h the
transcendental nonage of his genius." Fields urged that the tale be
made longer and fuller and that it be published by itself. So the
original plan was changed, as was also the title. This was wise, for
the cumbersome original title would have killed any book, but the
present title is nothing short of a stroke of genius.

About this time Hawthorne's friends, under the leading of Hillard,
sent a kind letter and a considerable sum of money. Hawthorne
replied,--"I read your letter in the vestibule of the Post Office; and
it drew--what my troubles never have--the water to my eyes; so that I
was glad of the sharply-cold west wind that blew into them as I came
homeward, and gave them an excuse for being red and bleared." After
saying it was sweet to be remembered, but bitter to need their aid, he
concludes,--"The money, dear Hillard, will smooth my path for a long
time to come. The only way in which a man can retain his self-respect,
while availing himself of the generosity of his friends, is by making
it an incitement to his utmost exertion, so that he may not need their
help again. I shall look upon it so--nor will shun any drudgery that
my hand shall find to do, if thereby I may win bread."

Four days after this letter was written, on February 3, 1850, he
finished _The Scarlet Letter_. He writes to a friend saying he read
the last scene to his wife, or rather tried to read it, "for my voice
swelled and heaved, as if I were tossed up and down on an ocean as it
subsides after a storm." Mrs. Hawthorne told a friend that her husband
seemed depressed all during that winter. "There was a knot in his
forehead all the time," said his wife. One day he told her he had a
story that he wished to read to her. He read part of the work one
evening. The next evening he continued. His wife followed the story
with intense interest. Her excitement arose until when he was reading
near the end of the book, where Arthur and Hester and the child meet
in the forest, Mrs. Hawthorne sank from her low stool to the floor and
said she could endure no more. Hawthorne stopped and said in
wonder,--"Do you really feel it so much? Then there must be something
in it."

Mrs. Hawthorne relates that on the day after the MS. was delivered to
Fields, this publisher returned and when admitted to the house caught
up her boy in his arms and said,--"You splendid little fellow, do you
know what a father you have?" Then he ran upstairs to talk to
Hawthorne,