Nathaniel Hawthorne

“ I am no good artist, and am but jotting down the old church because I like it."
"Well, well, as you please," said the Warden; and whispered aside to Redclyffe, "A girl's sketchbook is seldom worth looking at. But now, Miss Cheltenham, I am about to give my American friend here a lecture on gargoyles, and other peculiarities of sacred Gothic architecture; and if you will honor me with your attention, I should be glad to find my audience increased by one." ”

“ And so, the better they came to know one another, the greater was their mutual liking.
"I fear I am getting too strong to burden you much longer," said Redclyffe, this morning. "I have no pretence to be a patient now."
"Pooh! nonsense!" ejaculated the Warden. "It will not be safe to leave you to yourself for at least a month to come. And I have half a dozen excursions in a neighborhood of twenty miles, in which I mean to show you what old England is, in a way that you would never find out for yourself. ”

“ To return from this long discussion, the Warden took kindly, as we have said, to Redclyffe, and thought him a miraculously good fellow, to have come from the rude American republic. Hitherto, in the little time that he had been in England, Redclyffe had received civil and even kind treatment from the English with whom he had come casually in contact; but still--perhaps partly from our Yankee narrowness and reserve--he had felt, in the closest coming together, as if there were a naked sword between the Englishman and him, as between the Arabian prince in the tale and the princess whom he wedded ”

“ It seems not worth while that more than one generation of them should have existed. Even in dress, with their smock frocks and breeches, they were just like their fathers. The stirring blood of the new land,--where no man dwells in his father's house,--where no man thinks of dying in his birthplace,--awoke within him, and revolted at the thought ”

“ In truth, Redclyffe's question had been suggested by the appearance of the mounted gentleman, who was a dark, thin man, with black hair, and a black moustache and pointed beard setting off his sallow face, in which the eyes had a certain pointed steeliness, which did not look English, --whose eyes, methinks, are usually not so hard as those of Americans or foreigners. ”

“ Positively, I do not see an English trait in his face, and as little in his manner. His civility is Italian, such as oftentimes, among his countrymen, has offered a cup of poison to a guest, or insinuated the stab of a stiletto into his heart."
"You are particularly bitter against this poor man," said Redclyffe, laughing at the Warden's vehemence. "His appearance--and yet he is a handsome man--is certainly not prepossessing ”

“ But, in good earnest, the man has few or no good traits, takes no interest in the country, dislikes our sky, our earth, our people, is close and inhospitable, a hard landlord, and whatever may be his good qualities, they are not such as flourish in this soil and climate, or can be appreciated here. ”

“ They kept onward from this outskirt of the village, and soon, passing over a little rising ground, and descending now into a hollow came to the new portion of it, clustered around its gray Norman church, one side of the tower of which was covered with ivy, that was carefully kept, the Warden said, from climbing to the battlements, on account of some old prophecy that foretold that the tower would fall, if ever the ivy mantled over its top. ”

“ Approaching nearer, they passed a thatched cottage or two, very plain and simple edifices, though interesting to Redclyffe from their antique aspect, which denoted that they were probably older than the settlement of his own country, and might very likely have nursed children who had gone, more than two centuries ago, to found the commonwealth of which he was a citizen. ”

“ Thus Redclyffe really found less antiquity here, than in the graveyard which might almost be called his natal spot.
When he said something to this effect, the Warden nodded.
"Yes," said he, "and, in truth, we have not much need of inscriptions for these poor people. All good families--every one almost, with any pretensions to respectable station, has his family or individual recognition within the church, or upon its walls ”

“ I cannot but think that there must be something worth remembering about a man thus distinguished. When two hundred years have taken all these natural pains to illustrate and emblazon 'Richard Oglethorpe 1613.' Ha! ”