The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1893-08-18
The Scarlet Letter.
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

By this time the preliminary prayer
had been offered in the meeting house,
and the accents of the Reverend Mr..
Dimmesdale were heard commencing
his discourse An irresistible feeling
kept Hester near the spot. AS the sa-
cred edifice was too much thronged to
admit another auditor, she took up her
position close beside the scaffold Of the
pillory. 1t was in sufficient proximity
to bring the whole sermon to her ears
in the shape of an indistinct but varied
murmur and flow of the minister's very
peculiar voice.
This vocal organ was III itself a rich
endowment, insomuch that listener,
comprehending nothing of the language
in which the preacher spoke, might still
have been swayed to and fro by the mere
tone and cadence. Like all other music,
it breathed passion and pathos and emo
tions high or tender in a tongue native
to the human heart wherever educated.
Mufled as the sound was by its passage
through the church walls, Hester Prynne
listened with such intentness, and SYM
pathized so intimately, that the sermon
had throughout meaning for her en-
tirely apart from it's indistinguishable
words. These, perhaps, if more dis
tinctly heard, might have been only
grosser medium and have clOgged the
spiritual sense. Now she caught the
low undertone, as of the wind sinking
down to repose itself; then assembled
with it, as it rose through progressive
gradations of sweetness and power, I'M
til its volume seemed to envelop her
with an atmosphere Of awe and solemn
grandeur. And yet, majestic as the
voice sometimes became, there was for
ever in it an essential character of plain
tiveness.
A loud or low expression of anguish
the whisper or the shrek, as it might be
conceived, of suffering humanity, that
touched a sensibility in every bosom! AT
times this deep strain of pathOs was all
that could be heard, and scarcely heard,
signing amid a desOlate silence. But
even when the minister's voice grew
high and commanding, when it gushed
irrepressibly upward, when it assumed
its utmost breadth and power, so over
filling the church as to burst its way
through the solid walls and dilfuse it
self in the open air-still, if the auditor
listened intently and for the purpose.
he could detect the same cry of pain
What was it? The complaint Of a human
heart, sorrow laden, perchance guilty
telling its secret, whether of guilt or
sorrow, to the great heart of mankind.
beseeching its sympathy or forgiveness,
at every moment, in each accent and
never in vain! 1t was this profound and
continual undertone that gave the cler-
gyman his most appropriate power.
During all this time Hester stood,
statuelike, at the foot of the scaffold. If
the minister's voice had not kept her
there, there would nevertheless have been
an inevitable magnetism i'll that spot,
whence she dated the first hour of her
life of ignOminy There was a sense
within her-too i'll defined to be made
thought, but weighing heavily on her
mind-that her whole orb of life, both
before and after, was connected with
this spot, as with the one point that gave
it unity.
Little Pearl, meanwhile, had quilted
her mothers side, and was playing at
her own will about the market place.
She made the somber crowd cheerful by
her erratic and gistening ray; even as a
bird of bright plumage Eliminates a
whole tree of dusky foliage by darting
to and fro, half seen and half concealed
amid the twilight of the clustering
leaves She had an undulating, but of
tentimes q sharp and irregular move
ment. 1t indicated the restless vivacity
of her spirit, which today was doubly
indefatigable in its tiptoe dance, because
it was played upon and vibrated with her
mothers disquietude.
Whenever Pearl saw anything to ex-
cite her ever active and wandering curl
osity, she flew thitherward and, as we
might say, seized upon that man or
thing as her own property, so far as she
desired it; but without yielding the mi
nutest degree of control over her motions
in requital. The Puritans looked on
and, if they smiled, were none the less
inclined to pronounce the child demon
offspring, from the indescribable charm
of beauty apd eccentricity that shone
through her little figure and sparkled
with its activity. She ran and looked
the wild Indian in the face; and he grew
conscious of nature wilder than his
own. Thence with native audacity, but
still with a reserve as characteristic, she
few into the midst of a group of mari
ners-the swarthy checked wild men of
the ocean, as the Indians were of the
land; and they gazed wonderingly and adj
miringly at Pearl, as if flake of the sea
foam had taken the shape of little
maid, and were gifted with soul of the
sea fire that flashes beneath the prov in
the night time.
One of these seafaring men-the ship
master, indeed, who had spoken to Hes
ter Prynne-was so smitten with PEARLS
aspect that he attempted to lay hands
upon her, with purpose to snatch kiss.
Finding it as impossible to touch her as
to catch humming bird in the air, he
took from his hat the gold chain that
was twisted about it and threw it to the
child. Pearl Immediately twined it
around her neck and waist with such
happy skill that once seen there it be-
came part of her, and it was difficult
to imagine her without it.
''Thy mother is yonder woman with
the scarlet letter" said the seaman.
''Wilt thou carry her message from
me?"
eff the message pleases me will, .
answered Pearl.
EsThen tell her - reiOined he ssthat !