34 Quotes by Alice Morse Earle

The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present.

The study of tavern history often brings to light much evidence of sad domestic changes. Many a cherished and beautiful home, rich in annals of family prosperity and private hospitality, ended its days as a tavern.

There is something inexpressibly sad in the thought of the children who crossed the ocean with the Pilgrims and the fathers of Jamestown, New Amsterdam, and Boston, and the infancy of those born in the first years of colonial life in this strange new world.

It is easy to gain a definite notion of the furnishing of colonial houses from a contemporary and reliable source - the inventories of the estates of the colonists.

In the early days of the New England colonies, no more embarrassing or hampering condition, no greater temporal ill, could befall any adult Puritan than to be unmarried.

In the seventeenth century, the science of medicine had not wholly cut asunder from astrology and necromancy; and the trusting Christian still believed in some occult influences, chiefly planetary, which governed not only his crops but his health and life.

Every sea-captain who sailed to the West Indies was expected to bring home a turtle on the return voyage for a feast to his expectant friends.

The pillory and stocks, the gibbet, and even the whipping-post, have seen many a noble victim, many a martyr. But I cannot think any save the most ignoble criminals ever sat in a ducking-stool.

Salem houses present to you a serene and dignified front, gracious yet reserved, not thrusting forward their choicest treasures to the eyes of passing strangers; but behind the walls of the houses, enclosed from public view, lie cherished gardens, full of the beauty of life.