All 8 Uses of

tone

in

The Scarlet Letter

A remarkable event of the third year of my Surveyorship—to adopt the tone of "P.P. "—was the election of General Taylor to the Presidency.
p. 32.8

tone = general feeling, mood, or attitude of something

There was, moreover, a boldness and rotundity of speech among these matrons, as most of them seemed to be, that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to its purport or its volume of tone.
p. 38.3

tone = sound (of voice)

Involved in these thoughts, she scarcely heard a voice behind her until it had repeated her name more than once, in a loud and solemn tone, audible to the whole multitude.
p. 46.6

"Thus, a sickness," continued Roger Chillingworth, going on, in an unaltered tone, without heeding the interruption, but standing up and confronting the emaciated and white-cheeked minister, with his low, dark, and misshapen figure,—"a sickness, a sore place, if we may so call it, in your spirit hath immediately its appropriate manifestation in your bodily frame."
p. 92.0

tone = quality of voice

"Yes; it is Hester Prynne!" she replied, in a tone of surprise; and the minister heard her footsteps approaching from the side-walk, along which she had been passing.
p. 102.5 *

tone = quality of voice expressing a feeling

"Dost thou know thy mother now, child?", asked she, reproachfully, but with a subdued tone.
p. 142.7

tone = sound (of voice)

And the melancholy brook would add this other tale to the mystery with which its little heart was already overburdened, and whereof it still kept up a murmuring babble, with not a whit more cheerfulness of tone than for ages heretofore.
p. 143.9

This vocal organ was in itself a rich endowment, insomuch that a listener, comprehending nothing of the language in which the preacher spoke, might still have been swayed to and fro by the mere tone and cadence.
p. 162.4

tone = sound

Definitions:

(1) (tone as in: the tone of the essay)
the general feeling, mood, or attitude of something -- especially of something said or written
(2) (meaning too common or rare to warrant focus)
See a comprehensive dictionary for the many other common and less common meanings of tone including:
- a quality of sound, music, or voice
- a quality of color
- a quality of muscles seen after exercise, or the act of exercising to create that quality
- signals from a telephone
The expression "tone down", means to make something less forceful.