1 Yet Hester was hardly safe in confiding herself to that gusty tenderness: it passed as suddenly as it came.
2 But this long debt of confidence, due from me to him, whose bane and ruin I have been, shall at length be paid.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XIV. HESTER AND THE PHYSICIAN 3 Many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in reputation.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In X. THE LEECH AND HIS PATIENT 4 But, in spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old man's knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to his own interview with Hester Prynne.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XX.THE MINISTER IN A MAZE 5 The thought occurred to Hester, that the child might really be seeking to approach her with childlike confidence, and doing what she could, and as intelligently as she knew how, to establish a meeting-point of sympathy.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XV. HESTER AND PEARL 6 This idea was countenanced by the strong interest which the physician ever manifested in the young clergyman; he attached himself to him as a parishioner, and sought to win a friendly regard and confidence from his naturally reserved sensibility.
7 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.
8 In his Indian captivity, moreover, he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots; nor did he conceal from his patients that these simple medicines, Nature's boon to the untutored savage, had quite as large a share of his own confidence as the European Pharmacopoeia, which so many learned doctors had spent centuries in elaborating.