This eBook was produced by David Widger                 THE DOLIVER ROMANCE AND OTHER PIECES                         TALES AND SKETCHES                       By Nathaniel Hawthorne                         TIMES PORTRAITUREBeing the Carriers Address to the Patrons of The Salem Gazette forthe 1st of January 1838ADDRESSKind PatronsWe newspaper carriers are Times errandboys and allthe year round the old gentleman sends us from one of your doors toanother to let you know what he is talking about and what he is doingWe are a strange set of urchins for punctually on New Years morningone and all of us are seized with a fit of rhyme and break forth in suchhideous strains that it would be no wonder if the infant Year with herstep upon the threshold were frightened away by the discord with whichwe strive to welcome her  On these occasions most generous patronsyou never fail to give us a taste of your bounty but whether as areward for our verses or to purchase a respite from further inflictionof them is best known to your worshipful selves  Moreover we Timeserrandboys as aforesaid feel it incumbent upon us on the first day ofevery year to present a sort of summary of our masters dealings withthe world throughout the whole of the preceding twelvemonth  Now ithas so chanced by a misfortune heretofore unheard of that I yourpresent petitioner have been altogether forgotten by the Muse  Insteadof being able as I naturally expected to measure my ideas into sixfoot lilies and tack a rhyme at each of their tails I find myselfthis blessed morning the same simple proser that I was yesterday andshall probably be tomorrow  And to my further mortification being ahumbleminded little sinner I feel no wise capable of talking to yourworships with the customary wisdom of my brethren and giving sageopinions as to what Time has done right and what he has done wrong andwhat of right or wrong he means to do hereafter  Such being my unhappypredicament it is with no small confusion of face that I make bold topresent myself at your doors  Yet it were surely a pity that my nonappearance should defeat your bountiful designs for the replenishing ofmy pockets  Wherefore I have bethought me that it might not displeaseyour worships to hear a few particulars about the person and habits ofFather Time with whom as being one of his errandboys I have moreacquaintance than most lads of my yearsFor a great many years past there has been a woodcut on the cover ofthe Farmers Almanac pretending to be a portrait of Father Time  Itrepresents that respectable personage as almost in a state of nuditywith a single lock of hair on his forehead wings on his shoulders andaccoutred with a scythe and an hourglass  These two latter symbolsappear to betoken that the old fellow works in haying time by the hourBut within my recollection Time has never carried a scythe and anhourglass nor worn a pair of wings nor shown himself in the halfnaked condition that the almanac would make us believe  Nowadays he isthe most fashionably dressed figure about town and I take it to be hisnatural disposition old as he is to adopt every fashion of the day andof the hour  Just at the present period you may meet him in a furredsurtout with pantaloons strapped under his narrowtoed boots on hishead instead of a single forelock he wears a smart auburn wig withbushy whiskers of the same hue the whole surmounted by a Germanlustrehat  He has exchanged his hourglass for a gold patentlever watchwhich he carries in his vestpocket and as for his scythe he haseither thrown it aside altogether or converted its handle into a canenot much stouter than a ridingswitch  If you stare him full in theface you will perhaps detect a few wrinkles but on a hasty glanceyou might suppose him to be in the very heyday of life as fresh as hewas in the garden of Eden  So much for the present aspect of Time butI by no means insure that the description shall suit him a month henceor even at this hour tomorrowIt is another very common mistake to suppose that Time wanders amongold ruins and sits on mouldering walls and mossgrown stonesmeditating about matters which everybody else has forgotten  Somepeople perhaps would expect to find him at the burialground in BroadStreet poring over the halfillegible inscriptions on the tombs of theHigginsons the HathornesNot Hawthorne as one of the presentrepresentatives of the family has seen fit to transmogrify a good oldnamethe Holyokes the Brownes the Olivers the Pickmans thePickerings and other worthies with whom he kept company of old  Somewould look for him on the ridge of Gallows Hill where in one of hisdarkest moods he and Cotton Mather hung the witches  But they need notseek him there  Time is invariably the first to forget his own deedshis own history and his own former associates  His place is in thebusiest bustle of the world  If you would meet Time face to face youhave only to promenade in Essex Street between the hours of twelve andone and there among beaux and belles you will see old Father Timeapparently the gayest of the gay  He walks arm in arm with the youngmen talking about balls and theatres and afternoon rides and midnightmerrymakings he recommends such and such a fashionable tailor andsneers at every garment of six months antiquity and generally beforeparting he invites