Abandonment

“ For the spirit of abandonment has to be carried into our spiritual life, as well as into the things that only touch the natural. The seed-vessel has to go down into death as well as the leaf. Look at it as it begins to pass into the valley of that shadow and its strength begins to ebb away. ”

“ The door might have opened suddenly, and a man presented himself to them without their being in the least surprised, notwithstanding all that the hut revealed of abandonment, and they had their hands ready to press the hands of this man, this castaway, this unknown friend, for whom friends were waiting. ”

“ The abandonment of one's sorrow—that daily, hourly indulgence in grief which the uncheered solitude of a prison begets—soon brings the mind to the narrow range of one or two topics. With the death of hope, all fancy and imagination perish, the springs of all speculation are dried up, and every faculty bent towards one point ”

“ You know when one goes into the damp, odorous coolness of a church in a Catholic country and sees the kneeling worshipers, their bodies bent stiffly and reluctantly, and yet with abandonment as though to represent the inevitable bending of the will to a purpose outside the individual person, or when under any sky one sees a mother with her child in her arms, something turns in one's heart like a sword, and one says to oneself, "If humanity forgets these attitudes there is an end to the world." ”

“ I find something so horrible, so repulsive, in the people who frequently abandon the dead, because they cannot bear to see them die, and leave them alone; who leave the corpse in its winding-sheet in a darkened chamber, which the household and family rush by, as if some dreadful horror was there; where no prayers or sacrifices follow to help the soul, which sees its abandonment by those whom it held dear. ”

“ Then strange emotions, novel alarming desires, dreams strangely charged with feeling; an inexplicable impulse of self-abandonment began to tickle queerly amongst the familiar purely egotistical and materialistic things of boyhood and girlhood. We were like misguided travelers who had camped in the dry bed of a tropical river. Presently we were knee deep and neck deep in the flood. Our beings were suddenly going out from ourselves seeking other beings—we knew not why. This novel craving for abandonment to some one of the other sex, bore us away. ”

“ Our abandonment, then, should be, both in respect to external and internal things, an absolute giving up of all our concerns into the hands of God, forgetting ourselves and thinking only of Him; by which the heart will remain always disengaged, free, and at peace. ”

“ You may be elbowed one instant by the girl desperate in her abandonment, laughing in mad merriment with her outward gesture, while her soul is longing for the rest of the dead, and bringing itself to think of the cold flowing river as the only mercy of God remaining to her here. ”

“ No feeling, but a devotion to their favorite pursuits and modes of life, stronger than the fear of abandonment, in the interminable and pathless woods, to all forms of misery and death, could ever have enabled them to persist in braving the danger and distress that stared them in the face at every advancing step. ”

“ In the enlightened child of civilisation the abandonment characteristic of grief is checked and varied in the subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting problem to the analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half blinded by the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too devious step through a door-place, she might crush her buckram sleeves too, and the deep consciousness of this possibility produces a composition of forces by which she takes a line that just clears the door-post. ”

“ Yet let us ponder boldly—'tis a base Abandonment of reason to resign Our right of thought—our last and only place Of refuge; ”

“ In fact, it could convey but one image to the mind, such as we read of, when some infuriated and reckless men, despairing of safety, without a hope left, resolve upon closing life in the mad orgies of drunken abandonment. ”

“ The abandonment by God was suffered by our Lord in satisfaction for our sins, whereby we have forsaken God and deserved to be eternally separated from, and rejected by Him. By this suffering He merited precious graces for us, by means of which we can overcome temptations to faint-heartedness or despair. ”

“ Abandonment is a matter of the greatest importance in our process; it is the key to the inner court; so that whosoever knoweth truly how to abandon himself, soon becomes perfect. We must, therefore, continue stedfast and immoveable therein, nor listen to the voice of natural reason. Great faith produces great abandonment ”

“ Thou the Lord of my heart, the Charmer of my heart, the Beloved One of my heart, what words can describe the pang of separation from Thee? How the heart longs and yearns, is tortured with the desire for Thee! The whole world is a dreary desert, if Thy face is concealed from me; my life is a heavy infliction, if it is not inspired and cheered by Thy grace and Thy voice. In these many ways I bemoan my separation, I weep over my desertion. As we have sung, so we sigh; for a single drop of Thy mercy do we pray and do we yearn. ”

“ Can I bear to be separated from the only comfort I have left in the world, or can I be the cause of your leaving your father's house, and subjecting you to, perhaps, more afflictions than you already endure? ”

“ I am about to depart, even of my own will; dismiss then every rankling feeling; lay no more to your generous, wounded heart, a need, which is even more mine than yours; but let smiles and love attend your kinsman to the end, unalloyed by a deeper regret, than that fate wills it, and we must separate. ”

“ You inhabit a spot, which before you inhabit it, is as indifferent to you as any other spot upon earth, and when, persuaded by some necessity, you think to leave it, you leave it not; it clings to you—and with memories of things, which, in your experience of them, gave no such promise, revenges your desertion. Time flows on, places are changed; friends who were with us, are no longer with us; yet what has been seems yet to be, but barren and stripped of life. See, I have sent you a study for Nightmare Abbey.
Since I last wrote to you we have been to Como, looking for a house. ”

“ The air of desertion struck him even as he landed; and is there not some secret magic in the vicinity of life, of living people, which gives the soul to the dwelling-place? Have we to more than cross the threshold of the forsaken house to feel its desertion,—to know that our echoing step will track us along stair and corridor, and that through the thin streaks of light between the shutters phantoms of the absent will flit or hover, while the dimly descried objects of the room will bring memories of bright mornings and of happy eves? ”

“ There were days when the battle for existence threatened to overweigh and submerge them; days when from morning till night their work seemed possessed by evil demons, and everything went wrong; days when despair tugged at their hearts, and the old happy life forced itself in upon their thoughts with clamorous persistence. And ah! how they felt the sorrow of their father’s helplessness, the loss of his companionship causing an ache that nothing could assuage! ”

“ It is far from my intention to add to your distress by upbraiding you with the errors of your past life; none of us can recall the past; but, for the consolation of human nature, we possess, with the divine aid, over the future an unlimited and absolute control: to this latter point I am particularly desirous of directing your attention.
The word exile, or banishment, sounds harshly on the ear, and must ever convey to the heart the most acute feeling of anguish. Our native land, containing the scenes of youthful amusements and innocent pleasures, abandoned perhaps for ever! ”

“ And here, on the threshold of his new life, I find, to my deep regret, that I must leave him. The life becomes too complicated; the interests too numerous; the hopes too lofty and large, to find room in what will generally be considered as a work of fiction. ”

“ To quit this house, to quit this country. The dear lady threw her maternal arms around me, and with flowing tears interrogated: "Is it thus you will avoid offending us? Ah, my dear child, how little do you know of us, or of yourself: For God's sake, let me persuade you not to take so rash a step! Where would you go, what would you do? Would you leave a home, an envied home, and thus, while you afflicted your dearest friends, gratify your malignant foes?" ”

“ Man's Whereabouts Unknown, Desertion of Long Standing.—A very different problem from the preceding may be presented in the family of a man who disappeared some time ago. Where the desertion is bona fide and has persisted over a period of years, it is often possible to treat the family as if the man were dead, and, if other circumstances make this advisable, to plan comprehensively for the future. There is always the chance, however, that, until the man's death is established, he may turn up unexpectedly. ”

“ Each trembled for himself, or for those dear to him; every countenance was stamped with an expression of feverish astonishment and dread. People walked with rapid steps, as if they would escape from the fate which threatened them; besides, they were in haste to return to their homes, for often they left life, health, happiness, and, two hours later, they found agony, death, and despair. ”

“ I well know that your departure will cost me my life; but the severest pangs that I shall suffer will be in dying for an ungrateful man, who abandons me at the very time that I stand most in need of his assistance. ”

“ You will leave your country, your friends, your neighbours,—you will abandon the haunts of your childhood, and, what is harder still, the hearthstone of your fathers, in all human probability never to behold them again. ”

“ If it should be the fate of any of you to count the moments of captivity, in sorrow and in pain, pining in a dungeon's damps, may you find refuge in the recollection of the example you this day set to those who may be called to pass judgment on your lives! ”

“ All this is swept away like drift-wood before a rising tide, and as a result I retire into voluntary exile, a man burdened with a life-long sorrow. How I have suffered, both in body and mind, none will ever understand. ”

“ I have come home and found a trouble to welcome me, which goes near to break my heart. If I don’t take refuge in absence and hard work, I am a lost man. Will you give me a refuge?’ That’s what he said, Crayford, word for word. ”

“ After serving for thirty years to be thrust again into bondage where a deeper degradation and sorrow and hopeless toil were to be his portion for the remaining years of his existence. In deep despair and overwhelmed with grief, he made his escape to the woods, determined to put an end to his sorrows by perishing with cold and hunger. ”

“ Why should this man, prosperous, happily married, and respected, choose suddenly to abandon everything? I know that these lapses of memory do occur, and that men do find themselves adrift without a name, a history or a home. ”

“ It seems to me that if I were the poor, abandoned child that I have imagined, I should fall into profound melancholy, and should complain of fate for having dropped me upon the earth alone, and, so to speak, without sponsors. ”

“ Alone in the quiet house, with his memories for companions, the young fellow tried to face the future;—tried to learn to endure the staggering blow which his father's death had dealt him,—strove resolutely to shake off the stunned indifference, the apathy through which he seemed to see the world as through a fog. ”

“ It is a severe trial to leave one's friends; but the grief of separating from father and all other relatives sank into insignificance when contrasted with the misery of separating from one in particular—one in whom all my affections were reposed, and upon whom all my hopes of the future were concentrated. ”

“ Oh! the pains that God has to take to bring us to this happy, childlike "abandon," equally ready for silence, or for saying or doing unhesitatingly the next thing He calls for, unfettered by surroundings or consequences. How much reserve and self-consciousness have to give way with some of us, before the absolute control passes into His Hands, and the responsibility with it! ”

“ I can’t do him any good by staying, and—well, I just simply can’t bear it! He is too ill to be moved. This dear old house will have to be his home while he drags on his death in life—which may mean years. ”

“ Sometimes a leave-taking under circumstances, that seem to forebode it to be the last and clothe it in gloom, and sorrow, is nevertheless not the last by many; while a cheerful good-by with a light hearted “ta-ta-old-fellow-see-you-to-morrow,” may prove the beginning of a separation destined to endure for years—perhaps forever. ”

“ All the horrors of desertion came upon him, and he who had lived a life overflowing with action and enjoyment, with disenchantment and satiety, who now in solitude carried on an incessant spiritual struggle for the highest goal—this man felt himself as disconsolate and lonely as a bewildered child that has lost its mother. ”

“ To return after long years of painful absence to some place which has been the scene of our former joys, and whence the force of circumstance, and not choice, has driven us, is oppressive to the heart. ”

“ Comparatively speaking, she had never known affliction till now: she had abandoned her dearest friends and connexions—had relinquished the gaieties, the luxuries, and almost the necessaries of life;—fled with her family into exile, an exile the most dreary and comfortless; experiencing the evils of reality, and those of apprehension, united: all these she had patiently endured, supported by the affection of him for whose sake she suffered. ”