Molly Gerth's AP Lit Blog

"She had returned, therefore, and resumed,—of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period would have imposed...

"But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne here, in New England, than in that unknown region where Pearl had found a home. Here ...

"The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teach...

“Mother,” said little Pearl, “the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom...

"The whole universe is false, it is impalpable, it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself i...

“A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life,—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and gener...

"But with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror! With what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the ...