his fact in contradiction to the idea that his productions
had hitherto been as little noticed as his own declaration that he
remained "for a good many years the obscurest man of letters in
America," might lead one, and has led many people, to suppose. "In
this dismal chamber FAME was won," he writes in Salem in 1836. And we
find in the Note-Books (1840), this singularly beautiful and touching
passage:--

"Here I sit in my old accustomed chamber, where I used to
sit in days gone by.... Here I have written many tales--many
that have been burned to ashes, many that have doubtless
deserved the same fate. This claims to be called a haunted
chamber, for thousands upon thousands of visions have
appeared to me in it; and some few of them have become
visible to the world. If ever I should have a biographer, he
ought to make great mention of this chamber in my memoirs,
because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and here
my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad
and hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat
a long, long time, waiting patiently for the world to know
me, and sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner,
or whether it would ever know me at all--at least till I
were in my grave. And sometimes it seems to me as if I were
already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled
and benumbed. But oftener I was happy--at least as happy as
I then knew how to be, or was aware of the possibility of
being. By and by the world found me out in my lonely chamber
and called me forth--not indeed with a loud roar of
acclamation, but rather with a still small voice--and forth
I went, but found nothing in the world I thought preferable
to my solitude till now.... And now I begin to understand
why I was imprisoned so many years in this lonely chamber,
and why I could never break through the viewless bolts and
bars; for if I had sooner made my escape into the world, I
should have grown hard and rough, and been covered with
earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by rude
encounters with the multitude.... But living in solitude
till the fulness of time was come, I still kept the dew of
my youth and the freshness of my heart.... I used to think
that I could imagine all passions, all feelings, and states
of the h