The Goodland republic. [volume] (Goodland, Kan.) 1891-1907, 1893-07-07
Hin SCARLET LETTER
By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
CHAPTER TX.
THE INTERIOR OF A HEART.

popularity IN his sacred Office. He won it,
in great part, by his sorrows.
To the high mountain peaks of faith
and sanctity he would have climbed had
not the tendency been thwarted by the
burden, whatever it might be, of crime
or anguish, beneath which it was his
doom to totter. It kept him down on
level with the lowest; him, the man of
ethereal attributes, whose voice the an
gels might else have listened to and
answered! But this very burden it was
that gave him sympathies so intimate
with the sinful brotherhood of mankind;
so that his heart vibrated in unison with
theirs, and received their pain into itself,
and sent its own throb of pain through
a thousand other hearts in gushes of sad,
persuasive eloquence. Oftenest per-
suasive, but sometimes terrible!
The people knew not the power that
moved them thus. They deemed the
young clergyman miracle of holiness.
They fancied him the mouthpiece of
heavens messages of wisdom and re-
Duke and love. In their eyes the very
ground on which he trod was sanctifed.
The virgins of his church grew pale
! around him, victims of a passion so i'm
bued with religious sentiment that they
imagined it to be all religion and brought
it openly in their white bosoms as their
most acceptable sacrifice before the altar.
The aged members of his flock, beholding
Mr.. Dimmesdale's frame so feeble while
they were themselves SO rugged in their
infrmity, believed that he would go
heavenward before them and enjoined it
upon their children that their old bones
l. -
pastors holy grave. And all this time,
perchance, when poor Mr.. Dimmesdale
was thinking of his grave, he questioned
with himself whether the grass would
ever grow on it, because an accused
thing must there be buried!
It is inconceivable, the agony with
which this public generation tortured
| him! It was his genuine impulse to
adore the truth, and to reckon all things
shadowlike, and utterly devoid of weight
or value, that had not its divine essence
as the life within their life. Then, what
was he?-a substance?-or the dimmest
of all shadows? He longed to speak
out, from his own pulpit, at the full
| height of his voice, and tell the people
what he was. SCI, whom you behold in
these black garments of the priesthood;
| [, who ascend the sacred desk and turn
my pale face heavenward, taking upon
myself to hold communion, in your be-
| half, with the Most High Omniscience;
1, in whose daily life you discern the
sanctity of Enoch; l, whose footsteps,
as you suppose, leave CLEAN along my
earthly track, whereby the pilgrims that
shall come after me may be guided to
! the regions of the blest; l, who have
laid the hand of baptism upon your
children; l, who have breathed the part
ing prayer over your dying friends, to
whom the amen sounded family from a
world which they had quilted; l, your
! pastor, whom you so reverence and trust,
am utterly pollution and lie!"
More than once Mr.. Dimmesdale had
gone into the pulpit with a purpose
never to come down its steps until he
should have spoken words like the
above. More than once he had cleared
his throat and drawn in the long, deep
and tremulous breath which, when sent
forth again, would come burdened with
the black secret of his soul. More than
| once-nay, more than hundred times
he had actually spoken! Spoken! But
how? He had told his hearers that he
| was a4GOSOGn0T Nl10s d NllST CO1u
| of the Vilest, the worst of sinners, an
abomination, a thing of unimaginable in
iquity; and the only wonder was that
they did not see his wretched body
shriveled up before their eyes by the
burning wrath of the Almighty! Could
there be palmer speech than thisi
Would not the people start up in their
seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and
tear him down out of the pulpit which
he defiled2 Not so, indeed! They heard
it all, and did but reverence him the
more. They little guessed what deadly
purport lurked in those self condemning
words. 1.-THE godly youth!'' said they
among themselves. ''The saint on
earth! Alas, if he discern such sinful
ness in his own white soul, what horrid
spectacle would he behold in thine OF
miner
The minister we'll Fnew-subtle, but
remorseful hypocrite that he was-the
light in which his vague confession
would be viewed. He had striven to
put cheat upon himself by making the
avowal Of a guilty conscience, but had
gained only one other sin and self ac-
knowledged shame without the momen-
hry relief or Szing self deceived. He
had spoken the very truth and trans
formed it into the veriest falsehood
And yet, by the constitution of his ma
ture, he loved the truth and loathed
the lie as few men ever did. Therefore
above all things else he loathed his mis-
cradle self
His inward trouble drove him to prac.
= tees more in accordance with the old
corrupted faith of Rome than with the
better light of the church in which he
had been born and bred. In Mr.. Dim
mesdale's secret closet, under lock and
key, there was bloody scourge. Often
times this Protestant and Puritan divine
had piled it on his own shoulders, laugh
ing bitterly at himself the while, and
shifting so much the more pitilessly be
cause of that bitter laugh. It was his
custom, too, as it has been that of many
other pious Puritans. to fast-not. how.
ever, like them, in order to purify the
body and render it the filter medium OF
celestial illumination, but vigorously
and until his knees trembled beneath
him, as an act OF penance. He kept
vigils likewise night after night, some