Gamaliel Bradford

“ Naturally the most common matter of observation, the one which is more or less forced upon the attention of all of us, is humanity. We may be indifferent to trees and stones, but our pleasure, our labor, our existence depend upon a more or less constant study of the human beings whose existence interlocks at every point with ours. Therefore, from the earliest times of record there have been profound observers of humanity, persons who have examined the human aspect and the human heart, as read through that aspect, with the most persistent zeal and the most unwearying delight. ”

“ Also her love of a snapping exchange of wit made her appreciate conversation. “You know I have ever been of opinion that a chosen conversation composed of a few that one esteems is the greatest happiness of life.” Yet she was too full of resources to need people, too critical to love people, too little sympathetic to pity people. And in one of the lightning sentences of self-revelation she shows a temperament not perfectly endowed by heaven for friendship: “I manage my friends with such a strong yet with a gentle hand, that they are both willing to do whatever I have a mind to.” ”

“ As one who has always delighted in solitary wood walks merely for their associative beauty, I at least can bewail the deplorable ignorance as to plants and birds and insects which makes it impossible for me even to interrogate them intelligently. Lack of time or natural indolence have prevented my accumulating the knowledge which would put all these things in their proper relations and make them tell a story which the trained and expert observer instantly and instinctively reads in them. ”

“ She thinks of her daily, nightly, dreams of her, in everything is anxious to please her or sick to think she has not pleased her. She seeks solitude because there she can dream more freely of this beloved daughter of hers. And the chief charm of society is that some one may inquire about Madame de Grignan’s health and venture a compliment which the eager listener can set down and pass on. Like a lover of twenty, she suggests that she and her beloved are looking at the moon at the same time. “You alone,” she writes, in the ardor of her passion, “can make the joy or the sorrow of my life. ”

“ Who has analyzed the passing of friendship more delicately than she? “It is said that women never love each other. I do not know. There may be deep affections that last only a short time. But I have always mistrusted these, for myself and for those I love. Nothing is sadder than a bit of death in the heart. Therefore, when I see an affection dying, [191] I set to work to rekindle it with all my power.” Hers also is this perfect expression of a heart inclined to tenderness: “Our affections are born one of another.”
Yet, as with Maurice, in all these relations God was first. ”

“ For patience is as necessary to the true scientist as industry. When you think you are getting new facts, discoveries that will startle the world and perhaps affect the practical living of millions, there is a natural impulse to proclaim them, there is haste, eagerness, the desire for reward, for recognition, for material success. Or, there is the fear of anticipation, that some one else may be working on the same lines, and get in before you, and all your glory will be taken away. ”

“ Surely those with such a longing and with such a sense of unworthiness are not the least worthy of love in this harsh, self-absorbed, and loveless world.
Nevertheless, what remains most characteristic of Miss Austen is her singular and inexhaustible delight in the observation of humanity. No one illustrates better than she the odd paradox that it is possible to love mankind as a whole, or, at any rate, to take the greatest interest in them, while finding most individual specimens unattractive and even contemptible. ”

“ And when he makes intimate confession of the workings of the theory in his own person and life, this is the result: ‘It is said, “Man is the lord of creation.” Man is the lord of suffering, my friend. There is no clearer proof of the non-existence of God than life.... If you could read in my soul, you would be terrified.... There is not in all the universe a creature more unhappy than I. People think me happy. ”

“ It is a most satisfying and tranquilizing thing to see a creature so dainty, so exquisite, so finely tempered with all the delicate responsiveness we nowadays call nerves, at the same time steeled and toughened by that substantial necessity, common sense. She knew all the good of life and all the evil. Beauty, rank, wealth, love, honor, exile, ruin, and disaster were all hers. And through them all she remained the same simple, gentle, loyal, heroic figure, admirable if a woman ever was, and memorable if the highest charm backed by the strongest character are indeed worth remembering. ”

“ On the other hand, neither Goethe nor Sainte-Beuve is for a moment to be compared with Darwin in that ineffable sweetness and simple charm which endeared him to all who came into contact with him and which breathe everywhere through his letters and even his more formal scientific works.
One striking feature in Sainte-Beuve is that he recognized fully the absorbing, engrossing nature of the scientific spirit, yet appreciated that the pursuit of knowledge does not necessarily bring happiness. No one has expressed the barren desolation of mortal life with more acrid bitterness than he. ”

“ One who looked so closely into souls, and especially one who was a near friend of La Rochefoucauld, could not escape some harsh conclusions, could not avoid seeing that all is not love that speaks kindly, nor all honor that pranks itself in stately phrase. Madame de Sévigné had her moments when she lost faith in humanity, moments of despair, moments of still more melancholy mocking. When she is most touched with the spirit of her cynical associate, she writes, “We like so much to hear people talk of us and of our motives, that we are charmed even when they abuse us.” ”

“ The basis, or at any rate one of the most fundamental elements of Darwin’s character, was the instinct and habit of observing the external world, and we can best approach him by considering this habit in others and in him. It is astonishing how little most of us see. We live in a world of shadows and dream outlines, piecing out reality by convenient abstractions, which pass in memory like worn current counters, with little resemblance to actual fact. A tree to us is vaguely a tree: the structure of its bark, the shape of its leaves do not enter our world. ”

“ With what a strangling clutch does she tear at her heart, in the effort to make those adjustments of human passion which can never be perfectly made by flesh and blood. “You speak like one who is even further from me than I thought, who has wholly forgotten me, who no longer understands the measure of my attachment, nor the tenderness of my heart, who knows no longer the devotion I have for her, nor that natural weakness and bent to tears which have been an object of mocking to your philosophic firmness.” ”