THE SNOW-IMAGE

AND

OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES


MAIN STREET

By

Nathaniel Hawthorne




Respectable-looking individual makes his bow and addresses the public.
In my daily walks along the principal street of my native town, it has
often occurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy upward, and the
vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have passed along this
thoroughfare during the more than two centuries of its existence, could
be presented to the eye in a shifting panorama, it would bean exceedingly
effective method of illustrating the march of time. Acting on this idea,
I have contrived a certain pictorial exhibition, somewhat in the nature
of a puppet-show, by means of which I propose to call up the multiform
and many-colored Past before the spectator, and show him the ghosts of
his forefathers, amid a succession of historic incidents, with no greater
trouble than the turning of a crank. Be pleased, therefore, my indulgent
patrons, to walk into the show-room, and take your seats before yonder
mysterious curtain. The little wheels and springs of my machinery have