e, of course, in which these
diminutive incidents seemed noteworthy; and what is noteworthy here
to the observer of Hawthorne's contemplative simplicity, is the fact
that though he finds a good deal to say about the little bird (he
devotes several lines more to it) he makes no remark upon Rabelais. He
had other visitors than little birds, however, and their demands were
also not Rabelaisian. Thoreau comes to see him, and they talk "upon
the spiritual advantages of change of place, and upon the _Dial_, and
upon Mr. Alcott, and other kindred or concatenated subjects." Mr.
Alcott was an arch-transcendentalist, living in Concord, and the
_Dial_ was a periodical to which the illuminated spirits of Boston and
its neighbourhood used to contribute. Another visitor comes and talks
"of Margaret Fuller, who, he says, has risen perceptibly into a higher
state since their last meeting." There is probably a great deal of
Concord five-and-thirty years ago in that little sentence!

* * * * *

CHAPTER V.

THE THREE AMERICAN NOVELS.

The prospect of official station and emolument which Hawthorne
mentions in one of those paragraphs from his Journals which I have
just quoted, as having offered itself and then passed away, was at
last, in the event, confirmed by his receiving from the administration
of President Polk the gift of a place in the Custom-house of his
native town. The office was a modest one, and "official station" may
perhaps appear a magniloquent formula for the functions sketched in
the admirable Introduction to The _Scarlet Letter_. Hawthorne's duties
were those of Surveyor of the port of Salem, and they had a salary
attached, which was the important part; as his biographer tells us
that he had received almost nothing for the contributions to the
_Democratic Review_. He bade farewell to his ex-parsonage and went
back to Salem in 1846, and the immediate effect of his ameliorated
fortune was to make him stop writing. None of his Journals of the
period from his going to Salem to 1850 have been published; from which
I infer that he even ceased to journalise. _The Scarlet Letter_ was
not written till 1849. In the delightful prologue to that work,
entitled _The Custom-house_, he embodies some of the impressions
gathered during these years of comparative leisure (I say of leisure
because he does not intimate in this sketch of his occupations that
his duties were onerous). He intimates, ho