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.

And there I sat, long long ago, waiting for the world to know me.

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.

But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.

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 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.

The Christian faith is a grand cathedral with divinely pictured windows.