Nathaniel Hawthorne lived here at Tanglewood with his family in 1851 in a little red cottage and wrote The House of the Seven Gables here. He was a successful author, The Scarlet Letter had sold very well. This summer we're celebrating the bicentennial of Hawthorne's birth on July 4, 1804.
(SUNG AMEN)
TR: That concludes our Sunday morning service and now I believe Hester Prynne wants to say a word. Hester? (FOOTSTEPS)
SS (WHISPER): Hey, thanks, man.
TR: Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?
SS: Positive.
TR: This is gonna rock the Mass Bay Colony--
SS: It's cool. Seriously. (FOOTSTEPS, CLIMBING INTO THE PULPIT) (DEEP BREATH) Hi, everyone, and thanks so much for staying late after church. I know that many of you have dinner waiting on the coals, so I won't take too long. I know that a lot of you have been wondering what's been going on between the Reverend Dimmesdale and me and why I am wearing the letter that he won playing football for Amherst and ----- (BABY CRYING) ----- well, that's what happened. We had a baby. (GASP OF AUDIENCE) Yes, my husband is not the father. Reverend Dimmesdale is. We're going to keep her and co-parent her. Her name is Pearl and we really believe the world is going to be her oyster. (QUIET BOO)
TR: I know that this comes as a shock to many of you, me being a Puritan minister and all, but Hester and I wanted to bring this out into the open and share with you our sense of joy and of commitment to each other instead of living in Puritan guilt and shame for the rest of our lives.
SS: You can tell it to the town cryer if you want to--
TR: Hester and I are grateful that we found each other.
SS: He passed me a note in the town square, "Puritan minister seeks attractive woman for long walks and conversation and mutual self-recrimination." It started as a friendship--
TR: We talked about crops and the weather and the Bible, and I felt she understood me as no one ever had. She became my Prynne-cess. (SOME BOOING)
SS: We just really connected on issues like squash and corn, and we knew all the same proverbs. And Dims is really great -- I'll never forget the first time I heard him say "Dearly Beloved." I was so moved, I almost fell out of bed.
TR: I love Hes and that's why I gave her my red "A" ----- for me, it stands for Amazing. (BOOING)
SS: We want to stay in Boston. We found a great one-bedroom over on Comm Ave. I'm going to do some temp work, and I hope that Dimz can stay here as your senior minister. (MOB FURY GROWS. GLASS BREAKAGE. WOOD CRUNCHING) (STING AND BRIDGE, FADE UNDER......)
TR: Well, I sort of figured they'd lock us up in the stocks and throw dead fish at us, and ---- here we are.
SS: Not only that, I think I broke a nail. Oh, these people are such hypocrites. Religious tolerance, my black bonnet!
TR: Okay, but what will I do to earn a living?
SS: You're just going to have to come up with something else. Maybe go to night school. Take up a trade. Like cobbling. At least we'd have shoes.
TR: I know! I'll write books!
SS: Look out---- here comes somebody----- (FOOTSTEPS IN MUD)
FN: Take that, you adulterers! (BIG SPLAT) You concupiscent traitors! Fornicators!
SS: Ugh, these people are fascists. (BIG SPLAT)
TR: Hypocrite! Legalist! Where's the spirit of tolerance and forgiveness in this town? (BIG SPLAT) (TR SPUTTERS, SPITS)
SS: Are you all right?
TR: I'm going to expose their small-mindedness and hypocrisy in a major work of fiction! That's what I'll do!! Instead of preaching from a pulpit, I'll do it through imaginative prose!
SS: But how can you do that? You're a minister, Dimms?
TR: I'll enroll at Harvard ---- and I'll major in English!
SS: An English major! But there's nothing to read yet!
TR: I can do it, Hester. And I will! I love Beowulf! And the Canterbury Tales! I'll major in English. For you and the baby! (MUSIC UP)
GK: A salute to Nathaniel Hawthorne on his 200th birthday...from the Professional Organization of English Majors.