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diff --git a/9247-0.txt b/9247-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89d6c39 --- /dev/null +++ b/9247-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,919 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fragments from The Journal of a Solitary Man, by +Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Fragments from The Journal of a Solitary Man + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: November, 2005 [EBook #9247] +First Posted: September 25, 2003 +Last Updated: December 15, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNAL OF A SOLITARY MAN *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + + + + + + THE DOLIVER ROMANCE AND OTHER PIECES + + TALES AND SKETCHES + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + FRAGMENTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF A SOLITARY MAN + + + + +I. + +My poor friend “Oberon”--[See the sketch or story entitled “The Devil in +Manuscript,” in “The Snow-Image, and other Twice-Told Tales.”]--for let +me be allowed to distinguish him by so quaint a name--sleeps with the +silent ages. He died calmly. Though his disease was pulmonary, his life +did not flicker out like a wasted lamp, sometimes shooting up into a +strange temporary brightness; but the tide of being ebbed away, and the +noon of his existence waned till, in the simple phraseology of +Scripture, “he was not.” The last words he said to me were, “Burn my +papers,--all that you can find in yonder escritoire; for I fear there +are some there which you may be betrayed into publishing. I have +published enough; as for the old disconnected journal in your +possession--” But here my poor friend was checked in his utterance by +that same hollow cough which would never let him alone. So he coughed +himself tired, and sank to slumber. I watched from that midnight hour +till high noon on the morrow for his waking. The chamber was dark; +till, longing for light, I opened the window-shutter, and the broad day +looked in on the marble features of the dead. + +I religiously obeyed his instructions with regard to the papers in the +escritoire, and burned them in a heap without looking into one, though +sorely tempted. But the old journal I kept. Perhaps in strict +conscience I ought also to have burned that; but casting my eye over +some half-torn leaves the other day, I could not resist an impulse to +give some fragments of it to the public. To do this satisfactorily, +I am obliged to twist this thread, so as to string together into a +semblance of order my Oberon’s “random pearls.” + +If anybody that holds any commerce with his fellowmen can be called +solitary, Oberon was a “solitary man.” He lived in a small village at +some distance from the metropolis, and never came up to the city except +once in three months for the purpose of looking into a bookstore, and of +spending two hours and a half with me. In that space of time I would +tell him all that I could remember of interest which had occurred in the +interim of his visits. He would join very heartily in the conversation; +but as soon as the time of his usual tarrying had elapsed, he would take +up his hat and depart. He was unequivocally the most original person I +ever knew. His style of composition was very charming. No tales that +have ever appeared in our popular journals have been so generally +admired as his. But a sadness was on his spirit; and this, added to the +shrinking sensitiveness of his nature, rendered him not misanthropic, +but singularly averse to social intercourse. Of the disease, which was +slowly sapping the springs of his life, he first became fully conscious +after one of those long abstractions in which he was wont to indulge. +It is remarkable, however, that his first idea of this sort, instead of +deepening his spirit with a more melancholy hue, restored him to a more +natural state of mind. + +He had evidently cherished a secret hope that some impulse would at +length be given him, or that he would muster sufficient energy of will +to return into the world, and act a wiser and happier part than his +former one. But life never called the dreamer forth; it was Death that +whispered him. It is to be regretted that this portion of his old +journal contains so few passages relative to this interesting period; +since the little which he has recorded, though melancholy enough, +breathes the gentleness of a spirit newly restored to communion with its +kind. If there be anything bitter in the following reflections, its +source is in human sympathy, and its sole object is himself. + +“It is hard to die without one’s happiness; to none more so than myself, +whose early resolution it had been to partake largely of the joys of +life, but never to be burdened with its cares. Vain philosophy! The +very hardships of the poorest laborer, whose whole existence seems one +long toil, has something preferable to my best pleasures. + +“Merely skimming the surface of life, I know nothing, by my own +experience, of its deep and warm realities. I have achieved none of +those objects which the instinct of mankind especially prompts them to +pursue, and the accomplishment of which must therefore beget a native +satisfaction. The truly wise, after all their speculations, will be led +into the common path, and, in homage to the human nature that pervades +them, will gather gold, and till the earth, and set out trees, and build +a house. But I have scorned such wisdom. I have rejected, also, the +settled, sober, careful gladness of a man by his own fireside, with +those around him whose welfare is committed to his trust and all their +guidance to his fond authority. Without influence among serious +affairs, my footsteps were not imprinted on the earth, but lost in air; +and I shall leave no son to inherit my share of life, with a better +sense of its privileges and duties, when his father should vanish like a +bubble; so that few mortals, even the humblest and the weakest, have +been such ineffectual shadows in the world, or die so utterly as I must. +Even a young man’s bliss has not been mine. With a thousand vagrant +fantasies, I have never truly loved, and perhaps shall be doomed to +loneliness throughout the eternal future, because, here on earth, my +soul has never married itself to the soul of woman. + +“Such are the repinings of one who feels, too late, that the sympathies +of his nature have avenged themselves upon him. They have prostrated, +with a joyless life and the prospect of a reluctant death, my selfish +purpose to keep aloof from mortal disquietudes, and be a pleasant idler +among care-stricken and laborious men. I have other regrets, too, +savoring more of my old spirit. The time has been when I meant to visit +every region of the earth, except the poles and Central Africa. I had a +strange longing to see the Pyramids. To Persia and Arabia, and all the +gorgeous East, I owed a pilgrimage for the sake of their magic tales. +And England, the land of my ancestors! Once I had fancied that my sleep +would not be quiet in the grave unless I should return, as it were, to +my home of past ages, and see the very cities, and castles, and +battle-fields of history, and stand within the holy gloom of its +cathedrals, and kneel at the shrines of its immortal poets, there +asserting myself their hereditary countryman. This feeling lay among the +deepest in my heart. Yet, with this homesickness for the father-land, and +all these plans of remote travel,--which I yet believe that my peculiar +instinct impelled me to form, and upbraided me for not accomplishing,--the +utmost limit of my wanderings has been little more than six hundred miles +from my native village. Thus, in whatever way I consider my life, or what +must be termed such, I cannot feel as if I had lived at all. + +“I am possessed, also, with the thought that I have never yet discovered +the real secret of my powers; that there has been a mighty treasure +within my reach, a mine of gold beneath my feet, worthless because I +have never known how to seek for it; and for want of perhaps one +fortunate idea, I am to die + + ‘Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.’ + +“Once, amid the troubled and tumultuous enjoyment of my life, there was +a dreamy thought that haunted me, the terrible necessity imposed on +mortals to grow old, or die. I could not bear the idea of losing one +youthful grace. True, I saw other men, who had once been young and now +were old, enduring their age with equanimity, because each year +reconciled them to its own added weight. But for myself, I felt that +age would be not less miserable, creeping upon me slowly, than if it +fell at once. I sometimes looked in the glass, and endeavored to fancy +my cheeks yellow and interlaced with furrows, my forehead wrinkled +deeply across, the top of my head bald and polished, my eyebrows and +side-locks iron gray, and a grisly beard sprouting on my chin. +Shuddering at the picture, I changed it for the dead face of a young +mail, with dark locks clustering heavily round its pale beauty, which +would decay, indeed, but not with years, nor in the sight of men. The +latter visage shocked me least. + +“Such a repugnance to the hard conditions of long life is common to all +sensitive and thoughtful men, who minister to the luxury, the +refinements, the gayety and lightsomeness, to anything, in short, but +the real necessities of their fellow-creatures. He who has a part in +the serious business of life, though it be only as a shoemaker, feels +himself equally respectable in youth and in age, and therefore is +content to live and look forward to wrinkles and decrepitude in their +due season. It is far otherwise with the busy idlers of the world. I +was particularly liable to this torment, being a meditative person in +spite of my levity. The truth could not be concealed, nor the +contemplation of it avoided. With deep inquietude I became aware that +what was graceful now, and seemed appropriate enough to my age of +flowers, would be ridiculous in middle life; and that the world, so +indulgent to the fantastic youth, would scorn the bearded than, still +telling love-tales, loftily ambitious of a maiden’s tears, and squeezing +out, as it were, with his brawny strength, the essence of roses. And in +his old age the sweet lyrics of Anacreon made the girls laugh at his +white hairs the more. With such sentiments, conscious that my part in +the drama of life was fit only for a youthful performer, I nourished a +regretful desire to be summoned early from the scene. I set a limit to +myself, the age of twenty-five, few years indeed, but too many to be +thrown away. Scarcely had I thus fixed the term of my mortal +pilgrimage, than the thought grew into a presentiment that, when the +space should be completed, the world would have one butterfly the less, +by my far flight. + +“O, how fond I was of life, even while allotting, as my proper destiny, +an early death! I loved the world, its cities, its villages, its grassy +roadsides, its wild forests, its quiet scenes, its gay, warm, enlivening +bustle; in every aspect, I loved the world so long as I could behold it +with young eyes and dance through it with a young heart. The earth had +been made so beautiful, that I longed for no brighter sphere, but only +an ever-youthful eternity in this. I clung to earth as if my beginning +and ending were to be there, unable to imagine any but an earthly +happiness, and choosing such, with all its imperfections, rather than +perfect bliss which might be alien from it. Alas! I had not wet known +that weariness by which the soul proves itself ethereal.” + +Turning over the old journal, I open, by chance, upon a passage which +affords a signal instance of the morbid fancies to which Oberon +frequently yielded himself. Dreams like the following were probably +engendered by the deep gloom sometimes thrown over his mind by his +reflections on death. + +“I dreamed that one bright forenoon I was walking through Broadway, and +seeking to cheer myself with the warm and busy life of that far-famed +promenade. Here a coach thundered over the pavement, and there an +unwieldy omnibus, with spruce gigs rattling past, and horsemen prancing +through all the bustle. On the sidewalk people were looking at the rich +display of goods, the plate and jewelry, or the latest caricature ill +the bookseller’s windows; while fair ladies and whiskered gentlemen +tripped gayly along, nodding mutual recognitions, or shrinking from some +rough countryman or sturdy laborer whose contact might have ruffled +their finery. I found myself in this animated scene, with a dim and +misty idea that it was not my proper place, or that I had ventured into +the crowd with some singularity of dress or aspect which made me +ridiculous. Walking in the sunshine, I was yet cold as death. By +degrees, too, I perceived myself the object of universal attention, and, +as it seemed, of horror and affright. Every face grew pale; the laugh +was hushed, and the voices died away in broken syllables; the people in +the shops crowded to the doors with a ghastly stare, and the passengers +oil all sides fled as from an embodied pestilence. The horses reared +and snorted. An old beggar-woman sat before St. Paul’s Church, with her +withered palm stretched out to all, but drew it back from me, and +pointed to the graves and monuments in that populous churchyard. Three +lovely girls whom I had formerly known, ran shrieking across the street. +A personage in black, whom I was about to overtake, suddenly turned his +head and showed the features of a long-lost friend. He gave me a look +of horror and was gone. + +“I passed not one step farther, but threw my eyes on a looking-glass +which stood deep within the nearest shop. At first glimpse of my own +figure I awoke, with a horrible sensation of self-terror and +self-loathing. No wonder that the affrighted city fled! I had been +promenading Broadway in my shroud!” + +I should be doing injustice to my friend’s memory, were I to publish +other extracts even nearer to insanity than this, front the scarcely +legible papers before me. I gather from them--for I do not remember +that he ever related to me the circumstances--that he once made a +journey, chiefly on foot, to Niagara. Some conduct of the friends among +whom he resided in his native village was constructed by him into +oppression. These were the friends to whose care he had been committed +by his parents, who died when Oberon was about twelve years of age. +Though he had always been treated by them with the most uniform +kindness, and though a favorite among the people of the village rather +on account of the sympathy which they felt in his situation than from +any merit of his own, such was the waywardness of his temper, that on +a slight provocation he ran away from the home that sheltered him, +expressing openly his determination to die sooner than return to the +detested spot. A severe illness overtook him after he had been absent +about four months. While ill, he felt how unsoothing were the kindest +looks and tones of strangers. He rose from his sick-bed a better man, +and determined upon a speedy self-atonement by returning to his native +town. There he lived, solitary and sad, but forgiven and cherished by +his friends, till the day he died. That part of the journal which +contained a description of this journey is mostly destroyed. Here and +there is a fragment. I cannot select, for the pages are very scanty; +but I do not withhold the following fragments, because they indicate a +better and more cheerful frame of mind than the foregoing. + +“On reaching the ferry-house, a rude structure of boards at the foot of +the cliff, I found several of those wretches devoid of poetry, and lost +some of my own poetry by contact with them. The hut was crowded by a +party of provincials,--a simple and merry set, who had spent the +afternoon fishing near the Falls, and were bartering black and white +bass and eels for the ferryman’s whiskey. A greyhound and three +spaniels, brutes of much more grace and decorous demeanor than their +masters, sat at the door. A few yards off, yet wholly unnoticed by the +dogs, was a beautiful fox, whose countenance betokened all the sagacity +attributed to him in ancient fable. He had a comfortable bed of straw +in an old barrel, whither he retreated, flourishing his bushy tail as I +made a step towards him, but soon came forth and surveyed me with a keen +and intelligent eye. The Canadians bartered their fish and drank their +whiskey, and were loquacious on trifling subjects, and merry at simple +jests, with as little regard to the scenery as they could have to the +flattest part of the Grand Canal. Nor was I entitled to despise them; +for I amused myself with all those foolish matters of fishermen, and +dogs, and fox, just as if Sublimity and Beauty were not married at that +place and moment; as if their nuptial band were not the brightest of all +rainbows on the opposite shore; as if the gray precipice were not +frowning above my head and Niagara thundering around me. + +“The grim ferryman, a black-whiskered giant, half drunk withal, now +thrust the Canadians by main force out of his door, launched a boat, and +bade me sit in the stern-sheets. Where we crossed the river was white +with foam, yet did not offer much resistance to a straight passage, +which brought us close to the outer edge of the American falls. The +rainbow vanished as we neared its misty base, and when I leaped ashore, +the sun had left all Niagara in shadow.” + +“A sound of merriment, sweet voices and girlish laughter, came dancing +through the solemn roar of waters. In old times, when the French, and +afterwards the English, held garrisons near Niagara, it used to be +deemed a feat worthy of a soldier, a frontier man, or an Indian, to +cross the rapids to Goat Island. As the country became less rude and +warlike, a long space intervened, in which it was but half believed, by +a faint and doubtful tradition, that mortal foot bad never trod this +wild spot of precipice and forest clinging between two cataracts. The +island is no longer a tangled forest, but a grove of stately trees, with +grassy intervals about their roots and woodland paths among their +trunks. + +“There was neither soldier nor Indian here now, but a vision of three +lovely girls, running brief races through the broken sunshine of the +grove, hiding behind the trees, and pelting each other with the cones of +the pine. When their sport had brought them near me, it so happened +that one of the party ran up and shook me by the band,--a greeting which +I heartily returned, and would have done the same had it been tenderer. +I had known this wild little black-eyed lass in my youth and her +childhood, before I had commenced my rambles. + +“We met on terms of freedom and kindness, which elder ladies might have +thought unsuitable with a gentleman of my description. When I alluded +to the two fair strangers, she shouted after them by their Christian +names, at which summons, with grave dignity, they drew near, and honored +me with a distant courtesy. They were from the upper part of Vermont. +Whether sisters, or cousins, or at all related to each other, I cannot +tell; but they are planted in my memory like ‘two twin roses on one +stem,’ with the fresh dew in both their bosoms; and when I would have +pure and pleasant thoughts, I think of them. Neither of them could have +seen seventeen years. They both were of a height, and that a moderate +one. The rose-bloom of their cheeks could hardly be called bright in +her who was the rosiest, nor faint, though a shade less deep, in her +companion. Both had delicate eyebrows, not strongly defined, yet +somewhat darker than their hair; both had small sweet mouths, maiden +mouths, of not so warns and deep a tint as ruby, but only red as the +reddest rose; each had those gems, the rarest, the most precious, a pair +of clear, soft bright blue eyes. Their style of dress was similar; one +had on a black silk gown, with a stomacher of velvet, and scalloped +cuffs of the same from the wrist to the elbow; the other wore cuffs and +stomacher of the like pattern and material, over a gown of crimson silk. +The dress was rather heavy for their slight figures, but suited to +September. They and the darker beauty all carried their straw bonnets +in their hands.” + +I cannot better conclude these fragments than with poor Oberon’s +description of his return to his native village after his slow recovery +from his illness. How beautifully does he express his penitential +emotions! A beautiful moral may be indeed drawn from the early death of +a sensitive recluse, who had shunned the ordinary avenues of +distinction, and with splendid abilities sank to rest into an early +grave, almost unknown to mankind, and without any record save what my +pen hastily leaves upon these tear-blotted pages. + + + +II. + +MY HOME RETURN. + +When the stage-coach had gained the summit of the hill, I alighted to +perform the small remainder of my journey on foot. There had not been +a more delicious afternoon than this in all the train of summer, the air +being a sunny perfume, made up of balm and warmth, and gentle +brightness. The oak and walnut trees over my head retained their deep +masses of foliage, and the grass, though for months the pasturage of +stray cattle, had been revived with the freshness of early June by the +autumnal rains of the preceding week. The garb of autumn, indeed, +resembled that of spring. Dandelions and butterflies were sprinkled +along the roadside like drops of brightest gold in greenest grass, and a +star-shaped little flower of blue, with a golden centre. In a rocky +spot, and rooted under the stone walk, there was one wild rose-bush +bearing three roses very faintly tinted, but blessed with a spicy +fragrance. The same tokens would have announced that the year was +brightening into the glow of summer. There were violets too, though few +and pale ones. But the breath of September was diffused through the +mild air, and became perceptible, too thrillingly for my enfeebled +frame, whenever a little breeze shook out the latent coolness. + +“I was standing on the hill at the entrance of my native village, whence +I had looked back to bid farewell, and forward to the pale mist-bow that +overarched my path, and was the omen of my fortunes. How I had +misinterpreted that augury, the ghost of hope, with none of hope’s +bright hues! Nor could I deem that all its portents were yet +accomplished, though from the same western sky the declining sun shone +brightly in my face. But I was calm and not depressed. Turning to the +village, so dim and dream-like at my last view, I saw the white houses +and brick stores, the intermingled trees, the footpaths with their wide +borders of grass, and the dusty road between; all a picture of peaceful +gladness in the sunshine. + +“‘Why have I never loved my home before?’ thought I, as my spirit +reposed itself on the quiet beauty of the scene. + +“On the side of the opposite hill was the graveyard, sloping towards the +farther extremity of the village. The sun shone as cheerfully there as +on the abodes of the living, and showed all the little hillocks and the +burial-stones, white marble or slate, and here and there a tomb, with +the pleasant grass about them all. A single tree was tinged with glory +from the west, and threw a pensive shade behind. Not far from where it +fell was the tomb of my parents, whom I had hardly thought of in bidding +adieu to the village, but had remembered them more faithfully among the +feelings that drew me homeward. At my departure their tomb had been +hidden in the morning mist. Beholding it in the sunshine now, I felt a +sensation through my frame as if a breeze had thrown the coolness of +September over me, though not a leaf was stirred, nor did the thistle-down +take flight. Was I to roam no more through this beautiful world, +but only to the other end of the village? Then let me lie down near my +parents, but not with them, because I love a green grave better than a +tomb. + +“Moving slowly forward, I heard shouts and laughter, and perceived a +considerable throng of people, who came from behind the meeting-house +and made a stand in front of it. Thither all the idlers in the village +were congregated to witness the exercises of the engine company, this +being the afternoon of their monthly practice. They deluged the roof of +the meeting-house, till the water fell from the eaves in a broad +cascade; then the stream beat against the dusty windows like a +thunder-storm; and sometimes they flung it up beside the steeple, +sparkling in an ascending shower about the weathercock. For variety’s +sake the engineer made it undulate horizontally, like a great serpent +flying over the earth. As his last effort, being roguishly inclined, he +seemed to take aim at the sky, falling short rather of which, down came +the fluid, transformed to drops of silver, on the thickest crowd of the +spectators. Then ensued a prodigious rout and mirthful uproar, with no +little wrath of the surly ones, whom this is an infallible method of +distinguishing. The joke afforded infinite amusement to the ladies at the +windows and some old people under the hay-scales. I also laughed at a +distance, and was glad to find myself susceptible, as of old, to the +simple mirth of such a scene. + +“But the thoughts that it excited were not all mirthful. I had +witnessed hundreds of such spectacles in my youth, and one precisely +similar only a few days before my departure. And now, the aspect of the +village being the same, and the crowd composed of my old acquaintances, +I could hardly realize that years had passed, or even months, or that +the very drops of water were not falling at this moment, which had been +flung up then. But I pressed the conviction home, that, brief as the +time appeared, it had been long enough for me to wander away and return +again, with my fate accomplished, and little more hope in this world. +The last throb of an adventurous and wayward spirit kept me from +repining. I felt as if it were better, or not worse, to have compressed +my enjoyments and sufferings into a few wild years, and then to rest +myself in an early grave, than to have chosen the untroubled and +ungladdened course of the crowd before me, whose days were all alike, +and a long lifetime like each day. But the sentiment startled me. For +a moment I doubted whether my dear-bought wisdom were anything but the +incapacity to pursue fresh follies, and whether, if health and strength +could be restored that night, I should be found in the village after +to-morrow’s dawn. + +“Among other novelties, I had noticed that the tavern was now designated +as a Temperance House, in letters extending across the whole front, with +a smaller sign promising Hot Coffee at all hours, and Spruce Beer to +lodgers gratis. There were few new buildings, except a Methodist chapel +and a printing-office, with a bookstore in the lower story. The golden +mortar still ornamented the apothecary’s door, nor had the Indian Chief, +with his gilded tobacco stalk, been relieved from doing sentinel’s duty +before Dominicus Pike’s grocery. The gorgeous silks, though of later +patterns, were still flaunting like a banner in front of Mr. +Nightingale’s dry-goods store. Some of the signs introduced me to +strangers, whose predecessors had failed, or emigrated to the West, or +removed merely to the other end of the village, transferring their names +from the sign-boards to slabs of marble or slate. But, on the whole, +death and vicissitude had done very little. There were old men, +scattered about the street, who had been old in my earliest +reminiscences; and, as if their venerable forms were permanent parts of +the creation, they appeared to be hale and hearty old men yet. The less +elderly were more altered, having generally contracted a stoop, with +hair wofully thinned and whitened. Some I could hardly recognize; at my +last glance they had been boys and girls, but were young men and women +when I looked again; and there were happy little things too, rolling +about on the grass, whom God had made since my departure. + +“But now, in my lingering course I had descended the bill, and began to +consider, painfully enough, how I should meet my townspeople, and what +reception they would give me. Of many an evil prophecy, doubtless, had +I been the subject. And would they salute me with a roar of triumph or +a low hiss of scorn, on beholding their worst anticipations more than +accomplished? + +“‘No,’ said I, ‘they will not triumph over me. And should they ask the +cause of my return, I will tell f hem that a man may go far and tarry +long away, if his health be good and his hopes high; but that when flesh +and spirit begin to fail, he remembers his birthplace and the old +burial-ground, and hears a voice calling him to cone home to his father +and mother. They will know, by my wasted frame and feeble step, that I +have heard the summons and obeyed. And, the first greetings over, they +will let me walk among them unnoticed, and linger in the sunshine while +I may, and steal into my grave in peace.’ + +“With these reflections I looked kindly at the crowd, and drew off my +glove, ready to give my hand to the first that should put forth his. It +occurred to me, also, that some youth among them, now at the crisis of +his fate, might have felt his bosom thrill at my example, and be emulous +of my wild life and worthless fame. But I would save him. + +“‘He shall be taught,’ said I, ‘by my life, and by my death, that the +world is a sad one for him who shrinks from its sober duties. My +experience shall warn him to adopt some great and serious aim, such as +manhood will cling to, that he may not feel himself, too late, a +cumberer of this overladen earth, but a man among men. I will beseech +him not to follow an eccentric path, nor, by stepping aside from the +highway of human affairs, to relinquish his claim upon human sympathy. +And often, as a text of deep and varied meaning, I will remind him that +he is an American.’ + +“By this time I had drawn near the meeting-house, and perceived that the +crowd were beginning to recognize me.” + + +These are the last words traced by his hand. Has not so chastened a +spirit found true communion with the pure in Heaven? “Until of late, I +never could believe that I was seriously ill: the past, I thought, could +not extend its misery beyond itself; life was restored to me, and should +not be missed again. I had day-dreams even of wedded happiness. Still, +as the days wear on, a faintness creeps through my frame and spirit, +recalling the consciousness that a very old man might as well nourish +hope and young desire as I at twenty-four. Yet the consciousness of my +situation does not always make me sad. Sometimes I look upon the world +with a quiet interest, because it cannot, concern me personally, and a +loving one for the same reason, because nothing selfish can interfere +with the sense of brotherhood. Soon to be all spirit, I have already a +spiritual sense of human nature, and see deeply into the hearts of +mankind, discovering what is hidden from the wisest. The loves of young +men and virgins are known to me, before the first kiss, before the +whispered word, with the birth of the first sigh. My glance comprehends +the crowd, and penetrates the breast of the solitary man. I think +better of the world than formerly, more generously of its virtues, more +mercifully of its faults, with a higher estimate of its present +happiness, and brighter hopes of its destiny. My mind has put forth a +second crop of blossoms, as the trees do in the Indian summer. No +winter will destroy their beauty, for they are fanned by the breeze and +freshened by the shower that breathes and falls in the gardens of +Paradise!” + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Fragments from The Journal of a +Solitary Man, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOURNAL OF A SOLITARY MAN *** + +***** This file should be named 9247-0.txt or 9247-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/2/4/9247/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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