The Scarlet Letter
3.5/5
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
Born in 1804, Nathaniel Hawthorne is known for his historical tales and novels about American colonial society. After publishing The Scarlet Letter in 1850, its status as an instant bestseller allowed him to earn a living as a novelist. Full of dark romanticism, psychological complexity, symbolism, and cautionary tales, his work is still popular today. He has earned a place in history as one of the most distinguished American writers of the nineteenth century.
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Reviews for The Scarlet Letter
6,123 ratings152 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This was required reading for English class. Now that I think about it--it does seem odd that a school would have us reading about a woman being punished for adultery--well, the adultery part in a school book seems odd--though if they were going to have us read about adultery, I don't find it so odd that they would have it be this book. I remember our teacher saying "if you're reading the Cliff Notes, you already know who the baby's father is"--and it was true! The Cliff Notes did reveal the baby's father long before the book did. (But I won't reveal who it was here to avoid any spoilers.)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of the best books I "had" to read in high school. I think it had something to do with teaching me how wrong it is to judge others.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5yawwwn, shutup hester. not hester.. shutup nathaniel.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is one of the most beautifully and intelligently written works I have ever come across. It's just brilliant.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I'm not a big Classics fan but I do try to read a few each year. This time my Book Club chose A Scarlet Letter because of the Puritan connection and Thanksgiving time-frame. I had never read this book even in high school though I thought I knew the basics. There were aspects of the story to which I was unaware and it added a bit to the story IMO. However, the treatment of anyone - man, woman, or child - in manner, saddened me so I think that it did give me a greater reason to be thankful for the blessings I have.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This mid 19th century American classic novel is very much set within the ethos and mores of the Puritan community in New England in the mid 17th century. A young woman Hester Prynne with a baby (Pearl) is humiliated by the community and marked with the eponymous letter A for adultery (though the word is never used in the book). The story is about her relationship with her daughter, with an old doctor who is revealed to be her ex-husband, and with the clergyman who is Pearl's father. The story is told within a framework narrative, with an over-long introduction describing the author's personal experiences working in a custom house, where he purported to have found old documents describing Hester's story. Hawthorne is clearly sceptical of the grim joylessness of extreme Puritanism, when he describes one of their rare festive events thus: "Into this festal season of the year ............the Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction." The novel is very well written and needs to be read in relatively small doses truly to appreciate the language, though it is short at only 138 pages.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I first read The Scarlet Letter in high school. I read it again about ten years later. After learning an ancestor's wife, although not the one from whom I descend, likely inspired Hawthorne's story, I became interested in the story again and read it about a dozen years ago. This summer AudioSync offered a free download of the version narrated by Donada Peters. I really enjoyed the listening experience. Although the narrator's voice was British, she did a great job narrating the colonial New England Puritan story featuring a woman forced to wear a scarlet A upon her breast. The father the Rev. Arthur Dimsdale suffered more than she because he failed to publicly confess his sin. The woman's husband, living under the assumed name of Roger Chillingsworth, was the clergyman's doctor and tormentor. The classic story reads differently than modern novels, but never fails to provide material for thought. It continues to be studied in schools because of its ability to be discussed. I enjoyed my revisit to Puritan New England through this audio production.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I had put off reading this book for a long time because the reviews for it were not always glowing. I finally decided that this is an American classic and I needed to read it. Besides, I teach about the time period, and spent a full day at the Old Manse where Hawthorne wrote it down in Concord two summers ago.
I am glad I read this book but was not overly impressed. I got the feeling that Hawthorne was pretty darned impressed with himself and his writing ability. The story is famous so I won't spend time reviewing the plot or anything, but I have to say that a majority of the book was spent flushing out the thoughts and psyches of the main characters. I understand that the book was full of symbolism and was a criticism of society in many ways, but as a novel, it did not really keep me turning the pages.
I would recommend this for serious readers or for students of early American history. It is not a light read, and I would suggest reading it in one or two sittings because it is tough to gear up and come back to day after day. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Somehow I'd never read this book in school, and recently picked it up. I was surprised at the sophistication of the characters' psychology.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I know it's a "classic", but I thought it was only average.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5First time reading this verified American classic tale. While short, I found it very ponderous and uneven. The Introductory sketch of the Customs House was very long winded and fell far short of being interesting. My appetite picked up as we started into the well known story of Hester and the Scarlett Letter "A". Most of the book was overwritten and flowery for my taste, but I do acknowledge passages of brilliant prose and a mystically gothic ambiance. There were a lot of diversions and descriptions of forests, brooks, and the town along the way. Not the most enjoyable read for me.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A classic!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I read this book in high school. I should probably read more of N.H.'s books. This is a captivating read and rings so true even today.
Great book! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascination story of punishment and the different ways that people can deal with it.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5It's a great historical reconstruction of the Puritan world in early New England, apart from its literary qualities which are also plenty. However, its fame owes a lot to the strong cultural lobby the ever powerful America carries over the world - for the same period there are hundreds of far more important and interesting authors in Europe.
If high schoolers and obviously, American literature graduates, will be forcefed it, nineteenth century literature is maybe the quintessential era of writing. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It is always a bit disturbing reading books like this one that remind one of just how easy it could be for our modern, somewhat enlightened society to devolve into the brutish, closed-minded world our ancestors knew.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read this as a teenager. The story is sad in more ways than one. Being ostracized and not only cast out but stigmatized. I felt this myself growing up in a politically, racial and religiously backward prejudiced part of the country and instantly connected with it. Our species is so terrible to each other. As brilliant as we are and as much as we are capable of we cling to things that continually separate us from each other.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I'm not sure if Hawthorne was trying to be ironic here, but he takes "your sin will find you out" all too literally, and though I understand he's only representing the hypocrisy of the time, I think it shows bad taste to be so obvious about it. I'm not convinced of the realism in this book at all, and I think the morals are misplaced and misconstrued; that's where this book suffers. Are we supposed to convict Hester or sympathize with her, because we seem to be getting mixed signals throughout? I particularly found the whole demon possession thing with Pearl a bit too much to swallow, where everything went all Exorcist (because I guess that's what happens when you're born a bastard). And Dimmesdale and Chillingworth's deaths are just too predictable and so convenient to wrap up the story. There aren't really any characters in this novel you can feel for, for nobody really has any feeling in them. Well, at least that's the way I felt about it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For years, I have wanted to re-read this book. I remember reading it, the first time, during my sophomore English class. I only skimmed it, back then, enough to get by in the class. I knew the gist of the story. But it had been so long (I can't do the math for how long since I was a sophomore in high school! lol), I decided to listen to it this time around. I did remember that the Old English used in the novel is a bit difficult to comprehend. Listening to it really helped the flow, helped me get more context, and also allowed me to disregard things I didn't quite understand. That is, there were times when it was so wordy--pretty words, to be sure--that I just let it flow over me. Still, I'm glad I re-read it. It's really an amazing piece of work. It's amazing that things were actually like that, during Puritan times. As much as we complain about losing our rights as women (which is truly heinous and frustrating), I'm hopeful we'll never get back to THESE beliefs!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I originally read this book in high school. I reread it now, with two more decades of life experience. I've lived among Christians who revere the Puritan era. I've experienced social shunning. I'm a male living in the #MeToo era where one sin of sexual harassment can lead to career demise.
In all of these situations, however, I side with Hawthorne's sympathies towards those who bear the brunt of social shunning. Or at least, I try to side. If social order must be enforced (and social order in the case of a pregnancy is an extreme but common example), then it must be enforced loosely. That's what prohibition, abortion, and the rest of the culture wars have taught us. It is foolishness to fight human nature.
At the same time, those who are persecuted are often ennobled by their suffering, as Hester Prynne and Pearl were by theirs. The Scarlet A became not a sign of Adultery but of Ability for Hester. Hawthorne holds her up as a model, and I follow her willingly against those (on whatever side of the left/right/center cultural battles) who hold that purity ought to be externally enforced all the time.
It is a tenuous foundation that we sit upon as Americans. We are often blind to the purity-seekers who more-or-less agree with us. Although we are considered a free country, we often bind up our fellow citizens in our quest for purity. Indeed, in so doing, we act like our forebears. Hawthorne reminds us of this well. Puritan New England is not that far away from us today. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read this book when I was in first year university, when I was just starting to get into classics.
I bought this edition because it was really cheap, only $6.00 or so. So if I didn't like it, what did it matter? But I did like it - I absolutely loved it.
The writing style was a little bit difficult to get into at first, the language is a little bit antiquated but it became easier to read. (I also hadn't read too too many classics at the time, so I was still getting accustomed to the language.)
But I thought it was a worthwhile read. Hawthorne is a such a beautiful writer - I loved watching the characters' lives unfold, and I loved getting to know Hester. She's a brilliant heroine, a single mother, and there's something unassuming and brave about her. I love reading books about women and female characters and their lives, and this book was no exception.
Hawthorne is a classic, gothic, romantic American writer, and I really, really liked this book. I thought it would be good, just like any other classic, but I didn't know how much I'd really enjoy it. c: - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Reception to The Scarlet Letter is divided into four camps - those who read it in high school and disliked it, to spite the people who liked it and their teachers besides; those who read it in high school and liked it, to spite the people who disliked it and show their intellectual superiority; those who feel a certain fealty to it by dint of its pedestal as the 'Great American Novel'; and finally the fourth camp, which is composed of people who read it and concluded it genuinely wasn't all that excellent.As you may have guessed, I'm in the fourth camp, and I am neither ashamed nor as proud as both those who like it and those who dislike it. I bear no ill-will towards long sentences or romanticism, nor do I have some ridiculous opposition (or sentimentality towards) 'classic literature'.My issues with The Scarlet Letter are mainly that it's very plot-heavy, which is problematic if only because said heavy plot is dragged down by its maudlin moments and its general heavy-handedness. Unfortunately for the adolescent faux-rebels against literary analysis, The Scarlet Letter is laden with very obvious and not particularly clever symbolism, and complaints about the artificiality and implausibility of the fruits of New Criticism, formalism and general close-reading, although somewhat meritorious with more interesting literature, do not apply here. It is very symbolic, but to the point where the lay-reader in the 1850s would be able to readily comprehend it in a surface reading.Is The Scarlet Letter historically significant? Absolutely. Is it the worst novel ever published? Absolutely not. Is it particularly good compared to its European contemporaries? In my opinion, no.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I somehow managed to avoid being assigned The Scarlet Letter in high school, but since it is such a well-known text (and frequently cited as one of the most important works of early American literature) I decided that I should give it a read.
My problems with the book started early with the unnecessarily long establishment of a frame narrative. Hawthorne uses the first forty pages of the book largely to discuss life as an employee in a Customs house, something which has no discernible connection to the main story (if there had been such a connection, I'm sure Hawthorne would have pointed it out). There's nothing wrong with a frame narrative, but the same effect could have been accomplished in a tenth the number of pages. This problem reoccurs throughout the text.
The next issue I had manifested immediately after the main story proper starts, when it is revealed that Hawthorne has decided to begin the narrative after the most interesting events have already occurred. Hawthorne paints as best he can a picture of a Puritanical society where religion comes first, and a main character who is supposed to be no pushover. Depicting how a woman like Hester deals with the feelings that she develops for her minister in such a world is potentially fascinating, and provides a way of showing the conflict between personal and societal values, but instead whatever occurred in Hester's mind that led her to the most central (albeit undepicted) event of the narrative is never disclosed.
Instead of an interesting character study we get an opening that offers a quick glimpse of the scorn the people of Boston heap onto sinners, which would also have been an interesting path for the narrative to take- the suffering inflicted upon a woman by others in service of a faith that emphasizes love and forgiveness- but the story quickly jumps forward in Hester's life to a point where the village has largely grown to accept her because of her pious actions (and it is even stated that her ostensible ignominy has led to her skills with a needle being more highly sought after).
The story's opening also introduces Hester's husband, a character who paradoxically is perfectly forgiving of Hester for cheating on him but who then devolves into a mustache-twirling villain for the rest of the text. His evil plan mainly seems to center around giving his target, the minister, very effective medical care mixed with subtle suggestions that the minister isn't a great person- bwa ha ha ha! The husband also represents a wasted narrative opportunity, as instead of exploring the way the husband uncovers who has cuckolded him, the story just chalks it up to the husband being insightful.
There are other problems with the story telling- Pearl is not in any way a realistic or interesting child character, the minister suddenly turns evil for a few pages for no sufficiently good reason, etc.- but the most central flaw of The Scarlet Letter is that Hester, who should be a dynamic female character, is instead relegated to a largely passive figure who goes about suffering her punishment with a stiff upper lip and swallowing the pain caused by everyone, including her child. One wonders how Hester ever had the nerve to engage in a relationship with her minister when it takes her seven years to even tell said minister that the man living with him and feeding him mysterious mixtures is her husband out for revenge. In a story ostensibly about her, Hester is flat and boring, occasionally blaming herself for her lot and otherwise not doing much besides serving as a quiet, suffering martyr, though there is an incongruous line about her feeling jealousy.
All of this is exacerbated by Hawthorne's prose, which is overwritten without painting much imagery or communicating anything with subtlety. I found little beauty in the language, even when the subject was rosebushes, a dell in the woods where a young girl plays in a stream, or the various costumes of the sailors and soldiers assembled in the town square. The latter example highlights how Hawthorne's book would have been better with some serious cuts: he describes at length the various groups attending the Election Day gathering despite the fact that he doesn't do it in an interesting manner and it is of no import for the story. At times my eyes glazed over reading this book, and it quickly became a struggle to force myself to go back and actually read the words, as the odds that I had missed anything important seemed slim.
In sum The Scarlet Letter squanders the parts of its narrative that were potentially interesting, contains characters that are either boring, unrealistic, or nonsensical, and all this is communicated through some truly sub-par writing. My heart goes out to all the high school students who are being forced to read this, and to those who have to teach it as well. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I enjoyed the story but the writing was a chalenge at times. I do not mean that I could not comprehend it but the sentences were too long. This made the book drag on.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I haven't read this since high school, and I hated it back then. However, it's our October book for book club. Hopefully I'll like it better this time around.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was very excited to finally read this book since I have been told it is a classic. I guess I should have read it in a literary class because I felt very let down by the whole thing. The story was told with an outsider view that didn't go into much detail over anything. I felt like I was reading a quick summary of events instead of actually getting the true tale. I am glad I finally read it, but it won't be on a list to read again.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Most people of todays time don't seem to be able to really get this book. It is written for the time of old when women were homemakers and men ruled all. If things were a sin it was likely a womans fault and everything that happened that wasn't typical was considered either a sign from God or the devils work. So, here we have a story of a very naughty girl who got pregnant out of wedlock. So, by custom she was inprisoned and judged because of her sin. This is where the story begins. She keeps her mouth shut about who helped create this heathen child with her, which shows her own character. Then the story goes through the details of what becomes of her life. The town gossips have their hayday and later in the book people from out of town come to town just to see the girl with the scarlet letter. You see how many people treat her because she chose to not move away but to stay and face her persecutors head on. The whole time she also has to keep seeing her thought to be dead husband who is imitating someone else. All the while she faces many more trials and triumphs them all. She almost gets to run away with her love who fathered her child but circumstances keep that from happening. However slightly sad the ending is, it also ties up many loose ends. Overall, even with some rather drawn out details it is written amazingly well and a great read for anyone.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5While I enjoyed reading Hawthorne's commentary on the corrupt and illogical behavior of Puritan Americans, I thoroughly disliked his syntax. It was a laborious task to read a page. Once again, I agree with all his themes. I just wish he had written it better.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is from a compendium I have of Hawthorne's works, so I don't know the date. I believe I already read this in school (HS) but I don't remember it being so sluggish. Holy cow!!! Took a lot to get thru this and I slogged away. It is written on a higher reading level than most current books are. Ok but not fantastic. Kinda depressing....
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A classic tale. Hester Prynne, accused by her community for adultery. Bearing a child, is a pariah of her community.
I really don't know if there is much I can add to this story that hasn't already been said about it. It is a must read. It should be on everyone's bookshelf. What amazes me most about this book is that even back then Nathaniel Hawthorne showed the injustic of the double standard. Where women are treated as the chattel they were and men literary got away with murder when it comes to women. I also love the fact how the author points out that some men are just scum above and beyond how they treat women.
This book is and will always be a classic for me. It is one of my favorites. I highly recommend it to be on everyone's bookshelf!
Book preview
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Scarlet Letter
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Posting Date: December 18, 2011 [EBook #33] Release Date: February, 1992 Last Updated: May 18, 2005
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SCARLET LETTER ***
Produced by Dartmouth College
THE SCARLET LETTER
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
EDITOR'S NOTE
Nathaniel Hawthorne was already a man of forty-six, and a tale writer of some twenty-four years' standing, when The Scarlet Letter
appeared. He was born at Salem, Mass., on July 4th, 1804, son of a sea-captain. He led there a shy and rather sombre life; of few artistic encouragements, yet not wholly uncongenial, his moody, intensely meditative temperament being considered. Its colours and shadows are marvelously reflected in his Twice-Told Tales
and other short stories, the product of his first literary period. Even his college days at Bowdoin did not quite break through his acquired and inherited reserve; but beneath it all, his faculty of divining men and women was exercised with almost uncanny prescience and subtlety. The Scarlet Letter,
which explains as much of this unique imaginative art, as is to be gathered from reading his highest single achievement, yet needs to be ranged with his other writings, early and late, to have its last effect. In the year that saw it published, he began The House of the Seven Gables,
a later romance or prose-tragedy of the Puritan-American community as he had himself known it— defrauded of art and the joy of life, starving for symbols
as Emerson has it. Nathaniel Hawthorne died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, on May 18th, 1864.
The following is the table of his romances, stories, and other works:
Fanshawe, published anonymously, 1826; Twice-Told Tales, 1st
Series, 1837; 2nd Series, 1842; Grandfather's Chair, a history
for youth, 1845: Famous Old People (Grandfather's Chair), 1841
Liberty Tree: with the last words of Grandfather's Chair, 1842;
Biographical Stories for Children, 1842; Mosses from an Old
Manse, 1846; The Scarlet Letter, 1850; The House of the Seven
Gables, 1851: True Stories from History and Biography (the whole
History of Grandfather's Chair), 1851 A Wonder Book for Girls and
Boys, 1851; The Snow Image and other Tales, 1851: The Blithedale
Romance, 1852; Life of Franklin Pierce, 1852; Tanglewood Tales
(2nd Series of the Wonder Book), 1853; A Rill from the Town-Pump,
with remarks, by Telba, 1857; The Marble Faun; or, The Romance of
Monte Beni (4 EDITOR'S NOTE) (published in England under the
title of Transformation
), 1860, Our Old Home, 1863; Dolliver
Romance (1st Part in Atlantic Monthly
), 1864; in 3 Parts, 1876;
Pansie, a fragment, Hawthorne' last literary effort, 1864;
American Note-Books, 1868; English Note Books, edited by Sophia
Hawthorne, 1870; French and Italian Note Books, 1871; Septimius
Felton; or, the Elixir of Life (from the Atlantic Monthly
),
1872; Doctor Grimshawe's Secret, with Preface and Notes by
Julian Hawthorne, 1882.
Tales of the White Hills, Legends of New England, Legends of the
Province House, 1877, contain tales which had already been
printed in book form in Twice-Told Tales
and the Mosses
Sketched and Studies,
1883.
Hawthorne's contributions to magazines were numerous, and most of his tales appeared first in periodicals, chiefly in The Token,
1831-1838, New England Magazine,
1834,1835; Knickerbocker,
1837-1839; Democratic Review,
1838-1846; Atlantic Monthly,
1860-1872 (scenes from the Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, and passages from Hawthorne's Note-Books).
Works: in 24 volumes, 1879; in 12 volumes, with introductory notes by Lathrop, Riverside Edition, 1883.
Biography, etc.; A. H. Japp (pseud. H. A. Page), Memoir of N. Hawthorne, 1872; J. T. Field's Yesterdays with Authors,
1873 G. P. Lathrop, A Study of Hawthorne,
1876; Henry James English Men of Letters, 1879; Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife,
1885; Moncure D. Conway, Life of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1891; Analytical Index of Hawthorne's Works, by E. M. O'Connor 1882.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY. THE CUSTOM-HOUSE
CHAPTER I. THE PRISON-DOOR
CHAPTER II. THE MARKET-PLACE
CHAPTER III. THE RECOGNITION
CHAPTER IV. THE INTERVIEW
CHAPTER V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE
CHAPTER VI. PEARL
CHAPTER VII. THE GOVERNOR'S HALL
CHAPTER VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER
CHAPTER IX. THE LEECH
CHAPTER X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT
CHAPTER XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART
CHAPTER XII. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL
CHAPTER XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER
CHAPTER XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN
CHAPTER XV. HESTER AND PEARL
CHAPTER XVI. A FOREST WALK
CHAPTER XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER
CHAPTER XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE
CHAPTER XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE
CHAPTER XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE
CHAPTER XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY
CHAPTER XXII. THE PROCESSION
CHAPTER XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER
CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION
THE CUSTOM-HOUSE
INTRODUCTORY TO 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.
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 is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood—at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass—here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military, post of Uncle Sam's government is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.
The pavement round about the above-described edifice—which we may as well name at once as the Custom-House of the port—has grass enough growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn by any multitudinous resort of business. In some months of the year, however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onward with a livelier tread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen of that period, before the last war with England, when Salem was a port by itself; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and ship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin while their ventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when three or four vessels happen to have arrived at once usually from Africa or South America—or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward, there is a sound of frequent feet passing briskly up and down the granite steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you may greet the sea-flushed ship-master, just in port, with his vessel's papers under his arm in a tarnished tin box. Here, too, comes his owner, cheerful, sombre, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme of the now accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him under a bulk of incommodities such as nobody will care to rid him of. Here, likewise—the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, careworn merchant—we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his master's ships, when he had better be sailing mimic boats upon a mill-pond. Another figure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor, in quest of a protection; or the recently arrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital. Nor must we forget the captains of the rusty little schooners that bring firewood from the British provinces; a rough-looking set of tarpaulins, without the alertness of the Yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no slight importance to our decaying trade.
Cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for the time being, it made the Custom-House a stirring scene. More frequently, however, on ascending the steps, you would discern— in the entry if it were summer time, or in their appropriate rooms if wintry or inclement weathers—a row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs, which were tipped on their hind legs back against the wall. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but their own independent exertions. These old gentlemen—seated, like Matthew at the receipt of custom, 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 a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height, with two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of the shops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers, around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access. In the way of furniture, there is a stove with a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and infirm; and—not to forget the library—on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six months ago—pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wandering up and down the columns of the morning newspaper—you might have recognised, honoured reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the willow branches on the western side of the Old Manse. But now, should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the Locofoco Surveyor. The besom of reform hath swept him out of office, and a worthier successor wears his dignity and pockets his emoluments.
This old town of Salem—my native place, though I have dwelt much away from it both in boyhood and maturer years—possesses, or did possess, a hold on my affection, the force of which I have never realized during my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far as its physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural beauty—its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame—its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the alms-house at the other—such being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. And yet, though invariably happiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling for Old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be content to call affection. The sentiment is probably assignable to the deep and aged roots which my family has stuck into the soil. It is now nearly two centuries and a quarter since the original Briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made his appearance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement which has since become a city. And here his descendants have been born and died, and have mingled their earthly substance with the soil, until no small portion of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while, I walk the streets. In part, therefore, the attachment which I speak of is the mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. Few of my countrymen can know what it is; nor, as frequent transplantation is perhaps better for the stock, need they consider it desirable to know.
But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned progenitor—who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, 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 the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in the Charter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them in another state of being. At all events, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them—as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist—may be now and henceforth removed.
Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browed Puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim that I have ever cherished would they recognise as laudable; no success of mine—if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. What is he?
murmurs one grey shadow of my forefathers to the other. A writer of story books! What kind of business in life—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation—may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!
Such are the compliments bandied between my great grandsires and myself, across the gulf of time! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine.
Planted deep, in the town's earliest infancy and childhood, by these two 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 the other hand, after the first two generations, performing any memorable deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to public notice. Gradually, they have sunk almost out of sight; as old houses, here and there about the streets, get covered half-way to the eaves by the accumulation of new soil. From father to son, for above a hundred years, they followed the sea; a grey-headed shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale which had blustered against his sire and grandsire. The boy, also in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth. This long connexion of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him. It is not love but instinct. The new inhabitant—who came himself from a foreign land, or whose father or grandfather came—has little claim to be called a Salemite; he has no conception of the oyster-like tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his third century is creeping, clings to the spot where his successive generations have been embedded. It is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres;—all these, and whatever faults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing to the purpose. The spell survives, and just as powerfully as if the natal spot were an earthly paradise. So has it been in my case. I felt it almost as a destiny to make Salem my home; so that the mould of features and cast of character which had all along been familiar here—ever, as one representative of the race lay down in the grave, another assuming, as it were, his sentry-march along the main street—might still in my little day be seen and recognised in the old town. Nevertheless, this very sentiment is an evidence that the connexion, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last be severed. Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and re-planted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birth-places, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, 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 to fill a place in Uncle Sam's brick edifice, when I might as well, or better, have gone somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not the first time, nor the second, that I had gone away—as it seemed, permanently—but yet returned, like the bad halfpenny, or as if Salem were for me the inevitable centre of the universe. So, one fine morning I ascended the flight of granite steps, with the President's commission in my pocket, and was introduced to the corps of gentlemen who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility as chief executive officer of the Custom-House.
I doubt greatly—or, rather, I do not doubt at all—whether any public functionary of the United States, either in the civil or military line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself. The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at once settled when I looked at them. For upwards of twenty years before this epoch, the independent position of the Collector had kept the Salem Custom-House out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. A soldier—New England's most distinguished soldier—he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive administrations through which he had held office, he had been the safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quake. General Miller was radically conservative; a man over whose kindly nature habit had no slight influence; attaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and with difficulty moved to change, even when change might have brought unquestionable improvement. Thus, on taking charge of my department, I found few but aged men. They were ancient sea-captains, for the most part, who, after being tossed on every sea, and standing up sturdily against life's tempestuous blast, had finally drifted into this quiet nook, where, with little to disturb them, except the periodical terrors of a Presidential election, they one and all acquired a new lease of existence. Though by no means less liable than their fellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently some talisman or other that kept death at bay. Two or three of their number, as I was assured, being gouty and rheumatic, or perhaps bed-ridden, never dreamed of making their appearance at the Custom-House during a large part of