It would not be safe to conclude, from the large amount of preliminary
writing done with a view to that romance, that Hawthorne always adopted
this laborious mode of making several drafts of a book. On the contrary,
it is understood that his habit was to mature a design so thoroughly in
his mind before attempting to give it actual existence on paper that but
little rewriting was needed. The circumstance that he was obliged to
write so much that did not satisfy him in this case may account partly
for his relinquishing the theme, as one which for him had lost its
seductiveness through too much recasting.
It need be added only that the original manuscript, from which the
following pages are printed through the medium of an exact copy, is
singularly clear and fluent. Not a single correction occurs throughout;
but here and there a word is omitted, obviously by mere accident, and
these omissions have been supplied. The correction in each case is marked
by brackets, in this printed reproduction. The sketch begins abruptly;
but there is no reason to suppose that anything preceded it except the
unrecorded musings in the author's mind, and one or two memoranda in the
"English Note-Books." We must therefore imagine the central figure,
Middleton, who is the American descendant of an old English family, as
having been properly introduced, and then pass at once to the opening
sentences.
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