look in my mirror, and see
reflected there some of the figures and the scenes that have made my
life worth living. As I peer into the dark abysm of things gone by, many
places that seemed at first indistinct, grow clearer; but many more must
remain impenetrable. Upon the whole, however, I am surprised to find how
much is still discernible. Nearly a score of years ago I published,
in the shape of a formal biography of Hawthorne and his wife, the
consecutive facts of their lives, and numerous passages from their
journals and correspondence. My aim is different now; I wish to indite
an informal narrative from my own point of view, as child, youth, and
man. There will be gaps in it--involuntary ones; and others occasioned
by the obligation to retain those pictures only that seem likely to
arouse a catholic interest. Yet there will be a certain intimacy in the
story; and some matters which history would omit as trivial will be here
adduced, for the sake of such color and character as they may contain.
I shall not stalk on stilts, or mouth phrases, but converse comfortably
and trustfully as between friends. If a writing of this kind be not
flexible, unpretending, discursive, it has no right to be at all. Art is
not in question, save the minor art that lives from line to line. Gossip
about men, women, and things--it can amount to little more than that.

In the earlier chapters the dramatis personae and the incidents must
naturally group themselves about the figure of my father; for it was
thus that I saw them. To his boy he was the fountain of love, honor, and
energy; and to the boy he seemed the animating or organizing principle
of other persons and events. With his death, in my eighteenth year, the
world appeared disordered for a season; then, gradually, I learned to do
my own orientation. I was destined to an experience superficially
much more active and varied than his had been; and it was a world
superficially very different from his in which I moved and dealt
There must follow a corresponding modification in the character of the
narrative; yet that, after all is superficial, too. For the memory of
my father has always been with me, and has doubtless influenced me more
than I am myself aware. And certainly but for him this book would never
have been attempted.

I

Value of dates--My aunt Lizzie's efforts--My father's
decapitation--My mother's strong-box--The spirit of The
Scarlet Letter--The stra