This outward mutability indicated, and did not more than fairly
express, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature
appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but--or else
Hester's fears deceived her--it lacked reference and adaptation
to the world into which she was born. The child could not be
made amenable to rules. In giving her existence a great law had
been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were
perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or with an
order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety
and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered.
Hester could only account for the child's character--and even
then most vaguely and imperfectly--by recalling what she herself
had been during that momentous period while Pearl was imbibing
her soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its
material of earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the
medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the
rays of its moral life; and, however white and clear originally,
they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery
lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the
intervening substance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit
at that epoch was perpetuated in Pearl. She could recognize her
wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper,
and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency
that had brooded in her heart. They were now illuminated by the
morning radiance of a young child's disposition, but, later in
the day of earthly existence, might be prolific of the storm and
whirlwind.
The discipline of the family in those days was of a far more
rigid kind than now. The frown, the harsh rebuke, the frequent
application of the rod, enjoined by Scriptural authority, were
used, not merely in the way of punishment for actual offences,
but as a wholesome regimen for the growth and promotion of all
childish virtues. Hester Prynne, nevertheless, the loving mother
of this one child, ran little risk of erring on the side of
undue severity. Mindful, however, of her own errors and
misfortunes, she early sought to impose a tender but strict
control over the infant immortality that was committed to her
charge. But the task was beyond her skill. After testing both
smiles and frowns, and proving that neither mode of treatment
possessed any calculable influence, Hester was ultimately
compelled to stand aside and permit the child to be swayed by
her own impulses. Physical compulsion or restraint was
effectual, of course, while it lasted. As to any other kind of
discipline, whether addressed to her mind or heart, little Pearl
might or might not be within its reach, in accordance with the
caprice that ruled the moment. Her mother, while Pearl was yet
an infant, grew acquainted with a certain peculiar look, that
warned her when it would be labour thrown away to insist,
persuade or plead.