Gregor

“ When summer time comes round, Peace he never knows, He’s in the throat of all his fellows. When men of him do speak, As Gregor of the blows, ’Tis his delight to drive, Flocks and herds before him. Of that flock John’s [185] the head, [115] The king at lifting cattle, I myself will sing, Mouth with mouth at daybreak. When his sharp-armed men see, Mac Gregor at the Bealach, [186] His way so gently soft, No weight to them their burdens. Then when war arises, Proclaimed in enemies’ hearts, It is to him they’d gather, Clothed in martial dress. ’Tis of Mac Gregor’s fame, When fighting’s left behind. ”

“ When Gregor was already sticking half way out of the bed - the new method was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock back and forth - it occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came to help him. Two strong people - he had his father and the maid in mind - would have been more than enough; they would only have to push their arms under the dome of his back, peel him away from the bed, bend down with the load and then be patient and careful as he swang over onto the floor, where, hopefully, the little legs would find a use. ”

“ When one lives that way—on his prospects—
Gregor
[Dropping back into the chair]
Oh, be quiet. I beg of you.
Vitek
Oh, you haven’t nerve enough for a big case. And such beautiful material, too. [He climbs up the ladder and takes out the Gregor papers] Just look at these briefs, Mr. Gregor. Eighteen twenty-seven, the oldest number in our office. Unique, Sir. It ought to be in a museum. And look at the beautiful handwriting of eighteen forty. Lord, that man had a hand! Why, Sir, I tell you it’s a pleasure to look at it.
Gregor
Oh, you are a fool—let me alone. ”

“ The light from the electric street lamps shone palely here and there onto the ceiling and tops of the furniture, but down below, where Gregor was, it was dark. He pushed himself over to the door, feeling his way clumsily with his antennae - of which he was now beginning to learn the value - in order to see what had been happening there. The whole of his left side seemed like one, painfully stretched scar, and he limped badly on his two rows of legs. ”

“ His idea of relaxation is working with his fretsaw. He's made a little frame, for instance, it only took him two or three evenings, you'll be amazed how nice it is; it's hanging up in his room; you'll see it as soon as Gregor opens the door. Anyway, I'm glad you're here; we wouldn't have been able to get Gregor to open the door by ourselves; he's so stubborn; and I'm sure he isn't well, he said this morning that he is, but he isn't." "I'll be there in a moment", said Gregor slowly and thoughtfully, but without moving so that he would not miss any word of the conversation. ”

“ However, Gregor had become much calmer. All right, people did not understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than previously, perhaps because his ears had gotten used to them. ”

“ Her words seemed to give Gregor’s father some more definite ideas. He sat upright, played with his uniform cap between the plates left by the three gentlemen after their meal, and occasionally looked down at Gregor as he lay there immobile.
“We have to try and get rid of it”, said Gregor’s sister, now speaking only to her father, as her mother was too occupied with coughing to listen, “it’ll be the death of both of you, I can see it coming. We can’t all work as hard as we have to and then come home to be tortured like this, we can’t endure it. ”

“ Had Gregor been spirited away so as to leave Two-Hawks without support, to confuse and discourage him and break down his powers of resistance? Or had there been something of great value in the Gregor apartment, and Johnny Two-Hawks had come too late to save his friend?
A word slipped into her mind like a whiff of miasma off an evil swamp. As she recognized the word she felt the same horror and repugnance one senses upon being unexpectedly confronted by a cobra. Internationalism. The scum of the world boiling to the top. A half -blind viper striking venomously at everything—even itself! ”

“ Yet Gregor's sister was playing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one side, following the lines of music with a careful and melancholy expression. Gregor crawled a little further forward, keeping his head close to the ground so that he could meet her eyes if the chance came. ”

“ But Gregor fully recognized that it was not just consideration for him which was preventing a move (for he could have been transported easily in a suitable box with a few air holes) ; the main thing holding the family back from a change in living quarters was far more their complete hopelessness and the idea that they had been struck by a misfortune like no one else in their entire circle of relatives and acquaintances. ”

“ Father Gregory is going to take a walk, as is his right; but wait till you hear a detail that characterises this promenade: in his hat a fine bouquet of poppies. You must swell out your voice with the poppies. This field flower becomes a symbol of pomp and ostentation. Aha! Father Gregory is no longer a worthy fellow who goes out to inhale the breezes of the country-side; he is an old beau who puts on airs; he parades, he struts, he capers, he expects to be gazed at and admired. But you will be punished, Father Gregory; ill-luck awaits you! ”

“ The proscription which then fell upon everyone bearing the name of M’Gregor could not touch the Gregories; but the change of name, which saved them from the penalties that fell so heavily upon their Highland cousins could not and did not alter their natures, and all the Gregories, with perhaps the single exception of the Dean of Christ Church, were at heart M’Gregors. Nothing that civilisation, education, wealth and society could do to modify their disposition was able entirely to obliterate in them the warlike character of their Highland forefathers. ”

“ The church was half filled with soldiers armed to the teeth, and drawn up on either side, and his body-guard of Roman nobles, stood even within the railing of the altar, capped and motionless, conveying, as everything else does, the irresistible impression that it was the worship of the Pope, not of God.
Gregory the sixteenth, is a small old man, with a large heavy nose, eyes buried in sluggish wrinkles, and a flushed, apoplectic complexion. He sits, or is borne about with his eyes shut, looking quite asleep, even his limbs hanging lifelessly. ”

“ Gregory, lost in bitter musings, in his careful threadbare clothes, rather unpleasantly hot, hopelessly bewildered as to his place in the universe, conscious of virtue, equipped with information, desiring neither pity nor affection, but only work and due recognition, was a sad blot upon nature. ”

“ He had great influence over the gentler nature of Gregory, who speaks of him with the highest respect, both for the purity of his faith and the sanctity of his life, as well as for his successful exertions in bringing back wanderers to the truth, acknowledging the benefit he had derived, both as hearer and teacher, from him (Ep. 164, 225) . He persuaded Gregory to remain at Nazianzus after his father's death, and to accept the unwelcome charge of the see of Constantinople. Gregory bitterly complained of his unscrupulous importunity, but yielded (Ep. 14, 15) . ”

“ The most excellent qualities were in Gregory mingled with faults; he was not quite free from vanity, he was very irritable and sensitive, but also readily forgave and cherished no grudges. He was a man feeling after holiness, and striving after the highest good, but not perfect, as no man upon earth is.”
Before leaving Constantinople he made his will, in which he bequeathed all his property to the Deacon Gregory for life, with reversion to the poor of Nazianzus. ”

“ Gregory paid more deference to him now than aforetime, having conceived a most profound respect for his attributes, both physical and mental, since his former visit.
"He is himself either some wondrous enchanter," thought he, "or, at any rate, minister or familiar to some mighty wizard, who hath his dwelling-place in this subterraneous abode."
"I have a message here to my lord," said he aloud, handing him the billet at arm's length, with a mighty show of deference and respect. The uncourteous dwarf took the writing, and left Gregory in darkness again to await his return. ”

“ Tradition has pronounced Gregory the Great to have been the destroyer of the Palatine library, and to have been especially zealous in burning the writings of Livy, because they described the achievements of the Pagan gods. For these charges, however (which I am sorry to find repeated by so eminent a writer as Dr. Draper) , there is no real evidence, for they are not found in any writer earlier than the twelfth century. (See Bayle, Dict. art. “Greg.”) ”

“ It seemed remarkable to Gregor that above all the various noises of eating their chewing teeth could still be heard, as if they had wanted to show Gregor that you need teeth in order to eat and it was not possible to perform anything with jaws that are toothless however nice they might be. ”

“ But while it may be admitted that Gregory was inclined to be unduly subservient to the great, so that at times he was willing to shut his eyes to the vices and even the crimes of persons of rank; yet it cannot fairly be denied that his character as a whole was singularly noble and unselfish. His life was entirely dominated by the religious motive. His sole desire was to promote the glory of God and of his church. At all times he strove honestly to live up to the light that was in him. ”

“ If they were startled, then Gregor had no more responsibility and could be calm. ”

“ Gregory is Urged to Apply His Gentile Learning to the Study of Scripture.
All hail to thee in God, most excellent and reverend Sir, son Gregory, from Origen. A natural quickness of understanding is fitted, as you are well aware, if it be diligently exercised, to produce a work which may bring its owner so far as is possible, if I may so express myself, to the consummation of the art the which he desires to practise, and your natural aptitude is sufficient to make you a consummate Roman lawyer and a Greek philosopher too of the most famous schools. ”

“ At my time of life, one must always be strange among strangers. Nothing can be kinder than Sir Gregory, in his sort of fashion. Gregory Marrable, the son, is, I fear, in a bad way. He is unlike his father, and laughs at his own ailments, but everybody in the house,—except perhaps Sir Gregory,—knows that he is very ill. He never comes down at all now, but lives in two rooms, which he has together up-stairs. ”

“ Why was Gregor the only one condemned to work in a firm where at the slightest lapse someone immediately attracted the greatest suspicion? ”

“ But perhaps the enthusiastic sensibility of young women of her age also played a role. This feeling sought release at every opportunity, and with it Grete now felt tempted to want to make Gregor's situation even more terrifying, so that then she would be able to do even more for him than now. ”

“ Although Gregory bewails this “thrusting out from port into the storm,” one cannot but feel how the alert fighting spirit in the man leaps to the call. The born leader may persuade himself that he is happiest in the seclusion he thinks good for his soul, but when the call to arms comes, every repressed fibre of his being wakes and cries for action.
When Gregory, taking with him several of his monks, sailed away from Italy, he little dreamed that years were to pass before he should return. ”

“ Revived by the fire, we were enabled to endure the next bit of martyrdom, an hour upon the low sofa, so many yards from the nursery hearth, our books in our hands, while our cold breakfast was preparing.’ What a changed life have the little folks of to-day! But, ah me! this name of Gregory to childhood. ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones ...’ the son’s mixture made the name of Gregory abhorred in every nursery, and all the father’s good deeds are forgotten. ”

“ But of all these three hundred or four hundred men who have swayed the destinies of Europe,—an uninterrupted line of pontiffs for fifteen hundred years or more, no one is so famous as Gregory VII. for the grandeur of his character, the heroism of his struggles, and the posthumous influence of his deeds. He was too great a man to be called by his papal title. He is best known by his baptismal name, Hildebrand, the greatest hero of the Roman Church. There are some men whose titles add nothing to their august names,—David, Julius, Constantine, Augustine. ”

“ But since from the likeness of the name, and the title of the books attributed to Gregory, persons are liable to confound very different parties, it is important to notice that Gregory of Pontus is a different person. He was a native of Neocæsarea in Pontus, of greater antiquity than the one above referred to, inasmuch as he was a disciple of Origen. ”

“ Gregory must have felt the sting in her words when she tells him plainly that his correspondent treats him like a coward or a frightened child, and adds on her own part, "I pray you on behalf of Christ crucified that you be no longer a timorous child, but manly. Open your mouth, and swallow down the bitter for the sake of the sweet." If anyone could hold a weak nature true to its better self, it would be this woman, endued as she was with a vitality that tingles through her words down the centuries. ”

“ I, as a magistrate, can tie the knot—fast enough to bind all the other agreements to certain fulfillments, for Gregory is a friend of mine, and a man of honor, and will see them carried out to the letter. He loves you, too, and proves it, for he takes you penniless. Afterward a priest may complete the ceremony if you have any scruples. Then, of course, it rests between you and Gregory, whether you remain together or separate as wide as the poles—I shall wash my hands of the whole affair thereafter, having secured my good name and yours. ”