professional career. "At
least, they shall say of me," thought this exemplary man, "that I
leave no public duty unperformed, nor 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.

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,
nor 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 weathercock 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 passe