Ascent

“ So when night set in and the Ass returned to the byre the Bull rose up before him in honour, and said, "May good tidings gladden thy heart, O Father Wakener! through thee I have rested all this day and I have eaten my meat in peace and quiet." But the Ass returned no reply, for wrath and heart burning and fatigue and the beating he had gotten; and he repented with the most grievous of repentance; and quoth he to himself: "This cometh of my folly in giving good counsel; as the saw saith, I was in joy and gladness, nought save my officiousness brought me this sadness. ”

“ Our rank, our elevation, no longer serve but to render more striking and more durable the scandal of our debaucheries; in a thousand places our excesses serve as a model: the view of our manners perhaps strengthens, in secret, consciences whom guilt still rendered uneasy: perhaps they even cite us, and make use of our example, in seducing innocence, and in conquering a still timorous modesty ”

“ No; in that noble face, pale from illness or from sadness, with the traces of sorrow upon it, and the marks of long vigils by the bedside of her father—in that refined face, whose expression spoke only of elevation of soul, and exhibited the perfect type of manly beauty, there was certainly nothing that could excite repugnance, but every thing that might inspire confidence. ”

“ The ascetic became glad on seeing it, and lauded the king greatly. After that, he repeated incantations and raised the corpse to life, and offered up a ‘burnt-offering in sacrifice: and sitting with his face southwards, offered to his god all the materials he had pre? pared; and after offering up betel leaf, flowers, incense, lamps, and consecrated food, he said to the king, “Make obeisance; very glorious will thy dignity become, and the eight supernatural faculties * will always abide in thy house.” ”

“ But, heart abrim, and head to heaven,
Should praise his God for mercies given,
And ever cry right joyously,—
"Thy Will be done! Thy Will be done!"
"Thy Will be done!"
It is Thy Will
That Life should seek its golden prime,—
That strife 'twixt man and man should cease,—
That all Thy sons should build Thy peace. ”

“ If for nothing else, you’ll serve at least as an Exercise of my Wit; and how much soever you swell with my Breath, ’tis I deserve the Praise for talking so well on so poor a Subject. We, who make the Idols, are the greater Deities; and as we set you up, so it is in our Power to reduce you to your first Obscurity, or to somewhat worse, to Contempt; you are therefore only on your good Behaviour, and are like to be no more than what we please to make you. ”

“ And since many wou’d yield to the Clear Light of Truth were’t not for the shame of being overcome, we shou’d Convince but not Triumph, and rather Conceal our Conquest than Publish it. We doubly oblige our Neighbours when we reduce them into the Right Way, and keep it from being taken notice of that they were once in the Wrong, which is certainly a much greater satisfaction than that blaze of Glory which is quickly out, that noise of Applause which will soon be over. ”

“ The indications of strong passions, of fierce loves and hates and resentments, were plain enough. But stronger even than these was that noble expression which a purity of soul and a commanding will always writes upon the human countenance. ”

“ I have never served Thee in proportion to my strength; that little talent of Thy grace which Thou hast deigned to grant me I have not yet turned to full account—whether because I have followed too much the pleasures of mere study, or whether I have consumed too much time and labour in refuting the invectives of the evil-disposed, to whom, such has been Thy pleasure, I have been constantly an object of attack. ”

“ Rear’d the scant produce of our niggard lands:
“ Scant as it was, no more our hearts desir'd,
"No more from us our gen’rous lord requir’d,
⁠“ But ah, sad change! those blessed days are o'er,
"And Peace, Content, and Safety charm no more.
"Another lord now rules those wide domains,
"The avaricious tyrant of the plains,
"Far, far from hence he revels life away,
"In guilty pleasures, our poor means must pay. ”

“ No uneasy task will be enjoyn’d you, all your labour being only to prepare for the highest degrees of that Glory, the very lowest of which is more than at present you are able to conceive, and the prospect of it sufficient to out-weigh all the Pains of Religion, were there any in it, as really there are none. All that is requir’d of 44 you, is only to be as Happy as possibly you can, and to make sure of a Felicity that will fill all the capacities of your Souls! ”

“ Your ascetic or your anchorite may be difficult to treat with, but show me the man with a good cook, a good stable, a good cellar, and the odds are there is a lurking void somewhere in his heart, to discover which is to have the mastery over him forever. ”

“ This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them,—the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust. ”

“ Being now a popular haunt, those who hang on the rear of the march of human nature, the suttlers, camp followers, and plunderers, know that where large numbers of men and boys are in pursuit of pleasure, there is a sprinkling of the number to whom vice and debauchery are ever welcome: they have, therefore, supplied what these wanted ”

“ Yea, we would repeat the command of a greater than Shakespeare, to whom, I trust, we all pay reverence, when He lays down for us all the Golden Rule: “Whatsoever ye would that men would do to you, do ye even so to them.” ”

“ The Sum of our Duty and of all Morality, is to have a Temper of Mind so absolutely Conform’d to the Divine Will, or which is the same in other words, such an Habitual and Intire Love to GOD, as will on all occasions excite us to the Exercise of such Acts, as are the necessary consequents of such a Habit. ”

“ Their vast Minds lay Kingdoms waste, no Bounds or Measures can be prescrib’d to their Desires. War and Peace depend on them; they form Cabals and have the Wisdom and Courage to get over all the Rubs, the petty Restraints which Honour and Conscience may lay in the Way of their desired Grandeur. ”

“ There is a wonderful connection between the physical and the moral in our curious composition; and the latter is so much modified by the former, that the variety of temperaments and dispositions may be attributed to the reciprocal influences of these two constituents of our being. The origin of good and evil is then embodied in our own hearts, in the structure of the human frame, in our natural susceptibilities to pleasure and pain. ”

“ If I shall walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt enliven me; and upon the wrath of my enemies Thou hast stretched Thy hand, and Thy right hand has saved me.
The Lord will repay for me; Thy mercy, Lord, is for ever; despise not the works of Thy hands. ”

“ The ascetic exercises his will power so that he will be able to follow the straight path that he wants to tread, no matter how many difficulties present themselves to him. {156} No matter how steep the hills, he will not turn aside to the pleasanter paths that lead so gently downward because he wants to "carry on." ”

“ And those sciences which now thou gainest with delight shall turn into the gall of asps to torment thee!
2. These are the principal fruits which I am to collect out of these considerations, endeavouring to trade with those talents that God has given me, lest at the reckoning-day God take them from me as from the slothful servant, [77] leaving me only those which, like asps and dragons, will most cruelly gnaw my heart, because I profited myself so ill with them. ”

“ It seems from reading their history that a very few years sufficed for them to rise from a state of humility, enjoying the favour of God, to one of haughtiness and pride. There is a continual tendency to this state of feeling in the human mind. ”

“ If he reads my little book when his liver is out of order, or in winter fogs and colds—he will call me an ass, and I must bear it. If he is in a cheerful mood himself, then we shall agree very well together. ”

“ The King, as if impressed by the weight of the obligation which he owed to Heaven for his recovery, and full of the religious solemnity with which he was going, publicly, to acknowledge that obligation to the Almighty, seemed to be unusually grave and silent; and behaved, at this first appearance in public since his recovery, in a manner which filled the spectators with reverence and awe. ”

“ Here they worship an Ox for his simplicity, whose dung and urine they preserve in vessels of gold, and present it to the King, who puts his hand into it, and anoints his breast and forehead, saying, "I am anointed with the virtue of the Ox." And after him the Nobles do the like, as long as any is left. The idols they constantly worship are half men and half oxen, before whom they often slay their Children by way of sacrifice. ”

“ The appearance of excellence or beauty connected with a general condition comparatively sordid or deformed, is ridiculous; for instance, pompous pretensions to wisdom joined with ignorance and folly in the Socrates of Aristophanes; and the applause of military glory with cowardice and stupidity in the Thraso of Terence.
The appearance of deformity or turpitude, in conjunction with what is in general excellent or venerable, is also ridiculous: for instance, the personal weaknesses of a magistrate appearing in the solemn and public functions of his station. ”

“ The whole country had an astonishing look of vigor—of the vigor which comes with rude strength; and it had that charm which goes with all untamed beauty—the power to sting one into a sense of agitated enjoyment. ”

“ Far be it from me to throw any odium on an unfortunate class of people immured in the walls of either of those places, there are no doubt, imprisoned, as worthy, and as good a set of people, as any in society. ”

“ To be Reproach’d for Weldoing is a higher Encomium, than the loftiest Praises when we do not deserve them: So that let the World think as it list, whilst we are in the pursuit of true Wisdom, our Reputation is secur’d, our Crown is furbishing and tho it do not shine out in this Envious and Ill-natur’d World, it will however, which is infinitely 60 more desirable appear in all its Lustre and Splendor in a better. ”

“ I’ve seen a good many people in these last years. I’ve learned what to expect, more or less. And I can see now how rare it was—the way you treated us. There we were, living on your bounty, and turning up our silly noses at you. ”

“ The fire of the mind-formed vesture, fed by the five powers of perception, as though by five sacrificial priests, with objects of sense like streams of melted butter, blazing with the fuel of manifold sense-impressions, sets the personality aflame. ”

“ The ascension goes on in the soul through the [Pg 32] power and appulsion in the wings, which are the intellect, or intellectual will upon which she naturally depends and through which she fixes her gaze toward God, as to the highest good, and primal truth, as to absolute goodness and beauty. ”

“ By This Method of Setting what we Have against What we have Not, the Equity of Providence will be made Manifest, and to All manner of purposes Justify’d; When it shall appear upon the Ballance, that Every man has his Share in the Bounties of Heaven to Mankind. ”

“ Thousands of men, women, and children, are daily landed here, of every rank and clime, and doubtless, in each bosom one similar emotion, for a moment displaces all others: gratitude for the footing gained; then rushes in the vast tide of human hopes, cares and anxieties. ”

“ Such men, who live in the open, and trumpet their triumphs there, need, too, to howl their confessions from the housetop, carve their contrition, like the wisdom of Asoka, on the immemorial rocks as an outcry to the generations. ”

“ Since he is the Man, by which very word Custom would have us understand not only greatest Strength of Body, but even greatest Firmness and Force of Mind, he should not play the little Master so much as to expect to be cocker’d, nor run over to that Side which the Woman us’d to be rank’d in ”

“ Such an instance of honorable integrity and simple piety was a strong encouragement to perseverance in duty, among the many examples of a very opposite character—examples of weakness, folly, and sin, which hourly crossed one's path. ”

“ Thus does the commerce with beautiful things and beautiful thoughts tend to develop in us that healthy kind of asceticism so requisite to every workable scheme of greater happiness for the individual and the plurality: self-restraint, choice of aims, consistent and thorough-paced subordination of the lesser interest to the greater; above all, what sums up asceticism as an efficacious means towards happiness, preference of the spiritual, the unconditional, the durable, instead of the temporal, the uncertain, and the fleeting. ”

“ Granted that consistency is a jewel—are there not better things than jewels, especially if it be a man hungers and thirsts? Had they not better—and for the enlarging of their hearts—be mistaken? Yet, I have never heard that one of them ever said, "Am I right, am I wrong?" They persist stubbornly in their opinions. ”

“ So that instead of providing her a Gentleman, you'd Sacrifice her to a Brute; who has neither Manners enough to be thought Rational, Education enough for a Justice of the Peace, nor wit enough to distinguish fine Conversation from the Yelping of Dogs ”

“ We enter the enchanter’s cell, and converse with the divine inhabitant. To have this privilege always at hand, and to be circled by that spell whenever we chuse, with an ‘Enter Sessami,’ is better than sitting at the lower end of the tables of the Great, than eating awkwardly from gold plate, than drinking fulsome toasts, or being thankful for gross favours, and gross insults! ”