merciful. At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead.” Then a fourth: “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there no law for it? Truly, there is, both in the Scripture and in the statute-book.” I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter, in my junior-year English class. Perhaps you did too. The entire class was scandalized—not at the tragic heroine Hester but at the townsfolk. Did people like this