Manley Hopkins

“ Therefore, if anywhere, we have here a right to anticipate the discovery of traces of human existence; but there are none—none up to the present time have been brought to light; nothing has been lifted from the ground to picture to our imagination the noble savage contending for existence with foes exceeding himself in passion and in strength—his whole armoury consisting of a sharpened flint, and the fires of his enkindled eye. ”

“ With our own hearts. In presence of The End
Our cheerful banter oft gave way to words
More true and earnest,—oft in silence died.
For sometimes we speak most by silent acts;
Averted eyes; the breaking short a flower;
A stifled sigh; the pressure of a hand,
Its warmth excused, as sign of absent mind.
And the heart hath an ear more swift to read
Such silent language, than if words precise
Were writ on parchment with the best nibbed pen. ”

“ Work is now performed in many houses for amusement, or for pleasure. A clergyman meditating his Sunday’s sermon finds his ideas flow more readily whilst his foot is on the treddle of the working-machine, and his hands are running a long seam for his wife. The lawyer, wearied by head-work, finds refreshment, as he sits by the fire after dinner, in stitching himself half-a-dozen pairs of wrist-bands for his shirts; and our dolls are getting better dressed as our children are allowed the privilege of working for a few minutes at a time with mamma’s sewing-machine. ”

“ The long, long summer day,
But, ah! I dearer love the night.
And hail the sinking ray.
For eve restores me one whose smile
Doth more than morning’s match,—
And life afresh seems dawning while
His hand is on the latch! ”

“ Through gaps, o’er stiles, and into copses close:
And oft we heard her merry ringing laugh,
As caught by briars she burst her daring way.
Amoret and I in safer, trodden paths
Kept on our course. Sometimes I bent a bough,
While she with ungloved fingers, shining white
’Mid green, translucent leaves, broke off the bunch
Of grey and glossy nuts: and if she leant,
So doing, on my arm her welcome weight,
She blushing begged a pardon for the wrong.
When the slant sun shot dazzling through the boughs,
We sought our lost companions,—out of reach
Of hearing, and of Amoret’s clear call. ”

“ FAIR DRINKING.
⁠“A little learning is a dangerous thing:
⁠Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.”
here’s an old Pope-ish legend going,⁠
⁠About the right of knowing,
⁠Which says it’s only for the upper classes,—
⁠Only for them the Muses’ tap is flowing,—
And all below the salt must sit with empty glasses.
⁠“Not so,” says Education,
⁠“I brew for all the nation,—
Drink, he who thirsts,—I sell by pint and barrel.” ”

“ The female angler—the lady who fishes for compliments—has no more killing fly about her than the clean-fitting, clinging, decisive boot. It has revolutionised the whole chaussure. As for sandals, they are as much things of the past as the Vandals—out of doors. Even the final dogma that a black boot cannot be worn with a white dress has been smiled away; and well-booted ladies in any-coloured dresses step fearlessly forward, trampling, with more hauteur, on Plato’s pride. To wear a light-coloured boot requires, indeed, a very small foot ”

“ Then the air with the drums and trumpets shook;
And onward again
Moved the royal train
Through the gates in right royal guise,
And the weary Queen cast a lingering look
At the girl with the peaceful eyes.
"Ah, blessed lot!" said the pensive Queen,
As the laboured hours crept by,
“‘Mid the foliage to dwell
Of a home one loves well,
And the heaven of privacy:
Shedding sweet light
Like a star on the night,
Or a glow-worm in grass-blades green! ”

“ That when thy gaze is turn’d to mine,
It seems less human than divine.
No longer young;—the soberer years,
And Time, who decks his flowers with tears,
Have taken less than they have given,—
And earth looks pale the nearer Heaven. ”

“ The great home county of Essex is less explored by strangers than almost any shire in England. Its margin, seen from the Thames, is so truly uninviting, and the way to it through the eastern limb of London, by Aldgate, Whitechapel, Mile End, and Stratford, is so dull, so flat, so poverty-stricken, and so redolent of odours, that persons who have travelled their country tolerably well, have left this material portion of it unvisited. ”

“ And warmth, and light, that fill’d my joyful breast.
Words calm and hopeful, womanly and wise,
Words that an angel might have penn’d or read;
They spoke a mood of pleasure, tears, surprise,
As if new heavens had open’d overhead,
And re-allumed the world on which she stood,
Like evening sunlight on a summer wood.
And I remember, too, at that same hour
A change came o’er me. There a man I breath’d,—
No more a youthful trifler; but with power
All armed, to wage life’s war with sword unsheathed.
I’ve fought! ”

“ Mannheim is a place of immense commerce,—so one of its inhabitants informed us, in a quaint, stagnant voice. It is very likely to be true, as the city occupies the axil of two important navigable rivers; but even trade walks about there in padded shoes, and makes no ostentatious noises or display. This Baden town, with its oleanders in the doorways, and vine-gardens in the suburbs, is by no means an unpleasing residence, especially to those who prefer a flat tone in life’s landscape. ”

“ The navigable part of the Neckar here is very limited, and the deeper channel is so narrow that the rafts of timber which descend the stream are most attenuated, consisting of two trees abreast, and of such length that they wind down the river like a snake. The activity and ingenuity of the raftsmen in guiding them are very striking. But the charming river, however shallow, spreads and frolics in a cradle of vine-clad hills ”

“ One observation about milliners and modistes, and our few remarks on modern dress are finished. Why is it that when the tide of taste turns in our favour—when, after many efforts, we at last apprehend simplicity, and rejoice that a female costume rather enhances than detracts from its wearer’s natural beauty—why is it, we ask, that the flood so soon turns, and that next season the charming head-gear and the becoming sleeve have been displaced, and that something different, not so pretty, not so correct, is the only thing to wear? ”

“ When men began to wear patent leather boots at dinners and dances, violence was inflicted on our traditions, our feelings of propriety, and our aesthetic sensitivities. They prevailed, like the insidious advance of democracy; but there long remained in more antique minds an uneasy sense, when contemplating them, of something out of doors about a boot at night, however firm and polished. ”

“ It is better to make these two preliminary remarks, lest when visited for the first time by those who think they know the appearance of the city well by report, a slight feeling of disappointment be felt, a hidden want, arising from the open and scattered plan of the town, compared with fancy’s more romantic presentation. It is with architecture as it is with pears. There is an hour of perfect ripeness. ”

“ The hat, like the ghost of the Amundevilles, will not be driven away. Here and there we meet with an individual gallantly leading a forlorn hope against the batteries of fashion, and we admire and pity. ”

“ Well-fitted as is a well-fitting boot for walking, there is nothing comparable in-doors, for either sex, to the shoe and silk-stocking. White and pale-tinted kid-boots may be worn with discretion by ladies for dancing. They do not suit all persons, though there are some feet that would look well in a clod-hopper’s high-lows or anything else. The French kid shoe, with etherial lace-like thread stocking in the house, and the rosetted satin slipper over silken hose for evening wear, have always seemed to us to come near perfection. ”

“ The stomacher was a fanciful reproduction of the Elizabethan age. So far it was looked upon with favour for a considerable period; but it was a mistake. It was a protracting of the waist far below its real position; and, at one time, fanaticism brought the point down almost to the knees. The introduction of the hat instead of the bonnet was a great modern gain. Even the much-abused “pork-pie” brought out our country-women’s beauty in no small degree.
The cardinal canon in costume is, that dress should conform itself to the human figure. ”

“ To “those who understand their epoch,” it is a result of exceeding interest to have witnessed a great science grow, in their own life of forty years, from stammering childhood to adolescence; to have seen almost the first uncertain beams of geology struggling in the morning sky, and then, from hour to hour, pouring in a flood of accumulating facts, and classifying them into a marvellous system. ”

“ Of that eve my heart beguiled,
When I whispered,—and you smiled.
IV.
Burn this letter. Thou art proud;
High thy race above the crowd.
Careless thou of others’ pain:
They must love—and thou disdain. ”

“ Was the sausage martyrdom I had suffered at school to follow me to college? I was designed for the church; but a very bad design I must have been pronounced at that period. In the pulpit I should have presented the appearance of a small egg in a large egg-cup.
The fact of my growth was, however, mentally admitted, and my mother tried to go on with her hemming, but couldn’t for looking at me. When a great happiness has been received, we recall it from time to time, to make sure we are not deceiving ourselves,—that it is not a dream. ”

“ She burst into tears; and wiping them away with the duster she was hemming, threw her arms round my neck, and sobbed on one of my shoulders. My father sipped his whisky and water, as if nothing had happened.
In truth, my height at that time was no laughing matter. I stood five feet nothing in my socks. In figure I was robust—fat. My appetite was not bad: I was nourished by what I ate, and I grew,—but always latitudinally. There was great danger of my figure becoming an oblate spheroid if that kind of growth continued. In a year or two I was to enter the university. ”

“ Do you, from your own experience or otherwise, know of any infallible remedy for growth? Has Holloway advertised any case of an extraordinary cure of tallness by the use of his ointment or his pills? Would it do me any good to go to Malvern and be rubbed, or are there any baths in Germany which have a shrinking effect on the human body? ”

“ Lower Wimpfen, half a mile further up the Neckar, is sought for its saline baths, whilst its grand church claims the architect’s admiration.
We take leave of the steamboat at Heilbronn, crossing the river as we approach that antique town by a covered bridge, in form like a very elongated cottage with its two end walls out. Why in this city, and in Swiss towns, passengers should be so carefully protected from weather in crossing a river, and left so exposed to it in the streets, remains among the things yet to be explained. ”

“ The two great churches create a rivalry of interest in the visitor’s mind. St. Laurenz, on the south side, is the larger, as well as the older edifice. It is particularly rich in its glass, and possesses the remarkable work of Adam Kraft, the Sacraments-Häuslein, a spiring canopy in stone, climbing upwards, as it were, against one of the pillars, and then gracefully bending its extreme point at the springing of the arch, like some tall grown plant that has reached the roof of a greenhouse. ”

“ The world in general is now the market which each manufacturer has to supply, and nation after nation becomes a purchaser. It will be an advantage when the particular style of advertising common to sewing-machine warehouses can be dispensed with—the highly-dressed young ladies sitting at their supposed work in elegant attitudes, framed and glazed within plate-glass windows almost extending to the pavement. ”

“ Of gloves we need not speak: we need only regret that the best of all possible gloves, the genuine kid, should be and continue so expensive an article of dress, being as they are so indispensable. Perhaps there is nothing which brings home to us the possibility of a depreciation in gold more vividly than the four shillings which we have so constantly to lay on the counter for a pair of gloves, hearing at the same time that the shopkeeper gets nothing by selling them. The agriculture of kids ought to be more attended to. ”

“ Others are left without occupation, and have to throw themselves into new lines of labour. Another and smaller section, it is feared, sink altogether into pauperism. Some of the needlewomen—those who took in work at their own homes—will succeed in obtaining a machine of their own. Many have already done so, although the price—five pounds to twenty pounds—is large. As an investment it is unquestionably a good one to those who depend on needlework for their bread.
The great number of shops in London devoted to the sale of sewing-machines is a matter of astonishment. ”