Robert Southey

“ That bird, which Nature hath made free of earth, air and water, loses by servitude the use of one element, the enjoyment of two, and the freedom of all three.
Look at the Pig also, said the Doctor. In his wild state no animal is cleaner, happier, or better able to make himself respected. Look at him when tamed,—I will not say in a brawn-case, for I am not speaking now of those cruelties which the Devil and Man between them have devised,—but look at him prowling at large about the purlieus of his sty. What a loathsome poor despised creature hath man made him! ”

“ The poet Campbell is said to have calculated that a man who shaves himself every day, and lives to the age of threescore and ten, expends during his life as much time in the act of shaving, as would have sufficed for learning seven languages.
The poet Southey is said to carry shaving to its ne plus ultra of independency, for he shaves sans looking-glass, sans shaving-brush, sans soap, or substitute for soap, sans hot-water, sans cold-water, sans every thing except a razor. And yet among all the characters which he bears in the world, no one has ever given him credit for being a cunning shaver! ”

“ Albeit I have studied much and learned little, yet I have learned to glean some handfulls of corn out of the rankest cockle; to make choice of the most fragrant flowers of humanity, the most virtuous herbs of philosophy, the most sovereign fruits of government, and the most heavenly manna of divinity; to be acquainted with the fairest, provided for the foulest, delighted with the temperatest, pleased with the meanest, and contented with all weather—greater men may profess and can achieve greater matters: I thank God I know the length, that is the shortness of my own foot. ”

“ Ten minutes he can bestow upon German, which I recommend because it is a master-key for many doors both of language and of knowledge. His mind will be refreshed even by this brief change of scene and atmosphere. In a few weeks (I repeat) he will wonder at his own progress: and in a few years, if he is good for anything—if the seed has not been sown upon a stony place, nor among thorns, he will bless me his unknown benefactor, for showing him by what small savings of time, a man may become rich in mind. ”

“ With heate and humour breedes the living wight.
So delighted was he with this recollection, and with the beautiful picture of Belphœbe which it recalled, that he would instantly have named the foal Belphœbe,—if it had happened to be a filly. For a moment it occurred to him to call him Belphœbus; but then again he thought that Belphœbus was too like Belphegor, and he would not give any occasion for a mistake, which might lead to a suspicion that he favoured Nicholas's notion of the Devil's concern in the business.
But the naming of this horse was not so lightly to be decided. ”

“ Nothing therefore can be owed to dumb animals, and yet how many have the speed of a horse saved from danger! Nor to trees, and yet how many when suffering under the summer sun, have the thick boughs shaded!” To the same tenour Ben Jonson speaks. “Nothing is a courtesy,” he says, “unless it be meant us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring, and fill our sails; or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not.” ”

“ For the Lay says that the Little Woman instead of doubting for a while whether she were asleep or awake, that is to say whether she were in a dream because of the strange, and indecorous, and uncomfortable and unaccountable condition in which she found herself, doubted her own identity, and asked herself whether she were herself, or not? So little was she able to answer so subtle a question satisfactorily that she determined upon referring it to the decision of a little dog which she had left at home, and whose fidelity and instinctive sagacity could not, she thought, be deceived. ”

“ Lord Shaftesbury has said that “of all the artificial relations formed between mankind, the most capricious and variable is that of Author and Reader.” He may be right in this; but when he says 'tis evident that an Author's art and labour are for his Reader's sake alone, I cannot assent to the position. For though I have a great and proper regard for my readers, and entertain all due respect for them, it is not for their sake alone that my art and labour have been thus employed,—not for their benefit alone, still less for their amusement that this Opus has been edified. ”

“ One colour is born to slavery abroad, and one sex to shavery at home!—A woman to secure her comfort and well-being in this country stands in need of one thing only, which is a good husband; but a man hath to provide himself with two things, a good wife, and a good razor, and it is more difficult to find the latter than the former. ”

“ This was forming a severer opinion of the Ancient of the Deep, the old Prophet of the Sea, than I would pronounce upon Julian himself, though the name of Apostate clings to him. Unhappy as he was in the most important of all concerns, he was at least a true believer in a false religion, and therefore a better man than some of those kings who have borne the title of most Christian or most Catholic. I wish he had kept his beard clean! But our follies and weaknesses, when they are nothing worse, die with us, and are not like unrepented sins to be raised up in judgement. ”

“ That horse never needed food or sleep: he never stumbled at whatever speed his master found it needful to ride down the most precipitous descent; his eyes emitted light to show the Trappist his way in the darkness; the tramp of his hoofs was heard twenty miles around, and whatsoever man in the enemy's camp first heard the dreadful sound, knew that his fate was fixed, and he must inevitably die in the ensuing fight. Nobs resembled this portentous horse as little as the Doctor resembled the terrible Trappist. ”

“ Quelques-uns des sites qu'on rencontre etalent les attraits et les grâces d'une nature virginale; dans d'autres, on admire ce que l'âge, de sa plus grande force, peut avoir de plus imposant et de plus auguste; et d'antiques forêts, dont les arbres ont une grosseur et une élévation qui attestent leur grand âge, excitent une admiration mêlée de respect; et ces prodigieux végétaux encore verts, encore beaux, après une vie de tant de siecles, semblent vouloir nous apprendre, que dans ces contrées solitaires et fertiles, la nature vit toujours, et ne vieillit jamais. ”

“ But Court de Gebelin asks, “why not from gratitude and admiration as well? Are not these passions as capable of making Gods as Fear? Is not experience itself in accord with us here? Do not all savage nations admit of Two Principles, the one Good who ought not to be feared, the other Evil to whom sacrifices must be offered in order to avert the mischief in which he delights? If fear makes them address their homage to the one, it has no part in the feeling which produces it toward the other. Which then of these sentiments has led to Fetish-worship? ”

“ Duck-luck answers and says, “I was created to be one of the most privileged of God's creatures, born to the free enjoyment of three elements. My wings were to bear me whither I would thro' the sky, as change of season required change of climate for my well being; the waters were to afford me pastime and food, the earth repose and shelter. No bird more joyous, more active, more clean or more delighting in cleanliness than I should be, if the society of man had not corrupted my instincts. ”

“ But you are not to be excused if you suspect me of its counterfeit, that mock humanity which is one characteristic of this dishonourable and dishonest age. I say you are not to be excused, if being so far acquainted as by this time you must be with the philosophy of the Doctor, you suspect me his faithful and dutiful disciple of this pitiful affectation.
How the thought concerning Whales came just now into my mind will be seen when its application shall in due course be made apparent. Where I am is always well known to myself, tho' every Reader may not always discover my whereabout. ”

“ But as it was his delight to find good, or to look for it, in every thing, and especially when he could discover the good which may be educed from evil, he used to say that more good than evil resulted from shaving, preposterous as he knew the practice to be, irrational as he admitted it was, and troublesome as to his cost, he felt it. The inconvenience and the discomfort of the operation no doubt were great,—very great, especially in frosty weather, and during March winds, and when the beard is a strong beard. ”

“ Men being what they are, there were cases in which it seemed that the animal soul would be degraded instead of advanced by entering into the human form. For example, the Doctor considered the beast to be very often a much worthier animal than the butcher; the horse than the horse-jockey or the rider; the cock, than the cock-fighter; the young whale than the man who harpoons the reasonable and dutiful creature when it suffers itself to be struck rather than forsake its wounded mother. ”

“ Cock-lock answers and says, “Is there a man impudent enough to ask me the question! You squail at us on Shrove Tuesday; you feed us with Cock-bread, and arm us with steel spurs, that we may mangle and kill each other for your sport; you build cock-pits; you make us fight Welsh mains, and give subscription cups to the winner. And what would that Cock-lock say, who was a Cock-lock till you made him a Capon-lapon!”
“Duck-luck, Duck-luck, which is best for you, to be a wild Duck-luck, or to live as you are living under the protection and care, and regular government of Man?” ”

“ For if the whole of a brute animal's existence ended in this world, then it would follow that there are creatures born into it, for whom it had been better never to have been, than to endure the privations, pains and wrongs and cruelties, inflicted upon them by human wickedness; and he would not, could not, dared not believe that any, even the meanest of God's creatures, has been created to undergo more of evil than of good (where no power of choice was given) —much less to suffer unmingled evil, during its allotted term of existence. ”

“ It was a received opinion in the seventeenth century that maniacs, and other persons afflicted with morbid melancholy, spoke in strange languages, and foretold things that were to come, by virtue,—that is to say—in consequence of their mental malady. But some philosophers who in the march of intellect were in advance of their age, denied the fact, and accounted for the persuasion by supposing that such patients, when in a state of great agitation, uttered unmeaning words or sounds which ignorant people took to be Greek, Latin or Hebrew, merely because they could not understand them. ”

“ Nor can he as he waxes old need a death's head for a memento in his closet or his chamber; for day by day he traces the defeatures which the hand of Time is making,—that hand which never suspends its work. ”

“ That of a thousand five hundred go to burn eternally in Hell! who is there that does not tremble at the thought? But if we look at the little Christianity and the little fear of God with which men live, we ought rather to give thanks to the Divine Mercy, than to be astonished at this justice. ”

“ While the Doctor was deliberating by what significant name to call the foal of which he had in so surprising a manner found himself possessed, a warm dispute upon the same subject had arisen between Barnaby and Nicholas: for though a woman does not consider herself complimented when she is called a horse-godmother, each was ambitious of being horse-godfather on this occasion, and giving his own name to the colt, which had already become a pet with both. ”

“ It looks upon the dog as standing to his master in far other relation than his horse or his ox or his ass,—as a creature connected with him by the moral ties of companionship and fidelity and friendship. ”

“ Yet I cannot agree with you in the opinion that those who make a false display of fine feelings whether in prose or verse, always betray themselves. The cant of sentimentalism passes as current with the Reading Public, as cant of a different description with those who call themselves the Religious Public. Among the latter, the proudest and the most uncharitable people in this nation are to be found; and in proof that the most intensely selfish of the human race may be sentimentalists, and super-sentimentalists, it is sufficient to name Rousseau. ”

“ The all-doubting and therefore always half-believing Bayle has said that les actions des bêtes sont peut-être un des plus profonds abîmes sur quoi notre raison se puisse exercer.
But here the Doctor acknowledged himself to be in doubt. That another state of existence there must be for every creature wherein there is the breath of life, he was verily persuaded. To that conclusion the whole tenour of his philosophy led him, and what he entertained as a philosophical opinion, acquired from a religious feeling something like the strength of faith. ”

“ In general while he is possessed of it, it only bloats and swells him, makes him proud and insolent, griping and oppressive; pampers and enrages his lust, stretches out his desires into insatiable bulimy, sticks his mind full of cares, and his conscience of guiles, and by all those woeful effects it inflames his reckoning with God, and treasures up wrath for him against the day of wrath: so that comparing the consequences of the good man's adversity, with those of the bad man's prosperity, it is evident that the former fares well even in his worst condition, and the latter ill in his best. ”