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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!

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Can Man Be So

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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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!

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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.

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.

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

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.

Sunlight Is Painting.

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

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.

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.

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

We Dream In Our Waking Moments, And Walk In Our Sleep.

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.

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.

Now Are Ye Undeceived. Evil Is The Nature Of Mankind. Evil Must Be Your Only Happiness. Welcome Again, My Children, To The Communion Of Your Race.

Let The Attempt Be Made, At Whatever Risk.

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

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.

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

Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 Pure Hand Needs No Glove To Cover It.

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.

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.

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.

Mankind Are Earthen Jugs With Spirits In Them.

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

An Unhappy Gentleman, Resolving To Wed Nothing Short Of Perfection, Keeps His Heart And Hand Till Both Get So Old And Withered That No Tolerable Woman Will Accept Them.

...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.

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.

Life Is Made Up Of Marble And Mud.

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

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.

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

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 To The Credit Of Human Nature That, Except Where Its Selfishness Is Brought Into Play, It Loves More Readily Than It Hates.

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.

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

All Merely Graceful Attributes Are Usually The Most Evanescent.

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!

When Romances Do Really Teach Anything, Or Produce Any Effective Operation, It Is Usually Through A Far More Subtle Process Than The Ostensible One. The Author Has Considered It Hardly Worth His While, Therefore, Relentlessly To Impale The Story With Its Moral As With An Iron Rod-or, Rather, As By Sticking A Pin Through A Butterfly-thus At Once Depriving It Of Life, And Causing It To Stiffen In An Ungainly And Unnatural Attitude.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Dream Strange Things And Make Them Look Like Truth.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Moonlight Is Sculpture.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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

Just As There Comes A Warm Sunbeam Into Every Cottage Window, So Comes A Lovebeam Of God's Care And Pity For Every Separate Need.

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.

Generosity Is The Flower Of Justice.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Mountains Are Earth's Undecaying Monuments.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Selfishness Is One Of The Qualities Apt To Inspire Love.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves.

Every Crime Destroys More Edens Than Our Own

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

We Must Not Think Too Unkindly Even Of The East Wind. It Is Not, Perhaps, A Wind To Be Loved, Even In Its Benignest Moods; But There Are Seasons When I Delight To Feel Its Breath Upon My Cheek, Though It Be Never Advisable To Throw Open My Bosom And Take It Into My Heart, As I Would Its Gentle Sisters Of The South And West.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Not Yet Hardened, Many Young Die Good.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

It Is Very Singular How The Fact Of A Man's Death Often Seems To Give People A Truer Idea Of His Character, Whether For Good Or Evil, Than They Have Ever Possessed While He Was Living And Acting Among Them.

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.

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.

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

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.

Do Anything, Save To Lie Down And Die!

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.

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

Time Flies Over Us, But Leaves Its Shadow Behind.

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.

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?

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!

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.

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

Let The Black Flower Blossom As It May!

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

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

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.

The Present Is Burthened Too Much With The Past.

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

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