Relevé des occurences dans The Scarlet Letter

Relevé des occurences dans The Scarlet Letter (14)

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Smile / Tears

Smile

The Market-Place

haughty smile
smile
bitter and disdainful smile

The Recognition

bitter smile
with another smile

The Interview

smiled
smile of dark and self-relying intelligence
smile
another smile

Hester at Her Needle

no more smile
share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father

Pearl

smiles
mocking smile
ever-ready smile
smile
smile
faint, embryo smile
whether it were indeed a smile
smiling, not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam that gave her face the look of a much older child.
smile
peculiar smile
smiling malice
seldom with a smile, and never with malice
smile

The Governor’s Hall

smiling
smiling

The Elf-Child and the Minister

smile
smiling
triumphant smile

The Leech and His Patient

smiled grimly down
bright, but naughty smile of mirth and intelligence
grave smile
mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips
power to smile

The Minister’s Vigil

smiled
naughty smile
smile and scowl
grimly smiling

Hester and the Physician

an elf-smile
a kind of fragmentary smile
smile; but the latter played him false, and flickered over his visage so derisively that the spectator could see his blackness all the better for it.
with a smile

Hester and Pearl

nuptial smile
bask himself in that smile
had suffered the smile of her lips and eyes to mingle and melt into his own
half smiling

A Forest Walk

Hester smiled
smiling

The Pastor and His Parishioner

smiled drearily
bitter smile
sad smile

A Flood of Sunshine

There played around her mouth, and beamed out of her eyes, a radiant and tender smile, that seemed gushing from the very heart of womanhood.
sudden smile of heaven
Hester smiled

The Child at the Brook-Side

unquiet smile
tender smile
nor answer to my smile
a holiday suit of unaccustomed smiles
attempting to smile

The Minister in a Maze

smiled craftily
smiling at him
with a solemn smile

The New England Holiday

nodding and smiling
nod and smile
smiled, grimly, perhaps, but widely too
smiled not unbenignantly
smiling on her; a smile which—across the wide and bustling square, and through all the talk and laughter, and various thoughts, moods, and interests of the crowd—conveyed secret and fearful meaning.

The Procession

if they smiled
with her naughty smile
with an unrelenting smile

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

there was a feeble smile upon his lips
there was a sweet and gentle smile

Tears

Pearl

passionate tears
sob out

The Minister’s Vigil

wept

Hester and the Physician

“Something that would make me weep, if there were any tears bitter enough for it,”

The Pastor and His Parishioner

weep
with the tears gushing into her eyes

The Child at the Brook-Side

weep bitterly

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

in their tears
overflowing with tearful sympathy
as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek

Strength / Weakness

Strength

The Market-Place

force and solidity
force of character
she had fortified herself

The Recognition

so convulsive a force
hardness and obstinacy
powerful
Wondrous strength
temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon

The Interview

impossible to quell her insubordination

Hester at Her Needle

combative energy of her character
strength
force
thriving
power

Pearl

vigor

The Governor’s Hall

strength of coloring

The Elf-Child and the Minister

ready to defend them to the death
endowed with a million-fold the power
stronger

The Leech

of force enough to engage the full strength of his faculties

The Leech and His Patient

strengthened
mighty

The Minister’s Vigil

fierce and savage strength

Another View of Hester

strength
so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.
Strengthened

Hester and the Physician

lacked the strength that could have borne up

Hester and Pearl

strongly

The Pastor and His Parishioner

Thou art strong.
hadst thou but the strength
“Be thou strong for me!”
fervently resolved to buoy him up with her own energy

A Flood of Sunshine

they had made her strong,

The Minister in a Maze

strength

The Procession

his strength seemed not of the body
with an unaccustomed force
strong

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

brought its own strength along with it
minister’s celestial strength
twine thy strength about me! Thy strength
little strength

Conclusion

All his strength and energy—all his vital and intellectual force—seemed at once to desert him

Weakness

The Market-Place

fainter bloom, a more delicate and briefer beauty, and a slighter physical frame, if not a character of less force and solidity, than her own

The Elf-Child and the Minister

careworn and emaciated
failing health

The Leech

health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail.
his decline
His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain.
pastor’s state of health
with every successive Sabbath, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulous than before
minister’s health
his life was wasting itself away
diseases of the physical frame
nature of Mr. Dimmesdale’s bodily disease
restoring the young minister to health

The Leech and His Patient

Mr. Dimmesdale, whose sensibility of nerve
agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament
this weak frame of mine
your health
a man sore sick
disorder
bodily disease
ailment
sickness
emaciated and white-cheeked minister
a sickness, a sore place
wound or trouble in your soul
soul’s disease
disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper
violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man
if not successful in restoring him to health, had, in all probability, been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour

The Interior of a Heart

bodily disease
Mr. Dimmesdale’s frame so feeble

The Minister’s Vigil

feeble and most sensitive of spirits

Another View of Hester

reduced. His nerve seemed absolutely destroyed. His moral force was abased into more than childish weakness. It grovelled helpless on the ground
disease
delicate springs of Mr. Dimmesdale’s nature

A Forest Walk

feeble

The Pastor and His Parishioner

minister’s physical and spiritual infirmities
enfeebled by suffering, that even its lower energies were incapable of more than a temporary struggle. He sank down
weak
weakness
made thee feeble to will and to do
There is not the strength or courage left me
He lacked energy to grasp the better fortune that seemed within his reach.

The Minister in a Maze

pitiably weak
how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath, he had toiled over the same ground only two days before.
emaciated figure, his thin cheek

The Procession

feeble frame

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

How feeble and pale he looked
earthly faintness
he fought back the bodily weakness,—and, still more, the faintness of heart
feebly

Track / Being lost

Being lost / Wandering

The Market-Place

more lost

The Recognition

wanderer
being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss

The Interview

elsewhere a wanderer

Hester at Her Needle

wanderer

Pearl

dismal labyrinth of doubt

The Leech

lost the spiritual view of existence amid the intricacies of that wondrous mechanism

Another View of Hester

brought back the poor wanderer to its paths.
whose heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clew in the dark labyrinth of mind; now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice; now starting back from a deep chasm. There was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfort nowhere.

A Forest Walk

moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering.

The Pastor and His Parishioner

Lost

A Flood of Sunshine

She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest
desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods.
lost

The Minister in a Maze

Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor young girl away from her mother’s side, and thrown her into the pathway of this sorely tempted, or—shall we not rather say?—this lost and desperate man.

The Procession

ever active and wandering curiosity

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish was fulfilled.
Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost for ever!

Conclusion

,—like a shapeless piece of driftwood tost ashore, with the initials of a name upon it,

Spheres

The Market-Place

taking her out of […] inclosing her in a sphere by herself
roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness

The Recognition

on the outskirts
By the Indian’s side
stranger in this region
dweller here in Boston
a border of grizzled locks [John Wilson]

The Interview

forest
invisible sphere of thought
wild outskirt of the earth
Black Man that haunts the forest round about us

Hester at Her Needle

kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement, so remote and so obscure,—free to return to her birthplace, or to any other European land
converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne’s wild and dreary, but life-long home.
On the outskirts of the town, within the verge of the peninsula, but not in close vicinity to any other habitation
its comparative remoteness put it out of the sphere of that social activity which already marked the habits of the emigrants
on the shore, looking across a basin of the sea at the forest-covered hills, towards the west.
shut out from the sphere of human charities
could not entirely cast her off
intercourse with society […] there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it
she was banished, and as much alone as if she inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs and senses than the rest of human kind
stood apart […] yet close beside
in the little world with which she was outwardly connected,
walked abroad

Pearl

Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world
inviolable circle round about her
grassy margin of the street
domestic thresholds
Mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusion from human society
within and around her mother’s cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance

The Governor’s Hall

within the precincts of the town
At one extremity
At the other end
bordered with
across the intervening space

The Elf-Child and the Minister

Pearl stood outside of the window
in the forest
into the forest

The Leech

whose sphere was in great cities
on the sea-shore, or in the forest
withdrew again within the limits
two cultivated minds, which had as wide a field as the whole sphere of human thought and study
the two were lodged in the same house
On the other side of the house
these two learned persons sat themselves down, each in his own domain, yet familiarly passing from one apartment to the other

The Leech and His Patient

Hester Prynne and little Pearl passing along the footpath that traversed the inclosure
seemed to remove her entirely out of the sphere of sympathy or human contact

The Minister’s Vigil

from the hills in the background
excursions into the forest
pass within its gates
vacant regions of the atmosphere
margined with green on either side

Another View of Hester

long seclusion from society
It was only the darkened house that could contain her. When sunshine came again, she was not there.
within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode
In her lonesome cottage, by the sea-shore
There was wild and ghastly scenery all around her, and a home and comfort nowhere.
he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it
A secret enemy had been continually by his side
walking with Pearl in a retired part of the peninsula

Hester and the Physician

margin of the water
pattering along the moist margin of the sea
Now go thy ways

Hester and Pearl

distant land, when he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study, and sit down in the fire-light of their home, and in the light of her nuptial smile.
seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky

A Forest Walk

meditative walks which she knew him to be in the habit of taking, along the shores of the peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the neighbouring country.
Hester never thought of meeting him in any narrower privacy than beneath the open sky
he had gone, the day before, to visit the Apostle Eliot, among his Indian converts
This hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above
Overhead was a gray expanse of cloud, slightly stirred, however, by a breeze
through the forest
here in the dark wood
deep into the wood
along the forest-track
some short distance within the forest
among the forest-trees
do not stray far into the wood
intense seclusion of the forest

The Pastor and His Parishioner

in the dim wood
They now felt themselves, at least, inhabitants of the same sphere.
enemy, and dwellest with him under the same roof!”
magnetic sphere of a being so sensitive as Arthur Dimmesdale
forest-track that led backward to the settlement
“Doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf-strewn desert, as lonely as this around us? Whither leads yonder forest-track? Backward to the settlement, thou sayest! Yes; but onward, too! Deeper it goes, and deeper, into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step; until, some few miles hence, the yellow leaves will show no vestige of the white man’s tread. There thou art free!
from a world where thou hast been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy!
boundless forest
broad pathway of the sea
In our native land, whether in some remote rural village or in vast London,—or, surely, in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy,—thou wouldst be beyond his power and knowledge!
drag on my earthly existence in the sphere where Providence hath placed me

A Flood of Sunshine

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.
As a priest, the framework of his order inevitably hemmed him in.
unredeemed, unchristianized, lawless region
within the magic circle of this hour
“Yonder she is, standing in a streak of sunshine, a good way off, on the other side of the brook.
And she was gentler here than in the grassy-margined streets of the settlement, or in her mother’s cottage.

The Child at the Brook-Side

dear child, tripping about always at thy side
It is as if one of the fairies, whom we left in dear old England, had decked her out to meet us.”
By this time Pearl had reached the margin of the brook, and stood on the farther side,
as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it.
Since the latter rambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted within the circle of the mother’s feelings, and so modified the aspect of them all, that Pearl, the returning wanderer, could not find her wonted place, and hardly knew where she was.
“I have a strange fancy,” observed the sensitive minister, “that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again. Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream?
Leap across the brook and come to us. Thou canst leap like a young deer!”
Pearl, without responding in any manner to these honey-sweet expressions, remained on the other side of the brook.
“Leap across the brook, naughty child, and run hither! Else I must come to thee!”
“look down at thy feet! There!—before thee!—on the hither side of the brook!”
there lay the scarlet letter, so close upon the margin of the stream, that the gold embroidery was reflected in it.
until we shall have left this region, and look back hither as to a land which we have dreamed of. The forest cannot hide it! The mid-ocean shall take it from my hand, and swallow it up for ever!”
she advanced to the margin of the brook
She had flung it into infinite space!
“Wilt thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, now that she has her shame upon her,—now that she is sad?”
“Yes; now I will!” answered the child, bounding across the brook, and clasping Hester in her arms. “Now thou art my mother indeed! And I am thy little Pearl!”
“Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?”
“But in days to come he will walk hand in hand with us. We will have a home and fireside of our own

The Minister in a Maze

Pearl, too, lightly dancing from the margin of the brook,—now that the intrusive third person was gone,—and taking her old place by her mother’s side.
It had been determined between them, that the Old World, with its crowds and cities, offered them a more eligible shelter and concealment than the wilds of New England, or all America, with its alternatives of an Indian wigwam, or the few settlements of Europeans, scattered thinly along the sea-board.
—“I am not the man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest, withdrawn into a secret dell, by a mossy tree-trunk, and near a melancholy brook!
revolution in the sphere of thought and feeling
He had by this time reached his dwelling, on the edge of the burial-ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study.
with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it.
and a vast, immeasurable tract of written space behind him!

The New England Holiday

some of the forest settlements, which surrounded the little metropolis of the colony.
“Yet a little while, and she will be beyond your reach! A few hours longer, and the deep, mysterious ocean will quench and hide for ever the symbol which ye have caused to burn on her bosom!”
And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, so that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! A strange, sad man is he, with his hand always over his heart!”
A party of Indians—in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deer-skin robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear—stood apart, with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain.
on shore, but for far more desperate deeds on their proper element.
But the sea, in those old times, heaved, swelled, and foamed very much at its own will, or subject only to the tempestuous wind, with hardly any attempts at regulation by human law.
As was usually the case wherever Hester stood, a small, vacant area—a sort of magic circle—had formed itself about her, into which, though the people were elbowing one another at a little distance, none ventured, or felt disposed to intrude.

The Procession

There was his body, moving onward, and with an unaccustomed force. But where was his mind? Far and deep in its own region, busying itself, with preternatural activity, to marshal a procession of stately thoughts that were soon to issue thence;
he seemed so remote from her own sphere, and utterly beyond her reach.
being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world
“We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.”
yonder among the dark old trees
to take an airing in the forest!
her whole orb of life, both before and after, was connected with this spot, as with the one point that gave it unity.
at the moment when a passage seemed to open for the minister and herself out of their labyrinth of misery—showed itself, with an unrelenting smile, right in the midst of their path.
magic circle of ignominy, where the cunning cruelty of her sentence seemed to have fixed her for ever

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

transported them into the region of another’s mind
Thus, there had come to the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale—as to most men, in their various spheres, though seldom recognized until they see it far behind them—an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph than any previous one, or than any which could hereafter be.
Such was the position which the minister occupied, as he bowed his head forward on the cushions of the pulpit at the close of his Election Sermon. Meanwhile, Hester Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory, with the scarlet letter still burning on her breast!
the people, who drew back reverently, on either side
he rose up out of some nether region
Support me up yonder scaffold
They beheld the minister, leaning on Hester’s shoulder and supported by her arm around him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still the little hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore, to be present at its closing scene.
Thou wouldst not yonder, in the forest! But now thou wilt?”

Conclusion

kept the scaffold awful where the poor minister had died, and likewise the cottage by the sea-shore, where Hester Prynne had dwelt.
indications that the recluse of the scarlet letter was the object of love and interest with some inhabitant of another land.
But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne, here, in New England, that in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home.
It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings;

Track

The Prison-Door

wheel-track of the street
footsteps
along the track

The Market-Place

stepping forth into the public ways
walk the streets
stepped into
Open a passage
A lane was forthwith opened through
every footstep
Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal
she ascended a flight of wooden steps
roughly hewn street of a little town, on the edge of the Western wilderness
entire track along which she had been treading, since her happy infancy
in her daughter’s pathway

The Recognition

to step forth
pathway of human existence
he trode in the shadowy by-paths
step down from a high place
passage-way of the interior

The Interview

blazing at the end of our path!”

Hester at Her Needle

footsteps
walk
pilgrim
kept her within the scene and pathway
There dwelt, there trode the feet of one
coming forth along the pathway that led townward
Clergymen paused in the street
Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps
walked abroad

Pearl

cottage-floor
In all her walks
tripping along at the rate of three or four footsteps to one of Hester’s.

The Governor’s Hall

descend a step or two from the highest rank
remove such a stumbling-block from her path
run lightly along by her mother’s side
could have accomplished a much longer journey than that before her
frisked onward before Hester the grassy pathway, with many a harmless trip and tumble
two wayfarers
stamping her foot
door; which was of an arched form, and flanked on each side by a narrow tower or projection of the edifice, in both of which were lattice-windows, with wooden shutters to close over them at need. Lifting the iron hammer that hung at the portal,
were admitted into the hall of entrance
wide and reasonably lofty hall, extending through the whole depth of the house, and forming a medium of general communication, more or less directly, with all the other apartments. At one extremity, this spacious room was lighted by the windows of the two towers, which formed a small recess on either side of the portal. At the other end, though partly muffled by a curtain, it was more powerfully illuminated by one of those embowed hall-windows which we read of in old books, and which was provided with a deep and cushioned seat.
At about the centre of the oaken panels, that lined the hall
ran to the bow-window, at the farther end of the hall, and looked along the vista of a garden-walk

The Elf-Child and the Minister

walked foremost
garden-wall
ascended one or two steps
Governor Bellingham stepped through the window into the hall
guidance
stood on the upper step
prison-door
Pearl stood outside of the window
had withdrawn a few steps
whether even her tiptoes touched the floor
departed from the house. As they descended the steps

The Leech

emerging from the perilous wilderness
trodden under all men’s feet
spiritual guide
world was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet
door of Mr. Dimmesdale’s study
walk with God on earth
walk with him on the golden pavements of the New Jerusalem
were I worthier to walk there
long walks
along the track of a creed, and wore its passage continually deeper with the lapse of time
keeping an accustomed pathway in the range of thoughts
This latter step, however, there was no present prospect that Arthur Dimmesdale would be prevailed upon to take

The Leech and His Patient

He groped along as stealthily, with as cautious a tread
unbarred the door
passing along the footpath that traversed the inclosure
“It is as well to have made this step,”
at the close of
crossed the threshold.
stamped his foot upon the floor

The Interior of a Heart

The intellect of Roger Chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread.
totter
very ground on which he trod
whose footsteps […] leave a gleam along my earthly track, whereby the pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided to the regions of the blest
purpose never to come down its steps
leading along little Pearl
he stole softly down the staircase, undid the door, and issued forth.

The Minister’s Vigil

WALKING in
reached the spot
foot-worn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister went up the steps.
stand there
standing on
little, glimmering light, which, at first a long way off, was approaching up the street. It threw a gleam of recognition on here a post, and there a garden-fence, and here a latticed window-pane, and there a pump, with its full trough of water, and here, again, an arched door of oak, with an iron knocker, and a rough log for the door-step.
in the footsteps
triumphant pilgrim pass within its gates
aiding his footsteps with a lighted lantern!
continued to step slowly onward, looking carefully at the muddy pathway before his feet
doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps of the scaffold.
would come stumbling over their thresholds
her footsteps approaching from the sidewalk, along which she had been passing
am now going homeward to my dwelling
Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together!”
She silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform
“Wilt thou stand here with mother and me
stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow
stand together!
doorsteps and thresholds
wheel-track, little worn
And there stood the minister
They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor
across the street
who stood at no great distance from the scaffold
who had now advanced to the foot of the platform.
walk
let me lead you home!”
He going home to a better world, I, likewise, was on my way homeward
“I will go home with you,”
was led away
as he came down the pulpit-steps

Another View of Hester

brought back the poor wanderer to its paths.
brought regularly to his door
at once found her place
across the verge of time
It had shown him where to set his foot
Her shadow had faded across the threshold
walk securely amid all peril
with little Pearl to be guided and protected
would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door.
As a first step, […] Then, […] Finally, […] Thus,
he stood on the verge of lunacy, if he had not already stepped across it.
walking with Pearl in a retired part of the peninsula

Hester and the Physician

went pattering along the moist margin
stepping in, mid-leg deep, beheld her own white feet at the bottom
Since that day, no man is so near to him as you. You tread behind his every footstep. You are beside him
There is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze!”
who are here wandering together in this gloomy maze of evil, and stumbling at every step, over the guilt wherewith we have strewn our path
By thy first step awry,

Hester and Pearl

along the earth
His gray beard almost touched the ground, as he crept onward
whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of his footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure
moving along with his deformity, whichever way he turned himself? And whither was he now going? Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot,
seeking a passage for herself into its sphere of impalpable earth and unattainable sky.
winged footsteps
flitting along
she had entered upon this as her appointed mission.
might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow
went homeward

A Forest Walk

in some of the meditative walks which she knew him to be in the habit of taking, along the shores of the peninsula, or on the wooded hills of the neighbouring country.
The road, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the peninsula to the mainland, was no other than a footpath. It straggled onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in so narrowly, and stood so black and dense on either side, and disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above, that, to Hester’s mind, it imaged not amiss the moral wilderness in which she had so long been wandering.
along the path
Pearl set forth, at a great pace
almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle too.
with a gleam about her path, as they should plunge into some gloomier shade.
they entered sufficiently deep into the wood to secure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger along the forest-track.
It was a little dell where they had seated themselves, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on either side, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen and drowned leaves. The trees impending over it had flung down great branches, from time to time, which choked up the current, and compelled it to form eddies and black depths at some points; while, in its swifter and livelier passages, there appeared a channel-way of pebbles, and brown, sparkling sand. Letting the eyes follow along the course of the stream, they could catch the reflected light from its water, at some short distance within the forest, but soon lost all traces of it amid the bewilderment of tree-trunks and underbrush, and here and there a huge rock, covered over with gray lichens. All these giant trees and boulders of granite seemed intent on making a mystery of the course of this small brook
as it stole onward
But the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among the forest-trees, had gone through so solemn an experience
Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed from a well-spring as mysterious, and had flowed through scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, she danced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course.
footstep along the path, and the noise of one putting aside the branches.
“But do not stray far into the wood.
But do not stray far. Keep where thou canst hear the babble of the brook.”
Hester Prynne made a step or two towards the track that led through the forest, but still remained under the deep shadow of the trees. She beheld the minister advancing along the path, entirely alone, and leaning on a staff which he had cut by the way-side.
walks about the settlement
as if he saw no reason for taking one step farther, nor felt any desire to do so, but would have been glad, could he be glad of any thing, to fling himself down at the root of the nearest tree, and lie there passive for evermore.

The Pastor and His Parishioner

SLOWLY as the minister walked, he had almost gone by, before Hester Prynne could gather voice enough to attract his observation.
It may be, that his pathway through life was haunted thus, by a spectre that had stolen out from among his thoughts.
He made a step nigher
neither he nor she assuming the guidance
Thus they went onward, not boldly, but step by step
they needed something slight and casual to run before, and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts might be led across the threshold.
I must stand up in my pulpit
at Arthur Dimmesdale’s feet
it was the point whither their pathway had so long been tending, and darkening ever, as it stole along
How dreary looked the forest-track that led backward to the settlement
Whither leads yonder forest-track? Backward to the settlement, thou sayest! Yes; but onward, too! Deeper it goes, and deeper, into the wilderness, less plainly to be seen at every step; until, some few miles hence, the yellow leaves will show no vestige of the white man’s tread. There thou art free! So brief a journey would bring thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy!
“Then there is the broad pathway of the sea!”
“It brought thee hither. If thou so choose, it will bear thee back again. In our native land, whether in some remote rural village or in vast London,—or, surely, in Germany, in France, in pleasant Italy,
“But thou shalt leave it all behind thee! It shall not cumber thy steps, as thou treadest along the forest-path; neither shalt thou freight the ship with it, if thou prefer to cross the sea.
Up, and away!”
“thou tellest of running a race to a man whose knees are tottering beneath him!

A Flood of Sunshine

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path
It may be watched and guarded; so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even, in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and, near it, the stealthy tread of the foe that would win over again his unforgotten triumph.
Or, if this be the path to a better life, as Hester would persuade me, I surely give up no fairer prospect by pursuing it!
The mystic token alighted on the hither verge of the stream.
wanderer
The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood’s heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy.
She is not far off.
“Yonder she is, standing in a streak of sunshine, a good way off, on the other side of the brook.
at some distance
The small denizens of the wilderness hardly took pains to move out of her path.
her light footstep on the leaves
And she was gentler here than in the grassy-margined streets of the settlement, or in her mother’s cottage.

The Child at the Brook-Side

when thou ledst her with thee to the house of yonder stern old Governor.”
By this time Pearl had reached the margin of the brook, and stood on the farther side, gazing silently at Hester and the clergyman, who still sat together on the mossy tree-trunk, waiting to receive her.
as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it.
Since the latter rambled from her side, another inmate had been admitted within the circle of the mother’s feelings, and so modified the aspect of them all, that Pearl, the returning wanderer, could not find her wonted place, and hardly knew where she was.
“that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again. Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream?
Leap across the brook and come to us. Thou canst leap like a young deer!”
remained on the other side of the brook
the child stamped her foot
“Leap across the brook, naughty child, and run hither! Else I must come to thee!”
stamping its foot
“look down at thy feet! There!—before thee!—on the hither side of the brook!”
the scarlet letter, so close upon the margin of the stream
she advanced to the margin of the brook, took up the scarlet letter, and fastened it again into her bosom.
“Wilt thou come across the brook, and own thy mother, […]
“Yes; now I will!” answered the child, bounding across the brook
“Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?”
he will walk hand in hand with us.

The Minister in a Maze

still standing beside the tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago […]
from the margin of the brook,—now that the intrusive third person was gone,—and taking her old place by her mother’s side.
without being absolutely outlaws of the deep, yet roamed over its surface with a remarkable irresponsibility of character.
secure the passage of two individuals and a child
hurried him townward at a rapid pace. The pathway among the woods seemed wilder, more uncouth with its rude natural obstacles, and less trodden by the foot of man, than he remembered it on his outward journey. But he leaped across the plashy places, thrust himself through the clinging underbrush, climbed the ascent, plunged into the hollow, and overcame, in short, all the difficulties of the track, with an unweariable activity that astonished him. He could not but recall how feebly, and with what frequent pauses for breath, he had toiled over the same ground only two days before.
There, indeed, was each former trace of the street
nor could the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day
under the walls of his own church. The edifice
intervening space of a single day
At every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or other,
Hurrying along the street, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale encountered
stop short in the road
pausing in the street
you have made a visit into the forest,”
I went not into the forest to seek a potentate, neither do I, at any future time, design a visit thither, with a view to gaining the favor of such personage. My one sufficient object was to greet that pious friend of mine, the Apostle Eliot, and rejoice with him over the many precious souls he hath won from heathendom!”
He had by this time reached his dwelling, on the edge of the burial-ground, and, hastening up the stairs, took refuge in his study.
while passing through the streets.
walk from the forest-dell into the town, and thitherward.
a knock came at the door of the study
It was old Roger Chillingworth that entered. The minister stood,
as if the travel through the wilderness had been too sore for you.
“My journey

The New England Holiday

Hester Prynne and little Pearl came into the market-place.
This effervescence made her flit with a bird-like movement, rather than walk by her mother’s side.
“And will he hold out both his hands to me, as when thou ledst me to him from the brook-side?”
as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder! And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss!
was seen to enter the market-place
After parting from the physician, the commander of the Bristol ship strolled idly through the market-place; until, happening to approach the spot where Hester Prynne was standing,
wherever Hester stood, a small, vacant area—a sort of magic circle—had formed itself about her, into which, though the people were elbowing one another at a little distance, none ventured, or felt disposed to intrude.
“Have you another passenger?”
old Roger Chillingworth himself, standing in the remotest corner of the market-place

The Procession

slow and stately march, turning a corner, and making its way across the market-place.
made the warrior’s haughty stride look vulgar
It was the observation of those who beheld him now, that never, since Mr. Dimmesdale first set his foot on the New England shore, had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace in the procession. There was no feebleness of step, as at other times; his frame was not bent; nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart.
moving onward
the spiritual element took up the feeble frame, and carried it along
when the heavy footstep of their approaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer!
while she groped darkly
“Else I would have run to him
general movement from that part of the market-place in which the two women stood.
Many a church-member saw I, walking
whether he was the same man that encountered thee on the forest-path!”
she took up her position close beside the scaffold of the pillory. It was in sufficient proximity
as to burst its way through the solid walls, and diffuse itself in the open air
Hester stood, statue-like, at the foot of the scaffold
he engages to bring his friend, the gentleman she wots of, aboard with him
Pursuing a zigzag course across the market-place
when a passage seemed to open for the minister and herself out of their labyrinth of misery—showed itself, with an unrelenting smile, right in the midst of their path.
it could not bring them nearer than a circuit of several yards. At that distance they accordingly stood, fixed there by the centrifugal force of the repugnance which the mystic symbol inspired.

The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter

the crowd began to gush forth from the doors of the church. Now that there was an end
Meanwhile, Hester Prynne was standing beside the scaffold of the pillory
The procession was to be marshalled thence to the town-hall
the train of venerable and majestic fathers was seen moving through a broad pathway of the people, who drew back reverently, on either side, as the Governor and magistrates, the old and wise men, the holy ministers, and all that were eminent and renowned, advanced into the midst of them.
did his footsteps in the procession really tread upon the dust of earth?
that tottered on his path so nervelessly, yet tottered, and did not fall!
stepped forward hastily to offer his support. The minister tremulously, but decidedly, repelled the old man’s arm. He still walked onward,
And now, almost imperceptible as were the latter steps of his progress
There stood Hester, holding little Pearl by the hand!
to which the procession moved. It summoned him onward,—onward to the festival!—but here he made a pause.
He now left his own place in the procession, and advanced to give assistance; judging from Mr. Dimmesdale’s aspect that he must otherwise inevitably fall.
likewise drew near, but paused before she reached him. At this instant old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd
the old man rushed forward
let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me!
The men of rank and dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergyman
approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps
“Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!”
I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood
I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face!
Wherever her walk hath been
But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!”
stepped passionately forward a pace before the woman and the child.
walked among you
he stands up before you!

Conclusion

cottage-door. In all those years it had never once been opened; but either she unlocked it, or the decaying wood and iron yielded to her hand, or she glided shadow-like through these impediments,—and, at all events, went in.
On the threshold she paused,—turned partly round,