Basil the Great

“ In the afternoon, as he was pacing alone in a little portico near the abbot's tower, the prior approached him. This reverend man had hitherto paid little or no attention to Basil. He walked ever with eyes cast down as if in deep musing, yet it was well known that he observed keenly, and that his duties to the community were discharged with admirable zeal and competence. In the world he would have been a great administrator. In the monastery he seemed to find ample scope for his powers, and never varied from the character of a man who set piety and learning above all else. ”

“ The last sparks of resistance were extinguished in 1018, and the great Slavonic realm lay in the dust. The power of Byzantium controlled once more the Illyrian peninsula. Basil died in December 1025 in the midst of preparations to send a naval expedition to recover Sicily from the Saracens.
Basil's reign marks the highest point of the power of the Eastern empire since Justinian I. Part of the credit is due to his predecessors Nicephorus and Tzimisces, but the greater part belongs to him. ”

“ Basilius, bp. of Caesarea in Cappadocia, commonly called Basil the Great, the strenuous champion of orthodoxy in the East, the restorer of union to the divided Oriental church, and the promoter of unity between the East and the West, was born at Caesarea (originally called Mazaca) , the capital of Cappadocia, towards the end of 329. His parents were members of noble and wealthy families, and Christians by descent. His grandparents on both sides had suffered during the Maximinian persecution, his maternal grandfather losing both property and life. ”

“ There were pictures not so pleasant; great hulking men smoking pipes and lounging about, with "Brute" stamped on their features, and women as coarse, whose birth and training perhaps were a legitimate answer to their worse than common language and manners. Basil's observations of London life during the last few months had supplied him with ample food for reflection, and he could honestly have preached a homily on charity which better men than he--say, for instance, philanthropists or statesmen with hobbies--might serviceably have taken to heart. ”

“ Basil was a man peculiarly adapted to inspire affection in honest, simple hearts, and such a bond grew between him and Annette. Happy is the man whose manners cause children to regard him as one of themselves; he possesses an inheritance of pleasant hours which money cannot purchase. Basil and Annette, then, spent a great deal of time together, accompanied by the faithful Bruno, and it gladdened the father's heart to see his child so happy in the society of their new friend. ”

“ So they were both ordained to be clergymen, and their friendship continued as warm as ever. Gregory did many kind offices to Basil, and at length, when the archbishopric of Cæsarea, the chief city of Cappadocia, fell vacant, Gregory had a great share in getting his friend chosen to it. Basil was now in a very high office, with many bishops under him; and he had become noted as one of the chief defenders of the Catholic faith. And when the emperor Valens set up Arianism in all other parts of his dominions, Basil remained at his post, and kept the Church of Cæsarea free from the heresy. ”

“ The lights of countless cressets were reflected from the marble floor of the great reception hall and shone on the rich panelling, and the many-hued tapestries which decked the walls.
In the shadow of the little marble kiosk which rose, a relic of a happier age, among oleander and myrtles, shadowed by tall cypresses, silent guardians of the past, Theodora and Basil faced each other. The white, livid face of the man gave testimony to the passions that consumed him, as his burning gaze swept the woman before him. ”

“ Then Basil watched in prayers one night with the faithful people, and in the early morning, all began to cry, Kyrie, eleison, with loud voice to the dear Saviour ; Then suddenly came a great wind, and threw open the door, so that the bolts burst, and it struck against the wall.
Then went they in, praising the Almighty, and the bishop said mass, and blessed the faithful, and many of the heretics received the faith.
Then the emperor could not gainsay the decision, but let the servants of God inhabit God's temple, and enjoy the property which was made their own. ”

“ Here Basil,--one of the commanding intellects of his day, and as learned and polished as he was pious,--like Jerome after him, proved himself a great legislator and administrator, including in his comprehensive view both Christian principles and the necessities of the times, and adapting his institution to both.
One of the most obvious, flagrant, and universal evils of the day was devotion to money-making in order to purchase sensual pleasures. It pervaded Roman life from the time of Augustus. ”

“ Basil's life-work was the moving back of the East-Roman border in the Balkan Peninsula as far as the Danube, a line which it had not touched since the Slavonic immigration in the days of Heraclius, three hundred and fifty years before. In the first years of his reign, indeed, he accomplished little, being much harassed by two rebellions of great Asiatic nobles—Bardas Phocas, the nephew of Nicephorus II., and Bardas Skleros, the general of the Armeniac theme. ”

“ Where the eye had ached with the harsh red of the rocks spread with the harsh green of the scant vegetation, soft vapors rose insensibly—purple, pink, and orange—changing into nameless hues as they climbed into the great clefts and veiled the rolling domes and swathed the pinnacles and furrowed the deep passes and put the horizon infinitely far away. ”

“ After some few years of strenuous and successful resistance, and the endurance of great persecution from the Emperor and his Court, a persecution which indeed pursued him through life, Basil is called by the popular voice, on the death of Eusebius, a.d. 370, to succeed him in the See. ”

“ Basil has some private fortune, also his stipend—we shall do very well. Basil’s family is one of the finest among the old Boston aristocrats, and he is closely connected with the English Stanhopes, who rank with the greatest of the nobility.”
“I wish Americans would learn to rely on their own nobility. I am tired of their everlasting attempts to graft on some English noble family. No matter how great or clever a man may be, you are sure to read of his descent from some Scottish chief or English earl.”
“They can’t help their descent, Ethel.” ”

“ Basil.| But his thus openly declaring in favour of Paulinus, his treating in such a base and unworthy manner one of the most eminent Prelates in the East, served only to engage the Followers of Meletius more warmly in his Cause; and the great Basil, among the rest, who could not help censuring the Conduct of Damasus as rash, partial, and injudicious: he even repented his having ever applied to him; for, in one of his Letters to Eusebius of Samosata, he expresses himself thus: The Saying of Diomedes occurs to my Mind; Intreaties are not to be used with Achilles, he is too haughty [1054] ”

“ In 1850 he put forth his first work of fiction, Antonina, or the Fall of Rome, which was clearly inspired by his life in Italy. Basil appeared in 1852, and Hide and Seek in 1854. About this time he made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, and began to contribute to Household Words, where After Dark (1856) and The Dead Secret (1857) ran serially. His great success was achieved in 1860 with the publication of The Woman in White, which was first printed in All the Year Round. ”

“ Then arose Basil, a great scholar, and accustomed to civilized life in the schools of Athens and Constantinople, who gave rules and laws to the monks, gathered them into communities and discouraged social isolation, knowing that the demons had more power over men when they were alone and idle. ”

“ At the foot of the hill, just below the slope of the Square, was the terminus of the electric tram-line from the city. In summer it was a pretty spot, well shaded by ornamental trees, with a small Gothic church and its parsonage in the center of a trimly kept lawn. It was prettier still as Thor Masterman approached it, at the close of a winter's day, with the great soft flakes, heaping their beauty on roof and shrub and roadway, the whole lit up with plenty of cheerful electricity, and no eye to behold it but his own. ”

“ Nothing is more delightful than the commencement of such a fair wind. The sea is then smooth, and the ship seems literally to fly along; the masts and yards bend forwards, as if they would drop over the bows, while the studding-sail booms crack and twist, and, unless great care be taken, sometimes break across; but still, so long as the surface of the sea is plane it is astonishing what a vast expanse of canvas may be spread to the rising gale. ”

“ A north wind not too violent blew away the possibility of fog and sent an occasional shaft of sunshine through the rifts in the great gray clouds. The swell left over from the gale of the past few days tossed the ship’s nose into the air with a long, slow, rhythmic heave, slightly to port, and gave to good sailors like ourselves that pleasant sensation of swinging which a bird must get on a tree. ”

“ Late that night Henry Guion stood on the terrace below the Corinthian-columned portico. There was no moon, but the stars had the gold fire with which they shine when the sky is violet. Above the horizon a shimmering halo marked the cluster of cities and towns. In the immediate foreground the great elm was leafless now, but for that reason more clearly etched against the starlight—line on line, curve on curve, sweeping, drooping, interlaced. Guion stood with head up and figure erect, as if from strength given back to him. ”

“ Culpeper quaintly remarks: “Something is the matter; this herb and Rue will never grow together—no, nor near one another; and we know the Rue is as great an enemy to poison as any that grows.” Gerarde, however, tells us that the smell of Basil is good for the heart and for the head.——The plant is a paradox:—sacred and revered, yet dedicated to the Evil One; of happy augury, yet funereal; dear to women and lovers, yet emblem of hatred ”

“ A bright sky vying with the sea for blueness, a sun whose rays are not too hot to be cooled by the sea-breeze, the distant roar of the great Pacific rollers as they break in foam on the coral-reef, the whisper of the feathery palms as they wave their giant leaves above yonder cluster of brown native huts,—all these form a picture whose poetry is not easily reconciled with the stern prose of an English court of law. ”

“ He had come to the little fringe of towns that clings to the borders of Champlain, here with the Adirondacks behind him, and there with the mountains of Vermont, but keeping close to the great, safe waterway, as though distrusting the ruggedness of both.
It was a moment at which to renew his alarm in this proximity to human dwellings. Like the tiger that has ventured beyond the edge of the jungle, he must slink back at the sight of fire. ”

“ We had left behind us the bitter winds that chill the marrow, and the sterile palmless shores, where men hurry ceaselessly to and fro, never resting but toiling ever, and the heart is filled with darkness and disgust of life and a great longing for rest. ”

“ She could have entered at Miss Lucilla's door, or Mrs. Wappinger's; but a strange shyness, the shyness of the unfortunate, had taken hold of her, and she held back. In the mean time she was free to watch, with sad eyes and sadder spirit, the great city, reversing the processes of nature, awaken from the torpor of the genial months into its winter life.
No one knew better than herself that thrill of excited energy with which those born with the city instinct return from the acquired taste for mountain, seaside, and farm, to enter once more the maze of purely human relationships. ”

“ Hardan Synn spat out savagely as the blue dust swirled about him. "Always he seeks to stir up trouble among the sarifs."
His sun-darkened face was a gaunt mask as he neared the river, but his slitted green eyes were hot with growing rage. He could not leave the eighty great wagons with their cargos of two hundred Wetlanders and their meager supplies for so short a time as a turev of the water dial without trouble arising.
Hardan sprang off his mount and elbowed his way into the thick of the melee, his broad hard shoulders tossing soggy-padded men aside. ”

“ Romeo loved Juliet, there was not the slightest doubt about that; for although Juliet had been tattooed round the mouth, and had already married Tybalt, and had dug Tybalt’s yams and cut Tybalt’s firewood for the last two years, yet was Romeo ready to die for her. Verona slept peacefully in the bosom of a tiny green valley, shut in by great jagged mountains, and soothed by the lazy music of a tiny river whose water must travel many days before it mixed with the great salt ocean. ”

“ As he paused, he listened; but all distinctiveness of sound was lost in the play of the wind, up hill and down dale, through chasm and over crag, in those uncounted leagues of forest. It was only a summer wind, soft and from the south; but its murmur had the sweep of the eternal breath, while, when it waxed in power, it rose like the swell of some great cosmic organ. Through the pines and in the underbrush it whispered and crackled and crashed, with a variety of effect strangely bewildering to the young man's city-nurtured senses. ”

“ It is the future; it is Heaven. Not a future that no man will live to see; not a Heaven beyond death and the blue sky. It is a future so nigh as to be at the doors; it is the Kingdom of Heaven within us.
Meantime there is saffron pulsating into emerald, and emerald into rose, and rose into lilac, and lilac into pearl, and pearl into the great gray canopy that has hardly as yet been touched with light.
And the great gray ocean is responding a fleck of color here, a hint of glory there ”