Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-07-13
By Nathaniel Hawthorne

haste to pray by the bedside of the dying min
lister. There the nurse-no hired hand
maiden of Death, but whose calm affection had
endured thus long in secrecy in solitude amid
the chill or age, and would not perish even ar
the dying hour. Who but Elizabeth! And there
lay the hoary head of good Father Hooper upon
the death pillow with the black veil still
swathed about his brow and reaching down
over his face, so that each more difficult gasp
of his faint breath caused it to stir All through
life that piece of crepe had hung between him
and the world; it had separated him from
cheerful brotherhood and womans love and
kept him in that saddest of all prisons. his
own heart; and still 1t lay upon his face as if
to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber
and shade him from the sunshine, of eternity.
For sometime previous his mind had been
confused, wavering doubtfully between the pasA
and present, and lowering forward as it were
at intervals, into the indistinctness of the
world to come. There had been feverish turns
which tossed him from side to side and wore
away what little strength he had But in his
most convulsive struggles and widest vagaries
of his intellect, when no other thought retained
its sober influence he still showed awful ,
solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside
Even if his bewildered soul could have for
gotten that there was a faithful woman at his
pillow, who, with averted eyes, would have COW
cred that aged face which she had last beheld
in the cOmeliness of manhood.
At length the death-stricken old man lay
quietly in the torpor Of mental and bodily ex-
haustion, with an imperceptible pulse and
breath that grew fainter and fainter except
when a long deep and irregular inspiration
seemed to preclude the flight of his spirit
The minister Of Westbury approached the
bedside
"Vanerahle Father TJoonar eaid be "tbe
moment of your release is at hand. Are you
ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts
in time from eternity"
Father Hooper at first replied merely by
feeble motion of his head then, apprehensive,
perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful,
he exerted himself to speak.
YEA" said he in faint accents; my soul
hath a patient WEAKNESS until that veil is
lifted"
And is it fitting" resumed the Rev Mr..
Clark, that man so given to prayer of such
a blameless example holy in deed and thought,
far mortal judgment may pronounce is
it fitting that father in the church should
leave shadow on his memory that may seem
to blacken a life pure? l pray you. my
venerable brother, let not this thing be! Suffer
us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect
as you go to your reward. Before the veil of
eternity be lifted let me cast aside this black .
veil from your face" and thus speaking, the
Reverend Mr.. Clark bent forward to reveal the
mystery of so many years.
But exerting sudden energy that made all
the behOlders stand aghast, Father Hooper
snatched both his hands from beneath the bed
clothes and pressed them strongly on the black
veil resolute to struggle if the minister OF
Westbury would contend with the dying man. Z
"Never!" cried the yelled clergyman, "or
earth, never!"
Father Hooper's breath heaved; it rattlef I'd
in this throat but, with mighty effort, grasEp
ing forward with his hands, he caught hold Sf
life and held it back until he should speak. He
even raised himself in bed and there he sat
shiverng with the arms of Death around him,
while the black veil hung down, awful at that
last moment in the gathering terrOrs of a life
time. And yet the faint, sad smile often
there now seemed to glimmer from its OBJ
security and linger on Father Hooper's lips.
"Why do you tremble at me alOne2' cried
he turning his yelled face round the circle of
pale spectators Tremble also at each other.
Have men avoided me and have shown no pity
and children screamed and fled only for my
black veil? What but the mystery which it
obscurely typifes has made this piece of crepe
so awful? When the friend shows his Utmost
heart to his friend, the lover to his beloved
when man does not vainly shrink from the eve
of his Creator, lOathsomely treasuring up the
secret of his sin, then deem me monster for
the symbol beneath which l have lived and
die | look around me- and 10! on every visage
a black veil"
While his auditors shrank from one another
in mutual alright Father Hooper fell back
upon Ills pillow a yelled corpse with a faint
smile lingering on his lips Still yelled, they
laid him in his coffin, a yelled corpse they bore
him TO his grave The grass of many years
has sprung up and wthered on that grave,
the burial stone is mossgTown and good Mr.
HOOperS face is dust; but awful is still the
thought that it nodded beneath the black veil?