Jacob Böhmen

“ The teacher has only to threaten the intractable ones with being sent home to bring them round. And yet, it is not that they are often cruelly treated there. On the contrary, the Bohemian is an exceptionally tender and loving father, perhaps because his whole life is lived with his family at home, in the tenement that is his shop and his world. ”

“ The result is that the old Bohemian disappears in the first generation born upon our soil. His temper remains to some extent, it is true. He still has his surly streaks, refuses to sing or recite in school when the teacher or something else does not suit him, and can never be driven where yet he is easily led; but as he graduates into the public school and is thrown more into contact with the children of more light-hearted nationalities, he grows into that which his father would have long since become, had he not got a wrong start: a loyal American, proud of his country, and a useful citizen. ”

“ It was the tiny spark that set Europe on fire. Out of it grew the Thirty Years’ War, the most terrible that ever scourged the civilized world. When Catholic League and Evangelical Union first mustered their armies, Bohemia had a prosperous population of four million souls; when the war was over there were less than eight hundred thousand alive in that unhappy land, and the wolves that roamed its forests were scarcely more ferocious than the human starvelings who skulked among the smoking ruins of burned towns and hamlets. ”

“ A chief reason for this is doubtless the complete isolation of the Bohemian immigrant. Several causes operate to bring this about: his singularly harsh and unattractive language, which he can neither easily himself unlearn nor impart to others, his stubborn pride of race, and a popular prejudice which has forced upon him the unjust stigma of a disturber of the public peace and an enemy of organized labor. I greatly mistrust that the Bohemian on our shores is a much-abused man. ”

“ For when God's Love in the Humanity entered into God's Anger, the angry Father bewailed our Sins and Misery, and Jacob with his Humility drove forth mournful Tears out of his brother Esau; that is, the Love in the Humanity brought forth the great compassion out of and through the angry Father; so that the angry Father in the midst of his enkindled Wrath in the Humanity did set open a Gate of Mercy for Adam and all his Children; for his Love broke the Anger, which [Love] put itself into Death, and made an open Gate for poor Sinners in the Death to his Grace. ”

“ Jacob must be filled with God's Blessing, that he might bless the First-Born of angry Adam and Esau; for the Blessing, that is, Christ must be born in our Flesh and Soul, that the Seed of the Woman might bruise the Head of the Serpent.
32. The Anger must be drowned and appeased in the Humanity; an Offering did not do it, but this resigning into the Wrath, that the Love might drown the Wrath. Jacob in Christ must drown Esau in the Love-Power in his Blood, that Esau might also become a Jacob in Christ: But Esau was not willing to receive his brother Jacob, and contended about the first Birth ”

“ The temple of the gulls is now thronged with votaries as much as that of superstition formerly was; human reason is still a slave to the most tyrannical prejudices; and certainly, there is no ready way to excite general attention and admiration, than to deal in the mysterious and the marvellous. The visionary system of Jacob Böhman has latterly been revived in some parts of Germany. The ghosts and apparitions which had disappeared from the times of Thomasius and Swedenborg, have again left their graves, to the great terror of fanaticism. ”

“ It does not help the case that this landlord employer, almost always a Jew, is frequently of the thrifty Polish race just described.
Perhaps the Bohemian quarter is hardly the proper name to give to the colony, for though it has distinct boundaries it is scattered over a wide area on the East Side, in wedge-like streaks that relieve the monotony of the solid German population by their strong contrasts. The two races mingle no more on this side of the Atlantic than on the rugged slopes of the Bohemian mountains ”

“ He is wanted at home to roll cigars or strip tobacco-leaves for his father, while the mother gets the evening meal ready. The Bohemian has his own cause for the reserve that keeps him a stranger in a strange land after living half his life among us ”

“ Coming under the influence, probably through William Law, of the writings of Jacob Böhme, the marvellous shoemaker of Görlitz in Silesia, who lived in the time of our Shakspere, and heartily adopting many of his views, he has left us a number of religious poems, which are seldom so sweet in music as they are profound in the metaphysics of religion. ”

“ JACOB BOEHMEN, THE MYSTIC. Jacob Boehmen, or Boehme, was born at the village of Altseidenberg, near Gorlitz, in Prussian Silesia, about a year before the death of Hans Sachs. A shoemaker for the greater part of his life, Boehmen devoted the powers of a remarkable mind to philosophical and religious speculation, and produced works which, notwithstanding their mystical and well-nigh unintelligible character, are declared by some of the best authorities in Germany and England to have laid the foundation of metaphysics and philosophy. ”

“ Then for a mile and a half scarce a Bohemian is to be found, until Thirty-eighth Street is reached. Fifty-fourth and Seventy-third Streets in their turn are the centres of populous Bohemian settlements. The location of the cigar factories, upon which he depends for a living, determines his choice of home, though there is less choice about it than with any other class in the community, save perhaps the colored people. ”

“ An Esquire, clothed in gold and scarlet, rides gallantly along, proudly waving his sword; a Chariot bears in triumph an officer in full armour; a Fool places his cap and bells under his arm that he may count upon his fingers. ”

“ He therefore, in blessing his people, lays his hands across, guiding them wittingly and laying the chiefest blessing on the head of Ephraim, or in that providence that sanctifies affliction. Abel-what to the reason of Eve was he, in comparison with Cain? Rachel called Benjamin the son of her sorrow; but Jacob knew how to give him a better name. Jabez, also, though his mother so called him because, as it seems, she brought him forth with more than ordinary sorrow, was yet more honorable, more godly, than his brethren.
He that has skill to judge of providences aright, has a great ability in him "to comprehend with other saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height;" ”

“ Where the gean-trees glowed carmine and orange, touches of quickening fire shot through the interstices of their branches, and coloured like a tress of trailing forget-me-not, the South Esk wound into the Basin of Montrose, where the tide, ebbing beyond the town, was leaving its wet sands as a feasting-ground for all sorts of roving birds whose crying voices came faintly to Archie, mellowed by distance. ”

“ As the chaise drives away, Mary stands bewildered and perplexed on the door-step, her mind in a tumult of excitement, in which hatred of the doctor, distrust and suspicion of her mother, disappointment, vexation, and ill humor, surge and swell among those delicate organizations on which the structure and development of the soul so closely depend—doing perhaps an irreparable injury. ”

“ IT was on one of those days which seem to occur only in our youth, that Isoline Ridgeway sat under a cherry-tree on the slope of the field overlooking Crishowell Vicarage. The little puffs of wind which occasionally lifted stray bits of her hair were scented with the scent of may hedges; the whole world seemed to have broken out into white blossom. ”

“ Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable, and cried: ‘Hansel, we are saved! The old witch is dead!’ Then Hansel sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. ”

“ Excited but not frightened away by the moving host beneath, the bird outdid its kind in its imitations of other birds, and in its calls and notes of endless variety, whistling and singing with a full resonant power that rose above all other sounds. ”

“ Now this rock belonged to fierce giants, who lived upon it; and as he saw three of them striding about, he thought to himself, "I can only save myself by feigning to be asleep"; so he laid himself down, as if he were in a sound sleep. ”

“ The glow of the tulips and the strange house by the winding water, the slim vision of Diane de Montdelys, the gallant background of the Scots Brigade, the grave at Bergen-op-Zoom—these things were like a mirage behind the figure of James. The power of seeing things picturesquely is a gift that can turn into a curse, and that power worked on his emotional and imaginative side now. ”

“ The youth lay down on the bench, under a wild apple-tree. The air was warm and mild; on all sides stretched a green meadow, which was set with cowslips, wild thyme, and a thousand other flowers; through the midst of it rippled a clear brook on which the sun sparkled, and the white geese went walking backwards and forwards, or paddled in the water. “It is quite delightful here,” said he, “but I am so tired that I cannot keep my eyes open; I will sleep a little. If only a gust of wind does not come and blow my legs off my body, for they are as rotten as tinder.” ”

“ A shadow had just fallen upon the surface of the queen of night, slowly if spread over it until the face of the great luminary was covered, and it hung in the cloudless heavens an orb of roseate hue, its radiance all gone. ”

“ All down the shores of Loch Ness and among the hills above the Nairn water south-west of Culloden, the dark rocks raised their broken heads to the sky over God knows what agonies of suffering and hunger. ”

“ Amongst carpets of rush and deep moss, dappled with wet patches, the ruddy stems of the bog-asphodel raised slim, golden heads that drooped a little, as though for faintness, in the scented warmth. An occasional bumble-bee passed down wind, purposeful and ostentatious, like a respectable citizen zealous on the business of life. ”

“ Before we went to bed, Jake and Otto were called up to the living-room for prayers. Grandfather put on silver-rimmed spectacles and read several Psalms. His voice was so sympathetic and he read so interestingly that I wished he had chosen one of my favourite chapters in the Book of Kings. I was awed by his intonation of the word ‘Selah.’ ‘He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom He loved. Selah.’ I had no idea what the word meant; perhaps he had not. But, as he uttered it, it became oracular, the most sacred of words. ”

“ Both men had business in Crishowell, and as Rhys Walters was now well enough to be left alone for a few hours, Williams had no scruple in turning the key on his charge and starting with his patron for the valley.
The hoar-frost hung on everything. Around them, the heavy air enwrapped the landscape, making an opaque background to the branches and twigs which stood as though cut out in white coral against grey-painted canvas. Bumpett felt the cold a good deal and pressed forward almost at a trot, looking all the more grotesque for the company of the big, quiet man beside him. ”

“ She removed a skin which covered her face, then bent down to the well, and began to wash herself. When she had finished, she dipped the skin also in the water, and laid it on the meadow, so that it should bleach in the moonlight, and dry again.
But how the maiden was changed! Such a change as that was never seen before! When the gray mask fell off, her golden hair broke forth like sunbeams, and spread about like a mantle over her whole form. Her eyes shone out as brightly as the stars in heaven, and her cheeks bloomed a soft red like apple-blossoms. ”

“ It is as if a huntsman should conduct a pack of ferocious dogs into a field occupied by a flock of sheep, quietly grazing, holding the dogs securely by very strong leashes. The quiet and repose of the field might not be seriously disturbed; but if, on the other hand, a child comes in, leading the dogs by threads which they can easily sunder, a scene of the greatest violence and confusion would ensue. ”

“ Colored light streams through the stained glass of the enormous windows, and the tones of the organ, and the voices of the priests, chanting the service of the mass, are almost always resounding and echoing from the vaulted roof above. ”

“ When they reached the wood they could have shouted for joy. As they came to the middle of it the Goblin stamped his heel, and all the candles of the horse-chestnut trees burst into a blaze of light, for they had been away a whole year, and it was the season of blossom again. ”

“ The soldiers of Caesar's army, maddened with the insane rage which the progress of a battle never fails to awaken, and now excited to phrensy by the exultation of success, pressed on after the affrighted fugitives, who trampled one upon another, or fell pierced with the weapons of their assailants, filling the air with their cries of agony and their shrieks of terror. The horrors of the scene, far from allaying, only excited still more the ferocity of their bloodthirsty foes, and they pressed steadily and fiercely on, hour after hour, in their dreadful work of destruction. ”

“ Every thing made haste to get out of the way. The postilion cracked his whip, and cheered on his horses, and shouted out to the cartmen and footmen before him to clear the way, and made generally as much noise and uproar as possible, as if the glory of a diligence consisted in the noise it made, and the sensation it produced in coming into town. ”