Nathaniel Hawthorne

No golden light had ever been so precious as

the gloom of this dark forest

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom!

and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to transmit the grand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul an organ pipe as he

We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gaiety

Here, there was the taint of deepest sin in the most sacred quality of human life,

religion and law were almost identical, and in whose character both were so thoroughly interfused, that the mildest and severest acts of public discipline were alike made venerable and awful. Meagre, indeed, and cold, was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold.

malefactresses as this Hester Prynne.

the naughty baggage