The Scarlet Letter

It is a little remarkable, that though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favored the reader inexcusably, and for no earthly reason, that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience in a Custom-House.