It
was as Hester said, in regard to the unwonted jollity that brightened the faces
of the people. Into this festal season
of the year – as it already was, and continued to be during the greater part of
two centuries – the Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they
deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary
cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more
grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction.
(from The Scarlet
Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne)
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