The Scarlet Letter

"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 nighttime 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 not now of the minister, but look about thee, and

see how cheery is everybody's face to-day. The children have

come from their schools, and the grown people from their

workshops and their fields, on purpose to be happy, for, to-day,

a new man is beginning to rule over them; and so--as has been

the custom of mankind ever since a nation was first

gathered--they make merry and rejoice: as if a good and golden

year were at length to pass over the poor old world!"

It was as Hester said, in regard to the unwonted jollity that

brightened the faces of the people. Into this festal season of

the year--as it already was, and continued to be during the

greater part of two centuries--the Puritans compressed whatever

mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity;

thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the

space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave

than most other communities at a period of general affliction.

But we perhaps exaggerate the gray or sable tinge, which

undoubtedly characterized the mood and manners of the age. The

persons now in the market-place of Boston had not been born to

an inheritance of Puritanic gloom. They were native Englishmen,

whose fathers had lived in the sunny richness of the 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 ceremonies, 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 splendour, a

colourless 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--seemed 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 and social eminence. All came

forth to move in procession before the people's eye, and thus

impart a needed dignity to the simple framework of a government

so newly constructed.