Now it was that the lucubrations of my ancient predecessor, Mr.
Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty through long idleness, some
little space was requisite before my intellectual machinery
could be brought to work upon the tale with an effect in any
degree satisfactory. Even yet, though my thoughts were
ultimately much absorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye, a
stern and sombre aspect: too much ungladdened by genial
sunshine; too little relieved by the tender and familiar
influences which soften almost every scene of nature and real
life, and undoubtedly should soften every picture of them. This
uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to the period of hardly
accomplished revolution, and still seething turmoil, in which
the story shaped itself. It is no indication, however, of a lack
of cheerfulness in the writer's mind: for he was happier while
straying through the gloom of these sunless fantasies than at
any time since he had quitted the Old Manse. Some of the briefer
articles, which contribute to make up the volume, have likewise
been written since my involuntary withdrawal from the toils and
honours of public life, and the remainder are gleaned from
annuals and magazines, of such antique date, that they have gone
round the circle, and come back to novelty again. Keeping up the
metaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be
considered as the POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF A DECAPITATED SURVEYOR:
and the sketch which I am now bringing to a close, if too
autobiographical for a modest person to publish in his lifetime,
will readily be excused in a gentleman who writes from beyond
the grave. Peace be with all the world! My blessing on my
friends! My forgiveness to my enemies! For I am in the realm of
quiet!
The life of the Custom-House lies like a dream behind me. The
old Inspector--who, by-the-bye, I regret to say, was overthrown
and killed by a horse some time ago, else he would certainly
have lived for ever--he, and all those other venerable
personages who sat with him at the receipt of custom, are but
shadows in my view: white-headed and wrinkled images, which my
fancy used to sport with, and has now flung aside for ever. The
merchants--Pingree, Phillips, Shepard, Upton, Kimball, Bertram,
Hunt--these and many other names, which had such classic
familiarity for my ear six months ago,--these men of traffic,
who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world--how
little time has it required to disconnect me from them all, not
merely in act, but recollection! It is with an effort that I
recall the figures and appellations of these few. Soon,
likewise, my old native town will loom upon me through the haze
of memory, a mist brooding over and around it; as if it were no
portion of the real earth, but an overgrown village in
cloud-land, with only imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden
houses and walk its homely lanes, and the unpicturesque
prolixity of its main street. Henceforth it ceases to be a
reality of my life; I am a citizen of somewhere else. My good
townspeople will not much regret me, for--though it has been as
dear an object as any, in my literary efforts, to be of some
importance in their eyes, and to win myself a pleasant memory in
this abode and burial-place of so many of my forefathers--there
has never been, for me, the genial atmosphere which a literary
man requires in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind. I
shall do better amongst other faces; and these familiar ones, it
need hardly be said, will do just as well without me.