The Scarlet Letter

Part 1

THE SCARLET LETTER.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Illustrated.

BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO. 1878.

COPYRIGHT, 1850 AND 1877. BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AND JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.

All rights reserved. October 22, 1874.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

Much to the author’s surprise, and (if he may say so without additional offence) considerably to his amusement, he finds that his sketch of official life, introductory to THE SCARLET LETTER, has created an unprecedented excitement in the respectable community immediately around him. It could hardly have been more violent, indeed, had he burned down the Custom-House, and quenched its last smoking ember in the blood of a certain venerable personage, against whom he is supposed to cherish a peculiar malevolence. As the public disapprobation would weigh very heavily on him, were he conscious of deserving it, the author begs leave to say, that he has carefully read over the introductory pages, with a purpose to alter or expunge whatever might be found amiss, and to make the best reparation in his power for the atrocities of which he has been adjudged guilty. But it appears to him, that the only remarkable features of the sketch are its frank and genuine good-humor, and the general accuracy with which he has conveyed his sincere impressions of the characters therein described. As to enmity, or ill-feeling of any kind, personal or political, he utterly disclaims such motives. The sketch might, perhaps, have been wholly omitted, without loss to the public, or detriment to the book; but, having undertaken to write it, he conceives that it could not have been done in a better or a kindlier spirit, nor, so far as his abilities availed, with a livelier effect of truth.

The author is constrained, therefore, to republish his introductory sketch without the change of a word.

SALEM, March 30, 1850.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE CUSTOM HOUSE.—INTRODUCTORY 1

THE SCARLET LETTER.

I. THE PRISON-DOOR 51

II. THE MARKET-PLACE 54

III. THE RECOGNITION 68

IV. THE INTERVIEW 80

V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE 90

VI. PEARL 104

VII. THE GOVERNOR’S HALL 118

VIII. THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER 129

IX. THE LEECH 142

X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT 155

XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART 168

XII. THE MINISTER’S VIGIL 177

XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER 193

XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN 204

Part 2

XV. HESTER AND PEARL 212

XVI. A FOREST WALK 223

XVII. THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER 231

XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE 245

XIX. THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE 253

XX. THE MINISTER IN A MAZE 264

XXI. THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY 277

XXII. THE PROCESSION 288

XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER 302

XXIV. CONCLUSION 315

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Drawn by MARY HALLOCK FOOTE and Engraved by A. V. S. ANTHONY. The ornamental head-pieces are by L. S. IPSEN.

PAGE

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE 1

THE PRISON DOOR 49

VIGNETTE,—WILD ROSE 51

THE GOSSIPS 57

“STANDING ON THE MISERABLE EMINENCE” 65

“SHE WAS LED BACK TO PRISON” 78

“THE EYES OF THE WRINKLED SCHOLAR GLOWED” 87

THE LONESOME DWELLING 93

LONELY FOOTSTEPS 99

VIGNETTE 104

A TOUCH OF PEARL’S BABY-HAND 113

VIGNETTE 118

THE GOVERNOR’S BREASTPLATE 125

“LOOK THOU TO IT! I WILL NOT LOSE THE CHILD!” 135

THE MINISTER AND LEECH 148

Part 3

THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT 165

THE VIRGINS OF THE CHURCH 172

“THEY STOOD IN THE NOON OF THAT STRANGE SPLENDOR” 185

HESTER IN THE HOUSE OF MOURNING 195

MANDRAKE 211

“HE GATHERED HERBS HERE AND THERE” 213

PEARL ON THE SEA-SHORE 217

“WILT THOU YET FORGIVE ME?” 237

A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE 249

THE CHILD AT THE BROOK-SIDE 257

CHILLINGWORTH,—“SMILE WITH A SINISTER MEANING” 287

NEW ENGLAND WORTHIES 289

“SHALL WE NOT MEET AGAIN?” 311

HESTER’S RETURN 320

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE.

THE CUSTOM-HOUSE.

INTRODUCTORY TO “THE SCARLET LETTER.”

It is a little remarkable, that—though disinclined to talk overmuch of myself and my affairs at the fireside, and to my personal friends—an autobiographical impulse should twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favored the reader—inexcusably, and for no earthly reason, that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine—with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now—because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion—I again seize the public by the button, and talk of my three years’ experience in a Custom-House. The example of the famous “P. P., Clerk of this Parish,” was never more faithfully followed. The truth seems to be, however, that, when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him, better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates. Some authors, indeed, do far more than this, and indulge themselves in such confidential depths of revelation as could fittingly be addressed, only and exclusively, to the one heart and mind of perfect sympathy; as if the printed book, thrown at large on the wide world, were certain to find out the divided segment of the writer’s own nature, and complete his circle of existence by bringing him into communion with it. It is scarcely decorous, however, to speak all, even where we speak impersonally. But, as thoughts are frozen and utterance benumbed, unless the speaker stand in some true relation with his audience, it may be pardonable to imagine that a friend, a kind and apprehensive, though not the closest friend, is listening to our talk; and then, a native reserve being thawed by this genial consciousness, we may prate of the circumstances that lie around us, and even of ourself, but still keep the inmost Me behind its veil. To this extent, and within these limits, an author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader’s rights or his own.

It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain propriety, of a kind always recognized in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained. This, in fact,—a desire to put myself in my true position as editor, or very little more, of the most prolix among the tales that make up my volume,—this, and no other, is my true reason for assuming a personal relation with the public. In accomplishing the main purpose, it has appeared allowable, by a few extra touches, to give a faint representation of a mode of life not heretofore described, together with some of the characters that move in it, among whom the author happened to make one.

* * * * *

In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf,—but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood,—at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass,—here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbor, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military post of Uncle Sam’s government is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half a dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens, careful of their safety, against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eider-down pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later,—oftener soon than late,—is apt to fling off her nestlings, with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.

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