The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-04-01

might say, arbitrary epactInents, puo Tue
lave Of nature at work In the hearts and
souls Of the sinners.
Yet the two are on the same plane OF spirit
ual austerty, and they are not unlike in
the tendencies of their sympathy with the
errors Of human passion. Infinite pity"
as Carlyle has called 1t, yet also infinite
rigor of law-it is 90 Nature is made"
Across the lurid light Of hell, Dante has
shed about the tortured souls Of Paolo and
Francesca the radiance Of the tenderest,
most passional lines in the literature OF
the world. ~Alas!' he exclaims:
How many pleasant Thoughts. how much desire
Conducted these unto the dolorou 9 pass.
Franceeca concludes her story thus:
This one. VINO ne'er from me shall be divided.
Kiosed me upon the mouth all palpitating,
Galletto was tho book and he who wrote
That day no farther did we read therein.
And Hawthorne has given US the counter
part. Speaking Of Hester's husband, Chill
iinoDorth, Dimmesdale says: That old
nan's revenge has been blacker than my
ain. He has violated, In cold blood, the
sanctity OF a human heart. Thou and /,
Hester, never did eo!'-SNever, neverl' she
whispered. what We did had a consecra-
ton Of its own. We felt it so! We said
50 to each other! Hast thou forgotten
it?' The minister had not forgotten
though the memory distressed him, ae 1t
oonsoled the
The spiritual concept that gives form and
substance TO The Scarlet Letter is as alien
however, to the medieval as to the New
England theology. These, II you will, con-
tributed chapters to the literature OF moral
despair. Even In Dante's utmost passion
OF sympathy with Pdolo and Francesca
there is no ray Of hope. To Hawthorne Sin
is not less deadly than to Dante; but 1t is a
thing that may have It's own conservation
now and hereafter-and here it is perhaps
as we'll that the damned shadow OF Europe
has not fallen upon him. Bernard Shaw
has said-and still it may be true-that any
novelist worthy of the name has his own
original morality. Hawthorne had his own
morality. and though within it's bounds it
was most austerely elevated, it was a natural
morality, a morality Of courage n OF hope,
beside which Prof. Woodberry's demand for
light and love seems trivial enough.
What 1t was I shall net attempt to define
with anything like precision, for true to
his character Of mystic and romanceri
Hawthorne limns It only in the vagueet
outline. It's elements, however, are patent.
Dim mesddle hid his sin beneath the cloth
OF conventional sanctity, and 1t destroyed
him morally and physically, burning it's
stigma into bis very flesh. Hester wore
the scarlet letter emblazoned upon the breast
OF her gown-wrought it with exquisite
needlework, blending threads OF gold with
the scarlet. She lived to command the re-
spect and the love Of the very men who had
branded her, and to win for the child OF
her sin a life Of happiness. In the end she
grew to love the very token Of her adul-
terry. retaining it after those who had put
II there would willingly have seen her lay
1t aside. As Dimmesddie declined In char
acter aud spirit, she grew strong. In her
lonesome cottage by the sea shore Haw-
thorne tells us, ~thoughts visited her such
as dared to enter no other dwelling in New
England: shadowy guests, that would have
been as porilous as ernon to their enter
tainer, could they have been seen SO much as
knocking at her door. . Had little
Pearl never come to her from the spiritual
world, . she might have come Gown
to ue in history, hand in hand with Anne
Hutchinson, as the founder OF a religious
sect" What her new light was Hawthorne
only vaguely intimates. 'oh, Arthur, for
give me, Hester says speaking OF her weak
ness 10 abetting his silence. In all things
else I have striven to he true. . . A
lie il never good, even though death
threaten on the other side And. again;
BE tr1ie! Be true! BE true! Show freely to
the world. if not your worst. yet some trait
whereby the worst may be Inferred
There lie no tendency In all this TO senti-
mentalize or otherwise to palliate the
deadliness Of sin. In the triumphant con-
feesion Of his death hour Dimmesddle does
not hope to be united hereafter with the
partner Of his sin. By a curiously Haw-
thornesque touch their very graves, though
side by side. are divided. And though
Hester has triumphed over her stain in
her own life, it remains none the less a
stain. When penit ents came to her for
spiritual consolation she assured them
OF her firm belief that at some brighter
period a new truth you'd be revealed.
In order to establish the whole relation
between man and woman on a surer ground
Of mutual happiness. But she had long
since recognized the impossibility that
any mission Of divine or mysterious truth
should be confded to a woman stained
with Sin, bowed down with shame, or ever
burdened with a lifelong eorrow. The
angel and apostle Of the coming revela-
ton must be a woman indeed, but lofty.
pure and beautiful; and wise, moreover,
not through grief, but the ethereal medium
Of Joy"
This wonderful mid Victorian romance
Is, in short. in spite Of its prevailing SYM
bolism and mysticism, the novel Of a
problem as clearly as the latest work from
a twentieth century press. And-to come
back somewhat tardily to our point Of de-
'parture-any stage version Of It should be
not a mere tragic romance. but what, for
the lack Of a less b~edraggled word, must be
called a problem play. Macbeth is no
more deeply OWNED as a portrayal OF the
spiritual blight cast by an evil ambition
than this is Of the stigma of adulterous
sin.
And the story has, I believe, all the essen
tails Of a fruitful dramatic theme. The
opposition Of Wills is there. in wonderful
variety and harmony. First, there is the
conflict between the sacrament Of the in
dividual heart, Of the individual soul, and
not the least in this mundane trinity-of the
human body, against the sacrament Of the
social order. which men call the sacrament
80 God Besfer. Dim m esdde and Pearl