The Scarlet Letter

Now it was that the lucubrations of my ancient predecessor, Mr.

Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty through long idleness, some

little space was requisite before my intellectual machinery

could be brought to work upon the tale with an effect in any

degree satisfactory. Even yet, though my thoughts were

ultimately much absorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye, a

stern and sombre aspect: too much ungladdened by genial

sunshine; too little relieved by the tender and familiar

influences which soften almost every scene of nature and real

life, and undoubtedly should soften every picture of them. This

uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to the period of hardly

accomplished revolution, and still seething turmoil, in which

the story shaped itself. It is no indication, however, of a lack

of cheerfulness in the writer's mind: for he was happier while

straying through the gloom of these sunless fantasies than at

any time since he had quitted the Old Manse. Some of the briefer

articles, which contribute to make up the volume, have likewise

been written since my involuntary withdrawal from the toils and

honours of public life, and the remainder are gleaned from

annuals and magazines, of such antique date, that they have gone

round the circle, and come back to novelty again. Keeping up the

metaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be

considered as the POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF A DECAPITATED SURVEYOR:

and the sketch which I am now bringing to a close, if too

autobiographical for a modest person to publish in his lifetime,

will readily be excused in a gentleman who writes from beyond

the grave. Peace be with all the world! My blessing on my

friends! My forgiveness to my enemies! For I am in the realm of

quiet!

The life of the Custom-House lies like a dream behind me. The

old Inspector--who, by-the-bye, I regret to say, was overthrown

and killed by a horse some time ago, else he would certainly

have lived for ever--he, and all those other venerable

personages who sat with him at the receipt of custom, are but

shadows in my view: white-headed and wrinkled images, which my

fancy used to sport with, and has now flung aside for ever. The

merchants--Pingree, Phillips, Shepard, Upton, Kimball, Bertram,

Hunt--these and many other names, which had such classic

familiarity for my ear six months ago,--these men of traffic,

who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world--how

little time has it required to disconnect me from them all, not

merely in act, but recollection! It is with an effort that I

recall the figures and appellations of these few. Soon,

likewise, my old native town will loom upon me through the haze

of memory, a mist brooding over and around it; as if it were no

portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in

cloud-land, with only imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden

houses and walk its homely lanes, and the unpicturesque

prolixity of its main street. Henceforth it ceases to be a

reality of my life; I am a citizen of somewhere else. My good

townspeople will not much regret me, for--though it has been as

dear an object as any, in my literary efforts, to be of some

importance in their eyes, and to win myself a pleasant memory in

this abode and burial-place of so many of my forefathers--there

has never been, for me, the genial atmosphere which a literary

man requires in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind. I

shall do better amongst other faces; and these familiar ones, it

need hardly be said, will do just as well without me.