novel--"Dust"--was written and published. I returned to America in 1882,
after an absence in Europe far longer than I had anticipated or desired. I
trust I may never leave my native land again for any other on this planet.

"Beatrix Randolph," "Noble Blood," and "Love--or a Name," are the novels
which I have written since my return; and I also published a biography,
"Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife." I cannot conscientiously say that I
have found the literary profession--in and for itself--entirely agreeable.
Almost everything that I have written has been written from necessity; and
there is very little of it that I shall not be glad to see forgotten. The
true rewards of literature, for men of limited calibre, are the incidental
ones,--the valuable friendships and the charming associations which it
brings about. For the sake of these I would willingly endure again many
passages of a life that has not been all roses; not that I would appear to
belittle my own work: it does not need it. But the present generation (in
America at least) does not strike me as containing much literary genius.
The number of undersized persons is large and active, and we hardly
believe in the possibility of heroic stature. I cannot sufficiently admire
the pains we are at to make our work--embodying the aims it does--
immaculate in form. Form without idea is nothing, and we have no ideas. If
one of us were to get an idea, it would create its own form, as easily as
does a flower or a planet. I think we take ourselves too seriously: our
posterity will not be nearly so grave over us. For my part, I do not write
better than I do, because I have no ideas worth better clothes than they
can pick up for themselves. "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing
with your best pains," is a saying which has injured our literature more
than any other single thing. How many a lumber-closet since the world
began has been filled by the results of this purblind and delusive theory!
But this is not autobiographical,--save that to have written it shows how
little prudence my life has taught me.