THE SNOW-IMAGE

AND

OTHER TWICE-TOLD TALES



A BELL'S BIOGRAPHY

By

Nathaniel Hawthorne



Hearken to our neighbor with the iron tongue. While I sit musing over my
sheet of foolscap, he emphatically tells the hour, in tones loud enough
for all the town to hear, though doubtless intended only as a gentle hint
to myself, that I may begin his biography before the evening shall be
further wasted. Unquestionably, a personage in such an elevated
position, and making so great a noise in the world, has a fair claim to
the services of a biographer. He is the representative and most
illustrious member of that innumerable class, whose characteristic
feature is the tongue, and whose sole business, to clamor for the public
good. If any of his noisy brethren, in our tongue-governed democracy, be
envious of the superiority which I have assigned him, they have my free
consent to hang themselves as high as he. And, for his history, let not
the reader apprehend an empty repetition of ding-dong-bell.
He has been the passive hero of wonderful vicissitudes, with which I have