The Scarlet Letter

The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were

longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester's good qualities

than the people. The prejudices which they shared in common with

the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron frame-work of

reasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expel them. Day

by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid wrinkles were

relaxing into something which, in the due course of years, might

grow to be an expression of almost benevolence. Thus it was with

the men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the

guardianship of the public morals. Individuals in private life,

meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty;

nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the

token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and

dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. "Do you see

that woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say to

strangers. "It is our Hester--the town's own Hester--who is so

kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the

afflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to

tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of

another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of

bygone years. It was none the less a fact, however, that in the

eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the

effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer

a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid

all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her

safe. It was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had

drawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile struck

it, and fell harmless to the ground.

The effect of the symbol--or rather, of the position in respect

to society that was indicated by it--on the mind of Hester

Prynne herself was powerful and peculiar. All the light and

graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this

red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and

harsh outline, which might have been repulsive had she possessed

friends or companions to be repelled by it. Even the

attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. It

might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and

partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. It was a sad

transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either

been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a

shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. It was

due in part to all these causes, but still more to something

else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's

face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester's form, though

majestic and statue like, that Passion would ever dream of

clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester's bosom to make it

ever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed

from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her

a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern

development, of the feminine character and person, when the

woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of

peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If

she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her,

or--and the outward semblance is the same--crushed so deeply

into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is

perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and

ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if

there were only the magic touch to effect the transformation. We

shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched

and so transfigured.