"Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale"
About this Quote
A “marvelous tale” doesn’t collapse when you stretch it; it often gets stronger. Hawthorne’s line is a sly admission about human appetite and authorial license: once a story signals it’s operating in the realm of the wondrous, people stop policing plausibility and start rewarding escalation. “Nobody” is the tell. He’s not just talking about writers; he’s indicting the whole social chain that manufactures legend - storytellers, listeners, gossips, even polite readers who pretend they’re above it. Conscience, in this setup, is the flimsy gatekeeper of realism, and Hawthorne is saying it quietly resigns the moment enchantment enters.
The intent is double-edged. On one hand, it’s a craft note from a novelist who trafficked in allegory, sin, and the supernatural: if you want moral truth, you sometimes need unreality to expose it. On the other, it’s a warning about how easily communities decorate a narrative until it becomes self-authorizing. The “improbabilities” aren’t mistakes; they’re incentives. Each added flourish makes the tale more retellable, more emotionally legible, more flattering to what the audience already wants to believe.
Context matters: Hawthorne is a nineteenth-century American writer working in a culture obsessed with providence, public virtue, and scandal. His fiction often shows how quickly moral certainty becomes theater. This line captures his suspicion that people don’t merely accept mythmaking - they collaborate in it, relieved to trade the burden of proof for the pleasures of meaning.
The intent is double-edged. On one hand, it’s a craft note from a novelist who trafficked in allegory, sin, and the supernatural: if you want moral truth, you sometimes need unreality to expose it. On the other, it’s a warning about how easily communities decorate a narrative until it becomes self-authorizing. The “improbabilities” aren’t mistakes; they’re incentives. Each added flourish makes the tale more retellable, more emotionally legible, more flattering to what the audience already wants to believe.
Context matters: Hawthorne is a nineteenth-century American writer working in a culture obsessed with providence, public virtue, and scandal. His fiction often shows how quickly moral certainty becomes theater. This line captures his suspicion that people don’t merely accept mythmaking - they collaborate in it, relieved to trade the burden of proof for the pleasures of meaning.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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