'The potency and power of words'

 

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
 

Born on the 4^th of July in 1804, Hawthorne established himself as one of America’s pre-eminent 19^th Century writers with tales about his native New England.

 

His most prominent story that has lasted through the ages is The Scarlet Letter.  Its success catapulted him from near-obscurity to the center of the New England writing movement, which at the time included such prominent writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  

 

He took advantage of his new popularity to rapidly publish or re-publish works like The House of the Seven Gables, Wonder Book for Girls and Boys, and Twice-Told Tales, all still studied in American literature courses. 

 

The great-great grandson of a Salem Witch Trials judge, Hawthorne often focused on Puritanic themes and espoused being pure, accurate and meticulous, especially when it came to the power that writers' words can convey.   

 

“Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy of dishonesty,” he noted. “Easy reading is damn hard writing.”