Messianic Archetype/Quotes

"To high mountain-peaks of sanctity he would have climbed, had not the tendency been thwarted by the burden, whatever it might be, of crime or anguish, beneath which it was his doom to totter. It kept him down, on a level with the lowest; him, the man of ethereal attributes, whose voice the angels might have listened to and answered! But this very burden it was that gave him sympathies so intimate with the sinful brotherhood of mankind, so that his heart vibrated in unison with theirs, and received pain into itself,and sent its own throb of pain through a thousand other hearts, in gushes of sad, persuasive elegance."

- Narration, The Scarlet Letter on Reverend Dimmesdale.