Week four Scarlet Letter

And she was gentler here then in the grassy-margined streets or the settlement, or in her mother's cottage. The flowers appeared to know it; and one and another whispered, as she passed, "Adorn thyself with me, thou beautiful child, adorn yourself with me!"- and to please then, Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and other twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. With these she decorated her hair,and her young waist, and became a nymph child, or an infant dryad, or whatever else was in closest sympathy with the antique wood.

The first thing it tells you is that Pearl, the young girl talked about in this passage, is much more gentle in the forest then in the settlement or her mother's cottage. Throughout the latter part of the book, Pearl is always called the "Wild Child", impish, and is otherwise uncontrollable and impulsive in everything she does. But here, in the forest, she is calm and gentle, quiet like one of the animals that live there. The flowers speak out to her (whether literally or figuratively she hears them it doesn't say), and she wears what she finds, becoming one with the forest around her. Everything in this passage shows the readers how young Pearl, the Wild Child, more relates to the beasts and trees then the people of the settlement.