San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1892-07-01
THE SCARLET LETTER.
By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.


Now was heard again the clangor of
the music, and the measured tramp of
the military escort issuing from tie
church door The procession was to be
marshaled thence to the town hall,
where a solemn banquet would COM
plete the ceremonies of the day.
Once more, therefore, the train of ven
cradle and majestic fathers was seen
moving through q broad pathway of the
people, who drew back reverently, on
either side, as the governor and magis-
trates, the old and wise men, the holy
ministers, and all that were eminent
and renowned, advanced into the midst
of them. When they were fairly in the
market place their presence was greeted
by shout This-though doubtless it
might acquire additional force and vol
ume from the childlike loyalty which
the age awarded to its rulers-was
felt to be an irrepressible outburst
of enthusiasm kindled in the auditors
by that high strain of .eloquence which
was yet reverberating in their ears.
Each felt the impulse in himself and
in the same breath caught it from his
neighbor. Within the church it had
hardly been kept down; beneath the sky
it pealed upward to the zenith. There
We're human beings enough and enough
of highly wrought and symphonious
feeling to produce that more impressive
sound than the organ tones of the blast,
or the thunder, or the roar of the sea-
even that mighty swell of many voices
blended into one great voice by the uni
versal impulse which makes likewise one
vast heart out of the many. Never from
the soil of New England had gone up
such shout Never on New England
soil had stood the man so hOnored by his
mortal brethren as the preacher!
How Jared it with him then? Were
there not the brilliant particles of halo
in the air about his head? So ethereal
lied by spirit as he was, and SO apothe-
Csized by worshiping admirers, did his
footsteps in the procession really tread
upon the dust of earth?
As the ranks of military men and
civil fathers moved onward, all eyes
were turned toward the point where the
minister was seen to approach among
them. The shout died into a murmur
as one portion of the. crowd after an
other obtained glimpse of him. How
feeble and pale he looked amid all his
triumph! The erergy-or say, rather,
the inspiration which had held him up
until he should have delivered the sacred |
message that brought its own strength |
along with it from heaven-was WITH |
drawn, now that it had so faithfully /
performed its Office. The glow, which
they had just before beheld burning on |
his cheek, was extinguished like fame |
that sinks down hopelessly among the !
late-deoaying embers. 1t seemed hardly
the face of man alive, with such
deathlike hue; it was hardly a man
with life in him that tottered on lis
path so nervelessly, yet tottered, and
did not fall!
. One of his clerical brethren-it was
the venerable John misunderstanding
the state in which Mr.. Dimmesdale was
left by the retiring wave of intellect and
sensibility, stepped forward hastily to
offer his support. The minister tremu- !
lousy but decidedly repealed the old |
mans arm. He still walked onward, if |
that movement could be so described, |
which rather resembled the wavering
effort of an infant with its mothers
arms in view outstretched to tempt him
forward. And now, almost impercepti
BILE as were the latter steps of his prog
ress, he had come opposite the well re-
membered and weather darkened scat
fold, where long since, with all that
dreary lapse of time between, Hester
Prynne had encountered the worlds ig-
nominous stare. There stood Hester
holding little Pearl by the hand! And
there was the scarlet letter on her
breast! The minister here made pause.
although the music still played the
stately and rejoicing march to which
the procession moved. 1t summoned
him onward-onward to the festival
but here he made pause.
Bellingham for the last few moments
had kept an anxious eye upon him. He
now left his own place in the procession
and advanced to give assistance, Judging
from Mr.. Dimmesdales aspect, that he
must otherwise inevitably fall. But
there was something in the latter's ex-
preston that warned back the magis-
trate, although man not readily obey
ing the vague intimations that pass from
one spirit to another. The crowd, mean
while, looked on with awe and wonder.
This earthly faintness was, in their
view, only another phase of the minis
ter's celestial strength, nor would it
have seemed a miracle too high to be
wrought for one so holy, had he assembled
before their eyes, waxing DINNER and
brighter, and fading at last into the
. light of heaven.
He turned toward the scaffold and