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 will flow out in truth and wisdom.
August 27th. — I have been stationed all day at the end of Long Wharf, and I rather think that I had the most eligible situation of anybody in Boston. I was aware that it must be intensely hot in the midst of the city; but there was only a short space of uncomfortable heat in my region, halfway towards the centre of the harbor; and almost all the time there was a pure and delightful breeze, fluttering and palpitating, sometimes shyly kissing my brow, then dying away, and then rushing upon me in livelier sport, so that I was fain to settle my straw hat more tightly upon my head. Late in the afternoon, there was a sunny shower, which came down so like a benediction that it seemed ungrateful to take shelter in the cabin or to put up an umbrella. Then there was a rainbow, or a large segment of one, so exceedingly brilliant and of such long endurance that I almost fancied it was stained into the sky, and would continue there permanently. And there were clouds floating all about, — great clouds and small, of all glorious and lovely hues (save that imperial crimson which was revealed to our united gaze), — so glorious indeed, and so lovely, that I had a fantasy of heaven’s being broken into fleecy fragments and dispersed through space, with its blest inhabitants dwelling blissfully upon those scattered islands.
February 7th, 1840. — What beautiful weather this is! — beautiful, at least, so far as sun, sky, and atmosphere are concerned, though a poor, wingless biped is sometimes constrained to wish that he could raise himself a little above the earth. How much mud and mire, how many pools of unclean water, how many slippery footsteps, and perchance heavy tumbles, might be avoided, if we could tread but six inches above the crust of this world. Physically we cannot do this; our bodies cannot; but it seems to me that our hearts and minds may keep themselves above moral mudpuddles and other discomforts of the soul’s pathway.
February 11th. — I have been measuring coal all day, on board of a black little British schooner, in a dismal dock at the north end of the city. Most of the time I paced the deck to keep myself warm; for the wind (northeast, I believe) blew up through the dock, as if it had been the pipe of a pair of bellows. The vessel lying deep between two wharfs, there was no more delightful prospect, on the right hand and on the left, than the posts and timbers, half immersed in the water, and covered with ice, which the rising and falling of successive tides had left upon them, so that they looked like immense icicles. Across the water, however, not more than half a mile off, appeared the Bunker Hill Monument; and what interested me considerably more, a church-steeple, with the dial of a clock upon it, whereby I was enabled to measure the march of the weary hours. Sometimes I descended into the dirty little cabin of the schooner, and warmed myself by a red-hot stove, among biscuit-barrels, pots and kettles, sea-chests, and innumerable lumber of all sorts, — my olfactories, meanwhile, being greatly refreshed
