Various

“ At this solemn hour a death-like silence reigned throughout the armament of the confederates. Men seemed to hold their breath, as if absorbed in the expectation of some great catastrophe. The day was magnificent. A light breeze, still adverse to the Turks, played on the waters, somewhat fretted by contrary winds. It was nearly noon; and as the sun, mounting through a cloudless sky, rose to the zenith, he seemed to pause, as if to look down on the beautiful scene, where the multitude of galleys, moving over the water, showed like a holiday spectacle rather than a preparation for mortal combat. ”

“ The wit which sparkles and flashes in a Bavarian beer-house may be as much less boisterous, or rather as much more quiet, than that which explodes over the distilled spirits of our bar-rooms, as the stimulant itself is less exciting, but is for this very reason the more genuine. Like the myriads of fire-flies on a warm summer evening amid the rising fog of a marshy ground, so gleams this wit in its smoky atmosphere ”

“ Some single trees, wholly bright scarlet, seen against others of their kind still freshly green, or against evergreens, are more memorable than whole groves will be by-and-by. How beautiful, when a whole tree is like one great scarlet fruit full of ripe juices, every leaf, from lowest limb to topmost spire, all aglow, especially if you look toward the sun! What more remarkable object can there be in the landscape? Visible for miles, too fair to be believed. If such a phenomenon occurred but once, it would be handed down by tradition to posterity, and get into the mythology at last. ”

“ It grew in a very pretty china vase, as if more precious than the other flowers. Several blossoms were fully expanded, and many tiny buds were showing their crimson tips. As I stood lost in rapture over this little miracle of beauty, a humming-bird, the smallest of its fairy tribe, darted into sight, and hung for an instant, its ruby crest and green and golden plumage flashing in the sun, over my new-found treasure. Were it not that the emotions of a few such moments are stamped indelibly on the memory, we should have no conception in maturer life of the intenseness of childish enjoyment. ”

“ Thou hadst done best without it, Maya; the Spark abides no other fate but shining. Yet there is a little hope for thee. Wilt thou die of the bitter fire, or wilt thou turn beggar-maid? The sleep that charity lends to its couch shall rest thee; the draught a child brings shall slake thy thirst; the food pity offers shall strengthen and renew. But these are not the gifts a Princess receives; she who gathers them must veil the Crown, shroud the Spark, conceal the Curse, and in torn robes, with bare and bleeding feet, beg the crumbs of life from door to door. ”

“ No sound in nature more cheery and refreshing than the alternating calls of a little troop of this kind echoing through the glades of the woods on a still, sunny day in winter: the vivacious chatter of the chickadee, the slender, contented pipe of the gold-crest, and the emphatic, business-like hank of the nuthatch, as they drift leisurely along from tree to tree. The winter seems to be the season of holiday enjoyment to the chickadee, and he is never so evidently and conspicuously contented as in very cold weather. In summer he withdraws to the thickets, and becomes less noisy and active. ”

“ We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows. The pines have developed their delicate blossoms on the highest twigs of the wood every summer for ages, as well over the heads of Nature's red children as of her white ones; yet scarcely a farmer or hunter in the land has ever seen them.
Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard within our horizon, it is belated. ”

“ I read a poet's mystic lay;
And it seemed to me at most
As a phantom, or a ghost.
But at length the feverish day
Like a passion died away,
And the night, serene and still,
Fell on village, vale, and hill. ”

“ We enjoyed Florence, its palaces and galleries of art, the quaint old churches, about which the religious sentiment of ages seems to hang like an atmosphere, the morning and evening clamor of musical bells, the Arno, and the olive-crowned Tuscan hills,—all so delightful to the senses and the soul. After Florence, Naples, with its beautiful, dangerous, volcanic environs, where the ancients aptly located their heaven and hell, and where a luxurious, passionate people absorbs into its blood the spirit of the soil, and the fire and languor of the clime. ”

“ Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself,—and not a taper lighted at the hearth-stone of the race, which pales before the light of common day. ”

“ No better time could be chosen by the naturalist, for the tide will be at its lowest ebb. Descending Bath Road, the beautiful crescent lies before us on the right,—Easton's Pond, with its back-ground of farms, upon the left. There is no wind to-day to break the surface of the standing water, and it gives back the dwarf willows upon its banks and the houses on the hill-side with more than Daguerrian fidelity. The broad ocean lies rocking in the sunshine, not as one a-weary, but resting at his master's bidding, waiting to begin anew the work he loves. ”

“ The universe is pledged to every heart, and the artist represents its promise. He sings, because he sees the manchild advancing, by blind paths it may be, but under sure guidance, propelled by inextinguishable desires toward the largest experience. He is no longer afraid of old bugbears. He feels for one, that nothing in the universe, call it by what ugly name you will, can crush or limit the lift of that leaven which works in the breast. Out of all eyes there looks on him the same expectation, and what for others is a great perhaps for him has become unavoidable certainty. ”

“ Maya's heart yearned with a kindred pang. She, too, was orphaned in her soul, and she would gladly have lit the fire upon this lonely hearth, and companioned the solitude of the sleeper; but, alas! the boughs still wore their summer garland, and from each severed end slow tears of dryad-life distilled honeyedly upon the stone beneath. Of such withes and saplings comes no living fire! Maya, smiling, set a kiss upon the boy-sleeper's brow, but the Spark lay quiet, and the house-spirit flung a blooming cherry-bough after its departing guest. ”

“ Europe was in prospect—Paris, Switzerland, Italy, lands to which my dreams had long since gone before me, and to which I now turned my eyes with reawakening aspirations. A new glory arose upon my life, in the light of which Margaret became a fading star. It was so much easier than I had thought, to give her up, to part from her! I found that I could forget her, in the excitement of a fresh and novel experience; while she—could she forget me? When lovers part, happy is he who goes! alas for the one that is left behind! ”

“ If in my hour of agony and shame I could implore the help of any human being, I would come to you—dear, honest, brave girl!—before all others, to fling myself at your feet, and kiss your hands, and beseech you to pity me and save me from myself, to hold my hot head on your gentle bosom, and your soothing hand on my fierce heart. ”

“ Yonder stands, against the shore, a bittern, motionless in that wreath of mist which makes his long-legged person almost as dim as his far-off booming by night. There poises a hawk, before sweeping down to some chosen bough in the dense forest; and there fly a pair of blue-jays, screaming, from tree to tree. As for wild quadrupeds, the race is almost passed away. Far to the North, indeed, the great moose still browses on the lily-pads, and the shy beaver nibbles them; but here the few lingering four-footed creatures only haunt, but do not graze upon these floating pastures. ”

“ The fair vision will not fade from us, though the paddle has dipped its last crystal drop from the waves, and the boat is drawn upon the shore. We may yet visit many lovely and lonely places,—meadows thick with violet, or the homes of the shy Rhodora, or those sloping forest-haunts where the slight Linnæa hangs its twin-born heads,—but no scene will linger on our vision like this annual Feast of the Lilies. ”

“ Toward the close of a dreamy, tranquil July day, a day made impressive beyond the possible comprehension of a dweller in civilization by its sun having risen for us over the unbroken wilderness of the Adirondack, a mountain-land in each of whose deep valleys lies a blue lake, we, a party of hunters and recreation-seekers, six beside our guides, lay on the fir-bough-cushioned floor of our dark camp, passing away the little remnant of what had been a day of rest to our guides and of delicious idleness to ourselves. ”

“ There will be so much the more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.
When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall? ”

“ It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation,
In the dark places with the dead of old
⁠It lies forever cold!"
Then said I, "From its consecrated cerements
I will not drag this sacred dust again,
⁠Only to give me pain;
But, still remembering all the lost endearments,
Go on my way, like one who looks before,
⁠And turns to weep no more."
Into what land of harvests, what plantations
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow
⁠Of sunsets burning low;
Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations
Light up the spacious avenues between
⁠This world and the unseen! ”

“ Grossman was at her side.
"Come, my beauty," said he. "The carriage is at the door. If you behave yourself, you shall be treated like a queen. Come, my love!"
He attempted to take her hand, but his touch roused her from her lethargy; and springing at him, like a wild-cat, she gave him a blow in the face that made him stagger,—so powerful was it, in the vehemence of her disgust and anger. ”

“ And in the blighting shadow of Slavery letters die and art cannot live. What book has the South ever given to the libraries of the world? What work of art has she ever added to its galleries? What artist has she produced that did not instinctively fly, like Allston, to regions in which genius could breathe and art was possible? What statesman has she reared, since Jefferson died and Madison ceased to write, save those intrepid discoverers who have taught that Slavery is the corner-stone of republican institutions, and the vital element of Freedom herself? ”

“ And I must see him again; he would call me Hetty, maybe: that would be something to remember. It was very quiet. The bare, ghastly cliffs formed a sort of crescent, on which I sat; far below, the sea rolled in, over the white sand, in heavy ashen sweeps: in one horn of the crescent the quaint old town nestled, its smoky breath sleepily giving good-night to the clear pink air; in the other stood the sullen fort, the flag flapping sharply against the sky. The picture cut itself vividly on my brain. The two black figures came slowly towards me, across the sands, seeing me at last. ”

“ On warm hill-sides its stems are ripe by the twenty-third of August. At that date I walked through a beautiful grove of them, six or seven feet high, on the side of one of our cliffs, where they ripen early. Quite to the ground they were a deep brilliant purple with a bloom, contrasting with the still clear green leaves. It appears a rare triumph of Nature to have produced and perfected such a plant, as if this were enough for a summer. What a perfect maturity it arrives at! It is the emblem of a successful life concluded by a death not premature, which is an ornament to Nature. ”

“ Through years, through men, through nature fleet,
Through passion, thought, through power and dream.
Musketaquit, a goblin strong,
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay;
They lose their grief who hear his song,
And where he winds is the day of day.
So forth and brighter fares my stream,—
Who drink it shall not thirst again;
No darkness stains its equal gleam,
And ages drop in it like rain. ”