While finally getting around to reading The Scarlet Letter last week, I came upon a thought-provoking passage. Do I need a spoiler alert for a book published in 1950? I hope not. Anyway, Hester Prynne has heard that minister Arthur Dimmesdale has been to visit John Eliot at his Indian meeting place, and would be returning home by way of Roxbury (un-named in the book, I believe). She takes her daughter Pearl, and waits for him in the forest by a brook. Wait ... a brook, just past Boston Neck on the mainland? Given that Hawthorne had traveled from Boston through Roxbury to visit his one-time publisher Samuel Goodrich at his home along Centre st in Jamaica Plain, could the brook that enters the tale have possibly been inspired by our very own Stony Brook, which he had to cross by the bridge at what is now Jackson Square? Hmmm .... Just a thought.
Image from the 1878 illustrated version: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/25344/25344-h/25344-h.htm
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