The Scarlet Letter

This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly

express, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature

appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but--or else

Hester's fears deceived her--it lacked reference and adaptation

to the world into which she was born. The child could not be

made amenable to rules. In giving her existence a great law had

been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were

perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or with an

order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety

and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered.

Hester could only account for the child's character--and even

then most vaguely and imperfectly--by recalling what she herself

had been during that momentous period while Pearl was imbibing

her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its

material of earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the

medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the

rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally,

they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery

lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the

intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit

at that epoch was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her

wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper,

and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency

that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the

morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in

the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and

whirlwind.

The discipline of the family in those days was of a far more

rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent

application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were

used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences,

but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all

childish virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother

of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of

undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors and

misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict

control over the infant immortality that was committed to her

charge. But the task was beyond her skill. After testing both

smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment

possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately

compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by

her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was

effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of

discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl

might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the

caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet

an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that

warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist,

persuade or plead.