"The House of the Seven Gables" was under way by September,
1850.
"I shan't have the new story ready," he writes to his publisher on the
1st of October, "by November, for I am never good for anything in the
literary way till after the first autumnal frost, which has somewhat
such an effect on my imagination that it does on the foliage here about
me,--multiplying and brightening its hues; though they are likely to be
sober and shabby enough after all."
The strain of reflection upon the work in hand which he indulged one
month later is so important as to merit dwelling upon.
"I write diligently, but not so rapidly as I had hoped. I find the book
requires more care and thought than 'The Scarlet Letter'; also I have to
wait oftener for a mood. 'The Scarlet Letter' being all in one tone, I
had only to get my pitch, and could then go on interminably. Many
passages of this book ought to be finished with the minuteness of a
Dutch picture, in order to give them their proper effect. Sometimes,
when tired of it, it strikes me that the whole is an absurdity, from
beginning to end; but the fact is, in writing a romance, a man is
always, or always ought to be, careering on, the utmost verge of a
precipitous absurdity, and the skill lies in coming as close as
possible, without actually tumbling over. My prevailing idea is, that
the book ought to succeed better than 'The Scarlet Letter,' though I
have no idea that it will."
By the 12th of January, 1851, he was able to write: "My 'House of the
Seven Gables' is, so to speak, finished; only I am hammering away a
little at the roof, and doing up a few odd jobs that were left
incomplete"; and at the end of that month, he despatched the manuscript
to Boston, still retaining his preference for it over the preceding work.
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