power of the Anglo-Saxon mind to organize in the face of
adverse circumstances a state, and to construct out of most unpromising
elements the good fabric of orderly social life.

* * * * *

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

XII.

_March_, 1845.--Nature sometimes displays a little tenderness for our
vanity, but is never careful for our pride. She is willing that we
should look foolish in the eyes of others, but keeps our little
nonsensicalnesses from ourselves.

* * * * *

Perhaps there are higher intelligences that look upon all the
manifestations of the human mind--metaphysics, ethics, histories,
politics, poems, stories, etc., etc.--with the same interest that we
look upon flowers, or any other humble production of nature,--finding a
beauty and fitness even in the poorest of them, which we cannot see in
the best.

* * * * *

A child or a young girl so sweet and beautiful, that God made new
flowers on purpose for her.

_May 4._--On the river-side, by the Promontory of Columbines. The river
here makes a bend, nearly at a right angle. On the opposite side, a high
bank descends precipitately to the water; a few apple-trees are
scattered along the declivity. A small cottage, with a barn, peeps over
the top of the bank; and at its foot, with their roots in the water, is
a picturesque clump of several maple-trees, their trunks all in a
cluster, and their tops forming a united mass of new fast-budding
foliage. At the foot of this clump of trees lies a boat, half in the
water, half drawn up on the bank. A tract of flags and water-weeds
extends along the base of the bank, outside of which, at a late period,
will grow the flat, broad leaves of the yellow water-lily, and the
pond-lily. A southwestern breeze is ruffling the river, and drives the
little wavelets in the same direction as the current. Most of the course
of the river in this vicinity is through marshy and meadowy ground, as
yet scarcely redeemed from the spring-time overflow, and which at all
seasons is plashy and unfit for walking. At my feet the water overbrims
the shore, and kisses the new green grass, which sprouts even beneath
it.

The Promontory of Columbines rises rugged and rocky from amidst
surrounding lowlands, (in a field next to that where the monument is
erected, near the Old Manse,) and it forms the forth-putting angle at
the bend of the riv