The exigencies of a busy life have
transformed romance into reality and common-sense; the adventurer and
knight-errant has but obeyed the law of his age, and become a noble
example of the power of the Anglo-Saxon mind to organize in the face of
adverse circumstances a state, and to construct out of most unpromising
elements the good fabric of orderly social life.
* * * * *
PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.
XII.
_March_, 1845.--Nature sometimes displays a little tenderness for our
vanity, but is never careful for our pride. She is willing that we
should look foolish in the eyes of others, but keeps our little
nonsensicalnesses from ourselves.
* * * * *
Perhaps there are higher intelligences that look upon all the
manifestations of the human mind--metaphysics, ethics, histories,
politics, poems, stories, etc., etc.--with the same interest that we
look upon flowers, or any other humble production of nature,--finding a
beauty and fitness even in the poorest of them, which we cannot see in
the best.
* * * * *
A child or a young girl so sweet and beautiful, that God made new
flowers on purpose for her.
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