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.
Nathaniel HawthorneHuman 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.
Nathaniel HawthorneReligion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are strangers.
Nathaniel HawthorneMy 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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne