The Scarlet Letter 12: 221-235

“For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order, and God is merciful!  Let me now do the will which He hat made plain before my sight.  For, Hester, I am a dying man.  So let me make haste to take my shame upon me!” (227)

• Dimmesdale knows that his time is up.  He has realized, along with many others, that he is a dying man.  He does not want to die with the burden of his sin resting on his heart.  He wants the world to know that he, along with Hester, sinned.  He knows not what the fate of the others, or even himself is, but he knows that God is merciful.  He wants everyone to know of his sin, and hopes his burden will be lifted.  He knows that this is God’s plan for him.  He is upset that it has taken him seven years to realize that this is what God wants him to do.  

“Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. 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.  Towards her mother, too, Pearl‘s errand as a messenger of anguish was fulfilled” (229). 

• In this quote we see that a change has happened in Pearl through this one action.  Her love is revealed to her father and the ‘spell’ that has been over her has been broken.  She no longer will be the elf child that she is perceived to be.  She will be like any other child.  She is no longer seen as the burden of the sin, but as a reward that came from it.  Their sins have been paid for, and Pearl no longer will be seen as that burden.  It also shows the love that Pearl had for her father.  She may not have known him to be her father all that time, but when the truth was revealed to everyone she showed her love for Mr. Dimmesdale.

“There were human beings enough, and enough of highly wrought and symphonious feeling, […]” (223)

Symphonious: harmonious in agreement or accord

"So etherealized by spirit as he was, and so apotheosized by worshipping admirers, did his footsteps, in procession, really tread upon the dust of earth?" (224)

Etherealized: to become ethereal; ethereal: extremely delicate or refined