In The Scarlet Letter, why is Hester's natural beauty diminished, and what could bring it back?Chapter 13

There is a paragraph in chapter 13 that starts with the
words:

"The
effect of the symbol..."

that
clearly delves into an answer for your question. Put simply, the mark of shame that she
bore, the scarlet letter, robbed her of her beauty. The paragraph goes on to express
that this is the case with all women who encounter something similarly so severe.
Hawthorne expresses a truth about women: often events happen to cause them to lose their
tenderness. This was Hester's moment of loss. Losing this tenderness can render a woman
dead, or it can be beaten out of her. To bring back this representation of what it means
to be a woman Hathorne wrote:

readability="9">

She who had once been woman, and ceased to be so,
might at any moment become a woman again, if there were only the magic touch
to effect the
transfiguration.

Hester
required a special touch of tenderness to be able to return to that beauty in a woman
that defines her. This touch might be the touch of a man, a certain
man.