Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale are no mere types of open shame and secret remorse. It is never concealed from us that he was a man whose high and pure soul had its strongest contrast in the nature

  “Mixt with cunning sparks of hell,”

  in which it was tabernacled for earth. It is still less hidden that, without one voluntary lure or wicked art, she was of a look and make to win him with the love that was their undoing. “He was a person of a very striking aspect, with a wide, lofty, and impending brow; large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless he compressed it, was apt to be tremulous.... The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from the regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes. She was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity, rather than by the delicate, evanescent, and indescribable grace which is now recognized as its indication.” They were both of their time and place, materially as well as spiritually; their lives were under the law, but their natures had once been outside it, and might be again. The shock of this simple truth can hardly be less for the witness, when, after its slow and subtle evolution, it is unexpectedly flashed upon him, than it must have been for the guilty actors in this drama, when they recognize that, in spite of all their open and secret misery, they are still lovers, and capable of claiming for the very body of their sin a species of justification.

  We all know with what rich but noiseless preparation the consummate artist sets the scene of his most consummate effect; and how, when Hester and Pearl have parted with Roger Chillingworth by the shore, and then parted with each other in the forest, the mother to rest in the shadow of the trees, and the child to follow her fancies in play, he invokes the presence of Arthur Dimmesdale, as it were, silently, with a waft of the hand.

  “Slowly as the minister walked, he had almost gone by before Hester Prynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation. At length, she succeeded. ‘Arthur Dimmesdale!” she said, faintly at first; then louder, but hoarsely, ‘Arthur Dimmesdale!” ‘Who speaks?” answered the minister.... He made a step nigher, and discovered the scarlet letter. ‘Hester! Hester Prynne!” said he. ‘Is it thou? Art thou in life?’ ‘Even so!” she answered. ‘In such life as has been mine these seven years past! And thou, Arthur Dimmesdale, dost thou yet live?”... So strangely did they meet, in the dim wood, that it was like the first encounter, in the world beyond the grave, of two spirits who had been intimately connected in their former life, but now stood coldly shuddering, in mutual dread; as not yet familiar with their state nor wonted to the companionship of disembodied beings.... It was with fear, and tremulously, and, as it were, by a slow, reluctant necessity, that Arthur Dimmesdale put forth his hand, chill as death, and touched the chill hand of Hester Prynne. The grasp, cold as it was, took away what was dreariest in the interview. They now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the same sphere. Without a word more spoken — neither he nor she assuming the guidance, but with an unexpected consent — they glided back into the shadow of the woods, whence Hester had emerged, and sat down on the heap of moss where she and Pearl had before been sitting.... ‘Hester,’ said he, ‘hast thou found peace?’ She smiled drearily, looking down upon her bosom. ‘Hast thou?’ she asked. ‘None! — nothing but despair!’ he answered. ‘What else Could I look for, being what I am, and leading Such a life as mine?’... ‘The people reverence thee,’ said Hester. ‘And surely thou workest good among them. Doth this bring thee no comfort?’ ‘More misery, Hester I — only the more misery!’ answered the clergyman, with a bitter smile.... ‘Had I one friend — or were it my worst enemy — to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth would save me! But, now, it is all falsehood! — all emptiness! all death!’ Hester Prynne looked into his face, but hesitated to speak. Yet, uttering his long-restrained emotions so vehemently as he did, his words here offered her the very point of circumstance in which to interpose what she came to say. She conquered her fears, and spoke. ‘Such a friend as thou hast even now wished for,’ said she, ‘with whom to weep over thy sin, thou hast in me, the partner of it!’ — Again she hesitated, but brought out the words with an effort.— ‘Thou hast long had such an enemy, and dwellest with him, under the same roof!’ The minister started to his feet, gasping for breath, and clutching at his heart, as if he would have tom it out of his bosom. ‘Ha! What sayest thou!’ cried he. ‘An enemy! And under my own roof! What mean you?’... ‘O Arthur,’ cried she, ‘forgive me! In all things else I have striven to be true! Truth was the one virtue which I might have held fast, and did hold fast, through all extremity; save when thy good — thy life — thy fame — were put in question! Then I consented to a deception. But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man I — the physician I — he whom they call Roger Chillingworth! — he was my husband!’ The minister looked at her for an instant, with all that violence of passion which — intermixed, in more shapes than one, with his higher, purer, softer qualities — was, in fact, the portion of him which the Devil claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. Never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown than Hester now encountered. For the brief space that it lasted, it was a dark transfiguration. But his character had been so much enfeebled by suffering, that even its lower energies were incapable of more than a temporary struggle. He sank down on the ground, and buried his face in his hands.... ‘O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! And the shame! — the indelicacy! — the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this! I cannot forgive thee!’ ‘Thou shalt forgive me!’ cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside him. ‘Let God punish. Thou shalt forgive!’ With sudden and desperate tenderness, she threw her arms around him, and pressed his head against her bosom; little caring though his cheek rested on the scarlet letter. He would have released himself, but strove in vain to do so. Hester would not set him free, lest he should look her sternly in the face. All the world had frowned on her — for seven long years had it frowned upon this lonely woman — and still she bore it all, nor even once turned away her firm, sad eyes. Heaven, likewise, had frowned upon her, and she had not died. But the frown of this pale, weak, sinful, and sorrow-stricken man was what Hester could not bear and live! ‘Wilt thou yet forgive me?’ she repeated, over and over again. ‘Wilt thou not frown? Wilt thou forgive?’ ‘I do forgive you, Hester?’ replied the minister, at length, with a deep utterance, out of an abyss of sadness, but rib anger. ‘I freely forgive you now. May God forgive us both! We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest! That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin! He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!’ ‘Never, never!’ whispered she. ‘What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said so to each other! Hast thou forgotten it?’ ‘Hush, Hester!’ said Arthur Dimmesdaie, rising from the ground. ‘No; I have not forgotten!’... ‘Thou must dwell no longer with this man,’ said Hester, slowly and firmly. ‘Thy heart must be no longer under his evil eye!’ ‘It were far worse than death!’ replied the minister. ‘But how to avoid it? What choice remains to me? Shall! He down again on these withered leaves, where I cast myself when thou didst tell me what he was? Must I sink down there, and die at once?” Alas, what a ruin has befallen thee!’ said Hester, with the tears gushing into her eyes. ‘Wilt thou die for very weakness? There is no other cause.’ ‘The judgment of God is on me,’ answered the conscienc
e-stricken priest. ‘It is too mighty for me to struggle with!” Heaven would show mercy,’ rejoined Hester, ‘hadst thou but the strength to take advantage of it.’ ‘Be thou strong for me,’ answered he. ‘Advise me what to do.’ ‘Is the world, then, so narrow?’ exclaimed Hester Prynne, fixing her deep eyes on the minister’s, and instinctively exercising a magnetic power over a spirit so shattered and subdued that it could hardly hold itself erect. ‘Whither leads yonder forest track?... Deeper it goes, and deeper into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step, until, some few miles hence, the yellow leaves will show no vestige of the white man’s tread....

  Is there not shade enough in all this boundless forest to hide thy heart from the gaze of Roger Chillingworth?’ ‘Yes, Hester; but only under the fallen leaves,’ replied the minister, with a sad smile. ‘Then there is the broad pathway of the sea!’ continued Hester. ‘It brought thee hither. If thou choose, it will bear thee back again. ‘... ‘O Hester!’ cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light, kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, ‘thou tellest of running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him! I must die here! There is not the strength or courage left me to venture into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone!’... ‘Thou shalt not go alone!’ answered she, in a deep whisper. Then, all was spoken.”

  There is a greatness in this scene which is unmatched, I think, in the book, and, I was almost ready to say, out of it. At any rate, I believe we can find its parallel only in some of the profoundly impassioned pages of the Russian novelists who, casting aside all the common adjuncts of art, reveal us to ourselves in the appeal from their own naked souls. Hawthorne had another ideal than theirs, and a passing love of style, and the meaning of the music of words. For the most part, he makes us aware of himself, of his melancholy grace and sombre power; we feel his presence in every passage, however deeply, however occultly, dramatic; he overshadows us, so that we touch and see through him. But here he is almost out of it; only a few phrases of comment, so fused in feeling with the dialogue that they are like the voice of a chorus, remind us of him.

  It is the most exalted instant of the tragedy, it is the final evolution of Hester Prynne’s personality. In this scene she dominates by virtue of whatever is womanly and typical in her, and no less by what is personal and individual. In what follows, she falls like Dimmesdale and Chillingworth under the law of their common doom, and becomes a figure on the board where for once she seemed to direct the game.

  In all fiction one could hardly find a character more boldly, more simply, more quietly imagined. She had done that which in the hands of a feeble or falser talent would have been suffered or made to qualify her out of all proportion and keeping with life. But her transgression does not qualify her, as transgression never does unless it becomes habit. She remains exterior and superior to it, a life of other potentialities, which in her narrow sphere she fulfils. What she did has become a question between her and her Maker, who apparently does not deal with it like a Puritan. The obvious lesson of the contrasted fates of Dimmesdale and herself is that to own sin is to disown it, and that it cannot otherwise be expropriated and annulled. Yet, in Hester’s strong and obstinate endurance of her punishment there is publicity but not confession; and perhaps there is a lesson of no slighter meaning in the inference that ceasing to do evil is, after all, the most that can be asked of human nature. Even that seems to be a good deal, and in “The Scarlet Letter” it is a stroke of mastery to show that it is not always ours to cease to do evil, but that in extremity we need the help of the mystery “not ourselves, that makes for righteousness,” and that we may call Chance or that we may call God, but that does not change in essence or puissance whatever name we give it.

  HAWTHORNE’S ZENOBIA AND PRISCILLA, AND MIRIAM AND HILDA

  HESTER PRYNNE in “The Scarlet Letter” is studied in the round, with an effect of life which is wanting to heroines in the flat, whatever their charm of color and drawing may be; and Zenobia and Priscilla — especially Zenobia — are still more vitalized by the - same method of handling, in “The Blithedale Romance.” That romance, as I have elsewhere expressed, is nearer a novel than any other fiction of the author.

  At times we find ourselves confronted there, in spite of the author, with a very palpitant piece of naturalism.

  This is not more the fact in the case of the brawny, tobacco-chewing Silas Foster, who instructs the town-bred communists at Blithedale in farming, than in the sumptuous personality of Zenobia, the woman with a mysterious past, who glows upon us in tropical splendor from the first chapters of the romance, and illumines it throughout with the rich ardor of her impassioned presence.

  I

  Never could a writer have had material more to his mind than Hawthorne found in the conditions at Brook Farm, which he transmuted for his purposes to the imaginary situation at Blithedale, with the restricted scene, sparingly and fitfully contrasted at times with the town life which the visionary reformers, the poets, artists, philanthropists, and mystics, had left behind them in Boston. The small group of characters; the play of interests freed from the sordid alloy of the world; the psychological and emotional possibilities of an ideal action strongly backgrounded by fact hardly less ideal — these are the materials of a story so slight that one marvels at the treasure of motive and event which it is made to hold. The pages are few in which Hollingsworth, the gloomy friend and potential reformer of criminals, has his being with Zenobia, whose strong heart he breaks, and Priscilla, the pale maiden on whose weakness his misery relies, and Miles Coverdale, the minor poet, and self-conscious historian of a tragedy which he observes with a cynical curiosity rather than a human sympathy. Yet no other book in the whole range of Anglo-Saxon fiction says so much to certain important moods in the reader. There is, of course, some such mechanical toy in “ The Blithedale Romance “ as is central in every romance, but in this case the toy has a mainspring of reality, a scientific authority, and the story pulsates from it like a living organism. Zenobia and Priscilla are half-sisters; the one, daughter of the father’s past opulence and luxury; the other, child of his blighted and ruined present; and in their temperaments they consistently express the qualities of his different fortunes. They express them only too consistently, and with too great constancy to their appointed functions. They are lifelike, but if they were alive they would be more convertible; and in this difference exists the essential and eternal inferiority of the ideal to the real in fiction: the one must keep to its parti pris; the other may avail itself of every caprice and vacillation and mutability known to observation and experience, and be only more faithful to nature, its supreme and sole exemplar.

  All this is not saying that Hawthorne does not handle his mechanism like the consummate artist he was. There are long times when he makes you or lets you forget it; he never intrudes it; and it is chiefly in the perfunctory appearances of the father upon the scene that one is aware of Zenobia and Priscilla being operated by it. Priscilla, indeed, is operated throughout, but not by the activity of this principle of heredity so much as by the passions of those about her. She is not so merely a spectator as Coverdale, but she is almost more negative, and her elusive personality is ascertained with exquisite delicacy and a succession of shadowy approaches on the part of the author which enlist the tremulous sympathy of the reader rather than reward it. After all, there does not seem to be very much of Priscilla. Objectively she is a pale, sickly little seamstress, whom Hollingsworth brings to the nascent community at Blithedale by her father’s wish, and in unconscious fulfilment of old Fauntleroy’s hope that she may there somehow commend herself to the favor of her half-sister Zenobia. Subjectively, she is a capacity for clinging to any strength about her, and attaching it to herself through compassion. With the rude force of a prepotent philanthropist like Hollingsworth this compassion becomes passion, in compliance with the ironical pleasure of nature, while the proud and beautiful Zenobia is offering him her love in vain.

 
; Zenobia is the great personality in the book, and she is substantiated with the conscience of a realist to the material as well as the spiritual vision. “She was dressed,” when Coverdale first met her on his arrival at Blithedale, “as simply as possible, in an American print (I think the dry-goods people call it so), but with a silken kerchief, between which and her gown there was one glimpse of a white shoulder. It struck me as a great piece of good fortune that there should be just that glimpse. Her hair, which was dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was put up rather soberly and primly, without curls, or other ornament, except a single flower. It was an exotic, of rare beauty, and as fresh as if the hot-house gardener had just clipped it from the stem. That flower has struck deep root into my memory. I can both see it and smell it, at this moment. So brilliant, so rare, so costly, as it must have been, and yet enduring only for a day, it was more indicative of the pride and pomp which had a luxuriant growth in Zenobia’s character than if a great diamond had sparkled among her hair. Her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women would like to have, or than they could afford to have, though not a whit too large in proportion with the spacious plan of Zenobia’s entire development. It did one good to see a fine intellect (as hers really was, although its natural tendency lay in another direction than toward literature) so fitly cased. She was, indeed, an admirable figure of a woman, just on the hither verge of her richest maturity, with a combination of features which it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some fastidious persons might pronounce them a little deficient in softness and delicacy.”