Nathaniel Hawthorne tells a tale of a man whose “creed was like no man’s else” and who was “well pleased that Providence had entrusted him alone, of mortals, with the treasure of a true faith”. Richard Digby stands-in for all those who draw a rigid and ever-tightening circle around the true believers, until they are left all alone in their sanctimony and self-assuredness. To engage with and possibly learn from others is a threat. The end of such a man, and of so many splintered religionists and ideologues, is isolation. May the man of Adamant be the warning Hawthorne intended against letting the love of truth devolve into a narrow, insecure, and closed-minded certainty that’s good for nobody. ~ Nate