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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.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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And What Is More

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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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.

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It Will Startle You To See What Slaves We Are To By-gone Times-to Death, If We Give The Matter The Right Word! ... We Read In Dead Men's Books! We Laugh At Dead Men's Jokes, And Cry At Dead Men's Pathos! . . . Whatever We Seek To Do, Of Our Own Free Motion, A Dead Man's Icy Hand Obstructs Us!

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

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

Happiness Is Like A Butterfly.

Like A Butterfly

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?

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.

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

The Washing Of Dishes Does Seem To Me The Most Absurd And Unsatisfactory Business That I Ever Undertook. If, When Once Washed, They Would Remain Clean For Ever And Ever (which They Ought In All Reason To Do, Considering How Much Trouble It Is), There Would Be Less Occasion To Grumble; But No Sooner Is It Done, Than It Requires To Be Done Again. On The Whole, I Have Come To The Resolution Not To Use More Than One Dish At Each Meal.

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

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.

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

Our Creator Would Never Have Made Such Lovely Days, And Have Given Us The Deep Hearts To Enjoy Them, Above And Beyond All Thought, Unless We Were Meant To Be Immortal.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The Inward Pleasure Of Imparting Pleasure - That Is The Choicest Of All.

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

Labor Is The Curse Of The World, And Nobody Can Meddle With It Without Becoming Proportionately Brutalized.

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.

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.

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.

Selfishness Is One Of The Qualities Apt To Inspire Love.

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

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

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

There Is No Season When Such Pleasant And Sunny Spots May Be Lighted On, And Produce So Pleasant An Effect On The Feelings As Now In October.

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

'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'.

London Is Like The Grave In One Respect -- Any Man Can Make Himself At Home There; And Whenever A Man Finds Himself Homeless Elsewhere, He Had Better Either Die Or Go To London.

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.

This Greatest Mortal Consolation, Which We Derive From The Transitoriness Of All Things-from The Right Of Saying, In Every Conjuncture, "this, Too, Will Pass Away.

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.

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

Why Are Poets So Apt To Choose Their Mates, Not For Any Similarity Of Poetic Endowment, But For Qualities Which Might Make The Happiness Of The Rudest Handicraftsman As Well As That Of The Ideal Craftsman Of The Spirit? Because, Probably, At His Highest Elevation, The Poet Needs No Human Intercourse; But He Finds It Dreary To Descend, And Be A Stranger.

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.

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

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.

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

A Throng Of Bearded Men In Sad-colored Garments And Gray, Steeple-crowned Hats, Intermixed With Women, Some Wearing Hoods, And Other Bareheaded, Was Assembled In Front Of A Wooden Edifice, The Door Of Which Was Heavily Timbered With Oak, And Studded With Iron Spikes.

Not Yet Hardened, Many Young Die Good.

Man Is A Wretch Without Woman; But Woman Is A Monster-and Thank Heaven, An Almost Impossible And Hitherto Imaginary Monster--without Man, As Her Acknowledged Principal!

Is It A Fact-or Have I Dreamt It-that, By Means Of Electricity, The World Of Matter Has Become A Great Nerve, Vibrating Thousands Of Miles In A Breathless Point Of Time?

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.

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.

What Is There So Ponderous In Evil, That A Thumb's Bigness Of It Should Outweigh The Mass Of Things Not Evil, Which Were Heaped Into The Other Scale!

What We Need For Our Happiness Is Often Close At Hand, If We Knew But How To Seek For It.

...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.

Yesterday I Visited The British Museum; An Exceedingly Tiresome Affair. It Quite Crushes A Person To See So Much At Once; And I Wandered From Hall To Hall With A Weary And Heavy Heart. The Present Is Burdened Too Much With The Past.

...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.

Pleasant Is A Rainy Winter's Day, Within Doors! The Best Study For Such A Day, Or The Best Amusement,—call It Which You Will,—is A Book Of Travels, Describing Scenes The Most Unlike That Sombre One

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

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.

I Cannot Endure To Waste Anything As Precious As Autumn Sunshine By Staying In The House. So I Spend Almost All The Daylight Hours In The Open Air.

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.

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

Romance And Poetry, Ivy, Lichens And Wallflowers Need Ruin To Make Them Grow.

Echo Is The Voice Of A Reflection In A Mirror.

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.

But She Named The Infant "pearl," As Being Of Great Price-purchased With All She Had-her Mother's Only Treasure!

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.

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

Men Of Cold Passions Have Quick Eyes.

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.

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.

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

Never Was There A Dingier, Uglier, Less Picturesque City Than London ... It Is Really Wonderful That So Much Brick And Stone, For Centuries Together, Should Have Been Built Up With So Poor A Result.

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.

Thus We See, Too, In The World That Some Persons Assimilate Only What Is Ugly And Evil From The Same Moral Circumstances Which Supply Good And Beautiful Results--the Fragrance Of Celestial Flowers--to The Daily Life Of Others.

Strength Is Incomprehensible By Weakness, And, Therefore, The More Terrible.

Keep The Imagination Sane--that Is One Of The Truest Conditions Of Communion With Heaven.

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.

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.

See! Those Fiendish Lineaments Graven On The Darkness, The Writhed Lip Of Scorn, The Mockery Of That Living Eye, The Pointed Finger, Touching The Sore Place In Your Heart! Do You Remember Any Act Of Enormous Folly, At Which You Would Blush, Even In The Remotest Cavern Of The Earth? Then Recognize Your Shame.

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?

What, In The Name Of Common-sense, Had I To Do With Any Better Society Than I Had Always Lived In?

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.

Let The Black Flower Blossom As It May!

Such Has Often Been My Apathy, When Objects Long Sought, And Earnestly Desired, Were Placed Within My Reach.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

What Would A Man Do, If He Were Compelled To Live Always In The Sultry Heat Of Society, And Could Never Bathe Himself In Cool Solitude?

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.

Man's Own Youth Is The World's Youth; At Least He Feels As If It Were, And Imagines That The Earth's Granite Substance Is Something Not Yet Hardened, And Which He Can Mould Into Whatever Shape He Likes.

Nobody Will Use Other People's Experience, Nor Have Any Of His Own Till It Is Too Late To Use It.

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

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.

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.

The Founders Of A New Colony, Whatever Utopia Of Human Virtue And Happiness They Might Originally Project, Have Invariably Recognized It Among Their Earliest Practical Necessities To Allot A Portion Of The Virgin Soil As A Cemetery, And Another Portion As The Site Of A Prison.

Let Men Tremble To Win The Hand Of Woman, Unless They Win Along With It The Utmost Passion Of Her Heart! Else It May Be Their Miserable Fortune, When Some Mightier Touch Than Their Own May Have Awakened All Her Sensibilities, To Be Reproached Even For The Calm Content, The Marble Image Of Happiness, Which They Will Have Imposed Upon Her As The Warm Reality.

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.

It Is To The Credit Of Human Nature, That, Except Where Its Selfishness Is Brought Into Play, It Loves More Readily Than It Hates. Hatred, By A Gradual And Quiet Process, Will Even Be Transformed To Love, Unless The Change Be Impeded By A Continually New Irritation Of The Original Feeling Of Hostility.

Inspirational Love

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.

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

The Present Is Burthened Too Much With The Past.

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

The Divine Chemistry Works In The Subsoil.

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

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

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.

Cupid In These Latter Times Has Probably Laid Aside His Bow And Arrow, And Uses Fire-arms -- A Pistol -- Perhaps A Revolver.

Life Is Made Up Of Marble And Mud.

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

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.

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

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

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

A Man's Bewilderment Is The Measure Of His Wisdom.

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.

There Is Something Truer And More Real, Than What We Can See With The Eyes, And Touch With The Finger.

Christian Faith Is A Grand Cathedral, With Divinely Pictured Windows. Standing Without, You See No Glory, Nor Can Possibly Imagine Any; Standing Within, Every Ray Of Light Reveals A Harmony Of Unspeakable Splendors.

A Hero Cannot Be A Hero Unless In A Heroic World.

The Thing You Set Your Mind On Is The Thing You Ultimately Become.

Law Of Attraction

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

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.

If Truth Were Everywhere To Be Shown, A Scarlet Letter Would Blaze Forth On Many A Bosom.

A Grave, Wherever Found, Preaches A Short And Pithy Sermon To The Soul.

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

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!

It Contributes Greatly Towards A Man's Moral And Intellectual Health, To Be Brought Into Habits Of Companionship With Individuals Unlike Himself, Who Care Little For His Pursuits, And Whose Sphere And Abilities He Must Go Out Of Himself To Appreciate.

We Must Not Always Talk In The Market-place Of What Happens To Us In The Forest.

Ugliness Without Tact Is Horrible.

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.

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.

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.

A Pure Hand Needs No Glove To Cover It.

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.

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.

Genius, Indeed, Melts Many Ages Into One, And Thus Effects Something Permanent, Yet Still With A Similarity Of Office To That Of The More Ephemeral Writer. A Work Of Genius Is But The Newspaper Of A Century, Or Perchance Of A Hundred Centuries.

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.

Do Anything, Save To Lie Down And Die!

My Heart Was A Habitation Large Enough For Many Guests, But Lonely And Chill, And Without A Household Fire. I Longed To Kindle One! It Seemed Not So Wild A Dream.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

All Merely Graceful Attributes Are Usually The Most Evanescent.

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

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

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.

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.

You Can Get Assent To Almost Any Proposition So Long As You Are Not Going To Do Anything About It.

Generosity Is The Flower Of Justice.

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.

There Is No Greater Bugbear Than A Strong Willed Relative In The Circle Of His Own Connections.

To Do Nothing Is The Way To Be Nothing.

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

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

The Fiend In His Own Shape Is Less Hideous Than When He Rages In The Breast Of Men.

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

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

The Whole Forest Was Peopled With Frightful Sounds-the Creaking Of The Trees, The Howling Of Wild Beasts, And The Yell Of Indians; While Sometimes The Wind Tolled Like A Distant Church Bell, And Sometimes Gave A Broad Roar Around The Traveler, As If All Nature Were Laughing Him To Scorn. But He Was Himself The Chief Horror Of The Scene, And Shrank Not From Its Other Horrors.

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.

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

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

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.

What A Happy And Holy Fashion It Is That Those Who Love One Another Should Rest On The Same Pillow.

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

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.

Moonlight Is Sculpture.

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

The Love Of Posterity Is The Consequence Of The Necessity Of Death. If A Man Were Sure Of Living Forever Here, He Would Not Care About His Offspring.

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!

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

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

It Was One Of Those Moments—which Sometimes Occur Only At The Interval Of Years—when A Man's Moral Aspect Is Faithfully Revealed To His Mind's Eye. Not Improbably, He Had Never Before Viewed Himself As He Did Now.

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves.

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.

We Go All Wrong By Too Strenuous A Resolution To Go Right.

A Singular Fact, That, When Man Is A Brute, He Is The Most Sensual And Loathsome Of All Brutes.

The Trees Reflected In The River - They Are Unconscious Of A Spiritual World So Near To Them. So Are We.

If We Would Know What Heaven Is Before We Come Thither, Let Us Retire Into The Depths Of Our Own Spirits, And We Shall Find It There Among Holy Thoughts And Feelings.

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

Families Are Always Rising And Falling In America.

A Stale Article, If You Dip It In A Good, Warm, Sunny Smile, Will Go Off Better Than A Fresh One That You've Scowled Upon.

Bees Are Sometimes Drowned In The Honey Which They Collectso Some Writers Are Lost In Their Collected Learning.

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

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

A Woman's Chastity Consists, Like An Onion, Of A Series Of Coats.

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.

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.

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.

The Best Of Us Being Unfit To Die, What An Unexpressible Absurdity To Put The Worst To Death.

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

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