midnight
The moral situation described in _ The Scarlet Letter _ did not present itself to Hawthorne abstractly , but as a series of pictures . He habitually thought in images , and he brooded so long over his conceptions that his descriptions are almost as definite in outline and as vivid in colour as things actually seen . His pictures do not waver or fade elusively as the mind seeks to realise them . The prison door , studded with pikes , before which Hester Prynne first stands with the letter on her breast , the pillory where Dimmesdale keeps vigil at midnight , the forest-trees with pale , fitful gleams of sunshine glinting through their leaves , are so distinct that we almost put out our hands to touch them . Hawthorne 's dream-imagery has the same convincing reality . The phantasmagoric visions which float through Hester 's consciousness -- the mirrored reflection of her own face in girlhood , her husband 's thin , scholar-like visage , the grey houses of the cathedral city where she had spent her early years -- are more real to her and to us than the blurred faces of the Puritans who throng the marketplace to gaze on her ignominy . Although the moral tone of the book is one of almost unrelieved gloom , the actual scenes are full of colour and light .