The House of the Seven Gables | Page 5

romance then produced. Of the work, when it appeared in the early
spring of 1851, he wrote to Horatio Bridge these words, now published
for the first time:-
"`The House of the Seven Gables' in my opinion, is better than `The

Scarlet Letter:' but I should not wonder if I had refined upon the
principal character a little too much for popular appreciation, nor if the
romance of the book should be somewhat at odds with the humble and
familiar scenery in which I invest it. But I feel that portions of it are as
good as anything I can hope to write, and the publisher speaks
encouragingly of its success."
From England, especially, came many warm expressions of praise, --a
fact which Mrs. Hawthorne, in a private letter, commented on as the
fulfillment of a possibility which Hawthorne, writing in boyhood to his
mother, had looked forward to. He had asked her if she would not like
him to become an author and have his books read in England.
G. P. L.

PREFACE.

WHEN a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observed
that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and
material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume had
he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter form of composition is
presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible,
but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The
former--while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws,
and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the
truth of the human heart--has fairly a right to present that truth under
circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or
creation. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical
medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the
shadows of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very
moderate use of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle
the Marvelous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor, than as
any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He
can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime even if he
disregard this caution.

In the present work, the author has proposed to himself--but with what
success, fortunately, it is not for him to judge--to keep undeviatingly
within his immunities. The point of view in which this tale comes
under the Romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a bygone
time with the very present that is flitting away from us. It is a legend
prolonging itself, from an epoch now gray in the distance, down into
our own broad daylight, and bringing along with it some of its
legendary mist, which the reader, according to his pleasure, may either
disregard, or allow it to float almost imperceptibly about the characters
and events for the sake of a picturesque effect. The narrative, it may be,
is woven of so humble a texture as to require this advantage, and, at the
same time, to render it the more difficult of attainment.
Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose, at
which they profess to aim their works. Not to be deficient in this
particular, the author has provided himself with a moral,--the truth,
namely, that the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the
successive ones, and, divesting itself of every temporary advantage,
becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief; and he would feel it a
singular gratification if this romance might effectually convince
mankind--or, indeed, any one man--of the folly of tumbling down an
avalanche of ill-gotten gold, or real estate, on the heads of an
unfortunate posterity, thereby to maim and crush them, until the
accumulated mass shall be scattered abroad in its original atoms. In
good faith, however, he is not sufficiently imaginative to flatter himself
with the slightest hope of this kind. When romances do really teach
anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far
more subtile process than the ostensible one. The author has considered
it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with
its moral as with an iron rod,--or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a
butterfly, --thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in
an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely,
and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the
final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is
never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at
the first.

The reader may