Claudia Johnson makes it clear that Dimmesdale's "dishonorable half-measure
at attempting to confess" are in the end simply more cause for the devil to
rejoice in his fall.
"One of his most dishonorable half-measures at attempting to confess
the truth of his passionate nature as well as his passionate act comes when
he tells his congregation from the pulpit-in comfortably save and general
terms-that he is a sinner. At the same time, he also-in secret-attempts to
literally beat his passion out of himself in his closet. Even his midnight
vigil on the scaffold is a way of trying to give himself peace without showing
the public his scarlet letter. The narrator says: 'Was it but a mockery of
penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A
mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced with jeering
laughter!'"(13)
