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The Minister’s Black Veil Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)

THE SEXTON stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling busily at the bell-

rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street. Children, with bright

faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in the conscious

dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens,

and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week days. When

the throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell, keeping

his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door. The first glimpse of the clergyman's figure

was the signal for the bell to cease its summons.

"But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?" cried the sexton in

astonishment.

All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper,

pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meeting-house. With one accord they

started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the

cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit.

"Are you sure it is our parson?" inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton.

"Of a certainty it is good Mr. Hooper," replied the sexton. "He was to have exchanged

pulpits with Parson Shute, of Westbury; but Parson Shute sent to excuse himself

yesterday, being to preach a funeral sermon."

The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a

gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due

clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly

dust from his Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance.

Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken

by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of

two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but

probably did not intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living

and inanimate things. With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked

onward, at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, as is

customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still

waited on the meeting-house steps. But so wonder-struck were they that his greeting

hardly met with a return.

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"I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was behind that piece of crape," said the

sexton.

"I don't like it," muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meeting-house. "He has

changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face."

"Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray, following him across the threshold.

A rumor of some unaccountable phenomenon had preceded Mr. Hooper into the

meeting-house, and set all the congregation astir. Few could refrain from twisting their

heads towards the door; many stood upright, and turned directly about; while several

little boys clambered upon the seats, and came down again with a terrible racket. There

was a general bustle, a rustling of the women's gowns and shuffling of the men's feet,

greatly at variance with that hushed repose which should attend the entrance of the

minister. But Mr. Hooper appeared not to notice the perturbation of his people. He

entered with an almost noiseless step, bent his head mildly to the pews on each side,

and bowed as he passed his oldest parishioner, a white-haired great-grandsire, who

occupied an arm-chair in the centre of the aisle. It was strange to observe how slowly

this venerable man became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his

pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper had

ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his

congregation, except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once

withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath, as he gave out the psalm; it threw its

obscurity between him and the holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and while he

prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the

dread Being whom he was addressing?

Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of delicate

nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced

congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them.

Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he strove

to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences, rather than to drive them

thither by the thunders of the Word. The sermon which he now delivered was marked by

the same characteristics of style and manner as the general series of his pulpit oratory.

But there was something, either in the sentiment of the discourse itself, or in the

imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had

ever heard from their pastor's lips. It was tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the

gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament. The subject had reference to secret sin,

and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain

conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect

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them. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation,

the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept

upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or

thought. Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible

in what Mr. Hooper said, at least, no violence; and yet, with every tremor of his

melancholy voice, the hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with

awe. So sensible were the audience of some unwonted attribute in their minister, that

they longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil, almost believing that a stranger's

visage would be discovered, though the form, gesture, and voice were those of Mr.

Hooper.

At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to

communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment

they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled closely together,

with their mouths all whispering in the centre; some went homeward alone, wrapt in

silent meditation; some talked loudly, and profaned the Sabbath day with ostentatious

laughter. A few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could penetrate the

mystery; while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but only that Mr.

Hooper's eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp, as to require a shade. After a

brief interval, forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his flock. Turning his

veiled face from one group to another, he paid due reverence to the hoary heads,

saluted the middle aged with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the

young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the little children's heads

to bless them. Such was always his custom on the Sabbath day. Strange and

bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired to

the honor of walking by their pastor's side. Old Squire Saunders, doubtless by an

accidental lapse of memory, neglected to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good

clergyman had been wont to bless the food, almost every Sunday since his settlement.

He returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and, at the moment of closing the door, was

observed to look back upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the

minister. A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about

his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared.

"How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on

her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!"

"Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper's intellects," observed her husband,

the physician of the village. "But the strangest part of the affair is the effect of this

vagary, even on a sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, though it covers only

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our pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole person, and makes him ghostlike

from head to foot. Do you not feel it so?"

"Truly do I," replied the lady; "and I would not be alone with him for the world. I wonder

he is not afraid to be alone with himself!"

"Men sometimes are so," said her husband.

The afternoon service was attended with similar circumstances. At its conclusion, the

bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady. The relatives and friends were assembled in

the house, and the more distant acquaintances stood about the door, speaking of the

good qualities of the deceased, when their talk was interrupted by the appearance of

Mr. Hooper, still covered with his black veil. It was now an appropriate emblem. The

clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin, to

take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. As he stooped, the veil hung straight

down from his forehead, so that, if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the dead

maiden might have seen his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so

hastily caught back the black veil? A person who watched the interview between the

dead and living, scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant when the clergyman's features

were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap,

though the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman

was the only witness of this prodigy. From the coffin Mr. Hooper passed into the

chamber of the mourners, and thence to the head of the staircase, to make the funeral

prayer. It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow, yet so imbued with

celestial hopes, that the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of the dead,

seemed faintly to be heard among the saddest accents of the minister. The people

trembled, though they but darkly understood him when he prayed that they, and himself,

and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for

the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces. The bearers went heavily

forth, and the mourners followed, saddening all the street, with the dead before them,

and Mr. Hooper in his black veil behind.

"Why do you look back?" said one in the procession to his partner.

I had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's spirit were walking hand

in hand."

"And so had I, at the same moment," said the other.

That night, the handsomest couple in Milford village were to be joined in wedlock.

Though reckoned a melancholy man, Mr. Hooper had a placid cheerfulness for such

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occasions, which often excited a sympathetic smile where livelier merriment would have

been thrown away. There was no quality of his disposition which made him more

beloved than this. The company at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience,

trusting that the strange awe, which had gathered over him throughout the day, would

now be dispelled. But such was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, the first thing

that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper

gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding. Such was its

immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath

the black crape, and dimmed the light of the candles. The bridal pair stood up before the

minister. But the bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom,

and her deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a

few hours before was come from her grave to be married. If ever another wedding were

so dismal, it was that famous one where they tolled the wedding knell. After performing

the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the

new-married couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the

features of the guests, like a cheerful gleam from the hearth. At that instant, catching a

glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the

horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white,

he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. For the

Earth, too, had on her Black Veil.

The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson Hooper's black

veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between

acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows.

It was the first item of news that the tavern-keeper told to his guests. The children

babbled of it on their way to school. One imitative little imp covered his face with an old

black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself,

and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery.

It was remarkable that of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish, not

one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing.

Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had never

lacked advisers, nor shown himself adverse to be guided by their judgment. If he erred

at all, it was by so painful a degree of self-distrust, that even the mildest censure would

lead him to consider an indifferent action as a crime. Yet, though so well acquainted

with this amiable weakness, no individual among his parishioners chose to make the

black veil a subject of friendly remonstrance. There was a feeling of dread, neither

plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the responsibility

upon another, till at length it was found expedient to send a deputation of the church, in

order to deal with Mr. Hooper about the mystery, before it should grow into a scandal.

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Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The minister received them with

friendly courtesy, but became silent, after they were seated, leaving to his visitors the

whole burden of introducing their important business. The topic, it might be supposed,

was obvious enough. There was the black veil swathed round Mr. Hooper's forehead,

and concealing every feature above his placid mouth, on which, at times, they could

perceive the glimmering of a melancholy smile. But that piece of crape, to their

imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret

between him and them. Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but

not till then. Thus they sat a considerable time, speechless, confused, and shrinking

uneasily from Mr. Hooper's eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them with an invisible

glance. Finally, the deputies returned abashed to their constituents, pronouncing the

matter too weighty to be handled, except by a council of the churches, if, indeed, it

might not require a general synod.

But there was one person in the village unappalled by the awe with which the black veil

had impressed all beside herself. When the deputies returned without an explanation, or

even venturing to demand one, she, with the calm energy of her character, determined

to chase away the strange cloud that appeared to be settling round Mr. Hooper, every

moment more darkly than before. As his plighted wife, it should be her privilege to know

what the black veil concealed. At the minister's first visit, therefore, she entered upon

the subject with a direct simplicity, which made the task easier both for him and her.

After he had seated himself, she fixed her eyes steadfastly upon the veil, but could

discern nothing of the dreadful gloom that had so overawed the multitude: it was but a

double fold of crape, hanging down from his forehead to his mouth, and slightly stirring

with his breath.

"No," said she aloud, and smiling, "there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape, except

that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon. Come, good sir, let the sun

shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil: then tell me why you put it

on."

Mr. Hooper's smile glimmered faintly.

"There is an hour to come," said he, "when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not

amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crape till then."

"Your words are a mystery, too," returned the young lady. "Take away the veil from

them, at least."

"Elizabeth, I will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a

type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in

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solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar

friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from

the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!"

"What grievous affliction hath befallen you," she earnestly inquired, "that you should

thus darken your eyes forever?"

"If it be a sign of mourning," replied Mr. Hooper, "I, perhaps, like most other mortals,

have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil."

"But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?" urged

Elizabeth. "Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hide

your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do

away this scandal!"

The color rose into her cheeks as she intimated the nature of the rumors that were

already abroad in the village. But Mr. Hooper's mildness did not forsake him. He even

smiled again--that same sad smile, which always appeared like a faint glimmering of

light, proceeding from the obscurity beneath the veil.

"If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough," he merely replied; "and if I cover it

for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?"

And with this gentle, but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist all her entreaties. At

length Elizabeth sat silent. For a few moments she appeared lost in thought,

considering, probably, what new methods might be tried to withdraw her lover from so

dark a fantasy, which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symptom of mental

disease. Though of a firmer character than his own, the tears rolled down her cheeks.

But, in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow: her eyes were fixed

insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around

her. She arose, and stood trembling before him.

"And do you feel it then, at last?" said he mournfully.

She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand, and turned to leave the room.

He rushed forward and caught her arm.

"Have patience with me, Elizabeth!" cried he, passionately. "Do not desert me, though

this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil

over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil--it is not for eternity!

O! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone behind my black veil.

Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!"

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"Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face," said she.

"Never! It cannot be!" replied Mr. Hooper.

"Then farewell!" said Elizabeth.

She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly departed, pausing at the door, to give

one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the black

veil. But, even amid his grief, Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem

had separated him from happiness, though the horrors, which it shadowed forth, must

be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers.

From that time no attempts were made to remove Mr. Hooper's black veil, or, by a direct

appeal, to discover the secret which it was supposed to hide. By persons who claimed a

superiority to popular prejudice, it was reckoned merely an eccentric whim, such as

often mingles with the sober actions of men otherwise rational, and tinges them all with

its own semblance of insanity. But with the multitude, good Mr. Hooper was irreparably

a bugbear. He could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he

that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a

point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way. The impertinence of the latter class

compelled him to give up his customary walk at sunset to the burial ground; for when he

leaned pensively over the gate, there would always be faces behind the gravestones,

peeping at his black veil. A fable went the rounds that the stare of the dead people

drove him thence. It grieved him, to the very depth of his kind heart, to observe how the

children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports, while his melancholy

figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly than

aught else, that a preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads of the black

crape. In truth, his own antipathy to the veil was known to be so great, that he never

willingly passed before a mirror, nor stooped to drink at a still fountain, lest, in its

peaceful bosom, he should be affrighted by himself. This was what gave plausibility to

the whispers, that Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too

horrible to be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, from

beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or

sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach

him. It was said that ghost and fiend consorted with him there. With self-shudderings

and outward terrors, he walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own

soul, or gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world. Even the lawless

wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful secret, and never blew aside the veil. But

still good Mr. Hooper sadly smiled at the pale visages of the worldly throng as he

passed by.

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Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of making its

wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem--for there was

no other apparent cause--he became a man of awful power over souls that were in

agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves,

affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial light, they had

been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with

all dark affections. Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their

breath till he appeared; though ever, as he stooped to whisper consolation, they

shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such were the terrors of the black veil,

even when Death had bared his visage! Strangers came long distances to attend

service at his church, with the mere idle purpose of gazing at his figure, because it was

forbidden them to behold his face. But many were made to quake ere they departed!

Once, during Governor Belcher's administration, Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach

the election sermon. Covered with his black veil, he stood before the chief magistrate,

the council, and the representatives, and wrought so deep an impression that the

legislative measures of that year were characterized by all the gloom and piety of our

earliest ancestral sway.

In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded

in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart

from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid in mortal

anguish. As years wore on, shedding their snows above his sable veil, he acquired a

name throughout the New England churches, and they called him Father Hooper.

Nearly all his parishioners, who were of mature age when he was settled, had been

borne away by many a funeral: he had one congregation in the church, and a more

crowded one in the churchyard; and having wrought so late into the evening, and done

his work so well, it was now good Father Hooper's turn to rest.

Several persons were visible by the shaded candle-light, in the death chamber of the

old clergyman. Natural connections he had none. But there was the decorously grave,

though unmoved physician, seeking only to mitigate the last pangs of the patient whom

he could not save. There were the deacons, and other eminently pious members of his

church. There, also, was the Reverend Mr. Clark, of Westbury, a young and zealous

divine, who had ridden in haste to pray by the bedside of the expiring minister. There

was the nurse, no hired handmaiden of death, but one whose calm affection had

endured thus long in secrecy, in solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish,

even at the dying hour. Who, but Elizabeth! And there lay the hoary head of good

Father Hooper upon the death pillow, with the black veil still swathed about his brow,

and reaching down over his face, so that each more difficult gasp of his faint breath

caused it to stir. All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the

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world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, and kept him

in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen

the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity.

For some time previous, his mind had been confused, wavering doubtfully between the

past and the present, and hovering forward, as it were, at intervals, into the

indistinctness of the world to come. There had been feverish turns, which tossed him

from side to side, and wore away what little strength he had. But in his most convulsive

struggles, and in the wildest vagaries of his intellect, when no other thought retained its

sober influence, he still showed an awful solicitude lest the black veil should slip aside.

Even if his bewildered soul could have forgotten, there was a faithful woman at his

pillow, who, with averted eyes, would have covered that aged face, which she had last

beheld in the comeliness of manhood. At length the death-stricken old man lay quietly in

the torpor of mental and bodily exhaustion, with an imperceptible pulse, and breath that

grew fainter and fainter, except when a long, deep, and irregular inspiration seemed to

prelude the flight of his spirit.

The minister of Westbury approached the bedside.

"Venerable Father Hooper," said he, "the moment of your release is at hand. Are you

ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity?"

Father Hooper at first replied merely by a feeble motion of his head; then, apprehensive,

perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful, he exerted himself to speak.

"Yea," said he, in faint accents, "my soul hath a patient weariness until that veil be

lifted."

"And is it fitting," resumed the Reverend Mr. Clark, "that a man so given to prayer, of

such a blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judgment may

pronounce; is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory,

that may seem to blacken a life so pure? I pray you, my venerable brother, let not this

thing be! Suffer us to be gladdened by your triumphant aspect as you go to your reward.

Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let me cast aside this black veil from your face!"

And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so

many years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made all the beholders stand aghast,

Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes, and pressed

them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle, if the minister of Westbury would

contend with a dying man.

"Never!" cried the veiled clergyman. "On earth, never!"

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"Dark old man!" exclaimed the affrighted minister, "with what horrible crime upon your

soul are you now passing to the judgment?"

Father Hooper's breath heaved; it rattled in his throat; but, with a mighty effort, grasping

forward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he should speak. He

even raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms of death around

him, while the black veil hung down, awful at that last moment, in the gathered terrors of

a lifetime. And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to glimmer from its

obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper's lips.

"Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of

pale spectators. "Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women

shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the

mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the

friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man

does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret

of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die!

I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!"

While his auditors shrank from one another, in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell back

upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips. Still veiled, they

laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of many

years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial stone is moss-grown, and

good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it mouldered beneath

the Black Veil!

NOTE. Another clergyman in New England, Mr. Joseph Moody, of York, Maine, who

died about eighty years since, made himself remarkable by the same eccentricity that is

here related of the Reverend Mr. Hooper. In his case, however, the symbol had a

different import. In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend; and from that

day till the hour of his own death, he hid his face from men.