All 15 Uses of
conscience
in
The Scarlet Letter
- Much and deservedly to my own discredit, therefore, and considerably to the detriment of my official conscience, they continued, during my incumbency, to creep about the wharves, and loiter up and down the Custom-House steps.†
p. 16.5conscience = feeling or appraisal of having personally behaved in a morally right or wrong manner
- A stain on his conscience, as to anything that came within the range of his vocation, would trouble such a man very much in the same way, though to a far greater degree, than an error in the balance of an account, or an ink-blot on the fair page of a book of record.†
p. 23.0
- It may be less soothing than a sinless conscience.
p. 51.8 *conscience = judgment of personal behavior as morally right or wrong
- This morbid meddling of conscience with an immaterial matter betokened, it is to be feared, no genuine and steadfast penitence, but something doubtful, something that might be deeply wrong beneath.†
p. 58.8conscience = feeling or appraisal of having personally behaved in a morally right or wrong manner
- But it is an error to suppose that our great forefathers—though accustomed to speak and think of human existence as a state merely of trial and warfare, and though unfeignedly prepared to sacrifice goods and life at the behest of duty—made it a matter of conscience to reject such means of comfort, or even luxury, as lay fairly within their grasp.†
p. 74.4
- If they would serve their fellowmen, let them do it by making manifest the power and reality of conscience, in constraining them to penitential self-abasement!†
p. 89.8
- He had striven to put a cheat upon himself by making the avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowledged shame, without the momentary relief of being self-deceived.†
p. 97.4
- With her knowledge of a train of circumstances hidden from all others, she could readily infer that, besides the legitimate action of his own conscience, a terrible machinery had been brought to bear, and was still operating, on Mr. Dimmesdale's well-being and repose.†
p. 107.2
- Were I an atheist—a man devoid of conscience—a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts—I might have found peace long ere now.†
p. 129.3
- By means of them, the sufferer's conscience had been kept in an irritated state, the tendency of which was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being.†
p. 130.8
- "The judgment of God is on me," answered the conscience-stricken priest.†
p. 132.9
- As a man who had once sinned, but who kept his conscience all alive and painfully sensitive by the fretting of an unhealed wound, he might have been supposed safer within the line of virtue than if he had never sinned at all.†
p. 135.8
- None; unless it avail him somewhat that he was broken down by long and exquisite suffering; that his mind was darkened and confused by the very remorse which harrowed it; that, between fleeing as an avowed criminal, and remaining as a hypocrite, conscience might find it hard to strike the balance; that it was human to avoid the peril of death and infamy, and the inscrutable machinations of an enemy; that, finally, to this poor pilgrim, on his dreary and desert path, faint, sick, miserable, there appeared a glimpse of human affection and sympathy, a new life, and a true one, in exchange for the heavy doom which he was now expiating.†
p. 136.1
- She ransacked her conscience—which was full of harmless little matters, like her pocket or her work-bag—and took herself to task, poor thing!†
p. 147.8
- "I profess, madam," answered the clergyman, with a grave obeisance, such as the lady's rank demanded, and his own good breeding made imperative—"I profess, on my conscience and character, that I am utterly bewildered as touching the purport of your words!†
p. 148.8
Definition:
feeling or judgment of morally right or wrong personal behavior