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...and We Have So Far Improved Upon The Custom Of Adam And Eve, That We Generally Furnish Forth Our Feasts With A Portion Of Some Delicate Calf Or Lamb, Whose Unspotted Innocence Entitles Them To The Happiness Of Becoming Our Sustenance.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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...and We Have So

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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...and We Have So Far Improved Upon The Custom Of Adam And Eve, That We Generally Furnish Forth Our Feasts With A Portion Of Some Delicate Calf Or Lamb, Whose Unspotted Innocence Entitles Them To The Happiness Of Becoming Our Sustenance.

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Technologies Of Easy Travel Give Us Wings; They Annihilate The Toil And Dust Of Pilgrimage; They Spiritualize Travel! Transition Being So Facile, What Can Be Any Man's Inducement To Tarry In One Spot?

As The Architecture Of A Country Always Follows The Earliest Structures, American Architecture Should Be A Refinement Of The Log-house. The Egyptian Is So Of The Cavern And The Mound; The Chinese, Of The Tent; The Gothic, Of Overarching Trees; The Greek, Of A Cabin.

I Used To Visit And Revisit It A Dozen Times A Day, And Stand In Deep Contemplation Over My Vegetable Progeny With A Love That Nobody Could Share Or Conceive Of Who Had Never Taken Part In The Process Of Creation. It Was One Of The Most Bewitching Sights In The World To Observe A Hill Of Beans Thrusting Aside The Soil, Or A Rose Of Early Peas Just Peeping Forth Sufficiently To Trace A Line Of Delicate Green.

Every Young Sculptor Seems To Think That He Must Give The World Some Specimen Of Indecorous Womanhood, And Call It Eve, Venus, A Nymph, Or Any Name That May Apologize For A Lack Of Decent Clothing.

Nobody Has Any Conscience About Adding To The Improbabilities Of A Marvelous Tale.

Writing Can Come Naturally To Some. Still, When It Comes To Good Writing, This Is True: Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

Let The Black Flower Blossom As It May!

I Love My Mother, But There Has Been, Ever Since My Boyhood, A Sort Of Coldness Of Intercourse Between Us, Such As Is Apt To Come Between People Of Strong Feelings.

At No Time Are People So Sedulously Careful To Keep Their Trifling Appointments, Attend To Their Ordinary Occupations, And Thus Put A Commonplace Aspect On Life, As When Conscious Of Some Secret That If Suspected Would Make Them Look Monstrous In The General Eye.

I Wish I Had The Gift Of Making Rhymes, For Methinks There Is Poetry In My Head And Heart Since I Have Been In Love With You.

A Pure Hand Needs No Glove To Cover It.

When An Uninstructed Multitude Attempts To See With Its Eyes, It Is Exceedingly Apt To Be Deceived.

Methinks It Is A Token Of Healthy And Gentle Characteristics, When Women Of High Thoughts And Accomplishments Love To Sew; Especially As They Are Never More At Home With Their Own Hearts Than While So Occupied.

I Do Detest All Offices - All, At Least, That Are Held On A Political Tenure.

Before This Ugly Edifice, And Between It And The Wheel-track Of The Street, Was A Grass-plot, Much Overgrown With Burdock, Pig-weed, Apple-pern, And Such Unsightly Vegetation, Which Evidently Found Something Congenial In The Soil That Had So Early Borne The Black Flower Of Civilized Society, A Prison.

That Pit Of Blackness That Lies Beneath Us, Everywhere ... The Firmest Substance Of Human Happiness Is But A Thin Crust Spread Over It, With Just Reality Enough To Bear Up The Illusive Stage-scenery Amid Which We Tread. It Needs No Earthquake To Open The Chasm.

What Is The Voice Of Song When The World Lacks The Ear Of Taste?

My Wife Is - In The Strictest Sense - My Sole Companion, And I Need No Other. There Is No Vacancy In My Mind Any More Than In My Heart.

There Is No Such Thing In Man's Nature As A Settled And Full Resolve Either For Good Or Evil, Except At The Very Moment Of Execution.

In An Ancient Though Not Very Populous Settlement, In A Retired Corner Of One Of The New England States, Arise The Walls Of A Seminary Of Learning, Which, For The Convenience Of A Name, Shall Be Entitled "harley College.

What We Call Real Estate - The Solid Ground To Build A House On - Is The Broad Foundation On Which Nearly All The Guilt Of This World Rests.

Honesty And Wisdom Are Such A Delightful Pastime, At Another Person's Expense!

Eager Souls, Mystics And Revolutionaries, May Propose To Refashion The World In Accordance With Their Dreams; But Evil Remains, And So Long As It Lurks In The Secret Places Of The Heart, Utopia Is Only The Shadow Of A Dream

I Heard A Neigh. Oh, Such A Brisk And Melodious Neigh It Was. My Very Heart Leapt With The Sound.

To Do Nothing Is The Way To Be Nothing.

Oh, For The Years I Have Not Lived, But Only Dreamed Of Living.

And What Is More Melancholy Than The Old Apple-trees That Linger About The Spot Where Once Stood A Homestead, But Where There Is Now Only A Ruined Chimney Rising Our Of A Grassy And Weed-grown Cellar? They Offer Their Fruit To Every Wayfarer--apples That Are Bitter-sweet With The Moral Of Times Vicissitude.

The Christian Faith Is A Grand Cathedral With Divinely Pictured Windows.

Happiness Is A Butterfly, Which When Pursued, Is Always Just Beyond Your Grasp, But Which, If You Will Sit Down Quietly, May Alight Upon You.

She Poured Out The Liquid Music Of Her Voice To Quench The Thirst Of His Spirit.

Earth Has One Angel Less And Heaven One More, Since Yesterday.

Do Anything, Save To Lie Down And Die!

Dream Strange Things And Make Them Look Like Truth.

The Greatest Possible Mint Of Style Is To Make The Words Absolutely Disappear Into The Thought.

Our Most Intimate Friend Is Not He To Whom We Show The Worst, But The Best Of Our Nature.

His Stories Are Good To Hear At Night, Because We Can Dream About Them Asleep; And Good In The Morning, Too, Because Then We Can Dream About Them Awake. (cowslip)

A Woman's Chastity Consists, Like An Onion, Of A Series Of Coats. You May Strip Off The Outer Ones Without Doing Much Mischief, Perhaps None At All ; But You Keep Taking Off One After Another, In Expectation Of Coming To The Inner Nucleus, Including The Whole Value Of The Matter. It Proves, However, That There Is No Such Nucleus, And That Chastity Is Diffused Through The Whole Series Of Coats, Is Lessened With The Removal Of Each, And Vanishes With The Final One Which You Supposed Would Introduce You To The Hidden Pearl.

Of All The Events Which Constitute A Person's Biography, There Is Scarcely One ... To Which The World So Easily Reconciles Itself As To His Death.

Sleeping Or Waking, We Hear Not The Airy Footsteps Of The Strange Things That Almost Happen.

Wherever There Is A Heart And An Intellect, The Diseases Of The Physical Frame Are Tinged With The Peculiarities Of These.

No Fountain So Small But That Heaven May Be Imaged In Its Bosom.

Shall We Never Never Get Rid Of This Past? ... It Lies Upon The Present Like A Giant's Dead Body.

If Cities Were Built By The Sound Of Music, Then Some Edifices Would Appear To Be Constructed By Grave, Solemn Tones,--others To Have Danced Forth To Light Fantastic Airs.

I Have Laughed, In Bitterness And Agony Of Heart, At The Contrast Between What I Seem And What I Am!

If A Man, Sitting All Alone, Cannot Dream Strange Things, And Make Them Look Like Truth, He Need Never Try To Write Romances.

How Is It Possible To Sayan Unkind Or Irreverential Word Of Rome? The City Of All Time, And Of All The World!

Death Possesses A Good Deal, Of Real Estate, Namely, The Graveyard In Every Town.

Words - So Innocent And Powerless As They Are, As Standing In A Dictionary, How Potent For Good And Evil They Become In The Hands Of One Who Knows How To Combine Them.

When Scattered Clouds Are Resting On The Bosoms Of Hills, It Seems As If One Might Climb Into The Heavenly Region, Earth Being So Intermixed With Sky, And Gradually Transformed Into It.

Men Of Cold Passions Have Quick Eyes.

The Greatest Obstacle To Being Heroic Is The Doubt Whether One May Going To Prove One's Self A Fool.

Nobody, I Think, Ought To Read Poetry, Or Look At Pictures Or Statues, Who Cannot Find A Great Deal More In Them Than The Poet Or Artist Has Actually Expressed. Their Highest Merit Is Suggestiveness.

America Is Now Wholly Given Over To A D--d Mob Of Scribbling Women, And I Should Have No Chance Of Success While The Public Taste Is Occupied With Their Trash - And Should Be Ashamed Of Myself If I Did Succeed. What Is The Mystery Of These Innumerable Editions Of The Lamplighter, And Other Books Neither Better Nor Worse? - Worse They Could Not Be, And Better They Need Not Be, When They Sell By 100,000.

Would All, Who Cherish Such Wild Wishes, But Look Around Them, They Would Oftenest Find Their Sphere Of Duty, Of Prosperity, And Happiness, Within Those Precincts, And In That Station Where Providence Itself Has Cast Their Lot. Happy They Who Read The Riddle Without A Weary World-search, Or A Lifetime Spent In Vain!

There Is Something More Awful In Happiness Than In Sorrow--the Latter Being Earthly And Finite, The Former Composed Of The Substance And Texture Of Eternity, So That Spirits Still Embodied May Well Tremble At It.

Be True! Be True! Be True! Show Freely To The World, If Not Your Worst, Yet Some Trait Whereby The Worst May Be Inferred!

This Above All: Be True, Be True, Be True.

It Is A Little Remarkable, That - Though Disinclined To Talk Overmuch Of Myself And My Affairs At The Fireside, And To My Personal Friends - An Autobiographical Impulse Should Twice In My Life Have Taken Possession Of Me, In Addressing The Public.

She Had Not Known The Weight Until She Felt The Freedom.

There Is Evil In Every Human Heart, Which May Remain Latent, Perhaps, Through The Whole Of Life; But Circumstances May Rouse It To Activity.

By The Sympathy Of Your Human Hearts For Sin Ye Shall Scent Out All The Places Whether In Church, Bedchamber, Street, Field, Or Forest Where Crime Has Been Committed, And Shall Exult To Behold The Whole Earth One Stain Of Guilt, One Mighty Blood Spot.

Life, Within Doors, Has Few Pleasanter Prospects Than A Neatly-arranged And Well-provisioned Breakfast-table. We Come To It Freshly, In The Dewy Youth Of The Day, And When Our Spiritual And Sensual Elements Are In Better Accord Than At A Later Period; So That The Material Delights Of The Morning Meal Are Capable Of Being Fully Enjoyed, Without Any Very Grievous Reproaches, Whether Gastric Or Conscientious, For Yielding Even A Trifle Overmuch To The Animal Department Of Our Nature.

Depending Upon One Another's Hearts, Ye Had Still Hoped That Virtue Were Not All A Dream. Now Are Ye Undeceived. Evil Is The Nature Of Mankind.

The World Surely Has Not Another Place Like Oxford; It Is A Despair To See Such A Place And Ever To Leave It, For It Would Take A Lifetime And More Than One To Comprehend And Enjoy It Satisfactorily.

To-morrow Would Bring Its Own Trial With It; So Would The Next Day, And So Would The Next; Each Its Own Trial, And Yet The Very Same That Was Now So Unutterably Grievous To Be Borne. The Days Of The Far-off Future Would Toil Onward, Still With The Same Burden For Her To Take Up, And Bear Along With Her, But Never To Fling Down; For The Accumulating Days, And Added Years, Would Pile Up Their Misery Upon The Heap Of Shame.

But There Is A Fatality, A Feeling So Irresistible And Inevitable That It Has The Force Of Doom, Which Almost Invariably Compels Human Beings To Linger Around And Haunt, Ghost-like, The Spot Where Some Great And Marked Event Has Given The Colour To Their Lifetime; And, Still The More Irresistibly, The Darker The Tinge That Saddens It.

When The Artist Rises High Enough To Achieve The Beautiful, The Symbol By Which He Makes It Perceptible To Mortal Senses Becomes Of Little Value In His Eyes, While His Spirit Possesses Itself In The Enjoyment Of The Reality.

If The Truth Were To Be Known, Everyone Would Be Wearing A Scarlet Letter Of One Form Or Another.

Death Should Take Me While I Am In The Mood.

The Present Is Burthened Too Much With The Past.

Every Individual Has A Place To Fill In The World And Is Important In Some Respect Whether He Chooses To Be So Or Not.

Selfishness Is One Of The Qualities Apt To Inspire Love.

And There I Sat, Long Long Ago, Waiting For The World To Know Me.

Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

Some Maladies Are Rich And Precious And Only To Be Acquired By The Right Of Inheritance Or Purchased With Gold.

The World Owes All Its Onward Impulses To Men Ill At Ease. The Happy Man Inevitably Confines Himself Within Ancient Limits.

It Is A Good Lesson - Though It May Often Be A Hard One - For A Man... To Step Aside Out Of The Narrow Circle In Which His Claims Are Recognized, And To Find How Utterly Devoid Of Significance, Beyond That Circle, Is All That He Achieves, And All He Aims At.

Happiness Is Like A Butterfly.

Like A Butterfly

New England Is Quite As Large A Lump Of Earth As My Heart Can Really Take In.

The Moment When A Man's Head Drops Off Is Seldom Or Never, I Am Inclined To Think, Precisely The Most Agreeable Of His Life. Nevertheless, Like The Greater Part Of Our Misfortunes, Even So Serious A Contingency Brings Its Remedy And Consolation With It, If The Sufferer Will But Make The Best, Rather Than The Worst, Of The Accident Which Has Befallen Him.

Sunlight Is Like The Breath Of Life To The Pomp Of Autumn.

But This Had Been A Sin Of Passion, Not Of Principle, Nor Even Purpose.

The Greatest Obstacle To Being Heroic Is The Doubt Whether One May Not Be Going To Prove One's Self A Fool; The Truest Heroism Is To Resist The Doubt; And The Profoundest Wisdom, To Know When It Ought To Be Resisted, And When It Be Obeyed.

Religion And Art Spring From The Same Root And Are Close Kin. Economics And Art Are Strangers.

We Are As Happy As People Can Be, Without Making Themselves Ridiculous, And Might Be Even Happier; But, As A Matter Of Taste, We Choose To Stop Short At This Point.

...chillingworth Was A Striking Evidence Of Man's Faculty Of Transforming Himself Into A Devil, If He Will Only, For A Reasonable Space Of Time, Undertake A Devil's Office.

Halfway Down A By-street Of One Of Our New England Towns Stands A Rusty Wooden House, With Seven Acutely Peaked Gables, Facing Towards Various Points Of The Compass, And A Huge, Clustered Chimney In The Midst. The Street Is Pyncheon Street; The House Is The Old Pyncheon House; And An Elm-tree, Of Wide Circumference, Rooted Before The Door, Is Familiar To Every Town-born Child By The Title Of The Pyncheon Elm.

All Brave Men Love; For He Only Is Brave Who Has Affections To Fight For, Whether In The Daily Battle Of Life, Or In Physical Contests.

The Traveller Knows Not Who May Be Concealed By The Innumerable Trunks And The Thick Boughs Overhead; So That With Lonely Footsteps He May Yet Be Passing Through An Unseen Multitude.

She Had Wandered, Without Rule Or Guidance, Into A Moral Wilderness... Her Intellect And Heart Had Their Home, As It Were, In Desert Places, Where She Roamed As Freely As The Wild Indian In His Woods... The Scarlet Letter Was Her Passport Into Regions Where Other Women Dared Not Tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These Had Been Her Teachers—stern And Wild Ones—and They Had Made Her Strong, But Taught Her Much Amiss.

Generosity Is The Flower Of Justice.

As A General Rule, Providence Seldom Vouchsafes To Mortals Any More Than Just That Degree Of Encouragement Which Suffices To Keep Them At A Reasonably Full Exertion Of Their Powers.

A Writer Of Story Books! What Kind Of Business In Life-what Mode Of Glorifying God, Or Being Serviceable To Mankind In His Day And Generation-may That Be? Why, The Degenerate Fellow Might As Well Have Been A Fiddler!

If We Take The Freedom To Put A Friend Under Our Microscope, We Thereby Insulate Him From Many Of His True Relations, Magnify His Peculiarities, Inevitably Tear Him Into Parts, And, Of Course, Patch Him Very Clumsily Together Again. What Wonder, Then, Should We Be Frightened By The Aspect Of A Monster.

Nervous And Excitable Persons Need To Talk A Great Deal, By Way Of Letting Off Their Steam.

Nothing Gives A Sadder Sense Of Decay Than This Loss Or Suspension Of The Power To Deal With Unaccustomed Things, And To Keep Up With The Swiftness Of The Passing Moment. [speaking Of Self-posed Isolation In Old Age.]

Passing Moments

It Is Not Good For Man To Cherish A Solitary Ambition. Unless There Be Those Around Him, By Whose Example He May Regulate Himself, His Thoughts, Desires, And Hopes Will Become Extravagant, And He The Semblance, Perhaps The Reality, Of A Madman

Trusting No Man As His Friend, He Could Not Recognize His Enemy When The Latter Actually Appeared.

Mountains Are Earth's Undecaying Monuments.

A Vast Deal Of Human Sympathy Runs Along The Electric Line Of Needlework, Stretching From The Throne To The Wicker Chair Of The Humble Seamstress.

Accuracy Is Twin Brother To Honesty, And Inaccuracy To Dishonesty.

We Men Of Study, Whose Heads Are In Our Books, Have Need To Be Straightly Looked After! We Dream In Our Waking Moments, And Walk In Our Sleep.

I Have Come To See The Nonsense Of Attempting To Describe Fine Scenery. There Is No Such Possibility. If Scenery Could Be Adequately Reproduced In Words, There Would Have Been No Need Of God's Making It In Reality.

We Are But Shadows: We Are, Not Endowed With Real Life, And All That Seems Most Real About Us Is But The Thinnest Substance Of A Dream,--till The Heart Be Touched. That Touch Creates Us--then We Begin To Be--thereby We Are Beings Of Reality And Inheritors Of Eternity.

I Wonder That We Americans Love Our Country At All, It Having No Limits And No Oneness; And When You Try To Make It A Matter Of The Heart, Everything Falls Away Except One's Native State; -neither Can You Seize Hold Of That, Unless You Tear It Out Of The Union, Bleeding And Quivering.

She Wanted—what Some People Want Throughout Life—a Grief That Should Deeply Touch Her, And Thus Humanize And Make Her Capable Of Sympathy.

Those With Whom We Can Apparently Become Well Acquainted In A Few Moments Are Generally The Most Difficult To Rightly Know And To Understand.

There Are Many Things In This World That A Child Must Not Ask About.

Language,-human Language,-after All Is But Little Better Than The Croak And Cackle Of Fowls, And Other Utterances Of Brute Nature,-sometimes Not So Adequate.

Life, Within Doors, Has Few Pleasanter Prospects Than A Neatly-arranged And Well-provisioned Breakfast-table.

The Love Of Science To Rival The Love Of Woman, In Its Depth And Absorbing Energy.

Masculine Observers, If The Birth-mark Did Not Heighten Their Admiration, Contented Themselves With Wishing It Away, That The World Might Possess One Living Specimen Of Ideal Loveliness, Without The Semblance Of A Flaw.

There Is So Much Wretchedness In The World, That We May Safely Take The Word Of Any Mortal Professing To Need Our Assistance; And, Even Should We Be Deceived, Still The Good To Ourselves Resulting From A Kind Act Is Worth More Than The Trifle By Which We Purchase It.

Articulate Words Are A Harsh Clamor And Dissonance. When Man Arrives At His Highest Perfection, He Will Again Be Dumb.

No Author, Without A Trial, Can Conceive Of The Difficulty Of Writing A Romance About A Country Where There Is No Shadow, No Antiquity, No Mystery, No Picturesque And Gloomy Wrong, Nor Anything But A Commonplace Prosperity, In Broad And Simple Daylight, As Is Happily The Case With My Dear Native Land.

In The Depths Of Every Heart, There Is A Tomb And A Dungeon, Though The Lights, The Music, And Revelry Above May Cause Us To Forget Their Existence, And The Buried Ones, Or Prisoners Whom They Hide. But Sometimes, And Oftenest At Midnight, Those Dark Receptacles Are Flung Wide Open. In An Hour Like This, When The Mind Has A Passive Sensibility, But No Active Strength; When The Imagination Is A Mirror, Imparting Vividness To All Ideas, Without The Power Of Selecting Or Controlling Them; Then Pray That Your Grieves May Slumber, And The Brotherhood Of Remorse Not Break Their Chain.

But, All This While, I Was Giving Myself Very Unnecessary Alarm. Providence Had Mediated Better Things For Me Than I Could Possibly Imagine For Myself.

Life Figures Itself To Me As A Festal Or Funereal Procession.

Sunlight Is Painting.

Though We Speak Nonsense, God Will Pick Out The Meaning Of It.

Death Is So Genuine A Fact That It Excludes Falsehoods, Or Betrays Its Emptiness; It Is A Touchstone That Proves The Gold, And Dishonors The Baser Metal.

This Dull River Has A Deep Religion Of Its Own; So, Let Us Trust, Has The Dullest Human Soul, Though, Perhaps, Unconsciously.

Love, Whether Newly Born, Or Aroused From A Deathlike Slumber, Must Always Create Sunshine, Filling The Heart So Full Of Radiance, This It Overflows Upon The Outward World.

Insincerity In A Man's Own Heart Must Make All His Enjoyments, All That Concerns Him, Unreal; So That His Whole Life Must Seem Like A Merely Dramatic Representation.

No, My Little Pearl! Thou Must Gather Thine Own Sunshine. I Have None To Give Thee.

There Is Great Incongruity In This Idea Of Monuments, Since Those To Whom They Are Usually Dedicated Need No Such Recognition To Embalm Their Memory; And Any Man Who Does, Is Not Worthy Of One.

Every Crime Destroys More Edens Than Our Own

Last Night, There Came A Frost, Which Has Done Great Damage To My Garden.... It Is Sad That Nature Will Play Such Tricks On Us Poor Mortals, Inviting Us With Sunny Smiles To Confide In Her, And Then, When We Are Entirely Within Her Power, Striking Us To The Heart.

But, Irreverently Consorting With These Grave, Reputable, And Pious People, These Elders Of The Church, These Chaste Dames And Dewy Virgins, There Were Men Of Dissolute Lives And Women Of Spotted Fame, Wretches Given Over To All Mean And Filthy Vice, And Suspected Even Of Horrid Crimes. It Was Strange To See That The Good Shrank Not From The Wicked, Nor Were The Sinners Abashed By The Saints.

One Picture In Ten Thousand, Perhaps, Ought To Live In The Applause Of Mankind, From Generation To Generation Until The Colors Fade And Blacken Out Of Sight Or The Canvas Rot Entirely Away.

It [the Scarlet Letter] Had The Effect Of A Spell, Taking Her Out Of The Ordinary Relations With Humanity, And Enclosing Her In A Sphere By Herself.

Human Nature Will Not Flourish, Any More Than A Potato, If It Be Planted And Replanted, For Too Long A Series Of Generations, In The Same Worn-out Soil. My Children Have Had Other Birthplaces, And, So Far As Their Fortunes May Be Within My Control, Shall Strike Their Roots Into Unaccustomed Earth.

In Youth Men Are Apt To Write More Wisely Than They Really Know Or Feel; And The Remainder Of Life May Be Not Idly Spent In Realizing And Convincing Themselves Of The Wisdom Which They Uttered Long Ago.

It Is Not Strange That That Early Love Of The Heart Should Come Back, As It So Often Does When The Dim Eye Is Brightening With Its Last Light. It Is Not Strange That The Freshest Fountains The Heart Has Ever Known In Its Wastes Should Bubble Up Anew When The Lifeblood Is Growing Stagnant. It Is Not Strange That A Bright Memory Should Come To A Dying Old Man, As The Sunshine Breaks Across The Hills At The Close Of A Stormy Day; Nor That In The Light Of That Ray, The Very Clouds That Made The Day Dark Should Grow Gloriously Beautiful.

At Almost Every Step In Life We Meet With Young Men From Whom We Anticipate Wonderful Things, But Of Whom, After Careful Inquiry, We Never Hear Another Word. Life Certain Chintzes, Calicoes, And Ginghams, They Show Finely On Their First Newness, But Cannot Stand The Sun And Rain, And Assume A Very Sober Aspect After Washing Day.

The Breath Of Peace Was Fanning Her Glorious Brow, Her Head Was Bowed A Very Little Forward, And A Tress, Escaping From Its Bonds, Fell By The Side Of Her Pure White Temple, And Close To Her Just Opened Lips; It Hung There Motionless! No Breath Disturbed Its Repose! She Slept As An Angel Might Sleep, Having Accomplished The Mission Of Her God.

In All Her Intercourse With Society, However, There Was Nothing That Made Her Feel As If She Belonged To It... She Stood Apart From Mortal Interests, Yet Close Beside Them, Like A Ghost That Revisits The Familiar Fireside, And Can No Longer Make Itself Seen Or Felt.

Would Time But Await The Close Of Our Favorite Follies, We Should All Be Young Men, All Of Us, And Until Doom's Day.

Salt Is White And Pure - There Is Something Holy In Salt.

The World, That Grey-bearded And Wrinkled Profligate, Decrepit, Without Being Venerable.

My Fortune Somewhat Resembled That Of A Person Who Should Entertain An Idea Of Committing Suicide, And, Altogether Beyond His Hopes, Meet With The Good Hap To Be Murdered.

The Heart Of True Womanhood Knows Where Its Own Sphere Is, And Never Seeks To Stray Beyond It!

If Mankind Were All Intellect, They Would Be Continually Changing, So That One Age Would Be Entirely Unlike Another. The Great Conservative Is The Heart, Which Remains The Same In All Ages; So That Commonplaces Of A Thousand Years' Standing Are As Effective As Ever.

Amid The Seeming Confusion Of Our Mysterious World , Individuals Are So Nicely Adjusted To A System, And Systems To One Another And To A Whole, That, By Stepping Aside For A Moment, A Man Exposes Himself To A Fearful Risk Of Losing His Place Forever. (wakefield)

Caresses, Expressions Of One Sort Or Another, Are Necessary To The Life Of The Affections As Leaves Are To The Life Of A Tree. If They Are Wholly Restrained, Love Will Die At The Roots.

As The Moral Gloom Of The World Overpowers All Systematic Gaiety, Even So Was Their Home Of Wild Mirth Made Desolate Amid The Sad Forest.

A Screen... The Scenery And The Figures Of Life Were Perfectly Represented, But With That Bewitching, Yet Indescribably Difference, Which Always Makes A Picture, An Image, Or A Shadow, So Much More Attractive Than The Original.

If Human Love Hath Power To Penetrate The Veil--and Hath It Not?--then There Are Yet Living Here A Few Who Have The Blessedness Of Knowing That An Angel Loves Them.

What Other Dungeon Is So Dark As One's Own Heart! What Jailer So Inexorable As One's Self!

A Long Time Ago, In A Town With Which I Used To Be Familiarly Acquainted, There Dwelt An Elderly Person Of Grim Aspect, Known By The Name And Title Of Doctor Grimshawe, Whose Household Consisted Of A Remarkably Pretty And Vivacious Boy, And A Perfect Rosebud Of A Girl, Two Or Three Years Younger Than He, And An Old Maid Of All Work, Of Strangely Mixed Breed, Crusty In Temper And Wonderfully Sluttish In Attire.

The Moment When A Man's Head Drops Off Is Seldom Or Never, I Am Inclined To Think, Precisely The Most Agreeable Of His Life.

To Be Left Alone In The Wide World With Scarcely A Friend,--this Makes The Sadness Which, Striking Its Pang Into The Minds Of The Young And The Affectionate, Teaches Them Too Soon To Watch And Interpret The Spirit-signs Of Their Own Hearts.

It Was A Day In Early Spring; And As That Sweet, Genial Time Of Year And Atmosphere Calls Out Tender Greenness From The Ground,--beautiful Flowers, Or Leaves That Look Beautiful Because So Long Unseen Under The Snow And Decay,--so The Pleasant Air And Warmth Had Called Out Three Young People, Who Sat On A Sunny Hill-side Enjoying The Warm Day And One Another.

Death Was Too Definite An Object To Be Wished For Or Avoided.

Truth Often Finds Its Way To The Mind Close Muffled In Robes Of Sleep, And Then Speaks With Uncompromising Directness Of Matters In Regard To Which We Practise An Unconscious Self-deception During Our Waking Moments.

Great Men Need To Be Lifted Upon The Shoulders Of The Whole World, In Order To Conceive Their Great Ideas Or Perform Their Great Deeds. That Is, There Must Be An Atmosphere Of Greatness Round About Them. A Hero Cannot Be A Hero Unless In An Heroic World.

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves.

The Present Is Burdened Too Much With The Past. We Have Not Time, In Our Earthly Existence, To Appreciate What Is Warm With Life, And Immediately Around Us.

Happiness Is Like A Butterfly - The More You Chase, The More Subtle, But If You Stop Moving And Quietly Wait For It To Land On You.

The Only Sensible Ends Of Literature Are, First, The Pleasurable Toil Of Writing; Second, The Gratification Of One's Family And Friends; And Lastly, The Solid Cash.

Family And Friends

Who Can Tell Where Happiness May Come, Or Where, Though An Expected Guest, It May Never Show Its Face?

Let Us Acknowledge It Wiser, If Not More Sagacious To Follow Out One's Day-dream To Its Natural Consummation, Although If The Vision Has Been Worth The Having, It Is Certain Never To Be Consummated Otherwise Than By A Failure.

There Is An Alchemy Of Quiet Malice By Which Women Can Concoct A Subtle Poison From Ordinary Trifles.

To The Untrue Man, The Whole Universe Is False- It Is Impalpable- It Shrinks To Nothing Within His Grasp. And He Himself Is In So Far As He Shows Himself In A False Light, Becomes A Shadow, Or, Indeed, Ceases To Exist.

No Man For Any Considerable Period Can Wear One Face To Himself And Another To The Multitude, Without Finally Getting Bewildered As To Which May Be The True.

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves At The Moment Of Waking From A Troubled Dream; It May Be So The Moment After Death.

A Few Feathery Flakes Are Scattered Widely Through The Air, And Hover Downward With Uncertain Flight, Now Almost Alighting On The Earth, Now Whirled Again Aloft Into Remote Regions Of The Atmosphere.

Happiness In This World, When It Comes, Comes Incidentally. Make It The Object Of Pursuit, And It Leads Us A Wild-goose Chase, And Is Never Attained. Follow Some Other Object, And Very Possibly We May Find That We Have Caught Happiness Without Dreaming Of It.

Women Are Safer In Perilous Situations And Emergencies Than Men, And Might Be Still More So If They Trusted Themselves More Confidingly To The Chivalry Of Manhood.

It Is Remarkable, That Persons Who Speculate The Most Boldly Often Conform With The Most Perfect Quietude To The External Regulations Of Society. The Thoughts Alone Suffice Them, Without Investing Itself In The Flesh And Blood Of Action.

It Is Because The Spirit Is Inestimable, That The Lifeless Body Is So Little Valued.

The Evening Before My Departure For Blithedale, I Was Returning To My Bachelor-apartments, After Attending The Wonderful Exhibition Of The Veiled Lady, When An Elderly-man Of Rather Shabby Appearance Met Me In An Obscure Part Of The Street.

He Had Been Driven Hither By The Impulse Of That Remorse Which Dogged Him Everywhere, And Whose Own Sister And Closely Linked Companion Was That Cowardice Which Invariably Drew Him Back, With Her Tremulous Gripe, Just When The Other Impulse Had Hurried Him To The Verge Of A Disclosure.

The Sorrow That Lay Cold In Her Mother's Heart... Converted It Into A Tomb.

A Human Spirit May Find No Insufficiency Of Food Fit For It, Even In The Custom House.

A High Truth, Indeed, Fairly, Finely, And Skilfully Wrought Out, Brightening At Every Step, And Crowning The Final Development Of A Work Of Fiction, May Add An Artistic Glory, But Is Never Any Truer, And Seldom Any More Evident, At The Last Page Than At The First.

Many Writers Lay Very Great Stress Upon Some Definite Moral Purpose, At Which They Profess To Aim Their Works.

In This Republican Country, Amid The Fluctuating Waves Of Our Social Life, Somebody Is Always At The Drowning-point.

When Individuals Approach One Another With Deep Purposes On Both Sides They Seldom Come At Once To The Matter Which They Have Most At Heart. They Dread The Electric Shock Of A Too Sudden Contact With It.

In The Depths Of Every Heart There Is A Tomb And A Dungeon, Though The Lights, The Music, And The Revelry Above May Cause Us To Forget Their Existence.

It [catholicism] Supplies A Multitude Of External Forms In Which The Spiritual May Be Clothed And Manifested.

Most People Are So Constituted That They Can Only Be Virtuous In A Certain Routine; An Irregular Course Of Life Demoralizes Them.

Some Illusions...are The Shadows Of Great Truths.

This World Owes All Its Forward Impulses To People Ill At Ease.

The Aspect Of The Venerable Mansion Has Always Affected Me Like A Human Countenance, Bearing The Traces Not Merely Of Outward Storm And Sunshine, But Expressive Also, Of The Long Lapse Of Mortal Life, And Accompanying Vicissitudes That Have Passed Within. Were These To Be Worthily Recounted, They Would Form A Narrative Of No Small Interest And Instruction, And Possessing, Moreover, A Certain Remarkable Unity, Which Might Almost Seem The Result Of Artistic Arrangement.

The Ideas Of People In General Are Not Raised Higher Than The Roofs Of The Houses. All Their Interests Extend Over The Earth's Surface In A Layer Of That Thickness. The Meeting-house Steeple Reaches Out Of Their Sphere.

Or-but This More Rarely Happened-she Would Be Convulsed With A Rage Of Grief, And Sob Out Her Love For Her Mother, In Broken Words, And Seem Intent On Proving That She Had A Heart, By Breaking It.

'what Is The Unpardonable Sin' Asked The Lime-burner 'it Is A Sin That Grew Within My Own Breast', Replied Ethan Brand 'the Sin Of An Intellect That Triumphed Over The Sense Of Brotherhood With Man And Reverence For God'.

I Find Nothing So Singular To Life As That Everything Appears To Lose Its Substance The Instant One Actually Grapples With It.

She Could No Longer Borrow From The Future To Ease Her Present Grief.

What A Sweet Reverence Is That When A Young Man Deems His Mistress A Little More Than Mortal And Almost Chides Himself For Longing To Bring Her Close To His Heart.

The Calmer Thought Is Not Always The Right Thought, Just As The Distant View Is Not Always The Truest View

There Can Be...no Power...to Disclose...the Secrets That May Be Buried With A Human Heart. The Heart, Making Itself Guilty Of Such Secrets, Must Perforce Hold Them Until The Day When All Hidden Things Be Revealed.

Come, Therefore, And Let Us Fling Mud At Them!

Nothing Is More Unaccountable Than The Spell That Often Lurks In A Spoken Word. A Thought May Be Present To The Mind, And Two Minds Conscious Of The Same Thought, But As Long As It Remains Unspoken Their Familiar Talk Flows Quietly Over The Hidden Idea.

I Sometimes Fancy," Said Hilda, On Whose Susceptibility The Scene Always Made A Strong Impression, "that Rome--mere Rome--will Crowd Everything Else Out Of My Heart.

Cannot You Conceive That Another Man May Wish Well To The World And Struggle For Its Good On Some Other Plan Than Precisely That Which You Have Laid Down?

Happiness Is Not Found In Things You Possess, But In What You Have The Courage To Release.

The Divine Chemistry Works In The Subsoil.

The Marble Keeps Merely A Cold And Sad Memory Of A Man Who Would Else Be Forgotten. No Man Who Needs A Monument Ever Ought To Have One.

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