The scarlet letter read online. Read The Scarlet Letter Online 2022-10-17
The scarlet letter read online
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The Scarlet Letter is a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, first published in 1850. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, a woman living in the Puritan society of colonial Boston who is accused of adultery and forced to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothing as a symbol of her sin.
The novel explores themes of sin, guilt, and redemption through Hester's struggles and eventual acceptance of her punishment. It also delves into the complex relationships between Hester, her estranged husband Roger Chillingworth, and her lover Arthur Dimmesdale, a young minister.
As Hester grapples with the societal shame and isolation brought on by her scarlet letter, she finds strength and purpose in her role as a caregiver to the poor and sick in the community. Despite the harsh treatment she receives, Hester remains defiant and proud, refusing to name her lover or to repent for her actions.
As the novel progresses, Dimmesdale becomes increasingly guilt-ridden and ill, unable to reconcile his own sin with his role as a spiritual leader. Chillingworth, meanwhile, becomes consumed with a desire for revenge and spends years trying to uncover Dimmesdale's identity as Hester's lover.
Ultimately, the novel ends with Dimmesdale's death and Hester's decision to leave Boston and start a new life in Europe. The scarlet letter serves as a constant reminder of her past, but also as a symbol of her strength and resilience in the face of adversity.
Overall, The Scarlet Letter is a powerful exploration of the human experience, touching on themes of love, guilt, and the search for redemption. Its enduring relevance and themes make it a must-read for any reader.
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Are my purposes wont to be so shallow? The very first thing which she had noticed in her life wasâwhat? In the second storey of the Custom-House there is a large room, in which the brick-work and naked rafters have never been covered with panelling and plaster. A man in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Externally, the jollity of aged men has much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of humor, has little to do with the matter; it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch, and gray, mouldering trunk. Then, much more, thee! What view of Hester Prynne's character does the old Surveyor's document convey? Verily, the woman hath been like a possessed one; and there lacks little, that I should take in hand to drive Satan out of her with stripes. I shall do better amongst other faces; and these familiar ones, it need hardly be said, will do just as well without me. Mighty was their fuss about little matters, and marvellous, sometimes, the obtuseness that allowed greater ones to slip between their fingers Whenever such a mischance occurredâwhen a waggon-load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their unsuspicious nosesânothing could exceed the vigilance and alacrity with which they proceeded to lock, and double-lock, and secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel. The Governor is coming, and gentlemen along with him! Here, no doubt, statistics of the former commerce of Salem might be discovered, and memorials of her princely merchantsâold King Derbyâold Billy Grayâold Simon Forresterâand many another magnate in his day, whose powdered head, however, was scarcely in the tomb before his mountain pile of wealth began to dwindle.
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THE PASTOR AND HIS PARISHIONER 231 XVIII. Conscious of his own infirmityâthat his tempered steel and elasticity are lostâhe for ever afterwards looks wistfully about him in quest of support external to himself. What does Hawthorne mean to signify by his account of the "burning heat" of the letter? If he possesses an unusual share of native energy, or the enervating magic of place do not operate too long upon him, his forfeited powers may be redeemable. If sages were ever wise in their own behoof, I might have foreseen all this. Moonlight, in a familiar room, falling so white upon the carpet, and showing all its figures so distinctlyâmaking every object so minutely visible, yet so unlike a morning or noontide visibilityâis a medium the most suitable for a romance-writer to get acquainted with his illusive guests.
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss.
This faith, more than anything else, steals the pith and availability out of whatever enterprise he may dream of undertaking. Continually, and in a thousand other ways, did she feel the innumerable throbs of anguish that had been so cunningly contrived for her by the undying, the ever-active sentence of the Puritan tribunal. The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety restrained the wearers of petticoat and farthingale from stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their not unsubstantial persons, if occasion were, into the throng nearest to the scaffold at an execution. In the mere exercise of the fancy, however, and the sportiveness of a growing mind, there might be little more than was observable in other children of bright faculties; except as Pearl, in the dearth of human playmates, was thrown more upon the visionary throng which she created. It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore, and which was of a splendour in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony. Had a roar of laughter burst from the multitudeâeach man, each woman, each little shrill-voiced child, contributing their individual partsâHester Prynne might have repaid them all with a bitter and disdainful smile.
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
His gourmandism was a highly agreeable trait; and to hear him talk of roast-meat was as appetizing as a pickle or But it is time to quit this sketch; on which, however, I should be glad to dwell at considerably more length because, of all men whom I have ever known, this individual was fittest to be a Custom-House officer. Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment appeared that individual, of singular aspect, whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter. A crowd of eager and curious schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads continually to stare into her face and at the winking baby in her arms, and at the ignominious letter on her breast. Most persons, owing to causes which I may not have space to hint at, suffer moral detriment from this peculiar mode of life. Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book.
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The Scarlet Letter Read online books by Nathaniel Hawthorne
About The Scarlet Letter PDF File The Scarlet Letter pdf file was added to this website on 23-12-2022 about 1 week ago and this pdf file is about 938 KiloByte KB in size. Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. But she comes at a good time; and we will look into this matter forthwith. Indeed, so far as its physical aspect is concerned, with its flat, unvaried surface, covered chiefly with wooden houses, few or none of which pretend to architectural beautyâits irregularity, which is neither picturesque nor quaint, but only tameâits long and lazy street, lounging wearisomely through the whole extent of the peninsula, with Gallows Hill and New Guinea at one end, and a view of the alms-house at the otherâsuch being the features of my native town, it would be quite as reasonable to form a sentimental attachment to a disarranged checker-board. With his own ghostly hand, the obscurely seen but majestic figure had imparted to me the scarlet symbol, and the little roll of explanatory manuscript.
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The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
THE ELF-CHILD AND THE MINISTER CHAPTER IX. But sheâthe naughty baggageâ little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like. Hester supports herself by working as a seamstress, and Pearl grows into a willful, impish child. There he used to sit, gazing with a somewhat dim serenity of aspect at the figures that came and went; amid the rustle of papers, the administering of oaths, the discussion of business, and the casual talk of the office; all which sounds and circumstances To observe and define his character, however, under such disadvantages, was as difficult a task as to trace out and build up anew, in imagination, an old fortress, like Ticonderoga, from a view of its gray and broken ruins. The room itself is cobwebbed, and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with gray sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse; and it is easy to conclude, from the general slovenliness of the place, that this is a sanctuary into which womankind, with her tools of magic, the broom and mop, has very infrequent access.
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á The Scarlet Letter in Spanish: Read the book online, Download PDF, FB2, EPUb, DOC, TXT for free
It is no matter that the place is joyless for him; that he is weary of the old wooden houses, the mud and dust, the dead level of site and sentiment, the chill east wind, and the chillest of social atmospheres;âall these, and whatever faults besides he may see or imagine, are nothing to the purpose. Literature, its exertions and objects, were now of little moment Meanwhile, there I was, a Surveyor of the Revenue, and, so far as I have been able to understand, as good a Surveyor as need be. The edificeâoriginally projected on a scale adapted to the old commercial enterprise of the port, and with an idea of subsequent prosperity destined never to be realizedâcontains far more space than its occupants know what to do with. To confess the truth, it was my greatest apprehension,âas it would never be a measure of policy to turn out so quiet an individual as myself, and it being hardly in the nature of a public officer to resign,âit was my chief trouble, therefore, that I was likely to grow gray and decrepit in the Surveyorship, and become much such another animal as the old Inspector. Sagaciously under their spectacles, did they peep into the holds of vessels.
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
What kind of a business in lifeâwhat mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generationâmay that be? Good Master Wilson, I pray you, examine this Pearl,âsince that is her name,âand see whether she hath had such Christian nurture as befits a child of her age. Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment? THE INTERIOR OF A HEART CHAPTER XII. While waiting for her husband, Hester has apparently had an affair, as she has given birth to a child. 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 than the worst, of the accident which has befallen him. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE 90 VI.
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[PDF] The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne eBook
Furthermore, on the left hand as you enter the front door, is a certain room or office, about fifteen feet square, and of a lofty height, with two of its arched windows commanding a view of the aforesaid dilapidated wharf, and the third looking across a narrow lane, and along a portion of Derby Street. At one end of the room, in a recess, were a number of barrels, piled one upon another, containing bundles of official documents. Has anyone else come across their own anagrams, similar to what I've mentioned, in this book? It was the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and fro across my room, or traversing, with a hundred-fold repetition, the long extent from the front-door of the Custom-House to the side-entrance, and back again. That I cannot give thee. The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination as far back as I can remember. And here, some six months ago,âpacing from corner to corner, or lounging on the long-legged This old town of Salemâmy native place, though I have dwelt much away from it, both in boyhood and maturer yearsâpossesses, or did possess, a hold on my affections, the force of which I have never realized during my seasons of actual residence here. And here his descendants have been born and died, and have mingled their earthly substance with the soil, until no small portion of it must necessarily be akin to the mortal frame wherewith, for a little while, I walk the streets.
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne PDF download
There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light that had served them to pore over many ponderous books. Dimmesdale; a young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forest-land. From father to son, for above a hundred years, they followed the sea; a grey-headed shipmaster, in each generation, retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary place before the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale which had blustered against his sire and grandsire. It impressed me as if the ancient Surveyor, in his garb of a hundred years gone by, and wearing his immortal wig,âwhich was buried with him, but did not perish in the grave,âhad met me in the deserted chamber of the Custom-House. The ejected officerâfortunate in the unkindly shove that sends him forth betimes, to struggle amid a struggling worldâmay return to himself, and become all that he has ever been.
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