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The American Notebooks QUOTES

The American Notebooks QUOTES

1 " I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

[Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842] "

― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The American Notebooks

2 " The human Heart to be allegorized as a cavern; at the entrance there is sunshine, and flowers growing about it. You step within, but a short distance, and begin to find yourself surrounded with a terrible gloom, and monsters of divers kinds; it seems like Hell itself. You are bewildered and wander long without hope. At last a light strikes upon you. You press towards it yon, and find yourself in a region that seems, in some sort, to reproduce the flowers and sunny beauty of the entrance, but all perfect. These are the depths of the heart, or of human nature, bright and peaceful; the gloom and terror may lie deep; but deeper still is this eternal beauty. "

― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The American Notebooks

3 " 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. The sunshine is peculiarly genial; and in sheltered places, as on the side of a bank, or of a barn or house, one becomes acquainted and friendly with the sunshine. It seems to be of a kindly and homely nature. And the green grass, strewn with a few withered leaves, looks the more green and beautiful for them. "

― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The American Notebooks

4 " The streak of sunshine journeying through the prisoner's cell; it may be considered as something sent from Heaven to keep the soul alive and glad within him. And there is something equivalent to this sunbeam in the darkest circumstances; as flowers, which figuratively grew in Paradise, in the dusky room of a poor maiden in a great city; the child, with its sunny smile, is a cherub. God does not let us live any where or any how on earth, without placing something of Heaven close at hand, by rightly using and considering which, the earthly darkness or trouble will vanish, and all be Heaven. "

― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The American Notebooks

5 " It is a comfortable thought, that the smallest and most turbid mud-puddle can contain its own picture of Heaven. "

― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The American Notebooks

6 " When we see how little we can express, it is a wonder that any man ever takes up a pen a second time. "

― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The American Notebooks

7 " After we went to bed, in the deep quiet of the night, we suddenly heard the light and lively note of a bird, from a neighboring tree--a real song, such as those which greet the purple dawn, or mingle with the yellow sunshine. What could the little bird mean by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the note gushed out from the midst of a dream, in which he fancied himself in Paradise with his mate; and suddenly awakening, he found himself on a cold, leafless bough, with a New-England mist penetrating through his feathers. That was a sad exchange of imagination for reality... "

― Nathaniel Hawthorne , The American Notebooks