Prytaneion

“ A consumptive friend of hers, rendered nervous and weak by long sickness, upon being asked one morning, as usual, about her health, replied: "Don't ask me again—I feel as if I could throw this chair at you." Now I do not think, said Mrs. Prentiss, that this speech was a sin in the sight of God. He saw in it nothing but the poor invalid's irritable nerves, God judges us according to the thoughts and intentions of the heart; and we ought, as far as possible, to judge each other in the same way. And when we ourselves are the ones really at fault, we ought to confess it. ”

“ Prudence and economy, restraint of manner, denial of the sensuous and the sensual appeal, reserve of soul, the unmoved endurance of the pricks of fortune—these became the virtues of the Puritan because they were not the virtues of the world which despised him: by these self-erected standards he justified himself and passed judgment on the society in which he felt himself an alien and a stranger. ”

“ My soul is oppressed, now that health is returning, to find old habits of sin returning too, and this monster Self usurping God's place, as of old, and pride and love of ease and all the infirmities of the flesh thick upon me. After being encompassed with mercies for two months, having every comfort this world could offer for my alleviation, I wonder at myself that I can be anything but a meek, docile child, profiting by the Master's discipline, sensible of the tenderness that went hand-in-hand with every stroke, and walking softly before God and man! ”

“ Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air of weary indifference. She had borne, that morning, all that nature could endure; and as her temperament was not of the order that escapes from too intense suffering by a swoon, her spirit could only shelter itself beneath a stony crust of insensibility, while the faculties of animal life remained entire. ”

“ Of what we call learning they probably had very little, and of esthetic taste still less, but of clear judgment, solid character, and fearless courage, they had a great deal. They were trained as companions and helpers of men, not as their toys, though they were always subject to them. It was a simple life they led—a life with few graces and few of our complexities. They were the Puritans of the classic world, without the Puritan conscience or moral sense, but with more than Puritan courage and fortitude. ”

“ From this characterization you will infer, as I intend you shall, that the "honor" of [Pg 328] the Powers that Prey is but a poor sort of a thing after all, and is, as I have intimated, but personal interest more or less thinly disguised.
Still, sometimes the disguise is so clever that it looks like the real thing—to the outsider; but "wise" people rarely fail in tracing the reasons which prompt a rogue to refuse to give away a pal. ”

“ At the same time (which is not our time!) , and as Intelligence takes on a leading part in morals, there will come the indulgent recognition that such a “decency” as we may exact (or try to exact) from ourselves, cannot, any more than personal cleanliness in our own day, be exacted from all our neighbours. It may take a good many transformations of Proteus before the mote can always be removed from our brother’s eye, even supposing the beam to have been taken away from our own. ”

“ Proteus, multiform and ever-elusive, represents that which Intelligence (lighter equipped than specialized Intellect for such rapid hunts) can sometimes catch sight of and, for however brief a contact, sometimes even clutch. Proteus, in my mythology, is the mysterious whole which we know must exist, but know not how to descry: Reality. For, whatever else we may believe it to be, Reality when thus partially revealed, is never twice the same. ”

“ There are unseen elements which often frustrate our wisest calculations—which raise up the sufferer from the edge of the grave, contradicting the prophecies of the clear-sighted physician, and fulfilling the blind clinging hopes of affection; such unseen elements Mr. Tryan called the Divine Will, and filled up the margin of ignorance which surrounds all our knowledge with the feelings of trust and resignation. ”

“ Companionship with philosophers had excited his intellect, and induced the habit of watching his own soul with intense interest. He was absorbed in reverie most of the time, and Prytane, who came occasionally to see him, was the only person with whom he conversed freely. Their conversation was more wearisome to Praxinoë than his dreamy silence. She said they might be as wise as owls, for all she knew to the contrary, but that she could see no more sense in their talk, than she did in the hooting of those solemn birds of darkness. In another respect, Hermotimus seemed to her like an owl. ”

“ Surely she must understand so much, Prudence! You will tell her, will you not? and ask her if she sees him standing before her?"
"I know not—I am afraid," said Prudence, anxiously. "Perchance it may frighten her the more; forever she says that she sees him, and always with an angry face toward her; and she is for hiding herself away from him—and even talking of the river! Good lack, 'tis pitiful that she should be so struck down—and almost at death's door—and all we can do of so little avail." ”

“ Are we softened a little? Will we not pay for our liberty with a single promise of silence? Come, I am a good sort of a prince,' added he, 'and although I like not Puritans I do them justice; and it is the same with Puritanesses, when they are pretty. ”

“ The limitations of human responsibility have never been properly studied, unless it be by the phrenologists. You know from my lectures that I consider phrenology, as taught, a pseudo-science, and not a branch of positive knowledge ”

“ Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men: therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder: for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. ”

“ Hypocrisy, pride, conceit, wrath, rudeness and ignorance, are, O son of Pritha, his who is born to demoniac possessions. God-like possessions are deemed to be for deliverance; the demoniac for bondage. Grieve not, O son of Pandu, for thou art born to god-like possessions. (There are) two kinds of created beings in this world, viz., the god-like and the demoniac. The god-like have been described at length. Hear now, from me, O son of Pritha, about the demoniac. Persons of demoniac nature know not inclination or disinclination. ”

“ And I thought any man who had tact enough for that would be my undoing and I should not wonder,” with a swift look from under her long lashes, “if it were true, but you will never tell a soul I told you, will you?” beseechingly. “It’s a secret—the undoing, you know.” ”

“ The moment you were less than yourself, people were the worst of all. There had been one awful second, when this queer creature, Miss Femm, had been screaming at her brother, when she had suddenly wanted to scream herself, to clutch at Philip, to drag him to the door, back to the car. ”

“ Further, there seems no reason to doubt that it is the contrast of activity, and passivity, — of resistance encountered and instinctive effort put forth against the resistance, to which may be added the contrast of want and satisfaction, of restless craving and the stilling of appetite by its appropriate gratification, — it is these contrasts which awaken and intensify the distinction between the sensitive subject and objects independent of itself. ”

“ When Prytanes returned to Clazomenæ, he gave an account of this wonderful experience, in public discourses to his disciples; and the fame of Hermotimus spread more and more widely. Priests and philosophers came to listen to his conversations with Prytanes; and while some went away incredulous, others were deeply impressed with awe. From far and near, people brought the diseased to him, begging him to prescribe a cure ”

“ The moral lessons of the Second Pythian reappear to some extent in the Third and First Odes of the same group, also addressed to Hiero. In each we find the same mingling of praises and warnings,—warnings against ambition, avarice, rashness, seductions of evil counsellors, and the like. ”

“ Wanting in superficial readiness of sympathy, wanting also in the sanguine flow of animal spirits, and by constitutional reserve often prevented from expressing what he felt and wished to express, he yet gradually created in those around him a sense of security in trusting him which was due to the transparent purity of his aims and to the entire absence of personal assumption and petty ambition. ”

“ But then, again, an accustomed eye had likewise its own anguish to inflict. Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable. From first to last, in short, Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture. ”

“ For if he had revealed himself to any man, and that man should go forth and say, Thus saith the Lord God, he might, before the sun went down, look for his head to be taken off his shoulders, or to be stretched upon the wheels of the Inquisition, to be tortured with all manner of cruelties as a heretic. ”

“ Some souls therefore genuinely participate the gifts of Love, and by others these gifts are perverted. For as according to Plotinus the defluxion of intellect produces craft, and an erroneous participation of wisdom sophistry, so likewise the illumination of Love when it meets with a depraved recipient, produces a tyrannic and intemperate life. ”

“ Pryor had become more and more rigid. The black-edged handkerchief was forgotten, and she sat with her chin raised and her prominent short-sighted eyes glancing from one to another of the fortunate legatees with an expression which, to say the least, was not affectionate. ”

“ Mr Tryan, as first represented to us, is not an engaging figure. Narrow and sectarian, full of many uncharities, to a great extent vain and self-conscious, glad to be flattered and idolised by men and women by no means of large calibre or lofty standard—it might well seem impossible to invest such a figure with one heroic element. ”

“ Tryan laughed at for being fond of great sinners; she began to see a new meaning in those words; he would perhaps understand her helplessness. If she could pour out her heart to him!" Then here we have this keen glimpse into some curious relations of personality. "The impulse to confession almost always requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our moments of spiritual need the man to whom we have no tie but our common nature seems nearer to us than mother, brother or friend. ”

“ Prudentius himself tells us nothing about his family, beyond what we derive by inference. The deeper that we plunge into this labyrinth of guesses the further we are from being settled in opinion. The exhaustive—and, let us add, the exhausting—editor of the latest edition finally calls a halt in the middle of his complicated Latin sentences and avows himself utterly at a loss about the truth. ”

“ Unto the right high mighti and doubtid Prynsace the Quen of Implande, one that was your Servaunt but now beinge both a Traitor and a manifiald parjured Traitor, which Heaven above doth abhorre, the erth below detest, the sun moone and starres be eschamed of, and all Creatures doo curse and ajudge unworthy of breth and life, do wish onelie to die your Penytent. ”

“ She has made him, she makes him, accept the tolerably obvious oddity of their relation, all round, for part of the game. Behind her there, protected and amused and, as it were, exquisitely humbugged—the Principino, in whom he delights, always aiding—he has safely and serenely enough suffered the conditions of his life to pass for those he had sublimely projected. ”

“ Because representations attack it at what we call the affective phase and cause a resulting experience, a disturbance, to which disturbance is joined the image of threatened evil: this amounts to an affection and Reason seeks to extinguish it, to ban it as destructive to the well-being of the Soul which by the mere absence of such a condition is immune, the one possible cause of affection not being present. ”

“ It's not in human nature, sir!"
"You mule!" he cried with a gesture of impatience. "But have your way, have your way! Now return to the subject. What more have you to tell me?"
"Very little, sir, except that the man tried to pump me, but I gave him not a whit of satisfaction. ”

“ Rise up, Judge Pyncheon! The morning sunshine glimmers through the foliage, and beautiful and holy as it is, shuns not to kindle up your face. Rise up, thou subtile, worldly, selfish, iron-hearted hypocrite, and make thy choice whether still to be subtile, worldly, selfish, iron-hearted, and hypocritical, or to tear these sins out of thy nature, though they bring the life-blood with them! ”

“ The other girls resemble their mother, and the vicar's type, reproduced in Miss Prudence, is immeasurably the more refined—not to say picturesque.
"Oh if you won't be serious!" sighed Prudence—though, as has been seen, I had said nothing.
"It certainly is not a laughing matter," I admitted.
"How difficult the world is! ”

“ They were, doubtless, good men, just and sage. But, out of the whole human family, it would not have been easy to select the same number of wise and virtuous persons, who should be less capable of sitting in judgment on an erring woman's heart, and disentangling its mesh of good and evil, than the sages of rigid aspect towards whom Hester Prynne now turned her face. ”

“ If it had not pleased God to put a terrour in the Savages hearts, we had all perished by those wild and cruell Pagans, being in that weake estate as we were; our men night and day groaning in every corner of the Fort most pitifull to [106] heare. If there were any conscience in men, it would make their harts to bleed to heare the pitifull murmurings and outcries of our sicke men without reliefe; every night and day for the space of six weekes; some departing out of the Worlde, many times three or foure in a night ”