America is now wholly given over to a d—d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with the… - Nathaniel Hawthorne

America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women

A woman's chastity consists, like an onion, of a series of coats. You may strip off the outer ones without doing much mischief, perhaps none at all; but you keep taking off one after another, in expectation of coming to the inner nucleus, including the whole value of the matter. It proves, however, that there is no such nucleus, and that chastity is diffused through the whole series of coats, is lessened with the removal of each, and vanishes with the final one which you supposed would introduce you to the hidden pearl.

"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."

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.