The Scarlet Letter

It is a little remarkable, that--though disinclined to talk

overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my

personal friends--an autobiographical impulse should twice in my

life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The

first time was three or four years since, when I favoured the

reader--inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the

indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine--with a

description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old

Manse.

And now--because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough

to find a listener or two on the former occasion--I again seize

the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience

in a Custom-House. The example of the famous "P. P., Clerk of

this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truth

seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth upon

the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling

aside his volume, 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 such confidential depths of revelation as could

fittingly be addressed only and exclusively to the one heart and

mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at

large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided

segment of the writer's own nature, and complete his circle of

existence by bringing him into communion with it.

It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak

impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance

benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with

his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a

kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is

listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed

by this genial consciousness, 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 be autobiographical, without

violating either the reader's rights or his own.

It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a

certain propriety, of a kind always recognised in literature, as

explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into

my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a

narrative therein contained. This, in fact--a desire to put

myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of

the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume--this,

and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal relation

with the public. In accomplishing the main purpose, it has

appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint

representation of a mode of life not heretofore described,

together with some of the characters that move in it, among whom

the author happened to make one.