"I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house." [<i>Notebook</i>, Oct. 10, 1842] - Nathaniel Hawthorne

We do ourselves wrong, and too meanly estimate the Holiness above us, when we deem that any act or enjoyment, good in itself, is not good to do religiously.

If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or — and the outward semblance is the same — crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more. The latter is perhaps the truest theory.

Scattered... over the breasts of the surrounding mountains there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes... or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper atmosphere. ...[I]t seemed almost as if mortal man might thus ascend into the heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky... The great hills played a concert among themselves, each constituting a strain of airy sweetness.