Meister

“ Meister, masculine, ‘master, chief, leader,’ from Middle High German meister, masculine, ‘learned poet, meister-sänger (poets who were members of guilds) , mayor, burgomaster,’ Old High German meistar ”

“ To understand the temper and meaning of one great master is to lay the best, if not the only, foundation for the understanding of all; and I shall therefore make it the leading aim of this course of lectures to remind you of what is known, and direct you to what is knowable, of the life and character of the greatest Florentine master of engraving, Sandro Botticelli; and, incidentally, to give you some idea of the power of the greatest master of the German, or any northern, school, Hans Holbein. ”

“ Master, not of enterprises and institutions, but of the living souls of things which they rudely symbolise; as the Poet is Master, not of words and verses, but of the thing obscurely hidden in them; as the Musician is Master, not of notes and harmonies, but of the soul made audible in them, like an invisible gossamer thread revealed in dew: He teaches by destroying. The history of Man is the history of the Master’s contempt for lies. ”

“ The young man to whom he spoke, and into whose eyes he had turned to look, lowered his lids as if abashed or aggrieved, and just perceptibly shrugged his shoulders.
“Master,” he said, presuming on the Master’s tolerance, “is it not the mystery of original sin in them which baffles you? And where on this earth are eyes to lack that riddle? You are too old, Master, by near fifteen hundred years to find the model you seek. There was never but one in all the world.” ”

“ It ought not, therefore, to be without a respectful admiration that we find the masters of the fourteenth century dwelling on moments of the most subdued and tender feeling, and leaving the spectator to trace the under-currents of thought which link them with future events of mightier interest, and fill with a prophetic power and mystery scenes in themselves so simple as the meeting of a master with his herdsmen among the hills, or the return of a betrothed virgin to her house. ”

“ Master, laugh not. So thou hast thy choice of death, Leporello—’tis more than many a sinner; either by fear or by steel thou fallest. Well, well, if I love blood, I know not my likings. Good, master, good. Most gentle of statues, my master, and I—prythee, mark well, ’tis my master, and not I, good statue. ”

“ From those who have the eyes to see, nothing is concealed; to those who have the right to know, all things are open books. The true Word of the three Grand Masters has never been concealed from those who have the right to know it nor has it ever been revealed to those who have not prepared a worthy shrine to contain it. The Master knows, for he is a Temple Builder. Within the setting of his own bodies, the Philosopher's Stone is placed; for in truth it is the heart of the Phoenix, that strange bird which rises with renewed youth from the ashes of its burned body. ”

“ That is beyond the pale of the guild, and there are many of those in a town that stand far above the mere master artizan. You may be an honest man; but as a 'master' you will after all only belong to those who are ranked among common men. I know something better than that. I will be an architect, and will thus enter into the territory of art and speculation. I shall be reckoned among those who stand high in point of intellect. ”

“ You may be driving sheep, and you shall wander to the city—bucolic and open-mouthed; shall wander under the intrepid guidance of the spirit into the studio of the master, and after a time he shall say, ‘I have nothing more to teach you.’ And now you have become the master, who did so recently dream of great things while driving sheep. You shall lay down the saw and the plane to take upon yourself the regeneration of the world. ”

“ CHAPTER XV. THE MASTERY And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame, And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are. —KIPLING
JUNE time in the Walnut Valley, and commencement time at Sunrise on the limestone ridge! Nor pen nor brush can show the glory of the radiant prairies, and the deep blue of the “unscarred heavens,” and the bright gleams from rippling waters. ”

“ The earthly apprentice, freed from his articles of apprenticeship, may serve any master, the heavenly apprentice asks but one. Oh, Jesus, Master, Thou Saviour of our race, have mercy upon us, grant us so to serve Thee in time, that our earthly labours ended, we may hear Thee say, "Well done good and faithful servant," while the pure and beautiful angels shall rehearse to each other, "Rejoice, another apprentice is out of his time." ”

“ JOHN BEAL
But why are you sad, Daoud?
DAOUD
Great master, in times you do not know these gods were holy. In times you have not guessed. In old centuries, master, perhaps before the pass. Men have prayed to them, sorrowed before them, given offerings to them. The light of old hearths has shone on them, flames from old battles. The shadow of the mountains has fallen on them, so many times, master, so many times. Dawn and sunset have shone on them, master, like firelight flickering; dawn and sunset, dawn and sunset, flicker, flicker, flicker for century after century. ”

“ Am just about to apologise and retreat when I perceived a fine old master on the wall. Peeping amongst the painters, easels, palettes, and canvases, perceive other old masters, almost entirely hidden by the various erections of the students. ”

“ As masters of the new-born craft none can be conceived greater.
The century now closing boasts, however, a long line of true followers and worthy disciples of those great ones, men whose names are household words in every European city.
But my brief record, necessarily dry and bald, of a momentous change in the teaching of the world would be incomplete without one word on the glorious instrument—the voice, so to speak—of these masters of a new art, the organ. ”

“ When this stage is reached he usually comes under the influence of a Master; indeed often his first clear consciousness of anything outside himself is his touch with that Master. The tremendous power of the Master's influence magnetises him, draws his vibrations into harmony with its own, and multiplies manyfold the rate of his development. It rays upon him like sunshine upon a flower, and he evolves rapidly under its influence. ”

“ I will be called by no human name, not even if it be an inspired one: my name shall not be derived from the servant, but from the Master himself. I will remember his command: “Call no man Master, on earth; for one is your Master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.” ”

“ One day you also shall be perfected, a vessel meet for the Master's use. And then He will take you into His house, unto the temple which is a home, and your home for ever. Like us, when you are perfected, you shall serve; but, unlike us, even whilst you are being perfected, you may serve!"
Then the sufferer turned over the leaves of another Book, and saw how the Master had written His parables, not in streams and corn-fields, and birds and flowers, and fruitful earth, and starry sky alone, but in common household things, and common human ties. ”

“ Veiled in cloud and recognised in thunders, a divine and merciful hand is laid upon the child. Death comes to him as a sleep, and over his dead and lovely form the anger of heaven is appeased. Incapable as the Maestro was of feeling much of the pathos and beauty of his own work, still, with that wonderful instinct, or art, or genius, which supplies the place of feeling, he produced, amid much that was grotesque and incongruous, a work of delicate [139] touch and thrilling and entrancing sound. ”

“ Every Sunday, you must remember, the girl has seen 'master' perhaps crouching devoutly in his pew, perhaps in the part of sidesman or even church-warden, more probably supplementing the gifts of the pastor at some nightmarish meeting-house. 'Master' offers prayer with wonderful fervour; he speaks to the Lord as man to man; in the emotional passages his voice gets husky, and everybody says how good he is. ”

“ Like timid children, we have peered into the schoolhouse--afraid of the unknown master. If we will but enter we shall find that the Master is our Father, and that he has fitted up this house, out of his own infinite wisdom, skill, and love, that we may be like him in wisdom and power as well as in love. ”

“ Each time you do something great and brave, the Master comes a step nearer. When you become your soul, the Master comes all the way down the hill and tells your brain which way to go—tells you the path, the way home. ”

“ In the time which he employs on a square foot of canvas, a master of a different order covers the walls of a palace with gods burying giants under mountains, or makes the cupola of a church alive with seraphim and martyrs. The more fervent the passion of each of these artists for his art, the higher the merit of each in his own line, the more unlikely it is that they will justly appreciate each other. ”

“ The time is coming when, in place of your one master, you will have a thousand masters—masters of duty, of business, of pleasure, and of grief—giving you harder lessons, each one of them, than any of your Fluxions. ”

“ And does he not day by day carefully and faithfully carry out every detail of his master's instructions, looking forward to the time when, perfected through obedience and practice, he shall be himself a master? Where is the man who sincerely aims at excellence in music, painting, literature, in any trade, business, or profession who is not willing to give his whole life to the acquirement of his particular perfection? Shall labor, then, be considered where the very highest excellence is concerned—the excellence of Truth? ”

“ Raphael, Leonardo, and Michael Angelo were all trained in the old school; they all had masters who knew the true ends of art, and had reached them; masters nearly as great as they were themselves, but imbued with the old religious and earnest spirit, which their disciples receiving from them, and drinking at the same time deeply from all the fountains of knowledge opened in their day, became the world’s wonders. ”

“ Now, the rule is, you remember, that nobody but a master may even try for the prize; so the jealous town clerk resolves that he will keep the young man from becoming a master. And it happens, by good luck for him and bad luck for the knight, that it is his turn to-day to take the chalk and mark the mistakes that are made in singing by anybody who tries to prove himself worthy to be a master. ”

“ And in such moments as these—when the natural human instinct for happiness, yearning sunward, breaks through all the strata of laborious philosophy and experience—he remembers that men call him “The Master,” and then he seems to hear the sardonic laughter of Mad Peggy, as he asks himself what Master he has followed in his sacrifice, or what Master, working imperturbably, moulds human life at his ironic, inscrutable will. ”

“ Ye know well, Beloved, that we all have One Master, and are fellow disciples under Him. Nor are we your masters, because we speak to you from this higher spot; but He is the Master of all, who dwelleth in us all. ”

“ Do you bring him here, that he may confront the Evil One. Then I will do my part. When the Master is full of dealing with the power that is Holy, he will have no time to watch me. At that sainted moment, I shall strike with every fiber of my being! From behind, I shall kick the Master's skull into bloody fragments. I will do it, though my poor life will surely be forfeit for the deed before the blood dries.
And I beg thee, gentle reader, do you intercede for my soul with your God, for I know Him not, neither can I speak. Beg from Him my salvation from the fires the Master speaks so often of. ”

“ The master is pre-eminent for the resolution, the ease and quickness, with which he reproduces instantaneous motion—the lacing-on of armour, with the head bent back so stately—the fainting lady—the embrace, rapid as the kiss caught, with death itself, from dying lips—the momentary conjunction of mirrors and polished armour and still water, by which all the sides of a solid image are presented at once, solving that casuistical question whether painting can present an object as completely as sculpture. ”

“ His finished work and Master’s love attest.
And now he wins, withdrawn from human eye,
A good man’s two-fold immortality,
To live forever near the Master’s throne,
And here, in lives made better by his own. ”

“ Despite the bitterness of the combat, the master has had nothing to complain of and does not complain. The outcome of his life-story is most beautiful, and if this beauty already strikes us, it is in the years to come that it will attain its full glory. ”

“ Adopting that principle in compiling this work, I have divided the carvers of sword-furniture into three ranks. Natural talent combined with the skill acquired by long practice constitutes the "master," who stands at the highest point of his art. Next comes the "expert," concerning whom, however, a triple subdivision must be made: namely, the expert who ranks next to and immediately after the master; then the expert who, though originally of "inferior" ability, has nevertheless by zealous and patient effort developed the skill which ought to be the aim of every student ”

“ To us 'Master' means Master of Knowledge, a source of knowledge, or one who has mastered the temptations of the flesh. We—I told him—prefer the word Guru, or Adept. For no Master, as we know the word, would ever seek to influence a student nor to impose his own opinions. In the West certain little groups and cults there are who think that they alone have the key to the Heavenly Fields. ”

“ To Cause the Master to Be Forgotten.—The pianoforte player who executes the work of a master will have played best if he has made his audience forget the master, and if it seemed as if he were relating a story from his own life or just passing through some experience. Assuredly, if he is of no importance, every one will abhor the garrulity with which he talks about his own life. ”