The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1892-10-19
THE SCARLET LETTER.
By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

oughly defined the plans which Hester
and himself had sketched for their de
parture II had been determined be
tween them that the Old World, will
its crowds and cities, offered them q
more eligible shelter and concealment
than the wilds of New England or nj
! America, with its alternatives of an In
| dian wigwam or the few settlements OF
Europeans scattered thinly along the
soaboard. Not TO speak Of the clergy.
mans health, so inadequate to sustain
the harlships of forest life, his native
gifts, his culture and his entire develop.
ment would secure him home only Ill
the midst of civilization and refinement;
the higher the state the more dclicately
adapted to it the man.
In furtherance of this choice, it so hap
pcned that ship lay in the harbor; one
of those questionable cruisers frequent
at that day, which, without being abso-
lutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed
over its surface with remarkable IRE
sponsibility of character. This vessel
had recently arrived from the Spanish
Main, and within three days time would
sail for Bristol Hester Prynne-whose
vocation, as self enlisted sister of
charity, had brought her acquainted
with the captain and crew-could take
upon herself to secure the passage Of two
individuals and child with all the Sc
crecy which circumstances rendered
more than desirable.
The minister had inquired of Hester,
with no little interest, the precise time
at which the vessel might be expected to
depart. 1t would probably be on the
fourth day from the present. THAT is
most fortunater' he had then said TO him
self. Now, why the Reverend Mr.. Dim
mesdale considered it so very fortunate,
we hesitate to reveal. Nevertheless, to
hold nothing back from the reader, it
was because on the third day from the
present he was to preach the election
sermon, and as such an occasion formed
an honorable epoch in the life of New
England clergyman he could not have
CHANGED upon more suitable mode and
time of terminating his professional ca
reCr.
AT least they shall say of me"
thought this exemplary man, that
leave no public duty unperformed no:
i'll performedr' Sad, indeed, that an in
trospection SO profound and acute as
this poor minister's should be SO misera-
bly, deceived! We have had and may
still have worse things TO tell of him,
but none we apprehend so pitiably
weak; no evidence, at once SO slight and
irrefragable of a subtle disease that had
long since begun to eat into the real
substance of.his character. No man for
any considerable period can wear one
face TO himself and another to the null
titude without finally getting bewildered
as to which may be the true.
The excitement of Mr.. Dimmesdale's
feelings as he returned from his inter
view with Hester lent him unaccus-
toned physical energy and hurried him
downward at rapid pace. The path
way among the woods seemed wilder,
more uncouth with it's rude natural OBJ
stacles, and less trodden by the foot Of
man, than he remembered it on his out
ward journey. But lie leaped across
the plashy places, thrust himself
through the clinging underbrush,
climbed tho ascent, plunged into the
hollow, and overcame, in short, all the
difficulties Of the track with an I'M
weariable activity that astonished him.
He could not but recall how feebly, and
with what frequent pauses for breath,
he had toiled over the same ground
only two days before. AS he drew near
the town he took an impression of
change from the series of familiar OBJ
jects that presented themselves. II
seemed not yesterday, not one. not two,
but many days, or even years ago, since
he had quilted them. There, indeed,
was each former trace Of the street, as
he remembered it, and all the peculiar
tiles of the houses, with the due multi
tude of gable peaks, and weathercock
at every point where his memory sug-
gested one.
Not the less, however, came this i'm
Fortunately obtrusive sense of change.
The same was true as regarded the ac-
quaintances whom he met, and all the
we'll known shapes of human life about
the little town. They looked neither
older nor younger now; the boards of
the aged were no winter, nor could the
creeping babe of yesterday walk on his
feet today; it was impossible to describe
in what respect they differed from the
individuals on whom he had so recently
bestowed parting glance; and yet the
minister's deepest sense seemed TO in
form them Of their mutability. A SINH
lar impression struck him most remark
ably, as he passed under the walls of his
own church The edifice had so very
strange and yet so familiar an aspect
that Mr.. Dimmesdale's mind vibrated
between two ideas-either that he had
seen 1t only in dream hitherto, or that
he was merely dreaming about it now.
This phenomenon, in the various shapes
which it assumed, indicated no external
change, but so sudden and important a
change in the spectator Of the familiar
scene that the intervening space of q
single day had operated on his conscious
mesa IKE the lapse or years. Inc mn
isters own will, and Testers will, and
the fate that grew between them, had
wrought this transformation. 1t was
the same town as heretofore, but the
same minister returned not from the
forest He might have said to the friends
who greeted him: Il am not the man
for whom you take me! left him yon-
der in the forest, withdrawn into secret
dell by messy tree trunk and near a
melancholy brook! Go seek your min
lister and see if his emaciated figure, his
thin cheek, his white, heavy, pain wrin-
killed. brow be not flung down there like
a cast off parmentr His friends, nc