Chautauqua Institution

“ In the daytime it is all foliage and sunshine and brightness; at night the gas-lights glitter in unbroken chains from tree to tree. From one end we can see the fountains play at the other, as they sparkle all day in the square by the old Egyptian obelisk, that marks the place of the guillotine, the memory of which changes all the brightness to gloom in the space of a single thought. Beyond, the half-ruined piles of the Tuilleries palace stand up gray and grim, as if they had not yet recovered from the astonishment and shock of their blows. ”

“ We may, if we will, have that divine guest in our inmost spirit, molding us anew, purging the fountains of our will, enlightening our blindness, fixing our love on all things pure and high, burning up all our evil, with which in our own strength we have vainly fought, and kindling in us a flame of self-forgetting love, in which, as in the central fire of the earth, all the elements of the new nature to be formed within us are molten together, ready to crystallize into beauty like precious gems, or to consolidate into strength like the granite mountains. ”

“ We speak of a London or a New York as the swollen ulcer of society, but we forget that we may as well talk of a body without its brain; that it is in mutual circulation, the country feeding the city with fresh blood, the city pouring it back enriched in its double circuit, the life is maintained; and thus while we see the vices, we should see also the enlarged activities, the myriad callings for the poor, the treasures of art and culture for all, the uncounted charities walking in every haunt of sorrow or sin. But this growth of civilization has in it no self-preserving might. ”

“ All things are precious, for in all things one may find traces of his grace. All things are sublime, for all things are connected with a glorious unity, which fills heaven and earth, eternity past and eternity to come. Flowers, fossils, microscopic dust, foul soil, things that crawl and things that soar, ooze from the sea-depths, lofty heights that salute the stars—all are divine in origin and nature. A boot-black may be a king—boot-black and king—both at once. Human eyes see only the black hands, patched knees and crouching form that bespeak servility. ”

“ The smile that is to welcome him, as he crosses his lowly threshold when the work of the day is over, the glad faces, and merry voices, and sweet caresses of little ones, as they shall gather round him in the quiet evening hours—the thought of all this may dwell, a latent joy, a hidden motive, deep down in his heart of hearts, come rushing in a sweet solace at every pause of exertion, and act like a secret oil to smooth the wheels of labor. ”

“ Not only may we pluck a single blossom, and here and there a single half-ripened fruit from this tree; but the ripest, the best, that which has hung the longest in the sun-light, that whose cheeks are painted the most rosy red, and whose heart has in it the most saccharine juice, that is ready to-day to fall into our open palm if we will but extend it. ”

“ Among all the works of antiquity which have escaped destruction the Apollo of the Vatican reaches the highest ideal of art. It surpasses all other statues as Homer’s Apollo does that of all succeeding poets. Its size lifts it above common humanity, and its altitude bespeaks its greatness. The proud form charming in the manliness of the prime of life seems clothed with endless youth.
Go with thy soul into the kingdom of celestial beauty and seek to create within thyself a divine nature, and to fill thy heart with forms which are above the material. ”

“ Should I say it is produced in the utmost depths of the soul, when the breath of heaven unites with the heart’s blood of the new man, that it is the breath of the soul, still I should not have represented it, for I should but have said what it is in itself, not what it is to others. Should I say it is the light of the sun, that gives life and color to all creatures, still I should not have truly set it forth, for I should but have said what it is for others, not what it is in itself. ”

“ There is a difference between the peal of morning bells rolling over lake and through forest trees, with the warble of wild wood birds, waking one up to a day of music and eloquence, Sunday clothes and good society, and the gruff call or dissonant bell ring of somebody whose business it is to tell you to be up and at it, at once and for all day, whether you feel like it or not. ”

“ The huge patriarch, hoary with years, whose lifetime bridges across the whole history of England, allows the tiny imps of vegetation that are but of yesterday—the perpetual infants, so to speak, of plant life, freely to clamber over its roots and arms, and hang upon its rugged bosses which time has used so cruelly, reducing them almost to bone and muscle, their emerald bracelets of moss, their plumes of polypody ferns, and their rosettes of lichen, adorning the magnificent old grandfather of the woods with the ornaments of youth and beauty! ”

“ Does God, the great Parent, Father and Mother of the World, lead us up to himself by any such harsh, stern tuition? Nay, but has he not made earth so beautiful, and planted flowers by every wayside, and gladdened our hearts by ten thousand delights of the intellect, the senses, the tastes, and the affections? Fear, my friends, to make your children unhappy, and to love them too little. But never fear to make them too happy or to love them too much! There is a great, deep saying, that we must all enter the kingdom of God as little children. ”

“ Wine makes the lips and tongue parched and dry, the drinker athirst; water keeps the lips and tongue and stomach moist, and quenches the thirst of the drinker. Wine when it is taken, sets all the passions aglow and dulls the reason; bids men enjoy and reason not; water creates no stir of passion, and leaves the reason free. Wine makes for itself a first and second and third and fourth claim on the drinker, so that the more of it he takes the more of it he desires; it is overwhelming in the warmth of its friendship; water sates the drinker after one draught ”

“ Have we, if our religion be real, no anticipation of happiness in the glorious future? Is there no “rest that remaineth for the people of God,” no home and loving heart awaiting us when the toils of our hurried day of life are ended? What is earthly rest or relaxation, what that release from toil after which we so often sigh, but the faint shadow of the saint’s everlasting rest—the repose of eternal purity—the calm of a spirit in which, not the tension of labor only, but the strain of the moral strife with sin, has ceased—the rest of the soul in God! ”

“ When nature had savagely arrayed itself in frost and snow and cloud and tempest, hiding the earth and filling the heavens, had the sun put in an appearance what a ghastly display would it have made! But in the midst of this desolation the snow-birds appeared, and they were beautiful, for they were the flowers of the season. We realized that the power of harmony could be heard in a tempest as well as in a seraph’s song. It is the extreme of folly to waste a winter watching for the coming of spring. ”

“ The old trees stand like venerable giants, with as much of hope as of memory in their hearts, and in their annual robe of verdure forget that for so many years they have watched the coming and the going of the seasons. Young trees that have grown a dozen years older since the first Chautauqua song broke the silence are now stately and beautiful, ready to be witnesses for a hundred years, of the strange things to be done here, and of which we who are looking about for graves only dream of now. ”

“ A good man, then, is a man who draws his goodness from God, the source of all goodness. He himself is the type of all perfection, the home of all things fair. Whatsoever things are lovely and whatsoever things are venerable—all that we call virtue, all to which hearts and consciences ascribe praise—dwell in God as in their native home. In the abyss of his being the streams of goodness, which part into many heads to fertilize the wilderness and sweeten the salt marshes of human nature, rest undivided. ”

“ Foliage, flowers and fruit of colossal luxuriance, strange birds, beasts, griffins and chimeras in endless multitudes, the rank vegetation and the fantastic zoölogy of a fresher or fabulous world, seemed to decorate and to animate the serried trunks and pendant branches, while the shattering symphonies or dying murmurs of the organ suggested the rushing of the wind through the forest—now the full diapason of the storm, and now the gentle cadence of the evening breeze. ”

“ Furred and frost-covered friends arrive, and are heartily welcomed under the protecting roof; and soon they form a cordial confiding circle, enliven the household meal by the clang of glasses, the joyous song, and thus create for themselves a moral summer.
And when spring herself advances, no more is heard of roof and hearth; the poet is always abroad, wandering on the soft pathways around his peaceful lake. Every bush unfolds itself with an individual character, every blossom bursts with an individual life, in his presence. ”