



Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger








SKETCHES AND STUDIES

by

Nathaniel Hawthorne



CONTENTS

 Life of Franklin Pierce
 Chiefly about War Matters
 Alice Doane's Appeal
 The Ancestral Footstep





LIFE OF FRANKLIN PIERCE.


PREFACE.

The author of this memoir--being so little of a politician that he
scarcely feels entitled to call himself a member of any party--would not
voluntarily have undertaken the work here offered to the public.  Neither
can he flatter himself that he has been remarkably successful in the
performance of his task, viewing it in the light of a political
biography, and as a representation of the principles and acts of a public
man, intended to operate upon the minds of multitudes during a
presidential canvass.  This species of writing is too remote from his
customary occupations--and, he may add, from his tastes--to be very
satisfactorily done, without more time and practice than he would be
willing to expend for such a purpose.  If this little biography have any
value, it is probably of another kind--as the narrative of one who knew
the individual of whom he treats, at a period of life when character
could be read with undoubting accuracy, and who, consequently, in judging
of the motives of his subsequent conduct, has an advantage over much more
competent observers, whose knowledge of the man may have commenced at a
later date.  Nor can it be considered improper (at least, the author will
never feel it so, although some foolish delicacy be sacrificed in the
undertaking) that when a friend, dear to him almost from boyish days,
stands up before his country, misrepresented by indiscriminate abuse on
the one hand, and by aim