Sad, indeed, that an introspection so profound and acute as this
poor minister's should be so miserably deceived! We have had, and may still
have, worse things to tell of him; but none, we apprehend, so pitiably weak; no
evidence, at once so slight and irrefragable, of a subtle disease, that had long
since begun to eat into the real substance of his character. No man, for any
considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude,
without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
    The excitement of Mr. Dimmesdale's feelings, as he returned from his
interview with Hester, lent him unaccustomed physical energy, and hurried him
townward at a rapid pace. The pathway among the woods seemed wilder, more
uncouth with its rude natural obstacles, and less trodden by the foot of man,
than he remembered it on his outward journey. But he leaped across the plashy
places, thrust himself through the clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent,
plunged into the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the
track, with an unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not but recall
how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath, he had toiled over the
same ground only two days before. As he drew near the town, he took an
impression of change from the series of familiar objects that presented
themselves. It seemed not yesterday, not one, nor two, but many days, or even
years ago, since he had quitted them. There, indeed, was each former trace of
the street, as he remembered it, and all the peculiarities of the houses, with
the due multitude of gable-peaks, and a weathercock at every point where his
memory suggested one. Not the less, however, came this importunately obtrusive
sense of change. The same was true as regarded the acquaintances whom he met,
and all the well-known shapes of human life, about the little town. They looked
neither older nor younger, now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could
the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was impossible to
describe in what respect they differed from the individuals on whom he had so
recently bestowed a parting glance; and yet the minister's deepest sense seemed
to inform him of their mutability. A similar impression struck him most
remarkably, as he passed under the walls of his own church. The edifice had so
very strange, and yet so familiar, an aspect, that Mr.