old Roger Chillingworth

[lostshoe]

      In a word , old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office. This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself, for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analyzed and gloated over.
 
      The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne's bosom. Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which partly home to her.



Page 177 (Barnes & noble version) Scarlett Letter.