The minister had inquired of Hester, with no little interest,
the precise time at which the vessel might be expected to
depart. It would probably be on the fourth day from the present.
"This is most fortunate!" he had then said to himself. Now, why
the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale considered it so very fortunate we
hesitate to reveal. Nevertheless--to hold nothing back from the
reader--it was because, on the third day from the present, he
was to preach the Election Sermon; and, as such an occasion
formed an honourable epoch in the life of a New England
Clergyman, he could not have chanced upon a more suitable mode
and time of terminating his professional career. "At least, they
shall say of me," thought this exemplary man, "that I leave no
public duty unperformed or ill-performed!" 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.
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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, not 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
weather-cock 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.
Dimmesdale's mind vibrated between two ideas; either that he had
seen it only in a dream hitherto, or that he was merely dreaming
about it now.
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