This outwardmutabilityindicated, and did not more than fairly express, the various properties of her inner life. Her nature appeared to possess depth, too, as well as variety; but- or else Hester's fears deceived her- it lacked reference and adaptationto the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenableto rules. In giving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder; or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered. Hester could only account for the child's character- and even then most vaguelyand imperfectly- by recalling what she herself had been, during that momentousperiod while Pearl was imbibingher soul from the spiritual world, and her bodily frame from its material of earth. The mother's impassioned state had been the medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral Life; and, however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimsonand gold, the fierylustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light, of the interveningsubstance. Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuatedin Pearl. She could recognise her wild, desperate, defiantmood, the flightinessof her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondencythat had broodedin her heart. They were now illuminatedby the morning radianceof a young child's disposition, but, later in the day of earthly existence, might be prolificof the storm and whirlwind.
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