William Cleaver Wilkinson

“ For with Pascal the thought and the style penetrate each other inextricably and almost indistinguishably. You cannot print a smile, an inflection of the voice, a glance of the eye, a French shrug of the shoulders. And such modulations of the thought seem everywhere to lurk in the turns and phrases of Pascal’s inimitable French. To translate them is impossible.
Pascal is beyond question the greatest modern master of that indescribably delicate art in expression, which, from its illustrious ancient exemplar, has received the name of the Socratic irony. ”

“ It is a fountain of delight, in which they are absorbed as fishes are absorbed in the sea; they wish for nothing, and, having nothing, they possess all things. This celestial light satiates the hunger of the soul; every desire is precluded; and they have a fulness of joy which sets them above all that mortals seek with such restless ardor, to fill the vacuity that aches forever in their breast. All the delightful objects that surround them are disregarded; for their felicity springs up within, and, being perfect, can derive nothing from without. ”

“ My Stephen has pondered deep these things,
And to result of truth well worth his pains.
Thou hast profited, my son, perhaps beyond
Thine own thought of thy profiting, in sweet
Acquist of wisdom from the mind of Christ.
Fair change, change fair and great, in thee since when
Thou cursedst Shimei in that bitter psalm!—
Bitter from thee who saidst it bitterly.
Behold, thou art fain, forsooth, to find those words,
Those same words now which then thou likedst well
Rolling them under thy tongue a morsel sweet,
Almost too human for at all divine. ”

“ To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius.
Chateaubriand posed all his life as the wearied Colossus, smiling pitifully upon a pigmy world, and contemptuously affecting to desire nothing from it, though at the same time wishing it to be believed that he could if he pleased possess himself of every thing by mere force of genius. ”

“ With thee for sister, Rachel," Saul replied,
With fondness and self-pity, as he kissed
The pure young brow upturned toward him; "but me,
Thou dost not know me as I know myself."
"O nay, but better, brother," Rachel said;
"Right hate is good, as good as love. So, hate,
But not thyself, Saul. Shall I tell thee one
To hate? I hate him, and I counsel thee,
Hate, Saul, that evil man I saw but now
Steal from his too long privilege at thine ear."
"Him, Rachel," Saul replied, "I cannot hate;
Hatred is made impossible by scorn." ”

“ Then I interrogate myself, I reason with myself, and I put to myself the question—If I had for as many ages, and a thousand times as many, undergone torments in that glowing fire which is kindled by the breath of the Lord in his anger to take eternal vengeance, would eternity be at an end? No; and why? Because it is eternity, and eternity is endless. To number up the stars that shine in the heavens, to count the drops of water that compose the sea, to tell the grains of sand that lie upon the shore, is not absolutely impossible ”

“ What were they, Greek or Hebrew? Didst thou heed
So as to mark the manner of the speech,
Or peradventure but the meaning take?"
"Hebrew the words were, master," Saul replied;
"If ever it were possible for me
To lose them from my memory, mine ear
Would hear their haunting echo evermore.
Such light, such sound, forsake the senses never.
O master, when God speaks to man, doubt not
He finds the means to certify Himself.
Let Him now certify Himself to thee,
Through me, me the least worthy of such grace,
To be ambassador of grace from Him!"
Paul's words were not so eloquent as Paul. ”

“ And shall not wisdom cry? My heart is hot,
Amid the multitude they make their prey,
To meet these false proclaimers to their face,
And stop their mouths, with Moses and with all
The prophets and the Psalms, from uttering lies."
Gamaliel heard, and like a lion stood,
That shakes his dewy mane from slumber roused;
The old man loomed in action nobly tall,
As thus, with weighty gesture, in a voice
Solid with will, he gently, sternly spoke:
"Nay, Saul, my son, thy zeal misguides thee now—
Thy zeal, and peradventure some conceit
Of wisdom wiser than thine elders. ”

“ Persons, things, events, suffer a sea-change, always to something rich and strange seen by him looming in the luminous haze of atmosphere with which his imagination perpetually invests them. His men are ennobled, like Ulysses transfigured by Pallas-Athene. His women are beautiful as houris fresh from paradise. The aspects of ocean and shore and wood and stream and mountain and sky, are all, to Lamartine, washed with a light that never was on sea or land or in heaven overhead, the consecration and the poet’s dream. This quality in Lamartine’s style does not prevent his being very fine. ”

“ Of hidden things and hard to understand,
The pathos of the mystery of the world,
The human strife, with the defeat foregone
Companioning the strife and ending it—
Yet ending not a strife that could not end,
But ever, round and round, one dull defeat,
Trod the treadmill of fate, no hope, no goal.
A gentle-mannered man, but sad of cheer,
Krishna his name, pilgrim of many climes,
Not idly curious to behold and learn,
But hiding pity in his heart for men
Seen everywhere the same, poor blinded moles
Toiling and moiling in the sunless mines
Of being, where no joy, whence no escape. ”

“ What constitutes the charm—partly a perilous charm—of French literature is, before all else, its incomparable clearness, its precision, its neatness, its point; then, added to this, its lightness of touch, its sureness of aim; its vivacity, sparkle, life; its inexhaustible gayety; its impulsion toward wit,—impulsion so strong as often to land it in mockery; the sense of release that it breathes and inspires; its freedom from prick to the conscience; its exquisite study and choice of effect; its deference paid to decorum,—decorum, we mean, in taste, as distinguished from morals ”

“ Of genius which forever makes the brow
It strikes on from its fountain far in God
Shine like the sunrise-smitten mountain peak—
Saul felt these things in Stephen by his tie
With Stephen in the fellowship of power;
Kindred to kindred answered and rejoiced.
But that in Stephen which was more and higher
Than Stephen at his native most and highest,
The inhabitation of the Holy Ghost—
This, Saul had yet no sense to apprehend.
The Spirit of God, only the Spirit of God
Can know; the natural man to Him is deaf
And blind. Saul, therefore, seeing did not see,
And hearing heard not. ”

“ He is the only fabulist, of any age or any nation, that, on the score simply of his fables, is admitted to be poet as well as fabulist. There is perhaps no other literary name whatever among the French by long proof more secure than is La Fontaine’s, of universal and of immortal renown. Such a fame is, of course, not the most resplendent in the world; but to have been the first, and to remain thus far the only, writer of fables enjoying recognition as true poetry—this, surely, is an achievement entitling La Fontaine to monumental mention in any sketch, however summary, of French literature. ”

“ So had Paul learned to let the peace of Christ
Rule in his heart, a fixed perpetual calm,
Like the deep sleep of ocean at his core
Of waters underneath the planes of storm.
And Stephen answered: "Oh, with God, with God!
And blesséd be His name that thus I choose!"
"Yea, verily," Paul said, "for He sole it is
Who worketh in us, both to will and work
For the good pleasure of His holy will.
As thou this fashion of obedience
Obediently acceptest at His gift,
So growest thou faithful mirror to reflect
Clear to thyself, and just, the thought of God. ”

“ Save this unhappy man, use your influence in his favor, exert yourself to become his support. I know that this is much that I ask; but the greater the effort, the greater the glory from it. To preserve a rival of whom you are jealous, that is a trait of virtue which appertains only to you. And if your renown is not motive sufficient, it is much that a woman once so well beloved, and the love of whom perhaps is still capable of touching you, will owe to your great heart the dearest possession that she owns; remember, in short, that you are Severus. ”

“ Then Rachel, with the Everlasting Arms
Invisibly, nigh visibly, around
Her to sustain her steps, came forth, as one
That meekly walks leaning on her beloved,
And begged of Ruth that she might sister be
To her, that day, and thenceforth ever, mourn
As sister with her in the eyes of all.
"For I am lonely," Rachel said, "O Ruth,
As thou art; lonely let us be, we twain,
Together, widows both, and mix our tears.
For also I am widow, as thou art,
Yet not as thou—since me a heavier stroke
Makes widow, who have never been a wife!" ”

“ Of life lived wholly without God, and vain,
Paul sighed in spirit and thought: 'The world, the world!
How vast and dreadful, overshadowing all!
How strong and dreadful, dominating all!
Kingdom and usurpation in the earth!
What power shall overthrow thee, so enthroned
As thou art at the center of all things
In Rome, and wielding, thou unshaken there,
Thence wielding all the shaken universe
Implement in thy hand to wreak thy will? ”

“ The bloodless warfare was fierce between the revolutionary Romanticists and the conservative Classicists in literary style, but the victory seemed at last to remain with the advocates of the new romantic revival. It looked, on the face of the matter, like a signal triumph of originality over prescription, of genius over criticism, of power over rule. We still live in the midst of the dying echoes of this resonant strife. Perhaps it is too early, as yet, to determine on which side, by the merit of the cause, the advantage truly belongs. ”