shall point out thelocality of THE TOWN PUMP!