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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.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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By The Sympathy Of

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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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.

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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.

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.

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

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!

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

Moonlight Is Sculpture.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Men Of Cold Passions Have Quick Eyes.

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.

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

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.

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.

All Merely Graceful Attributes Are Usually The Most Evanescent.

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

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

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.

No Summer Ever Came Back, And No Two Summers Ever Were Alike. Times Change, And People Change; And If Our Hearts Do Not Change As Readily, So Much The Worse For Us.

Let The Attempt Be Made, At Whatever Risk.

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.

We Do Ourselves Wrong, And Too Meanly Estimate The Holiness Above Us, When We Deem That Any Act Or Enjoyment Good In Itself, Is Not Good To Do Religiously.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Not Yet Hardened, Many Young Die Good.

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

It Is My Opinion That A Man's Soul May Be Buried And Perish Under A Dung-heap, Or In A Furrow Field, Just As Well As Under A Pile Of Money.

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.

Generosity Is The Flower Of Justice.

Life Is Made Up Of Marble And Mud.

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

I Want Nothing To Do With Politicians. Their Hearts Wither Away, And Die Out Of Their Bodies. Their Consciences Are Turned To India-rubber, Or To Some Substance As Black As That, And Which Will Stretch As Much.

It Loves More Readily Than It Hates.

Hatred And Anger

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

As Far As My Experience Goes, Men Of Genius Are Fairly Gifted With The Social Qualities; And In This Age, There Appears To Be A Fellow-feeling Among Them, Which Had Not Heretofore Been Developed. As Men, They Ask Nothing Better Than To Be On Equal Terms With Their Fellow-men; And As Authors, They Have Thrown Aside Their Proverbial Jealousy, And Acknowledge A Generous Brotherhood.

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

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

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.

Mountains Are Earth's Undecaying Monuments.

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.

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.

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.

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.

He Whose Genius Appears Deepest And Truest Excels His Fellows In Nothing Save The Knack Of Expression; He Throws Out Occasionally A Lucky Hint At Truths Of Which Every Human Soul Is Profoundly Though Unutterably Conscious.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

'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'.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

It Is A Curious Subject Of Observation And Inquiry, Whether Hatred And Love Be Not The Same Thing At Bottom.

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.

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

Some Attribute Had Departed From Her, The Permanence Of Which Had Been Essential To Keep Her A Woman. Such Is Frequently The Fate, And Such The Stern Development, Of The Feminine Character And Person, When The Woman Has Encountered, And Lived Through, An Experience Of Peculiar Severity. If She Be All Tenderness, She Will Die. If She Survive, The Tenderness Will Either Be Crushed Out Of Her, Or—and The Outward Semblance Is The Same—crushed So Deeply Into Her Heart That It Can Never Show Itself More.

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

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?

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

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.

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.

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.

Let Men Tremble To Win The Hand Of Woman, Unless They Win Along With It The Utmost Passion Of Her Heart!

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

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? Why, Therefore, Should He Build A More Cumbrous Habitation Than Can Readily Be Carried Off With Him? Why Should He Make Himself A Prisoner For Life In Brick, And Stone, And Old Worm-eaten Timber, When He May Just As Easily Dwell, In One Sense, Nowhere,-in A Better Sense, Wherever The Fit And Beautiful Shall Offer Him A Home?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Death Should Take Me While I Am In The Mood.

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

Dream Strange Things And Make Them Look Like Truth.

The Present Is Burthened Too Much With The Past.

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

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

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

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

Law Of Attraction

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

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

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?

A Pure Hand Needs No Glove To Cover It.

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

A Bodily Disease Which We Look Upon As Whole And Entire Within Itself, May After All, Be But A Symptom Of Some Ailment In The Spiritual Part.

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves.

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.

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.

Let The Black Flower Blossom As It May!

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.

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.

Ugliness Without Tact Is Horrible.

...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.

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 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

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.

Mankind Are Earthen Jugs With Spirits In Them.

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

Every Crime Destroys More Edens Than Our Own

I Find Myself At The Extremity Of A Long Beach. How Gladly Does The Spirit Leap Forth, And Suddenly Enlarge Its Sense Of Being To The Full Extent Of The Broad, Blue, Sunny Deep! A Greeting And A Homage To The Sea! I Descend Over Its Margin, And Dip My Hand Into The Wave That Meets Me, And Bathe My Brow. That Far-resounding Roar Is The Ocean’s Voice Of Welcome. His Salt Breath Brings A Blessing Along With It.

The Book, If You Would See Anything In It, Requires To Be Read In The Clear, Brown, Twilight Atmosphere In Which It Was Written; If Opened In The Sunshine, It Is Apt To Look Exceedingly Like A Volume Of Blank Pages.

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

Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

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.

When A Writer Calls His Work A Romance, It Need Hardly Be Observed That He Wishes To Claim A Certain Latitude, Both As To Its Fashion And Material, Which He Would Not Have Felt Himself Entitled To Assume Had He Professed To Be Writing A Novel.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

To Do Nothing Is The Way To Be Nothing.

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!

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.

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

The Divine Chemistry Works In The Subsoil.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Can Man Be So Age-stricken That No Faintest Sunshine Of His Youth May Re Visit Him Once A Year? It Is Impossible. The Moss On Our Time-worn Mansion Brightens Into Beauty; And The Good Old Pastor, Who Once Dwelt Here, Renewed His Prime And Regained His Boyhood In The Genial Breeze Of His Ninetieth Spring. Alas For The Worn And Heavy Soul, If, Whether In Youth Or Age, It Has Outlived Its Privilege Of Springtime Sprightliness!

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.

Unquestionably We Do Stand By Our National Flag As Stoutly As Any People In The World; And I Myself Have Felt The Heart-throb At Sight Of It, As Sensibly As Other Men.

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)

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

A Man--poet, Prophet, Or Whatever Be May Be--readily Persuades Himself Of His Right To All The Worship That Is Voluntarily Tendered.

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

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

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

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

Do Anything, Save To Lie Down And Die!

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.

Time Flies Over Us, But Leaves Its Shadow Behind.

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.

In Our Nature, However, There Is A Provision, Alike Marvelous And Merciful, That The Sufferer Should Never Know The Intensity Of What He Endures By Its Present Torture, But Chiefly By The Pang That Rankles After It.

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Theodore Roosevelt

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