The Scarlet Letter

"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 personal connexion 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

servants, signed and sealed, so shy of owning to the bond as is

the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, he hath a way of ordering matters

so that the mark shall be disclosed, in open daylight, to the

eyes of all the world! What is 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 Air! Wilt thou ride with me some fine night to see thy

father? Then thou shalt know wherefore the minister keeps his

hand over his heart!"

Laughing so 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

meeting-house, and the accents of the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale

were heard commencing his discourse. An irresistible feeling

kept Hester near the spot. As the sacred edifice was too much

thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position

close beside the scaffold of the pillory. It was in sufficient

proximity to bring the whole sermon to her ears, in the shape of

an indistinct but varied murmur and flow of the minister's very

peculiar voice.

This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment, insomuch that a

listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the

preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the

mere tone and cadence. Like all other music, it breathed passion

and pathos, and emotions high or tender, in a tongue native to

the human heart, wherever educated. Muffled as the sound was by

its passage through the church walls, Hester Prynne listened

with such intenseness, and sympathized so intimately, that the

sermon had throughout a meaning for her, entirely apart from its

indistinguishable words. These, perhaps, if more distinctly

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 essential 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 commanding--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 forgiveness,--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.