Life consists of two parts: the past is a dream; the future is a hope.

---002---

If he really wanted to die, it was only because this world was not worthy of his feet to step on it anymore.

---003---

Women are very good at mixing subtle poisons out of trivial things.

---004---

Good people always describe themselves as despicable

---005---

Our generosity should never exceed our means

---006---

Talented people do not demand that their lovers be as outstanding as themselves. What they appreciate is the natural expression of emotions, sincere love, simple pleasures and satisfaction in being with the one they love.

---007---

A pure conscience is more valuable than anything else.

---008---

It is human nature that, except when selfishness is particularly active, it is always easier to love than to hate.

Hate can even turn into love after a gradual and calm development, unless the original enemy continues to be subjected to new stimuli.

---009---

The world grows bigger as it ages, and the future shrinks.

Humanity will no more flourish than potatoes if generations are repeatedly rooted in the same infertile soil. My children have been born elsewhere, and even if I can control their fate, they will take root in an unsuitable place.

---010---

In those dreary old times, the vulgar people always attached a strange horror to everything that interested their imagination.

---011---

The scarlet letter is too deeply engraved. You cannot remove it. I wish I could endure his pain while enduring my pain!

---012---

In this world, happiness is always unexpected. If you pursue happiness as a goal, it will be a futile pursuit and will never succeed. But when you pursue other goals, you are likely to catch happiness that you never even dreamed of.

原文: Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the objet of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have cought hap

---013---

Translation:

Deep inside

Deep inside everyone's heart, there is a tomb and a dungeon. The lights, music, and noise of the outside world may make us forget, forget the dead in the tomb and the prisoners in the dungeon. But sometimes, mostly in the middle of the night, those dark places will suddenly open up. At such moments, the heart has no independent power and can only feel passively; the imagination vividly portrays all thoughts, but cannot choose or control them; so you pray that you can stop worrying, and pray that the regret that accompanies worry will not break free.

---014---

This legend is truly bleak, with only a little eternal light that is darker than the shadows providing some comfort: "an inky black land, a blood-red letter A."

---015---

We know only a part of the events that actually affect the future of our lives and our final destination. There are countless great events - if they can be called great events - that almost happen to us. However, they pass by us without producing any real effect. There is not even any light or shadow reflected back to our hearts to make us aware of their approach.

---016---

Her love is poison—her embrace means death.

---017---

She looked up at the window with a happy, bright, yet naughty and intelligent smile on her face.

---018---

Deep within every soul there is a tomb and a dungeon, although the light, music and revelry of the outside world may make us temporarily forget them and the dead buried and prisoners imprisoned in them.

---019---

He walked wearily, as if he could not think of a reason to move forward, nor did he have the desire to move forward. But if there was anything he liked, it was that he would be happy to fall down under the nearest tree and lie there motionless forever. Leaves would fall on him, and the soil would gradually accumulate around him, forming a small mound, regardless of whether there was a life buried in it. Death was a certain result, which he did not need to desire, nor could he escape.

---020---

Since the flowers are so close at hand, I will pick one and present it to the reader, hoping that it will serve as a symbol of the fragrant and fresh moral flowers that can be found everywhere in the telling of this story about human frailty and the sadness of life, and use it to alleviate the story's sad ending.

---021---

I will live out the rest of my life among other people. Needless to say, the people I know will be just as happy and comfortable without me.

---022---

Shame comes from the time a sin is committed, not from the day it is revealed.

---023---

She needed—something some people need throughout life—a kind of melancholy to tease her continually, to add to her character and make her compassionate.

---024---

他的面容明显带着一种睿智，似乎智力的高度发展难免会改变一个人的外貌，使其表现出显著的特征。

---025---

Her sins, her shame, are her roots deep in the soil.

---026---

This smile passed across the wide square and the bustling crowd, through everyone's voices and laughter, as well as various thoughts, moods and interests, conveying a mysterious and terrible meaning.

---027---

When happiness comes, people often don't pay attention to it. Once we deliberately pursue it, happiness will be like a high-flying wild goose, which can never be caught.

---028---

Happiness is a butterfly, which , when puesued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which ,if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Happiness is a butterfly. You can't chase it even if you want to, but if you sit still, it may just come back to you.

---029---

Besides, both she and the priest needed to breathe freely in the wide world while they talked together.

---030---

Money is not the root of all evil as is often said. Rather, the desire for money, the excessive, selfish, and greedy pursuit of money, is the root of all evil.

---031---

Life is like a festival or a funeral procession, everyone takes his place and is locked up under the command of the master of ceremonies.

---032---

Electricity

Is it a fact - or have I dreamt it - that, by means of electricity, the world of matter has become a great nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless point of time? - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Is it true or is it just my fantasy that electric currents can transform the physical world into a vast neural network, transmitting vibrations across thousands of miles in an instant?"

---033---

Everyone is destined to die, so people always love their descendants.

---034---

The breeze seemed to make the slightest sigh, but this sigh had a powerful spiritual power, as if it could penetrate the skin with its gentle, ethereal coolness, refreshing the heart, making the soul feel the breeze and tremble slightly with gentle joy.

---035---

"I have thought of death," she said—"desired to die—even prayed for death, if I could pray for anything else. But if death is in this cup, I ask you to think about it again, and then you watch me drink it. See! The cup is at my lips now."

"Drink it, then," he answered, as cool and unmoved as before. "How little do you know of me, Hester Prynne? Are my intentions so shallow? Even if I had devised a plan of revenge, could it be better served than to keep you alive?—would it not be better to give you medicine to remove the harm and avoid the danger of death?—so that this burning shame may always burn on your breast?" As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which now seemed to be burning red, as if it would singe Hester's breast. He noticed her involuntary expression, and smiled.

---036---

Although the past may be discouraging, it will not overshadow the future.

---037---

If you want to know what heaven is, reach out to your husband and go back to the depths of your soul and feel those divine thoughts and feelings. You must know that my view on this matter is not due to a lack of belief in mystery, but a deep respect for the soul. Love is the real magnet.

---038---

Dark land, bright red letter A.

---039---

He groped his way forward stealthily, looking around, like a thief trying to sneak into a room to steal the treasure of his master, who was half asleep or even fully awake. Despite his careful planning, the floor under his feet would still creak from time to time, his clothes would rustle, and if he was too close to his master, his shadow would be reflected on his master.

---040---

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

If a person wears a mask for a long time, appearing one way to himself and another way to the public, then in the end, he will definitely be confused and unable to tell which one is his true face.

---041---

Yet there is a fate, a feeling, which cannot be stopped, cannot be avoided, has the power of determining fate, which always forces human beings to stay in one place and linger like a ghost, and some great and famous events there color their lives; and the more reluctant they are to leave, the more tragic the color of life is. Her sins and her shame were her roots deep in the soil. It was as if this was a new birth, with a stronger force of integration than her first birth, making this forest area, far from being accustomed to other immigrants and wanderers, into Hester Prynne's wild and lonely home, but her home for life. All the scenes of other lands - even the village in the English countryside, where the happy childhood and the pure girlhood seemed to be kept by her mother, like clothes taken off long ago - seemed strange to her. The chain that tied her here was made of iron, and it fastened her innermost soul tightly, and she could never break free.

---042---

In the center of Georgiana's left cheek was a strange mark, as if deeply interwoven with the tissues and flesh of her face. In her usual delicate but healthy complexion, the mark was a darker crimson, and it would show its shape faintly amid the surrounding rosy red. When she blushed, it gradually became more and more blurred, and finally disappeared in the beautiful flush that came over her face, so that the whole cheek was radiant and dazzling. But if any change of mood made her pale, the mark was there again. The whiteness of the blush was so clear that Erme was sometimes almost frightened. It was shaped very much like a human hand, although it was only the size of the smallest elf's hand. Georgiana's lovers always said that at the moment of her birth a fairy had laid her hand on the baby's cheek, leaving this mark as a token of her charm that overwhelmed everyone.

---043---

Before Roger Chillingworth could reply, they heard the clear, unrestrained laughter of a child's voice, coming from the neighbouring graveyard. Through the open window, looking naturally—for it was summer—the minister saw Hester Prynne and little Pearl, crossing the path that crossed the grounds. Pearl looked as beautiful as she would have been in the day, but in one of those willful moods of mirth that, whenever they came, seemed to remove her entirely from the sphere of human sympathy or association. She now capered at will from one grave to another, till she reached the broad, flat, armorial tomb of a deceased nobleman—perhaps that of Isaac Johnson. Little Pearl, at the call and entreaty of her mother behind her to behave herself, paused to pluck the thorny berries of the tall burdock that stood by the grave.

---044---

Reality! Reality! Still reality! Even if you don't want to expose your worst to the world, you should still frankly let the world see some clues, so that they can infer the worst side of you.

---045---

"Hester Prynne," he said, leaning forward on the terrace, and looking down into his eyes. "Listen carefully to what this good man says, and understand what I am weighing down with you. If you think that conversation will bring peace to your soul, and that earthly punishment will make salvation more effectual, then I will require you to tell me the name of your fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Do not hold your tongue with a false pity or kindness toward that man; for, believe me, Hester, though he shall come down from his high place, and stand with you there, on your pedestal of shame, it will be better than to conceal a guilty heart all your life. What good will your silence do, except to tempt him to commit more sins—yes, to aid him in his evil deeds—and to add another layer of hypocrisy to his sin? Heaven has brought you into public disgrace, and you should take advantage of it to overcome your inner sin and outward sorrow.

---046---

While her mother and the minister sat and talked, Pearl did not find the time passing in vain. The vast dark forest, which had shown its stern face to those who had brought the sins and troubles of the world into its heart, became a playmate to the lonely infant, and knew how to play. The forest, though melancholy, showed its most kindly mood and welcomed the child. It brought her the berries of the tiger thorn, which had grown last autumn and ripened only this spring, and now hung red on the branches like drops of blood. Pearl picked these berries and was very fond of their wild taste. The little creatures of the wild field were too afraid to get out of her way. A grouse, with a dozen little fellows, rushed towards her with a fierce and angry look, but in an instant she regretted her fierce look and was busy calling her children not to be afraid.

---047---

This variety of appearance was the manifestation of her inner life, and the best illustration of it. Her nature seemed to have depth, as well as variety; but—or else Hester's fears deceived her—it was out of touch and out of tune with the world into which she was born. The child was always insubordinate to rules. One great rule was broken by her being in the world; and the elements of life might be beautiful and brilliant, but all were confused; or, if they had their own order, the point of change and arrangement was difficult or impossible to find among them. Hester could only guess at the child's character—which was vague and elliptical—by memory, and imagine what she herself had been like at those great moments when Pearl had taken soul from the spiritual world, and body from the material world.

---048---

He was a young clergyman, from one of the most distinguished universities in England, who had brought to our wild woodlands all the learning of the age. His eloquence and his religious zeal had rewarded him with a high reputation in his profession. He was a striking man, with a straight, broad, handsome white forehead, large, melancholy brown eyes, and a mouth that, except when tightly shut, would quiver, indicating both a nervous sensibility and a great power of self-control. In spite of his high gifts and his great achievements, there was something about this young clergyman—a look of melancholy, nervousness, and confusion, like that of a man who feels himself lost, lost in the path of human existence, and who feels at ease only in some secluded place of his own. Therefore, as long as his duties would allow, he would walk in the shadow of the sidewalk, preserving his innocence and childishness.

---049---

Hester Prynne embraced this spirit. She followed a freedom of thought, common on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our ancestors, had they known, would have considered a more deadly crime than the one represented by the scarlet letter. In her solitary cottage, near the sea, thoughts visited her as they had not the courage to visit any other house in New England; and the shadowy visitor who knocked at the door would have been considered as dangerous as the devil joining their entertainment.

It is remarkable that those who are most free-thinking are those who acquiesce to the external laws of society, and do not transgress them. Thoughts are enough to satisfy them, and they do not waste them on the flesh and blood of action. This seems to be the case with Hester. But if little Pearl had never come to her from the spiritual world, the situation might have been very different.

---050---

By this attitude Hester Prynne found a part in the world. There was such energy in her character, so great a talent, that the world could not entirely forsake her, though it had marked her with a mark more unbearable to a woman than the brand on Cain's forehead. Yet, in all her intercourse with society, nothing had yet occurred to make her feel that she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, was often significant, indicating that she was abandoned and very lonely, as if she lived on another planet, and communicated with ordinary people through other senses and feelings than human organs. She was far away from moral interests, but could not escape from them, like a ghost returning to a familiar hearth, and could no longer make herself visible; no longer smiling with family reunions, no longer mourning with relatives.

---051---

"I must reveal the secret," answered Hester, in a very unequivocal tone. "He must see your true nature. What the result will be, I know not; but the debt I have long sullied, the evil I have brought upon him, the ruin I have brought upon him, must be repaid at last. His good name, his place in the world, and perhaps his life, are in your hands to be thrown away or preserved. For I—the scarlet letter has taught me the truth, though it be a truth seared upon my soul like a red iron—I can see no advantage in his continuing to live, from the horrible emptiness of his life, and therefore I will not beg you for mercy. Do with him what you will! No good for him—no good for me—no good for you! Still less for little Pearl! No way can lead us out of this depressing maze."

---052---

The unenlightened masses who try to see things with their own eyes are apt to be deceived, but once they have formed their own judgments, and see things as they usually are, relying only on the intuition of their broad and warm hearts, the conclusions they draw are often so profound and so accurate that it seems as if the nature of the truth they grasped was revealed supernaturally.

---053---

A man who stands out in a crowd, and yet does not interfere with the public or private interests, is universally respected, and so was Hester Prynne. This is the beauty of human nature, which, except when selfishness is forced into action, is more susceptible to love than to hatred. Hatred, by a gradual process of calming down, may even be transformed into love, unless this transformation is constantly hindered, and the original hostile feelings are constantly stimulated with new irritations. In the case of Hester Prynne, there was neither irritation nor trouble. She never confronted the public, but was obedient and submissive; she asked nothing for obedience, nor demanded compensation for the sufferings she had suffered; she did not attach much importance to any sympathy. Moreover, she had lived a blameless life for many years, away from scandal, and her good reputation was generally recognized. In the eyes of mankind, there was nothing to lose, nothing to hope for, and it seemed that there was nothing to gain.

---054---

"She won't tell!" muttered the Reverend Dimmesdale, leaning on the terrace, with his hand on his heart, awaiting the result of his exhortations. He now rose up and drew a long breath. "A woman's heart is full of amazing strength and generosity! She won't tell!"

The elder clergyman, who had prepared for the occasion, and perceiving the unconvertible state of the poor sinner's soul, addressed the multitude a discourse on sin, not only in its many branches, but constantly referring to the letter of shame. He never tired of dwelling on the emblem, and for more than an hour his ramblings rolled over and over again over the people's heads, exciting new horrors in their imaginations, and seeming to dye the emblem crimson with the flames of the pit of hell. Meanwhile, Hester Prynne stood on the shameful scaffold, with a gleaming eye and an air of weary indifference.

---055---

"This child, born of the guilt of its father and the disgrace of its mother, was created by the hand of God to influence in many ways the heart of its mother, who pleaded with the greatest sincerity for the right to raise her child, and whose mental anguish was palpable. It meant a blessing, the only blessing in her life! It meant, no doubt, as the mother herself told us, a redemption; it meant a torment, felt at many unexpected moments; it meant a blow, a sting, a recurring pain, all in the midst of an uneasy joy! Did she not express this thought in the poor child's clothes? Did she not remind us powerfully of the red symbol branded on her breast?"

---056---

The rulers of this community, and the wise and learned, were later in recognizing the superior qualities of Hester than the common people. The prejudices they shared with the common people were tightly bound together by the iron framework of reason, and it would take a great deal of hard work to get rid of them. But day by day, the harsh and rigid wrinkles on their faces gradually relaxed, and as the years passed, perhaps, they turned into something like compassion. This happened to those who were of status, although their prominent status had a protective responsibility for public morality. Meanwhile, individuals who lived their own lives had long forgiven Hester Prynne's weakness; nay, more, they began to look on the scarlet letter not as a sign of sin, but as a sign of her good deeds, for which she had endured too long and too much punishment. "Did you see the woman with the embroidered badge?" they said to the stranger. "

---057---

Yet it would not be easy to elect an equal number of wise and upright men from the whole human family, for they could not judge the heart of a guilty woman hastily, nor confuse right and wrong, but must equal the hardness of the saints to whom Hester Prynne now turned. And Hester Prynne seemed to realize, indeed, that whatever sympathy she might have expected, it lay in the larger and warmer bosoms of the people before her; for, raising her eyes to the terrace, the color drained from the face of the unfortunate woman, and she shuddered all over.

---058---

"It is not the pleasure of the officials to take it off," said Hurst calmly. "If I were worthy to take it off, it would fall off, or it would be transformed into something else and mean something completely different."

"Then don't take it off, wear it, as long as you think it's better that way," he agreed. "For a woman, it's all up to her own preference, especially when it comes to the decorations she wears. The letter is embroidered very delicately, and wearing it on your chest is a kind of courage!"

All this time, Hester had been watching the old man intently, and could not help but be surprised and amazed, because she saw that he had changed a lot in the past seven years. It was not just that he had grown older; although the signs of old age and infirmity were obvious, he seemed to retain a remarkable vitality and alertness.

---059---

Her imagination was affected, and if she had been of a weaker moral and intellectual character, it was now more so, because of the strange and lonely pain in her life. Coming and going, with solitary steps, in this small world where she was in contact with the outside world, Hester saw from time to time - even if it was all fantasy, it was very powerful and irresistible - or felt or fancied that the scarlet letter had given a new meaning. She trembled with belief, but she could not help believing that the scarlet letter made her realize with comfort that other people also hid evil. Again and again, the revelations came, and she was terrified by them. What were they? Were they only the evil angel's malicious gossip? Was this evil creature trying to enlighten her, a struggling woman, and despite the fact that he had already ruined her, to make her understand that there was a lie under the pure skin? To make her understand that if the truth was everywhere, it would be seen.

---060---

Whether love and hate are essentially the same thing is a strange topic worth observing and thinking about. When love and hate reach their peak, they become closely related and intertwined; both can make people rely on each other and feed on each other's feelings and spiritual life; once the object of dependence is lost, the other person left behind - whether he or she has passionate love or strong hatred in his or her heart - will be in a miserable and desolate situation.

---061---

Hester Prynne, whose mind was bred by natural courage and energy, had been so long deprived of all human contact, and so ostracized, that it had brought her to such heights of thought, that the clergyman was utterly unfitted. She wandered without measure, without guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, misty, and dark as the untamed forest, in which they now conversed and decided their fate. Hester's intellect and heart seemed to have a home in these wild places, and she wandered freely in them, like a wild Indian in the woods. In the past years, from this alienated perspective, she had looked upon the rules and regulations of the human race, upon the rules and regulations established by priests and legislators; she criticized the clerical sash, the legal robes, the pillory, the gallows, family life, and the church, and could hardly feel awe, just as the Indian felt. The course of her fortune and fortune had set her free.

---062---

"Seven years have passed since we last spoke together," said Hester, "and you were bent on exacting from me a promise of secrecy, and of not alluding to any past connection between us. As the life and reputation of that man were in your hands, I seemed to have no alternative but to remain silent, and to submit to your will. Yet it was not without grave scruples that I thus bound myself; for, while duty to all men might be cast aside, my duty to him could not be shirked; and something whispered in my ear that, though I had promised to obey your word, I was betraying it. From that day on, no one had been so inseparable from him as you. You followed him, every step of his footsteps. You kept by his side, slept with him, walked with him. You read his thoughts. You tore at his heart, and squeezed his heart! You held his life in your grasp, and forced him to live a life worse than death; and yet he knew not who you were.

---063---

After we have left the world of greed, strife, and self-seeking, the first question that must be asked should concern how to outwit the savages on the land they cultivate. We are in a new hostility, not a new brotherhood. The close unity of the few among us must inevitably alienate us from the rest.

---064---

"Yes, yes, woman, you are right!" cried old Roger Chillingworth, letting the will-o'-the-wisp in his heart leap out and dance before her eyes. "It would be better that he died at once! Never has a man suffered the evils that this man has endured. And all, all of them, in the sight of his deadly enemy! He has become aware of my existence. He has felt a power always pressing upon him, like a curse. He knows well, with some spiritual sense—for the Creator never created another so sensitive—he knows well that it is not a friendly hand that pulls at his heartstrings, but that an eye is watching him curiously, seeking for evil, and finding it.

---065---

We often toil and till the soil, which we have turned over and over again, but which has never turned into thought. On the contrary, our thought quickly turns into clods of earth. Our physical labors are without symbol, but only make our brains idle at the coming of twilight. Intellectual activity is incompatible with any great physical exercise.

---066---

We part with pride and strive to replace it with kindness and friendliness. We are willing to expend our own strength to do our best to ease the heavy burdens of labor. We want to gain benefits through mutual assistance, not by brute force to plunder from the enemy.

---067---

To follow one's dreams to their natural completion, even if it is certain to fail, is, we must admit, not unwise, if not holy, provided the fantasy is worth having. And what of failure? Its most intangible fragments, which may be intangible, will have a value that cannot be buried by the heaviest reality of any feasible plan. That is not the dross of thought.