Just copied this from my Kindle Fire:
The Old Manse
BETWEEN two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone, (the gate itself having fallen from its hinges, at some unknown epoch,) we beheld the gray front of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned from that gate-way towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track, leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows, and an old white horse, who had his own living to pick up along the roadside. The glimmering shadows, that lay half-asleep between the door of the house and the public highway, were a kind of spiritual medium, seen through which, the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to the material world. Certainly it had little in common with those ordinary abodes, which stand so imminent upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, into the domestic circle.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Kindle Locations 6813-6822). . Kindle Edition.
Got no problem with that passage … quite enjoyed it
House of the Seven gables:
Chapter 21: The Departure
THE SUDDEN DEATH of so prominent a member of the social world as the Honorable Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon created a sensation (at least, in the circles more immediately connected with the deceased) which had hardly quite subsided in a fortnight. It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events which constitute a person’s biography, there is scarcely one — none, certainly, of anything like a similar importance — to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death. In most other cases and contingencies, the individual is present among us, mixed up with the daily revolution of affairs, and affording a definite point for observation. At his decease, there is only a vacancy, and a momentary eddy, — very small, as compared with the apparent magnitude of the ingurgitated object, — and a bubble or two, ascending out of the black depth, and bursting at the surface. As
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Kindle Locations 18540-18547). . Kindle Edition.
Yes I definitely enjoy N.H.
…that’s about the long-n-short of it, mate … init? 
), but I whole-heartedly endorse your sentiments. Every time I put finger tips to keyboard, I open the sluice gate to long winded, rambling grammatical abominations. However, if I, for some inexplicable, bizarre reason, produce a 
), just exactly how long is short, an’ 'ow short is long? 
), but I whole-heartedly endorse your sentiments.