Book

The Scarlet Letter

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Like all of Hawthorne's novels, "The Scarlet Letter" has but a slender plot and but few characters with an influence on the development of the story. Its great dramatic force depends entirely on the mental states of the actors and their relations to one a

(23 total)

Characters

Nathaniel Hawthorne (23)

“She was like a ghost that haunts a familiar fireside, unable to make itself seen or felt, unable to smile at the joys of everyday life nor mourn its sorrow.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

Tagged: Unseen, Unnoticeable

“It is a good lesson — though it may often be a hard one — for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of all signifi…”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“Among many morals which press upon us from the poor minister's miserable experience, we put only this into a sentence: — "Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!"”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“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.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. Nevertheless, like the greater part of our misfortunes, even so serious a contingency brings its remedy and consolation with it, if the sufferer will but make the best, rather…”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“"Never, never!" whispered she. "What we did had a consecration of its own."”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“Let the black flower blossom as it may!”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another;…”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“If a man, sitting all alone, cannot dream strange things, and make them look like truth, he need never try to write romances.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the dark…”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com

“In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.”

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, amazon.com