reason, that either the indulgent reader or the
intrusive author could imagine--with a description of my way of life
in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now--because, beyond my
deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former
occasion--I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three
years' experience in a Custom-House. The example of the famous
"P. P., Clerk of this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The
truth seems to be, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth upon
the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his
volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him,
better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors,
indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such
confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed,
only and exclusively, to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy;
as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were
certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own nature,
and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion
with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we
speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance
benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his
audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and
apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk;
and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness,
we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of
ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent,
and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical,
without violating either the reader's rights or his own.

It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain
propriety, of a kind always recognized in literature, as explaining
how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession,
and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein
contained. This, in fact,--a desire to put myself in my true position
as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales
that make up my volume,--this, and no other, is my true reason for
assuming a personal relation with the public. In accomplishing the
main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to
give a faint representation of a mode of life not he