in Salem you must have got something ready for the press.”  “Nonsense,” said he; “what heart had I to write anything, when my publishers (M. and Company) have been so many years trying to sell a small edition of the ’Twice-Told Tales’?” I still pressed upon him the good chances he would have now with something new.  “Who would risk publishing a book for me, the most unpopular writer in America?” “I would,” said I, “and would start with an edition of two thousand copies of anything you write.”  “What madness!” he exclaimed; “your friendship for me gets the better of your judgment.  No, no,” he continued; “I have no money to indemnify a publisher’s losses on my account.”  I looked at my watch and found that the train would soon be starting for Boston, and I knew there was not much time to lose in trying to discover what had been his literary work during these last few years in Salem.  I remember that I pressed him to reveal to me what he had been writing.  He shook his head and gave me to understand he had produced nothing.  At that moment I caught sight of a bureau or set of drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately it occurred to me that hidden away somewhere in that article of furniture was a story or stories by the author of the “Twice-Told Tales,” and I became so positive of it that I charged him vehemently with the fact.  He seemed surprised, I thought, but shook his head again; and I rose to take my leave, begging him not to come into the cold entry, saying I would come back and see him again in a few days.  I was hurrying down the stairs when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a moment.  Then quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of manuscript in his hands, he said:  “How in Heaven’s name did you know this thing was there?  As you have found me out, take what I have written, and tell me, after you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything.  It is either very good or very bad,—­I don’t know which.”  On my way up to Boston I read the germ of “The Scarlet Letter”; before I slept that night I wrote him a note all aglow with admiration of the marvellous story he had put into my hands, and told him that I would come again to Salem the next day and arrange for its publication.  I went on in such an amazing state of excitement when we met again in the little house, that he would not believe I was really in earnest.  He seemed to think I was beside myself, and laughed sadly at my enthusiasm.  However, we soon arranged for his appearance again before the public with a book.

This quarto volume before me contains numerous letters, written by him from 1850 down to the month of his death.  The first one refers to “The Scarlet Letter,” and is dated in January, 1850.  At my suggestion he had altered the plan of that story.  It was his intention to make “The Scarlet Letter” one of several short stories, all to be included in one volume, and to be called

OLD-TIME LEGENDS: 
Together With Sketches,
EXPERIMENTAL AND IDEAL.