Faber

“ Such a nearness can be brought about by no negation however genuine, or however evil may be the thing denied.
Sympathy, then, such as he desired, Faber was now bent on finding, or bringing about in Juliet Meredith. He would fain get nearer to her. Something pushed, something drew him toward the lovely phenomenon into which had flowered invisible Nature's bud of shapeless protoplasm. He would have her trust him, believe him, love him. ”

“ It is needless to set the foot of narration upon every step of the slow-descending stair. With all his tender feelings and generous love of his kind, Paul Faber had not yet learned the simplest lesson of humanity—that he who would not be a murderer, must be his brother's keeper—still more his sister's, protecting every woman first of all from himself—from every untruth in him, chiefly from every unhallowed approach of his lower nature, from every thing that calls itself love and is but its black shadow, its demon ever murmuring I love, that it may devour. ”

“ Drake turned. Faber made him an obeisance, and left the room.
The minister was too hard upon him. He would not have been so hard but for his atheism; he would not have been so hard if he could have seen into his soul. But Faber felt he deserved it. Ere he reached home, however, he had begun to think it rather hard that, when a man confessed a wrong, and desired to make what reparation he could, he should have the very candor of his confession thus thrown in his teeth. Verily, even toward the righteous among men, candor is a perilous duty. ”

“ I asked, impatiently and jealously, of Faber. "Love is said to interpret where wisdom fails, and you yourself talk of the marvels which sympathy may effect between lover and beloved; yet when, for days together, I cannot succeed in unravelling Lilian's wish or her thought—and her own mother is equally in fault—you or Amy, closeted alone with her for five minutes, comprehend and are comprehended." ”

“ A sentence of Faber's may sound unnatural to us, so little spiritually minded: he says, "God sometimes draws us to Him, and fills us with love for Him, not that He may love us, that He always does, but in order to make us feel how He loves us!" ”

“ And, vainly seeking justice, bankrupts made.
What is't to Faber? Lordly as before,
He sits at ease, and lives to ruin more: 60
Fix'd at his door, as motionless as stone,
Begging, but only begging for their own,
Unheard they stand, or only heard by those,
Those slaves in livery, who mock their woes.
What is't to Faber? He continues great,
Lives on in grandeur, and runs out in state.
The helpless widow, wrung with deep despair,
In bitterness of soul pours forth her prayer,
Hugging her starving babes with streaming eyes,
And calls down vengeance, vengeance from the skies. ”

“ Frederick Faber was one whose soul panted after God as the roe pants after the water brook, and the measure in which God revealed Himself to his seeking heart set the good man's whole life afire with a burning adoration rivaling that of the seraphim before the throne. ”

“ Polwarth's conclusion was correct: it was with an excitement almost insane, and a pleasure the more sorrowful that he was aware of its transientness, a pleasure now mingling, now alternating with utter despair, that Faber returned to sit in the darkened chamber, watching the woman who with such sweet torture reminded him of her whom he had lost. What a strange, unfathomable thing is the pleasure given us by a likeness! ”

“ Faber caught Canisius by means of his Mysticism. He met him at Mainz, explained the Exercitia Spiritualia to him, induced the young man to undergo the course of discipline which they prescribed, and won him for Loyola and the Company. “He is the man,” wrote Faber to Ignatius, “whom I have been seeking—if he is a man, and not rather an angel of the Lord.” ”

“ Neither did Faber make any attempt to find out whether she knew what had passed; even about Amanda and any possible change in her future he was listless. He had never been a man of plans, and had no room for any now under the rubbish of a collapsed life. His days were gloomy and his nights troubled. He dreamed constantly either of Amanda's mother, or of Juliet—sometimes of both together, and of endless perplexity between them. Sometimes he woke weeping. He did not now despise his tears, for they flowed neither from suffering nor self-pity, but from love and sorrow and repentance. ”

“ Puckridge's door, and
Wingfold got out and stood by their heads, while she went in to call on
Miss Meredith.
Juliet had passed a sleepless night, and greatly dreaded the next interview with Faber. Helen's invitation, therefore, to pay them a few days' visit, came to her like a redemption: in their house she would have protection both from Faber and from herself. Heartily, with tears in her eyes, she accepted it; and her cordial and grateful readiness placed her yet a step higher in the regard of her new friends. The acceptance of a favor may be the conferring of a greater. ”

“ Are they jealous of us?"
"Clearly, at all events, we are not at home amidst them—not genuinely so," admitted the doctor.
"And yet you say we are sprung of them?" said Juliet.
"We have lifted ourselves above them," rejoined the doctor, "and must conquer them next."
"And until we conquer them," suggested Juliet, "our lifting above them is in vain?"
"For we return to them," assented Faber; and silence fell.—"Yes," he resumed, "it is sad. The upper air is sweet, and the heart of man loves the sun;—"
"Then," interrupted Juliet, "why would you have me willing to go down to the darkness?" ”

“ FABER, Fabri or Fabry (surnamed Stapulensis) , JACOBUS [Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples] (c. 1455–c. 1536) , a pioneer of the Protestant movement in France, was born of humble parents at Étaples, in Pas de Calais, Picardy, about 1455. He appears to have been possessed of considerable means. ”

“ But she withdrew it, saying in a tone which through the darkness seemed to him to come from afar, tinged with mockery.
"You ought to have been a poet—not a doctor, Mr. Faber!"
The jar of her apparent coolness brought him back with a shock to the commonplace. He almost shuddered. It was like a gust of icy wind piercing a summer night.
"I trust the doctor can rule the poet," he said, recovering his self-possession with an effort, and rising.
"The doctor ought at least to keep the poet from falsehood. Is false poetry any better than false religion?" returned Juliet. ”

“ Then Polwarth went up to Juliet, who stood trembling, unable to utter a word, and said, with perfect old-fashioned courtesy, "You are heartily welcome, ma'am. I sent Ruth away that I might first assure you that you are as safe with her as with me. Sit here a moment, ma'am. You are so wet, I dare not place you nearer to the fire.—Ruth!"
She came instantly.
"Ruth," he repeated, "this lady is Mrs. Faber. She is come to visit us for a while. Nobody must know of it.—You need not be at all uneasy, Mrs. Faber. Not a soul will come near us to-day. ”

“ Inquiry might have given him ground for fearing that with the love of the imagined God, the love of the indubitable man would decay and vanish. But such as Faber was, he was both loved and honored by all whom he had ever attended; and, with his fine tastes, his genial nature, his quiet conscience, his good health, his enjoyment of life, his knowledge and love of his profession, his activity, his tender heart—especially to women and children, his keen intellect, and his devising though not embodying imagination, if any man could get on without a God, Faber was that man. ”

“ The doctor would have done better to talk shop too.
"Of course he has nothing else," answered the curate; "and if he had, he must follow his conscience all the same."
"There you are, Wingfold!—always talking paradoxes!" said Faber.
"Why, man! you may only have a blundering boy to guide you, but if he is your only guide, you must follow him. You don't therefore call him a sufficient guide!"
"What a logomachist you are! If it is a horn lantern you've got, you needn't go mocking at it."
"The lantern is not the light. ”

“ It remains a question, however, which there was no one to put to Faber—whether he had not some amends in relief from the notion, vaguely it may be, yet unpleasantly haunting many minds—of a Supreme Being—a Deity—putting forth claims to obedience—an uncomfortable sort of phantom, however imaginary, for one to have brooding above him, and continually coming between him and the freedom of an else empty universe. To the human soul as I have learned to know it, an empty universe would be as an exhausted receiver to the lungs that thirst for air ”

“ Faber had not an idea of what was in the creature who represented to him one of Nature's failures at man-making; while Polwarth, from what he heard and saw of the doctor, knew him better than he knew himself; and although the moment when he could serve him had not begun to appear, looked for such a moment to come. There was so much good in the man, that his heart longed to give him something worth having. ”

“ He had rather a refined look, notwithstanding the annoyance and resentment that discomposed his features. The mat had caught the door and he was just in time to prevent it from being shut in his face.
"I will not submit to such treatment, Mr. Faber," cried the youth. "It is not the part of a gentleman to forget that another is one."
"To the devil with your gentleman!" they heard the doctor shout in a rage, from behind the half-closed door. "The less said about the gentleman the better, when the man is nowhere!" ”

“ All the time, their common humanity, each perceiving that the other had suffered, was urging to mutual consolation. And all the time, that mysterious force, inscrutable as creation itself, which draws the individual man and woman together, was mightily at work between them—a force which, terrible as is the array of its attendant shadows, will at length appear to have been one of the most powerful in the redemption of the world. But Juliet did nothing, said nothing, to attract Faber. ”

“ For Faber's promise to become one of the presidents of the Federation League, he was very grateful. "You have done much for this country," he said; "your name will mean a great deal to me."
They fell afterwards to talking of their more domestic affairs. Sir Jules said that his daughter Eva had gone to Winchester to lunch with a friend, but he expected her to dinner. The same hesitation which had led Faber to defer his departure upon so many recent occasions, now prompted his acceptance of the suggestion that he should join the party, and he went over to the Savannah immediately to dress. ”

“ Good night."
"I won't allow that talk is only talk, Faber," Wingfold called after him with a friendly laugh. Then turning to Mr. Drake, "Pardon me," he said, "for treating you with so much confidence. I saw you come in, but believed you would rather have us end our talk than break it off."
"Certainly. But I can't help thinking you grant him too much, Mr.
Wingfold," said the minister seriously.
"I never find I lose by giving, even in argument," said the curate. "Faber rides his hobby well, but the brute is a sorry jade. He will find one day she has not a sound joint in her whole body." ”

“ The sweetest of western airs came in, with a faint scent chiefly of damp earth, moss, and primroses, in which, to the pensive imagination, the faded yellow of the sunset seemed to bear a part.
"I am sorry to say we must shut the window, Miss Meredith," said the doctor, rising. "You must always be jealous of the night air. It will never be friendly to you."
"What enemies we have all about us!" she returned with a slight shiver, which Faber attributed to the enemy in question, and feared his care had not amounted to precaution. ”

“ It is God's knowing choice of life against man's ignorant choice of death.
But Juliet knew nothing of such a region of strife in the human soul. She had no suspicion what an awful swamp lay around the prison of her self-content—no, self-discontent—in which she lay chained. To her the one good and desirable thing was the love and company of Paul Faber. He was her saviour, she said to herself, and the woman who could not love and trust and lean upon such a heart of devotion and unselfishness as his, was unworthy of the smallest of his thoughts. ”

“ Let him consider that every stitch he takes when he is on his shopboard, is picking up part of a grain of gold that will in a few days' time amount to a pistole; and let Faber think the same of every nail he drives, or every stroke with his plane. Such thoughts may make them industrious, and, in consequence, in time they may be wealthy. ”

“ Dr. David Breed, speaking of Faber's “unusual” imagination, says, “He got more out of language than any other poet of the English tongue, and used words—even simple words—so that they rendered him a service which no other poet ever secured from them.” ”

“ Faber. I may come to be sure of something; I don't see how a man can ever be sure of NOTHING."
"Don't suppose me quite dumbfoundered, though I can't answer you off hand," said Mr. Faber, as they reached his door.—"Come in with me, and I will make up the medicine myself; it will save time. There are a thousand difficulties," he resumed in the surgery, "some of them springing from peculiar points that come before one of my profession, which I doubt if you would be able to meet so readily. But about this poor fellow, Lingard. You know Glaston gossip says he is out of his mind." ”