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This "charity-house," as the wrecker called it, this "Humane house," as some call it, that is, the one to which we first came, had ... neither window nor sliding shutter, nor clapboards, nor paint. As we have said, there was a rusty nail put through the staple. However, as we wished to get an idea of a Humane house, and we hoped that we should never have a better opportunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot-hole in the door, and, after long looking, without seeing, into the dark,--not knowing how many shipwrecked men's bones we might see at last, looking with the eye of faith, knowing that, though to him that knocketh it may not always be opened, yet to him that looketh long enough through a knot-hole the inside shall be visible,--for we had had some practice at looking inward,--by steadily keeping our other ball covered from the light meanwhile, putting the outward world behind us, ocean and land, and the beach,--till the pupil became enlarged and collected the rays of light that were wandering in that dark (for the pupil shall be enlarged by looking; there was never so dark a night but a faithful and patient eye, however small, might at last prevail over it),--after all this, I say, things began to take shape to our vision,--if we may use this expression where there was nothing but emptiness,--and we obtained the long-wished-for insight. Though we thought at first that it was a hopeless case, after several minutes' steady exercise of the divine faculty, our prospects began steadily to brighten, and we were ready to exclaim with the blind bard of "Paradise Lost and Regained,"--
"Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblamed?"
A little longer, and a chimney rushed red on our sight. In short, when our vision had grown familiar with the darkness, we discovered that there were some stones and some loose wads of wool on the floor, and an empty fireplace at the further end; but it was not supplied with matches, or straw, or hay, that we could see, nor "accommodated with a bench." Indeed, it was the wreck of all cosmical beauty there within.
Turning our backs on the outward world, we thus looked through the knot-hole into the Humane house, into the very bowels of mercy; and for bread we found a stone. It was literally a great cry (of sea-mews outside), and a little wool. However, we were glad to sit outside, under the lee of the Humane house, to escape the piercing wind; and there we thought how cold is charity! how inhumane humanity! This, then, is what charity hides! Virtues antique and far away, with ever a rusty nail over the latch; and very difficult to keep in repair, withal, it is so uncertain whether any will ever gain the beach near you. So we shivered round about, not being able to get into it, ever and anon looking through the knot-hole into that night without a star, until we concluded that it was not a humane house at all, but a seaside box, now shut up, belonging to some of the family of Night or Chaos, where they spent their summers by the sea, for the sake of the sea-breeze, and that it was not proper for us to be prying into their concerns.

Henry David Thoreau

humane houses | inspirational

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During Prohibition days, when South Carolina was actively advertising the iodine content of its vegetables, the Hell Hole brand of ...

Administration in the State of Sout

advertising | alcohol

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Wondrous hole! Magical hole! Dazzlingly influential hole! Noble and effulgent hole! From this hole everything follows logically: f ...

Cynthia Ozick

body

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He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in
a lordly dish. ...

unknown author

killing

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The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.

unknown author

individuality

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Life, in my estimation, is a biological misadventure that we terminate on the shoulders of six strange men whose only objective is ...

Fred Allen

life and death

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Stupid or smart, there wasn't much choice about what was going to happen to me ... Growing up was like falling into a hole.... I m ...

Dorothy Allison

working-class people | poverty and the poor | employment of women

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The shadow of the Venetian blind on the painted wall,
Shadows of the snake-plant and cacti, the plaster animals, ...

John Ashbery

actors | acting | motion pictures | films

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And the truth becomes a hole, something one has always known,
A heaviness in the trees, and no one can say ...

John Ashbery

knowledge | self | truth

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But the surface of the Earth was meant for man. He wasn't meant to live in a hole in the ground.

Edward L. Bernds

nationality

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