“The Custom House,” an excerpt from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” defines Romanticism as a type of writing which integrates “the Actual and the Imaginary” to expose life in a new and “unusual light.” According to Hawthorne the best time to write Romantically is when “glancing at the looking glass, we behold… all gleam and shadow of the picture.” In other words, the best time to write a Romantic piece is when looking at life in a clean perspective because that is when all opposition- whether it be “gleam and shadow,” imagination and reason, or opposition in opinions and ideas- becomes as clear as “the looking glass” itself. In this time of clarity and inspiration (from other perspectives), any Romantic author will be able to
