Famous Quotes | There is the grand truth about...

There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,—why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,—that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House. - Herman Melville
Attribution: Herman Melville (1819–1891), U.S. author. letter, Apr. 16?, 1851, to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Correspondence, vol. 14, The Writings of Herman Melville, ed. Lynn Horth (1993).

Categories: Author, Conventionality, Defiance, Hawthorne, Nathaniel

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