Question

Note to players: Description acceptable. In this essay, a “gray shade” is imagined lamenting the narrator's dissoluteness with lines like “the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!” Its narrator asserts that the words “I'll try, Sir!” would be “the best and fittest of all mottoes” for General Miller, after earlier praising the ability to “recollect good dinners” exhibited by (15[1])a man who otherwise had “no soul, no heart, no mind, nothing [...] but instincts.” This essay describes how moonlight helps turn a room into a “neutral territory” where the (*) “Actual and the Imaginary may meet.” This essay's narrator finds a package of manuscripts by Jonathan Pue (10[1]-5[2])that also contains a cloth that burns his breast. The narrator describes working in the port of Salem (10[1])in, for 10 points, what essay that leads into Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel (10[1])about Hester Prynne? ■END■ (10[1]0[1])

ANSWER: “The Custom-House” [accept answers that describe an introductory essay/sketch or introduction or preface or prologue to The Scarlet Letter; reject answers that suggest “first chapter” or similar]
<RC>
= Average correct buzz position

Back to tossups

Buzzes

PlayerTeamOpponentBuzz PositionValue
Jordan BrownsteinBrownstein et al.Mojo Shojo6115
Mitch McCullarIllinoisAmartya Senpai Notice Me108-5
Matt JacksonChicago AOSU10810
Chris SimsNorthwesternEpic Games108-5
Charles HangWUSTLMichigan12610
Alston BoydChicago B+Purdue University Fightin' Hadrien Davids13810
John LawrenceAmartya Senpai Notice MeIllinois14210
Jason AsherEpic GamesNorthwestern1420

Summary

2023 BHSU @ Northwestern02/25/2023Y683%17%33%115.00
2023 BHSU @ Maryland03/11/2023Y3100%0%33%121.67
2023 BHSU @ Berkeley03/18/2023Y3100%0%33%108.33
2023 BHSU @ Yale04/08/2023Y3100%33%0%101.33
2023 BHSU Online04/15/2023Y4100%25%0%117.50
2023 BHSU @ Sheffield04/15/2023Y2100%0%0%137.00
2023 BHSU @ Waterloo04/15/2023Y3100%0%33%130.33