Amid all the variety of thoughtful and thoughtless praise, or of other
comment on the new romance, he began to feel that necessity for
abstracting his attention entirely from what was said of his work in
current publications, which forces itself upon every creative mind
attempting to secure some centre of repose in a chattering and unprivate
age like the present. This feeling he imparted to Bridge, and it also
appears in one or two published letters. At the same time, it must be
remembered how careful a consideration he gave to criticism; and he
wrote of Edwin Whipple's reviewing of the "Seven Gables":--
"Whipple's notices have done more than pleased me, for they have helped
me to see my book. Much of the censure I recognize as just; I wish I
could feel the praise to be so fully deserved. Being better (which I
insist it is) than 'The Scarlet Letter,' I have never expected it to be
so popular."
In this same letter occurs the following:--
"---- ----, Esq., of Boston, has written to me, complaining that I have
made his grandfather infamous! It seems there was actually a Pyncheon
(or Pynchon, as he spells it) family resident in Salem, and that their
representative, at the period of the Revolution, was a certain Judge
Pynchon, a Tory and a refugee. This was Mr. ----'s grandfather, and (at
least, so he dutifully describes him) the most exemplary old gentleman
in the world. There are several touches in my account of the Pyncheons
which, he says, make it probable that I had this actual family in my
eye, and he considers himself infinitely wronged and aggrieved, and
thinks it monstrous that the 'virtuous dead' cannot be suffered to rest
quietly in their graves.
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