The Scarlet Letter

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 frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as

Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linen--for babies then wore

robes of state--afforded still another possibility of toil and

emolument.

By degrees, not 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 certain 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 to embroider

the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride.

The exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which

society frowned upon her sin.

Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of

the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a

simple 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 may 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 steadfast penitence, but

something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong

beneath.