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.
Nathaniel HawthorneYesterday 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.
Nathaniel HawthorneThere 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.
Nathaniel HawthorneIn this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point.
Nathaniel HawthorneHis stories are good to hear at night, because we can dream about them asleep; and good in the morning, too, because then we can dream about them awake. (Cowslip)
Nathaniel Hawthorne