It Was Only the Darkened House That Could Contain Her When Sunshine Came Again She Was Not There

14.-ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER In her tardily singular interview with Mr. Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne was shocked at the condition to which she found the clergyman reduced. His nervus seemed admittedly destroyed. His moral strength was abased into more than childish weakness. It grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had possibly caused a morbid energy, which disease only could accept given them. With her knowledge of a railroad train of circumstances hidden from all others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimate activeness of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was withal operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's well-existence and repose. Knowing what this poor fallen homo had one time been, her whole soul was moved past the shuddering terror with which he had appealed to her -- the outcast adult female -- for support against his instinctively discovered enemy. She decided, moreover, that he had a correct to her utmost aid. Little accustomed, in her long seclusion from society, to measure out her ideas of right and incorrect by whatever standard external to herself, Hester saw -- or seemed to see -- that there lay a responsibility upon her in reference to the clergyman, which she owned to no other, nor to the whole world besides. The links that united her to the rest of humankind -- links of flowers, or silk, or gold, or whatever the cloth -- had all been broken. Hither was the iron link of common offense, which neither he nor she could break. Similar all other ties, it brought forth with it its obligations. Hester Prynne did not at present occupy precisely the aforementioned position in which we beheld her during the before periods of her ignominy. Years had come up and gone. Pearl was now seven years old. Her mother, with the ruby letter on her chest, glittering in its fantastic embroidery, had long been a familiar object to the townspeople. Equally is apt to be the case when a person stands out in whatsoever prominence before the community, and, at the same time, interferes neither with public nor private interests and convenience, a species of full general regard had ultimately grown upwards 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 tranquillity process, will even exist transformed to dearest, unless the change exist impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility. In this affair of Hester Prynne at that place 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. And then, also, the blameless purity of her life during all these years in which she had been set apart to infamy was reckoned largely in her favour. With nix now to lose, in the sight of mankind, and with no hope, and seemingly no wish, of gaining anything, it could simply be a genuine regard for virtue that had brought back the poor wanderer to its paths. It was perceived, likewise, that while Hester never put forward even the humblest title to share in the world's privileges -- further than to breathe the mutual air and earn daily staff of life for niggling Pearl and herself past the faithful labour 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 brickbat in requital of the food brought regularly to his door, or the garments wrought for him by the fingers that could have embroidered a monarch'due south robe. None so self-devoted as Hester when pestilence stalked through the boondocks. 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, just 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-creature In that location glimmered the embroidered letter, with comfort in its unearthly ray. Elsewhere the token of sin, information technology was the taper of the sick chamber. It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer's bard extremity, beyond the verge of time. Information technology had shown him where to set his foot, while the low-cal of earth was fast becoming dim, and ere the calorie-free of time to come could reach him. In such emergencies Hester's nature showed itself warm and rich -- a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every existent demand, and inexhaustible past the largest. Her breast, with its bluecoat of shame, was but the softer pillow for the head that needed one. She was cocky-ordained a Sister of Mercy, or, we may rather say, the world'south heavy hand had so ordained her, when neither the world nor she looked forward to this result. The letter of the alphabet was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was institute in her -- and so much ability to do, and ability to sympathise -- that many people refused to translate the scarlet A past its original signification. They said that information technology meant Abel, and so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength. It was but the darkened house that could contain her. When sunshine came again, she was not in that location. Her shadow had faded across the threshold. The helpful inmate had departed, without one astern glance to gather upwardly the meed of gratitude, if whatever were in the hearts of those whom she had served then zealously. Coming together 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 reddish letter, and passed on. This might be pride, but was so like humility, that it produced all the softening influence of the latter quality on the public listen. The public is despotic in its atmosphere; information technology is capable of denying common justice when also strenuously demanded as a correct; but quite as frequently information technology awards more than than justice, when the appeal is made, equally despots love to have it fabricated, entirely to its generosity. Interpreting Hester Prynne's deportment as an appeal of this nature, order was inclined to show its one-time victim a more benign countenance than she cared to exist favoured with, or, mayhap, than she deserved. The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester's adept qualities than the people. The prejudices which they shared in common with the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron frame-work of reasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expel them. Day by day, withal, 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 than, they had begun to look upon the ruby letter as the token, non of that 1 sin for which she had borne and then long and dreary a penance, but of her many proficient deeds since. "Practise you see that woman with the embroidered bluecoat?" they would say to strangers. "It is our Hester -- the boondocks's own Hester -- who is so kind to the poor, then helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of man nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years. It was none the less a fact, however, that in the eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the cherry alphabetic character had the consequence of the cross on a nun's bosom It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk deeply amidst all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would accept kept her sale. Information technology was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had drawn his pointer against the bluecoat, and that the missile struck it, and savage harmless to the basis. The event of the symbol -- or rather, of the position in respect to society that was indicated past it -- on the mind of Hester Prynne herself was powerful and peculiar. All the light and svelte foliage of her character had been withered upward by this reddish-hot make, and had long ago fallen abroad, leaving a blank 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 like change. It might be partly attributable to the studied austerity of her apparel, and partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. Information technology was a sad transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant pilus had either been cut off, or was and so completely hidden by a cap, that non a shining lock of information technology ever one time gushed into the sunshine. It was due in function to all these causes, but still more to something else, that at that place seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's face for Love to dwell upon; zip in Hester'south form, though majestic and statue similar, that Passion would ever dream of clasping in its comprehend; nothing in Hester's bosom to make information technology ever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a adult female. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern evolution, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an feel of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tender- ness will either be crushed out of her, or -- and the outward semblance is the same -- crushed so deeply into her heart that information technology tin never evidence itself more. The latter is mayhap the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and ceased to be and so, might at any moment become a adult female over again, if there were merely the magic touch on to effect the transformation. Nosotros shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched and so transfigured. Much of the marble coldness of Hester'due south impression was to be attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a peachy mensurate, from passion and feeling to thought. Standing alone in the world -- alone, as to any dependence on society, and with little Pearl to exist guided and protected -- solitary, and hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to consider information technology desirable -- she cast away the fragment a broken concatenation. The world'southward police force was no law for her mind. Information technology was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more than agile 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, just within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode -- the whole organization of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of aboriginal 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 it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatised by the red letter. In her lonesome cottage, by the seashore, thoughts visited her such equally dared to enter no other domicile in New England; shadowy guests, that would take been as perilous every bit 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 frequently accommodate 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 information technology seemed to be with Hester. Notwithstanding, had little Pearl never come to her from the spiritual earth, it might have been far otherwise. So she might take come up down to us in history, hand in hand with Ann Hutchinson, equally the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in i of her phases, have been a prophetess. She might, and not improbably would, take suffered death from the stern tribunals of the menstruation, for attempting to undermine the foundations of the Puritan institution. But, in the instruction of her child, the mother's enthusiasm thought had something to wreak itself upon. Providence, in the person of this little girl, had assigned to Hester's accuse, the germ and flower of womanhood, to be cherished and developed amidst a host of difficulties. Everything was against her. The world was hostile. The child's own nature had something incorrect in information technology which continually betokened that she had been born amiss -- the effluence of her female parent's lawless passion -- and often impelled Hester to ask, in bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor trivial beast had been born at all. Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind with reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth accepting even to the happiest amidst 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 information technology may keep women repose, as it does man, still makes her sad. She discerns, information technology may be, such a hopeless task earlier her. As a outset step, the whole system of gild is to be torn down and built upwardly afresh. So the very nature of the reverse sexual activity, or its long hereditary habit, which has become similar nature, is to exist essentially modified earlier adult female tin be allowed to assume what seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other difficulties beingness obviated, woman cannot take advantage of these preliminary reforms until she herself shall have undergone a all the same mightier change, in which, mayhap, the ethereal essence, wherein she has her truest life, will exist 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 style. If her heart chance to come up uppermost, they vanish. Thus Hester Prynne, whose center had lost its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clue in the night labyrinth of mind; now turned bated by an insurmountable precipice; now starting dorsum from a deep chasm. In that location was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a dwelling house and comfort nowhere. At times a fearful uncertainty strove to possess her soul, whether information technology were not better to send Pearl at once to Heaven, and go herself to such futurity as Eternal Justice should provide. The cerise letter had not washed its role. Now, all the same, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the dark 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 cede for its attainment. She had witnessed the intense misery beneath which the minister struggled, or, to speak more than accurately, had ceased to struggle. She saw that he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had non 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 mitt that proffered relief. A hugger-mugger enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of a friend and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded for tampering with the delicate springs of Mr. Dimmesdale'south nature. Hester could not merely ask herself whether there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty on her own part, in assuasive the minister to exist thrown into position where so much evil was to be foreboded and nix cheering to be hoped. Her but 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'southward scheme of disguise. Under that impulse she had fabricated her choice, and had chosen, as it now appeared, the more wretched alternative of the ii. She determined to redeem her error so far as information technology might yet be possible. Strengthened by years of difficult and solemn trial, she felt herself no longer so inadequate to cope with Roger Chillingworth as on that night, abandoned by sin and one-half-maddened by the ignominy that was still new, when they had talked together in the prison-chamber. She had climbed her way since so to a higher point. The old human being, on the other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or, perhaps, beneath information technology, by the revenge which he had stooped for. In fine, Hester Prynne resolved to run across her sometime husband, and exercise 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 sometime dr. with a basket on i arm and a staff in the other hand, stooping along the footing in quest of roots and herbs to concoct his medicine nevertheless. Next

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Source: https://hawthorne.thefreelibrary.com/Scarlet-Letter/14-1

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