The Scarlet Letter

He soon manifested his familiarity with the

ponderous and imposing machinery of antique physic; in which

every remedy contained a multitude of far-fetched and

heterogeneous ingredients, as elaborately compounded as if the

proposed result had been the Elixir of Life. In his Indian

captivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the

properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from

his patients that these simple medicines, Nature's boon to the

untutored savage, had quite as large a share of his own

confidence as the European Pharmacopoeia, which so many learned

doctors had spent centuries in elaborating.

This learned stranger was exemplary as regarded at least the

outward forms of a religious life; and early after his arrival,

had chosen for his spiritual guide the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale.

The young divine, whose scholar-like renown still lived in

Oxford, was considered by his more fervent admirers as little

less than a heavenly ordained apostle, destined, should he live

and labour for the ordinary term of life, to do as great deeds,

for the now feeble New England Church, as the early Fathers had

achieved for the infancy of the Christian faith. About this

period, however, the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently

begun to fail. By those best acquainted with his habits, the

paleness of the young minister's cheek was accounted for by his

too earnest devotion to study, his scrupulous fulfilment of

parochial duty, and more than all, to the fasts and vigils of

which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the

grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his

spiritual lamp. Some declared, that if Mr. Dimmesdale were

really going to die, it was cause enough that the world was not

worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet. He himself, on the

other hand, with characteristic humility, avowed his belief that

if Providence should see fit to remove him, it would be because

of his own unworthiness to perform its humblest mission here on

earth. With all this difference of opinion as to the cause of

his decline, there could be no question of the fact. His form

grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a

certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often

observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put

his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness,

indicative of pain.

Such was the young clergyman's condition, and so imminent the

prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished, all

untimely, when Roger Chillingworth made his advent to the town.

His first entry on the scene, few people could tell whence,

dropping down as it were out of the sky or starting from the

nether earth, had an aspect of mystery, which was easily

heightened to the miraculous. He was now known to be a man of

skill; it was observed that he gathered herbs and the blossoms

of wild-flowers, and dug up roots and plucked off twigs from the

forest-trees like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was

valueless to common eyes. He was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm

Digby and other famous men--whose scientific attainments were

esteemed hardly less than supernatural--as having been his

correspondents or associates. Why, with such rank in the learned

world, had he come hither? What, could he, whose sphere was in

great cities, be seeking in the wilderness? In answer to this

query, a rumour gained ground--and however absurd, was

entertained by some very sensible people--that Heaven had

wrought an absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent Doctor

of Physic from a German university bodily through the air and

setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study!

Individuals of wiser faith, indeed, who knew that Heaven

promotes its purposes without aiming at the stage-effect of what

is called miraculous interposition, were inclined to see a

providential hand in Roger Chillingworth's so opportune arrival.