1 He won it indeed, in great part, by his sorrows.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XI. THE INTERIOR OF A HEART 2 Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence.
3 Not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow.
4 If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee of it," answered her mother, "even as it is telling me of mine.
5 And, as if the gloom of the earth and sky had been but the effluence of these two mortal hearts, it vanished with their sorrow.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XVIII. A FLOOD OF SUNSHINE 6 Perhaps this, too, was a disease, and but the reflex of the wild energy with which Hester had fought against her sorrows before Pearl's birth.
7 It may serve, let us hope, to symbolise some sweet moral blossom that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow.
8 Old Roger Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore to be present at its closing scene.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER 9 And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble.
10 Yet all this, which would else have been such heavy sorrow, was made almost a solemn joy to her devout old soul, by religious consolations and the truths of Scripture, wherewith she had fed herself continually for more than thirty years.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XX.THE MINISTER IN A MAZE 11 The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XXIII. THE REVELATION OF THE SCARLET LETTER 12 But, in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester's life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too.
13 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.
14 But now the idea came strongly into Hester's mind, that Pearl, with her remarkable precocity and acuteness, might already have approached the age when she could have been made a friend, and intrusted with as much of her mother's sorrows as could be imparted, without irreverence either to the parent or the child.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In XV. HESTER AND PEARL 15 This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our older towns now moss-grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened and passed away within their dusky chambers.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In VII. THE GOVERNOR'S HALL 16 She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt; no more smile with the household joy, nor mourn with the kindred sorrow; or, should it succeed in manifesting its forbidden sympathy, awakening only terror and horrible repugnance.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContextHighlight In V. HESTER AT HER NEEDLE