Over-soul

“ We bless thee for this deep religious faculty which thou hast given us, which through the darkness of earth looks upward to thine exceeding light, the star whose sparkle never dims, but shines through every night adown upon the human soul. ”

“ Resistance is all in vain: his soul, in its chariot of fire, goes up to the calm still heaven of holy men, and his word of truth burns in to the consciousness of the world, and where he went, bare and bleeding, with painful feet, shall mankind march to triumph and great joy! ”

“ Piety was their only poetry; out of ignorance, out of want, out of pain, which lay heavy about them,—a triple darkness that covered the people,—they looked up to heaven, and saw the star of everlasting life, which sent its mild beams into their responsive soul. Dark without, it was all-glorious within. Men with proud intellect go haughtily by these humble souls; but Mohammeds, Luthers, are born of such a stock, and it is from these little streams that the great ocean of religion is filled full. ”

“ Will it be our shame to have striven against our soul, or is there an invisible struggle between our soul and God? And is this struggle so strangely silent that not even a whisper floats on the air? Is there a moment when we can hear the queen whose lips are sealed? She is sternly silent when events do but float on the surface; but there are others perhaps that we scarcely heed, which have their roots deep down in eternity. Some one is dying, some one looks at you, or cries, some other is coming towards you for the first time, or an enemy is passing by—may she not perhaps whisper then? ”

“ Or was there a soul to that machine whose myriad wheels went grinding on and on, grinding the stars into dust, matter into man, and man into nothingness? Was there—could there be a living heart to the universe that did positively hear him—poor, misplaced, dishonest, ignorant Thomas Wingfold, who had presumed to undertake a work he neither could perform nor had the courage to forsake, when out of the misery of the grimy little cellar of his consciousness he cried aloud for light and something to make a man of him? ”

“ Under gentle types, my Spring Masks the might of Nature's king, An energy that searches thorough From Chaos to the dawning morrow; Into all our human plight, The soul's pilgrimage and flight; In city or in solitude, Step by step, lifts bad to good, Without halting, without rest, Lifting Better up to Best; Planting seeds of knowledge pure, Through earth to ripen, through heaven endure. ”

“ Thus it might happen that he would spend his life in ignorance of true love, while all the time possessing those qualities most fitted to inspire it. But if ever he find the ideal woman who has haunted his waking dreams, if he meet with a nature capable of understanding his own, one who could fill his soul and pour sunlight over his life, could shine as a star through the mists of this chill and gloomy world, lend fresh charm to existence, and draw music from the hitherto silent chords of his being—needless to say, he would recognize and welcome his good fortune. ”

“ Nature sings the everlasting praises of Him who is closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet, and every human countenance beams with the beautiful smile of God. The flowers declare the thoughts of the Infinite; the forest chants the silent prelude to worship, while the birds inspire the soul to ascend to the vast empyrean blue. We are speechless with ecstasy, but as we behold the beauty and glory of it all the spirit within speaks from out the fullness of the heart and sweetly proclaims in language divine—"God's beautiful gift to me." ”

“ We thank thee for the great nature thou hast given us; we bless thee for its power of ceaseless progress, of continually growing greater and nobler, and fairer decked with beauty springing from the innermost of our soul. We thank thee for every triumph which mankind has won, for all the great truths which have come sounding musical from past times, for all the noble men whom in distant days thou raisedst up out of humanity, to tell us of our power, and in their lives to reveal to us so much of thyself. ”

“ All these angels are revealed to our hearts by the same signs; by the sweetness of their tongues, the tenderness in their eyes, by their fair, pale faces, and their gracious ways. All these things are so blended and mingled that we feel the charm of their presence, yet cannot tell in what that charm consists, and every movement is an expression of a divine soul within. ”

“ The passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant. Nature grows conscious. Every bird on the boughs of the tree sings now to his heart and soul. The notes are almost articulate. The clouds have faces as he looks on them. The trees of the forest, the waving grass, and the peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and he almost fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite. Yet nature soothes and sympathizes. In the green solitude he finds a dearer home than with men. ”

“ Heredity, will, destiny, all mingle noisily in our soul; but, notwithstanding everything, far above everything, it is the silent star that reigns. No matter with what temporary labels we may bedeck the monstrous vases that contain the invisible, words can tell us scarcely anything of that which should be told. Heredity, nay destiny itself, what are these but a ray of this star, a ray that is lost in the mysterious night? ”

“ In the pure and monotonous life of young girls there comes a delicious hour when the sun sheds its rays into their soul, when the flowers express their thoughts, when the throbbings of the heart send upward to the brain their fertilizing warmth and melt all thoughts into a vague desire,—day of innocent melancholy and of dulcet joys! ”

“ The eyes, those mirrors of the soul, that hitherto have said nothing, receive language and meaning; an increasing fire animates them, their glances are living. He feels without knowing what he feels. He is restless without cause. ”

“ What flower in spring is so bright, what voices of singing birds are so sweet, what breezes that soothe the calm sea are so light and mild, what glebe is so fragrant to the husbandman—whether it be teeming with green blades, or waving with fruitful ears as is the spring of the soul, lit up with your peaceful beams, from the radiance which shone in your letter, which raised our life from despondency to gladness? ”

“ The soul of a Bishop is for all the world like a vessel in a storm: lashed from every side, by friends, by foes, by one’s own people, by strangers. Does not the Emperor rule the whole world, the Bishop a single city? Yet a Bishop’s anxieties are as much beyond those of the emperor, as the waters of a river simply moved, by the wind are surpassed in agitation by the swelling and raging sea. ”

“ Not many men see beauty in the fogs Of close low pine-woods in a river town; Yet unto me not morn's magnificence, Nor the red rainbow of a summer eve, Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls Of rich men blazing hospitable light, Nor wit, nor eloquence,—no, nor even the song Of any woman that is now alive,— Hath such a soul, such divine influence, Such resurrection of the happy past, As is to me when I behold the morn Ope in such law moist roadside, and beneath Peep the blue violets out of the black loam, Pathetic silent poets that sing to me Thine elegy, sweet singer, sainted wife. ”

“ For so an impure vapour—begotten of the slime of the earth by the fevers and adulterous heats of an intemperate summer sun, striving by the ladder of a mountain to climb to heaven and rolling into various figures by an uneasy, unfixed revolution, and stopped at the middle region of the air, being thrown from his pride and attempt of passing towards the seat of the stars—turns into an unwholesome flame and, like the breath of hell, is confined into a prison of darkness and a cloud, till it breaks into diseases, plagues and mildews, stinks and blastings. ”

“ Light from the darkness doth thy hand unfold:
Beauty from dust we in thy deeds behold:
The frail, the dimmed, the withered, worn and old
Thy breath dissolves, that they may shine anew.
The city flames, and melts the tottering wall;
Again she rises fairer for the fall.
Thou beckonest back the flood! and at thy call,
From crust-capped mounts, volcanic splendors pour.
The absent sun his way to morning bends;
The waning star to thy command attends,
Fills out and burns; and man to dust descends,
In hope to live, when thou shalt be no more. ”

“ No solemn word has been pronounced, and we feel that nothing has been called forth; and yet, why has an ineffable face beckoned to us from behind an old man’s tears, why does a vast night, starred with angels, extend over the smile of a child, and why, around a yes or no, murmured by a soul that sings and busies itself with other matters, do we suddenly hold our breath for an instant and say to ourselves, ‘Here is the house of God, and this one of the approaches to heaven’? ”

“ When we love, all the flowers that we have seen and smelt seem to hasten within us to people with their known charms the consciousness of a sentiment whose happiness, but for them, would have no more form than the horizons of the sea or sky. They have accumulated within us, since our childhood, and even before it, in the soul of our fathers, an immense treasure, the nearest to our joys, upon which we draw each time that we wish to make more real the clement minutes of our life. They have created and spread in our world of sentiment the fragrant atmosphere in which love delights. ”

“ The furnace winds of midnight were withering to flesh and blood. And sometimes the air carried invisible death in shape of poison gas or dust. In winter, sudden changes of temperature, whirling icy winds down upon a prospector who had gone to sleep in warmth, would freeze him to death. ”

“ The din is overwhelming, the dust irritates the nostrils and blinds the eyes, the heat burns and exhausts the body, and everything around—the buildings, the people, the stone quays—seem to be on the stretch, full-ripe, ready to burst, ready to lose all patience and explode in some grandiose catastrophe, like a volcano, and thus one feels that one would be able to breathe more easily and freely in the refreshened air ”

“ The sky had a deep purple tint, and immense clouds of black smoke rolled over the whole heavens. There was not a breath of wind, but everything was sunk into a calm so deep and profound that it seemed like the death of Nature. The heat was suffocating, the air thick and stagnant, so that breathing was difficult. No one could put forth the slightest exertion. Everybody lay about in a state of utter lassitude and listlessness, or tried in vain to find some cool place where the heat might be less oppressive. ”

“ The gales of wind that swept round the wall of precipice that protected them in the rear, the drifts of snow that were piled up in fresh instalments with every storm about their dwelling, the biting frost, more piercing and benumbing than they had ever experienced before, the unceasing groans of the sick within, the semi-weekly procession bearing one after another of their diminishing numbers to the grave, the mystery that hung over the disease, and the impotency of all remedies, we know were prominent features in the picture. ”

“ These experiments have often been alluded to as "baking animals alive." You will note that the heat was no greater than that to which laborers are frequently exposed in our hot summer-days, when working in the sun or in many industrial works. His experiments showed that the effects of sunstroke—or, as he happily termed it, Thermic or heat fever, a scientific name now widely adopted—were solely due to the heat, death following from coagulation of the muscular structure of the heart, or by its effects on the brain. ”

“ He tried to think of some refuge, but his brain was confused, and his outburst of anger had exhausted him and made him drowsy. His eyelids closed heavily, as he tried to recall some sheltered corner where he would be protected from the cold. Then his mind seemed to become the prey of a night-mare, and he saw all the country-side revolving before him, bare, and swept by the gusts of wind. [Pg 371] However, with sudden energy, he shook himself, and tried to throw off his drowsiness. He must not lose heart in this way. Folks would never let a man of his age die with cold out-of-doors. ”

“ Every gale of wind supplies them with apprehensions from those who are at sea; and I was surprised to observe how many people there are who, in a thunder-storm on shore, are fully convinced that the lightning will choose their persons in preference to every other spot where it could light. Great numbers in a trifling sickness had suffered all the horrors of approaching death. I knew not before how many there are who use the precaution of being [134] always uneasy, and have so much foresight as to lose all the comfort of life. ”

“ Parched are all lips and eyes; for the air is full of dust, yea, even of gravel which cuts like hail. Aching are all right-sides; for the sudden chill brings on all manner of liver complaints and indigestions. All who can afford it, draw tight the jalousies, and sulk in darkness; the leaves are parched, as by an Atlantic gale; the air is filled with lurid haze, as in an English north-east wind; and no man can breathe freely, or eat his bread with joy, until the plague is past. ”

“ I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the inhabitants. They are constantly increasing in volume and are approaching the center of the city.
“The fog yet hangs over everything. If possible, it is even heavier than before. But the conditions have changed. Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost human agony. Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief glimpse of the streets below.
“People are running to and fro, screaming in despair. ”