Much of the marble coldness of Hester's impression was to be
attributed to the circumstance that her life had turned, in a
great measure, from passion and feeling to thought. Standing
alone in the world--alone, as to any dependence on society, and
with little Pearl to be guided and protected--alone, and
hopeless of retrieving her position, even had she not scorned to
consider it desirable--she cast away the fragment of a broken
chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. It was an age in
which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more
active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of
the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these
had overthrown and rearranged--not actually, but within the
sphere of theory, which was their most real abode--the whole
system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of
ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She
assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the
other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they
known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that
stigmatised by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, by
the seashore, thoughts visited her such as dared to enter no
other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have
been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have
been seen so much as knocking at her door.
It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly
often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external
regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without
investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemed
to be with Hester. Yet, had little Pearl never come to her from
the spiritual world, it might have been far otherwise. Then she
might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Ann
Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in
one of her phases, have been a prophetess. She might, and not
improbably would, have suffered death from the stern tribunals
of the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations of
the Puritan establishment. But, in the education of her child,
the mother's enthusiasm of thought had something to wreak itself
upon. Providence, in the person of this little girl, had
assigned to Hester's charge, the germ and blossom of womanhood,
to be cherished and developed amid a host of difficulties.
Everything was against her. The world was hostile. The child's
own nature had something wrong in it which continually betokened
that she had been born amiss--the effluence of her mother's
lawless passion--and often impelled Hester to ask, in bitterness
of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little
creature had been born at all.
Indeed, the same dark question often rose into her mind with
reference to the whole race of womanhood. Was existence worth
accepting even to the happiest among them? As concerned her own
individual existence, she had long ago decided in the negative,
and dismissed the point as settled. A tendency to speculation,
though it may keep women quiet, as it does man, yet makes her
sad. She discerns, it may be, such a hopeless task before her.
As a first step, the whole system of society is to be torn down
and built up anew. Then the very nature of the opposite sex, or
its long hereditary habit, which has become like nature, is to
be essentially modified before woman can be allowed to assume
what seems a fair and suitable position. Finally, all other
difficulties being obviated, woman cannot take advantage of
these preliminary reforms until she herself shall have undergone
a still mightier change, in which, perhaps, the ethereal
essence, wherein she has her truest life, will be found to have
evaporated. A woman never overcomes these problems by any
exercise of thought. They are not to be solved, or only in one
way. If her heart chance to come uppermost, they vanish. Thus
Hester Prynne, whose heart had lost its regular and healthy
throb, wandered without a clue in the dark labyrinth of mind;
now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now starting
back from a deep chasm. There was wild and ghastly scenery all
around her, and a home and comfort nowhere. At times a fearful
doubt strove to possess her soul, whether it were not better to
send Pearl at once to Heaven, and go herself to such futurity as
Eternal Justice should provide.