How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rosebush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him. (1.3)
Um, maybe. Or you could just see this little rosebush as a mockery. If we were heading off to be executed or publicly shamed, we might want everything to look as miserable as we felt.
Quote #2
But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished as hopeless the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening. (7.20)
Nature on this side of the Atlantic is so tough that even the rich people can't manage to have nice gardens. (Give it time, guys.)
Quote #3
“Wilt thou go with us tonight? There will be a merry company in the forest; and I well-nigh promised the Black Man that comely Hester Prynne should make one.” (8.39)
Fun! We love a good Satanic party in the woods. After all, you can't exactly have a Satanic party in your living room. The tone just isn't right.