"Technologies of easy travel "give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, w… - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Engraved portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne, facing right

"Technologies of easy travel "give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any man’s inducement to tarry in one spot? Why, therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life in brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timber, when he may just as easily dwell, in one sense, nowhere, — in a better sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home?

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About Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne (4 July 1804 – 19 May 1864) was an American writer remembered for his romance novels (The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun) and short stories.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons, Mathew Benjamin Brady (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Pen Names: Monsieur de l’Aubépine
Birth Name: Nathaniel Hathorne
Alternative Names: Monsieur de l'Aubépine N. H.

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There can be, if I forebode aright, no power, short of the Divine mercy, to disclose, whether by uttered words, or by type or emblem, the secrets that may be buried with a human heart. The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed. Nor have I so read or interpreted the Holy Writ, as to understand that the disclosure of human thoughts and deeds, then to be made, is intended as part of the retribution. That, surely, were a shallow view of it. No; these revelations, unless I greatly error, are meant merely to promote the intellectual satisfaction of all intelligent beings, who will stand waiting, on that day, to see the dark problem of this life made plain. A knowledge of men's hearts will be needful to the completest solution of that problem. And I conceive, moreover, that the hearts holding such secrets as you speak of will yield them up, at that last day, not with reluctance, but with a joy unutterable.

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