The Complete Autobiographical Writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Герман Мелвилл
Читать онлайн книгу.
troubled with dreams in which this seeming friend appears to act the part of a most deadly enemy. Finally it is discovered that the dream-character is the true one. The explanation would be — the soul’s instinctive perception.
Pandora’s box for a child’s story.
Moonlight is sculpture; sunlight is painting.
“A person to look back on a long life ill-spent, and to picture forth a beautiful life which he would live, if he could be permitted to begin his life over again. Finally to discover that he had only been dreaming of old age, — that he was really young, and could live such a life as he had pictured.”
A newspaper, purporting to be published in a family, and satirizing the political and general world by advertisements, remarks on domestic affairs, — advertisement of a lady’s lost thimble, etc.
L. H — — — . She was unwilling to die, because she had no friends to meet her in the other world. Her little son F. being very ill, on his recovery she confessed a feeling of disappointment, having supposed that he would have gone before, and welcomed her into heaven!
H. L. C — — — heard from a French Canadian a story of a young couple in Acadie. On their marriage day, all the men of the Province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a proclamation. When assembled, they were all seized and shipped off to be distributed through New England, — among them the new bridegroom. His bride set off in search of him, — wandered about New England all her lifetime, and at last, when she was old, she found her bridegroom on his deathbed. The shock was so great that it killed her likewise.
January 4th, 1839. — When scattered clouds are resting on the bosoms of hills, it seems as if one might climb into the heavenly region, earth being so intermixed, with sky, and gradually transformed into it.
A stranger, dying, is buried; and after many years two strangers come in search of his grave, and open it.
The strange sensation of a person who feels himself an object of deep interest, and close observation, and various construction of all his actions, by another person.
Letters in the shape of figures of men, etc. At a distance, the words composed by the letters are alone distinguishable. Close at hand, the figures alone are seen, and not distinguished as letters. Thus things may have a positive, a relative, and a composite meaning, according to the point of view.
“Passing along the street, all muddy with puddles, and suddenly seeing the sky reflected in these puddles in such a way as quite to conceal the foulness of the street.”
A young man in search of happiness, — to be personified by a figure whom he expects to meet in a crowd, and is to be recognized by certain signs. All these signs are given by a figure in various garbs and actions, but he does not recognize that this is the sought-for person till too late.
If cities were built by the sound of music, then some edifices would appear to be constructed by grave, solemn tones, — others to have danced forth to light, fantastic airs.
Familiar spirits, according to Lilly, used to be worn in rings, watches, sword-hilts. Thumb-rings were set with jewels of extraordinary size.
A very fanciful person, when dead, to have his burial in a cloud.
“A story there passeth of an Indian king that sent unto Alexander a fair woman, fed with aconite and other poisons, with this intent complexionally to destroy him!” — Sir T. Browne.
Dialogues of the unborn, like dialogues of the dead, — or between two young children.
A mortal symptom for a person being to lose his own aspect and to take the family lineaments, which were hidden deep in the healthful visage. Perhaps a seeker might thus recognize the man he had sought, after long intercourse with him unknowingly.
Some moderns to build a fire on Ararat with the remnants of the ark.
Two little boats of cork, with a magnet in one and steel in the other.
To have ice in one’s blood.
To make a story of all strange and impossible things, — as the Salamander, the Phoenix.
The semblance of a human face to be formed on the side of a mountain, or in the fracture of a small stone, by a lusus naturae. The face is an object of curiosity for years or centuries, and by and by a boy is born, whose features gradually assume the aspect of that portrait. At some critical juncture, the resemblance is found to be perfect. A prophecy may be connected.
A person to be the death of his beloved in trying to raise her to more than mortal perfection; yet this should be a comfort to him for having aimed so highly and holily.
1840. — A man, unknown, conscious of temptation to secret crimes, puts up a note in church, desiring the prayers of the congregation for one so tempted.
Some most secret thing, valued and honored between lovers, to be hung up in public places, and made the subject of remark by the city, — remarks, sneers, and laughter.
To make a story out of a scarecrow, giving it odd attributes. From different points of view, it should appear to change, — now an old man, now an old woman, — a gunner, a farmer, or the Old Nick.
A ground-sparrow’s nest in the slope of a bank, brought to view by mowing the grass, but still sheltered and comfortably hidden by a blackberry-vine trailing over it. At first, four brown-speckled eggs, — then two little bare young ones, which, on the slightest noise, lift their heads, and open wide mouths for food, — immediately dropping their heads, after a broad gape. The action looks as if they were making a most earnest, agonized petition. In another egg, as in a coffin, I could discern the quiet, deathlike form of the little bird. The whole thing had something awful and mysterious in it.
A coroner’s inquest on a murdered man, — the gathering of the jury to be described, and the characters of the members, — some with secret guilt upon their souls.
To represent a man as spending life and the intensest labor in the accomplishment of some mechanical trifle, — as in making a miniature coach to be drawn by fleas, or a dinner-service to be put into a cherry-stone.
A bonfire to be made of the gallows and of all symbols of evil.
The love of posterity is a consequence of the necessity of death. If a man were sure of living forever here, he would not care about his offspring.
The device of a sundial for a monument over a grave, with some suitable motto.
A man with the right perception of things, — a feeling within him of what is true and what is false. It might be symbolized by the talisman with which, in fairy tales, an adventurer was enabled to distinguish enchantments from realities.
A phantom of the old royal governors, or some such shadowy pageant, on the night of the evacuation of Boston by the British.
— — — taking my likeness, I said that such changes would come over my face that she would not know me when we met again in heaven. “See if I do not!” said she, smiling. There was the most peculiar and beautiful humor in the point itself, and in her manner, that can be imagined.
Little F. H — — — used to look into E — — ‘s mouth to see where her smiles came from.
“There is no Measure for Measure to my affections. If the earth fails me, I can die, and go to GOD,” said — — — .
Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love. This might be thought out at great length.
Boston, July 3d, 1839. — I do not mean to imply that I am unhappy or discontented, for this is not the case. My life only is a burden in the same way that it is to every toilsome man; and mine is a healthy weariness, such as needs only a night’s sleep to remove it. But from henceforth forever I shall be entitled to call the sons of toil my brethren, and shall know how to sympathize with them, seeing that I likewise have risen at the dawn, and borne the fervor of the midday sun, nor turned my heavy footsteps homeward till eventide. Years hence, perhaps, the experience that my heart is acquiring now