salem

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2963254/

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalistmovement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and he disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States.

Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. Following this ground-breaking work, he gave a speech entitled "The American Scholar" in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson

Walden

Walden (/ˈwɔːldən/; first published as Walden; or, Life in the Woods), by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. First published in 1854, it details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. The book compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden

"Traveling is a fool's paradies, the wise man stays home."

http://workingworldcareers.com/2009/11/17/travelling-is-a-fools-paradise/

The Scarlet Letter

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/scarlet/ 

paganism 異教

Paganism is a term that developed among the Christian community of southern Europe during late antiquity to describe religions other than their own, Judaism, or Islam–the three Abrahamic religions. Throughout Christendom, it continued to be used, typically in a derogatory sense. In the 19th century, it was re-adopted as a self-descriptor by members of various artistic groups inspired by the ancient world. In the 20th century, it came to be applied as a self-description by practitioners of contemporary pagan, or neo-pagan, religious movements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

decay 腐朽；蛀牙

protestant

Protestantism is a form of Christian faith and practice which originated with the Protestant Reformation, a movement against what its followers considered to be errors in the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the three major divisions of Christendom, together with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Anglicanism is sometimes considered to be independent from Protestantism. The term refers to the letter of protestation from Lutheran princes in 1529 against an edict condemning the teachings of Martin Luther as heretical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism

venerate 尊敬；崇拜

Stuart: A Life Backwards

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0853153/

indifferent 不感興趣；冷漠

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1885), the latter often called "The Great American Novel".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

ratification 批准

enlighten 啟發；啟迪；教導

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment