Various

“ What matters to her the care of your honor or the love of your subjects? Has she ever said to you: ‘Henry, I love you, but your duty separates you from me; be great, be virtuous’? Has she said: ‘Catherine, your wife, is my sovereign, and I recognize no other’? Do you not hear the voice of your people saying to your children: ‘You shall reign over us’? But what am I saying? No, of course she has not spoken thus; because she seeks to elevate herself, she thinks of her own aggrandizement—to see at her feet men whom she would never otherwise be able to command. ”

“ Every flower and blade of grass has a message for us, if we could but hear it; the woods and fields are all tablets on which the primitive scriptures of creative love are written for us. “Your life is to be like ours,” the snow-drops were whispering to Franceline. “We dwell alone in cold and silence—so must you; we have no sister flowers to make life joyous, no roses to gladden us with their perfume and their beauty—neither shall you; roses are emblems of love, and love is not for you. ”

“ As the light of heaven fades away, do not all things grow dark, leaving us in the shadow of death, despairing or debauched, sullen or frantic? The poet’s dream, the mother’s fond hope, the heart’s deep yearning, the mind’s flight towards the infinite, all become flat, meaningless, and unprofitable. Men are simply animals chained to this clod, too happy if the heaven-seeking eye permitted them to see it alone. Trouble, danger, and physical pain are the only evils, and virtue is the sharp-sighted prudence which enables us to avoid them. Self-denial is not only useless, it is irrational. ”

“ Because age, which has been the first and most incurable of all the infirmities she has been compelled to drag after her, had forcibly despoiled her of the charming freshness of her youth? Has that husband not enjoyed the flower of her beauty and garnered in the most beautiful days of her life, and will he forsake his wife now because she has become feeble, delicate, and suffering? Shall he become inconstant and perjured at the very moment when her sad condition demands of him a thousand sacrifices, and claims a return to the faithful devotion and vows of his early youth? ”

“ But a false science—one which would assign to each of us an insignificant phenomenal existence, whose individuality will disappear, at the end of its few days of living consciousness, in an universal whole in an eternal state of progress—is as fatal to human happiness as anything can be short of the abyss of reprobation. More consoling, as it is more in accordance with right reason, is the testimony which comes to us trumpet-tongued, in one vast unison, from all the ages, that the history of the race is one of decadence, not of progress. ”

“ Tennyson has not enough of the divine afflatus to write tragedy. If he has not sufficient love of the beautiful in inanimate nature for his soul to echo to it, and his heart to throb with the sense of it, with the rapidity of an intuition, so as to make unattainable to him the highest excellence in lyric poetry, how much more out of his reach must be a first rank in the tragic drama; where, if anywhere, an intuition of the beautiful amounting to an inspiration is demanded in that supreme creation of God which, as the consummation of his “work” and word, he has embodied in his own substance! ”

“ What poor and ragged sinner was ever repelled from a Catholic Church by imposing architecture, or gorgeous windows, or the blazing magnificence of lighted altars, or the strains of costly music? The rich have their pews—at least in this country, where it is only by pew-rents that we can meet the necessary expenses of the parish—but the most wretched beggar feels that he is welcome at all times in the splendid temple, and he may kneel there, feasting the senses, if he pleases, as well as refreshing the soul, without fear that his more comfortable neighbor will stare at his humble garments. ”

“ This freedom of worship, freedom of conscience, and legal equality, as declared and confirmed by our forefathers, has become, in fact, not only the written but also the common law of the land—the birthright of every native-born American, the acquired, but no less sacred, privilege of every citizen by adoption. Whoever now attempts to disturb or question it, by word or act, disgraces his country in the eyes of all mankind, and defiles the memory of our greatest and truest heroes and statesmen. ”

“ No, don’t say you love her; say you love the pleasure she affords you, the attractions she possesses, which have charmed your senses—in a word, acknowledge that you love yourself in her, and consider well that the day when nature deprives her of her gifts and graces your memory will no longer represent her to you but as an insipid image, worthy only of a scornful oblivion! Ah! if you loved her truly, you would act in a different manner. ”

“ Sir Simon was all the time feeding his heart with the milk of human kindness, making a bond between the proud, poor brother and the rest of the rich and happy brotherhood who were strangers to him. Raymond loved them all for the sake of this one. Nothing nourishes our hearts like gratitude. It widens our space for love, and enlarges our capacity for kindness; it creates a want in us to send the same happy thrills through other hearts that are stirring our own. We overflow with love to all in thankfulness for the love of one. ”

“ In forgetting the faith that made them whole they have forgotten the secret of the elixir of national life. Hence, bitter as the struggle is, a Catholic cannot but hope much in the near future from the present trials of the church. The blows of Germany have crushed shams to the earth, and caused the truth to shine forth resplendent and beautiful. Whatever may be this faith that the nations have forgotten, that has been a mockery among men of the world, it is manifest, at least, that there is a profound reality in it, and a vitality that no power on earth can hope to destroy. ”

“ A sense of the infinite, such as we feel in the midst of the ocean, comes over us. We grow breathless as the air—grow silent as the light that gilds the vast landscape before us. One of the greatest of the sons of the Landes—the Père de Ravignan—says: “Solitude is the patrie des forts: silence is their prayer.” One feels how true it is in these boundless moors. It is the only prayer fit for this realm of silence, where one is brought closer and closer to the heart of nature, and restored, as it were, at least in a degree, to the primeval relation of man with his Creator. ”

“ They are a perpetual drifting detritus, without coherence as without consistency; and as they slip down the slant of time, they fall into the abyss of oblivion, and will leave not a trace behind, only in so far that, vanishing from sight, they make way for the fuller establishment of the truth—the eternal, the divine, spherical truth, absolute in its cohesion and perfect in all its parts.
The hold which heathen and pagan creeds have had upon mankind conveys a lesson to ourselves which superficial thinkers are apt to overlook. ”

“ The curse of our age is that men will believe that, in education, to spell, to read, to write, is what signifies, and they cast aside the eternal faith, the infinite hope, the divine love, that more than all else make us men.
“The true test of civilization,” says Emerson, “is not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops—no, but the kind of man the country turns out.” Is there some mystic virtue in printed words that to be able to read them should make us men? And even in the most enlightened countries what do the masses of men know? ”

“ Is it strange that this education should hurt the nation’s highest interests by driving in crowds, like cattle to the shambles, our youths from God and nature and tilling of the soil to town and city, or, worse, into professions to which only their conceit or distaste for hard labor calls them? What place for morality is there in this Poor Richard’s Catechism—education of thrift and best policy? We grow in likeness to what we love, not to what we know. With low aims and selfish loves only narrow and imperfect characters are compatible. ”

“ Prince Bismarck knew his men, and we give him credit for his sagacity. Not every eye could have pierced the mist, and froth, and sound, and fury of German professordom, and beheld the craven heart that was beneath.
Only men who believe in God and the soul are dangerous rebels. Why should he who has no faith make a martyr of himself? Why, since there is nothing but law, blind and merciless force, throw yourself beneath the wheels of the state Juggernaut to be crushed? ”

“ With rare eloquence we denounce tyrant kings and turn to lick the hands of the tyrant people. Whoever questions the wisdom of the American people is not to be argued with—he is to be pitied; and therefore both press and pulpit, though they flaunt the banner of freedom, are the servants of the tyrant. To have no principles, but to write and speak what will please the most and offend the fewest—this is the philosophy of free speech. We therefore have no independent, and consequently no great, thinkers. ”

“ Poor child! who wouldst look out into the universe as God’s great temple, and behold in all its glories the effulgence of heaven; to whom morning, noon, and night, and change of season, golden flood of day and star-lit gloom, all speak of some diviner life, how they stun thy poetic soul, full of high dreams and noble purposes, with their cold teaching that man lives on bread alone—put money in thy purse! ”

“ It is almost useless for me to speak of the kindness and hospitality of these good Franciscan fathers of the Holy Land, as it is known throughout the world, and abler pens than mine have endeavored, but in vain, to praise them as they deserve. Unselfish, kind, burying self completely in the great work they have undertaken, they have given up their homes, families, and all that was dear to them, to live a monastic life among these sacred spots, to guard these holy places, and, like ministering angels, to assist pilgrims from every clime and of every Christian race and nationality. ”

“ Mark that well, Cromwell—the pain of refusing! Thus, you see, after having tried everything, spent everything, and used every possible means, what remains now for me to hope?”
“All that you wish,” replied Cromwell; “everything without exception! Why permit yourself to be governed by those who ought to be your slaves? Among all the clergy who surround you, and whom you are able to reduce, if you choose, to mendicity, can you not find a priest who will marry you? If I were King of England, I would very soon convince them that the happiness of their lives depended entirely upon mine! ”

“ We look around, we reflect, and then, after having well meditated, we all descend.
At the foot of the desert we find again huts, then cottages, by and by a village. With movement and life we find our speech again, and with speech discussion. Overwhelmed until then by the wild beauty of all around us and by the majesty of its silence, the sceptics only now recommence the criticisms which were cut short the evening before: “What services do these monks render to mankind? To what purpose do they bury themselves upon those heights, when there is so much to be done below?” ”

“ The field of battle, the burning city, the flood, and the pestilence are Mary’s harvest fields, whither she sends her angels, over whom she is queen, with special and extraordinary graces, to gather and collect those who might otherwise have perished, and, in the supreme moment which is doubtless so often God’s hour, to win trophies of mercy to the honor and glory of the Precious Blood. ”

“ Perfection is not to be found in nature, except when seen through a poet’s eyes. Perhaps it was true that Franceline had ceased to love Clide. When our will is firmly set upon self-conquest we are apt to fancy it achieved. But conquest does not of necessity bring joy, or even peace. Nothing is so terrible as a victory, except a defeat, was a great captain’s cry on surveying the bloody field of yesterday’s battle. The frantic effort, the bleeding trophies may inflict a death-wound on the conqueror as fatal, in one sense, as defeat. We see the “good fight” every day leading to such issues. ”

“ Look at a famous trial where the very aroma and fine essence of our civilization was gathered: What bright minds, keen intellects! Poetry, eloquence, romance; the culture, the knowledge, the scientific theories, of the age—all are there. And yet, when the veil is lifted, we simply turn away heart sick and nauseated. Not a hundred statistical prison reports would reveal the festering corruption and deep depravity, the coarse vulgarity and utter heartlessness that is there, whatever the truth may be, if in such surroundings it can be found at all. ”

“ Courage indeed is needed precisely here; for to deny that there is a God, to treat Christ as a myth or a common man, to declaim against religion as superstition, to make the Bible a butt for witticisms and fine points, to deny future life and the soul’s immortality, to denounce marriage, to preach communism, and to ridicule whatever things mankind have hitherto held sacred—this is not only tolerable, it is praiseworthy and runs with the free thought of an enlightened and inquiring age. ”

“ It is not enough to bring our holiest rites and beliefs into the obscene literature now circulating amongst the depraved youth of our country. It is not enough to drown with a thousand noisy, insolent tongues, every attempt we make at explanation. It is not enough for this malignant, persecuting power to drop its poison into every crevice of our social and religious system, from the parlor to the sewer, from the temple to the lupanar; but the nation must be organized against us. Our religion must, in some way or other, be dragged into politics. For shame! we cry, with the President. ”

“ The Landes—that long, desolate tract on the western coast of France between the Gironde and the Adour, with its vast forests of melancholy pines, its lone moors and solitary deserts, its broad marshes, and its dunes of sand that creep relentlessly on as if they had life—appeal wonderfully to the imagination, that folle du logis, as Montaigne calls it, but which, in spite of him, we love to feed. ”