“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.”
More from Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit,…”
“She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.”
“She was like a ghost that haunts a familiar fireside, unable to make itself seen or felt,…”
“Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.”