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The Scarlet Letterold-fashioned chairs, which were tipped on their hind legsback against the wall. Oftentimes they were asleep, butoccasionally might be heard talking together, ill voicesbetween a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energythat distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and allother human beings who depend for subsistence oncharity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but theirown independent exertions. These old gentlemen—seated,like Matthew at the receipt of custom, but not very liableto be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errands—were Custom-House officers.Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the frontdoor, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square,and of a lofty height, with two of its arched windowscommanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf,and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along aportion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses of theshops of grocers, block-makers, slop-sellers, and shipchandlers, around the doors of which are generally to beseen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and suchother wharf-rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. Theroom itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; itsfloor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that haselsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to12 of 394

The Scarlet Letterconclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, thatthis is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her toolsof magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access.In the way of furniture, there is a stove with a voluminousfunnel; an old pine desk with a three-legged stool besideit; two or three wooden-bottom chairs, exceedinglydecrepit and infirm; and—not to forget the library—onsome shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts ofCongress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue laws. A tinpipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium ofvocal communication with other parts of be edifice. Andhere, some six months ago—pacing from corner to corner,or lounging on the long-legged tool, with his elbow onthe desk, and his eyes wandering up and down thecolumns of the morning newspaper—you might haverecognised, honoured reader, the same individual whowelcomed you into his cheery little study, where thesunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the willowbranches on the western side of the Old Manse. But now,should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire invain for the Locofoco Surveyor. The besom of reformhath swept him out of office, and a worthier successorwears his dignity and pockets his emoluments.13 of 394

The Scarlet LetterThis old town of Salem—my native place, though Ihave dwelt much away from it both in boyhood andmaturer years—possesses, or did possess, a hold on myaffection, the force of which I have never realized duringmy seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far as itsphysical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface,covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none ofwhich pretend to architectural beauty—its irregularity,which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame—its long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through thewhole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and NewGuinea at one end, and a view of the alms-house at theother—such being the features of my native town, itwould be quite as reasonable to form a sentimentalattachment to a disarranged checker-board. And yet,though invariably happiest elsewhere, there is within me afeeling for Old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, Imust be content to call affection. The sentiment isprobably assignable to the deep and aged roots which myfamily has stuck into the soil. It is now nearly twocenturies and a quarter since the original Briton, theearliest emigrant of my name, made his appearance in thewild and forest—bordered settlement which has sincebecome a city. And here his descendants have been born14 of 394

The Scarlet Letterand died, and have mingled their earthly substance withthe soil, until no small portion of it must necessarily beakin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while, Iwalk the streets. In part, therefore, the attachment which Ispeak of is the mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust.Few of my countrymen can know what it is; nor, asfrequent transplantation is perhaps better for the stock,need they consider it desirable to know.But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. Thefigure of that first ancestor, invested by family traditionwith a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyishimagination as far back as I can remember. It still hauntsme, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past,which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase ofthe town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residencehere on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, andsteeple-crowned progenitor-who came so early, with hisBible and his sword, and trode the unworn street withsuch a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man ofwar and peace—a stronger claim than for myself, whosename is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He wasa soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church;he had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He waslikewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the Quakers, who15 of 394

The Scarlet Letterhave remembered him in their histories, and relate anincident of his hard severity towards a woman of theirsect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than anyrecord of his better deeds, although these were many. Hisson, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himselfso conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that theirblood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. Sodeep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in theCharter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if theyhave not crumbled utterly to dust I know not whetherthese ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent,and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruelties; or whetherthey are now groaning under the heavy consequences ofthem in another state of being. At all events, I, the presentwriter, as their representative, hereby take shame uponmyself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred bythem—as I have heard, and as the dreary andunprosperous condition of the race, for many a long yearback, would argue to exist—may be now and henceforthremoved.Doubtless, however, either of these stern and blackbrowed Puritans would have thought it quite a sufficientretribution for his sins that, after so long a lapse of years,the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable16 of 394

The Scarlet Lettermoss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, anidler like myself. No aim that I have ever cherished wouldthey recognise as laudable; no success of mine—if my life,beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened bysuccess—would they deem otherwise than worthless, ifnot positively disgraceful. ‘What is he?’ murmurs one greyshadow of my forefathers to the other. ‘A writer of storybooks! What kind of business in life—what mode ofglorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his dayand generation—may that be? Why, the degenerate fellowmight as well have been a fiddler!’ Such are thecompliments bandied between my great grandsires andmyself, across the gulf of time And yet, let them scorn meas they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwinedthemselves with mine.Planted deep, in the town’s earliest infancy andchildhood, by these two earnest and energetic men, therace has ever since subsisted here; always, too, inrespectability; never, so far as I have known, disgraced by asingle 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 topublic notice. Gradually, they have sunk almost out ofsight; as old houses, here and there about the streets, get17 of 394

The Scarlet Lettercovered half-way to the eaves by the accumulation of newsoil. From father to son, for above a hundred years, theyfollowed the sea; a grey-headed shipmaster, in eachgeneration, retiring from the quarter-deck to thehomestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditaryplace before the mast, confronting the salt spray and thegale which had blustered against his sire and grandsire.The boy, also in due time, passed from the forecastle tothe cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returnedfrom his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, andmingle his dust with the natal earth. This long connexionof a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial,creates a kindred between the human being and thelocality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery ormoral circumstances that surround him. It is not love butinstinct. The new inhabitant—who came himself from aforeign land, or whose father or grandfather came—haslittle claim to be called a Salemite; he has no conception ofthe oyster—like tenacity with which an old settler, overwhom his third century is creeping, clings to the spotwhere his successive generations have been embedded. Itis no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he isweary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, thedead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and18 of 394

The Scarlet Letterthe chillest of social atmospheres;—all these, and whateverfaults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing to thepurpose. The spell survives, and just as powerfully as if thenatal spot were an earthly paradise. So has it been in mycase. I felt it almost as a destiny to make Salem my home;so that the mould of features and cast of character whichhad all along been familiar here—ever, as onerepresentative of the race lay down in the grave, anotherassuming, as it were, his sentry-march along the mainstreet—might still in my little day be seen and recognisedin the old town. Nevertheless, this very sentiment is anevidence that the connexion, which has become anunhealthy one, should at least be severed. Human naturewill not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be plantedand re-planted, for too long a series of generations, in thesame worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within mycontrol, shall strike their roots into accustomed earth.On emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly thisstrange, indolent, unjoyous attachment for my native townthat brought me to fill a place in Uncle Sam’s brickedifice, when I might as well, or better, have gonesomewhere else. My doom was on me, It was not the firsttime, nor the second, that I had gone away—as it seemed,19 of 394

The Scarlet Letterpermanently—but yet returned, like the bad halfpenny, oras if Salem were for me the inevitable centre of theuniverse. So, one fine morning I ascended the flight ofgranite steps, with the President’s commission in mypocket, and was introduced to the corps of gentlemenwho 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 any public functionary of the United States,either in the civil or military line, has ever had such apatriarchal body of veterans under his orders as myself.The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at oncesettled when I looked at them. For upwards of twentyyears before this epoch, the independent position of theCollector had kept the Salem Custom-House out of thewhirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes the tenureof office generally so fragile. A soldier—New England’smost distinguished soldier—he stood firmly on thepedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in thewise liberality of the successive administrations throughwhich he had held office, he had been the safety of hissubordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quakeGeneral Miller was radically conservative; a man overwhose kindly nature habit had no slight influence;20 of 394

The Scarlet Letterattaching himself strongly to familiar faces, and withdifficulty moved to change, even when change might havebrought unquestionable improvement. Thus, on takingcharge 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 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 andall acquired a new lease of existence. Though by no meansless liable than their fellow-men to age and infirmity, theyhad evidently some talisman or other that kept death atbay. Two or three of their number, as I was assured, beinggouty and rheumatic, or perhaps bed-ridden, neverdreamed of making their appearance at the Custom-Houseduring a large part of the year; but, after a torpid winter,would creep out into the warm sunshine of May or June,go lazily about what they termed duty, and, at their ownleisure and convenience, betake themselves to bed again. Imust plead guilty to the charge of abbreviating the officialbreath of more than one of these venerable servants of therepublic. They were allowed, on my representation, torest from their arduous labours, and soon afterwards—as iftheir sole principle of life had been zeal for their country’s21 of 394

The Scarlet Letterservice—as I verily believe it was—withdrew to a betterworld. It is a pious consolation to me that, through myinterference, a sufficient space was allowed them forrepentance of the evil and corrupt practices into which, asa matter of course, every Custom-House officer must besupposed to fall. Neither the front nor the back entranceof the Custom-House opens on the road to Paradise.The greater part of my officers were Whigs. It was wellfor their venerable brotherhood that the new Surveyorwas not a politician, and though a faithful Democrat inprinciple, neither received nor held his office with anyreference to political services. Had it been otherwise—hadan active politician been put into this influential post, toassume the easy task of making head against a WhigCollector, whose infirmities withheld him from thepersonal administration of his office—hardly a man of theold corps would have drawn the breath of official lifewithin a month after the exterminating angel had come upthe Custom-House steps. According to the received codein such matters, it would have been nothing short of duty,in a politician, to bring every one of those white headsunder the axe of the guillotine. It was plain enough todiscern that the old fellows dreaded some such discourtesyat my hands. It pained, and at the same time amused me,22 of 394

The Scarlet Letterto behold the terrors that attended my advent, to see afurrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half a century ofstorm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless anindividual as myself; to detect, as one or another addressedme, the tremor of a voice which, in long-past days, hadbeen wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet,hoarsely enough to frighten Boreas himself to silence.They knew, these excellent old persons, that, by allestablished rule—and, as regarded some of them, weighedby their own lack of efficiency for business—they ought tohave given place to younger men, more orthodox inpolitics, and altogether fitter than themselves to serve ourcommon Uncle. I knew it, too, but could never quite findin my heart to act upon the knowledge. Much anddeservedly to my own discredit, therefore, andconsiderably to the detriment of my official conscience,they continued, during my incumbency, to creep aboutthe wharves, and loiter up and down the Custom-Housesteps. They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in theiraccustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back againstthe walls; awaking, however, once or twice in theforenoon, to bore one another with the several thousandthrepetition of old sea-stories and mouldy jokes, that hadgrown to be passwords and countersigns among them.23 of 394

The Scarlet LetterThe discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the newSurveyor had no great harm in him. So, with lightsomehearts and the happy consciousness of being usefullyemployed—in their own behalf at least, if not for ourbeloved country—these good old gentlemen wentthrough the various formalities of office. Sagaciously undertheir spectacles, did they peep into the holds of vesselsMighty was their fuss about little matters, and marvellous,sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed greater ones to slipbetween their fingers Whenever such a mischanceoccurred—when a waggon-load of valuable merchandisehad been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, anddirectly beneath their unsuspicious noses—nothing couldexceed the vigilance and alacrity with which theyproceeded to lock, and double-lock, and secure with tapeand sealing—wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel.Instead of a reprimand for their previous negligence, thecase seemed rather to require an eulogium on theirpraiseworthy caution after the mischief had happened; agrateful recognition of the promptitude of their zeal themoment that there was no longer any remedy.Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, itis my foolish habit to contract a kindness for them. Thebetter part of my companion’s character, if it have a better24 of 394

The Scarlet Letterpart, is that which usually comes uppermost in my regard,and forms the type whereby I recognise the man. As mostof these old Custom-House officers had good traits, and asmy position in reference to them, being paternal andprotective, was favourable to the growth of friendlysentiments, I soon grew to like them all. It was pleasant inthe summer forenoons—when the fervent heat, thatalmost liquefied the rest of the human family, merelycommunicated a genial warmth to their half torpidsystems—it was pleasant to hear them chatting in the backentry, a row of them all tipped against the wall, as usual;while the frozen witticisms of past generations werethawed out, and came bubbling with laughter from theirlips. Externally, the jollity of aged men has much incommon with the mirth of children; the intellect, anymore than a deep sense of humour, has

The Scarlet Letter 2 of 394 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 artisticFile Size: 1MBPage Count: 394Explore furtherThe Scarlet Letter PDF Book Online - The Scarlet Letter by .libgen.onlThe Scarlet Letter FULL TEXTwww.whsd.k12.pa.us[PDF] The Scarlet Letter Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850 .booksvooks.comTHE SCARLET LETTER - Free eBook Onlinewww.literatureproject.comThe Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne Free download PDF .freeditorial.comRecommended to you b