 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 clew 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.
    The scarlet letter had not done its office.
    Now, however, her interview with the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the night
of his vigil, had given her a new theme of reflection, and held up to her an
object that appeared worthy of any exertion and sacrifice for its attainment.
She had witnessed the intense misery beneath which the minister struggled, or,
to speak more accurately, had ceased to struggle. She saw that he stood on the
verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it. It was impossible to
doubt, that, whatever painful efficacy there might be in the secret sting of
remorse, a deadlier venom had been infused into it by the hand that proffered
relief. A secret enemy had been continually by his side, under the semblance of
a friend and helper, and had availed himself of the opportunities thus afforded
for tampering with the delicate springs of Mr. Dimmesdale's nature. Hester could
not but ask herself, whether there had not originally been a defect of truth,
courage, and loyalty, on her own part, in allowing the minister to be thrown
into a position where so much evil was to be foreboded, and nothing auspicious
to be
