“I deem it indispensable that the proof-sheets should be sent me for correction.  It will cause some delay, no doubt, but probably not much more than if I lived in Salem.  At all events, I don’t see how it can be helped.  My autography is sometimes villanously blind; and it is odd enough that whenever the printers do mistake a word, it is just the very jewel of a word, worth all the rest of the dictionary.”

I well remember with what anxiety I awaited the arrival of the expressman with the precious parcel, and with what keen delight I read every word of the new story before I slept.  Here is the original manuscript, just as it came that day, twenty years ago, fresh from the author’s hand.  The printers carefully preserved it for me; and Hawthorne once made a formal presentation of it, with great mock solemnity, in this very room where I am now sitting.

After the book came out he wrote:—­

“I have by no means an inconvenient multitude of friends; but if they ever do appear a little too numerous, it is when I am making a list of those to whom presentation copies are to be sent.  Please send one to General Pierce, Horatio Bridge, R.W.  Emerson, W.E.  Channing, Longfellow, Hillard, Sumner, Holmes, Lowell, and Thompson the artist.  You will yourself give one to Whipple, whereby I shall make a saving.  I presume you won’t put the portrait into the book.  It appears to me an improper accompaniment to a new work.  Nevertheless, if it be ready, I should be glad to have each of these presentation copies accompanied by a copy of the engraving put loosely between the leaves.  Good by.  I must now trudge two miles to the village, through rain and mud knee-deep, after that accursed proof-sheet.  The book reads very well in proofs, but I don’t believe it will take like the former one.  The preliminary chapter was what gave ‘The Scarlet Letter’ its vogue.”

The engraving he refers to in this letter was made from a portrait by Mr. C.G.  Thompson, and at that time, 1851, was an admirable likeness.  On the 6th of March he writes:—­

“The package, with my five heads, arrived yesterday afternoon, and we are truly obliged to you for putting so many at our disposal.  They are admirably done.  The children recognized their venerable sire with great delight.  My wife complains somewhat of a want of cheerfulness in the face; and, to say the truth, it does appear to be with a bedevilled melancholy; but it will do all the better for the author of ‘The Scarlet Letter.’  In the expression there is a singular resemblance (which I do not remember in Thompson’s picture) to a miniature of my father.”

His letters to me, during the summer of 1851, were frequent and sometimes quite long.  “The House of the Seven Gables” was warmly welcomed, both at home and abroad.  On the 23d of May he writes:—­