The Shackleton of the Pilgrimy

The very ideal of ignominy was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron. The scene was not without a mixture of awe, such as must always invest the spectacle of guilt and shame in a fellow creature before society shall have grown corrupt enough to smile instead of shuddering at it. Hester Prynne's sentence bore that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head. There can be no outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame, as it was the essence of this punishment to do.

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