“I have a strange fancy,” observed the sensitive minister, “that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again. Or is she an elfish spirit, who, as the legends of our childhood taught us, is forbidden to cross a running stream? Pray hasten her; for this delay has already imparted a tremor to my nerves.”
Pearls side of the brook represents innocence and honesty, because she has been honest her entire life. She was never like all the other children she was wild and adventurous, nature was her playroom she never tried to be what the society wanted her to be. The other side was a side of dishonesty, a hidden place. Although they were together, which felt amazing to them there connection was on the other side of the brook. In order for them to reach that side of the brook they have to admit that Dimmesdale is the father.
The entries about the family are interesting. Good thoughts here. You might consider this divide in stream as a divide between different realities. Hester must put on the letter because without it Dimmesdale will not be able to confront the town and admit that Pearl is his daughter, and without this admittance Pearl will not be allowed to become a women in the world of humans. This might be the divide between the spiritual world of nature and/or the world of the family vs the world without Pearl.
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