She busied herself with such attentions as the plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his eyes, and almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the duties of affection to another …. But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred during the sun’s decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni’s first movement on starting from sleep, was to throw open the window, and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. He was surprised, and a little ashamed, to find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun, which gilded the dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience.

From “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne writes with precise elegance, detailing how our minds create their images in the darkness of the night or our dreams.  “Giovanni … almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the duties of affection to another.” Things are not what they seem to be. I wonder whether humans are capable of judging people for what they are. Our imagination, fantasies, desires, emotional needs get in the way.  Sometimes, an event brings us back to the so-called reality: “The first rays of the sun … brought everything within the limits of ordinary experience.” Even when this occurs, we overreact and act like a pendulum that overshoots. There is only a reality, the one that lives in our mind.