"What's that you mutter to yourself, Matthew Maule?" asked Scicpio. "And what for do you look so black at me?" "No matter, darky," said the carpente… - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Then, moreover, the white locks of age were sometimes found to be the thatch of an intellectual tenement in good repair.

"Hester," said he, "hast thou found peace?" She smiled drearily, looking down upon her bosom. "Hast thou?" she asked. "None — nothing but despair!" he answered. "What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine? Were I an atheist — a man devoid of conscience — a wretch with coarse and brutal instincts — I might have found peace long ere now. Nay, I never should have lost it. But, as matters stand with my soul, whatever of good capacity there originally was in me, all of God's gifts that were the choicest have become the ministers of spiritual torment. Hester, I am most miserable!" "The people reverence thee," said Hester.

Another phenomenon, still more strikingly modern, was a package of lucifer matches, which, in old times, would have been thought actually to borrow their instantaneous flame from the nether fires of Tophet.