NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences & Extensive Biographies. Герман Мелвилл
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September 2d. — ”When I grow up,” quoth J — — -, in illustration of the might to which he means to attain, — ”when I grow up, I shall be two men.”
September 3d. — Foliage of maples begins to change. Julian, after picking up a handful of autumnal maple-leaves the other day, — ”Look, papa, here’s a bunch of fire!”
September 7th. — In a wood, a heap or pile of logs and sticks, that had been cut for firewood, and piled up square, in order to be carted away to the house when convenience served, — or, rather, to be sledded in sleighing time. But the moss had accumulated on them, and leaves falling over them from year to year and decaying, a kind of soil had quite covered them, although the softened outline of the woodpile was perceptible in the green mound. It was perhaps fifty years — perhaps more — since the woodman had cut and piled those logs and sticks, intending them for his winter fires. But he probably needs no fire now. There was something strangely interesting in this simple circumstance. Imagine the long-dead woodman, and his long-dead wife and family, and the old man who was a little child when the wood was cut, coming back from their graves, and trying to make a fire with this mossy fuel.
September 19th. — Lying by the lake yesterday afternoon, with my eyes shut, while the waves and sunshine were playing together on the water, the quick glimmer of the wavelets was perceptible through my closed eyelids.
October 13th. — A windy day, with wind northwest, cool, with a prevalence of dull gray clouds over the sky, but with brief, quick glimpses of sunshine.
The foliage having its autumn hues, Monument Mountain looks like a headless sphinx, wrapped in a rich Persian shawl. Yesterday, through a diffused mist, with the sun shining on it, it had the aspect of burnished copper. The sun-gleams on the hills are peculiarly magnificent just in these days.
One of the children, drawing a cow on the blackboard, says, “I’ll kick this leg out a little more,” — a very happy energy of expression, completely identifying herself with the cow; or perhaps, as the cow’s creator, conscious of full power over its movements.
October 14th. — The brilliancy of the foliage has passed its acme; and indeed it has not been so magnificent this season as in some others, owing to the gradual approaches of cooler weather, and there having been slight frosts instead of severe ones. There is still a shaggy richness on the hillsides.
October 16th. — A morning mist, filling up the whole length and breadth of the valley betwixt my house and Monument Mountain, the summit of the mountain emerging. The mist reaches almost to my window, so dense as to conceal everything, except that near its hither boundary a few ruddy or yellow treetops appear, glorified by the early sunshine, as is likewise the whole mist-cloud.
There is a glen between this house and the lake, through which winds a little brook with pools and tiny waterfalls over the great roots of trees. The glen is deep and narrow, and filled with trees; so that, in the summer, it is all a dense shadow of obscurity. Now, the foliage of the trees being almost entirely a golden yellow, instead of being full of shadow, the glen is absolutely full of sunshine, and its depths are more brilliant than the open plain or the mountain-tops. The trees are sunshine, and, many of the golden leaves being freshly fallen, the glen is strewn with sunshine, amid which winds and gurgles the bright, dark little brook.
December 1st. — I saw a dandelion in bloom near the lake.
December 19th. — If the world were crumbled to the finest dust, and scattered through the universe, there would not be an atom of the dust for each star.
“Generosity is the flower of justice.”
The print in blood of a naked foot to be traced through the street of a town.
Sketch of a personage with the malignity of a witch, and doing the mischief attributed to one, — but by natural means; breaking off love-affairs, teaching children vices, ruining men of wealth, etc.
Ladislaus, King of Naples, besieging the city of Florence, agreed to show mercy, provided the inhabitants would deliver to him a certain virgin of famous beauty, the daughter of a physician of the city. When she was sent to the king, every one contributing something to adorn her in the richest manner, her father gave her a perfumed handkerchief, at that time a universal decoration, richly wrought. This handkerchief was poisoned with his utmost art, … . and they presently died in one another’s arms.
Of a bitter satirist, — of Swift, for instance, — it might be said, that the person or thing on which his satire fell shrivelled up as if the Devil had spit on it.
The Fount of Tears, — a traveller to discover it, — and other similar localites.
Benvenuto Cellini saw a Salamander in the household fire. It was shown him by his father, in childhood.
For the virtuoso’s collection, — the pen with which Faust signed away his salvation, with a drop of blood dried in it.
An article on newspaper advertisements, — a country newspaper, methinks, rather than a city one.
An eating-house, where all the dishes served out, even to the bread and salt, shall be poisoned with the adulterations that are said to be practised. Perhaps Death himself might be the cook.
Personify the century, — talk of its present middle age, — of its youth, — and its adventures and prospects.
An uneducated countryman, supposing he had a live frog in his stomach, applied himself to the study of medicine in order to find a cure for this disease; and he became a profound physician. Thus misfortune, physical or moral, may be the means of educating and elevating us.
“Mather’s Manuductio ad Ministerium,” — or “Directions for a candidate” for the ministry, — with the autographs of four successive clergymen in it, all of them, at one time or another, residents of the old Manse, — Daniel Bliss, 1734; William Emerson, 1770; Ezra Ripley, 1781; and Samuel Ripley, son of the preceding. The book, according to a Latin memorandum, was sold to Daniel Bliss by Daniel Bremner, who, I suppose, was another student of divinity. Printed at Boston “for Thomas Hancock, and sold at his shop in Ann St. near the Draw Bridge, 1726.” William Emerson was son-in-law of Daniel Bliss. Ezra Ripley married the widow of said William Emerson, and Samuel Ripley was their son.
Mrs. Prescott has an ox whose visage bears a strong resemblance to Daniel Webster, — a majestic brute.
The spells of witches have the power of producing meats and viands that have the appearance of a sumptuous feast, which the Devil furnishes. But a Divine Providence seldom permits the meat to be good, but it has generally some bad taste or smell, — mostly wants salt, — and the feast is often without bread.
An article on cemeteries, with fantastic ideas of monuments; for instance, a sundial; — a large, wide carved stone chair, with some such motto as “Rest and Think,” and others, facetious or serious.
“Mamma, I see a part of your smile,” — a child to her mother, whose mouth was partly covered by her hand.
“The syrup of my bosom,” — an improvisation of a little girl, addressed to an imaginary child.
“The wind-turn,” “the lightning-catch,” a child’s phrases for weathercock and lightning-rod.
“Where’s the man-mountain of these Liliputs?” cried a little boy, as he looked at a small engraving of the Greeks getting into the wooden horse.
When the sun shines brightly on the new snow, we discover ranges of hills, miles away towards the south, which we have never seen before.
To have the North Pole for a fishing-pole, and the Equinoctial Line for a fishing-line.
If we consider the lives of the lower animals, we shall see in them a close parallelism to those of mortals; — toil, struggle, danger, privation, mingled with glimpses of peace and ease; enmity, affection, a continual hope of bettering themselves, although their objects lie at less distance before them than ours can do. Thus, no argument for the imperfect character of our existence and its delusory promises, and its apparent injustice, can