Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Marble Faun"

[Zainab_M]

 


Oh so true!

A very realistic excerpt from "Marble Faun" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.   It particularly fits well into the lives of so many immigrants even today ..
 
 
"The years, after all, have a kind of emptiness, when we spend too many of them on a foreign shore. We defer the reality of life, in such cases, until a future moment, when we shall again breathe our native air; but, by and by, there are no future moments; or, if we do return, we find that the native air has lost its invigorating quality, and that life has shifted its reality to the spot where we have deemed ourselves only temporary residents. Thus, between two countries, we have none at all, or only that little space of either in which we finally lay down our discontented bones. It is wise, therefore, to come back betimes, or never."

[Heba E. Husseyn]

   - lovely piece.  that's the way it is with most living away from home.  just that bit aboout returning "betimes or never" is not always true.  some, after living in far away countries for 2, 3 or 4 decades get so stressed out, they decide to return.  this too isn't unusual, it happens.