with him, but did not
perish in the grave,--had met me in the deserted chamber of the
Custom-House. In his port was the dignity of one who had borne his
Majesty's commission, and who was therefore illuminated by a ray of
the splendor that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike,
alas! the hang-dog look of a republican official, who, as the servant
of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the
lowest, of his masters. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen
but majestic figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol, and the
little roll of explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice, he
had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and
reverence towards him,--who might reasonably regard himself as my
official ancestor,--to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations
before the public. "Do this," said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue,
emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its
memorable wig,--"do this, and the profit shall be all your own! You
will shortly need it; for it is not in your days as it was in mine,
when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom.
But, I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to your
predecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due!" And I
said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, "I will!"

On Hester Prynne's story, therefore, I bestowed much thought. It was
the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and
fro across my room, or traversing, with a hundred-fold repetition, the
long extent from the front-door of the Custom-House to the
side-entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness and annoyance
of the old Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whose slumbers were
disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and
returning footsteps. Remembering their own former habits, they used to
say that the Surveyor was walking the quarter-deck. They probably
fancied that my sole object--and, indeed, the sole object for which a
sane man could ever put himself into voluntary motion--was, to get an
appetite for dinner. And to say the truth, an appetite, sharpened by
the east wind that generally blew along the passage, was the only
valuable result of so much indefatigable exercise. So little adapted
is the atmosphere of a custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy
and sensibility, that, had I remained there through ten Presidencies
yet to come, I d