/m CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 090 934 971 DATE DUE Mif^ 3 2003 1 '\ ^^^^ illL^i. 3l]RtH-»«^ '" ! GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924090934971 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2001 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY STEPHEN E. WHICHER MEMORIAL BOOK COLLECTION Gift of "MRS. ELIZABETH T. WHICHER l> • - O' — - KS-= W . 'i! i^ ; m— : THE SCARLET LETTER AND ■ THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE" BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE --- noKiox axo kkw votjc IIOUGIITON MIFPLTN CO^TANY \^33 \.^ — Copyrinlit, 1880 Mid 1M2. Dt NATHANIEL HAWTHORNK. Copyright, 1878 mud ISSO, Bt rose HAWTllORSE LATHUOP. Copyriglit, 1883, Bt nOUGHTON, MIFFLIN i CO. All rights reserved. COI^TEITTS. THE SCARLET LETTER. Introductory Note 9 Preface to the Second Edition 15 Tub CtJSTOM-HocsE. — Introductory 17 L The Prison-Door 67 IL The Market-Place 69 III. The Recognition 81 IV. The Interview 92 V. Hester at her Needle 101 VL Pearl 113 VII. The Governor's Hall 125 VIII. The Elf-Child and the Minister . . . 134 IX. The Leech 145 X. The Leech and his Patient .... 158 XI. The Interior of a Heart .... 170 XIL The Minister's Vigil 179 XIII. Another View of Hester .... 193 XIV. Hester and the Physician . ... 203 XV. Hester and Pearl 2U SVL a Forest Walk: . . .219 XVII. The Pastor and his Pakishiones . 227 XVIU. A Flood op Sunshine 239 XIX. The Child at the Brook-Side . . 247 XX. The Minister in a Maze .... S56 X.VI. The New England Holiday .... 270 XXII. The Procession . . . 281 XXIII. The Revelation of the Scaulet Letter . 294 XXIV. Conclusion .305 CONTENTS. THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCK PAQS Introductory Note 315 Preface 321 I. Old Moodib 325 II. Blitiiedale 330 III. A Knot of Dreamers 336 IV. The Supper-Table 346 V. Until Bedtime 356 VI. Coverdale's Sick-Ciiambek .... 364 VII. The Convalescent 375 VIII. A Modern Arcadia 385 IX. Holungsworth, Zen(3bia, Peiscilla . . 398 X. A Visitor from Toii'n 412 XI. The Wood-Path 421 XIL Coverdale's Hermitage 431 XIII. Zenobia's Legend 440 XIV. Eliot's Pulpit 453 XV. A Crisis 466 XVI. Leave-Takings 476 XVII. The Hotel 485 XVIII. The Boarding-House 494 XIX. Zenobia's Drawing-Hoom .... 502 XX. Thet vanish . 512 XXI. An Old Acquaintance 518 XXII. Fadntleroy 527 XXIIT. A Village Hall 540 XXIV. The Masqueraders 551 XXV. The Three together 561 XXVI. Zenobia and Coverdale 571 XXVII. Midnight 579 XXVIII. Blitiiedale Pasture 589 XXIX. Miles Coverdale's Confessiom . . . 597 THE SCARLET LETTER. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. THE SCAELET LETTER. " The Scarlet Letter " was the first sustained work of fiction completed by Hawthorne after he had be- come known to the public through the " Twice-Told Tales ; " and was the first among his books which attained popularity. He had meanwhile published "Grandfather's Chair," for children, and his "Mosses from an Old Manse." But it was not until he once more took up his residence in Salem, while occupy- ing the post of surveyor at the Custom House of that port, that he began to hear — as he expressed it to a friend — "a romance growling in his mind." This romance was the now world-famous one, which is again offered to readers in the present volume. It was begun some time in the winter of 1849-50, after the author had been deprived of his official situation. He completed the book February 3, 1850, and on the fol- lowing day wrote to Horatio Bridge : — " I finished my book only yesterday, one end being in the press in Boston, while the other was in my head here in Salem ; so that, as you see, the story is at least fourteen miles long. . . . Some portions of the book are powerfully written ; but my writings do not, nor ever will, appeal to the broadest class of sympa- thies, and therefore will not attain a very wide popu- 10 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. larity. Some like them very much ; others care noth- ing for them and see nothing in them. There is an introduction to this book, giving a sketch of my Cus- tom House life, with an imaginative touch here and there, which will perhaps be more attractive than the main narrative. The latter lacks sunshiae." So much, indeed, did the gravity and gloom of the situation in which he had placed Hester and Dimmes- dale weigh upon him, that he described himself as hav- ing had " a knot of sorrow " in his forehead all win- ter. Like Balzac, he secluded himself while writing a romance, and, iu fact, saw scarcely any one. It was noticed that he grew perceptibly thinner at such times ; and how strongly the fortunes of his imaginary prog- eny affected him is well shown by a reminiscence iu the "English Note-Books " (September 14, 1855) : — "Speaking of Thackeray, I cannot but wonder at his coolness in respect to his own pathos, and compare it with my emotions when I read the last scene of * The Scarlet Letter' to my wife, just after writing it — tried to read it, rather, for my voice swelled and heaved, as if I were tossed up and down on an ocean as it subsides after a storm." Nor was it only whUe in the act of composition with the pen that his fictions thus occupied all his faculties. During the time that he was engaged with " The Scar- let Letter," he would often become oblivious of his sur- romidings and absorbed in reverie. One day while in this mood he took from his wife's work-basket a piece of sewing and clipped it into minute fragments, with- out being aware of what he had done. This habit of unconscious destruction dated from his youth. The writer of these notes has in his possession a rocking- chair used by Hawthorne, from which he whittled INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 11 away the arms while occupied in study or in musings, at college. He is likewise said to have consumed an entire table in that manner during the same period. Finished in February, " The Scarlet Letter " was not issued imtU April. Although the publisher, Mr. Fields, formed a high estimate of its merit as a work of art, his confidence in its immediate commercial value appears not to have been great, if we may judge from the following circumstance. The first edition printed numbered five thousand copies — in itself a sufficiently large instalment — but the type from which these impressions had been taken was immedi- ately distributed ; showing that no very extensive de- mand was looked for. But this edition was exhausted in ten days, and the entire work had then to be re-set and stereotyped, to meet the continued call for copies. An illustration of Hawthorne's literary methods, and . the extreme deliberation with which he matured his romances from the first slight germ of fancy or fact, is offered in the story of " Endicott and The Red Cross," written and published before 1845. Mention is there made of " a young woman with no mean share of beauty, whose doom it was to wear the letter A on the breast of her gown, in the eyes of all the world and her own children. And even her own children knew what that initial signified. Sporting with her infamy^, the lost and desperate creature had embroidered the fatal token in scarlet cloth, with golden thread and the nicest art of needle-work ; so that the capital A might have been thought to mean Admirable, or anything rather than Adulteress." When this story appeared. Miss E. P. Peabody remarked to a friend : " We shall hear of that letter by and by, for it evidently has made a profound impression on Hawthorne's mind." 12 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Years after the sentences quoted above had been printed in the second series of " Twice- Told Tales," the peculiar punishment referred to was elaborated and refined into tho theme of " The Scarlet Letter." The prescribing of such a punislmient by the Puri- tan code is weU authenticated. Hawthorne, it is under- stood, had seen it mentioned in some of the records of Boston, and it wiU be found among the laws of Plym- outh Colony for 1658. A few years since, that close student of New England annals, the Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis, of Boston, stated incidentally in a lecture that there was not the slightest authenticity as to the person and character of the minister who plays the chief male jjart in the " Scarlet Letter " drama. Dr. ElUs held that, since Dimmesdale is represented as preaching the Election Sermon in the year of Gov- ernor Winthrop's death, he must be identified with the Kev. Thomas Cobbett, of Lynn, who actually deliv- ered the Election Sermon in the year named ; and he wished to defend the character of that clergyman against the suspicions of those who, like himself, con- ceived Dimmesdale to be simply a mask for the real Election preacher of that time. At the date under notice there was but one church in Boston, and its pastors were John Wilson and John Cotton. Wilson is mentioned under his own name in the romance ; so that there can be no confusion of his identity with Dimmesdale's. Neither is there any reason for sup- posing that Hawthorne had the slightest intention of fixing the guilt of his imaginary minister on either John Cotton, or Thomas Cobbett of Lynn. The very fact that the name of Arthur Dimmesdale is a ficti- tious one, while the Eev. Mr. Wilson and Governor BeUingham are introduced under their true titles. INTUODUCTORY NOTE. 13 ought to be proof enough, that Dimmesdale's story cannot be applied to the actual Election preacher of 1649. The historic particularization must be under- stood as used simply to heighten the verisimilitude of the tale, whUe its general poetic truth and the possi- bility of the situation occurring in early New England remain unquestionable. I believe it has not before been recorded that, •when " The Scarlet Letter " had been written nearly through, the author read the story aloud, as far as it was then completed, to Mrs. Hawthorne ; and, on her asking him what the ending was to be, he replied : " I don't know." To his wife's sister. Miss Peabody, he once said : " The difficulty is not how to say things, but what to say ; " implying that, whenever he began to write, his subject was already so well developed as to make the question mainly one of selection. But it is easy to imderstand how, when he came to the final solution of a difficult problem, he might then, being carried away by the conflicting interests of the differ- ent characters, hesitate as to the conclusion. When this romance was published it brought to Hawthorne letters from strangers, people who had sinned or were tempted and suffering, and who sought his counsel as they would that of a comprehensive friend or a confessor. The introductory chapter on the Custom House, upon which Hawthorne relied to alleviate the sombre- ness of the story, successfully accomplished that re- sult ; but, at the time of its publication, its good-na- tured and harmless humor roused great ire in some of the Salem people, who recognized the sketches it con- tained of now forgotten officials. One individual, of considerable intelligence otherwise, was known to have 14 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. firmly abstained from reading anything the author afterwards wrote ; a curious revenge, which would seem to be designed expressly to injure the censor himself, without hurting or even being known to Haw- thorne. 6. P. L. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. Much to the author's surprise, and (if he may say so without additional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his sketch of official life, in- troductory to The Scarlet Letter, has created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable commu- nity immediately around him. It could hardly have been more violent, indeed, had he burned down the Custom House, and quenched its last smoking ember in the blood of a certain venerable personage, against whom he is supposed to cherish a peculiar malevo- lence. As the public disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, were he conscious of deserving it, the author begs leave to say that he has carefully read over the introductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge whatever might be found amiss, and to make the best reparation in his power for the atrocities of which he has been adjudged guilty. But it appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere im- pressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives. The sketch might, perhaps, have been wholly omitted, without loss to the public, or detriment to the book ; but, having under- taken to write it, he conceives that it could not have 16 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. been done in a better or a kindlier spirit, nor, so far as his abilities availed, with a livelier effect of truth. The author is constrained, therefore, to republish his introductory sketch without the change of a word. Salem, March 30, 1850. THE SCARLET LETTER. THE CUSTOM HOUSE. INTKODUCTOET TO "THE SCAKLET LETTER." It is a little remarkable, that — though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fire- side, and to my personal friends — an autobiograph- ical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favored the reader — inexcusably, and for no earthly reason, that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine — with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now — because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion — I agaiu seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years' experience in a Custom House. The example of the famous " P. P., Clerk of this Parish," was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth ujjon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him, better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such 18 THE SCARLET LETTER. confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed, only and exclusively, to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer's own na- ture, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak imperson- ally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance be> numbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relatioa with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk ; and then, a na- tive reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me be- hind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, ^vithout violating either the reader's rights or his own. It wiU be seen likewise, that this Custom House sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recog- nized in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following jjages came into my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. This, in fact, — a desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume, — this, and no other is my true reason for assuming a personal relation with the public. In ac- complishing the main purpose, it has appeared allow- able, by a few extra touches, to give a faint represen- tation of a mode of life not heretofore described, together with some of the characters that move in it, sunong whom the author happened to make one. THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 19 In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf, — but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life ; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides ; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood, — at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many lan- guid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass, — here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbor, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic ; but with the thir- teen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military post of Uncle Sam's government is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half a dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous speci- men of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of tem- per that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she ajjpears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community ; and especially to warn all cit- izens, careful of their safety, against intruding on the 20 THE SCARLET LETTER. premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle ; imagining, I pre- sume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tender- ness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later, — of tener soon than late, — is apt to fling off her nest- lings, with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows. The pavement round about the above-described ed- ifice — which we may as well name at once as the Custom House of the port — has grass enough growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late daj's, been worn by any multitudinous resort of business. In some months of the year, however, there often chances a forenoon when affairs move onward with a livelier tread. Such occasions might remind the elderly citizen of that period before the last war with England, when Salem was a port by itself ; not scorned, as she is now, by her own merchants and ship-owners, who permit her wharves to crumble to ruin, while their ventures go to swell, needlessly and imperceptibly, the mighty flood of commerce at New York or Boston. On some such morning, when three or four vessels happen to have arrived at once, — usually from Africa or South America, — or to be on the verge of their departure thitherward, there is a sound of frequent feet, passing briskly up and down the granite steps. Here, before his own wife has greeted him, you may greet the sea- flushed shipmaster, just in port, with his vessel's papers under his arm, in a tarnished tin box. Here, too, comes his owner, cheerful or sombre, gracious or in the sulks, accordingly as his scheme of the now THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 21 accomplished voyage has been realized in merchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has buried him under a bulk of inconimodities, such as nobody wlU care to rid him of. Here, likewise, — the germ of the •wrinkle-browed, grizzly-bearded, care-worn merchant, — we have the smart young clerk, who gets the taste of traffic. as a wolf-cub does of blood, and already sends adventures in his master's ships, when he had better be sailing mimic - boats upon a mill - pond. Another figure in the scene is the outward-bound sailor in quest of a protection ; or the recently arrived one, pale and feeble, seeking a passport to the hospital. Nor must we forget the captains of the rusty little schooners that bring firewood from the British provinces ; a rough-looking set of tarpfulins, without the alertness of the Yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no slight importance to our decaying trade. Cluster all these individuals together, as they some- times were, with other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for the time being, it made the Cus- tom House a stirring scene. More frequently, how- ever, on ascending the steps, you would discern — in the entry, if it were summer time, or in their appro- priate rooms, if wintry or inclement weather — a row of venerable figures, sitting in old-fashioned chairs, which were tipped on their hind legs back against the wall. Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of almshouses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labor, or anything else, but their own independent exertions. These old gentle- den — seated, like Matthew, at the receipt of customs, 22 THE SCARLET LETTER. but not very liable to be summoned thence, like him, for apostolic errands — were Custom House officers. Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height; with two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a nar- row lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glunpses of the shops of grocers, block- makers, slop-sellers, and ship-chandlers ; around the doors of which are generally to be seen, laughing and gossiping, clusters of old salts, and such other wharf- rats as haunt the Wapping of a seaport. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with gray sai«d, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse ; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infre- quent access. In the way of furniture, there is a stove with a voluminous funnel; an old pine desk, with a three-legged stool beside it; two or three wooden -bottom chairs, exceedingly decrepit and in- firm; and — not to forget the library — on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of the Acts of Con- gress, and a bvdky Digest of the Revenue Laws. A tin pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal communication with other parts of the edifice. And here, some six months ago, — pacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged stool, with his elbow on the desk, and his eyes wan- dering up and down the columns of the morning news. paper, — you might have recognized, honored reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery THE CUSTOM HOUSE. li little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleas- antly through the wiUow branches, on the western side of the Old Manse. But now, should you go thither to seek him, you would inquire in vain for the Loeofoco Surveyor. The besom of reform has swept him out of office ; and a worthier successor wears his dignity, and pockets his emoluments. This old town of Salem — my native place, though I have dwelt much away from it, both in boyhood and maturer years — possesses, or did possess, a hold on my affections, the force of which I have never realized during my seasons of actual residence here. Indeed, so far as its physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural beauty, — its irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tame, — its long and lazy street lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows HiU and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the almshouse at the other, — such being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. And yet, though invari- ably happiest elsewhere, there is within me a feeling for old Salem, which, in lack of a better phrase, I must be content to call affection. The sentiment is probably assignable to the deep and aged roots which my family has struck into the soil. It is now nearly two centuries and a quarter since the original Briton, the earliest emigrant of my name, made his appear- ance in the wild and forest-bordered settlement, which has since become a city. And here his descendants have b6en born and died, and have mingled their earthly substance with the soil, until no small portion 24 THE SCARLET LETTER. of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little whUe, I walk the streets. In part, therefore, the attachment which I speak of is the mere sensuous sympathy of dust for dust. Few of my countrymen can know what it is ; nor, as frequent transplantation is perhaps better for the stock, need they consider it desirable to know. But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination, as far back as I can remem- ber. It stUl haunts me, and induces a sort of home- feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in refer- ence to the present phase of the town. 1 seem to hav* a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sabled-cloaked and steeple-crowned pro- genitor, — who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace, — a stronger claim than for myself, whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator, judge ; he was a ruler in the Church ; he had aU the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor, as wit- ness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicu- ous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in the Charter Street burial-ground, must still retain it, ii THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 26 they have not crumbled utterly to dust ! I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to rejjent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruel- ties ; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them, in another state of being. At all events, I, the present writer, as their represen- tative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them — as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist — may be now and henceforth removed. Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black- browed Puritans would have thought it quite a suffi- cient retribution for his sins, that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have ever cherished, would they recognize as laudable ; no success of mine — if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success ■ — would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. " What is he ? " murmurs one gray shadow of my forefathers to the other. " A writer of story-books ! What kind of a business in life, — what mode of glorifying God, or being service- able to mankind in his day and generation, — may that be ? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler ! " Such are the compliments ban- died between my great-grandsires and myself, across the gulf of time ! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine. Planted deep, in the town's earliest infancy and childhood, by these two earnest and energetic men. 26 THE SCARLET LETTER. the race has ever since subsisted here ; always, too, in respectability ; never, so far as I have known, dis- graced by a single unworthy member ; but seldom or never, on the other hand, after the first two genera- tions, performing any memorable deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to public iiotiee. Gradually, they have sunk almost out of sight ; as old houses, here and there about the streets, get covered half-way to the eaves by the accumulation of new soil. From father to son, for above a hundred years, they followed the sea ; a gray-head.ed shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale, which had blustered against his sire and grandsire. The boy, also, in due time, passed from the forecastle to the cabin, spent a tempestuous manhood, and returned from his world-wanderings, to grow old, and die, and mingle his dust with the natal earth. This long con- nection of a family with one spot, as its place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human be- ing and the locality, quite independent of any charm in the scenery or moral circumstances that surround him. It is not love, but instinct. The new inhabitant ■ — who came himself from a foreign land, or whose father or grandfather came — has little claim to be called a Salemite ; he has no conception of the oj'^ster- like tenacity with which an old settler, over whom his third century is creeping, clings to the spot where his successive generations have been imbedded. It is no matter that the place is joyless for him ; that he is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres, — aU THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 27 these, and whatever faults besides he may see or im- agine, are nothing to the purpose. The spell survives, and just as powerfully as if the natal spot were au earthly paradise. So has it been in my case. I felt it almost as a destiny to make Salem my home ; so that the mould of features and cast of character which had all along been familiar here, — ever, as one repre- sentative of the race lay down in his grave, another as- suming, as it were, his sentry-march along the main street, — might stiU in my little day be seen and rec- ognized in the old town. Nevertheless, this very sen- timent is an evidence that the connection, which has become an unhealthy one, should at last be severed. Human nature will not flourish, any more than a po- tato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soU. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth. On emerging from the Old Manse, it was chiefly this strange, indolent, unjoyous attachment for my na- tive town, that brought me to fill a place in Uncle Sam's brick edifice, when I might as well, or better, have gone somewhere else. My doom was on me. It was not the first time, nor the second, that I had gone away, — as it seemed, permanently, • — but yet returned, like the bad half-penny ; or as if Salem were for me the inevitable centre of the universe. So, one fine morning, I ascended the flight of granite steps, ^^'ith the President's commission in my pocket, and was in- troduced to the corps of gentlemen who were to aid me in my weighty responsibility, as chief executive officer of the Custom House. I doubt greatly — or, rather, I do not doubt at all 28 this: scarlet letter. — whether any public functionary of the United States, either in the civil or military line, has ever had such a patriarchal body of veterans under his orders as my- self. The whereabouts of the Oldest Inhabitant was at once settled, when I looked at them. For upwards of twenty years before this epoch, the independent po- sition of the Collector had kept the Salem Custom House out of the whirlpool of political vicissitude, which makes the tenure of office generally so fragile. A soldier, — New England's most distinguished sol- dier, — he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant services ; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive administrations through which he had held office, he had been the safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heartquake. General MiUer was radically conservative ; a man over whose kindly nature habit had no slight influence ; attach- ing himself strongly to familiar faces, and with diffi- culty moved to change, even when change might have brought unquestionable improvement. Thus, on tak- ing charge of my department, I found few but aged men. They were ancient sea-captains, for the most part, who, after being tost on every sea, and standing up sturdily against life's tempestuous blast, had finally drifted into this quiet nook ; where, with little to dis- turb them, except the periodical terrors of a presiden- tial election, they one and all acquired a new lease of existence. Though by no means less liable than their fellow-men to age and infirmity, they had evidently some talisman or other that kept death at bay. Two or three of their number, as I was assured, being gouty and rheumatic, or perhaps bedridden, never di-eamed of making their appearance at the Custom House dur- ing a large part of the year ; but, after a torpid win THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 29 ter, would creep out into the warm sunshine of May or June, go lazily about what they termed duty, and, at their own leisure and convenience, betake themselves to bed again. I must plead guilty to the charge of ab- breviating the official breath of more than one of these venerable servants of the republic. They were allowed, on my representation, to rest from their arduous labors, and soon afterwards — as if their sole principle of life had been zeal for their country's service, as I verily believe it was — withdrew to a better world. It is a pious consolation to me, that, through my interference, a sufficient space was allowed them for repentance of the evil and corrupt practices into which, as a matter of course, every Custom House officer must be sup- posed to fall. Neither the front nor the back entrance of the Custom House opens on the road to Paradise. The greater part of my officers were Whigs. It was well for their venerable brotherhood that the new Surveyor was not a politician, and though a faithful Democrat in principle, neither received nor held his office with any reference to political services. Had it been otherwise, — had an active politician been put into this influential post, to assume the easy task of making head against a Whig Collector, whose infirmi- ties withheld him from the personal administration of his office, — hardly a man of the old corps would have drawn the breath of official life, within a month af- ter the exterminating angel had come up the Custom House steps. According to the received code in such matters, it would have been nothing short of dutj', in a politician, to bring every one of those white heads under the axe of the guillotine. It was plain enough to discern that the old fellows dreaded some such dis- courtesy at my hands. It pamed, and at the same 30 THE SCARLET LETTER. time amused mc, to behold the terrors that attended my advent ; to see a furrowed cheek, weather-beaten by half a century of storm, turn ashy pale at the glance of so harmless an individual as myself ; to detect, as one or another addressed me, the tremor of a voice, which, in long-past days, had been wont to bellow through a speaking-trumpet hoarsely enough to fright- en Boreas himself to silence. They knew, these excel- lent old persons, that, by all established rule, — and, as regarded some of them, weighed by their own lack of efficiency for business, — they ought to have given place to younger men, more orthodox in politics, and altogether fitter than themselves to serve our common Uncle. I knew it too, but could never quite find in my heart to act upon the knowledge. Much and de- servedly to my own discredit, therefore, and consider- ably to the detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the Custom House steps. They spent a good deal of time, also, asleep in their accustomed corners, \vith their chairs tilted back against the wall ; awaking, however, once or twice in a forenoon, to bore one another with the several thou- sandth repetition of old sea-stories, and mouldy jokes, that had grown to be passwords and countersigns among them. The discovery was soon made, I imagine, that the new Surveyor had no great harm in him. So, with lightsome hearts, and the happy consciousness of being usefully employed, — in their own behalf, at least, if not for our beloved country, — • these good old gentle- men went through the various formalities of office. Sagaciously, under their spectacles, did they peep into the holds of vessels ! Mighty was their fuss about lit THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 31 tie matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtiiseness that allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers ! Whenever such a mischance occurred, — when a wag- on-load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their unsuspicious noses, — nothing could exceed the vigi- lance and alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, and double-lock, and secure with tape and sealing- wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel. Instead of a reprimand for their j)revious negligence, the case seemed rather to require an eulogium on their praise- worthy caution, after the mischief had happened ; a grateful recognition of the promptitude of their zeal, the moment that there was no longer any remedy. Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, it is my foolish habit to contract a kindness for them. The better part of my companion's character, if it have a better part, is that which usually comes uppermost in my regard, and forms the tjrpe whereby I recognize the man. As most of these old Custom House officers had good traits, and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective, was favorable to the growth of friendly sentiments, I soon grew to like them all. It was pleasant, in the summer forenoons, — when the fervent heat, that ahnost liquefied the rest of the human family, merely communicated a genial warmth to their half -torpid systems, — it was pleasant to hear them chatting in the back entry, a row of them all tij)ped against the wall, as usual ; while the frozen witticisms of past genei'ations were thawed out, and came bubbling witli laughter from their lips. Exter- nally, the jollity of aged men has much in common with the mirth of children ; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of hmnor, has little to do with the 32 7 HE SCARLET LETTER. matter ; it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch, and gray, mouldering trunk. In one case, however, it is real sunshine ; in the other, it more resembles the phosphorescent glow of decaying wood. It would be sad injustice, the reader must under- stand, to represent all my excellent old friends as in their dotage. In the first place, my coadjutors were not invariably old ; there were men among them in their strength and prime, of marked ability and en ergy, and altogether superior to the sluggish and de- pendent mode of life on which their evil stars had cast them. Then, moreover, the white locks of age were sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good repair. But, as respects the ma- jority of my corps of veterans, there will be no wrong done, if I characterize them generally as a set of wearisome old souls, who had gathered nothing worth preservation from their varied experience of life. They seemed to have flung away all the golden grain of practical wisdom, which they had enjoyed so many opportunities of harvesting, and most carefully to have stored their memories with the husks. They spoke with far more interest and unction of their morning's breakfast, or yesterday's, to-day's, or to-morrow's din- ner, than of the shipwreck of forty or fifty years ago, and all the world's wonders which they had witnessed with their youthful eyes. The father of the Custom House — the patriarch, not only of this little squad of officials, but, I am bold to say, of the respectable body of tide-waiters all over the United States — was a certain permanent In- spector. He might truly be termed a legitimate son THE CUSTOA, HOUbE. 83 of the revenue system, dyed in the wool, or, rather, born in the purple ; since his sire, a Revolutionary colonel, and formerly collector of the port, had created an office for him, and appointed him to fill it, at a period of the early ages which few living men can now remember. This Inspector, when I first knew him, was a man of fourscore years, or thereabouts, and cer- tainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter- green tliat you would be likely to discover in a life- time's search. With his florid cheek, his compact figure, smartly arrayed in a bright-buttoned blue coat, his brisk and vigorous step, and his hale and hearty aspect, altogether he seemed — - not young, indeed — but a kind of new contrivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which per- petually reechoed through the Custom House, had nothing of the tremulous quaver and cackle of an old man's utterance ; they came strutting out of his limgs, like the crow of a cock, or the blast of a clarion. Looking at him merely as an animal, — and there was very little else to look at, — he was a most satisfactory object, from the thorough healthfulness and whole- someness of his system, and his capacity, at that ex- treme age, to enjoy all, or nearly all, the delights which he had ever aimed at, or conceived of. The careless security of his life in the Custom House, on a regular income, and with but slight and infrequent ap- prehensions of removal, had no doubt contributed to make time pass lightly over him. The original and more potent causes, however, lay in the rare perfection of his animal nature, the moderate proportion of in- tellect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients ; these latter qualities, indeed, 84 . THE SCARLET LETTER. being in barely enough measure to keep the old gen- tleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no power of thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities; nothing, in short, but a few common- place instincts, which, aided by the cheerful temper that grew inevitably out of his physical well-being, did duty very respectably, and to general acceptance, in lieu of a heart. He had been the husband of three wives, all long since dead ; the father of twenty chil- dren, most of whom, at every age of childhood or maturity, had likewise returned to dust. Here, one would suppose, might have been sorrow enough to imbue the sunniest disposition, through and through, with a sable tinge. Not so with our old Inspector ! One brief sigh sufficsd to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences. The next moment, he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched infant ; far readier than the Collector's junior clerk, who, at nine- teen years, was much the elder and graver man of the two. I used to watch and study this patriarchal person- age with, I tliink, livelier curiosity, than any other form of humanity there presented to my notice. He was, in truth, a rare phenomenon ; so perfect, in one point of view ; so shallow, so delusive, so impalpable, such an absolute nonenity, in every other. My con- clusion was that he had no soul, no lieart, no mind ; nothing, as I have already said, but instincts ; and yet, withal, so cunningly had the few materials of his char- acter been put together, that there was no painful fier- eeption of deficiency, but, on my part, an entire con- tentment with what I found in him. It might be difficult — and it was so — to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so earthly and sensuous did he seem- THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 8£ but surely his existence here, admitting that it was tc terminate with his last breath, had been not unkindly given; with no higher moral responsibilities than the beasts of the field, but with a larger scope of enjoy ment than theirs, and with all their blessed immunil^ from the dreariness and duskiness of age. One point, in which he had vastly the advantage over his four-footed brethren, was his ability to recol lect the good dinners which it had made no small por- tion of the happiness of his life to eat. His gour- mandism was a highly agreeable trait ; and to hear him talk of roast meat was as appetizing as a piclde or an oyster. As he possessed no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual en- dowment by devoting all his energies and ingenuities to subserve the delight and profit of his maw, it always pleased and satisfied me to hear him expatiate on fish, poultry, and butcher's meat, and the most eligible methods of preparing them for the table. His remi- niscences of good cheer, however ancient the date of the actual banquet, seemed to bring the savor of pig or turkey under one's very nostrils. There were flavors on his palate, that had lingered there not less than sixty or seventy years, and were stUl apparently as fresh as that of the mutton-chop which he had just de- voured for his breakfast. I have heard him smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except himseK, had long been food for worms. It was mar- vellous to observe how the ghosts of bygone meals were continually rising up before him ; not in anger or retribution, but as if grateful for his former appre- ciation and seeking to resuscitate an endless series of enjojrment, at once shadowy and sensual. A tender- loin of beef, a hindquarter of veal, a sp'arerib of pork. 86 THE SCARLET LETTER. a particular chicken, or a remarltably praiseworthy turkey, which had perhaps adorned his board in the days of the elder Adams, would be remembered; while all the subsequent experience of our race, and all the events that brightened or darkened his indi- vidual career, had gone over him with as little permEb- nent effect as the passing breeze. The chief tragic event of the old man's life, so far as I coidd judge, was his mishap with a certain goose which lived and died some twenty or forty years ago ; a goose of most promising figure, but wliich, at table, proved so invet- erately tough that the carving-knife would make no impression on its carcass, and it could only be divided with an axe and handsaw. But it is time to quit this sketch ; on which, how- ever, 1 should be glad to dwell at considerably more length, because, of all men whom I have ever known, this individual was fittest to be a Custom House officer. Most persons, owing to causes which I may not have space to hint at, suffer moral detriment from this pe- culiar mode of life. The old Inspector was incapable of it, and, were he to continue in office to the end of time, would be just as good as he was then, and sit down to dinner with just as good an aj)petite. There is one likeness, without which my gallery of Custom House portraits would be strangely incomplete ; but which my comj)aratively few opportunities for observation enable me to sketch only in the merest outline. It is that of the CoUectoi-, our gallant old General, who, after his brilliant military service, sub- sequently to which he had ruled over a wild Western territory, had come hither, twenty years before, to spend the decline of his varied and honorable life. The brave soldier had already numbered, nearly or THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 37 quite, his threescore years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of his eartlily march, burdened with in- firmities which even the martial music of his own sj)irit- stirring recollections could do little towards lightening. The step was palsied now that had been foremost in the charge. It was only with the assistance of a servant, and by leaning his hand heavily on the iron balustrade, that he could slowly and painfully ascend the Custom House steps, and, with a toilsome progress across the floor, attain his customary chair beside the fireplace. There he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim se- renity of aspect at the figures that came and went ; amid the rustle of papers, the administering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the casual talk of the office ; all which sounds and circumstances seemed but indistinctly to impress his senses, and hardly to make their way into his inner sphere of contemplation. His countenance, in this repose, was mild and kindly. If his notice was sought, an expression of courtesy and interest gleamed out upon his features ; proving that there was light within him, and that it was only the outward medium of the intellectual lamp that ob- structed the rays in their passage. The closer you penetrated to the substance of his mind, the sounder it appeared. When no longer called upon to speak, or listen, either of which operations cost him an evi- dent effort, his face would briefly subside into its for- mer not uncheerful quietude. It was not painful to behold this look ; for, though dim, it had not the im- becility of decaying age. The framework of his na- ture, originally strong and massive, was not yet crum- bled into ruin. To observe and define his character, however, under such disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace S8 THE SCARLET LETTER. out and build up anew, In imagination, an old fortress, like Ticonderoga, from a view of its gray and broken ruins. Here and there, perchance, the walls may re- main almost complete, but elsewhere may be only a shapeless mound, cumbrous with its very strength, and overgrown, through long years of peace and neglect, with grass and alien weeds. Nevertheless, looking at the old warrior with affec- tion, — for, slight as was the communication between us, my feeling towards him, like that of all bipeds and quadrupeds who knew him, might not improperly be termed so, — I could discern the main points of his portrait. It was marked with the noble and heroic qualities which showed it to be not by a mere accident, but of good right, that he had won a distinguished name. His spirit could never, I conceive, have been characterized by an uneasy activity; it must, at any period of his life, have required an impulse to set him in motion ; but, once stirred up, with obstacles to over- come, and an adequate object to be attained, it was not in the man to give out or fail. The heat that had formerly pervaded his nature, and which was not yet extinct, was never of the kind that flashes and flickers in a blaze ; but, rather, a deep, red glow, as of iron in a furnace. Weight, solidity, firmness ; this was the expression of his repose, even in such decay as had crept untimely over him, at the period of which I speak. But I could imagine, even then, that under some excitement which should go deeply into his con- sciousness, — roused by a trumpet-peal loud enough to awaken all his energies that were not dead, but only slumbering, — he was yet capable of flinging off his infirmities like a sick man's gown, dropping the staff of age to seize a battle-sword, and starting up once THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 89 more a warrior. And, in so intense a moment, Ma demeanor would have still been calm. Such an ex- hibition, however, was but to be pictured in fancy ; not to be anticipated, nor desired. What I saw in him — as evidently as the indestructible ramparts of Old Ticonderoga already cited as the most appropriate simile — were the features of stubborn and ponderous endurance, which might well have amounted to ob- stinacy in his earlier days ; of integrity, that, like most of his other endowments, lay in a somewhat heavy mass, and was just as unmalleable and unman- ageable as a ton of iron ore ; and of benevolence, which, fiercely as he led the bayonets on at Chippewa or Fort Erie, I take to be of quite as genuine a stamp as what actuates any or all the polemical philanthro- pists of the age. He had slain men with his own hand for aught I know, — certainly they had fallen, like blades of grass at the sweep of the scythe, before the charge to which his spirit imparted its triiunphant energy ; but, be that as it might, there was never in his heart so much cruelty as would have brushed the down off a butterfly's wing. I have not known the man, to whose innate kindliness I would more confi- dently make an appeal. Many characteristics — and those, too, which con- tribute not the least forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch — must have vanished, or been obscured, be- fore I met the General. All merely graceful attri- butes are usually the most evanescent ; nor does Na- ture adorn the human ruin with blossoms of new beauty that have their roots and proper nutriment only in the chinks and crevices of decay, as she sows wall- flowers over the ruined fortress of Ticonderoga. StUl, Rven in respect of grace and beautj', there were points «0 THE SCARLET LETTER. Well worth not) "g. A ray of humor, now and then, would make its way through the veil of dim obstriic* I tion, and glimmer pleasantly upon our faces. A trait ' of native elegance, seldom seen in the masculine char- acter after childhood or early youth, was shown in the General's fondness for the sight and fragrance of flowers. An old soldier might be supposed to prize only the bloody laurel on his brow ; but here was one who seemed to have a young girl's appreciation of the I floral tribe. There, beside the fireplace, the brave old General used to sit ; while the Surveyor — though seldom, when it could be avoided, taking upon himself the difficult task of engaging him in conversation — was fond of standing at a distance, and watching his quiet and almost slumberous countenance. lie seemed away from us, although we saw him but a few yards off ; remote, though we passed close beside his chair ; im- attainable, though we might have stretched forth our hands and touched his own. It might be that he lived a more real life within his thoughts than amid the un- appropriate environment of the Collector's ofl&ce. The evolutions of the parade ; the tumult of the battle ; the flom'ish of old, heroic music, heard thirty years before, — such scenes and sounds, perhaps, were aU alive be- fore his intellectual sense. Meanwhile, the mei'chants and shipmasters, the spruce clerks and imcouth sailors, entered and departed ; the bustle of this commercial and Custom House life kejjt up its little murmur round about him ; and neither with the men nor their af- fairs did the General appear to sustain the most dis- tant relation. He was as much out of place as an old Bword — now rusty, but which had flashed once in the battle's front, and showed stUl a bright gleam along THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 41 its blade — would have been, among the inkstands, paper - folders, and mahogany rulers, on the Deputy Collector's desk. There was one thing that much aided me in renew- ing and re-creating the stalwart soldier of the Niagara frontier, — the man of true and simple energy. It was the recollection of those memorable words of his, ■ — " I '11 try, Sir ! " — spoken on the very verge of a desperate and heroic enterprise, and breathing the soul and spirit of New England hardihood, compre- hending all perils, and encountering all. If, in our country, valor were rewarded by heraldic honor, this phrase — which it seems so easy to speak, but which only he, with such a task of danger and glory before him, has ever spoken — would be the best and fittest of all mottoes for the General's shield of arms. It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of com- panionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. The acci dents of my life have often afforded me this advantage, but never with more fulness and variety than during my continuance in office. There was one man, espe- cially, the observation of whose character gave me a new idea of talent. His gifts were emphatically those of a man of business ; prompt, acute, clear-minded ; with an eye that saw through all perplexities, and a faculty of arrangement that made them vanish, as by the wav- ing of an enchanter's wand. Bred up from boyhood in the Custom House, it was his proper field of activ- ity ; and the many intricacies of business, so harassing to the interloper, presented themselves before him with the regularity of a perfectly comprehended system. In 42 THE SCARLET LETTER. my contemplation, he stood as the ideal of his class. He was, indeed, the Custom House in himself ; or, at all events, the mainspring that kept its variously re- volving wheels in motion ; for, in an institution like this, where its officers are appointed to subserve their own profit and convenience, and seldom with a lead- ing reference to their fitness for the duty to be per- formed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dex- terity which is not in them. Thus, by an inevitable necessity, as a magnet attracts steel-filings, so did our man of business draw to himself the difficulties which everybody met with. With an easy condescension, and kind forbearance towards our stupidity, — which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little short of crime, — would he forthwith, by the merest touch of his finger, make the incomprehensible as clear as day- light. The merchants valued him not less than we, his esoteric friends. His integrity was perfect : it was a law of nature with him, rather than a choice or a principle ; nor can it be otherwise than the main con- dition of an intellect so remarkably clear and accurate as his, to be honest and regular in the administration of affairs. A stain on his conscience, as to anything that came within the range of his vocation, would trouble such a man very much in the same way, though to a far greater degree, than an error in the balance of an account, or an ink-blot on the fair j^age of a book of record. Here, in a word, — and it is a rare instance in my life, — I had met with a person thoroughly adapted to the situation which he held. Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thro^vn into a j)osition 60 little akin to my past habits, and set myself seri THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 43 ously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes ^ with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm ; after liv- ing for three years within the subtUe influence of an intellect like Emerson's ; after those wild, free days on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, be- side our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing : after talking with Thoreau about pine-trees and Indian relics, in his hermitage at Walden ; after growing fas- tidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of HUlard's culture ; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow's hearth-stone, — it was time, ; at length, that I should exercise other faculties of my { nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had j hitherto had little appetite. Even the old Inspector^ was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I look upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lack- ing no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change. Literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little moment in my regard. I cared not, at this period, for books ; they were apart from me. Nature, — except it were human nature, — the nature that is developed in earth and sky, was, in one sense, hidden from me ; and all the imaginative delight, wherewith it had been -^ spiritualized, passed away out of my mind. A gift, a faculty if it had not departed, was suspended and in- animate within me. There would have been something sad, unutterably dreary, in all this, had I not been ■ conscious that it lay at my own option to recall what- ' ever was valuable in the past. It might be true, in- 44 THE SCARLET LETTER. deed, that this was a life which could not with impu- nity be lived too long ; else, it might have made me permanently other than I had been without transform- ing me into any shape which it would be worth my while to take. But I never considered it as other than a transitory life. There was always a prophetic in stinct, a low whisper in my ear, that, within no long period, and whenever a new change of custom should be essential to my good, a change would come. Meanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Revenue, and, so far as I have been able to understand, as good a Surveyor as need be. A man of thought, fancy, and sensibility (had he ten times the Surveyor's propor- tion of those qualities) may, at any time, be a man of affairs, if he will only choose to give himself the trouble. My fellow-officers, and the merchants and sea-captains with whom my official duties brought me into any manner of connection, viewed me in no other light, and probably knew me in no other character. None of them, I presume, had ever read a page of my inditing, or would have cared a fig the more for me if they had read them all ; nor would it have mended the matter, in the least, had those same unprofitable pages been written with a pen like that of Burns or of Chaucer, each of whom was a Custom House officer in his day, as well as I. It is a good lesson — though it may often be a hard one — for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world's dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly de- void of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at. I know not that I es. pecially needed the lesson, either in the way of warn THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 45 ing or rebuke ; but, at any rate, I learned it thorougUy : nor, it gives me pleasure to reflect, did the truth, as it came home to my perception, ever cost me a pang, or require to be throvs^n off in a sigh. In the way of lit- erary talk, it is true, the Naval Officer — an excellent fellow, who came into office with me and went out only a little later — would often engage me in a discussion about one or the other of his favorite topics. Napoleon or Shakespeare. The Collector's junior clerk, too, — a young gentleman who, it was whispered, occasionally covered a sheet of Uncle Sam's letter-paper with what (at the distance of a few yards) looked very much like poetry, — used now and then to speak to me of books, as matters with which I might possibly be conversant. This was my all of lettered intercourse ; and it was quite sufficient for my necessities. No longer seeking nor caring that my name should be blazoned abroad on title-pages, I smiled to think that it had now another kind of vogue. The Custom House marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar- boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities had paid the im- post, and gone regularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my ex- istence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, I hope, will never go again. But the past was not dead. Once in a great while, the thoughts, that had seemed so vital and so active, yet had been put to rest so quietly, revived again. One of the most remarkable occasions, when the habit of bygone days awoke in me, was that which brings it within the law of literary propriety to offer the pubUo the sketch which I am now writing-. 46 THE SCARLET LETTER. In the second story of the Custom House there is a large room, in which the hrick-work and naked rafters have never been covered vv^ith panelling and plaster. The edifice — originally projected on a scale adapted to the old commercial enterprise of the port, and vv^ith an idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to be realized — contains far more space than its occupants know what to do with. This airy haU, therefore, over the Collector's apartments, remains unfinished to this day, and, in spite of the aged cobwebs that festoon its dusky beams, appears still to await the labor of the carpenter and mason. At one end of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels, piled one upon an- other, containing bundles of official documents. Large quantities of similar rubbish lay lumbering the floor. It was sorrowful to think how many days and weeks and months and years of toil had been wasted on these musty papers, which were now only an encumbrance on earth, and were hidden away in this forgotten corner, never more to be glanced at by hmnan eyes. But, then, what reams of other manuscripts — filled, not with the dulness of official formalities, but with the thought of inventive brains and the rich effusion of deep hearts — had gone equally to oblivion ; and that, moreover, without serving a purpose in their daj'', as these heaped-up papers had, and — saddest of aU — without purchasing for their writers the comforta- ble livelihood which the clerks of the Custom House had gained by these worthless scratcliings of the pen ! Yet not altogether worthless, perhaps, as materials of local history. Here, no doubt, statistics of the former commerce of Salem might be discovered, and memo- rials of her princely merchants, — old King Derby, — old BiUy Gray, — old Simon Forrester, — and many THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 47 another magnate in his day; whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb, before his moun- tain pile of wealth began to dwindle. The founders of the greater part of the families which now compose the aristocracy of Salem might here be traced, from the petty and obscure beginnings of their traffic, at periods generally much posterior to the Revolution, upward to what their children look upon as long-estab lished rank. Prior to the Revolution, there is a dearth of rec- ords ; the earlier documents and archives of the Custom House having, probably, been carried off to Halifax, when all the King's officials accompanied the British army in its flight from Boston. It has often been a matter of regret with me ; for, going back, per- haps, to the days of the Protectorate, those papers must have contained many references to forgotten or remembered men, and to antique customs, which would have affected me with the same pleasure as when I used to pick up Indian arrow-heads in the field near the Old Manse. But one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to make a discovery of some little interest. Poking and burrowing into the heaped-up rubbish in the corner ; unfolding one and another document, and reading the names of vessels that had long ago foundered at sea or rotted at the wharves, and those of merchants never heard of now on 'Change, nor very readily deciphera- ble on their mossy tombstones ; glancing at such mat- ters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest which we bestow on the corpse of dead activity, - - and exerting my fancy, sluggish with little use, to raise up from these dry bones an image of the old town's brighter aspect, when India was a new region, and 48 THE SCARLET LETTER. only Salem knew the way tliither, — I chanced to lay my hand on a small package, carefully done ujj in a piece of ancient yellow parchment. This envelope had the air of an official record of some period long past, when clerks engrossed their stiff and formal chirog- raphy on more substantial materials than at present. There was something about it that quickened an in- stinctive curiosity, and made me undo the faded red tape, that tied up the package, with the sense that a treasure would here be brought to light. Unbending the rigid folds of the parclunent cover I fomid it to be a commission, under the hand and seal of Governor Shirley, in favor of one Jonathan Pue, as Surveyor of his Majesty's Customs for the port of Salem, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. I remembered to have read (probably in Felt's Annals) a notice of the decease of Mr. Surveyor Pue, about fourscore years ago ; and likewise, in a newspaper of recent times, an account of the digging up of his remams in the little graveyard of St. Peter's Church, during the re- newal of that edifice. Nothing, if I rightly call to mind, was left of my respected predecessor, save an imj)erfect skeleton, and some fragments of aj)parel, and a wig of majestic frizzle ; which, unlike the head that it once adorned, was in very satisfactory pres- ervation. But, on examining the papers which the parchment commission served to envelop, I found more traces of Mr. Pue's mental part, and the internal opera- tions of his head, than the frizzled wig had contained of the venerable skull itself. They were documents, in short, not official, but of a private nature, or, at least, written in his private ca- pacity, and apparently with his own hand. I could account for their being included in the heap of Cus- THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 49 torn House lumber only by the fact that Mr. Pue's death had happened suddenly ; and that these papers, which he probably kept in his official desk, had never come to the knowledge of his heirs, or were sujjposed to relate to the business of the revenue. On the trans- fer of the archives to Halifax, this package, proving to be of no public concern, was left behind and had re- mained ever since unopened. The ancient Surveyor — being little molested, I sup- pose, at that early day, with business pertaining to his office — seems to have devoted some of his many lei- sure hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and other inquisitions of a similar nature. These supplied material for petty activity to a mind that would other- wise have been eaten up with rust. A portion of his facts, by the by, did me good service in the preparation of the article entitled "Main Street," included in the third volume of this edition. The remainder may per- haps be applied to purposes equally valuable hereafter; or not imj)ossibly may be worked up, so far as they go, into a regular history of Salem, should my veneration for the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task. Meanwhile, they shall be at the command of any gen- tleman, inclined, and competent, to take the unprofita^ ble labor off my hands. As a final disposition, I con- template depositing them with the Essex Historical Society. But the object that most drew my attention, in the mysterious package, was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded. There were traces about it of gold embroidery, which, liowever, was greatly frayed and defaced ; so that none, or very little, of the glitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework ; and the 50 THE SCARLET LETTER. stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be recovered even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth, — for time and wear and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag, — on careful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was the capital letter A. By an accurate measurement, each limb proved to be pre- cisely three inches and a quarter in length. It had been intended, there could be no doubt, as an orna- mental article of dress ; but how it was to be worn, or what rank, honor, and dignity, in by-past times, were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are the fashions of the world in these particulars) I saw little hope of solving. And yet it strangely interested me. My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scar- let letter, and would not be turned aside. Certainly, there was some deep meaning in it, most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic sjnnbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my mind. While thus perplexed, — and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men used to contrive, in order to take the eyes of Indians, — I happened to place it on my breast. It seemed to me, — the reader may smile, but must not doubt my word, — it seemed to me, then, that I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, as of burning heat ; and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and involunta- rily let it fall upon the floor. In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 51 I had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had been twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find, recorded by the old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete ex- planation of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets containing many jjarticulars respecting the life and conversation of one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished during the period between the early days of Massa chusetts and the close of the seventeenth century. Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Surveyor Pue, and from whose oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a very old, but not decrepit i^oman, of a stately and solemn aspect. It had been her habit, from an almost imme- morial date, to go about the country as a kind of vol- untary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might ; taking upon herself, likewise, to give ad- vice in all matters, especially those of the heart ; by which means, as a person of such propensities inevita- bly must, she gained from many people the reverence due to an angel, but I should imagine, was looked upon by others as an intruder and a nuisance. Pry- ing further into the manuscript, I found the record of other doings and sufferings of this singular woman, for most of which the reader is referred to the story enti- tled " The Scaelkt Letter " ; and it should be borne carefully in mind, that the main facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue. The original papers, together with the scarlet letter itself, — a most curious relic, — are still m my possession, and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the nar- 62 THE SCARLET LETTER. rative, may desire a sight of them. I must not be understood as affirming, that, in the dressing up of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes of pas- sion that influenced the characters who figure in it, I have invariably confined myself within the limits of the old Surveyer's lialf a dozen sheets of foolscap. On the contrary, I have allowed myself, as to such points, nearly or altogether as much license as if the facts had been entirely of my own invention. What 1 con« tend for is the authenticity of the outline. This incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its old track. There seemed to be here the ground- work of a tale. It impressed me as if the ancient Sur- veyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his immortal wig, — which was buried with him, but did not perish in the grave, — had met me in the deserted chamber of the Custom House. In his port was the dignity of one who had borne his Majesty's commission, and who was therefore illumi- nated by a ray of the splendor that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike, alas ! the hang: - doa: look of a republican official, who, as the servant of the people, feels himself less than the least, and below the lowest, of his masters. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen but majestic figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol, and the little roll of explana- tory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice he had exliorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him, — who might rea- sonably regard himself as my official ancestor, — to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public. " Do this," said the ghost of Mr. Sur- veyor Pue, emphatically nodding the head that looked 80 imposing within its memorable wig, — " do this, and THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 53 the profit shall be all your own ! You will shortly need it ; for it is not in your days as it was in mine, when a man's office was a life-lease, and oftentimes an heirloom. But, I charge you, in this matter of old Mistress Prynne, give to your predecessor's memory the credit which will be rightfully due ! " And I said to the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue, "I wiU ! " On Hester Prynne's story, therefore, I bestowed much thought. It was the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and fro across my room, or traversing, with a hundred-fold repetition, the long extent from the front -door of the Custom House to the side-entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness and annoyance of the old Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning footsteps. Eemembering their own former habits, they used to say that the Surveyor was walking the quarter-deck. They prob- ably fancied that my sole object — and, indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could ever put him- self into voluntary motion — was, to get an appetite for dinner. And to say the truth, an appetite, sharp- ened by the east wind that generally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result of so much inde- fatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmos- phere of a Custom House to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of "The Scarlet Letter" would ever have been brought before the public eye. My imagmation was a tarnished mirror. It would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the figures with which I did my best to people it. The characters of the narrative \ 54 THE SCARLET LETTER. would not be warmed and rendered malleable by any heat that I could kindle at my intellectual forge. They would take neither the glow of passion nor the / tenderness of sentiment, but retained all the rigidity i of dead corpses, and stared me in the face with a fixed and ghastly grin of contemptuous defiance. " What have you to do with us ? " that expression seemed to say. "The little power you might once have pos- sessed over the tribe of unrealities is gone ! You have bartered it for a pittance of the public gold. Go, then, and earn your wages ! " In short, the almost torpid creatures of my own fancy twitted me with imbecility, and not without fair occasion. It was not merely during the three hours and a half which Uncle Sam claimed as his share of my daily life, that this wretched numbness held possession of me. It went with me on my sea^shore walks, and ' rambles into the country, whenever — which was sel- j dom and reluctantly — I bestirred myself to seek that invigorating charm of Nature, which used to give me such freshness and activity of thought, the moment that I stepped across the threshold of the Old Manse. The same torpor, as regarded the capacity for intel- lectual effort, accompanied me home, and weighed upon me in the chamber which I most absurdly termed my study. Nor did it quit me, when, late at night, I sat in the deserted parlor, lighted only by the glim- mering coal-fire and the moon, striving to picture forth imaginary scenes, which, the next day, might flow out on the brightening page in many-hued description. If the imaginative faculty refused to act at such an hour, it might well be deemed a hopeless case. Moon- light, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly, — > THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 55 making every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibility, — is a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests. There is the little domestic scenery of the well-known apartment ; the chairs with each its separate individuality; the centre-table, sus- taining a work-basket, a volume or two, and an extin- guished lamp ; the sofa ; the bookcase ; the picture on the wall, — all these details, so completely seen, are so spiritualized by the unusual light, that they seem to lose their actual substance, and become things of intellect. Nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby. A child's shoe ; the doU, seated in her little wicker carriage ; the hobby-horse, — whatever, in a word, has been used or j'la-yed with, during the day, is now invested with a quality of strangeness and remoteness, though still almost as vividly present as by daylight. Thus, therefore, the floor of our familiar room has become a neutral territory, somewhere between the real world and fairy-land, where the Actual and the Imaginary may meet, and each imbue itself with the nature of the other. Ghosts might enter here, with- out affrighting us. It would be too much in keeping with the scene to excite surprise, were we to look about us and discover a form beloved, but gone hence, now sitting quietly in a streak of this magic moon- shine, with an aspect that would make us doubt whether it had returned from afar, or had never once stirred from our fireside. The somewhat dim coal-fire has an essential influ- ence in producing the effect which I would describe. It throws its miobtrusive tinge throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceiling, and 56 THE SCARLET LETTER. a reflected gleam from the polish of the furniture. This wanner light mingles itself with the cold spirit- uality of the moonbeams, and communicates, as it were, a heart and sensibilities of human tenderness to the forms which fancy summons up. It converts them from snow-images into men and women. Glanc- ing at the looking-glass, we behold — deep within its haunted verge — the smouldering glow of the half- extinguished anthracite, the white moonbeams on the floor, and a repetition of all the gleam and shadow of the picture, with one remove further from the actual, and nearer to the imaginative. Then, at such an hour, and with this scene before him, if a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances. But, for myself, during the whole of my Custom House experience, moonlight and sunshine, and the glow of firelight, were just alike in my regard ; and neither of them was of one whit more avail than the twinkle of a tallow -candle. An entire class of sus- ceptibilities, and a gift connected with them, — of no great richness or value, but the best I had, — was gone from me. It is my belief, however, that, had I attempted a different order of composition, my faetilties would not have been found so pointless and inefficacious. I might, for instance, have contented myself with wi-it- ing out the narratives of a veteran shipmaster, one of the Inspectors, whom I should be most ungrateful not to mention, since scarcely a day passed that he did not stir me to laughter and admiration by his marvel- lous gifts as a story-teller. Could I have preserved the picturesque force of his style, and the humorous coloring which nature taught him how to throw over THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 67 fiis descriptions, the result, I honestly believe, would have been something new in literature. Or I might readily have found a more serious task. It was a folly, with the materiality of this daily life pressing so intrusively upon me, to attempt to fling myself back into another age ; or to insist on creating the semblance of a world out of airy matter, when, at every moment, the impalpable beauty of my soap- bubble was broken by the rude contact of some actual circumstance. The wiser effort would have been to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaque substance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright transparency ; to spiritualize the burden that began to "■-'eigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely, the true and indestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and wearisoffie incidents, and ordinary characters, with ■vvhich I was now conversant. The fault was mine. The page of life that was spread out before me seemed dull and commonplace, only because I had not fath- omed its deeper import. A better book than I shall ever write was there ; leaf after leaf presenting itself to me, just as it was written out by the reality of the flitting hour, and vanishing as fast as written, only be- cause my brain wanted the insight and my hand the cunning to transcribe it. At some future day, it may be, I shall remember a few scattered fragments and broken paragraphs, and write them down, and find the letters turn to gold upon the page. These perceptions have come too late. At the in- stant, I was only conscious that what would have been a pleasure once was now a hopeless toil. There was no occasion to make much moan about this state of affairs. I had ceased to be a writer of tolerably poor tales and essays, and had become a tolerably good 58 THE SCARLET LETTER. Surveyor o£ the Customs. That was all. But, never- theless, it is anything but agreeable to be haunted by a suspicion that one's intellect is dwindling away ; or exhaling, without your consciousness, like ether out of a phial ; so that, at every glance, you find a smaller and less volatile residuum. Of the fact there could be no doubt; and, examining myself and others, I was led to conclusions, in reference to the effect of public office on the character, not very favorable to the mode of life in question. In some other form, perhaps, I may hereafter develop these effects. Suffice it here to say, that a Custom House officer, of long continu- ance, can hardly be a very praiseworthy or respectable personage, for many reasons ; one of them, the tenure by which he holds his situation, and another, the very nature of his business, which — though, I trust, an honest one — is of such a sort that he does not share in the united effort of mankind. An effect — which I believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the posi- tion — is, that, while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weak- ness or force of his original nature, the caf)ability of self-support. If he possess an unusual share of na- tive energy, or the enervating magic of jDlace do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. The ejected officer — fortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes to strug- gle amid a struggling world — may return to himself, and become aU that he has ever been. But this sel- dom happens. He usually keeps his ground just long enough for his own ruin, and is then thrust out, with sinews all unstrung, to totter along the difficult foofc THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 59 path of life as he best may. Conscious of his own in- firmity, — that his tempered steel and elasticity are lost, — he forever afterwards looks wistf oily about him in quest of support external to himself. His pervad- ing and continual hope — a hallucination which, in the face of all di<5Couragement, and making light of impos- sibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like the convulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after death — is that finally, and in no long time, by some happy coincidence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. This faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. Why should he toil and moil, and be at so much trouble to pick himself up out of the mud, when, in a little while hence, the strong arm of his Uncle will raise and support him? Why should he work for his living here, or go to dig gold in California, when he is so soon to be made happy, at monthly intervals, with a little pile of glittering coin out of his Uncle's pocket? It is sadly curious to observe how slight a taste of of- fice suffices to infect a poor fellow with this singidar disease. Uncle Sam's gold — meaning no disrespect to the worthy old gentleman — has, in this respect, a quality of enchantment like that of the Devil's wages. Whoever touches it should look well to himseK, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, involv- ing, if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes ; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy, its truth, its self-reliance, and aU that gives the emphasis to manly character. Here was a fine prospect in the distance ! Not that the Surveyor brought the lesson home to himself, o, admitted that he could be so utterly imdone, either bj 60 THE SCARLET LETTER. continuance in office or ejectment. Yet my reflections were not the most comfortable. I began to grow mel- ancholy and restless ; continually prying into my mind, to discover which of its poor properties were gone, and what degree of deti-iment had already accrued to the remaiuder. I endeavored to calculate how much longer I could stay in the Custom House, and yet go forth a man. To confess the truth, it was my greatest appre- hension, — as it would never be a measure of policy to turn out so quiet an individual as myself, and it be- ing hardly in the nature of a public officer to resign, — it was my chief trouble, therefore, that I was likely to grow gray and decrepit in the Surveyorship, and be- come much such another animal as the old Inspector. Might it not, in the tedious lapse of official life that lay before me, finally be with me as it was with tliis venerable friend, — to make the dinner-hour the nu- cleus of the day, and to spend the rest of it, as an old dog spends it, asleep in the sunshine or in the shade ? A dreary look-forward this, for a man who felt it to be the best definition of happiness to live throughout the whole range of his faculties and sensibilities ! But, all this while, I was giving myself very unneces- sary alarm. Providence had meditated better things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself. A remarkable event of the third year of my Survey- orship — to adopt the tone of " P. P." — was the elec- tion of General Ta.ylor to the Presidency. It is essen- tial, in order to a comj)lete estimate of the advantages of official life, to view the incumbent at the incoming of a hostile administration. His position is then one of themost singularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable, that a wretched mortal can possibly oc- cupy ; with seldom an alternative of good, on either THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 61 hand, although what presents itself to him as the worst event may very probably be the best. But it is a strange experience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are within the control of in- dividuals who neither love nor understand him, and by whom, since one or the other must needs happen, he would rather be injured than obliged. Strange, too, for one who has kept his calmness throughout the con- test, to observe the blood thirstiness that is developed in the hour of triumph, and to be conscious that he is himself among its objects ! There are few uglier traits of human nature than this tendency — which I now witnessed in men no worse than their neighbors — to grow cruel, merely because they possessed the power of inflicting harm. If the guillotine, as applied to office holders, were a literal fact instead of one of the most apt of metaphors, it is my sincere belief that the active members of the victorious party were sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our heads, and have thanked Heaven for the opj)ortunity ! It appears to me — who have been a calm and curious observer, as well in victory as defeat — that this fierce and bitter spirit of malice and revenge has never distinguished the many triumphs of my own party as it now did that of the Whigs. The Democrats take the offices, as a general rule, because they need them, and because the practice of many years has made it the law of political warfare, wliich, unless a different system be proclaimed, it were weakness and cowardice to murmur at. But the long habit of victory has made them generous. They know how to sj)are, when they see occasion ; and when they strike, the axe may be sharp, indeed, but \ts edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will ; nor is it their custom ignominiously to kick the head which they have just struck off. 62 THE SCARLET LETTER. In short, unpleasant as was my predicament, at best, I saw much reason to congratulate myself that I was on the losing side, rather than the triumphant one. If, heretofore, I had been none of the warmest of par- tisans, I began now, at this season of peril and adver- sity, to be pretty acutely sensible with which party my predilections lay ; nor was it without something like regret and shame, that, according to a reasonable cal- culation of chances, I saw my own prospect of retain- ing office to be better than those of my Democratic brethren. But who can see an inch into futurity be- yond his nose ?■ My own head was the first that fell ! The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the suf- ferer will but make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him. In my particu- lar case, the consolatory topics were close at hand, and, indeed, had suggested themselves to my meditations a considerable time before it was requisite to use them. In view of my previous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune somewhat resem- bled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, although beyond his hopes, meet with the good hap to be murdered. In the Cus- tom House, as before in the Old Manse, I had spent three years ; a term long enough to rest a weary brain ; long enough to break off old intellectual habits and make room for new ones ; long enough, and too long, to have lived in an unnatural state, doing what was really of no advantage nor delight to any human being, and withholding myself from toil that would, THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 63 at least, have stilled an unquiet impulse in me. Then, moreover, as regarded his unceremonious ejectment, the late Surveyor was not altogether iU-pleased to be recognized by the Whigs as an enemy ; since his inac- tivity in political affairs — his tendency to roam, at wUl, in that broad and quiet field where aU mankind may meet, rather than confine himself to those narrow paths where brethren of the same household must di- verge from one another — had sometimes made it questionable with his brother Democrats whether he was a friend. Now, after he had won the crown of martyrdom (though with no longer a head to wear it on), the point might be looked upon as settled. Fi- nally, little heroic as he was, it seemed more decorous to be overthrown in the downfall of the party with which he had been content to stand, than to remain a forlorn survivor, when so many worthier men were falling ; and, at last, after subsisting for four years on the mercy of a hostile administration, to be compelled then to define his position anew, and claim the yet more humiliating mercy of a friendly one. Meanwhile the press had taken up my affair, and kept me, for a week or two, careering through the pub- lic prints, in my decapitated state, like Irving's Head- less Horseman ; ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, as a politically dead man ought. So much for my figurative self. The real human being, all this time with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best ; and, making an investment in ink, paper, and steel -pens, had opened his long -disused writing-desk, and was again a literary man. Now it was that the lucubrations of my ancient predecessor, Mr. Surveyor Pue, came into play. Rusty 64 THE SCARLET LETTER. through long iclJeness, some little space was requisite before my intellectual machinery could be brought to work upon the tale, with an effect in any degree satis- factory. Even yet, though my thoughts were ulti- mately much absorbed in the task, it wears, to my eye, a stern and sombre aspect ; too much ungladdened by genial sunshine ; too little revealed by the tender and familiar influences which soften almost every scene of nature and real life, and, undoubtedly, should soften every picture of them. This uncaptivating effect is perhaps due to the period of hardly accomplished rev- olution, and still seething turmoil, in which the story shaped itself. It is no indication, however, of a lack of cheerfulness in the writer's mind ; for he was hap- pier, while straying through the gloom of these sunless fantasies, than at any time since he had quitted the Old Manse. Some of the briefer articles, which contrib- ute to make up the volume, have likewise been written since my involuntary withdrawal from the toils and honors of j)ublic life, and the remainder are gleaned from annuals and magazines of such antique date that they have gone round the circle, and come back to novelty again.^ Keeping up the metaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be considered as the Posthumous Papers of a Decapitated Surveyoe ; and the sketch which I am now bringing to a close, if too autobiographical for a modest person to publish in his lifetime, will readily be excused in a gentleman who writes from beyond the grave. Peace be with aU the world ! My blessing on my friends ! My forgive- ness to my enemies ! For I am in the realm of quiet ! ' At the time of writing this article, tlie author intended to pub- lish, along with The Scarlet Letter, several shorter tales and sketchea These it has been thought advisable to defer. THE CUSTOM HOUSE. 65 The life of the Custom House lies like a dream be- hind me. The old Inspector, — who, by the by, 1 re- gret to say, was overthrown and killed by a horse, some time ago ; else he would certainly have lived forever, — he, and all those other venerable person- ages who sat with him at the receipt of custom, are but shadows in my view ; white-headed and v/^rinkled images, wliich my fancy used to sport with, and has now flung aside forever. The merchants, • — Pingree, Phillips, Shepard, Upton, Kimball, Bertram, Hunt, — these, and many other names, which had such a classic familiarity for my ear six months ago, — these men of traffic, who seemed to occupy so important a position in the world, — how little time has it required to dis- connect me from them all, not merely in act, but re- collection ! It is with an effort that I recall the fig- ures and appellations of these few. Soon, likewise, my old native town will loom upon me through the haze of memory, a mist brooding over and around it ; as if it were no portion of the real earth, but an over- grown village in cloud-land, with only imaginary in- habitants to people its wooden houses, and walk its homely lanes, and the unjsicturesque prolixity of its main street. Henceforth it ceases to be a reality of my life. I am a citizen of somewhere else. My good townspeople will not nmch regret me ; for — though it has been as dear an object as any, in my literary efforts, to be of some importance in their eyes, and to win myself a pleasant memory in this abode and burial- place of so many of my forefathers — the^-e has never been, for me, the genial atmosphere which a literary man requires, in order to ripen the best harvest of his mind. I shall do better amongst other faces ; and 66 THE SCARLET LETTER. these familiar ones, it need hardly be said, will do just as well without me. It may be, however, — oh, transporting and trium- phant thought ! — that the great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think kindly of the scrib- bler of bygone days, when the antiquary of days to come, among the sites memorable in the town's his- tory, shall point out the locality of The Town Pump I THE SCARLET LETTER. I. THE PEISON-DOOE. A THRONG of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods and others bareheaded, was as- sembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes. The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally pro- ject, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house somewhere in the vicinity of Corn- hill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King's Chapel. Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jaU was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The 68 THE SCARLET LETTER. rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pigweed, apple -peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history ; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally over- shadowed it, — or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprimg up under the footsteps of the sainted Anne Hutchinson, as she entered the pris- on-door, — we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narra- tive, which is now about to issue from that inauspi- cious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than j)luck one of its flowers, and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or re- lieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow. II. THE MARKET-PLACE. The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centu- ries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston, aU with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the his- tory of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of the anticipated exe- cution of some noted culprit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of pub- lic sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Pu- ritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be dra^vn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child, whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be cor- rected at the whipping -post. It might be, that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white man's fire-water ligd made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bit- ter-tempered wdow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the 70 THE SCARLET LETTER. same solemnity of demeanor on the part of the spec- tators ; as befitted a people amongst whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for from such by-standers, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty, which, in our days, would infer a de- gree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punish- ment of death itself. It was a circumstance to be noted, on the summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, ap- peared to take a peculiar interest in whatever penal infliction might be exiDected to ensue. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedg- ing their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants, sepa- rated froni them by a series of six or seven genera- tions ; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every sucessive mother has transmitted to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and solidity, than her own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not altogether unsuitable rep- THE MAnKET-PLACE. 71 resentative of the sex. They were her countrywomen ; and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far- off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There was, more- over, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone. " Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, " I '11 tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips ? If the hussy stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded ? Marry, I trow not ! " "People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation." " The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch, — that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she, — the naughty baggage, — little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown ! Why, look you, she may cover it with a 72 THE SCARLET LETTER. brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever ! " " Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, " let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart." " What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the bodice of her gown, or the flesh of her fore- head ? " cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self -constituted judges. " This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it ? Truly, there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no efPect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray ! " "Mercy on us, good wife," exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows ? That is the hardest word yet ! Hush, now, gossips ! for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself." The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigiired and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he laid his right upon the shoulder of a j^oung woman, whom he thus drew forward ; until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him, by an THE MARKET-PLACE. 73 action marked with natural dignity and force of char- acter, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will. She bore in her arms a child, a baby of some three months old, who winked and turned aside its little face from the too vivid light of day ; because its existence, heretofore, had brought it acquainted only with the gray twilight of a dungeon, or other darksome apartment of the prison. When the young woman — the mother of this child — stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom ; not so much by an impulse of motherly affec- tion, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token, which was wrought or fastened into her dress. In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but j)oorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors. On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically done, and with so much fer- tility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the ap- parel which she wore ; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly be- yond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. Tlie young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abun- dant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion. 74 THE SCARLET LETTER. had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brcv? and deep black eyes. She was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days ; char- acterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more lady-like, in the antique interjoretation of the term, than as she issued from the prison. Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even star- tled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped. It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer, — so that both men and women, who had been fa- miliarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now im- pressed as if they beheld her for the first time, — was that Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations ^^^.th hmnanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself. " She hath good skill at her needle, that 's certain," remarked one of her female spectators ; " but did ever a woman, before this brazen huzzy, contrive such a way of showing it ! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant foi a punishment ? " THE MARKET-PLACE. 75 " It were well," muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, " i£ we stripped Madam Hester's rich gown off her dainty shoulders ; and as for the red let- ter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I 'U bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one ! " " Oh, peace, neighbors, peace ! " whispered their youngest companion ; " do not let her hear you ! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart." The grim beadle now made a gesture with his staff. " Make way, good people, make way, in the King's name ! " cried he. " Open a passage ; and, I promise ye, Mistress Prynne shall be set where man, woman, and child may have a fair sight of her brave apparel, from this time tUl an hour past meridian. A blessing on the righteous Colony of the Massachusetts, where iniquity is dragged out into the sunshine ! Come along. Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the market-place ! " A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and un- kindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth to- wards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious scliool-boj''s, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious let- ter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Pleas- ured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length ; for, haughty 76 THE SCARLET LETTER. as her demeanor was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our nar ture, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaflfold, at the western extremity of the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest church, and appeared to be a fixture there. In fact, this scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent, in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France. It was, in short, the platform of the pillory ; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tisht grasp, and thus holding it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made mani- fest in this contrivance of wood and iron. There can be no outrage, methinks, against our common nature, — whatever be the delinquencies of the individual. — no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit t« hide his face for shame ; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne's instance, how- ever, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore, that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the THE MARKET-PLACE. 11 neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the sur- rounding multitude, at about the height of a man's shoulders above the street. Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puri- tans, he might have seen in this beautiful woman, so pictm-esque in her attire and mien, and with the infant at her bosom, an object to remind him of the image of Divine Maternity, which so many illustrious painters have vied with one another to represent; something which should remind him, indeed, but only by con- trast, of that sacred image of sinless motherhood, whose infant was to redeem the world. Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more lost for the infant that she had borne. The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature, before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead of .shuddering, at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the j)resent. Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must have been re- pressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several «f his counsellors, a judge, a general, and the minis- 78 THE SCARLET LETTER. ters of the town ; all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house, looking down upon the platform. When such personages could constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest and effectual meaning. Accordingly, the crowd was sombre and grave. The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intoler- able to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely, wreaking it- self in every variety of insult ; but there was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the popular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid comit«nances contorted with scornful mer- riment, and herself the object. Had a roar of laugh- ter burst from the multitude, — each man, each wo- man, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts, — Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile. But, under the leaden infliction which it was her doom to endure, she felt, at moments, as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once. Yet there were intervals when the whole scene, in which she was the most conspicuous object, seemed to vanish from her eyes, or, at least, glimmered indis- tinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory, was preternaturaUy active, and kept bringing THE MARKET-PLACE. 79 np other scenes than this roughly hewn street of a lit- tle town, on the edge of the Western wilderness ; other faces than were lowering uj)on her from beneath the brims of those steeple-crowned hats. Reminiscences the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the lit- tle domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarm- ing back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life ; one pic- ture precisely as vivid as another ; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play. Possibly, it was an instinctive device of her spirit, to relieve itself, by the exhibition of these j)hantasmagoric forms, from the cruel weight and hardness of the reality. Be that as it might, the scaffold of the pillory was a point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the en- tire track along which she had been treading since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable emi- nence, she saw again her native village, in Old Eng- land, and her paternal home ; a decayed house of gray stone, with a j)overty-stricken aspect, but retaining a half -obliterated shield of arms over the fiortal, in token of antique gentility. She saw her father's face, %vith its bald brow, and reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned Elizabethan rufl^ ; her mother's, too, with the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beautj", and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she be- held another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim 80 THE SCARLET LETTER. and bleared by the lamjilight that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Yet those same bleared optics had a strange, penetrating power, when it was their owner's purpose to read the human soul. This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right. Next rose before her, in memory's picture-gallery, the intricate and narrow thoroughfares, the tall, gray houses, the huge cathedrals, and the pub- lic edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a Continental city ; where a new life had awaited her, still in connection with the misshapen scholar; a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern re- gards at Hester Prynne, — yes, at herself, — who stood on the scaffold of the pillorj^, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in scarlet, fantastically embroid- ered with gold-thread, upon her bosom ! Could it be true ? She clutched the child so fiei'cely to her breast, that it sent forth a cry ; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real. Yes ! — these were her realities, . — all else had vanished ! III. THE RECOGNITION. From this intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter was at length relieved, by discerning, on the outskirts of the crowd, a figure which irresistibly took possession of her thoughts. An Indian, in his native garb, was standing there ; but the red men were not so infrequent visitors of the English settlements, that one of them would have attracted any notice from Hester Prynne at such a time; much less would he have excluded all other objects and ideas from her mind. By the Indian's side, and evidently sustaining a comj)anionship with him, stood a white man, clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume. He was small in stature, with a furrowed visage, which, as yet, could hardly be termed aged. There was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the jshysical to itself, and be- come manifest by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seemingly careless arrangement of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavored to conceal or abate the pe- culiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Pryniic that one of this man's shoulders rose higher tliaii the other. Again, at the first instant of j)erceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom with so convulsive a 82 THE SCARLET LETTER. force that the poor babe uttered another cry of pain. But the mother did not seem to hear it. At his arrival in the market-place, and some time before she saw him, the stranger had bent his eyes on Hester Prynne. It was carelessly, at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom exter- nal matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind. Very soon, however, his look became keen and penetrative. A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed inter volutions in open sight. His face darkened with some powerful emotion, which, nevertheless, he so instantaneously controlled by an effort of his will, that, save at a sin- gle moment, its expression might have passed for calm- ness. After a brief space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided into the depths of his nature. When he found the eyes of Hester Pryiine fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to rec- ognize him, he slowly and calmly raised his finger, made a gesture with it in the air, and laid it on his lips. Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood next to him, he addressed him, in a formal and courteous manner. " I pray you, good Sir," said he, " who is this woman ? — and wherefore is she here set uj) to public shame ? " " You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend," answered the townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage companion, " else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prj-une, and her evil doings. She hath raised a great scan THE RECOGNITION. 83 dal, I promise you, in godly Master Dinimesdale's church." " You say truly," replied the other. " I am a stran- ger, and have been a wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps by sea aud land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk, to the southward ; and am now brought hither by this Indian to be redeemed out of my captivity. Will it please you, therefore, to tell me of Hester Prynne's, — have I her name rightly ? — of this woman's offences, and what has brought her to yonder scaffold ? " " Truly, friend ; and methinks it must gladden your heart, after your troubles and sojourn in the wilder- ness," said the townsman, " to find yourself, at length, in a land where iniquity is searched out, and punished in the sight of rulers and people, as here in our godly New England. Yonder woman. Sir, you must know, was the wife of a certain learned man, English by birth, but who had long dwelt in Amsterdam, whence, some good time agone, he was minded to cross over and cast in his lot with us of the Massachusetts. To this purj)ose, he sent his wife before him, remaining him- self to look after some necessary affairs. Marry, good Sir, in some two years, or less, that the woman has been a dweller here in Boston, no tidings have come of this learned gentleman. Master Prynne ; and his young wife, look you, being left to her own misguid- ance " — " Ah ! — aha ! — I conceive you," said the stranger with a bitter smile. " So learned a man as you speak of should have learned this too in his books. And who, by your favor. Sir, may be the father of yonder babe — it is some three or four months old, I should judge — which Mistress Prynne is holding in her arms ? " 84 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle ; and the Daniel who shall exjJound it is yet a-wanting," answered the townsman. '' Madam Hester absolutely refuseth to speak, and the magistrates have laid their heads together in vain. Peradventure the guilty one stands looking on at this sad spectacle, unknown of man, and forgetting that God sees him." " The learned man," observed the stranger, with another smile, " should come himself, to look into the mystery." " It behooves him well, if he be stiU in life," re- sponded the townsman. " Now, good Sir, our Massar chusetts magistracy, bethinking themselves that this woman is youthful and fair, and doubtless was strongly tempted to her fall, — and that, moreover, as is most likely, her husband may be at the bottom of the sea, — they have not been bold to put in force the extrem- ity of our righteous law against her. The penalty thereof is death. But in their great mercy and ten- derness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a sj)ace of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and thereafter, for the remain- der of her natural life, to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom." " A wise sentence I " remarked the stranger, gravely bowing his head. " Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known ! — ■ he will be known ! — he will be known ! " He bowed courteously to the communicative towns- man, and, whispering a few words to his Indian at- tendant, they both made their way tlirough the crowd. THE RECOGNITION. 85 While this passed, Hester Prynne had been stand- ing on her pedestal, still witli a fixed gaze towards the stranger ; so fixed a gaze, that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her. Such an inter- view, perhaps, would have been more terrible than even to meet him as she now did, with the hot, mid- day sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame ; with the scarlet token of infamy on her breast ; with the sin-born infant in her arms ; with a whole people, drawn forth, as to a festival, staring at the features that should have been seen only in the quiet gleam of the fireside, in the happy shadow of a home, or beneath a matronly veil, at church. Dread- ful as it was, she was conscious of a shelter in the pres- ence of these thousand witnesses. It was better to stand thus, with so many betwixt him and her, than to greet him, face to face, they two alone. She fled for refuge, as it were, to the public exposure, and dreaded the moment when its protection should be withdrawn from her. Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her, until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, au- dible to the whole multitude. " Hearken unto me, Hester Prynne ! " said the voice. It has already been noticed, that directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, or open gallery, appended to the meeting- house. It was the place whence proclamations were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magis- tracy, with all the ceremonial that attended such pub- lic observances in those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat Governor Belling- 86 THE SCARLET LETTER. ham himself, with four sergeants about his chair, bear- ing halberds, as a guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in liis hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic beneath ; a gentleman ad- vanced in years, with a hard experience written in his wrinldes. He was not ill fitted to be the head and representative of a community, which owed its origin and progress, and its present state of development, not to the impulses of youth, but to the stern and tem- pered energies of manhood, and the sombre sagacity of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it "^■ajnagined and hoped so little. The other eminent characters, by whom the chief ruler was surrounded, were distinguished by a dignity of mien, belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to possess the sacredness of Divine institutions. They were, doubtless, good men, just, and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less cajiable of sitting in judg- ment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid as- pect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. She seemed conscious, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and warmer heart of the multitude ; for, as she lifted her eyes towards the balcony, the unhappy woman grew pale and trembled. The voice which had called her attention was that of the reverend and famous John Wilson, the eldest clergyman of Boston, a great scholar, like most of his contemporaries in the profession, and withal a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been less carefully developed than his iutellectuaj THE RECOGNITION. 87 gifts, and was, in truth, rather a matter of shame than self-congratulation with him. There he stood, with a border of grizzled locks beneath his skidl-cap ; while his gray eyes, accustomed to the shaded light of his study, were winking, like those of Hester's infant, in the unadulterated sunshine. He looked like the darkly engraved portraits which we see prefixed to old vol- ume of sermons ; and had no more right than one of those portraits would have to stej) forth, as he now did, and meddle with a question of human guilt, pas- sion, and anguish. " Hester Prynne," said the clergyman, " I have striven with my young brother here, mider whose preaching of the word you have been privileged to sit," — here Mr. Wilson laid his hand on the shoulder of a pale young man beside him, — "I have sought, I say, to persuade this godly youth, that he should deal with you, here in the face of Heaven, and before these wise and upright rulers, and in hearing of all the peo- ple, as touching the vileness and blackness of your sin. Knowing your natural temper better than I, he could the better judge what arguments to use, whether of tenderness or terror, such as might prevail over your hardness and obstinacy ; insomuch that you should no longer hide the name of him who tempted you to this grievous fall. But he opposes to me (with a young man's over-softness, albeit wise beyond his years) that it were wronging the very nature of woman to force her to lay open her heart's secrets in such broad day- light, and in presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him, the shame lay in the com- mission of the sin, and not in the showing of it forth. What say you to it, once again, Brother Dimmesdale ? Must it be thou, or I, that shall deal with this poor sinner's soul ? " 88 THE SCARLET LETTER. There was a murmur among the dignified and re- verend occupants of the balcony ; and Governor Bel- lingham gave expression to its purport, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with respect to- wards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed. " Good Master Dimmesdale," said he, " the respon- sibility of this woman's soul lies greatly with you. It behooves you, therefore, to exhort her to repentance, and to confession, as a proof and consequence there- of." The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale ; a young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest-land. His eloquence and re- ligious fervor had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession. He was a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless when he forcibly compressed it, was apt , to be tremulous, expressing both nervous sensibilitv and a vast power of self-restraint. Notwithstanding his high native gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister, — an ap- prehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look, — as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trod in the shadowy by-paths, and thus kept himself simple and childlike ; coming forth, when occasion was, with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angeL THE RECOGNITION. 89 Such was the young man whom the Reverend Mr. Wilson and the Governor had introduced so openly to the public notice, bidding him speak, in the hearing of all men, to that mystery of a woman's soid, so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of his posi- tion drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremidous. " Speak to the woman, my brother," said Mr. Wil- son. " It is of moment to her soxd, and therefore, as the worshipful Governor says, momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to confess the truth ! " The Reverened Mr. Dimmesdale bent his head, in silent prayer, as it seemed, and then came forward. " Hester Prynne," said he, leaning over the balcony and looking down steadfastly into her eyes, " thou hear- est what this good man says, and seest the accounta- bility under which I labor. If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer ! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him ; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him — yea, compel him, as it were — to add hypocrisy to sin ? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil ^\ithin thee, and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him — who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasx3 it for himself — the bit- ter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy Uws ! " 90 THE SCARLET LETTER. The young pastor's voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and broken. The feeling that is so evidently manifested, rather than the direct purport of the words, caused it to vibrate within all hearts, and brought the listeners into one accord of sympathy. Even the poor baby, at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same in- fluence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze to- wards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur. So power- ful seemed the minister's appeal that the people could not believe but that Hester Prynne would speak out the guilty name ; or else that the guilty one himself, in whatever high or lowly place he stood, would be drawn forth by an inward and inevitable necessity, and compelled to ascend the scaffold. Hester shook her head. " Woman, transgress not beyond the limits of Heav- en's mercy ! " cried the Reverend Mr. Wilson, more harshly than before. " That little babe hath been gifted with a voice, to second and confirm the counsel which thou hast heard. Speak out the name ! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet let- ter off thy breast." " Never ! " replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. " It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might en- dure his agony, as well as mine ! " " S23eak, woman ! " said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold. " Speak ; and give your child a father ! " " I will not sj^eak ! " answered Hester, turning pale as death, but responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. " And my child must seek a heav- enly Father ; she shall never know an earthly one ! " THE RECOGNITION. 91 " She will not speak ! " murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal. He now drew back, with a long respiration. " Wondrous streng-th and generosity of a woman's heart ! She will not speak ! " Discerning the impracticable state of the poor cul- prit's mind, the elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occasion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches, but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did he dwell uj)on this symbol, for the hour or more during which his periods were rolling over the people's heads, that it assumed new terrors in their imagination, and seemed to derive its scarlet hue from the flames of the infernal pit. Hester Prynne, mean- while, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weaiy indifference. She had borne, that morning, all that nature could endure ; and as her temperament was not of the order that es- capes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insen- sibility, while the faculties of animal life remained en- tire. In this state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavailingly, upon her ears. The in- fant, during the latter portion of her ordeal, pierced the air with its wailings and screams ; she strove to hush it, mechanically, but seemed scarcely to syinpa^ thize with its trouble. With the same hard demeanor, she was led back to prison, and vanished from the public gaze within its iron -clamped portal. It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark pas- sage-way of the interior. IV. THE INTERVIEW. After her return to the prison, Hester Prynne was found to be in a state of nervous excitement that de- manded constant watchfulness lest she shoidd perpe- trate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mis- chief to the poor babe. As night approached, it prov- ing impossible to quell her insubordination by rebute or threats of punishment, Master Brackett, the jailer, thought fit to introduce a physician. He described him as a man of skill in all Christian modes of phys- ical science, and likewise familiar with whatever the savage people could teach, in respect to medicinal herbs and roots that grew in the forest. To say the truth, there was much need of professional assistance, not merely for Hester herself, but still more urgently for the child ; who, drawing its sustenance from the maternal bosom, seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother's system. It now writlied in convidsions of pain, and was a forcible type, in its little frame, of the moral agony which Hester Prynne had borne throughout the day. Closely following the jailer into the dismal apart- ment appeared that individual, of singular aspect, whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. He was lodged in the prison, not as suspected of anj- offence. THE INTERVIEW. 93 but as the most convenient and suitable mode of dis- posing of him, untU the magistrates should have con- ferred with the Indian sagamores respecting his ran- som. His name was announced as Roger ChUling- worth. The jailer, after ushering him into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comjoarative quiet that followed his entrance ; for Hester Prynne had immediately become as still as death, although the child continued to moan. " Prithee, friend, leave me alone with my patient," said the practitioner. "Trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in your house ; and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall hereafter be more amena- ble to just authority than you may have found her heretofore." "Nay, if your worship can accomplish that," an- swered Master Brackett, " I shall own you for a man of skiU indeed ! Verily, the woman hath been like a possessed one ; and there lacks little, that I should take in hand to drive Satan out of her with stripes." The stranger had entered the room with the char- acteristic quietude of the profession to which he an- nounced himself as belonging. Nor did liis demeanor change, when the withdrawal of the prison-keeper left him face to face with the woman, whose absorbed notice of him, in the crowd, had intimated so close a relation between himself and her. His first care was given to the child ; whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a eup of water. 94 THE SCARLET LETTER. " My old studies in alchemy," observed he, " and my sojourn, for above a year past, among a people well versed in the kindly properties of simples, have made a better physician of me than many that claim the medical degree. Here, woman! The child is yours, — she is none of mine, — neither will she rec- ognize my voice or aspect as a father's. Administer this draught, therefore, with thine own hand." Hester repelled the offered medicine, at the same time gazing with strongly marked apprehension into his face. "Woiddst thou avenge thyself on the innocent babe?" whispered she. " Foolish woman ! " responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. " What should ail me, to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good ; and were it my child, — yea, mine own, as well as thine ! — I could do no bet- ter for it." As she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasona- ble state of mind, he took the infant in his arms, and himself administered the draught. It soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech's pledge. The moans of the little patient subsided ; its convulsive tossings gradually ceased ; and, in a few moments, as is the custom of young childi-en after relief from pain, it sank into a profound and dewy slumber. The physi- cian, as he had a fair right to be termed, next be- stowed his attention on the mother. With calm and intent scrutiny, he felt her pulse, looked into her eyes, — a gaze that made her heart shrink and shudder, be- cause so familiar, and yet so strange and cold, — and, finally, satisfied with his investigation, proceeded to toiugle another draught. THE INTERVIEW. 95 " I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe," remarked he ; " but I have learned many new secrets in the wilder- ness, and here is one of them, — a recipe that an In- dian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my own, that were as old as Paracelsus. Drink it ! It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience. That I cannot give thee. But it will calm the swell and heaving of thy passion, like oil thrown on the waves of a tempes- tuous sea." He presented the cup to Hester, who received it with a slow, earnest look into his face ; not precisely a look of fear, yet fuU of doubt and questioning, as to what his purposes might be. She looked also at her slumbering child. " I have thought of death," said she, — " have wished for it, — would even have prayed for it, were it fit that such as I should pray for anything. Yet, if death be in this cup, I bid thee think again, ere thou beholdest me quaff it. See ! It is even now at my lips." "Drink, then," replied he, stiU with the same cold composure. " Dost thou know me so little, Hester Prynne ? Are my jDurposes wont to be so shallow ? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live, — than to give thee medicines against all harm and peril of life, — so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom? " As he sf)oke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. '" Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women, — in the eyes of hiin whom thou didst caU thy husband, — in the eyes of yonder 96 THE SCARLET LETTER. child ! And, that thou mayest live, take off this draught." Without further expostulation or delay, Hester Prynne drained the cup, and, at the motion of the man of skill, seated herself on the bed where the child was sleeping ; while he drew the only ehaii which the room afforded, and took his own seat be- side her. She could not but tremble at these prepa- rations ; for she felt that — having now done all that humanity, or principle, or, if so it were, a refined cru- elty, impelled him to do, for the relief of physical suf- fering — he was next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deej^ly and irreparably injured. " Hester," said he, " I ask not wherefore, nor how, thou hast fallen into the pit, or say, rather, thou hast ascended to the pedestal of infamy, on which I found thee. The reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I, — a man of thought, — the book-worm of great libraries, — a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge, — what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own ! Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl's fantasy ! Men call me wise. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have fore- seen all this. I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settle- ment of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thj^self, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people. Naj", from the moment when we came down the old church steps together, a married pair, I might have beheld the bale-fire of that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path ! " THE INTERVIEW. 97 " Thou knowest," said Hester, — for, depressed as she was, she coukl not endure this last quiet stab at the token of her shame, — " thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any." " True," replied he. " It was my folly ! I have said it. But, up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless ! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one ! It seemed not so wild a dream, — old as I was, and sombre as I was, and misshapen as I was, — that the simple bliss, which is scattered far and wide, for aU mankind to gather up, might yet be mine. And so, Hester, I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber, and sought to warm thee by the warmth which thy presence made there ! " " I have greatly wronged thee," murmured Hester. " We have wronged each other," answered he. " Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy bud- ding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophized in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both ! Who is he ? " "Ask me not! " replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. " That thou shalt never know ! " " Never, sayest thou ? " rejoined he, with a smile of dark and self -relying intelligence. " Never know him ! Believe me, Hester, there are few things, — whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the in- visible sphere of thought, — few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreserv- edly to the solution of a mystery. Thou mayest cover 98 THE SCARLET LETTER. up thy secret from the prying multitude. Thou may- est conceal it, too, from the ministers and magistrates, even as thou didst this day, when they sought to wrench the name out of thy heart, and give thee a partner on thy pedestal. But, as for me, I come to the inquest with other senses than they possess. I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books ; as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine ! " The eyes of the wrinkled scholar glowed so intensely upon her, that Hester Prynne clasped her hands over her heart, dreading lest he should read the secret there at once. " Thou wilt not reveal his name ? Not the less he is mine," resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. " He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost ; but I shall read it on his heart. Yet fear not for him ! Think not that I shall interfere with Heaven's own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life ; no, nor against his fame, if, as I judge, he be a man of fair rej)ute. Let him live ! Let him hide himself in out- ward honor, if he may ! Not the less he shall be mine ! " " Thy acts are like mercy," said Hester, bewildered and appalled. " But thy words interpret thee as a terror ! " " One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee," continued the scholar. " Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine! THE INTERVIEW. 99 There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not, to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband ! Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shaU pitch my tent ; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter whether of love or hate ; no matter whether of right or wrong ! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where thou art, and where he is. But betray me not ! " " Wherefore dost thou desire it ? " inquired Hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. " Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?" " It may be," he replied, " because I will not en- counter the dishonor that besmirches the husband of a faithless woman. It may be for other reasons. Enough, it is my purpose to live and die unknown. Let, therefore, thy husband be to the world as one al- ready dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come. Recognize me not, by word, by sign, by look ! Breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of. Shouldst thou fail me in this, beware ! His fame, his position, his life, will be in my hands. Beware ! " " I will keep thy secret, as I have his," said Hester. " Swear it ! " rejoined he. And she took the oath. " And now. Mistress Prynne," said old Roger Cliil- lingworth, as he was hereafter to be named, " I leave thee alone ; alone with thy infant, and the scarlet let- ter ! How is it, Hester ? Doth thy sentence bind thee to wear the token in thy sleep ? Art thou not afraid of nightmares and hideous dreams ? " 100 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Why dost thou smile so at me ? " inquired Hester, trouhled at the expression of his eyes. " Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us ? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that wiU prove the ruin of my soul? " " Not thy soul," he answered, with another smile- '< No, not thine ! '' HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. Hester Prynne's term of confinement was now at an end. Her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast. Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison, than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was sup- ported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which ena- bled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insulated event, to occur but once in her lifetime, and to meet which, therefore, reckless of economy, she might call up the vital strength that would have sufficed for many quiet years. The very law that condemned her — a giant of stern features, but with vigor to support, as well as to annihilate, in his iron arm — had held her up, through the terrible ordeal of her ignominy. But now, with this unattended walk from her prison-door, began the daily custom ; and she must either sustain and carry it forward by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink beneath it. She could no longer bor- r 102 THE SCARLET LETTER. row from the future to help her through the present grief. To-morrow would bring its own trial with it ; so would the next day, and so would the next ; each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be borne. The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down ; for the accumulating days, and added years, would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame. Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion. Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast, — at her, the child of honorable parents, — at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, — at her, who had once been innocent, — as the figure, the body, the re- ality of sin. And over her grave, the infamy that she must carry thither would be her only monument. It may seem marvellous, that, with the world before her, — kept by no restrictive clause of her condemna- tion within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so re- mote and so obscure, — free to return to her birthplace, or to any other European land, and there hide lier character and identity under a new exterior, as com- pletely as if emerging into another state of being, — and having also the passes of the dark, inscrutable forest open to her, where the wildness of her nature might assimilate itself with a people whose customs and life were alien from the law that had condemned her, — it may seem marvellous that this woman should still call that place her home, where, and where only, HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 103 she must needs be the type of shame. But there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably com- pels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost- like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime ; and still the more ir- resistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the fores1> land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary, but life-long home. All other scenes of earth — even that village of rural England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her moth- er's keeping, like garments put off long ago — were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be broken. It might be, too, — doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret from herself, and grew pale when- ever it struggled out of her heart, like a serpent from its hole, — it might be that another feeling kept her within the scene and pathway that had been so fatal. There dwelt, there trode the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecog- nized on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage- altar, for a joint futurity of endless i-etribution. Over and over again, the tempter of souls had thrust this idea ujDon Hester's contemplation, and laughed at the passionate and desperate joy with which she seized, and then strove to cast it from her. She barely looked the idea in the face, and hastened to bar it in its dun-. 104 THE SCARLET LETTER. geon. What she compelled herself to believe — what, finally, she reasoned upon, as her motive for continu- ing a resident of New England — was half a truth, and half a self-delusion. Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment ; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost ; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom. \ Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee. On the out- skirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation, there was a small thatched cottage. It had been built by an earlier settler, and abandoned, because the soil about it was too sterile for cultivation, while its com- parative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants. It stood on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hUls, towards the west. A clump of scrubby trees, such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal the cottage from view, as seem to denote that here was some object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed. In this little, lonesome dwell- ing, with some slender means that she possessed, and by the license of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch over her, Hester established her- self, with her infant child. A mystic shadow of sus- picion immediately attached itself to the spot. Chil- dren, too young to comprehend wherefore this woman should be shut out from the sphere of human charities, would creep nigh enough to behold her plying her , needle at the cottage-window, or standing at the door. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 105 way, or laboring in her little garden, or coming forth along the pathway that led townward ; and discerning the scarlet letter on her breast, would scamper off with a strange, contagious fear. Lonely as was Hester's situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, how- ever, incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded compara- tively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. It was the art — then, as now, almost the only one within a woman's grasp — of needlework. She bore on her breast, in the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skiU, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. Here, in- deed, in the sable simplicity that generally character- ized the Puritanic modes of dress, there might be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handi- work. Yet the taste of the age, demanding whatever was elaborate in compositions of this kind, did not fail to extend its influence over our stern progenitors who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem harder to dispense with. Public ceremo- nies, such as ordinations, the installation of magis- trates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in which a new government manifested itself to the peo- ple, were, as a matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial, and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, jjainfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power ; and were readUy allowed to indi- 106 THE SCARLET LETTER. viduals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sump tuary laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian order. In the array of funerals, too, — ■ whether for the apparel of the dead body, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors, — there was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labor as Hester Prynne could supply. Baby - linen — for babies then wore robes of state — afforded still an- other possibility of toil and emoliunent. By degrees, nor very slowly, her handiwork became what would now be termed the fashion. Whether from commiseration for a woman of so miserable a destiny: or from the morbid curiosity that gives a fictitious value even to common or worthless things ; or by whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now sufficient to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in vain ; or because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise have re- mained vacant ; it is certain that she had ready and fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to occupy with her needle. Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. Her needlework was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band ; it decked the baby's little cap ; it was shut up to- be mildewed and moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. But it is not recorded that, in a single instance, her skill was called in aid to embroider the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride. The exception indicated the ever-relentless rigor with which society frowned upon her sin. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 107 Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of the plainest and most ascetic descrip- tion, for herself, and a simple abundance for her child. Her own dress was of the coarsest materials and the most sombre hue ; with only that one orna- ment, — the scarlet letter, — which it was her doom to wear. The child's attire, on the other hand, was dis- tinguished by a fanciful, or, we might rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which served, indeed to heighten the airy charm that early began to develop itself in the little girl, but which ajDpeared to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it here- After. Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserar ble than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she employed in making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable that there was an idea of pen- ance in this mode of occupation, and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment, in devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her na- ture a rich, voluj)tuous. Oriental characteristic, — a taste for the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women derive a pleasure, incomprehen- sible to the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needlj. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the pas- sion of her life. Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no 108 THE SCARLET LETTER. genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubt- ful, something that might be deeply wrong, beneath. In this manner, Hester Prynne came to have a part to perform in the world. With her native energy of character, and rare capacity, it could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more in- tolerable to a woman's heart than that which branded the brow of Cain. In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in con- tact, implied, and often expressed, that she was ban- ished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind. She stood apart from moral interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kin- dred sorrow ; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and hor- rible repugnance. These emotions, in fact, and its bitterest scorn besides, seemed to be the sole portion that she retained in the universal heart. It was not an age of delicacy ; and her position, although she un- derstood it well, and was in little danger of forget- ting it, was often brought before her vivid self-percep- tion, like a new anguish, by the rudest touch upon the tenderest spot. The poor, as we have already said, whom she sought out to be the objects of her bounty, often revUed the hand that was stretched forth to suc- cor them. Dames of elevated rank, likewise, whose doors she entered in the way of her occupation, were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart; HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. 109 sometimes through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can concoct a subtle poison from ordi- nary trifles ; and sometimes, also, by a coarser expres- sion, that fell upon the sufferer's defenceless breast like a rough blow upon an ulcerated wound. Hester had schooled herself long and well ; she never re- sponded to these attacks, save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her jpale cheek, and again subsided into the depths of her bosom. She was pa- tient, — a martyr, indeed, — but she forbore to pray for her enemies ; lest, in spite of her forgiving aspi- rations, the words of the blessing should stubbornly twist themselves into a curse. Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal. Clergy- men paused in the street . to address words of exhorta- tion, that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and frown, around the poor, sinful woman. If she entered a church, trusting to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find her- self the text of the discourse. She grew to have a dread of children; for they had imbibed from their parents a vague idea of something horrible in this dreary woman, gliding silently through the town, with never any companion but one only child. Therefore, first allowing her to pass, they jDursued her at a dis- tance with shrill cries, and the utterance of a word that had no distinct purport to their own minds, but was none the less terrible to her, as proceeding from lips that babbled it unconsciously. It seemed to argue so wide a diffusion of her shame, that all nature knew of it ; it could have caused her no deeper pang, 110 THE SCARLET LETTER. had the leaves of the trees whispered the dark story among themselves, — -had the summer breeze mur- mured about it, — had the wintry blast shrieked it aloud ! Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter, — and none ever failed to do so, — they branded it afresh into Hester's soul ; so that oftentunes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand. But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token ; the spot never grew cal- lous ; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensi- tive with daily torture. But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye — a hiunan eye — upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momen- tary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain ; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. Had Hester sinned alone ? Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre, would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with wliicli she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hes- ter, — if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too po- tent to be resisted, — she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. I She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, ( that it gave her a sympathetic Itnowledge of the hidden HESTER AT HER NEEDLE. Ill Bin in other hearts. She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. What were they ? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter Would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's ? Or, must she receive those intimations — so obscure, yet so distinct — as truth ? In all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so a\vf ul and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed, as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. Some- times the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable min- ister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. " ^Vhat evil thing is at hand ? " would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing hu- man within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint ! Again, a mystic sisterhood would con- tumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumor of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron's bosom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne's, — what had the two in common ? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning, — " Behold, Hester, here is a companion ! " — and, looking- up, she would detect the eyes of a 3'oung maiden glanc- ing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quicldy averted with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks ; as 112 THE SCARLET LETTER. if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momen- tary glance. O Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere ? — such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. Be it \ accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, and man's hard law, that Hester Pr'ynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself. ! The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were al- ways contributing a grotesque horror to what inter- ested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred, that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red- hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing aU. alight, whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the- night-time. And we must needs say, it seared Hes- ter's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumor than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit. VI. PEARL. We have as yet hardly spoken of the infant ; that little creature, whose innocent life had sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immor- tal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty pas- sion. How strange it seemed to the sad woman, as she watched the growth, and the beauty that became every day more brilliant, and the intelligence that threw its quivering sunshine over the tiny features of this child ! Her Pearl ! — For so had Hester called her ; not as a name expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned lustre that would be indicated by the comparison. But she named the infant " Pearl," as being of great price, — purchased with all she had, — her mother's only treas- ure ! How strange, indeed ! Man had marked this woman's sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus pun- ished, had given her a lovely chUd, whose place was on that same dishonored bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven ! Yet these thoughts affected Hester Prynne less with hope than apprehen- sion. She knew that her deed had been evil ; she could have no faith, therefore, that its result would be 114 THE SCARLET LETTER. good. Day after clay, she looked fearfully into the child's exjianding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild joeculiarity, that should correspond with the guiltiness to which she owed her being. Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its per- fect shape, its vigor, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried liinhs, the infant was worthy to have been brought forth in Eden ; worthy to have been left there, to be the plaything of the angels, after the world's first parents were driven out. The child had a native grace which does not invariably coexist with faultless beauty ; its attire, however sim- ple, always impressed the beholder as if it were the very garb that precisely became it best. But little Pearl was not clad in rustic weeds. Her mother, with a morbid purpose, that may be better understood hereafter, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and decoration of the dresses which the child wore, before the public eye. So mag- nificent was the small figure, when thus arrayed, and such was the splendor of Pearl's own proper beaut}'', shining through the gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness, that there was an absolute circle of radiance around her, on the dark- some cottage floor. And yet a russet gown, torn and soiled with the child's rude play, made a picture of her just as perfect. Pearl's aspect was imbued with a spell of infinite variety ; in this one child there were many children, comprehending the full scope between the wild-flower prettiness of a peasant-baby, and the pomp, in little, of an infant princess. Throughout all, however, there was a trait of passion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost ; and if, in any of PEARL. 115 her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, she would have ceased to be herself, — it would have been no longer Pearl. This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature apjieared to possess depth, too, as well as variety ; but — or else Hester's fears deceived her — it lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her exist- ence, a great law had been broken ; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but aU in disorder ; or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the jjoint of va^ riety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered. Hester could only account for the child's character — and even then most vaguely and imperfectly — by recalling what she herself had been, during that momentous period while Pearl was imbib- ing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its material of earth. The mother's im- passioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life ; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untem- pered light of the intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was per- petuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, des- perate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but later in the day of 116 THE SCARLET LETTER. earthly existence might be prolific of the storm and whirlwind. The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent application of the rod, en- joined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the lonely mother of this one child, ran little risk of err- ing on the side of undue severity. Mindful, how- ever of her own errors and misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender, but strict control over the infant immortality that was committed to her charge. But the task was beyond lier skiU. After testing both smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any calculable influence, Hester was iiltimately compelled to stand aside, and permit the child to be swayed by her own imj)ulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of dis- cipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, lit- tle Pearl might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet an infant, grew ac- quainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned her when it would be labor thrown away to insist, per- suade, or plead. It was a look so intelligent, yet in- explicable, so j'erverse, sometimes so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that Hester could not help questioning, at such moments, whether Pearl were a human child. She seemed rath- er an airy sprite, which, after jjlaying its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage floor, would PEARL. 117 flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her wild, bright, deeply-black eyes, it in- vested her with a strange remoteness and intangibil- ity; it was as if she were hovering in the air and might vanish, like a glimmering light that comes we know not whence, and goes we know not whither. Beholding it, Hester was constrained to rush towards the child, — to pursue the little elf in the flight which she invariably began, — to snatch her to her bosom, with a close pressure and earnest kisses, — not so much from overflowing love, as to assure herself that Pearl was flesh and blood, and not utterly delusive. But Pearl's laugh, when she was caught, though fuU of merriment and music, made her mother more doubt- ful than before. Heart-smitten at this bewildering and bafiling speU, that so often came between herself and her sole treas- ure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps, — for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her, — Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathizing look of discontent. Not seldom, she would laugh anew, and louder than be- fore, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of hu- man sorrow. Or — but this more rarely happened — she would be convulsed with a rage of grief, and sob out her love for her mother in broken words, and seem intent on proving that she had a heart, by breaking it. Yet Hester was hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness ; it passed as suddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to 118 THE SCARLET LETTER. win the master-word that should control this new and incomprehensible intelligence. Her only real comfort was when the child lay in the placidity of sleep. Then she was sure of her, and tasted hours of quiet, deli- cious happiness ; until - — perhaps with that perverse expression glimmering from beneath her opening lids — little Pearl awoke ! How soon — with what strange rapidity, indeed ! — did Pearl arrive at an age that was capable of social intercourse, beyond the mother's ever-ready smUe and nonsense-words ! And then what a happiness would it have been could Hester Prynne have heard her clear, bird-like voice mingling with the uproar of other child- ish voices, and have distinguished and unravelled her own darling's tones, amid all the entangled outcry of a group of sportive children ! But this coidd never be. Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants. Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness ; the destiny that had drawn an inviolable circle round about her ; the whole peculiarity, in short, of her position in re- spect to other children. Never, since her release from prison, had Hester met the public gaze without her. In all her walks about the town, Pearl, too, was there; first as the babe in arms, and afterwards as the little girl, small companion of her mother, holding a fore- finger with her whole grasp, and tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of Hester's. She saw the children of the settlement, on the grassy margin of the street, or at the domestic thresholds, disporting themselves in such grim fashion as the Puritanic nurture would permit ; playing at going to PEARL. 119 church, perchance ; or at scourging Quakers ; or tak- ing scalps in a sham-fight with tlie Indians ; or scaring one another with freaks of imitative witchcraft. Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make ac- quaintance. If sjioken to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did. Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother trem- ble because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue. The truth was, that the little Puritans, being of the most intolerant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the mother and child ; and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not unfre- quently reviled them with their tongues. Pearl felt the sentiment, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle m a childish bosom. These outbreaks of a fierce temper had a kind of value, and even comfort, for her mother ; because there was at least an intelligible earnestness in the mood, in- stead of the fitful caprice that so often thwarted her in the child's manifestations. It appalled her, neverthe- less, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester's heart. Mother and daughter stood to- gether in the same circle of seclusion from human so- ciety ; and in the nature of the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted Hester Prynne before Pearl's birth, but had since be- gun to be soothed away by the softening influences of maternity. 120 THE SCARLET LETTER. At home, within and around her mother's cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of ac- quaintance. The spell of life went forth from her ever-creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thou- sand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied. The unlikeliest materials — a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower — were the puppets, of Pearl's witchcraft, and, without undergoing any out- ward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the stage of her inner world. Her one baby-voice served a multitude of imaginary per- sonages, old and young, to talk withal. The pine- trees, aged, black, and solemn, and flingmg groans and other melancholy utterances on the breeze, needed little transformation to figure as Puritan elders ; the ugliest weeds of the garden were their children, whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most unmerciful^. It was wonderful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect, with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing, always in a state of preter- natural activity, — soon sinking down, as if exhausted by so rapid and feverish a tide of life, — and suc- ceeded by other shapes of a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much as the jihantasmagoric play of the northern lights. In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties ; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. The singularity lay in the hostile feelings with which the child regarded all these offspring of her own heart and "i mind. She never created a friend, but seemed always 'to be sowing broadcast the dragon's teeth, whence PEARL. 121 sprung a harvest of armed enemies, against whom she rushed to battle. It was inexpressibly sad — then what depth of sorrow to a mother, who felt in her own heart the cause ! — to observe, in one so young, this constant recognition of an adverse world, and so fierce a training of the energies that were to make good her cause in the contest that must ensue. Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made ut- terance for itself, betwixt speech and a groan, — " O Father in Heaven, — if Thou art still my Father-, — what is this being which I have brought into the world ! " And Pearl, overhearing the ejaculation, or aware, through some more subtile channel, of those throbs of anguish, would turn her vivid and beautiful little face upon her mother, smile with sprite-like in- telligence, and resume her play. One peculiarity of the child's deportment remains yet to be told. The very first thing which she had noticed in her life was — what? — not the mother's smile, responding to it, as other babies do, by that faint, embryo smile of the little mouth, remembered so doubtfully afterwards, and with such fond discus- sion whether it were indeed a smUe. By no means ! But that first object of which Pearl seemed to be- come aware was — shall we say it ? — the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom ! One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant's eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the let- ter ; and, putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. Then, gasping for breath, did Hester Prynne clutch 122 THE SCARLET LETTER. the fatal token, instinctively endeavoring to tear it away ; so infinite was tlie torture inflicted by the in- telligent touch of Pearl's bahy-hand. Again, as if her mother's agonized gesture were meant only to make sport for her, did little Pearl look into her eyes, and smile ! From that epoch, except when the child was asleep, Hester had never felt a moment's safety ; not a moment's calm enjoyment of her. Weeks, it is true, would sometimes elapse, during which Pearl's gaze might never once be fixed uj)on the scarlet letter ; but then, again, it would come at unawares, like the stroke of sudden death, and always with that peculiar smile, and odd expression of the eyes. Once, this frealdsh, elfish cast came into the child's eyes, while Hester was looking at her own image in them, as mothers are fond of doing ; and, suddenly, — for women in solitude, and with troubled hearts, are pestered with unaccountable delusions, — she fancied that she beheld, not her own miniature portrait, but another face, in the small black mirror of Pearl's eye. It was a face, fiend-like, full of smiling malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had kno^vn full well, though seldom with a smile, and never with malice in them. It was as if an evil spirit possessed the child, and had \x\st then peeped forth in mockery. Many a time afterwards had Hester been tortured, though less vividly, by the same illusion. In the afternoon of a certain summer's day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused her- self with gathering handfuls of wild-flowers, and fling- ing them, one by one, at her mother's bosom ; dan- cing up and down, like a little elf, whenever she hit the scarlet letter. Hester's first motion had been to cover her bosom with her clasped hands. But, whether PEARL. 123 from pride or resignation, or a feeling that her pen- ance might best he wrought out by this unutterable pain, she resisted the impulse, and sat erect, pale as death, looking sadly into little Pearl's wild eyes. Still came the battery of flowers, almost invariably hitting the mark, and covering the mother's breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world, nor knew how to seek it in another. At last, her shot being all expended, the child stood stUl and gazed at Hester, with that little, laughing image of a fiend peeping out — or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so imagined it — from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes. " Child, what art thou ? " cried the mother. " Oh, I am your little Pearl ! " answered the child. But, while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down, with the humorsome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney. " Art thou my child, in very truth ? " asked Hester. Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the moment, with a portion of genuine earnest- ness ; for, such was Pearl's wonderful intelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not ac- quainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not now reveal herself. " Yes ; I am little Pearl ! " repeated the child, con- tinuing her antics. " Thou art not my child ! Thou art no Pearl of mine ! " said the mother, half playfully ; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her, in the midst of her deepest suffering. " Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither." " Tell me, mother ! " said the child, seriously, com- 124 THE SCARLET LETTER. ing up to Hester, and pressing herself close to hei knees. " Do thou tell me ! " " Thy Heavenly Father sent thee ! " answered Hes- ter Prynne. But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness of the child. Whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, or because an evil sj^irit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger, and touched the scarlet letter. " He did not send me ! " cried she, positively. " I have no Heavenly Father ! " " Hush, Pearl, hush ! Thou must not talk so I " an- swered the mother, suppressing a groan. " He sent us all into this world. He sent even me, thy mother. Then, much more, thee ! Or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come ? " " Tell me ! Tell me ! " repeated Pearl, no longer seriously, but laughing, and capering about the floor. " It is thou that must tell me ! " But Hester could not resolve the query, being herself in a dismal labyrinth of doubt. She remembered — betwixt a smile and a shudder — the talk of the neigh- boring townspeople ; who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the child's f)aternity, and observing some of her odd attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring; such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasional!}'' been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother's sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose. Luther, according to the scandal of his monkish enemies, was a brat of that hellish breed ; nor was Pearl the only child to whom this inauspicious origin was assigned, among the New England Puritans. vn. THE governor's HALL. Hester Prtnne went, one day, to tlie mansion of Governor BeUingham, witli a pair of gloves, which she had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were to be worn on some great occasion of state ; for, though the chances of a popular election had caused this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he still held an honorable and influ- ential place among the colonial magistracy. Another and far more important reason than the de- livery of a pair of embroidered gloves impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an interview with a personage of so much power and activity in the affairs of the settle- ment. It had reached her ears, that there was a de- sign on the j)art of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid order of principles in reKg- ion and government, to deprive her of her child. On the suf)position that Pearl, as already hinted, was of demon origin, these good people not unreasonably argued that a Christian interest in the mother's soul required them to remove such a stumbling-block from her path. If the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultmiate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester Prynne's. Among those who promoted 126 THE SCARLET LETTER. the design, Governor Bellingliam was said to be one of the most busy. It may appear singular, and indeed not a little ludicrous, that an affair of this kind, which, in later days, would have been referred to no higher jurisdiction than that of the selectmen of the town, should then have been a question publicly discussed, and on which statesmen of eminence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, matters of even slighter public interest, and of far less intrinsic weight, than the welfare of Hester and her child, were strangely mixed up with the deliberations of legisla- tors and acts of state. The period was hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when a dispute con- cerning the right of j)roperty in a pig not only caused a fierce and bitter contest in the legislative body of the colony, but resulted in an important modification of the framework itself of the legislature. Full of concern, therefore, — but so conscious of her own right that it seemed scarcely an unequal match between the public, on the one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature, on the other, — Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary cot- tage. Little Pearl, of course, was her companion. She was now of an age to run lightly along by her mother's side, and, constantly in motion, from morn till sunset, could have accomplished a much longer journey than that before her. Often, nevertheless, more from caprice than necessity, she demanded to be taken up in arms ; but was soon as imperious to be set down again, and frisked onward before Hester on the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tum- ble. We have spoken of Pearl's rich and luxuriant beauty ; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints ; a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of THE GOVERNOR'S HALL. 127 depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown, and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black. There was fire in her and throughout her ; she seemed the unpremeditated offshoot of a passion- ate moment. Her mother, in contriving the child's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imag- ination their full play ; arraying her in a crimson vel- vet tunic, of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold-thread. So much strength of coloring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admi- rably adapted to Pearl's beauty, and made her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth. But it was a remarkable attribute of this garb, and, indeed, of the child's whole appearance, that it irresist- ibly and inevitably reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Pyrnne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form ; the scarlet letter endowed with life ! The mother herself — as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form — had carefully wrought out the similitude; lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity, to create an analogy between the object of her affection and the emblem of her guilt and torture. But, in truth. Pearl was the one, as well as the other ; and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly to rep- resent the scarlet letter in her appearance. As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the children of . the Puritans looked up from their play, — or what passed for play with those som- bre little urchins, — and spake gravely one to an- other : — 128 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter ; and, of a truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter rmming along by her side I Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them ! " But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frown- ing, stamping her foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies, and put them all to flight. She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence, — the scarlet fever, or some such half -fledged angel of judgment, — whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation. She screamed and shouted, too, with a terrific volume of sound, which, doubtless, caused the hearts of the fugitives to quake within them. The victory accom- plished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked up, smiling, into her face. Without further adventure, they reached the dwell- ing of Governor Bellingham. This was a large wood- en house, built in a fashion of which there are speci- mens still extant in the streets of our older towns ; now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened, and passed away, within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and the cheerfulness, gleaming forth from the sunny windows, of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed, a very cheery aspect ; the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully intermixed ; so that, when the sun- shine fell aslant-wise over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung THE GOVERNOR'S HALL. 129 against it by the double handful. The brilliancy might have befitted Aladdin's palace, rather than the mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. It was further decorated with strange and seemingly cabalistic figures and diagrams, suitable to the quaint taste of the age, which had been drawn in the stucco when newly laid on, and had now grown hard and durable, for the ad= miration of after times. Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house, be- gan to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped off its front, and given her to play with. " No, my little Pearl ! " said her mother. " Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee ! " They approached the door ; which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice- windows, with wooden shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the por- tal, Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was an- swered by one of the Governor's bond-servants ; a free-born Englishman, but now a seven years' slave. During that term he was to be the property of his master, and as much a commodity of bargain and sale as an ox, or a joint-stool. The serf wore the blue coat, which was the customary garb of serving-men of that period, and long before, in the old hereditary haUs of England. " Is the worshipful Governor Bellingham within ? " inquired Hester. "Yea, forsooth," replied the bond-servant, staring with wide-open eyes at the scarlet letter, which, being a new-comer in the countiy, he had never before seen. 130 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Yea, his honorable worship is within. But he hath a godly minister or two with him, and likewise a leech. Ye may not see his worship now." " Nevertheless, I will enter," replied Hester Prynne, and the bond-servant, perhaps judging from the deci- sion of her air, and the glittering symbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no oppo- sition. So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into the hall of entrance. With many variations, sug- gested by the nature of his building-materials, diver- sity of climate, and a different mode of social life. Governor Bellingham had j)lanned his new habitation after the reside,nces of gentlemen of fair estate in his native land. Here, then, was a wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general communica^ tion, more or less directly, with all the other apart- ments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat. Here, on the cushion, lay a folio tome, probably of the Chron- icles of England, or other such substantial literature ; even as, in our own days, we scatter gilded volumes on the centre-table, to be turned over by the casual guest. The furniture of the hall consisted of some ponderous chairs, the backs of which were elaborately carved with wreaths of oaken flowers ; and likewise a table in the same taste ; the whole being of the Eliza- bethan age, or perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, trans- THE GOVERNOR'S HALL. 131 ferred hither from the Governor's paternal home. On the table — in token that the sentiment of old English hospitality had not been left behind — stood a large pewter tankard, at the bottom of which, had Hester or Pearl peeped into it, they might have seen the frothy remnant of a recent draught of ale. On the wall hung a row of portraits, representing the forefathers of the Bellingham lineage, some with armor on their breasts, and others with stately ruffs and robes of peace. All were characterized by the sternness and severity which old portraits so invaria- bly put on ; as if they were the ghosts, rather than the pictures, of departed worthies, and were gazing with harsh and intolerant criticism at the pursuits and en- joyments of living men. At about the centre of the oaken panels, that lined the hall, was suspended a suit of mail, not, lilte the pic- tures, an ancestral relic, but of the most modern date ; for it had been manufactured by a skilful armorer in London, the same year in which Governor Bellingham came over to New England. There was a steel head- piece, a cuirass, a gorget, and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and es- pecially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumi- nation everywhere about upon the floor. This bright panoply was not meant for mere idle show, but had been worn by the Governor on many a solemn muster and training field, and had glittered, moreover, at the head of a regiment in the Pequod war. For, though bred a lawyer, and accustomed to speak of Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch as his professional associates, the exigencies of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into a soldier as well as a states- man and ruler. 132 THE SCARLET LETTER. Little Pearl — who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming armor as she had been with the glittering frontispiece of the house — spent some time looking into the polished mirror of the breastplate. " Mother," cried she, " I see you here. Look ! Look!" Hester looked, by way of humoring the child ; and she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this con- vex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exag- gerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it. Pearl pointed upward, also, at a similar picture in the head- piece; smiling at her mother, with the elfish intelli- gence that was so familiar an expression on her small physiognomy. That look of naughty merriment was likewise reflected in the mirror, with so much breadth and intensity of effect, that it made Hester Prynne feel as if it could not be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mould itself into Pearl's shape. " Come along, Pearl," said she, drawing her away. " Come and look into this fair garden. It may be we shall see flowers there ; more beautiful ones than we find in the woods." Pearl, accordingly, ran to the bow-window, at the farther end of the hall, and looked along the vista of a garden-walk, carpeted with closely shaven grass, and bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished, as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening. Cabbages grew in THE GOVERNOR'S HALL. 133 plain sight ; and a pumpkin-vine, rooted at some dis- tance, had run across the intervening space, and de- posited one of its gigantic products directly beneath the hall-window ; as if to warn the Governor that this great lump of vegetable gold was as rich an ornament as New England earth would offer him. There were a few rose-bushes, however, and a number of apple- trees, probably the descendants of those planted by the Reverend Mr. Blackstone, the first settler of the peninsula ; that half -mythological personage, who rides through our early annals, seated on the back of a bull. Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified. " Hush, child, hush ! " said her mother, earnestly. " Do not cry, dear little Pearl ! I hear voices in the garden. The Governor is coming, and gentlemen along with him ! " In fact, adown the vista of the garden avenue a num- ber of persons were seen aj)proaching towards the house. Pearl, in utter scorn of her mother's attempt to quiet her, gave an eldritch scream, and then became silent ; not from any notion of obedience, but because the quick and mobile curiosity of her disposition was excited by the appearance of these new personages. VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. Governor Bellingham, in a loose gown and easy cap, — such as elderly gentlemen loved to endue them- selves with, in their domestic privacy, — walked fore- most, and appeared to be showing off his estate, and expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide circumference of an elaborate ruff, beneath his gray beard, in the antiquated fashion of King James's reign, caused his head to look not a little like that of John the Baptist in a charger. The impression made by his aspect, so rigid and severe, and frost-bitten with more than autumnal age, was hardly in keeping with the appliances of worldly enjoyment wherewith he had evidently done his utmost to surround himself. But it is an error to suppose that our grave fore- fathers — though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty — made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp. This creed was never taught, for instance, by the venerable pastor, John Wilson, whose beard, white as a snow-drift, was seen over Governor Bellingham's shoulder ; while its wearer suggested that pears and peaches might yet be naturalized in the New England climate, and that purple grapes might possibly be compelled to flourish, THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 135 against the sunny garden -wall. The old clergyman, nurtured at the rich bosom of the English Church, had a long-established and legitimate taste for all good and comfortable things ; and however stem he might show himself in the pulpit, or in his public reproof of such transgressions as that of Hester Prynne, stUl, the genial benevolence of his private life had won him warmer affection than was accorded to any of his pro- fessional contemporaries. Behind the Governor and Mr. Wilson came two other guests : one the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, whom the reader may remember as having taken a brief and reluctant part in the scene of Hester Prynne's dis- grace ; and, in close companionship with him, old Roger ChiHingworth, a person of great sldll in physic, who, for two or three years past, had been settled in the town. It was understood that this learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young min- ister, whose health had severely suffered, of late, by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the labors and du- ties of the pastoral relation. The Governor, in advance of his visitors, ascended one or two steps, and, throwing open the leaves of the great hall-window, found himself close to little Pearl. The shadow of the curtain fell on Hester Prynne, and partially concealed her. " What have we here? " said Governor Bellingham, looking with surjorise at the scarlet little figure before him. " I profess, I have never seen the like, since my days of vanity, in old King James's time, when I was wont to esteem it a high favor to be admitted to a court mask! There used to be a swarm of these small apparitions, in holiday time ; and we called them children of the Lord of Misrule. But how gat such a guest into my hall ? ' 136 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Ay, indeed ! " cried good old Mr. Wilson. " What little bird of scarlet plumage may this be ? Methinks I have seen just such figures, when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. But that was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what has ailed thy mother to bedi- zen thee in this strange fashion ? Art thou a Chris- tian child, — ha? Dost know thy catechism? Or art thou one of those naughty elfs or fairies, whom we thought to have left behind us, with other relics of Papistry, in merry old England ? " " I am mother's child," answered the scarlet vision, " and my name is Pearl ! " " Pearl ? — Ruby, rather ! — or Coral ! — or Red Rose, at the very least, judging from thy hue ! " re- sponded the old minister, putting forth his hand in a vain attempt to pat little Pearl on the cheek. " But where is this mother of thine? Ah ! I see," he added; and, turning to Governor Bellingham, whis- pered, " This is the selfsame child of whom we have held speech together ; and behold here the unhappy woman, Hester Prynne, her mother ! " " Sayest thou so ? " cried the Governor. " Nay, we might have judged that such a child's mother must needs be a scarlet woman, and a worthy type of her of Babylon ! But she comes at a good time ; and we will look into this matter forthwith." Governor Bellingham stepped through the window into the hall, followed by his three guests. " Hester Prynne," said he, fixing his naturally stern regard on the wearer of the scarlet letter, " there hath been much question concerning thee, of late. The point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 1S7 are of authority and influence, do well discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen, amid the pitfalls of this world. Speak thou, the child's own mother ! Were it not, thinkest thou, for thy little one's temporal and eternal welfare that she be taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly, aud instructed in the truths of heaven and earth ? What canst thou do for the child, in this kind ? " " I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this ! " answered Hester Prjfnne, laying her fin- ger on the red token. " Woman, it is thy badge of shame ! " replied the stern magistrate. " It is because of the stain which that letter indicates, that we would transfer thy chUd to other hands." "Nevertheless," said the mother, calmly, though growing more pale, " this badge hath taught me — it daily teaches me — it is teaching me at this moment — lessons whereof my child may be the wiser and bet- ter, albeit they can profit nothing to myself." " We will judge warily," said Bellingliam, " and look well what we are about to do. Good Master Wilson, I pray you, examine this Pearl — since that is her name, — and see whether she hath had such Christian nurture as befits a child of her age." The old minister seated himself in an arm-chair, and made an effort to draw Pearl betwixt his knees. But the child, unaccustomed to the touch of familiar- ity of any but her mother, escaped through the open window, and stood on the upper step looking like a wild tropical bird, of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air. Mr. Wilson, not a little 138 THE SCARLET LETTER. astonished at this outbreak, — for he was a grand- fatherly sort of personage, and usually a vast favorite with children, — essayed, however, to proceed with the examination. " Pearl," said he, with great solemnity, " thou must take heed to instruction, that so, in due season, thou mayest wear in thy bosom the pearl of great price. Canst thou tell me, my child, who made thee ? "' Now Pearl knew well enough who made her; for Hester Prynne, the daughter of a pious home, very soon after her talk with the child about her Heavenly Father, had begun to inform her of those truths which the human spirit, at whatever stage of immaturity, imbibes with such eager interest. Pearl, therefore, so large were the attainments of her three years" lifetime, could have borne a fair examination in the New Eng- land Primer, or the first column of the Westminster Catechisms, although imacquainted with the outward form of either of those celebrated works. But that perversity which all children have more or less of, and of which little Pearl had a tenfold portion, now, at the most inopportune moment, took thorough pos- session of her, and closed her lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger ui her mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. WUson's questions, the child finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door. This fantasy was probably suggested by the near proximity of the Governor's red roses, as Pearl stood outside of the window ; together witli her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had i^assed in com- ing hither. THE ELF-CFIILD AND THE MINISTER. 189 Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered something iu the young clergyman's ear. Hester Prynne looked^ at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was star- tled to perceive what a change had come over his fea- tures, — how much uglier they were, — how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen, — since the days when she had familiarly known him. She met his eyes for an in- stant, but was immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now going forward. " This is awful ! " cried the Governor, slowly recov- ering from the astonishment into which Pearl's re- sponse had thrown him. " Here is a child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her ! With- out question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present dejDravity, and future destiny ! Methinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further." Hester caught hold of Pearl, and drew her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with almost a fierce expression. Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death. " God gave me the child ! " cried she. " He gave her in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness ! — she is my torture, none the less ! Pearl keeps me here in life ! Pearl piinishes me too ! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin ? Ye shall not take her ! I will die first ! " " My poor woman," said the not unkind old minis- 140 THE SCARLET LETTER. ter, "the child shall be well cared for! — far better than thou canst do it." " God gave her into my keeping," repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. " I will not give her up ! " — And here, by a sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes. — " Speak thou for me!" cried she. "Thou wast. my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can. I will not lose the child ! Speak for me ! Thou knowest, — for thou hast sympathies which these men lack ! — thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the stronger they are, when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter ! Look thou to it ! I will not lose the child ! Look to it ! " At this wild and singular appeal, which indicated that Hester Prynne's situation had provoked her to little less than madness, the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly ner- vous temperament was thrown into agitation. He looked now more careworn and emaciated than as we described him at the scene of Hester's public igno- miny; and whether it were his failing health, or what- ever the cause might be, his large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depth. " There is truth in what she says," began the minis- ter, with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful, inso- much that the hall reechoed, and the hollow armor rang with it, — "truth in what Hester says, and in the feeling which inspires her! God gave her the child, and gave her, too, an instinctive knowledge of THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 141 its nature and requirements, — both seemingly so pe- culiar, — which no other mortal being can possess. And, moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacred- ness in the relation between this mother and this child?" " Ay ! — how is that, good Master Dimmesdale ? " interrupted the Governor. " Make that plain, I pray you!" " It must be even so," resumed the minister. " For, if we deem it otherwise, do we not thereby say that the Heavenly Father, the Creator of all flesh, hath lightly recognized a deed of sin, and made of no ac- count the distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love? This child of its father's guilt and its mother's shame hath come from the hand of God, t'' work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads stt earnestly, and with such bitterness of spirit, the right to keep her. It was meant for a blessing, for the one blessing of her life ! It was meant, doubtless, as the mother herself hath told us, for a retribution too ; a torture to be felt at many an unthought-of moment ; a pang, a sting, an ever-recurring agony, in the midst of a troubled joy ! Hath she not expressed this thought in the garb of the poor child, so forcibly reminding us of that red sjrmbol which sears her bosom ? " " Well said, again ! " cried good Mr. Wilson. " I feared the woman had no better thought than to make a mountebank of her child ! " " Oh, not so ! — not so ! " continued Mr. Dimmes- dale. " She recognizes, believe me, the solemn mira- cle which God hath wrought, in the existence of that chUd. And may she feel, too, — what, methinks, is the very truth, — that this boon was meant, above all things else, to keep the mother's soul alive, and to pi-e 142 THE SCARLET LETTER. serve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought to j^lunge her ! Therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman that she hath an infant immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her care, — to be trained up by her to righteousness, — to remind her, at every mo- ment, of her fall, — but yet to teach her, as it were by the Creator's sacred pledge, that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also vdll bring its parent thither! Herein is the sinful mother happier than the sinful father. For Hester Prynne's sake, then, and no less for the poor child's sake, let us leave them as Providence hath seen fit to place them ! " " You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness," said old Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him. " And there is a weighty import in what my young brother hath spoken," added the Revei-end Mr. Wil- son. "What say you, worshipful Master Belling- ham ? Hath he not pleaded well for the poor wom- an?" " Indeed hath he," answered the magistrate, " and hath adduced such arguments, that we will even leave the matter as it now stands ; so long, at least, as there shall be no further scandal in the woman. Care must be had, nevertheless, to put the child to due and stated examination in the catechism, at thy hands or Master Dimmesdale's. Moreover, at a proper season, the tithing-nien must take heed that she go both to school and to meeting." The young mmister, on ceasing to speak, had with- drawn a few steps from the group, and stood -^vith his face j)artially concealed in the heavy folds of the win. dow- curtains; wliile the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER. 143 the vehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf, stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unob- trusive, that her mother, who was looking on, asked herself, — " Is that my Pearl ? " Yet she knew that there was love in the child's heart, although it mostly revealed itself in passion, and hardly twice in her life- time had been softened by siich gentleness as now. The minister, — for, save the long-sought regards of woman, nothing is sweeter than these marks of child- ish preference, accorded spontaneously by a spiritual instinct, and therefore seeming to imply in us some- thing truly worthy to be loved, — the minister looked round, laid his hand on the child's head, hesitated an instant, and then kissed her brow. Little Pearl's un- wonted mood of sentiment lasted no longer ; she laughed, and went capering down the hall, so airily, that old Mr. Wilson raised a question whether even her tiptoes touched the floor. " The little baggage hath witchcraft in her, I pro- fess," said he to Mr. Dimmesdale. " She needs no old woman's broomstick to fly withal ! " " A strange child ! " remarked old Roger Chilling- worth. " It is easy to see the mother's i^art in her. Would it be beyond a philosopher's research, think ye, gentlemen, to analyze that child's nature, and, from its make and mould, to give a shrewd guess at the father ? " " Nay ; it would be sinful, in such a question, to fol- low the clew of profane philosophy," said Mr. Wilson. " Better to fast and pray upon it ; and still better, it may be, to leave the mystery as we find it, unless Provld'^nce reveal it of its own acc6rd. Thereby, 144 THE SCARLET LETTER. every good Christian man hath a title to show a father's kindness towards the poor, deserted babe." The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne, with Pearl, departed from the house. As they descended the steps, it is averred that the lattice of a chamber-window was thrown open, and forth intc the sunny day was thrust the face of Mistress Hibbins Governor BeUingham's bitter-tempered sister, and the same who, a few years later, was executed as a witch. " Hist, hist ! " said she, while her ill-omened phys- iognomy seemed to cast a shadow over the cheerful newness of the house. " Wilt thou go with us to- night ? There will be a merry company in the forest ; and I wellnigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one." " Make my excuse to him, so please you ! " answered Hester, with a triumphant smile. " I must tarry at home, and keep watch over my little Pearl. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man's book too, and that with mine own blood ! " " We shall have thee there anon ! " said the witch- lady, frowning, as she drew back her head. But here — if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable — was already an illustration of the young mmister's argument against sundering the rela^ tion of a fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. Even thus early had the child saved her from Satan's snare. IX. THE LEECH. XJndek the appellation of Roger CHllingworth, the reader will remember, was hidden another name, which its former wearer had resolved should never more be spoken. It has been related how, in the crowd that witnessed Hester Prynne's ignominious exposure, stood a man, elderly, travel-worn, who, just emerging from the perilous wilderness, beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerful- ness of home, set up as a type of sin before the j)eople. Her matronly fame was trodden under all men's feet. Infamy was babbling around her in the public market- place. For her kindred, should the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unsj)otted life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dis- honor, — which would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion with the intimacy and sa- credness of their previous relationship. Then why — since the choice was with himself — should the indi- vidual, whose connection with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so lit- tle desirable ? He resolved not to be pilloried beside her on her pedestal of shame. Unknown to all but Hester Prynne, and possessing the lock and key of her silence, he chose to withdraw his name from the roll of joankind, and, as regarded his former ties and inter- vol. V. 10 146 THE SCARLET LETTER. ests, to vanish out of life as completely as if he indeed lay at the bottom of the ocean, whither rumor had long ago consigned him. This purpose once effected, new interests would immediately spring up, and likewise a new purpose ; dark, it is true, if not guilty, but of force enough to engage the full strength of his fac- ulties. In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his resi dence in the Puritan town, as Roger Chillingworth, without other introduction than the learning and in- telligence of which he possessed more than a common measure. As his studies, at a previous period of his life, had made him extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day, it was as a physician that he presented himself, and as such was cordially re- ceived. Skilful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony. They seldom, it would appear, partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic. In their researches into the human frame, it may be that the higher and more subtile faculties of such men were materialized, and that they lost the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous mechanism, which seemed to involve art enough to comprise all of life within itself. At aU events, the health of the good town of Boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain in the guar- dianship of an aged deacon and apothecary, whose piety and godly deportment were stronger testimonials in his favor than any that he could have produced in the shape of a diploma. The only surgeon was one who combined the occasional exercise of that noble art with the daily and habitual flourish of a razor. To such a professional body Roger Chillingworth was a THE LEECH. 147 brilliant acquisition. He soon manifested his famil- iarity with the ponderous and imposing machinery of antique physic ; in which every remedy contained a multitude of far-fetched and heterogeneous ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if the proposed result had been the Elixir of Life. In his Indian captivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the prop- erties of native herbs and roots ; nor did he conceal from his patients, that these simple medicines, Na- ture's boon to the untutored savage, had quite as large a share of his own confidence as the Eurojjean phar- macopceia, which so many learned doctors had sj)ent centuries in elaborating. This learned stranger was exemplary, as regarded, at least, the outward forms of a religious life, and, early after his arrival, had chosen for his spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The young divine, whose scholar-like renown still lived in Oxford, was considered by his more fervent admirers as little less than a heaven-ordained apostle, destined, should he live and labor for the ordinary term of life, to do as great deeds for the now feeble New England Church as the early Fathers had achieved for the infancy of the Christian faith. About this period, however, the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail. By those best acquainted with his habits, the paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of parochial duty, and, more than all, by the fasts and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from clog- ging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. Some declared, that, if Mr. Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause enough, that the world was not worthy to 148 THE SCARLET LETTER. be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief, that, if Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on earth. With all this difference of opinion as to the cause of his decline, there could be no question of the fact. His form grew emaciated ; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it ; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain. Such was the young clergyman's condition, and so imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished, all untimely, when Koger ChiUingworth made his advent to the town. His first entry on the scene, few people could tell whence, dropping down, as it were, out of the sky, or starting from the nether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily heightened to the miraculous. He was now kno^vn to be a man of skill ; it was observed that he gathered herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was value- less to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby, and other famous men, — whose scien- tific attainments were esteemed hardly less than super- natural, — as having been his corresj)ondents or asso- ciates. Why, with such rank in the learned world, had he come hither ? What could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness ? In answer to this query, a rumor gained ground, • — and, however absurd, was entertained by some very sensible people, — that Heaven had wrought an absolute mira. THE LEECH. 149 cle, by transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic, from a German nniversity, l>otlily through the air, and set- ting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study ! Individuals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven promotes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of what is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to see a providential hand in Roger Chillingworth's so opportune arrival. This idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the physician ever manifested in the young cler- gyman ; he attached himself to him as a parishioner, and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence from his naturally reserved sensibility. He expressed great alarm at his pastor's state of health, but was anx- ious to attempt the cure, and, if early undertaken, seemed not despondent of a favorable result. The el- ders, the deacons, the motherly dames, and the young and fair maidens, of Mr. Dimmesdale's flock, were alike importunate that he should make trial of the physician's frankly offered skill. Mr. Dimmesdale gently repelled their entreaties. " I need no medicine," said he. But how could the young minister say so, when, with every successive Sabbath, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulous than before, — when it had now become a constant habit, rather than a casual gesture, to press his hand over his heart ? Was he weary of bis labors ? Did he wish to die ? These questions were solemnly propounded to Mr. Dimmesdale by the elder ministers of Boston and the deacons of his church, who, to use their own phrase, " dealt with him " on the sin of rejecting the aid which Providence so manifestly held out. He listened in si- lence, and finally promised to confer with the physi- cian. 150 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Were it God's will," said the Reverend Mr. Diin- mesdale, when, in fulfilment of this pledge, he re- quested old Roger ChUlingworth's professional advice, " I could be well content that my labors, and my sor- rows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the sj)iritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proof in my behalf." " Ab," replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quiet- ness which, whether imposed or natural, marked all his deportment, " it is thus that a young clergyman is apt to speak. Youthful men, not having taken a deep root, give up their hold of life so easily ! And saintly men, who walk with God on earth, would fain be away, to walk with liim on the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem." " Nay," rejoined the young minister, putting his hand to his heart, with a flush of pain flitting over his brow, " were I worthier to vi'alk there, I could be bet- ter content to toil here." " Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly," said the physician. In this manner, the mysterious old Roger Chilling- worth became the medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. As not only the disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient, these two men, so different in age, came gradually to spend much time together. For the sake of the minister's health, and to enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them, they took long walks on the sea-shore, or in the forest ; mingling various talk with the plash and murmur of the waves, and the solemn wind-an- THE LEECH. 151 them among the tree-tops. Often, likewise, one was the guest of the other, in his place of study and retire- ment. There was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of science, in whom he rec- ognized an intellectual cultivation of no moderate depth or scope ; together with a range and freedom of ideas that he would have vainly looked for among the members of his own profession. In truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this attribute in the physician. Mr. Dimmesdale was a true priest, a true religionist, with the reverential sentiment largely de- veloped, and an order of mind that impelled itself powerfully along the track of a creed, and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time. In no state of society would he have been what is called a man of liberal views ; it would always be essential to his peace to feel the pressure of a faith about him, supporting, while it confined him within its iron frame- work. Not the less, however, though with a tremulous enjoyment, did he feel the occasional relief of looking at the universe through the medium of another kind of intellect than those with which he habitually held converse. It was as if a window were thrown oj)en, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamplight, or obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books. But the air was too fresh and chiU to be long breathed with comfort. So the minister, and the phy- sician with liim, withdrew again within the limits of what their church defined as orthodox. Thus Roger Chillingworth scrutinized his patient carefully, both as he saw him in his ordinary life, keeping an accustomed pathway in the range of 152 THE SCARLET LETTER. tliodghts familiar to him, and as lie appeared when throvm amidst other moral scenery, the novelty of whicli might call out something new to the surface of his character. He deemed it essential, it would seem, to know the man, before attempting to do him good. Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these. In Arthur Dimmesdale, thought and imag- ination were so active, and sensibility so intense, that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have its ground- work there. So Roger ChiUingworth — the man of skill, the kind and friendly physician — strove to go deep into his patient's bosom, delving among his prin- ciples, prying into his recollections, and probing every- thing with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. Few secrets can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and license to undertake such a quest, and skill to foUow it up. A man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician. If the latter possess native sagacity, and a nameless something more, — let us caU it intui- tion ; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagree- ably prominent characteristics of his own ; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his mind into such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have thought ; if such revelations be received without tumult, and acknowledged not so often by an uttered sympathy as by silence, an inarticulate breath, and here and there a word, to indicate that all is un- derstood ; if to these qualifications of a confidant be joined the advantages afforded by his recognized char- acter as a physician, — then, at some inevitable mo- ment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and THE LEECH. 153 flow forth in a dark, but transparent stream, bringing all its mysteries into tlie daylight. Roger Chillingworth possessed all, or most, of the attributes above enumerated. Nevertheless, time went on ; a kind of intimacy, as we have said, grew up between these two cultivated minds, which had as wide a field as the whole sphere of himian thought and study, to meet upon ; they discussed every topic of ethics and religion, of public affairs and private character ; they talked much, on both sides, of mat- ters that seemed personal to themselves ; and yet no secret, such as the physician fancied must exist there, ever stole out of the minister's consciousness iato his companion's ear. The latter had his suspicions, in- deed, that even the nature of Mr. Dimmesdale's bod- ily disease had never fairly been revealed to him. It was a strange reserve ! After a time, at a hint from Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr. Dimmesdale effected an arrange- ment by which the two were lodged in the same house ; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician. There was much joy throughout the town when this greatly desirable object was at- tained. It was held to be the best possible measure for the young clergyman's welfare ; unless, indeed, as often urged by such as felt authorized to do so, he had selected some one of the many blooming damsels, spir- itually devoted to him, to become his devoted vaie. This latter step, however, there was no present pros- pect that Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected all suggestions of the kind, Rs if priestly celibacy were one of his articles of church-discipline. Doomed by his own choice, there- 154 THE SCARLET LETTER. fore, as Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat Ms unsavory morsel always at another's board, and en- dure the life-long chill which must be his lot who seeks to warm himself only at another's fireside, it truly seemed that this sagacious, experienced, benevo- lent old physician, with his concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was the very man of all mankind to be constantly within reach of his voice. The new abode of the two friends was with a pious widow, of good social rank, who dwelt in a house cov- ering pretty nearly the site on which the venerable structure of King's Chapel has since been built. It had the graveyard, originally Isaac Johnson's home- field, on one side, and so well adapted to call up seri- ous reflections, suited to their respective employments, in both minister and man of physic. The motherly care of the good widow assigned to Mr. Dimmesdale a front apartment, with a sunny exposure, and heavy window-curtains, to create a noontide shadow, when desirable. The walls were hung round with tapestry, said to be from the Gobelin looms, and at aU events, representing the Scriptural story of David and Bath- sheba, and Nathan the Prophet, in colors stiU un- faded, but which made the fair woman of the scene almost as grimly picturesque as the woe-denouncing seer. Here, the pale clergyman piled up his library, rich with parchment-bound folios of the Fathers, and the lore of Rabbis, and monkish erudition, of which the Protestant divines, even while they vilified and de cried that class of writers, were yet constrained often to avail themselves. On the other side of the house, old Roger Chillingworth arranged his study and lab. oratory ; not such as a modern man of science would THE LEECH. 155 reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling apparatus, and the means of compounding drugs and chemicals, which the practised alchemist knew well how to turn to purpose. With such com- modiousness of situation, these two learned persons sat themselves down, each in his own domain, yet fa- miliarly passing from one apartment to the other, and bestowing a mutual and not incurious inspection into one another's business. And the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's best dis- cerning friends, as we have intimated, very reasona^ bly imagined that the hand of Providence had done all this, for the purpose — besought in so many pub- lic, and domestic, and secret prayers — of restoring the young minister to health. But — it must now be said — an'other portion of the community had latterly begTin to take its own view of the relation betwixt Mr. Dimmesdale and the mysterious old physician. When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. When, however, it forms its judgment, as it usually does, on the intuitions of its great and warm heart, the conclu- sions thus attained are often so profound and so unerring, as to possess the character of truths super- naturally revealed. The people, in the case of which we speak, could justify its prejudice against Roger Chillingworth by no fact or argument worthy of seri- ous refutation. There was an aged handicraftsman, it is true, who had been a citizen of London at the period of Sir Thomas Overbury's murder, now some thirty years agone ; he testified to having seen the physician, under some other name, which the narrator of the story had now forgotten, in company with Doc- tor Forman, the famous old conjurer, who was im- 166 THE SCARLET LETTER. plicated in the affair of Overbury. Two or three individuals hinted, that the man of skill, during his Indian captivity, had enlarged his medical attain- ments by joining in the incantations of the savage priests; who were universally acknowledged to be powerful enchanters, often performing seemingly mi- raculous cures by their skill in the black art. A large number — and many of these were persons of such sober sense and practical observation that their opinions would have been valuable in other matters — affirmed that Roger ChiUingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with Mr. Dim- mesdale. At first his expression had been calm, med- itative, scholar-like. Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not fireviously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him. According to the vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratory had been brought from the lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel ; and so, as might be expected, his vis- age was getting sooty with the smoke. To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely dif- fused opinion, that the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of especial sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, was haiinted either by Satan himself, or Satan's emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth. This diabolical agent had the Divine permission, for a season, to burrow into the clergyman's intimacy, and plot against his soul. No sensible man, it was confessed, could doubt on which side the victory would turn. The people looked, with an unshaken hope, to see the minister come forth out of the conflict transfigured with the glory which THE LEECH. 157 he would unquestionably win. Meanwhile, neverthe- less, it was sad to think of the perchance mortal agony through which he must struggle towards his triumph. Alas! to judge from the gloom and terror in the depths of the poor minister's eyes, the battle was a sore one, and the victory tcything but secure. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. Old Roger Chillingwortli, throughout life, had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man. He had beg^un an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth, even as if the question involved no more than the air-drawn lines and figures of a geometrical problem, instead of human passions, and wrongs in- flicted on himself. But, as he proceeded, a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, neces- sity seized the old man within its gripe, and never set him free again until he had done all its bidding. He now dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold ; or, rather, like a sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man's bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption. Alas for his own soul, if these were what he sought ! Sometimes a light glimmered out of the ph3'sician's ■eyes, burning blue and ominous, like the reflection of a furnace, or, let us say, like one of those gleams of ghastly fire that darted from Bunyan's awful doorway in the hill-side, and quivered on the pilgrim's face. The soil where this dark miner was working had per- chance shown indications that encouraged him.. 7'HE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 159 " This man," said he, at one such moment, to him- self, " pure as they deem him, — all spiritual as he seems, — hath inherited a strong animal nature from his father or his mother. Let us dig a little further in the direction of this vein ! " Then, after long search into the minister's dim in terior, and turning over many precious materials, in the shape of high aspirations for the welfare of his race, warm love of souls, pure sentiments, natural piety, strengthened by thought and study, and illu- minated by revelation, — all of which invaluable gold was perhaps no better than rubbish to the seeker, — he would turn back discouraged, and begin his quest towards another point. He groped along as stealth- ily, with as cautious a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep, — or, it may be, broad awake, — with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. In spite of his pre- meditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak ; his garments would rustle ; the shadow of his presence, in a forbidden proximity, would be thrown across his victim. In other words, Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve often produced the effect of spiritual intuition, would become vaguely aware that something inimical to his peace had thrust itself into relation with him. But old Roger Chillingworth, too, had perceptions that were almost intuitive ; and when the minister threw his startled eyes towards him, there the physician sat ; his kind, watchful, sjTn- pathizing, but never intrusive friend. Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual's character more perfectly, if a certain tnorbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had not 160 THE SCARLET LETTER. rendered him suspicious of all manldnd. Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his ene- my when the latter actually appeared. He therefore still kept up a familiar intercourse with him, daily receiving the old physician in his study ; or visiting the laboratory, and, for recreation's sake, watching the processes by which weeds were converted into drugs of potency. One day, leaning his forehead on his hand, and his elbow on the sill of the open window, that looked towards the graveyard, he talked with Roger Chil- lingworth, while the old man was examining a bundle ■of unsightly plants. " Where," asked he, with a look askance at them, — for it was the clergyman's peculiarity that he sel- dom, nowadays, looked straightforth at any object, whether human or inanimate, — " where, my kind doctor, did you gather those herbs, with such a dark, flabby leaf?" "Even in the graveyard here at hand," answered the physician continuing his employment. " They are new to me. I found them growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, nor other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly weeds, that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried vdth him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime." " Perchance," said Mr. Dimmesdale, " he earnestly desired it, but could not." "And wherefore ? " rejoined the physician. " Where- fore not; since all the powers of nature call so ear- nestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manv fest an unspoken crime ? " THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 161 " That, good Sir, is but a fantasy of yours," replied the minister. " There can be, if I forebode aright, no power, short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be re- vealed. Nor have I so read or interpreted Holy Writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as a part of the retribution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. No; these revelations, unless I greatly err, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. A knowledge of men's hearts wUl be needful to the completest solution of that problem. And I conceive, moreover, that the hearts holding such mis- erable secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy un- utterable." " Then why not reveal them here ? " asked Roger Chillingworth, glancing quietly aside at the minister. " Why should not the guilty ones sooner avail them- selves of this unutterable solace ? " " They mostly do," said the clergyman, griping hard at his breast as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain. " Many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in reputation. And ever, after such an outpouring, oh, what a relief have I witnessed in those sinful brethren ! even as in one who at last draws free air, after long stifling with his own pol- luted breath. How can it be otherwise' Why should VOL. V. 11 162 THE SCARLET LETTER. a wretclied man, guilty, we will say, of murder, prefer to keep the dead corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at once, and let the universe take care of it ! " " Yet some men bury their secrets thus," observed the calm physician. " True ; there are such men," answered Mr. Dim- mesdale. " But, not to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by the very consti- tution of their nature. Or, — can we not suppose it ? — guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men ; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them ; no evil of the past be redeemed by better service. So, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow -creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they can- not rid themselves." "These men deceive themselves," said Eoger Chil- lingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. " They fear to take up the shame that rightfully be- longs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for God's service, — these holy impulses may or may not coexist in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them not lift heavenward their unclean hands ! If they would serve their fellow- men, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to peniten- tial self-abasement 1 Wouldst thou have me to be- THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 163 lieve, O wise and pious friend, that a false show can be better — can be more for God's glory, or man's wel- fare — than God's own truth ? Trust me, such men deceive themselves ! " " It may be so," said the young clergyman, indiffer- ently, as waiving a discussion that he considered irrel- evant or unreasonable. He had a ready faculty, in- deed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament. " But, now, I would ask of my well-skilled physician, whether, in good sooth, he deems me to have profited by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine ? " Before Roger Chillingworth could answer, they heard the clear, wild laughter of a young child's voice, proceeding from the adjacent burial-ground. Looking instinctively from the open window, — for it was sum- mer-time, — the minister beheld Hester Prynne and little Pearl passing along the footpath that traversed the enclosure. Pearl looked as beautiful as the day, but was in one of those moods of perverse merriment which, whenever they occurred, seemed to remove her entirely out of the sphere of sympathy or human con- tact. She now skipped irreverently from one grave to another ; until, coming to the broad, flat, armorial tombstone of a departed worthy, — perhaps of Isaac Johnson himself, — she began to dance upon it. In reply to her mother's command and entreaty that she would behave more decorously, little Pearl paused to gather the prickly burrs from a tall burdock which grew beside the tomb. Taking a handful of these, she arranged them along the lines of the scarlet letter that decorated the maternal bosom, to which the burrs, as their nature was, tenaciously adhered. Hester did not pluck them off. 164 THE SCARLET LETTER. Roger Chillingworth had by this time approached the window, and smiled grimly down. " There is no law, nor reverence for authority, no regard for human ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child's composition," re- marked he, as much to himself as to his companion. " I saw her, the other day, bespatter the Governor himself with water, at the cattle-trough in Spring Lane. What, in Heaven's name, is she ? Is the imp altogether evil ? Hath she affections ? Hath she any discoverable principle of being ? " "None, — save the freedom of a broken law," an- swered Mr. Dimmesdale, in a quiet way, as if he had been discussing the point within himseK. " Whether capable of good, I know not." The child probably overheard their voices ; for, look- ing up to the window, with a bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence, she threw one of the prickly burrs at the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. The sensi- tive clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light missile. Detecting his emotion, Pearl clapj)ed her little hands in the most extravagant ecstasy. Hes- ter Pyrnne, likewise, had involuntarily looked up ; and all these four persons, old and young, regarded one another in silence, tiU the cliild laughed aloud ; and shouted, — " Come away, mother ! Come away, or yonder old Black Man will catch you ! He hath got hold of the minister already. Come awa}', mother, or he will catch you ! But he cannot catch little Pearl ! " So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisldng fantastically, among the hillocks of the dead people, like a creature that had notliing in com- mon with a bygone and buried generation, nor owned herself akin to it. It was as if she had been made THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 165 afresh, out of new elements, and must perforce be per- i mitted to live her own life, and be a law unto herself, , without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a ! crime. " There goes a woman," resumed Roger Chilling- worth, after a pause, " who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mystery of hidden sinfulness which you deem so grievous to be borne. Is Hester Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that scarlet letter on her breast ? " " I do verily believe it," answered the clergyman. " Nevertheless I cannot answer for her. There was a look of pain in her face, which I would gladly have been spared the sight of. But still, methinks, it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it aU up in his heart." There was another pause ; and the physician began anew to examine and arrange the plants which he had gathered. " You inquired of me, a little time agone," said he, at length, " my judgment as touching your health." " I did," answered the clergyman, " and would gladly learn it. Speak frankly, I pray you, be it for life or death." " Freely, then, and plainly," said the physician, stiU busy with his plants, but keej)ing a wary eye on Mr. Dimmesdale, " the disorder is a strange one ; not so much in itself, nor as outwardly manifested, — in so far, at least, as the symptoms have been laid open to my observation. Looking daily at you, my good Sir, and watching the tokens of your aspect, now for months gone by, I should deem you a man sore sick, it may be, yet not so sick but that an instructed and 166 THE SCARLET LETTER. watchful physician might well hope to cure you. But — I know not what to say — the disease is what 1 seem to know, yet know it not." " You speak in riddles, learned Sir," said the pale minister, glancing aside out of the window. " Then to speak more plainly," continued the phy- sician, " and I crave pardon, Sir, — should it seem to require pardon, — for this needful plainness of my speech. Let me ask, — as your friend, — as one hav- ing charge, under Providence, of your life and phys- ical well-being, — hath all the operation of this disor- der been fairly laid open and recounted to me ? " "How can you question it?" asked the minister. " Surely, it were child's play to call in a physician, and then hide the sore ! " " You would teU me, then, that I Itnow all ? " said Roger Chillingworth, deliberately, and fixing an eye, bright with intense and concentrated intelligence, on the minister's face. " Be it so ! But, again ! He to whom only the outward and physical evil is laid open, knoweth, oftentimes, but half the evil which he is called Upon to cure. A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. Your pardon, once again, good Sir, if my speech give the shadow of offence. You, Sir, of all men whom I have known, are he whose body is the closest con- joined, and imbued, and identified, so to speak, with the spirit whereof it is the instrument." " Then I need ask no further," said the clergyman, somewhat hastily rising from his chair. " You deal not, I take it, in medicine for the soul ! " " Thus, a sickness," continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 167 interruption, — but standing up, and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure, — '"a sickness, a sore place, if we may so caU it, in your spirit, hath imme- diately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame. Would you, therefore, that your physician heal the bodily evil ? How may this be, unless you first lay open to him the wound or trouble in your soul?" " No ! — not to thee ! — not to an earthly physi- cian ! " cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turn- ing his eyes, full and bright, and with a kiad of fierce- ness, on old Roger Chillingworth. " Not to thee ! But, if it be the soul's disease, then do I commit my- self to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with his good pleasure, can cure ; or he can kill ! Let him do with me as, in his justice and wisdom, he shall see good. But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter ? — that dares thrust himself between the suf- ferer and his God ? " With a frantic gesture he rushed out of the room. " It is as well to have made this step," said Roger ChiUingworth to himself, looking after the minister with a grave smile. " There is nothing lost. We shall be friends agaia anon. But see, now, how pas- sion takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself ! As with one passion, so with another ! He hath done a wild thing erenow, this pious Master Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart ! " It proved not difficult to reestablish the intimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the dis- order of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly 168 THE SCARLET LETTER. outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate. He mar- velled, indeed, at the violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man, when merely proffering the advice which it was his duty to bestow, and which the minister himself had expressly souglit. With these remorseful feelings, he lost no time in making the am- plest apologies, and besought his friend still to con- tinue the care, which, if not successful in restoring him to health, had, in all probability, been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour. Roger Chillingworth readily assented, and went on with his medical supervision of the minister ; doing his best for him, in aU good faith, but always quitting the j)atient's apartment, at the close of a professional interview, with a mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips. This expression was invisible in Mr. Dimmesdale's presence, but grew strongly evident as the phj'sician crossed the threshold. " A rare case ! " he muttered. *' I must needs look deeper into it. A strange? sympathy betwixt soul and body ! Were it only for the art's sake, I must search this matter to the bottom ! " It came to pass, not long after the scene above re- corded, that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, at noon- day, and entirely unawares, fell into a deep, deep slumber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter volume open before him on the table. It must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. The profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he was one of those persons whose sleej), ordinarily, is as light, as fitful, and as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on a twig. To such an unwonted re. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT. 169 moteness, however, had his spirit now withdrawn into itself, that he stirred not in his chair when old Roger Chillingworth, without any extraordinary precaution, came into the room. The physician advanced directly in front of his patient, laid his hand upon his bosom, and thrust aside the vestment that, hitherto, had al- ways covered it even from the professional eye. Then, indeed, Mr. Dimmesdale shuddered, and slightly stirred. After a brief pause, the physician turned away. But with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and hor- ror ! With what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugli- ness of his figure, and making itself even riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which he threw up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon the floor ! Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom. But what distinguished the physician's ecstasy from Satan's was the trait of wonder in it ! XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. After the incident last described, tlie intercourse between the clergyman and the physician, though ex- ternally the same, was really of another character than it had previously been. The intellect of Roger Chil- lingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread. Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfor- tunate old man, which led him to imagine a more inti- mate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy. To make himself the one trusted friend, to whom should be confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony, the ineffectual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, expelled in vain ! All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart woidd have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the Unforgiving ! All that dark treasure to be lavished on the very man, to whom nothing else could so adequately pay the debt of ven- geance ! The clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme. Roger Chillingworth, however, was inclined to be hardly, if at all, less satisfied with the aspect of affairs, which Providence — using the avenger and his victim for its own purposes, and, per- THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 171 chance, pardoning where it seemed most to punish — had substituted for his black devices. A revelation, he could almost say, had been granted to him. It mat- tered little, for his object, whether celestial, or from what other region. By its aid, in all the subsequent relations betwixt him and Mr. Dimmesdale, not merely the external presence, but the very inmost soul, of the latter, seemed to be brought out before his eyes, so that he could see and comprehend its every move- ment. He became, thenceforth, not a spectator only, but a chief actor, in the poor minister's interior world. He could play upon him as he chose. Would he arouse him with a throb of agony ? The victim was forever on the rack; it needed only to know the spring that controlled the engine ; and the physician knew it well! Would he startle him with sudden fear ? As at the waving of a magician's wand, uprose a grisly phantom, — uprose a thousand phantoms, — in many shapes, of death, or more awful shame, all flocking round about the clergyman, and pointing with their fingers at his breast ! All this was accomplished with a subtlety so perfect that the minister, though he had constantly a dim per- ception of some evil influence watching over him, could never gain a knowledge of its actual nature. True, he looked doubtfully, fearfully, — even, at times, with horror and the bitterness of hatred, — at the deformed figure of the old physician. His gestures, his gait, his grizzled beard, his slightest and most indifferent acts, the very fashion of his garments, were odious in the clergyman's sight ; a token implicitly to be relied on, of a deeper antipathy in the breast of the latter than he was willing to acknowledge to himself. For, as it was impossible to assign a reason for such dis- 172 THE SCARLET LETTER. trust and abhorrence, so Mr. Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbid spot was infecting his heart's entire substance, attributed all his presenti- ments to no other cause. He took himself to task for his bad sympathies in reference to Roger Chilling- worth, disregarded the lesson that he should have drawn from them, and did his best to root them out. Unable to accomplish this, he nevertheless, as a mat- ter of principle, continued his habits of social familiar- ity with the old man, and thus gave him constant op- portunities for perfecting the purpose to which — poor, forlorn creature that he was, and more wretched than his victim — the avenger had devoted himself. While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office. He won it, indeed, in great part, by his sorrows. His intellectual gifts, his moral perceptions, his power of experiencing and communicating emotion, were kept in a state of preternatural activity by the prick and anguish of his daily life. His fame, though stiU on its upward slope, already overshadowed the soberer reputations of his fellow-clergymen, eminent as several of them were. There were scholars among them, who had spent more years in acquiring abstruse lore, connected with the divine profession, than Mr. Dimmesdale had lived; and who might well, therefore, be more profoundly versed in such solid and valuable attainments than their youthful brother. There were men, too, of a sturdier texture of mind than his, and endowed with a far greater share of shrewd, hard, iron, or granite un- derstanding ; which, duly mingled with a fair propor. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 173 tion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highly re- spectable, efficacious, and unamiable variety of the clerical species. There were others, again, true saintly fathers, whose faculties had been elaborated by weary toil among their books, and by patient thought, and etherealized, moreover, by spiritual communications with the better world, into which their purity of life had almost introduced these holy personages, with their garments of mortality still clinging to them. All that they lacked was the gift that descended iipon the chosen disciples at Pentecost, in tongues of flames ; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in foreign and unknown languages, but that of address- ing the whole human brotherhood in the heart's na- tive language. These fathers, otherwise so apostolic, lacked Heaven's last and rarest attestation of their office, the Tongue of Flame. They would have vainly sought — had they ever dreamed of seeking — to ex- press the highest truths through the humblest medium of familiar words and images. Their voices came down, afar and indistinctly, from the upper heights where they habitually dwelt. Not improbably, it was to this latter class of men that Mr. Dimmesdale, by many of his traits of char- acter, naturally belonged. To the high mountain- peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which it was his doom to totter. It kept him down, on a level with the lowest ; him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might else have lis- tened to and answered ! But this very burden it was that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his heart vibrated in 174 THE SCARLET LETTER. unison with theirs, and received their pain into itself, and sent its own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts, in gushes of sad, persuasive eloquence. Often est persuasive, but sometimes terrible ! The people knew not the power that moved them thus. They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holi- ness. They fancied him the mouth-piece of Heaven's messages of wisdom, and rebuke, and love. In their eyes, the very ground on which he trod was sanctified. The virgins of his church grew pale around him, vic- tims of a passion so imbued with religious sentiment that they imagined it to be all religion, and brought it openly, in their white bosoms, as their most acceptable sacrifice before the altar. The aged members of his flock, beholding Mr. Dimmesdale's frame so feeble, while they were themselves so rugged in their infirm- ity, believed that he would go heavenward before them, and enjoined it upon their children, that their old bones should be buried close to their young pastor's holy grave. And, aU this time, perchance, when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he ques- tioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried I It is inconceivable, the agony with which this public veneration tortured him ! It was his genuine impulse to adore the truth, and to reckon all things shadow- like, and utterly devoid of weight or value, that had not its divine essence as the life within their life. Then, what was he? — a substance? — or the dimmest of all shadows? He longed to speak out, from his own pulpit, at the full height of his voice, and tell the people what he was. " I, whom you behold in these black garments of the priesthood, — I, who ascend the sacred desk, and turn my pale face heavenward, taking THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 175 npon myself to hold communion, in your behalf, with the Most High Omniscience, — I, in whose daily life you discern the sanctity of Enoch, — I, whose foot- steps, as you suppose, leave a gleam along my earthly track, whereby the pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided to the regions of the blest, — I, who have laid the hand of baptism upon yom* children, — I, who have breathed the parting prayer over your dying friends, to whom the Amen sounded faintly from a world which they had quitted, — I, your pas- tor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie ! " More than once, Mr. Dimmesdale had gone into the pulpit, with a purpose never to come down its steps until he should have spoken words like the above. More than once, he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, deep, and tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secret of his soul. More than once — nay, more than a hundred times — he had actually spoken ! Spoken ! But how ? He had told his hearers that he was alto- gether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity ; and that the only wonder was that they did not see his wretched body shrivelled up before their eyes, by the burning wrath of the Almighty ! Could there be plainer speech than this ? Would not the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous im- pulse, and tear liim down out of the pulpit, which he defiled ? Not so, indeed I They heard it all, and did but reverence him the more. They little guessed what deadly purjDort lurked in thoso self-condemning words. " The godly youth ! " said they among themselves. " The saint on earth I Alas, if he discern such sin- 176 THE SCARLET LETTER. fulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine ! " The minister well knew — subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was ! — the light in which his vague confession would be viewed. He had striven to put a cheat upon him- self by making the avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowl- edged shame, without the momentary relief of being self - deceived. He had spoken the very truth, and traiisformed it into the veriest falsehood. And yet, by the constitution of his nature, he loved the truth, and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. Therefore, above all things else, he loathed his miserable self ! His inward trouble drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome, than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Piu-itan divine had plied it on his own shoulders ; laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more piti- lessly because of that bitter laugh. It was his custom, too, as it has been that of many other pious Puritans, to fast, — not, however, like them, in order to purify the body and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination, but rigorously, and until his knees trem- bled beneath him, as an act of penance. He kept vigils, likewise, night after night, sometimes in utter darkness ; sometimes with a glimmering lamp ; and sometimes, viewing his own face in a looking-glass, by the most powerful light wliich he could throw upon it. He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself. In these lengthened vigils, his brain often reeled, and visions THE INTERIOR OF A HEART. 177 Beemed to flit before him ; perhaps seen doubtfully, and by a faint light of their own, in the remote dimnes? of the chamber, or more vividly, and close beside him, within the looking-glass. Now it was a herd of dia- bolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale min- ister, and beckoned him away with them ; now a group of shining angels, who flew upward heavily, as sorrow- laden, but grew more ethereal as they rose. Now came the dead friends of his youth, and his white-bearded father, with a saint-like frown, and his mother, turn- ing her face away as she passed by. Ghost of a moth- er, — thinnest fantasy of a mother, — methinks she might yet have thrown a pitying glance towards her son ! And now, through the chamber which these spectral thoughts had made so ghastly, glided Hester Prynne, leading along little Pearl, in her scarlet garb, and pointing her forefinger, first at the scarlet letter on her bosom, and then at the clergyman's own breast. None of these visions ever quite deluded him. At any moment, by an effort of his will, he could discern substances through their misty lack of substance, and convince himself that they were not solid in their na- ture, like yonder table of carved oak, or that big, square, leathern-bound and brazen-clasped volume of divinity. But, for aU that, they were, in one sense, the truest and most substantial things which the poor minister now dealt with. It is the unspeakable misery of a life so false as his, that it steals the pith and sub- stance out of whatever realities thei'e are around us, and which were meant by Heaven to be the spirit's joy and nutriment. To the untrue man, the whole uni- verse is false, — it is impalpable, — it shrinks to noth- ing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, VOL. V. 12 178 THE SCARLET LETTER. indeed, ceases to exist. The only truth that continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul, and the undissem- bled expression of it in his aspect. Had he once found power to smile, and wear a face of gayety, there would have been no such man ! On one of those ugly nights, which we have faintly hinted at, but forborne to picture forth, the minister started from his chair. A new thought had struck him. There might be a moment's peace in it. Attir- ing himself with as much care as if it had been for public worship, and precisely in the same manner, he stole softly down the staircase, undid the door, and issued forth. xn. THE minister's VIGIL. Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism, Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. The same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister went up the steps. It was an obscure night of early May. An unvaried pall of cloud muffled the whole expanse of sky from zenith to horizon. If the same multitude which had stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they would have discerned no face above the platform, nor hardly the outline of a human shape, in the dark gray of the midnight. But the town was aU asleep. There was no jieril of discovery. The minister might stand there, if it so pleased him, until morning should redden in the east, without other risk than that the dank and chill night-air would creep into his frame, and stiffen his joints with rheumatism, and clog his throat with catarrh and cough; thereby defrauding the expectant audience of to-morrow's prayer and ser- 180 THE SCARLET LETTER. mon. No eye could see liim, save that ever -wake- ful one which had seen him in his closet, wielding the bloody scourge. Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself ! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced, with jeering laughter ! He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man ! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good pur- pose, and fling it off at once ! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance. And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poi- sonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of liis will, or i^ower to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud ; an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and re- verberated from the hiUs in the background ; as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and ter. THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. 181 ror in It, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro. " It is done ! " muttered the minister, covering his face with his hands. " The whole town wiU awake, and hurry forth, and find me here ! " But it was not so. The shriek had perhaps sounded with a far greater power, to his own startled ears, than it actually possessed. The town did not awake ; or, if it did, the drowsy slumberers mistook the cry either for something frightful in a dream, or for the noise of witches ; whose voices, at that period, were often heard to pass over the settlements or lonely cottages, as they rode with Satan through the air. The clergyman, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncov- ered his eyes and looked about him. At one of the chamber-windows of Governor Bellingham's mansion, which stood at some distance, on the line of another street, he beheld the appearance of the old magistrate himself, with a lamp in his hand, a white nightcap on his head, and a long white gown enveloping his figure. He looked like a ghost, evoked unseasonably from the grave. The cry had evidently startled him. At an- other window of the same house, moreover, appeared old Mistress Hibbins, the Governor's sister, also with a lamp, which, even thus far off, revealed the expres- sion of her sour and discontented face. She thrust forth her head from the lattice, and looked anxiously upward. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, this vener- able witch-lady had heard Mr. Dimmesdale's outcry, and interpreted it, with its multitudinous echoes and reverberations, as the clamor of the fiends and night- hags, with whom she was well known to make excur- sions into the forest. Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham's lamp, 182 THE SCARLET LETTER. the old lady quickly extinguished her own, and van- ished. Possibly, she went up among the clouds. The minister saw nothing further of her motions. The magistrate, after a wary observation of the darkness, — into which, nevertheless, he could see but little fur- ther than he might into a mill-stone, — retired from the window. The minister grew comparatively calm. His eyes, however, were soon greeted by a little, glimmering light, which, at first a long way off, was approacliing up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its f uU trough of water, and here, again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the doorstep. The Keverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute par- ticulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his existence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard ; and that the gleam of the lan- tern would faU upon him, in a few moments more, and reveal his long-hidden secret. As the light drew nearer, he beheld, within its illuminated circle, his brother clergyman, — or, to speak more accurately, his professional father, as well as highly valued friend, — the Reverend Mr. Wilson ; who, as Mr. Dimmesdale now conjectured, had been praying at the bedside of some dying man. And so he had. The good old min- ister came freshly from the death-chamber of Governor Winthrop, who had passed from earth to heaven within that very hour. And now, surrounded, like the saint- like personages of olden times, with a radiant halo, that glorified him amid this gloomy night of sin, — as if the departed Governor had left him an inheritance of his glory, or as if he had caught upon himself tha THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. 183 distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thith- erward to see the triumphal pilgrim pass within its gates, — now, in short, good Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his f ootstej)s with a lighted lantern ! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above con- ceits to Mr. Dimmesdale, who smiled, — nay, almost laughed at them, — and then wondered if he were going mad. As the Reverend Mr. Wilson passed beside the scaf- fold, closely muffling his Geneva cloak about him with one arm, and holding the lantern before his breast with the other, the minister coidd hardly restrain himself from speaking. " A good evening to you, venerable Father Wilson ! Come up hither, I pray you, and pass a pleasant hour with me ! " Good heavens ! Had Mr. Dimmesdale actually spo- ken ? For one instant, he believed that these words had passed his lips. But they were uttered only within his imagination. The venerable Father Wilson continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet, and never once turning his head towards the guilty platform. When the light of the glimmering lantern had faded quite away, the minister discovered, by the faintness which came over him, that the last few moments had been a crisis of terrible anxiety ; although his mind had made an involuntary eif ort to relieve itself by a kind of lurid playfulness. Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the hu- morous again stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt liis limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the 184 THE SCARLET LETTER. scaffold. Morning would break, and find him there. The neighborhood would begin to rouse itself. The earliest riser, coming forth in the dim twilight, would perceive a vaguely defined figure aloft on the place of shame ; and, half crazed betwixt alarm and curiosity, would go, knocking from door to door, summoning all the people to behold the ghost — as he needs must think it — of some defunct transgressor. A dusky tu- mult would flap its wings from one house to another. Then — the morning light still waxing stronger — old patriarchs would rise up in great haste, each in his flannel gown, and matronly dames, without pausing to put off their night-gear. The whole tribe of decorous personages, who had never heretofore been seen with a single hair of their heads awry, would start into pub- lic view, with the disorder of a nightmare in their as- pects. Old Governor Bellingham would come grimly forth, with his King James's ruff fastened askew ; and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest cling- ing to her skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as hav- ing hardly got a wink of sleep after her night ride ; and good Father Wilson, too, after spending half the night, at a death-bed, and liking ill to be disturbed, thus early, out of his dreams about the glorified saints. Hither, likewise, would come the elders and deacons of Mr. Dimmesdale's church, and the young virgins who 80 idolized their minister, and had made a shrine for him in their white bosoms ; which now, by the by, in their hurry and confusion, they would scantly have given themselves time to cover with their kerchiefs. All people, in a word, would come stumbling over their thresholds, and turning up 'their amazed and horror- stricken visages around the scaffold. Whom would tt«y 4iscern there, with the red eastern light- upon hia THE MINISTER 'S VIGIL. 185 brow? Whom, but the Reverend Arthur Dimmes- dale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed with shamej and standing where Hester Prynne had stood ! Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of laughter. It was imme- diately responded to by a light, airy, childish laugh, in which, with a thriU of the heart, — but he knew not whether of exquisite pain, or pleasure as acute, — he recognized the tones of little Pearl. " Pearl ! Little Pearl ! " cried he after a moment's pause ; then, suppressing his voice, — " Hester ! Hes- ter Prynne ! Are you there ? " " Yes ; it is Hester Prynne ! " she replied, in a tone of surprise ; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk, along which she had been passing. " It is I, and my little Pearl." " Whence come you, Hester ! " asked the minister. " What sent you hither ? " "I have been watching at a death-bed," answered Hester Prynne, — "at Governor Winthrop's death- bed, and have taken his measure for a robe, and am now going homeward to my dwelling." " Come up hither, Hester, thou and little Pearl," said the Eeverend Mr. Dimmesdale. " Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither once again, and we wiU stand all three to- gether ! " She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child's other hand, and took it. The moment that he did so, there came what seemed a tumultuous rush of new life, other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart, and hurrying 186 THE SCARLET LETTER. through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half- torpid system. The three formed an electric chain. " Minister ! " whispered little Pearl. " What wouldst thou say, child ? " asked Mr. Dim- mesdale. " Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to- morrow noontide ? " inquired Pearl. " Nay ; not so, my little Pearl," answered the min- ister ; for with the new energy of the moment, all the dread of public exposure, that had so long been the anguish of his life, had returned upon him ; and he was already trembling at the conjunction in wliich — with a strange joy, nevertheless — he now found him- self. " Not so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand with thy mother and thee, one other day, but not to-mor- row." Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister held it fast. " A moment longer, my child ! " said he. " But wilt thou promise," asked Pearl, " to take my hand and mother's hand, to-morrow noontide ? " " Not then. Pearl," said the minister, " but another time." " And what other time ? " persisted the child. " At the great judgment day," whispered the min- ister, — and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the truth impelled hun to answer the child so. " Then, and there, before the judgment-seat, thy mother, and thou, and I must stand together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting ! " Pearl laughed again. But before Mr. Dimmesdale had done speaking, a THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. 187 light gleamed far and wide over all the muffled sky. It was doubtless caused by one of those meteors, which the night-watcher may so often observe, burn- ing out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmos- phere. So powerful was its radiance, that it thor- oughly illiuninated the dense medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault brightened, like the dome of an immense lamp. It showed the familiar scene of the street, with the distinctness of mid-day, but also with the awfulness that is always imparted to familiar objects by an unaccustomed light. The wood- en houses, with their jutting stories and quaint gable- peaks ; the doorsteps and thresholds, with the early grass springing up about them ; the garden-plots, black with freshly-turned earth ; the wheel-track, lit- tle worn, and, even in the market-place, margined with green on either side, — all were visible, but with a singularity of aspect that seemed to give another moral interpretation to the things of this world than they had ever borne before. And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart ; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom ; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two. They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite aU who belong to one an- other. There was witchcraft in little Pearl's eyes, and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smUe which made its expression frequently so elfish. She withdrew her hand from Mr. Dimmes- dale's, and pointed across the street. But he clasped both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes to- wards the zenith. 188 THE SCARLET LETTER. Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many revela- tions from a supernatural source. Thus, a blazing spear, a sword of flame, a bow, or a sheaf of arrows, seen in the midnight sky, prefigured Indian warfare. Pestilence was known to have been foreboded by a shower of crimson light. We doubt whether any marked event, for good or evil, ever befell New Eng- land, from its settlement down to Revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously warned by some spectacle of this nature. Not sel- dom, it had been seen by multitudes. Oftener, how- ever, its credibility rested on the faith of some lonely eye-witness, who beheld the wonder through the col- ored, magnifying, and distorting medium of his imag- ination, and shaped it more distinctly iu his after- thought. It was, indeed, a majestic idea, that the destiny of nations shoidd be revealed, in these awful hieroglyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed too expansive for Provi- dence to write a people's doom upon. The belief was a favorite one with our forefathers, as betokening that their infant commonwealth was under a celestial guardianship of peculiar intimacy and strictness. But what shall we say, when an individual discovers a revelation addressed to himself alone, on the same vast sheet of record ! In such a case, it could only be the symptom of a highly disordered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his ego- tism over the whole expanse of nature, until the firma^ ment itself should appear no more than a fitting page for his soul's history and fate ! THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. 189 We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart, that the minister, looking up- ward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter, — the letter A, — marked out in lines of dull red light. Not but the meteor may have shown itself at that point, burning duskily through a veil of cloud ; but with no such shape as his guilty imagination gave it; or, at least, with so little defi- niteness, that another's guilt might have seen another symbol in it. There was a singular circumstance that character- ized Mr; Dimmesdale's psychological state at this mo- ment. AU the time that he gazed upward to the ze- nith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that little Pearl was pointing her finger towards old Roger Chil- lingworth, who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. The minister appeared to see him, with the same glance that discerned the miraculous letter. To his features, as to all other objects, the meteoric light imparted a new expression ; or it might weU be that the physician was not careful then, as at all other times, to hide the malevolence with which he looked upon his victim. Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger Chilling- worth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, stand- ing there with a smile and scowl to claim his own. So vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated. " Who is that man, Hester ? ' gasped Mr. Dimmes- 190 THE SCARLET LETTER. dale, overcome with terror. " I shiver at him ! Dost thou laiow the man ? I hate him, Hester ! " She remembered her oath, and was silent. " I tell thee, my soul shivers at him ! " muttered the minister again. " Who is he ? Who is he ? Canst thou do nothing for me ? I have a nameless horror of the man ! " " Minister," said little Pearl, " I can tell thee who he is ! " " Quickly, then, child ! " said the minister, bending his ear close to her lips. " Quickly ! — and as low as thou canst whisper." Pearl mumbled something into his ear, that sounded, indeed, like human language, but was only such gib- berish as children may be heard amusing themselves with, by the hour together. At aU events, if it in- volved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilder- ment of his mind. The elfish child then laughed aloud. " Dost thou mock me now ? " said the minister. " Thou wast not bold ! — thou wast not true ! " — answered the child. " Thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and mother's hand, to-morrow noon- tide ! " "Worthy Sir," answered the physician, who had now advanced to the foot of the platform. " Pious Master Dimmesdale, can tliis be you? Well, weU, indeed ! We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straitly looked after! We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep. Come, good Sir, and my dear friend, I pray you, lei me lead you home ! " THE MINISTER'S VIGIL. 191 " How knewest thou that I was here ? " asked the minister, fearfully. " Verily, and in good faith," answered Roger Chil- lingworth, " I knew nothing of the matter. I had spent the better part of the night at the bedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor skill might to give him ease. He going home to a better world, I, likewise, was on my way homeward, when this strange light shone out. Come with me, I beseech you, Reverend Sir; else you wiU be poorly able to do Sabbath duty to-morrow. Aha ! see now, how they trouble the brain, — these books ! — these books ! You should study less, good Sir, and take a little pastime ; or these night whimseys will grow upon you." " I will go home with you," said Mr. Dimmesdale. With a chill despondency, like one awaking, all nerveless, from an ugly dream, he yielded himself to the physician, and was led away. The next day, however, being the Sabbath, he preached a discourse which was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the most replete with heav- enly influences, that had ever proceeded from his lips. Souls, it is said more souls than one, were brought to the truth by the efficacy of that sermon, and vowed within themselves to cherish a holy gratitude towards Mr. Dimmesdale throughout the long hereafter. But, as he came down the pulpit steps, the gray-bearded sexton met him, holding up a black glove, which the minister recognized as his own. " It was found," said the sexton, " this morning, on the scaffold where evil-doers are set up to public shame. Satan dropped it there, I take it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reverence. But, indeed. 192 THE SCARLET LETTER. he was blind and foolish, as he ever and always is. A pure hand needs no glove to cover it ! " " Thank you, my good friend," said the minister, gravely, but startled at heart ; for so confused was his remembrance, that he had almost brought himself to look at the events of the past night as visionary. " Yes, it seems to be my glove, indeed ! " " And, since Satan saw fit to steal it, your rever- ence must needs handle him without gloves, hence- forward," remarked the old sexton, grimly smiling. " But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night ? — a great red letter in the sky, — the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof ! " " No," answered the minister, " I had not heard of it." XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. In her late singular interview with Mr. Dimmes- dale, Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced. His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. His moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. It grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual fac- ulties retained their pristine strength, pr had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them. With her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from all others, she could read- ily infer that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was stiU operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's well-being and repose. Knowing what this poor, fallen man had once been, her whole soul was moved by the shuddering terror with which he had appealed to her, — the outcast woman, — for support against his instinctively discovered enemy. She decided, more- over, that he had a right to her utmost aid. Little ac- customed, in her long seclusion from society, to meas- j ure her ideas of right and wrong by any standard ex- j ternal to herself, Hester saw — or seemed to see — ■'■ that there lay a responsibility upon her, in reference to the clergyman, which she owed to no other, nor to the whole world besides. The links that united her to the rest of human kind — links of flowers, or sUk, or VOL. v. 13 194 THE SCARLET LETTER. gold, or whatever the material — had all been broken. Here was the iron link of mutual crime, which neither he nor she could break. Like aU other ties, it brought along with it its obligations. Hester Prynne did not now occupy jorecisely the same position in which we beheld her during the earHel periods of her ignominy. Years had come and gone Pearl was now seven years old. Her mother, with the scarlet letter on her breast, glittering in its fantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople. As is apt to be the case when a person stands out in any prominence before the community, and, at the same time, interferes neither with public nor individual interests and convenience, a species of general regard' had ultimately grown up in reference to Hester Prynne. It is to the credit of human na- ture, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be trans- formed to love, miless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. In this matter of Hester Prynne, there was neither irritation nor irksomeness. She never battled with the public, but submitted, uncomplainingly, to its worst usage ; she made no claim upon it, in requital for what she suffered ; she did not weigh upon its sym- pathies. Then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy, was reckoned largely in her favor. With nothing now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly no wish, of gaining anything, it could only be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the poor wanderer to its paths. It was perceived, too, that while Hester never put ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 195 forward even the humblest title to share in the world's privileges, — further than to breathe the common air, and earn daily bread for little Pearl and herself by the faithful labor of her hands, — she was quick to ac- knowledge her sisterhood with the race of man, when- ever benefits were to be conferred. None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty ; even though the bitter-hearted pauper threw back a gibe in requital of the food brought regularly to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered a monarch's robe. None so self -devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town. In all seasons of calamity, indeed, whether general or of individuals, the outcast of society at once found her place. She came, not as a guest, but as a rightfid inmate, into the household that was darkened by trouble ; as if its gloomy twilight were a medium in which she was entitled to hold in- tercourse with her fellow-creatures. There glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its uneartlily ray. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taf)er of the sick-chamber. It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer's hard extremity, across the verge of time. It had shown him where to set his foot, while the light of earth waS fast becoming dim, and ere the light of futurity could reach him. In such emergencies, Hes- ter's nature showed itself warm and rich ; a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by the largest. Her breast, with its badge of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. She was self-ordained a Sister of Mercy ; or, we may rather say, the world's heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter was the sym- 196 THE SCARLET LETTER. bol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, — so much power to do, and power to sympathize, — ■ that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able ; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength. It was only the darkened house that could contain her. When sunshine came again, she was not there. Her shadow had faded across the threshold. The helpful inmate had departed, without one backward glance to gather up the meed of gratitude, if any were in the hearts of those whom she had served so zeal- ously. Meeting them in the street, she never raised her head to receive their greeting. If they were reso- lute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet let- ter, and passed on. This might be pride, but was so like humility, that it produced all the softening influ- ence of the latter quality on the public mind. The public is despotic in its temper ; it is capable of deny- ing common justice, when too strenuously demanded as a right ; but quite as frequently it awards more than justice, when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made, entirely to its generosity. Interpreting Hester Prynne' s deportment as an appeal of this na^ ture, society was inclined to show its former victim a more benign countenance than she cared to be fa- vored with, or, perchance, than she deserved. The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were longer in acknowledging the influ- ence of Hester's good qualities than the people. The prejudices which they shared in common with the lat- ter were fortified in themselves by an iron framework of reasoning, that made it a far tougher labor to expel them. Day by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 197 ■Wrinkles were relaxing into something which, in the due course of years, might grow to be an expression of almost benevolence. Thus it was with the men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the guardianship of the public morals. Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty ; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. " Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say to strangers. " It is our Hester, — the town's own- Hester, who is so kind to the poor, so helpfid to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years. It was none the less a fact, however, that, in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a Idnd of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid aU peril. Had she faUen among thieves, it would have kept her safe. It was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had drawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile struck it, but feU harmless to the ground. The effect of the symbol — or, rather, of the posi- tion in respect to society that was indicated by it — on the mind of Hester Prynne herself, was powerful and peculiar. AU the light and graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and harsh outline, which might have been repulsive, had 198 THE SCARLET LETTER. she possessed friends or companions to be repelled by it. Even the attractiveness of her person had under- gone a similar change. It might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. It was a sad transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. It was due in part to all these causes, but still more to something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's face for Love to dwell upon ; nothing in Hester's form, thouj^h majestic and statue-like, that Passion would ever dream of clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester's bosom, to make it ever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the ten- derness will either be crushed out of her, or — and the outward semblance is the same — crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been woman, and ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again if there were only the magic touch to effect the transfiguration. We shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever after- wards so touched, and so transfigured. Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impres. sion was to be attributed to the circumstance, that hei life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 199 feeling, to thought. Standing alone in the •world, — alone, as to any dependence on society, and with lit- tle Pearl to be guided and protected, — alone, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to consider it desirable, — she cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age in which the hu- man intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries be- fore. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged — not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode — the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the At- lantic, but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stig- matized by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cot^ , tage, by the sea-shore, thoughts visited her, such as dared to enter no other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door. It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect qui- etude to the external regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemed to be with Hester. Yet, had little Pearl never come to her from the spiritual world, it might have been far oth- erwise. Then, she might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Anne Hutchinson, as the 200 THE SCARLET LETTER. foundress of a religious sect. She might, in one of her phases, have been a prophetess. She might, and not improbably would, have suffered death from the stern tribunals of the period, for attemj)ting to under- mine the foundations of the Puritan establishment. But, in the education of her child, the mother's enthu- siasm of thought had something to wreak itself upon. Providence, in the person of this little girl, had as- signed to Hester's charge the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cherished and developed amid a host of difficulties. Everything was against her. The world was hostile. The child's own nature had some- thing wrong in it, which continually betokened that she had been born amiss, — the effluence of her moth- er's lawless passion, — and often impelled Hester to ask, in bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little creature had been born at all. Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind, with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting, even to the haj)piest among them? As concerned her own individual ex- istence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to specu- lation, though it may keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her. As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down, and built up anew. Then, the very nature of the opposite sex, or its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to be essentially modified, before woman can be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suit- able position. Finally, all other difficulties being ob- viated, woman cannot take advantage of these pre. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER. 201 fiminary reforms, until she herself shall have under- gone a still mightier change ; in which, perhaps, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have evaporated. A woman never over« comes these problems by any exercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one way. If her heart chance to come uppermost, they vanish. Thus, Hester Prynne, whose heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wanderfed without a clew in the dark labyrinth of mind: now turned aside by an insur- mountable precipice ; now starting back from a deep chasm. There was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfort nowhere. At times, a fearful doubt strove to possess her soul, whether it were not better to send Pearl at once to heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Justice should provide. The scarlet letter had not done its office. Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night of his vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sac- rifice for its attainment. She had witnessed the in- tense misery beneath which the minister struggled, or, to speak more accurately, had ceased to struggle. She saw that he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it. It was impossible to doubt, that, whatever pamful efficacy there might be in the secret sting of remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused into it by the hand that proffered relief. A secret enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of a friend aud helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded for tampering with the delicate sprmgs of Mr. Dim- 202 THE SCARLET LETTER. mesdale's nature. Hester could not but ask herself, ■whether there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty, on her own part, in allow- ing the minister to be thrown into a position where so much evil was to be foreboded, and nothing au- spicious to be hoped. Her only justification lay in the fact, that she had been able to discern no method of rescuing him from a blacker ruin than had. over- whelmed herself, except by acquiescing in Roger Chil- lingworth's scheme of disguise. Under that impulse, she had made her choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared, the more wretched alternative of the two. She determined to redeem her error, so far as it might yet be possible. Strengthened by years of hard and solemn trial, she felt herself no longer so inadequate to cope with Roger Chillingworth as on that night, abased by sin, and half maddened by the ignominy, that was still new, when they had talked together in the prison-chamber. She had climbed her way, since then, to a higher point. The old man, on the other hand, had. brought himself nearer to her level, or per- haps below it, by the revenge which he had stooped for. In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to meet her former husband, and do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim on whom he had so evidently set his gripe. The occasion was not long to seek. One afternoon, walking vsdth Pearl in a retired part of the {)eninsula, she beheld the old physician, with a basket on one arm, and a staff in the other hand, stooping along the ground, in quest of roots and herbs to con- coct his medicines withal. XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICLAN. Hestee bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and play, with the sheUs and tangled sea^ weed, until she should have talked awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. So the chUd flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small white feet, went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in. Forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf -smile in her eyes, the image of a little maid, whom Pearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand, and run a race with her. But the visionary little maid, on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say, — " This is a better place ! Come thou into the pool ! " And Pearl, stepping in, mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom ; while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro in the agitated water. Meanwhile her mother had accosted the physician. " I would speak a word with you," said she, — "a word that concerns us much." "Aha! and is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old Roger ChiUingworth ? " answered he, raising himself from his stooping posture. " With all my Heart ! Why, Mistress, I hear good tidings of you on 204 THE SCARLET LETTER. all hands! No longer ago than yester-eve, a magis- trate, a wise and godly man, was discoursing of your affairs. Mistress Hester, and whispered me that there had been question concerning you in the council. It was debated whether or no, with safety to the com- mon weal, yonder scarlet letter might be taken off your bosom. On my life, Hester, I made my entreaty to the worshipful magistrate that it might be done forth- with ! " " It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates tc take off this badge," calmly replied Hester. " Were I worthy to be quit of it, it woiild fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into somethiag that should speak a different purport." " Nay, then, wear it, if it suit you better," rejoined he. "A woman must needs follow her own fancy, touching the adornment of her person. The letter is gayly embroidered, and shows right bravely on your bosom ! " All this while, Hester had been looking steadily at the old man, and was shocked, as well as wonder- smitten, to discern what a change had been wrought upon him within the past seven years. It was not so much that he had grown older ; for though the traces of advancing life were visible, he wore his age well, and seemed to retain a wiry vigor and alertness. But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look. It seemed to be his wish and purpose to mask this expression with a smile ; but the latter played him false, and flickered over his visage so de- risively, that the spectator could see his blackness aU HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN. 205 the better for it. Ever and anon, too, there came a glare of red' light out of his eyes ; as if the old man's soul were on fire, and kept on smouldering duskily within his breast, imtil, by some casual puff of pas- sion, it was blown into a momentary flame. Tliis he repressed, as speedily as possible, and strove to look as if nothing of the kind had happened. In a word, old Roger ChiUingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he wiU only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office. This imhappy person had effected such a transformation, by devoting himself, for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analyzed and gloated over. The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne's bosom. Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her. " What see you in my face," asked the physician, " that you look at it so earnestly ? " "Something that would make me weep, if there were any tears bitter enough for it," answered she. " But let it pass ! It is of yonder miserable man that I would speak." " And what of him ? " cried Roger ChiUingworth, eagerly, as if he loved the topic, and were glad of an opportunity to discuss it with the only person of whom he could make a confidant. " Not to hide the truth. Mistress Hester, my thoughts happen just now to be busy with the gentleman. So speak freely, and I will make answer." " When we last spake together," said Hester, " now seven years ago, it was your pleasure to extort a prom- 206 THE SCARLET LETTER. ise of secrecy, as touching the former relation betwixt yourself and me. As the life and good fame of yon- der man were in your hands, there seemed no choice to me, save to be silent, in accordance with your be- hest. Yet it was not without heavy misgivings that I thus bound myself ; for, having cast off all duty to- wards other human beings, there remained a duty to- wards him ; and something whispered me that I was betraying it, in pledging myself to keep your counsel. Since that day, no man is so near to him as you. You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart ! Your clutch is on his Hfe, and you cause him to die daily a living death ; and still he knows you not. In permitting this, I have surely acted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to be true ! " " What choice had you ? " asked Roger ChiUing- worth. " My finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, — thence, peradventure, to the gaUows ! " " It had been better so ! " said Hester Prynne. " What evil have I done the man ? " asked Roger ChiUingworth again. " I tell thee, Hester Prynne, the richest fee that ever physician earned from monarch could not have bought such care as I have wasted on this miserable priest! But for my aid, his Kfe would have burned away in torments, within the first two years after the perpetration of his crime and thine. For, Hester, his spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter. Oh, I could reveal a goodly secret ! But enough ! What art can do, I have exhausted on him. That he now breathes, and creeps about on earth, is owing all to me ! " HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN. 207 " Better he had died at once ! " said Hester Prynne. " Yea, woman, thou sayest truly ! " cried old Roger Chillingworth, letting the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes. " Better had he died at once ! Never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. And all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy I He has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence dwell- ing always upon him like a curse. He knew, by some spiritual sense, — for the Creator never made another being so sensitive as this, — he knew that no friendly hand v/as pulling at his heart-strings, and that an eye was looking curiously into him, which sought only evil, and found it. But he knew not that the eye and hand were mine! With the superstition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams, and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse, and despair of pardon ; as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. But it was the constant shadow of my presence I — the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged ! — and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge ! Yea, indeed ! — he did not err ! — there was a fiend at his elbow ! A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment ! " The unfortunate physician, while uttering these words, lifted his hands with a look of horror, as if he had beheld some frightful shape, which he could not recognize, usurping the place of his own image in a glass. It was one of those moments — which some- times occur only at the interval of years — when a man's moral aspect is faithfully revealed to his mind's eye. Not improbably, he had never before viewed himself as he did now. 208 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Hast thou not tortured him enough? " said He^Jter, noticing the old man's look. " Has he not paid thee all?" " No ! — no ! He has but increased the debt ! " an- swered the physician ; and as he proceeded, his man- ner lost its fiercer characteristics, and subsided into gloom. " Dost thou remember me, Hester, as I was nine years agone ? Even then, I was in the autumn of my days, nor was it the early autumn. But all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years, bestowed faithfully for the increase of mine own knowledge, and faithfully, too, though this latter object was but casual to the other, — faithfully for the advancement of human weKare. No life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine ; few lives so rich with benefits conferred. Dost thou remember me? Was I not, though you might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others, craving lit- tle for himself, — kind, true, just, and of constant, if not warm affections ? Was I not aU this ? " " AU this, and more," said Hester. " And what am I now ? " demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the whole evil within liim to be written on his features. " I have alreadj^ told thee what I am ! A fiend ! Who made me so ? " " It was myself ! " cried Hester, shuddering. " It was I, not less than he. Why hast thou not avenged thyself on me? " " I have left thee to the scarlet letter," replied Roger Chillingworth. " If that have not avenged me, I can do no more ! " He laid his finger on it, with a smile. " It has avenged thee ! " answered Hester Prynne. " I judged no less," said the physician. " And now, what wouldst thou with me touching this man ? " HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN. 209 " I must reveal the secret," answered Hester, firmly. " He must discern thee in thy true character. Wliat may be the result, I know not. But this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid. So far as con- cerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in thy hands. Nor do I, — whom the scarlet letter has disciplined to truth, though it be the truth of red-hot iron, entering into the soul, — nor do I perceive such advantage in his living any longer a life ' of ghastly emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thy mercy. Do with him as thou wilt ! There is no good for him, — no good for me, — no good for thee ! There is no good for little Pearl ! There is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze ! " " Woman, I could weUnigh pity thee ! " said Roger Chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too ; for there was a quality almost majestic in the de- spair which she expressed. " Thou hadst great ele- ments. Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy na^ ture ! " " And I thee," answered Hester Prynne, " for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend ! "Wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be once more human ? If not for his sake, then doubly for thine own ! Forgive, and leave his further retri- bution to the Power that claims it ! I said, but now, that there could be no good event for him, or thee, or me, who are here wandering together in this gloomy maze of evil, and stumbling, at every step, over the guilt wherewith we have strewn our path. It is not VOL.. V. 14 210 THE SCARLET LETTER. 80 ! There might be good for thee, and thee alone, since thou hast been deeply wronged, and hast it at thy wiU to pardon. Wilt thou give up that only priv- ilege ? Wilt thou reject that priceless benefit ? " " Peace, Hester, peace ! " replied the old man, with gloomy sternness. " It is not granted me to pardon. I have no such power as thou teUest me of. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains aU that we do, and all we suffer. By thy first step awry thou didst plant the germ of evil ; but since that moment, it has all been a dark necessity. Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion ; neither am I fiend-like, who have snatched a fiend's office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may ! Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man." He waved his hand, and betook himself again to his employment of gathering herbs. XV. HESTEE AND PEAEL. So Eoger Chiilingworth — a deformed old figitre, ■with a face that haunted men's memories longer than they liked — took leave of Hester Prynne, and went stooping away along the earth. He gathered here and there an herb, or grubbed up a root, and put it into the basket on his arm. His gray beard almost touched the ground, as he crept onward. Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure. She wondered what sort of herbs they were, which the old man was so sedulous to gather. Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs, of species hitherto unknown, that would start up under his fingers ? Or might it suffice him that every wholesome growth should be converted into something deleterious and malignant at his touch ? Did the sun, which shone so brightly everywhere else, really fall upon him? Or was there, as it rather seemed, a circle of ominous shadow moving along with his deformity, whichever way he turned himself ? And whither was he now going ? Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly 212 THE SCARLET LETTER. nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance? Or would he spread bat's wings and flee away, looking so much the uglier the higher he rose towards heaven ? " Be it sin or no," said Hester Prynne, bitterly, as she still gazed after him, " I hate the man ! " She upbraided herself for the sentiment, but could not overcome or lessen it. Attempting to do so, she thought of those long-past days, in a distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study, and sit down in the firelight of their home, and in the light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours among his books might be taken off the scholar's heart. Such scenes had once appeared not otherwise than happy ; but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subse- quent life, they classed themselves among her ugli- est remembrances. She marvelled how such scenes could have been ! She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him ! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of that she had ever endured, and reciprocated, the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side. ■ "Yes, I hate him ! " repeated Hester, more bitterly than before. " He betrayed me ! He has done me worse wrong than I did him ! " Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless HESTER AND PEARL. 213 they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart I Else it may be their miserable fortune, as it was Roger Chillingworth's, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble im- age of hapijiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality. But Hester ought long ago to have done with this injustice. What did it betoken ? Had seven long years, under the torture of the scarlet letter, inflicted so much of misery, and wrought out no repentance ? The emotions of that brief space, while she stood gazing after the crooked figure of old Roger ChiUing- worth, threw a dark light on Hester's state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise have ac- knowledged to herself. He being gone, she summoned back her child. " Pearl ! Little Pearl ! Where are you ? " Pearl, whose activity of spirit never flagged, had been at no loss for amusement while her mother talked with the old gatherer of herbs. At first, as already told, she had flirted fancifully with her own image in a pool of water, beckoning the phantom forth, and — as it declined to venture — seeking a passage for her- self into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattain- able sky. Soon finding, however, that either she or the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snail-shells, and sent out more ventures on the mighty deep than any merchant in New England ; but the larger part of them foundered near the shore. She seized a live horseshoe by the tail, and made prize of several five-fingers, and l?,j/. out a jelly-fish to melt in the wai-m sun. Then '.'2. e 214 THE SCARLET LETTER. took up the white foam, that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scam- pering after it, with winged footsteps, to catch the great snow-flakes ere they fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-birds, that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock after these small sea^ fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little gray bird, with a white breast. Pearl was almost sure, had been hit by a pebble, and fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport ; because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself. Her final employment was to gather sea-weed, of various kinds, and make herself a scarf, or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. She inherited her mother's gift for devis- ing drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid's garb. Pearl took some eel-g^ass, and imi- tated, as best she could, on her own bosom, the deco- ration with which she was so familiar on her mother's. A letter, — the letter A, — but freshly green, instead of scarlet ! The child bent her chin upon her breast, and contemplated this device with strange interest ; even as if the one only thing for which she had been sent into the world was to make out its hidden import. " I wonder if mother will ask me what it means ! " thought Pearl. Just then, she heard her mother's voice, and flitting along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before Hester Prynne, dancing, laughing, and pointing her finger to the ornament upon her bosom. "My little Pearl," said Hester, after a moment'* HESTER AND PEARL. 215 silence, " the green letter, and on thy childish bosom, has no purport. But dost thou know, my child, what this letter means which thy mother is doomed to wear ? " " Yes, mother," said the child. " It is the great letter A. Thou hast taught me in the horn-book." Hester looked steadily into her little face ; but, though ^here was that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her black eyes, she could not satisfy herself whether Pearl reaUy attached any meaning to the symbol. She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point. " Dost thou know, chUd, wherefore thy mother wears this letter ? " " Truly do I ! " answered Pearl, looking brightly into her mother's face. " It is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart ! " " And what reason is that ? " asked Hester, half smiling at the absurd incongruity of the child's obser- vation ; but, on second thoughts, turning pale. " What has the letter to do with any heart, save mine ? " " Nay, mother, I have told all I know," said Pearly more seriously than she was wont to speak. " Ask yonder old man whom thou hast been talking with \ It may be he can tell. But in good earnest now, mother dear, what does this scarlet letter mean ? — and why dost thou wear it on thy bosom ? — and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart ? " She took her mother's hand in both her own, and gazed into her eyes with an earnestness that was sel- dom seen in her wild and capricious character. The thought occurred to Hester that the child might reaUy be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence, and doing what she could, and as intelligently as she 216 THE SCARLET LETTER. knew how, to establish a meeting-point of sympathy. It showed Pearl in an unwonted aspect. Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child v/ith the intensity of a sole affection, had schooled herself to hope for little other return than the waywardness of an April breeze ; which spends its time in airy sport, and has its gusts of inexplicable passion, and is petulant in its best of moods, and chills oftener than caresses you, when you take it to your bosom ; in requital of which misdemeanors, it will sometimes, of its own vague pur- pose, kiss your cheek with a kind of doubtful tender- ness, and play gently with your hair, and then be gone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleas- ure at your heart. And this, moreover, was a moth- er's estimate of the child's disposition. Any other ob- server might have seen few but unamiable traits, and have given them a far darker coloring. But now the idea came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when she could be made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's sorrows as could be imparted, without irrev- erence either to the parent or the chUd. In the little chaos of Pearl's character there might be seen emerg- ing — and could have been, from the very first — the steadfast principles of an imflinching courage, — an imcontroUable will, — a sturdy pride, which might be disciplined into self-respect, — and a bitter scorn of many things, which, when examined, might be found to have the taint of falsehood in them. She possessed affections, too, though hitherto acrid and disagreeable, as are the richest flavors of unripe fruit. With all these sterling attributes, thought Hester, the evil which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, il a noble woman do not grow out of this elfish child. HESTER AND PEARL. 217 Pearl's inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her be- ing. From the earliest epoch of her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed mission. Hes- ter had often fancied that Providence had a design of justice and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked propensity ; but never, until now, had she be- thought herself to ask, whether, linked with that de- sign, there might not likewise be a purpose of mercy and beneficence. If little Pearl were entertained with faith and trust, as a spirit messenger no less than an earthly child, might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart, and converted it into a tomb ? — and to help her to overcome the passion, once so wild, and even yet neither dead nor asleep, but only imprisoned within the same tomb-like heart? Such were some of the thoughts that now stirred in Hester's mind, with as much vivacity of impression as if they had actually been whispered into her ear. And there was little Pearl, all this while holding her mother's hand in both her own, and turning her face upward, while she put these searching questions, once, and again, and still a third time. " What does the letter mean, mother ? — and why dost thou wear it ? — and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart ? " "What shall I say?" thought Hester to herself. " No ! If this be the price of the child's sympathy, I cannot pay it." Then she spoke aloud. " SiUy Pearl," said she, " what questions are these ? There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about. What know I of the minister's heart ? 218 THE SCARLET LETTER. And as for the scarlet letter, I wear it for the sake of its gold-thread." In all the seven bygone years, Hester Prynne had never before been false to the symbol on her bosom. It may be that it was the talisman of a stern and se- vere, but yet a guardian spirit, who now forsook her | as recognizing that, in spite of his strict watch over her heart, some new evil had crept into it, or some old one had never been expelled. As for little Pearl, the earnestness soon passed out of her face. But the child did not see fit to let the matter drop. Two or three times, as her mother and she went home- ward, and as often at supper-time, and while Hester was putting her to bed, and once after she seemed to be fairly asleep. Pearl looked up, with mischief gleam- ing in her black eyes. " Mother," said she, " what does the scarlet letter mean ? " And the next morning, the first indication the child gave of being awake was by popping up her head from the pillow, and making that other inquiry, which she had so unaccountably connected with her investigations about the scarlet letter, — " Mother ! — Mother ! — Why does the minister keep his hand over his heart? " " Hold thy tongue, naughty cliild ! " answered her mother, with an asperity that she had never pei-mitted to herself before. " Do not tease me, else I shall shut thee into the dark closet ! " XVL A FOEEST WALK. Hester Pethtne remained constant in her resolve to make known to Mr. Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior consequences, the true char- acter of the man who had crept into his intimacy. For several days, however, she vainly sought an op- portunity of addressing him in some of the medita- tive walks which she knew him to be in the habit of taking, along the shores of the peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the neighboring country. There would have been no scandal, indeed, nor peril to the holy whiteness of the clergyman's good fame, had she vis- ited him in his own study, where many a penitent, ere now, had confessed sins of perhaps as deep a dye as the one betokened by the scarlet letter. But, partly that she dreaded the secret or undisguised interference of old Roger ChiUingworth, and partly that her con- scious heart imputed suspicion where none could have been felt, and partly that both the minister and she would need the whole wide world to breathe in, while they talked together, — for all these reasons, Hester never thought of meeting him in any narrower privacy than beneath the open sky. At last, while attending in a sick-chamber, whither the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had been summoned to make a prayer, she learnt that he had gone, the day before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among his Indian 220 THE SCARLET LETTER. converts. He would probably return, by a certain hour, in the afternoon of the morrow. Betimes, there- fore, the next day, Hester took little Pearl, — who was necessarily the companion of all her mother's expedi- tions, however inconvenient her presence, — and set forth. The road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the peninsula to the mainland, was no other than a footpath. It straggled onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester's mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilder- ness in which she had so long been wandering. The day was chiU and sombre. Overhead was a gray ex- panse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze ; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now and then be seen at its solitary play along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was always at the farther extrem- ity of some long vista through the forest. The spor- tive sunlight — feebly sportive, at best, in the predom- inant pensiveness of the day and scene — withdrew itself as they came nigh, and left the spots where it had danced the drearier, because they had hoped to find them bright. " Mother," said little Pearl, " the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom. Now see ! There it is, playing, a good way off. Stand you here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It ^vill not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!" " Nor ever will, my child, I hope," said Hester. "And why not, mother?" asked Pearl, stopping A FOREST WALK. 221 short, just at the beginning of her race. " WUl not it come of its own accord, when I am a woman grown ? " " Eun away, child," answered her mother, " and catch the sunshine ! It will soon be gone." Pearl set forth, at a great pace, and, as Hester smiled to perceive, did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in the midst of it, all brightened by its splendor, and scintillating with the vivacity ex- cited by rapid motion. The light lingered about the lonely child, as if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawn almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too. " It will go now," said Pearl, shaking her head. " See ! " answered Hester, smiling. " Now I can stretch out my hand, and grasp some of it." As she attempted to do so, the sunshine vanished ; or, to judge from the bright expression that was dan- cing on Pearl's features, her mother could have fan- cied that the child had absorbed it into herself, and would give it forth again, with a gleam about her path, as they should plunge into some gloomier shade. There ■was no other attribute that so much impressed her with a sense of new and untransmitted vigor in Pearl's nature, as this never-failing vivacity of spirits ; she had not the disease of sadness, which almost all chil- dren, in these latter days, inherit, with the scrofula, from the troubles of their ancestors. Perhaps this too was a disease, and but the reflex of the wild energy with which Hester had fought against her sorrows be- fore Pearl's birth. It was certainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard, metallic lustre to the child's char- acter. She wanted — what some people want through- out life — a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy. But there was time enough yet for little Pearl. 222 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Come, my child ! " said Hester, looking about her from the spot where Pearl had stood still in the sun- shine. " We will sit down a little way within the wood, and rest ourselves." " I am not aweary, mother," replied the little girl. " But you may sit down, if you will teU me a story meanwhile." " A story, child ! " said Hester. " And about what?" " Oh, a story about the Black Man," answered Pearl, taking hold of her mother's gown, and looking up, half earnestly, half mischievously, into her face. " How he haunts this forest, and carries a book with him, — a big, heavy book, with iron clasps ; and how this ugly Black Man offers his book and an iron pen to every- body that meets him here among the trees ; and they are to write their names with their own blood. And then he sets his mark on their bosoms ! Didst thou ever meet the Black Man, mother ? " " And who told you this story. Pearl ? " asked her mother, recognizing a common superstition of the pe- riod. " It was the old dame in the chimney-corner, at the house where you watched last night," said the child. " But she fancied me asleep while she was talking of it. She said that a thousand and a thousand people had met him here, and had written in his book, and have his mark on them. And that ugly-tempered lady, old Mistress Hibbins, was one. And, mother, the old dame said that this scarlet letter was the Black Man's mark on thee, and that it glows like a red flame when thou meetest him at midnight, here in the dark wood. Is it true, mother ? And dost thou go to meet him in the night-time ?" A FOREST WALK. 223 " Didst thou ever awake, and find thy mother gone ? " asked Hester. " Not that I remember," said the child. " If thou fearestto leave me in our cottage, thou mightest take me along with thee. I would very gladly go ! But, mother, tell me now ! Is there such a Black Man ? And didst thou ever meet him ? And is this his mark?" " Wilt thou let me be at peace, if I once tell thee ? " asked her mother. " Yes, if thou tellest me aU," answered Pearl. " Once in my life I met the Black Man ! " said her mother. " This scarlet letter is his mark ! " Thus conversing, they entered sufficiently deep into the wood to secure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger along the forest track. Here they sat down on a luxuriant heap of moss, which, at some epoch of the preceding century, had been a gigantic pine, with its roots and trunk in the dark- some shade, and its head aloft in the upper atmosphere. It was a little dell where they had seated themselves, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on either side, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen and drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had flung down great branches, from time to time, which choked up the cuirent and compelled it to form eddies and black depths at some points ; while, in its swifter and livelier passages, there appeared a channel- way of pebbles, and brown sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along the course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its water, at some short distance within the forest, but soon lost all traces of it amid the bewilderment of tree-trunks and under- brush, and here and there a huge rock covered over 224 THE SCARLET LETTER. with gray lichens. All these giant trees and howMers of granite seemed intent on making a mystery of the course of this small brook ; fearing, perhaps, that, with its never-ceasing loquacity, it should whisper tales out of the heart of the old forest whence it flowed, or mir- ror its revelations on the smooth surface of a pool. Continually, indeed, as it stole onward, the streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy without playfulness, and knew not how to be merry among sad acquaintance and events of sombre hue. " O brook ! O foolish and tiresome little brook ! " cried Pearl, after listening awhUe to its talk. " Why art thou so sad ? Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring ! " But the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among the forest-trees, had gone tlirough so solemn an experience that it could not help talking about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say. Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed from a well -spring as mj^sterious, and had flowed through scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, she danced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course. " What does this sad little brook say, mother ? " in- quired she. "If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might teU thee of it," answered her mother, " even as it is telling me of mine ! But now. Pearl, I hear a footstep along the path, and the noise of one putting aside the branches. I would have thee betake thyself to play, and leave me to speak with him that comes vonder." A FOREST WALK. 225 « Is it the Black Man ? " asked Pearl. " Wilt thou go and play, child ? " repeated her mother. " But do not stray far into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my first call." " Yes, mother," answered Pearl. " But if it be the Black Man, wilt thou not let me stay a moment, and look at him, with his big book under his arm ? " "Go, silly child ! " said her mother, impatiently. "It is no Black Man ! Thou canst see him now, through the trees. It is the minister ! " " And so it is ! " said the child. " And, mother, he has his hand over his heart ! Is it because, when the minister wrote his name in the book, the Black Man set his mark in that place ? But why does he not wear it outside his bosom, as thou dost, mother ? " " Go now, chUd, and thou shalt tease me as thou wilt another time," cried Hester Prynne. " But do not stray far. Keep where thou canst hear the babble of the brook." The child went singing away, following up the cur- rent of the brook, and striving to mingle a more light- some cadence with its melancholy voice. But the little stream would not be comforted, and stiU. kept telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that had happened — or making a prophetic lamentation about something that was yet to happen ^ within the verge of the dismal forest. So Pearl, who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off all acquaintance with this repining brook. She set herself, therefore, to gathering violets and W9od-anemones, and some scarlet coliunbines that she found growing in the crevices of a high rock. When her elf-child had departed, Hester Prynne made a step or two towards the track that led through VOL. V. 15 226 THE SCARLET LETTER. the forest, but still remained under tte deep sliadow of the trees. She beheld the minister axivancing along the path, entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he had cut by the wayside. He looked haggard and feeble, and betrayed a nerveless despondency in his air, which had never so remarkably characterized him in his walks about the settlement, nor in any other sit- uation where he deemed himself liable to notice. Here it was wofully visible, in the intense seclusion of the forest, which, of itself, would have been a heavy trial to the spirits. There was a listlessness in his gait ; as if he saw no reason for taking one step farther, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of anything, to fling himself down at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive, for evermore. The leaves might bestrew him, and the soil gradually accimoiulate and form a little hillock over his frame, no matter whether there were life in it or no. Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided. To Hester's eye, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale ex- hibited no symptom of positive and vivacious suffer- ing, except that, as little Pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his heart. XVIL THE PASTOE AND HIS PAEISHIONEK. Slowly as the minister walked, he had ahnost gone by, before Hester Prynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation. At length, she succeeded. " Arthur Dimmesdale ! " she said, faintly at first ; then louder, but hoarsely. " Arthur Dimmesdale ! " " Who speaks ? " ianswered the minister. Gathering himself quickly up, he stood more erect, like a man taken by surprise in a mood to which he was reluctant to have witnesses. Throwing his eyes anxiously in the direction of the voice, he indistinctly beheld a form under the trees, clad in garments so sombre, and so little relieved from the gray twilight into which the clouded sky and the heavy foliage had darkened the noontide, that he knew not whether it were a woman or a shadow. It may be, that his path- way through life was haunted thus, by a spectre that had stolen out from among his thoughts. He made a step nigher, and discovered the scarlet letter. " Hester ! Hester Prynne ! " said he. " Is it thou ? Art thou in life ? " " Even so ! " she answered. " In such life as has been mine these seven years past ! And thou, Arthur Dimmesdale, dost thou yet live ? " It was no wonder that they thus questioned one another's actual and bodily existence, and even doubted 228 THE SCARLET LETTER. of their own. So strangely did they meet, in the dun wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been inti- mately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering, in mutual dread ; as not yet famil- iar with their state, nor wonted to the comj^anionship of disembodied beings. Each a ghost, and awe-stricken at the other ghost ! They were awe-stricken likewise at themselves ; because the crisis flung back to them their consciousness, and revealed to each heart its his- tory and experience, as life never does, excej^t at such breathless epochs. The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. It was with fear, and tremulously, and, as it were, by a slow, reluctant ne- cessity, that Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of Hester Prynne. The grasp, cold as it was, took away^what was dreariest in the interview. They now felt them- selves, at least, inhabitants of the same sphere. Without a word more spoken, — neither he nor she assuming the guidance, but with an unexpressed con- sent, — they glided back into the shadow of the woods, whence Hester had emerged, and sat down on the heap of moss where she and Pearl had before been sitting. When they found voice to speak, it was, at first, only to utter remarks and inquiries such as any two ac- quaintance might have made, about the gloomy skv, the threatening storm, and, next, the health of each. Thus they went onward, not boldly, but step by step, into the themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts. So long estranged by fate and circiimstances, they needed something slight and casual to run before, and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that theii real thoughts might be led across the threshold. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 229 After a while, the minister fixed his eyes on Hester Prynne's. " Hester," said he, " hast thou found peace ? " She smiled drearily, looking down iipou her bosom, " Hast thou ? " she asked. " None ! — nothing but despair ! " he answered. *' What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine ? Were I an atheist, — a man devoid of conscience, — a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts, — I might have found peace, long ere now. Nay, I never should have lost it ! But, as mat- ters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual tor- ment. Hester, I am most miserable ! " " The people reverence thee," said Hester. " And surely thou workest good among them ! Doth this bring thee no comfort ? " " More misery, Hester ! — only the more misery ! " answered the clergyman, with a bitter smile. "As concerns the good which I may appear to do, I have no faith in it. It must needs be a delusion. What can a ruined soul, like mine, effect towards the re- demption of other souls ? — or a polluted soul towards their purification ? And as for the people's reverence, would that it were turned to scorn and hatred ! Canst thou deem it, Hester, a consolation, that I must stand up in my pulpit, and meet so many eyes turned up- ward to my face, as if the light of heaven were beam- ing from it ! — must see my flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking ! — and then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolize ? I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heai:t, at the contrast be- 230 THE SCARLET LETTER. tween what I seem and what I am ! And Satan laughs at it ! " " You wrong yourself in this," said Hester, gently. " You have deeply and sorely repented. Your sLu is left behind you, in the days long past. Your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people's eyes. Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works ? And wherefore should it not bring you peace ? " " No, Hester, no ! " replied the clergyman. " There is no substance in it ! It is cold and dead, and can do nothing for me ! Of penance, I have had enough ! Of penitence, there has been none ! Else, I should long ago have thrown ofE these garments of mock holi- ness, and have shown myself to mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat. Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom ! Mine burns in secret ! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am ! Had I one friend — or were it my worst enemy ! — to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth would save me ! But, now, it is all falsehood ! — all empti- ness ! — all death ! " Hester Prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to speak. Yet, uttering his long-restrained emotions so vehemently as he did, his words here offered her the very point of circumstances in which to interpose what she came to say. She conquered her fears, and spoke. " Such a friend as thou hast even now wished for," THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 231 isaicl she, " with whom to weep over thy sin, thou hast in me, the partner of it ! " — Again she hesitated, but brought out the words with an effort. — " Thou hast long had such an enemy, and dwellest with him, under the same roof ! " The minister started to his feet, gasping for breath, and clutching at his heart, as if he would have torn it out of his bosom. " Ha! What sayest thou ! " cried he. " An enemy 1 And under mine own roof ! What mean you ? " Hester Prynne was now fully sensible of the deep injury for which she was responsible to this imhappy man, in permitting him to lie for so many years, or, indeed, for a single moment, at the mercy of one whose purposes could not be other than malevolent. The very contiguity of his enemy, beneath whatever mask the latter might conceal himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive as Arthur Dimmesdale. There had been a period when Hester was less alive to this consideration ; or, per- haps, in the misanthropy of her own trouble, she left the minister to bear what she might picture to herself as a more tolerable doom. But of late, since the night of Iiis vigil, aU her sympathies towards him had been both softened and invigorated. She now read his heart more accurately. She doubted not, that the continual presence of Roger Chillingworth, — the secret poison of his malignity, infecting all the air about him, — and his authorized interference, as a physician, with the minister's physical and spiritual infirmities, — that these bad opportunities had been turned to a cruel purpose. By means of them, the sufferer's conscience had been kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not to cure by whole- 232 THE SCARLET LETTER. some pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being. Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be in- sanity, and hereafter, that eternal alienation from the Good and True, of which madness is perhaps the earthly type. Such was the ruin to which she had brought the man, once, — nay, why should we not speak it ? — still so passionately loved ! Hester felt that the sacrifice of the clergyman's good name, and death itself, as she had already told Eoger ChUlingworth, would have been infinitely preferable to the alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose. And now, rather than have had this grievous wrong to confess, she would gladly have lain down on the forest-leaves, and died, there, at Arthur Dimmesdale's feet. " O Arthur," cried she, " forgive me ! In all things else, I have striven to be true ! Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity ; save when thy good, — thy life, — thy fame, — were put in question ! Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side ! Dost thou not see what I would say ? That old man ! — the physician ! — he whom they call Roger Chilling- worth ! — he was my husband ! " The minister looked at her for an instant, with all that violence of passion, which — intermixed, in more shapes than one, with his higher, purer, softer quali- ties — was, in fact, the portion of him wliich the Devil claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. Never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown tlian Hester now encountered. For the brief space that it lasted, it was a dark transfiguration. But his char- acter had been so much enfeebled by suffering, that THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 233 even its lower energies were incapable of more than a temporary struggle. He sank down on the ground, and buried his face in his hands. " I might have known it," murmured he. " I did know it ! Was not the secret told me, in the natural recoil of my heart, at the first sight of him, and as often as I have seen him since ? Why did I not un- derstand ? O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing ! And the shame ! — the indelicacy ! — the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it ! Woman, woman, thou art accountable \ for this ! I cannot forgive thee ! " " Thou shalt forgive me ! " cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. " Let God pimish ! Thou shalt forgive ! " With sudden and desperate tenderness, she threw her arms around him, and pressed his head against her bosom; little caring though his cheek rested on the scarlet letter. He would have released himself, but strove in vain to do so. Hester would not set him free, lest he should look her sternly in the face. All the world had f ro^vned on her, — for seven long years had it frowned upon this lonely woman, — and stUl she bore it all, nor ever once turned away her firm, sad eyes. Heaven, likewise, had frowned upon her, and she had not died. But the frown of this pale, weak, sinful, and sorrow-stricken man was what Hes- ter could not bear and live ! " Wilt thou yet forgive me ! " she repeated, over and over again. " Wilt thou not frown ? Wilt thou forgive? " " I do forgive you, Hester," replied the minister, at length, with a deep utterance, out of an abyss of sad- 234 THE SCARLET LETTER. ness, but no anger. " I freely forgive you now. May God forgive us both ! We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even, the polluted priest ! That old man's revenge lias been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so ! " " Never, never ! " whispered she. " What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so ! We said so to each other ! Hast thou forgotten it ? " " Hush, Hester ! " said Arthur Dimmesdale, rising from the ground. " No ; I have not forgotten ! " They sat down again, side by side, and hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of the fallen tree. Life had never brought them a gloomier hour ; it was the point whither their pathway had so long been tend- ing, and darkening ever, as it stole along; and yet it enclosed a charm that made them linger upon it, and claim another, and another, and, after all, another moment. The forest was obscure around them, and creaked with a blast that was passing through it. The boughs were tossing heavily above their heads ; while one solenm old tree groaned dolefully to an- other, as if telling the sad story of the pair that sat beneath, or constrained to forebode evil to come. And yet they lingered. How dreary looked the for- est-track that led backward to the settlement, where Hester Prynne must take up again the burden of her ignominy, and the minister the hollow mockery of his good name ! So they lingered an instant longer. No golden light had ever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest. Here, seen only by his eyes, the scarlet letter need not bum into the bosom of the fallen woman I Here, seen only by her eyes, Arthui THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 235 Dimmesdale, false to God and man, might be, for one moment, true ! He started at a ttouglit that suddenly occurred to him. " Hester," cried he, " here is a new horror ! Roger Chillingworth knows your purpose to reveal his true character. Will he continue, then, to keep our secret ? What will now be the course of his revenge ? " " There is a strange secrecy in his nature," replied Hester, thoughtfully ; " and it has grown upon him by the hidden practices of his revenge. I deem it not likely that he wiU betray the secret. He will doubt- less seek other means of satiating his dark passion." "And I! — how am I to live longer, breathing the same air with this deadly enemy ? " exclaimed Arthur Dimmesdale, shrinking within himself, and pressing his hand nervously against his heart, — a gesture that had grown involuntary with him. " Think for me, Hester ! Thou art strong. Resolve for me ! " " Thou must dwell no longer with this man," said Hester, slowly and firmly. " Thy heart must be no longer under his evil eye ! " " It were far worse than death! " replied the minis- ter. " But how to avoid it ? What choice remains to me ? Shall I lie down again on these withered leaves, where I cast myself when thou didst tell me what he was? Must I sink down there, and die at once ? " " Alas, what a ruin has befallen thee ! " said Hes- ter, with the tears gushing into her eyes. " Wilt thou die for very weakness ? There is no other cause ! " "The judgment of God is on me," answered the conscience-stricken priest. " It is too mighty for me to struggle with ! " . 236 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Heaven would show mercy," rejoined Hester, "hadst thou but the strength to take advantage of it." " Be thou strong for me ! " answered he. " Advise me what to do." " Is the world, then, so narrow ? " exclaimed Hester Prynne, fixing her deep eyes on the minister's, and in- stinctively exercising a magnetic power over a spirit so shattered and subdued that it could hardly hold it. self erect. " Doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf -strewn desert, as lonely as this around us? Whither leads yonder forest -track? Backward to the settlement, thou sayest ! Yes ; but onward, too. Deeper it goes, and deeper, into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step, until, some few miles hence, the yellow leaves wiU show no vestige of the white man's tread. There thou art free ! So brief a journey would bring thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy ! Is there not shade enough in aU this boundless forest to hide thy heart from the ga^e of Roger ChUlingworth ? " " Yes, Hester ; but only under the fallen leaves ! " replied the mruister, with a sad smUe. " Then there is the broad pathway of the sea ! " con- tinued Hester. " It brought thee hither. If thou so choose, it will bear thee back again. In our native land, whether in some remote rural village or in vast London, — or, surely, in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy, — thou wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge ! And what hast thou to do with all these iron men, and their opinions ? They have kept thy better part in bondage too long already ! " THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER. 237 "■ It cannot be ! " answered the minister, listening as if he were called upon to realize a dream. " I am pow- erless to go ! Wretched and sinful as I am, I have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly ex- istence in the sphere where Providence hath placed me. Lost as my own soul is, I would still do what I may for other human souls ! I dare not quit my.post, though an unfaithful sentinel, whose sure reward is death and dishonor, when his dreary watch shall come to an end ! " " Thou art crushed under this seven years' weight of misery," replied Hester, fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy. " But thou shalt leave it aU behind thee ! It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along the forest-path ; neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath hap- pened. Meddle no more with it ! Begin all anew ! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one trial ? Not so ! The future is yet full of trial and success. There is happiness to be enjoyed ! There is good to be done ! Exchange this false life of thine for a true one. Be, if thy spirit summon thee to such a mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. Or, — as is more thy nature, — be a scholar and a sage among: the wisest and most renowned of the cul- tivated world. Preach ! Write ! Act ! Do any- thing, save to lie down and die ! Give up this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, and make thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear without fear or shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life ! — that have made thee feeble to wiU and to do ! — that wiU leave thee powerless even to repent 1 Up, and away ! " 238 THE SCARLET LETTER. " O Hester ! " cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light, kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, " thou tellest of running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him! I must die here ! There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone ! " It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit. He lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his reach. He repeated the word. "Alone, Hester!" " Thou shalt not go alone ! " answered she, in a deep whisper. Then, all was spoken ! xvin. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE. Aethue Dimmesdale gazed into Hester's face with a look in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but with fear betwixt them, and a kind of horror at her boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at but dared not speak. But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and- for so long a period not merely es- tranged, but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was alto- gether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness ; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed for- est, amid the gloom of which they were now holding a coUoquy that was to decide their fate. Her intel- lect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. For years past she looked from this estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or legislators had established; crit- icising all with hardly more reverence than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the piUory, the gaUows, the fireside, or the church. The tendency of her fate and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, De- spair, Solitude ! These had been her teachers, — stern 210 THE SCARLET LETTER. and wild ones, — and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. The minister, on the other hand, had never gone through an experience calculated to lead him beyond the scope of generally received laws ; although, in a single instance, he had so fearfully transgressed one of the most sacred of them. But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purj)ose. Since that wretched epoch, he had watched, with morbid , zeal and minuteness, not his acts, — for those it was easy to arrange, — but each breath of emotion, and his everj'^ thought. At the head of the social system, as the clergymen of that day stood, he was only the more trammelled by its regulations, its principles, and : even its prejudices. As a priest, the framework of his order inevitably hemmed him in. As a man who had once sinned, but who kept his conscience all alive and painfully sensitive by the fretting of an unhealed wound, he might have been supposed safer within the line of virtue than if he had never sinned at all. Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole seven years of outlaw and igno- miny had been little other than a preparation for this very hour. But Arthur Dimmesdale ! Were such a man once more to fall, what plea could be urged in extenuation of his crime ? None ; unless it avail him somewhat, that he was broken down by long and ex- quisite suffering ; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorse which harrowed it ; that between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance ; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy ; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE. 241 dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating. And be the stem and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired. It may be watched and guarded ; so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even, in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and, near it, the stealthy tread of the foe that would win over again his unforgotten triumph. The struggle, if it were one, need not be described. Let it suffice, that the clergyman resolved to flee, and not alone. " If, in all these past seven years," thought he, " I could recall one instant of peace or hope, I would yet endure for the sake of that earnest of Heaven's mer- cy. But now, — since I am irrevocably doomed, — wherefore should I not snatch the solace allowed to the condemned culprit before his execution ? Or, if this be the path to a better life, as Heater would per- suade me, I surely give up no fairer prospect by pur- suing it ! Neither can I any longer live without her companionship ; so powerful is she to sustain, — so tender to soothe ! O Thou to whom I dare not lift mine eyes, wilt Thou yet pardon me ! " " Thou wilt go ! " said Hester, calmly, as he met her glance. The decision once made, a glow of strange enjoy- ment threw its flickering brightness over the trouble of his breast. It was the exhilarating effect — upon a prisoner just escaped from the dimgeon of his own TOl» V. M 242 THE SCARLET LETTER. heart — of breathing the wild, free atmosphere of an unredeemed, unchristianized, lawless region. His spirit rose, as it were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of the sky, than throughout all the misery which had kept him grovelling on the earth. Of a deeply religious temperament, there was inevitably a tinge of the devotional in his mood. " Do I feel joy again ? " cried he, wondering at himself. " Methought the germ of it was dead in me ! O Hester, thou art my better angel ! I seem to have flung myself — sick, sin-stained, and sorrow-blackened — down upon these forest-leaves, and to have risen up all made anew, and with new powers to glorify Him that hath been merciful ! This is already the better life ! Why did we not find it sooner? " " Let us not look back," answered Hester Prynne. " The past is gone ! Wherefore should we linger upon it now ? See ! With this symbol, I undo it all, and make it as it had never been ! " So speaking, she undid the clasp that fastened the scarlet letter, and, taking it from her bosom, threw it to a distance among the withered leaves. The mys- tic token alighted on the hither verge of the stream. With a hand's -breadth farther flight it would have fallen into the water, and have given the little brook another woe to carry onward, besides the miintelligi- ble tale wliich it still kept murmuring about. But there lay the embroidered letter, glittering like a lost jewel, which some iU-fated wanderer might pick up, and thenceforth be haunted by strange phantoms of guilt, sinkings of the heart, and unaccountable mis- fortune. The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the bui-den of shame and anguish departed A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE. 243 from her spirit. Oh exquisite relief ! She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom ! By an- other impulse, she took off the formal cap that con- fined her hair ; and down it fell upon her shoulders, dark and rich, with at once a shadow and a light in its abundance, and imparting the charm of softness to her features. There played around her mouth, and beamed out of her eyes, a radiant and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very heart of woman- hood. A crimson flush was glowing on her cheek, that had been long so pale. Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty, came back from what men call the irrevocable past, and clustered them- selves, with her maiden hope, and a happiness before unknown, within the magic circle of this hour. And, as if the gloom of the earth and sky had been but the effluence of these two mortal hearts, it vanished with their sorrow. AU at once, as with a sudden smile of heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood into the obscure forest, gladdening each green leaf, transmuting the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleam- ing adown the gray trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood's heart of mystery, which had become a mystery^ of joy- Such was the sympathy of Nature — that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth — with the bliss of these two spirits ! Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world. B[ad the 244 THE SCARLET LETTER. forest still kept its gloom, it would have been bright in Hester's eyes, and bright in Arthur Dimmesdale's ! Hester looked at him with the thrill of another joy. " Thou must know Pearl ! " said she. " Our little Pearl ! Thou hast seen her, — yes, I know it ! — but thou wilt see her now with other eyes. She is a strange child ! I hardly comprehend her ! But thou wilt love her dearly, as I do, and wilt advise me how to deal with her." "Dost thou think the child will be glad to know me ? " asked the minister, somewhat uneasily. " I have long shrunk from children, because they often show a distrust, — a backwardness to be familiar with me. I have even been afraid of little Pearl ! " " Ah, that was sad ! " answered the mother. " But she will love thee dearly, and thou her. She is not far off. I win call her! Pearl! Pearl!" " I see the child," observed the minister. " Yonder she is, standing in a streak of sunshine, a good way off, on the other side of the brook. So thou thinkest the child will love me? " Hester smiled, and again called to Pearl, who was visible, at some distance, as the minister had described her, like a bright - apparelled vision, in a sunbeam, which fell down upon her through an arch of boughs. The ray quivered to and fro, making her figure dim or distinct, — now like a real child, now like a child's spirit, — as the splendor went and came again. She heard her mother's voice, and approached slowly through the forest. Pearl had not found the hour pass wearisomely, while her mother sat talking with the clergyman. The great black forest — stern as it showed itself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the world into A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE. 245 its bosom — became the playmate of the lonely infant, as well as it knew how. Sombre as it was, it put on the kindest of its moods to welcome her. It offered her the partridge-berries, the gi-owth of the preceding autumn, but ripening only in the spring, and now red as drops of blood upon the withered leaves. These Pearl gathered, and was pleased with their wild flavor. The small denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to move out of her path. A partridge, indeed, with a brood of ten behind her, ran forward threaten- ingly, but soon repented of her fierceness, and clucked to her young ones not to be afraid. A pigeon, alone on a low branch, allowed Pearl to come beneath, and uttered a sound as much of greeting as alarm. A squirrel, from the lofty depths of his domestic tree, chattered either in anger or merriment, — for a squir- rel is such a choleric and humorous little personage, that it is hard to distinguish between his moods, — so he chattered at the child, and flung down a nut upon her head. It was a last year's nut, and already gnawed by his sharp tooth. A fox, startled from his sleep by her light footstep on the leaves, looked in- quisitively at Pearl, as doubting whether it were bet- ter to steal off, or renew his nap on the same spot. A wolf, it is said, — but here the tale has surely lapsed into the improbable, — came up, and smelt of Pearl's robe, and offered his savage head to be patted by her hand. The truth seems to be, however, that the mother-forest, and these wild things which it nour- ished, aU recognized a kindred wildness in the human ■ child. And she was gentler here than in the grassy-mar- gined streets of the settlement, or in her mother's cot- tage. The flowers appeared to know it ; and one and 246 THE SCARLET LETTER. another whispered as she passed, " Adorn thyself with me, thou beautiful child, adorn thyself with me ! " — and, to please them. Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. With these she decorated her hair, and her young waist, and became a nymph-child, or an infant dryad, or whatever else was in closest sympathy with the antique wood. In such guise had Pearl adorned herself, when she heard her mother's voice, and came slowly back. Slowly ; for she saw the clergyman. XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. "Thou wilt love her dearly," repeated Hester Prynne, as she and the minister sat watching little Pearl. " Dost thou not think her beautiful ? And see with what natural skiU she has made those sim- ple flowers adorn her ! Had she gathered pearls, and diamonds, and rubies, in the wood, they could not have become her better. She is a splendid child ! But I know whose brow she has ! " " Dost thou know, Hester," said Arthur Dimmes- dale, with an unquiet smile, " that this dear child, trip, ping about always at thy side, hath caused me many an alarm ? Methought — O Hester, what a thought is that, and how terrible to dread it ! — that my own features were partly repeated in her face, and so strik- ingly that the world might see them ! But she is mostly thine ! " " No, no ! Not mostly ! " answered the mother, with a tender smile. "A little longer, and thou needest not to be afraid to trace whose child she is. But how strangely beautiful she looks, with those wild-flowers in her hair ! It is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in our dear old England, had decked her out to meet us." It was with a feeling which neither of them had ever before experienced that they sat and watched Pearl's slow advance. In her was visible the tie that imited rt 248 THE SCARLET LETTER. them. She had been offered to the world, these seven years past, as the living hieroglyphic, in which was re- vealed the secret they so darkly sought to hide, — all written in this symbol, — all plainly manifest, — had there been a prophet or magician skilled to read the character of flame ! And Pearl was the oneness of their being. Be the foregone evil what it might, how could they doubt that their earthly lives and future destinies were conjoined, when they beheld at once the material union, and the spiritual idea, in whom they met, and were to dwell immortally together ? Thoughts like these — and perhaps other thoughts, which they did not acknowledge or define — threw an awe about the child as she came onward. " Let her see nothing strange — no passion nor eagerness — in thy way of accosting her," whispered Hester. " Our Pearl is a fitful and fantastic little elf, sometunes. Especially she is seldom tolerant of emo- tion, when she does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. But the child hath strong affections ! She loves me, and will love thee ! " " Thou canst not think," said the minister, glancing aside at Hester Prynne, " how my heart dreads this interview, and yearns for it ! But, in truth, as I al- ready told thee, children are not readily won to be familiar with me. They will not climb my knee, nor prattle in my ear, nor answer to my smile ; but stand apart, and eye me strangely. Even little babes, when I take them in my arms, weep bitterly. Yet Pearl, twice in her little lifetime, hath been hind to me ! The first time, — thou knowest it well ! The last was when thou ledst her with thee to the house of yonder stem old Governor." " And thou didst plead so bravely in her behalf THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 249 and mine ! " answered the mother. " I remember it ; and so shall little Pearl. Fear nothing ! She may be strange and shy at first, but will soon learn to love thee ! " By this time Pearl had reached the margin of the brook, and stood on the farther side, gazing silently at Hester and the clergyman, who still sat together on the mossy tree -trunk, waiting to receive her. Just where she had paused, the brook chanced to form a pool, so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of her little figure, with all the brilliant pictur- esqueness of her beauty, in its adornment of flowers and wreathed foliage, but more refined and spiritualized than the reality. This image, so nearly identical with the living Pearl, seemed to communicate somewhat of its own shadowy and intangible quality to the child herself. It was strange, the way in which Pearl stood, looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the forest-gloom ; herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of sunshine that was attracted thitherward as by a certain sympathy. In the brook beneath stood another child, — another and the same, — with like- wise its ray of golden light. Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, estranged from Pearl ; as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it. There was both truth and error in the impression ; the child and mother were estranged, but through Hester's faidt, not Pearl's. Since the latter rambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted with- in the circle of the mother's feelings, and so modified the aspect of them all, that Pearl, the returning wan- 250 THE SCARLET LETTER. derer, could not find her wonted place, and hardly knew where she was. " I have a strange fancy," observed the sensitive minister, " that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again. Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a run- ning stream? Pray hasten her ; for this delay has al- ready imparted a tremor to my nerves." " Come, dearest child ! " said Hester, encouragingly, and stretching out both her arms. " How slow thou art! When hast thou been so sluggish before now? Here is a friend of mine, who must be thy friend also. Thou wilt have twice as much love, henceforward, as thy mother alone could give thee ! Leap across the brook, and come to us. Thou canst leap like a young deer!" Pearl, without responding in any manner to these honey-sweet expressions, remained on the other side of the brook. Now she fixed her bright, wild eyes on her mother, now on the minister, and now included them both in the same glance ; as if to detect and explain to herself the relation which they bore to one another. For some unaccountable reason, as Arthur Dimmes- dale felt the child's eyes upon himself, his hand — with that gesture so habitual as to have become in- voluntary — stole over his heart. At length, assuming a singidar air of authority. Pearl stretched out her hand, with the small forefinger extended, and point- ing evidently towards her mother's breast. And be- neath, in the mirror of the brook, there was the flower- girdled and sminy image of little Pearl, pointing her small forefinger too. "Thou strange child, why dost thou not come t« me ? " exclaimed Hester. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 251 Pearl still pointed with her forefinger ; and a frown gathered on her brow ; the more impressive from the childish, the almost baby-like aspect of the features that conveyed it. As her mother still kept beckoning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of im- accustomed smiles, the child stamped her foot with a yet more imperious look and gesture. In the brook, again, was the fantastic beauty of the image, with its reflected frown, its pointed finger, and imperious ges- ture, giving emphasis to the aspect of little Pearl. " Hasten, Pearl ; or I shall be angry with thee ! " cried Hester Prynne, who, however inured to such behavior on the elf-child's part at other seasons, was naturally anxious for a more seemly deportment now. "Leap across the brook, naughty child, and nm hither I Else I must come to thee ! " But Pearl, not a whit startled at her mother's threats any more than moUified by her entreaties, now sud- denly burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently and throwing her small figure into the most extrava- gant contortions. She accompanied this wild outbreak with piercing shrieks, which the woods reverberated on all sides ; so that, alone as she was in her childish and unreasonable wrath, it seemed as if a hidden mul- titude were lending her their sympathy and encour- agement. Seen in the brook, once more, was the shad- owy wrath of Pearl's image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stamping its foot, wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of all, stUl pointing its small fore- finger at Hester's bosom ! " I see what ails the child," whispered Hester to the clergyman, and turning pale in s'lite of a strong effort to conceal her trouble and annoyance. " Children will not abide any, the slightest, change in the accustomed 252 THE SCARLET LETTER. aspect of things that are daily before their eyes. Pearl misses something which she has always seen me wear ! '' " I pray you," answered the minister, " if thou hast any means of pacifying the cliild, do it forthwith ! Save it were the cankered wrath of an old witch, like Mistress Hibbins," added he, attempting to smile, "I know nothing that I would not sooner encounter than this passion in a child. In Pearl's young beauty, aa in the wrinkled witch, it has a preternatural effect. Pacify her, if thou lovest me ! " Hester turned again towards Pearl, with a crimson blush upon her cheek, a conscious glance aside at the clergyman, and then a heavy sigh ; while, even before she had time to speak, the blush yielded to a deadly pallor. " Pearl," said she, sadly, "look down at thy feet ! There ! — before thee ! — on the hither side of the brook ! " The child turned her eyes to the point indicated: and there lay the scarlet letter, so close upon the margin of the stream, that the gold embroidery was reflected in it. " Bring it hither ! " said Hester. " Come thou and take it up ! " answered Pearl. " Was ever such a child ! " observed Hester, aside to the minister. " Oh, I have much to tell thee about her! But, in very truth, she is right as regards this hateful token. I must bear its torture yet a little longer, — only a few days longer, — until we shall have left this region and look back hither as to a land which we have dreamed of. The forest cannot hide it ! The mid-ocean haU take it from my hand, and iwallow it up forever ! " With these words, she advanced to the margin oi THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 253 the brook, took up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom. HopefuUy, but a moment ago, as Hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there was a sense of inevitable doom upon her, as she thus received back this deadly symbol from the hand of fate. She had flung it into infinite space ! — she had drawn an hour's free breath ! — and here again ■was the scarlet misery, glittering on the old spot ! So it ever is, whether thus typified or no, that an evil deed invests itself with the character of doom. Hester next gathered up the heavy tresses of her hair, and confined them beneath her cap. As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed, like fading sunshine ; and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her. When the dreary change was wrought, she extended her hand to Pearl. " Dost thou know thy mother now, child ? " asked she, reproachfully, but with a subdued tone. " W^ilt thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, now that she has her shame upon her, — now that she is sad ? " " Yes ; now I will ! " answered the child, bounding across the brook, and clasping Hester in her arms. " Now thou art my mother indeed ! And I am thy little Pearl!" In a mood of tenderness that was not ustial ■with her, she drew down her mother's head, and kissed her brow and both her cheeks. But then — by a kind of necessity that always impelled this child to alloy what- ever comfort she might chance to give with a throb of anguish — Pearl put up her mouth, and kissed the scarlet letter too 1 254 THE SCARLET LETTER. " That was not kind ! " said Hester. " When thou hast shown me a little love, thou mockest me ! " " Why doth the minister sit yonder ? " asked Pearl. " He waits to welcome thee," replied her mother. " Come thou, and entreat his blessing ! He loves thee, my little Pearl, and loves thy mother too. Wilt thou not love him ? Come ! he longs to greet thee ! " " Doth he love us ? " said Pearl, looking up, with acute intelligence, into her mother's face. " WiU he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?" "Not now, my dear child," answered Hester. " But in days to come, he will walk hand in hand with us. We will have a home and fireside of our own : and thou shalt sit upon his knee ; and he wiU teach thee many things, and love thee dearly. Thou wilt love him ; wilt thou not ? " "And will he always keep his hand over his heart?" inquired Pearl. " Foolish chUd, what a question is that ! " exclaimed her mother. " Come and ask his blessing ! " But, whether influenced by the jealousy that seems instinctive with every petted child towards a danger- ous rival, or from whatever caprice of her freakish nature. Pearl would show no favor to the clergyman. It was only by an exertion of force that her mother brought her up to him, hanging back, and manifesting her reluctance by odd grimaces ; of which, ever since her babyhood, she had possessed a singular variety, and could transform her mobile physiognomy into a series of different aspects, with a new mischief in them, each and all. The. minister — painfidly embar- rassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman to admit him into the child's kindlier regards — bent THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE. 255 forward, and impressed one on her brow. Hereupon, Pearl broke away from her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped over it, and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was quite washed off, and diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water. She then remained apart, silently watching Hester and the clergyman ; while they talked together, and made such arrangements as were suggested by their new position, and the purposes soon to be fulfilled. And now this fateful interview had come to a close. The dell was to be left a solitude among its dark, old trees, which, with their multitudinous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there, and no mor- tal be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overburdened, and whereof it stiU kept up a murmuring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore. XX. THE MIOTSTEK IN A MAZE. As the minister departed, in advance of Hester Prynne and little Pearl, he threw a backward glance, half expecting that he should discover only some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and the child slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. So great a vicissitude in his life could not at once be received as real. But there was Hester, clad in her gray robe, still standing beside the tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which time had ever since been covering with moss, so that these two fated ones, with earth's heaviest burden on them, might there sit down together, and find a single hour's rest and solace. And there was Pearl, too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brook, — now that the intrusive third person was gone, — and taking her old pla dale thus communed with himself, and struck his fore- head with his hand, old Mistress Hibbins, the reputed witch-lady, is said to have been passing by. She made a very grand appearance; having on a high head- dress, a rich gown of velvet, and a ruff done up with the famous yellow starch, of which Ann Turner, her especial friend, had taught her the secret, before this last good lady had been hanged for Sir Thomas Over- bury's murder. Whether the witch had read the min- ister's thoughts or no, she came to a full stop, looked shrewdly into his face, smiled craftily, and — though little given to converse with clergymen — began a con- versation. " So, reverend Sir, you have made a visit into the forest," observed the witch -lady, nodding her high head-dress at liim. " The next time, I pray you to allow me only a fair warning, and I shall be proud to bear you company. Without taking overmuch upon myself, my good word will go far towards gaining any strange gentleman a fair reception from yonder poten- tate you wot of ! " " I profess, madam," answered the clergyman, with a grave obeisance, such as the lady's rank demanded, and his own good- breeding made imperative, — "I profess, on my conscience and character, that I am utterly bewildered as touching the purport of your words ! I went not into the forest to seek a potentate ; neither do I, at any future time, design a visit thither, with a view to gaining the favor of such a personage. My one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend of mine, the Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him ovei THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 265 the many precious souls he hath won from heathen- dom ! " " Ha, ha, ha ! " cackled the old witch-lady, still nod- ding her high head - dress at the minister. " Well, well, we must needs talk thus in the daytime ! You carry it off like an old hand ! But at midnight, and in the forest, we shall have other talk together ! " She passed on with her aged stateliness, but often turning back her head and smiling at him, like one willing to recognize a secret intimacy of connection. " Have I then sold myself," thought the minister, "to the fiend whom, if men say true, this yellow- starched and velveted old hag has chosen for her prince and master ! " The wretched minister ! He had made a bargain very like it ! Tempted by a dream of happiness, he had yielded himself, with deliberate choice, as he had never done before, to what he knew was deadly sin. And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system. It had stupefied all blessed impidses, and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. Scorn, bit- terness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of iU, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke, to tempt, even while they frightened him. And his en- counter with old Mistress Hibbins, if it were a real incident, did but show his sympathy and fellowship with wicked mortals, and the world of perverted spirits. He had, by this time, reached his dwelling, on the edge of the burial-ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study. The minister was glad to have reached this shelter, without first betraying him- self to the world by any of those strange and wicked eccentricities to which he had been continually im- 266 THE SCARLET LETTER. pelled while passing through the streets. He entered the accustomed room, and looked around him on its books, its windows, its fireplace, and the tapestried comfort of the walls, with the same perception of strangeness that had haunted him throughout his walk from the forest-dell into the town, and thitherward. Here he had studied and written ; here, gone through fast and vigil, and come forth half alive ; here, striven to pray ; here, borne a hundred thousand agonies ! There was the Bible, in its rich old Hebrew, with Moses and the Prophets speaking to him, and God's voice through all ! There, on the table, with the inky pen beside it, was an unfinished sermon, with a sen- tence broken in the midst, where his thoughts had ceased to gush out upon the page, two days before. He knew that it was himself, the thin and white-cheeked minister, who had done and suffered these things, and written thus far into the Election Sermon ! But he seemed to stand apart, and eye this former self with scornful, pitying, but half-envious curiosity. That self was gone. Another man had returned out of the for- est; a wiser one; with a knowletlge of hidden mys- teries which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that ! While occupied with these reflections, a knock came at the door of the study, and the minister said, " Come in ! " — not wholly devoid of an idea that he might be- hold an evil spirit. And so he did ! It was old Kon-er Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood, white and speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scrip- tures, and the other spread upon his breast. " "Welcome home, reverend Sir," said the physician, "And how found you that godly man, the Apostle Eliot ? But methinks, dear Sir, you look pale ; as ii THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 267 the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for you. Will not my aid be requisite to put you in heart and strength to preach your Election Ser- mon?" " Nay, I think not so," rejoined the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. " My journey, and the sight of the holy Apostle yonder, and the free air which I have breathed^ have done me good, after so long confinement in my study. I think to need no more of your drugs, my kind physician, good though they be, and administered by a friendly hand." All this time, Roger ChiUingworth was looking at the minister with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient. But, in spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old man's knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspi- cion, with respect to his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician knew then, that, in the min- ister's regard, he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy. So much being known, it would appear natural that a part of it should be expressed. It is singular, however, how long a time often passes before words embody things ; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without dis- turbing it. Thus, the minister felt no apprehension that Roger ChiUingworth would touch, in express words, upon the real position which they sustained to- wards one another. Yet did the physician, in his dark way, creep frightfully near the secret. " Were it not better," said he, " that you use my poor skill to-night ? Verily, dear Sir, we must take pains to make you strong and vigorous for this occa. fiion of the Election discourse. The people look for 268 THE SCARLET LETTER. great things from you ; apprehending that another year may come about, and find their pastor gone." " Yea, to another world," replied the minister, with pious resignation. " Heaven grant it be a better one ; for, in good sooth, I hardly think to tarry with my flock through the flitting seasons of another year ! But, touching your medicine, kind Sir, in my present frame of body, I need it not." "I joy to hear it," answered the physician. "It may be that my remedies, so long administered in vain, begin now to take due effect. Happy man were I, and well deserving of New England's gratitude, could I achieve this cure ! " " I thank you from my heart, most watchful friend," said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, with a solemn smile. " I thank you, and can but requite your good deeds with my prayers." " A good man's prayers are golden recompense ! " rejoined old Roger Chillingworth, as he took his leave. " Yea, they are the current gold coin of the New Jeru- salem, with the King's own mint-mark on them ! " Left alone, the minister summoned a servant of the house, and requested food, which, being set before him, he ate with ravenous appetite. Then, flinging the al- ready written pages of the Election Sermon into the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote Nvith such an impulsive flow of thought and emotion, that he fancied himself inspired ; and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to transmit the grand and sol- emn music of its oracles through so foul an organ-pipe as he. However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or go unsolved forever, he drove his task onward, with earnest haste and ecstasy. Thus the night fled away, as if it were a winged steed, and he careering on it ,■ THE MINISTER IN A MAZE. 269 morning came, and peeped, blushing, through the cur- tains ; and at last sunrise threw a golden beam into the study and laid it right across the minister's bedaz- zled eyes. There he was, with the pen stUl between his fingers, and a vast, immftasurable tract of written space behind him 1 XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. Betimes in the morning of the day on which the new Governor was to receive his oifice at the hands of the peofile, Hester Prynne and little Pearl came into the market-place. It was already thronged with the craftsmen and other plebeian inhabitants of the town, in considerable numbers ; among whom, likewise, were many rough figures, whose attire of deer-skins marked them as belonging to some of the forest settlements, which surrounded the little metropolis of the colony. On this public holiday, as on all other occasions, for seven years past, Hester was clad in a garment of coarse gray cloth. Not more by its hue than by some indescribable peculiarity in its fashion, it had the effect of making her fade personally out of sight and outline ; while, again, the scarlet letter brought her back from this twilight indistinctness, and revealed her under the moral aspect of its own illumination. Her face, so long familiar to the townspeople, showed the marble quietude which they were accustomed to behold there. It was like a mask; or, rather, like the frozen calm- ness of a dead woman's features ; owing this dreary resemblance to the fact that Hester was actually dead, in respect to any claim of sympathy, and had de- parted out of the world, with which she still seemed to mingle. It might be, on this one day, that there was an THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 271 expression unseen before, nor, indeed, vivid enough to be detected, now ; unless some preternaturally gifted observer should have first read the heart, and have afterwards sought a corresponding development in the countenance and mien. Such a spiritual seer might have conceived, that, after sustaining the gaze of the multitude through seven miserable years as a neces- sity, a penance, and something which it was a stern religion to endure, she now, for one last time more, encountered it freely and voluntarily, in order to con- vert what had so long been agony into a kind of tri- umph. " Look your last on the scarlet letter and its wearer!" — the people's victim and life -long bond- slave, as they fancied her, might say to them. " Yet a little whUe, and she wlU be beyond your reach I A few hours longer, and the deep mysterious ocean will quench and hide forever the symbol which ye have caused to burn upon her bosom ! " Nor were it an in- consistency too improbable to be assigned to human nature, should we suppose a feeling of regret in Hes- ter's mind, at the moment when she was about to vnn her freedom from the pain which had been thus deeply incorporated with her being. Might there not be an irresistible desire to quaff a last, long, breath- less draught of the cup of wormwood and aloes, with which nearly all her years of womanhood had been per- petually flavored ? The wine of life, henceforth to be presented to her lijjs, must be indeed rich, delicious, and exhilarating, in its chased and golden beaker ; or else leave an inevitable and weary languor, after the lees of bitterness wherewith she had been drugged, as with a cordial of intensest potency. Pearl was decked out with airy gayety. It would have been impossible to guess that this bright and 272 THE SCARLET LETTER. sunny apparition owed its existence to the shape of gloomy gray ; or that a fancy, at once so gorgeous and so delicate as must have been requisite to contrive the child's apparel, was the same that had achieved a task perhaps more difficult, in imparting so distinct a peculiarity to Hester's simple robe. The dress, so proper was it to little Pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable development and outward manifestation o£ her character, no more to be separated from her than the many-hued brilliancy from a butterfly's wing, or the painted glory from the leaf of a bright flower. As with these, so with the child ; her garb was all of one idea with her nature. On this eventful day, moreover, there was a certain singular inquietude and excitement in her mood, resembling nothing so much as the shimmer of a diamond, that sparkles and flashes with the varied throbbings of the breast on which it is displayed. Children have always a sym- pathy in the agitations of those connected with them ; always, especially, a sense of any trouble or impend- ing revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circum- stances ; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on her mother's unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of Hester's brow. This e£Eervescenc6 made her flit with a bird -like movement, rather than walk by her mother's side. She broke continually into shouts of a wild, inartic- ulate, and sometimes piercing music. When they reached the market-place, she became still more rest- less, on perceiving the stir and bustle that enlivened the spot ; for it was usually more like the broad and lonesome green before a village meeting-house, than the centre of a town's business. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 273 " Why, what is this, mother ? " cried she. " Where- fore have all the people left their work to-day ? Is it a play-day for the whole world? See, there is the blacksmith ! He has washed his sooty face, and put on his Sabbath-day clothes, and looks as if he would gladly be merry, if any kind body would only teach him how! And there is Master Brackett, the old jailer, nodding and smiling at me. Why does he do 80, mother ? " " He remembers thee a little babe, my chUd," an- swered Hester. " He should not nod and smUe at me, for all that, — the black, grim, ugly-eyed old man ! " said Pearl. " He may nod at thee, if he wiU ; for thou art clad in gray, and wearest the scarlet letter. But see, mother, how many faces of strange people, and Indians among them, and sailors ! What have they aU come to do, here in the market-place ? " " They wait to see the procession pass," said Hes- ter. " For the Governor and the magistrates are to go by, and the ministers, and all the great people and good people, with the music and the soldiers marching before them." "And will the minister be there?" asked Pearl. " And will he hold out both his hands to me, as when thou ledst me to him from the brook-side ? " "He will be there, chUd," answered her mother. " But he will not greet thee to-day ; nor must thou greet him." " What a strange, sad man is he ! " said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. " In the dark night- time he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder. And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can VOL. V. 18 274 THE SCARLET LETTER. hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss ! And he Idsses my fore- head, too, so that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here, in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not ; nor must we know him ! A strange, sad man is he, with his hand always oyer his heart ! " "Be quiet. Pearl! Thou understandest not these things," said her mother. " Think not now of the minister, but look about thee, and see how cheery is everybody's face to-day. The children have come from their schools, and the grown people from their workshops and their fields, on purpose to be happy. For, to-day, a new man is beginning to rule over them ; and so — as has been the custom of mankind ever since a nation was first gathered — they make merry and rejoice ; as if a good and golden year were at length to pass over the poor old world I " It was as Hester said, in regard to the unwonted jolhty that brightened the faces of the people. Into this festal season of the year — as it already was, and continued to be during the greater part of two centu- ries — the Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity ; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general aifliction. But we perhaps exaggerate the gray or sable tinge, which undoubtedly characterized the mood and man- ners of the age. The persons now in the market- place of Boston had not been born to an inheritance of Puritanic gloom. They were native Englishmen, whose fathers had lived in the sunny richness of the THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 275 Elizabethan epoch ; a time when the life of England, viewed as one great mass, would appear to have been as stately, magnificent, and joyous, as the world has ever witnessed. Had they followed their hereditary taste, the New England settlers would have illustrated all events of public importance by bonfires, banquets, pageantries and processions. Nor would it have been impracticable, in the observance of majestic ceremo- nies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity, and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroi- dery to the great robe of state, which a nation, at such festivals, puts on. There was some shadow of an at- tempt of this kind in the mode of celebrating the day on which the political year of the colony commenced. The dim reflection of a remembered splendor, a col- orless and manifold diluted repetition of what they had beheld in proud old London, — we will not say at a royal coronation, but at a Lord Mayor's show, — might be traced in the customs which our forefathers instituted, with reference to the annual installation of masristrates. The fathers and founders of the com- es mon wealth — the statesman, the priest, and the sol- dier — deemed it a duty then to assume the outward state and majesty, which, in accordance with antique style, was looked upon as the proper garb of public or social eminence. All came forth, to move in proces- sion before the people's eye, and thus impart a needed dignity to the simple framework of a government so newly constructed. Then, too, the people were countenanced, if not en- couraged, in relaxing the severe and close application to their various modes of rugged industry, which, at all other times, seemed of the same piece and material with their religion. Here, it is true, were none of the 276 THE SCARLET LETTER. appliances which popular merriment would so read- ily have found in the England of Elizabeth's time, or that of James ; no rude shows of a theatrical kind ; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor glee- man, with an ape dancing to his music ; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft ; no Merry An- drew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps hun- dreds of years old, but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy. All such professors of the several branches of jocular- ity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which gives law its vitality. Not the less, however, the great, honest face of the people smiled, grimly, perhaps, but widely too. Nor were sports wanting, such as the colonists had witnessed, and shared in, long ago, at the country fairs and on the village- greens of England ; and which it was thought well to keep alive on this new soU, for the sake of the courage and manliness that were essential in them. Wrest- ling-matches, in the different fashions of Cornwall and Devonshire, were seen here and there about the market-place ; in one corner there was a friendly bout at quarterstaff ; and — what attracted most interest of all — on the platform of the pillory, already so noted in our pages, two masters of defence were commencing an exhibition with the buckler and broadsword. But, much to the disajjjDointment of the crowd, this latter business was broken off by the interj)osition of the town beadle, who had no idea of jDermitting the maj- esty of the law to be violated by such an abuse of one of its consecrated places. It may not be too much to affirrn, on the whole (the people being then in the first stages of joyless deport THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 277 ment, and the offspring of sires who had known how to be merry, in their day), that they would compare favorably, iu point of holiday keeping, with their de- scendants, even at so long an interval as ourselves. Their immediate posterity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest shade of Puritan- ism, and so darkened the national visage with it, that all the subsequent years have not sufficed to clear it up. We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gayety. The picture of human life in the market-place, though its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. A party of Indians — in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deer-skin robes, wampum - belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear — stood apart, with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could at- tain. Nor, wild as were these painted barbarians, were they the wildest feature of the scene. This distinc- tion could more justly be claimed by some mariners, — a part of the crew of the vessel from the Spanish Main, — who had come ashore to see the humors of Elec- tion Day. They were rough-looking desperadoes, with sun-blackened faces, and an immensity of beard ; their wide, short trousers were confined about the waist by belts, often clasped vdth a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and, in some instances, a sword. From beneath their broad-brimmed hats of palm-leaf gleamed eyes which, even in good-nature and merriment, had a kind of animal ferocity. They transgressed, without fear or scruple, the rules of be- iiavior that were binding on all others ; smoking to- 278 THE SCARLET LETTER. bacco under the beadle's veiy nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling ; and quaffing, at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aqua-vitse from pocket-flasks, which they freely tendered to the gap- ing crowd around them. It remarkably characterized the incomplete morality of the age, rigid as we call it, that a license was allowed the seafaring class, not merely for their freaks on shore, but for far more des- perate deeds on their proper element. The saUor of that day would go near to be arraigned as a pirate in our own. There could be little doubt, for instance, that this very ship's crew, though no unfavorable spec- imens of the nautical brotherhood, had been guilty, as we should phrase it, of depredations on the Spanish commerce, such as would have perilled all their necks in a modem court of justice. But the sea, in those old times, heaved, swelled, and foamed, very much at its own wlU, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at reg- ulation by human law. The buccaneer on the wave might relinquish his calling, and become at once, if he chose, a man of probity and piety on land ; nor, even in the full career of his reckless life, was he regai-ded as a personage with whom it was disreputable to traf- fic, or casually associate. Thus, the Puritan elders, in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steej)le-crowned hats, smiled not unbenignantly at the clamor and rude deportment of these jolly seafaring men ; and it ex- cited neither surprise nor animadversion when so rep- utable a citizen as old Roger ChiUingworth, the phy- sician, was seen to enter the market-place, in close and familiar talk with the commander of the question- able vessel. The latter was by far the most showy and gallant THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY. 279 figure, so far as apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a profusion of rib- bons on his garment, and gold-lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain, and surmounted with a feather. There was a sword at his side, and a sword-cut on his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair, he seemed anxious rather to display than hide. A landsman could hardly have worn this garb and shown this face, and worn and shown them both with such a galliard air, without undergoing stern question before a magistrate, and probably incurring fine or imprisonment, or perhaps an exhibition in the stocks. As regarded the shipmaster, however, aU was looked upon as pertaining to the character, as to a fish his glistening scales. After parting from the physician, the commander of the Bristol ship strolled idly through the market- place ; until happening to approach the spot where Hester Prynne was standing, he ajDpeared to recog- nize, and did not hesitate to address her. As was usually the case wherever Hester stood, a small vacant area — a soit of magic circle — had formed itself about her, into which, though the people were elbow- ing one another at a little distance, none ventured, or felt disposed, to intrude. It was a forcible type of the moral solitude in which the scarlet letter enveloped its ^ted wearer ; partly by her own reserve, and partly by the instinctive, though no longer so unkindly, with- drawal of her fellow-creatures. Now, if never before, it answered a good purpose, by enabling Hester and the seaman to speak together without risk of being overheard ; and so changed was Hester Prynne's re- pute before the public, that the matron in town most eminent for rigid morality could not have held such intercourse with less result of scandal than herself. 280 THE SCARLET LETTER. " So, mistress," said the mariner, " I must bid the steward make ready one more berth than you bar- gained for ! No fear of scurvy or shif)-fever this voy- age! What w^ith the ship's surgeon and this other doctor, our only danger will be from drug or pill ; more by token, as there is a lot of apothecary's stuff aboard, which I traded for with a Spanish vessel." " What mean you ? " inquired Hester, startled more than she permitted to appear. " Have you another passenger?" " Why, know you not," cried the shipmaster, " that this physician here — Chilling^orth, he calls himself — is minded to try my cabin-fare with you ? Ay, ay, you must have known it ; for he tells me he is of yoiu: party, and a close friend to the gentleman you spoke of, — he that is in peril from these sour old Puritan rulers ! " " They know each other well, indeed," replied Hes- ter, with a mien of calmness, though in the utmost consternation. " They have long dwelt together." Nothing further passed between the mariner and Hester Prynne. But, at that instant, she beheld old Roger Chillingworth himself, standing in the remot- est corner of the market-place, and smiling on her ; a smile which — across the wide and bustling square, and through all the talk and laughter, and various thoughts, moods, and interests of the crowd — con- veyed secret and fearful meaning. XXII. THE PKOCESSION. Before Hester Prynne could call together her thoughts, and consider what was practicable to be done in this new and startling aspect of affairs, the sound of military music was heard approaching along a con- tiguous street. It denoted the advance of the proces- sion of magistrates and citizens, on its way towards the meeting-house ; where, in compliance with a cus- tom thus early established, and ever since observed, the Reverend Mr. Dinmiesdale was to deliver an Elec- tion Sermon. Soon the head of the procession showed itself, with a slow and stately march, turning a corner and mak- ing its way across the market-place. First came the music. It comprised a variety of instruments, perhaps imperfectly adapted to one another, and played with no gTcat skill ; but yet attaining the great object for which the harmony of drum and clarion addresses it- self to the multitude, — that of imparting a higher and more heroic air to the scene of life that passes be- fore the eye. Little Pearl at first clapped her hands, but then lost, for an instant, the restless agitation that had kept her in a continual effervescence tloroughout the morning ; she gazed silently and seemed to be borne ujDward, like a floating sea-bird, on the long heaves and swells of somid. But she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the sun- 282 THE SCARLET LETTER. shine on the weapons and bright armor o£ the military company, which followed after the music, and formed the honorary escort of the procession. This body of soldiery — which still sustains a corporate existence, and marches down from j)ast ages with an ancient and honorable fame — was composed of no mercenary ma- terials. Its ranks were filled with gentlemen, who felt the stirrings of martial impulse, and sought to estab- lish a kind of College of Arms, where as in an asso- ciation of Knights Templars, they might learn the sci- ence, and, so far as peaceful exercise would teach them, the practices of war. The high estimation then placed upon the military character might be seen in the lofty port of each individual member of the company. Some of them, indeed, by their services in the Low Countries and on other fields of warfare, had fairly won their title to assume the name and pomp of sol- diership. The entire array, moreover, clad in bur- nished steel, and with plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can aspire to equal. And yet the men of civil eminence, who came imme- diately behind the military escort, were better worth a thoughtful observer's eye. Even in outward de- meanor, they showed a stamp of majesty that made the warrior's haughty stride look vulgar, if not absurd. It was an age when what we call talent had far less consideration thg,n now, but the massive materials which produce stability and dignity of character a great deal more. The people possessed, by hereditary right, the quality of reverence ; which, in their de- Kcendants, if it survive at all, exists in smaller pro- portion, and with a vastly diminished force, in the s& lection and estimate of public men. The change may THE PROCESSION. 283 be for good or ill, and is partly, perhaps, for both. In that old day, the English settler on these rude shores, having left king, nobles, and all degrees of awful rank behind, while stiU the faculty and necessity of reverence were strong in him, bestowed it on the white hair and venerable brow of age ; on long-tried in- tegrity ; on solid wisdom and sad-colored experience ; on endowments of that grave and weighty order which gives the idea of permanence, and comes under the general definition of respectability. These primitive statesmen, therefore, — Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers, — who were elevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety, rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude and self-reliance, and, in time of difficulty or peril, stood up for the welfare of the state like a line of cliffs against a tempestuous tide. The traits of character here indicated were well rep- resented in the square cast of countenance and large physical development of the new colonial magistrates. So far as a demeanor of natural authority was con- cerned, the mother country need not have been ashamed to see these foremost men of an actual de- mocracy adopted into the House of Peers, or made the Privy Council of the sovereign. Next in order to the magistrates came the young and eminently distinguished divine, from whose lips the religious discourse of the anniversary was expected. His was the profession, at that era, in which intellec- tual ability displayed itself far more than in political life ; for — leaving a higher motive out of the ques- tion — it offered inducements powerful enough, in the almost worshipping respect of the community, to win 284 7'HE SCARLET LETTER. the most aspiring ambition into its service. Even po- litical power — as in the case of Increase Mather — was within the grasp of a successful priest. It was the observation of those who beheld him now that never, since Mr. Dimmesdale first set his foot on the New England shore, had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with v/hich he kept his pace in the procession. There was no feebleness of step, as at other times ; his frame was not bent ; nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. Yet, it the clergyman were rightly viewed, his strength seemed not of the body. It might be spiritual, and imparted to him by angelic ministrations. It might be the ex- hilaration of that potent cordial which is distilled only in the furnace glow of earnest and long - continued thought. Or, perchance, his sensitive temperament was invigorated by the loud and piercing music, that swelled heavenward, and uplifted him on its ascending wave. Nevertheless, so abstracted was his look, it might be questioned whether Mr. Dimmesdale even heard the music. There was his body, moving on- ward, and with an unaccustomed force. But where was his mind ? Far and deep in its own region, busy- ing itself, with preternatural activity, to marshal a procession of stately thoughts that were soon to issue thence ; and so he saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing, of what was around him ; but the spiritual element took up the feeble frame, and carried it along, unconscious of the burden, and converting it to spirit like itself. Men of uncommon intellect, who have grown morbid, possess this occasional power of mighty effort, into which they throw the life of many days, and then are lifeless for as many more. Hester Prynne, gazing steadfastly at the clergyman THE PROCESSION. 285 felt a dreary influence come over her, but wherefore or whence she knew not ; unless that he seemed so re- mote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach. One glance of recognition, she had imagined, must needs pass between them. She thought of the dim forest, with its little deU of solitude, and love, and anguish, and the mossy tree-trunk, where, sitting hand in hand, they had mingled their sad and passionate talk with the melancholy murmur of the brook. How deeply had they known each other then ! And was this the man ? She hardly knew him now ! He, mov- ing proudly past, enveloped, as it were, in the rich music, with the procession of majestic and venerable fathers ; he, so unattainable in his worldly position, and still more so in that far vista of his unsjrmpathiz- ing thoughts, through which she now beheld Mm ! Her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that, vividly as she had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the clergyman and herself. And thus much of woman was there in Hester, that she could scarcely forgive him, — least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer ! — for be- ing able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world ; while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not. Pearl either saw and responded to her mother's feel- ings, or herself felt the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister. While the pro- cession passed, the child was uneasy, fluttering up and down, like a bird on the point of taking flight. When the whole had gone by, she looked up into Hester's face. " Mother," said she, " was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook ? " 286 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl ! " whispered hex mother. " We must not always talk in the market- place of what hapj)ens to us in the forest." " I could not be sure that it was he ; so strange he looked," continued the child. " Else -I would have run to him, and bid him kiss me now, before all the peo- ple ; even as he did yonder among the dark old trees. What would the minister have said, mother ? Would he have clapped his hand over his heart, and scowled on me, and bid me be gone ? " " What should he say. Pearl," answered Hester, " save that it was no time to kiss, and that kisses are not to be given in the market-place ? Well for thee, foolish child, that thou didst not speak to him ! " Another shade of the same sentiment, in reference to Mr. Dimmesdale, was expressed by a person whose eccentricities — or insanity, as we should term it — led her to do what few of the townspeople would have ventured on ; to begin a conversation with the wearer of the scarlet letter, in public. It was Mistress Hib- bins, who, arrayed in great magnificence, with a triple ruff, a broidered stomacher, a gown of rich velvet, and a gold-headed cane, had come forth to see the proces- sion. As this ancient lady had the renown (which subsequently cost her no less a price than her life) of being a jirineipal actor in all the works of necromancy that were continually going forward, the crowd gave way before her, and seemed to fear the touch of her garment, as if it carried the plague among its gorgeous folds. Seen in conjunction with Hester Prynne, — kindly as so many now felt towards the latter, — the dread inspired by Mistress Hibbins was doubled, and caused a general movement from that part of the mar- ket-place in which the two women stood. b' THE PROCESSION. 287 " Now, what mortal imagination could conceive it ! " whispered the old lady, confidentially, to Hester. " Yonder divine man ! That saint on earth, as the people uphold him to be, and as — I must needs say — he really looks ! Who, now, that saw him pass in the procession, would think how little while it is since he went forth out of his study, — chewing a Hebrew text of Scri]3ture in his mouth, I warrant, — to take an airing in the forest! Aha ! we know what that means, Hester Pryime ! But, truly, forsooth, I find it hard to believe him the same man. Many a church-mem- ber saw I, walking behind the music, that has danced in the same measure with me, when Somebody was fid- dler, and, it might be, an Indian powwow or a Lap- land wizard changing hands with us ! That is. but a trifle, when a woman knows the world. But this min- ister ! Couldst thou surely tell, Hester, whether he was the same man that encountered thee on the for- es<>path?" " Madam, I know not of what you speak," answered Hester Pryiine, feeling Mistress Hibbins to be of in- firm mind; yet strangely startled and awe -stricken by the confidence with which she affirmed a personal connection between so man)"^ persons (herself among them) and the Evil One. " It is not for me to talk lightly of a learned and pious minister of the Word, like the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale ! " " Fie, woman, fie ! " cried the old lady, shaking her finger at Hester. " Dost thou think I have been to the forest so manj^ times, and have yet no skill to judge who else has been there? Yea; though no leaf of the wild garlands, which they wore while they danced be left in their hair ! I know thee, Hester ; for I behold the token. We may aU see it in the sun- 288 THE SCARLET LETTER. shine; and it glows like a red flame in the dark. Thou wearest it openly ; so there need be no question about that. But this minister ! Let me teU thee, in thine ear ! When the Black Man sees one of his own servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters so that the mark shall be dis- closed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world I What is it that the minister seeks to hide, with his hand always over his heart? Ha, Hester Prynne ! " " What is it, good Mistress Hibbins ? " eagerly asked little Pearl. " Hast thou seen it ? " "No matter, darling ! " responded Mistress Hibbins, making Pearl a profound reverence. " Thou thyself wilt see it, one time or another. They say, child, thou art of the lineage of the Prince of the Air ! Wilt thou ride with me, some fine night, to see thy father? Then thou shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his hand over his heart! " Laughing so shriUy that all the market-place could hear her, the weird old gentlewoman took her depar- ture. By this time the preliminary prayer had been of- fered in the meeting-house, and the accents of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale were heard commencing his discourse. An irresistible feeling kept Hester near the spot. As the sacred edifice was too much thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold of the pillory. It was in sufficient proximity to bring the whole sermon to her ears, in the shape of an indistinct, but varied, murmiu* and flow of the minister's very peculiar voice. This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment ; insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of THE PROCESSION. 289 the language in which the preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence. Like all other music, it breathed passion and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever educated. Muf- fled as the sound was by its passage through the church-walls, Hester Prynne listened with such intent- ness, and sympathized so intimately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely apart from its indistingiiishable words. These, perhaps, if more distinctly heard, might have been only a grosser me- dium, and have clogged the spiritual sense. Now she caught the low undertone, as of the wind sinking down to repose itself ; then ascended with it, as it rose through progressive gradations of sweetness and power, until its volume seemed to envelop her with an atmosphere of awe and solemn grandeur. And yet, majestic as the voice sometimes became, there was for- ever in it an essential character of plaintiveness. A loud or low expression of anguish, — the whisper, or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering hu- manity, that touched a sensibility in every bosom ! At times this deep strain of pathos was all that could be heard, and scarcely heard, sighing amid a desolate silence. But even when the minister's voice grew high and commanding, — when it gushed irrepressibly up- ward, — when it assumed its utmost breadth and power, so overfilling the church as to burst its way through the solid walls and diffuse itself in the oj)en air, — still, if the auditor listened intently, and for the purpose, he could detect the same cry of pain. What was it ? The complaint of a human heart, sorrow- laden, perchance guilty, telling its secret, whether of guilt or sorrow, to the great heart of mankind; be- voi« V- 19 290 THE SCARLET LETTER. seeching its sympathy or forgiveness, — at every mo- ment, — in each accent, — and never in vain ! It was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergyman liis most appropriate jaower. During all this time, Hester stood, statue-like, at the foot of the scaffold. If the minister's voice had not kept her there, there would nevertheless have been an inevitable magnetism in that spot, whence she dated the first hour of her life of ignominy. There was .a sense within her, — too ill-defined to be made a thought, but weighing heavily on her mind, — that her whole orb of life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity. Little Pearl, meanwhile, had quitted her mother's side, and was playing at her own wiU about the market- place. She made the sombre crowd cheerful by her erratic and glistening ray ; even as a bird of bright plumage illuminates a whole tree of dusky foliage by darting to and fro, half seen and half concealed amid the twilight of the clustering leaves. She had an un- dulating, but, oftentimes, a sharp and irregular move- ment. It indicated the restless vivacity of her spirit, which to-day was doubly indefatigable in its tiptoe dance, because it was played upon and vibrated with her mother's disquietude. Whenever Pearl saw any- thing to excite her ever-active and wandering curiosity, she flew thitherward, and, as we might say, seized upon that man or thing as her own property, so far as she desired it ; but without yielding the minutest degree of control over her motions in requital. The Puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, were none the less in- clined to pronounce the child a demon offspring, from the indescribable charm of beauty and eccentricity that shone through her little figure, and sparkled with THE PROCESSION. 291 its activity. She ran and looked the mid Indian in the face ; and he grew conscious of a nature wilder than his own. Thence, with native audacity, but still with a reserve as characteristic, she flew into the midst of a group of mariners, the swarthy-cheeked wild men of the ocean, as the Indians were of the land ; and they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at Pearl, as if a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with a soul of the sea-fire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time. One of these seafaring men — the shipmaster, in- deed, who had spoken to Hester Prynne — was so smitten with Pearl's aspect, that he attempted to lay hands upon her, with purjjose to snatch a kiss. Find- ing it as impossible to touch her as to catch a hum- ming-bird in the air, he took from his hat the gold chain that was twisted about it, and threw it to the child. Pearl immediately twined it around her neck and waist, with such happy skill, that, once seen there, it became a part of her, and it was difficult to imagine her without it. " Thy mother is yonder woman with the scarlet let- ter," said the seaman. " Wilt thou carry her a mes- sage from me? " " If the message pleases me, I will," answered Pearl. " Then tell her," rejoined he, " that I spake again with the black-a-visaged, hump-shouldered old doctor, and he engages to bring his friend, the gentleman she wots of, aboard with him. So let thy mother take no thought, save for herself and thee. Wilt thou tell her this, thou witch-baby?" " Mistress Hibbins says my father is the Prince of the Air ! " cried Pearl, with a naughty smile. " If thou callest me that iU name, I shall tell him of thee, and he wUl cha,se thy ship with a tempest I " 292 THE SCARLET LETTER. Pursuing a zigzag course across tlie market-place, the child returned to her mother, and communicated what the mariner had said. Hester's strong, calm, steadfastly enduring spirit almost sank, at last, on be- holding this dark and grim countenance of an inevi- table doom, which — at the moment when a passage seemed to open for the minister and herself out of their labyrinth of misery — showed itself, with an un- relenting smile, right in the midst of their path. With her mind harassed by the terrible perplexity in which the shipmaster's intelligence involved her, she was also subjected to another trial. There were many people present, from the country round about, who had often heard of the scarlet letter, and to whom it had been made terrific by a hundred false or exaggerated nmiors, but who had never beheld it with their own bodily eyes. These, after exhausting other modes of amusement, now thronged about Hester Prynne with rude and boorish intrusiveness. Unscrupulous as it was, however, it could not bring them nearer than a circuit of several yards. At that distance they accord- ingly stood, fixed there by the centrifugal force of the repugnance which the mystic symbol inspired. The whole gang of sailors, likewise, observing the press of spectators, and learning the purport of the scarlet letter, came and thrust their sunburnt and desperado- looking faces into the ring. Even the Indians were af- fected by a sort of cold shadow of the white man's cu- riosity, and, gliding through the crowd, fastened their snake-like black eyes on Hester's bosom ; conceiving, perhaps, that the wearer of this brilliantly embroi- dered badge must needs be a personage of high dig- nity among her people. Lastly, the inhabitants of the town (their own interest in this worn-out subject Ian THE PROCESSION. 293 giiidly reviving itself, by sympathy with vs^hat they saw others feel) lounged idly to the same quarter, and tor- mented Hester Prynne, perhaps more than all the rest, with their cool, well-acquainted gaze at her familiar shame. Hester saw and recognized the self-same faces of that group of matrons, who had awaited her forth- coming from the prison-door, seven years ago ; all save one, the youngest and only compassionate among them, whose burial-robe she had since made. At the final hour, when she was so soon to fling aside the burning letter, it had strangely become the centre of more remark and excitement, and was thus made to sear her breast more painfuUy than at any time since the first day she put it on. While Hester stood in that magic circle of ignominy, where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to have fixed her forever, the admirable preacher was looking down from the sacred pulpit upon an audience whose very inmost spirits had yielded to his control. The sainted minister in the church ! The woman of the scarlet letter in the market-place ! What imagi- nation would have been irreverent enough to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both I xxin. THE EEVELATION OF THE SCARLET EETTEE. The eloquent voice, on which the souls of the listen, ing audience had been home aloft as on the swelling waves of the sea, at length came to a pause. There was a momentary silence, profound as what should follow the utterance of oracles. Then ensued a mur- mur and half -hushed tumult-; as if the auditors, re- leased from the high spell that had transported them into the region of another's mind, were returning into themselves, with all their awe and wonder stUl heavy on them. In a moment more, the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the church. Now that there was an end, they needed other breath, more fit to support the gross and earthly life into which they relapsed, than that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame, and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his thought. In the open air their rapture broke into speech. The street and the market-place absolutely babbled, from side to side, with applauses of the minister. His hearers could not rest until they had told one another of what each knew better than he could tell or hear. According to their united testimony, never had man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this day ; nor had inspiration ever breathed through moi-tal lips more evidently than it did through his. Its influence could be seen, as it were, descend- REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 295 ing upon him, and possessing Mm, and continually lifting him out of the written discourse that lay be- fore him, and filling him with ideas that must have been as marvellous to himself as to his audience. His subject, it appeared, had been the relation between the Deity and the communities of mankind, with a special reference to the New England which they were here planting in the wilderness. And, as he drew towards the close, a spirit as of prophecy had come upon him, constraining him to its purpose as mightily as the old prophets of Israel were constrained ; only with this dif- ference, that, whereas the Jewish seers had denounced judgments and ruin on their country, it was his mis- sion to foretell a high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people of the Lord. But, throughout it all, and through the whole discourse, there had been a certain deep, sad undertone of pathos, which could not be interpreted otherwise than as the natural re- gret of one soon to pass away. Yes ; their minister whom they so loved — and who so loved them all, that he could not depart heavenward without a sigh — had the foreboding of untimely death upon him, and would soon leave them in their tears ! This idea of his tran- sitory stay on earth gave the last emphasis to the ef- fect which the preacher had produced; it was as if an angel, in his passage to the skies, had shaken his bright wings over the people for an instant, — at once a shadow and a splendor, — and had shed down a shower of golden truths upon them. Thus, there had come to the Reverend Mr. Dim mesdale — as to most men, in their various spheres, though seldom recognized until they see it far behind them — an epoch of life more brilliant and full of tri- umph than any previous one, or than any which could 296 THE SCARLET LETTER. hereafter be. He stood, at this moment, on the very proudest eminence of superiority, to which the gifts of intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, and a rep- utation of whitest sanctity, could exalt a clergyman in New England's earliest days, when the professional character was of itself a lofty pedestal. Such was the position which the minister occupied, as he bowed his head forward on the cushions of the pulpit, at the close of his Election Sermon. MeanwhUe Hester Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, with the scarlet letter still burning on her breast ! Now was heard again the clangor of music, and the measured tramp of the military escort, issuing from the church-door. The procession was to be marshalled thence to the town-hall, where a solemn banquet would complete the ceremonies of the day. Once more, therefore, the train of venerable and majestic fathers was seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew back reverently, on either side, as the Governor and magistrates, the old and wise men, the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and renowned, advanced into the midst of them. When they were fairly in the market - place, their presence was greeted by a shout. This — though doubtless it might acquire additional force and vol- ume from the childlike loyalty which the age awarded to its rulers — was felt to be an irrepressible outburst of enthusiasm kindled in the auditors by that high strain of eloquence which was yet reverberating in their ears. Each felt the impulse in himself, and, in the same breath, caught it from his neighbor. Within the church, it had hardly been kept down ; beneath the sky, it pealed upward to the zenith. There were human beings enough, and enough of higlily wrought REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 297 and symphonious feeling, to produce that more im- pressive sound than the organ tones of the blast, or the thunder, or the roar of the sea ; even that mighty swell of many voices, blended into one great voice by the universal impulse which makes likewise one vast heart out of the many. Never, from the soil of New England, had gone up such a shout ! Never, on New England soil, had stood the man honored by his mor- tal brethren as the preacher ! How fared it with him then ? Were there not the brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head ? So ether ealized by spirit as he was, and so apotheo- sized by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, ia the procession, really tread upon the dust of earth ? As the ranks of military men and civil fathers moved onward, all eyes were turned towards the point where the minister was seen to approach among them. The shout died into a murmur, as one portion of the crowd after another obtained a glirapse of him. How feeble and pale he looked, amid all his triumph ! The en- ergy — or say, rather, the inspiration which had held him up until he should have delivered the sacred mes- sage that brought its own strength along with it from Heaven — was withdrawn, now that it had. so faith- fully performed its of6.ee. The glow, which they had just before beheld burning on his cheek, was extin- guished, like a flame that sinks down hopelessly among the late-decaying embers. It seemed hardly the face of a man alive, with such a deathlike hue ; it was hardly a man with life in him that tottered on his path so nervelessly, yet tottered, and did not fall! One of his clerical brethren, — it was the venerable John Wilson, — observing the state in which Mr. Dim- Oiesdale was left by the retiring wave of inteUeet and 298 THE SCARLET LETTER. sensibility, stepped forward hastily to offer his sup- port. The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repeUed the old man's arm. He still walked onward, if that movement could be so described, which rather resem- bled the wavering effort of an infant with its mother's arms in view, outstretched to tempt him forward. And now, almost imperceptible as were the latter steps of his progress, he had come opposite the well- remembered and weather-darkened scaffold, where, long since, with all that dreary lapse of time between, Hester Prynne had encountered the world's ignomin- ious stare. There stood Hester, holding little Pearl by the hand ! And there was the scarlet letter on her breast ! The minister here made a pause, although the music still played the stately and rejoicing march to which the procession moved. It summoned him onward, — onward to the festival ! — but here he made a pause. Bellingham, for the last few moments, had kept an anxious eye upon him. He now left his own place in the procession, and advanced to give assistance, judg- ing, from Mr. Dimmesdale's aspect, that he must oth- erwise inevitably fall. But there was something in the latter's expression that warned back the magis- trate, although a man not readily obeying the vague intimations that pass from one spirit to another. The crowd, meanwhile, looked on with awe and wonder. This earthly faintness was, in their view, only another phase of the minister's celestial strength ; nor would it have seemed a miracle too high to be wrought for one so holy, had he ascended before their eyes, wax- ing dimmer and brighter, and fading at last into the light of heaven. He turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his arms. REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 299 " Hester," said he, " come hither I Come, my little Pearl!" It was a ghastly look with which he regarded them ; but there was something at once tender and strangely triumphant in it. The chUd, with the bird-like motion which was one of her characteristics, flew to him, and clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne — slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her strongest wiU — likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. At this instant, old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd, — or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed, and evil, was his look, he rose up out of some nether region, — to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do ! Be that as it might, the old man rushed forward, and caught the minister by the arm. " Madman, hold ! what is your purpose ? " whispered he. " Wave back that woman ! Cast off this child ! All shall be weU! Do not blacken your fame, and perish in dishonor ! I can yet save you ! Would you bring infamy on your sacred profession ? " " Ha, tempter ! Methinks thou art too late ! " an- swered the minister, encountering his eye, fearfully, but firmly. " Thy power is not what it was ! With God's help, I shall escape thee now ! " He again extended his hand to the woman of the ecarlet letter. " Hester Prynne," cried he, with a piercing earnest- ness, " in the name of Him, so terrible and so merci- ful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what — for my own heavy sin and miserable agony — I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come fiither now, and twine thy strength about me ! Thy Btrength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will BOO THE SCARLET LETTER. which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might! with all his own might, and the fiend's ! Come, Hes- ter, come ! Support me up yonder scaffold ! " The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who stood more immediately arouad the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and so per* plexed as to the purport of what they saw, • — imable to receive the explanation which most readily pre- sented itself, or to imagine any other, — that they re- mained silent and inactive spectators of the judgment which Providence seemed about to work. They be- held the minister, leaning on Hester's shoulder, and supported by her arm around him, approach the scaf- fold, and ascend its steps ; while stiU the little hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger ChiUingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore, to be pres- ent at its closing scene. " Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, " there was no one place so secret, — no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me, — save on this very scaffold ! " " Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither ! " an- swered the minister. Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester with an ex- pression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, that there was a feeble smile upon Ids lips. " Is not this better," murmured he, " than what we dreamed of in the forest?" " I know not ! I know not I '' she hurriedly replied. REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 301 " Better ? Yea ; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us ! " " For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order," said the minister; "and God is merciful! Let me now do the wUl which He hath made plain before my sight. For, Hester, I am a dying man. So let me make haste to take my shame upon me ! " Partly supported by Hester Prynne, and holding one hand of little Pearl's, the Eeverend Mr. Dimmes- dale turned to the dignified and venerable nilers ; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren ; to the peo- ple, whose great heart was thoroughly appalled, yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deep life-matter — which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance likewise — was now to be laid open to them. The sun, but little past its merid- ian, shone down upon the clergyman, and gave a dis- tinctness to his figure, as he stood out from all the earth, to put in his plea of guilty at the bar of Eter- nal Justice. " People of New England ! " cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic, — yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of re- morse and woe, — " ye, that have loved me ! — ye, that have deemed me holy ! — behold me here, the one sinner of the world ! At last ! — at last ! — I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood ; here, with tliis woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hith- erward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face ! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears ! Ye have aU shuddered at it ! Wherever her walk hath been, — wherever, so miser- 802 THE SCARLET LETTER. ably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose, — it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repug- nance round about her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered ! " It seemed, at this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness, — and, still more, the f aintness of heart, — that was striving for the mastery with him. He threw off all assistance, and stepped passionately forward a pace before the woman and the child. " It was on him ! " he continued, with a kind of fierceness, — so determined was he to speak out the whole. " God's eye beheld it ! The angels were for- ever pointing at it! The Devil knew it well, and fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger! But he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mourn- ful, because so pure in a sinful world ! — and sad, be- cause he missed his heavenly kindred ! Now, at the death-hour, he stands up before you ! He bids you look again at Hester's scarlet letter! He tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart ! Stand any here that question God's judgment on a sinner ? Be- hold ! Behold a dreadful witness of it ! " With a convulsive motion, he tore away the minis- terial band from before his breast. It was revealed 1 But it were irreverent to describe that revelation. For an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentred on the ghastly miracle ; while the min- REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER. 303 ister stood, with a flush of triumph in his fax;e, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. Then, down he sank upon the scaffold ! Hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her bosom. Old Roger ChiUingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to have departed. " Thou hast escaped me ! " he repeated more than once. " Thou hast escaped me ! " "May God forgive thee! " said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned ! " He withdrew his dying eyes from the old man, and fixed them on the woman and the child. " My little Pearl," said he, feebly, — and there was a sweet and gentle smile over his face, as of a spirit sinking into deep repose ; nay, now that the burden was removed, it seemed almost as if he would be spor- tive with the child, — " dear little Pearl, wUt thou kiss me now? Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! But now thou wilt ? " Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies ; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled. " Hester," said the clergyman, " farewell ! " " Shall we not meet again ? " whispered she, bend- ing her face down close to his. " Shall we not spend our immortal life together ? Surely, surely, we have ransomed one another, with all this woe ! Thou look- est far into eternity, with those bright dying eyesl Then teU me what thou seest ? " 304 THE SCARLET LETTER. " Hush, Hester, hush ! " said he, with tremulous so- lemnity. " The law we broke ! — the sin here so aw- fully revealed ! — let these alone be in thy thoughts ! I fear ! I fear ! It may be that, when we forgot our God, — when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul, — it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure re- union. God knows ; and He is merciful ! He hath proved his mercy, most of aU, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast ! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep the torture always at red-heat ! By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people ! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever ! Praised be his name ! His will be done ! Farewell ! " That final word came forth with the minister's ex- piring breath. The midtitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder, which could not as yet find utterance, save in this murmur that rolled so heavily after the departed spirit. XXIV. CONCLUSION. After many days, when time sufficed for the peo- ple to arrange their thoughts in reference to the fore- going scene, there was more than one account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold. Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a scaklet lettee — the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne — imprinted in the flesh. As regarded its origin, there were various explanations, all of which must nec- essarily have been conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance, — which he afterwards, in Bo many futile methods, followed out, — by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Others contended that the stigma had not been produced until a long time subsequent, when old Roger Chillingworth, being a potent necromancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poisonous drugs. Others, again, — and those best able to appreciate the minis- ter's peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful operation of his spirit upon the body, — whispered their belief, that the awful sjrmbol was the effect of the ever-active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart out- wardly, and at last manifesting Heaven's dreadful judgment by the visible presence of the letter. The 306 THE SCARLET LETTER. reader may choose among these theories. We have thrown all the light we could acquire upon the portent, and would gladly, now that it has done its office, erase its deep print out of our own brain, where long medi- tation has fixed it in very undesirable distinctness. It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who were spectators of the whole scene, and professed never once to have removed their eyes from the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast, more than on a new-bom in- fant's. Neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any, the slightest connection, on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so long worn the scarlet let- ter. According to these highly respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying, — conscious, also, that the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels, — had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen wom- an, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man's own righteousness. After exhaust- ing life in his efforts for mankind's spiritual good, he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful lesson, that, in the view of Infinite Purity, we are sin- ners all alike. It was to teach them, that the holiest among us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the Mercy which looks down, and repudiate more utterly the phantom of human merit, which would look aspiringly upward. Without disputing a truth so momentous, we must be allowed to consider this version of Mr. Dimmesdale's story as onlv an instance of that stubborn fidelity with which a man's friends — and especially a clergyman's — will CONCLUSION. 307 sometimes uphold his character, when proofs, clear as the mid - day sunshine on the scarlet letter, establish him a false and sin-stained creature of the dust. The authority which we have chiefly followed, — a manuscript of old date, drawn up from the verbal tes- timony of individuals, some of whom had known Hes- ter Prynne, while others had heard the tale from con- temporary witnesses, — fully confirms the view taken in the foregoing pages. Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable ex- perience, we put only this into a sentence : " Be true ! Be true ! Be true ! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred ! " Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale's death, in the appearance and demeanor of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy — all his vital and intellectual force — seemed at once to desert him ; insomuch that he positively withered up, shrivelled away, and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wUting in the sun. Tliis unhappy man had made the very principle of his life to consist in the pm-suit and systematic exercise of revenge ; and when, by its com- pletest triumph and consummation, that evil principle was left with no further material to support it, when, in short, there was no more Devil's work on earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanized mor- tal to betake himself whither his Master would find him tasks enough, and pay him his wages duly. But to all these shadowy beings, so long our near acquain- tances, — as well Roger Chillingworth as his compan- ions, — we would fain be merciful. It is a curious 308 THE SCARLET LETTER. subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of inti- macy and heart-knowledge ; each renders one individv ual dependent for the food of his affections and spirit- ual life upon another ; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject. Philosophically consid- ered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow. In the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister — mutual victims as they have been — may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love. Leaving this discussion apart, we have a matter of business to communicate to the reader. At old Roger Chillingworth's decease (which took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr. Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here and in England, to lit- tle Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne. So Pearl — the elf -child, — the demon offspring, as some people, up to that epoch, persisted in consider- ing her, — became the richest heiress of her day, in the New World. Not improbably, this circumstance wrought a very material change in the public estima- tion ; and, had the mother and child remained here, little Pearl, at a marriageable period of life, might have mingled her wild blood with the lineage of the devoutest Puritan among them all. But, in no long time after the physician's death, the wearer of the scarlet letter disappeared, and Pearl along ^vith her. CONCLUSION. 309 For many years, though a vague report would now and then find its way across the sea, — like a shapeless piece of drift-wood tost ashore, with the initials of a name upon it, — yet no tidings of them unquestion- ably authentic were received. The story of the scar- let letter grew into a legend. Its speU, however, was stUl potent, and kept the scaffold awful where the poor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the sea- shore, where Hester Prynne had dwelt. Near this latter spot, one afternoon, some children were at play, when they beheld a taU woman, in a gray robe, ap- proach the cottage -door. In all those years it had never once been opened ; but either she unlocked it, or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadowlike through these impediments. — and, at all events, went in. On the threshold she paused, — turned partly roimd, — for, perchance, the idea of entering all alone, and all so changed, the home of so intense a former Hfe, was more dreary and desolate than even she could bear. But her hesitation was only for an instant, though long enough to display a scarlet letter on her breast. And Hester Prynne had returned, and taken up her long-forsaken shame ! But where was little Pearl ? If stni alive, she must now have been in the flush and bloom of early womanhood. None knew — nor ever learned, with the fulness of perfect certainty — whether the elf-child had gone thus untimely to a maiden grave, or whether her wild, rich nature had been softened and subdued, and made capable of a woman's gentle hap- piness. But, through the remainder of Hester's life, there were indications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was the object of love and interest with some inhabitant of another land. Letters came, with armo- 310 THE SCARLET LETTER. rial seals upon them, though of bearings unknown to English heraldry. In the cottage there were articles of comfort and luxury such as Hester never cared to use, but which only wealth could have purchased, and affection have imagined for her. There were trifles, too, little ornaments, beautiful tokens of a continual remembrance, that must have been wrought by deli, cate fingers, at the impulse of a fond heart. And, once, Hester was seen embroidering a baby-garment, with such a lavish richness of golden fancy as would have raised a public tumult, had any infant, thus ap- parelled, been shown to our sober-hued commmiity. In fine, the gossips of that day believed, — and Mr. Surveyor Pue, Who made investigations a century later, belie,ved, — and one of his recent successors in office, moreover, faithfully believes, — that Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother, and that she would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fire- side. But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne here, in New England, than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here had been her sin ; here, her sorrow ; and here was yet to be her penitence. She had returned, therefore, and resumed, •— of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed it, — resmned the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it quit her bosom. But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self - devoted years that made up Hester's life, th<3 scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with CONCLUSION. 311 reverence too. And, as Hester Prynne Lad no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought aU their sorrows and per- plexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially, — in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion, — or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought, — came to Hester's cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy I Hester comforted and counselled them as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have grown ripe for it, in Heaven's own time, a new truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness. Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined that she herseK might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognized the impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life -long sorrow. The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful ; and wise, more- over, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy ; and showing how sacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a life successful to such an end! So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet letter. And, after many, many years a new grave was delved, near an old and simken one, in that burial-ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and 812 THE SCARLET LETTER. sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings ; and on this simple slab of slate — as the curious investigator may stiU discern, and perplex himself with the pur- port — there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald's wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend ; so sombre is it, and re- lieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow : — " On a field, sable, the letter A, gules." THE BLITHEDALE EOMAl^OE. INTEODUCTORY NOTE. THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. " The Blithedale Eomance " follows in order of time " The House of the Seven Gables ; " having been written durmg the winter of 1851-52, which Haw- thorne spent at West Newton, Massachusetts. It may here be observed incidentally that no two of his ro- mances were composed in the same place. " The Scarlet Letter " was written at Salem ; the " Seven Gables " at Lenox ; " The Marble Faun " partially at Florence, Italy, — being afterwards recast at Red- car, England ; and the final, unfinished ones, " Sep- timius Felton " and " The Dolliver Romance " were produced at The Wayside, in Concord. Sundry externals of the scenery and character in " The Blithedale Romance " were suggested by the sojourn of the author with the transcendental and socialistic community at Brook Farm, Roxbury, then (1841) on the outskirts of Boston. But it would be a serious error were we to conclude that he intended giving, under this imaginative cover, any comprehen- sive impression of that interesting experiment. As he observes in the Preface, " His whole treatment of the affair is altogether incidental to the main purpose of the romance ; nor does he put forward the slightest 316 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. pretensions to illustrate a theory or elicit a conclusion, favorable or otherwise, in respect to socialism." ^ None the less, there are some interesting correspond- ences to be noticed between personages and surround- ings in the book, and actual observations of the au- thor at the community or elsewhere. The picturesque setting of the twenty-fourth chapter, entitled " The Masquer aders," will be found sketched in a passage of the "American Note -Books," dated September 28, 1841, which gives some details of a fancy dress picnic party gotten up by some of the Brook Farmers. One of the two entries under September 27th, also, con- tains an account of a grape-vine in the neighborhood, ascending " almost to the tip of a large white-pine," by means of which he mounted into the tree-boughs and ate the fruit there. The same grape-vine is charmingly utilized in " Coverdale's Hermitage," ^ that " kind of leafy cave " formed by a wreathing " entan- glement of tendrils " high up among the branches of a pine-tree. The original of Old Moodie is manifestly an individual whom the author long afterward (in 1850) saw lingering in front of a restaurant in Court Square, Boston, and commented upon in his journal as wearing a patch over one eye and having " a sort of shadow or delusion of respectability about him . . . and a kind of decency in his red-nosed and groggy destitution." From that slight sketch was constructed the dubioiis and pathetic figure of Moodie, father to Zenobia and Priscilla, who is depicted as a fugitive hiding under an assumed name, to escape the conse- 1 With regard to this whole subject of the relation existing be- tween The BUthedale Romance and Hawthorne's Eiook Farm con- nection, the reader may consult the fifth chapter of A Study of Ham thome. » The BUthedale Romance, Chapter XIL INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 317 quences of a financial crime. The name Fauntleroy, given as his real one, was probably borrowed from that banker, Henry Fauntleroy, whose forgeries, pros- ecuted by the Bank of England and leading to his execution, made him a distinguished character in crim- inal history,! about the year 1824, whUe Hawthorne was still a Bowdoin undergraduate. The daughter Priscilla was, to begin with, modelled on a diminutive woman, a seamstress, who spent a week at Brook Farm, and appears in the " Note-Books " (October 9, 1841). But it will be seen, on comparison, that Priscilla is etherealized into a something which can be likened to the model only in a superficial way. Zenobia, the other daughter, who holds so important a place in the romance, it has been thought was sug- gested by Margaret Fuller, or by a lady who was ac- tually domiciled at Brook Farm while Hawthorne was staying there. Both these theories are doubtless in- correct, so far as they assume that Hawthorne con- sciously drew from either of the persons in question. Margaret Fuller was not a member of the community at all, any more than was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who, in popular estimation, has been identified with it. Furthermore, a gentleman who lived at the farm has declared to the writer that, while Zenobia did not re- call Margaret Fuller, he fancied he saw in her a par- tial resemblance to several women. In fact, the main likeness to Miss Fuller seems to have lain in Zeno- bia's reputed literary renown, and in a certain grace- ful strength of character common to both. Some who have inclined to insist on the resemblance admit simul- ' The case of Fauntleroy is given at some length in William Ilowitt's Northern Heights of London (p. 415). That account is taken from The Gentleman's Magazine for 1824, Part II., 461. 818 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. taneously that, considered as a portraiture of Miss Fuller, the picture of Zenobia Fauntleroy cannot be called accurate. From Miss Elizabeth P. Peabody, the sister-in-law of Hawthorne, it is learned that he explicitly denied ever having any of his acquaintance in mind when developing the persons of his dramas. In this very instance of Zenobia he remarked, on be- ing asked, that once or twice a floating but only par- tial likeness between his heroine and Miss Fuller had presented itself to him , but this merely as one in- dividual might remind him vaguely of another. The woman he had imagined was so real to him and so distinctive, that the actual woman just referred to of- fered herself simply as an illustration of the former. On the other hand, where he had seen but little of people and did not know them — like the seamstress and the vagabond, standing respectively for Priscilla and Moodie — he seized upon their outward appear- ance, and then invented their inner traits to suit his own purpose. One other coincidence should be included in this brief summary. In a volume called " Homes of Amer- ican Authors," published thirty years ago, George William Curtis inserted a chapter on Hawthorne, which embraced some valuable references to the ro- mancer's retired mode of life at Concord ; and at the close he recalled a local episode, — that, namely, of a young woman's suicide by drowning in the Concord Kiver, which is pertinent to the present theme. This girl, a farmer's daughter, had received an education which awakened aspirations beyond the ability of her circumstances to satisfy ; and, after much silent brood- ing, she one evening disappeared. It was suspected that she had made away with herself, and the river INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 319 was thought of. " Then," writes Mr. Curtis, who was himself present, " with the swiftness of certainty all friends far and near were roused and thronged along the banks of the stream. Torches flashed in boats that put off for the terrible search. Hawthorne, then living in the Old Manse, was summoned, and the man whom the -villagers had seen at morning only as a moving spec "re in his garden now appeared among them at nigh"- to devote his strong arm and steady heart to their tervice. The boats drifted slowly down the stream ; tl e torches flared strangely upon the black repose of the water . . . but at length toward midnight the sweet face of the dead girl was raised more placidly tt the stars than it had ever been to the sun. ... So ended a village tragedy. The reader may possibly find in it the original of the thriUing conclusion of the 'Blithedale Romance.' The like- ness here becomes still more striking when it is added that, just as Miles Coverdale is made to awaken Hol- lingsworth by tossing a clod of earth into his sleeping- room, so Mr. Curtis stood beneath Hawthorne's win- dow, and in a similar manner roused him. The two then went out in a boat, with one of the villagers ; precisely as Coverdale, HoUingsworth, and Silas Foster go upon their gloomy quest, in the chapter headed " Midnight." Of the book, when completed, Haw- thorne wrote in a letter to his friend Horatio Bridge this sentence heretofore unpublished : " Perhaps you have seen ' Blithedale ' before this time. I doubt whether you will like it very well, but it has met with good success, and has brought me (besides its American circulation) a thousand dollars from Eng- land, whence, likewise, have come many favorable no- 320 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. tices." Despite the extreme modesty of his 'cone con- cerning it, the book met with a cordial recej.tion, and slowly made its way to the position it now occupies as one of the classics of American literature. G. P. L. PREFACE. In the " Blithedale " of this volume many readers will, probably, suspect a faint and not very faithful shadowing of Brook Farm, in Roxbury, which (now a little more than ten years ago) was occupied and cultivated by a company of socialists. The author does not wish to deny that he had this community in his .mind, and that (having had the good fortune, toi a time, to be personally connected with it) he has oc- casionally availed himself of his actual reminiscences, in the hope of giving a more life-like tint to the fancy- sketch in the following pages. He begs it to be un- derstood, however, that he has considered the institu- tion itself as not less fairly the subject of fictitious handling than the imaginary personages whom he has introduced there. His whole treatment of the affair is altogether incidental to the main purpose of the romance ; nor does he put forward the slightest pre- tensions to illustrate a theory, or elicit a conclusion, favorable or otherwise, in respect to socialism. In short, his present concern with the socialist com- munity is merely to establish a theatre, a little re- moved from the highway of ordinary travel, where the creatures of his brain may play their phantasmagor- ical antics, without exposing them to too close a com- parison with the actual events of real lives. In the old countries, with which fiction has long been conversant, VOL. V. 31 322 PREFACE. a certain conventional privilege seems to be awarded to tlie romancer ; his ■work is not put exactly side by side with, nature ; and he is allowed a license with re- gard to every-day probability, in view of the improved effects which he is bound to produce thereby. Among ourselves, on the contrary, there is as yet no such Faery Land, so like the real world, that, in a suitable remoteness, one cannot well tell the difference, but with an atmosphere of strange enchantment, beheld through which the inhabitants have a propriety of their own. This atmosphere is what the American romancer needs. In its absence, the beings of imag- ination are compelled to show themselves in the same category as actually living mortals ; a necessity that generally renders the paint and pasteboard of their composition but too painfully discernible. With the idea of partially obviating this difficulty (the sense of which has always pressed very heavily upon him), the author has ventured to make free with his old and affectionately remembered home at Brook Farm, as being certainly the most romantic episode of his own life, — essentially a day-dream, and yet a fact, — and thus offering an available foothold between fiction and reality. Furthermore, the scene was in good keeping with the personages whom he desired to introduce. These characters, he feels it right to say, are en- tirely fictitious. It would, indeed (considering how few amiable qualities he distributes among his im- aginary progeny), be a most grievous wrong to his former excellent associates, were the author to aUow it to be supposed that he has been sketchmg any of their likenesses. Had he attempted it, they would at least have recognized the touches of a friendly pencU. But he has done nothing of the kind. The self-eon- PREFACE. 323 centrated Philanthropist ; the high-spirited Woman, bruising herself against the narrow limitations of her sex ; the weakly Maiden, whose tremulous nerves en- dow her with Sibylline attributes ; the Minor Poet, be- ginning life with strenuous asj)irations which die out with his youthful fervor, — all these might have been looked for at Brook Faem, but, by some accident, never made their appearance there. The author cannot close his reference to this subject without expressing a most earnest wish that some one of the many cultivated and philosophic minds, which took an interest in that enterprise, might now give the world its history. Ripley, with whom rests the honor- able paternity of the institution, Dana, Dwight, Chan- ning. Burton, Parker, for instance, — with others, whom he dares not name, because they veil themselves from the public eye, — among these is the ability to convey both the outward narrative and the inner truth and spirit of the whole affair, together with the lessons which those years of thought and toil must have elaborated, for the behoof of future experimen- talists. Even the brilliant Howadji might find as rich a theme in his youthful reminiscences of Brook Farm, and a more novel one, — close at hand as it lies, — than those which he has since made so distant a pilgrimage to seek, in Syria and along the current of the Nile. Concord, Mass., May, 1852 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. OLD MOODIE. The evening before my departure for Blithedale, 1 was returning to my bachelor apartments, after attend- ing the wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an elderly man, of rather shabby appearance, met me in an obscure part of the street. " Mr. Coverdale," said he, softly, " can I speak with you a moment ?■" As I have casually alluded to tliC Ycilpd Lady, it may not be amiss to mention, for the benefit of sucb of my readers, as are unacquainted with her now for- gotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric line ; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a new science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times her sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice ; nor, in fact, has any one of them come before the public under such skilfully contrived circumstances of stage. eHect as those wliich at once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady in question. Nowadays, in the management of his " subject," " clair- voyant," or " mediiun," the exhibitor affects the sim- plicity and openness of scientific experiment ; and even 826 THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. if lie profess to tread a step or two across the bounda- ries of the spiritual world, yet carries with him the laws of our actual life, and extends them over his pre- ternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order to set the ap- parent miracle in the strongest, attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest of the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity, and an ab- surd rumor (probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one time very prevalent) that a beautiful yoimg lady, of family and fortune, was enshrouded within the misty drapery of the veil. It was wliite, with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen, like the sunny side of a cloud ; and, falling over the wearer from head to foot, was supposed to insulate her from the material world, from time and space, and to endow her with many of the privileges of a disembodied spirit. Her pi'ei-ensions, however, whether miraculous or oth- erwise, have little to do with the present narrative ; except, indeed, that I had propounded, for the Veiled Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to the success of our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the by, was of the true Sibylline stamp, — nonsensical in its first aspect, yet, on closer study, unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of which has certainly accorded with the event. I was turning over this riddle in my mind, and trying to catch its slippery purport by the tail, when the old man above mentioned interrupted me. " Mr. Coverdale ! — Mr. Coverdale ! " said he, re- peating my name twice, in order to make up for the OLD MOODIE. 827 hesitating and ineffectual way in whicli he uttered it. " I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to Blithedale to-morrow." I knew the pale, elderly face, with the red-tipt nose, and the patch over one eye ; and liltewise saw some- thing characteristic in the old fellow's way of stand- ing under the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie ; and the trait was the more singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him into the stir and hubbub of the world more than the generality of men. " Yes, Mr. Moodie," I answered, wondering what in- terest he could take in the fact, " it is my intention to go to Blithedale to-morrow. Can I be of any service to you before my departure ? " "If you pleased, Mr. Coverdale," said he, "you might do me a very great favor." " A very great one ? " repeated I, in a tone that must have expressed but little alacrity of beneficence, although I was ready to do the old man any amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself. " A very great favor, do you say ? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and I have a good many preparations to make. But be good enough to tell me what you wish." " Ah, sir," replied Old Moodie, " I don't quite like to do that ; and, on further thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, perhaps I had better apply to some older gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kindness to make me known to one, wlio may happen to be going to Blithedale. You are a young man, sir ! " « Does that fact lessen my availability for your pur- pose? " asked I. " However, if an older man wiU suit you better, there is Mr. Holliugsworth, who has three 328 THE BLTTHEDALE ROMANCE. or four years the advantage of me in age, and is a much more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I am only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at that ! But what can this business be, Mr. Moodie ? It begins to interest me ; especially since your hint that a lady's influence might be found desirable. Come, I am really anxious to be of service to you." But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, was both freakish and obstinate ; and he had now taken some notion or other into his head that made him hesitate in his former design. " I wonder, sir," said he, " whether you know a lady whom they call Zenobia ? " " Not personally," I answered, " although I expect that pleasure to-morrow, as she has got the start of the rest of us, and is already a resident at Blithedale. But have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie ? or have you taken up the advocacy of women's rights ? or what else can have interested you in this lady ? Zenobia, by the by, as I suppose you know, is merely her public name ; a sort of mask in which she comes before the world, re- taining aU the privileges of privacy, — a contrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, only a little more transparent. But it is late. Will you teU me what I can do for you ? " " Please to excuse me to-night, Mr. Coverdale," said Moodie. " You are very kind ; but I am afraid I have troubled you, when, after all, there may be no need. Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to your lodgings to-morrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale. I wish you a good-night, sir, and beg par- don for stopping you." And so he slipt away ; and, as he did not show him- OLD MOODIE. 829 self the next morning, it was only through subsequent events that I ever arrived at a plausible conjecture as to what his business could have been. Arriving at my room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest to the most sombre ; being, in truth, not so very confident as at some former periods that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could possibly be taken. It was nothing short of midnight when I went to bed, after drinking a glass of particu. larly fine sherry, on which I used to pride myself in those days. It was the very last bottle ; and I fin- ished it, with a friend, the next forenoon, before set" ting out for Blithedale. n. BLITHEDALE. There can hardly remain for me (who am really getting to be a frosty bachelor, with another white hair, every week or so, in my mustache), there can hardly flicker up again so cheery a blaze upon the hearth, as that which I remember, the next day, at Blithedale. It was a wood-fire, in the parlor of an old farm-house, on an April afternoon, but with the fitful gusts of a wintry snow-storm roaring in the chimney. Vividly does that fireside re-create itself, as I rake away the ashes from the embers in my memory, and blow them up with a sigh, for lack of more inspiring breath. Vividly, for an instant, but, anon, with the dimmest gleam, and with just as little fervency for my heart as for my finger-ends ! The staunch oaken logs were long ago burnt out. Their genial glow must be represented, if at aU, by the merest phosphoric glim- mer, like that which exudes, rather than shines, from damp fragments of decayed trees, deluding the be- nighted wanderer through a forest. Around such chUl mockery of a fire some few of us might sit on the withered leaves, spreading out each a palm towards the imaginary warmth, and talk over our exploded scheme for beginning the life of Paradise anew. Paradise, indeed ! Nobody else in the world, I am bold to affirm — nobody, at least, in our bleak little world of New England, — had dreamed of Paradise BLITHEDALE. 331 that day, except as the pole suggests the tropic. Nor, with such materials as were at hand, could the most skilful architect have constructed any better imitation of Eve's bower than might be seen in the snow-hut of an Esquimaux. But we made a summer of it, in spite of the wild drifts. It was an April day, as already hinted, and well towards the middle of the month. When morning dawned upon me, in town, its temperature was mild enough to be pronounced even balmy, by a lodger, like myself, in one of the midmost houses of a brick block, — each house partaking of the warmth of all the rest, besides the sultriness of its individual fur- nace-heat. But, towards noon, there had come snow, driven along the street by a northeasterly blast, and whitening the roofs and sidewalks with a business-like perseverance that would have done credit to our sever- est January tempest. It set about its task apparently as much in earnest as if it had been guaranteed from a thaw for months to come. The greater, surely, was my heroism, when, puffing out a final whiff of cigar- smoke, I quitted my cosey pair of bachelor-rooms, — with a good fire burning in the grate, and a closet right at hand, where there was still a bottle or two in the champagne-basket, and a residuum of claret in a box, — quitted, I say, these comfortable quarters, and plunged into the heart of the pitiless snow-storm, in quest of a better life. The better life ! Possibly, it would hardly look so, now ; it is enough if it looked so then. The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool ; the truest her- oism is to resist the doubt ; and the profoundest %vis- dom to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. 332 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. Yet, after all, let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious, to follow out one's day-dream to its natural consummation, although, if the vision have been worth the having, it is certain never to be con- summated otherwise than by a failure. And what of that ? Its airiest fragments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a value that lurks not in the most pon- derous realities of any practicable scheme. They are not the rubbish of the mind. Whatever else I may re- pent of, therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins nor follies that I once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes of the world's destiny, — yes ! — and to do what in me lay for their accom- plishment ; even to the extent of quitting a warm fire- side, flingkig away a freshly lighted cigar, and travel- ling far beyond the strike of city clocks, through a drifting snow-storm. There were four of us who rode together through the storm ; and Hollingsworth, who had agreed to be, of the number, was accidentally delayed, and set forth at a later hour alone. As we threaded the streets, I re- member how the buildings on either side seemed to press too closely upon us, insomuch that our mighty hearts found barely room enough to throb between them. The snowfall, too, looked inexpressibly dreary (I had almost called it dingy), coming down through an atmosphere of city smoke, and alighting on the side- walk only to be moulded into the impress of some- body's patched boot or overshoe. Thus the track of an old conventionalism was visible on what was freshest from the sky. But when we left the pavements, and our muffled hoof-tramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road, and were effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as stamped, then there was better air to BLITHEDALE. 333 breathe. Air that had not been breathed once and again ! air that had not been spoken into words of falsehood, formality, and error, like aU the air of the dusky city ! " How pleasant it is ! " remarked I, while the snow- flakes flew into my mouth the moment it was opened. " How very mild and bahny is this country air ! " " Ah, Coverdale, don't laugh at what little enthusi- asm you have left ! " said one of my companions. " 1 maintain that this nitrous atmosphere is really exhil- arating ; and, at any rate, we can never call ourselves regenerated men till a February northeaster shall be as grateful, to us as the softest breeze of June ! " So we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and mer- rily along, by stone fences that were half buried in the wave-like drifts ; and through patches of woodland, where the tree-trunks opposed a snow-incrusted side towards the northeast ; and within ken of deserted vil- las, with no footprints in their avenues ; and passed scattered dwellings, whence puffed the smoke of coun- try fires, strongly impregnated with the pungent aroma of burning peat. Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his ears to the bluster and the snow-spray, and listen- ing eagerly, appeared to think our courtesy worth less than the trouble which it cost him. The churl ! He understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence for our blithe tones of brotherhood. This lack of faith in our cordial sympathy, on the traveller's part, was one among the innumerable tokens how diffi- cult a task we had in hand, for the reformation of the world. We rode on, however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such good companionship with the tempest that, at our journey's end, we professed our- 834 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. selves almost loath to bid the rude blusterer good-by. But, to own the truth, I was little better than an icicle, and began to be suspicious that I had caught a fearful cold. And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farm-house, — the same fire that glimmers so faintly among my reminiscences at the beginning of this chapter. There we sat, with the snow m.elting out of our hair and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past inclemency and present warmth. It was, indeed, a right good fire that we found await- ing us, built up of great, rough logs, and knotty limbs, and splintered fragments of an oak-tree, such as far- mers are wont to keep for their own hearths, — since these crooked and unmanageable boughs could never be measured into merchantable cords for the market. A family of the old Pilgrims might have swung their kettle over precisely such a fire as this, only, no doubt, a bigger one ; and, contrasting it with my coal-grate, I felt so much the more that we had transported our- selves a world-wide distance from the system of soci- ety that shackled us at breakfast-time. Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas Foster, who was to manage the farm, at a fair stipend, and be our tutor in the art of husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome. At her back — a back of generous breadth — appeared two young women, smiling most hospitably, but looking rather awkward withal, as not well knowing what was to be their posi- tion in our new arrangement of the world. We shook hands affectionately all round, and congratulated oiu-- selves that the blessed state of brotherhood and sister- hood, at which we aimed, might fairly be dated from this moment. Our greetings were hardly concluded BLITHE DALE. 335 wten the door opened, and Zenobia, — whom I had never before seen, important as was her place in our enterprise, — Zenobia entered the parlor. This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary biography, need scarcely be told) was not her real name. She had assumed it, in the first instance, as her magazine signature ; and, as it accorded well with something imperial which her friends attributed to this lady's figure and deportment, they half-laugh- in gly, adopted it in their familiar intercourse with her. She took the appellation in good part, and even en- couraged its constant use ; which, in fact, was thus far appropriate, that our Zenobia, however humble looked her new philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known what to do with. m. A KNOT OF DEEAMEES. Zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank, mellow voice, and gave each of us her hand, which was very soft and warm. She had something appropriate, I re- collect, to say to every individual; and what she said to myself was this : — " I have long wished to know you, Mr. Coverdale, and to thank you for your beautiful poetry, some of which I have learned by heart ; or, rather, it has stolen into my memory, without my exercising any choice or volition about the matter. Of course — permit me to say — you do not think of relinquishing an occupation in which you have done yourself so much credit. I would almost rather give you up as an associate, than that the world should lose one of its true poets ! " " Ah, no ; there will not be the slightest danger of that, especially after this inestimable praise from Ze- nobia," said I, smiling, and blushing, no doubt, with excess of pleasure. " I hope, on the contrary, now to produce something that shall really deserve to be called poetry, — true, strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life which we are going to lead, — something that shall have the notes of wild birds twittering through it, or a strain like the wind-anthems in the woods, as the case may be." " Is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung ? " asked Zenobia, with a gracious smile. " If so, A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 837 I am very sorry, for you will certainly hear me singing them, sometimes, in the summer evenings." " Of all things," ansvrered I, " that is what will de- light me most." While this passed, and while she spoke to my com- panions, I was taking note of Zenobia's aspect ; and it impressed itself on me so distinctly, that I can now summon her up, like a ghost, a little wanner than the life, but otherwise identical with it. She was dressed as simply as possible, in an American print (I think the dry-goods people caU it so), but with a silken ker- chief, between which and her gown there was one glimpse of a white shoulder. It struck me as a great piece of good fortune that there should be just that glimpse. Her hair, which was dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was put up rather soberly and primly, without curls, or other ornament, except a single flower. It was an exotic, of rare beauty, and as fresh as if the hot-house gardener had just dipt it from the stem. That flower has struck deep root into my memory. I can both see it and smell it, at this moment. So brilliant, so rare, so costly, as it must have been, and yet enduring only for a day, it was more indicative of the pride and pomp which had a luxuriant growth in Zenobia's character than if a great diamond had sparkled among her hair. Her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women would like to have, or than they coiUd afford to have, though not a whit too large in proportion with the spacious plan of Zenobia's entire development. It did one good to see a fine intellect (as hers really was, although its natural tendency lay in another direc- tion than towards literature) so fitly cased. She was, indeed, an admirable figure of a woman, just on the 838 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. hither verge of her richest maturity, with a combina- tion of features which it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some fastidious persons might pro- nounce them a little deficient in softness and delicacy. But we find enough of those attributes everywhere. Preferable — by way of variety, at least — was Zeno- bia's bloom, health, and vigor, which she possessed in such overflow that a man might well have fallen in love with her for their sake only. In her quiet moods, she seemed rather indolent ; but when really in ear- nest, particularly if there were a spice of bitter feel- ing, she grew aU alive, to her finger-tips. " I am the first comer," Zenobia went on to say, while her smile beamed warmth upon us all ; " so I take the part of hostess, for to-day, and welcome you as if to my own fireside. You shall be my guests, too, at supper. To-morrow, if you please, we will be brethren and sisters, and begin our new life from day- break." " Have we our various parts assigned ? " asked some one. " Oh, we of the softer sex," responded Zenobia, with her mellow, almost broad laugh, — most delectable to hear, but not in the least like an ordinary w^oman's laugh, — " we women (there are four of us here al- ready) will take the domestic and in-door part of the business, as a matter of course. To bake, to boil, to roast, to fry, to stew, — to wash, and iron, and scrub, and sweep, ^ — and, at our idler intervals, to repose our- selves on knitting and sewing, — these, I suppose, must be feminine occupations, for the present. By and by, perhaps, when our individual adaptations be- gin to develop themselves, it may be that some of us who wear the petticoat wiU go afield, and leave the weaker brethren to take our places in the kitchen." A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 339 " What a pity," I remarked, " that the kitchen, and the house-work generally, cannot be left out of our sys- tem altogether! It is odd enough that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just that which chiefly distinguishes artificial life — the life of degen- erated mortals — from the life of Paradise. Eve had no dinner-pot, and no clothes to mend, and no wash- ing-day." " I am afraid," said Zenobia, with mirth gleaming out of her eyes, " we shall find some difficulty in adopt- ing the fiaradisiacal system for at least a month to come. Look at that snow-drift sweejjing past the window ! Are there any figs ripe, do you think ? Have the pine-apples been gathered to-day ? Would you like a bread-fruit, or a cocoas-nut? Shall I run out and pluck you some roses? No no, Mr. Cover- dale ; the only flower hereabouts is the one in my hair, which I got out of a green-house this morning. As for the garb of Eden," added she, shivering play- fully, " I shall not assume it till after May-day ! " Assuredly, Zenobia could not have intended it, — the fault must have been entirely in my imagination. But these last words, together with something in her manner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that fine, perfectly developed figure, in Eve's earliest garment. Her free, careless, generous modes of expression often had this effect of creating images which, though pure, are hardly felt to be quite decorous when born of a thought that passes between man and woman. I im- puted it, at that time, to Zenobia's noble courage, con- scious of no harm, and scorning the petty restraints which take the life and color out of other women's conversation. There was another peculiarity about her. We seldom meet with women nowadays, and in 340 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. this country, who impress us as being women at all, -- their sex fades away, and goes for nothing, in ordinary intercourse. Not so with Zenobia. One felt an in- fluence breathing out of her such as we might suppose to come from Eve, when she was just made, and her Creator brought her to Adam, saying, " Behold ! here is a woman ! " Not that I would convey the idea of especial gentleness, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain warm and rich characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have been refined away out of the feminine system. " And now," continued Zenobia, " I must go and helj) get supper. Do you think you can be content, instead of figs, pine-apples, and all the other delicacies of Adam's supper-table, with tea and toast, and a cer- tain modest supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a housewife, I brought hither in a bas- ket ? And there shall be bread and milk, too, if the innocence of your taste demands it." The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations, utterly declining our offers to assist, further than by bringing wood, for the kitchen fire, from a huge pile in the back-yard. After heaping up more than a sufficient quantity, we returned to the sitting- room, drew our chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk over our prospects. Soon, with a tremendous stamping in the entry, appeared Silas Foster, lank, stalwart, uncouth, and grisly-bearded. He came from foddering the cattle in the barn, and from the field, where he had been ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it impossible to draw a furrow. He greeted us in pretty much the same tone as if he were speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron tobac- co-box, pulled off his wet cowhide boots, and sat down A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 341 before the fire in his stocking-feet. The steam arose from his soaked garments, so that the stout yeoman looked vaporous and spectre-like. " Well, folks," remarked Silas, " you '11 be wishing yourselves back to town again, if this weather holds." And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or sable flakes intermingling themselves with the fast- descending snow. The storm, in its evening aspect, was decidedly dreary. It seemed to have arisen for our especial behoof, — a symbol of the cold, desolate, distrustful phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of adventurous enterprises, to warn us back within the boundaries of ordinary life. But our courage did not quail. We would not allow ourselves to be depressed by the snow-drift trailing past the window, any more than if it had been the sigh of a summer wind among rustling boughs. There have been few brighter seasons for us than that. If ever men might lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their wildest visions without dread of laughter or scorn on the part of the audience, — yes, and speak of earthly happiness, for themselves and mankind, as an object to be hopefully striven for, and probably at- tained, — we who made that little semicircle round the blazing fire were those very men. We had left the rusty iron framework of society behind us ; we had broken through many hindrances that are powerful enough to keep most people on the weary tread-mill of the established system, even while they feel its irk- someness almost as intolerable as we did. We had stepped down from the pulpit ; we had flung aside the pen ; we had shut up the ledger ; we had tlirown off that sweet, bewitching, enervating indolence, which is 842 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. better, after all, than most of the enjoyments within mortal grasp. It was our purpose — a generous one, certainly, and absurd, no doubt, in full proportion with its generosity — to give up whatever we had heretofore attained, for the sake of showing mankind the example of a life governed by other than the false and cruel principles on which human society has all along been based. And, first of all, we had divorced ourselves from pride, and were striving to supply its place with famil- iar love. We meant to lessen the laboring man's great burden of toil, by performing our due share of it at the cost of our own thews and sinews. We sought our profit by mutual aid, instead of wresting it by the strong hand from an enemy, or filching it craftily from those less shrewd than ourselves (if, indeed, there were any such in New England), or winning it by self- ish competition with a neighbor ; in one or another of which fashions every son of woman both perpetrates and suffers his share of the common evil, whether he chooses it or no. And, as the basis of our institution, we purposed to offer up the earnest toil of our bodies, as a prayer no less than an effort for the advancement of our race. Therefore, if we buUt splendid castles (phalansteries perhaps they might be more fitly called), and pictured beautif id scenes, among the fervid coals of the hearth around which we were clustering, and if all went to rack with the crumbling embers and have never since arisen out of the ashes, let us take to ourselves no shame. In my own behalf, I rejoice that I could once think better of the world's improvability than it de- served. It is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice in a lifetime ; or, if so, the rarer and higher is A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 843 the nature that can thus magnanimously persist in error. Stout Silas Foster mingled little in our conversa- tion ; but when he did speak, it was very much to some practical purpose. For instance : — " Which man among you," quoth he, " is the best judge of swine ? Some of us must go to the next Brighton fair, and buy half a dozen pigs." Pigs ! Good heavens ! had we come out from among the swinish multitude for this ? And, again, in refer- ence to some discussion about raising early vegetables for the market : — " We shaU never make any hand at m^ket-garden- ing," said Silas Foster, " unless the women-folks will undertake to do all the weeding. We have n't team enough for that and the regular farm-work, reckoning three of your city folks as worth one common field- hand. No, no ; I tell you, we should have to get up a little too early in the morning, to compete with the market-gardeners round Boston." It struck- me as rather odd, that one of the first questions raised, after our separation from the greedy, struggling, self-seeking world, should relate to the pos- sibility of getting the advantage over the outside bar- barians in their own field of labor. But, to own the truth, I very soon became sensible that, as regarded society as large, we stood in a position of new hostility, rather than new brotherhood. Nor could this fail to be the case, in some degree, until the bigger and bet- ter half of society should range itself on our side. Constituting so pitiful a minority as now, we were in- evitably estranged from the rest of mankind in pretty fair proportion with the strictness of our mutual bond among ourselves. 344 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. This dawning idea, however, was driven back into my inner consciousness by the entrance of Zenobia. She came with the welcome intelligence that supper was on the table. Looking at herseK in the glass, and perceiving that her one magnificent flower had grown rather languid (probably by being exposed to the fer- vency of the kitchen fire), she flung it on the floor, as unconcernedly as a village girl would throw away a faded violet. The action seemed proper to her char- acter, although, methought, it would still more have befitted the bounteous nature of this beautiful woman to scatter fresh flowers from her hand, and to revive faded ones by her touch. Nevertheless, it was a sin- gular but irresistible effect ; the presence of Zenobia caused our heroic enterprise to show like an illusion, a masquerade, a pastoral, a counterfeit Arcadia, in which we grown-up men and women were making a play-day of the years that were given us to live in. I tried to analyze this impression, but not with much success. " It really vexes me," observed Zenobia, as we left the room, " that Mr. HoUingsworth should be such a laggard. I should not have thought him at all the sort of person to be turned back by a puff of contrary wind, or a few snow-flakes drifting into his face." "Do you know HoUingsworth personally?" I in- quired. " No ; only as an auditor — auditress, I mean — of some of his lectures," said she. " What a voice he has ! and what a man he is ! Yet not so much an in- tellectual man, I should say, as a great heart ; at least, he moved me more deeply than I think myseK capable of being moved, except by the stroke of a true, strong heart against my own. It is a sad pity that lie should A KNOT OF DREAMERS. 345 have devoted his glorious powers to such a grimy, un- beautiful, and positively hopeless object as this refor- mation of criminals, about which he makes himself and his wretchedly small audiences so very miserable. To tell you a secret, I never could tolerate a philanthro- pist before. Could you ? " " By no means," I answered ; " neither can I now." " They are, indeed, an odiously disagreeable set of mortals," continued Zenobia. " I should like Mr. Hollingsworth a great deal better, if the phUanthropy had been left out. At aU events, as a mere matter of taste, I wish he would let the bad people alone, and try to benefit those who are not already past his help. Do you suppose he will be content to spend his life, or even a few months of it, among tolerably virtuous and comfortable individuals, like ourselves ? " " Upon my word, I doubt it," said I. " If we wish to keep him with us, we must systematically commit, at least, one crime apiece ! Mere peccadilloes will not satisfy him." Zenobia turned, sidelong, a strange kind of a glance upon me ; but, before I could make out what it meant, we had entered the kitchen, where, in accordance with the rustic simplicity of our new life, the supper-tabla was spread. IV. THE SUPPER-TABLE. The pleasant firelight ! I must stiU keep harping on it. The kitchen hearth had an old-fashioned breadth, depth, and spaciousness, far within which lay what seemed the butt of a good -sized oak-tree, with the moisture bubbling merrily out at both ends. It was now half an hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful of substantial sticks, rendered more combusti- ble by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully on the smoke-blackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we cared not what inclemency might rage and roar on the other side of our illuminated windows. A yet sul- trier warmth was bestowed by a goodly quantity of peat, which was crumbling to white ashes among the burning brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not ungrateful fragrance. The exuberance of this house- hold fire would alone have sufficed to bespeak us no true farmers; for the New England yeoman, if he have the misfortune to dwell within practicable dis- tance of a wood-market, is as niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar of California gold. But it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our untried life, to enjoy the warm and radiant lux- ury of a somewhat too abundant fire. If it served no other purpose, it made the men look so full of youth, warm blood, and hope, aud the women — such of them, THE SUPPER-TABLE. 847 at least, as were anywise convertible by its magic — so very beautiful, that I would cheerfully have spent my last dollar to prolong the blaze. As for Zenobia, there was a glow in her cheeks that made me think of Pan- dora, fresh from Vulcan's workshop, and full of the celestial warmth by dint of which he had tempered and moulded her. " Take your places, my dear friends all," cried she ; " seat yourselves without ceremony, and you shall be made happy with such tea as not many of the world's working-people, except yourselves, wiU find in their cups to-night. After this one supper, you may drink buttermilk, if you please. To-night we will quaff this nectar, which, I assure you, could not be bought with gold." We all sat down, — grisly Silas Foster, his rotund helpmate, and the two bouncing handmaidens, in- cluded, — and looked at one another in a friendly but rather awkward way. It was the first practical trial of our theories of equal brotherhood and sisterhood ; and we people of superior cultivation and refinement (for as such, I presume, we unhesitatingly reckoned ourselves) felt as if something were already accom- plished towards the millennium of love. The truth is, however, that the laboring-oar was with our unpol- ished companions ; it being far easier to condescend than to accept of condescension. Neither did I re- frain from questioning, in secret, whether some of us • — and Zenobia among the rest — would so quietly have taken our places among these good people, save for the cherished consciousness that it was not by necessity, but choice. Though we saw fit to drink our tea out of earthen cups to-night, and in earthen company, it was at our own option to use pictured porcelain and 848 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. handle silver forks again to-morrow. This same salvo, as to the power of regaining our former position, con- tributed much, I fear, to the equanimity with which we subsequently bore many of the hardships and hu- miliations of a life of toil. If ever I have deserved (which has not often been the case, and, I thinli, nevei"), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed by a fellow-mortal, for secretly putting weight upon some imaginary social advantage, it must have been while I was striving to prove myself ostentatiously his equal, and no more. It was while I sat beside him on his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe against his own in the cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earth-grimed hand to his, at our noontide lunch. The poor, proud man should look at both sides of sympathy like this. The silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew rather oppressive ; indeed, it was hardly broken by a word, during the first round of Zenobia's fragrant tea. " I hojDe," said I, at last, " that our blazing win- dows wiU be visible a great way off. There is noth- ing so pleasant and encouraging to a solitary trav- eller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight seen amid the gloom. These ruddy window-panes cannot fail to cheer the hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm with the beacon-fire which we have kindled for humanity ? " " The blaze of that brushwood vidll only last a min- ute or two longer," observed Silas Foster ; but whether he meant to insinuate that our moral illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say. " Meantime," said Zenobia, " it may serve to guide some wayfarer to a shelter." :■ THE SUPPER-TABLE. ' S49 ■ And, just as she said, this, there came a knock at the house-door. " There is one of the world's wayfarers," said I. "Ay, ay, just so 1 " quoth Silas Foster. " Our fire ■ light will draw stragglers; just as a candle draws dor- bugs, on a summer night." ■Whether tocnjoy a dramatic suspense, or that, we were selfishly contrasting our .own comfort with the chill and dreary situation of the unknown~'pcrson at the threshold, or. that some of us citj^-follc felt a little startled ^t ■ the knock ' which came so unseasonably, through night and storm, to the door of the lonely farm-liouse, — so it happened that nobody, for an in- stant or two, arose to an.swcr the snmmon.s: Pretty soon there came another knock. The first had been moderately loud; the second wa^ smitten so forcibly that the knuckles of the applicant must have left their .mark in the door-panel. "He knocks as if he had a right to come in," said Zenobia, laughing. " And what are we thinking of? It must be Mr. Hollingsworth ! " Hereupon I went to the door, unbolted, and flung it wide open. Tliere, sui-e enough, "stood Hollings- worth, his shaggy great-coat all covered witli snow, so that he looked quite as jjiiuch like a polar bear as a aiodern pliilantlu-opist. ," Sluggish hospitality tliis ! " said lie, in those deep tones of his, wliich seemed to come out of .a chest as capacious as a barrel. "It would liave. served you right if I had hiin down and spent the night on the doorstep, just for the sake of ])utting you to shame. But hero is a guest who will need a warmer nnd softer bed." And, stepping back to tho wagon in which he had S50 THE nUTIIEDALE ROMANCE. joiinicycd Iiitlicr, Ilollingsworth received into his a,nris and deposited on the doorstep a figure ciivelopcd in a cloak, it was cvidcntlj' a woman ; or, rather, — judging from the ease with wliich lie lifted her, and the little space which she seemed to fill in. his arms, — a slim and unsubstantial girl. As she showed sonic hesitation about entering the door, Ilollingsworth, witl: 'his usual directness and lack of ccrcmonj', urged her forward not merely within the entry, but into the warm and strongly lighted kitchen. " AVho is this ? " whisjjcrcd I, remaining behind with him, while he was tidcing off his great-coat. " Who ? Ixeally, I don't know," answered Ilollings- worth, looking at me with some surprise. " It is :> young ])erson who belongs here, liowever ; and, im doubt, she has been expected. Zenobia, or some of tlie women-folks, can tell you all about it." " I think not," said I, glancing towards the new- comer and the otlicr occupants of the kit<;hen. " .No- body seems to welcome her. 1 should hardl}'' jiidgo that slie was-au ex])ccted giu;st." " "Well, well," said Ilollingsworth, qiuetly. " A\'e"ll ^nakc it right." The stranger, or whatever she were, remained st;iii;!- ing precisely oh that spot of tlie kitchen llooi- lo wlii.i. IIoHingswortli's kindly hand had impelleoor but decent gown. wvaAi- high in tlie netilc, and without any regard to fasliicm <": smartness. Her brown hair fell down from bi'n.".!ili a liood, not in curls but with only a slight wave: li' r facK! was of a wan, almost sickly hue, betokening IkiI'i!' ual seclusion from the sun and free atmosjjlicic. lil-' a ilov.-er-shrub that had done its best to blossdiu it THE SUPPER-TABLE. 351 too scanty light. To complete the pitiableness of her aspect, she shivered either with cold, or fear, or nervous excitement, so that you might have beheld her shadow vibrating on the fire-lighted wall. In short, there has seldom been seen so depressed and sad a figure as this young girl's ; and it was hardly possible to help being angr'y with her, from mere despair of doing any- thing for her comfort. The fantasy occurred to me that she was some desolate kind of a creature, doomed to wander about in snow-storms ; and that, though the ruddiness of our window-panes had tempted her into a human dwelling, she would not remain long enough to melt the icicles out of her hair. Another conjecture likewise came into my mind. Recollecting HoUings worth's sphere of philanthropic action, I deemed it possible that he might have brought one of his guilty patients, to be wrought upon, and re- stored to spiritual health, by the pure influences which our mode of life would create. As yet the girl had not stirred. She stood near the door, fixing a pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon Zenobia, — only upon Zenobia! — she evidently saw nothing else in the room, save that bright, fair, rosy, beautiful woman. It was the strangest look I ever witnessed ; long a mystery to me, and forever a memory. Once she seemed about to move forward and greet her, — I know not with what warmth, or with what words, — but, finally, instead of doing so, she dropped do^vn upon her knees, clasped her hands, and gazed piteously into Zenobia's face. Meeting no kindly reception, her head fell on her bosom. I never thoroughly forgave Zenobia for her conduct on this occasion. But women are always more cau- tious in their casual hospitalities than men. 352 THE BUTHEDALE ROMANCE. " What does the girl mean ? " cried she in rather a sharp tone. "Is she crazy? Has she no tongue ? " And here Hollingsworth stepped forward. " No wonder if the poor child's tongue is frozen in her mouth," said he ; and I think he positively frowned at Zenobia. " The very heart will be frozen in her bosom, unless you women can warm it, among you, with the warmth that ought to be in your own ! " IloUingsworth's appearance was very striking at this moment. He was then about thirty years old, but looked several years older, with his great shaggy head, his heavy brow, his dark comj)lexion, his abun- dant beard, and the rude strength with which his fea- tures seemed to have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiselled or moulded from any finer or softer material. His figure was not tall, but massive and brawny, and well befitting his original occupation, which — as the reader probably knows, — was that of a blacksmith. As for external polish, or mere cour- tesy of manner, he never possessed more than a tol- erably educated bear ; although, in his gentler moods, there was a tenderness in his voice, ej'es, mouth, in his gesture, and in every indescribable manifestation, which few men could resist, and no woman. But he now looked stern and reproachful ; and it was with that inauspicious meaning in his glance that Hollings- worth first met Zenobia's eyes, and began his influ- ence upon her life. To my surprise, Zenobia — of whose haughty spirit I had been told so many examples — absolutely changed color, and seemed mortified and confused. " You do not quite do me justice, Mr. Hollings- worth," said she, almost humbly. " I am willing to be kind to the poor girl. Is she a protSgSe of vours ! What can I do for her ? " THE SUPPER-TABLE. 353 "Have yoTi anything to ask of this lady?" said Hollingsworth, kindly, to the girl. " I remember you mentioned her name before we left town." "Only that she will shelter me," replied the girl, tremulously. " Only that she will let me be always near her." " Well, indeed," exclaimed Zenobia, recovering her- self, and laughing, " this is an adventure, and weU worthy to be the first incident in our life of love and free-heartedness ! But I accept it, for the present, without further question, — only," added she, " it would be a convenience if we knew your name." " Priscilla," said the girl ; and it appeared to me that she hesitated whether to add anything more, and decided in the negative. " Pray do not ask me my other name, — at least not yet, — if you will be so kind to a forlorn creature." Priscilla ! — Priscilla ! I repeated the name to my- self, three or four times ; and in that little space, this quaint and prim cognomen had so amalgamated itself with my idea of the girl, that it seemed as if no other name could have adhered to her for a moment. Here- tofore, the poor thing had not shed any tears ; but now that she found herself received, and at least tempora- rily established, the big drops began to ooze out from beneath her eyelids, as if she were full of them. Per- haps it showed the iron substance of my heart, that I could not help smiling at this odd scene of unknown and unaccountable calamity, into which our cheerful party had been entrapped, without the liberty of choos- ing whether to sympathize or no. Hollingsworth's be- havior was certainly a great deal more creditable than mine. " Let us not pry further into her secrets," he said vol. V. 23 854 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. to Zenobia and the rest of us, apart ; and liis dark, shaggy face looked really beautiful with its expression of thoughtful benevolence. " Let us conclude that Providence has sent her to us, as the first-fruits of the world, which we have undertaken to make hap- pier than we find it. Let us warm her poor, shiver- ing body with this good fire, and her poor, shivering heart with our best kindness. Let us feed her, and make her one of us. As we do by this friendless girl, so shall we prosper. And, in good time, whatever is desirable for us to know wiU be melted out of her, as inevitably as those tears which we see now." " At least," remarked I, " you may tell us how and where you met with her." " An old man brought her to my lodgings," an- swered Hollingsworth, " and begged me to convey her to Blithedale, where — so I vmderstood him — she had friends ; and this is positively all I know about the matter." Grim Silas Foster, aU this while, had been busy at the supper-table, pouring out his own tea and gulping it down with no more sense of its exquisiteness than if it were a decoction of catnip ; helping himself to pieces of dipt toast on the flat of his knife-blade, and dropping half of it on the table-cloth ; using the same serviceable implement to cut slice after slice of ham ; perpetrating terrible enormities with the butter-plate ; and, in all other respects, behaving less like a civil- ized Christian than the worst kind of an ogre. Being by this time fully gorged, he crowned his amiable ex- ploits with a draught from the water-pitcher, and then favored us with his opinion about the business in hand. And, certainly, though they proceeded out of an unwiped inouth, his expressions did him honor. THE SUPPER-TABLE. 855 " Give the girl a hot cup of tea, and a thick slice of this first-rate bacon," said Silas, lilte a sensible man as he was. " That 's what she wants. Let her stay with us as long as she likes, and help in the kitchen, and take the cow-breath at milking-time ; and, in a week or two, she 'U begin to look like a creature of this world." So we sat down again to supper, and Priscilla along with us. V. UNTIL BEDTIME. Silas Foster, by the time we concluded our meal, had stript off his coat, and planted himself on a low chair by the kitchen fire, with a lap-stone, a hammer, a piece of sole-leather, and some waxed-ends, in order to cobble an old pair of cowhide boots ; he being, in his own phrase, " something of a dab " (whatever de- gree of skill that may imply) at the shoe-making busi- ness. We heard the tap of his hammer, at intervals, for the rest of the evening. The remainder of the party adjourned to the sitting-room. Good Mrs. Fos- ter took her knitting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her needles in brisk movement, and, to the best of my observation, absolutely footing a stock- ing out of the texture of a dream. And a very sub- stantial stocking it seemed to be. One of the two handmaidens hemmed a towel, and the other aj)peared to be making a ruffle, for her Smiday's wear, out of a little bit of embroidered muslin which Zenobia had probably given her. It was curious to observe how trusting^, and yet how timidly, our poor Priscilla betook herself into the shadow of Zenobia's protection. She sat beside her on a stool, looking up, every now and then, with an expression of humble delight, at her new friend's beauty. A brilliant woman is often an object of the devoted admiration — it might almost be termed wor. UNTIL BEDTIME. 857 ship, or idolatry — of some young girl, who perhaps beholJs the cynosure only at an awful distance, and has as little hope of personal intercourse as of climb- ing among the stars of heaven. "We men are too gross to comprehend it. Even a woman, of mature age, de- spises or laughs at such a passion. There occurred to me no mode of accounting for Priscilla's behavior, except by supposing that she had read some of Zeno- bia's stories (as such literature goes everywhere), or her tracts in defence of the sex, and had come hither with the one purpose of being her slave. There is nothing parallel to this, I believe, — nothing so fool- ishly disinterested, and hardly anything so beautiful, — in the masculine nature, at whatever epoch of life ; or, if there be, a fine and rare development of char- acter might reasonably be looked for from the youth who should prove himself capable of such self-forget- ful affection. Zenobia happening to change her seat, I took the opportunity, in an undertone, to suggest some such notion as the above. " Since you see the young woman in so poetical a light," replied she, in the same tone, " you had better turn the affair into a ballad. It is a grand subject, and worthy of supernatural machinery. The storm, the startling knock at the door, the entrance of the sable knight Hollingsworth and this shadowy snow- maiden, who, precisely at the stroke of midnight, shall melt away at my feet in a pool of ice-cold water and give me my death with a pair of wet slippers ! And when the verses are written, and polished quite to your mind, I will favor you with my idea as to what the girl really is." "Pray let me have it now," said I; "it shall be woven into the ballad." 858 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. " She is neither more nor less," answered Zenobia, " than a seamstress from the city ; and she has prob- ably no more transcendental purpose than to do my miscellaneous sewing, for I suppose she will hardly expect to make my dresses." " How can you decide upon her so easily ? " I in- quired. " Oh, we women judge one another by tokens that escape the obtuseness of masculine perceptions ! " said Zenobia. " There is no proof which you would be likely to appreciate, except the needle-marks on the tip of her forefinger. Then, my supposition perfectly accounts for her paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched fragility. Poor thing ! She has been stifled with the heat of a salamander-stove, in a small, close room, and has drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts, raisins, candy, and all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive ; and so, as she has hardly any physique, a poet, like Mr. Miles Coverdale, may be allowed to think her spiritual." " Look at her now ! " whispered I. Priseilla was gazing towards us, with an inexpres- sible sorrow in her wan face, and great tears running down her cheeks. It was difficult to resist the impres- sion that, cautiously as we had lowered our voices, she must have overheard and been wounded by Ze- nobia' s scornful estimate of her character and pur- poses. " What ears the girl must have ! " whispered Ze- nobia, with a look of vexation, partly comic and partly real. " I wUl confess to you that I cannot quite make her out. However, I am positively not an ill-natured person, unless when very grievously provoked ; and as you, and especially Mr. HoUingsworth, take so much UNTIL BEDTIME. 359 interest in this odd creature, — and as she knocks with a very slight tap against my own heart, likewise, — why, I mean to let her ia. From this moment, I will be reasonably kiad to her. There is no pleasure in tormenting a person of one's own sex, even if she do favor one with a little more love than one can con- veniently dispose of ; and that, let me say, Mr. Cov- erdale, is the most troublesome offence you can offer to a woman." " Thank you," said I, smiling ; " I don't mean to be guilty of it." She went towards PrisciUa, took her hand, and passed her own rosy finger-tips, with a pretty, caress- ing movement, over the girl's hair. The touch had a magical effect. So vivid a look of joy flushed up be- neath those fingers, that it seemed as if the sad and wan PrisciUa had been snatched away, and another kind of creature substituted in her place. This one caress, bestowed voluntarily by Zenobia, was evidently received as a pledge of all that the stranger sought from her, whatever the unuttered boon might be. From that instant, too, she melted in quietly amongst us, and was no longer a foreign element. Though always an object of peculiar interest, a riddle, and a theme of frequent discussion, her tenure at Blithedale was thenceforth fixed. We no more thought of ques- tioning it, than if PrisciUa had been recognized as a domestic sprite, who had haunted the rustic fireside, of old, before we had ever been warmed by its blaze. She now produced, out of a work-bag that she had with her, some little wooden instruments (what they are caUed I never knew), and proceeded to knit, or net, an article which ultimately took the shape of a silk purse. As the work went on, I remembered to 860 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. have seen just such purses before ; indeed, I was the possessor oi one. Their peculiar excellence, besides the great delicacy and beauty of the manufacture, lay in the almost impossibility that any uninitiated person should discover the aperture ; although, to a practised touch, they would open as wide as charity or prodigal- ity might wish. I wondered if it were not a symbol of Priscdla's own mystery. Notwithstanding the new confidence with which Zenobia had inspired her, our guest showed herself disquieted by the storm. When the strong puffs of' wind spattered the snow against the windows, and made the oaken frame of the farm-house creak, she looked at us apprehensively, as if to inquire whether these tempestuous outbreaks did not betoken some un- usual mischief in the shrieking blast. She had been bred up, no doubt, in some close nook, some ina"' ciously sheltered court of the city, where the utter- most rage of a tempest, though it might scatter down the slates of the roof into the bricked area, could not shake the casement of her little room. The sense of vast, undefined space, pressing from the outside against the black panes of our uncurtained windows, was fearful to the poor girl, heretofore accustomed to the narrowness of human limits, with the lamps of neighboring tenements glimmering across the street. The house probably seemed to her adrift on the great ocean of the night. A little parallelogram of sky was all that she had hitherto known of nature, so that she felt the awfulness that really exists in its limitless ex- tent. Once, while the blast was bellowing, she caught hold of Zenobia's robe, with precisely the air of one who hears her own name spoken at a distance, but is unutterably reluctant to obey the caJL UNTIL BEDTIME. 361 We spent rather an incommunicative evening. Hol- lingsworth hardly said a word, unless when repeatedly and pertinaciously addressed. Then, indeed, he would glare upon us from the thick shrubbery of his medita- tions like a tiger out of a jungle, make the briefest re- ply possible, and betake himself back into the solitude of his heart and mind. The poor fellow had con- tracted this ungracious habit from the intensity with which he contemplated his own ideas, and the infre- quent sympathy which they met with from his audi- tors, — a circumstance that seemed only to strengthen the implicit confidence that he awarded to them. His heart, I imagine, was never really interested in our so- cialist scheme, but was forever busy with his strange, and, as most people thought it, impracticable plan, for the reformation of criminals through an appeal to their higher instincts. Much as I liked HoUingsworth, it cost me many a groan to tolerate him on this point. He ought to have commenced his investigation of the subject by perpetrating some huge sin in his proper person, and examining the condition of his higher in- stincts afterwards. The rest of us formed ourselves into a committee for providing our infant community with an appro- priate name, — a matter of greatly more difficulty than the uninitiated reader would suppose. Blithe- dale was neither good nor bad. We should have re- sumed the old Indian name of the premises, had it possessed the oil - and - honey flow which the aborig- ines were so often happy in communicating to their local appellations ; but it chanced to be a harsh, ill- connected, and interminable word, which seemed to fill the mouth with a mixture of very stiff clay and very crumbly pebbles. Zenobia suggested "Sunny 362 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. Glimpse," as expressive of a vista into a better sys- tem of society. This we turned over and over, for a whUe, acknowledging its prettiness, but concluded it to be rather too fine and sentimental a name (a fault inevitable by literary ladies, in such attempts) for sunburnt men to work under. I ventured to whisper " Utopia," which, however, was unanimously scouted down, and the proposer very harshly maltreated, as if he had intended a latent satire. Some were for call- ing our institution " The Oasis," in view of its being the one green spot in the moral sand -waste of the world ; but others insisted on a proviso for reconsid- ering the matter at a twelvemonth's end, when a final decision might be had, whether to name it " The Oasis," or " Sahara." So, at last, finding it impracti- cable to hammer out anything better, we resolved that the spot should still be Blithedale, as being of good augury enough. The evening wore on, and the outer solitude looked in upon us through the windows, gloomy, wild, and vague, like another state of existence, close beside the little sphere of warmth and light in which we were the prattlers and bustlers of a moment. By and by, the door was opened by Silas Foster, with a cotton handkerchief about his head, and a tallow-candle in his hand. " Take my advice, brother farmers," said he, with a great, broad, bottomless yawn, " and get to bed as soon as you can. I shall sound the horn at daybreak ; and we 've got the cattle to fodder, and nine cows to milk, and a dozen other things to do, before break- fast." Thus ended the first evening at Blithedale. I went shivering to my fireless chamber, with the miserable UNTIL BEDTIME. 363 consciousness (which had been growing upon me for several hours past) that I had caught a tremendous cold, and should probably awaken, at the blast of the horn, a fit subject for a hospital. The night proved a feverish one. During the greater part of it, I was in that vilest of states when a fixed idea remains in the mind, like the nail in Sisera's brain, while innumera- ble other ideas go and come, and flutter to and fro, combining constant transition with intolerable same- ness. Had I made a record of that night's half -waking dreams, it is my belief that it would have anticipated several of the chief incidents of this narrative, includ- ing a dim shadow of its catastrophe. Starting up in bed, at length, I saw that the storm was past, and the moon was shining on the snowy landscape, which looked like a lifeless copy of the world in marble. From the bank of the distant river, which was shim- mering in the moonlight, came the black shadow of the only cloud in heaven, driven swiftly by the wind, and passing over meadow and hillock, vanishing amid tufts of leafless trees, but reappearing on the hither side, until it swept across our doorstep. How cold an Arcadia was this 1 VI. coverdale's sick-chamber. The horn sounded at daybreak, as Silas Foster had forewarned us, harsh, uproarious, inexorably drawn out, and as sleep-dispelling as if this hard-hearted old yeo- man had got hold of the triunp of doom. On aU sides I could hear the creaking of the bed- steads, as the brethren of Blithedale started from slumber, and thrust themselves into their habiliments, ail awry, no doubt, in their haste to begin the refor- mation of the world. Zenobia put her head into the entry, and besought Silas Foster to cease his clamor, and to be kind enough to leave an ai'mful of firewood and a pail of water at her chamber - door. Of the whole household, — unless, indeed, it were Priscilla, for whose habits, in this particular, I cannot vouch, — of all our apostolic society, whose mission was to bless mankind, HoUingsworth, I apprehend, was the only one who began the enterprise with prayer. My sleeping-room being but thinly partitioned from hjs, the solemn murmur of his voice made its way to my ears, compelling me to be an auditor of his awful pri- vacy with the Creator. It affected me with a deep reverence for HoUingsworth, which no familiarity then existing, or that afterwards grew more intunate be- tween us, — no, nor my subsequent perception of his own great errors, — ever quite effaced. It is so rare, in these times, to meet with a man of prayerful habits COVBRDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER. 365 (except, of course, in the pulpit), that such an one is decidedly marked out by a light of transfiguration, shed upon him in the divine interview from which he passes into his daily life. As for me, I lay abed ; and if I said my prayers, it was backward, cursing my day as bitterly as patient Job himself. The truth was, the hot-house warmth of a town residence, and the luxurious life in which I in- dulged myself, had taken much of the pith out of my physical system ; and the wintry blast of the preced- ing day, together with the general chiU of our airy old farm-house, had got fairly into my heart and the mar- row of my bones. In this predicament, I seriously wished — selfish as it may appear — that the reformat tion of society had been postponed about half a cen- tury, or, at all events, to such a date as should have put my intermeddling with it entirely out of the ques- tion. What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in ? It had satisfied me well enough. My pleasant bachelor-parlor, sunny and shadowy, curtained and carpeted, with the bedchamber adjoining; my centre - table, strewn with books and periodicals ; my writing-desk with a half- finished poem, in a stanza of my own contrivance ; my morning lounge at the reading-room or picture-gallery ; my noontide walk along the cheery pavement, with the suggestive succession of human faces, and the brisk throb of human life, in which I shared ; my dinner at the Albion, where I had a hundred dishes at command, and could banquet as delicately as the wizard Michael Scott when the Devil fed him from the king of France's kitchen ; my evening at the billiard - club, the concert, the theatre, or at somebody's party, if 1 366 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. pleased, — what could be better than all this ? Was it better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the ac- cumulations of a barnyard ; to be the chambermaid of two yoke of oxen and a dozen cows ; to eat salt beef, and earn it with the sweat of my brow, and thereby take the tough morsel out of some wretch's mouth, into whose vocation I had thrust myself ? Above aU, was it better to have a fever and die blaspheming, as I was like to do ? In this wretched plight, with a furnace in my heart, and another in my head, by the heat of which I was kept constantly at the boiling point, yet shivering at the bare idea of extruding so much as a finger into the icy atmosphere of the room, I kept my bed until breakfast-time, when Hollingsworth knocked at the door, and entered. " Well, Coverdale," cried he, " you bid fair to make an admirable farmer ! Don't you mean to get up to- day?" " Neither to-day nor to-morrow," said I, hopelessly. " I doubt if I ever rise again ! " " What is the matter, now ? " he asked. I told him my piteous case, and besought him to send me back to town in a close carriage. " No, no ! " said Hollingsworth, with kindly serious- ness. " If you are really sick, we must take care of you." Accordingly, he built a fire in my chamber, and, having little else to do while the snow lay on the ground, established himseK as my nurse. A doctor was sent for, who, being homoeopathic, gave me as much medicine, in the course of a fortnight's attend- ance, as would have laid on the point of a needle. They fed me on water-gruel, and I speedily became a COVERDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER. 367 Bkeleton above ground. But, after all, I have many precious recollections connected with that fit of sick- ness. HoUingsworth's more than brotherly attendance gave me inexpressible comfort. Most men — and cer- tainly I could not always claim to be one of the ex- ceptions — have a natural indifference, if not an abso- lutely hostile feeling, towards those whom disease, or weakness, or calamity of any kind causes to falter and faint amid the rude jostle of our selfish existence. The education of Christianity, it is true, the sympathy of a like experience and the example of women, may soften, and, possibly, subvert this ugly characteristic of our sex ; but it is originally there, and has likewise its analogy in the practice of our brute brethren, who hunt the sick or disabled member of the herd from among them, as an enemy. It is for this reason that the stricken deer goes apart, and the sick lion grimly withdraws liimself into his den. Except in love, or the attachments of kindred, or other very long and habitual affection, we really have no tenderness. But there was something of the woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of HoUingsworth ; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are of what is best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft place in his heart. I knew it well, however, at that time, although afterwards it came nigh to be for- gotten. Methought there could not be two such men alive as HoUingsworth. There never was any blaze of a fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the down- sinkings and shiverings of my spirit, so effectually as did the light out of those eyes, which lay so deep and dark under his shaggy brows. Happy the man that has such a friend beside him 368 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. when he comes to die ! and unless a friend like Hol- lingsworth be at hand, — as most probably there wiU not, — he had better make up his mind to die alone. How many men, I wonder, does one meet with in a lifetime, whom he would choose for his death-bed com- panions ! At the crisis of my fever, I besought Hol- lingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but con- tinually to make me sensible of his own presence, by a grasp of the hand, a word, a prayer, if he thought good to utter it ; and that then he should be the wit- ness how courageously I would encounter the worst. It still impresses me as almost a matter of regret that I did not die then, when I had tolerably made up my mind to it ; for Hollingsworth would have gone with me to the hither verge of life, and have sent his friendly and hopeful accents far over on the other side, while I should be treading the imknown path. Now, were 1 to send for him, he would hardly come to my bedside, nor should I depart the easier for his presence. "You are not going to die, this time," said he, gravely smiling. " You know nothing about sickness, and think your case a great deal more desperate than it is." " Death should take me while I am in the mood," replied I, with a little of my customary levity. " Have you notliing to do in life," asked Hollings- worth, " that you fancy yourself so ready to leave it ? " " Nothing," answered I ; " nothing that I know of, unless to make pretty verses, and play a part, with Zenobia and the rest of the amateurs, in our pastoral. It seems but an unsubstantial sort of business, as viewed through a mist of fever. But, dear Hollings- worth, your own vocation is evidently to be a priesl^ COVERDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER. 869 and to spend your days and nights In helping your fellow-creatures to draw peaceful dying breaths." " And by which of my qualities," inquired he, " can you suppose me fitted for this awful ministry ? " " By your tenderness," I said. " It seems to me tha reflection of God's own love." " And you call me tender ! " repeated HolUngsworth, thoughtfidly. " I should rather say that the most marked trait in my character is an inflexible severity of purpose. Mortal man has no right to be so inflex- ible as it is my nature and necessity to be." " I do not believe It," I replied. But, in due time, I remembered what he said. Probably, as Hollingsworth suggested, my disorder was never so serious as, in my ignorance of such mat- ters, I was inclined to consider It. After so much tragical preparation, It was positively rather mortify- ing to find myself on the mending hand. All the other members of the Community showed me kindness, according to the full measure of their capacIt)^ Zenobia brought me my gruel, every day, made by her own hands (not very skilfully, if the truth must be told), and whenever I seemed Inclined to converse, would sit by my bedside, and talk with so much vivacity as to add several gratuitous throbs to my pulse. Her poor little stories and tracts never half did justice to her Intellect. It was only the lack of a fitter avenue that drove her to seek development in literature. She was made (among a thousand jther things that she might have been) for a stump- oratress. I recognized no severe culture In Zenobia ; her mind was full of weeds. It startled me sometimes. In my state of moral as well as bodily falnt-hearted- ness, to observe the hardihood of her philosophy. She VOL. V. 24 370 THE BLTTHEDALE ROMANCE. (I made no scruple of oversetting all human institutions, and scattering: them as with a breeze from her fan. ■'& f A female reformer, in her attacks upon society, has ' an instinctive sense of where the life lies, and is in- clined to aim directly at that spot. Especially the relation between the sexes is naturally among the ear- liest to attract her notice. Zenobia was truly a magnificent woman. The homely simplicity of her dress could not conceal, nor scarcely diminish, the queenHness of her presence. The image of her form and face should have been multiplied all over the earth. It was wronging the rest of mankind to retain her as the spectacle of only a few. The stage would have been her proper sphere. She should have made it a point of duty, moreover, to sit endlessly to painters and sculptors, and preferably to the latter ; because the cold decorum of the marble would consist with the utmost scantiness of drapery, so that the eye might chastely be gladdened with her material perfection in its entireness. I know not well how to express, that the native glow of coloring in her cheeks, and even the flesh -warmth over her round arms, and what was visible of her full bust, — in a word, her womanliness incarnated, — compelled me sometimes to close my eyes, as if it were not quite the privilege of modesty to gaze at her. Illness and exhaustion, no doubt, had made me morbidly sensitive. I noticed — and wondered how Zenobia contrived it — that she had alv/ays a new flower in her hair. And still it was a hot-house flower, — an outlandish flower, — a flower of the tropics, such as appeared to have sprung passionately out of a soil the very weeds of which would be fervid and spicy. Unlike as was the flower of each successive day to the preceding COVERDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER. 871 one, it yet so assimilated its richness to the rich beauty of the woman, that I thought it the only flower fit to be worn ; so fit, indeed, that Nature had evidently created this floral gem, in a happy exuberance, for the one purpose of worthily adorning Zenobia's head. It might be that my feverish fantasies clustered them- selves about this peculiarity, and caused it to look more gorgeous and wonderful than if beheld with temperate eyes. In the height of my illness, as I well recollect, I went so far as to pronounce it preternatural. " Zenobia is an enchantress I " whispered I once to HoUingsworth. " She is a sister of the Veiled Lady. That flower in her hair is a talisman. If you were to snatch it away, she would vanish, or be transformed into something else." " What does he say ? " asked Zenobia. " Nothing that has an atom of sense in it," answered Hollingsworth. " He is a little beside himself, I be- lieve, and talks about your being a witch, and of some magical property in the flower that you wear in your hair." " It is an idea worthy of a feverish poet," said she, laughing rather compassionately, and taking out the flower. "I scorn to owe anything to magic. Here, Mr. Hollingsworth, you may keep the spell while it has any virtue in it ; but I cannot promise you not to appear with a new one to-morrow. It is the one relic of my more brilliant, my happier days ! " The most curious part of the matter was, that long after my slight delirium had passed away, — as long, indeed, as I continued to know this remarkable woman, — her daily flower affected my imagination, though more slightly, yet in very much the same way. The reason must have been that, whether intentionally on 372 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. her part or not, this favorite ornament was actually a subtile expression of Zenobia's character. One subject, about which — very impertinently, moreover — I perplexed myself with a great many con- jectures, was, whether Zenobia had ever been married. The idea, it must be understood, was unauthorised by any circumstance or suggestion that had made its way to ray ears. So young as I beheld her, and the freshest and rosiest woman of a thousand, there was certainly no need of imputing to her a destiny already accomplished ; the probability was far greater that her coming years had all life's richest gifts to bring. If the great event of a woman's existence had been consummated, the world knew nothing of it, although the world seemed to know Zenobia well. It was a ridiculous piece of ro- mance, undoubtedly, to imagine that this beautiful per- sonage, wealthy as she was, and holding a position that might fairly enough be called distinguished, coxdd have given herself away so privately, but that some whisper and suspicion, and, by degrees, a full understanding of the fact, would eventually be blown abroad. But then, as I failed not to consider, her original home was at a distance of many hundred miles. Rumors might fill the social atmosphere, or might once haA'e filled it, there, which would travel but slowly, against the wind, towards our Northeastern metropolis, and perhaps melt into thin air before reaching it. There was not — and I distinctly repeat it — the slightest foundation in my knowledge for any surmise of the kind. But there is a species of intuition, — cither a spiritual lie, or the subtile recognition of a fact, — which comes to us in a reduced state of the corporeal system. The soul gets the better of the body, after wasting illness, or when a vegetable diet may COVERDALE'S SICK-CHAMBER. 373 have mingled too much ether in the blood. Vapors then rise up to the brain, and take shapes that often image falsehood, but sometimes truth. The spheres of our companions have, at such periods, a vastly greater influence upon our own than when robust health gives us a repellent and self-defensive energy. Zenobia's sphere, I imagine, impressed itself powerfully on mine, and transformed me, during this period of my weak- ness, into something like a mesmerical clairvoyant. Then, also, as anybody could observe, the freedom of her deportment (though, to some tastes, it might commend itself as the utmost perfection of manner in a youthful widow or a blooming matron) was not ex- actly maiden-like. What girl had ever laughed as Ze- nobia did ? What girl had ever spoken in her mellow tones ? Her unconstrained and inevitable manifesta- tion, I said often to myself, was that of a woman to whom wedlock had thrown wide the gates of mystery. Yet sometimes I strove to be ashamed of these conjec- tures. I acknowledged it as a masculine grossness — a sin of wicked interpretation, of which man is often guilty towards the other sex — thus to mistake the sweet, liberal, but womanly frankness of a noble and generous disposition. StUl, it was of no avail to rea- son with myself nor to upbraid myself. Pertinaciously the thought, " Zenobia is a wife ; Zenobia has lived and loved ! There is no folded petal, no latent dew- drop, in this perfectly developed rose ! " — irresistibly that thought drove out all other conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to the subject. Zenobia was conscious of my observation, though Uot, I presume, of the point to which it led me. " Mr. Coverdale," said she one day, as she saw me watching her, while she arranged my gruel on the 374 THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. table, I have been exposed to a great deal of eye-shot in the few years of my mixing in the world, but never, I tliink, to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of favoring me with. I seem to interest you very much ; and yet — or else a woman's instinct is for once deceived — I cannot reckon you as an admirer. What are you seeking to discover in me ? " " The mystery of your life," answered I, surprised into the truth by the unexpectedness of her attack. " And you will never tell me." She bent her head towards me, and let me look into her eyes, as if challenging me to drop a plummet-line down into the depths of her consciousness. " I see nothing now," said I, closing my own eyes, " unless it be the face of a sprite laughing at me from the bottom of a deep well." A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects that any woman of his acquaintance has given herself away. Otherwise, the matter could have been no concern of mine. It was purely specula- tive, for I should not, under any circumstances, have fallen in love with Zenobia. The riddle made me so nervous, however, in my sensitive condition of mind and body, that I most ungratefully began to wish that she would let me alone. Then, too, her gruel was very wretched stuff, with almost invariably the smeU of pine smoke upon it, like the evil taste that is said to mix itself up with a witch's best concocted dainties. Why could not she have allowed one of the other women to take the gruel in charge ? Whatever else might be her gifts, Nature certainly never intended Zenobia for a cook. Or, if so, she should have med- dled only with the richest and spiciest dishes, and such as are to be tasted at banquets, between draughts of intoxicating wine. vn. THE CONVALESCENT. As soon as my incommodities allowed me to tMnk of past occurrences, I failed not to inquire what had become of the odd little g^est whom Hollingsworth had been the medium of introducing among us. It now appeared that poor Priscilla had not so literally- fallen out of the clouds, as we were at first inclined to suppose. A letter, which should have introduced her, had since been received from one of the city mission- aries, containing a certificate of character, and an al- lusion to circumstances which, in the writer's judg- ment, made it especially desirable that she should find shelter in our Community. There was a hint, not very intelligible, implying either that Priscilla had re- cently escaped from some particular peril or irksome- ness of position, or else that she was still liable to this danger or difficulty, whatever it might be. We should ill have deserved the reputation of a benevolent frater- nity, had we hesitated to entertain a petitioner in such need, and so strongly recommended to our kindness ; not to mention, moreover, that the strange maiden had set herself diligently to work, and was doing good service with her needle. But a slight mist of uncer- tainty still floated about Priscilla, and kept her, as yet, from taking a very decided place among creatures of flesh and blood. The mysterious attraction, which, from her first en 876 THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. trance on our scene, she evinced for Zenobia, had lost nothing of its force. I often heard her footsteps, soft and low, accompanying the light but decided tread of the latter up the staircase, stealing along the pas- sage-way by her new friend's side, and pausing while Zenobia entered my chamber. Occasionally, Zenobia would be a little annoyed by Priscilla's too close at- tendance. In an authoritative and not very kindly tone, she would advise her to breathe the pleasant ait in a walk, or to go with her work into the barn, hold- ing out half a promise to come and sit on the hay with her, when at leisure. Evidently, Priscilla found but scanty requital for her love. Hollingsworth was like- wise a great favorite \d.th her. For several minutes together, sometimes, while my auditory nerves re- tained the susceptibility of delicate health, I used to hear a low, pleasant murmur, ascending fi"om the room below; and at last ascertained it to be Pris- cilla's voice, babbling like a little brook to Hollings- worth. She talked more largely and freely with him than with Zenobia, towards whom, indeed, her feel- ings seemed not so much to be confidence as involun- tary affection. I should have thought all the better of my own qualities had PrisciUa marked me out for the third place in her regards. But, though she ap- peared to lilie me tolerably well, I could never flatter myself with being distinguished by her as Hollings- worth and Zenobia were. One forenoon, during my convalescence, there came a gentle tap at my chamber-door. I immediately said, " Come in, Priscilla ! " with an acute sense of the ap- plicant's identity. Nor was I deceived. It was really PrisciUa, — a pale, large - eyed little woman (for she had gone far enough into her teens to be, at least, on THE CONVALESCENT. 377 the outer limit of girlhood), but much less wan fihan at my previous view of her, and far better conditioned both as to health and spirits. As I first saw her, she had reminded me of plants that one sometimes ob- serves doing their best to vegetate among the bricks of an enclosed court, where there is scanty soU, and never any sunshine. At present, though with no ap- proach to bloom, there were indications that the girl had human blood in her veins. Priscilla came softly to my bedside, and held out an article of snow-white linen, very carefully and smoothly ironed. She did not seem bashful, nor anywise em- barrassed. My weakly condition, I suppose, supplied a medium in which she could approach me. "Do not you need this?" asked she. "I have made it for you." It was a nightcap ! " My dear PrisciUa," said I, smiling, " I never had on a nightcap in my life ! But perhaps it wiU be bet- ter for me to wear one, now that I am a miserable invalid. How admirably you have done it ! No, no ; I never can think of wearing such an exquisitely wrought nightcap as this, unless it be in the daytime, when I sit up to receive company." " It is for use, not beauty," answered PriscLUa. " I could have embroidered it, and made it much prettier, if I pleased." While holding up the nightcap, and admiring the fine needlework, I perceived that Priscilla had a sealed letter, which she was waiting for me to take. It had arrived from the village post-of&ce that morning. As I did not immediately offer to receive the letter, she drew it back, and held it against her bosom, with both hands clasped over it, in a way that had probably 878 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. grown habitual to her. Now, on turning my eyes from the nightcap to Priscilhi, it forcibly struck me that her air, though not her figure, and the expression of her face, but not its features, had a resemblance to what I had often seen in a friend of mine, one of the most gifted women of the age. I cannot describe it. The points easiest to convey to the reader were, a cer- tain curve of the shoulders, and a partial closing of the eyes, which seemed to look more penetratingly into my own eyes, through the narrowed apertures, than if they had been open at full width. It was a singTilar anomaly of likeness coexisting with perfect dissimilitude. " Will you give me the letter, PriscUla ? " said I. She started, put the letter into my hand, and quite lost the look that had drawn my notice. " PriseiHa," I inquired, " did you ever see Miss Margaret Fuller ? " " No," she answered. " Because," said I, " you reminded me of her, just now; and it happens, strangely enough, that this very letter is from her." Priscilla, for whatever reason, looked very much discomposed. " I wish people would not fancy such odd things in me ! " she said, rather petulantly. " How could I possibly make myself resemble this lady, merely by holding her letter in my hand ? " " Certainly, Priscilla, it would puzzle me to explain it," I replied ; " nor do I suppose that the letter had anything to do with it. It was just a coincidence, nothing more." She hastened out of the room, and this was the last that I saw of Priscilla until I ceased to be an invalid. THE CONVALESCENT. 379 Being much alone, during my recovery, I read inter- minably in Mr. Emerson's Essays, " The Dial," Car- lyle's works, George Sand's romances (lent me by Ze- nobia), and other books which one or another of the brethren or sisterhood had brought with them. Agree- ing in little else, most of these utterances were like the cry of some solitary sentinel, whose station was on the outposts of the advance-guard of human progression ; or, sometimes, the voice came sadly from among the shattered ruins of the past, but yet had a hopeful echo in the future. They were well adapted (better, at least, than any other intellectual products, the volatile essence of which had heretofore tinctured a printed page) to pilgrims like ourselves, whose present biv- ouac was considerably further into the waste of chaos than any mortal army of crusaders had ever marched before. Fourier's works, also, in a series of horribly tedious volumes, attracted a good deal of my attention, from the analogy which I could not but recognize be- tween his system and our own. There was far less resemblance, it is true, than the world chose to im- agine, inasmuch as the two theories differed, as widely as the zenith from the nadir, in their main principles. I talked about Fourier to HoUingsworth, and trans- lated, for his benefit, some of the passages that chiefly impressed me. " When, as a consequence of human improvement," said I, " the globe shall arrive at its final perfection, the great ocean is to be converted into a particular kind of lemonade, such as was fashionable at Paris in Fourier's time. He calls it limonade d cedre. It is positively a fact ! Just imagine the city-docks filled, every day, with a flood-tide of this delectable bever- age ! " 380 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. " Why did not the Frenchman make punch of it, at once ? " asked HoUingsworth. " The jack-tars woidd be delighted to go down in ships and do business in such an element." I further proceeded to explain, as well as I modestly could, several points of Fourier's system, illustrating them with here and there a page or two, and asking HoUingsworth's opinion as to the expediency of intro- ducing these beautiful peculiarities into our own prac- tice. " Let me hear no more of it ! " cried he, in utter disgust. " I never will forgive this fellow ! He has committed the unpardonable sin ; for what more mon- strous iniquity could the DevD. himself contrive than to choose the selfish principle, — the principle of all human wrong, the very blackness of man's heart, the portion of ourselves which we shudder at, and which it is the whole aim of spiritual discipline to eradicate, — to choose it as the master-workman of his system ? To seize upon and foster whatever vile, petty, sordid, filthy, bestial, and abominable corruptions have can- kered into our nature, to be the efficient instruments of his infernal regeneration! And his consummated Paradise, as he pictures it, would be worthy of the agency which he counts upon for establishing it. The nauseous villain ! " " Nevertheless," remarked I, " in consideration of the promised delights of his system, — so very proper, as they certainly are, to be appreciated by Fourier's countrymen, — I cannot but wonder that universal France did not adopt his theory, at a moment's warn- ing. But is there not something very characteristic of his nation in Fourier's manner of putting forth his views ? He makes no claim to inspiration. He has THE CONVALESCENT. 381 not persuaded himself — as Swedenborg did, and as any other than a Frenchman would, with a mission of like importance to communicate — that he speaks with authority from above. He promulgates his system, so far as I can perceive, entirely on his own responsibil- ity. He has searched out and discovered the whole counsel of the Almighty, in respect to mankind, past, present, and for exactly seventy thousand years to come, by the mere force and cunning of his individ- ual intellect ! " "Take the book out of my sight," said HoUings- worth, with great virulence of expression, " or, I teU you fairly, I shall fling it in the fire ! And as for Fourier, let him make a Paradise, if he can, of Ge- henna, where, as I conscientiously believe, he is floun- dering at this moment ! " " And bellowing, I suppose," said I, — not that I felt any Hl-vdU towards Fourier, but merely wanted to give the finishing touch to HoUingsworth's image, — " bellowing for the least drop of his beloved limonade a cedre ! " There is but little profit to be expected in attempt- ing to argue with a man who allows himself to declaim in this manner ; so I dropt the subject, and never took it up again. But had the system at which he was so enraged combined almost any amount of human wisdom, spirit- ual insight, and imaginative beauty, I question whether HoUingsworth's mind was in a fit condition to receive it. I begran to discern that he had come among us actuated by no real sympathy with our feelings and our hopes, but chiefly because we were estranging our- selves from the world, with which his lonely and ex- elusive object in life had already put him at odds. 382 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. Hollingswortli must have been originally endowed vdth a great spirit of benevolence, deep enough and warm enough to be the source of as much disinter- ested good as Providence often allows a human being the privilege of conferring upon his fellows. This native instinct yet lived within him. I myself had profited by it, in my necessity. It was seen, too, in his treatment of Priscilla. Such casual circumstances as were here involved would quicken his divine power of sympathy, and make him seem, while their influ- ence lasted, the tenderest man and the truest friend on earth. But, by and by, you missed the tenderness of yesterday, and grew drearily conscious that Hol- lingswortli had a closer friend than ever you could be ; and this friend was the cold, spectral monster which he had himself conjured up, and on which he was wasting all the warmth of his heart, and of which, at last, — as these men of a mighty purpose so invariably do, — he had grown to be the bond-slave. It was his philan- thropic theory. This was a result exceedingly sad to contemplate, considering that it had been mainly brought about by the very ardor and exuberance of his philanthropy. Sad, indeed, but by no means unusual : he had taught his benevolence to pour its warm tide exclusively through one channel ; so that there was nothing to spare for other great manisfestations of love to man, nor scarcely for the nutriment of individual attach- ments, unless they could minister, in some way, to the terrible egotism which he mistook for an angel of God. Had Hollingsworth's education been more enlarged, he might not so inevitably have stumbled into this pitfall. But this identical pursuit had educated him , He knew absolutely nothing, except in a single direo. THE CONVALESCENT. 383 tion, where he had thought so energetically, and felt to such a depth, that, no doubt, the entire reason and justice of the universe appeared to be concentrated thitherward. It is my private opinion that, at this period of his life, HoUingsworth was fast going mad ; and, as with other crazy people (among whom I include humorists of every degree), it required all the constancy of friend- ship to restrain his associates from pronouncing him an intolerable bore. Such prolonged fiddling upon one string, — such multiform presentation of one idea ! His specific object (of which he made the public more than sufficiently aware, through the medium of lectures and pamphlets) was to obtain funds for the construc- tion of an edifice, with a sort of collegiate endowment. On this foundation, he purposed to devote himself and a few disciples to the reform and mental culture of our criminal brethren. His visionary edifice was Hollings- worth's one castle in the air ; it was the material type in which his philanthropic dream strove to embody itself; and he made the scheme more definite, and caught hold of it the more strongly, and kept liis clutch the more pertinaciously, by rendering it visible to the bodily eye. I have seen him, a hundred times, with a pencil and sheet of paper, sketching the facade, the side-view, or the rear of the structure, or planning the internal arrangements, as lovingly as another man might plan those of the projected home where he meant to be happy with his wife and children. I have known him to begin a model of the building with little stones, gathered at the brook - side, whither we had gone to cool ourselves in the sultry noon of haying-time. Un- like all other ghosts, his sjiirit haunted an edifice, which, instead of being time-worn, and full of storied 884 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. love, and joy, and sorrow, had never yet come into existence. " Dear friend," said I, once, to Hollingsworth, be- fore leaving my sick-chamber, " I heartily wish that I could make your schemes my schemes, because it would be so great a happiness to find myself treading the same path with you. But I am afraid there is not stuff in me stem enough for a philanthropist, — or not in this peculiar direction, — or, at all events, not solely in tliis. Can you bear with me, if such should prove to be the case ? " "I will at least wait awhile," answered Hollings- worth, gazing at me sternly and gloomily. " But how can you be- my life-long friend, except you strive with me towards the g^eat object of my life ? " Heaven forgive me ! A horrible suspicion crept into my heart, and stung the very core of it as with the fangs of an adder. I wondered whether it were possible that HoUingsworth could have watched by my bedside, with all that devoted care, only for the ulte- rior purpose of making me a proselyte^ to his views I VIII. A MODERN ARCADIA. Mat-Dat — I forget whether by Zenobia's sole de- cree, or by the unanimous vote of our community — had been declared a movable festival. It was de- ferred until the sun should have had a reasonable time to clear away the snow-drifts along the lee of the stone walls, and bring out a few of the readiest wild- flowers. On the forenoon of the substituted day, after admitting some of the balmy air into my chamber, I decided that it was nonsense and effeminacy to keep myself a prisoner any longer. So I descended to the sitting-room, and finding nobody there, proceeded to the bam, whence I had already heard Zenobia's voice, and along with it a girlish laugh, which was not so cer- tainly recognizable. Arriving at the spot it a little surprised me to discover that these merry outbreaks came from Priscilla. The two had been a/-maying together. They had found anemones in abimdance, houstonias by the hand- ful, some colvunbines, a few long-stalked violets, and a quantity of white everlasting-flowers, and had filled up their basket with the delicate spray of slu'ubs and trees. None were prettier than the maple -twigs, the leaf of which looks like a scarlet bud in May, and like a plate of vegetable gold in October. Zenobia, who showed no conscience in such matters, had also rifled a cherry-tree of one of its blossomed boughs, VOL. T. 25 386 THE BLITHE DALE ROMANCE. and, with all this variety of sylvan ornament, had heen decking out Priscilla. Being done with a good deal of taste, it made her look more charming than I should have thought possible, with my recollection of the wan, frost-nipt girl, as heretofore described. Nev- ertheless, among those fragrant blossoms, and conspic- uously, too, had been stuck a weed of evil odor and ugly aspect, which, as soon as I detected it, destroyed the effect of all the rest. There was a gleam of latent mischief — not to call it deviltry — in Zenobia's eye, which seemed to indicate a slightly malicious purpose in the arrangement. As for herself, she scorned the rural buds and leaf- lets, and wore nothing but her invariable flower of the tropics. "What do you think of PrisciHa now, Mr. Cover- dale ? " asked she, surveying her as a child does its doll. " Is not she worth a verse or two ? " " There is only one thing amiss," answered I. Zenobia laughed, and flung the malignant weed away. " Yes ; she deserves some verses now," said I, "and from a better poet than myself. She is the very pic- ture of the New England spring ; subdued in tint, and rather cool, but with a capacity of sunshine, and bringing us a few Alpine blossoms, as earnest of some- thing richer, though hardly more beautiful, hereafter. The best type of her is one of those anemones." " What I find most singular in PrisciUa, as her health improves," observed Zenobia, " is her wildness. Such a quiet little body as she seemed, one would not have expected that. Why, as we strolled the woods together, I could hardly keep her from scrambling up the trees, like a squirreL She has never before known A MODERN ARCADIA. 387 what it is to live in the free air, and so it intoxicates her as if she were sipping wine. And she thinks it such a paradise here, and all of us, particularly Mr. HoUingsworth and myself, such angels! It is quite ridiculous, and provokes one's malice, almost, to see a creature so happy — especially a feminine creature." "They are always happier than male creatures," said I. "You must correct that opinion, Mr. Coverdale," replied Zenobia contemptuously, " or I shall think you lack the poetic insight. Did you ever see a happy woman in your life ? Of course, I do not mean a girl, like PriscUla, and a thousand others, — for they are all alike, while on the sunny side of experience, — but a grown woman. How can she be happy, after discov- ering that fate has assigned her but one single event, which she must contrive to make the substance of her whole life? A man has his choice of innumerable events." " A woman, I suppose," answered I, " by constant repetition of her one event, may compensate for the lack of variety." " Indeed ! " said Zenobia. While we were talking, Priscilla caught sight of HoUingsworth, at a distance, in a blue frock, and with a hoe over his §houlder, returning from the field. She immediately set out to meet him, running and skipping, with spirits as light as the breeze of the May morning, but with limbs too little exercised to be quite respon- sive ; she clapped her hands, too, with great exuber- ance of gesture, as is the custom of young girls when their electricity overcharges them. But, all at once, midway to HoUingsworth, she paused, looked round about her, towards the river, the road, the woods, and 388 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. back towards ui?, appearing to listen, as if she heard some one calling her name, and knew not precisely in what direction. " Have you bewitched her ? " I exclaimed. " It is no sorcery of mine," said Zenobia ; " but I have seen the girl do that identical thing once or twice before. Can you imagine what is the matter with her?" " No : unless," said I, " she has the gift of hearing those ' airy tongues that syllable men's names,' which Milton tells about." From whatever cause, Priscilla's animation seemed entirely to have deserted her. She seated herself on a rock, and remained there until HoUingsworth came up ; and when he took her hand and led her back to us, she rather resembled my original image of the wan and spiritless Priscilla than the flowery May-queen of a few moments ago. These sudden transformations, only to be accounted for by an extreme nervous sus- ceptibility, always continued to characterize the girl, though with diminished frequency as her health pro- gressively grew more robust. I was now on my legs again. My fit of illness had been an avenue between two existences ; the low-arched and darksome doorway, through which I crept out of a life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and knees, as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that lay beyond. In this respect, it was like death. And, as with death, too, it was good to have gone through it. No otherwise could I have rid myself of a thousand follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and other such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd along the broad highway, giving them all one sordid aspect before noon-time, however freshly they A MODERN ARCADIA. 389 may have begun their pilgrimage in the dewy morn- ing. The very substance upon my bones had not been fit to live with in any better, truer, or more energetic mode than that to which I was accustomed. So it was taken off me and flung aside, like any other worn-out or unseasonable garment ; and, after shivering a little while in my skeleton, I began to be clothed anew, and much more satisfactorily than in my previous suit. In literal and physical truth, I was quite another man. I had a lively sense of the exidtation with which the spirit will enter on the next stage of its eternal prog- ress after leaving the heavy burden of its mortality in an early grave, with as little concern for what may be- come of it as now affected me for the flesh which I had lost. Emerging into the genial sunshine, I half fancied that the labors of the brotherhood had already realized some of Fourier's predictions. Their enlightened cul- ture of the soil, and the virtues with which they sanc- tified their life, had begun to produce an effect upon the material world and its climate. In my new enthu- siasm, man looked strong and stately, — and woman, oh how beautiful ! — and the earth a green garden, blossoming with many-colored delights. Thus Nature, whose laws I had broken in various artificial ways, comported herself towards me as a strict but loving mother, who uses the rod upon her little boy for his naughtiness, and then gives hira a smile, a kiss, and some pretty playthings to console the urchin for her severity. In the interval of my seclusion, there had been a number of recruits to our little army of saints and martyrs. They were mostly individuals who had gone through such an experience as to disgust them with 390 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. ordinary pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered so deeply, as to lose their faith in the bet ter time to come. On comparing their minds one with another they often discovered that this idea of a Com- munity had been growing up, in silent and imknown sympathy, for years. Thoughtful, strongly lined faces were among them ; sombre brows, but eyes that did not require spectacles, unless prematurely dimmed by the student's lamplight, and hair that seldom showed a thread of silver. Age, wedded to the past, incrusted over with a stony layer of habits, and retaining noth- ing fluid in its possibilities, would have been absurdly out of place in an enterprise like this. Youth, too, in its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to our pur- pose ; for it would behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming over the very same spots of with- ered grass and barren sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. We had very young people with us, it is true, — downy lads, rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above one's knee ; but these had chiefly been sent hither for education, which it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply. Then we had boarders, from town and else- where, who lived with us in a familiar way, sympa^ thized more or less in oux theories, and sometimes shared in our labors. On the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met together ; nor, perhaps, could it reasonably be ex- pected to hold together long. Persons of marked in- ■ dividuality — crooked sticks, as some of us might be called — are not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot. But, so long as our union should subsist, a man of intellect and feeling, with a free nature in him, might have sought far and near without finding so A MODERN ARCADIA. 891 many points of attraction as would allure bim hither- ward. We were of all creeds and opinions, and gen- erally tolerant of all, on every imaginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but neg- ative. We had individually found one thing or an- other to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the inexpediency of lumbering along with the old system any further. As to what should be substituted, there was much less unanimity. We did not greatly care — at least, I never did — for the written constitution under which our millennium had commenced. My hope was, that, between theory and practice, a true and available mode of life might be struck out ; and that, even should we ultimately fail, the months or years spent in the trial would not have been wasted, either as regarded passing enjoyment, or the experience which makes men wise. Arcadians though we were, our costume bore no resemblance to the beribboned doublets, silk breeches and stockings, and slippers fastened with artificial roses, that distinguish the pastoral people of poetry and the stage. In outward show, I humbly conceive, we looked rather like a gang of beggars, or banditti, than either a company of honest laboring-men, or a conclave of philosophers. Whatever might be our points of difference, we all of us seemed to have come to Blithedale with the one thrifty and laudable idea of wearing out our old clothes. Such garments as had an airing, whenever we strode afield ! Coats with high collars and with no collars, broad-skirted or swal- low-tailed, and with the waist at every point between the hip and arm-pit ; pantaloons of a dozen successive epochs, and greatly defaced at the knees by the humil- iations of the wearer before his lady-love, — in short. 892 THE BLITIIEDALE ROMANCE. we were a living epitome of defunct fashions, and the Very raggedest presentment of men who had seen bet- ter days. It was gentility in tatters. Often retain- ing a scholarlike or clerical air, you might have taken us for the denizens of Grub Street, intent on getting a comfortable livelihood by agricultural labor ; or, Cole- ridge's projected Pantisocracy in full experiment ; or, Candid e and his motley associates at work in their cabbage-garden ; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn comrades to Falstaff's ragged regiment. Little skill as we boasted in other points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have served admirably to stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst of the matter was, that the first ener- getic movement essential to one downright stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor habili- ments. So we gradually flung them aU aside, and took to honest homespun and linsey-woolsey, as preferable, on the whole, to the plan recommended, I think, by Virgil, — ^^Ara nudus ; sere nudus" — which as Si- las Foster remarked, when I translated the maxim, would be apt to astonish the women-folks. After a reasonable training, the yeoman life throve well with us. Our faces took the sunburn kindly ; our chests gained in compass, and our shoidders in breadth and squareness ; our great brown fists looked as if they had never been capable of kid gloves. The plough, the hoe, the scythe, and the hay-fork grew familiar to our grasp. The oxen responded to our voices. We could do almost as fair a daj^'s work as Silas Foster himself, sleep dreamlessly after it, and awake at daybreak with only a little stiffness of the joints, which was usually quite gone by breakfast-time A MODERN ARCADIA. 393 To be sure, our next neighbors >^retended to be in- credulous as to our real proficiency in the business which we had taken in hand. They told slanderous fables about our inability to yoke our own oxen, or to drive them afield when yoked, or to release the poor brutes from their conjugal bond at nightfall. They had the face to say, too, that the cows laughed at our awkwardness at miDdng-time, and invariably kicked over the pails ; partly in consequence of oiu- putting the stool on the wrong side, and partly because, taking offence at the whisking of their tails, we were in the habit of holding these natural fly-flappers with one hand and milking with the other. They further averred that we hoed up whole acres of Indian corn and other crops, and drew the earth carefully about the weeds; and that we raised five hundred tufts of burdock, mistak- ing them for cabbages ; and that, by dint of unskilful planting few of our seeds ever came up at all, or, if they did come up it was stern-foremost ; and that we spent the better part of the month of June in reveirs- ing a field of beans, which had thrust themselves out of the ground in this unseemly way. They quoted it as nothing more than an ordinary occurrence for one or other of us to crop off two or three fingers, of a morn- ing, by our clumsy use of the hay-cutter. Finally, and as an ultimate catastrophe, these mendacious rogues circulated a report that we communitarians were exter- minated, to the last man, by severing ourselves asim- der, with the sweep of our own scythes ! — and that the world had lost nothing by this little accident. But this was pure envy and malice on the part of the neighboring farmers. The peril of our new way of life was not lest we should fail in becoming practical agriculturists, but that we should probably cease to be 894 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. anything else. WWIe our enterprise lay all in theory, we had pleased ourselves with ■ delectable visions of the spiritualization of labor. It was to be our form of prayer and ceremonial of worship. Each stroke of the hoe was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom, heretofore hidden from the sun. Pausing in the field, to let the wind exhale the moisture from our fore- heads, we were to look upward, and catch glimpses into the far-off soul of truth. In this point of view, matters did not turn out quite so well as we antici- pated. It is very true that, sometimes, gazing casually around me, out of the midst of my toil, I used to dis- cern a richer picturesqueness in the visible scene of earth and sky. There was, at such moments, a nov- elty, an unwonted aspect, on the face of Nature, as if she had been taken by surprise and seen at unawares, with no opportunity to put off her real look, and as- sume the mask with which she mysteriously hides her- self from mortals. But this was aU. The clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and over, were never etherealized into thought. Our thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor symbolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening. Intel- lectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of bodUy exercise. The yeoman and the scholar — the yeoman and the man of finest moral culture, though not the man of sturdiest sense and integrity — are two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or welded into one substance. Zenobia soon saw this truth, and gibed me about it, one evening, as Hollingsworth and I lay on the grass, after a hard day's work. " I am afraid you did not make a song, to-day, while A MODERN ARCADIA. 395 loading the hay-cart," said she, " as Bums did, when he was reaping barley." " Bums never made a song in haying-time," I an- swered, very positively. "He was no poet while a farmer, and no farmer while a poet." " And on the whole, which of the two characters do you like best ? " asked Zenobia. " For I have an idea that you cannot combine them any better than Bums did. Ah, I see, in my mind's eye, what sort of an individual you are to be, two or three years hence. Grim Silas Foster is your prototype, with his palm of sole-leather, and his joints of rusty iron (which all through summer keep the stiffness of what he calls his winter's rheumatize), and his brain of — I don't know what his brain is made of, unless it be a Savoy cab- bage ; but yours may be cauliflower, as a rather more delicate variety. Your physical man will be trans- muted into salt beef and fried pork, at the rate, I should imagine, of a pound and a half a day ; that be- ing about the average which we find necessary in the kitchen. You will make your toilet for the day (stiU like this delightful Silas Foster) by rinsing your fin- gers and the front part of your face in a little tin pan of water at the doorstep, and teasing your hair with a wooden pocket-comb before a seven-by-nine-inch look- ing-glass. Your only pastime wiU be to smoke some very vile tobacco in the black stump of a pipe." " Pray, spare me ! " cried I. " But the pipe is not Silas's only mode of solacing himself with the weed." " Your literature," continued Zenobia, apparently delighted with her description, " will be the ' Farmer's Almanac ; ' for I observe our friend Foster never gets so far as the newspaper. When you happen to sit down, at odd moments, you will fall asleep, and make 896 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. nasal proclamation of the fact, as lie does ; and inva- riably you must be jogged out of a nap, after supper, by the future Mrs. Coverdale, and persuaded to go regularly to bed. And on Sundays, when you put on a blue coat with brass buttons, you will think of noth- ing else to do, but to go and lounge over the stone walls and rail fences, and stare at the corn growing. And you will look with a knowing eye at oxen, and will have a tendency to clamber over into pigsties, and feel of the hogs, and give a guess how much they will weigh after you shall have stuck and dressed them. Already I have noticed you begin to speak through your nose, and with a drawl. Pray, if you really did make any poetry to-day, let us hear it in that kind of utterance ! " " Coverdale has given up making verses now," said HoUingsworth, who never had the slightest apprecia- tion of my poetry. " Just think of him penning a sonnet with a fist like that! There is at least this good in a life of toil, that it takes the nonsense and fancy-work out of a man, and leaves nothing but what truly belongs to him. If a farmer can make poetry at the plough-tail, it must be because his nature insists on it ; and if that be the case, let him make it, in Heaven's name ! " " And how is it with you ? " asked Zenobia, in a different voice ; for she never laughed at HoUings- worth, as slie often did at me. " You, I think, cannot have ceased to live a life of thought and feeling." "I have always been in earnest," answered Hol- lingsworth. " I have hammered thought out of iron, after heating the iron in my heart ! It matters little what my outward toU may be. Were I a slave at the bottom of a mine, I should keep the same purpose, A MODERN ARCADIA. 397 the same faitli in its ultimate aceomplislimeiit, that I do now. Miles Coverdale is not in earnest, either as a poet or a laborer." " You give me hard measure, HoUingsworth," said I, a little hurt. " I have kept pace with you in the field ; and my bones feel as if I had been in earnest, whatever may be the case with my brain ! " " I cannot conceive," observed Zenobia, with great emphasis, — and, no doubt, she spoke fairly the feel- ing of the moment, — "I cannot conceive of being so continually as Mr. Coverdale is within the sphere of a strong and noble nature, vdthout being strengthened and ennobled by its influence ! " This amiable remark of the fair Zenobia confirmed me in what I had already begun to suspect, that Hol- lingsworth, like many other illustrious prophets, re- formers, and philanthropists, was likely to make at least two proselytes among the women to one among the men. Zenobia and PriscUla ! These, I believe (unless my unworthy self might be reckoned for a third), were the only disciples of his mission ; and I spent a great deal of time, uselessly, in trying to con- jecture what HoUingsworth meant to do with them — and they with him 1 rs. HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PEISCILLA. It is not, I apprehend, a healthy kind of mental occupation, to devote ourselves too exclusively to the study of individual men and women. If the person imder examination be one's self, the result is pretty certain to be diseased action of the heart, almost be- fore we can snatch a second glance. Or, if we take the freedom to put a friend under our microscope, we thereby insulate him from many of his true relations, magnify his peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts, and, of course, patch him very clumsily together again. What wonder, then, should we be frightened by the aspect of a monster, which, after all, — though we can point to every feature of his deformity in the real per- sonage, — may be said to have been created mainly by ourselves. Thus, as my conscience has often whispered me, I did HoUingsworth a great wrong by prying into his character ; and am perhaps doing him as great a one, at this moment, by putting faith in the discoveries which I seemed to make. But I could not help it. Had I loved him less, I might have used him better. He and Zenobia and Priscilla — both for their owti sakes and as connected with him — were separated from the rest of the Community, to my imagination, and stood forth as the indices of a problem which it was my business to solve. Other associates had a por- HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 399 tlon of mjr time ; other matters amused me ; passing occurrences carried me along with them, while they lasted. But here was the vortex of my meditations, around which they revolved, and whitherward they too continually tended. In the midst of cheerful so- ciety, I had often a feeling of loneliness. For it was impossible not to be sensible that, while these three characters figured so largely on my private theatre, I — though probably reckoned as a friend by all — was at best but a secondary or tertiary personage with either of them. I loved HoUingsworth, as has already been enough expressed. But it impressed me, more and more, that there was a stern and dreadful peculiarity in this man, such as could not prove otherwise than pernicious to the happiness of those who shoxild be drawn into too intimate a connection with him. He was not altogether human. There was something else in HoHingsworth besides flesh and blood, and sympathies and affections and celestial spirit. This is always true of those men who have surren- dered themselves to an overruling purpose. It does not so much impel them from without, nor even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with aU that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else save that one principle. When such be- ^ gins to be the predicament, it is not cowardice, but wis- ': dom to avoid these victims. They have no heart, no Bjrmpathy, no reason, no conscience. They will keep no friend, imless he make himself the mirror of their purpose ; they will smite and slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot, all the more readilj^, if you take the first step with them, and cannot take the second, and the third, and every other step of their 400 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. terribly strait path. They have an idol to which they consecrate themselves high-priest, and deem it holy work to o£fer sacrifices of whatever is most precious ; and never once seem to suspect — so cunning has the Devil been with them — that this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the surroxmd- ing darkness. And the higher and purer the origi- nal object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter is the probability that they can be led to recognize the process by which godlike be- nevolence has been debased into all-devouring egotism. Of course I am perfectly aware that the above state- ment is exaggerated, in the attempt to make it ade- quate. Professed philanthropists have gone far ; but no originally good man, I presume, ever went quite so far as this. Let the reader abate whatever he deems fit. The paragraph may remain, however, both for its truth and its exaggeration, as strongly expres- sive of the tendencies which were reaUy operative in Hollingsworth, and as exemplifying the kind of error into which my mode of observation was calculated to lead me. The issue was, that in solitude I often shud- dered at my friend. In my recollection of his dark and impressive countenance, the features grew more sternly prominent than the reality, duskier in their depth and shadow, and more lurid in their light ; the frown, that had merely flitted across his brow, seemed to have contorted it with an adamantine wrinkle. On meeting him again, I was often filled with remorse, when his deep eyes beamed kindly upon me, as wit'i the glow of a household fire that was burning in a cave. " He is a man after aU," thought I ; "his Mak- HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 401 er's own truest image, a philanthropic man ! — not that steel engine of the DevU's contrivance, a philan- thropist ! " But in my wood-walks, and in my silent chamber, the dark face frowned at me again. When a young girl comes within the sphere of such a man, she is as perilously situated as the maiden whom, in the old classical myths, the people used to expose to a dragon. If I had any duty whatever, in reference to HoUingsworth, it was to endeavor to save PrisciUa from that kind of personal worship which her sex is generally prone to lavish upon saints and heroes. It often requires but one smile out of the hero's eyes into the girl's or woman's heart, to transform this de- votion, from a sentiment of the highest approval and confidence, into passionate love. Now, HoUingsworth smiled much upon PriscUla, — more than upon any other person. If she thought him beautiful, it was no wonder. I often thought him so, with the expression of tender human care and gentlest sympathy which she alone seemed to have power to call out upon his features. Zenobia, I suspect, would have given her eyes, bright as they were, for such a look ; it was the least that our poor PriscUla coidd do, to give her heart for a great many of them. There was the more dan- ger of this, inasmuch as the footing on which we aU associated at Blithedale was widely different from that of conventional society. While inclining us to the soft affections of the golden age, it seemed to authorize any individual, of either sex, to fall in love with any other, regardless of what would elsewhere be judged suitable and prudent. Accordingly the tender passion was very rife among us, in various degrees of mildness or virulence, but mostly passing away ^vith the state of things that had given it origin. This was all weU VOL. V. 26 402 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. enough ; but, for a girl like Priscilla and a woman like Zenobia to jostle one another in their love of a man like Hollingsworth, was likely to be no child's play. Had I been as cold-hearted as I sometimes thought myself, nothing would have interested me more than to witness the play of passions that must thus have been evolved. But, in honest truth, I would really have gone far to save Priscilla, at least, from the catastrophe in which such a drama would be apt to terminate. Priscilla had now grown to be a very pretty girl, and still kept budding and blossoming, and daily putting on some new charm, which you no sooner be- came sensible of than you thought it worth all that Ishe had previously possessed. So unformed, vague, jand without substance, as she had come to us, it ! seemed as if we could see Nature shaping out a wo- Iman before our very eyes, and yet had ordy a more reverential sense of the mystery of a woman's soul and frame. Yesterday, her cheek was pale, — to-day, it had a bloom. Priscilla's smile, like a baby's first one, was a wondrous novelty. Her imperfections and short-comings affected me with a kind of playful pa- thos, which was as absolutely bewitching a sensation as ever I experienced. After she had been a month or two at BUthedale, her animal spirits waxed high, and kept her pretty constantly in a state of bubble and ferment, impelling her to far more bodily activity than she had yet strength to endure. She was very fond of playing with the other girls out of doors. There is hardly another sight in the world so pretty as that of a company of young girls, almost wo- men grown, at play, and so giving themselves up to HOLLINGS WORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 403 their airy impulse that their tiptoes barely touch the ground. Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more untamable, and regardless of rule and limit, with an ever-shifting variety, breaking continu- ally into new modes of fun, yet with a harmonious propriety through aU. Their steps, their voices, ap- pear free as the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of music inaudible to us. Young men and boys, on the other hand, play, according to recognized law, old, traditionary games, permitting no caprioles of fancy, but with scope enough for the outbreak of savage instincts. For, young or old, in play or in earnest, man is prone to be a brute. Especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race, with her head thrown back, her limbs moving more friskily than they need, and an air be- tween that of a bird and a young colt. But Priscilla's peculiar charm, in a foot-race, was the weakness and irregularity with which she ran. Growing up without exercise, except to her poor little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect use of her legs. Setting buoy- antly forth, therefore, as if no rival less swift than At- alanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly, and often tumbled on the grass. Such an incident — though it seems too slight to think of — was a thing to laugh at, but which brought the water into one's eyes, and lingered in the memory after far greater joys and sor- rows were wept out of it, as antiquated trash. Pris- cUla's life, as I beheld it, was full of trifles that af- fected me in just this way. When she had come to be quite at home among us, I used to fancy that PrisciUa played more pranks, and perpetrated more mischief, than any other girl in the 404 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. Community. For example, I once heard Silas Foster, in a very grufif voice, threatening to rivet three horse- shoes round Priscilla's neck and chain her to a post, because she, with some other young people, had clam- bered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide ofif the cart. How she made her peace I never knew ; but very soon afterwards I saw old Silas, with his brawny hands round Priscilla's waist, swinging her to and fro, and finally depositing her on one of the oxen, to take her first lessons in riding. She met with terrible mis- haps in her efforts to milk a cow ; she let the poultry into the garden ; she generally spoilt whatever part of the dinner she took in charge ; she broke crockery ; she dropt our biggest pitcher into the well ; and — ex- cept with her needle, and those little wooden instru- ments for purse - making — was as unserviceable a member of society as any young lady in the land. There was no other sort of efficiency about her. Yet everybody was kind to Priscilla ; everybody loved her and laughed at her to her face, and did not laugh be- hind her back ; everybody would have given her half of his last crust, or the bigger share of his plum-cake. These were pretty certain indications that we were all conscious of'a pleasant weakness in the girl, and con- sidered her not quite able to look after her own inter- ests, or fight her battle with the world. And HoUings- worth — perhaps because he had been the means of introducing Priscilla to her new abode — appeared to recognize her as his own especial charge. Her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often made me sad. She seemed to me like a butterflj'- at play in a flickering bit of sunshine, and mistaking it for a broad and eternal summer. We sometimes hold mirth to a stricter accountability than sorrow ; it must HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 405 show good cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back drearily. Priscilla's gayety, moreover, was of a nature that showed me how. delicate an instrument she was, and what fragile harp-strings were her nerves. As they made sweet music at the airiest touch, it would require but a stronger one to burst them all asunder. Absurd as it might be, I tried to reason with her, and persuade her not to be so joyous, thinking that, if she would draw less lavishly upon her fund of happiness, it would last the longer. I remember doing so, one summer evening, when we tired laborers sat looking on, like Goldsmith's old folks under the village thorn -tree, while the young people were at their sports. " What is the use or sense of being so very gay ? " I said to Priscilla, while she was taking breath, after a great frolic. " I love to see a sufficient cause for every- thing, and I can see none for this. Pray tell me, now, what kind of a world you imagine this to be, which you are so merry in." " I never think about it at all," answered Priscilla, laughing. " But this I am sure of, that it is a world where everybody is kind to me, and where I love every- body. My heart keeps dancing within me, and all the foolish things which you see me do are only the motions of my heart. How can I be dismal, if my heart wiU not let me?" " Have you nothing dismal to remember ? " I sug- gested. " If not, then, indeed, you are very fortu- nate ! " " Ah ! " said Priscilla, slowly. And then came that unintelligible gesture, when she seemed to be listening to a distant voice. " For my part," I continued, beneficently seeking to overshadow her with my own sombre humor, " my past 406 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. life has been a tiresome one enough ; yet I would rather look backward ten times than forward once. For, little as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for one thing, that the good we aim at will not be at- tained. People never do get just the good they seek. If it come at all, it is something else, which they never dreamed of, and did not particularly want. Then, again, we may rest certain that our friends of to-day wiU not be our friends of a few years hence ; but, if we keep one of them, it wiU be at the expense of the others ; and, most probably, we shall keep none. To be sure, there are more to be had ; but who cares about making a new set of friends, even should they be bet- ter than those around us ? " " Not I ! " said PriseiUa. " I will live and die with these ! " " Well ; but let the future go," resumed I. " As for the present moment, if we could look into the hearts where we wish to be most valued, what should you ex- pect to see ? One's own likeness, in the innermost, ho- liest niche ? Ah ! I don't know ! It may not be there at all. It may be a dusty image, thrust aside into a comer, and by and by to be flung out of doors, where any foot may trample upon it. If not to-day, then to- morrow! And so, Priscilla, I do not see much wisdom in being so very merry in this kind of a world." It had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to hive up the bitter honey which I here offered to Pris- eiUa. And she rejected it ! " I don't believe one word of what you say ! " she re- plied, laughing anew. " You made me sad, for a min- ute, by talking about the past ; but the past never comes back again. Do we dream the same dream twice ? There is nothing else that I am afraid of." HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 407 So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often her luck to do, but got up again, with- out any harm. " PrisciUa, Priscilla ! " cried Hollingsworth, who was sitting on the doorstep ; " you had better not run any more to-night. You will weary yourself too much. And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a heavy dew beginning to fall." At his first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and happy. What charm was there in his rude massive- ness that so attracted and soothed this shadow -like girl ? It appeared to me, who have always been cu- rious in such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seem- ingly causeless flow of felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced hearts, before they begin to suspect what is going on within them. It transports them to the seventh heaven ; and, if you ask what brought them thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but cherish an ecstatic faith that there they shaU abide forever. Zenobia was in the doorway, not far from Hollings- worth. She gazed at Priscilla in a very singular way. Indeed, it was a sight worth gazing at, and a beauti- ful sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the feet of that dark, powerful figure. Her air, while perfectly mod- est, delicate, and virgin-like, denoted her as swayed by Hollingsworth, attracted to him, and unconsciously seeking to rest upon his strength. I could not turn away my own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save Zeno- bia and myself, were witnessing this picture. It is before me now, with the evening twilight a little deep- ened by the dusk of memory. " Come hither, PrisciUa," said Zenobia. " I have something to say to you." 408 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE. She spoke in little more than a whisper. But it is strange how expressive of moods a whisper may often be. Priscilla felt at once that something had gone wrong. "Are you angiy with me ? " she asked, rising slowly, and standing before Zenobia in a drooping attitude. " What have I done ? I hope you are not angry ! " " No, no, Priscilla ! " said Hollingsworth, smiling. " I will answer for it, she is not. You are the one little person in the world with whom nobody can be angry ! " " Angry with you, child ? What a silly idea ! " ex- claimed Zenobia, laughing. " No, indeed ! But, my dear Priscilla, you are getting to be so very pretty that you absolutely need a duenna ; and, as I am older than you, and have had my own little experience of life, and think myself exceedingly sage, I intend to fill the place of a maiden aunt. Every day, I shall give you a lecture, a quarter of an hour in length, on the morals, manners, and proprieties of social life. When our pastoral shall be quite played out, Priscilla, my worldly wisdom may stand you in good stead." " I am afraid you are angry with me ! " repeated Priscilla, sadly ; for, while she seemed as impressible as wax, the girl often showed a persistency in her own ideas as stubborn as it was gentle. " Dear me, what can I say to the child ! " cried Zenobia, in a tone of humorous vexation. " Well, well ; since you insist on my being angry, come to my room, this moment, and let me beat you ! " Zenobia bade HoUings worth good-night very sweet- ly, and nodded to me with a smile. But, just as she turned aside with Priscilla, into the dimness of the porch, 1 caught another glance at her countenance. HOLLINOSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA. 409 It would have made the fortune of a tragic actress, could she have borrowed it for the moment when she fumbles in her bosom for the concealed dagger, or the exceedingly sharp bodkin, or mingles the ratsh