Manuscript," [Footnote: See the Snow Image, and other Twice-Told Tales.]
"to undergo sneers, taunts, abuse, and cold neglect, and faint praise
bestowed against the giver's conscience!... An outlaw from the
protection of the grave,--one whose ashes every careless foot might
spurn, unhonored in life, and remembered scornfully in death!" This, to
be sure, is a heated statement, in the mouth of a young author who is
about to cast his unpublished works into the fire; but the dread
expressed here is by no means unfounded. Even the publication of
Hawthorne's Note-Books has put it in the power of various writers of the
day to assume an omniscience not altogether just, and far from
acceptable. Why, then, should further risk of this be incurred, by
issuing the present work?

It is precisely to put a limit to misconstructions, as well as to
meet--however imperfectly--the desire of genuine appreciators, that it
has been written. If this study for a portrait fulfils its aim, it will
at least furnish an outline, fix a definite shape, within which whatever
is observed by others may find its place with a truer effect and more
fitting relation. The mistakes that have been made, indeed, are in no
wise alarming ones; and it would be difficult to find any author who has
been more carefully considered, on the whole, or with such generally
fair conclusions, as Hawthorne. Still, if one sees even minor
distortions current, it can do no harm to correct them. Besides, there
has as yet been no thorough attempt at a consistent synthetic
portraiture; and the differences of different critics' estimates need
some common ground to meet and be harmonized upon. If this can be
supplied, there will be less waste of time in future studies of the same
subject.

It will be seen, therefore, that my book makes no pretension to the