Nathaniel Hawthorne

And yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed to glance at me with an eye of pity, as if my case were more deplorable than his. The interior of the room was thrown into shadow, partly by the tall edifices that rose on the opposite side of the street, and partly by the immense show-bills of blue and crimson paper that were expanded over each of the three windows. Hither may come the prisoner, escaping from his dark and narrow cell and cankerous chain, to breathe free air in this enchanted atmosphere. The labors of these eminent divines are aided by those of innumerable lecturers, who diffuse such a various profundity, in all subjects of human or celestial science, that any man may acquire an omnigenous erudition without the trouble of even learning to read.

At all events, if it involved any secret information in regard to old Roger Chillingworth, it was in a tongue unknown to the erudite clergyman, and did but increase the bewilderment of his mind. According to these highly-respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying […] had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man’s own righteousness. “Foolish woman!” responded the physician, half coldly, half soothingly. “What should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good, and were it my child—yea, mine own, as well as thine! I could do no better for it.” It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. Mighty was their fuss about little matters. A soldier,—New England's most distinguished soldier,—he stood firmly on the pedestal of his gallant services; and, himself secure in the wise liberality of the successive administrations through which he had held office, he had been the safety of his subordinates in many an hour of danger and heart-quake. A writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them, and making one little pause, with all its wreathed intervolutions in open sight. The pavement […] has grass enough growing in its chinks to show that it has not, of late days, been worn by any multitudinous resort of business. With his own ghostly voice, he had exhorted me, on the sacred consideration of my filial duty and reverence towards him,—who might reasonably regard himself as my official ancestor,—to bring his mouldy and moth-eaten lucubrations before the public.

He smiled to himself, and threw a glance of fine sarcastic meaning towards Hepzibah. Either it was one of those upquivering flashes of the spirit, to which minds in an abnormal state are liable, or else the artist had subtly touched some chord that made musical vibration. He made a salutation, or, to speak nearer the truth, an ill-defined, abortive attempt at curtsy. Again and again, however, and half a dozen other agains, with the inexorable pertinacity of a child intent upon some object important to itself, did he renew his efforts for admittance.

The young count's good nature and easy persuadability were among his best characteristics. He beheld the scene in his mind’s eye, through the witchery of many intervening years, and faintly illuminated it as if with starlight instead of this broad glow of moonshine.

The vestry, I think, occupies that excrescential edifice which I noticed yesterday as having grown out of the cathedral.

The cider-making of New England is far more picturesque; the great heap of golden or rosy apples under the trees, and the cider-mill worked by a circumgiratory horse, and all agush with sweet juice. There was a wonderful variety of costume to be seen and studied among the persons around me, […] other soldiers in helmets and jackboots; French officers of various uniform; monks and priests; attendants, in old-fashioned and gorgeous livery; […] so that, in any other country, the scene might have been taken for a fancy ball.

What a change in his lot would have been here, for there seemed to be some pretensions to a title, too, from a barony which was floating about and occasionally moving out of abeyancy!

On the right, facing southward, rises Graylock, all beshagged with forest, and with headlong precipices of rock appearing among the black pines.