Split

“ The split was not over two feet wide by twelve feet long, and it was filled with gravel and muck, with here and there the nest of a field mouse among the tundra. Earl had suggested clearing out the split, and he had gone in first to loosen the gravel with his pick. ”

“ Others boggle or are at fault in their career, or give back at a pinch, they split into different factions, have various objects to distract them, their private friendships or antipathies stand in their way ”

“ And, after the death of Split-Nose, there was but one other man that dared rise up and speak his mind, and that man was Hair-Face. ‘Where is the strength of the strong?’ he asked. ‘We are the strong, all of us, and we are stronger than Dog-Tooth and Tiger-Face and Three-Legs and Pig-Jaw and all the rest who do nothing and eat much and weaken us by the hurt of their strength which is bad strength. ”

“ Indeed after spending in her mouth, I had felt so very much disgusted with myself, that I left off the licking altogether, and had made the girl promise she would never tell her sister, nor refer to the matter again. So I was silent, standing with one hand on her belly just above her split, and in an uncomfortable state of mind.
She broke the silence. "Do it as you do it to she." "I don't know what you mean," I again stammered. "Yes yer do now." "What has Martha told you?" "Nothing, but I knows." ”

“ The lumberjacks accused him of using a split pencil to charge up the tobacco and socks they bought at the wanagan but this was just bunkshanty talk (is this the origin of the classic term "the bunk"?) for Johnny never cheated anyone.
HAVE you ever encountered the Mosquito of the North Country? You thought they were pretty well developed animals with keen appetites didn't you? ”

“ Paul never kept a poor one, very long. There was one jigger who seemed to have learned to do nothing but boil. He made soup out of everything and did most of his work with a dipper. When the big tote-sled broke through the ice on Bull Frog Lake with a load of split peas, he served warmed up, lake water till the crew struck. His idea of a lunch box was a jug or a rope to freeze soup onto like a candle. Some cooks used too much grease. It was said of one of these that he had to wear calked shoes to keep from sliding out of the cook-shanty and rub sand on his hands when he picked anything up. ”

“ He learned that no matter how philosophically we may have borne a separation, the prospect of its near end shows us how strong the repression has been; the lifting of the bonds makes evident how much they have galled. ”

“ A foolish trick to make the rose more strangely gay
Is now a close-locked, mortal conflict of brain and blood—
A feud too old to settle or renounce.
I shall grow too tired to struggle, and the fight will end,
And they will enter in at last—
Nature and Time, long thwarted of their prey,
Those old grey two, more cruel for the lips that said them "Nay,"
For the bitterest foe is he who in the past
Has been repulsed when he would fain be friend. ”

“ Truth now comes to us in such small segments that we no longer see the pattern of it; but this we are able to perceive: that the mystery of Separation is equal in degree with the mystery of Union, and that the child of separation is Pain. ”

“ If we had not separated, we might now be living in a true heart-union; for I believe, strange as it may sound to you, that we were made for each other--that, when the false and evil of our lives are put off, the elements of conjunction will appear. We have made for ourselves of this world a dreary waste, when, if we had overcome the evil of our hearts, our paths would have been through green and fragrant places. ”

“ The absurdity of the pretence of making the division depend on protestations of love from his daughters, his complete blindness to the hypocrisy which is patent to us at a glance, his piteous delight in these protestations, the openness of his expressions of preference for his youngest daughter—all make us smile, but all pain us. ”

“ Discord as one of the great causes of confusion is also spoken of with much force (1 Henry VI., act iv. sc. 1, l. 188, vol. v. p. 68) ,—
“No simple man that sees
This jarring discord of nobility,
This should’ring of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites,
But that he doth presage some ill event.
’Tis much, when sceptres are in children’s hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.” The Paris edition of Horapollo’s Hieroglyphics, 1551, subjoins several to which there is no Greek text (pp. 217–223) . ”

“ Why should the disengaged spirit again be fastened to the drag of that grosser and heavier substance, which many think has only the effect of weighing down its activity? What is the use of a resurrection, if the union that then takes place, is to deaden or to reduce all those energies which are ascribed to the living principle in a state of separation? ”

“ Perhaps we all have. After all I take it that separation, like time, tries everything—love, friendship, even acquaintance, and those of the three which survive the test are like the ruins of ancient cities, of great value as curiosities, but worth little for aught else. ”

“ The answer seems nowhere: it's discord that's played.
The sky's a blue dish!—an implacable sky!
X.
Stop a moment. I seize an idea from the pit.
They tell us that discord, though discord, alone,
Can be harmony when the notes properly fit:
Am I judging all things from a single false tone?
Is the Universe one immense Organ, that rolls
From devils to angels? I'm blind with the sight.
It pours such a splendour on heaps of poor souls! ”

“ Yet this limited and unlimited self; transitory, perishable, and finite on the one side; everlasting, imperishable, and infinite on the other, are bound together in the same person. The fall of the one is accompanied by the descent of the other, and the rise of the one is accompanied by the ascent of the other. Their union involves perpetual conflict, and there waits on the turn of the battle, the depression of remorse, or the exultation of triumph. ”

“ What matter if a lonely one like myself went out alone to the great dark? But when thought of my love came, a desolating sense of separation—separation not to be bridged by love or reason—overwhelmed me, and I, too, shrank back. ”

“ The scene of separation was heartrending to all but the doomed man, who was calm, and even smiled once or twice, in order to cheer, if he could, the poor creatures whom he had rendered cheerless for ever. ”

“ If the plan of separation gives us the pastoral care of you, it remains to inquire whether we have done anything, as a conference, or as men, to forfeit your confidence and affection. We are not advised that even in the great excitement which has distressed you for some months past, any one has impeached our moral conduct, or charged us with unsoundness in doctrine, or corruption or tyranny in the administration of discipline. But we learn that the simple cause of the unhappy excitement among you is, that some suspect us, or affect to suspect us, of being abolitionists. ”

“ When once a wave of inebriety swept over the settlement, something a little out of the ordinary was likely to occur. Fights and rows would be started with the most bloodthirsty intentions, only to end in peace and harmony after the swearing of eternal friendships. ”

“ In spite however of all these considerations, with which I endeavour to console myself in the chagrin that preys upon my mind, the approaching separation cannot but be in the utmost degree painful to me. In spite of the momentary fortitude, that tells me that any distance is better than the being placed within the reach of the mistress of my soul without being once permitted to see her, I cannot help revolving with the most poignant melancholy, the various and infinitely diversified objects that shall shortly divide us. ”

“ Then, there is the separation regulation, dragging after it a long train of horrors and heart-rending sufferings—violating the law of holy writ—"Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder"—and trampling upon the best feelings of human nature. ”

“ Bramble
Ouf!
Tuneless Under the shelter of dissimulation, courtiers embrace each other, women compliment each other, and authors bow to each other at a distance. Dissimulation creates new friendships and smoothes over old hatreds.
Bramble
Ouf!
Tuneless Without dissimulation, how many secret separations would grow into public divorces. But dissimulation gives wisdom to men, joy to husbands—that's why there are so many happy families at present.
Bramble
Ah, my dear Tuneless—
Tuneless You begin to dissimulate—. ”

“ Here, the separation is eternal; no hope of reunion shall more exist; we shall no more have relatives, father, child, friend; no other ties than everlasting flames, which shall for ever unite us to the reprobate. ”

“ The union may have been virtually a separation for five-sixths of its term; the ill temper of the man or the carping spirit of the 27woman, or any one of the other innumerable causes of dissension which make dislike so much easier and more general than affection, may have made of this ‘married life’ an everlasting apple of discord blistering the lips which have been fastened to it. ”

“ People speak with precisely marked division of mind and body, of will, emotion, understanding; the division is good in logic, but its convenient lines are lost to us as we watch a being with soul all blurred, body all shaken, unstrung, poisoned, by erotic mania, rising in slow clouds of mephitic steam from suddenly heated stagnancies of the blood, and turning the reality of conduct and duty into distant unmeaning [i.257] shadows. ”

“ The great law of division became clear to him—the separation for a time of the universal agent into two parts, by the separation and reuniting of which comes light and heat and the hidden force of life, and the prime rules of attractive action; all things that are accounted material. ”

“ Why allow the tendrils of the heart to twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of violence? When separations come by the hand of death, the pious soul can bow in resignation, and say, “Not my will, but thine be done, O Lord!” But when the ruthless hand of man strikes the blow, regardless of the misery he causes, it is hard to be submissive. ”

“ And, worse than that, no separation either, for a poet is—through his mother tongue—so intimately wedded to his country that not even a separation can effect any sort of relief in such a desperate case. ”

“ But there is a truce between the nations; a truce in which the elements of discord are nevertheless smouldering, ready to blaze out afresh at the first opportunity, and they have seen each other accidentally, and been thrown together by circumstances, till curiosity has become interest, and interest grown into liking, and liking ripened into love. ”

“ It would be very grievous, you say, to be precipitated upon measures that may make the desirable reconciliation more difficult. Is it now, my dear, a time for you to be afraid of being precipitated? At present, if ever, there can be no thought of reconciliation. The upshot of your precipitation must first be seen. There may be murder yet, as far as we know. Will the man you are with part willingly with you? ”

“ I pray you, remember that it will interpose between brother and brother—between mother and child—between husband and wife. "One shall be taken and the other left." And when that sword shall descend to divide, there shall never be any after union. The separation is eternal. There is no hope or possibility of change in the world to come. ”

“ Outside on the pavements with hundreds of like-excited men, with angry discussions and bitter recitals of complaints, the seeds of discord sown some time since, perhaps, sprout afresh, blossom and bear fruits. ”

“ The core of the separation illusion lies simply in the fantasy of destruction of love's meaning. And unless love's meaning is restored to you, you cannot know yourself who share its meaning. Separation is only the decision not to know yourself. ”

“ So I am compelled to do it all myself, while they cultivate their digestions. I have now no more earnest wish than soon to see you and the children again, and never to leave you more. If our separation is destined to be of any advantage to us, it is dearly paid for. ”

“ I say, and I repeat it, that all these reconciliations which are with such difficulty concluded, where both parties are resolute in yielding only to a certain point, and even that with precautions so strict and so precise; where so many expedients and so much mystery are necessary, — are the fruits of fleshly prudence: they correct the manners, but they affect not the heart; they bring the persons, but not the affections, nearer; they re-establish civilities, but leave the same sentiments; in a word, they terminate the scandal of hatred, but not the sin. ”

“ Has not the Blessed One formerly declared this to us, that it is in the very nature of all things near and dear unto us, that we must separate from them and leave them, since everything that is born, brought into being, and organized, contains within itself the inherent necessity of dissolution? ”

“ I shall always call your hair 'dark as the night of disunion and separation'—isn't that what the oriental poet called it?—and your face, to me, always, always, always, will be 'fair as the days of union and delight.' No you've not changed. You're still just a tall flower, in the blades of grass—that are cut down. ”

“ How long is chaos and confusion to reign amongst men? How long will discord agitate the face of society? The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily increasing. ”