The moment when a man's head drops off is seldom or never, I am inclined to think, precisely the most agreeable of his life. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

May not one man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions?

Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow out of them.

The vulgar, who, in those dreary old times, were always contributing a grotesque horror to what interested their imaginations, had a story about the scarlet letter which we might readily work up into a terrific legend. They averred, that the symbol was not mere scarlet cloth, tinged in an earthly dye-pot, but was red-hot with infernal fire, and could be seen glowing all alight, whenever Hester Prynne walked abroad in the night-time. And we must needs say, it seared Hester's bosom so deeply, that perhaps there was more truth in the rumor than our modern incredulity may be inclined to admit.