The Scarlet Letter Pdf - King Stephen
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter Summary
It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk
overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to
my personal friends—an autobiographical impulse
should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in
addressing the public. The first time was three or four
years since, when I favoured the reader—inexcusably,
and for no earthly 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................................................................
Download The Scarlet Letter Pdf
Read Online The Scarlet Letter Pdf
Commentaires
Enregistrer un commentaire