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Passages from the English Notebooks, Volume 1. by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 59 of 362 (16%)
hitting his coarse foot against one of the young lady's feet, said, "Beg
pardon, ma'am,"--which she acknowledged with a slight movement of the
head. Somehow or other, different classes seem to encounter one another
in an easier manner than with us; the shock is less palpable. I suppose
the reason is that the distinctions are real, and therefore need not be
continually asserted.

Nervous and excitable persons need to talk a great deal, by way of
letting off their steam.

On board the Rock Ferry steamer, a gentleman coming into the cabin, a
voice addresses him from a dark corner, "How do you do, sir?"--"Speak
again!" says the gentleman. No answer from the dark corner; and the
gentleman repeats, "Speak again!" The speaker now comes out of the dark
corner, and sits down in a place where he can be seen. "Ah!" cries the
gentleman, "very well, I thank you. How do you do? I did not recognize
your voice." Observable, the English caution, shown in the gentleman's
not vouchsafing to say, "Very well, thank you!" till he knew his man.

What was the after life of the young man, whom Jesus, looking on,
"loved," and bade him sell all that he had, and give to the poor, and
take up his cross and follow him? Something very deep and beautiful
might be made out of this.


December 31st.--Among the beggars of Liverpool, the hardest to encounter
is a man without any legs, and, if I mistake not, likewise deficient in
arms. You see him before you all at once, as if he had sprouted halfway
out of the earth, and would sink down and reappear in some other place
the moment he has done with you. His countenance is large, fresh, and
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