than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here had
been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence.
She had returned, therefore, and resumed,—of her own free will, for
not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed
it,—resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale. Never
afterwards did it quit her bosom. But, in the lapse of the toilsome,
thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester’s life, the
scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn
and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over,
and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too. And, as Hester
Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own
profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and
perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone
through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially,—in the continually
recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and
sinful passion,—or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded,
because unvalued and unsought,—came to Hester’s cottage, demanding
why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and
counselled them as best she might. She assured them, too, of her firm
belief, that, at some brighter period, when the world should have
grown ripe for it, in Heaven’s own time, a new truth would be
revealed, in order to establish the whole relation between man and
woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness. Earlier in life, Hester
had vainly imagined that she herself might be the destined prophetess,
but had long since recognized the impossibility that any mission of
divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with
sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow.
The angel and apostle of the coming revelation must be a woman,
indeed, but lofty, pure, and beautiful; and wise, moreover, not
through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy; and showing how
sacred love should make us happy, by the truest test of a life
successful to such an end!
So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the
scarlet letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave was delved,
near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which King’s
Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave,
yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no
right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both. All around, there
were monuments carved with armorial bearings; and on this simple slab
of slate—as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex
himself with the purport—there appeared the semblance of an engraved
escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald’s wording of which might serve
for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so
sombre is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light
gloomier than the shadow:—
“ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES.”
[Illustration]
Cambridge: Electrotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected; for the details, see
below. Most illustrations have been linked to the larger versions; to
see the larger version, click on the illustration.
Typos fixed:
page 072—spelling normalized: changed ‘midday’ to ‘mid-day’
page 132—inserted a missing closing quote after ‘a child of her age’
page 137—spelling normalized: changed ‘careworn’ to ‘care-worn’
page 147—typo fixed: changed ‘physican’ to ‘physician’
page 171—typo fixed: changed ‘vocies’ to ‘voices’
page 262—removed an extra closing quote after ‘scarlet letter too!’
page 291—spelling normalized: changed ‘birdlike’ to ‘bird-like’
page 300—typo fixed: changed ‘intruments’ to ‘instruments’
page 306—spelling normalized: changed ‘deathlike’ to ‘death-like’