Ron Reads Boring Books
Are you tired? You will be. Because I will read to you a boring book and it will be worse than you doing nothing. This podcast is not intended to entertain you. It is intended to bore you. The length of each podcast will vary so you cannot plan your listening easily. Some reads will be short. Some will be excruciatingly long. There will be no intro or outro music. The only sound is my voice and other random sounds as they happen. I change my voice as I read the dialog. Also, I have a southern accent and do not read well. Thank you for listening.
Ron Reads Boring Books
Creepy Clergy
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" tells the story of Reverend Hooper who mysteriously begins wearing a black veil over his face, transforming his relationship with his congregation and exploring the hidden nature of sin and secrets.
• Reverend Hooper appears with a black veil covering his face, shocking his congregation
• The community reacts with fear, speculation, and avoidance
• The veil creates a powerful effect during a funeral and ruins the mood at a wedding
• Elizabeth, Hooper's fiancée, confronts him about removing the veil but he refuses
• Despite being feared and isolated, Hooper becomes more effective in ministering to sinners
• On his deathbed, Hooper reveals that everyone wears invisible veils, hiding their true selves
• The veil serves as a powerful symbol for the secrets and sins that separate us from others
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Hello, Are you tired? You will be. This is Ron Reads Boring Books. Today we're reading Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Speaker 1: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. Stooping along the street, children with bright faces tripped merrily beside their parents or mimicking 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 weekdays, when the thong 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 possum 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 toward 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, the cushions of Mr Hooper's pulpit.
Speaker 2:Are you sure it is our parson?
Speaker 1:inquired Goodman Gray of the Sexton.
Speaker 3:Of certainty it is good. Mr Hooper replied the Sexton he was to have some exchanged pulpits with Parson Shute of Westbury but Parson Shute sent to excuse himself, yesterday being to preach a funeral sermon.
Speaker 1:The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr Hooper, 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, 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 crepe 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 wonderstruck were they that his greeting hardly met with a return.
Speaker 3:I can't really feel as if good Mr Hooper's face was behind that piece of crepe, said the sexton.
Speaker 1:I don't like it muttered an old woman as she hobbled into the meeting house.
Speaker 3:He has changed himself into something awful only by hiding his face.
Speaker 1: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 toward the door. Many stood upright and turned directly about, while several boys clambered upon their seats and came down again with a terrible racket. There was a general bustle, a rustling of the woman'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 grandsire who occupied an armchair in the center 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 to fully 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 upon 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 crepe 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.
Speaker 1:Mr Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one. He strove to win his people heavenward by mild, pervasive 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. 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 sit and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the omniscient can detect them. The subtle power was breathed into his words.
Speaker 1:Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, 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 all. So sensible were the audience of some unwanted 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 through the form, gesture and voice. Though the form, gesture and voice were those of Mr Hooper, were those of Mr Hooper?
Speaker 1:At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous, 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, huddling closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the center. Some went homeward alone, wrapped 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.
Speaker 1:After a brief interval, forth came good Mr Hooper, also in the rear of his flock. 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 fixed their eyes 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.
Speaker 2:That simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr Hooper's face?
Speaker 3:Something must surely be amiss with Mr Hooper's intellect observed her husband, the physician of the village. But the strangest part of the affair is that the effect of his victory, even on a sober-minded man like myself the black veil, though it covers only our pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole "'and makes him ghost-like from head to foot. "'do you not feel it so' "'Truly I do', replied the lady.
Speaker 2:"'and I would not be alone with him for the world. "'i wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself' "'Men sometimes also said her husband.
Speaker 1: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 the 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 remained the composure of death.
Speaker 1: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 a funeral prayer. It was a tender and heart-dissolving prayer, full of sorrow yet imbued with celestial hopes that the music of a heavenly harp, swept by the fingers of the dead, seemed faintly to be heard amongst 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 streets, with the dead before them and Mr Hooper in his black veil behind.
Speaker 2:Why do you look back?
Speaker 4:said one in the procession to his partner I had a fancy replied she that the minister and the maiden spirit were walking hand in hand and so had I, at the same moment, said the other.
Speaker 1:That night, the handsome couple in Milford Village were to be joined in wedlock. Though reckoned a melancholy man, mr Hooper had a placid cheerfulness for such 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 pretend nothing but evil to the wedding.
Speaker 1:Such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crepe and dimmed the light of the candles. The bridal pair stood before the minister, but the bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom and her death-like 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 told the wedding nail. 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 the others. His frame shuddered, his lips grew white, he spilled the untasted wine upon the carpet and rushed forth into darkness. The earth too had on her black veil veil.
Speaker 1: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. 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 now lost his wits. It was remarkable that all the busy bodies and impertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr Hooper before he did this thing. Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had never lacked advisors nor shown himself adverse to being 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.
Speaker 1: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. Never did an embassy so ill discharge its duties. The minister received them with friendly courtesy but remained silent After they were seated, leaving to his visitors the whole burden of introducing their important business.
Speaker 1:The topic, it might be supposed, was obvious enough. There was the black veil swathed around Mr Hooper's forehead and concealing every feature above his placid mouth, on which at times there could perceive the glimmering of a melancholy smile. But that piece of crepe to their imagination, seems to hang down over his heart, a symbol of a fearful secret between him and them. Were the veil, but cast aside. They might speak freely of it, but not until 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.
Speaker 1: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 besides 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 saddling around Mr Hooper every moment more darkly than before. As his plighted wife, it should be her privilege to know what the black veil concealed. 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 sympathy, 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.
Speaker 4:No, she said 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. Firstly, aside your black veil. Then tell me why you put it on.
Speaker 1:Mr Hooper's smile glimmered faintly.
Speaker 3: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 crepe till then.
Speaker 4:Your words are a mystery too returned the young lady. Take away the veil from them, at least.
Speaker 3:Elizabeth, I will said he so far as my vow may suffer me. No, then, this veil is a type and a shadow symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in 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.
Speaker 4:What grievous affliction has befallen you she earnestly inquired that you should trust.
Speaker 3:Thus darken 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?
Speaker 4: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 with this scandal.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 3: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?
Speaker 1:And with his gentle but unconquerable obstinacy did he resist 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 foyer from so dark a fantasy. Be tried to withdraw her foyer from so dark a fantasy which, if it had no other meaning, was perhaps a symbol of mental disease, though 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.
Speaker 3:She arose and stood trembling before him and do you feel it then, at last?
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 3: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. Oh, 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.
Speaker 4:Lift the veil at once and look me in the face said she Never.
Speaker 3:It cannot be replied.
Speaker 1:Mr Hooper.
Speaker 4:Then farewell said Elizabeth.
Speaker 1: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 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 more. 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.
Speaker 1:But with the multitude, mr Hooper was irreparably a bug-bearer. 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 the others would make it a point of hardyhood to throw themselves in his way. 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 depths 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. Figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel, more strongly than ought 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 ah, so great that he never to be, ah so great that he never willingly passed before a mirror nor stooped to drink at a steel 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 or 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.
Speaker 1: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 of 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.
Speaker 1: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 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 never summoned to their aid. Shunned in their health and joy but never summoned to their aid, but ever summoned to their aid in mortal anguish.
Speaker 1: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 candlelight 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 and solitude, amid the chill of age, and would not perish even at the dying hour. Who but Elizabeth?
Speaker 1: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 crepe had hung between him and the world. It had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love. Arid 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.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 3:"'the moment of your release is at hand. "'are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time from eternity'?
Speaker 1:"'Father Hooper at first replied merely by feeble motion of his head. "'then, apprehensive perhaps, that his meaning might be doubtful, "'he exerted himself to speak.
Speaker 3:"'yay', said he in faint accents "'my soul hath a patient weariness until that veil be lifted' "'And it is fitting', resumed the Reverend Mr Clark, "'that a man so given to prayer "'of such a blameful example, holy indeed, 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 the black veil from your face and thus speaking, the reverend mr clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so many years.
Speaker 1: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 cried the veiled clergyman.
Speaker 3:On earth never.
Speaker 1:Dark old men, exclaimed the affrighted minister with what horrible crime upon your soul.
Speaker 1: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 could 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 gathering, 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.
Speaker 3:Why do you tremble at me alone?
Speaker 1:cried he, turning his veiled face around the circle of pale spectators.
Speaker 3:Tremble also at each other's 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 crepe 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 and deem me a monster for the symbol beneath which I have lived and died. I look around me and lo, on the very visage, a black veil.
Speaker 1: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 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. The burial stone is moss-grown and good. Mr Hooper's face is dust, but awful still is the thought that it moldered beneath the black veil. Thank you for listening to the minister's black veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If you will, please give this podcast a five star rating and a good review and please share it with someone else. Thank you.