The Scarlet Letter

"Then why not reveal it here?" asked Roger Chillingworth,

glancing quietly aside at the minister. "Why should not the

guilty ones sooner avail themselves of this unutterable solace?"

"They mostly do," said the clergyman, griping hard at his

breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain.

"Many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not

only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in

reputation. And ever, after such an outpouring, oh, what a

relief have I witnessed in those sinful brethren! even as in one

who at last draws free air, after a long stifling with his own

polluted breath. How can it be otherwise? Why should a wretched

man--guilty, we will say, of murder--prefer to keep the dead

corpse buried in his own heart, rather than fling it forth at

once, and let the universe take care of it!"

"Yet some men bury their secrets thus," observed the calm

physician.

"True; there are such men," answered Mr. Dimmesdale. "But not

to suggest more obvious reasons, it may be that they are kept

silent by the very constitution of their nature. Or--can we not

suppose it?--guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a

zeal for God's glory and man's welfare, they shrink from

displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men;

because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them; no evil

of the past be redeemed by better service. So, to their own

unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures,

looking pure as new-fallen snow, while their hearts are all

speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid

themselves."

"These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with

somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture

with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that

rightfully belongs to them. Their love for man, their zeal for

God's service--these holy impulses may or may not coexist in

their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has

unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish

breed within them. But, if they seek to glorify God, let them

not lift heavenward their unclean hands! If they would serve

their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and

reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential

self-abasement! Would thou have me to believe, O wise and pious

friend, that a false show can be better--can be more for God's

glory, or man' welfare--than God's own truth? Trust me, such men

deceive themselves!"

"It may be so," said the young clergyman, indifferently, as

waiving a discussion that he considered irrelevant or

unseasonable. He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from

any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous

temperament.--"But, now, I would ask of my well-skilled

physician, whether, in good sooth, he deems me to have profited

by his kindly care of this weak frame of mine?"