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 osity which evoked it as vulgar. But by refraining in The Scarlet Letter from lifting the veil that hides the antecedent history of this passionate experience he evades what would have been for him, or for any novelist, the extremely difficult problem of representing Arthur Dimmesdale in love. By this abridgment he obtains, furthermore, an intense concentration of interest upon that portion of the history which a writer wishing to "evolve some deep lesson" would desire to emphasize. Finally, it is obvious that he has striven sedulously to avoid all occasion for exhibiting an aberrant passion in its possible aspects of alluring and romantic glamour, so that one desperate embrace of the lovers and Hester's entreaty for forgiveness under the deep shadow of foreboding (in the seventeenth chapter) remain almost the only vivid evidence and certification of their continuing tenderness and attraction for each other.

Arthur Dimmesdale is ordinarily considered the figure of primary importance, and, so far as the external evolution of the story is concerned, unquestionably he is. His, apparently, is the main tragic problem, and his is the solution of it. Undoubtedly, also, we are admitted from first to last very much more fully into his consciousness than into Hester's. While she remains for the most part in isolation with her enigmatic child, he is defined by his relations to the elder clergyman and the officials of the colony in that superbly ironical scene