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The student of human culture will trace among such primeval notions the origin of the Jew's unwillingness to pronounce the name of Jehovah; and hence we may perhaps have before us the ultimate source of the horror with which the Hebraizing Puritan regards such forms of light swearing "Mon Dieu," etc. as are still tolerated on the continent of Europe, but have disappeared from good society in Puritanic England and America.
A few titles may be found in contemporary literature, such as The Blacksmith's Daughter, mentioned by the Puritan Gosson in his School of Abuse, as "containing the treachery of Turks, the honorable bounty of a noble mind, the shining of virtue in distress," The Conspiracy of Catilina, Cæsar and Pompey, and The Play about the Fabians.
As an excuse for them, it may be said that at that time there were 4,809 parishes in England and Wales in which a clergyman could not reside, if he would, for lack of a parsonage. At that time, even in Puritan New England, every minister was supposed to live in a parsonage. To-day, not one parish in ten is provided with that desirable auxiliary.
The Scotch puritan actually scents something obscene in the very title; to which we can only reply by parodying Carlyle "The nose smells what it brings." As for the comedy itself, it must be judged by the standard of its age. Yet, free as Il Candelajo is sometimes in its portrayal of contemporary manners, it does not approach scores of works which are found "in every gentleman's library."
And this medical or poisonous view of alcohol is not confined to the one Puritan to whose failure I have referred, it is spread all over the whole of our dying Puritan civilisation. For instance, social reformers have fired a hundred shots against the public-house; but never one against its really shameful feature.
He saw that happiness and love were only the friends of a moment to lead the heart to disarm and abdicate. And the little puritan of fifteen heard the voice of his God: "Go, go, and never rest." "But whither, Lord, shall I go? Whatsoever I do, whithersoever I go, is not the end always the same? Is not the end of all things in that?" "Go on to Death, you who must die!
Not improbably this circumstance wrought a very material change in the public estimation; and had the mother and child remained here, little Pearl at a marriageable period of life might have mingled her wild blood with the lineage of the devoutest Puritan among them all. But, in no long time after the physician's death, the wearer of the scarlet letter disappeared, and Pearl along with her.
A true New Englander, thoughtful, acute, reticent, and opinionated; yet earnest withal, intensely patriotic, and often humorous, despite a touch of Puritan austerity. Phil, the "romantic chap," as he was called, looked his character to the life. Slender, swarthy, melancholy-eyed, and darkly-bearded; with feminine features, mellow voice, and alternately languid or vivacious manners.
Our Puritan forefathers, though bitterly denouncing all forms and ceremonies, were great respecters of persons; and in nothing was the regard for wealth and position more fully shown than in designating the seat in which each person should sit during public worship.
Ignorant as she was of evil, her old surroundings appeared to her delightful, and Peregrine, bred in a Puritan home, was at fourteen not much more advanced than she was in the meaning of the vices and corruptions that he heard inveighed against in general or scriptural terms at home, and was only too ready to believe that all that his father proscribed must be enchanting.
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