 scarlet letter, and
would not be turned aside. Certainly, there was some deep meaning in it, most
worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic
symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the
analysis of my mind.
    While thus perplexed, - and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the
letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men used to
contrive, in order to take the eyes of Indians, - I happened to place it on my
breast. It seemed to me, - the reader may smile, but must not doubt my word, -
it seemed to me, then, that I experienced a sensation not altogether physical,
yet almost so, as of burning heat; and as if the letter were not of red cloth,
but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor.
    In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, I had hitherto
neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had been
twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find, recorded by the
old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair. There
were several foolscap sheets, containing many particulars respecting the life
and conversation of one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a
noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished during a
period between the early days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth
century. Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Surveyor Pue, and from whose
oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth, as
a very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn aspect. It had been
her habit, from an almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind of
voluntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might; taking upon
herself, likewise, to give advice in all matters, especially those of the heart;
by which means, as a person of such propensities inevitably must, she gained
from many people the reverence due to an angel, but, I should imagine, was
looked upon by others as an intruder and a nuisance. Prying farther into the
manuscript, I found the record of other doings and sufferings of this singular
woman, for most of which the reader is referred to the story entitled »THE
SCARLET LETTER«; and it should be borne carefully in mind, that the main facts
of that story are authorized and authenticated by the document of Mr. Surveyor
Pue
