FROM THE SCARLET LETTER.

[INTRODUCTION.-The selections here given form the first two chapters of Hawthorne's unique romance of the Scarlet Letter. Says Mr. H. T. Tuckerman: "In truth to costume, local manners, and scenic features, the Scarlet Letter is as reliable as the best of Scott's novels; in the anatomy of human passion and consciousness it resembles the most effective of Balzac's illustrations of Parisian or provincial life; while in developing bravely and justly the sentiment of the life it depicts, it is as true to humanity as Dickens."] •

I. THE PRISON-DOOR.

1. A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak and studded with iron spikes.

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2. The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia* of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may 10 safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in 15 the old church-yard of King's Chapel. Certain it is that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its 20 oaken door looked more antique than anything else in the New World. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-1-5. A throng... spikes. Analyze this sentence. 6. Utopia. Etymology?

8. it.

"it ?"

What is the logical subject represented by the anticipative subject

16. Certain it is. Remark on the order of words.

19. beetle-browed. Literal or figurative?

known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pigweed, apple-peru, and such unsightly 25 vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their 30 fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.

3. This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old 35 wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it, or whether, as there is fair authority for believing, it had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson as she entered the prison-door, we shall not take upon us to determine. Finding it so directly on the 4o threshold of our narrative, which is now about to issue from that inauspicious portal, we could hardly do otherwise than pluck one of its flowers and present it to the reader. It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human 45 frailty and sorrow.

II. THE MARKET-PLACE.

1. The grass-plot before the jail, in Prison Lane, on a certain summer morning, not less than two centuries ago, was occupied by a pretty large number of the inhabitants of Boston, all with their eyes intently fastened on the iron-clamped oaken door. 50 Among any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified* the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have augured* some awful business in hand. It could have betokened nothing short of

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-23. known... era. What is the figure of speech? 23-28. Before ... prison. What is the structure-periodic or loose?Point out a striking metaphor in this sentence.

42. inauspicious portal. Explain.

52. petrifled. What is the figure?-Etymology?

53, 54. augured... betokened. Discriminate between these synonyms.

the anticipated execution of some noted culprit on whom the sen-55 tence of a legal tribunal had but confirmed the verdict of public sentiment. But, in that early severity of the Puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn. It might be that a sluggish bond-servant, or an undutiful child whom his parents had given over to the civil authority, was to be 60 corrected at the whipping-post. It might be that an Antinomian, a Quaker, or other heterodox religionist was to be scourged out of the town, or an idle and vagrant Indian, whom the white man's fire-water had made riotous about the streets, was to be driven with stripes into the shadow of the forest. It might be, too, that 65 a witch, like old Mistress Hibbins, the bitter-tempered widow of the magistrate, was to die upon the gallows. In either case, there was very much the same solemnity of demeanor on the part of the spectators; as befitted a people among whom religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both 70 were so thoroughly interfused that the mildest and the severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold. On the other hand, a penalty which in our days would infer a degree of 75 mocking infamy and ridicule might then be invested with almost as stern a dignity as the punishment of death itself.

2. It was a circumstance to be noted, on the summer morning when our story begins its course, that the women, of whom there were several in the crowd, appeared to take a peculiar interest in 80 whatever penal infliction might be expected to ensue. The age had not so much refinement that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold 85 at an execution. Morally as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding than in their fair descendants, separated from

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-61-67. It... .gallows. What inferences may be drawn from this passage as to the penal laws of the Puritans?

67. either. Query as to this word.

73, 74. Meagre... scaffold. Arrange in the direct order. 87. coarser fibre. Explain.

them by a series of six or seven generations; for, throughout that chain of ancestry, every successive mother has transmitted 90 to her child a fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and solidity, than her own. The women who were now standing about the prison-door stood within less than half a century of the period when the man-like Elizabeth had been the not alto- 95 gether unsuitable representative of the sex. They were her countrywomen; and the beef and ale of their native land, with a moral diet not a whit more refined, entered largely into their composition. The bright morning sun, therefore, shone on broad shoulders and well-developed busts, and on round and 100 ruddy cheeks, that had ripened in the far-off island, and had hardly yet grown paler or thinner in the atmosphere of New England. There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to 105 its purport or its volume of tone.

3. "Goodwives," said a hard-featured dame of fifty, "I'll tell ye a piece of my mind. It would be greatly for the public behoof if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this 110 Hester Prynne. What think ye, gossips?* If the hussy* stood up for judgment before us five, that are now here in a knot together, would she come off with such a sentence as the worshipful magistrates have awarded? Marry, I trow not!"

4. "People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master 115 Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation."

107-114. Goodwives... not! Point out antique words and constructions.Etymology of "gossips?" Of "hussy?"

115. Master. Remark on this use of the word.

5. "The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch that is a truth," added a third autumnal matron. "At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron 120 on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she the naughty baggage -little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as 125 ever!"

6. "Ah, but," interposed, more softly, a young wife holding a child by the hand, "let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart."

7. "What do we talk of marks and brands, whether on the 130 bodice of her gown or the flesh of her forehead?" cried another female, the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self-constituted judges. "This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book. Then let the magistrates, 135 who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray!"

8. "Mercy on us, goodwife,' exclaimed a man in the crowd, "is there no virtue in woman save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush, now, 140 gossips for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself."

9. The door of the jail being flung open from within, there appeared in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and grisly presence of the town-beadle, with a 145 sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand. This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the of fender. Stretching forth the official staff in his left hand, he 150 laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman, whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-119. autumnal matron. Explain the epithet. 143-146. The door... hand. What kind of sentence rhetorically? 144. like a black, etc. What is the figure of speech?