It is likewise possible to find quotes that explore the consequences of being the only person honest enough in his community to admit the truth about humanity: that we are all sinners who try to conceal our essential sinfulness from the world. Because no one else is will to own up to this truth, Mr. Hooper is shunned and avoided by people who used to welcome him.
It grieved him, to the very depth of his kind heart, to observe how the children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports, while his melancholy figure was yet away off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly than aught else, that a preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads of the black crepe.
Mr. Hooper gives up a great deal in order to tell the truth. And this quotation also begins to explore humanity's fearful and cowardly nature...
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in the description of his parishioners' "instinctive dread" toward the minister's truth-telling (which is horrifying even to himself). Similarly,
Among all its bad influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem -- for there was no other apparent cause -- he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin.
Such a quotation continues to explore human nature. It seems that misery must love company, and those sinners -- rather than feeling isolated and misunderstood -- feel their load lightened when they believe that their minister is not dissimilar to them. They seem to take comfort in the fact that another person is, perhaps, even more sinful than they.