All 8 Uses of
dismal
in
The Scarlet Letter
- One brief sigh sufficed to carry off the entire burden of these dismal reminiscences.†
p. 18.6dismal = depressing or gloomy
- This personage prefigured and represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law, which it was his business to administer in its final and closest application to the offender.†
p. 39.1
- Closely following the jailer into the dismal apartment, appeared that individual, of singular aspect whose presence in the crowd had been of such deep interest to the wearer of the scarlet letter.†
p. 50.4
- I might have known that, as I came out of the vast and dismal forest, and entered this settlement of Christian men, the very first object to meet my eyes would be thyself, Hester Prynne, standing up, a statue of ignominy, before the people.†
p. 52.6
- But Hester could not resolve the query, being herself in a dismal labyrinth of doubt.†
p. 68.5
- There is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze.†
p. 116.6
- Such scenes had once appeared not otherwise than happy, but now, as viewed through the dismal medium of her subsequent life, they classed themselves among her ugliest remembrances.†
p. 118.8 *
- But the little stream would not be comforted, and still kept telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that had happened—or making a prophetic lamentation about something that was yet to happen—within the verge of the dismal forest.†
p. 126.8
Definition:
of terrible quality or depressing; or dark and dreary (as when bad weather blocks the sun or when it is drizzly)