In this republican country, amid the fluctuating waves of our social life, somebody is always at the drowning-point. - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs... Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance?

This shall be the last of my benevolent follies, and I will never be kind to anybody again as long as I live.

If his inmost heart could have been laid open, there would have been discovered that dream of undying fame, which, dream as it is, is more powerful than a thousand realities.