It is said that President
Tyler had at one time actually appointed him to the Salem post-office,
but was induced to withdraw his name. There were local factions that
kept the matter in abeyance. The choice, in any case, lay between the
Naval Office and the surveyorship, and Bridge urged Hawthorne's
appointment to the latter. "Whichever it be," wrote Hawthorne, "it is to
you that I shall owe it, among so many other solid kindnesses. I have as
true friends as any man has, but you have been the friend in need and
the friend indeed." At this time he was seriously in want of some
profitable employment, for he had received almost nothing from the
magazine. It was the period of credit, and debts were hard to collect.
His journal at the Old Manse refers to the same trouble. I have been
told that, besides losing the value of many of his contributions to the
"Democratic," through the failure of the magazine, he had advanced money
to the publishers, which was never repaid; but this has not been
corroborated, and as he had lost nearly everything at Brook Farm, it is
a little doubtful. At length, he was installed as surveyor in the Salem
Custom-House, where he hoped soon to begin writing at ease.
VII.
THE SCARLET LETTER.
1846-1850.
The literary result of the four years which Hawthorne now, after long
absence, spent in his native town, was the first romance which gave him
world-wide fame. But the intention of beginning to write soon was not
easy of fulfilment in the new surroundings.
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