It will be seen, likewise, that this Custom-House sketch has a certain _____________, of a kind always recognized in literature, as explaining how a large portion of the following pages came into my possession, and as offering proofs of the authenticity of a narrative therein contained.

Doomed by his own choice, therefore, as Mr. Dimmesdale so evidently was, to eat his unsavory morsel always at another’s board, and endure the life-long chill which must be his lot who seeks to warm himself only at another’s fireside, it truly seemed that this ______________, experienced, benevolent old physician, with his concord of paternal and reverential love for the young pastor, was the very man, of all mankind, to be constantly within reach of his voice.

Whenever such a mischance occurred,—when a wagon-load of valuable merchandise had been smuggled ashore, at noonday, perhaps, and directly beneath their unsuspicious noses,—nothing could exceed the vigilance and ___________ with which they proceeded to lock, and double-lock, and secure with tape and sealing-wax, all the avenues of the delinquent vessel.

They were allowed, on my representation, to rest from their
__________ labors, and soon afterwards—as if their sole principle of life had been zeal for their country’s service, as I verily believe it was—withdrew to a better world.

Scorn, bitterness, unprovoked malignity, __________ desire of ill, ridicule of whatever was good and holy, all awoke, to tempt, even while they frightened him.

Thence, with native ______________, but still with a reserve as characteristic, she flew into the midst of a group of mariners, the swarthy-cheeked wild men of the ocean, as the Indians were of the land; and they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at Pearl, as if a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with a soul of the sea-fire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time.

To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,—it is ______________,—it shrinks to nothing within his grasp.

The merchants valued him not less than we, his ________ friends.

Then, it is true, the ____________ of human nature to tell the very worst of itself, when embodied in the person of another, would constrain them to whisper the black scandal of bygone years.

Amongst any other population, or at a later period in the history of New England, the grim rigidity that petrified the bearded physiognomies of these good people would have ___________ some awful business in hand.