San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-06-22


stood the minister with his hand over
his heart, and Hester Prynne with the
embroidered letter glimmering on her
bosom, and little Pearl, herself.s sym
Dol and the connecting link between
those two. They stood in the noon of
that strange and solemn splendor as if
1T were the light that is to reveal all
secrets and the dayhreak that shall unite
all who belong TO one another.
There was witchcraft in little Pearls
eyes, and her face as she glanced up
ward at the minister wore that naughty
smile which made its expression fire.
quently so elfsb. She withdrew her
hand from Mr.. Dimmesdale's and point
ed across the street But he clasped
both his hands oyer bis breast and east
his eyes toward the zenith.
Nothing was more commen in those
days than to interpret all meteoric ap-
pearances and other natural phenomena
that occurred with less regularity than
the rise and set of sun and moon as SO
many revelations from supernatural
source. Thus a blazing spear, "a sword
of flame, bow or sheaf of arrows
seen in the midnight sky prefgured In
dian warfare. Pestilence was known to
have been foreboded by a shower of
crimson light. We doubt whether any
marked event for good or evil ever be-
fell New England from its settlement
down to Revolutionary times of which
the inhabitants had not been previously
warned by some spectacle of this nature.
Not seldom it had been seen by multi
tudes.
Oftener, however, its ;credibility rested
on the faith of some lonely eyewitness,
who beheld the wonder through the col
ored, magnifying and distorting medium
of his imagination, and shaped it more
distinctly in his afterthought. 1t was
indeed majestic idea. that the destiny
of nations should be revealed in these
awful hieroglyphics on the cope of
heaven. A scroll so wide might not be
deemed too expansive for Providence to
write peoples doom upon. The belief
was fayOrite one with our forefathers,
as betokenipg that their infant common
wealth was under celestial guardian
ship of peculiar intimacy and strictness.
But what shall we say when an individ-
ual discovers revelation, addressed to
himself alone, on the same vast sheet of
record? In such case it could only be
the symptom of highly disordered men
tai state, when a man, rendered morbid
ly self contemplatiye by long, intense
and secret pain, had extended his ego
tism over the whole expanse of nature,
until the armament itself should appear
no more than fitting page for his souls
history and fate!
We impute it therefore solely to the
disease in his own eye and heart, that
the minister, looking upward to the ze-
NTH, beheld there the appearance of an
immense letter-the letter A-marked
out in lines of dull red light Not but
the meteor may have shown itself at
that point, burning duskily through a
veil of cloud, but with no such shape
as his guilty imagination gave it, or, at
least, with SO little defniteness that an
others guilt might have seen another
symbol in it.
There was singular circumstance
that characterized Mr.. Dimmesdale's
psychological state at this moment. All
the time that he gazed upward to the
zenith he was nevertheless perfectly
aware that little Pearl was pointing her
finger toward old Roger Chillingworth,
who stood at no great distance from the
scaffold. The minister appeared to see
him with the same glance that discerned
the miraculous letter.
To his features, as to all other objects,
the meteoric light impaired new ex-
preston; or it might well be that the
physician was not careful then, as at all
other times, to hide the malevolence
with which he looked upon his victim.
Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the
sky and disclosed the earth with an
awfulness that admonished Hester
Prynne and the clergyman of the day of
judgment, then might Roger Chilling.
worth have passed with them for the
arch fiend, standing there with smile
and scowl to claim his own. So vivid
was the expression, or so intense the
minister's perception of it, that it
seemed still to remain painted on the
darkness after the meteor had vanished
with an effect as if the street and all
things else were at once annihilated.
who is that man, Hester?" gasped
Mr.. Dimmesdale, overcome with terror.
II shiver at him! Dost thou know the
man? | hate him, Hester!'
She remembered her oath and was
silent.
II tell thee my soul shivers at him!'
muttered the minister again. "Who is
he? Who is he? Canst thou do nothing
for me? have nameless horror of the