The Scarlet Letter

It was whispered by those who peered after her that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passage-way of the interior.

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

throng of bearded men

We have yet to learn again the forgotten art of gaiety

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

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

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

the gloom of this dark forest

No golden light had ever been so precious as

She assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatised by the scarlet letter