{"1": {"fulltext": "", "height": "2620", "width": "1747", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "a", "height": "3036", "width": "1877", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": ",H\\\\ \u00c2\u00aby A. ^rv c", "height": "3072", "width": "1991", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3036", "width": "1877", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "%\\\\\\\\t iXiotmu literature ^eriefi\\nTHE CUSTOM HOUSE\\nAND\\nMAIN STREET\\nBY\\nNATHANIEL HAWTHORNE\\nJ\\nWITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES\\nHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND CO.MPA]!s Y\\nBoston 4 Park Street New York 11 East Seventeenth Street\\nChicago 378-388 Wabash Avenue\\n(iarfjE 0iVJcrpide {Sress, Cambridge\\nn", "height": "3072", "width": "1991", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "TWO COPIES RECEIVED,\\nLibrary of COBgraa^i\\nOffice of the\\nFEB 6 -1900\\nRegister of Gopyrlgh^^\\n55883\\nCopyright, 1899,\\nBy HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN CO.\\nAll rights reserved.\\n85C0ND COPY,\\nThe Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.\\nElectrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton Company.", "height": "3036", "width": "1877", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "I\\nINTRODUCTORY NOTE.\\nWhen Hawthorne collected a number of fugitive\\npieces under the title of 3Iosses from an Old Manse^\\nhe justified the name he gave his book by a delightful\\nintroductory sketch of the old manse itself, in which\\nhe was then living at Concord. In this sketch, this\\nmost reserved and shy of writers followed a practice\\nwhich seems almost incidental to shyness, he wrote\\nwith an apparent candor and unreserve about his per-\\nsonal affairs he was like a person talking in the twi-\\nlight, and finding courage to say things on which he\\nwould be silent if candles were suddenly brought in.\\nBut the reader looking closely will note that the con-\\nfidences are really of the most external sort there is\\nno intimate revelation of his nature, he talks only\\nof the house he lives in, and of the neighborhood\\nwhich he has happened on.\\nLater in life, Hawthorne used something of the\\nsame manner when introducing his bundle of sketches\\nof England in the volume Our Old Home. His\\npaper on A Consular Experience likewise is a\\nfrank talk behind the door with his reader, but is in\\neffect a series of humorous studies of character in\\nwhich this silent man indulged. Between these two\\npersonal, lightly autobiographical disclosures was a\\nthird, which perhaps has been even more read, for it\\nstands at the entrance of his most famous book, The\\nScarlet Letter.\\nIn this graceful sketch of The Custom House,", "height": "3072", "width": "1991", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "iv INTRODUCTORY NOTE.\\nHawthorne ostensibly was paving the way for a ficti-\\ntious explanation of the origin of his great piece of\\nfiction but it may be suspected that the part of the\\nsketch which related to the discovery of a dusty bun-\\ndle of papers from the files of Mr. Secretary Pue was\\nan afterthought, written perhaps when he was casting\\nabout for some ingenious mode of accounting for the\\nfacts on which he had built. The sketch is in reality,\\nlike the others, a bit of autobiograiDhic writing upon\\na theme in which he might, without offence to his pri-\\nvacy, invite his friends and neighbors to share.\\nHe held the appointment of Surveyor of the Port\\nof Salem for three years. He was to take this posi-\\ntion when he wrote The Old Manse and when he\\nleft the Custom House, as he hints in this sketch, it\\nwas with a sense of continuity in his life, which was\\nat bottom the life of a writer. He meant, as he says,\\nto collect a number of his scattered pieces, as he did\\nwhen he left the Manse, and this sketch was to intro-\\nduce them all, but he left it finally as introduction\\nonly to The Scarlet Letter. There is a whimsical\\nallusion in the last sentence to an earlier, playful\\nsketch, A Eill from the Town Pump.\\nIf he had made the collection, Main Street\\nwould have been one of the most natural members.\\nIt is redolent of the same atmosphere as The Scarlet\\nLetter^ and is indeed a sort of panoramic sketch of\\nNew England history. When the sjsetch was written,\\nthe panorama, a long painted roll of successive scenes,\\nsuggested perhaps by the landscape paper which deco-\\nrated the walls of stately houses, was a favorite show\\nin New England. Banvard s Panorama of the Mis-\\nsissippi, for instance, was a very popular entertain-\\nment, and Longfellow owed to it such knowledge as", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "INTRODUCTORY NOTE. V\\nhe had for the scenes visited by Evangeline in her\\njourney in search of Basil. So Hawthorne makes an\\nimaginary panorama of Main Street in Salem, and\\nprovides it with the regular accompaniment of a show-\\nman.\\nBoth of these sketches are very characteristic of\\nHawthorne s attitude toward his birthplace. In the\\nformer he catches the contemporary life, which he\\nregarded almost as if he were one of a later genera-\\ntion looking back upon the Salem of his day in the\\nlatter he reproduces the historic life of New England\\nalmost as if he were a contemporary. With all his\\napparent remoteness ^from life as he went his way\\nsilent, reserved, shut within himself, Hawthorne had\\nthe eye that penetrates and the memory that holds\\nfast his note-books bear witness to the closeness of\\nhis observation of the life about him. And, w^ith\\nall this minuteness of scrutiny and this fidelity to\\nnature, there was nothing slavish about his copying\\nof life. He had the constructive imagination which\\nenabled him to record the figures in the Custom\\nHouse so that they will ahvays be interesting, and to\\nvivify the dry records of a provincial history so that\\none sees the procession dow^n Main Street as if he\\nwere looking at the pictures thrown by some magic\\nlantern.\\nH. E. S.", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0009.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0010.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE.\\nINTRODUCTORY TO THE SCARLET LETTER.\\nIt is a little remarkable, that though disinclined\\nto talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fire-\\nside, and to my personal friends an autobiograph-\\nical impulse should twice in my life have taken\\npossession of me, in addressing the public. The first\\ntime was three or four years since, when I favored the\\nreader inexcusably, and for no earthly reason, that\\neither the indulgent reader or the intrusive author\\ncould imagine with a description of my way of life\\nin the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now\\nbecause, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to\\nfind a listener or two on the former occasion I again\\nseize the pubhc by the button, and talk of my three\\nyears experience in a Custom House. The example\\nof the famous P. P., Clerk of this Parish, was\\nnever more faithfully followed. The truth seems to\\nbe, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth upon\\nthe wind, the author addresses, not the many who will\\nfling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few\\nwho will understand him, better than most of his\\nschoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do\\nfar more than this, and indulge themselves in such", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0011.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "2 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nconfidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be\\naddressed, only and exclusively, to the one heart and\\nmind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book,\\nthrown at large on the wide world, were certain to\\nfind out the divided segment of the wi iter s own na=\\ntore, and complete his circle of existence by bringing\\nhim into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous,\\nhowever, to speak all, even where we speak imperson-\\nally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance be-\\nnumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation\\nwith his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine\\nthat a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the\\nclosest friend, is listening to our talk and then, a na-\\ntive reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness,\\nwe may prate of the circumstances that lie around us,\\nand even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me be-\\nhind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits,\\nan author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without\\nviolating either the reader s rights or his own.\\nIt will be seen likewise, that this Custom House\\nsketch has a certain propriety, of a Idnd always recog-\\nnized in literature, as explaining how a large portion\\nof the following pages came into my possession, and\\nas offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative\\ntherein contained. This, in fact, a desire to put\\nmyself in my true position as editor, or very little\\nmore, of the most prolix among the tales that make up\\nmy volume, this, and no other is my true reason for\\nassuming a personal relation with the public. In ac-\\ncomplishing the main purpose, it has appeared allow-\\nable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint represen-\\ntation of a mode of life not heretofore described,\\ntogether with some of the characters that move in it,\\namong whom the author happened to make one.", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0012.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE, 3\\nIn my native town of Salem, at the head of what,\\nhalf a century ago, in the days of old King Derby,\\nwas a bustling wharf, but which is now burdened\\nwith decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or\\nno symptoms of commercial life except, perhaps, a\\nbark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length,\\ndischarging hides or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia\\nschooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood, at the\\nhead, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide\\noften overflows, and along which, at the base and in\\nthe rear of the row of buildings, the track of many lan-\\nguid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass,\\nhere, with a view from its front windows adown this\\nnot very enlivening prospect, and thence across the\\nharbor, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the\\nloftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a\\nhalf hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze\\nor calm, the banner of the republic but with the thir-\\nteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally,\\nand thus indicating that a civil, and not a military\\npost of Uncle Sam s government is here established.\\nIts front is ornamented with a portico of half a dozen\\nwooden piUars, supporting a balcony, beneath which\\na flight of wide granite steps descends towards the\\nstreet. Over the entrance hovers an enormous speci-\\nmen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a\\nshield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a\\nbunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows\\nin each claw. With the customary infirmity of tem-\\nper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears,\\nby the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general\\ntruculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the\\ninoffensive community and especially to warn all cit-\\nizens, carefid of their safety, against intruding on the", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0013.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "4 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\npremises which she overshadows with her wings.\\nNevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are\\nseeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves\\nimder the wing of the federal eagle imagining, I pre-\\nsume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness\\nof an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tender-\\nness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later,\\nof tener soon than late, is apt to fling off her nest-\\nlings, with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or\\na rankling wound from her barbed arrows.\\nThe pavement round about the above-described ed-\\nifice which we may as well. name at once as the\\nCustom House of the port has grass enough growing\\nin its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been\\nworn by any multitudinous resort of business. In\\nsome months of the year, however, there often chances\\na forenoon when affairs move onward with a livelier\\ntread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen\\nof that period before the last war with England, when\\nSalem was a port by itself not scorned, as she is now,\\nby her own merchants and ship-owners, who permit\\nher wharves to crumble to ruin, while their ventures\\ngo to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty\\nflood of commerce at New York or Boston. On some\\nsuch morning, when three or four vessels happen to\\nhave arrived at once, usually from Africa or South\\nAmerica, or to be on the verge of their departure\\nthitherward, there is a sound of frequent feet, passing\\nbriskly up and down the granite steps. Here, before\\nhis own wife has greeted him, you may greet the sea-\\nflushed shipmaster, just in port, with his vessel s\\npapers under liis arm, in a tarnished tin box. Here,\\ntoo, comes his owner, cheerful or sombre, gracious or\\nin the sulksj accordingly as his scheme of the now", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0014.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 6\\naccomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise\\nthat will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him\\nunder a bulk of incommodities, such as nobody will\\ncare to rid him of. Here, likewise, the germ of the\\nwrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, care-worn merchant,\\nwe have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste\\nof traffic as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends\\nadventures in his master s ships, when he had better\\nbe sailing mimic -boats upon a mill-pond. Another\\nfigure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor in quest\\nof a protection or the recently arrived one, pale and\\nfeeble, seeking a passport to the hospital. Nor must\\nwe forget the captains of the rusty little schooners\\nthat bring firewood from the British provinces; a\\nrough-looking set of tarpaulins, without the alertness\\nof the Yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no\\nslight importance to our decaying trade.\\nCluster ail these individuals together, as they some-\\ntimes were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify\\nthe group, and, for the time being, it made the Cus-\\ntom House a stirring scene. More frequently, how-\\never, on ascending the steps, you would discern in\\nthe entry, if it were summer time, or in their appro-\\npriate rooms, if wintry or inclement weather a row\\nof venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs,\\nwhich were tipped on their hind legs back against the\\nwall. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally\\nmight be heard talking together, in voices between\\nspeech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that\\ndistinguishes the occupants of almshouses, and aU\\nother human beings who depend for subsistence on\\ncharity, on monopolized labor, or anything else, but\\ntheir own independent exertions. These old gentle-\\nmen seated, like Matthew, at the receipt of customs,", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0015.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "6 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nbut not very liable to be summoned thence, like Mm,\\nfor apostolic errands were Custom House officers.\\nFurthermore, on the left hand as you enter the\\nfront door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen\\nfeet square, and of a lofty height; with two of its\\narched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid\\ndilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a nar-\\nrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All\\nthree give glimpses of the shops of grocers, block-\\nmakers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers around the\\ndoors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and\\ngossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf-\\nrats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room\\nitself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its\\nfloor is strewn with gray sand, in a fashion that has\\nelsewhere fallen into long disuse and it is easj^ to\\nconclude, from the general slovenliness of the place,\\nthat this is a sanctuary into which womankind, ^vith\\nher tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infre-\\nquent access. In the way of furniture, there is a\\nstove with a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk,\\nwith a three-legged stool beside it; two or three\\nwooden-bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and in-\\nfirm and not to forget the library on some\\nshelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Con-\\ngress, and a bulky Digest of the Kevenue Laws. A\\ntin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a\\nmedium of vocal communication with other parts of\\nthe edifice. And here, some six months ago, pacing\\nfrom corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged\\nstool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wan-\\ndering up and down the column^ of the morning news-\\npaper, you might have recognized, honored reader,\\nthe same individual who welcomed you into his cheery", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0016.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. T\\nlittle study, where the simsliine glimmered so pleas-\\nantly through the willow branches, on the western\\nside of the Old Manse. But now, should you go\\nthither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the\\nLocofoco Surveyor. The besom of reform has swept\\nhim out of office and a worthier successor wears his\\ndignity, and pockets his emoluments.\\nThis old town of Salem my native place, though\\nI have dwelt much away from it, both in boyhood and\\nmaturer years possesses, or did possess, a hold on\\nmy affections, the force of which I have never realized\\nduring my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed,\\nso far as its physical aspect is concerned, with its fiat,\\nunvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses,\\nfew or none of which pretend to architectural beauty,\\nits irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor\\nquaint, but only tame, its long and lazy street\\nlounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the\\npeninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one\\nend, and a view of the almshouse at the other, such\\nbeing the features of my native town, it would be quite\\nas reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a\\ndisarranged checker-board. And yet, though invari-\\nably happiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling\\nfor old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I\\nmust be content to call affection. The sentiment is\\nprobably assignable to the deep and aged roots which\\nmy family has struck into the soil. It is now nearly\\ntwo centuries and a quarter since the original Briton,\\nthe earliest emigrant of my name, made his appear-\\nance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement, which\\nhas since become a city. And here his descendants\\nhave been born and died, and have mingled their\\nearthly substance with the soil, until no smaD portion", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0017.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "8 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nof it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame\\nwherewith, for a little while, I walk the streets. In\\npart, therefore, the attachment which I speak of is\\nthe mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. Few of\\nmy countrymen can know what it is nor, as frequent\\ntransportation is perhaps better for the stock, need\\nthey consider it desirable to know.\\nBut the sentiment has likewise its moral quality.\\nThe figure of that first ancestor, invested by family\\ntradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present\\nto my boyish imagination, as far back as I can remem-\\nber. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-\\nfeeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in refer-\\nence to the present phase of the town. I seem to have\\na stronger claim to a residence here on account of his\\ngrave, bearded, sabled-cloaked and steeple-crowned pro-\\ngenitor, who came so early, with his Bible and his\\nsword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately\\nport, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and\\npeace, a stronger claim than for myself, whose name\\nis seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was\\na soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the\\nChurch he had all the Puritanic traits, both good\\nand evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor, as wit-\\nness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their\\nhistories, and relate an incident of his hard severity\\ntowards a woman of their sect, which will last longer,\\nit is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds,\\nalthough these were many. His son, too, inherited\\nthe persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicu-\\nous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood\\nmay fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So\\ndeep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in the\\nCharter Street burial-ground, must still retain it, if", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0018.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE, 9\\nthey have not crumbled utterly to dust I know not\\nwhether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves\\nto repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruel-\\nties or whether they are now groaning under the\\nheavy consequences of them, in another state of beingo\\nAt all events, I, the present writer, as their represen-\\ntative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes,\\nand pray that any curse incurred by them as I have\\nheard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition\\nof the race, for many a long year back, would argue\\nto exist may be now and henceforth removed.\\nDoubtless, however, either of these stern and black-\\nbrowed Puritans would have thought it quite a suffi-\\ncient retribution for his sins, that, after so long a\\nlapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with\\nso much venerable moss upon it, should have borne,\\nas its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim,\\nthat I have ever cherished, would they recognize as\\nlaudable no success of mine if my life, beyond its\\ndomestic scope, had ever been brightened by success\\nwould they deem otherwise than worthless, if not\\npositively disgraceful. What is he murmurs one\\ngray shadow of my forefathers to the other. A\\nwriter of story-books What kind of a business in\\nlife, what mode of glorifying God, or being service-\\nable to mankind in his day and generation, may\\nthat be Why, the degenerate fellow might as well\\nhave been a fiddler Such are the compliments ban-\\ndied between my great-grandsires and myself, across\\nthe gulf of time And yet, let them scorn me as they\\nwill, strong traits of their nature have intertwined\\nthemselves with mine.\\nPlanted deep, in the town s earliest infancy and\\nchildhood, by these two earnest and energetic men,", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0019.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "10 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nthe race has ever since subsisted here always, too, in\\nrespectability never, so far as I have known, dis-\\ngraced by a single unworthy member but seldom or\\nnever, on the other hand, after the first two genera-\\ntions, performing any memorable deed, or so much as\\nputting forward a claim to public notice. Gradually,\\nthey have sunk almost out of sight; as old houses,\\nhere and there about the streets, get covered half-way\\nto the eaves by the accumulation of new soil. From\\nfather to son, for above a hundred years, they followed\\nthe sea a gray-headed shipmaster, in each generation,\\nretiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while\\na boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the\\nmast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which\\nhad blustered against his sire and grandsire. The\\nboy, also, in due time, passed from the forecastle to\\nthe cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned\\nfrom his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and\\nmingle his dust with the natal earth. This long con-\\nnection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth\\nand burial, creates a kindred between the human be-\\ning and the locality, quite independent of any charm\\nin the scenery or moral circumstances that surround\\nhim. It is not love, but instinct. The new inhabitant\\nwho came himself from a foreign land, or whose\\nfather or grandfather came has little claim to be\\ncalled a Salemite he has no conception of the oyster-\\nlike tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his\\nthird century is creeping, clings to the spot where his\\nsuccessive generations have been imbedded. It is no\\nmatter that the place is joyless for him that he is\\nweary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust,\\nthe dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east\\nwind, and the chillest of social atmospheres, all", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0020.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 11\\nthese, and whatever faults besides he may see or im-\\nagine, are nothing to the purpose. The spell survives,\\nand just as powerfully as if the natal spot were an\\nearthly paradise. So has it been in my case. I felt\\nit almost as a destiny to make Salem my home so\\nthat the mould of features and cast of character which\\nhad all along been familiar here, ever, as one repre-\\nsentative of the race lay down in his grave, another as-\\nsiuning, as it were, his sentry-march along the main\\nstreet, might still in my little day be seen and rec-\\nognized in the old town. Nevertheless, this very sen-\\ntiment is an evidence that the connection, which has\\nbecome an unhealthy one, should at last be severed.\\nHuman nature will not flourish, any more than a po-\\ntato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a\\nseries of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My\\nchildren have had other birthplaces, and, so far as\\ntheir fortunes may be within my control, shall strike\\ntheir roots into unaccustomed earth.\\nOn emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly\\nthis strange, indolent, un joyous attachment for my na-\\ntive town, that brought me to fill a place in Uncle\\nSam s brick edifice, when I might as well, or better,\\nhave gone somewhere else. My doom was on meo It\\nwas not the first time, nor the second, that I had gone\\naway, as it seemed, permanently, but yet returned,\\nlike the bad half -penny or as if Salem were for me\\nthe inevitable centre of the universe. So, one fine\\nmorning, I ascended the flight of granite steps, with\\nthe President s commission in my pocket, and was in-\\ntroduced to the corps of gentlemen who were to aid\\nme in my weighty responsibility, as chief executive\\nofficer of the Custom House.\\nI doubt greatly or, rather, I do not doubt at all", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0021.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "12 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nwhether any public functionary of the United States,\\neither in the civil or military line, has ever had such a\\npatriarchal body of veterans under his orders as my-\\nself. The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was\\nat once settled, when I looked at them. For upwards\\nof twenty years before this epoch, the independent po-\\nsition of the Collector had kept the Salem Custom\\nHouse out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude,\\nwhich makes the tenure of office generally so fragile.\\nA soldier, New England s most distinguished sol-\\ndier, he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant\\nservices and, himself secure in the wise liberality of\\nthe successive administrations through which he had\\nheld office, he had been the safety of his subordinates\\nin many an hour of danger and heartquake. General\\nMiller was radically conservative a man over whose\\nkindly nature habit had no slight influence attach-\\ning himself strongly to familiar faces, and with diffi-\\nculty moved to change, even when change might have\\nbrought unquestionable improvement. Thus, on tak-\\ning charge of my department, I found few but aged\\nmen. They were ancient sea-captains, for the most\\npart, who, after being tost on every sea, and standing\\nup sturdily against life s tempestuous blast, had finally\\ndrifted into this quiet nook where, with little to dis-\\nturb them, except the periodical terrors of a presiden-\\ntial election, they one and all acquired a new lease of\\nexistence. Though by no means less liable than their\\nfellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently\\nsome talisman or other that kept death at bay. Two\\nor three of their number, as I was assured, being gouty\\nand rheumatic, or perhaps bedridden, never dreamed\\nof making their appearance at the Custom House dur-\\ning a large part of the year j but, after a torpid win-", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0022.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 13\\nter, would creep out into the warm sunshine of May or\\nJune, go lazily about what they termed duty, and, at\\ntheir own leisure and convenience, betake themselves\\nto bed again. I must plead guilty to the charge of ab-\\nbreviating the official breath of more than one of these\\nvenerable servants of the republic. They were allowed,\\non my representation, to rest from their arduous labors,\\nand soon afterwards as if their sole principle of life\\nhad been zeal for their country s service, as I verily\\nbelieve it was withdrew to a better world. It is a\\npious consolation to me, that, through my interference,\\na sufficient space was allowed them for repentance of\\nthe evil and corrupt practices into which, as a matter\\nof course, every Custom House officer must be sup-\\nposed to fall. Neither the front nor the back entrance\\nof the Custom House opens on the road to Paradise.\\nThe greater part of my officers were Whigs. It\\nwas well for their venerable brotherhood that the new\\nSurveyor was not a politician, and though a faithful\\nDemocrat in principle, neither received nor held his\\noffice with any reference to political services. Had it\\nbeen otherwise, had an active politician been put\\ninto this influential post, to assume the easy task of\\nmaking head against a Whig Collector, whose infirmi-\\nties withheld him from the personal administration of\\nhis office, hardly a man of the old corps would have\\ndrawn the breath of official life, within a month af-\\nter the exterminating angel had come up the Custom\\nHouse steps. According to the received code in such\\nmatters, it would have been nothing short of duty, in\\na politician, to bring every one of those white heads\\nunder the axe of the guillotine. It was plain enough\\nto discern that the old feUows dreaded some such dis-\\ncourtesy at my hands. It pained, and at the same", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0023.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "14 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,\\ntime amused me, to behold the terrors that attended\\nmy advent to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by\\nhalf a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance\\nof so harmless an individual as myself to detect, as\\none or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice,\\nwhich, in long-past days, had been wont to bellov/\\nthrough a speaking-trumpet hoarsely enough to fright-\\nen Boreas himself to silence. They knew, these excel-\\nlent old persons, that, by all established rule, and,\\nas regarded some of them, weighed by their own lack\\nof efficiency for business, they ought to have given\\nplace to younger men, more orthodox in politics, and\\naltogether fitter than themselves to serve our common\\nUncle. I knew it too, but could never quite find in\\nmy heart to act upon the knowledge. Much and de-\\nservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and consider-\\nably to the detriment of my official conscience, they\\ncontinued, during my incumbency, to creep about the\\nwharves, and loiter up and down the Custom House\\nsteps. They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in\\ntheir accustomed corners, with their chairs tilted back\\nagainst the wall awaking, however, once or twice in\\na forenoon, to bore one another with the several thou-\\nsandth repetition of old sea-stories, and mouldy jokes,\\nthat had grown to be passwords and countersigns\\namong them.\\nThe discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the\\nnew Surveyor had no great harm in him. So, with\\nlightsome hearts, and the happy consciousness of being\\nusefully employed, in their own behalf, at least, if\\nnot for our beloved country, these good old gentle-\\nmen went through the various formalities of office.\\nSagaciously, under their spectacles, did they peep into\\nthe holds of vessels Mighty was their fuss about lit-", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0024.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 15\\ntie matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtiiseness\\nthat allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers!\\nWhenever such a mischance occurred, when a wag-\\non-load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled\\nashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their\\nunsuspicious noses, nothing coidd exceed the vigi-\\nlance and alacrity with which they proceeded to lock,\\nand double-lock, and secure with tape and sealing-wax,\\nall the avenues of the delinquent vessel. Instead of\\na reprimand for their previous negligence, the case\\nseemed rather to require an eulogium on their praise-\\nworthy caution, after the mischief had happened a\\ngrateful recognition of the promptitude of their zeal,\\nthe moment that there was no longer any remedy.\\nUnless people are more than commonly disagreeable,\\nit is my foolish habit to contract a kindness for them.\\nThe better part of my companion s character, if it have\\na better part, is that which usually comes uppermost\\nin my regard, and forms the type whereby I recognize\\nthe man. As most of these old Custom House officers\\nhad good traits, and as my position in reference to\\nthem, being paternal and protective, was favorable to\\nthe growth of friendly sentiments, I soon grew to like\\nthem all. It was pleasant, in the summer forenoons,\\nwhen the fervent heat, that almost liquefied the rest\\nof the human family, merely communicated a genial\\nwarmth to their half -torpid systems, it was pleasant\\nto hear them chatting in the back entry, a row of them\\nall tipped against the wall, as usual while the frozen\\nwitticisms of past generations were thawed out, and\\ncame bubbling with laughter from their lips. Exter-\\nnally, the jollity of aged men has much in common\\nwith the mirth of children the intellect, any more\\nthan a deep sense of humor, has little to do with the", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0025.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "16 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nmatter it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the\\nsurface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike\\nto the green branch, and gray, mouldering trunk. In\\none case, however, it is real sunshine in the other, it\\nmore resembles the phosphorescent glow of decaying\\nwood.\\nIt would be sad injustice, the reader must under-\\nstand, to represent all my excellent old friends as in\\ntheir dotage. In the first place, my coadjutors were\\nnot invariably old; there were men among them in\\ntheir strength and prime, of marked ability and en-\\nergy, and altogether superior to the sluggish and de-\\npendent mode of life on which their evil stars had cast\\nthem. Then, moreover, the white locks of age were\\nsometim.es found to be the thatch of an intellectual\\ntenement in good repair. But, as respects the ma-\\njority of my corps of veterans, there wUl be no wrong\\ndone, if I characterize them generally as a set of\\nwearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth\\npreservation from their varied experience of life.\\nThey seemed to have flung away all the golden grain\\nof practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many\\nopportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have\\nstored their memories with the husks. They spoke\\nwith far more interest and unction of their morning s\\nbreakfast, or yesterday s, to-day s, or to-morrow s din-\\nner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago,\\nand all the world s wonders which they had witnessed\\nwith their youthful eyes.\\nThe father of the Custom House the patriarch,\\nnot only of this little squad of officials, but, I am bold\\nto say, of the respectable body of tide-waiters aU over\\nthe United States was a certain permanent In-\\nspector. He might truly be termed a legitimate son", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0026.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 17\\nof the revenue system, dyed in the wool, or, rather,\\nborn in the purple since his sire, a Revolutionary\\ncolonel, and formerly collector of the port, had created\\nan office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a\\nperiod of the early ages which few living men can now\\nremember. This Inspector, when I first knew him,\\nwas a man of fourscore years, or thereabouts, and cer-\\ntainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-\\ngreen that you would be likely to discover in a life-\\ntime s search. With his florid cheek, his compact\\nfigure, smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat,\\nhis brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty\\naspect, altogether he seemed- not young, indeed\\nbut a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in\\nthe shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no\\nbusiness to touch. His voice and laugh, which per-\\npetually reechoed through the Custom House, had\\nnothing of the tremulous quaver and caclde of an old\\nman s utterance they came strutting out of his lungs,\\nlike the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion.\\nLooking at him merely as an animal, and there was\\nvery little else to look at, he was a most satisfactory\\nobject, from the thorough healthfulness and whole-\\nsomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that ex-\\ntreme age, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights\\nwhich he had ever aimed at, or conceived of. The\\ncareless security of his life in the Custom House, on a\\nregular income, and with but slight and infrequent ap-\\nprehensions of removal, had no doubt contributed to\\nmake time pass lightly over him. The original and\\nmore potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection\\nof his animal nature, the moderate proportion of in-\\ntellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and\\nspiritual ingredients; these latter qualities, indeed.", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0027.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "18 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nbeing in barely enough measure to keep the old gen-\\ntleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no\\npower of thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome\\nsensibilities; nothing, in short, but a few common-\\nplace instincts, which, aided by the cheerful temper\\nthat grew inevitably out of his physical well-being,\\ndid duty very respectably, and to general acceptance,\\nin lieu of a heart. He had been the husband of three\\nwives, all long since dead the father of twenty chil-\\ndren, most of whom, at every age of childhood or\\nmaturity, had likewise returned to dust. Here, one\\nwould suppose, might have been sorrow enough to\\nimbue the sunniest disposition, through and through,\\nwith a sable tinge. Not so with our old Inspector\\nOne brief sigh sufficed to carry off the entire burden\\nof these dismal reminiscences. The next moment, he\\nwas as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant far\\nreadier than the Collector s junior clerk, who, at nine-\\nteen years, was much the elder and graver man of the\\ntwo.\\nI used to watch and study this patriarchal person-\\nage with, I think, livelier curiosity, than any other\\nform of humanity there presented to my notice. He\\nwas, in truth, a rare phenomenon so perfect, in one\\npoint of view so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable,\\nsuch an absolute nonenity, in every other. My con-\\nclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no mind\\nnothing, as I have already said, but instincts and yet,\\nwithal, so cunningly had the few materials of his char-\\nacter been put together, that there was no painful per-\\nception of deficiency, but, on my part, an entire con-\\ntentment with what I found in him. It might be\\ndifficult and it was so to conceive how he should\\nexist hereafter, so earthly and sensuous did he seem", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0028.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 19\\nbut surely his existence here, admitting that it was to\\nterminate with his last breath, had been not unkindly\\ngiven with no higher moral responsibilities than the\\nbeasts of the field, but with a larger scope of enjoy-\\nment than theirs, and with all their blessed immunity\\nfrom the dreariness and duskiness of age.\\nOne point, in which he had vastly the advantage\\nover his four-footed brethren, was his ability to recol-\\nlect the good dinners which it had made no smaU por-\\ntion of the happiness of his life to eat. His gour-\\nmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear\\nhim talk of roast meat was as appetizing as a pickle\\nor an oyster. As he possessed no higher attribute,\\nand neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual en-\\ndowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities\\nto subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always\\npleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish,\\npoultry, and butcher s meat, and the most eligible\\nmethods of preparing them for the table. His remi-\\nniscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of\\nthe actual banquet, seemed to bring the savor of pig or\\ntm key under one s very nostrils. There were flavors\\non his palate, that had lingered there not less than\\nsixty or seventy years, and were still apparently as\\nfresh as that of the mutton-chop which he had just de-\\nvoured for his breakfast. I have heard him smack\\nhis lips over dinners, every guest at which, except\\nhimself, had long been food for worms. It was mar-\\nvellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals\\nwere continually rising up before him not in anger\\nor retribution, but as if grateful for his former appre-\\nciation and seeking to reduplicate an endless series of\\nenjoyment, at once shadowy and sensual. A tender-\\nloin of beef, a hindquarter of veal, a sparerib of pork.", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0029.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "20 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\na particular chicken, or a remarkably praisewortliy\\nturkey, which had perhaps adorned his board in the\\ndays of the elder Adams, would be remembered;\\nwhile all the subsequent experience of our race, and\\nall the events that brightened or darkened his indi-\\nvidual career, had gone over him with as little perma-\\nnent effect as the passing breeze. The chief tragic\\nevent of the old man s life, so far as I could judge,\\nwas his mishap with a certain goose which lived and\\ndied some twenty or forty years ago a goose of most\\npromising figure, but which, at table, proved so invet-\\nerately tough that the carving-knife would make no\\nimpression on its carcass, and it could only be divided\\nwith an axe and handsaw.\\nBut it is time to quit this sketch on w^liich, how-\\never, I should be glad to dwell at considerably more\\nlength, because, of all men whom I have ever known,\\nthis individual was fittest to be a Custom House officer.\\nMost persons, owing to causes which I may not have\\nspace to hint at, suffer moral detriment from this pe-\\ncidiar mode of life. The old Inspector was incapable\\nof it, and, were he to continue in office to the end of\\ntime, would be just as good as he was then, and sit\\ndown to dinner with just as good an appetite.\\nThere is one likeness, without wliich my gallery of\\nCustom House portraits would be strangely incomplete\\nbut which my comparatively few opportunities for\\nobservation enable me to sketch only in the merest\\noutline. It is that of the Collector, our gallant old\\nGeneral, who, after his brilliant military service, sub-\\nsequently to wliich he had ruled over a wild Western\\nterritory, had come hither, twenty years before, to\\nspend the decline of his varied and honorable life.\\nThe brave soldier had already numbered, nearly or", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0030.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 21\\nquite, his threescore years and ten, and was pursuing\\nthe remainder of his earthly march, burdened with in-\\nfirmities which even the martial music of his own spirit-\\nstirring recollections could do little towards lightening.\\nThe step was palsied now that had been foremost in\\nthe charge. It was only with the assistance of a servant,\\nand by leaning his hand heavily on the iron balustrade,\\nthat he could slowly and painfidly ascend the Custom\\nHouse steps, and, with a toilsome progress across the\\nfloor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace.\\nThere he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim. se-\\nrenity of aspect at the figures that came and went\\namid the rustle of papers, the administering of oaths,\\nthe discussion of business, and the casual talk of the\\noffice all which sounds and circumstances seemed but\\nindistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to make\\ntheir way into his inner sphere of contemplation. His\\ncountenance, in this repose, was mild and kindly. If\\nhis notice was sought, an expression of courtesy and\\ninterest gleamed out upon his features proving that\\nthere was light within him, and that it was only the\\noutward medium of the intellectual lamp that ob-\\nstructed the rays in their passage. The closer you\\npenetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder\\nit appeared. When no longer called upon to speak,\\nor listen, either of which operations cost him an evi-\\ndent effort, his face would briefly subside into its for-\\nmer not uncheerful quietude. It was not painful to\\nbehold this look for, though dim, it had not the im-\\nbecility of decaying age. The framework of his na^\\nture, originally strong and massive, was not yet crum-\\nbled into ruin.\\nTo observe and define his character, however, imder\\nsuch disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0031.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "22 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nout and build up anew, in imagination, an old fortress,\\nlike Ticonderoga, from a view of its gray and broken\\nruins. Here and there, perchance, the walls may re-\\nmain almost complete, but elsewhere may be only a\\nshapeless mound, cumbrous with its very strength, and\\novergrown, through long years of peace and neglect,\\nwith grass and alien weeds.\\nNevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affec-\\ntion, for, slight as was the communication between\\nus, my feeling towards him, like that of all bipeds and\\nquadrupeds who knew him, might not improperly be\\ntermed so, I could discern the main points of his\\nportrait. It was marked with the noble and heroic\\nqualities which showed it to be not by a mere accident,\\nbut of good right, that he had won a distinguished\\nname. His spirit could never, I conceive, have been\\ncharacterized by an uneasy activity it must, at any\\nperiod of his life, have required an impulse to set him\\nin motion but, once stirred up, with obstacles to over-\\ncome, and an adequate object to be attained, it was\\nnot in the man to give out or fail. The heat that had\\nformerly pervaded his nature, and which was not yet\\nextinct, was never of the kind that flashes and flickers\\nin a blaze but, rather, a deep, red glow, as of iron in\\na furnace. Weight, solidity, firmness; this was the\\nexpression of his repose, even in such decay as had\\ncrept untimely over him, at the period of wliich I\\nspeak. But I could imagine, even then, that under\\nsome excitement which should go deeply into his con-\\nsciousness, roused by a trumpet-peal loud enough to\\nawaken all his energies that were not dead, but only\\nslumbering, he was yet capable of flinging off his\\ninfirmities like a sick man s gown, dropping the staff\\nof age to seize a battle-sword, and starting up once", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0032.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 23\\nmore a warrior. And, in so intense a moment, his\\ndemeanor would have still been calm. Such an ex-\\nhibition, however, was but to be pictured in fancy not\\nto be anticipated, nor desired. What I saw in him\\nas evidently as the indestructible ramparts of Old\\nTiconderoga already cited as the most appropriate\\nsimile were the features of stubborn and ponderous\\nendurance, which might well have amounted to ob-\\nstinacy in his earlier days; of integrity, that, like\\nmost of his other endowments, lay in a somewhat\\nheavy mass, and was just as unmalleable and unman-\\nageable as a ton of iron ore and of benevolence,\\nwhich, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at Chippewa\\nor Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a stamp\\nas what actuates any or all the polemical philanthro-\\npists of the age. He had slain men with his own\\nhand for aught I know, certainly they had fallen,\\nlike blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe, before\\nthe charge to which his spirit imparted its triumphant\\nenergy but, be that as it might, there was never in\\nhis heart so much cruelty as would have brushed the\\ndoAvn off a butterfly s wing. I have not known the\\nman, to whose innate kindliness I would more confi-\\ndently make an appeal.\\nMany characteristics and those, too, which con-\\ntribute not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in\\na sketch must have vanished, or been obscured, be-\\nfore I met the General. All merely graceful attri-\\nbutes are usually the most evanescent nor does Na-\\nture adorn the human ruin with blossoms of new\\nbeauty that have their roots and proper nutriment only\\nin the chinks and crevices of decay, as she sows wall-\\nflowers over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga. Still,\\neven in respect of grace and beauty, there were points", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0033.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "24 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nwell worth noting. A ray of humor, now and then,\\nwould make its way through the veil of diui obstruc-\\ntion, and glimmer pleasantly upon our faces. A trait\\nof native elegance, seldom seen in the masculine char-\\nacter after childhood or early youth, was shown in the\\nGeneral s fondness for the sight and fragrance of\\nflowers. An old soldier might be supposed to prize\\nonly the bloody laurel on his brow but here was one\\nwho seemed to have a young girl s appreciation of the\\nfloral tribe.\\nThere, beside the fireplace, the brave old General\\nused to sit while the Surveyor though seldom, when\\nit could be avoided, taking upon himself the difficult\\ntask of engaging him in conversation was fond of\\nstanding at a distance, and watching his quiet and\\nalmost slumberous countenance. H6 seemed away\\nfrom us, although we saw him but a few yards off\\nremote, though we passed close beside his chair un-\\nattainable, though we might have stretched forth our\\nhands and touched his own. It might be that he lived\\na more real life within his thoughts than amid the un-\\nappropriate environment of the Collector s office. The\\nevolutions of the parade the tumult of the battle the\\nflourish of old, heroic music, heard thirty years before,\\nsuch scenes and sounds, perhaps, were all alive be-\\nfore his intellectual sense. Meanwhile, the merchants\\nand shipmasters, the spruce clerks and uncouth sailors,\\nentered and departed the bustle of this commercial\\nand Custom House life kept up its little murmur round\\nabout him and neither with the men nor then- af-\\nfairs did the General appear to sustain the most dis-\\ntant relation. He was as much out of place as an old\\nBword now rusty, but which had flashed once in the\\nbattle s front, and showed still a bright gleam along", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0034.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE, 25\\nits blade would have been, among the inkstands,\\npaper folders, and mahogany rulers, on the Deputy\\nCollector s desk.\\nThere was one thing that much aided me in renew-\\ning and re-creating the stalwart soldier of the Niagara\\nfrontier, the man of true and simple energy. It\\nwas the recollection of those memorable words of Ms,\\nI 11 try, Sir spoken on the very verge of a\\ndesperate and heroic enterprise, and breathing the\\nsoul and spirit of New England hardihood, compre-\\nhending all perils, and encountering all. If, in our\\ncountry, valor were rewarded by heraldic honor, this\\nphrase which it seems so easy to speak, but which\\nonly he, with such a task of danger and glory before\\nhim, has ever spoken would be the best and fittest\\nof all mottoes for the General s shield of arms.\\nIt contributes greatly towards a man s moral and\\nintellectual health, to be brought into habits of com-\\npanionship with individuals unlike himself, who care\\nlittle for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities\\nhe must go out of himself to appreciate. The acci-\\ndents of my life have often afforded me this advantage,\\nbut never with more fulness and variety than during\\nmy continuance in office. There was one man, espe-\\ncially, the observation of whose character gave me a\\nnew idea of talent. His gifts were emphatically those\\nof a man of business prompt, acute, clear-minded with\\nan eye that saw through all perplexities, and a faculty\\nof arrangement that made them vanish, as by the wav-\\ning of an enchanter s wand. Bred up from boyhood\\nin the Custom House, it was his proper field of activ-\\nity and the many intricacies of business, so harassing\\nto the interloper, presented themselves before him with\\nthe regularity of a perfectly comprehended system. In", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0035.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "26 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nmy contemplation, he stood as the ideal of his class.\\nHe was, indeed, the Custom House in himself or, at\\nall events, the mainspring that kept its variously re-\\nvolving wheels in motion for, in an institution like\\nthis, where its officers are appointed to subserve their\\nown profit and convenience, and seldom with a lead-\\ning reference to their fitness for the duty to be per-\\nformed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dex-\\nterity which is not in them. Thus, by an inevitable\\nnecessity, as a magnet attracts steel-filings, so did our\\nman of business draw to himself the difficulties which\\neverybody met with. With an easy condescension, and\\nkind forbearance towards our stupidity, which, to\\nhis order of mind, must have seemed little short of\\ncrime, would he forthwith, by the merest touch of\\nhis finger, make the incomprehensible as clear as day-\\nlight. The merchants valued him not less than we,\\nhis esoteric friends. His integrity was perfect it was\\na law of nature with him, rather than a choice or a\\nprinciple nor can it be otherwise than the main con-\\ndition of an intellect so remarkably clear and accurate\\nas his, to be honest and regular in the administration\\nof affairs. A stain on his conscience, as to anything\\nthat came witliin the range of his vocation, would\\ntrouble such a man very much in the same way, though\\nto a far greater degree, than an error in the balance\\nof an account, or an ink-blot on the fair page of a\\nbook of record. Here, in a word, and it is a\\nrare instance in my life, I had met with a person\\nthoroughly adapted to the situation which he held.\\nSuch were some of the people with whom I now\\nfound myself connected. I took it in good part, at the\\nhands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position\\n60 little akin to my past habits, and set myself serir", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0036.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE, 27\\nously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had.\\nAfter my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes\\nwith the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm after liv-\\ning for three years within the subtile influence of an\\nintellect like Emerson s after those wild, free days\\non the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, be-\\nside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channingj\\nafter talking with Thoreau about pine-trees and Indian\\nrelics, in his hermitage at Walden after growing fas-\\ntidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of\\nHiliard s culture after becoming imbued with poetic\\nsentiment at Longfellow s hearth-stone, it was time,\\nat length, that I should exercise other faculties of my\\nnature, and nourish myself with food for which I had\\nhitherto had little appetite. Even the old Inspector\\nwas desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had\\nknown Alcott. I look upon it as an evidence, in some\\nmeasure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lack-\\ning no essential part of a thorough organization, that,\\nwith such associates to remember, I could mingle at\\nonce with men of altogether different qualities, and\\nnever murmur at the change.\\nLiterature, its exertions and objects, were now of\\nlittle moment in my regard. I cared not, at this period,\\nfor books they were apart from me. Nature, except\\nit were human nature, the nature that is developed\\nin earth and sky, was, in one sense, hidden from me\\nand all the imaginative delight, wherewith it had been\\nspiritvialized, passed away out of my mind. A gift, a\\nfaculty if it had not departed, was suspended and in-\\nanimate within me. There would have been something\\nsad, unutterably dreary, in all this, had I not been\\nconscious that it lay at my own option to recall what-\\never was valuable in the past. It might be true, ior", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0037.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "28 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\ndeed, that this was a life which coiild not with impu-\\nnity be lived too long; else, it might have made me\\npermanently other than I had been without transform-\\ning me into any shape which it would be worth my\\nwhile to take. But I never considered it as other than\\na transitory life. There was always a prophetic in-\\nstinct, a low whisper in my ear, that, within no long\\nperiod, and whenever a new change of custom should\\nbe essential to my good, a change would come.\\nMeanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Revenue,\\nand, so far as I have been able to understand, as good\\na Surveyor as need be. A man of thought, fancy, and\\nsensibility (had he ten times the Surveyor s propor-\\ntion of those qualities) may, at any time, be a man\\nof affairs, if he will only choose to give himself the\\ntrouble. My fellow-officers, and the merchants and\\nsea-captains with whom my official duties brought me\\ninto any manner of connection, viewed me in no other\\nlight, and probably knew me in no other character.\\nNone of them, I presume, had ever read a page of my\\ninditing, or would have cared a fig the more for me\\nif they had read them all nor would it have mended\\nthe matter, in the least, had those same unprofitable\\npages been written with a pen like that of Burns or of\\nChaucer, each of whom was a Custom House officer\\nin his day, as well as I. It is a good lesson though\\nit may often be a hard one for a man who has\\ndreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself\\na rank among the world s dignitaries by such means,\\nto step aside out of the narrow circle in which his\\nclaims are recognized, and to find how utterly de-\\nvoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he\\nachieves, and all he aims at. I know not that I es-\\npecially needed the lesson, either in the way of warn-", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0038.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 29\\ning or rebuke but, at any rate, I learned it thoi-oughly\\nnor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as it\\ncame home to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or\\nrequire to be thrown off in a sigh. In the way of lit-\\nerary talk, it is true, the Naval Officer an excellent\\nfellow, who came into office with me and went out only\\na little later would often engage me in a discussion\\nabout one or the other of his favorite topics. Napoleon\\nor Shakespeare. The Collector s junior clerk, too,\\na young gentleman who, it wao whispered, occasionally\\ncovered a sheet of Uncle Sam s letter-paper with what\\n(at the distance of a few yards) looked very much like\\npoetry, used now and then to speak to me of books,\\nas matters with which I might possibly be conversant.\\nThis was my all of lettered intercourse and it was\\nquite sufficient for my necessities.\\nNo longer seeking nor caring that my name should\\nbe blazoned abroad on title-pages, I smiled to think\\nthat it had now another kind of vogue. The Custom\\nHouse marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black\\npaint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-\\nboxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise,\\nin testimony that these commodities had paid the im-\\npost, and gone regiilarly through the office. Borne\\non such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my ex-\\nistence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where\\nit had never been before, and, I hope, will never go\\nagain.\\nBut the past was not dead. Once in a great while,\\nthe thoughts, that had seemed so vital and so active,\\nyet had been put to rest so quietly, revived again.\\nOne of the most remarkable occasions, when the habit\\nof bygone days awoke in me, was that which brings it\\nwithin the law of literary propriety to offer the public\\nthe sketch which I am now writing.", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0039.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "80 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nIn the second story of the Custom House there is a\\nlarge room, in which the brick-work and naked rafters\\nhave never been covered with panelling and plaster.\\nThe edifice originally projected on a scale adapted\\nto the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with\\nan idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to be\\nrealized contains far more space than its occupants\\nknow what to do with. This airy hall, therefore, over\\nthe Collector s apartments, remains unfinished to this\\nday, and, in spite of the aged cobwebs that festoon its\\ndusky beams, appears still to await the labor of the\\ncarpenter and mason. At one end of the room, in a\\nrecess, were a number of barrels, piled one upon an-\\nother, containing bundles of official documents. Large\\nquantities of similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor.\\nIt was sorrowful to think how many days and weeks\\nand months and years of toil had been wasted on these\\nmusty papers, which were now only an encumbrance\\non earth, and were hidden away in this forgotten\\ncorner, never more to be glanced at by human eyes.\\nBut, then, what reams of other manuscripts filled\\nnot with the dulness of official formalities, but with\\nthe thought of inventive brains and the rich effusion\\nof deep hearts had gone equally to oblivion and\\nthat, moreover, without serving a purpose in their day,\\nas these heaped-up papers had, and saddest of all\\nwithout purchasing for their writers the comforta-\\nble livelihood which the clerks of the Custom House\\nhad gained by these worthless scratchings of the pen\\nYet not altogether worthless, perhaps, as materials of\\nlocal history. Here, no doubt, statistics of the former\\ncommerce of Salem might be discovered, and memo-\\nrials of her princely merchants, old King Derby,\\nold Billy Gray, old Simon Forrester, and many", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0040.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE, 31\\nanother maj^nate in his day; whose powdered head^\\nhowever, was scarcely in the tomb, before his moun-\\ntain pile of wealth began to dwindle. The founders\\nof the greater part of the families which now compose\\nthe aristocracy of Salem might here be traced, from\\nthe petty and obscure beginnings of their traffic, at\\nperiods generally much posterior to the Revolution,\\nupward to what their children look upon as long-estab-\\nlished rank.\\nPrior to the Revolution, there is a dearth of rec-\\nords the earlier documents and archives of the\\nCustom House having, probably, been carried off to\\nHalifax, when all the King s officials accompanied the\\nBritish army in its flight from Boston. It has often\\nbeen a matter of regret with me for, going back, per-\\nhaps, to the days of the Protectorate, those papers\\nmust have contained many references to forgotten or\\nremembered men, and to antique customs, which would\\nhave affected me with the same pleasure as when I\\nused to pick up Indian arrow-heads in the field near\\nthe Old Manse.\\nBut one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to\\nmake a discovery of some little interest. Poking and\\nburrowing into the heaped-up rubbish in the corner\\nunfolding one and another document, and reading the\\nnames of vessels that had lono: ao:o foundered at sea\\nor rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants never\\nheard of now on Change, nor very readily deciphera-\\nble on their mossy tombstones glancing at such mat-\\nters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest\\nwhich we bestow on the corpse of dead activity, and\\nexerting my fancy, sluggish with little use, to raise\\nup from these dry bones an image of the old town s\\nbrighter aspect, when India was a new region, and", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0041.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "32 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nonly Salem knew the way tliither, I chanced to lay\\nmy hand on a small package, carefully done up in a\\npiece of ancient yellow parchment. This envelope had\\nthe air of an official record of some period long past,\\nwhen clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirog-\\nrapliy on more substantial materials than at present.\\nThere was something about it that quickened an in-\\nstinctive curiosity, and made me imdo the faded red\\ntape, that tied up the package, with the sense that a\\ntreasm e would here be brought to light. Unbending\\nthe rigid folds of the parchment cover I fomid it to\\nbe a commission, under the hand and seal of Governor\\nShirley, in favor of one Jonathan Pue, as Surveyor of\\nhis Majesty s Customs for the port of Salem, in the\\nProvince of Massachusetts Bay. I remembered to\\nhave read (probably in Felt s Annals) a notice of the\\ndecease of Mr. Sm^veyor Pue, about fourscore years\\nago and likewise, in a newspaper of recent times,\\nan account of the digging up of his remains in the\\nlittle graveyard of St. Peter s Church, during the re-\\nnewal of that edifice. Nothing, if I rightly call to\\nmind, was left of my respected predecessor, save an\\nimperfect skeleton, and some fragments of apparel,\\nand a wig of majestic frizzle which, unlike the head\\nthat it once adorned, was in very satisfactory pres-\\nervation. But, on examining the papers which the\\nparchment commission served to envelop, I found more\\ntraces of Mr. Pue s mental part, and the internal opera-\\ntions of his head, than the frizzled wig had contained\\nof the venerable skull itself.\\nThey were documents, in short, not official, but of a\\nprivate nature, or, at least, written in his private ca-\\npacity, and apparently with his own hand. I could\\naccoimt for their being included in the heap of Cus-\\nI", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0042.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 33\\ntorn House lumber only by the fact that Mr. Pue s\\ndeath had happened suddenly and that these papers,\\nwhich he probably kept in his official desk, had never\\ncome to the Ivuowledge of his heirs, or were supposed\\nto relate to the business of the revenue. On the trans-\\nfer of the archives to Halifax, this package, proving to\\nbe of no public concern, was left behind and had re-\\nmained ever since unopened.\\nThe ancient Surveyor being little molested, I sup-\\npose, at that early day, with business pertaining to his\\noffice seems to have devoted, some of his many lei-\\nsure hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and\\nother inquisitions of a similar nature. These supplied\\nmaterial for petty activity to a mind that would other-\\nwise have been eaten up with rust. A portion of his\\nfacts, by the by, did me good service in the preparation\\nof the article entitled Main Street, included in the\\nthird volume of this edition. The remainder may per-\\nhaps be applied to purposes equally valuable hereafter;\\nor not impossibly may be worked up, so far as they go,\\ninto a regular history of Salem, should my veneration\\nfor the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task.\\nMeanwhile, they shall be at the command of any gen-\\ntleman, inclined, and competent, to take the unprofitar\\nble labor off my hands. As a final disposition, I con-\\ntemplate depositing them with the Essex Historical\\nSociety.\\nBut the object that most drew my attention, in the\\nmysterious package, was a certain affair of fine red\\ncloth, much worn and faded. There were traces about\\nit of gold embroidery, which, liowever, was greatly\\nfrayed and defaced so that none, or very little, of the\\nglitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to\\nperceive, with wonderful skill of needlework and the", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0043.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "34 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nstitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with suoh\\nmysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not\\nto be recovered even by the process of picking out the\\nthreads. This rag of scarlet cloth, for time and\\nwear and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little\\nother than a rag, on carefid examination, assumed\\nthe shape of a letter. It was the capital letter A. By\\nan accurate measurement, each limb proved to be pre-\\ncisely three inches and a quarter in length. It ha-d\\nbeen intended, there could be no doubt, as an orna-\\nmental article of dress but how it was to be worn, or\\nwhat rank, honor, and dignity, in by-past times, were\\nsignified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are\\nthe fashions of the world in these particulars) I saw\\nlittle hope of solving. And yet it strangely interested\\nme. My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scar-\\nlet letter, and would not be turned aside. Certainly,\\nthere was some deep meaning in it, most worthy of\\ninterpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth\\nfrom the mystic symbol, subtly communicating itself\\nto my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my\\nmind.\\nWhile thus perplexed, and cogitating, among\\nother hypotheses, whether the letter might not have\\nbeen one of those decorations which the white men\\nused to contrive, m order to take the eyes of Indians,\\nI happened to place it on my breast. It seemed to\\nme, the reader may smile, but must not doubt my\\nword, it seemed to me, then, that I experienced a\\nsensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of\\nburning heat and as if the letter were not of red\\ncloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and involunta-\\nrily let it fall upon the floor.\\nIn the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter,", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0044.jp2"}, "45": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 35\\nI had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of\\ndingy paper, around which it had been twisted. This I\\nnow opened, and had the satisfaction to find, recorded\\nby the old Surveyor s pen, a reasonably complete ex-\\nplanation of the whole affair. There were several\\nfoolscap sheets containing many particulars respecting\\nthe life and conversation of one Hester Prynne, who\\nappeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage\\nin the view of our ancestors. She had flourished\\nduring the period between the early days of Massa-\\nchusetts and the close of the seventeenth century.\\nAged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Surveyor Pue,\\nand from whose oral testimony he had made up his\\nnarrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a very\\nold, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn\\naspect. It had been her habit, from an almost imme-\\nmorial date, to go about the country as a kind of vol-\\nuntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good\\nshe might taking upon herself, likewise, to give ad-\\nvice in all matters, especially those of the heart by\\nwhich means, as a person of such propensities inevita-\\nbly must, she gained from many people the reverence\\ndue to an angel, but I should imagine, was looked\\nupon by others as an intruder and a nuisance. Pry-\\ning further into the manuscript, I found the record of\\nother doings and sufferings of this singular woman, for\\nmost of which the reader is referred to the story enti-\\ntled The Scarlet Letter and it should be borne\\ncarefully in mind, that the main facts of that story are\\nauthorized and authenticated by the document of Mr.\\nSurveyor Pue. The original papers, together with the\\nscarlet letter itself, a most curious relic, are still\\nin my possession, and shall be freely exhibited to\\nwhomsoever, induced by the great interest of the nar-", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0045.jp2"}, "46": {"fulltext": "36 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nrative, may desire a sight of them. I must not be\\nunderstood as affirming, that, in the dressing up of\\nthe tale, and imaginmg the motives and modes of pas-\\nsion that influenced the characters who figure in it, I\\nhave invariably confined myself within the limits of\\nthe old Surveyer s half a dozen sheets of foolscap. On\\nthe contrary, I have allowed myself, as to such points,\\nnearly or altogether as much license as if the facts\\nhad been entirely of my own invention. What I con-\\ntend for is the authenticity of the outline.\\nThis incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to\\nits old track. There seemed to be here the ground-\\nwork of a tale. It impressed me as if the ancient Sur-\\nveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and\\nwearing his immortal wig, wliich was buried with\\nhim, but did not perish in the grave, had met me\\nin the deserted chamber of the Custom House. In\\nhis port was the dignity of one who had borne his\\nMajesty s commission, and who was therefore illumi-\\nnated by a ray of the splendor that shone so dazzlingly\\nabout the throne. How unlike, alas the hang dog\\nlook of a republican official, who, as the servant of the\\npeople, feels himself less than the least, and below the\\nlowest, of his masters. With his own ghostly hand,\\nthe obscurely seen but majestic figure had imparted to\\nme the scarlet symbol, and the little roll of explana-\\ntory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice he had\\nexhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial\\nduty and reverence towards him, who might rea-\\nsonably regard himself as my official ancestor, to\\nbring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before\\nthe public. Do this, said the ghost of Mr. Sur-\\nveyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked\\nso imposing within its memorable wig, do this, and", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0046.jp2"}, "47": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 37\\nthe profit shall be all your own You will shortly\\nneed it for it is not in your days as it was in mine,\\nwhen a man s office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an\\nheirloom. But, I charge you, in this matter of old\\nMistress Prynne, give to your predecessor s memory\\nthe credit which will be rightfully due And I said\\nto the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, I will\\nOn Hester Prynne s story, therefore, I bestowed\\nmuch thought. It was the subject of my meditations\\nfor many an hour, while pacing to and fro across my\\nroom, or traversing, with a hundred-fold repetition,\\nthe long extent from the front -door of the Custom\\nHouse to the side-entrance, and back again. Great\\nwere the weariness and annoyance of the old Inspector\\nand the Weighers and Gaugers, whose slumbers were\\ndisturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of\\nmy passing and returning footsteps. Remembering\\ntheir own former habits, they used to say that the\\nSurveyor was walking the quarter-deck. They prob-\\nably fancied that my sole object and, indeed, the\\nsole object for which a sane man could ever put him-\\nself into voluntary motion was, to get an appetite\\nfor dinner. And to say the truth, an appetite, sharp-\\nened by the east wind that generally blew along the\\npassage, was the only valuable result of so much inde-\\nfatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmos-\\nphere of a Custom House to the delicate harvest of\\nfancy and sensibility, that, had I remained there\\nthrough ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt whether\\nthe tale of The Scarlet Letter w^oidd ever have\\nbeen brought before the public eye. My imagination\\nwas a tarnished mirror. It would not reflect, or only\\nwith miserable dimness, the figures with which I did\\nmy best to people it. The characters of the narrative", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0047.jp2"}, "48": {"fulltext": "38 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nwould not be warmed and rendered malleable by any\\nheat that I could kindle at my intellectual forge.\\nThey would take neither the glow of passion nor the\\ntenderness of sentiment, but retained all the rigidity\\nof dead corpses, and stared me in the face with a fixed\\nand ghastly grin of contemptuous defiance. What\\nhave you to do with us that expression seemed to\\nsay. The little power you might once have pos-\\nsessed over the tribe of unrealities is gone You have\\nbartered it for a pittance of the public gold. Go,\\nthen, and earn your wages I In short, the almost\\ntorpid creatures of my own fancy twitted me with\\nimbecility, and not without fair occasion.\\nIt was not merely during the three hours and a half\\nwhich Uncle Sam claimed as his share of my daily\\nlife, that this wretched numbness held possession of\\nme. It went with me on my searshore walks, and\\nrambles into the country, whenever which was sel-\\ndom and reluctantly I bestirred myself to seek that\\ninvigorating charm of Nature, which used to give me\\nsuch freshness and activity of thought, the moment\\nthat I stepped across the threshold of the Old Manse.\\nThe same torpor, as regarded the capacity for intel-\\nlectual effort, accompanied me home, and weighed\\nupon me in the chamber which I most absurdly termed\\nmy study. Nor did it quit me, when, late at night, I\\nsat in the deserted parlor, lighted only by the glim-\\nmering coal-fire and the moon, striving to picture forth\\nimaginary scenes, which, the next day, might flow out\\non the brightening page in many-hued description.\\nIf the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an\\nhour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. Moon-\\nlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the\\ncarpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly,", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0048.jp2"}, "49": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 39\\nmaking every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike\\na morning or noontide visibility, is a medium the\\nmost suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted\\nwith his illusive guests. There is the little domestic\\nscenery of the well-known apartment the chairs with\\neach its separate individuality; the centre-table, sus-\\ntaining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extin-\\nguished lamp the sofa the bookcase the picture on\\nthe wall, all these details, so completely seen, are\\nso spiritualized by the unusual light, that they seem\\nto lose their actual substance, and become things of\\nintellect. Nothing is too small or too trifling to\\nundergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby.\\nA child s shoe the doll, seated in her little wicker\\ncarriage the hobby-horse, whatever, in a word, has\\nbeen used or played with, during the day, is now\\ninvested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness,\\nthough still almost as vividly present as by daylight.\\nThus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has\\nbecome a neutral territory, somewhere between the\\nreal world and fairy-land, where the Actual and the\\nImaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the\\nnature of the other. Ghosts might enter here, with-\\nout affrighting us. It would be too much in keeping\\nwith the scene to excite surprise, v/ere we to look\\nabout us and discover a form beloved, but gone hence,\\n.now sitting quietly in a streak of this magic moon-\\nshine, with an aspect that would make us doubt\\nwhether it had returned from afar, or had never once\\nstirred from our fireside.\\nThe somewhat dim coal-fire has an essential influ-\\nence in producing the effect which I would describe.\\nIt throws its unobtrusive tinge throughout the room,\\nwith a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0049.jp2"}, "50": {"fulltext": "40 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\na reflected gleam from the polish of the furniture.\\nThis warmer light mingles itself with the cold spirit-\\nuality of the moonbeams, and communicates, as it\\nwere, a heart and sensibilities of hiunan tenderness\\nto the forms which fancy summons up. It converts\\nthem from snow-images into men and women. Glanc-\\ning at the looking-glass, we behold deep within its\\nhaunted verge the smouldering glow of the half-\\nextinguished anthracite, the white moonbeams on the\\nfloor, and a repetition of all the gleam and shadow of\\nthe picture, with one remove further from the actual,\\nand nearer to the imaginative. Then, at such an\\nhoiu and with this scene before him, if a man, sitting\\nall alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them\\nlook like truth, he need never try to write romances.\\nBut, for myself, during the whole of my Custom\\nHouse experience, moonlight and sunshine, and the\\nglow of firelight, were just alike in my regard and\\nneither of them was of one whit more avail than the\\ntwinkle of a tallow -candle. An entire class of sus-\\nceptibilities, and a gift connected with them, of no\\ngreat richness or value, but the best I had, was\\ngone from me.\\nIt is my belief, however, that, had I attempted a\\ndifferent order of composition, my faculties would not\\nhave been found so pointless and inefficacious. I\\nmight, for instance, have contented myself with wi it-\\ning out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of\\nthe Inspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not\\nto mention, since scarcely a day passed that he did\\nnot stir me to laughter and admiration by his marvel-\\nlous gifts as a story-teller. Could I have preserved\\nthe picturesque force of his style, and the humorous\\ncoloring which nature taught him how to throw over", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0050.jp2"}, "51": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 41\\nhis descriptions, the result, I honestly believe, would\\nhave been something new in literature. Or I might\\nreadily have found a more serious task. It was a\\nfolly, with the materiality of this daily life pressing\\nso intrusively upon nie, to attempt to fling myself\\nback into another age or to insist on creating the\\nsemblance of a world out of airy matter, when, at\\nevery moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap-.\\nbubble was broken by the rude contact of some actual\\ncircumstance. The wiser effort would have been to\\ndiffuse thought and imagination through the opaque\\nsubstance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright\\ntransparency to spiritualize the burden that began to\\nweigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true and\\nindestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and\\nwearisome incidents, and ordinary characters, with\\nwhich I was now conversant. The fault was mine.\\nThe page of life that was spread out before me seemed\\ndull and commonplace, only because I had not fath-\\nomed its deeper import. A better book than I shall\\never write was there leaf after leaf presenting itself\\nto me, just as it was written out by the reality of the\\nflitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only be-\\ncause my brain wanted the insight and my hand the\\ncunning to transcribe it. At some future day, it may\\nbe, I shall remember a few scattered fragments and\\nbroken paragraphs, and wi^ite them down, and find the\\nletters turn to gold upon the page.\\nThese perceptions have come too late. At the in-\\nstant, I was only conscious that what would have been\\na pleasure once was now a hopeless toil. There was\\nno occasion to make much moan about this state of\\naffairs. I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor\\ntales and essays, and had become a tolerably good", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0051.jp2"}, "52": {"fulltext": "42 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nSurveyor of the Customs. That was all. But, never-\\ntheless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by\\na suspicion that one s intellect is dwindling away or\\nexhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of\\na phial so that, at every glance, you find a smaller\\nand less volatile residuum. Of the fact there could be\\nno doubt; and, examining myself and others, I was\\nled to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public\\noffice on the character, not very favorable to the mode\\nof life in question. In some other form, perhaps, I\\nmay hereafter develop these effects. Suffice it here\\nto say, that a Custom House officer, of long continu-\\nance, can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable\\npersonage, for many reasons one of them, the tenure\\nby which he holds his situation, and another, the very\\nnature of his business, which though, I trust, an\\nhonest one is of such a sort that he does not share\\nin the united effort of mankind.\\nAn effect which I believe to be observable, more\\nor less, in every individual who has occupied the posi-\\ntion is, that, while he leans on the mighty arm of\\nthe Republic, his own proper strength departs from\\nhim. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weak-\\nness or force of his original nature, the capability of\\nself-support. If he possess an unusual share of na-\\ntive energy, or the enervating magic of place do not\\noperate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may\\nbe redeemable. The ejected officer fortunate in the\\nunkindly shove that sends him forth betimes to strug-\\ngle amid a struggling world may return to himself,\\nand become all that he has ever been. But this sel-\\ndom happens. He usually keeps his ground just long\\nenough for his own ruin, and is then thrust out, with\\nsinews all unstrung, to totter along the difficult foot-", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0052.jp2"}, "53": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 43\\npath of life as he best may. Conscious of his own in-\\nfirmity, that his tempered steel and elasticity are\\nlost, he forever afterwards looks wistfully about him\\nin quest of support external to himself. His pervad-\\ning and continual hope a hallucination which, in the\\nface of all discouragement, and maldng light of impos-\\nsibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like\\nthe convulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for\\na brief space after death is that finally, and in no\\nlong time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances,\\nhe shall be restored to office. This faith, more than\\nanything else, steals the pith and availability out of\\nwhatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking.\\nWhy should he toil and moil, and be at so much\\ntrouble to pick himself up out of the mud, when, in a\\nlittle while hence, the strong arm of his Uncle will\\ntaise and support him? Why should he work for his\\nliving here, or go to dig gold in California, when he is\\nBO soon to be made happy, at monthly intervals, with a\\nlittle pile of glittering coin out of his Uncle s pocket\\nIt is sadly curious to observe how slight a taste of of-\\nfice suffices to infect a poor fellow with this singular\\ndisease. Uncle Sam s gold meaning no disrespect\\nto the worthy old gentleman has, in this respect, a\\nquality of enchantment like that of the Devil s wages.\\nWhoever touches it should look well to himself, or he\\nmay find the bargain to go hard against him, involv-\\ning, if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes\\nits sturdy force, its courage and constancy, its truth,\\nits self-reliance, and all that gives the emphasis to\\nmanly character.\\nHere was a fine prospect in the distance I Not that\\nthe Surveyor brought the lesson home to himself, or\\nadmitted that he could be so utterly undone, either by", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0053.jp2"}, "54": {"fulltext": "44 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\ncontinuance in office or ejectment. Yet my reflections\\nwere not the most comfortable. I began to grow mel-\\nancholy and restless continually prying into my mind,\\nto discover which of its poor properties were gone, and\\nwhat degree of detriment had already accrued to the\\nremainder. I endeavored to calculate how much longer\\nI could stay in the Custom House, and yet go forth a\\nman. To confess the truth, it was my greatest appre-\\nhension, as it would never be a measure of policy\\nto turn out so quiet an individual as myself, and it be-\\ning hardly in the nature of a public officer to resign,\\nit was my chief trouble, therefore, that I was likely to\\ngrow gray and decrepit in the Surveyorship, and be-\\ncome much such another animal as the old Inspector.\\nMight it not, in the tedious lapse of official life that\\nlay before me, finally be with me as it was with this\\nvenerable friend, to make the dinner-hour the nu-\\ncleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old\\ndog spends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade\\nA dreary look-forward this, for a man who felt it to\\nbe the best definition of happiness to live throughout\\nthe whole range of his faculties and sensibilities\\nBut, all this while, I was giving myself very unneces-\\nsary alarm. Providence had meditated better things\\nfor me than I could possibly imagine for myself.\\nA remarkable event of the third year of my Survey-\\norship to adopt the tone of P. P. was the elec-\\ntion of General Taylor to the Presidency. It is essen-\\ntial, in order to a complete estimate of the advantages\\nof official life, to view the incumbent at the incoming\\nof a hostile administration. His position is then one of\\nthe most singularly irksome, and, in every contingency,\\ndisagreeable, that a wretched mortal can possibly oc-\\ncupy with seldom an alternative of good, on either", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0054.jp2"}, "55": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 45\\nhand, although what presents itself to him as the worst\\nevent may very probably be the best. But it is a\\nstrange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility,\\nto know that his interests are within the control of in-\\ndividuals who neither love nor understand him, and by\\nwhom, since one or the other must needs happen, he\\nwould rather be injured than obliged. Strange, too,\\nfor one who has kept his calmness throughout the con-\\ntest, to observe the blood thirstiness that is developed\\nin the hour of triumph, and to be conscious that he is\\nhimself among its objects There are few uglier traits\\nof human nature than this tendency which I now\\nwitnessed in men no worse than their neighbors to\\ngrow cruel, merely because they possessed the power\\nof inflicting harm. If the guillotine, as applied to\\noffice holders, were a literal fact instead of one of the\\nmost apt of metaphors, it is my sincere belief that the\\nactive members of the victorious party were sufficiently\\nexcited to have chopped off all our heads, and have\\nthanked Heaven for the opportunity It appears to\\nme who have been a calm and curious observer, as\\nwell in victory as defeat that this fierce and bitter\\nspirit of malice and revenge has never distinguished\\nthe many triumphs of my own party as it now did that\\nof the Whigs. The Democrats take the offices, as a\\ngeneral rule, because they need them, and because the\\npractice of many years has made it the law of political\\nwarfare, which, unless a different system be proclaimed,\\nit were weakness and cowardice to murmur at. But\\nthe long habit of victory has made them generous.\\nThey know how to spare, when they see occasion and\\nwhen they strike, the axe may be sharp, indeed, but\\nits edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will nor is it their\\ncustom ignominiously to kick the head which they\\nhave just struck off.", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0055.jp2"}, "56": {"fulltext": "46 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nIn short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best,\\nI saw much reason to congratulate myself that 1 was\\non the losing side, rather than the triumphant one.\\nIf, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of par-\\ntisans, I began now, at this season of peril and adveiv\\nsity, to be j^retty acutely sensible with which party my\\npredilections lay nor was it without something like\\nregret and shame, that, according to a reasonable cal*\\nculation of chances, I saw my own prospect of retain-\\ning office to be better than those of my Democratic\\nbrethren. But who can see an inch into futurity* be-\\nyond his nose My own head was the first that fell I\\nThe moment when a man s head drops off is seldom\\nor never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most\\nagreeable of his life. Nevertheless, like the greater\\npart of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency\\nbrings its remedy and consolation with it, if the suf-\\nferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of\\nthe accident which has befallen him. In my particu-\\nlar case, the consolatory topics were close at hand, and,\\nindeed, had suggested themselves to my meditations a\\nconsiderable time before it was requisite to use them.\\nIn view of my previous weariness of office, and vague\\nthoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resem-\\nbled that of a person who should entertain an idea\\nof committing suicide, and, although beyond his hopes,\\nmeet with the good hap to be murdered. In the Cus-\\ntom House, as before in the Old Manse, I had spent\\nthree years; a term long enough to rest a weary\\nbrain long enough to break off old intellectual habits\\nand make room for new ones long enough, and too\\nlong, to have lived in an unnatural state, doing what\\nwas really of no advantage nor delight to any human\\nbeing, and withholding myself from toil that would,", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0056.jp2"}, "57": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 47\\nat least, have stilled an unquiet impulse in me. Then,\\nmoreover, as regarded his unceremonious ejectment,\\nthe late Surveyor was not altogether ill-pleased to be\\nrecognized by the Whigs as an enemy since his inac-\\ntivity in political affairs his tendency to roam, at\\n^ill, in that broad and quiet field where all mankind\\nmay meet, rather than confine himself to those narrow\\npaths where brethren of the same household must di-\\nverge from one another had sometimes made it\\nquestionable with his brother Democrats whether he\\nwas a friend. Now, after he had won the crown of\\nmartyrdom (though with no longer a head to wear it\\non), the point might be looked upon as settled. Fi-\\nnally, little heroic as he was, it seemed more decorous\\nto be overthrown in the downfall of the party with\\nwhich he had been content to stand, than to remain a\\nforlorn survivor, when so many worthier men were\\nfalling and, at last, after subsisting for four years on\\nthe mercy of a hostile administration, to be compelled\\nthen to define his position anew, and claim the yet\\nmore humiliating mercy of a friendly one.\\nMeanwhile the press had taken up my affair, and\\nkept me, for a week or two, careering through the pub-\\nlic prints, in my decapitated state, like Irving s Head-\\nless Horseman ghastly and grim, and longing to be\\nburied, as a politically dead man ought. So much for\\nmy figurative self. The real human being, all this\\ntime with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought\\nhimself to the comfortable conclusion that everything\\nwas for the best and, making an investment in ink,\\npaper, and steel -pens, had opened his long -disused\\nwriting-desk, and was again a literary man.\\nNow it was that the lucubrations of my ancient\\npredecessor, Mr. Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0057.jp2"}, "58": {"fulltext": "48 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nthrough long idleness, some little space was requisite\\nbefore my intellectual machinery could be brought to\\nwork upon the tale, with an effect in any degree satis-\\nfactory. Even yet, though my thoughts were ulti-\\nmately much absorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye,\\na stern and sombre aspect too much ungiaddened by\\ngenial sunshine too little revealed by the tender and\\nfamiliar influences which soften almost every scene of\\nnature and real life, and, undoubtedly, should soften\\nevery picture of them. This uncaptivating effect is\\nperhaps due to the period of hardly accomplished rev-\\nolution, and still seething turmoil, in which the story\\nshaped itself. It is no indication, however, of a lack\\nof cheerfulness in the writer s mind for he was hap-\\npier, while straying through the gloom of these sunless\\nfantasies, than at any time since he had quitted the Old\\nManse. Some of the briefer articles, which contrib-\\nute to make up the volume, have likewise been \\\\\\\\T: itten\\nsince my involuntary withdrawal from the toils and\\nhonors of public life, and the remainder are gleaned\\nfrom annuals and magazines of such antique date\\nthat they have gone round the circle, and come back\\nto novelty again. Keeping up the metaphor of the\\npolitical guillotine, the whole may be considered as the\\nPosthumous Papers of a Decapitated Surveyor;\\nand the sketch which I am now bringing to a close,\\nif too autobiographical for a modest person to publish\\nin his lifetime, will readily be excused in a gentleman\\nwho writes from beyond the grave. Peace be with all\\nthe world My blessing on my friends My forgive-\\nness to my enemies For I am in the realm of quiet\\n1 At the time of writing this article, the author intended to pub-\\nlish, along with The Scarlet Letter, several shorter tales and sketches.\\nThese it has been thought advisable to defer.", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0058.jp2"}, "59": {"fulltext": "THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 49\\nThe life of the Custom House lies like a dream be-\\nhind me. The old Inspector, who, by the by, 1 re-\\ngret to say, was overthrown and kiUed by a horse,\\nsome time ago else he would certainly have lived\\nforever, he, and all those other venerable person-\\nages who sat with him at the receipt of custom, are\\nbut shadows in my view white-headed and wrinkled\\nimages, which my fancy used to sport with, and has\\nnow flung aside forever. The merchants, Pingree,\\nPhillips, Shepard, Upton, KimbaU, Bertram, Hunt,\\nthese, and many other names, which had such a classic\\nfamiliarity for my ear six months ago, these men of\\ntraffic, who seemed to occupy so important a position\\nin the world, how little time has it required to dis-\\nconnect me from them all, not merely in act, but re-\\ncollection It is with an effort that I recall the fig-\\nures and appellations of these few. Soon, likewise,\\nmy old native town will loom upon me through the\\nhaze of memory, a mist brooding over and aroimd it\\nas if it were no portion of the real earth, but an over-\\ngrown village in cloud-land, with only imaginary in-\\nhabitants to people its wooden houses, and walk its\\nhomely lanes, and the unpicturesque prolixity of its\\nmain street. Henceforth it ceases to be a reality of\\nmy life. I am a citizen of somewhere else. My good\\ntownspeople will not much regret me for though\\nit has been as dear an object as any, in my literary\\nefforts, to be of some importance in their eyes, and to\\nwin myself a pleasant memory in this abode and burial-\\nplace of so many of my forefathers there has never\\nbeen, for me, the genial atmosphere which a literary\\nman requires, in order to ripen the best harvest of his\\nmind. I shall do better amongst other faces and", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0059.jp2"}, "60": {"fulltext": "50 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,\\nthese familiar ones, it need hardly be said, wiU do just\\nas well without me.\\nIt may be, however, oh, transporting and trium-\\nphant thought that the great-grandchildren of the\\npresent race may sometimes think kindly of the scrib-\\nbler of bygone days, when the antiquary of days to\\ncome, among the sites memorable in the town s his-\\ntory, shall point out the locality of The Town Pump I", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0060.jp2"}, "61": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET.\\nA RESPECTABLE-LOOKING individual makes his bow\\nand addresses the public. In my daily walks along\\nthe principal street of my native town, it has often oc-\\ncurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy upward,\\nand the vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have\\npassed along this thoroughfare during the more than\\ntwo centuries of its existence, could be presented to\\nthe eye in a shifting panorama, it would be an exceed-\\ningly effective method of illustrating the march of\\ntime. Acting on this idea, I have contrived a certain\\npictorial exhibition, somewhat in the nature of a pup-\\npet-show, by means of which I propose to call up the\\nmultiform and many-colored Past before the spectator,\\nand show him the ghosts of his forefathers, amid a\\nsuccession of historic incidents, with no greater trouble\\nthan the turning of a crank. Be pleased, therefore,\\nmy indulgent patrons, to walk into the show-room, and\\ntake your seats before yonder mysterious curtain. The\\nlittle wheels and springs of my machinery have been\\nwell oiled a multitude of puppets are dressed in char-\\nacter, representing all varieties of fashion, from the\\nPuritan cloak and jerkin to the latest Oak Hall coat;\\nthe lamps are trimmed, and shall brighten into noon-\\ntide sunshine, or fade away in moonlight, or muffle\\ntheir brilliancy in a November cloud, as the nature of\\nthe scene may require and, in short, the exhibition is\\njust ready to commence. Unless something shoidd go\\nwrong, as, for instance, the misplacing of a picture,", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0061.jp2"}, "62": {"fulltext": "62 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nwhereby the people and events of one century might\\nbe thrust into the middle of another or the breaking\\nof a wire, which would bring the course of time to\\na sudden period, barring, I say, the casualties to\\nwhich such a complicated piece of mechanism is liable,\\nI flatter myself, ladies and gentlemen, that the per-\\nformance will elicit your generous approbation.\\nTing-a-ting-ting goes the bell the curtain rises\\nand we behold not, indeed, the Main Street but\\nthe track of leaf -strewn forest-land over which its dusty\\npavement is hereafter to extend.\\nYou perceive, at a glance, that this is the ancient\\nand primitive wood, the ever-youthful and venerably\\nold, verdant with new twigs, yet hoary, as it were,\\nwith the snowfall of innumerable years, that have ac-\\nciunulated upon its intermingled branches. The white\\nman s axe has never smitten a single tree his footstep\\nhas never crumpled a single one of the withered leaves,\\nwhich all the autumns since the flood have been har-\\nvesting beneath. Yet, see along through the vista of\\nimpending boughs, there is already a faintly traced\\npath, running nearly east and west, as if a prophecy\\nor foreboding of the future street had stolen into the\\nheart of the solemn old wood. Onward goes this\\nhardly perceptible track, now ascending over a natural\\nswell of land, now subsiding gently into a hollow\\ntraversed here by a little streamlet, which glitters like\\na snake through the gleam of sunshine, and quickly\\nhides itself among the underbrush, in its quest for the\\nneighboring cove and impeded there by the massy\\ncorpse of a giant of the forest, which had lived out its\\nincalculable term of life, and been overthrown by mere\\nold age, and lies buried in the new vegetation that is\\nborn of its decay. What footsteps can have worn this", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0062.jp2"}, "63": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 63\\nhalf -seen path Hark Do we not hear them now\\nrustling softly over the leaves We discern an Indian\\nwoman, a majestic and queenly woman, or else her\\nspectral image does not represent her truly, for this\\nis the great Squaw Sachem, whose rule, with that of\\nher sons, extends from Mystic to Agawam. That red\\nchief, who stalks by her side, is Wappacowet, her\\nsecond husband, the priest and magician, whose incan-\\ntations shall hereafter affright the pale-faced settlers\\nwith grisly phantoms, dancing and shrieking in the\\nwoods at midnight. But greater woidd be the affright\\nof the Indian necromancer, if, mirrored in the pool of\\nwater at his feet, he could catch a prophetic glimpse of\\nthe noonday marvels which the white man is destined\\nto achieve if he coidd see, as in a dream, the stone\\nfront of the stately hall, which will cast its shadow\\nover this very spot if he could be aware that the\\nfuture edifice will contain a noble Museum, where,\\namong countless curiosities of earth and sea, a few\\nIndian arrow-heads shall be treasured up as memorials\\nof a vanished race I\\nNo such forebodings disturb the Squaw Sachem and\\nWappacowet. They pass on, beneath the tangled\\nshade, holding high talk on matters of state and relig-\\nion, and imagine, doubtless, that their own system of\\naffairs will endure forever. Meanwhile, how full of\\nits own proper life is the scene that lies around them\\nThe gray squirrel runs up the trees, and rustles among\\nthe upper branches. Was not that the leap of a deer\\nAnd there is the whirr of a partridge Methinks,\\ntoo, I catch the cruel and stealthy eye of a woH, as\\nhe draws back into yonder impervious density of un-\\nderbrush. So, there, amid the murmur of boughs, go\\nthe Indian queen and the Indian priest; while the", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0063.jp2"}, "64": {"fulltext": "54 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE,\\ngloom of the broad wilderness impends over them, and\\nits sombre mystery invests them as with something\\npreternatural and only momentary streaks of quiver-\\ning sunlight, once in a great while, find their way\\ndown, and glimmer among the feathers in their dusky\\nhair. Can it be that the thronged street of a city will\\never pass into this twilight solitude, over those soft\\nheaps of the decaying tree -trunks, and through the\\nswampy places, green with water-moss, and penetrate\\nthat hopeless entanglement of great trees, which have\\nbeen uprooted and tossed together by a whirlwind It\\nhas been a wilderness from the creation. Must it not\\nbe a wilderness forever\\nHere an acidulous-looking gentleman in blue glasses,\\nwith bows of Berlin steel, who has taken a seat at the\\nextremity of the front row, begins, at this early stage\\nof the exhibition, to criticise.\\nThe whole affair is a manifest catchpenny ob-\\nserves he, scarcely under his breath. The trees look\\nmore like weeds in a garden than a primitive forest\\nthe Squaw Sachem and Wappacowet are stiff in their\\npasteboard joints and the squirrels, the deer, and\\nthe wolf move with all the grace of a child s wooden\\nmonkey, sliding up and down a stick.\\nI am obliged to you, sir, for the candor of your\\nremarks, replies the showman, with a bow. Per-\\nhaps they are just. Human art has its limits, and we\\nmust now and then ask a little aid from the specta-\\ntor s imagination.\\nYou will get no such aid from mine, responds the\\ncritic. I make it a point to see things precisely as\\nthey are. But come go ahead the stage is wait-\\ning!\\nThe showman proceeds.", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0064.jp2"}, "65": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 55\\nCasting our eyes again over the scene, we perceive\\nthat strangers have found their way into the solitary\\nplace. In more than one spot, among the trees, an\\nupheaved axe is glittering in the sunshine. Roger Co-\\nnant, the first settler in Naumkeag, has built his dwell-\\ning, months ago, on the border of the forest-path and\\nat this moment he comes eastward through the vista of\\nwoods, with his gun over his shoulder, bringing home\\nthe choice portions of a deer. His stalwart figure,\\nclad in a leathern jerldn and breeches of the same,\\nstrides sturdily onward, with such an air of physical\\nforce and energy that we might almost expect the very\\ntrees to stand aside and give hmi room to pass. And\\nso, indeed, they must for, humble as is his name in\\nhistory, Roger Conant still is of that class of men who\\ndo not merely find, but make, their place in the system\\nof human affairs a man of thoughtful strength, he\\nhas planted the germ of a city. There stands his habi-\\ntation, showing in its rough architecture some features\\nof the Indian wigwam, and some of the log-cabin, and\\nsomewhat, too, of the straw thatched cottage in Old\\nEngland, where this good yeoman had his birth and\\nbreeding. The dwelling is surrounded by a cleared\\nspace of a few acres, where Indian corn grows thriv-\\ningly among the stumps of the trees while the dark\\nforest hems it in, and seems to gaze silently and sol-\\nemnly, as if wondering at the breadth of sunshine\\nwhich the white man spreads around him. An Indian,\\nhalf hidden in the dusky shade, is gazing and wonder-\\ning too.\\nWithin the door of the cottage you discern the wife,\\nwith her ruddy English cheek. She is singing, doubt-\\nless, a psalm tune, at her household work or, perhaps,\\nshe sighs at the remembrance of the cheerful gossip,", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0065.jp2"}, "66": {"fulltext": "66 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nand all the merry social life, of her native village be-\\nyond the vast and melancholy sea. Yet the next mo-\\nment she laughs, with sympathetic glee, at the sports\\nof her little tribe of children and soon turns round,\\nwith the homelook in her face, as her husband s foot\\nis heard approaching the rough-hewn threshold. How\\nsweet must it be for those who have an Eden in their\\nhearts, like Roger Conant and his wife, to find a new\\nworld to project it into, as they have, instead of dwell-\\ning among old haunts of men, where so many house-\\nhold fires have been kindled and burnt out, that the\\nvery glow of happiness has something dreary in it\\nNot that this pair are alone in their wild Eden, for\\nhere comes Goodwife Massey, the young spouse of\\nJeffrey Massey, from her home hard by, with an infant\\nat her breast. Dame Conant has another of like age\\nand it shall hereafter be one of the disputed points of\\nhistory which of these two babies was the first town-\\nborn child.\\nBut see Roger Conant has other neighbors within\\nview. Peter Palfrey, likewise, has built himself a\\nhouse, and so has Balch, and Norman, and Woodbury.\\nTheir dwellings, indeed, such is the ingenious con-\\ntrivance of this piece of pictorial mechanism, seem\\nto have arisen, at various points of the scene, even\\nwhile we have been looking at it. The forest-track,\\ntrodden more and more by the hobnailed shoes of these\\nsturdy and ponderous Englishmen, has now a distinct-\\nness which it never could have acquired from the light\\ntread of a hundred times as many Indian moccasins.\\nIt will be a street, anon. As we observe it now, it goes\\nonward from one clearing to another, here plunging\\ninto a shadowy strip of woods, there open to the sun-\\nshine, but everywhere showing a decided line, along", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0066.jp2"}, "67": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 57\\nwhich human interests have begun to hold their career.\\nOver yonder swampy spot, two trees have been felled,\\nand laid side by side to make a causeway. In another\\nplace, the axe has cleared away a confused intricacy\\nof fallen trees and clustered boughs, which had been\\ntossed together by a hurricane. So now the little\\nchildren, just beginning to run alone, may trip along\\nthe path, and not often stumble over an imjjediment,\\nunless they stray from it to gather wood-berries be-\\nneath the trees. And, besides the feet of grown peo-\\nple and children, there are the cloven hoofs of a small\\nherd of cows, who seek their subsistence from the na-\\ntive grasses, and help to deepen the track of the future\\nthoroughfare. Goats also browse along it, and nibble\\nat the twigs that thrust themselves across the way.\\nNot seldom, in its more secluded portions, where the\\nblack shadow of the forest strives to hide the trace of\\nhuman footsteps, stalks a gaunt wolf, on the watch for\\na kid or a young calf or fixes his hungry gaze on the\\ngroup of children gathering berries, and can hardly\\nforbear to rush upon them. And the Indians, coming\\nfrom their distant wigwams to view the white man s,\\nsettlement, marvel at the deep track which he makes,\\nand perhaps are saddened by a flitting presentiment\\nthat this heavy tread will find its way over all the\\nland and that the wild woods, the wild wolf, and the\\nwild Indian will be alike trampled beneath it. Even\\nso shall it be. The pavements of the Main Street\\nmust be laid over the red man s grave.\\nBehold here is a spectacle which should be ush-\\nered in by the peal of trumpets, if Naumkeag had\\never yet heard that cheery music, and by the roar of\\ncannon, echoing among the woods. A procession,\\nfor, by its dignity, as marking an epoch in the history", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0067.jp2"}, "68": {"fulltext": "58 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nof the street, it deserves that name, a procession\\nadvances along the pathway. The good ship Abigail\\nhas arrived from England, bringing wares and mer-\\nchandise, for the comfort of the inhabitants and traffic\\nwith the Indians bringing passengers too, and, more\\nimportant than all, a governor for the new settlement.\\nRoger Conant and Peter Palfrey, with their com-\\npanions, have been to the shore to welcome him and\\nnow, with such honor and triumph as their rude way\\nof life permits, are escorting the sea-flushed voyagers\\nto their habitations. At the point where Endicott\\nenters upon the scene, two venerable trees unite their\\nbranches high above his head thus forming a tri-\\numphal arch of living verdure, beneath which he\\npauses, with his wife leaning on his arm, to catch the\\nfirst impression of their new-found home. The old\\nsettlers gaze not less earnestly at him, than he at the\\nhoary woods and the rough surface of the clearings.\\nThey like his bearded face, under the shadow of the\\nbroad-brimmed and steeple-crowned Puritan hat, a\\nvisage resolute, grave, and thoughtful, yet apt to kindle\\nwith that glow of a cheerful spirit by which men of\\nstrong character are enabled to go joyfully on their\\nproper tasks. His form, too, as you see it, in a doub-\\nlet and hose of sad-colored cloth, is of a manly make,\\nfit for toil and hardship, and fit to wield the heavy\\nsword that hangs from his leathern belt. His aspect\\nis a better warrant for the ruler s office than the parch-\\nment commission which he bears, however fortified it\\nmay be with the broad seal of the London council.\\nPeter Palfrey nods to Roger Conant. The worship-\\nfid Court of Assistants have done wisely, say they be-\\ntween themselves. They have chosen for our gov-\\nernor a man out of a thousand. Then they toss up", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0068.jp2"}, "69": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 59\\ntheir hats, they, and all the uncouth figures of their\\ncompany, most of whom are clad in skins, inasmuch\\nas their old kersey and linsey-woolsey garments have\\nbeen torn and tattered by many a long month s wear,\\nthey all toss up their hats, and salute their new\\ngovernor and captain with a hearty English shout of\\nwelcome. We seem to hear it with our own ears, so\\nperfectly is the action represented in this life-like, this\\nalmost magic, picture\\nBut have you observed the lady who leans upon the\\narm of Endicott a rose of beauty from an English\\ngarden, now to be transplanted to a fresher soil. It\\nmay be that, long years centuries indeed after\\nthis fair flower shall have decayed, other flowers of the\\nsame race will appear in the same soil, and gladden\\nother generations with hereditary beauty. Does not\\nthe vision haunt us yet Has not Nature kept the\\nmould unbroken, deeming it a pity that the idea should\\nvanish from mortal sight forever, after only once as-\\nsuming earthly substance? Do we not recognize, in\\nthat fair woman s face, the model of features which\\nstill beam, at happy moments, on what was then the\\nwoodland pathway, but has long since grown into a\\nbusy street\\nThis is too ridiculous positively insufferable\\nmutters the same critic who had before expressed his\\ndisapprobation. Here is a pasteboard figure, such as\\na child would cut out of a card, with a pair of very\\ndull scissors and the fellow modestly requests us to\\nsee in it the prototype of hereditary beauty!\\nBut, sir, you have not the proper point of view,\\nremarks the showman. You sit altogether too near\\nto get the best effect of my pictorial exhibition. Pray,\\noblige me by removing* to this other bench, and I ven-", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0069.jp2"}, "70": {"fulltext": "60 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nture to assure you the proper light and shadow will\\ntransform the spectacle into quite another thing.\\nPshaw replies the critic I want no other\\nlight and shade. I have already told you that it is\\nmy business to see things just as they are.\\nI would suggest to the author of this ingenious\\nexhibition, observes a gentlemanly person, who has\\nshown signs of being much interested, I would\\nsuggest that Anna Gower, the first wife of Governor\\nEndicott, and who came with him from England, left\\nno posterity and that, consequently, we cannot be in-\\ndebted to that honorable lady for any sjDCcimens of\\nfeminine loveliness now extant among us.\\nHaving nothing to allege against this genealogical\\nobjection, the showman points again to the scene.\\nDuring this little interruption, you perceive that the\\nAnglo-Saxon energy as the phrase now goes has\\nbeen at work in the spectacle before us. So many\\nchimneys now send up their smoke, that it begins to\\nhave the aspect of a village street although every-\\nthing is so inartificial and inceptive, that it seems as\\nif one returning wave of the wild nature might over-\\nwhelm it all. But the one edifice which gives the\\npledge of permanence to this bold enterprise is seen\\nat the central point of the picture. There stands the\\nmeeting-house, a small sti ucture, low-roofed, without a\\nspire, and built of rough timber, newly hewn, with the\\nsap still in the logs, and here and there a strip of bark\\nadhering to them. A meaner temple was never con-\\nsecrated to the worship of the Deity. With the al-\\nternative of kneeling beneath the awful vault of the\\nfirmament, it is strange that men should creep into\\nthis pent-up nook, and expect God s presence there.\\nSuch, at least, one would imagine, might be the feel-", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0070.jp2"}, "71": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 61\\ning of these forest-settlers, accustomed, as they had\\nbeen, to stand under the dim arches of vast cathedrals,\\nand to offer up their hereditary worship in the old\\nivy-covered churches of rural England, around which\\nlay the bones of many generations of their forefathers.\\nHow could they dispense with the carved altar-work\\nhow, with the pictured windows, where the light\\nof common day was hallowed by being transmitted\\nthrough the glorified figures of saints how, with\\nthe lofty roof, imbued, as it must have been, with the\\nprayers that had gone upward for centuries how,\\nwith the rich peal of the solemn organ, rolling along\\nthe aisles, pervading the whole church, and sweeping\\nthe soul away on a flood of audible religion They\\nneeded nothing of all this. Their house of worship,\\nlike their ceremonial, was naked, simple, and severe.\\nBut the zeal of a recovered faith burned like a lamp\\nwithin their hearts, enriching everything aroimd them\\nwith its radiance making of these new walls, and this\\nnarrow compass, its own cathedral and being, in it-\\nself, that spiritual mystery and experience, of which\\nsacred architecture, pictured windows, and the organ s\\ngrand solemnity are remote and imperfect symbols.\\nAll was well, so long as their lamps were freshly\\nkindled at the heavenly flame. After a while, how-\\never, whether in their time or their children s, these\\nlamps began to burn more dimly, or with a less genu-\\nine lustre and then it might be seen how hard, cold,\\nand confined was their system, how like an iron\\ncage was that which they called Liberty.\\nToo much of this. Look again at the picture, and\\nobserve how the aforesaid Anglo-Saxon energy is now\\ntrampling along the street, and raising a positive\\ncloud of dust beneath its sturdy footsteps. For there", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0071.jp2"}, "72": {"fulltext": "62 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nthe carpenters are building a new house, the frame of\\nwhich was hewn and fitted in England, of English oak,\\nand sent hither on shipboard and here a blacksmith\\nmakes huge clang and clatter on his an\\\\il, shaping\\nout tools and weapons and yonder a wheelwright,\\nwho boasts himself a London workman, regularly\\nbred to his handicraft, is fashioning a set of wagon-\\nwheels, the track of which shall soon be visible. The\\nwild forest is shrinking back the street has lost the\\naromatic odor of the pine-trees, and of the sweet-fern\\nthat grew beneath them. The tender and modest\\nwild-flowers, those gentle children of savage nature\\nthat grew pale beneath the ever-brooding shade, have\\nshrunk away and disappeared, like stars that vanish\\nin the breadth of light. Gardens are fenced in, and\\ndisplay pumpkin beds and rows of cabbages and\\nbeans and, though the governor and the minister both\\nview them with a disapproving eye, plants of broad-\\nleaved tobacco, which the cultivators are enjoined to\\nuse privily, or not all. No wolf, for a year past, has\\nbeen heard to bark, or known to range among the\\ndwellings, except that single one, whose grisly head,\\nwith a plash of blood beneath it, is now affixed to the\\nportal of the meeting-house. The partridge has ceased\\nto run across the too-frequented path. Of all the wild\\nlife that used to throng here, only the Indians still\\ncome into the settlement, bringing the skins of beaver\\nand otter, bear and elk, which they sell to Endicott\\nfor the wares of England. And there is little John\\nMassey, the son of Jeffrey Massey and first-born of\\nNaumkeag, playing beside his father s threshold, a\\nchild of six or seven years old. Which is the better\\ngrown infant, the town or the boy\\nThe red men have become aware that the street is", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0072.jp2"}, "73": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 63\\nno longer free to them, save by the sufferance and per-\\nmission of the settlers. Often, to impress them with\\nan awe of English power, there is a muster and train-\\ning of the town -forces, and a stately march of the\\nmail-clad band, like this which we now see advanc-\\ning up the street. There they come, fifty of them or\\nmore all with their iron breastplates and steel caps\\nwell burnished, and glimmering bravely against the\\nsun their ponderous muskets on their shoulders, their\\nbandoliers about their waists, their lighted matches in\\ntheir hands, and the drum and fife playing cheerily\\nbefore them. See! do they not step like martial men?\\nDo they not manoeuvre like soldiers who have seen\\nstricken fields And well they may for this band\\nis composed of precisely such materials as those with\\nwhich Cromwell is preparing to beat down the strength\\nof a kingdom and his famous regiment of Ironsides\\nmight be recruited from just such men. In everything\\nat this period. New England was the essential spirit\\nand flower of that which was about to become upper-\\nmost in the mother-country. Many a bold and wise\\nman lost the fame which would have accrued to him in\\nEnglish history, by crossing the Atlantic with our fore-\\nfathers. Many a valiant captain, who might have been\\nforemost at Marston Moor or Naseby, exhausted his\\nmartial ardor in the command of a log-built fortress,\\nlike that wliich you observe on the gently rising groimd\\nat the right of the pathway, its banner fluttering in\\nthe breeze, and the culverins and sakers showing their\\ndeadly muzzles over the rampart.\\nA multitude of people were now thronging to New\\nEngland some, because the ancient and ponderous\\nframework of Church and State threatened to crum-\\nble down upon their heads others, because they de-", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0073.jp2"}, "74": {"fulltext": "64 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nspaired of such a downfall. Among those who came to\\nNamukeag were men of history and legend, whose feet\\nleave a track of brightness along any pathway which\\nthey have trodden. You shall behold their life-like im-\\nages their spectres, if you choose so to call them\\npassing, encountering with a familiar nod, stopping to\\nconverse together, praying, bearing weapons, laboring,\\nor resting from their labors, in the Main Street. Here,\\nnow, comes Hugh Peters, an earnest, restless man,\\nwalking swiftly, as being impelled by that fiery activ-\\nity of nature which shall hereafter thrust him into the\\nconflict of dangerous affairs, make him the chaplain\\nand counsellor of Cromwell, and finally bring him to\\na bloody end. He pauses, by the meeting-house, to\\nexchange a greeting with Roger Williams, whose face\\nindicates, methinks, a gentler spirit, kinder and more\\nexpansive, than that of Peters yet not less active for\\nwhat he discerns to be the will of God, or the welfare\\nof mankind. And look here is a guest for Endicott,\\ncoming forth out of the forest, through which he has\\nbeen journe}dng from Boston, and which, with its rude\\nbranches, has caught hold of his attire, and has wet his\\nfeet with its swamps and streams. Still there is some-\\nthing in his mild and venerable, though not aged pres-\\nence a propriety, an equilibriimi, in Governor Win-\\nthrop s nature that causes the disarray of his cos-\\ntume to be unnoticed, and gives us the same impres-\\nsion as if he were clad in such grave and rich attire as\\nwe may suppose him to have worn in the Council Cham-\\nber of the colony. Is not this characteristic wonder-\\nfully perceptible in our spectral representative of his\\nperson But what dignitary is this crossing from the\\nother side to greet the governor A stately personage,\\nin a dark velvet cloak, with a hoary beard, and a gold", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0074.jp2"}, "75": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 65\\nchain across his breast he has the authoritative port\\nof one who has filled the highest civic station in the\\nfirst of cities. Of all men in the world, we should least\\nexj)ect to meet the Lord Mayor of London as Sir\\nRichard Saltonstall has been, once and again in a\\nforest-bordered settlement of the western wilderness.\\nFarther down the street, we see Emanuel Downing,\\na grave and worthy citizen, with his son George, a\\nstripling who has a career before him his shrewd\\nand quick capacity and pliant conscience shall not only\\nexalt him high, but secure him from a downfall. Here\\nis another figure, on whose characteristic make and\\nexpressive action I will stake the credit of my picto-\\nrial puppet-show. Have you not already detected a\\nquaint, sly humor in that face, an eccentricity in the\\nmanner, a certain indescribable waywardness, all\\nthe marks, in short, of an original man, unmistakably\\nimpressed, yet kept down by a sense of clerical re-\\nstraint That is Nathaniel Ward, the minister of\\nIpswich, but better remembered as the simple cobbler\\nof Agawam. He hammered his sole so faithfully, and\\nstitched his upper-leather so well, that the shoe is\\nhardly yet worn out, though thrown aside for some\\ntwo centuries past. And next, among these Puritans\\nand Roundheads, we observe the very model of a\\nCavalier, with the curling lovelock, the fantastically\\ntrimmed beard, the embroidery, the ornamented ra-\\npier, the gilded dagger, and all other foppishnesses that\\ndistinguished the wild gallants who rode headlong to\\ntheir overthrow in the cause of King Charles. This\\nis Morton of Merry Mount, who has come hither to\\nhold a council with Endicott, but will shortly be his\\nprisoner. Yonder pale, decaying figure of a white-\\nrobed woman, who glides slowly along the street, is", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0075.jp2"}, "76": {"fulltext": "66 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nthe Lady Arabella, looking for her own grave in the\\nvirgin soil. That other female form, who seems to be\\ntalking we might almost say preaching or expound-\\ning in the centre of a group of profoundly attentive\\nauditors, is Ann Hutchinson. And here comes\\nVane\\nBut, my dear sir, interrupts the same gentleman\\nwho before questioned the showman s genealogical ac-\\ncuracy, allow me to observe that these historical per-\\nsonages coidd not possibly have met together in the\\nMain Street. They might, and 23robably did, all visit\\nour old town, at one time or another, but not simulta-\\nneously and you have fallen into anachronisms that\\nI positively shudder to think of\\nThe fellow, adds the scarcely civil critic, has\\nlearned a bead-roll of historic names, whom he lugs\\ninto his pictorial puppet-show, as he calls it, helter-\\nskelter, without caring whether they were contem-\\nporaries or not, and sets them all by the ears to-\\ngether. But was there ever such a fund of impudence\\nTo hear his running commentary, you would suppose\\nthat these miserable slips of painted pasteboard, with\\nhardly the remotest outlines of the human figure, had\\nall the character and expression of Michael Angelo s\\npictures. Well go on, sir\\nSir, you break the illusion of the scene, mildly\\nremonstrates the showman.\\nIllusion What illusion rejoins the critic, with\\na contemptuous snort. On the word of a gentleman,\\nI see nothing illusive in the wretchedly bedaubed sheet\\nof canvas that forms your background, or in these\\npasteboard slips that hitch and jerk along the front.\\nThe only illusion, permit me to say, is in the puppet-\\nshowman s tongue, and that but a wretched one,\\ninto the bargain", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0076.jp2"}, "77": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 67\\nWe public men, replies the showman, meekly,\\nmust lay our account, sometimes, to meet an uncan-\\ndid severity of criticism. But merely for your own\\npleasure, sir let me entreat you to take another\\npoint of view. Sit farther back, by that young lady,\\nin whose face I have watched the reflection of every\\nchanging scene only oblige me-by sitting there and,\\ntake my word for it, the slips of pasteboard shall as-\\nsume spiritual life, and the bedaubed canvas become\\nan airy and changeable reflex of what it purports to\\nrepresent.\\nI know better, retorts the critic, settling himself\\nin his seat, with sullen but self-complacent immovable-\\nness. And, as for my own pleasure, I shall best con-\\nsult it by remaining precisely where I am.\\nThe showman bows, and waves his hand and, at\\nthe signal, as if time and vicissitude had been await-\\ning his permission to move onward, the mimic street\\nbecomes alive again.\\nYears have rolled over our scene, and converted the\\nforest-track into a dusty thoroughfare, which, being\\nintersected with lanes and cross-paths, may fairly be\\ndesignated as the Main Street. On the ground-sites\\nof many of the log-built sheds, into which the first set-\\ntlers crept for shelter, houses of quaint architecture\\nhave now risen. These later edifices are built, as you\\nsee, in one generally accordant style, though with such\\nsubordinate variety as keeps the beholder s curiosity\\nexcited, and causes each structure, like its owner s\\ncharacter, to produce its own peculiar impression.\\nMost of them have one huge chimney in the centre,\\nwith flues so vast that it must have been easy for the\\nwitches to fly out of them, as they were wont to do,\\nwhen bound on an aerial visit to the Black Man in the", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0077.jp2"}, "78": {"fulltext": "68 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nforest. Around this great chimney the wooden house\\nclusters itseK in a whole community of gable-ends,\\neach ascending into its own separate peak the second\\nstory, with its lattice-windows, projecting over the first\\nand the door, which is perhaps arched, provided on the\\noutside with an iron hammer, wherewith the visitor s\\nhand may give a thundering rat-a-tat. The timber\\nframework of these houses, as compared with those of\\nrecent date, is like the skeleton of an old giant, beside\\nthe frail bones of a modern man of fashion. Many of\\nthem, by the vast strength and soundness of their oaken\\nsubstance, have been preserved through a length of\\ntime which would have tried the stability of brick and\\nstone so that, in all the progressive decay and contin-\\nual reconstruction of the street, down to our own days,\\nwe shall still behold these old edifices occupying their\\nlong-accustomed sites. For instance, on the upper\\ncorner of that green lane, which shall hereafter be\\nNorth Street, we see the Curwen House, newly built,\\nwith the carpenters still at work on the roof nailing\\ndown the last sheaf of shingles. On the lower corner\\nstands another dwelling, destined, at some period of\\nits existence, to be the abode of an unsuccessfid al-\\nchemist, which shall likewise survive to our own\\ngeneration, and perhaps long outlive it. Thus, through\\nthe medium of these patriarchal edifices, we have now\\nestablished a sort of kindred and hereditary acquaint-\\nance with the Main Street.\\nGreat as is the transformation produced by a short\\nterm of years, each single day creeps through the Pu-\\nritan settlement sluggishly enough. It shall pass be-\\nfore your eyes, condensed into the space of a few mo-\\nments. The gray light of early morning is slowly dif-\\nfusing itseK over the scene and the bellman, whose", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0078.jp2"}, "79": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 69\\noffice it is to cry the hour at the street-corners, rings\\nthe last peal upon his hand-bell, and goes wearily\\nhomewards, with the owls, the bats, and other crea-\\ntures of the night. Lattices are thrust back on their\\nhinges, as if the town were opening its eyes, in the\\nsummer morning. Forth stumbles the still drowsy\\ncowherd, with his horn putting which to his lips, it\\nemits a bellowing bray, impossible to be represented\\nin the picture, but which reaches the pricked-up ears\\nof every cow in the settlement, and tells her that the\\ndewy pasture-hour is come. House after house awakes,\\nand sends the smoke up curling from its chimney, like\\nfrosty breath from living nostrils and as those white\\nwreaths of smoke, though impregnated with earthy ad-\\nmixtures, climb skyward, so, from each dwelling, does\\nthe morning worship its spiritual essence bearing\\nup its human imperfection find its way to the heav-\\nenly Father s throne.\\nThe breakfast-hour being passed, the inhabitants do\\nnot, as usual, go to their fields or workshops, but re-\\nmain within doors or perhaps walk the street, with\\na grave sobriety, yet a disengaged and unburdened\\naspect, that belongs neither to a holiday nor a Sab-\\nbath. And, indeed, this passing day is neither, nor\\nis it a common week-day, although partaking of all\\nthe three. It is the Thursday Lecture an institution\\nwhich New England has long ago relinquished, and\\nalmost forgotten, yet which it would have been better\\nto retain, as bearing relations to both the spiritual\\nand ordinary life, and bringing each acquainted with\\nthe other. The tokens of its observance, however,\\nwhich here meet our eyes, are of rather a question-\\nable cast. It is, in one sense, a day of public shame\\nthe day on which transgressors, who have made them-", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0079.jp2"}, "80": {"fulltext": "70 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nselves liable to the minor severities of the Puritan\\nlaw, receive their reward of ignominy. At this very\\nmoment, the constable has bomid an idle fellow to the\\nwhipping-post, and is giving him his deserts with a\\ncat-o -nine-tails. Ever since sunrise, Daniel Faii field\\nhas been standing on the steps of the meeting-house,\\nwith a halter about his neck, which he is condemned\\nto wear visibly throughout his lif etmie Dorothy Talby\\nis chained to a post at the corner of Prison Lane,\\nwith the hot sun blazing on her matronly face, and\\nall for no other offence than lifting her hand against\\nher husband; while, through the bars of that great\\nwooden cage, in the centre of the scene, we discern\\neither a human being or a wild beast, or both in one,\\nwhom this pviblic infamy causes to roar, and gnash\\nhis teeth, and shake the strong oaken bars, as if he\\nwoidd break forth, and tear in pieces the little chil-\\ndren who have been peeping at him. Such are the\\nprofitable sights that serve the good people to while\\naway the earlier part of lecture-day. Betimes in the\\nforenoon, a traveller the first traveller that has\\ncome hitherward this morning rides slowly into the\\nstreet on his patient steed. He seems a clergyman\\nand, as he draws near, we recognize the minister of\\nLynn, who was pre-engaged to lecture here, and has\\nbeen revolving his discourse as he rode through the\\nhoary wilderness. Behold, now, the whole town throng-\\ning into the meeting-house, mostly with such sombre\\n\\\\asages that the sunshine becomes little better than a\\nshadow when it falls upon them. There go the Thir-\\nteen Men, grim riders of a grim community. There\\ngoes John Massey, the first town-born child, now a\\nyouth of twenty, whose eye wanders with peculiar in-\\nterest towards that buxom damsel who comes up the", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0080.jp2"}, "81": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 71\\nsteps at the same instant. There hobbles Goody Fos-\\nter, a sour and bitter old beldam, looking as if she\\nwent to curse and not to pray, and whom many of her\\nneighbors suspect of taking an occasional airing on a\\nbroomstick. There, too, slinking shamefacedly in, you\\nobserve that same poor do-nothing and good-for-noth-\\ning whom we saw castigated just now at the whipping-\\npost. Last of all, there goes the tithing-man, lugging\\nin a couple of small boys, whom he has caught at play\\nbeneath God s blessed smishine, in a back lane. What\\nnative of Namiikeag, whose recollections go back more\\nthan thirty years, does not still shudder at that dark\\nogre of his infancy, who perhaps had long ceased to\\nhave an actual existence, but still lived in his childish\\nbelief, in a horrible idea, and in the nurse s threat, as\\nthe Tidy Man\\nIt will be hardly worth our while to wait two, or it\\nmay be three, turnings of the hour-glass, for the con-\\nclusion of the lecture. Therefore, by my control over\\nlight and darkness, I cause the dusk, and then the\\nstarless night, to brood over the street and summon\\nforth again the bellman, with his lantern casting a\\ngleam about his footsteps, to pace wearily from corner\\nto corner, and shout drowsily the hour to drowsy or\\ndreaming ears. Happy are we, if for nothing else,\\nyet because we did not live in those days. In truth,\\nwhen the first novelty and stir of spirit had subsided,\\nwhen the new settlement, between the forest-border\\nand the sea, had become actually a little town, its\\ndaily life must have trudged onward with hardly any-\\nthing to diversify and enliven it, while also its rigid-\\nity could not fail to cause miserable distortions of the\\nmoral nature. Such a life was sinister to the intel-\\nlect, and sinister to the heart especially when one", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0081.jp2"}, "82": {"fulltext": "72 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\ngeneration had bequeathed its religious gloom, and\\nthe counterfeit of its religious ardor, to the next for\\nthese characteristics, as was inevitable, assumed the\\nform both of hypocrisy and exaggeration, by being in-\\nherited from the example and precept of other human\\nbeings, and not from an original and spiritual source.\\nThe sons and grandchildren of the first settlers were a\\nrace of lower and narrower souls than their progeni-\\ntors had been. The latter were stern, severe, intoler-\\nant, but not superstitious, not even fanatical and en-\\ndowed, if any men of that age were, with a far-seeing\\nworldly sagacity. But it was impossible for the suc-\\nceeding race to grow up, in heaven s freedom, beneath\\nthe discipline which their gloomy energy of charac-\\nter had established nor, it may be, have we even\\nyet thrown off all the unfavorable influences, which,\\namong many good ones, were bequeathed to us by our\\nPuritan forefathers. Let us thank God for having\\ngiven us such ancestors and let each successive gen-\\neration thank Him, not less fervently, for being one\\nstep further from them in the march of ages.\\nWhat is all this cries the critic. A sermon\\nIf so, it is not in the bill.\\nVery true, replies the showman and I ask par-\\ndon of the audience.\\nLook now at the street, and observe a strange peo-\\nple entering it. Their garments are torn and disor-\\ndered, their faces haggard, their figures emaciated\\nfor they have made their way hither through pathless\\ndeserts, suffering hunger and hardship, with no other\\nshelter than a hollow tree, the lair of a wild beast, or\\nan Indian wigwam. Nor, in the most inhospitable\\nand dangerous of such lodging-places, was there half\\nthe peril that awaits them in this thoroughfare of", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0082.jp2"}, "83": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 73\\nChristian men, with those secure dwellings and warm\\nhearths on either side of it, and yonder meeting-house\\nas the central object of the scene. These wanderers\\nhave received from Heaven a gift that, in all epochs\\nof the world, has brought with it the penalties of mor-\\ntal suffering and persecution, scorn, enmity, and death\\nitself, a gift that, thus terrible to its possessors, has\\never been most hatefid to all other men, since its very\\nexistence seems to threaten the overthrow of whatever\\nelse the toilsome ages have built up, the gift of a\\nnew idea. You can discern it in them, illuminating\\ntheir faces their whole persons, indeed, however\\nearthly and cloddish with a light that inevitably\\nshines through, and makes the startled community\\naware that these men are not as they themselves are,\\nnot brethren nor neighbors of their thought. Forth-\\nwith, it is as if an earthquake rumbled through the\\ntown, making its vibrations felt at every hearthstone,\\nand especially causing the spire of the meeting-house\\nto totter. The Quakers have come. We are in peril\\nSee they trample upon our wise and well-established\\nlaws in the person of our chief magistrate for Gov-\\nernor Endicott is passing, now an aged man, and dig-\\nnified with longJiabits of authority, and not one of\\nthe irreverent vagabonds has moved his hat. Did you\\nnote the ominous frown of the white-bearded Puritan\\ngovernor, as he turned himself about, and, in his an-\\nger, half uplifted the staff that has become a needful\\nsupport to his old age Here comes old Mr. Norris,\\nour venerable minister. Will they doff their hats,\\nand pay reverence to him No their hats stick fast\\nto their ungracious heads, as if they grew there and\\nimpious varlets that they are, and worse than the\\nheathen Indians they eye our reverend pastor with", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0083.jp2"}, "84": {"fulltext": "74 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\na peculiar scorn, distrust, unbelief, and utter denial of\\nhis sanctified pretensions, of which he himself imme-\\ndiately becomes conscious the more bitterly conscious,\\nas he never knew nor dreamed of the like before.\\nBut look yonder Can we believe our eyes A\\nQuaker woman, clad in sackcloth, and with ashes on\\nher head, has mounted the steps of the meeting-house.\\nShe addresses the people in a wild, shrill voice, wild\\nand shrill it must be to suit such a figure, which\\nmakes them tremble and turn pale, although they\\ncrowd open-mouthed to hear her. She is bold against\\nestablished authority she denounces the priest and\\nhis steeple-house. Many of her hearers are aj)palled\\nsome weep and others listen with a rapt attention, as\\nif a living truth had now, for the first time, forced its\\nway through the crust of habit, reached their hearts,\\nand awakened them to life. This matter must be\\nlooked to else we have brought our faith across the\\nseas with us in vain and it had been better that the\\nold forest were still standing here, waving its tangled\\nboughs and murmuring to the sky out of its desolate\\nrecesses, instead of this goodly street, if such blasphe-\\nmies be spoken in it.\\nSo thought the old Puritans. Wh^t was their mode\\nof action may be partly judged from the spectacles\\nwhich now pass before your eyes. Joshua Buffum is\\nstanding in the pillory. Cassandra Southwick is led\\nto prison. And there a woman, it is Awn Coleman,\\nnaked from the waist upward, and bound to the tail\\nof a cart, is dragged through the Main Street at the\\npace of a brisk walk, while the constable follows with\\na whip of knotted cords. A strong-armed fellow is\\nthat constable and each time that he flourishes his\\nlash in the air, you see a frown wrinkling and twisting", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0084.jp2"}, "85": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET, 75\\nhis brow, and, at the same instant, a smile upon his\\nlips. He loves his business, faithful officer that he is,\\nand puts his soul into every stroke, zealous to fulfil the\\ninjunction of Major Hawthorne s warrant, in the spirit\\nand to the letter. There came down a stroke that has\\ndrawn blood Ten such stripes are to be given in\\nSalem, ten in Boston, and ten in Dedham and, with\\nthose thirty stripes of blood upon her, she is to be\\ndriven into the forest. The crimson trail goes waver-\\ning along the Main Street but Heaven grant that, as\\nthe rain of so many years has wept upon it, time after\\ntime, and washed it all away, so there may have been\\na dew of mercy to cleanse this cruel blood-stain out of\\nthe record of the persecutor s life\\nPass on, thou spectral constable, and betake thee to\\nthine own place of torment. Meanwhile, by the silent\\noperation of the mechanism behind the scenes, a con-\\nsiderable space of time woidd seem to have lapsed over\\nthe street. The older dwellings now begin to look\\nweather-beaten, through the effect of the many eastern\\nstorms that have moistened their unpainted shingles\\nand clapboards, for not less than forty years. Such\\nis the age we would assign to the town, judging by the\\naspect of John Massey, the first town-born child, whom\\nhis neighbors now call Goodman Massey, and whom\\nwe see yonder, a grave, almost autumnal-looking man,\\nwith children of his OAvn about him. To the patriarchs\\nof the settlement, no doubt, the Main Street is still\\nbut an affair of yesterday, hardly more antique, even\\nif destined to be more permanent, than a path shov-\\nelled through the snow. But to the middle-aged and\\nelderly men who came hither in childhood or early\\nyouth, it presents the aspect of a long and well-estab-\\nlished work, on which they have expended the strength", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0085.jp2"}, "86": {"fulltext": "76 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nand ardor of their life. And the younger people,\\nnative to the street, whose earliest recollections are of\\ncreeping over the paternal threshold, and rolling on\\nthe grassy margin of the track, look at it as one of\\nthe perdurable things of our mortal state, as old as\\nthe hills of the great pasture, or the headland at the\\nharbor s mouth. Their fathers and grandsires tell\\nthem how, within a few years past, the forest stood\\nhere with but a lonely track beneath its tangled shade.\\nVain legend They cannot make it true and real to\\ntheir conceptions. With them, moreover, the Main\\nStreet is a street indeed, worthy to hold its way with\\nthe thronged and stately avenues of cities beyond the\\nsea. The old Puritans tell them of the crowds that\\nhurry along Cheapside and Fleet Street and the Strand,\\nand of the rush of tumultuous life at Temple Bar.\\nThey describe London Bridge, itself a street, with a\\nrow of houses on each side. They speak of the vast\\nstructure of the Tower, and the solemn grandeur of\\nWestminster Abbey. The children listen, and still in-\\nquire if the streets of London are longer and broader\\nthan the one before their father s door if the Tower\\nis bigger than the jail in Prison Lane if the old\\nAbbey will hold a larger congregation than our meet-\\ning-house. Nothing impresses them, except their own\\nexperience.\\nIt seems all a fable, too, that wolves have ever\\nprowled here and not less so that the Squaw Sachem,\\nand the Sagamore her son, once ruled over this region,\\nand treated as sovereign potentates with the English\\nsettlers, then so few and storm-beaten, now so powerful.\\nThere stand some school-boys, you observe, in a little\\ngroup around a drunken Indian, himself a prince of\\nthe Squaw Sachem s lineage. He brought hither some", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0086.jp2"}, "87": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 77\\nbeaver-skins for sale, and has already swallowed the\\nlarger portion of their price, in deadly draughts of\\nfire-water. Is there not a touch of pathos in that\\npicture and does it not go far towards telling the\\nwhole story of the vast growth and prosperity of one\\nrace, and the fated decay of another the children\\nof the stranger making game of the great Squaw\\nSachem s grandson\\nBut the whole race of red men have not vanished\\nwith that wild princess and her posterity. This march\\nof soldiers along the street betokens the breaking out\\nof King Philip s war and these young men, the flower\\nof Essex, are on their way to defend the villages on\\nthe Connecticut where, at Bloody Brook, a terrible\\nblow shall be smitten, and hardly one of that gallant\\nband be left alive. And there, at that stately man-\\nsion, with its three peaks in front, and its two little\\npeaked towers, one on either side of the door, we see\\nbrave Captain Gardner issuing forth, clad in his em-\\nbroidered buff -coat, and his plumed cap upon his head.\\nHis trusty sword, in its steel scabbard, strikes clank-\\ning on the doorstep. See how the people throng to\\ntheir doors and windows, as the cavalier rides past,\\nreining his mettled steed so gallantly, and looking so\\nlike the very soul and emblem of martial achievement,\\ndestined, too, to meet a warrior s fate, at the des-\\nperate assaidt on the fortress of the Narragan setts\\nThe mettled steed looks like a pig, interrupts the\\ncritic, and Captain Gardner himself like the Devil,\\nthough a very tame one, and on a most diminutive\\nscale.\\nSir, sir cries the persecuted showman, losing all\\npatience, for, indeed, he had particularly prided\\nhimself on these figures of Captain Gardner and his", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0087.jp2"}, "88": {"fulltext": "78 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nhorse, I see that there is no hope of pleasing you.\\nPray, sir, do me the favor to take back your money,\\nand withdraw\\nNot I answers the unconscionable critic. I\\nam just beginning to get interested in the matter.\\nCome turn your crank, and grind out a few more of\\nthese fooleries\\nThe showman rubs his brow impulsively, whisks the\\nlittle rod with which he points out the notabilities of\\nthe scene, but, finally, with the inevitable acquiescence\\nof all public servants, resumes his composure and goes\\non.\\nPass onward, onwai^l, Time Build up new houses\\nhere, and tear down thy works of yesterday, that have\\nalready the rusty moss upon them Summon forth\\nthe minister to the abode of the young maiden, and\\nbid him unite her to the joyful bridegroom Let the\\nyouthful parents carry their first-born to the meeting-\\nhouse, to receive the baptismal rite Knock at the\\ndoor, whence the sable line of the funeral is next to\\nissue Provide other successive generations of men,\\nto trade, talk, quarrel, or walk in friendly intercom se\\nalong the street, as their fathers did before them Do\\nall thy daily and accustomed business, Father Time,\\nin this thoroughfare, which thy footsteps, for so many\\nyears, have now made dusty But here, at last, thou\\nleadest along a procession which, once witnessed, shall\\nappear no more, and be remembered only as a hide-\\nous dream of thine, or a frenzy of thy old brain.\\nTurn your crank, I say, bellows the remorseless\\ncritic, and grind it out, whatever it be, without fur-\\nther preface\\nThe showman deems it best to comply.\\nThen, here comes the worshipful Captain Curwen,", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0088.jp2"}, "89": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 79\\nsheriff of Essex, on horseback, at the head of an\\narmed guard, escorting a company of condemned pris-\\noners from the jail to their place of execution on Gal-\\nlows Hill. The witches! There is no mistaking\\nthem The witches As they approach up Prison\\nLane, and turn into the Main Street, let us watch\\ntheir faces, as if we made a part of the pale crowd\\nthat presses so eagerly about them, yet shrinks back\\nwith such shuddering dread, leaving an open passage\\nbetwixt a dense throng on either side. Listen to what\\nthe people say.\\nThere is old George Jacobs, known hereabouts,\\nthese sixty years, as a man whom we thought upright\\nin all his way of life, quiet, blameless, a good husband\\nbefore his pious wife was summoned from the evil to\\ncome, and a good father to the children whom she left\\nhim. Ah! but when that blessed woman went to\\nheaven, George Jacobs s heart was empty, his hearth\\nlonely, his life broken up his children were married,\\nand betook themselves to habitations of their own;\\nand Satan, in liis wanderings up and down, beheld\\nthis forlorn old man, to whom life was a sameness and\\na weariness, and found the way to tempt him. So\\nthe miserable sinner was prevailed with to mount into\\nthe air, and career among the clouds and he is\\nproved to have been present at a witch meeting as\\nfar off as Falmouth, on the very same night that his\\nnext neighbors saw him, with his rheumatic stoop,\\ngoing in at liis own door. There is John Willard,\\ntoo an honest man we thought him, and so shrewd\\nand active in his business, so practical, so intent on\\nevery-day affairs, so constant at his little place of\\ntrade, where he bartered English goods for Indian\\ncorn and all kinds of country produce How could", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0089.jp2"}, "90": {"fulltext": "80 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nsuch a man find time, or what could put it into his\\nmind, to leave his proper calling, and become a wiz-\\nard It is a mystery, unless the Black Man tempted\\nhim with great heaps of gold. See that aged couple,\\na sad sight, truly, John Proctor, and his wife\\nElizabeth. If there were two old people in all the\\ncounty of Essex who seemed to have led a true Chris-\\ntian life, and to be treading hopefully the little rem-\\nnant of their earthly path, it was this very pair. Yet\\nhave we heard it sworn, to the satisfaction of the wor-\\nshipful Chief-Justice Sewell, and all the court and\\njury, that Proctor and his wife have shown their with^\\nered faces at cliildren s bedsides, mocking, making\\nmouths, and affrighting the poor little innocents in the\\nnight-time. They, or their spectral appearances, have\\nstuck pins into the Afflicted Ones, and thrown them\\ninto deadly fainting-fits with a touch or but a look.\\nAnd, while we supposed the old man to be reading\\nthe Bible to his old wife, she meanwhile knitting in\\nthe chimney-corner, the pair of hoary reprobates\\nhave whisked up the chimney, both on one broom-\\nstick, and flown away to a witch-communion, far into\\nthe depths of the chill, dark forest. How foolish\\nWere it only for fear of rheumatic pains in their old\\nbones, they had better have stayed at home. But\\naway they went and the laughter of their decayed,\\ncackling voices has been heard at midnight, aloft in\\nthe air. Now, in the sunny noontide, as they go tot-\\ntering to the gallows, it is the Devil s turn to laugh.\\nBehind these two, who helj) one another along, and\\nseem to be comforting and encouraging each other, in\\na manner truly pitiful, if it were not a sin to pity the\\nold witch and wizard, behind them comes a woman,\\nwith a dark proud face that has been beautiful, and a", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0090.jp2"}, "91": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET, 81\\nfigure that is still majestic. Do you know her? It\\nis Martha Carrier, whom the Devil found in a humble\\ncottage, and looked into her discontented heart, and\\nsaw pride there, and tempted her with his promise\\nthat she should be Queen of Hell. And now, with\\nthat lofty demeanor, she is passing to her kingdom,\\nand, by her unquenchable pride, transforms this escort\\nof shame into a triiunphal procession, that shall attend\\nher to the gates of her infernal palace, and seat her\\nupon the fiery throne. Within this hour, she shall\\nassume her royal dignity.\\nLast of the miserable train comes a man clad in\\nblack, of small stature and a dark complexion, with a\\nclerical band about his neck. Many a time, in the\\nyears gone by, that face has been uplifted heavenward\\nfrom the pulpit of the East Meeting-House, when the\\nRev. Mr. Burroughs seemed to worship God. What I\\nhe? The holy man! the learned! the wise I\\nHow has the Devil tempted him His fellow-crim-\\ninals, for the most part, are obtuse, uncultivated crea-\\ntures, some of them scarcely half-witted by nature, and\\nothers greatly decayed in their intellects through age.\\nThey were an easy prey for the destroyer. Not so\\nwith this George Burroughs, as we judge by the in-\\nward light which glows through his dark countenance,\\nand, we might almost say, glorifies his figure, in spite\\nof the soil and haggardness of long imprisonment,\\nin spite of the hea\\\\^ shadow that must fall on him,\\nwhile death is walking by his side. What bribe could\\nSatan offer, rich enough to tempt and overcome this\\nman Alas it may have been in the very strength\\nof his high and searching intellect that the Tempter\\nfound the weakness which betrayed him. He yearned\\nfor knowledge 5 he went groping onward into a world", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0091.jp2"}, "92": {"fulltext": "82 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nof mystery at first, as the witnesses have sworn, he\\nsummoned up tlie ghosts of his two dead wives, and\\ntalked with them of matters beyond the grave and,\\nwhen their responses failed to satisfy the intense and\\nsinfid craving of his spirit, he called on Satan, and\\nwas heard. Yet to look at him who, that had\\nnot known the proof, could believe him guilty Who\\nwould not say, while we see him offering comfort to\\nthe weak and aged partners of his horrible crime,\\nwhile we hear his ejaculations of prayer, that seem to\\nbubble up out of the depths of his heart, and fly\\nheavenward, unawares, while we behold a radiance\\nbrightening on his features as from the other world,\\nwhich is but a few steps off, who would not say,\\nthat, over the dusty track of the Main Street, a Chris-\\ntian saint is now going to a martyr s death May not\\nthe Arch-Fiend have been too subtle for the court and\\njury, and betrayed them laughing in his sleeve the\\nwhile into the awful error of pouring out sanctified\\nblood as an acceptable sacrifice upon God s altar?\\nAh no for listen to wise Cotton Mather, who, as he\\nsits there on his horse, speaks comfortably to the per-\\nplexed multitude, and tells them that all has been re-\\nligiously and justly done, and that Satan s power shall\\nthis day receive its death-blow in New England.\\nHeaven grant it be so the great scholar must be\\nright so lead the poor creatures to their death Do\\nyou see that group of children and half-grown girls,\\nand, among them, an old, hag-like Indian woman, Ti-\\ntuba by name Those are the Afflicted Ones. Be-\\nhold, at this very instant, a proof of Satan s power\\nand malice Mercy Parris, the minister s daughter,\\nhas been smitten by a flash of Martha Carrier s eye,\\nand falls down in the street, writhing with horrible", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0092.jp2"}, "93": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 83\\nspasms and foaming at the mouth, like the possessed\\none spoken of in Scripture. Hurry on the accursed\\nwitches to the gallows, ere they do more mischief\\nere they fling out their withered arms, and scatter\\npestilence by handfuls among the crowd ere, as\\ntheir parting legacy, they cast a blight over the land,\\nso that henceforth it may bear no fruit nor blade of\\ngrass, and be fit for nothing but a sepulclu-e for their\\nunhallowed carcasses So on they go and old George\\nJacobs has stumbled, by reason of his infirmity but\\nGoodman Proctor and his wife lean on one another,\\nand walk at a reasonably steady pace, considering\\ntheir age. Mr. Burroughs seems to administer coun-\\nsel to Martha Carrier, whose face and mien, methinks,\\nare milder and humbler than they were. Among the\\nmultitude, meanwhile, there is horror, fear, and dis-\\ntrust and friend looks askance at friend, and the\\nhusband at his Avife, and the wife at him, and even\\nthe mother at her little child as if, in every creature\\nthat God has made, they suspected a witch, or dreaded\\nan accuser. Never, never again, whether in this or any\\nother shape, may Universal Madness riot in the Main\\nStreet\\nI perceive in your eyes, my indulgent spectators,\\nthe criticism which you are too kind to utter. These\\nscenes, you think, are all too sombre. So, indeed,\\nthey are but the blame must rest on the sombre spirit\\nof our forefathers, who wove their web of life with\\nhardly a single thread of rose-color or gold, and not\\non me, who have a tropic-love of sunshine, and would\\ngladly gild all the world with it, if I knew where to\\nfind so much. That you may believe me, I will ex-\\nhibit one of the only class of scenes, so far as my in-\\nvestigation has taught me, in which our ancestors were", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0093.jp2"}, "94": {"fulltext": "84 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nwont to steep their tough old hearts in wine and\\nstrong drink, and indulge an outbreak of grisly jol-\\nlity.\\nHere it comes, out of the same house whence we saw\\nbrave Captain Gardner go forth to the wars. What I\\nA coffin, borne on men s shoulders, and six aged gen-\\ntlemen as pall-bearers, and a long train of mourners,\\nwith black gloves and black hat-bands, and everything\\nblack, save a white handkerchief in each mourner s\\nhand, to wipe away his tears withal. Now, my kind\\npatrons, you are angry with me. You were bidden\\nto a bridal-dance, and find yourselves walking in a\\nfuneral procession. Even so but look back through\\nall the social customs of New England, in the first\\ncentury of her existence, and read all her traits of\\ncharacter and if you find one occasion, other than a\\nfuneral feast, where jollity was sanctioned by universal\\npractice, I will set fire to my puppet-show without an-\\nother word. These are the obsequies of old Governor\\nBradstreet, the patriarch and survivor of the first set-\\ntlers, who, having intermarried with the Widow Gard-\\nner, is now resting from his labors, at the great age\\nof ninety-four. The white-bearded corpse, which was\\nhis spirit s earthly garniture, now lies beneath yonder\\ncoffin-lid; Many a cask of ale and cider is on tap,\\nand many a draught of spiced wine and aqua-vitae has\\nbeen quaffed. Else why should the bearers stagger,\\nas they tremulously uphold the coffin and the aged\\npall-bearers, too, as they strive to walk solemnly be-\\nside it? and wherefore do the mourners tread on one\\nanother s heels and why, if we may ask without of-\\nfence, should the nose of the Rev. Mr. Noyes, through\\nwhich he has just been delivering the funeral dis-\\ncourse, glow, like a ruddy coal of fire Well, well.", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0094.jp2"}, "95": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 85\\nold friends Pass on, with your burden of mortality,\\nand lay it in the tomb with jolly hearts. People\\nshould be permitted to enjoy themselves in their own\\nfashion every man to his taste but New England\\nmust have been a dismal abode for the man of pleas-\\nure, when the only boon-companion was Death\\nUnder cover of a mist that has settled over the scene,\\na few years flit by, and escape our notice. As the at-\\nmosphere becomes transparent, we perceive a decrepit\\ngrandsire, hobbling along the street. Do you recog-\\nnize him We saw him, first, as the baby in Good-\\nwife Massey s arms, when the primeval trees were\\nflinging their shadow over Koger Conant s cabin we\\nhave seen him, as the boy, the youth, the man, bearing\\nhis humble part in aU the successive scenes, and form-\\ning the index-figure whereby to note the age of his\\ncoeval town. And here he is, old Goodman Massey,\\ntaking his last walk, often pausing, often leaning\\nover his staff, and calling to mind whose dwelling\\nstood at such and such a spot, and whose field or\\ngarden occupied the site of those more recent houses.\\nHe can render a reason for all the bends and devia-\\ntions of the thoroughfare, which, in its flexible and\\nplastic infancy, was made to swerve aside from a\\nstraight line, in order to visit every settler s door.\\nThe Main Street is stiU youthfid the coeval man is\\nin his latest age. Soon he will be gone, a patriarch\\nof four-score, yet shall retain a sort of infantine life in\\nour local history, as the first town-born child.\\nBehold here a change, wrought in the twinkling of\\nan eye, like an incident in a tale of magic, even while\\nyour observation has been fixed upon the scene. The\\nMain Street has vanished out of sight. In its stead\\nappears a wintry waste of snow, with the sun just peep-", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0095.jp2"}, "96": {"fulltext": "86 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\ning over it, cold and bright, and tingeing the white\\nexpanse with the faintest and most ethereal rose-color.\\nThis is the Great Snow of 1717, famous for the\\nmountain-drifts in which it buried the whole country.\\nIt would seem as if the street, the growth of which\\nwe have noted so attentively, following it from its first\\nphase, as an Indian track, until it reached the dignity\\nof sidewalks, were all at once obliterated, and resolved\\ninto a drearier pathlessness than when the forest cov-\\nered it. The gigantic swells and billows of the snow\\nhave swept over each man s metes and bounds, and\\nannihilated all the visible distinctions of hmnan prop-\\nerty. So that now the traces of former times and\\nhitherto accomplished deeds being done away, man-\\nkind should be at liberty to enter on new paths, and\\nguide themselves by other laws than heretofore if,\\nindeed, the race be not extinct, and it be worth our\\nwhile to go on with the march of life, over the cold\\nand desolate expanse that lies before us. It may be,\\nhowever, that matters are not so desperate as they\\nappear. That vast icicle, glittering so cheerlessly in\\nthe sunshine, must be the spire of the meeting-house,\\nincrusted with frozen sleet. Those great heaps, too,\\nwhich we mistook for drifts, are houses, buried up to\\ntheir eaves, and with their peaked roofs rounded by\\nthe depth of snow upon them. There, now, comes a\\ngush of smoke from what I judge to be the cliimney\\nof the Ship Tavern and another another and\\nanother from the chimneys of other dwellings, where\\nfireside comfort, domestic peace, the sports of children,\\nand the quietude of age are living yet, in spite of the\\nfrozen crust above them.\\nBut it is time to change the scene. Its dreary mo-\\nnotony shall not test your fortitude like one of our", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0096.jp2"}, "97": {"fulltext": "MAIN STREET. 87\\nactual New England winters, which leaves so large a\\nblank so melancholy a death spot in lives so\\nbrief that they ought to be all summer-time. Here,\\nat least, I may claim to be ruler of the seasons. One\\ntiu u of the crank shall melt away the snow from the\\nMain Street, and show the trees in their full foliage,\\nthe rose-bushes in bloom, and a border of green grass\\nalong the sidewalk. There But what How The\\nscene will not move. A wire is broken. The street\\ncontinues buried beneath the snow, and the fate of\\nHercidaneum and Pompeii has its parallel in this ca-\\ntastrophe.\\nAlas my Idnd and gentle audience, you know not\\nthe extent of your misfortime. The scenes to come\\nwere far better than the past. The street itself would\\nhave been more worthy of pictorial exhibition the\\ndeeds of its inhabitants not less so. And how would\\nyour interest have deepened, as, passing out of the\\ncold shadow of antiquity, in my long and weary course,\\nI should arrive witliin the limits of man s memory,\\nand, leading you at last into the sunshine of the pres-\\nent, shoidd give a reflex of the very life that is flit-\\nting past us I Your own beauty, my fair townswomen,\\nwould have beamed upon you out of my scene. Not\\na gentleman that walks the street but should have be-\\nheld his own face and figure, his gait, the peculiar\\nswing of his arm, and the coat that he put on yester-\\nday. Then, too, and it is what I chiefly regret,\\nI had expended a vast deal of light and brilliancy on\\na representation of the street in its whole leng-th, from\\nBuffum s Corner do^vnward, on the night of the grand\\nillumination for General Taylor s triimiph. Lastly, I\\nshould have given the cranl?: one other turn, and have\\nbrought out the future, showing you who shall walk", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0097.jp2"}, "98": {"fulltext": "88 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.\\nthe Main Street to-morrow, and, perchance, whose\\nfuneral shall pass through it\\nBut these, like most other human purposes, lie unac-\\ncomplished and I have only further to say, that any\\nlady or gentleman who may feel dissatisfied with the\\nevening s entertainment shall receive back the admis-\\nsion fee at the door.\\nThen give me mine, cries the critic, stretching\\nout his palm. I said that your exhibition would\\nprove a himibug, and so it has turned out. So hand\\nover my quarter\\nP", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0098.jp2"}, "99": {"fulltext": "NOTES.\\nTHE CUSTOM HOUSE.\\nPage 1. P. P., Clerk of this Parish:\\nGilbert Burnet, who was born at Edinburgh in 1643, and at\\nthe time of his death, in 1715, was Bishop of Sahsbury, published\\nduring his lifetime a History of the Reformation in England, and\\nleft for publication after his death a History of My Own Times.\\nThis latter book, which is valuable through the author s know-\\nledge of interior and half-secret history, was nevertheless so\\nsolemn about petty matters that it was ridiculed by the wits\\nof the day, especially by Dr. Arbuthnot, a friend of Pope and\\n^jSwift, who travestied it in a humorous production with the title\\nMemoirs of P. P., Clerk of this Parish.\\nPage 3. Old King Derby.\\nE. Hasket Derby built a fleet of fine ships after the war for\\nindependence, and so promoted the trade of Salem, together with\\nother merchants and shipowners, that by 1818 the East India\\ntrade engaged 53 Salem ships. So conspicuous was Salem as a\\nname on the stern of these ships that the innocent Orientals natu-\\nrally supposed Salem to be a great, distant country, which had\\na little U. S. A. somewhere in it.\\nPage 6. The Wapping of a seaport.\\nAbout two miles below London Bridge is the district known\\nas AVapping, Before the construction of the great docks, this\\nwas the great shipping quarter of London.\\nPage 7. Locofoco Surveyor.\\nHawthorne was appointed Surveyor of the Port of Salem, in\\nMarch, 1846, by George Bancroft, then Secretary of the Navy\\nin a Democratic administration. The term Locofoco was a\\nnickname applied to the Democratic party as early as 1834. It\\narose from an odd incident. There was a violent political dis-\\ncussion going on in Tammany Hall in New York one evening at\\nthat time. To break up the meeting the chairman had the gas-\\nlights put out and left the hall. The opponents of his faction,", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0099.jp2"}, "100": {"fulltext": "90 NOTES.\\nhowever, produced loeo-f oco matches, as friction matches recently\\ninvented were called, and candles, and thus reorganized and took\\npossession of the meeting.\\nLong and lazij street.\\nMain Street, which Hawthorne himself describes m the sketch\\nwhich is added to The Custom House.\\nTwo centuries mid a quarter.\\nIn 1626 Roger Conant left a fishing colony which had been\\nestablished on Cape Ann and built the first house in what after-\\nward became Salem. In 1627 the Plymouth Company made a\\ngrant of the land lying between the Merrimac and the Charles,\\nand in 1628 John Endicott was sent over and Salem was founded.\\nPage 8. The figure of that frst ancestor.\\nMaior William Hawthorne, or Hathorne as it was at first\\nmore commonlv written, came to America from England m\\n1630 and remo;ed to Salem in 1637. He was a representative\\nto the General Court, where he served a considerable period as\\nSpeaker; he was a major in the militia, led expeditions into the\\nwilderness, fought Indians, was a magistrate, a commissioner ot\\nmarriages, even preached, and was a sturdy opponent of Kan-\\ndolph. His son John was the judge in the time of the witch-\\ncraft delusion, to whom Hawthorne refers in the latter part ot\\nthe paragraph.\\nPao-e 11. The President s commission.\\nPresident Polk.\\nPao-e 12 Neio England s most distinguished soldier.\\nIn such terms does Hawthorne characterize his P.^edecessor.\\nJames Miller was born in Peterborough, N H., April 2o 1776\\nHe fought at Fort George May 27, 1813, and was colonel of the I\\n21st Infantry at Chippewa and Lundy s Lane lor his gallant\\nservices he was breveted brigadier-general and received a gold\\nmedal from Congress. In 1819, when the State of Louisiana\\nwas formed out of the then vast territory of Louisiana, the pre-\\nsent Arkansas was formed as a terntory, and f\u00e2\u0080\u0094 Ys de\\neral Miller served as governor. He was then, in 182o made\\nCollector of the Port of Salem, and retained the office till 1849.\\nHe died at Temple, N. H., July 7, 1851.\\nMAIN STREET.\\nPage 51. Latest Oak Hall coat.\\nWhen Hawthorne wrote and for many years after, Oak Hail", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0100.jp2"}, "101": {"fulltext": "NOTES. 91\\nwas the name of a ready-made clothing store at the North End\\nin Boston, celebrated for the cheapness of its garments and the\\ningenious and widespread advertisements by which it was made\\nknown.\\nPage 53. Squaw Sachem.\\nIn the very first years of the Pilgrim colony at Plymouth this\\nsquaw sachem was a dimly known chieftainess of the Indians.\\nAgawam Ipswich.\\nPage 55. Roger Conant, the first settler in Naumkeag.\\nRoger Conant had been one of the Plymouth settlers, but be-\\ncame disaffected toward the colony, and the Dorchester Adven-\\nturers, an English joint stock association that was interesting\\nitself in settlements over sea, invited him to take charge of their\\naffairs, fishing and planting, on Cape Ann. The seat at Cape\\nAnn was shortly after moved to Naumkeag (sometimes spelled\\nNahumkeag), the Indian name of the place which the settlers\\nafterward dubbed with the Old Testament name of Salem, or\\nPeace.\\nPage 58. A governor for the neio settlement.\\nThe original Dorchester Adventurers, an association chiefly\\nconcerned in the fishing trade, but also having an eye toward\\nthe Puritan interests, became later developed into the Governor\\nand Company of Massachusetts Bay. But before this final form,\\nthere was an intermediate company which obtained a grant of\\nland including Naumkeag; and one of their number, John Endi-\\ncott, came out in 1628 to supersede Conant, and be the governor\\nof the settlement. Hawthorne wrote a striking sketch of En-\\ndicott and the Red Cross in his Timce-Told Tales.\\nPage 63. Marston Moor or Nasehg.\\nThe names of two famous battlefields during the war between\\nthe king and Parliament, which followed shortly after the Puri-\\ntan exodus to New England. At the battle of Marston Moor,\\nJuly 2, 1644, the royalists under Prince Rupert were defeated\\nby the allied armies of the Scots and the Parliament men at\\nNaseby, June 14, 1645, the royalists were defeated by Fairfax,\\nCromwell, and Ireton.\\nPage 64. Hugh Peters, an earnest, restless man.\\nHugh Peter or Peters, as his name is variously written, was an\\nEnglish churchman who shared the fortunes of those who were\\nopposed to Archbishop Laud, went to Rotterdam, where he was\\npastor of a church, and near the close of 1635 came to New Eng-", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0101.jp2"}, "102": {"fulltext": "NOTES.\\nand, where he succeeded Roger Williams in the church at\\nSalem He afterward returned to England and took an active\\npart in the Revolution. He was chaplain to Cromwell, stood\\narmed on the scaffold when Laud was executed, and was so con-\\nspicuous that, on the coming in of Charles II., he was tried as\\none of the regicides and put to death.\\nRoger Williams.\\nThe noted divine who made himself obnoxious to the authori-\\nties in Massachusetts by his preaching of doctrines which they\\ndeemed subversive of the state, but which anticipated the later\\ndoctrine of the separation of church and state, one of the f unda-\\nmestals of American belief. He was banished from Massa-\\nchusetts and became one of the founders of Providence Plan-\\ntation.\\nA guest for Endicott.\\nGovernor Winthrop, the most eminent of the founders of New\\nEngland, records in his journal, which is known as The History of\\nNew Englatid, this entry under October 25, 1631 The gov-\\nernour, with Capt. Underbill and others of the officers, went on.\\nfoot to Sagus, and next day to Salem, where they were bounti-\\nfully entertained by Capt. Endicott, etc., and, the 28th, they\\nreturned to Boston by the ford at Sagus River, and so over at\\nMistick.\\nPage 65. Sir Richard Saltonstall.\\nSaltonstall was one of Winthrop s companions; but though he\\nreturned to England in 1631, expecting to come back and cast\\nin his fortunes with New England, he did not return. He was\\nan active friend of the colony, and his eldest son came over and\\nspent the greater part of his life here his descendants have\\noccupied important positions.\\nEmanuel Downing.\\nOne of the early members of the Massachusetts Bay Com-\\npany. He was a brother-in-law of Winthrop, having married\\nhis sister Lucy. He came over in 1638.\\nNathaniel Ward.\\nWard s book The Simple Cobler of Agawam was an important\\nstatement of principles underlying just government. It had\\ngreat influence in its generation.\\nMorton of Merry Mount.\\nThomas Morton was an Englishman who scandalized his Pil-\\ngrim and Puritan neighbors by establishing a settlement at\\n3477-27\\n55", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0102.jp2"}, "103": {"fulltext": "NOTES, o\\nWollaston, near the present town of Quincy, where the sober\\npractices of his neighbors were hilariously put to scorn by all\\nmanner of high jinks. One of Hawthorne s Twice-Told Tales\\nis The Maypole of Merrymount.\\nPage 66. The Lady Arabella.\\nThe Lady Arabella, or more commonly Arbella, was daughter\\nof the Earl of Lincoln and wife of Isaac Johnson, one of Win-\\nthrop s companions. The ship in which the principal members\\nof the company sailed was named in compliment to her. She\\nwas a frail creature. In the words of Cotton Mather, she\\ntook New England on her way to heaven, dying shortly after\\nreaching the country. Her husband followed her to the gr\u00e2\u0080\u009eve\\na month later.\\nAnn Hutchinson.\\nA famous woman in early New England annals. She was a\\nwoman of intellectual force, who headed a movement in dissent\\nfrom the prevailing theological belief, and was banished in con-\\nsequence. One of her friends was the popular Sir Harry Vane,\\nwho, however, retm-ned to England just before the decree of ban-\\nishment, and there played a conspicuous part. Fame rests on\\nhis head like a flame in Milton s great sonnet.\\nPage 68. The Curwen House.\\nThis house, still standing in Salem, has often been spoken of\\nas the prototype of the House of the Seven Gables.\\nPage 69. The Thursday Lecture.\\nThis was a mid-week lecture which was established in Boston\\nvery soon after the founding of the town. It was observed also\\nin the other towns, and was so much of an occasion that people\\nused to go from town to town to hear celebrated preachers, and\\nthe preachers used the day for discourses often on secular topics.\\nThe Thursday Lecture in Boston was discontinued when the siege\\noccurred, but was revived for a time afterward.\\nPage 70. There go the Thirteen.\\nThe traditional number of Selectmen or general committee in\\nthe management of a New England town.\\nPage 71. The tithing-man.\\nThis officer, whose name was corrupted into the Tidy Man,\\nwas long a characteristic officer in a New England town, com-\\nbining the functions of sexton, constable, and truant-officer.\\nPage 73. The Quakers have come.\\nThe reader of this sketch, will find it profitable to turn to the", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0103.jp2"}, "104": {"fulltext": "04 NOTES.\\npages of Longfellow s The New England Tragedies and read the\\none devoted to the persecution of the Quakers, John Endicott.\\nPage 75. Major Hawthorne s warrant.\\nSee note to page 8.\\nPage 79. The witches.\\nAgain, the reader is advised to read Giles Corey of the Salem\\nF lrms, the second of llie New England Tragedies. Whittier\\nalso has treated the subject in several poems.", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0104.jp2"}, "105": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0105.jp2"}, "106": {"fulltext": "^y^:^?.\\nJ. G\\nV.7^%", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0106.jp2"}, "107": {"fulltext": "v-v\\nV: ^-o/ -^-^0^ f^^\\n^^ym\\no o\\n.0^ c\\n7,", "height": "3176", "width": "1950", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0107.jp2"}, "108": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3160", "width": "1908", "jp2-path": "customhousemains00hawt_0108.jp2"}}