The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid
intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of
the infernal regions.
Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a
rapid walk through the streets of Padua or beyond its gates: his
footsteps kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the
walk was apt to accelerate itself to a race. One day he found
himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly personage, who
had turned back on recognizing the young man and expended much
breath in overtaking him.
"Signor Giovanni! Stay, my young friend!" cried he. "Have you
 Mosses From An Old Manse |