Public ceremonies, such as ordinations, the installation of
magistrates, and all that could give majesty to the forms in
which a new government manifested itself to the people, were, as
a matter of policy, marked by a stately and well-conducted
ceremonial, and a sombre, but yet a studied magnificence. Deep
ruffs, painfully wrought bands, and gorgeously embroidered
gloves, were all deemed necessary to the official state of men
assuming the reins of power, and were readily allowed to
individuals dignified by rank or wealth, even while sumptuary
laws forbade these and similar extravagances to the plebeian
order. In the array of funerals, too--whether for the apparel of
the dead body, or to typify, by manifold emblematic devices of
sable cloth and snowy lawn, the sorrow of the survivors--there
was a frequent and characteristic demand for such labour as
Hester Prynne could supply. Baby-linen--for babies then wore
robes of state--afforded still another possibility of toil and
emolument.
By degrees, not very slowly, her handiwork became what would now
be termed the fashion. Whether from commiseration for a woman of
so miserable a destiny; or from the morbid curiosity that gives
a fictitious value even to common or worthless things; or by
whatever other intangible circumstance was then, as now,
sufficient to bestow, on some persons, what others might seek in
vain; or because Hester really filled a gap which must otherwise
have remained vacant; it is certain that she had ready and
fairly requited employment for as many hours as she saw fit to
occupy with her needle. Vanity, it may be, chose to mortify
itself, by putting on, for ceremonials of pomp and state, the
garments that had been wrought by her sinful hands. Her
needle-work was seen on the ruff of the Governor; military men
wore it on their scarfs, and the minister on his band; it decked
the baby's little cap; it was shut up, to be mildewed and
moulder away, in the coffins of the dead. But it is not recorded
that, in a single instance, her skill was called in to embroider
the white veil which was to cover the pure blushes of a bride.
The exception indicated the ever relentless vigour with which
society frowned upon her sin.
Hester sought not to acquire anything beyond a subsistence, of
the plainest and most ascetic description, for herself, and a
simple abundance for her child. Her own dress was of the
coarsest materials and the most sombre hue, with only that one
ornament--the scarlet letter--which it was her doom to wear. The
child's attire, on the other hand, was distinguished by a
fanciful, or, we may rather say, a fantastic ingenuity, which
served, indeed, to heighten the airy charm that early began to
develop itself in the little girl, but which appeared to have
also a deeper meaning. We may speak further of it hereafter.
Except for that small expenditure in the decoration of her
infant, Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on
wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently
insulted the hand that fed them. Much of the time, which she
might readily have applied to the better efforts of her art, she
employed in making coarse garments for the poor. It is probable
that there was an idea of penance in this mode of occupation,
and that she offered up a real sacrifice of enjoyment in
devoting so many hours to such rude handiwork. She had in her
nature a rich, voluptuous, Oriental characteristic--a taste for
the gorgeously beautiful, which, save in the exquisite
productions of her needle, found nothing else, in all the
possibilities of her life, to exercise itself upon. Women derive
a pleasure, incomprehensible to the other sex, from the delicate
toil of the needle. To Hester Prynne it might have been a mode
of expressing, and therefore soothing, the passion of her life.
Like all other joys, she rejected it as sin. This morbid
meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it
is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but
something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong
beneath.