The Scarlet Letter - Introductory

The Introductory of The Scarlet Letter is so loooooooong that I decided to separate it from the main story and treat it as it's own entity.. It starts out as a proclamation that it is not an autobiography. And to add to that it has a formal letter in the beginning of the book disclaiming any ill will to a certain individual that the author is supposed to have particularly expressed an.... oh hell, here is a quote; "As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives." Hawthorne didn't write that part himself but the did write the introductory. Said letter is in reference to the fact that the introductory contains both how he received and lost his job at the Custom House. Attributing the loss largely to one particular individual. This is what Hawthorne had to say about the Custom House, where, by the by, he got his inspiration for this book;
"Its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunder- bolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later -- oftener soon than late -- is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows."
This statement could describe the America of today. It was published in approximately 1850, and yet acutely describes America in the age of the setting of the story (approx. 200 years prior to being published) all the way through it's history to modern day. America has been this weird mix of freedom, oppression, comfort, and indignation. And the writer Mr. Hawthorne is evidently very aware of it. This awareness stems from his own family tree.

"The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned progenitor-who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace -- a stronger claim than for myself, whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor; as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his dry old bones, in the Charter-street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them in another state of being. At all events, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them -- as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist -- may be now and henceforth removed."

It seems to me that Hawthorne is both unifying and yet separating himself from the era of The Scarlet letter, and the Salem witch trials. And maybe feels the need to show the effects of religious and governmental persecution so that we don't fall back to it.
Hawthorne was living American history. And as I can now look back on it and say 'wow, the first settlers of our country, in effect, stole this land and persecuted many people in horrific ways according to their stiff legalistic religious spirit according to how it suited them.' Hawthorne is saying ' yeah, I was close to it. I know how bad it is.' Much in the same way a descendant of a slave owner might feel today.
The place, The Custom House, more accurately it's attic, was the where the author found the scarlet letter, and yes it was an actual thing, and Hester Prynne was an actual woman, the bearer of the letter.
The author goes on to describe some of the characters of the custom house. One of whom I feel close to my own personality.

"though seldom, when it could be avoided, taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation -- was fond of standing at a distance, and watchinghis quiet and almost slumberous countenance. He seemed away from us, although we saw him but a few yards off; remote, though we passed close beside his chair; unattainable, though we might have stretched forth our hands and touched his own. It might be that he lived a more real life within his thoughts than amid the unappropriate environment of the Collector's office."
Yeah, I understand that guy. I'm not great at casual conversation and usually save my breath for something that interests me. It's quite the opposite when I write. It might seem I'm long-winded when it comes to this here blog-of-the-century, but in reality it's almost painful for me to have to speak to actual people sometimes. Which is why my closest friends (including the husband, BFFs!) are very long-winded. I'm just very much in my head most of the time.
Mr. Hawthorne lists many different men that, while in his office of the Surveyor, he had grown to love. But he also knew that he could not stay in office and do what he loved the most. You guessed it, writing. Luckily, or unluckily he gets fired due to a change in political office. A new governor I think, maybe even president, any way, which brings us back to the beginning of the article in which he is supposed to have had any "ill-will".
Thus the story is able to be made, and thus it is.