Better late than never

`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!''

The end to this truly got to me. It said what I was thinking throughout the entire piece. He made a vow to wear this veil. It represents the transgressions and sins of men and not just himself. He believed that when he died was the only time he would not be wearing a figurative veil over his life, so he wore a literal one to show the world.

I found it rather ironic that although the veil made people afraid of him, they shuddered when they saw him and children ran from him; it also made him a better minister because he was able to express the most depressing matters and people truly understood them. The veil represented the people. The veil made people afraid of things they were already thinking; sad and depressing things; which in church would often be perfect, but in real life they are things people generally tend to run from. The veil represented everything that people wanted to forget about life.

The mister understood what the veil represented to himself and to others. He was not afraid or ashamed to confront the transgressions in his life and thus wore the veil to symbolize this. People are so unwilling to acknowledge their own transgressions, being around the mister with his black veil to the world reminded them of the things they can't admit to.