Quotes: Early America. Eden.

The idea in bold-face print is a summary of the quote. The number after the topic is the page on which the quote was found.

Early America
Early America 1048 A lifetime of walking along Main Street. "And here he is, old Goodman Massey, taking his last walk…we saw him, first as the baby in Goodwife Massey’s arms, when the primeval trees were flinging their shadow over Roger Conant’s cabin; we have seen him as the boy, the youth, the man, bearing his humble part in all the successive scenes…often pausing,--often leaning over his staff,--and calling to mind whose dwelling stood at such and such a spot, and whose field or garden occupied the site of those more recent houses…can render a reason for all the bends and deviations of the thoroughfare…." Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Early America 1024 If an early American Indian could see the changes the white man was to bring about. "But greater would be the affright of the Indian necromancer, if, mirrored in the pool of water at his feet, he could catch a prophetic glimpse of the noon-day marvels which the white man is destined to achieve; if he could see, as in a dream, the stone-front of the stately hall, which will cast its shadow over this very spot; if he could be aware that the future edifice will contain a noble museum, where, among countless curiosities of earth and sea, a few Indian arrowheads shall be treasured up as memorials of a vanished race." Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Early America 1025 Will the thronged city ever be returned to nature? "Can it be that the thronged street of a city will ever pass into this twilight solitude,--over those soft heaps of the decaying tree-trunks,--and through the swampy places, green with water-moss,--and penetrate that hopeless entanglement of great trees, which have been uprooted and tossed together by a whirlwind!" Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Early America 1028 "The pavements of the Main-street must be laid over the red man’s grave." Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Early America 1029 "…what was then the woodland pathway, but has long since grown into a busy street…." Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Early America 1031 Private, fenced-in gardens on Main Street. "Gardens are fenced in, and display pumpkin-beds and rows of cabbages and beans; and, though the governor and the minister both view them with disapproving eye, plants of broad-leaved tobacco, which the cultivators are enjoined to use privily or not at all." Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Early America 1038 Night sounds on Main Street. "…dusk, and then the starless night, to brood over the street; and summon forth again the bellman, with his lantern casting a gleam abut his footsteps, to pace wearily from corner to corner, and shout drowsily the hour to drowsy or dreaming ears." Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Early America 1045 Witch hunt on Main Street and the Devil's time to laugh. "Now, in the sunny noontide, as they [the accused witches and wizards] go tottering to the gallows, it is the devil’s turn to laugh." Hawthorne: “Main-Street”

Eden
Eden 828 There were no seasons in Eden and no old age, either. "Sweet must have been the springtime of Eden, when no earlier year had strewn its decay upon the virgin turf, and no former experience had ripened into summer, and faded into autumn, in the heart of its inhabitants." Hawthorne: “Buds and Bird-Voices”