The rulers, and the wise and learned men of the community, were
longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester's good qualities
than the people. The prejudices which they shared in common with
the latter were fortified in themselves by an iron frame-work of
reasoning, that made it a far tougher labour to expel them. Day
by day, nevertheless, their sour and rigid wrinkles were
relaxing into something which, in the due course of years, might
grow to be an expression of almost benevolence. Thus it was with
the men of rank, on whom their eminent position imposed the
guardianship of the public morals. Individuals in private life,
meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty;
nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the
token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and
dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. "Do you see
that woman with the embroidered badge?" they would say to
strangers. "It is our Hester--the town's own Hester--who is so
kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the
afflicted!" Then, it is true, the propensity of human nature to
tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of
another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of
bygone years. It was none the less a fact, however, that in the
eyes of the very men who spoke thus, the scarlet letter had the
effect of the cross on a nun's bosom. It imparted to the wearer
a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid
all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her
safe. It was reported, and believed by many, that an Indian had
drawn his arrow against the badge, and that the missile struck
it, and fell harmless to the ground.
The effect of the symbol--or rather, of the position in respect
to society that was indicated by it--on the mind of Hester
Prynne herself was powerful and peculiar. All the light and
graceful foliage of her character had been withered up by this
red-hot brand, and had long ago fallen away, leaving a bare and
harsh outline, which might have been repulsive had she possessed
friends or companions to be repelled by it. Even the
attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. It
might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress, and
partly to the lack of demonstration in her manners. It was a sad
transformation, too, that her rich and luxuriant hair had either
been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a
shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. It was
due in part to all these causes, but still more to something
else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester's
face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester's form, though
majestic and statue like, that Passion would ever dream of
clasping in its embrace; nothing in Hester's bosom to make it
ever again the pillow of Affection. Some attribute had departed
from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her
a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern
development, of the feminine character and person, when the
woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of
peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If
she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her,
or--and the outward semblance is the same--crushed so deeply
into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is
perhaps the truest theory. She who has once been a woman, and
ceased to be so, might at any moment become a woman again, if
there were only the magic touch to effect the transformation. We
shall see whether Hester Prynne were ever afterwards so touched
and so transfigured.