Furst

“ In 1822, in compensation for certain privileges which he resigned, he was raised to the rank of Fürst by the king of Prussia. Some years earlier he had married the Gräfin von Pappenheim, daughter of Fürst von Hardenberg ”

“ The sea—grown dark, heavy, and oily—is first flicked and spotted, and then strangely lighted, all over, with the dash of rain and hail; the sun is made lurid, then shrouded, and then hidden by a metallic sky; the clouds grow gloomy and sullen until they are shattered by peals of thunder and riven by livid lightnings. ”

“ Furze was silent.
“There you sit, Furze; you are provoking! Pick up that hairpin, will you? You always sit and sit whenever there’s any difficulty. You never go beyond what I have in my own head, and when I do stir you up to think it is sure to be something of no use.”
“I’ll do anything you want,” said the pensive husband as his wife rose and put on her cap. “I’ve told you before I’ll get rid of Tom, and then perhaps it will all come round!” ”

“ Hurst had gone to the village to post some letters. A big moon was just showing over the battlements, when Mrs. Hurst shivered.
“It’s late,” she said, “and cold; the summer is gone. Let us go in.” So we went in to the little warm room, where a wood fire flickered on a brick hearth, and a shaded lamp was already glowing softly. Here we sat on the cushioned seat in the open window, and looked out through the lozenge panes at the gold moon and the light of her making ghosts in the white mist that rose thick and heavy from the moat. ”

“ The varied sensations of travel, which is perhaps the favorite form of recreation, merely whip the jaded spirit into new activity. But these peaceful, natural scenes and sounds allow the senses to relax, and the mind to renew its texture and recover its tone. ”

“ Habit influences us more than cost, but what influences habit? Why did Milton always wear black, Pope gray, and Lamb snuff color? Why did distributing his cast clothes ‘disconsolate and intender’ Montaigne? Why did Tennyson send his old clothes to be measured for new ones? Why do I find myself repeating an outfit I once chose because it suggested what naturalists call protective coloration—when an animal, like a squirrel on a tree-trunk, is scarcely distinguishable from its background? ”

“ In it all there is an intellectual optimism that inevitably follows the thought wherever it roams—and it often roams far afield—which is one of the thrice blessed things of life. If through it all there runs, as again may clearly be seen, the visible thread of the conscious pursuit of happiness, Professor Maturin is no mere eudemonist whose belly is his god and whose goal is pleasure, but rather one who sees in the attainment of personal happiness the rightful accessory of a rounded and rational living. ”

“ Can your evolution show any architecture, sculpture, statecraft, drama, or philosophy equal to those of the age of Pericles? The world will produce nothing fine or permanent so long as you fellows tinker with its machinery. Your heresy of universal progress is merely a contemporary mythology that is falser than—”
“Softly, softly,” said Professor Maturin, shaking his long forefinger at the disputants. “The true philosopher, with Dante, loves every part of wisdom. ”

“ The Christmas spirit appears to be inherent in human nature, in the climatic change from summer seed-time, through autumn harvest, to hearty winter relaxation and cheer over the garnered fruits of husbandry or art. ”

“ We may learn, through the slowness of accumulation, that we retain only what we use, that a bad memory may be the best, because selective, that even leisure may be well employed. ‘Whatever I do or do not do,’ said Sainte-Beuve, ‘I cease not to learn from the book of life.’ Lope de Vega, sailing with the Armada, sacrificed all his manuscripts for gun-wads, but landed with eleven thousand new verses. ”

“ The realization of high thinking and, presumably, plain living began with a six o’clock landing next morning and the writer’s earliest breakfast in years, watching, meanwhile, coming events cast their shadows before in the person of a slender spectacled gentleman in blue, who slowly consumed one roll and a cup of frequently diluted coffee, while he rapidly assimilated the contents of a thin, black, scientific-looking volume with round corners and red edges. ”

“ The open sea is, of course, familiar to us all, [58] and yet its apparent boundlessness and immeasurable depth are ever new as the most immense thing in our knowledge—the sky belonging rather to the realm of the intangible. Mid-ocean always makes me feel the infinite continuity of time, the omnipresence of natural law, and a stimulus to greater harmony with its workings. Nowhere else are my ‘cosmic emotions’ so stirred. One gets something of the same impression on land wherever one can mark the ceaseless rising, pausing, and falling of the tide, under the mysterious governance of the moon. ”

“ Every domestic animal, too, after its kind, seems to be represented in countless pens and stalls, until one tarries only long enough to sign the Poultry Fanciers’ demand for a new building and to be grateful for the railroad congestion that has delayed many other exhibits, and then departs, resolutely undeflected by the charms of the Midway, the miniature railway, and the innumerable ice-cream, sausage, and popcorn stands. ”

“ A few seemed to find full activity and satisfaction in careers for which they obviously possessed decided gifts. But the majority, after a certain eagerness for experience and self-realization had become satisfied, seemed to be but half-heartedly filling in their time while anticipating or desiring something else. This attitude, together with the census statistics, appeared to indicate that the chief career for the great majority of women was still through marriage. ”

“ Our vast and relatively undiversified territory has brought men of the coast, the mountains, and the plains; of the rugged North and the languorous South, into closer and more constant contact than ever before. And to this unparalleled interplay we have welcomed myriads from every other climate and condition on the earth, and have set up for the whole theories of government which allow almost perfect freedom to all racial, local, and individual traits. ”

“ Hurst went abroad, to Paris or Leipzig or somewhere, to study hypnotism, and to prepare notes for his book on “Black Magic.” This came out in the autumn, and had a strange and brilliant success. Hurst became famous, famous as men do become nowadays. ”

“ Swimming, especially, is natural and interesting; it employs many members harmoniously, it quiets and invigorates nerve action, and gives strength and grace, self-control and confidence. I should prescribe for you both this summer a daily swim, with plenty of floating on a quiet shore, and then, if you become as refreshed as you should, something more, like learning to sail. ”

“ One day, his mate, sitting on the edge of the shaft, ready to put his foot in the rope, suddenly overbalanced, and went down head-foremost. Of course, Cross was close beside him at the time, and no one else was in sight. Cross gave the alarm, and, in the meantime, went hand-under-hand down the rope, intending, like Bruce, to 'mak sicker'; for the shaft was only about forty feet deep. But it happened that the man's neck was broken in the fall. Cross forgave his wife, and never breathed a word of his discovery or his vengeance; but in spite of this, the woman seemed to live in fear and horror. ”

“ There were also numerous librarians and settlement workers, two successful real estate operators, and the manager of an important branch of the office work of a huge life insurance company. One handsome, middle-aged woman, that I took to be one of the philanthropic patrons who had made the club’s equipment possible, Portia singled out as a practitioner of what struck me as the most interesting profession of all—a department-store critic. ”

“ Here, as everywhere else, we need only a little more information and a little more intelligence to transform our contemporary superficiality into a realization of life that is, at the same time, strong and fine. ”

“ On Thursday, however, the third and, by tradition, the greatest day, enthusiasm and optimism return under the stimulus of the largest crowds the town has ever seen. Nobody can count the people, and estimates of their number are as inflated and soaring as the great balloon, which finally does its duty handsomely. Nine trolley cars are counted in the square at one time; there are eighty passenger coaches in the railroad yards, and one livery-stable entertains two hundred and thirty-four visiting horses! ”

“ His half-dozen Christmas papers dwell, with his characteristic love of the past, on the superior honesty, kindliness, and joy of the old holiday customs. No refinement of elegance can replace, he maintains, the family gatherings, the perfecting of sympathies, the realization of mutual dependence, and the increase of mutual affection, instinct in the ancient hospitality. ”

“ Nor do I see any reason, as we become more and more a new race, blended of many, why our good fortunes should not continue and increase. Anything else would falsify our trust in a wide and a wise humanity—and that is unthinkable.
[34] “But, I beg your pardon,” said Professor Maturin, as I rose to say good-night, “I did not mean to take the stump; and yet, I believe that it is good sometimes to give utterance to these things which all of us feel. Nothing revives the vigor of one’s spirit like the conscious realization of being in harmony with fundamental law.” ”

“ Thinking over my visit, during the return journey, I realized that the whole question of the relative usefulness of the metropolitan university and the rural college reduces to an estimate of the comparative values of the large and the small, the near and the remote, of efficiency and culture. Our national environment and history have emphasized the importance of the large, the immediate, the efficient. But there is always much to be said on both sides of every question, and it is at least possible that enough importance has not been attributed to the small, the distinctive, the fine. ”

“ But even should your need or desire be for the mere sensations of foreign travel, these also may be had in New York. You may taste strange dishes and hear strange music in more foreign cafés in New York than in any other city in the world. In the local shop of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian tobacco monopoly you may smoke a water-pipe, calling it hookah, chibouque, or nargileh, according to the place in which you would like to be. ”

“ Now, I need not insist that what is most important in foreign travel is not the novel sensations to which it gives rise,—the sense of a [28] different climate, the flavor of new dishes, the fragrance of strange flowers, the sound of unfamiliar music, even the sight of ancient buildings or famous pictures—pleasurable and profitable as all of these are; and, fortunately, most of them may be enjoyed here, directly or indirectly. The fundamental value of travel is in the realization that it gives of ways of feeling, thinking, and acting, other than our own ”

“ Elsewhere all is fertile farm land, squarely fenced or marked with low walls of ever available limestone, which also provides firm, smooth roads stretching in every direction over hill and meadow. Many farm-houses and barns are built of this stone, softened with the mellowness of years. ”

“ A crack of light showed under the kitchen door, and, pushing it open with some force, he gazed spellbound at the spectacle before him.
"Come in," said Mr. Hurst, heartily. "I've just finished."
He rocked an empty beer-bottle and patted another that was half full. Satiety was written on his face as he pushed an empty plate from him, and, leaning back in his chair, smiled lazily at Mr. Mott.
"Go on," said that gentleman, hoarsely. Mr. Hurst shook his head.
"Enough is as good as a feast," he said, reasonably. "I'll have some more to-morrow." ”

“ Seriously, however, the problem of adequately recording and interpreting the aspects of the sea is as fascinating as it is difficult. The best media are, of course, sculpture for its form and substance, painting for its light and color, music for its movement and sound. Poetry and prose reflect something of all of these, poetry more suggestively, prose more accurately. The poets, however, turn so quickly from actual aspects and impressions to their mental and emotional accompaniments, that they seem devoted rather to exploiting their own poetic gifts than the richness of their subject. ”

“ I fear that only too often it relaxes divine discontent into ill-timed resignation, turns thought to reverie, and lulls the stir of action into dreams.”
“That, surely, is the defect of its quality,” admitted Professor Maturin; “yet it did not cloud Kant’s thought, dim Milton’s poetic vision, or relax the will of Frederick the Great or of Bismarck. It may, perhaps, have somewhat clouded Lowell, dimmed Thackeray, and relaxed Lamb. But who can tell? We cannot determine the ideal combination of the strenuous and the contemplative life until we solve the personal equation.” ”

“ Some general society is necessary to cultivate tolerance and sympathy. One must also come to some adjustment with democracy—its freedom and unrest, its ideal foundation and materialistic structure, its lack of prejudice and its inexperience—we cannot rest in Socrates’ opinion that the majority is merely a heap of bad pennies. After the demands of social service are arranged for, however, the intellect must look through and beyond popular standards, and purchase independence at whatever cost. ”