Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She
assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the
other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they
known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that
stigmatised by the scarlet letter. In her lonesome cottage, by
the seashore, thoughts visited her such as dared to enter no
other dwelling in New England; shadowy guests, that would have
been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have
been seen so much as knocking at her door.
It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly
often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external
regulations of society. The thought suffices them, without
investing itself in the flesh and blood of action. So it seemed
to be with Hester. Yet, had little Pearl never come to her from
the spiritual world, it might have been far otherwise. Then she
might have come down to us in history, hand in hand with Ann
Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect. She might, in
one of her phases, have been a prophetess. She might, and not
improbably would, have suffered death from the stern tribunals
of the period, for attempting to undermine the foundations of
the Puritan establishment.
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