Chillingworth

“ Chillingworth's dark eyes had lighted up with enthusiasm.
"Ah, that was beautiful, indeed!" he said, with a warmer spontaneity than usual. "Thank you, indeed, Miss Harley, for telling us about it. That is how things should stand between master and men. We have some noble men in the old land yet!" ”

“ Chillingworth's most eloquent ones, full of grand ideals, with no lack of fine and forcible expressions; here and there, Roland thought, somewhat too rhetorical for a thoroughly cultivated taste. There were touches in which Nora could recognize traces of the Browning reading, the evening before, for Mr. Chillingworth could hardly refrain from bringing into his sermons anything which had strongly impressed him. But, however fine Mr. Chillingworth's ideals might be, there was always a gap between these and the realities of common life, which he seemed unable to fill up. ”

“ Chillingworth had met with a man who was his superior in point of strength, for he not only withstood the utmost force that Chillingworth could bring against him, but maintained himself, and turned his strength against the doctor. ”

“ A black and complementary hatred, akin to love, is what Chillingworth feels for the young, saintly parson. And Dimmesdale responds, in a hideous kind of love. Slowly the saint's life is poisoned. But the black old physician smiles, and tries to keep him alive. Dimmesdale goes in for self- torture, self-lashing his own white, thin, spiritual saviour's body. The dark Chillingworth listens outside the door and laughs, and prepares another medicine, so that the game can go on longer. ”

“ Chillingworth, that I am not likely to refuse my confidence to you, whom I have so much reason to respect as an attached friend of myself and my family."
"You will not object, likewise, I hope," added Mr. Chillingworth, "to extend that confidence to Admiral Bell; for, as you well know, a truer and more warm-hearted man than he does not exist."
"What do you expect for that, doctor?" said the admiral.
"There is nothing," said Henry, "that I could relate at all, that I should shrink from relating to Admiral Bell." ”

“ Chillingworth," said Henry, "I think you have no right to complain to us of your domestic affairs. Where your husband goes, and what he does, is at his own will and pleasure, and, really, I don't see that we are to be made answerable as to whether he is at home or abroad; to say nothing of the bad taste—and bad taste it most certainly is, of talking of your private affairs to other people." ”

“ All this, however, was but preparatory to Chillingworth's great work, which was the result of accidental circumstances, and suffers from its accidental form. Rarely has a work of such importance been weighted by so much extraneous matter, for Chillingworth is not only answering an enemy, but defending a friend at the same time. ”

“ And then, with a fastidious sense of honor, she checked a thought that seemed like ungenerous treachery to her hospitable entertainers. Only,—if poor Lizzie Mason could have had a share of the superfluous luxury, how good it would have been for her!
Mr. Chillingworth, too, both puzzled and disappointed her. His eloquent altruistic appeals—his exaltation of the high Christian ideal—so stirred her enthusiastic nature that she felt herself irresistibly drawn toward the man who could so well express the idealism of Christianity. ”

“ Chillingworth.
"Nay, sir; but I take it ill that I should have been kept out of this affair; and it should have been sedulously, as it were, kept a secret from me."
"Let him go on as he likes," said the admiral; "boys will be boys. After all, you know, doctor, it's my affair, and not yours. Let him say what he likes; where's the odds? It's of no consequence."
"I do not expect. Admiral Bell," said Henry, "that it is to you; but it is to me." ”

“ He appears to have extended none of that kindness to the opinions of Chillingworth, which he showed to his person; for he interprets every word in the worst sense, and seems industrious to discover, in every line, heresies, which might have escaped for ever any other apprehension: he appears always suspicious of some latent malignity, and ready to persecute what he only suspects, with the same violence, as if it had been openly avowed: in all his procedure he shows himself sincere, but without candour. ”

“ Chillingworth—a natural egoist—a clergyman was primarily a "ruler" of the flock, though its shepherd as well. To Mr. Alden, long sitting at his Master's feet had taught the lesson that the minister must be—if the leader—also the "servant of all." Mr. Chillingworth could sympathize only with what harmonized with his own ideals and opinions. Mr. Alden, though himself a man of strong convictions, could adopt the heathen poet's declaration, that nothing that concerned humanity was alien to him. ”

“ Chillingworth had been waiting the whole night for the return of the doctor, who had not yet made his appearance, and, consequently, that lady's temper had become acidulated to an uncommon extent and when she heard a knock at the door, something possessed her that it could be no other than her spouse, and she prepared to give him that warm reception which she considered he had a right, as a married man, to expect after such conduct. ”

“ Tom felt that he, too, would have liked to leap to his feet and hurl his body at the imprisoning rock, but he restrained himself by an effort.
“If I am to die, I’ll at least try to die as a man should,” thought the boy to himself.
For some time more they sat in gloomy silence. The only sound that broke the hush was that of Chillingworth’s sobs. Presently the professor arose, and not with any real sense of finding anything, commenced, with the aid of the lantern, a thorough examination of the cave. ”

“ Hester Prynne—slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her strongest will—likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. At this instant, old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd,—or, perhaps, so dark, disturbed and evil, was his look, he rose up out of some nether region,—to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do! Be that as it might, the old man rushed forward, and caught the minister by the arm. ”

“ Won't the old commodore pipe his eye, now. Whew! here's a go. I've found our nevey, after all."
"You found him," said Dr. Chillingworth; "now, that is as great a piece of impudence as ever I heard in all my life. You mean that he has found you, and found you out, too, you drunken fellow. Jack, you get worse and worse every day."
"Ay, ay, sir."
"What, you admit it?"
"Ay, ay, sir. Now, Master Charley, I tell you what it is, I shall take you off to your old uncle, you shore going sneak and you'll have to report what cruise you've been upon all this while, leaving the ship to look after itself. ”

“ Chillingworth finished his narrative, and then the doctor said to him,—
"And that, then, is the real cause why you, a man evidently far above the position of life which is usually that of those who occupy the dreadful post of executioner, came to accept of it."—"The real reason, sir. ”

“ Chillingworth, "it so happens that those are the people whose opinions are of the very least consequence."
"There is some truth in that," said Henry, sadly; "but, however, let me proceed; since I have to tell the tale, I could wish it over. My father, then, Admiral Bell, although a man not tainted in early life with vices, became, by the force of bad associates, and a sort of want of congeniality and sentiment that sprang up between him and my mother, plunged into all the excesses of his age." ”

“ A look came over Colton Chillingworth’s face that the boys had not noticed on that rugged countenance before. Under his brown beard, his lips set firmly, and his eyes narrowed. Colton Chillingworth, with that expression on his features, looked like a bad man to have trouble with. But to Mr. Dacre’s astonishment, and the no less surprise of the boys, his reply was somewhat hesitant.
“Well, you see, Dacre,” he said uncertainly, “a married man has others than himself to look out for. ”

“ So, to their own unutterable torment, they go about among their fellow-creatures, looking pure as new-fallen snow; while their hearts are all speckled and spotted with iniquity of which they cannot rid themselves."
"These men deceive themselves," said Roger Chillingworth, with somewhat more emphasis than usual, and making a slight gesture with his forefinger. "They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. ”

“ So Roger Chillingworth—the man of skill, the kind and friendly physician—strove to go deep into his patient’s bosom, delving among his principles, prying into his recollections, and probing everything with a cautious touch, like a treasure-seeker in a dark cavern. Few secrets can escape an investigator, who has opportunity and licence to undertake such a quest, and skill to follow it up. A man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician. ”

“ Chillingworth.
"The villain," said the admiral; "he's enough to ruin everything; now, who would have thought that? but it's always been the way with him for a matter of twenty years—he never had any judgment in his drink. When it was all smooth sailing, and nothing to do, and the fellow might have got an extra drop on board, which nobody would have cared for, he's as sober as a judge; but, whenever there's anything to do, that wants a little cleverness, confound him, he ships rum enough to float a seventy-four."
"Are you going to stand anything to drink," said Jack, "my old buffer? ”

“ There is no good for little Pearl! There is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze!"
"Woman, I could well-nigh pity thee!" said Roger Chillingworth, unable to restrain a thrill of admiration too; for there was a quality almost majestic in the despair which she expressed. "Thou hadst great elements. Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy nature!"
"And I thee," answered Hester Prynne, "for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! ”

“ Chillingworth's finding it so easy to spend an hour or two enjoyably, talking music with a completely irreligious young man like Waldberg, while he could not spare him a few minutes for the discussion of matters which affected the well-being, higher and lower, of so many thousands, and which concerned the practical diffusion of principles of action which he had supposed must be at least as dear to the clergyman as they were to himself. ”

“ George assented, "and I'll do my best not to get thrown down. Amory has told me all he knows about it—by the way, where is the mulatto woman now?"
"Why," said Chillingworth, "some physician got interested in the case, and he's managed to hurry her up to the Bitley Reformatory in Westchester for the present. She's there; and that means, we need not disguise, that nobody can see her. Those Bitley people are like a rabble of wild eagles."
"Right," said St. George. "I'll report at eight o'clock. Amory can board The Aloha when he gets ready and take down whom he likes." ”

“ Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky, and disclosed the earth, with an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the clergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger Chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, standing there with a smile and scowl, to claim his own. So vivid was the expression, or so intense the minister's perception of it, that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with an effect as if the street and all things else were at once annihilated. ”

“ Mr. Chillingworth was inclined to think he was some sort of a priest. He based this theory on the veneration which Fu had shown on the night he had seen his big countryman at the burial of the dead in the cove. For the rest, the tall Mongolian ate by himself and had his own cabin. Not by word or sign, since they had been on board, had he conveyed a hint that he had ever seen Tom before, although he must have recognized the boy he had conducted to Simon Lake at the camp in the canyon. ”

“ They seem quite lost to all surrounding objects. I could not have imagined any subject that would so completely have absorbed the attention of Admiral Bell."
"Mr. Chillingworth had something to relate to him or to propose, of a nature which, perchance, has had the effect of enchaining all his attention—he called him from the room."
"Yes; I saw that he did. But see, they come towards us, and now we shall, probably, hear what is the subject-matter of their discourse and consultation." ”

“ It will be readily conceived, that his method of dealing with the controversy is very different from that of Laud in his treatise against Fisher; wherein we meet chiefly with disputes on passages in the fathers, as to which, especially when they are not quoted at length, it is impossible that any reader can determine for himself. The work of Chillingworth may at least be understood and appreciated without reference to any other; the condition, perhaps, of real superiority in all productions of the mind. ”

“ But a lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side! Dost thou not see what I would say? That old man!—the physician!—he whom they call Roger Chillingworth!—he was my husband!"
The minister looked at her, for an instant, with all that violence of passion, which—intermixed, in more shapes than one, with his higher, purer, softer qualities,—was, in fact, the portion of him which the Devil claimed, and through which he sought to win the rest. Never was there a blacker or a fiercer frown than Hester now encountered. ”

“ She marvelled how she could ever have been wrought upon to marry him! She deemed it her crime most to be repented of, that she had ever endured, and reciprocated, the lukewarm grasp of his hand, and had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own. And it seemed a fouler offence committed by Roger Chillingworth, than any which had since been done him, that, in the time when her [216] heart knew no better, he had persuaded her to fancy herself happy by his side. ”