Chapter 23 to 24

"The law we broke! -the sin here so awfully revealed! -let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our God, -when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul, -it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all , in my afflictions... Praised be His name! HIs will be done! Farewell!" -Dimmesdale (229).

Explanation: In this quote Dimmesdale summarizes his prior seven years leading to this moment and his transition to his realization when he stood on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl. He explains how he had had great fear of what was to come in the next world but he explains he came to the realization that God was a merciful being. He chooses to embrace his death with Hester and Pearl by his side, in front of the entire community to see it, leaving them for final judgement as man who "releases his burden."

"In the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister- mutual victims as they have been- may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love." (232)

Explanation: Part of the author's final conclusion of the story, the author gives a brief summary of what lesson can be taken from the physician and the minister. He says that they both contained in themselves hatred and apathy but through the events of the story (mainly events of the end) these feeling of hatred and apathy go through a metamorphosis that developes into love. So from this the reader can infer that love can blossom from even the darkest of places where hatred seems to be the dominant feeling.

Words: 

Antipathy- a feeling of intense dislike

Ex: "In the spiritual world, the old physician and the minister- mutual victims as they have been- may, unawares, have found their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love." (232) 

Escutcheon- A flat protective covering (on a door or wall etc) to prevent soiling by dirty fingers

Ex: "And on this simple slav of slate -as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport- there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon." (235)