1 A man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician.
2 The stigma gone, Hester heaved a long, deep sigh, in which the burden of shame and anguish departed from her spirit.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE 3 For, Hester, his spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN 4 More than once he had cleared his throat, and drawn in the long, deep, and tremulous breath, which, when sent forth again, would come burdened with the black secret of his soul.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART 5 To the high mountain peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which it was his doom to totter.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART 6 The days of the far-off future would toil onward, still with the same burden for her to take up, and bear along with her, but never to fling down; for the accumulating days and added years would pile up their misery upon the heap of shame.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE 7 Now that there was an end, they needed more breath, more fit to support the gross and earthly life into which they relapsed, than that atmosphere which the preacher had converted into words of flame, and had burdened with the rich fragrance of his thought.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER 8 Earlier in life, Hester had vainly imagined that she herself might be the destined prophetess, but had long since recognised the impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a woman stained with sin, bowed down with shame, or even burdened with a life-long sorrow.
9 But there was Hester, clad in her gray robe, still standing beside the tree-trunk, which some blast had overthrown a long antiquity ago, and which time had ever since been covering with moss, so that these two fated ones, with earth's heaviest burden on them, might there sit down together, and find a single hour's rest and solace.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XX.THE MINISTER IN A MAZE