or, surely, in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy,--thou
wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge! And what hast thou to do
with all these iron men, and their opinions? They have kept thy better
part in bondage too long already!"

"It cannot be!" answered the minister, listening as if he were called
upon to realize a dream. "I am powerless to go! Wretched and sinful as
I am, I have had no other thought than to drag on my earthly
existence in the sphere where Providence hath placed me. Lost as my
own soul is, I would still do what I may for other human souls! I dare
not quit my post, though an unfaithful sentinel, whose sure reward is
death and dishonor, when his dreary watch shall come to an end!"

"Thou art crushed under this seven years' weight of misery," replied
Hester, fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy. "But
thou shalt leave it all behind thee! It shall not cumber thy steps, as
thou treadest along the forest-path; neither shalt thou freight the
ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea. Leave this wreck and
ruin here where it hath happened. Meddle no more with it! Begin all
anew! Hast thou exhausted possibility in the failure of this one
trial? Not so! The future is yet full of trial and success. There is
happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done! Exchange this false
life of thine for a true one. Be, if thy spirit summon thee to such a
mission, the teacher and apostle of the red men. Or,--as is more thy
nature,--be a scholar and a sage among the wisest and the most
renowned of the cultivated world. Preach! Write! Act! Do anything,
save to lie down and die! Give up this name of Arthur Dimmesdale, and
make thyself another, and a high one, such as thou canst wear without
fear or shame. Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the
torments that have so gnawed into thy life!--that have made thee
feeble to will and to do!--that will leave thee powerless even to
repent! Up, and away!"

"O Hester!" cried Arthur Dimmesdale, in whose eyes a fitful light,
kindled by her enthusiasm, flashed up and died away, "thou tellest of
running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him! I must
die here! There is not the strength or courage left me to venture
into the wide, strange, difficult world, alone!"

It was the last expression of the despondency of a broken spirit. He
lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his
reach.

He repeated the word.

"Al