oxford world’s classics

THE SCARLET LETTER

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts,

a descendant of the William Hawthorne who had emigrated to
New England with the first generation of Puritan settlers in 1630.
Hawthorne’s interest in the history and legend of his region was
revealed in his early stories, which began to appear in print in the
1830s. New England Puritanism and its legacy provided Hawthorne
with the means of exploring many of the themes that concerned him
deeply, among them the conflict between patriarchal authority and the
impulse to a variety of freedoms, including the freedom of the artist.
Though he immersed himself in the early literature of New England,
Hawthorne’s own writings are peculiarly modern in some of their
leading characteristics. One is the self-reflexiveness of narratives
which make the telling a part of the tale. Another is the concern with
signifying practices, with the relationships between objects (a Red
Cross, a Black Veil, a Scarlet Letter) and what they come to signify.
Never willing to submit to the conventions of the realist novel,
when he abandoned the short story and the sketch for longer works,
Hawthorne claimed the imaginative freedom of the romance. His
first—The Scarlet Letter—was published in 1850 and brought him
immediate critical recognition, if not financial success. In quick suc-
cession he completed two more romances—The House of the Seven
Gables (1851) and The Blithedale Romance (1852)—and consolidated
his position as a major writer of his day. After his appointment as
consul at Liverpool and Manchester in 1853 Hawthorne produced
no more fiction until 1860, when The Marble Faun was published.
Returning to Massachusetts in that year after travels in France and
Italy, he struggled to finish other romances but left them uncompleted
at his death in 1864.
Brian Harding was a Senior Lecturer in the English Department of
the University of Birmingham. He is the editor of Hawthorne’s
Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales for the Oxford World’s Classics
series.
Cindy Weinstein is Professor of English at the California Institute
of Technology. She is the author of Family, Kinship, and Sympathy
in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Cambridge, 2004) and The
Literature of Labor and the Labors of Literature: Allegory in Nineteenth-
Century American Fiction (Cambridge, 2004). She is the editor of The
Cambridge Companion to Harriet Beecher Stowe (Cambridge, 2004)
and has contributed essays to several volumes and journals.
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The Scarlet Letter

Edited with Notes by
BRIAN HARDING

With a new Introduction by

CINDY WEINSTEIN

1
 3
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804–1864.
The scarlet letter / Nathaniel Hawthorne ; edited with notes by Brian Harding ; with a
new introduction by Cindy Weinstein.
p. cm. — (Oxford’s world classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–19–929246–2 (alk. paper)
1. Boston (Mass.)—History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775—Fiction. 2. Triangles
(Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 3. Illegitimate children—Fiction. 4. Women
immigrants—Fiction. 5. Married women—Fiction. 6. Puritans—Fiction. 7. Adultery—
Fiction. 8. Revenge—Fiction. 9. Clergy—Fiction. 10. Psychological Fiction. I. Harding,
Brian (Brian R.) II. Title.
PS1868.A2H285 2007
813′ 3—dc22
2007001813
Typeset by Cepha Imaging Private Ltd., Bangalore, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
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ISBN 978–0–19–929246–2

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
 CONTENTS

Abbreviations viii
Introduction ix
Note on the Text xxxiii
Select Bibliography xxxiv
A Chronology of Nathaniel Hawthorne xli

THE SCARLET LETTER

Preface to the Second Edition 3
The Custom-House—Introductory 5
i The Prison-Door 39
ii The Market-Place 41
iii The Recognition 49
iv The Interview 57
v Hester at Her Needle 63
vi Pearl 71
vii The Governor’s Hall 79
viii The Elf-Child and the Minister 85
ix The Leech 93
x The Leech and His Patient 102
xi The Interior of a Heart 110
xii The Minister’s Vigil 116
xiii Another View of Hester 125
xiv Hester and the Physician 132
xv Hester and Pearl 137
xvi A Forest Walk 143
xvii The Pastor and His Parishioner 148
xviii A Flood of Sunshine 156
vi Contents
xix The Child at the Brook-Side 161
xx The Minister in a Maze 167
xxi The New England Holiday 176
xxii The Procession 184
xxiii The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter 193
xxiv Conclusion 200

Explanatory Notes 205

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the following friends, colleagues, and Hawthorne schol-

ars: Michael Gilmore, Dorothy Hale, Michelle Hawley, Cathy Jurca,
Robert Levine, and Arthur Riss. My thanks to Alan Jutzi and Stephen
Tabor of the Huntington Library for assistance with the cover image,
as well as Lisa Keppel of Caltech. As always, my deepest debt is to
Jim, Sarah, and Sam.
 ABBREVIATIONS

AL American Literature
ALH American Literary History
AQ American Quarterly
ATQ American Transcendental Quarterly
CLAJ College Language Association Journal
EIHC Essex Institute Historical Association
ELH Journal of English Literary History
ESQ Emerson Society Quarterly
MLN Modern Language Notes
NCF Nineteenth-Century Fiction
NEQ New England Quarterly
NHR Nathaniel Hawthorne Review
PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association
TSLL Texas Studies in Literature and Language
 INTRODUCTION

The scarlet letter is one of those grand symbols in antebellum American

literature that keeps company with a white whale, a pond, and leaves
of grass. Unlike these others, however, which are simultaneously ele-
ments of the natural world and sites of cultural projection, the scarlet
letter inhabits, unambiguously, the realm of culture. The scarlet letter,
either the piece of cloth embroidered and worn by the novel’s heroine,
Hester Prynne, or the text written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a prod-
uct of artifice. Indeed, this is the only thing about the letter that is
unambiguous. Whether as the first letter of the English language, the
legal crime of adultery that Hester has committed, the red badge that
she has turned into a gorgeously aesthetic object, or the object that
Hawthorne discovers in the Salem Custom-House among the papers
of former Surveyor Jonathan Pue, the ‘A’ is a cultural marker.
But a marker of which culture? The seventeenth century or the nine-
teenth century? The world of the Puritans, who had fled religious per-
secution in England in order to found what John Winthrop famously
called in his 1630 sermon aboard the Arbella, ‘a city upon a hill’? Or of
the world of the Americans for whom New England had become a place
of unconventional thinking, as represented by transcendentalism,
utopian communities, and literary experimentation? And a marker of
what? The name of Pearl’s father that Hester refuses to say, but is,
nevertheless, articulated with the A that is Arthur Dimmesdale? The
stifling, though necessary framework of law as manifested through
the A that is adultery? The production (and subjection) of a free cit-
izenry via the A that is America? Like the quest for the white whale
and its meaning, the interpretative hunt for the meanings of the scar-
let letter, and the novel that bears its name, has been a matter of
intense critical debate ever since Ticknor and Fields published
Hawthorne’s novel in 1850.
One of the many fascinating aspects of Hawthorne’s most com-
mercially successful novel (twenty-two years earlier he had published
Fanshawe using his own money, using no name, and burning all copies
of it in an attempt to wipe its existence from the record) is that it tells
at least two fictions at once. There is the tale of Hester, a fictional young
woman who in 1642 must face the consequences of having forsaken
x Introduction
her marriage vows to Roger Prynne (who appears in the novel under
the assumed name of Chillingworth) by committing the sin of adultery
with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale (though the word adultery is
notably absent from the novel), and having given birth to their child
Pearl. There is also the tale of the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who
has lost his political appointment as Custom-House Surveyor in the
mid-nineteenth century (this much is true), telling the story of said
woman. The Scarlet Letter sets itself the task of telling these two stories
and making them speak to one another. They intersect and diverge,
as historical moments become fictionalized in order to represent fun-
damental truths about Puritan life, as historical personages meet up
with fictional characters, as author maps himself onto those characters,
making the relation between author and narrator difficult to untangle.
‘The Custom-House’ sketch, which is described as ‘Introductory to
“The Scarlet Letter” ’, has been the subject of so much literary criti-
cism precisely because it extends an invitation to the reader to im-
agine a set of relations between before and after, between what is
‘introductory’ and what is not, between the present and the past. The
invitation is accepted, but the host is nowhere to be found, having
confirmed none of the relations that the reader has imagined.
The relation between past and present is one of the most explosive
in the text, and with good reason. Hawthorne’s ‘before’ never quite
remains in the past. His ancestors famously deride him as ‘a writer
of story-books’ (p. 10) in the introductory sketch, and memories of
his great-grandfather’s punishment of Quakers and his grandfather’s
persecutorial role in the Salem witch trials seem perilously close to the
surface of the writer’s imagination. The Scarlet Letter is about many
things, and Hawthorne’s Puritan past is one of the most significant
of them. Indeed, as literary critic Michael Colacurcio has demon-
strated, Hawthorne knew his Puritan history very well, having read
Caleb Snow’s History of Boston (1825), The Journal of John Winthrop,
1630–1649 (1825), and Joseph Felt’s Annals of Salem (1827). Hawthorne’s
academic and intimate knowledge of this history provides the foun-
dation for his interrogation of Puritan belief and practice. Specifically,
he reveals how a commitment to the bonds of Christian charity, as
articulated by Winthrop, is accompanied by an exacting and severe
system of discipline, which leads to the banishment of individuals such
as Ann Hutchinson and Roger Williams, who questioned the absolute
authority of the Puritan leaders. This system is further underwritten
 Introduction xi
by a punitive logic whereby persons are deemed by God to be saved
or damned, regardless of their good works. The story of Hester,
Dimmesdale, Pearl, and Chillingworth provides Hawthorne with a
gripping framework through which to give readers, and even himself,
the experience of living in a world where family and state, religion
and government, love and judgement go hand in hand.
Indeed, the novel’s continuing power and interest for readers,
especially contemporary ones, derives, in part, from its ambition to
tell so many stories through the voice of a narrator (and an author)
who is profoundly aware of the complexities of human history, inten-
tion, and belief. His own, as well as the characters of his imagination,
included. Indeed, one would be slighting the degree of Hawthorne’s
literary accomplishment if acknowledgement were not made of the
distinctiveness of the novel’s small cast of intense characters and the
extremely intense tableaux in which they appear (Hester and Pearl
on the scaffold; Chillingworth spying on Dimmesdale while asleep;
Dimmesdale’s Election Day sermon). In addition to these, the signi-
fying force of that letter has greatly contributed to the novel’s enduring
place in the canon of American literature. ‘It strangely interested me’
(p. 27), writes the narrator upon discovering the letter in the Custom-
House. His eyes ‘would not be turned aside’ (p. 27), nor can ours. He
presents us with ‘this rag of scarlet cloth’ and designates it as a
‘token’ (pp. 127, 164), a word often used by the narrator in describing
the letter, which embodies a set of aesthetic, religious, legal, political
practices that reverberate within and across historical moments. Many
readers focus on the Puritan context, arguing that it is the presence
of Winthrop, Hutchinson, and the disciplinary apparatus with which
the novel opens that holds the key to its meanings. Others insist that
the novel is best understood by focusing on the juridical processes
that turn Puritans from England into citizens of the USA. Still
others study the novel in relation to nineteenth-century debates
about gender, the family, and class. Whatever the critical orientation,
readers return to The Scarlet Letter in order to understand how its
resonances are made and what we are to make of them.

Entering the Market-Place

Before focusing attention on the fascinating narrative of hermeneu-
tic speculation that surrounds Hawthorne’s first full novel, it is
xii Introduction
important to bear in mind the events—autobiographical, literary, and
historical—that led to the writing of what many readers have consid-
ered to be not only Hawthorne’s greatest novel but the first great novel
written by an American author. After all, Hawthorne had been plying
his trade as a writer of short stories for over twenty years before the
publication of The Scarlet Letter. As many critics have observed, Jane
Tompkins most compellingly, Hawthorne used to his advantage
influential classmates from Bowdoin College, such as the poet Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, Horatio Bridge, financier of Hawthorne’s
early works, and Franklin Pierce, soon-to-be President of the United
States, who underwrote his literary and political enterprises. In addi-
tion, other well-connected friends, among them John L. O’Sullivan,
editor of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review, and
Evert Duyckinck, editor of the Literary World, helped to get his short
stories published, circulated, and favourably reviewed.1 Thus, by the
time Hester Prynne exits the prison door, the groundwork has been laid
for antebellum readers to enter into her story with far more sympathetic
emotions than the Puritan matrons in the market-place who would
prefer to take the law into their own hands and ‘at the very least . . . put
the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead’ (p. 42). And
respond sympathetically they did, with the exception of some maga-
zines underwritten by religious precepts, which condemned the
novel for ‘encourag[ing] social licentiousness’.2 The word ‘genius’
frequently appears throughout reviews of The Scarlet Letter (Graham’s
Magazine, Brownson’s Quarterly Review, Universalist Quarterly), and
the North American Review, though critical of the text’s subject
matter, nevertheless concedes that Hawthorne is ‘the master of such
a wizard power over language’.3
Such lavish praise, however, is not to imply that Hawthorne enjoyed
terrific sales figures. The Scarlet Letter sold 10,000 copies during
Hawthorne’s life. When compared to Melville’s Moby-Dick, for
example, which according to William Charvat sold, ‘2500 copies in its

1 See chapter 1 of Tompkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction,

1790–1860 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 3–39 and Richard H. Brodhead, The
School of Hawthorne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
2 Arthur Cleveland Coxe, ‘The Writings of Hawthorne’, Church Review (January 1851),

iii. 489–511; cited in J. Donald Crowley (ed.), Hawthorne: The Critical Heritage (London:
Routledge, 1970), 182.
3 Crowley (ed.), Hawthorne: The Critical Heritage, 167.
 Introduction xiii
first five years, and only 2,965 in its first twenty’, Hawthorne’s num-
bers look pretty good.4 Yet relative to ‘that damned mob of scribbling
women’, an infamous appellation he bestowed upon the likes of
Maria Cummins, Susan Warner, and many, many other financially suc-
cessful women writers in an 1855 letter to his publisher, William Ticknor,
Hawthorne was a failure. The first month of sales for Cummings’s sen-
timental novel The Lamplighter (1854), an especial target of Hawthorne’s
venom (and envy), was 40,000 copies, and by the year’s end another
60,000 had been sold. Another case is Mary Jane Holmes, who accord-
ing to historian Mary Kelley was ‘next to Harriet Beecher Stowe
probably the biggest money-maker of the domestics’ and sold ‘more
than two million copies of her books’.5 It is no wonder that Hawthorne
lamented the disconnection between laudatory reviews of The Scarlet
Letter and lethargic sales figures.
Yet anyone familiar with that mob of scribblers would immedi-
ately recognize themes in Hawthorne’s novel that easily place him in
that company of women’s fiction.6 The most significant overlap is the
representation of family bonds gone awry, particularly Dimmesdale,
the father who refuses to recognize his biological child. Holmes’s Lena
Rivers (1856) or E. D. E. N. Southworth’s Ishmael, or in the Depths
(1863) may not ring many bells today (even though they were extremely
popular in the nineteenth century), but the fact is that, like them, and
even like the despised Lamplighter, The Scarlet Letter is about a weak
father (never mind that he is a respected minister) who withholds his
paternal identity, leaving the child in a no man’s land of undisciplined
subjectivity (and legally defined bastardy) and the mother in a spatial
and, of greater concern to Hawthorne, ethical wilderness. Having
broken the law of marital fidelity, Hester breaks an even more impor-
tant law—the affective framework of domestic relations. She refuses
to name Dimmesdale as the biological father and thereby denies
Pearl not only her rightful name, but the emotional rights she can

4
Matthew J. Bruccoli (ed.), The Profession of Authorship in America, 1800–1870: The
Papers of William Charvat (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1968), 241.
5
Mary Kelley, Private Woman, Public Stage: Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century
America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 24.
6 On the connections between Hawthorne and writers of sentimental fiction, see

Lora Romero, Home Fronts: Domesticity and its Critics in the Antebellum United States
(Durham NC: Duke Universtiy Press, 1997) who maintains that Hawthorne’s ‘estrange-
ment from the domestic’ (p. 97) fuelled his cultivation of ambiguity, irony (in short, his
modernist sensibility), which then helped buttress his canonical status.
xiv Introduction
only acquire through her membership in a recognizable bourgeois
family which would be defined in terms of her consanguineous relation
to her mother and father.7
That Hawthorne was writing The Scarlet Letter out of an intimate
knowledge of unconventional family relations is undeniable. At the age
of 3, he lost his own seafaring father to a case of yellow fever, which he
had contracted in Surinam, also known as Dutch Guiana, and there-
after lived with his mother and sisters in the home of his Uncle Robert
Manning for whom he did not have much affection. He was, however,
extremely close to his mother about whom he famously wrote, ‘why
was I not a girl that I might have been pinned all my life to my Mother’s
apron?’8 Within a year of her death Hawthorne had finished the novel,
which has a powerful mother at its centre. And a little baby, Pearl.
Hawthorne and his wife Sophia had a little girl, too, named Una, who
literary critics, most recently T. Walter Herbert, have argued is the
model for the ‘freakish, elfish’ (p. 77) Pearl.
His marriage to Sophia, moreover, catapulted Hawthorne into a
family whose preoccupation was family reform. Hawthorne’s sister-
in-law Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, for example, was an intellectual
activist who hosted and participated in lectures by leading feminist
Margaret Fuller, opened a bookstore that specialized in foreign texts,
and along with transcendentalist Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May)
founded the Temple School in Boston. His other sister-in-law, Mary
Peabody Mann, wrote an important treatise on childhood develop-
ment, The Moral Culture of Infancy (1864), and married Horace Mann,
the driving force behind the making of a national public school
system. To the dismay of both Hawthorne’s sister Elizabeth and the
other Peabody family members intent on reforming childhood educa-
tion, Sophia would not permit Una to learn how to read until she was
7 years old. Although Pearl’s ‘aspect [is] imbued with a spell of infinite
7
It is interesting to note that ‘The Massachusetts magistracy’ (p. 51) is relatively
lenient on Hester considering the seriousness of adultery, for which ‘the penalty thereof
is death’ (p. 51). She is not punished by death because the magistrates, presumably like
Hester, assume that it ‘is most likely [that] her husband may be at the bottom of the sea’
(p. 51). On Puritan adultery law, see George Lee Haskins, Law and Authority in Early
Massachusetts: A Study in Tradition and Design (New York: Macmillan, 1960). On adultery
law in the nineteenth century, see Hendrik Hartog, Man & Wife in America: A History
(Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000).
8 Nathaniel Hawthorne to Elizabeth Clarke Hawthorne, 7 March 1820, Nathaniel

Hawthorne, The Letters, 1813–1843, ed. Thomas Woodson, L. Neal Smith, and Norman
Holmes Pearson (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1985).
 Introduction xv
variety’ (p. 72), Mary Peabody Mann had warned that parents cannot
provide their children with the ‘variety of views’ necessary to a full
education and a healthy mentality. Una’s psychological troubles and
early death at the age of 33 would indicate that Mary was correct, and
Hawthorne’s description that ‘[Pearl’s] nature appeared to possess
depth [but] lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which
she was born’ (p. 72) suggests that he agrees.9
To be sure, critics have emphasized how the novel and its primary
symbol catapult readers into a world of multiplicity and depth, where
The Scarlet Letter/the scarlet letter refers to Puritan discipline, to aes-
thetic production, to Hawthorne’s career, to female abjection, to the
process of interpretation itself. However, one might also say that the
‘cultural work’, to invoke Tompkins’s useful term, of Hawthorne’s
novel, like so many sentimental novels, is more targeted in its effort
to get Pearl’s references right, thereby helping her to adapt. It is not
the case, we should remember, that Pearl doesn’t have a frame of ref-
erence or, more accurately, many frames. The problem is that they are
not human: ‘the unlikeliest materials, a stick, a bunch of rags, a flower,
were the puppets of Pearl’s witchcraft, and, without undergoing any
outward change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occu-
pied the stage of her inner world’ (p. 75). The objects in this list are
strange, multiple, highly specific, and most importantly, inanimate.
They capture the incoherence of Pearl’s childhood world at the same
time as they become reference points for ‘her inner world’, thereby
establishing a sense of coherence. But only for her and, as such, they
need to be fixed. Specifically, what needs to happen is that her refer-
ences or, more precisely, her primary references must become human
in order for her to be recognizably human.
The problem, though, is that each of the adults in the novel is, in
some way or another, obstructing the process of Pearl’s human, rather
than spiritual, adaptation. Most obviously, Dimmesdale’s unwilling-
ness to claim Pearl as his daughter has the effect of dehumanizing her
so that in a catechism scene that interestingly foreshadows Topsy’s
catechism in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Pearl answers
the question ‘who made thee’ (p. 87) by ‘announc[ing] that she had
9 For discussions of Una’s life and the central role she played in Hawthorne’s construc-

tion of Pearl, see Brenda Wineapple, Hawthorne: A Life (New York: Random House,
2003) and T. Walter Herbert, Dearest Beloved: The Hawthornes and the Making of the
Middle-Class Family (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993).
xvi Introduction
not been made at all, but had been plucked by her mother off the bush
of wild roses that grew by the prison-door’ (p. 88). That she responds
in this fashion, moreover, points to Hester’s role in Pearl’s untamed,
because non-human, referentiality, which is one of the main reasons
the Puritan elders threaten to take the child away from the mother.
The narrator seems never to tire of pointing out that Hester takes
Pearl to be ‘the scarlet letter endowed with life’ (p. 80). And not
only that but that Hester has ‘carefully wrought out the similitude’
(p. 80). Hester, albeit unintentionally, dehumanizes Pearl as well, not
only by ‘creat[ing] an analogy between the object of her affection, and
the emblem of her guilt and torture’ (p. 80), but also by protecting
Dimmesdale. The consequences of Hester turning Pearl into a sign,
of relinquishing the child’s membership in a biological family, are
grave. The child as sign, paradoxically, becomes incapable of signifying
the one thing that is demanded of her: the identity of both parents.
When Mr Wilson, the Puritan pastor who listens to Dimmesdale’s plea
on behalf of Hester, in ‘The Elf-Child and the Minister’, contends
that ‘every good Christian Man hath a title to show a father’s kind-
ness towards the poor, deserted babe’ (p. 91), the fact is that ‘a
father’s kindness’, especially if it looks like Dimmesdale’s, is woefully
insufficient.
The case of Chillingworth is more interesting and complex than
one might think, given the odd fact that there is virtually nothing in
the novel about Pearl’s relationship to him and yet Chillingworth
includes Pearl in his decision to remain in New England. He states,
‘I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there
exist the closest ligaments’ (p. 61). As Hester’s legal husband and
according to the laws of coverture, which hold that marriage requires
a woman to give up all that is hers to her husband, he is correct to say
as he does in ‘The Interview’ that ‘thou and thine . . . belong to me’
(p. 61).10 It is also worth remembering that Pearl’s last name is Prynne,
which is, of course, Chillingworth’s real last name before changing it
so that ‘there are none in this land that know me’ (p. 61). In other
words, Pearl is Dimmesdale’s, but she is also Chillingworth’s, and, of
course, Hester’s, who ‘has a mother’s rights’ (p. 89).11 But even

10 The place of the law in The Scarlet Letter has been interestingly analysed by a

number of critics, including Laura Hanft Korobkin, ‘The Scarlet Letter of the Law:
Hawthorne and Criminal Justice’, Novel (Winter 1997), 193–217.
11 Brook Thomas makes this point in ‘Citizen Hester: The Scarlet Letter as Civic

Myth’, ALH (2001), 181–211.

 Introduction xvii
Hester’s claim to Pearl is tenuous. True, she (and Dimmesdale) argue
in ‘The Governor’s Hall’ chapter against the separation of mother and
child on the grounds of a nineteenth-century legal doctrine, known as
the ‘best interests of the child’, which established the primacy of chil-
dren’s affective rights. Yet in ‘Pearl’, the chapter that precedes ‘The
Governor’s Hall’, Hester wonders, ‘art thou my child, in very truth?’
and avers, ‘Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!’ (p. 78).
Therefore, another way to put the problem of Pearl’s adaptation is to
think about it in terms of the question, to whom does the child belong?12
Once that issue gets resolved, she can join the ranks of the human, get
married, and even inherit property. Regarding this last point, it is par-
ticularly intriguing that in the chapter ‘The Conclusion’, we learn that
Chillingworth ‘bequeathed a very considerable amount of property,
both here and in England, to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester
Prynne’ (p. 202). The identification of Pearl as ‘the daughter of Hester
Prynne’ is interesting because the very act of giving Pearl his property
registers a relation, but of what degree remains ambiguous. Indeed,
the phrase ‘the daughter of Hester Prynne’ functions to distinguish
Hester’s consanguineous bonds to Pearl from Chillingworth’s, as
well as Dimmesdale’s. Pearl is Hester’s. Whether this is the language
of the legal document (‘little Pearl’, however, does not sound very
legalistic) or the narrator’s rendering of it or a combination thereof
makes it difficult to know whether Bellingham and Wilson, the
executors of the will, are protecting Dimmesdale’s reputation, or
Hawthorne is, in the end, questioning the entire trajectory of the
novel which has led to a disclosure of biological paternity that turns
out not to be as relevant as one might think. Perhaps Chillingworth’s
legal embrace of paternal responsibility in the absence of DNA trumps
Dimmesdale’s powerful, though ‘feebl[e]’ acknowledgement of Pearl
as ‘my little Pearl’ (p. 199). Chillingworth’s will, by contrast, is any-
thing but feeble. It reflects the practical understanding that if ‘thou
and thine belong to me’, then what belongs to him belongs to Pearl.
Yes, Pearl is Hester’s, but Chillingworth’s will is a recognition of the
fact that Pearl is also his. With this extraordinarily powerful act of
12 On the importance of this question of belonging in both sentimental novels and

slave narratives, see Cindy Weinstein, Family, Kinship, and Sympathy in Nineteenth-
Century American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Also see
Bethany Reid, who takes up the issues of family and the importance of Chillingworth in
‘Narrative of the Captivity and Redemption of Roger Prynne: Rereading The Scarlet
Letter’, Studies in the Novel, 33 (Fall 2001), 247–67. For more on this topic, see works
by Brown, Sanchez-Eppler, and Ragussis in the Select Bibliography.
xviii Introduction
legal disposition, Chillingworth, perhaps the unlikeliest of charac-
ters, makes Pearl fully human. His will does not come out and name
Pearl as Pearl Prynne, but the effect of it is to do just that.

‘I doubt greatly–or rather, I do not doubt at all’

The issue of Pearl’s socially incoherent referentiality gets resolved
in the course of the novel when the people in her life acknowledge
themselves as her primary points of reference. The references remain
multiple (Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth), but they are human.
And, as they replace the sticks and the bunch of rags as guides to her
‘inner world’, Pearl becomes human too. Her rags, one could say,
must be dispensed with in order to make room for Hawthorne’s ‘rag of
scarlet cloth’ (p. 27). Indeed, for Hawthorne, that rag that ‘assumed
the shape of a letter’ (p. 27) is the key to his professional identity as
author. In contrast to the alleged necessity of fixing Pearl’s references
to a particular signifying framework that is in this case familial rela-
tions, the narrator (and Hawthorne) create a linguistic world in
which fixity is anathema. When Hawthorne writes a novel in which
a scarlet letter comes to signify crime, punishment, love, family, and
virtually anything else a reader might want to find in the letter, his
career is launched. When Hester turns Pearl into a scarlet letter, the
child becomes a witch, an elf, ‘an imp of evil’ (p. 74), and loses her
humanity. In embracing the interpretative play of the letter’s mul-
tiple referentiality, Hawthorne can do in The Scarlet Letter what
Hester cannot do with Pearl. The multiplicity of meaning is Haw-
thorne’s ticket to canonicity; it is what Hester must abdicate.
It makes perfect sense, then, that the question of multiple referen-
tiality for the narrator (and Hawthorne) never really gets resolved. In
fact, the narrator, as the quotation about doubt begins to suggest,
calls attention to and even relishes the capacity of language to signify
in strange and contradictory ways. The reader of the sentence about
doubt, with which this section begins, is herself thrown into a state
of doubt about the narrator’s point of view and exactly what the sen-
tence means. Does the narrator doubt greatly, or does he not doubt
at all? The truth, of course, is that the two phrases on either side of
the hyphen here mean the same thing, but the narrator presents them
as opposed. We are in the realm of what Hawthorne describes in the
prefaces to The House of the Seven Gables (1851) and The Blithedale
 Introduction xix
Romance (1852) as ‘the romance’, that in-between world of moonlight
and chiaroscuro, where objects, including words, ‘are so spiritualized
by the unusual light that they seem to lose their actual substance and
become things of intellect’ (p. 30). We shall see that the suspension
and convergence of opposition that occurs here in miniaturized form
takes on grander proportions and heightened importance when this
structure organizes readings of the scarlet letter/The Scarlet Letter.13
But for now the relevant point is the narrator’s awareness of the
difficulty of telling his story, not only because of the potential for lan-
guage to signify in ways that elude his control (and meaning), but also
because of the complexities of his particular mode of retrospective nar-
ration. The narrator of The Scarlet Letter simultaneously tells the story
about the past in the past tense, but constantly announces its point of
view as located in the present. For example, he describes ‘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’ (p. 42). About Hester, he writes that ‘she
was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those
days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the
delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recognized
as its indication’ (p. 44). Here, the juxtaposition of past and present
establishes the different standards of beauty regarding gender and fore-
grounds the narrator’s temporal position and aesthetic leanings.
Such positioning, in fact, is crucial to The Scarlet Letter, although
the narrator’s perspective isn’t always so easily discerned. One more
quotation from ‘The Market-place’ will serve to make this point.
The location of Hester’s punishment is ‘a sort of scaffold’, which
the narrator explains as follows: ‘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 cit-
izenship, as ever was the guillotine among the terrorists of France’
(p. 45). The reader is shuttled back and forth geographically, liken-
ing the use of the scaffold in America to that in France, and tempo-
rally, between the function of the scaffold in the seventeenth century
and its place in the nineteenth, with a stop in the eighteenth century
for the French Revolution. For the narrator to call it ‘merely historical

13
On Hawthorne and the romance, see Chase, Bell, and Porte.
xx Introduction
and traditionary’ is to imply a significance about the scaffold that
exceeds its place in history and tradition. This is, indeed, the case
because for Hester ‘the scaffold of the pillory’ (p. 47) becomes a ‘point
of view’ (p. 47) from which Hester (and Hawthorne) is able to con-
struct a narrative of her origins in ‘Old England’ up to her present
ordeal in ‘the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement’ (p. 48).
In a novel preoccupied with point of view, such a description,
especially one so careful to make clear that the point of view is neither
the scaffold nor the pillory but rather ‘the scaffold of the pillory’,
gives one pause. A scaffold in 1642 would have been used only for
public execution. A pillory was punishment by exposure, and some-
times included physical pain, though not, as the narrator writes, in
Hester’s case. Larry S. Reynolds has painstakingly analysed the allu-
siveness of Hawthorne’s historical layering of the Puritan Revolution
(the beheading of King Charles), the French Revolution of 1789, and
the February 1848 Revolution in order to demonstrate how the set-
ting of the scaffold ‘links the narrator of “The Custom-House”
sketch with the two main characters in the romance proper, and it
raises their common predicaments above the plane of the personal
into the helix of history’.14 The narrator, however, seems to have
another definition of a scaffold in mind, when he refines what ‘sort
of ’ scaffold it is: ‘it was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and
above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fash-
ioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold
it up to the public gaze’ (p. 46). Thus, the platform upon which
Hester stands provides her with a point of view, though it is interest-
ing to note that the view is not necessarily hers. That she imagines a
competing narrative is the subject of Chapter 13, ‘Another View of
Hester’. Upon the platform, she reads in the public gaze their puni-
tive narrative of her life that has led up to this moment of ignominy.
When Dimmesdale ascends this same structure in Chapter XII,
‘The Minister’s Vigil’, in an attempt to replicate Hester’s punish-
ment, the narrator refuses to let him get away with what is described
as ‘this vain show of expiation’ (p. 117). Materially speaking, he can
walk up to the same place as Hester and assume the same physical
position upon the structure, but the framework, that is the ideology,
of that disciplinary structure is missing. Without the ‘public view’

14
Larry J. Reynolds, ‘The Scarlet Letter and Revolutions Abroad’, American Literature,
57.1 (March 1985), 44–67.
 Introduction xxi
(p. 119), which the narrator earlier explained as the most torturous
aspect of Hester’s ordeal, Dimmesdale’s repetition is one that makes
no difference. It is only in the final scene when ‘the gaze of the horror-
stricken multitude’ witnesses Dimmedale ‘tear[ing] away the minis-
terial band from before his breast’ and, presumably, seeing ‘his own red
stigma’ (p. 198) that the narrator’s attitude towards Dimmesdale soft-
ens, characterizing him, interestingly, in harder, more conventionally
masculine terms. Whereas earlier Dimmesdale’s spirit is ‘so shat-
tered and subdued, that it could hardly hold itself erect’ (p. 154),
this later chapter finds him ‘[fighting] back the bodily weakness’ and
speaking ‘with a kind of fierceness’ (p. 198).
Hester’s point of view is, however, not just a function of spatial
location, but of gender too. Dimmesdale’s attempt to simulate
Hester’s experience is mocked by the narrator, but he seems unaware
of the fact that he, too, will not be able to occupy the experience of
Hester’s point of view. Significantly, what accompanies this more
masculinized Dimmesdale is a rebuke of Hester’s radical assertion, in
the chapter ‘The Pastor and his Parishioner’, that their love ‘had a
consecration of its own’ (p. 152). That Hester’s femininity has been
compromised is evident as she, the parishioner, ‘instinctively exer-
cise[s] a magnetic power’ (p. 154) over the pastor, and not the other
way around. In the final scene at the scaffold when Dimmesdale,
though in the third person, acknowledges his bonds with Hester and
Pearl, he also stabilizes the gender hierarchy that Hester’s actions in
the forest and revolutionary ideas in the domestic space had tried to
upset. Because ‘the world’s law was no law for her mind’ and ‘a
freedom of speculation’ had led her to imagine a redefinition of
gender relations, which the narrator says ‘would have [been] held
to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter’
(p. 129), the narrator presents Dimmesdale’s rejection of her plan of
escape as a good and necessary thing.15

15
The question of Hawthorne’s attitude toward feminism has been a key issue for read-
ings of The Scarlet Letter, as well as Hawthorne’s entire oeuvre. Nina Baym’s work has been
essential in making the case for Hawthorne as a feminist (see The Shape of Hawthorne’s Career
(Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1976)). For a more contemporary restatement of this
position, as well as an account of arguments against her reading, see ‘Revisiting Hawthorne’s
Feminism’, in Millicent Bell (ed.), Hawthorne and the Real: Bicentennial Essays (Columbus:
Ohio State University Press, 2005), 107–24. Berlant and Pfister challenge Hawthorne’s fem-
inist credentials, whereas Herbert and Easton argue that Hawthorne’s mixed messages about
feminism actually say more about his dissatisfaction with conventional masculine roles.
xxii Introduction
Thus, it is also the case that the representation of Hester (and
Dimmesdale) on the platform provides the narrator with a point of
view, which is another reason why this site has such a significant
structural role in the novel. His is a point of view, for example, that
though deeply invested in and learned about Puritan history does
not always correspond with fact. The use of the term scaffold is just
one example. Others, about which Colacurcio has written so exten-
sively, include the purposeful designation of Bellingham as governor
when he was not only not governor but in a lot of trouble with
Winthrop, who was governor. At the time, Winthrop was challeng-
ing Bellingham’s attempt to marry a woman without following the
rules of Puritan law and was unsuccessfully trying to put Bellingham
on trial; the latter refused to leave the bench long enough for some-
one to adjudicate the case. Or there is the fact that William Prynne,
a Puritan who attacked the regime of Charles I for its religious
indiscretions, was branded on both cheeks with an ‘S’ and an ‘L’
to signify seditious libel. The narrator cherry picks and inaccurately
incorporates names and events from the Puritan past, the effect of
which is to construct a tale that rereads the past by wilfully chang-
ing it. Making Bellingham the governor, though historically incor-
rect, nevertheless makes the correct point about Puritan hypocrisy.
Similarly, even though the historical William Prynne becomes a
woman in the novel, the fact of Puritan intolerance remains. The
positions, the places, even the gender might change, but these seem-
ingly indisputable facts appear to be less important as indicators
of what the past was really like to Hawthorne than the deliberate
cruelty and intolerance of the Puritan way of life. Hawthorne’s genre
of choice—the historical novel—is, like Hester’s aestheticization of
the letter, ultimately transgressive. It is constituted out of the pur-
poseful confounding of fact and fiction, of historical personages serv-
ing the purposes of fictional characters and fictional characters
serving the purposes of their author.
Such transgressions give the narrator access to a historical past
that remains hidden if one only reads history for dates and names.
Throughout ‘The Custom-House’ and the novel that follows, espe-
cially its opening scenes, temporal frames are overlaid, one upon
another, disclosing the multiple meanings that objects and subjects
contain. Of course, this description is a fitting one for the scarlet
letter, cloth and text, as author and character overlap and merge into
 Introduction xxiii
one another.16 The similarities between them are many. Like Hester,
Hawthorne finds himself subject to the ignominy of Puritan judges,
who are also his blood ancestors, and imagines them ridiculing him
as ‘a writer of story-books’ (p. 10). Like Hester’s entrance into the
market-place, Hawthorne is extraordinarily pained and self-conscious
about entering the literary market, and he tries to escape through irony,
humour, self-deprecation, and remembrance. Like Hester’s ‘preternat-
urally active’ mind and memory, which ‘kept bringing up other scenes’
(p. 47), Hawthorne’s imagination similarly takes flight in order to avoid
the critical gaze of his forefathers. He takes cover, in fact, by falsely pre-
senting himself in his ‘true position as editor’ (p. 6) of Surveyor Pue’s
papers. And like Hester, Hawthorne discovers ‘a view’ in the ‘spacious
edifice of brick’ (p. 6) that is the Custom-House.
Losing his position in the Custom-House, a consequence of his
allegiance to the Democratic Party which, therefore, puts him on the
losing side when Zachary Taylor’s Whig Party wins the presidency,
is the condition for Hawthorne’s writing of ‘The Custom-House’.
As Michael Gilmore observes, ‘it must be among the oddest intro-
ductions on record to a major work of art, a narrative of the author’s
failure to compose the very text we are holding in our hands’.17
Nevertheless, it is in ‘The Custom-House’ that Hawthorne creates
the fiction of Hester Prynne and the letter. If his ‘imagination was a
tarnished mirror’ (p. 29) while working as a political flunkey, he pol-
ishes it in the process of composing The Scarlet Letter. The result is
that through Hester’s story, Hawthorne produces an alternative narra-
tive, his ‘second story’ (p. 24), in which he matches his scorn against his
forefathers, who, without mercy, hanged alleged witches and persecuted
innocent Quakers for a living, against their scorn for him. Unwilling
to accept their judgement of himself as an ‘idler’ and ‘fiddler’ (p. 10),
Hawthorne fires back by writing a novel that would make him as famous,
though not as feared, as they.

16
Hester is not the only character with whom Hawthorne identifies. Dimmesdale’s
powerful oratory, for example, is not unlike Hawthorne’s in that both men traffic in the
multiple meanings of words. See Michael T. Gilmore, American Romanticism and the
Marketplace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982). Chillingworth, too, in his
scientific enquiry into Dimmesdale’s character embodies Hawthorne’s worries about
how his representation, especially his fondness for allegory, takes the warmth out of his
fictional creations.
17 Michael T. Gilmore, ‘Hawthorne and Politics (Again)’, in M. Bell (ed.), Hawthorne

and the Real: Bicentennial Essays (Columbus: State University of Ohio Press, 2005), 29.
xxiv Introduction

Another view of Hawthorne

Something strange, however, happens in the course of Hawthorne’s self-
defence. Hester’s story proves to be a complicated mirror that provides
him with a point of view from which he separates himself. As literary
critics have observed, there is a shift in sympathy that takes place in the
narrator, which coincides with several developments in the plot. First is
the unfolding of the Dimmesdale/Chillingworth relationship, and the
cultivation of the reader’s sympathies towards the former. Dimmesdale’s
self-flagellation, coupled with Chillingworth’s scientific and sadistic
treatment of the minister, unsettles our sense of exactly who the victim is
in the story. Hester’s cruel treatment at the hands of the public seems
relatively tame compared to the malice that Chillingworth exacts against
Dimmesdale in the privacy of their shared quarters.18 Second is the rep-
resentation of Hester’s interiority and the narrator’s famous pronounce-
ment, ‘the scarlet letter had not done its office’ (p. 130). This doesn’t
count in Hester’s favour, although the reader might have thought and
even hoped it would have, given the narrator’s demonstrated sympa-
thy for Hester in the early chapters. For example, the comparison
between Hester and ‘the sainted Ann Hutchinson’ (p. 40) in the first
chapter suggests a positive link between fictional heroine and Puritan
Antinomian, who challenged the religious hierarchy of Winthrop and
John Cotton, among others, by claiming, according to Colacurcio, ‘a
totally self-sufficient private illumination’ contra the ‘organized, legal-
istic intolerance . . . [of] an emerging Puritan orthodoxy’.19
Ann Hutchinson is not, however, the only woman Hawthorne has
in mind when constructing and eventually critiquing Hester. Margaret
Fuller is another. Hawthorne’s relationship with her was complicated,
according to Brenda Wineapple, not only because ‘he may have sensed
that she thought him attractive, and he may have been attracted to
her himself ’, but also because she ‘embodied Hawthorne’s idea of
the modern woman—oppressed, confused, intelligent’.20 There was
18
The homoerotic aspect of the Dimmesdale–Chillingworth relationship is discussed by
Romero, Herbert in ‘Hawthorne and American Masculinity’, and Robert K. Martin’s essay
‘Hester Prynne, C’est Moi: Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Anxieties of Gender’, in Joseph
A. Boone and Michael Cadden (eds.), Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist
Criticism (New York: Routledge, 1990), 122–31.
19 ‘Footsteps of Ann Hutchinson: The Context of The Scarlet Letter’, ELH 39 (1972),

459–94 (p. 471).

20 Wineapple, Hawthorne, 180.
 Introduction xxv
also the potential problem, though never realized, of Fuller’s radicaliz-
ing influence on his wife Sophia. Fuller’s tepid review of Mosses from an
Old Manse, in which she anticipates Henry James’s famous claim that
he ‘fe[lt] this want of reality’,21 and writes, ‘Hawthorne intimates and
suggests, but he does not lay bare the mysteries of our being’,22 did
not help. Most certainly, Hawthorne felt that he had an axe to grind,
and Hester’s Fuller-like ‘tendency to speculation, though it may
keep woman quiet, as it does man, yet makes her sad’ (p. 130) permits
him to establish a point of view different from and, at times, critical
of Hester’s.
By the time the narrator comes to reflect upon her development,
seven years after the novel’s opening scene, she has changed in ways
with which he is not at all comfortable: ‘Hester Prynne did not now
occupy precisely the same position in which we beheld her during
the earlier periods of her ignominy’ (p. 125). Like so many of
Hawthorne’s earlier characters, who suffer from monomania or the
tyranny of one idea over an individual’s consciousness—Roderick
Elliston of ‘The Bosom Serpent’, Aylmer of ‘The Birth-mark’, or
Owen Warland in ‘The Artist of the Beautiful’ come to mind—
Hester is consumed by the scarlet letter and consequently detached
from humankind. Unlike these characters, though, Hester is a
woman, and the effects of her being ‘alone in the world,—alone, as
to any dependence on society . . . alone, and hopeless of retrieving her
position’ (pp. 128–9) appear even more catastrophic, if that is possible,
from the narrator’s point of view than the damaging consequences
of masculine solitude. Her inner rage at being punished leads to an
array of violent thoughts, ranging from the destruction of the social
fabric by declaring null and void its gender arrangements to the
notion that perhaps ‘it were not better to send Pearl at once to
heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Justice should pro-
vide’ (p. 130). The ‘A’ has worked its ideological magic on someone,
but instead of Hester, it is the narrator.
Why? We can answer this question by returning to the Custom-
House, where Hawthorne ascends to ‘the second story’ (p. 24) and
discovers the scarlet letter among the documents of Mr Surveyor
Pue. He cannot take his eyes off the letter and remarks, ‘Certainly,
21 Henry James, Hawthorne (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1956; 1st pub.

1879), 90.
22 Ibid. 194.
xxvi Introduction
there was some deep meaning in it, most worthy of interpretation,
and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic symbol, subtly
communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my
mind’ (p. 27). What he finds so mesmerizing about the letter, then, is its
capacity to mean. It represents the possibility of linguistic infinitude.
There is a fluidity and subtlety about the ‘mystic symbol’ that
rejects simplicity and stasis. It is also important to note that its abil-
ity to mean, or to signify, is not at all the equivalent of its meaning.
Hester accepts neither the changing status of the letter’s meaning
(basically she doesn’t care if, to the community, the letter means
Able), nor the related point that the value of the letter lies in its sig-
nifying potential. She is willing to apply these principles of signify-
ing excess to Pearl, but, as we have seen, the pleasures of multiplicity
when conducted in the realm of domestic relations lead not to infinite
interpretation but to incoherence. By contrast, when it comes to the
letter, no matter how beautifully adorned, Hester takes it to mean
adultery and therefore always alluding to her sin, punishment, and
difference from the community.
The signifying status of language is of great interest not only to
Hawthorne, but also to the generation of writers and thinkers of his
time, including, of course, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, and Fuller, as
well as Coleridge, Carlyle, and Wordsworth, their influential romantic
counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic. The ‘A’ is obviously
the most powerful manifestation of this interpretative potential, but
we can also see it at work throughout the Custom-House sketch; in
fact, Hawthorne’s distinct narrative style is a crystallization of this
potential. His description of Salem is a case in point. He writes,
‘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’ (p. 9). One wonders, is it the
present or the past? Does Salem still possess this hold or did it once
upon a time? Another, more developed example occurs later, while
the narrator is rummaging around the second story. He remarks
upon ‘worthless scratchings of the pen’ (p. 25), a description he
immediately takes back (sort of) with the following: ‘Yet not alto-
gether worthless, perhaps, as materials of local history’ (p. 25). Are
they worthless or not? If they are not “altogether worthless”, then
why the perhaps? After this alleged clarification, he adds in a similar
vein of give and take back, ‘Here, no doubt, statistics of the former
 Introduction xxvii
commerce of Salem might be discovered’ (p. 25). If there is ‘no doubt’,
then why the word ‘might’? The narrator of ‘The Custom-House’ is
also the narrator of The Scarlet Letter, and so it should come as no sur-
prise when the narrator finds himself changing his mind about Hester as
the subject of her inability to accept the mutability of the letter comes up
in the key chapter ‘Another View of Hester’.
Exactly how the introductory sketch relates to The Scarlet Letter has
been the focus of extensive analysis. Kenneth Dauber suggests that
‘The Custom-House’ ‘reclaims The Scarlet Letter for Hawthorne
himself . . . [It] is Hawthorne’s assertion that the form of The Scarlet
Letter is his own form as well.’23 Such a reclamation, Dauber con-
tends, was in response to Fields’s decision not to do what Hawthorne
proposed. Hawthorne wanted to fold in The Scarlet Letter with other
short stories, including ‘Main-Street’, a reference to which still remains
in ‘The Custom-House’. Fields was right. It may not have been
Hawthorne’s original intention for us to read the particular text that we
call The Scarlet Letter on its own, but he did want ‘The Custom-House’
to serve as its introduction. And given the narrator’s penchant for lan-
guage that exists in a state of suspension (like the romance which exists
in an ‘in-between’ space where ‘the Actual and the Imaginary may
meet’, p. 30), it is only a matter of time until he validates the Puritan’s
capacity to transform the meaning of the ‘A’ from Adultery to ‘Abel’
(p. 127) and even ‘Angel’ (p. 124) and critiques Hester’s inability to go
along for the interpretative ride.
In resisting the hermeneutic seductions of ‘the mystic symbol’
(p. 27), other critics have suggested that Hester ultimately becomes
an antagonist to the narrator’s raison d’être, as he aligns himself with
the ‘many people [who] refused to interpret the scarlet A by its orig-
inal signification’ (p. 127). Unlike the narrator who presents the
reader with a variety of possible explanations for events, what Sacvan
Bercovitch describes as Hawthorne’s ‘device of multiple choice’,

23 Rediscovering Hawthorne (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 40. Exactly

how the introductory sketch relates to The Scarlet Letter has been the subject of exten-
sive analysis. In an important essay delineating the place of class in the novel, Michael
T. Gilmore maintains that the ‘formal separation into preface and narrative operates to
exhibit and to dissolve the structures of middle-class existence’, especially the
dichotomy of public and private (‘Hawthorne and the Making of the Middle Class’, in
Wai Chee Dimock and Michael T. Gilmore (eds.), Rethinking Class: Literary Studies and
Social Formations (New York: Columbia Univeristy Press, 1994, 230). Also see Millington
and Dauber.
xxviii Introduction
Hester makes choices.24 In ‘Another View of Hester’, we are told that
in concealing Chillingworth’s identity from Dimmesdale ‘she had made
her choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared, the more wretched alter-
native of the two’ (p. 131). In ‘The Pastor and his Parishioner’, the nar-
rator again states, ‘Hester felt that the sacrifice of the clergyman’s good
name, and death itself . . . would have been infinitely preferable to the
alternative which she had taken upon herself to choose’ (p. 151). One
wonders why all of the choices are Hester’s, and why her choice not to
tell Dimmesdale about Chillingworth is viewed as more devastating
to Dimmesdale than his choice not to disclose his paternal identity,
which makes him the perfect victim for Chillingworth’s psychic
depredations.
Literary critics have been split on how to read Hawthorne’s
attitude towards Hester and, more broadly, the feminist implications
(or lack thereof) of the novel. His relationship with Fuller, one of the
leading feminists of the day, and Hester’s nineteenth-century proto-
type, would lay the groundwork for an interpretation that views
Hester’s feminism unsympathetically. Jonathan Arac contends, ‘only
to the extent that the ideal Hester exists can Hawthorne be consid-
ered a fundamentally subversive writer’.25 Robert S. Levine, however,
considers antebellum feminist responses to The Scarlet Letter, includ-
ing those of Grace Greenwood, Charlotte Forten, and Jane Swisshelm,
which help make the case that The Scarlet Letter is a profoundly femi-
nist text, even if Hawthorne had intended a different message. In an
illuminating review that Levine argues is central to understanding the
gender politics of the novel, Swisshelm claims, ‘If Hawthorne really
wants to teach the lesson ostensibly written on the pages of his book, he
had better try again. For our part if we knew there was such another
woman as Hester Prynne in Boston now, we should travel all the way
24 The Office of the Scarlet Letter (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991),

21. Whereas Bercovitch (and others, as we shall see) reads this cultivation of ambiguity
as the hallmark of liberalism, and therefore a kind of coercion dressed up as free choice,
other critics celebrate the ambiguity for its aesthetic distinctiveness and excellence. On
the latter approach, see F. O. Matthiessen, The American Renaissance: Art and Expression
in the Age of Emerson and Whitman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), Charles
Feidelson, ‘The Scarlet Letter’, in Roy Harvey Pearce (ed.), Hawthorne Centenary Essays
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1964), 31–77. For more recent discussions of
Hawthorne’s aesthetic practice, see Bell and Van Leer.
25 Jonathan Arac, ‘The Politics of The Scarlet Letter’, in Sacvan Bercovitch and Myra

Jehlen (eds.), Ideology and Classic American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986), 259.
 Introduction xxix
there to pay our respects, while the honorable characters of the book are
such poor affairs it would scarce be worth while throwing a mud-ball at
the best of them.’26 In addition, she applauds Hester’s choices, in
essence arguing that Hawthorne has put her in an untenable situation:
‘What one instinctively blames her for is, that she did not save her poor
imbecile lover from the insane persecutions of the old sinner who was
putting him to death by slow tortures. She should have protected
Dimmesdale as well as kept his secret.’27 The grandeur of her char-
acter resides in the impossible choices she has made.
As we have seen, the narrator prefers not to make choices or, more
precisely, narrates the possible outcomes of the choices one might make,
which links him to Dimmesdale, ‘this feeble and most sensitive of spir-
its [who] could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another’
(pp. 116–17), more than to Hester. For example, in ‘The Minister’s
Vigil’, the narrator writes, in reference to Dimmesdale seeing ‘the letter
A’ in the sky while on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl, ‘We impute it,
therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and heart, that the minis-
ter, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an
immense letter’ (p. 122). The narrator has made a choice. Dimmesdale
sees the letter because he is diseased. The chapter concludes, however,
with the sexton, who has recovered Dimmesdale’s glove, asking the
minister, ‘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’ (p. 124), in honour of Winthrop’s death.28 Seen by
whom? And how many? If other people have seen the letter, do they all
suffer from Dimmesdale’s ‘disease’? Perhaps this is the case; after all,
the narrator reminds us that ‘nothing was more common, in those
days, than to interpret all meteoric appearances, and other natural

26
Jane Swisshelm, review in Saturday Visiter, 28 Septermber 1850; reprinted in
Leland Person (ed.), The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings (New York: Norton, 2005), 274.
27 Person (ed.), The Scarlet Letter, 274.
28
The full text reads, ‘For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this
past night’ (p. 124). It is significant because this gives us the dates of the novel, 1642–9,
and calls attention to the strategic ruse of making Bellingham governor. See Charles Ryskamp,
‘The New England Sources of The Scarlet Letter’, in American Literature, 31 (1959), 257–72.
On the importance of Winthrop in the text, see Michael Colacurcio, ‘The Woman’s Own
Choice’, in New Essays on ‘The Scarlet Letter’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985),
101–35, Kristin Boudreau, From Sympathy in American Literature: American Sentiments from
Jefferson to the Jameses (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), esp. 49–82,
Lauren and Berlant, The Anatomy of National Fantasy (Chicago: Chicago University
Press, 1991).
xxx Introduction
phenomena, that occurred with less regularity than the rise and set
of sun and moon, as so many revelations from a supernatural source’
(pp. 121–2). What seems like the point of the passage—Dimmesdale
sees the letter and this is so because he is a monomaniac and sees the
letter ‘A’ everywhere—becomes complicated by the fact that at least
one other person has seen the letter, which would appear to support
the claim that there was, indeed, a letter in the sky. However, the
narrator also suggests that the Puritans are not unlike Dimmesdale
and, like him, have a monomaniacal tendency to interpret phenomena
as applicable to themselves, which would appear to support the claim
that there was not, indeed, a letter in the sky. The distinction between
letter and no letter breaks down, as does the distinction between
Dimmesdale’s state of mind and everyone else’s. Maybe they are all
‘diseased’ and there is a letter. Maybe they are all ‘diseased’ and there
isn’t a letter. Maybe they are not all ‘diseased’ and there is a letter.
Maybe they are not all ‘diseased’ and there is no letter.

What about all of the other letters?

It is precisely this kind of interpretative vertigo that the criticism of
the last twenty-five years has attempted to explain. Rather than read-
ing this proliferation of possible interpretations as an aesthetic mode
of narration that puts into practice romantic ideas about language,
critics have contextualized what Bercovitch calls Hawthorne’s ‘ambi-
guities of both/and’29 in relation to antebellum politics. Arac’s essay,
for example, ‘The Politics of The Scarlet Letter’ reads Hawthorne’s
‘hermeneutics of indeterminacy’ (p. 249) not as some kind of aesthetic
flight from mid-nineteenth century politics, but rather as their very
incarnation. According to this argument, Hawthorne’s indeterminacy
encapsulates, in literary form, a deeply flawed political view which holds
that the nation can incorporate both slavery and freedom. In other
words, the narrative style of Hawthorne’s novel, which appeared the
same year as the Compromise of 1850, is thus understood to be a lit-
erary version of that Compromise which staved off the Civil War for
eleven years by outlawing slavery in California and Washington DC,
but allowing it (by not prohibiting it) in the territories of New
Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. The most controversial part of

29
Bercovitch, The Office of The Scarlet Letter, 31.
 Introduction xxxi
the Compromise was the Fugitive Slave Law, which required the
north to cooperate with the south by returning escaped slaves. Not
to cooperate was to break the law. It was this that prompted Stowe to
write Uncle Tom’s Cabin. What does Hawthorne have to say about all
of this in The Scarlet Letter? How can one of the most canonical texts
not have anything to say about the subject that was tearing the coun-
try apart?30 What if his narrative technique is representing a less than
satisfying position about slavery?
Using Hawthorne’s biography of Franklin Pierce, published only
two years after The Scarlet Letter, Arac maintains that the novel’s
predilection for a ‘tension between motion and regulation’31 that results
in “stasis” mirrors America’s rhetoric about slavery and what should
be done about it. Hawthorne, ever the sceptic about reformers, espe-
cially female ones (Hester and Zenobia of The Blithedale Romance
immediately come to mind), concedes the necessity of ending slavery,
but asks that ‘others do it’32 in The Life of Pierce. In The Office of The
Scarlet Letter, Bercovitch extends Arac’s argument and maintains
that Hawthorne’s novel epitomizes the logic of American liberalism,
which produces individual dissent in order to bring about contain-
ment and consent. Hester’s voluntary return to New England and
resumption of the letter is, for Bercovitch, the distillation of liberal
ideology. Like Arac, he focuses on the politics of ambiguity and
argues, ‘process for [Hawthorne] is a means of converting the threat
of multiplicity (fragmentation, irreconcilability, discontinuity) into
the pleasures of multiple choice, where the implied answer, ‘all of
the above’, guarantees consensus’ (p. 26). In choosing to return to
New England ‘of her own free will’ (p. 203), ‘the office of the A [is
done] as the Puritan magistrates intended it and as Hester finally
adopts it’.33 This return is Hester’s best choice, but as Nina Baym
argues, this return is neither an exemplification of liberalism’s capacity

30 On Hawthorne and antebellum politics, also see Michael T. Gilmore, ‘Hawthorne

and Politics (Again): Words and Deeds in the 1850’s’, in Millicent Bell (ed.), Hawthorne
and the Real: Bicentennial Essay. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2005), 22–39,
Larry J. Reynolds, ‘ “Strangely Ajar with the Human Race”: Hawthorne, Slavery, and
the Question of Moral Responsibility’, ibid. 40–69, Arthur Riss, Race, Slavery, and
Literature in Nineteenth–Century America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), esp. chapter 4, ‘A is for Anything’.
31
Arac, The Politics of The Scarlet Letter, 258.
32
Ibid. 416.
33
Bercovitch, The Office of The Scarlet Letter, xiv.
xxxii Introduction
to make subjection feel like freedom, nor is it a reversal of Hester’s
earlier position as domestic angel to troubled women, but rather
‘a continuation of what had been happening over the seven years of
her earlier sojourn in Boston’.34
Whether one reads the ending as disciplinary or not, the fact is
that we, like Hester, adopt the scarlet letter in all of its interpretative,
political, historical, and aesthetic dimensions. The narrative prac-
tices and the various characters of The Scarlet Letter have taught us
how to do this, and we have done so ‘of [our] own free will’. Why?
First, no matter how disappointed we may be that the novel does not
take up, in a direct and satisfying way, the issue of slavery, the fact is
that if arguments like Arac’s and Bercovitch’s are correct, The Scarlet
Letter provides us with a novelistic analogue of antebellum discourse
regarding slavery that is so interesting and bizarre that one might
read it in order to understand better how a nation could hold two
opposite positions simultaneously, or how it could claim that free-
dom and slavery were not incompatible. Second, there is an original-
ity about The Scarlet Letter that cannot and should not be denied. The
novel is Hawthorne’s personal attempt to deal with the demons of his
past. He had very good reasons to change the spelling of his name from
Hathorne to Hawthorne. His ancestors were not kind, and though he
felt a deep kinship with them, he was desperate to cast them off. His
handling of the Puritan past is powerful in terms of the autobiograph-
ical context and its articulation in the text. And third, because no
matter how hard the narrator may try to move our sympathies away
from Hester, he cannot fully do so. She is the heroine of the novel, and
as Swisshelm puts it, ‘she is the most glorious creation of fiction that
has ever crossed our path’.35 Our identification with her is so strong
that, like her, we return to The Scarlet Letter ‘of our own free will’
because it is so gorgeous, so powerful, so fascinating to look at and read.
34
Bell (ed.), Hawthorne and the Real, 122.
35
Person (ed.), The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings, 274.
 NOTE ON THE TEXT

The text of this volume is that of The Scarlet Letter, Volume I of the
Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, published in
1962 by the Ohio State University Press for the Ohio State University
Center for Textual Studies. It is a critical, unmodernized reconstruc-
tion of Hawthorne’s text and has been scrupulously assembled by
examining and comparing as many editions of the novel as possible
in an effort to give readers a text as close as possible to the one that
Hawthorne wanted published. It is approved by the Center for Editions
of the Modern Language Association of America. There is no surviv-
ing manuscript in the author’s own hand.
 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

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81–105.
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The Scarlet Letter’, ELH 39 (1972), 459–94.
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‘The Scarlet Letter’ (Cambridge, 1985).
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 Select Bibliography
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Further Reading in Oxford World’s Classics
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Blithedale Romance, ed. Tony Tanner
—— The House of the Seven Gables, ed. Michael Davitt Bell
—— The Marble Faun, ed. Susan Manning
—— Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales, ed. Brian Harding
THE SCARLET LETTER
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 PREFACE

to the second edition

Much to the author’s surprise, and (if he may say so without addi-
tional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his
sketch of official life, introductory to The Scarlet Letter, has
created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable community*
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 malevolence. 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 repa-
ration 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 accu-
racy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the char-
acters 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 undertaken to write it, he con-
ceives that it could not have 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.

This page intentionally left blank
 THE CUSTOM-HOUSE

introductory to “the scarlet letter”

It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch

of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—
an autobiographical 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 again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years’ ex-
perience 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 upon 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 and lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far
more than this, and indulge themselves in such 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 nature, 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 impersonally. But—as thoughts are
frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true
relation with his audience—it may be pardonable to imagine that a
friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listen-
ing to our talk; and then, a native 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 behind its veil.* To
this extent and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be auto-
biographical, without violating either the reader’s rights or his own.
6 The Scarlet Letter
It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain
propriety, of a kind always recognized in literature, as explaining how
a large portion of the following pages 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 accomplishing the main purpose, it has
appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint representa-
tion of a mode of life not heretofore described, together with some of
the characters that move in it, among whom the author happened to
make one.
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 languid 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 harbour, 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 thirteen 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
specimen 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 temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears,
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 citizens, careful of their safety, against
intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings.
 The Custom-House 7
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 presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snug-
ness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even
in her best of moods, and, sooner or later,—oftener soon than late,—
is apt to fling off her nestlings 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 edifice—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
days, 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 impercept-
ibly, 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 ship-master, 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 accomplished voyage has
been realized in merchandise that will readily be turned to gold, or has
buried him under a bulk of incommodities, such as nobody will care to
rid him of. Here, likewise,—the germ of the wrinkle-browed, grizzly-
bearded, careworn 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 masters 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 tarpaulins, without the alert-
ness of the Yankee aspect, but contributing an item of no slight impor-
tance to our decaying trade.
8 The Scarlet Letter
Cluster all these individuals together, as they sometimes were, with
other miscellaneous ones to diversify the group, and, for the time being,
it made the Custom-House a stirring scene. More frequently, however,
on ascending the steps, you would discern—in the entry, if it were
summer time, or in their appropriate 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 alms-houses, and all other human
beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labor,
or any thing else but their own independent exertions. These old
gentlemen—seated, like Matthew, at the receipt of custom,* 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 cer-
tain 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 narrow lane, and
along a portion of Derby Street. All three give glimpses 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 sand, 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 infrequent 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 infirm; and,—not
to forget the library,—on some shelves, a score or two of volumes of
the Acts of Congress, and a bulky Digest of the Revenue Laws. A tin
pipe ascends through the ceiling, and forms a medium of vocal com-
munication 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 wandering up and down
the columns of the morning newspaper,—you might have recognized,
honored reader, the same individual who welcomed you into his cheery
 The Custom-House 9
little study, where the sunshine glimmered so pleasantly through the
willow 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
Loco-foco* 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 weari-
somely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill*
and New Guinea* at one end, and a view of the alms-house 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
checkerboard. And yet, though invariably 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 assign-
able 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 appearance in the
wild and forest-bordered settlement, which has since become a city.
And here his descendants have been born and died, and have mingled
their earthy substance with the soil; until no small portion of it must
necessarily be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while,
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 country-
men 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
remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling
with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase
of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on
account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and steeple-crowned
10 The Scarlet Letter
progenitor,—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 all the
Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecu-
tor; as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their his-
tories,* 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, inher-
ited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous 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, if they have
not crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whether these ancestors of
mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for
their cruelties; 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 representative, 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 sufficient 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 cher-
ished, 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 disgrace-
ful. “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 serviceable 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 bandied
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.
 The Custom-House 11
Planted deep, in the town’s earliest infancy and childhood, by
these two earnest and energetic men, 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 generations, performing any memo-
rable deed, or so much as putting forward a claim to public notice.
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-headed shipmaster, in each gen-
eration, 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 connection of a family with one spot, as its
place of birth and burial, creates a kindred between the human being
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 grand-father came—has little claim to be called a
Salemite; he has no conception of the oyster-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 senti-
ment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres;—all
these, and whatever faults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing
to the purpose. The spell survives,* and just as powerfully as if the
natal spot were an 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 representative of the race lay down in his grave,
another assuming, as it were, his sentry-march along the Main Street—
might still in my little day be seen and recognized in the old town.
Nevertheless, this very sentiment 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 potato, if it be planted and
12 The Scarlet Letter
replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out
soil. My children have had other birth-places, and, so far as their
fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unac-
customed earth.
On emerging from the Old Manse,* it was chiefly this strange,
indolent, unjoyous attachment for my native 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, with the President’s
commission* in my pocket, and was introduced 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—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 myself. 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 position 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 soldier,—he stood firmly on the
pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liber-
ality 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 heart-quake. General Miller* was radically conservative;
a man over whose kindly nature habit had no slight influence; attach-
ing himself strongly to familiar faces, and with difficulty moved
to change, even when change might have brought unquestionable
improvement. Thus, on taking 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 disturb them, except the periodical terrors of a
Presidential election, they one and all acquired a new lease of exis-
tence. Though by no means less liable than their fellow-men to age
and infirmity, they had evidently some talisman or other that kept
 The Custom-House 13
death at bay. Two or three of their number, as I was assured, being
gouty and rheumatic, or perhaps bed-ridden, never dreamed of making
their appearance at the Custom-House, during a large part of the year;
but, after a torpid winter, 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 abbreviating 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 cor-
rupt practices, into which, as a matter of course, every Custom-
House officer must be supposed 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 infirmities 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 after 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 duty, 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 discourtesy at my hands. It pained, and at the
same time amused me, 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 frighten Boreas* himself to silence. They
knew, these excellent 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
14 The Scarlet Letter
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 deservedly to my own
discredit, therefore, and considerably 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,
with 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 pass-words 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 gentlemen went
through the various formalities of office. Sagaciously, under their
spectacles, did they peep into the holds of vessels! Mighty was their
fuss about little matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness
that allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers! Whenever such
a mischance occurred,—when a wagon-load of valuable merchandise
had been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath
their unsuspicious noses,—nothing could exceed the vigilance 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 previous negligence, the case
seemed rather to require an eulogium on their praiseworthy caution,
after the mischief had happened; a grateful recognition of the promp-
titude of their zeal, the moment that there was no longer any remedy!
Unless people are more than commonly disagreeable, it is my fool-
ish habit to contract a kindness for them. The better part of my com-
panion’s character, if it have a better part, is that which usually
comes uppermost in my regard, and forms the type whereby I recog-
nize 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 almost 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,
 The Custom-House 15
a row of them all tipped against the wall, as usual; while the frozen
witticisms of past generations were thawed out, and came bubbling
with laughter from their lips. Externally, the jollity of aged men has
much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect, any more
than a deep sense of humor, has little to do with the 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 resem-
bles the phosphorescent glow of decaying wood.
It would be sad injustice, the reader must understand, 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 energy, and altogether supe-
rior to the sluggish and dependent 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 majority 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 ex-
perience 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 morn-
ing’s breakfast, or yesterday’s, today’s, or to-morrow’s dinner, 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
Inspector.* He might truly be termed a legitimate son 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 cre-
ated 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 certainly one of the most wonderful specimens of winter-green
that you would be likely to discover in a lifetime’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,
16 The Scarlet Letter
altogether, he seemed—not young, indeed—but a kind of new con-
trivance of Mother Nature in the shape of man, whom age and
infirmity had no business to touch. His voice and laugh, which perpet-
ually reëchoed through the Custom-House, had nothing of the tremu-
lous quaver and cackle of an old man’s utterance; they came strutting
out of his lungs, 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
wholesomeness of his system, and his capacity, at that extreme 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 apprehen-
sions 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 intel-
lect, and the very trifling admixture of moral and spiritual ingredients;
these latter qualities, indeed, being in barely enough measure to keep
the old gentleman from walking on all-fours. He possessed no power
of thought, no depth of feeling, no troublesome sensibilities; nothing,
in short, but a few commonplace instincts, which, aided by the cheer-
ful 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 children, 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 sufficed to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminis-
cences. The next moment, he was as ready for sport as any unbreeched
infant; far readier than the Collector’s junior clerk, who, at nineteen
years, was much the elder and graver man of the two.
I used to watch and study this patriarchal personage with, I think,
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 nonentity,
in every other. My conclusion was that he had no soul, no heart, no
mind; nothing, as I have already said, but instincts; and yet, withal, so
cunningly had the few materials of his character been put together,
that there was no painful perception of deficiency, but, on my part, an
 The Custom-House 17
entire contentment with what I found in him. It might be difficult—
and it was so—to conceive how he should exist hereafter, so earthy
and sensuous did he seem; but surely his existence here, admitting that
it was to 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 enjoyment than theirs, and with all their blessed
immunity 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 recollect the good dinners which it
had made no small portion of the happiness of his life to eat. His
gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of
roast-meat was as appetizing as a pickle or an oyster. As he possessed
no higher attribute, and neither sacrificed nor vitiated any spiritual
endowment 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 reminis-
cences 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 still apparently as fresh as that of the
mutton-chop which he had just devoured for his breakfast. I have
heard him smack his lips over dinners, every guest at which, except
himself, had long been food for worms. It was marvellous 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 apprecia-
tion, and seeking to reduplicate an endless series of enjoyment, at once
shadowy and sensual. A tenderloin of beef, a hind-quarter of veal, a
spare-rib of pork, a particular chicken, or a remarkably 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 permanent effect as the
passing breeze. The chief tragic event of the old man’s life, so far as
I could 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 which, at table, proved so inveterately tough that the carving-
knife would make no impression on its carcass; and it could only be
divided with an axe and handsaw.
18 The Scarlet Letter
But it is time to quit this sketch; on which, however, I 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 peculiar 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 appetite.
There is one likeness, without which my gallery of Custom-House
portraits would be strangely incomplete; but which my compara-
tively few opportunities for observation enable me to sketch only in
the merest outline. It is that of the Collector, our gallant old General,
who, after his brilliant military service, subsequently 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 quite, his threescore
years and ten, and was pursuing the remainder of his earthly march,
burdened with infirmities which even the martial music of his own
spirit-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 serenity 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 contem-
plation. 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
obstructed 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 evident effort, his face would briefly subside into its former not
uncheerful quietude. It was not painful to behold this look; for,
though dim, it had not the imbecility of decaying age. The framework
 The Custom-House 19
of his nature, originally strong and massive, was not yet crumbled
into ruin.
To observe and define his character, however, under such disad-
vantages, was as difficult a task as to trace 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 remain
almost complete; but else-where 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 affection,—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 overcome, 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 imag-
ine, even then, that, under some excitement which should go deeply
into his consciousness,—roused by a trumpet-peal, loud enough to
awaken all of 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 more a warrior. And, in so intense a moment, his demeanour
would have still been calm. Such an exhibition, 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 obstinacy 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 unmanageable as a ton of iron ore; and of
20 The Scarlet Letter
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 actu-
ates any or all the polemical philanthropists 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 triumphant 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 confidently
make an appeal.
Many characteristics—and those, too, which contribute not the least
forcibly to impart resemblance in a sketch—must have vanished, or
been obscured, before I met the General. All merely graceful attrib-
utes are usually the most evanescent; nor does Nature 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. Still, even
in respect of grace and beauty, there were points well worth noting.
A ray of humor, now and then, would make its way through the veil
of dim obstruction, and glimmer pleasantly upon our faces. A trait of
native elegance, seldom seen in the masculine character after child-
hood 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 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. He seemed away from us, although we saw
him but a few yards off; remote, though we passed close beside his
chair; unattainable, 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 unappropriate environment of the
Collector’s office. The evolutions of the parade; the tumult of the
battle; the flourish of old, heroic music, heard thirty years before;—
such scenes and sounds, perhaps, were all alive before his intellectual
sense. Meanwhile, the merchants and ship-masters, the spruce
clerks, and uncouth sailors, entered and departed; the bustle of this
 The Custom-House 21
commercial and Custom-House life kept up its little murmur round-
about him; and neither with the men nor their affairs did the General
appear to sustain the most distant relation. He was as much out of
place as an old sword—now rusty, but which had flashed once in the
battle’s front, and showed still a bright gleam along 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 renewing 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’ll try, Sir!”*—spoken on the very verge of a desperate and
heroic enterprise, and breathing the soul and spirit of New England
hardihood, comprehending 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 companionship with individuals
unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and
abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. The accidents 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,
especially, 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 waving of
an enchanter’s wand. Bred up from boyhood in the Custom-House,
it was his proper field of activity; and the many intricacies of busi-
ness, so harassing to the interloper, presented themselves before him
with the regularity of a perfectly comprehended system. In my con-
templation, he stood as the ideal of his class. He was, indeed, the
Custom-House in himself; or, at all events, the main-spring that kept
its variously revolving wheels in motion; for, in an institution like this,
where its officers are appointed to subserve their own profit and con-
venience, and seldom with a leading reference to their fitness for the
duty to be performed, they must perforce seek elsewhere the dexter-
ity 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
22 The Scarlet Letter
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 daylight. 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 condition 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 any thing 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 page 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 con-
nected. I took it in good part at the hands of Providence, that I was
thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself
seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fel-
lowship of toil and impracticable schemes, with the dreamy brethren
of Brook Farm;* after living for three years within the subtile influence
of an intellect like Emerson’s;* after those wild, free days on the
Assabeth,* indulging fantastic speculations beside our fire of fallen
boughs, with Ellery Channing;* after talking with Thoreau* about
pine-trees and Indian relics, in his hermitage at Walden; after grow-
ing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard’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
hitherto had little appetite. Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a
change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott.* I looked upon it as
an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and
lacking 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
 The Custom-House 23
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 sus-
pended and inanimate 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 whatever was valuable in the past. It might
be true, indeed, that this was a life which could not, with impunity, be
lived too long; else, it might make me permanently other than I had
been, without transforming me into any shape which it would be
worth my while to take. But I never considered it as other than a tran-
sitory life. There was always a prophetic instinct, 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
proportion 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 devoid of significance, beyond
that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at. I know not that
I especially needed the lesson, either in the way of warning or rebuke;
but, at any rate, I learned it thoroughly; 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 thrown off in a sigh. In the way of literary
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 Shakspeare. The Collectors junior clerk, too,—a young gentleman
who, it was whispered, occasionally covered a sheet of Uncle Sam’s
24 The Scarlet Letter
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 mat-
ters 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 impost, and gone regularly through the office.
Borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, 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 lit-
erary propriety to offer the public the sketch which I am now writing.
In the second story of the Custom-House, there is a large room, in
which the brick-work and naked rafters have never been covered
with panelling and plaster. The edifice—originally projected on a
scale adapted to the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with an
idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to be realized—contains
far more space than its occupants know what to do with. This airy hall,
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 another, containing bundles of official documents. Large quan-
tities 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 human 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, more-
over, without serving a purpose in their day, as these heaped-up papers
had, and—saddest of all—without purchasing for their writers the
 The Custom-House 25
comfortable livelihood which the clerks of the Custom-House had
gained by these worthless scratchings of the pen! Yet not altogether
worthless, perhaps, as materials of local history. Here, no doubt, sta-
tistics of the former commerce of Salem might be discovered, and
memorials of her princely merchants,—old King Derby,—old Billy
Gray,* —old Simon Forrester,*—and many another magnate in his
day; whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb, before
his mountain-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-established rank.
Prior to the Revolution, there is a dearth of records; the earlier docu-
ments and archives of the Custom-House having, probably, been car-
ried 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, perhaps, to the days of the Protectorate,* those
papers must have contained many references to forgotten or remem-
bered 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 rub-
bish 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 decipherable on their mossy tombstones; glancing at such
matters with the saddened, weary, half-reluctant interest which we
bestow on the corpse of dead activity,—and exerting my fancy, slug-
gish 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 only
Salem knew the way thither,—I chanced to lay my hand on a small
package, carefully done up 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 chirography on
more substantial materials than at present. There was something
about it that quickened an instinctive 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
26 The Scarlet Letter
the parchment cover, I found 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 remains in the little grave-yard of St. Peters
Church, during the renewal of that edifice. Nothing, if I rightly call
to mind, was left of my respected predecessor, save an imperfect
skeleton, and some fragments of apparel, and a wig of majestic frizzle;
which, unlike the head that it once adorned, was in very satisfactory
preservation. 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 operations 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 capacity, and apparently with his
own hand. I could account for their being included in the heap of
Custom-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
supposed to relate to the business of the revenue. On the transfer of
the archives to Halifax, this package, proving to be of no public con-
cern, was left behind, and had remained ever since unopened.
The ancient Surveyor—being little molested, I suppose, at that
early day, with business pertaining to his office—seems to have
devoted some of his many leisure hours to researches as a local anti-
quarian, and other inquisitions of a similar nature. These supplied
material for petty activity to a mind that would otherwise have been
eaten up with rust. A portion of his facts, by the by, did me good ser-
vice in the preparation of the article entitled “Main Street,”*
included in the present volume. The remainder may perhaps be
applied to purposes equally valuable, hereafter; or not impossibly
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 gentleman,
inclined, and competent, to take the unprofitable labor off my hands.
As a final disposition, I contemplate depositing them with the Essex
Historical Society.*
 The Custom-House 27
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, however, 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 wonder-
ful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies con-
versant 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 mea-
surement, each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter
in length. It had been intended, there could be no doubt, as an ornamen-
tal 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 scarlet 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 symbol, 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 involuntarily let it fall upon the floor.
In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, 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 explana-
tion of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets, contain-
ing many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one
Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy per-
sonage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished during a
period between the early days of Massachusetts and the close of the
28 The Scarlet Letter
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
woman, of a stately and solemn aspect. It had been her habit, from an
almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind of volun-
tary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might; taking
upon herself, likewise, to give advice in all matters, especially those
of the heart; by which means, as a person of such propensities
inevitably 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. Prying farther 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 entitled “The
Scarlet 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 in my possession,
and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great
interest of the narrative, may desire a sight of them. I must not be
understood as affirming, that, in the dressing up of the tale, and imag-
ining the motives and modes of passion that influenced the characters
who figure in it, I have invariably confined myself within the limits
of the old Surveyor’s half a dozen sheets of foolscap. On the con-
trary, 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 I contend 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 groundwork of a tale. It impressed me
as if the ancient Surveyor, 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 illuminated by a ray of
the splendor that shone so dazzlingly about the throne. How unlike,
alas! the hang-dog 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 explanatory manuscript. With his own ghostly voice, he had
 The Custom-House 29
exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and rever-
ence towards him,—who might reasonably regard himself as my
official ancestor,—to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations*
before the public. “Do this,” said the ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue,
emphatically nodding the head that looked so imposing within its
memorable wig, “do this, and 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 its due!” And I said to the
ghost of Mr. Surveyor Pue,—“I will!”
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 hundredfold repeti-
tion, the long extent from the frontdoor of the Custom-House to the
side-entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness and annoy-
ance of the old Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whose
slumbers were disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of
my passing and returning footsteps. Remembering their own former
habits, they used to say that the Surveyor was walking the quarter-
deck. They probably fancied that my sole object—and, indeed, the
sole object for which a sane man could ever put himself into voluntary
motion—was, to get an appetite for dinner. And to say the truth, an
appetite, sharpened by the east-wind that generally blew along the
passage, was the only valuable result of so much indefatigable exer-
cise. So little adapted is the atmosphere 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 imagination 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 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 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 possessed over the tribe of unreali-
ties is gone! You have bartered it for a pittance of the public gold.
30 The Scarlet Letter
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 seldom 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 intellectual 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 parlour, lighted only by the glimmering 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. Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling
so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctly,—
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, sustaining a work-basket,
a volume or two, and an extinguished lamp; the sofa; the book-case;
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 doll, seated in her little wicker carriage; the hobby-horse;—
whatever, in a word, has been used or played 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, without 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 moonshine, with an aspect that would
 The Custom-House 31
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 influence in produc-
ing the effect which I would describe. It throws its unobtrusive tinge
throughout the room, with a faint ruddiness upon the walls and ceil-
ing, and a reflected gleam from the polish of the furniture. This
warmer light mingles itself with the cold spirituality of the moon-
beams, 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. Glancing 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 farther from the actual, and nearer to the imagina-
tive. 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 experi-
ence, 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 susceptibilities,
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 faculties would not have been found so pointless
and inefficacious. I might, for instance, have contented myself with
writing 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 admira-
tion by his marvellous 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 his 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
32 The Scarlet Letter
been, to diffuse thought and imagination through the opaque sub-
stance of to-day, and thus to make it a bright transparency; to spiri-
tualize the burden that began to weigh so heavily; to seek, resolutely,
the true and indestructible value that lay hidden in the petty and
wearisome incidents, and ordinary characters, with which 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
fathomed 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 because 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 instant, 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 Surveyor of the Customs.
That was all. But, nevertheless, it is any thing 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 continuance, 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 position—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 weakness or
force of his original nature, the capability of self-support. If he pos-
sess an unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of
 The Custom-House 33
place 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 struggle amid a struggling world—
may return to himself, and become all that he has ever been. But this
seldom 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 footpath of life as he best may. Conscious of
his own infirmity,—that his tempered steel and elasticity are lost,—
he for ever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support
external to himself. His pervading and continual hope—a hallucina-
tion, which, in the face of all discouragement, and making light of
impossibilities, haunts him while he lives, and, I fancy, like the con-
vulsive throes of the cholera, torments him for a brief space after
death—is, that, finally, and in no long time, by some happy coinci-
dence of circumstances, he shall be restored to office. This faith,
more than any thing else, steals the pith and availability out of what-
ever 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
office suffices to infect a poor fellow with this singular 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 himself, or he may
find the bargain to go hard against him, involving, if not his soul, yet
many of its better attributes; its sturdy force, its courage and con-
stancy, its truth,* its self-reliance, and all 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, or admitted that he could be so
utterly undone, either by continuance in office, or ejectment. Yet my
reflections were not the most comfortable. I began to grow melan-
choly and restless; continually prying into my mind, to discover
which of its poor properties were gone, and what degree of detriment
had already accrued to the remainder. I endeavoured to calculate
how much longer I could stay in the Custom-House, and yet go forth
34 The Scarlet Letter
a man. To confess the truth, it was my greatest apprehension,—as it
would never be a measure of policy to turn out so quiet an individ-
ual as myself, and it being 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 become 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 this
venerable friend,—to make the dinner-hour the nucleus of the day,
and to spend the rest of it, as an old dog spends it, asleep in the sun-
shine or 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 unnecessary alarm. Providence had meditated better
things for me than I could possibly imagine for myself.
A remarkable event of the third year of my Surveyorship—to
adopt the tone of “P.P.”—was the election of General Taylor* to the
Presidency. It is essential, in order to form a complete estimate of
the advantages of official life, to view the incumbent at the in-coming
of a hostile administration. His position is then one of the most
singularly irksome, and, in every contingency, disagreeable, that a
wretched mortal can possibly occupy; with seldom an alternative of
good, on either hand, although what presents itself to him as the
worst event may very probably be the best. But it is a strange expe-
rience, to a man of pride and sensibility, to know that his interests are
within the control of individuals 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 contest, to observe the blood-
thirstiness that is developed in the hour of triumph, and to be con-
scious 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 neighbours—to grow cruel, merely because they
possessed the power of inflicting harm. If the guillotine,* as applied
to officeholders, were a literal fact, instead of one of the most apt of
metaphors, it is my sincere belief, that the active members of the vic-
torious party were sufficiently excited to have chopped off all our
heads, and have thanked Heaven for the opportunity! 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
 The Custom-House 35
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, which, 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 spare,
when they see occasion; and when they strike, the axe may be sharp,
indeed, but its edge is seldom poisoned with ill-will; nor is it their
custom ignominiously to kick the head which they have just struck off.
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 partisans, 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, accord-
ing to a reasonable calculation of chances, I saw my own prospect of
retaining office to be better than those of my Democratic brethren.
But who can see an inch into futurity, beyond 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 sufferer will but
make the best, rather than the worst, of the accident which has
befallen him. In my particular case, the consolatory topics were close at
hand, and, indeed, had suggested themselves to my meditations a con-
siderable time before it was requisite to use them. In view of my previ-
ous weariness of office, and vague thoughts of resignation, my fortune
somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of
committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hopes, meet with the
good hap to be murdered. In the Custom-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, at least, have stilled
an unquiet impulse in me. Then, moreover, as regarded his unceremo-
nious ejectment, the late Surveyor was not altogether ill-pleased to be
recognized by the Whigs as an enemy;* since his inactivity in political
36 The Scarlet Letter
affairs,—his tendency to roam, at will, in that broad and quiet field
where all mankind may meet, rather than confine himself to those
narrow paths where brethren of the same household must diverge 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. Finally, 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 public prints, in my decapitated
state, like Irving’s Headless Horseman;* ghastly and grim, and long-
ing 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 every thing 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 through long idleness, some
little space was requisite before my intellectual machinery could be
brought to work upon the tale, with an effect in any degree satisfac-
tory. Even yet, though my thoughts were ultimately much absorbed
in the task, it wears, to my eye, a stern and sombre aspect; too much
ungladdened by genial sunshine; too little relieved 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 accom-
plished revolution, 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 happier, 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 contribute to make up the
volume, have likewise been written since my involuntary withdrawal
from the toils and honors of public life, and the remainder are gleaned
 The Custom-House 37
from annuals and magazines, of such antique date that they have
gone round the circle, and come back to novelty again.1 Keeping up
the metaphor of the political guillotine, the whole may be considered
as the Posthumous Papers of a Decapitated Surveyor; and
the sketch which I am now bringing to a close, if too autobiographi-
cal 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 all the world! My blessing on my friends! My forgiveness to my
enemies! For I am in the realm of quiet!
The life of the Custom-House lies like a dream behind me. The
old Inspector,—who, by the by, I regret to say, was overthrown and
killed by a horse, some time ago; else he would certainly have lived
for ever,—he, and all those other venerable personages who sat with
him at the receipt of custom, are but shadows in my view; white-
headed and wrinkled images, which my fancy used to sport with, and
has now flung aside for ever. 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 disconnect
me from them all, not merely in act, but recollection! It is with an
effort that I recall the figures 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 overgrown village in cloud-land, with only
imaginary inhabitants to people its wooden houses, and walk its
homely lanes, and the unpicturesque prolixity of its main street.
Henceforth, it ceases to be a reality of my life. I am a citizen of some-
where else. My good townspeople will not much 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—there
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 these familiar ones, it need hardly be
said, will do just as well without me.
1
At the time of writing this article, the author intended to publish, along with “The
Scarlet Letter,” several shorter tales and sketches. These it has been thought advisable
to defer.
38 The Scarlet Letter
It may be, however,—O, transporting and triumphant thought!—
that the great-grandchildren of the present race may sometimes think
kindly of the scribbler of bygone days, when the antiquary of days to
come, among the sites memorable in the town’s history, shall point
out the locality of The Town-Pump!*
 THE SCARLET LETTER

I
the prison-door

A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray,

steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and
others bareheaded, was assembled 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 project, have invariably recog-
nized 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 fore-
fathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the
vicinity of Cornhill,* 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 sepul-
chres in the old church-yard of King’s Chapel.* Certain it is, that, some
fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail
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 rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more
antique than any thing 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, pig-weed, 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,
40 The Scarlet Letter
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 sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson,* as
she entered the prison-door,—we shall not take upon us to determine.
Finding it so directly on the threshold of our narrative, which is
now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do
otherwise than pluck 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 relieve 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 centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty
large number of the inhabitants of Boston; all with their eyes intently
fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. Amongst any other popula-
tion, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigid-
ity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people
would have augured some awful business in hand. It could have be-
tokened nothing short of the anticipated execution of some noted cul-
prit, on whom the sentence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the
verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan
character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn.
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 corrected 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 had 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 bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows.
In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanour on
the part of the spectators; 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
bystanders at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which, in our
days, would infer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might
then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment 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 sev-
eral in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in whatever
penal infliction might be expected to ensue. The age had not so much
refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of
42 The Scarlet Letter
petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and
wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the
throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. Morally, as well as mate-
rially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old
English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants, separated
from them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that
chain of ancestry, every successive mother has transmitted to her child
a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter phys-
ical 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 representative 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, moreover,
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’ll 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 over-
much,—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 brooch,
or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as
ever!”
 The Market-Place 43
“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 forehead?” 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 effect, thank them-
selves if their own wives and daughters go astray!”
“Mercy on us, goodwife,” 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 the 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 prefigured and rep-
resented 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 young woman, whom he
thus drew forward; until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she
repelled him, by an action marked with natural dignity and force of
character, 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 moth-
erly affection, 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 poorly 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 neighbours. On the breast of her gown, in
fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic
44 The Scarlet Letter
flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A. It was so artistically
done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy,
that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel
which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the
taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sump-
tuary regulations of the colony.
The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a
large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw
off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beau-
tiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the
impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She
was lady-like, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those
days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the
delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace, which is now recog-
nized as its indication. And never had Hester Prynne appeared more
lady-like, in the antique interpretation 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 startled, 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 familiarly acquainted
with Hester Prynne, were now impressed 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 with humanity, and inclosing her in a
sphere by herself.
“She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain,” remarked one of
the female spectators; “but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy,
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 for a punishment?”
“It were well,” muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, “if
we stripped Madam Hester’s rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and
 The Market-Place 45
as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I’ll bestow a
rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!”
“O, peace, neighbours, 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 till 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 unkindly-visaged women, Hester Prynne set
forth towards the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of
eager and curious schoolboys, 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 wink-
ing baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. It was
no great distance, in those days, from the prison-door to the market-
place. Measured by the prisoner’s experience, however, it might be
reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanour 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 nature, 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 scaffold,* 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 histor-
ical 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
46 The Scarlet Letter
of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of
discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp,
and thus hold it up to the public gaze. The very ideal of ignominy was
embodied and made manifest 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 to 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 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 dis-
played to the surrounding multitude, at about the height of a man’s
shoulders above the street.
Had there been a Papist among the crowd of Puritans, he might
have seen in this beautiful woman, so picturesque 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 contrast, of that sacred image of sin-
less 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 shud-
dering, 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 sever-
ity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which
would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present.
Even had there been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it
must have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence
of men no less dignified than the Governor, and several of his coun-
sellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers 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
 The Market-Place 47
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 concentred at her bosom. It was almost
intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she
had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of
public contumely, wreaking itself in every variety of insult; but there
was a quality so much more terrible in the solemn mood of the pop-
ular mind, that she longed rather to behold all those rigid countenances
contorted with scornful merriment, and herself the object. Had a
roar of laughter burst from the multitude,—each man, each woman,
each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual parts,—
Hester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdain-
ful 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 indistinctly before them, like a mass of imperfectly
shaped and spectral images. Her mind, and especially her memory,
was preternaturally active, and kept bringing up other scenes than
this roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western
wilderness;* other faces than were lowering upon 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 little domestic traits of her maiden years,
came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of
whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture 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 phantasmagoric 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 entire track along which she had
been treading, since her happy infancy. Standing on that miserable
eminence, she saw again her native village, in Old England, and her
48 The Scarlet Letter
paternal home; a decayed house of gray stone, with a poverty-stricken
aspect, but retaining a half-obliterated shield of arms over the portal,
in token of antique gentility. She saw her father’s face, with its bald
brow, and reverend white beard, that flowed over the old-fashioned
Elizabethan ruff; her mother’s, too, with the look of heedful and anx-
ious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even
since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remon-
strance in her daughter’s pathway. She saw her own face, glowing
with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky
mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld
another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin,
scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light 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 public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of
a Continental city;* where a new life had awaited her, still in connec-
tion 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 regards at Hester Prynne,—yes, at herself,—who stood on
the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A, in
scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom!
Could it be true? She clutched the child so fiercely 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 companionship 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 physical to itself, and become manifest
by unmistakable tokens. Although, by a seemingly careless arrange-
ment of his heterogeneous garb, he had endeavored to conceal or abate
the peculiarity, it was sufficiently evident to Hester Prynne, that one
of this man’s shoulders rose higher than the other. Again, at the first
instant of perceiving that thin visage, and the slight deformity of the
figure, she pressed her infant to her bosom, with so convulsive a 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 care-
lessly, at first, like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to
whom external 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 intervolutions 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 Single
moment, its expression might have passed for calmness. After a brief
50 The Scarlet Letter
space, the convulsion grew almost imperceptible, and finally subsided
into the depths of his nature. When he found the eyes of Hester Prynne
fastened on his own, and saw that she appeared to recognize 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 up to public shame?”
“You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend,” answered the
townsman, looking curiously at the questioner and his savage com-
panion; “else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne,
and her evil doings. She hath raised a great scandal, I promise you, in
godly Master Dimmesdale’s church.”
“You say truly,” replied the other. “I am a stranger, and have been
a wanderer, sorely against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps
by sea and 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 wilderness,” 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 purpose, he sent his wife
before him, remaining himself 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 gentle-
man, Master Pryrnne; and his young wife, look you, being left to her
own misguidance——”
“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?”
 The Recognition 51
“Of a truth, friend, that matter remaineth a riddle; and the Daniel*
who shall expound 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 still in life,” responded the townsman.
“Now, good Sir, our Massachusetts magistracy, bethinking them-
selves 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 extremity of our righteous law against her.
The penalty thereof is death.* But, in their great mercy and tender-
ness of heart, they have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a
space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and then and
thereafter, for the remainder of her natural life, to wear a mark of
shame upon her bosom.”
“A wise sentence!” 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 townsman, and,
whispering a few words to his Indian attendant, they both made their
way through the crowd.
While this passed, Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal,
still with 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 interview, per-
haps, 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. Dreadful as it was, she
52 The Scarlet Letter
was conscious of a shelter in the presence 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, audible 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 proclama-
tions were wont to be made, amidst an assemblage of the magistracy,
with all the ceremonial that attended such public observances in
those days. Here, to witness the scene which we are describing, sat
Governor Bellingham* himself, with four sergeants about his chair,
bearing halberds, as a guard of honor. He wore a dark feather in his
hat, a border of embroidery on his cloak, and a black velvet tunic
beneath; a gentleman advanced in years, and with a hard experience
written in his wrinkles. He was not ill fitted to be the head and rep-
resentative 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 tempered energies of manhood, and the sombre saga-
city of age; accomplishing so much, precisely because it imagined and
hoped so little. The other eminent characters, by whome the chief
ruler was surrounded, were distinguished by a dignity of mien,
belonging to a period when the forms of authority were felt to pos-
sess 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 per-
sons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring
woman’s heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the
sages of rigid aspect 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
 The Recognition 53
a man of kind and genial spirit. This last attribute, however, had been
less carefully developed than his intellectual 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 skull-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
volumes of sermons; and had no more right than one of those por-
traits would have, to step forth, as he now did, and meddle with a
question of human guilt, passion, and anguish.
“Hester Prynne,” said the clergyman, “I have striven with my
young brother here, under 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
people, 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 pre-
vail 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 oversoftness, 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 daylight, and in
presence of so great a multitude. Truly, as I sought to convince him,
the shame lay in the commission 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?”
There was a murmur among the dignified and reverend occupants
of the balcony; and Governor Bellingham gave expression to its pur-
port, speaking in an authoritative voice, although tempered with
respect towards the youthful clergyman whom he addressed.
“Good Master Dimmesdale,” said he, “the responsibility 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 conse-
quence thereof.”
The directness of this appeal drew the eyes of the whole crowd upon
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale; a young clergy man, who had come
from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning
54 The Scarlet Letter
of the age into our wild forestland. His eloquence and religious 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 sensibility 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 apprehensive, 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 seclu-
sion of his own. Therefore, so far as his duties would permit, he trode
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.*
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 soul,
so sacred even in its pollution. The trying nature of his position
drove the blood from his cheek, and made his lips tremulous.
“Speak to the woman, my brother,” said Mr. Wilson. “It is of
moment to her soul, and therefore, as the worshipful Governor says,
momentous to thine own, in whose charge hers is. Exhort her to con-
fess the truth!”
The Reverend 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 stedfastly into her eyes, “thou hearest what this good man says,
and seest the accountability 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 mis-
taken 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 within thee, and the sorrow without.
 The Recognition 55
Take heed how thou deniest to him* —who, perchance, hath not the
courage to grasp it for himself—the bitter, but wholesome, cup that
is now presented to thy lips!”
The young pastor’s voice was tremulously sweet, rich, deep, and
broken. The feeling that it 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 influence; for it
directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held
up its little arms, with a half pleased, half plaintive murmur. So pow-
erful 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 Heaven’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 letter 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 endure
his agony, as well as mine!”
“Speak, woman!” said another voice, coldly and sternly, proceed-
ing from the crowd about the scaffold. “Speak; and give your child a
father!”
“I will not speak!” answered Hester, turning pale as death, but
responding to this voice, which she too surely recognized. “And my
child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly
one!”
“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
strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!”
Discerning the impracticable state of the poor culprit’s mind, the
elder clergyman, who had carefully prepared himself for the occa-
sion, addressed to the multitude a discourse on sin, in all its branches,
56 The Scarlet Letter
but with continual reference to the ignominious letter. So forcibly did
he dwell upon this symbol, for the hour or more during which his peri-
ods 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, meanwhile, kept her place upon the
pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference.
She had borne, that morning, all that nature could endure; and as her
temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering
by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of
insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. In this
state, the voice of the preacher thundered remorselessly, but unavail-
ingly, upon her ears. The infant, 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 sympathize with its trouble. With
the same hard demeanour, 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 passage-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 demanded constant watchfulness, lest she
should perpetrate violence on herself, or do some half-frenzied mischief
to the poor babe. As night approached, it proving impossible to quell her
insubordination by rebuke 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 physical 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 suste-
nance 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 writhed in convulsions 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 apartment, 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 any offence, but as the most convenient
and suitable mode of disposing of him, until the magistrates should
have conferred with the Indian sagamores* respecting his ransom. His
name was announced as Roger Chillingworth. The jailer, after ushering
him into the room, remained a moment, marvelling at the comparative
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 practi-
tioner. “Trust me, good jailer, you shall briefly have peace in your house;
and, I promise you, Mistress Prynne shall hereafter be more amenable to
just authority than you may have found her heretofore.”
“Nay, if your worship can accomplish that,” answered Master
Brackett, “I shall own you for a man of skill 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.”
58 The Scarlet Letter
The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quietude
of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging. Nor did
his demeanour 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 certain medical prepa-
rations, one of which he mingled with a cup of water.
“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 recognize 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.
“Wouldst thou avenge thyself on the innocent babe?” whispered she.
“Foolish woman!” responded the physician, half coldly, half sooth-
ingly. “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 better for it.”
As she still hesitated, being, in fact, in no reasonable 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 children after relief
from pain, it sank into a profound and dewy slumber. The physician,
as he had a fair right to be termed, next bestowed 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, because so
familiar, and yet so strange and cold,—and, finally, satisfied with his
investigation, proceeded to mingle another draught.
“I know not Lethe nor Nepenthe,”* remarked he; “but I have
learned many new secrets in the wilderness, and here is one of them,—
a recipe that an Indian taught me, in requital of some lessons of my
own, that were as old as Paracelsus.* Drink it! It may be less soothing
 The Interview 59
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
tempestuous 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 full 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 any
thing. 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, still with the same cold composure. “Dost
thou know me so little, Hester Prynne? Are my purposes 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 medi-
cines against all harm and peril of life,—so that this burning shame
may still blaze upon thy bosom?”—As he spoke, 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 him whom thou
didst call thy husband,—in the eyes of yonder 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 chair which
the room afforded, and took his own seat beside her. She could not
but tremble at these preparations; 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 suffering—he was
next to treat with her as the man whom she had most deeply arid
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,
60 The Scarlet Letter
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 foreseen all this.
I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and
entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my
eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy,
before the people. Nay, 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!”
“Thou knowest,” said Hester,—for, depressed as she was, she
could 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 all
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 budding 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 invisible sphere of thought,—few things hidden from the
man, who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of
a mystery. Thou mayest cover up thy secret from the prying multitude.
Thou mayest 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.
 The Interview 61
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 repute. Let him live! Let him hide him-
self in outward 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,” con-
tinued the scholar. “Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep,
likewise, mine! 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 shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wan-
derer, 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 encounter 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, there-
fore, thy husband be to the world as one already 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.
62 The Scarlet Letter
“Swear it!” rejoined he.
And she took the oath.
“And now, Mistress Prynne,” said old Roger Chillingworth, as he
was hereafter to be named, “I leave thee alone; alone with thy infant,
and the scarlet letter! 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?”
“Why dost thou smile so at me?” inquired Hester, troubled 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 will
prove the ruin of my soul?”
“Not thy soul,” he answered, with another smile. “No, not thine!”
 V
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 spec-
tacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy,
at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was
supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the com-
bative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene
into a kind of lurid triumph. It was, moreover, a separate and insu-
lated 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 con-
demned 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 borrow 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 griev-
ous 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
64 The Scarlet Letter
body, the reality 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 condemnation within the limits of the
Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure,—free to return to her
birthplace, or to any other European land, and there hide her charac-
ter and identity under a new exterior, as completely 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,
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 compels 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 irresistibly, 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 assimila-
tions than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncon-
genial 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 maiden-
hood seemed yet to be in her mother’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 never
could be broken.
It might be, too,—doubtless it was so, although she hid the secret
from herself, and grew pale whenever 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, unrecognized on earth, would bring them together
before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar,
for a joint futurity of endless retribution. Over and over again, the
tempter of souls had thrust this idea upon 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 dungeon. What she compelled herself to
 Hester at Her Needle 65
believe,—what, finally, she reasoned upon, as her motive for contin-
uing 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 outskirts 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 comparative 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 hills, towards the west. A clump of scrubby trees,
such as alone grew on the peninsula, did not so much conceal the cot-
tage 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 dwelling, with some slender means that she possessed, and
by the license of the magistrates, who still kept an inquisitorial watch
over her, Hester established herself, with her infant child. A mystic
shadow of suspicion immediately attached itself to the spot. Children,
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 in
the door-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, however, incurred no risk of want. She pos-
sessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively
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 needle-work. She bore on her breast, in the curi-
ously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative
skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have availed them-
selves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human inge-
nuity to their fabrics of silk and gold. Here, indeed, in the sable simplicity
that generally characterized the Puritanic modes of dress, there might
66 The Scarlet Letter
be an infrequent call for the finer productions of her handiwork. 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 progeni-
tors, who had cast behind them so many fashions which it might seem
harder to dispense with. Public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the
installation of magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms
in which a new government manifested itself to the people, were, as a
matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted ceremonial,
and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep ruffs, painfully
wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered gloves, were all deemed
necessary to the official state of men assuming the reins of power; and
were readily allowed to individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even
while sumptuary 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 fre-
quent and characteristic demand for such labor as Hester Prynne could
supply. Baby-linen—for babies then wore robes of state—afforded
still another possibility of toil and emolument.
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 remained vacant; it is cer-
tain 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 needle-work
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 vigor
with which society frowned upon her sin.
Hester sought not to acquire any thing beyond a subsistence, of
the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a simple
 Hester at Her Needle 67
abundance for her child. Her own dress was of the coarsest materials
and the most sombre hue; with only that one ornament,—the scarlet
letter,—which it was her doom to wear. The child’s attire, on the
other hand, was distinguished 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 appeared
to have also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it hereafter.
Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her infant,
Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches
less miserable 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 penance
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 nature a rich, voluptuous, 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, incomprehensible to
the other sex, from the delicate toil of the needle. To Hester Prynne
it might have been a mode of expressing, and therefore soothing, the
passion 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 genuine and stedfast penitence, but something
doubtful, 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 intolerable 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
contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, 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 mortal 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 kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting
68 The Scarlet Letter
its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repug-
nance. 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 understood it
well, and was in little danger of forgetting it, was often brought
before her vivid self-perception, 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 reviled
the hand that was stretched forth to succor 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; some-
times through that alchemy of quiet malice, by which women can
concoct a subtile poison from ordinary trifles; and sometimes, also, by
a coarser expression, 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 responded to these attacks, save by a
flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek, and again
subsided into the depths of her bosom. She was patient,—a martyr,
indeed,—but she forbore to pray for her enemies; lest, in spite of her
forgiving aspirations, the words of the blessing should stubbornly
twist themselves into a curse.
Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innu-
merable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for
her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal.
Clergymen paused in the street to address words of exhortation, 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 herself
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 hor-
rible in this dreary woman, gliding silently through the town, with
never any companion but one only child. Therefore, first allowing
her to pass, they pursued her at a distance 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, had the leaves of the trees whispered the dark story among
themselves,—had the summer breeze murmured about it,—had the
 Hester at Her Needle 69
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, oftentimes, 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 callous; it seemed, on the con-
trary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture.
But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months,
she felt an eye—a human eye—upon the ignominious brand, that
seemed to give a momentary 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 which she was out-
wardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester,—if alto-
gether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted,—she felt
or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new
sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it
gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin 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 awful 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. Sometimes, the red infamy upon her breast would give a sym-
pathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister 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. “What evil
70 The Scarlet Letter
thing is at hand?” would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant
eyes, there would be nothing human 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, look-
ing up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the
scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill
crimson in her cheeks; as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that
momentary 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 Prynne yet
struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself.
The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contribut-
ing a grotesque horror to what interested 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 all alight, whenever Hester Prynne walked
abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say, it seared Hester’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 immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty
passion. 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, unim-
passioned 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 treasure! 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 punished, had given her a lovely child, 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
apprehension. She knew that her deed had been evil; she could have
no faith, therefore, that its result would be for good. Day after day, she
looked fearfully into the child’s expanding nature; ever dreading to
detect some dark and wild peculiarity, that should correspond with the
guiltiness to which she owed her being.
Certainly, there was no physical defect. By its perfect shape, its
vigor, and its natural dexterity in the use of all its untried limbs, 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 simple,
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 here-
after, had bought the richest tissues that could be procured, and
allowed her imaginative faculty its full play in the arrangement and
72 The Scarlet Letter
decoration of the dresses which the child wore, before the public eye.
So magnificent was the small figure, when thus arrayed, and such
was the splendor of Pearl’s own proper beauty, 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 pas-
sion, a certain depth of hue, which she never lost; and if, in any of 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 appeared
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 existence, a great law had been broken; and the result
was a being, whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but
all in disorder; or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which
the point of variety 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
imbibing her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame
from its material of earth. The mother’s impassioned 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 untempered light, of the intervening sub-
stance. Above all, the warfare of Hester’s spirit, at that epoch, was
perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her wild, desperate, 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 dis-
position, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of
the storm and whirlwind.
 Pearl 73
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, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were used, not merely in
the way of punishment for actual offences, but as a wholesome regi-
men for the growth and promotion of all childish virtues. Hester
Prynne, nevertheless, the lonely mother of this one child, ran little
risk of erring on the side of undue severity. Mindful, however, 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 her skill. After testing both smiles and
frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment possessed any cal-
culable influence, Hester was ultimately compelled to stand aside, and
permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses. Physical compul-
sion or restraint was effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any
other kind of discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart,
little 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 acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that warned
her when it would be labor thrown away to insist, persuade, or plead.
It was a look so intelligent, yet inexplicable, so perverse, sometimes
so malicious, but generally accompanied by a wild flow of spirits, that
Hester could not help questioning, at such moments, whether Pearl
was a human child. She seemed rather an airy sprite, which, after play-
ing its fantastic sports for a little while upon the cottage-floor, would
flit away with a mocking smile. Whenever that look appeared in her
wild, bright, deeply black eyes, it invested her with a strange remote-
ness and intangibility; 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 pres-
sure 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 full of merriment and
music, made her mother more doubtful than before.
Heart-smitten at this bewildering and baffling spell, that so often
came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so
dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into pas-
sionate tears. Then, perhaps,—for there was no foreseeing how it might
74 The Scarlet Letter
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 before, like a
thing incapable and unintelligent of human 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 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, sad, delicious 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 smile 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 childish voices, and have
distinguished and unravelled her own darling’s tones, amid all the
entangled outcry of a group of sportive children! But this could 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 peculiar-
ity, in short, of her position in respect 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 forefinger 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 fash-
ion as the Puritanic nurture would permit; playing at going to
church, perchance; or at scourging Quakers;* or taking scalps in a
sham-fight with the Indians; or scaring one another with freaks of
 Pearl 75
imitative witchcraft. Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to
make acquaintance. If spoken to, she would hot 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 intoler-
ant brood that ever lived, had got a vague idea of something out-
landish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions, in the
mother and child; and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and
not unfrequently reviled them with their tongues. Pearl felt the sen-
timent, and requited it with the bitterest hatred that can be supposed
to rankle in 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, instead of the fitful
caprice that so often thwarted her in the child’s manifestations. It
appalled her, nevertheless, 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 together in the same circle of seclusion from
human society; and in the nature of the child seemed to be perpetu-
ated those unquiet elements that had distracted Hester Prynne
before Pearl’s birth, but had since begun to be soothed away by the
softening influences of maternity.
At home, within and around her mother’s cottage, Pearl wanted not
a wide and various circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forth
from her ever creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand
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 pup-
pets of Pearl’s witchcraft, and, without undergoing any outward
change, became spiritually adapted to whatever drama occupied the
stage of her inner world. Her one baby-voice served a multitude of
imaginary personages, old and young, to talk withal. The pine-trees,
aged, black, and solemn, and flinging 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 unmercifully. It was won-
derful, the vast variety of forms into which she threw her intellect,
76 The Scarlet Letter
with no continuity, indeed, but darting up and dancing, always in a
state of preternatural activity,—soon sinking down, as if exhausted by
so rapid and feverish a tide of life,—and succeeded by other shapes of
a similar wild energy. It was like nothing so much as the phantas-
magoric 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 mind. She never created a friend, but seemed
always to be sowing broadcast the dragon’s teeth, whence 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 utterance 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 intelligence, 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 discussion whether it were indeed a
smile. By no means! But that first object of which Pearl seemed to
become 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 letter; 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 the fatal token, instinctively endeavouring to tear it
away; so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of
 Pearl 77
Pearl’s baby-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 upon 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 freakish, 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 smil-
ing malice, yet bearing the semblance of features that she had known
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 just 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 herself with gathering handfuls of
wild-flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother’s bosom;
dancing 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 from pride or resignation, or a feeling
that her penance might best be 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 still and gazed at Hester, with that little, laughing image of a
fiend peeping out—or, whether it peeped or no, her mother so imag-
ined it—from the unsearchable abyss of her black eyes.
“Child, what art thou?” cried the mother.
“O, 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.
78 The Scarlet Letter
“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 earnestness; for, such was Pearl’s wonder-
ful intelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not
acquainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not now
reveal herself.
“Yes; I am little Pearl!” repeated the child, continuing 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, coming up to Hester,
and pressing herself close to her knees. “Do thou tell me!”
“Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!” answered Hester 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 spirit 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!” answered 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 neighbouring townspeople; who, seeking vainly elsewhere
for the child’s paternity, 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 occasionally been seen on earth, through
the agency of their mothers’ 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.
 VII
the governor’s hall

Hester Prynne went, one day, to the mansion of Governor Bellingham,

with 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 influential place among the colonial magistracy.
Another and far more important reason than the delivery of a pair
of embroidered gloves impelled Hester, at this time, to seek an inter-
view with a personage of so much power and activity in the affairs of
the settlement. It had reached her ears, that there was a design on the
part of some of the leading inhabitants, cherishing the more rigid
order of principles in religion and government, to deprive her of her
child. On the supposition 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 stum-
bling-block from her path. If the child, on the other hand, were really
capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of
ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect
of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardian-
ship than Hester Prynne’s. Among those who promoted the design,
Governor Bellingham 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 emi-
nence took sides. At that epoch of pristine simplicity, however, mat-
ters 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 legislators and acts of state. The period was
hardly, if at all, earlier than that of our story, when a dispute concern-
ing the right of property in a pig,* not only caused a fierce and bitter
contest in the legislative body of the colony, but resulted in an impor-
tant 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
80 The Scarlet Letter
one side, and a lonely woman, backed by the sympathies of nature,
on the other,—Hester Prynne set forth from her solitary cottage.
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 path-
way, with many a harmless trip and tumble. 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 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 passionate moment.
Her mother, in contriving the child’s garb, had allowed the gorgeous
tendencies of her imagination their full play; arraying her in a crimson
velvet 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
admirably 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 irresistibly and inevitably reminded
the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne 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 represent the scarlet letter
in her appearance.
As the two wayfarers came within the precincts of the town, the chil-
dren of the Puritans looked up from their play,—or what passed for play
with those sombre little urchins,—and spake gravely one to another:—
“Behold, verily, there is the woman of the scarlet letter; and, of a
truth, moreover, there is the likeness of the scarlet letter running along
by her side! Come, therefore, and let us fling mud at them!”
 The Governor’s Hall 81
But Pearl, who was a dauntless child, after frowning, stamping her
foot, and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening ges-
tures, 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 judg-
ment,—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 accomplished, Pearl returned quietly to her mother, and looked
up smiling into her face.
Without further adventure, they reached the dwelling of Governor
Bellingham. This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which
there are specimens still extant in the streets of our elder 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 sunshine fell aslant-wise over the front of the edifice,
it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung 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 admiration of after times.
Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house, began 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 portal,
Hester Prynne gave a summons, which was answered by one of the
82 The Scarlet Letter
Governor’s bondservants; 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 at that period, and long before, in the old hereditary halls 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 country, he
had never before seen “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,” answered Hester Prynne; and the bond-
servant, perhaps judging from the decision of her air and the glittering
symbol in her bosom, that she was a great lady in the land, offered no
opposition.
So the mother and little Pearl were admitted into the hall of entrance.
With many variations, suggested by the nature of his building-
materials, diversity of climate, and a different mode of social life,
Governor Bellingham had planned his new habitation after the resi-
dences 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 communication,
more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extrem-
ity, 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 illu-
minated 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 Chronicles 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 pon-
derous 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 Elizabethan age, or perhaps earlier, and heirlooms, transferred
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
 The Governor’s Hall 83
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 armour on their breasts, and others
with stately ruffs and robes of peace. All were characterized by the
sternness and severity which old portraits so invariably 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 enjoyments of living men.
At about the centre of the oaken panels, that lined the hall, was sus-
pended a suit of mail, not, like the pictures, 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
especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow
with white radiance, and scatter an illumination 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 exi-
gencies of this new country had transformed Governor Bellingham into
a soldier, as well as a statesman and ruler.
Little Pearl—who was as greatly pleased with the gleaming armour
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 convex mirror, the scarlet letter was
represented in exaggerated 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 headpiece; 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.
84 The Scarlet Letter
“Come along, Pearl!” said she, drawing her away. “Come and look
into this fair garden. It may be, we shall see flowers there; more beau-
tiful 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
plain sight; and a pumpkin vine, rooted at some distance, had run
across the intervening space, and deposited 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 number of persons
were seen approaching 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 indue themselves with, in their domestic
privacy,—walked foremost, and appeared to be showing off his estate,
and expatiating on his projected improvements. The wide circum-
ference 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 frostbitten 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 forefathers—though accustomed
to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and war-
fare, 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, 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 stern he might show him-
self in the pulpit, or in his public reproof of such transgressions as
that of Hester Prynne, still, 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
disgrace; and, in close companionship with him, old Roger Chillingworth,
a person of great skill 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 minister, whose health
86 The Scarlet Letter
had severely suffered, of late, by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to
the labors and duties 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 sur-
prise 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?”
“Ay, indeed!” cried good old Mr. Wilson. “What little bird of scar-
let 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 bedizen thee in this strange fashion? Art thou a Christian
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!” responded 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 Bellihgham, whispered,—“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
 The Elf-Child and the Minister 87
thee, of late. The point hath been weightily discussed, whether we,
that 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, think-
est thou, for thy little one’s temporal and eternal welfare, that she be
taken out of thy charge, and clad soberly, and disciplined strictly,
and 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 Prynne, laying her finger 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 child 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
better, albeit they can profit nothing to myself.”
“We will judge warily,” said Bellingham, “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 or familiarity 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 astonished at this outbreak,—for he was a grandfatherly
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
88 The Scarlet Letter
New England Primer,* or the first column of the Westminster Cate-
chism,* although unacquainted 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 possession of her, and closed her
lips, or impelled her to speak words amiss. After putting her finger in her
mouth, with many ungracious refusals to answer good Mr. Wilson’s
question, 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
with her recollection of the prison rose-bush, which she had passed
in coming hither.
Old Roger Chillingworth, with a smile on his face, whispered some-
thing in 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 features,—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 instant, but was
immediately constrained to give all her attention to the scene now
going forward.
“This is awful!” cried the Governor, slowly recovering from the
astonishment into which Pearl’s response had thrown him. “Here is a
child of three years old, and she cannot tell who made her! Without
question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity,*
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
punishes 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 retri-
bution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!”
 The Elf-Child and the Minister 89
“My poor woman,” said the not unkind old minister, “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 min-
ister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over his heart,
as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was
thrown into agitation. He looked now more careworn and emaciated
than as we described him at the scene of Hester’s public ignominy; and
whether it were his failing health, or whatever 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 minister, with a voice
sweet, tremulous, but powerful, insomuch that the hall reëchoed,
and the hollow armour 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 its nature and require-
ments,—both seemingly so peculiar,—which no other mortal being
can possess. And, moreover, is there not a quality of awful sacredness
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 oth-
erwise, 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
account 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, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads
so earnestly, and with such bitterness of spirit, the right to keep her.
90 The Scarlet Letter
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 symbol 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!”
“O, not so!—not so!” continued Mr. Dimmesdale. “She recognizes,
believe me, the solemn miracle which God hath wrought, in the exis-
tence of that child. 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 preserve her from blacker depths of sin
into which Satan might else have sought to plunge her! Therefore it
is good for this poor, sinful woman that she hath an infant immortal-
ity, 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
moment, 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 will
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 weighty import in what my young brother hath
spoken,” added the Reverend Mr. Wilson. “What say you, worshipful
Master Bellingham? Hath he not pleaded well for the poor woman?”
“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-men* must take heed that
she go both to school and to meeting.”
The young minister, on ceasing to speak, had withdrawn a few
steps from the group, and stood with his face partially concealed in
the heavy folds of the window-curtain; while the shadow of his
figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with
the vehemence of his appeal. Pearl, that wild and flighty little elf,
 The Elf-Child and the Minister 91
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
lifetime had been softened by such gentleness as now. The minister,—
for, save the long-sought regards of woman, nothing is sweeter than
these marks of childish preference, accorded spontaneously by a
spiritual instinct, and therefore seeming to imply in us something
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 unwonted 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 profess,” said he to
Mr. Dimmesdale. “She needs no old woman’s broomstick to fly withal!”
“A strange child!” remarked old Roger Chillingworth. “It is easy
to see the mother’s part 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 follow 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
Providence reveal it of its own accord. Thereby, 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 into the sunny day was thrust the face of Mistress Hibbins,
Governor Bellingham’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 physiognomy 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
92 The Scarlet Letter
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 minister’s argument against sundering the
relation 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

Under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth, the reader will remem-

ber, 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 cheerfulness of home, set up as a type of sin before the people.
Her matronly fame was trodden under all men’s feet. Infamy was bab-
bling around her in the public market-place. For her kindred, should
the tidings ever reach them, and for the companions of her unspotted
life, there remained nothing but the contagion of her dishonor; which
would not fail to be distributed in strict accordance and proportion
with the intimacy and sacredness of their previous relationship. Then
why—since the choice was with himself—should the individual, 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 little 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 mankind, and, as regarded his former ties and interests, 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 faculties.
In pursuance of this resolve, he took up his residence in the Puritan
town, as Roger Chillingworth, without other introduction than the
learning and intelligence 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
received. 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.
94 The Scarlet Letter
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 com-
prise all of life within itself. At all events, the health of the good town
of Boston, so far as medicine had aught to do with it, had hitherto lain
in the guardianship 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 sur-
geon 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 brilliant acquisition. He soon mani-
fested his familiarity 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 cap-
tivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the properties of
native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from his patients, that these
simple medicines, Nature’s boon to the untutored savage, had quite
as large a share of his own confidence as the European pharmacopœia,
which so many learned doctors had spent centuries in elaborating.
This learned stranger was exemplary, as regarded at least the out-
ward 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 apos-
tle, 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 clogging 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 be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the other
hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief, that, if Providence
 The Leech 95
should see fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unwor-
thiness 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 Roger Chillingworth 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 known 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 valueless to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir
Kenelm Digby,* and other famous men,—whose scientific attainments
were esteemed hardly less than supernatural,—as having been his cor-
respondents or associates. 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 miracle, by transport-
ing an eminent Doctor of Physic, from a German university, bodily
through the air, and setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale’s
study! Individuals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven pro-
motes 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 clergyman; he attached him-
self 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 anxious to attempt the
cure, and, if early undertaken, seemed not despondent of a favorable
result. The elders, the deacons, the motherly dames, and the young
and fair maidens, of Mr. Dimmesdale’s flock, were alike importunate
96 The Scarlet Letter
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 suc-
cessive 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 his 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 silence, and finally promised to confer with the
physician.
“Were it God’s will,” said the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, when,
in fulfilment of this pledge, he requested old Roger Chillingworth’s
professional advice, “I could be well content, that my labors, and my
sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and
what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go
with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your
skill to the proof in my behalf.”
“Ah,” replied Roger Chillingworth, with that quietness 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
him 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 walk
there, I could be better content to toil here.”
“Good men ever interpret themselves too meanly,” said the
physician.
In this manner, the mysterious old Roger Chillingworth became the
medical adviser of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale. As not only the dis-
ease 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,
 The Leech 97
and the solemn wind-anthem among the tree-tops. Often, likewise,
one was the guest of the other, in his place of study and retirement.
There was a fascination for the minister in the company of the man of
science, in whom he recognized an intellectual cultivation of no mod-
erate depth or scope; together with a range and freedom of ideas,* that
he would have vainly looked for among the members of his own pro-
fession. In truth, he was startled, if not shocked, to find this attribute
in the physician. Mr. Dimmesdale was a true priest, a true religion-
ist, with the reverential sentiment largely developed, 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 habit-
ually held converse. It was as if a window were thrown open, admit-
ting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life
was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams, and
the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books.
But the air was too fresh and chill to be long breathed, with comfort. So
the minister, and the physician with him, 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 thoughts familiar to him, and as he appeared when thrown
amidst other moral scenery, the novelty of which might call out some-
thing 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 imagination were so active, and sensibility so intense,
that the bodily infirmity would be likely to have its groundwork there.
So Roger Chillingworth—the man of skill, the kind and friendly
physician—strove to go deep into his patient’s bosom, delving among
his principles, 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
98 The Scarlet Letter
undertake such a quest, and skill to follow 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
call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeably
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
understood; if, to these qualifications of a confidant be joined the advan-
tages afforded by his recognized character as a physician;—then, at
some inevitable moment, will the soul of the sufferer be dissolved, and
flow forth in a dark, but transparent stream, bringing all its myster-
ies into the 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 human 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 into his companion’s ear. The latter had his suspicions,
indeed, that even the nature of Mr. Dimmesdale’s bodily 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 arrangement 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 desir-
able object was attained. 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, spiritually devoted to him, to become his devoted
wife. This latter step, however, there was no present prospect that
Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take; he rejected
all suggestions of the kind, as if priestly celibacy were one of his arti-
cles of church-discipline. Doomed by his own choice, therefore, as
 The Leech 99
Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavory morsel always
at another’s board, and endure 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, benevolent, 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 covering pretty nearly the site on
which the venerable structure of King’s Chapel* has since been built.
It had the grave-yard, originally Isaac Johnson’s home-field, on one
side, and so was well adapted to call up serious 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 all events,
representing the Scriptural story of David and Bathsheba,* and Nathan
the Prophet,* in colors still unfaded, 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 eru-
dition, of which the Protestant divines, even while they vilified and
decried that class of writers, were yet constrained often to avail them-
selves. On the other side of the house, old Roger Chillingworth arranged
his study and laboratory; not such as a modern man of science would
reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with a distilling appa-
ratus, and the means of compounding drugs and chemicals, which
the practised alchemist knew well how to turn to purpose. With such
commodiousness of situation, these two learned persons sat them-
selves down, each in his own domain, yet familiarly 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 discerning friends,
as we have intimated, very reasonably imagined that the hand of
Providence had done all this, for the purpose—besought in so many
public, and domestic, and secret prayers—of restoring the young
minister to health. But—it must now be said—another portion of
the community had latterly begun to take its own view of the relation
100 The Scarlet Letter
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 usu-
ally 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 supernaturally revealed. The people,
in the case of which we speak, could justify its prejudice against
Roger Chillingworth by no fact or argument worthy of serious refu-
tation. 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 physi-
cian, under some other name, which the narrator of the story had
now forgotten, in company with Doctor Forman,* the famous old
conjurer, who was implicated in the affair of Overbury. Two or three
individuals hinted, that the man of skill, during his Indian captivity,
had enlarged his medical attainments by joining in the incantations
of the savage priests; who were universally acknowledged to be pow-
erful enchanters, often performing seemingly miraculous 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 Chillingworth’s aspect had undergone a remarkable change
while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with
Mr. Dimmesdale. At first, his expression had been calm, meditative,
scholar-like. Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face,
which they had not previously 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 visage was getting sooty with the smoke.
To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion, that the
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of especial
sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, was haunted 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 die conflict, transfigured with the glory
 The Leech 101
which he would unquestionably win. Meanwhile, nevertheless, 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 any thing
but secure!
 X
the leech and his patient

Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in tempera-

ment, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his
relations with the world, a pure and upright man. He had begun 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 inflicted on himself. But, as he pro-
ceeded, 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 clergy-
man’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 physician’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
door-way* in the hill-side, and quivered on the pilgrim’s face. The soil
where this dark miner was working had perchance shown indications
that encouraged him.
“This man,” said he, at one such moment, to himself, “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 farther
in the direction of this vein!”
Then, after long search into the minister’s dim interior, 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 illuminated 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 stealthily, 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
 The Leech and His Patient 103
of his premeditated carefulness, the floor would now and then creak;
his garments would rustle; the shadow of his presence, in a forbid-
den 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 some-
thing 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, sympathizing, but never
intrusive friend.
Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual’s
character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick hearts
are liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. Trusting
no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy 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 Chillingworth, 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 seldom, now-a-days, looked straight-
forth 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 grave-yard, here at hand,” answered the physician, con-
tinuing 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 with 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. “Wherefore not; since
all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin, that
these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make
manifest an unspoken crime?”
104 The Scarlet Letter
“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 revealed. 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 will be needful to the com-
pletest solution of that problem. And I conceive, moreover, that the
hearts holding such miserable secrets as you speak of will yield them up,
at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable.”
“Then why not reveal them here?” asked Roger Chillingworth,
glancing quietly aside at the minister. “Why should not the guilty ones
sooner avail themselves 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, O, 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 polluted breath. How can it be otherwise? Why should a wretched
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. Dimmesdale. “But, not
to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept silent by
the very constitution 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 cannot rid themselves.”
 The Leech and His Patient 105
“These men deceive themselves,” said Roger Chillingworth, with
somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture
with his forefinger. “They fear to take up the shame that rightfully
belongs 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 penitential self-abasement!
Wouldst thou have me to believe, O wise and pious friend, that a false
show can be better—can be more for God’s glory, or man’s welfare—
than God’s own truth? Trust me, such men deceive themselves!”
“It may be so,” said the young clergyman indifferently, as waiving
a discussion that he considered irrelevant or unseasonable. He had a
ready faculty, indeed, 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 summer-time,—the minister beheld Hester Prynne and little
Pearl passing along the footpath that traversed the inclosure. Pearl
looked as beautiful as the day, but was in one of those moods of per-
verse merriment which, whenever they occurred, seemed to remove
her entirely out of the sphere of sympathy or human contact. 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.
Roger Chillingworth had by this time approached the window,
and smiled grimly down.
106 The Scarlet Letter
“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,” remarked 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 discov-
erable principle of being?”
“None, — save the freedom of a broken law,” answered
Mr. Dimmesdale, in a quiet way, as if he had been discussing the
point within himself. “Whether capable of good, I know not.”
The child probably overheard their voices; for, looking 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 sensitive clergyman shrunk, with nervous dread, from the light
missile. Detecting his emotion, Pearl clapped her little hands in the
most extravagant ecstasy. Hester Prynne, likewise, had involuntarily
looked up; and all these four persons, old and young, regarded one
another in silence, till the child 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 away,
mother, or he will catch you! But he cannot catch little Pearl!”
So she drew her mother away, skipping, dancing, and frisking fan-
tastically among the hillocks of the dead people, like a creature that
had nothing in common with a bygone and buried generation, nor
owned herself akin to it. It was as if she had been made afresh, out of
new elements, and must perforce be permitted 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 Chillingworth, after a
pause, “who, be her demerits what they may, hath none of that mys-
tery 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 all up in his heart.”
 The Leech and His Patient 107
There was another pause; and the physician began anew to exam-
ine 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, still busy with his
plants, but keeping 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 watchful physician
might well hope to cure you. But—I know not what to say—the disease
is what I seem to know, yet know it not.”
“You speak in riddles, learned Sir,” said the pale minister, glanc-
ing aside out of the window.
“Then, to speak more plainly,” continued the physician, “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 having
charge, under Providence, of your life and physical well-being,—
hath all the operation of this disorder 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 tell me, then, that I know 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
conjoined, 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!”
108 The Scarlet Letter
“Thus, a sickness,” continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in
an unaltered tone, without heeding the 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 call it, in your spirit, hath immediately its appropriate manifes-
tation 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 physician!” cried
Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright,
and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. “Not to
thee! But, if it be the soul’s disease, then do I commit myself 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 sufferer and his God?”
With a frantic gesture, he rushed out of the room.
“It is as well to have made this step,” said Roger Chillingworth to
himself, looking after the minister with a grave smile. “There is noth-
ing lost. We shall be friends again anon. But see, now, how passion
takes hold upon this man, and hurrieth him out of himself! As with
one passion, so with another! He hath done a wild thing ere now, this
pious Master Dimmesdale, in the hot passion of his heart!”
It proved not difficult to reëstablish the intimacy of the two compan-
ions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. The
young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the
disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of
temper, which there had been nothing in the physician’s words to
excuse or palliate. He marvelled, 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 sought. With these remorseful feelings, he lost no time in
making the amplest apologies, and besought his friend still to continue
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 all good
faith, but always quitting the patient’s apartment, at the close of a pro-
fessional interview, with a mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips.
 The Leech and His Patient 109
This expression was invisible in Mr. Dimmesdale’s presence, but grew
strongly evident as the physician 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 recorded, that the
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, at noonday, 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 pro-
found depth of the minister’s repose was the more remarkable; inas-
much as he was one of those persons whose sleep, ordinarily, is as
light, as fitful, and as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on
a twig. To such an unwonted remoteness, 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 always 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 horror! 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
ugliness 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, the intercourse between the cler-
gyman and the physician, though externally the same, was really
of another character than it had previously been. The intellect of
Roger Chillingworth 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 unfortunate
old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate 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 would 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 vengeance!
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, perchance, pardon-
ing, where it seemed most to punish—had substituted for his black
devices. A revelation, he could almost say, had been granted to him.
It mattered 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 movement. He became,
thenceforth, not a spectator only, but a chief actor, in the poor min-
ister’s interior world. He could play upon him as he chose. Would he
arouse him with a throb of agony? The victim was for ever 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,
 The Interior of a Heart 111
all flocking roundabout the clergyman, and pointing with their
fingers at his breast!
All this was accomplished with a subtlety so perfect, that the minis-
ter, though he had constantly a dim perception 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 physi-
cian. 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 antip-
athy 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 distrust
and abhorrence, so Mr. Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one
morbid spot was infecting his heart’s entire substance, attributed all
his presentiments to no other cause. He took himself to task for his bad
sympathies in reference to Roger Chillingworth, 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 matter of prin-
ciple, continued his habits of social familiarity with the old man, and
thus gave him constant opportunities 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 still 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 understanding; which, duly mingled with a fair propor-
tion of doctrinal ingredient, constitutes a highly respectable, efficacious,
112 The Scarlet Letter
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 upon the chosen disciples, at Pentecost,* in tongues
of flame; symbolizing, it would seem, not the power of speech in for-
eign and unknown languages, but that of addressing the whole human
brotherhood in the heart’s native 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 express the highest truths through the hum-
blest 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 character, naturally belonged.
To their high mountain-peaks of faith and sanctity he would have
climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, what-
ever 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 listened
to and answered! But this very burden it was, that gave him sympa-
thies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind; so that his
heart vibrated in 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. Oftenest persuasive, but some-
times terrible! The people knew not the power that moved them
thus. They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. They
fancied him the mouthpiece 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, victims
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 infirmity, believed that he would
go heavenward before them, and enjoined it upon their children, that
 The Interior of a Heart 113
their old bones should be buried dose to their young pastor’s holy
grave. And, all this time, perchance, when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was
thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass
would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried!
It is inconceivable, the agony with which this public veneration tor-
tured 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 upon 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 footsteps, 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 your 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 pastor,
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 impulse, and tear him down out of the pulpit
which he defiled? Not so, indeed! They heard it all, and did but rev-
erence him the more. They little guessed what deadly purport lurked
in those self-condemning words. “The godly youth!” said they
among themselves. “The saint on earth! Alas, if he discern such sin-
fulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold
114 The Scarlet Letter
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 himself by making the
avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a
self-acknowledged shame, without the momentary relief of being self-
deceived. He had spoken the very truth, and transformed 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 Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders;
laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more
pitilessly, 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 trembled
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 which 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 seemed to flit before him; perhaps seen doubtfully, and by a
faint light of their own, in the remote dimness of the chamber, or more
vividly, and close beside him, within the looking-glass. Now it was a
herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale minister,
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, turning her
face away as she passed by. Ghost of a mother,—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.
 The Interior of a Heart 115
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 nature, like yonder table of carved oak, or that big, square,
leathern-bound and brazen-clasped volume of divinity. But, for all
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 substance out of whatever
realities there are around us, and which were meant by Heaven to be
the spirit’s joy and nutriment. To the untrue man, the whole universe
is false,—it is impalpable,—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp.
And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes
a shadow, or, 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 undissembled 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.
Attiring 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.
 XII
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 hour 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 eyewitnesses while Hester Prynne sus-
tained her punishment could now have been summoned forth, they
would have discerned no face above the platform, nor hardly the out-
line of a human shape, in the dark gray of the midnight. But the town
was all asleep. There was no peril 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 sermon. No eye could see him,
save that ever-wakeful 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 purpose, and fling it off at once! This feeble and
most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one
 The Minister’s Vigil 117
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 expi-
ation, 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 poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort
of his will, or power to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud; an outcry that
went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to
another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if a com-
pany of devils, detecting so much misery and terror 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 will 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 clergy-
man, therefore, hearing no symptoms of disturbance, uncovered
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 night-cap 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
another 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 expression 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 venerable 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 excursions into the forest.
Detecting the gleam of Governor Bellingham’s lamp, the old lady
quickly extinguished her own, and vanished. 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,
118 The Scarlet Letter
nevertheless, he could see but little farther 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 approaching 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 full trough of water, and here, again,
an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the
door-step. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale noted all these minute
particulars, even while firmly convinced that the doom of his exis-
tence was stealing onward, in the footsteps which he now heard; and
that the gleam of the lantern would fall 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 minister 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
the distant shine of the celestial city, while looking thitherward to see
the triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates,—now, in short, good
Father Wilson was moving homeward, aiding his footsteps with a
lighted lantern! The glimmer of this luminary suggested the above
conceits 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 scaffold, closely
muffling his Geneva cloak* about him with one arm, and holding the
lantern before his breast with the other, the minister could 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 spoken? 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 a step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy
 The Minister’s Vigil 119
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 anx-
iety; although his mind had made an involuntary effort to relieve
itself by a kind of lurid playfulness.
Shortly afterwards, the like grisly sense of the humorous again
stole in among the solemn phantoms of his thought. He felt his limbs
growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and
doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the
scaffold. Morning would break, and find him there. The neighbour-
hood 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 tumult 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 public view, with the
disorder of a nightmare in their aspects. Old Governor Bellingham
would come grimly forth, with his King James’s ruff fastened askew;
and Mistress Hibbins, with some twigs of the forest clinging to her
skirts, and looking sourer than ever, as having hardly got a wink of
sleep after her night ride; and good Father Wilson, too, after spend-
ing 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 so 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 they dis-
cern there, with the red eastern light upon his brow? Whom, but the
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed
with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne had stood!
120 The Scarlet Letter
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 immediately responded to by a light, airy, childish
laugh, in which, with a thrill 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, sup-
pressing his voice,—“Hester! Hester 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 Reverend
Mr. Dimmesdale. “Ye have both been here before, but I was not with
you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!”
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 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. Dimmesdale.
“Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?”
inquired Pearl.
“Nay; not so, my little Pearl!” answered the minister; 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 which—with a strange joy, nev-
ertheless—he now found himself. “Not so, my child. I shall, indeed,
stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow!”
Pearl laughed, and attempted to pull away her hand. But the minister
held it fast.
“A moment longer, my child!” said he.
 The Minister’s Vigil 121
“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 minister,—and,
strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of the
truth impelled him 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 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
burning out to waste, in the vacant regions of the atmosphere. So
powerful was its radiance, that it thoroughly illuminated the dense
medium of cloud betwixt the sky and earth. The great vault bright-
ened, 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 unaccus-
tomed light. The wooden 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, little 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 inter-
pretation 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 all who belong to one another.
There was witchcraft in little Pearl’s eyes; and her face, as she
glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made
its expression frequently so elfish. She withdrew her hand from
Mr. Dimmesdale’s, and pointed across the street. But he clasped
both his hands over his breast, and cast his eyes towards the zenith.
Nothing was more common, in those days, than to interpret all
meteoric appearances, and other natural phenomena, that occurred
122 The Scarlet Letter
with less regularity than the rise and set of sun and moon, as so many
revelations 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 England, from its settlement down to
Revolutionary times, of which the inhabitants had not been previously
warned by some spectacle of this nature. Not seldom, it had been seen
by multitudes. Oftener, however, its credibility rested on the faith of
some lonely eyewitness, who beheld the wonder through the colored,
magnifying, and distorting medium of his imagination, and shaped it
more distinctly in his after-thought. It was, indeed, a majestic idea,
that the destiny of nations should be revealed, in these awful hiero-
glyphics, on the cope of heaven. A scroll so wide might not be deemed
too expansive for Providence 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 dis-
covers 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 disor-
dered mental state, when a man, rendered morbidly self-contemplative
by long, intense, and secret pain, had extended his egotism over the
whole expanse of nature, until the firmament itself should appear no
more than a fitting page for his soul’s history and fate.
We impute it, therefore, solely to the disease in his own eye and
heart, that the minister, looking upward 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 definiteness,
that another’s guilt might have seen another symbol in it.
There was a singular circumstance that characterized Mr.
Dimmesdale’s psychological state, at this moment. All the time that
he gazed upward to the zenith, he was, nevertheless, perfectly aware that
little Pearl was pointing her finger towards old Roger Chillingworth,
who stood at no great distance from the scaffold. The minister
appeared to see him, with the same glance that discerned the mirac-
ulous letter. To his features, as to all other objects, the meteoric light
imparted a new expression; or it might well be that the physician was
 The Minister’s Vigil 123
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 Chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend,
standing 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. Dimmesdale, overcome with
terror. “I shiver at him! Dost thou know 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 gibberish as children may be
heard amusing themselves with, by the hour together. At all events,
if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth,
it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but
increase the bewilderment 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 noontide!”
“Worthy Sir,” said the physician, who had now advanced to the foot
of the platform. “Pious Master Dimmesdale! can this be you? Well,
well, 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, let
me lead you home!”
“How knewest thou that I was here?” asked the minister, fearfully.
“Verily, and in good faith,” answered Roger Chillingworth, “I knew
nothing of the matter. I had spent the better part of the night at the
124 The Scarlet Letter
bedside of the worshipful Governor Winthrop, doing what my poor
skill might to give him ease. He going home to a better world, I, like-
wise, was on my way homeward, when this strange light shone out.
Come with me, I beseech you, Reverend Sir; else you will 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 dis-
course which was held to be the richest and most powerful, and the
most replete with heavenly 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 minis-
ter 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,
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 star-
tled 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 reverence must needs
handle him without gloves, henceforward,” 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. Dimmesdale, 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 faculties retained their pristine strength,
or 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 readily infer, that, besides the legitimate action
of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear,
and was still 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, moreover, that he had a right to her utmost aid.
Little accustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure her
ideas of right and wrong by any standard external 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 silk, or 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 all other ties, it brought along with it its
obligations.
Hester Prynne did not now occupy precisely the same position in
which we beheld her during the earlier 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 commu-
nity, and, at the same time, interferes neither with public nor individ-
ual interests and convenience, a species of general regard had ultimately
grown up in reference to Hester Prynne. It is to the credit of human
nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves
more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process,
126 The Scarlet Letter
will even be transformed to love, unless 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 sympathies. Then, also, the blame-
less 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 any thing, 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 forward even the
humblest title to share in the world’s privileges,—farther than to
breathe the common air, and earn daily bread for little Pearl and her-
self by the faithful labor of her hands,—she was quick to acknowledge
her sisterhood with the race of man, whenever 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 embroi-
dered a monarch’s robe. None so self-devoted as Hester, when pesti-
lence 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 rightful inmate, into the
household that was darkened by trouble; as if its gloomy twilight
were a medium in which she was entitled to hold intercourse with
her fellow-creatures. There glimmered the embroidered letter, with
comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere the token of sin, it was the taper
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, Hester’s
nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tender-
ness, 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 symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in
 Another View of Hester 127
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 sun-
shine came again, she was not there. Her shadow had faded across
the threshold. The helpful inmate had departed, without one back-
ward glance to gather up the meed of gratitude, if any were in the
hearts of those whom she had served so zealously. Meeting them in the
street, she never raised her head to receive their greeting. If they were
resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter, and
passed on. This might be pride, but was so like humility, that it pro-
duced all the softening influence of the latter quality on the public
mind. The public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying
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 nature, society was
inclined to show its former victim a more benign countenance than she
cared to be favored with, or, perchance, than she deserved.
The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were
longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester’s good qualities than
the people. The prejudices which they shared in common with the
latter were fortified in themselves by an iron framework of reasoning,
that made it a far tougher labor to expel them. Day by day, neverthe-
less, their sour and rigid 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 helpful 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,
128 The Scarlet Letter
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 kind of
sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she
fallen 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 fell harmless to the ground.
The effect of the symbol—or rather, of the position in respect to
society that was indicated by it—on the mind of Hester Prynne her-
self, was powerful and peculiar. All 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 she possessed friends or companions to be
repelled by it. Even the attractiveness of her person had undergone 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 any thing in Hester’s face for Love to dwell
upon; nothing in Hester’s form, though 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 tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the out-
ward 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 afterwards so touched, and so transfigured.
Much of the marble coldness of Hester’s impression was to be
attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a great
measure, from passion and feeling, to thought. Standing alone in the
world,—alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to
 Another View of Hester 129
be guided and protected,—alone, and hopeless of retrieving her posi-
tion, 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 human intellect, newly emancipated,
had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries
before. 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 Atlantic,
but which our forefathers, had they known of it, would have held to
be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter. In her
lonesome cottage, 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 quietude 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 otherwise. Then, she might have come down to us in his-
tory, hand in hand with Ann Hutchinson, as the foundress of a reli-
gious 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 attempting to undermine the foun-
dations of the Puritan establishment. But, in the education of her
child, the mother’s enthusiasm of thought had something to wreak
itself upon. Providence, in the person of this little girl, had assigned
to Hester’s charge the germ and blossom of womanhood, to be cher-
ished and developed amid a host of difficulties. Every thing was
against her. The world was hostile. The child’s own nature had
something wrong in it, which continually betokened that she had
been born amiss,—the effluence of her mother’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 refer-
ence to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting,
130 The Scarlet Letter
even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own individual
existence, she had long ago decided in the negative, and dismissed the
point as settled. A tendency to speculation, 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 oppo-
site 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 suitable position. Finally, all other difficulties being
obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms,
until she herself shall have undergone 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 overcomes 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,
wandered without a clew in the dark labyrinth of mind; now turned
aside by an insurmountable 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
sacrifice for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense 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 painful 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 and helper, and had availed himself of the oppor-
tunities thus afforded for tampering with the delicate springs of
Mr. Dimmesdale’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 allowing the minister to be thrown into a position where
so much evil was to be foreboded, and nothing auspicious to be hoped.
 Another View of Hester 131
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 overwhelmed
herself, except by acquiescing in Roger Chillingworth’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 perhaps
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 with Pearl in a retired part of the peninsula,
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 concoct his medicines withal.
 XIV
hester and the physician

Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and play
with the shells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talked
awhile with yonder gatherer of herbs. So the child 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 con-
cerns us much.”
“Aha! And is it Mistress Hester that has a word for old Roger
Chillingworth?” answered he, raising himself from his stooping pos-
ture. “With all my heart! Why, Mistress, I hear good tidings of you on
all hands! No longer ago than yestereve, a magistrate, 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 common 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 forthwith!”
“It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this
badge,” calmly replied Hester. “Were I worthy to be quit of it, it
would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something
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!”
 Hester and the Physician 133
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 bore 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 derisively, that the specta-
tor could see his blackness all 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,
until, by some casual puff of passion, it was blown into a momentary
flame. This he repressed as speedily as possible, and strove to look as
if nothing of the kind had happened.
In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s
faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a rea-
sonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office. This unhappy 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 enjoy-
ment 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 Chillingworth 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 promise of secrecy, as touching the former
relation betwixt yourself and me. As the life and good fame of yonder
134 The Scarlet Letter
man were in your hands, there seemed no choice to me, save to be
silent, in accordance with your behest. Yet it was hot without heavy
misgivings that I thus bound myself; for, having cast off all duty
towards other human beings, there remained a duty towards 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 life, 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 Chillingworth. “My finger,
pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a
dungeon,—thence, peradventure, to the gallows!”
“It had been better so!” said Hester Prynne.
“What evil have I done the man?” asked Roger Chillingworth
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 life would have
burned away in torments, within the first two years after the perpe-
tration 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. O, 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!”
“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! He has been conscious of
me. He has felt an influence dwelling 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 was 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
 Hester and the Physician 135
the constant shadow of my presence!—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 sometimes 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 him-
self as he did now.
“Hast thou not tortured him enough?” said Hester, noticing the
old man’s look. “Has he not paid thee all?”
“No!—no!—He has but increased the debt!” answered the physi-
cian; and, as he proceeded, his manner 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, stu-
dious, 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
welfare. 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 little for himself,—kind, true, just, and of constant,
if not warm affections? Was I not all this?”
“All this, and more,” said Hester.
“And what am I now?” demanded he, looking into her face, and per-
mitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. “I have
already 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?”
136 The Scarlet Letter
“I must reveal the secret,” answered Hester, firmly. “He must dis-
cern thee in thy true character. What 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 concerns 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 wellnigh pity thee!” said Roger Chillingworth,
unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too; for there was a quality almost
majestic in the despair which she expressed. “Thou hadst great elements.
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
nature!”
“And I thee,” answered Hester Prynne, “for the hatred that has trans-
formed 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 retribution 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 so! There might be good for thee, and thee alone, since
thou hast been deeply wronged, and hast it at thy will to pardon. Wilt
thou give up that only privilege? 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 tellest
me of. My old faith, long forgotten, comes back to me, and explains all
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 illu-
sion; 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
hester and pearl

So Roger Chillingworth—a deformed old figure, 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 won-
dered 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 hith-
erto 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 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 seclu-
sion of his study, and sit down in the fire-light 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
138 The Scarlet Letter
the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves
among her ugliest 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 they win along
with it the utmost passion of her heart! 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 image of happiness, 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 Chillingworth, threw a dark light on
Hester’s state of mind, revealing much that she might not otherwise
have acknowledged 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 herself into its sphere of impalpable
earth and unattainable 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 mer-
chant 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 sev-
eral five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm sun.
 Hester and Pearl 139
Then she took up the white foam, that streaked the line of the advan-
cing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering 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 seafowl, 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 devising drapery and costume. As the last touch to her mermaid’s
garb, Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated, as best she could, on
her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her
mother’s. A letter,—the letter A,—but freshly green, instead of scar-
let! 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’s 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 it me in the horn-book.”*
Hester looked steadily into her little face; but, though there was
that singular expression which she had so often remarked in her black
eyes, she could not satisfy herself whether Pearl really attached any
meaning to the symbol. She felt a morbid desire to ascertain the point.
“Dost thou know, child, 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!”
140 The Scarlet Letter
“And what reason is that?” asked Hester, half smiling at the absurd
incongruity of the child’s observation; but, on second thoughts, turn-
ing pale. “What has the letter to do with any heart, save mine?”
“Nay, mother, I have told all I know,” said Pearl, 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 seldom seen in her wild and capri-
cious character. The thought occurred to Hester, that the child
might really be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence,
and doing what she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to
establish a meeting-point of sympathy. It showed Pearl in an unwonted
aspect. Heretofore, the mother, while loving her child with the inten-
sity 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 misdemeanours,
it will sometimes, of its own vague purpose, kiss your cheek with a
kind of doubtful tenderness, and play gently with your hair, and then
begone about its other idle business, leaving a dreamy pleasure at your
heart. And this, moreover, was a mother’s estimate of the child’s dis-
position. Any other observer 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 irreverence either to the parent
or the child. In the little chaos of Pearl’s character, there might be
seen emerging—and could have been, from the very first—the sted-
fast principles of an unflinching courage,—an uncontrollable 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
 Hester and Pearl 141
which she inherited from her mother must be great indeed, if a noble
woman do not grow out of this elfish child.
Pearl’s inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet
letter seemed an innate quality of her being. From the earliest epoch of
her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed mission.*
Hester 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 bethought herself to ask, whether, linked
with that design, 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 pas-
sion, 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 whis-
pered 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.
“Silly 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? 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 severe, 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 homeward, 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 gleaming in her black eyes.
142 The Scarlet Letter
“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 child!” answered her mother, with an
asperity that she had never permitted to herself before. “Do not tease
me; else I shall shut thee into the dark closet!”
 XVI
a forest walk

Hester Prynne remained constant in her resolve to make known

to Mr. Dimmesdale, at whatever risk of present pain or ulterior conse-
quences, the true character of the man who had crept into his intimacy.
For several days, however, she vainly sought an opportunity of address-
ing him in some of the meditative 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 neighbouring country. There would have been no scandal,
indeed, nor peril to the holy whiteness of the clergyman’s good fame,
had she visited 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 Chillingworth, and partly that her conscious
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 converts. He would probably return, by a certain hour, in the
afternoon of the morrow. Betimes, therefore, the next day, Hester took
little Pearl,—who was necessarily the companion of all her mother’s
expeditions, 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 nar-
rowly, 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 wilderness in which she had so long been
wandering. The day was chill and sombre. Overhead was a gray
expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze; so that a
gleam of flickering sunshine might now and then be seen at its soli-
tary play along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was always at the
144 The Scarlet Letter
farther extremity of some long vista through the forest. The sportive
sunlight—feebly sportive, at best, in the predominant 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 will 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 short, just at the
beginning of her race. “Will not it come of its own accord, when I am a
woman grown?”
“Run 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 excited
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 dancing on Pearl’s features, her mother
could have fancied 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 children, 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, before Pearl’s birth. It was cer-
tainly a doubtful charm, imparting a hard, metallic lustre to the child’s
character. She wanted—what some people want throughout 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!
 A Forest Walk 145
“Come, my child!” said Hester, looking about her, from the spot
where Pearl had stood still in the sunshine. “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 tell me a story meanwhile.”
“A story, child!” said Hester. “And about what?”
“O, a story about the Black Man!” answered Pearl, taking hold of her
mothers 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 period.
“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 nighttime?”
“Didst thou ever awake, and find thy mother gone?” asked Hester.
“Not that I remember,” said the child. “If thou fearest to 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 all,” 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 darksome 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
146 The Scarlet Letter
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 current, 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 dis-
tance within the forest, but soon lost all traces of it amid the bewilder-
ment of tree-trunks and underbrush, and here and there a huge rock,
covered over with gray lichens. All these giant trees and boulders 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
mirror 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 awhile 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 through 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 mysterious, and had flowed through scenes shad-
owed 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?” inquired she.
“If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell 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 yonder.”
“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?”
 A Forest Walk 147
“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, child, 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 current of the brook,
and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholy
voice. But the little stream would not be comforted, and still 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 wood-anemones, and some scarlet columbines
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 the forest, but still remained under
the deep shadow of the trees. She beheld the minister advancing along
the path, entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he had cut by the
way-side. 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 situation where
he deemed himself liable to notice. Here it was wofully visible, in this
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 any thing, 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 accumulate 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 exhibited no
symptom of positive and vivacious suffering, except that, as little
Pearl had remarked, he kept his hand over his heart.
 XVII
the pastor and his parishioner

Slowly as the minister walked, he had almost 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?” answered 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 wit-
nesses. 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 pathway
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 of their own. So strangely
did they meet, in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter,
in the world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been intimately
connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering, in
mutual dread; as not yet familiar with their state, nor wonted to the
companionship 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 history and experience, as life never does, except 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 necessity, 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 Pastor and His Parishioner 149
the interview. They now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the
same sphere.
Without a word more spoken,—neither he nor she assuming the
guidance, but with an unexpressed consent,—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 acquaintance might have made, about
the gloomy sky, 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 circumstances, they needed something slight and casual to run
before, and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real
thoughts might be led across the threshold.
After a while, the minister fixed his eyes on Hester Prynne’s.
“Hester,” said he, “hast thou found peace?”
She smiled drearily, looking down upon 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 matters 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 torment. 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 redemption 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 upward to my face, as if the
light of heaven were beaming 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
150 The Scarlet Letter
of what they idolize? I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at
the contrast between 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 sin 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 off these garments of mock holiness, 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 emptiness!—all death!”
Hester Prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to speak. Yet, utter-
ing 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,” said 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! 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 unhappy 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 conti-
guity of his enemy, beneath whatever mask the latter might conceal
himself, was enough to disturb the magnetic sphere of a being so sen-
sitive as Arthur Dimmesdale. There had been a period when Hester
 The Pastor and His Parishioner 151
was less alive to this consideration; or, perhaps, 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 his
vigil, all 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 con-
science had been kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which
was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt
his spiritual being. Its result, on earth, could hardly fail to be insan-
ity, 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 Roger Chillingworth, 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 con-
fess, 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 Chillingworth!—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 qualities—was, in fact, the portion of him which the Devil
claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. Never was there
a blacker or a fiercer frown, than Hester now encountered. For the brief
space that it lasted, it was a dark transfiguration. But his character had
been so much enfeebled by suffering, that 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.
152 The Scarlet Letter
“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 under-
stand? 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 punish! 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 frowned on her,—for
seven long years had it frowned upon this lonely woman,—and still
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 Hester 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 sadness, but no anger. “I freely for-
give 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 has 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 tending,
and darkening ever, as it stole along;—and yet it inclosed 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
 The Pastor and His Parishioner 153
with a blast that was passing through it. The boughs were tossing
heavily above their heads; while one solemn old tree groaned dolefully
to another, 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 forest-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 burn into the bosom of
the fallen woman! Here, seen only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale,
false to God and man, might be, for one moment, true!
He started at a thought 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, thought-
fully; “and it has grown upon him by the hidden practices of his revenge.
I deem it not likely that he will betray the secret. He will doubtless 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 minister. “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 Hester, with the tears gush-
ing 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!”
“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.”
154 The Scarlet Letter
“Is the world then so narrow?” exclaimed Hester Prynne, fixing
her deep eyes on the minister’s, and instinctively exercising a magnetic
power* over a spirit so shattered and subdued, that it could hardly
hold itself 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 will 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 all this bound-
less forest to hide thy heart from the gaze of Roger Chillingworth?”
“Yes, Hester; but only under the fallen leaves!” replied the minis-
ter, with a sad smile.
“Then there is the broad pathway of the sea!” continued 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!”
“It cannot be!” answered the minister, listening as if he were called
upon to realize a dream. “I am powerless to go. Wretched and sinful
as I am, I have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly exis-
tence 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 all 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 happened! 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 Pastor and His Parishioner 155
the teacher and apostle of the red men.* Or,—as is more thy nature,—
be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the most renowned of
the cultivated 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 will and to do!—that will leave thee powerless even to repent!
Up, and away!”
“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!
 XVIII
a flood of sunshine

Arthur 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 estranged, but outlawed, from
society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was
altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule
or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy,
as the untamed forest, amid the gloom of which they were now hold-
ing a colloquy that was to decide their fate. Her intellect 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 had looked from this
estranged point of view at human institutions, and whatever priests or
legislators had established; criticizing all with hardly more reverence
than the Indian would feel for the clerical band, the judicial robe, the
pillory, the gallows, the fireside, or the church. The tendency of her fate
and fortunes had been to set her free. The scarlet letter was her pass-
port into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair,
Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern 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 expe-
rience 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 purpose. 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 every
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 princi-
ples, 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.
 A Flood of Sunshine 157
Thus, we seem to see that, as regarded Hester Prynne, the whole
seven years of outlaw and ignominy had been little other than a prepa-
ration 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 exquisite 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 dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miser-
able, 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 stern 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 there 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 Heavens mercy. But now,—since I am irrevocably doomed,—
wherefore should I not snatch the solace allowed to the condemned cul-
prit before his execution? Or, if this be the path to a better life, as Hester
would persuade me, I surely give up no fairer prospect by pursuing 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 enjoyment threw its
flickering brightness over the trouble of his breast. It was the exhila-
rating effect—upon a prisoner just escaped from the dungeon of his
own 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
158 The Scarlet Letter
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 with-
ered leaves. The mystic 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 unintelligible tale which it still kept murmuring about. But
there lay the embroidered letter, glittering like a lost jewel, which
some ill-fated wanderer might pick up, and thenceforth be haunted
by strange phantoms of guilt, sinkings of the heart, and unaccount-
able misfortune.
The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the
burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit. O exquisite
relief! She had not known the weight, until she felt the freedom! By
another impulse, she took off the formal cap that confined 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 soft-
ness 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 womanhood. 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 irrevoca-
ble past, and clustered themselves, with her maiden hope, and a hap-
piness 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. All 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, transmut-
ing the yellow fallen ones to gold, and gleaming adown the gray
 A Flood of Sunshine 159
trunks of the solemn trees. The objects that had made a shadow hith-
erto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook
might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood’s heart of mys-
tery, 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 deathlike slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the
heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world. Had
the 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 min-
ister, 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 will 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 dis-
tinct,—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 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
growth of the preceding autumn, but ripening only in the spring, and
160 The Scarlet Letter
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 par-
tridge, 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 squirrel 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 inquisitively at Pearl, as doubting whether it were better 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 nourished, all recognized a kindred wild-
ness in the human child.
And she was gentler here than in the grassy-margined streets of
the settlement, or in her mother’s cottage. The flowers appeared to
know it; and one and 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 clos-
est 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 skill she has made those simple 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 Dimmesdale, with an unquiet
smile, “that this dear child, tripping 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 strikingly 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 experi-
enced, that they sat and watched Pearl’s slow advance. In her was vis-
ible the tie that united them. She had been offered to the world, these
seven years past, as the living hieroglyphic,* in which was revealed 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 fan-
tastic little elf, sometimes. Especially, she is seldom tolerant of emotion,
when she does not fully comprehend the why and wherefore. But the
child hath strong affections! She loves me, and will love thee!”
162 The Scarlet Letter
“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 already told thee, children are not readily won to be famil-
iar 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 kind to me! The first time,—thou know-
est it well! The last was when thou ledst her with thee to the house of
yonder stern old Governor.”
“And thou didst plead so bravely in her behalf 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
picturesqueness 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 some-
what of its own shadowy and intangible quality to the child herself.
It was strange, the way in which Pearl stood, looking so stedfastly at
them through the dim medium of the forest-gloom; herself, mean-
while, 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 likewise 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 fault, not Pearl’s. Since
the latter rambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted
within the circle of the mother’s feelings, and so modified the aspect
of them all, that Pearl, the returning wanderer, 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
 The Child at the Brook-Side 163
our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream? Pray
hasten her; for this delay has already 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 slug-
gish 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 unac-
countable reason, as Arthur Dimmesdale felt the child’s eyes upon
himself, his hand—with that gesture so habitual as to have become
involuntary—stole over his heart. At length, assuming a singular air
of authority, Pearl stretched out her hand, with the small forefinger
extended, and pointing evidently towards her mother’s breast. And
beneath, in the mirror of the brook, there was the flower-girdled and
sunny image of little Pearl, pointing her small forefinger too.
“Thou strange child, why dost thou not come to me?” exclaimed
Hester.
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 beck-
oning to her, and arraying her face in a holiday suit of unaccustomed
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 behaviour 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 run hither! Else I must come
to thee!”
But Pearl, not a whit startled at her mother’s threats, any more
than mollified by her entreaties, now suddenly burst into a fit of pas-
sion, gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the
most extravagant contortions. She accompanied this wild outbreak
164 The Scarlet Letter
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 multitude were lending her their sympathy and
encouragement. Seen in the brook, once more, was the shadowy wrath
of Pearl’s image, crowned and girdled with flowers, but stamping its
foot, wildly gesticulating, and, in the midst of all, still pointing its small
forefinger at Hester’s bosom!
“I see what ails the child,” whispered Hester to the clergyman,
and turning pale in spite of a strong effort to conceal her trouble and
annoyance. “Children will not abide any, the slightest, change in the
accustomed 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 child, 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, as 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.
“O, 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 shall take it from my hand, and swallow
it up for ever!”
With these words, she advanced to the margin of the brook, took
up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom. Hopefully,
but a moment ago, as Hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep
 The Child at the Brook-Side 165
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 wither-
ing 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, reproach-
fully, but with a subdued tone. “Wilt 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 usual 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
whatever comfort she might chance to give with a throb of anguish—
Pearl put up her mouth, and kissed the scarlet letter too!
“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. “Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we
three together, into the town?”
“Not now, 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 will 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 child, what a question is that!” exclaimed her mother.
“Come and ask his blessing!”
166 The Scarlet Letter
But, whether influenced by the jealousy that seems instinctive with
every petted child towards a dangerous 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—
painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman
to admit him into the child’s kindlier regards—bent 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 multitudi-
nous tongues, would whisper long of what had passed there, and no
mortal be the wiser. And the melancholy brook would add this other
tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overbur-
dened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with not a
whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore.
 XX
the minister 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 dis-
cover only some faintly traced features or outline of the mother and
the child, slowly fading into the twilight of the woods. So great a vicis-
situde 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 place by her mother’s side. So the
minister had not fallen asleep, and dreamed!
In order to free his mind from this indistinctness and duplicity of
impression, which vexed it with a strange disquietude, he recalled
and more thoroughly defined the plans which Hester and himself had
sketched for their departure. It had been determined between them,
that the Old World, with its crowds and cities, offered them a more eli-
gible shelter and concealment than the wilds of New England, or all
America, with its alternatives of an Indian wigwam, or the few settle-
ments of Europeans, scattered thinly along the seaboard. Not to speak
of the clergyman’s health, so inadequate to sustain the hardships of a
forest life, his native gifts, his culture, and his entire development would
secure him a home only in the midst of civilization and refinement; the
higher the state, the more delicately adapted to it the man. In further-
ance of this choice, it so happened that a ship lay in the harbour; one of
those questionable cruisers, frequent at that day, which, without being
absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a
remarkable irresponsibility of character. This vessel had recently
arrived from the Spanish Main, and, within three days’ time, would sail
for Bristol. Hester Prynne—whose vocation, as a self-enlisted Sister of
Charity, had brought her acquainted with the captain and crew—could
take upon herself to secure the passage of two individuals and a child,
with all the secrecy which circumstances rendered more than desirable.
168 The Scarlet Letter
The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little interest,
the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to depart.
It would probably be on the fourth day from the present. “That is
most fortunate!” he had then said to himself. Now, why the Reverend
Mr. Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate, we hesitate to reveal.*
Nevertheless,—to hold nothing back from the reader,—it was because,
on the third day from the present, he was to preach the Election
Sermon;* and, as such an occasion formed an honorable epoch in the
life of a New England clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a
more suitable mode and time of terminating his professional career.
“At least, they shall say of me,” thought this exemplary man, “that
I leave no public duty unperformed, nor ill performed!” Sad, indeed,
that an introspection so profound and acute as this poor minister’s
should be so miserably deceived! We have had, and may still have,
worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak;
no evidence, at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease, that
had long since begun to eat into the real substance of his character.
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself,
and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to
which may be the true.
The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale’s feelings, as he returned
from his interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical
energy, and hurried him townward at a rapid pace. The pathway
among the woods seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural
obstacles, and less trodden by the foot of man, than he remembered it
on his outward journey. But he leaped across the plashy places, thrust
himself through* the clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent, plunged
into the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the track,
with an unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not but
recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath, he had
toiled over the same ground only two days before. As he drew near the
town, he took an impression of change from the series of familiar
objects that presented themselves. It seemed not yesterday, not one,
nor two, but many days, or even years ago, since he had quitted them.
There, indeed, was each former trace of the street, as he remembered
it, and all the peculiarities of the houses, with the due multitude of
gable-peaks, and a weathercock at every point where his memory sug-
gested one. Not the less, however, came this importunately obtrusive
sense of change. The same was true as regarded the acquaintances
 The Minister in a Maze 169
whom he met, and all the well-known shapes of human life, about the
little town. They looked neither older nor younger, now; the beards of
the aged were no whiter, nor could the creeping babe of yesterday walk
on his feet to-day; it was impossible to describe in what respect they
differed from the individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a
parting glance; and yet the minister’s deepest sense seemed to inform
him of their mutability. A similar impression struck him most remark-
ably, as he passed under the walls of his own church. The edifice had
so very strange, and yet so familiar, an aspect, that Mr. Dimmesdale’s
mind vibrated between two ideas; either that he had seen it only in a
dream hitherto, or that he was merely dreaming about it now.
This phenomenon, in the various shapes which it assumed, indi-
cated no external change, but so sudden and important a change in
the spectator of the familiar scene, that the intervening space of a single
day had operated on his consciousness like the lapse of years. The
minister’s own will, and Hester’s will, and the fate that grew between
them, had wrought this transformation. It was the same town as hereto-
fore; but the same minister returned not from the forest. He might have
said to the friends who greeted him,—“I am not the man for whom you
take me! I left him yonder in the forest, withdrawn into a secret dell, by
a mossy tree-trunk, and near a melancholy brook! Go, seek your min-
ister, and see if his emaciated figure, his thin cheek, his white, heavy,
pain-wrinkled brow, be not flung down there like a cast-off garment!”
His friends, no doubt, would still have insisted with him,—“Thou art
thyself the man!”—but the error would have been their own, not his.
Before Mr. Dimmesdale reached home, his inner man gave him
other evidences of a revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling.
In truth, nothing short of a total change of dynasty and moral code, in
that interior kingdom, was adequate to account for the impulses now
communicated to the unfortunate and startled minister. At every step
he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other, with a
sense that it would be at once involuntary and intentional; in spite of
himself, yet growing out of a profounder self than that which opposed
the impulse. For instance, he met one of his own deacons. The good
old man addressed him with the paternal affection and patriarchal
privilege, which his venerable age, his upright and holy character, and
his station in the Church, entitled him to use; and, conjoined with
this, the deep, almost worshipping respect, which the minister’s pro-
fessional and private claims alike demanded. Never was there a more
170 The Scarlet Letter
beautiful example of how the majesty of age and wisdom may comport
with the obeisance and respect enjoined upon it, as from a lower social
rank and inferior order of endowment, towards a higher. Now, during
a conversation of some two or three moments between the Reverend
Mr. Dimmesdale and this excellent and hoary-bearded deacon, it was
only by the most careful self-control that the former could refrain from
uttering certain blasphemous suggestions that rose into his mind,
respecting the communion-supper. He absolutely trembled and
turned pale as ashes, lest his tongue should wag itself, in utterance of
these horrible matters, and plead his own consent for so doing, with-
out his having fairly given it. And, even with this terror in his heart, he
could hardly avoid laughing to imagine how the sanctified old patriar-
chal deacon would have been petrified by his minister’s impiety!
Again, another incident of the same nature. Hurrying along the
street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale encountered the eldest female
member of his church; a most pious and exemplary old dame; poor,
widowed, lonely, and with a heart as full of reminiscences about her
dead husband and children, and her dead friends of long ago, as a
burial-ground is full of storied grave-stones. Yet all this, which
would else have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn
joy to her devout old soul by religious consolations and the truths of
Scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually for more than
thirty years. And, since Mr. Dimmesdale had taken her in charge,
the good grandam’s chief earthly comfort—which, unless it had
been likewise a heavenly comfort, could have been none at all—was
to meet her pastor, whether casually, or of set purpose, and be
refreshed with a word of warm, fragrant, heaven-breathing Gospel
truth from his beloved lips into her dulled, but rapturously attentive
ear. But, on this occasion, up to the moment of putting his lips to the
old woman’s ear, Mr. Dimmesdale, as the great enemy of souls would
have it, could recall no text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a
brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument
against the immortality of the human soul. The instilment thereof
into her mind would probably have caused this aged sister to drop
down dead, at once, as by the effect of an intensely poisonous infu-
sion. What he really did whisper, the minister could never afterwards
recollect. There was, perhaps, a fortunate disorder in his utterance,
which failed to impart any distinct idea to the good widow’s compre-
hension, or which Providence interpreted after a method of its own.
 The Minister in a Maze 171
Assuredly, as the minister looked back, he beheld an expression of
divine gratitude and ecstasy that seemed like the shine of the celestial
city on her face, so wrinkled and ashy pale.
Again, a third instance. After parting from the old church-
member, he met the youngest sister of them all. It was a maiden newly
won—and won by the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale’s own sermon, on
the Sabbath after his vigil—to barter the transitory pleasures of the
world for the heavenly hope, that was to assume brighter substance as
life grew dark around her, and which would gild the utter gloom with
final glory. She was fair and pure as a lily that had bloomed in Paradise.
The minister knew well that he was himself enshrined within the
stainless sanctity of her heart, which hung its snowy curtains about
his image, imparting to religion the warmth of love, and to love a reli-
gious purity. Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young girl
away from her mother’s side, and thrown her into the pathway of this
sorely tempted, or—shall we not rather say?—this lost and desperate
man. As she drew nigh, the arch-fiend whispered him to condense
into small compass and drop into her tender bosom a germ of evil that
would be sure to blossom darkly soon, and bear black fruit betimes.
Such was his sense of power over this virgin soul, trusting him as she
did, that the minister felt potent to blight all the field of innocence
with but one wicked look, and develop all its opposite with but a word.
So—with a mightier struggle than he had yet sustained—he held his
Geneva cloak before his face, and hurried onward, making no sign of
recognition, and leaving the young sister to digest his rudeness as she
might. She ransacked her conscience,—which was full of harmless
little matters, like her pocket or her work-bag,—and took herself to
task, poor thing, for a thousand imaginary faults; and went about her
household duties with swollen eyelids the next morning.
Before the minister had time to celebrate his victory over this last
temptation, he was conscious of another impulse, more ludicrous, and
almost as horrible. It was,—we blush to tell it,—it was to stop short in
the road, and teach some very wicked words to a knot of little Puritan
children who were playing there, and had but just begun to talk.
Denying himself this freak, as unworthy of his cloth, he met a drunken
seaman, one of the ship’s crew from the Spanish Main. And, here, since
he had so valiantly forborne all other wickedness, poor Mr. Dimmesdale
longed, at least, to shake hands with the tarry blackguard, and recreate
himself with a few improper jests, such as dissolute sailors so abound
172 The Scarlet Letter
with, and a volley of good, round, solid, satisfactory, and heaven-defying
oaths! It was not so much a better principle, as partly his natural good
taste, and still more his buckramed* hiabit of clerical decorum, that
carried him safely through the latter crisis.
“What is it that haunts and tempts me thus?” cried the minister to
himself, at length, pausing in the street, and striking his hand against
his forehead. “Am I mad? or am I given over utterly to the fiend? Did
I make a contract with him in the forest, and sign it with my blood?
And does he now summon me to its fulfilment, by suggesting the per-
formance of every wickedness which his most foul imagination can
conceive?”
At the moment when the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale thus com-
muned with himself, and struck his forehead 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 Overbury’s murder.
Whether the witch had read the minister’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 conversation.
“So, reverend Sir, you have made a visit into the forest,” observed
the witch-lady, nodding her high head-dress at him. “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 recep-
tion from yonder potentate you wot of !”
“I profess, madam,” answered the clergyman, with a grave obei-
sance, 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 person-
age. My one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend of mine,
the Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over the many precious souls
he hath won from heathendom!”
“Ha, ha, ha!” cackled the old witch-lady, still nodding 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!”
 The Minister in a Maze 173
She passed on with her aged stateliness, but often turning back her
head and smiling at him, like one willing to recognize a secret inti-
macy 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 impulses,
and awakened into vivid life the whole brotherhood of bad ones. Scorn,
bitterness, unprovoked malignity, gratuitous desire of ill, ridicule of
whatever was good and holy, all awoke, to tempt, even while they
frightened him. And his encounter 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 himself to the world by any of those strange and wicked
eccentricities to which he had been continually impelled while pass-
ing 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 sentence 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 writ-
ten 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
forest; a wiser one; with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the
174 The Scarlet Letter
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 behold an evil spirit. And so he did! It was old
Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood, white and
speechless, with one hand on the Hebrew Scriptures, 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 if 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 Sermon?”
“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 physi-
cian, good though they be, and administered by a friendly hand.”
All this time, Roger Chillingworth 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 suspicion, with
respect to his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician knew,
then, that, in the minister’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 disturbing it. Thus, the minister felt no appre-
hension that Roger Chillingworth would touch, in express words, upon
the real position which they sustained towards one another. Yet did the
physician, in his dark way, creep frightfully near the secret.
“Were it hot 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 occasion of the Election discourse. The people look for 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 resigna-
tion. “Heaven grant it be a better one; for, in good sooth, I hardly
 The Minister in a Maze 175
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 reme-
dies, 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 Jerusalem,* 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 already written pages of the Election
Sermon into the fire, he forthwith began another, which he wrote
with 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 solemn music of its oracles through so foul an
organ-pipe as he. However, leaving that mystery to solve itself, or go
unsolved for ever, 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; 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 bedazzled eyes. There he was, with the
pen still between his fingers, and a vast, immeasurable tract of writ-
ten space behind him!
 XXI
the new england holiday

Betimes in the morning of the day on which the new Governor was
to receive his office at the hands of the people, 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 calmness 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 departed out of the world with which she
still seemed to mingle.
It might be, on this one day, that there was an 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 counte-
nance and mien. Such a spiritual seer might have conceived, that, after
sustaining the gaze of the multitude through seven miserable years as
a necessity, a penance, and something which it was a stern religion to
endure, she now, for one last time more, encountered it freely and vol-
untarily, in order to convert what had so long been agony into a kind
of triumph. “Look your last on the scarlet letter and its wearer!”—the
people’s victim and life-long bondslave, as they fancied her, might say
to them. “Yet a little while, and she will be beyond your reach! A few
hours longer, and the deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide for
ever the symbol which ye have caused to burn upon her bosom!” Nor
were it an inconsistency too improbable to be assigned to human nature,
 The New England Holiday 177
should we suppose a feeling of regret in Hester’s mind, at the moment
when she was about to win her freedom from the pain which had been
thus deeply incorporated with her being. Might there not be an irre-
sistible desire to quaff a last, long, breathless draught of the cup of
wormwood and aloes, with which nearly all her years of womanhood
had been perpetually flavored? The wine of life, henceforth to be
presented to her lips, must be indeed rich, delicious, and exhilarat-
ing, 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 impos-
sible to guess that this bright and 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 impart-
ing so distinct a peculiarity to Hester’s simple robe. The dress, so
proper was it to little Pearl, seemed an effluence, or inevitable devel-
opment and outward manifestation of her character, no more to be sep-
arated 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 sympathy in the
agitations of those connected with them; always, especially, a sense of
any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic cir-
cumstances; 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 effervescence made her flit with a bird-like movement, rather
than walk by her mother’s side. She broke continually into shouts of
a wild, inarticulate, and sometimes piercing music. When they
reached the market-place, she became still more restless, on perceiv-
ing 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.
“Why, what is this, mother?” cried she. “Wherefore have all the
people left their work to-day? Is it a play-day for the whole world?
178 The Scarlet Letter
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
so, mother?”
“He remembers thee a little babe, my child,” answered Hester.
“He should not nod and smile at me, for all that,—the black,
grim, ugly-eyed old man!” said Pearl. “He may nod at thee if he will;
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 all come to do here in the market-place?”
“They wait to see the procession pass,” said Hester. “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, child,” 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 hear, and the strip
of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses
my forehead, 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 over
his heart!”
“Be quiet, Pearl! Thou understandest not these things,” said her
mother. “Think no now of the minister, but look about thee, and see
how cheery is every body’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!”
It was as Hester said, in regard to the unwonted jollity that bright-
ened the faces of the people. Into this festal season of the year—as it
 The New England Holiday 179
already was, and continued to be during the greater part of two cen-
turies—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 gen-
eral affliction.
But we perhaps exaggerate the gray or sable tinge, which undoubt-
edly characterized the mood and manners of the age. The persons
now in the market-place of Boston had not been born to an inheri-
tance of Puritanic gloom. They were native Englishmen, whose
fathers had lived in the sunny richness of the 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 cer-
emonies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity, and give, as
it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state,
which a nation, at such festivals, puts on. There was some shadow of
an attempt 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 colorless 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 magistrates. The fathers and founders of the
commonwealth—the statesman, the priest, and the soldier—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 procession before
the people’s eye, and thus impart a needed dignity to the simple frame-
work of a government so newly constructed.
Then, too, the people were countenanced, if not encouraged, 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
appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in
the England of Elizabeth’s time, or that of James;—no rude shows
180 The Scarlet Letter
of a theatrical kind; no minstrel with his harp and legendary ballad,
nor gleeman, with an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his
tricks of mimic witchcraft; no Merry Andrew,* to stir up the multi-
tude with jests, perhaps hundreds 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 jocularity 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
soil, for the sake of the courage and manliness that were essential in
them. Wrestling-matches, in the differing fashions of Cornwall and
Devonshire, were seen here and there about the marketplace; 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 disappointment
of the crowd, this latter business was broken off by the interposition
of the town beadle, who had no idea of permitting the majesty of the
law to be violated by such an abuse of one of its consecrated places.
It may not be too much to affirm, on the whole, (the people being
then in the first stages of joyless deportment, and the offspring of
sires who had known how to be merry, in their day,) that they would
compare favorably, in point of holiday keeping, with their descen-
dants, even at so long an interval as ourselves. Their immediate pos-
terity, the generation next to the early emigrants, wore the blackest
shade of Puritanism, 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 attain.
Nor, wild as were these painted barbarians, were they the wildest
 The New England Holiday 181
feature of the scene. This distinction 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 Election 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 with 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 behaviour that
were binding on all others; smoking tobacco under the beadle’s very
nose, although each whiff would have cost a townsman a shilling;
and quaffing, at their pleasure, draughts of wine or aquavitæ from
pocket-flasks, which they freely tendered to the gaping 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 desperate deeds
on their proper element. The sailor 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 speci-
mens 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 modern court of justice.
But the sea, in those old times, heaved, swelled, and foamed very
much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with
hardly any attempts at regulation 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 regarded as a personage with whom it was
disreputable to traffic, or casually associate. Thus, the Puritan elders,
in their black cloaks, starched bands, and steeple-crowned hats, smiled
not unbenignantly at the clamor and rude deportment of these jolly
seafaring men; and it excited neither surprise nor animadversion
when so reputable a citizen as old Roger Chillingworth, the physi-
cian, was seen to enter the market-place, in close and familiar talk
with the commander of the questionable vessel.
The latter was by far the most showy and gallant figure, so far as
apparel went, anywhere to be seen among the multitude. He wore a
profusion of ribbons on his garment, and gold lace on his hat, which
182 The Scarlet Letter
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, all 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 appeared to recognize,
and did not hesitate to address her. As was usually the case wherever
Hester stood, a small, vacant area—a sort of magic circle—had formed
itself about her, into which, though the people were elbowing 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 fated wearer; partly by her own reserve, and partly by the
instinctive, though no longer so unkindly, withdrawal 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 over-
heard; and so changed was Hester Prynne’s repute 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.
“So, mistress,” said the mariner, “I must bid the steward make ready
one more berth than you bargained for! No fear of scurvy or ship-fever,
this voyage! What with 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 per-
mitted to appear. “Have you another passenger?”
“Why, know you not,” cried the shipmaster, “that this physician
here—Chillingworth, 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 your 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 Hester, with a mien
of calmness, though in the utmost consternation. “They have long
dwelt together.”
 The New England Holiday 183
Nothing further passed between the mariner and Hester Prynne.
But, at that instant, she beheld old Roger Chillingworth himself,
standing in the remotest 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—conveyed secret and fearful meaning.
 XXII
the procession

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 procession of magistrates
and citizens, on its way towards the meeting-house; where, in compli-
ance with a custom thus early established, and ever since observed, the
Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale was to deliver an Election Sermon.
Soon the head of the procession showed itself, with a slow and stately
march, turning a corner, and making 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 great skill,
but yet attaining the great object for which the harmony of drum and
clarion addresses itself to the multitude,—that of imparting a higher
and more heroic air to the scene of life that passes before 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
throughout the morning; she gazed silently, and seemed to be borne
upward, like a floating sea-bird, on the long heaves and swells of sound.
But she was brought back to her former mood by the shimmer of the
sunshine on the weapons and bright armour of the military company,
which followed after the music, and formed the honorary escort of
the procession. This body of soldiery—which still sustains a corpo-
rate existence,* and marches down from past ages with an ancient
and honorable fame—was composed of no mercenary materials. Its
ranks were filled with gentlemen, who felt the stirrings of martial
impulse, and sought to establish a kind of College of Arms,* where, as
in an association of Knights Templars,* they might learn the science,
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 European warfare, had fairly won their title to assume
the name and pomp of soldiership. The entire array, moreover, clad
in burnished steel, and with plumage nodding over their bright
 The Procession 185
morions,* had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can
aspire to equal.
And yet the men of civil eminence, who came immediately behind
the military escort, were better worth a thoughtful observer’s eye.
Even in outward demeanour 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 than 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 descendants, if it sur-
vive at all, exists in smaller proportion, and with a vastly diminished
force in the selection and estimate of public men. The change may 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 still the faculty and necessity
of reverence were strong in him,—bestowed it on the white hair and
venerable brow of age; on long-tried integrity; 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 represented in the square cast of countenance and
large physical development of the new colonial magistrates. So far as a
demeanour of natural authority was concerned, the mother country
need not have been ashamed to see these foremost men of an actual
democracy 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 intellectual ability displayed itself far more than in political
life; for—leaving a higher motive out of the question—it offered
inducements powerful enough, in the almost worshipping respect of
the community, to win the most aspiring ambition into its service.
186 The Scarlet Letter
Even political 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
which 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, if 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 exhilaration of that potent
cordial, which is distilled only in the furnace-glow of earnest and long-
continued thought. Or, perchance, his sensitive temperament was invig-
orated 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 onward, and with an unaccus-
tomed force. But where was his mind? Far and deep in its own region,
busying 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 stedfastly at the clergyman, felt a dreary
influence come over her, but wherefore or whence she knew not; unless
that he seemed so remote 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 dell
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, moving proudly past, enveloped, as it were, in the rich music,
with the procession of majestic and venerable fathers; he, so unat-
tainable in his worldly position, and still more so in that far vista of his
unsympathizing thoughts, through which she now beheld him! Her
spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that,
 The Procession 187
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 being 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 feelings, or herself felt
the remoteness and intangibility that had fallen around the minister.
While the procession 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?”
“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered her mother. “We must
not always talk in the market-place of what happens 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 people; 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 begone?”
“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 Hibbins, 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 procession. As this ancient
lady had the renown (which subsequently cost her no less a price than
her life) of being a principal 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 market-place in which the two women stood.
188 The Scarlet Letter
“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 Scripture in his mouth, I warrant,—to
take an airing in the forest! Aha! we know what that means, Hester
Prynne! But, truly, forsooth, I find it hard to believe him the same
man. Many a church-member saw I, walking behind the music, that
has danced in the same measure with me, when Somebody was fiddler,
and, it might be, an Indian powwow* or a Lapland wizard changing
hands with us! That is but a trifle, when a woman knows the world.
But this minister! Couldst thou surely tell, Hester, whether he was
the same man that encountered thee on the forest-path!”
“Madam, I know not of what you speak,” answered Hester Prynne,
feeling Mistress Hibbins to be of infirm mind; yet strangely startled
and awe-stricken by the confidence with which she affirmed a per-
sonal connection between so many 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 many 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 all see it in the
sunshine; 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 tell thee in thine ear! When the Black Man sees one of his own ser-
vants, 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 disclosed in open daylight to the eyes of all the world! 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!”
 The Procession 189
Laughing so shrilly that all the market-place could hear her, the
weird old gentlewoman took her departure.
By this time the preliminary prayer had been offered in the meet-
ing-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, murmur and
flow of the minister’s very peculiar voice.
This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment; insomuch that a lis-
tener, comprehending nothing of 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 emo-
tions high or tender, in a tongue native to the human heart, wherever
educated. Muffled as the sound was by its passage through the church-
walls, Hester Prynne listened with such intentness, and sympathized so
intimately, that the sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely
apart from its indistinguishable words. These, perhaps, if more dis-
tinctly heard, might have been only a grosser medium, 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 essen-
tial character of plaintiveness. A loud or low expression of anguish,—the
whisper, or the shriek, as it might be conceived, of suffering humanity,
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 com-
manding,—when it gushed irrepressibly upward,—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 open 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; beseeching its sympathy or for-
giveness,—at every moment,—in each accent,—and never in vain! It
was this profound and continual undertone that gave the clergyman his
most appropriate power.
190 The Scarlet Letter
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 nev-
ertheless 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 con-
nected 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 will 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 clus-
tering leaves. She had an undulating, but, oftentimes, a sharp and
irregular movement. 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 yield-
ing the minutest degree of control over her motions in requital. The
Puritans looked on, and, if they smiled, were none the less inclined to
pronounce the child a demon offspring, from the indescribable charm
of beauty and eccentricity that shone through her little figure, and
sparkled with its activity. She ran and looked the wild 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 wonder-
ingly 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, indeed, who had
spoken to Hester Prynne—was so smitten with Pearl’s aspect, that
he attempted to lay hands upon her, with purpose to snatch a kiss.
Finding it as impossible to touch her as to catch a humming-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.
 The Procession 191
“Thy mother is yonder woman with the scarlet letter,” said the
seaman. “Wilt thou carry her a message 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 her naughty smile. “If thou callest me that ill name, I shall
tell him of thee; and he will chase thy ship with a tempest!”*
Pursuing a zigzag course across the market-place, the child
returned to her mother, and communicated what the mariner had
said. Hester’s strong, calm, stedfastly enduring spirit almost sank, at
last, on beholding this dark and grim countenance of an inevitable
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 unrelenting 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
roundabout, who had often heard of the scarlet letter, and to whom
it had been made terrific by a hundred false or exaggerated rumors,
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 accordingly stood, fixed there by the cen-
trifugal 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 affected by a sort of cold shadow of the white man’s curiosity,
and, gliding through the crowd, fastened their snake-like black eyes
on Hester’s bosom; conceiving, perhaps, that the wearer of this bril-
liantly embroidered badge must needs be a personage of high dignity
among her people. Lastly, the inhabitants of the town (their own
interest in this worn-out subject languidly reviving itself, by sympa-
thy with what they saw others feel) lounged idly to the same quarter,
192 The Scarlet Letter
and tormented 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 forthcoming 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
painfully, 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 for ever, 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 imagination would have been irreverent enough
to surmise that the same scorching stigma was on them both?
 XXIII
the revelation of the scarlet letter

The eloquent voice, on which the souls of the listening audience had
been borne 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 murmur and half-hushed
tumult; as if the auditors, released from the high spell that had trans-
ported them into the region of another’s mind, were returning into them-
selves, with all their awe and wonder still 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 mortal lips more evidently than it did through his. Its influence
could be seen, as it were, descending upon him, and possessing him,
and continually lifting him out of the written discourse that lay before
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 rela-
tion 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 difference,
that, whereas the Jewish seers had denounced judgments and ruin on
their country, it was his mission to foretell a high and glorious des-
tiny* 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 regret of one soon to pass away. Yes; their minister whom
194 The Scarlet Letter
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
transitory stay on earth gave the last emphasis to the effect 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. Dimmesdale—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 triumph than any previous one, or than any which could hereafter
be. He stood, at this moment, on the very proudest eminence of
superiority, to which the gifts of intellect, rich lore, prevailing elo-
quence, and a reputation 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. Meanwhile, Hester
Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, with the scar-
let letter still burning on her breast!
Now was heard again the clangor of the music, and the measured
tramp of the military escort, issuing from the church-door. The pro-
cession 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 volume from
the childlike loyalty which the age awarded to its rulers—was felt to
be an irrepressible outburst of the 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 neighbour. 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 highly wrought and symphonious feeling,
 The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter 195
to produce that more impressive 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 so honored by his mortal 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 etherealized by spirit as he was,
and so apotheosized by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps in
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 glimpse of him. How feeble and
pale he looked amid all his triumph! The energy—or say, rather, the
inspiration which had held him up, until he should have delivered the
sacred message that brought its own strength along with it from
heaven—was withdrawn, now that it had so faithfully performed its
office. The glow, which they had just before beheld burning on his
cheek, was extinguished, 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. Dimmesdale was left by the retir-
ing wave of intellect and sensibility, stepped forward hastily to offer
his support. The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the
old man’s arm. He still walked onward, if that movement could be so
described, which rather resembled 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 ignominious stare. There
stood Hester, holding little Pearl by the hand! And there was the scar-
let letter on her breast! The minister here made a pause; although the
music still played the stately and rejoicing march to which the proces-
sion moved. It summoned him onward,—onward to the festival!—
but here he made a pause.
196 The Scarlet Letter
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; judging from Mr. Dimmesdale’s aspect that he must other-
wise inevitably fall. But there was something in the latter’s expression
that warned back the magistrate, 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, waxing dimmer and brighter,
and fading at last into the light of heaven!
He turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his arms.
“Hester,” said he, “come hither! 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 child, 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 will—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 well! 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!” answered 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 scarlet letter.
“Hester Prynne,” cried he, with a piercing earnestness, “in the
name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, 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 hither now, and
twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided
by the will 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, Hester, come! Support me up yonder scaffold!”
 The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter 197
The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who stood
more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and
so perplexed as to the purport of what they saw,—unable to receive the
explanation which most readily presented itself, or to imagine any
other,—that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judg-
ment which Providence seemed about to work. They beheld the min-
ister, leaning on Hester’s shoulder and supported by her arm around
him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still the little
hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger Chillingworth
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 present 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!” answered the minister.
Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester with an expression of doubt
and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, that there was
a feeble smile upon his lips.
“Is not this better,” murmured he, “than what we dreamed of in
the forest?”
“I know not! I know not!” she hurriedly replied. “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 will 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 Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale turned to the dignified and ven-
erable rulers; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren; to the people,
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 meridian, shone down upon the cler-
gyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he stood out from all the
earth to put in his plea of guilty at the bar of Eternal 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,
198 The Scarlet Letter
and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of
remorse 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 this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength
wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful
moment, from grovelling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter
which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk
hath been,—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to
find repose,—it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repug-
nance roundabout 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 faintness 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 deter-
mined 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 con-
tinually with the touch of his burning finger! But he hid it cunningly
from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mournful,
because so pure in a sinful world!—and sad, because 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? Behold! Behold a dreadful witness of it!”
With a convulsive motion he tore away the ministerial band from
before his breast. It was revealed! But it were irreverent to describe
that revelation. For an instant the gaze of the horror-stricken multi-
tude was concentred on the ghastly miracle; while the minister stood
with a flush of triumph in his face, 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 Chillingworth 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!”
 The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter 199
“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 sportive with the child,—“dear little Pearl, wilt 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 sympa-
thies; 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 for
ever 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, bending 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 eyes! Then tell me what
thou seest?”
“Hush, Hester, hush!” said he, with tremulous solemnity. “The law
we broke!—the sin here so awfully 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 everlast-
ing and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful! He hath
proved his mercy, most of all, 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 for
ever! Praised be his name! His will be done! Farewell!”
That final word came forth with the minister’s expiring breath.
The multitude, 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 people to arrange their
thoughts in reference to the foregoing 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 scarlet letter—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 necessarily 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 so 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 necro-
mancer, had caused it to appear, through the agency of magic and poi-
sonous drugs. Others, again,—and those best able to appreciate the
minister’s peculiar sensibility, and the wonderful operation of his spirit
upon the body,—whispered their belief, that the awful symbol was
the effect of the ever active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost
heart outwardly, and at last manifesting Heaven’s dreadful judgment
by the visible presence of the letter. The 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 meditation has fixed it in very
undesirable distinctness.
It is singular, nevertheless, that certain persons, who were specta-
tors 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-born infant’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 letter.
According to these highly respectable witnesses, the minister, con-
scious that he was dying,—conscious, also, that the reverence of the
multitude placed him already among saints and angels,—had desired,
 Conclusion 201
by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express
to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man’s own right-
eousness. After exhausting 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 sinners 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 aspir-
ingly upward. Without disputing a truth so momentous, we must be
allowed to consider this version of Mr. Dimmesdale’s story as only an
instance of that stubborn fidelity with which a man’s friends—and
especially a clergyman’s—will 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 testimony of individuals, some of
whom had known Hester Prynne, while others had heard the tale from
contemporary witnesses—fully confirms the view taken in the forego-
ing pages. Among many morals which press upon us from the poor
minister’s miserable experience, 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 demeanour 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, shriv-
elled away, and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted
weed that lies wilting in the sun. This unhappy man had made the
very principle of his life to consist in the pursuit and systematic exer-
cise of revenge; and when, by its completest triumph and consumma-
tion, 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 mortal 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 acquaintances,—
as well Roger Chillingworth as his companions,—we would fain be
merciful. It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether
202 The Scarlet Letter
hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost
development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge;
each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and
spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no
less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his
object. Philosophically considered, 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 com-
municate 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 little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne.
So Pearl—the elf-child,—the demon offspring, as some people, up
to that epoch, persisted in considering her—became the richest
heiress of her day, in the New World. Not improbably, this circumstance
wrought a very material change in the public estimation; 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 physi-
cian’s death, the wearer of the scarlet letter disappeared, and Pearl
along with her. For many years, though a vague report would now and
then find its way across the sea,—like a shapeless piece of driftwood
tost ashore, with the initials of a name upon it,—yet no tidings of them
unquestionably authentic were received. The story of the scarlet letter
grew into a legend. Its spell, however, was still potent, and kept the
scaffold awful where the poor minister had died, and likewise the cot-
tage by the sea-shore, where Hester Prynne had dwelt. Near this latter
spot, one afternoon, some children were at play, when they beheld a
tall woman, in a gray robe, approach 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 shadow-like
through these impediments,—and, at all events, went in.
On the threshold she paused,—turned partly round,—for, perchance,
the idea of entering, all alone, and all so changed, the home of so intense
 Conclusion 203
a former life, 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 still 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 happiness. 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 armorial 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 delicate
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
apparelled, been shown to our sombre-hued community.
In fine, the gossips of that day believed,—and Mr. Surveyor Pue,
who made investigations a century later, believed,—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 fireside.
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,—resumed 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, the 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
204 The Scarlet Letter
reverence too. And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived
in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all
their sorrows and perplexities, 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, mis-
placed, 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!
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 herself might be the des-
tined 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 bur-
dened 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, moreover, 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 sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which
King’s Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and 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 still discern,
and perplex himself with the purport—there appeared the sem-
blance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald’s word-
ing of which might serve for a motto and brief description of our now
concluded legend; so sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-
glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:—

“On a field, sable, the letter A, gules.”*

the end.
 EXPLANATORY NOTES

Full details of all books and articles cited by author can be found in the Select
Bibliography, p. xxxiv.
CE: The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, ed, William
Charvat, et al. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1962–97).
3 community: the community immediately around Hawthorne in 1850 was
that of Salem, Massachusetts, where the ‘excitement’ took the form of an
attack, in the Salem Register (a Whig newspaper), on his ‘heartless, utterly
inexcusable and calumnious caricature’ of the old gentlemen who worked
in the Custom-House. The Scarlet Letter was published on 16 March. On
19 March the Salem Gazette, a Democratic paper, printed a favourable
review of the book. The attack in the Register came on 21 March. In it, the
author was also accused of a ‘venomous, malignant, and unaccountable
assault’ on the permanent Inspector (see below, note to p. 16 for further
details). The Register returned to the attack on 25 March, when it printed
censures of the Custom-House sketch from Boston and New York papers.
The relevant articles are reprinted in Frazer Clark (1970).
kindlier spirit: given the destructiveness of his portrait of the permanent
Inspector, Hawthorne’s comment here is surely disingenuous.
5 first time: this, in fact, resulted in the essay ‘The Old Manse’, subtitled
The Author Makes the Reader Acquainted with his Abode’, with which
Hawthorne had introduced a collection of his stories and sketches called
Mosses from an Old Manse, published in two volumes in 1846.
Clerk of this Parish: the ‘Memoirs of P.P.’ formed one of the ‘Memoirs of
Martinus Scriblerus’—satirical sketches by members of the Scriblerus
Club. Formed in 1713, the club included Arbuthnot, Gay, Pope, and Swift.
Attribution of individual works is problematic, though Arbuthnot’s biog-
raphers do not credit him with the ‘Memoir of P.P.’. The bookseller’s
notice stated that Gay helped with this sketch. Hawthorne would have
found the Scriblerus Papers in the Works of Alexander Pope, in which they
were included in the 1741 Warburton edition. Hawthorne withdrew all
ten volumes of the 1808 edition from the Salem Athenaeum in 1828 (see
Kesselring,.1949). ‘Memoirs of P.P.’ was a satire on the self-important
‘Bishop Burnet’s History of his Own Time, 6 vols., 1724–53. The clerk con-
fuses the banal with the profound, for his idea of Church reform is whipping
out stray dogs. ‘P.P.’ shares something with Arthur Dimmesdale, however,
for he has begotten a child on a woman to whom he is not married. He decides
not to betray the fathers of illegitimate children in the parish because, as he
says, ‘I also have sinned’.
behind its veil: compare CE, x. 32–3, ‘The Old Manse’, when the speaker
‘veiled his face’.
206 Explanatory Notes
6 make up my volume: when Hawthorne sent the manuscript of ‘The Custom-
House’ and all but the last three chapters of The Scarlet Letter to James T.
Fields (his prospective publisher) on 15 January 1850, he proposed as the
title ‘Old-Time Legends; together with sketches, experimental and ideal’ (see
CE, XVI. 306). Fields responded with the suggestion that the romance
should be published with the autobiographical introduction but with no
other tales or sketches. Parker (1985) argues that Fields’s own account of
the matter, in which he claimed to have persuaded Hawthorne to lengthen
what began as a short story into The Scarlet Letter (an account first pub-
lished in the Atlantic Monthly in February 1871), is misleading since
Hawthorne already had a sense of the final length of his romance when he
sent the manuscript to Fields. According to Parker, there never was a
‘short version’ of The Scarlet Letter; only the last three chapters of the
book were added after the decision to publish it without other tales and
sketches.
King Derby: Elias Hasket Derby (1739 – 99) was a merchant and
shipowner whose Grand Turk was the first New England ship to reach
Canton. The voyage began in 1785. Derby developed trade links with
India and Russia as well as China. See J. D. Phillips, Salem and the Indies
(1947).
7 last war with England: the ‘War of 1812’ was declared in June of that year.
A peace treaty was signed in December 1814. General Jackson’s famous vic-
tory over the British at New Orleans took place after the signing of the treaty.
sends adventures: it was common practice for young men starting out on a
commercial career by working in shipping houses to invest some of their
money in privately financed trading ventures.
protection: passport, or any form of pass that makes it possible to travel safely.
8 receipt of custom: an allusion to Matthew 9: 9. Jesus called Matthew to follow
him when the latter was ‘sitting at the receipt of custom’.
slop-sellers: clothiers. ‘Slops’ were articles of clothing and bedding sold to
sailors on board ship.
Wapping: the ancient dockside area of London. Here used figuratively for
any dockside area.
9 Loco-foco: the term derived from the ‘locofoco’ matches used to enable an
1835 meeting of New York Democrats to continue after a prankster had
turned out the lamps. Originally a term of derogation applied to radical
Democrats, it was later used by the Whigs to refer to (and disparage) all
members of the Democratic Party. Hawthorne was in fact accused of
‘locofoco’ activity by the Salem Whigs in a letter they sent to the Treasury
Department in Washington and made public in the Boston Atlas on
16 June 1849. See Hoeltje (1954) and Nissenbaum (1978).
Gallows Hill: the probable site of the hangings in the Salem witchcraft
episode in 1692.
New Guinea: the part of Salem in which immigrants from southern
Europe first began to settle.
 Explanatory Notes 207
9 of my name: Major William Hathorne (1607–81) came to Massachusetts
in 1630 and soon became an important figure in the public life of the colony.
See Loggins (1951).
that first ancestor: Hawthorne’s account of family here focuses, entirely on
the paternal line, totally ignoring the Manning family from which his
mother was descended, although, Elizabeth Manning Hawthorne obviously
played a more important part in her son’s life than did the father who died
when the boy was still a child of four years. Baym (1982) sees an implied
connection between Hester Prynne’s harsh treatment at the hands of the
Puritan Fathers and Elizabeth Manning’s unsympathetic reception by the
Hathornes. Since her first child (a daughter) was born only seven months
after her marriage, she may well have been made to feel some disgrace
by her respectable in-laws. To Baym, the biographical significance of The
Scarlet Letter is that it is a story about a mother told by a writer who has
just lost his own mother.
10 their histories: the Quaker history from which Hawthorne derived his
information about the persecution was William Sewel’s History of the
Rise, Increase, and Progress of the Christian People Called Quakers (1722).
Sewel tells of the cruelty of William Hawthorne (the usual spelling in the
eighteenth as in the seventeenth century was Hathorne), who was a ‘fierce
persecutor’ of the sect. It was his warrant that led to the brutal whipping
of Ann Coleman, who nearly died under the scourge.
His son: John Hathorne (1641–1717) did not in fact serve as a trial judge
when the ‘witches’ of Salem were brought to trial in 1692, but he did con-
duct the initial hearings which resulted in the commitment of many of the
accused. For his career, see Loggins (1951).
fiddler: the Puritan contempt for entertainers, which extended to art and
artists, was one theme of Hawthorne’s story ‘The Maypole of Merry Mount’
(1836).
11 The spell survives: as many commentators have noted, the narrator’s
account of the mysterious attraction and irrational pull of Salem antici-
pates the force that Boston exerts on Hester Prynne.
12 Old Manse: the Hawthornes left the Old Manse, Concord, in October 1845,
having spent the first years of their marriage there.
President’s commission: James K. Polk (1795–1849) was the Democratic
President when Hawthorne was appointed Surveyor. The commission—
dated 3 April 1846—appointed him for four years, but he was removed
from office after only three.
General Miller: General James F. Miller (1776–1851), who had achieved
fame in the War of 1812, had been Collector for twenty-one years when
Hawthorne took office.
13 Whigs: the name given to the party that opposed the Democrats from the
early 1830s until the formation of the Republican Party in the 1850s.
political services: this statement is disingenuous, as Nissenbaum (1978 and
1984) has shown.
208 Explanatory Notes
Boreas: god of the north wind.
15 permanent Inspector: this was William Lee, who had been appointed in
1814 and was nearly eighty years old when ‘The Custom-House’ was pub-
lished. Hawthorne’s insult to the old man was given extra prominence
when the sketch of the Inspector was given advance publication in the
Literary World. See Turner (1980) for the identification and for details.
The anger of Lee’s family was so intense that one relative threatened to
horsewhip Hawthorne.
17 elder Adams: John Adams (1735–1826), President from 1797 to 1801, was the
father of John Quincy Adams (1767–1848), President from 1825 to 1829.
18 Western territory: General Miller had been Governor of Arkansas Territory
1819–25.
19 Ticonderoga: a fort at the foot of Lake Champlain, in New York State,
which was captured from the French by the British in 1759 and by the
Americans, under Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, in 1775.
20 Chippewa or Fort Erie: the British were defeated at the Battle of Chippewa,
5 July 1814, when the Americans crossed into Canada. The Americans
subsequently occupied Fort Erie for some months before withdrawing
across the border.
21 “I’ll try, Sir!”: words traditionally supposed to have been spoken by
Miller when ordered to take the British battery at Lundy’s Lane, Ontario,
near Niagara Falls, on 25 July 1814, in the War of 1812. In the event,
Miller’s 21st US Infantry Regiment did succeed in storming the battery.
The motto ‘I’ll try, Sir!’ was inscribed on a flag flown on the barge in
which Miller travelled to Arkansas when taking up his appointment there.
man of business: this was Zachariah Burchmore (1809–94), whose friend-
ship with Hawthorne endured until the latter’s death, and who was him-
self politically active in Democratic Party politics while working in the
Custom House. He too, was dismissed from the service by the Whig
administration. See Nissenbaum (1978) and Turner (1980).
22 Brook Farm: this was the name of an idealistic communitarian experi-
ment, founded by George Ripley—a former Unitarian minister—in
1841 and situated at West Roxbury, nine miles from Boston. Hawthorne
joined the commune in April 1841, hoping to bring Sophia there after
their marriage, but he left after a few months, unconvinced that physical
and mental labour could be fruitfully combined (as Ripley had hoped to
demonstrate) and inhibited in his creative writing by the demands of
communal life.
Emerson’s: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) had proved himself to be one
of the most original minds of his generation in lectures he had given in the
1830s, and in his Nature (1836), which had made him the chief spokesman
for the ideas associated with New England Transcendentalism. Though
not a Transcendentalist, Hawthorne had expressed his admiration for
Emerson’s mind in ‘The Old Manse’ introduction to Mosses (1846).
 Explanatory Notes 209
22 Assabeth: the Assabet River joins the Sudbury River to form the Concord
River in Concord town, Massachusetts. While living in Concord (1842–5)
Hawthorne often went boating on it with the two friends next mentioned.
Ellery Charming: William Ellery Channing (1818–1901), a poet of some
talent and little discipline, nephew of William Ellery Channing (1780–1842)
the great Unitarian preacher. A friend of Thoreau’s and frequent compan-
ion on his excursions, Channing later became Thoreau’s biographer.
Thoreau: Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) lived in Concord for almost all
his life and was influenced by Emerson’s thinking from 1836 on. He was
famous—locally—for his profound interest in Indian culture and Indian
relics in the Concord area; an interest which was given expression in his
first book A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and in
Walden (1854). In his notebooks Hawthorne comments on Thoreau’s
uncanny knowledge of the Indian past and of nature.
Hillard’s: George Stillman Hillard (1808–79) was a Boston lawyer whose
literary interests combined with personal friendship to lead him to give
practical help to Hawthorne. Though a Whig, Hillard used his influence
in an attempt to keep his friend in office in the Salem Custom House.
When Hawthorne was dismissed, Hillard collected financial contributions
from other friends and acquaintances to help the impecunious writer sup-
port himself and his family. In his legal career, Hillard was a protégé of
Judge Story, a leading spokesman for the conservative interpretation of
the law (see Thomas, 1987). Hillard’s literary activities included numer-
ous contributions to the North American Review, an edition of Spenser’s
works, and a biography of Captain John Smith.
Longfellow’s hearth-stone: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) was
a contemporary of Hawthorne’s at Bowdoin College, Maine. In 1837
Longfellow reviewed Twice-told Tales enthusiastically in the prestigious
North American Review and thus helped the hitherto obscure author to
achieve a national reputation. The two writers maintained a friendship
(mainly by letter) from then on. From 1843 his hearth was at Craigie House
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived in grand style, while fulfilling
his tasks as professor of modern languages at Harvard.
Alcott: Amos Bronson Alcott (1799–1888) was perhaps the most idealis-
tic and certainly the least practical of the Transcendentalists. He lived in
Concord while Hawthorne was there, after having founded an experimen-
tal school in Boston. He then (June 1843) founded a utopian community
at Harvard Village, Massachusetts (‘Fruitlands’), which collapsed in
January 1844.
of little moment: Hawthorne here exaggerates his lack of literary inter-
ests while at the Custom House. He abandoned writing for only eigh-
teen months and resumed entering his thoughts in his journals by June
1847. By December 1848, he had completed ‘The Unpardonable Sin’
(‘Ethan Brand’) and offered it to Elizabeth Peabody for her Aesthetic
Papers (1849). When this tale proved unsuitable, he submitted the sketch
210 Explanatory Notes
‘Main-Street’ which he had written between early 1848 and October 1849.
See J. Donald Crowley, ‘Historical Commentary’, The Snow-Image, CE, XI.
379–81.
23 Burns or of Chaucer: Robert Burns (1759—96) was appointed officer in
the excise at Dumfries in 1791. Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400) was
made Controller of the Customs in the Port of London in 1374.
24 anatto: a yellowish-red dye obtained from the pulp of the Central
American annatto (or annata) tree.
musty papers: compare ‘The Old Manse’, where the narrator refers to
another set of papers in which there is no life—the piles of old sermons
and theological works amassed by a former inhabitant of the Manse, the
Revd Ripley.
25 Billy Gray: William Gray (1750–1825) was a very successful Salem mer-
chant who owned a whole fleet of ships. He was one of the first New
England merchants to trade with India, China, and Russia. Gray became
Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts.
Simon Forrester: Simon Forrester (1748–1823) was born in Cork. He met
Captain Daniel Hathorne in Liverpool and came to Salem with him in
1767, marrying Captain Hathorne’s daughter Rachel in 1776. Forrester
was a successful privateer in the War of Independence and continued to
prosper after it. At his death, his estate was valued at over $900,000. See
Phillips, Salem and the Indies.
flight from Boston: when besieged by Washington in 1776, the British
troops under General Howe had evacuated Boston and moved to Halifax,
Nova Scotia.
Protectorate: Oliver Cromwell ruled as Lord Protector from 1653 to 1658.
His son Richard was Lord Protector until 1660.
‘Change: the Boston Merchants’ Exchange.
26 Governor Shirley: William Shirley (1694–1771) was Royal Governor of
Massachusetts from 1741 to 1749 and from 1753 to 1756.
Jonathan Pue: in Joseph B. Felt’s Annals of Salem (1827) which was one
of Hawthorne’s major sources of information on local history, he would
have read that Pue’s assumption of office took place in 1752. Felt gives the
date of Pue’s death as 24 March 1760.
“M AIN S TREET”: Hawthorne’s sketch ‘Main-Street’ had been published
in Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s Aesthetic Papers in 1849. It was not repub-
lished with The Scarlet Letter in 1850, although that was clearly part of
Hawthorne’s original plan (see above, note to p. 4), but was included in
The Snow-Image (1852). The sketch would have made an excellent intro-
duction to the story of Hester Prynne.
Essex Historical Society: founded in 1821, this society merged with the
Essex County Natural History Society in 1848 to form the Essex Institute.
Essex County, Massachusetts, contains the town of Salem.
 Explanatory Notes 211
29 lucubrations: products of earnest or laboured study, hence pedantic liter-
ary compositions.
31 veteran shipmaster: this was Captain Stephen Burchmore, brother of
Zachariah, the ‘man of business’. See Turner (1980).
33 dig gold in California: the California gold rush had begun in 1849 with the
discovery of gold at Sutter’s Fort, Sacramento.
its truth: see Nissenbaum (1978; 1984).
34 General Taylor: Zachary Taylor (1784–1850) was elected President on
the Whig Party ticket in 1848 and took office in 1849.
guillotine: in a cartoon that appeared in the Boston Post on 11 June 1849
Hawthorne’s dismissal from office was treated as a decapitation. A letter to
the editor on the following day stated, apropos of Hawthorne’s dismissal,
that ‘the head of the poet and the scholar is stricken off to gratify and reward
some greedy partisan’. Turner (1980) regards these allusions in the Post as
the source of Hawthorne’s reference here. The guillotining metaphor was
not used only with reference to Hawthorne. In the Democratic press the dis-
missal of Democrats from office when the Whig administration took over in
1849 was generally treated as revolutionary. See Reynolds (1985).
35 take the offices: under the American spoils system, which was often sup-
posed to have begun in General Jackson’s presidency (1829–36) but which
had in fact started under Presidents Adams and Jefferson, a political party
filled government civil service posts with its own supporters when it came
to power. The Whig administration that took over in 1841 instituted
wholesale removals of Democrats from office, but in his 1848 presidential
campaign Zachary Taylor had promised that he would remain aloof from
such party-political procedures if he was elected. The Salem Whigs, how-
ever, had no intention of renouncing their powers of patronage and
quickly used them to unseat Democratic appointees. See Hoeltje (1954)
and Nissenbaum (1984).
the first that fell!: Hawthorne was removed from office on 8 June 1849.
as an enemy: for the enmity of the Whigs, see above, note to p. 8. Hawthorne
identified Charles W. Upham, minister of the First Church, Salem, as a
leader of the movement to displace him.
36 my affair: Hawthorne’s dismissal became something of a cause célèbre. It
was given prominent coverage in newspapers beyond the boundaries of
Massachusetts. His cause was taken up by William Cullen Bryant in the
New York Evening Post. See Hoeltje (1954) and Nissenbaum (1978; 1984).
Irving’s Headless Horseman: a figure in Washington living’s story ‘The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow’, which was included in his Sketch-Book (1819–20).
quitted the Old Manse: see above, note to p. 12.
38 T HE T OWN-P UMP: Hawthorne’s sketch ‘A Rill from the Town-Pump’,
which gives impressions of Salem, had been published in the New-England
Magazine in 1835 and collected in Twice-told Tales in 1837.
212 Explanatory Notes
39 Cornhill: now Washington Street, Boston.
Isaac Johnson’s lot: Isaac Johnson (1601–30) died within months of his
arrival in New England, after taking part in the move from Charlestown
to Shawmut, as the future Boston was then named.
King’s Chapel: this was the first Episcopalian church in New England.
According to Snow’s History of Boston it was built in 1688. There could be
an allusion to sectarian intolerance in the reference, since the chapel was
built in the face of opposition from some Congregationalists, who argued
that Episcopalianism was what they had come to Massachusetts to avoid.
fifteen or twenty years: Boston was settled in 1630, so this takes us to 1645
or 1650. However, historical allusion sets the date of the opening of the
story as 1642.
indications of age: according to Caleb Snow’s History of Boston, a house of
correction was ordered at a meeting of the General Court on 8 May 1632.
wild rose-bush: an item in the Salem Gazette in 1843, which contrasted the
iron door of the prison with roses, may have been Hawthorne’s source for
his reference. See Bush (1984).
40 Ann Hutchinson: Ann(e) Hutchinson (1591–1643) emigrated to New England
in 1634, following the Revd John Cotton when he was silenced by
Archbishop Laud. While living in Alford, England, she had also admired
John Wheelwright’s preaching of the Covenant of Grace before he, too,
was silenced and left for Massachusetts. Ann had also become interested
in the doctrines of the ‘familists’ who preached not only the ‘impeccabil-
ity of all believers’ but also that ‘the law is fulfilled in love’. Among the
familists, women could preach as commonly as men. When she began
to interpret the scriptures and hold public meetings in Massachusetts,
Mrs Hutchinson had an enthusiastic following in Boston, but she offended
the ministers of the Church and was banished in 1638. She first moved to
Rhode Island because religious dissent was tolerated there. Then, in 1642,
she and her family moved to what is now Pelham Bay, New York, an area
then under Dutch control. There she and all her family except one daugh-
ter were massacred by the Indians. In his sketch ‘Mrs Hutchinson’ (1830)
Hawthorne had stressed the danger she had posed to a colony in which
public safety was incompatible with religious freedom.
41 Antinomian: The Antinomians’ rejection of instutional authority has led
Battis (1962) to the conclusion that they stood for the unqualified power
of the individual.
Quaker: an anachronism. The first Quakers to enter Massachusetts did so in
1656. Whipping was one of the milder forms of punishment they faced. Some
were hanged in 1659. Hawthorne’s early story about their persecution—
‘The Gentle Boy’—was first published in The Token in 1832 and collected
in Twice-told Tales (1837).
Mistress Hibbins: Ann Hibbins was the widow of one of the principal mer-
chants of Boston. According to Snow’s History of Boston, after her husband
 Explanatory Notes 213
suffered losses her turbulent and quarrelsome character led her into such
disfavour that she was tried for witchcraft in 1655, condemned and
hanged in 1656.
42 man-like Elizabeth: Queen Elizabeth I reigned from 1558 to 1603.
Hester Prynne: the biblical Hester, kinswoman of Mordecai, was the consort
of King Ahasuerus of Persia (486–465 BC). She used her influence to save
her fellow countrymen from massacre by Haman, the Persian Grand Vizier,
in the year 473. See Book of Esther 9: 24–6. Bercovitch (1975) points out
that the biblical Esther was a homiletic exemplum of sorrow, duty, and love,
as well as a figura of the Virgin Mary. William Prynne (1600–69) was called
to the bar in 1628, having attended Oriel College, Oxford, and Lincoln’s
Inn. Sentenced to ear-cropping, a huge fine, and imprisonment in 1634 for
slander against the king and queen, Prynne continued to challenge the
authority of the bishops, thus involving himself in a second trial before the
court of the Star Chamber in 1637, when his sentence was even more severe.
No believer in religious toleration, he called on parliament to suppress all
anti-Calvinist works and to force all the clergy to subscribe to the Synod of
Dort, whose Five Points embodied the least compromising Calvinist dogma.
When his enemies had been defeated in the Civil War, Prynne proved a
relentless persecutor, in particular of Archbishop Laud, whom he hounded
to death. As intolerant of religious independents as he was of the episco-
pacy, Prynne campaigned to get parliament to crush the sectaries. When
a Member of Parliament himself, he championed parliament against the
army, in 1647 and 1648, and was later imprisoned for pamphleteering
against the Commonwealth.
gossips: originally a ‘gossip’ was a person who had spiritual affinity with
another and acted as a sponsor in baptism (from God-sibbe: relative
in God).
43 Scripture and the statute-book: the relevant scripture is Leviticus 20: 10: ‘If
a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer
and the adulteress shall be put to death.’ The death penalty for adultery
was on the statute book in Massachusetts from 1641, when Nathaniel
Ward drew up the ‘Body of Liberties’. In his Journal, Governor Winthrop
referred to the execution of Mary Latham and James Britton for this
crime in 1644.
44 S CARLET L ETTER: in his notebooks, in 1844 or 1845, Hawthorne had
written: ‘The life of a woman, who, by the old colony law, was con-
demned always to wear the letter A, sewed on her garments in token of
having committed adultery’ (CE, VIII. 254). The Old Colony was
Plymouth, not Massachusetts, and—historically—this was a punish-
ment of the 1690s, not of the 1640s (see Boewe and Murphy, 1960–1).
Earlier, in his story ‘Endicott and the Red Cross’, published in the
Salem Gazette in 1837 and in The Token in 1838 before being included in
Twice-told Tales in 1842, Hawthorne wrote of a beautiful young woman of
Salem who had been condemned to wear the letter ‘A’ on the breast of her
214 Explanatory Notes
gown. This young offender had embroidered the letter so brilliantly that it
could be taken to mean ‘Admirable’ rather than ‘Adulteress’. The tale is set
in the year 1634.
45 scaffold: in the Boston of 1642 a scaffold would have been used only for
executions, not for public humiliation, as Reynolds (1985) points out.
46 image of Divine Maternity: Moers (1984) takes this allusion as evidence of
Hawthorne’s fascination with Roman Catholicism—an interest that links
him with those aesthetes who opposed Victorian values. For the view that
Hester’s association with Mary represents the ‘older, richer, iconic world’
to the Puritans whose logical obsession has destroyed it, see Gervais (1979).
See Todd (1972) for a Jungian interpretation of Hester’s significance as the
Magna Mater.
47 Western wilderness: though the Great Migration had brought over thou-
sands of settlers to New England in the years 1630–40, by 1642 they had
made little impression on the vast wilderness that stretched to the west of
their coastal towns.
48 a Continental city: this will be identified as Amsterdam on p. 62. Some
nonconformists left England to escape the authority of the bishops in
1608 and settled at Amsterdam or Leiden before leaving Europe to set up
model communities in the New World.
51 Daniel: much of the Book of Daniel is concerned with the prophet’s
powers of interpretation. It was he who interpreted the writing that
appeared on the wall at the feast of Belshazzar: ‘You have been weighed
in the balances and found wanting’ (Daniel 5: 27).
The penalty thereof is death: see above, note to p. 43. Haskins (1960) points
out that this was much more severe than the punishment imposed by the
English archdecanal courts for this offence. They merely imposed small
fines.
52 Governor Bellingham: Richard Bellingham (c. 1592–1672) left England for
Massachusetts in 1634. He was first elected governor in 1641 and became
governor again in 1654, having been assistant in the intervening years.
famous John Wilson: John Wilson (1591–1667) emigrated to Massachusetts
in 1630 and became teacher at the First Church, Boston. His function, as
distinct from that of the pastor, was to expound the scriptures. In the
Antinomian controversy, he championed orthodoxy and was a stem oppo-
nent of Ann Hutchinson. In his Magnolia Christi Americana (1702), a
Puritan history of Massachusetts and one of Hawthorne’s sources, Cotton
Mather celebrated Wilson for his orthodoxy and for his great zeal.
54 speech of an angel: ‘angel’ is a word whose significance shifts within the
tale, as does the letter ‘A’. Since Dimmesdale is an unconfessed adulterer,
wearing a hidden ‘A’ on his breast, and since he will be associated with the
Black Man by Pearl, the uncompromising truth-teller (see above, p. 147),
the fact that his speech affects the Puritan congregation thus must be an
ironic comment on their moral system.
 Explanatory Notes 215
55 thou deniest to him: Dimmesdale’s exhortation to Hester is convincingly
described by Moers (1984) as self-serving and Jesuitical. He invites her to
do what he makes it impossible for her to do and then blames her for not
doing it.
57 Master Brackett: Hawthorne found the name of the historical Boston
gaoler in Snow’s History of Boston. See Ryskamp (1959).
sagamores: chiefs.
58 alchemy: through his alchemical interests, Chillingworth will be associated
with Sir Kenelm Digby (see below, note to p. 95) whose sexual relations
with Lady Venetia Stanley before she became his wife were scandalous.
Hawthorne had used alchemy as a way of exploring the relationship between
science, the occult, and sexuality in his story ‘The Birthmark’, first pub-
lished in The Pioneer in 1843 and collected in Mosses from an Old Manse
(1846). On alchemy in the Scarlet Letter see Van Leer (1985).
simples: medicines composed of only one constituent, especially of one
herb-plant.
Lethe nor Nepenthe: Lethe, in Greek mythology, was a river in Hades whose
waters caused forgetfulness. Nepenthe (Greek ne penthe: no grief) was a
drug of oriental origin capable of banishing grief; it is mentioned in the
Odyssey.
Paracelsus: a pseudonym of Theophrastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541),
who was an astrologer, professor of physics and surgery at Basle University,
and an alchemist.
60 bale-fire: funeral pyre (from Old Norse bal: great fire).
62 the Black Man that haunts the forest: the Puritan association of the forest
with the devil and their identification of the Indians with the children of
the devil was familiar to Hawthorne from his reading of Massachusetts
history.
64 alien from the law: the Indians, being pagans, represent values remote
from those of the Antinomian Christians who challenged orthodox
Puritan beliefs in the 1630s, but the common ground is indifference to the
law as formulated by Church and State.
67 rich, voluptuous, Oriental: in early nineteenth-century American fiction an
association between passion and sensuality and the orient was common-
place. Hester Prynne is one of several exotic, beautiful women in
Hawthorne’s fictions who are linked to the East. See McWilliams (1984)
and Rahv (1941).
the brow of Cain: Genesis 4: 15, ‘And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest
any who came upon him should kill him.’
69 the hidden sin in other hearts: in this supposed knowledge Hester is like the
young Puritan in Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’.
71 of great price: Matthew 13: 45–6; a merchant sells all that he has to pur-
chase the one pearl. Scholarly interpretation of Pearl’s significance in the
216 Explanatory Notes
romance is voluminous. See Garlitz (1957) for a summary of the first hun-
dred years of exegesis. Among the more interesting recent theories is
Joel Porte’s (1968). He argues that Pearl comes to stand for a romantic art
that is based on the truth concerning the secret human passions; in other
words, she represents the work in which she appears. The diversity of
interpretations surely justifies Millicent Bell (1982) in saying that Pearl is
an instance of the ambiguity of signs in the romance.
72 amenable to rules: being illegitimate—outside the law—Pearl is obliged to
be outside society. She will later be associated with the wilderness (the
forest) and its wild inhabitants, both human (the Indians) and animal.
74 incapable . . . of human sorrow: in its naturalness and spontaneity Pearl’s
wildness can be interpreted positively, yet the romance leaves no doubt
that such freedom as Pearl experiences is also a lack. She cannot truly be
a human being until she feels sorrow, for the capacity to feel sadness is an
essential characteristic of humanity. For an earlier treatment of this
theme see ‘The Maypole of Merry Mount’ in Twice-told Tales.
An imp of evil, emblem . . . of sin: to the Puritans Pearl is a sign—she is
intelligible in their system of signification, just as her mother is. Pearl is
to them the child of the devil (literally an imp) and thus does not deserve
human status. When we are told (p. 78) that Pearl gesticulates like a little
imp, we must presume that it is Hester who thinks her so, but—though
Hester doubts Pearl’s humanity—to her the child is wonderful and mys-
terious, as well as frightening. It is to Hester, presumably, that the child’s
furious cries against the Puritan children sound like ‘a witch’s anathemas’
(p. 75), but the narrative is elusive here and does not indicate clearly who
is supposed to be thinking.
scourging Quakers: another anachronism. See above, note to p. 41.
78 demon offspring: like the Puritan view of Pearl as an ‘imp of evil’, this
makes Dimmesdale the devil, though the townspeople cannot be aware of
any such implication in their version of Pearl’s paternity.
79 selectmen: in seventeenth-century New England the term was used for
officers elected annually to manage local affairs. In Boston, they took over
the burden of town government between town meetings.
property in a pig: an allusion to a legal dispute in 1642 between a woman
named Mrs Sherman and Captain Keayne whom she accused of stealing
her pig. The Puritan colony divied on who was innocent and who was
guilty. Elected members of the General Court supported Mrs Sherman,
whereas the governor and his assistants took the side of Keayne. The
modification of the legislative framework that resulted was a division into
two houses in 1644; the assistants sat as a senate, while the deputies consti-
tuted an independent house from then on, where before there had been only
one chamber in the assembly. Hawthorne’s sources included Winthrop’s
Journal, History of New England 1630–1649, ed. J. K. Hosmer (New York,
1908), ii. 64–6; 116–20, where the governor recorded his anti-democratic
views and appealed to Old Testment authority against democratic forces,
 Explanatory Notes 217
and Snow’s History of Boston, which notes that Keayne was an extortioner
who had been fined for selling foreign goods at exorbitant profit.
80 endowed with life!: compare ‘emblem. . . of sin’ on p. 74 above. The New
England Puritan imagination makes the sinner and the fruit of the sin into
signs, or emblems, of that sin, but the ‘life’ of both escapes the signification
imposed on it.
82 seven years’ slave: free-born Englishmen who could not afford the cost of
the ocean voyage yet wished to emigrate to the New World commonly
indentured themselves to the wealthy men who paid their passages.
Winthrop (Winthrop’s Journal, I. 104) refers to one indentured servant
who said he would rather be in hell than serve his master, and to another
who hanged himself out of misery (Journal, I. 175).
Chronicles of England: Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland and
Ireland (1577).
83 Pequod war: the Pequod tribe inhabited south-east Connecticut when the
English began to settle in New England. More warlike than their neigh-
bours the Narrangansetts, they began to attack the settlers in 1633. The
conflict ended four years later when a combined force of Englishmen
from the Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Plymouth colonies slaughtered
the Indians—men, women, and children—in their fort on the Mystic River
in Connecticut.
Bacon, Coke, Noye, and Finch: Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was a man of
affairs as well as a philosopher and writer. He was admitted to the bar in 1582
and made attorney-general in 1613. He was a bitter rival of Sir Edward Coke
(1552–1634), who was called to the bar in 1578 and won the race with Bacon
for the attorney-generalship in 1593, having been speaker of the House of
Commons in 1592–3. Active in the trials of Essex and Southampton in 1600,
and vindictive in his treatment of Raleigh in the 1603 trial that led to
Raleigh’s execution, Coke resisted King James I’s claims for the royal pre-
rogative, deciding against the king’s power to create laws by proclama-
tion. As chief justice of common pleas in 1606, he also defended the
secular courts against the attacks of Archbishop Bancroft, who had the
support of King James. By 1615 Coke had published ten volumes of reports
on the cases he had handled. Sir William Noye or Noy (1577–1634) was
called to the bar in 1602 and made attorney-general in 1631. Zealous in
his prosecution of William Prynne in the Star Chamber trial in 1634,
Noye put all his legal skills at the service of King Charles I, earning the
hatred of the people for his writ of ship money and his soap monopoly
law. Sir John Finch (1584–1660), called to the bar in 1611, was chief jus-
tice of common pleas in 1637, when Prynne was censured. He, too, sup-
ported the crown in the ship money case.
84 Reverend Mr. Blackstone: as Hawthorne knew from Snow’s History of
Boston, Blackstone was the first Englishman to settle at Shawmut, later
Boston, and thus had title to the whole peninsula. Snow describes him as
an Episcopalian, but also a nonconformist who left Massachusetts to settle
218 Explanatory Notes
in Rhode Island because he did not like the rule of the ‘Lord Bretheren’
any more than that of the ‘Lord Bishops’ in England. The legend of
Blackstone’s riding a bull can be found in the same source.
eldritch: from ‘elf ’, via the Early Modern English ‘elrich’, meaning ‘weird,
ghastly, eerie’.
85 John Wilson: see above, note to p. 52.
86 old King James’s time: James I ruled England from 1603 to 1629.
Lord of Misrule: to the Puritans, the Lord of Misrule—a mock prince
whose authority or rule extended through the Christmas holidays—was
guilty of encouraging all kinds of devilry and scabrous conduct. Hawthorne
had read Puritan denunciations of this character in Joseph Strutt’s Sports
and Pastimes of the People of England (1801). To Bellingham, Pearl
not only looks like a child of that lord, she is a product of mis-rule—of
law-breaking—of a sinful act.
her of Babylon: Revelation 17: 3–5: ‘I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet
beast which was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and
ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and bedecked
with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of
abominations and the impurities of her fornication; and on her forehead
was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of harlots and
of earth’s abominations”.’
88 New England Primer: in England the Primer had been a prayer book and
devotional manual for the use of the laity long before the Reformation.
The earliest known edition of the New England Primer, which combined
traditional hornbook material (alphabet and syllabarium) with traditional
primer material (Lord’s Prayer, Creed, Decalogue, and Catechism), came
from the press of Benjamin Harris of Boston in 1690. It used rhyming cou-
plets as learning aids, among them: ‘In Adam’s Fall We sinned all’. The
Primer sold in immense quantities and was frequently revised and reprinted.
Westminster Catechism: in 1647 the Westminster Assembly of Divines,
which was appointed by the Long Parliament in 1643, published the
Shorter and Longer Catechisms. These embodied clear statements of
Calvinist doctrine. Ratified by Parliament in 1648, the Catechisms were
subsequently adopted by the Presbyterians and Congregationalists.
wild roses: another link between Hester and Ann Hutchinson and between
Pearl and the ‘wild’ forces that resist the law.
depravity: the total depravity of the natural man since the Fall was one of
the Five Articles of the Synod of Dort (1618–19), which summarized Ur-
Calvinist belief. This doctrine was reaffirmed in the Westminster Catechism.
destiny: another of the Five Articles was that the depraved soul was des-
tined to eternal torment unless redeemed by God’s grace, acting through
the intercession of Christ.
90 tithing-men: the English ‘tithing’ was a rural division of about ten house-
holders and their families. By the seventeenth century, the tithing-man
 Explanatory Notes 219
was a parish peace officer or petty constable. In New England the word
came to mean an elected officer of a township responsible for public order.
91 witchcraft: Mr Wilson’s remark is here unsolemn—even jocular— but
the rumoured appearance of the ‘actual’ witch and her supposed invita-
tion to Hester to attend a witches’ sabbath indicate quite clearly that a
semi-serious comment on a little girl can become deadly when applied to
an ugly old woman. Pearl, too, is in danger, since her ‘airy’ high spirits
can all too easily be interpreted as diabolic possession. Women, of course,
were particularly vulnerable to such superstitions.
94 materialized: the danger that medical ‘science’ might lead to a degradation
of the spiritual, and its subordination to the physical, came home to
Hawthorne in the nineteenth-century pseudo-science of mesmerism.
Alchemy was the science that seemed to Hawthorne to have confused the
realms of matter and spirit in earlier times. See Van Leer (1985).
Elixir of Life: this was a theme with which Hawthorne had already dealt
in his story ‘Dr Heidegger’s Experiment’ (1837). He was to devote his last
years to unsuccessful attempts to complete romances on this subject.
95 Sir Kenelm Digby: Digby (1603–65) was a natural scientist (he discovered
that oxygen was necessary for plant life), astrologer, alchemist, philosopher,
and author whose Private Memoirs (published in 1827) Hawthorne had
read. As Reid (1966) points out, Hawthorne drew on his knowledge of
Digby’s life in his story ‘The Birthmark’ (1843). Associating Chillingworth
with Digby could be a way of signalling something disreputable about the
physician. In political terms, Digby was associated with the king and
opposed to the parliamentary forces.
96 New Jerusalem: Revelation 21: 2, ‘And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God.’
97 freedom of ideas: though the nature of the ideas is not specified, the fact
that the freedom is not available to Puritan ministers suggests that
Chillingworth may be speculating about spiritual matters and that he may
share the ‘freedom of speculation’ that would put his wife in danger if it
were discovered. Arac (1986) takes Chillingworth’s interest in such ideas
as a sign of the general loss of conviction in Puritan values.
99 King’s Chapel: see above, note to p. 39.
Gobelin looms: the Gobelin family made tapestry in their Paris works from
the fifteenth century on. The rich and highly coloured cloths they pro-
duced were the finest in Europe.
David and Bathsheba: King David desired Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the
Hittite. He seduced her and deliberately sent Uriah to his death in battle
so that he could have Bathsheba. See 2 Samuel 11.
Nathan the Prophet: sent to David by the Lord, who was displeased with
the king’s conduct, Nathan trapped David into condemning himself by
telling him a parable of a rich man’s avarice. Irwin (1980) sees the tapes-
try as a hieroglyphic of the central action of The Scarlet Letter, evoking
220 Explanatory Notes
the moral doubleness of being both adulterer and denouncer of adultery.
Bronstein (1987) also makes the tapestry the key to the novel, which she
interprets as a parable that trapped the antebellum American reader into
a position analogous to King David’s.
the lore of Rabbis: in his learning Dimmesdale resembles John Cotton, the
minister over whom Ann Hutchinson apparently exercised some influence
before the Antinomian crisis came to a head. In that crisis, Cotton dis-
tanced himself from Ann’s views. The possibility that Hawthorne intends
to suggest an analogy between Dimmesdale’s relationship with Hester
and Cotton’s with Ann is discussed by Colacurcio (1972).
100 Sir Thomas Overbury’s murder: Overbury (1581–1613) offended Frances
Howard, Countess of Essex, by opposing her marriage to his friend and
patron Robert Carr, Earl of Rochester. Knowing that Frances was already
cuckolding her husband Essex by having an affair with Rochester,
Overbury warned the latter against marrying his own whore. In revenge,
Frances plotted Overbury’s death by poison. The poisoning took place
while Overbury was a prisoner in the Tower of London. Frances engaged
the services of Ann Turner, a loose woman of unsavoury reputation,
whom she had previously employed to help win Carr’s affections with
magic charms. When the plot was discovered, Ann Turner and her
accomplices were tried and hanged. Frances (now married to Carr) was
disgraced and exiled from court. The trial revealed the corruption of
court life in James I’s reign. Hawthorne read the story in the Harleian
Miscellany (1808) and the Loseley Manuscripts, ed. A. J. Kempe (1835),
both of which he borowed in 1849 (see Kesselring, 1949). For a detailed
account of the affair, and an elaborate—if unconvincing—theory that it
provides the key to The Scarlet Letter, see Reid (1955).
Doctor Forman: Forman (1552–1611) was a sinister quack doctor who
lived in Lambeth and had contacts at court. Ann Turner applied to him
for help with love potions to win Robert Carr’s affections for Frances
Howard and for charms to make Frances’s husband Essex impotent so
that she could obtain a divorce and marry Carr. At the murder trial in
1615 letters implicating Forman—who had since died—in the love plot
were adduced as evidence. In the Loseley Manuscripts, where the sordid
story is told at length, Forman is said to have been ‘a reputed wizard’.
102 Bunyan’s awful door-way: in Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) this was a doorway
that opened on a byway to hell. The shepherds told Pilgrim that hypo-
crites and traitors to God passed through it.
104 Holy Writ: the text is James 5: 16, ‘Therefore confess your sins to one
another . . . that you may be healed.’ Dimmesdale’s interpretation of it is
obviously self-interested.
God’s glory and man’s welfare: Dimmesdale’s attempt to justify his failure to
confess his sin is one that could carry no conviction to a devout, seventeenth-
century New England Puritan, for—as Baughman (1967) convincingly
argues—public confession of sin was considered of paramount importance.
 Explanatory Notes 221
Winthrop recorded fourteen such confessions, four of them for adultery.
Moreover, to officiate at the communion service with so grave a sin uncon-
fessed, as Dimmesdale must have done, would be to ensure damnation.
106 Black Man: this was a common appellation for the Devil in the seven-
teenth century. Hawthorne would have found it in Cotton Mather’s
account of the 1692 Salem witch trials—his Wonders of the Invisible World
(1693)—and in his Magnalia Christi Americana (1702).
109 black-letter: a typeface characterized by heavy black letters resembling
those of early printed works. Also called Gothic.
110 magician’s wand: the earlier reference to his acquaintance with Dr Forman
has indicated what sort of magic Chillingworth is likely to be capable of.
Reid (1955) sees parallels between the mental torture of Dimmesdale and
the physical sufferings of Overbury while he was being poisoned in the
Tower.
112 Pentecost: see Acts 2: 1–4: ‘When the day of Pentecost had come, they
were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven
like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were
sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire . . . And they were
all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the
Spirit gave them utterance.’ The Christian festival occurs on the seventh
Sunday after Easter. The word Pentecost derives from the Greek pen-
tekonta (fifty) and was first applied to the Jewish festival that occurred on
the fiftieth day after the first day of Passover.
the heart’s native language: the paradoxical implication is that the heavenly
Tongue of Flame is given only to those who have sinned and can thus
speak in the language of (fallen) nature. For a useful discussion of the
connection between sin and art in Hawthorne, see Porte (1968).
Tongue of Flame: though the narrator seems to suppose that the power
to speak thus was rare among the fathers of the Puritan Church in
New England, historically the New England ministers regarded this quality
as essential. See Van Leer (1985).
113 the sanctity of Enoch: Genesis 5: 24: ‘Enoch walked with God; and he was
not; for God took him.’ The idea here is that this patriarch was translated
to heaven without tasting death because of his perfect fellowship with God.
117 the noise of witches: the narrator assures us that Dimmesdale’s shriek was
mistaken for the witches’ cries, but the association has nevertheless been
made and will be reinforced by the link between Dimmesdale and the
Black Man when Pearl asks her question in the forest (p. 145 below).
118 Governor Winthrop: the governor actually died on 26 March 1649. Born in
1588, Winthrop was educated at Cambridge, England, admitted to Gray’s
Inn in 1613 and to the Inner Temple in 1628. He sailed to the New World
on the Arbella in 1630, having been elected governor before the ship sailed
once it had been decided to take the charter to Massachusetts. He was
re-elected in 1631, 1632, and 1633. His career, as recorded in his Journal,
222 Explanatory Notes
provided Hawthorne with an eminent example of the fusion of civil and
religious concerns. It also illustrated the resistance of the early leaders of
the colony to the democratizing forces within Massachusetts. In his
Magnalia, Cotton Mather treated Winthrop as a model magistrate and as
the leader of an enterprise analogous to that of the Israelites when they
returned to their promised land. To Mather, Winthrop was the American
Nehemiah. See Bercovitch (1975).
Geneva cloak: a black cloak worn by ministers of the Calvinist faith and
thus associated with Geneva, Calvin’s city.
124 portent: the actual portent (a meteor) occurred at the death of John Cotton
in 1652. In his History of Boston, Snow refers to ‘strange and alarming
signs’ that appeared in the heavens when Cotton died.
127 it meant Able: see Sanderlin (1975) for the theory that Hester’s power to
transform the meaning of the letter undermines the Puritan sense of the
identity of symbols and beliefs.
128 the cross on a nun’s bosom: the comparison connects with the earlier asso-
ciation between Hester and the Virgin Mary to suggest a critique of evan-
gelical Victorian values, according to Moers (1984).
129 prophetess: Keams (1965) notes that the term ‘prophetess’ was frequently
applied to Margaret Fuller by her contemporaries. For Fuller’s relation-
ship to Hester, and for seventeenth-century references to Mrs Hutchinson
as ‘prophetess’, see Wineapple (2003).
136 a dark necessity: Chillingworth’s ‘old faith’ was, of course, Calvinism. At its
centre was the doctrine of predestination.
137 deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane: each of these plants was associated
with witchcraft; each produced a poison or narcotic which supposedly
had magical powers. On the connection between poisoning and witch-
craft, see below, note to p. 172.
139 horn-book: a single sheet of parchment inscribed with the alphabet and
covered with transparent horn.
141 appointed mission: in hovering about the enigma, Pearl is not only ques-
tioning the meaning of the ‘A’ her mother wears (and thus the relation-
ship between womanhood and sexuality) but also probing the connection
between Hester’s public disgrace and Arthur’s private torment. According
to Bloom (1986), Pearl represents an anarchic influx of power and know-
ledge that derives from Emersonian Orphism and Gnosticism; her credo is
that of Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’: ‘What have I to do with the sacredness
of traditions, if I live wholly from within?’
143 Apostle Eliot: John Eliot (1604–90) was educated at Cambridge, England,
and emigrated to Massachusetts in 1630. He became teacher (minister) at
Roxbury, where he stayed for sixty years. In 1646 he began to preach to the
Indians at Dorchester Mills. The following year he preached to them in
their own tongue at Nonantum. In 1661 he completed a translation of the
New Testament into the Indian language, and in 1663 of the Old Testament.
 Explanatory Notes 223
He also settled towns for ‘praying Indians’. In Mather’s Magnalia, Eliot
is credited with raising ‘those [Indians] that had hitherto lived like wild
beasts in the wilderness’ to ‘the elevation of our holy religion’. Hawthorne
had included an article on Eliot in the American Magazine of Useful and
Entertaining Knowledge in 1836, when he was its editor.
143 the primeval forest: throughout The Scarlet Letter the forest represents
pre-Christian values and is, consequently, beyond the pale of Puritan law.
Hester’s association with the wilderness therefore links her with pagan-
ism. Compare ‘Main-Street’, where the first inhabitants of the area that
will become Salem are Indians, and the first to be visualized by the narra-
tor is ‘a majestic and queenly woman . . . the great Squaw Sachem’.
144 the scrofula: a tuberculosis condition of the lymphatic glands, character-
ized by enlargement, suppurating abscesses, and cheeselike degeneration.
145 carries a book: in his Magnalia, Mather wrote of a book which devotees were
required to sign ‘in token of their consenting to be listed in the Service of
the Devil’.
his mark: Hester’s outburst implicates Dimmesdale, and even associates
him with the Black Man.
151 why should we not speak it?: the implied reticence—a reluctance to probe
the depths of Hester’s feelings—can only be understood in terms of the
pretence of narratorial disengagement or aloofness from the tale that is
being told.
154 a magnetic power: magnetism was a new and partly mysterious phenome-
non in the 1840s. It served as a metaphor for occult and irrational psychic
forces. Compare Captain Ahab’s magnetic power over his crew in Melville’s
Moby-Dick, ch. 36, ‘The Quarter-Deck’.
iron men; Hester Prynne is here using a metaphor that Hawthorne had
used more than once to convey his sense of the inflexible (and ruthless)
creed of his forefathers. In ‘Main-Street’ he referred to the faith itself as
an ‘iron’ cage. In ‘The Maypole of Merry Mount’ John Endicott—the
archetypal Puritan—is described as an iron man.
155 apostle of the red men: Dimmesdale is returning from a vist to the Apostle Eliot
when Hester intercepts him. The narrator makes it clear that Dimmesdale
is not an independent spirit—he needs the support of institutional faith—
but the passionate side to his character (as noted by Chillingworth) links
him with the Indians, who were considered incapable of any restraint by
white Americans of Hawthorne’s generation. Compare p. 156, for the
association of Hester’s intellectual freedom with the wild Indian.
157 lawless region: the words imply that the ‘natural’ is lawless and—unless
redeemed—depraved. Here, then, the narrator speaks as a Puritan who
sees all Nature as fallen. Elsewhere, the narrator hints at the possibility
that there are laws of the spirit that lie beyond the bounds (and the com-
prehension) of the orthodox Puritans.
160 dryad: wood nymph.
224 Explanatory Notes
161 dear old England: on the opposition between Old and New England in The
Scarlet Letter, see Newberry (1987) who treats this as a major thematic
antithesis in the romance.
living hieroglyphic: though ‘hieroglyphic’ may mean ‘any symbol or char-
acter having an obscure or hidden meaning’, the word’s etymology, from
the Greek hieros (sacred) and glyphein (to carve), links Pearl with holy
mysteries. On the significance of hieroglyphics as a theme in Hawthorne,
and in American Romantic writing generally, see Irwin (1980).
163 her bright, wild eyes: like the animal analogues, the phrase associates Pearl
with the pre-Christian wilderness.
168 hesitate to reveal: another example of delicacy on the part of the narrator
(compare p. 151) and another invitation to respond to him as a character
in his own story.
Election Sermon: a sermon preached on the inauguration day of the
governor, who was chosen annually by the freemen of Massachusetts.
Election Day was determined by Easter, coming fifty days after it. On the
significance of the parallel between Election Day and Whitsuntide for
Hawthorne, see Newberry (1977). The tradition lasted until 1684, when
the charter of the colony was suspended by Charles II. By the terms of the
new charter, issued in 1691, the governor was appointed by the monarch.
thrust himself through: see Crews (1966) for the sexual resonances of the
verbs used to describe Dimmesdale’s action.
172 buckramed: buckram was a coarse fabric sized with glue used for stiffening
garments and used in bookbinding.
Ann Turner: this infamous woman was instrumental in the murder of
Overbury in 1613 (see above, note to p. 100). She used a former servant of
hers, one Richard Weston, to provide poison, which was fed to Overbury
while he was in the Tower. Commenting on the Overbury affair in his
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (1830), Sir Walter Scott noted the
association between sorcery and poisoners and commented that the word
for witch in Hebrew (chasaph) could also mean poison. Ann invented and
made fashionable the use of a yellow starch on cuffs and ruffs. When con-
demned for the murder of Overbury she was sentenced by Lord Chief
Justice Coke to be hanged in her own yellow ruff and cuffs.
175 New Jerusalem: Newberry (1987) takes Chillingworth’s comment to refer
to the fifth monarchy promised in the Book of Daniel (and thus to the
Civil War in England and the overthrow of King Charles I) rather than to
the Puritan kingdom in the New World.
the King’s own mint-mark: another reminder, according to Newberry, of
the revolutionary times in which Hester’s story is set and of the fate of the
king in 1649.
178 a new man: in fact, the governor elected in 1649 was not ‘new’; he was
John Endicott, who had served as governor before. See below, note to p. 185.
180 Merry Andrew: as Hawthorne knew from reading Strutt’s Sports and
Pastimes of the People of England (1801), in the England of James II this
 Explanatory Notes 225
figure was an inseparable companion of the mountebank (a seller of med-
icines) and acted as his fool, engaging him in dialogue.
180 wampum-belts: wampum beads, or shells, were made into belts or necklaces
and used as currency by the North American Indians.
182 galliard: a quick and lively dance in triple time.
184 a corporate existence: in Snow’s History of Boston, the story of the oldest
military establishment in the United States is told. This was formed in 1638
as the ‘Military Company of Massachusetts’ and recognized by the General
Court as the ‘Artillery Company’ in 1657. Its full title in Hawthorne’s day
was the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.
College of Arms: founded in England in 1460, this institution was respon-
sible for the records of the titles of those entitled to armorial bearings.
Knights Templars: an order of crusaders that flourished in the thirteenth cen-
tury but was suppressed by the Pope in 1312. Newberry (1977) finds irony
in the analogy, since the knights were described as cruel and usurping in
Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe (1820), where Hawthorne had read of them. The
association would, then, hardly be flattering to Puritan military men.
185 morions: helmets.
Bradstreet, Endicott, Dudley: Simon Bradstreet (1603–97) sailed to New
England in 1630. He was secretary to the colony for the next six years and
played a prominent role in the life of Massachusetts thereafter, being
elected Commissioner (with William Hathorne) of the New England fed-
eration in 1644 and Governor of Massachusetts from 1679 to 1686 and
from 1689 to 1692. In contrast to Dudley and Endicott, he was a moderate
in matters of belief.
John Endicott, or Endecott (c.1589–1665), was one of the six ‘religious
persons’ who bought a patent for territory on the Bay from the Plymouth
Council in 1628. He was named among the incorporators when the char-
ter was granted in 1629. Endicott sailed to Massachusetts in 1628 and set-
tled at Naumkeag (later named Salem), serving as governor until Winthrop
arrived in 1630 and again in 1644, 1649, 1651–3, and 1655–64. Hawthorne’s
ambivalent attitude to this stern and bigoted, yet dedicated, Puritan can
be seen in his ‘Mrs Hutchinson’ (1830), ‘The Maypole of Merry Mount’
(1836), and ‘Endicott and the Red Cross’ (1837).
Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) sailed to Massachusetts on the Arbella in
1630. He was elected governor in 1634, 1640, 1645, and 1650. More severe
in his rule than Governor Winthrop, he clashed with the latter on some
issues, but was equally opposed to the spread of democratic government.
186 Increase Mather: Increase Mather (1639–1723) was one of the most dis-
tinguished of the early New England Puritan ministers, both as a scholar
and as a man of affairs. He became teacher of the Second Church, Boston,
in 1664, and had published more than twenty-five books by 1683. Two years
later he became President of Harvard College, and remained in office until
1701. In 1688 he was sent to the English court to petition on behalf of the
Congregational churches in Massachusetts and in 1689 negotiated a new
226 Explanatory Notes
charter for the colony. Though primarily a theologian, he maintained a life-
long open-mindedness towards science. In the 1692 witchcraft trials at
Salem, he was one of the ministers who warned against reliance on spectral
evidence. He was the father of Cotton Mather, author of the Magnalia.
187 stomacher: an ornamental covering for the chest worn by women under
the lacing of the bodice.
188 powwow: medicine man, sorcerer, or priest.
Prince of the Air: compare Ephesians 2: 2, ‘prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience’.
191 tempest: compare Macbeth, I. iii. 24–5: ‘Though his bark cannot be lost,
yet it shall be tempest-tost’. The witch plans to use her power over the
winds to revenge a supposed insult.
193 glorious destiny: as M. D. Bell (1971) points out, Dimmesdale’s sermon
flatters its New England audience in ways that make it closer to the
speeches of nineteenth-century orators (such as Webster) than to the ser-
mons preached by seventeenth-century Puritans.
198 mysterious horror: Young (1984, p. 144) argues that the only mystery about
the scarlet letter ‘A’ is why Hawthorne (and hence his fictional New
Englanders) found it revolting. In Young’s view, the ‘diabolical letter—
sin, crime—lies just underneath the surface’; it is the incest (imagined or
actual) with his beautiful sister Elizabeth that had haunted Hawthorne’s
unmarried years of seclusion in Salem. When Nathaniel discovered that
ancestors of his on the Manning side of the family had been accused, con-
victed, and punished on charges of incest in 1681, he must have experi-
enced a shock of recognition, according to Young. Hawthorne, we know,
was familiar with the Quarterly Court Records of what became Essex
County, Massachusetts. The Records contained the evidence of family
servants on which the culprits were convicted of incest. They also con-
tained the punishment, which included—for the Manning sisters—sit-
ting in public with a paper on their heads stating ‘This is for whorish
carriage with my naturall Brother’.
202 devoutest Puritan: a clear indication, surely, that the narrator believes that
money can conquer the superstitious belief in witchcraft. We might note,
in contrast, that Mistress Hibbins was condemned as a witch after the loss
of her wealth.
204 GULES : red, as used in heraldry. As Brant (1958–9) points out, a possible
source is Marvell’s ‘The Unfortunate Lover’ which ends:

though
Forced to live in Storms and Wars:
Yet dying leaves a Perfume here,
And Musick within every Ear:
And he in Story only rules,
In a Field Sable, a Lover Gules.