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.
