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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.]

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Nothing Gives A Sadder

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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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.]

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Passing Moments

More From Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Let The Black Flower Blossom As It May!

Not Yet Hardened, Many Young Die Good.

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Men Of Cold Passions Have Quick Eyes.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

'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'.

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

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

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

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.

Easy Reading Is Damn Hard Writing.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

It Is A Curious Subject Of Observation And Inquiry, Whether Hatred And Love Be Not The Same Thing At Bottom. Each, In Its Utmost Development, Supposes A High Degree Of Intimacy And Heart-knowledge; Each Renders One Individual Dependent For The Food Of His Affections And Spiritual Life Upon Another; Each Leaves The Passionate Lover, Or The No Less Passionate Hater, Forlorn And Desolate By The Withdrawal Of His Object.

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

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

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 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.

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

Happiness Is Like A Butterfly.

Like A Butterfly

Life Is Made Up Of Marble And Mud.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

It Loves More Readily Than It Hates.

Hatred And Anger

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!

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

Dream Strange Things And Make Them Look Like Truth.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

Every Crime Destroys More Edens Than Our Own

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

Time Flies Over Us, But Leaves Its Shadow Behind.

Mankind Are Earthen Jugs With Spirits In Them.

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

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.

The Divine Chemistry Works In The Subsoil.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Ugliness Without Tact Is Horrible.

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

Sunlight Is Painting.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Let The Attempt Be Made, At Whatever Risk.

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.

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.

Death Should Take Me While I Am In The Mood.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Selfishness Is One Of The Qualities Apt To Inspire Love.

Mountains Are Earth's Undecaying Monuments.

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.

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.

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

...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.

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

We Sometimes Congratulate Ourselves.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Do Anything, Save To Lie Down And Die!

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.

Families Are Always Rising And Falling In America.

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

...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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Jacob K. Javits

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