Passages from the American Notebooks, Volume 1. Hawthorne Nathaniel
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If in a village it were a custom to hang a funeral garland or other token of death on a house where some one had died, and there to let it remain till a death occurred elsewhere, and then to hang that same garland over the other house, it would have, methinks, a strong effect.
No fountain so small but that Heaven may be imaged in its bosom.
Fame! Some very humble persons in a town may be said to possess it, – as, the penny-post, the town-crier, the constable, – and they are known to everybody; while many richer, more intellectual, worthier persons are unknown by the majority of their fellow-citizens. Something analogous in the world at large.
The ideas of people in general are not raised higher than the roofs of the houses. All their interests extend over the earth's surface in a layer of that thickness. The meeting-house steeple reaches out of their sphere.
Nobody will use other people's experience, nor has any of his own till it is too late to use it.
Two lovers to plan the building of a pleasure-house on a certain spot of ground, but various seeming accidents prevent it. Once they find a group of miserable children there; once it is the scene where crime is plotted; at last the dead body of one of the lovers or of a dear friend is found there; and, instead of a pleasure-house, they build a marble tomb. The moral, – that there is no place on earth fit for the site of a pleasure-house, because there is no spot that may not have been saddened by human grief, stained by crime, or hallowed by death. It might be three friends who plan it, instead of two lovers; and the dearest one dies.
Comfort for childless people. A married couple with ten children have been the means of bringing about ten funerals.
A blind man on a dark night carried a torch, in order that people might see him, and not run against him, and direct him how to avoid dangers.
To picture a child's (one of four or five years old) reminiscences at sunset of a long summer's day, – his first awakening, his studies, his sports, his little fits of passion, perhaps a whipping, etc.
The blind man's walk.
To picture a virtuous family, the different members examples of virtuous dispositions in their way; then introduce a vicious person, and trace out the relations that arise between him and them, and the manner in which all are affected.
A man to flatter himself with the idea that he would not be guilty of some certain wickedness, – as, for instance, to yield to the personal temptations of the Devil, – yet to find, ultimately, that he was at that very time committing that same wickedness.
What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude?
A girl's lover to be slain and buried in her flower-garden, and the earth levelled over him. That particular spot, which she happens to plant with some peculiar variety of flowers, produces them of admirable splendor, beauty, and perfume; and she delights, with an indescribable impulse, to wear them in her bosom, and scent her chamber with them. Thus the classic fantasy would be realized, of dead people transformed to flowers.
Objects seen by a magic-lantern reversed. A street, or other location, might be presented, where there would be opportunity to bring forward all objects of worldly interest, and thus much pleasant satire might be the result.
The Abyssinians, after dressing their hair, sleep with their heads in a forked stick, in order not to discompose it.
At the battle of Edge Hill, October 23, 1642, Captain John Smith, a soldier of note, Captain Lieutenant to Lord James Stuart's horse, with only a groom, attacked a Parliament officer, three cuirassiers, and three arquebusiers, and rescued the royal standard, which they had taken and were guarding. Was this the Virginian Smith?
Stephen Gowans supposed that the bodies of Adam and Eve were clothed in robes of light, which vanished after their sin.
Lord Chancellor Clare, towards the close of his life, went to a village church, where he might not be known, to partake of the Sacrament.
A missionary to the heathen in a great city, to describe his labors in the manner of a foreign mission.
In the tenth century, mechanism of organs so clumsy, that one in Westminster Abbey, with four hundred pipes, required twenty-six bellows and seventy stout men. First organ ever known in Europe received by King Pepin, from the Emperor Constantine, in 757. Water boiling was kept in a reservoir under the pipes; and, the keys being struck, the valves opened, and steam rushed through with noise. The secret of working them thus is now lost. Then came bellows organs, first used by Louis le Debonnaire.
After the siege of Antwerp, the children played marbles in the streets with grape and cannon shot.
A shell, in falling, buries itself in the earth, and, when it explodes, a large pit is made by the earth being blown about in all directions, – large enough, sometimes, to hold three or four cart-loads of earth. The holes are circular.
A French artillery-man being buried in his military cloak on the ramparts, a shell exploded, and unburied him.
In the Netherlands, to form hedges, young trees are interwoven into a sort of lattice-work; and, in time, they grow together at the point of junction, so that the fence is all of one piece.
To show the effect of gratified revenge. As an instance, merely, suppose a woman sues her lover for breach of promise, and gets the money by instalments, through a long series of years. At last, when the miserable victim were utterly trodden down, the triumpher would have become a very devil of evil passions, – they having overgrown his whole nature; so that a far greater evil would have come upon himself than on his victim.
Anciently, when long-buried bodies were found undecayed in the grave, a species of sanctity was attributed to them.
Some chimneys of ancient halls used to be swept by having a culverin fired up them.
At Leith, in 1711, a glass bottle was blown of the capacity of two English bushels.
The buff and blue of the Union were adopted by Fox and the Whig party in England. The Prince of Wales wore them.
In 1621, a Mr. Copinger left a certain charity, an almshouse, of which four poor persons were to partake, after the death of his eldest son and his wife. It was a tenement and yard. The parson, head-boroughs, and his five other sons were to appoint the persons. At the time specified, however, all but one of his sons were dead; and he was in such poor circumstances that he obtained the benefit of the charity for himself, as one of the four.
A town clerk arranges the publishments that are given in, according to his own judgment.
To make a story from Robert Raikes seeing dirty children at play, in the streets of London, and inquiring of a woman about them. She tells him that on Sundays, when they were not employed, they were a great deal worse, making the streets like hell; playing at church, etc. He was therefore induced to employ women at a shilling to teach them on Sundays, and thus Sunday schools were established.
To represent the different departments of the United States government by village functionaries. The War Department by watchmen, the law by constables, the merchants by a variety store, etc.
At the accession of Bloody Mary, a man, coming into a house, sounded three times with his mouth, as with a trumpet, and then made proclamation to the family. A bonfire was built, and little children were made to carry wood to it, that they might remember the circumstance in old age. Meat and drink were provided at the bonfires.
To describe a boyish combat with snowballs, and the victorious leader to have a statue of snow erected to him. A satire on ambition and fame to be made out of this idea. It might be a child's story.
Our body to be possessed by two different spirits; so that half of the visage shall express one mood, and the other half another.
An old English sea-captain desires to have a fast-sailing ship, to keep a good table, and to sail between the tropics without making land.
A rich man left by will his mansion and estate to a poor couple. They remove into it, and find there a darksome servant, whom they are forbidden by will to turn away. He becomes a torment to them;