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These forums are being phased out. The new, improved Nathaniel Hawthorne Forum is at westerncanon.com/bookforums.
Ahoy fellow travelers and Great Books lovers!

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We prefer deep reflections on Philosophy, Shakespearean Sonnets, and tender musings along the lines of:

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. --Albert Einstein

CXLI

In faith I do not love thee with mine eyes, 
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote.
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted;
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart's slave and vassal wretch to be:
  Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
  That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
 	--William Shakespeare

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Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty, David Hume, Essays: Morale, Political, and Literary, 1742

All The Best,

William Einstein Shakespeare :)

VIII

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy:
Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly,
Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. 
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering;
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
  Whose speechless song being many, seeming one,
  Sings this to thee: 'Thou single wilt prove none.'

IX

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look! what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
  No love toward others in that bosom sits
  That on himself such murd'rous shame commits.
 	--William Shakespeare