isappointment. In any case, she has
done what she could to console him for it. On the whole, it would be
difficult to say which is the happier wife, Hepsy or Rhoda.

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

XI.

Concord, 1843.--To sit at the gate of Heaven, and watch persons as they
apply for admittance, some gaining it, others being thrust away.

* * * * *

To point out the moral slavery of one who deems himself a free man.

* * * * *

A stray leaf from the Book of Fate, picked up in the street.

* * * * *

The streak of sunshine journeying through the prisoner's cell,--it may
be considered as something sent from Heaven to keep the soul alive and
glad within him. And there is something equivalent to this sunbeam in
the darkest circumstances; as flowers, which figuratively grew in
Paradise, in the dusky room of a poor maiden in a great city; the child,
with its sunny smile, is a cherub. God does not let us live anywhere or
anyhow on earth without placing something of Heaven close at hand, by
rightly using and considering which, the earthly darkness or trouble
will vanish, and all be Heaven.

* * * * *

When the reformation of the world is complete, a fire shall be made of
the gallows; and the hangman shall come and sit down by it in solitude
and despair. To him shall come the last thief, the last drunkard, and
other representatives of past crime and vice; and they shall hold a
dismal merrymaking, quaffing the contents of the last brandy-bottle.

* * * * *

The human heart to be allegorized as a cavern. At the entrance there is
sunshine, and flowers growing about it. You step within but a short
distance, and begin to find yourself surrounded with a terrible gloom
and monsters of divers kinds; it seems like hell itself. You are
bewildered, and wander long without hope. At last a light strikes upon
you. You pass towards it, and find yourself in a region that seems, in
some sort, to reproduce the flowers and sunny beauty of the entrance,
but all perfect. These are the depths of the heart, or of human nature,
bright and peaceful. The gloom and terror may lie deep, but deeper still
this eternal beauty.

* * * * *

A man in his progress through life may pick up various matters,--sin,
care, habit, riches,--until at last h