The Scarlet Letter

Such was the sympathy of Nature--that wild, heathen Nature of

the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by

higher truth--with the bliss of these two spirits! Love, whether

newly-born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always

create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that

it overflows upon the outward world. 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 a thrill of another joy.

"Thou must know Pearl!" said she. "Our little Pearl! Thou hast

seen her--yes, I know it!--but thou wilt see her now with other

eyes. She is a strange child! I hardly comprehend her! But thou

wilt love her dearly, as I do, and wilt advise me how to deal

with her!"

"Dost thou think the child will be glad to know me?" asked the

minister, somewhat uneasily. "I have long shrunk from children,

because they often show a distrust--a backwardness to be

familiar with me. I have even been afraid of little Pearl!"

"Ah, that was sad!" answered the mother. "But she will love

thee dearly, and thou her. She is not far off. I 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 distinct--now like a real child, now like a

child's spirit--as the splendour 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 now red as drops of blood upon

the withered leaves. These Pearl gathered, and was pleased with

their wild flavour. The small denizens of the wilderness hardly

took pains to move out of her path. A partridge, indeed, with a

brood of ten behind her, ran forward threateningly, 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 the 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 recognised a

kindred wilderness in the human child.