The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne: scrofula, from the troubles of their ancestors. 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.
It was certainly a
222 THE SCARLET LETTER
 The Scarlet Letter |