Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most
sacred quality of human life, working such effect, that the
world was only the darker for this woman's beauty, and the more
lost for the infant that she had borne.
The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always
invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow-creature,
before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile, instead
of shuddering at it. The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace
had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern
enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence,
without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the
heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a
theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. Even had there
been a disposition to turn the matter into ridicule, it must
have been repressed and overpowered by the solemn presence of
men no less dignified than the governor, and several of his
counsellors, a judge, a general, and the ministers of the town,
all of whom sat or stood in a balcony of the meeting-house,
looking down upon the platform. When such personages could
constitute a part of the spectacle, without risking the majesty,
or reverence of rank and office, it was safely to be inferred
that the infliction of a legal sentence would have an earnest
and effectual meaning.
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