Discrepancy

“ Too lofty a character to yield outwardly to despair, or to shorten the term of existence appointed for him, he seemed to dwell in an atmosphere of his own, that he suffered no one to share with him or even to approach. ”

“ Did you ever think that the desire of distinction was one of the most, perhaps the most, intense purely spiritual emotion of the human soul? Look at the way these people live here, grubbing away at the soil like ants. ”

“ How poor the scene around, how tame one's own existence, how meagre and faint every power, with these beings in my mind! Often I must cast them quite aside in order to grow in my small way, and not sink into despair. ”

“ When these gentry hold forth, by the hour, about their convictions and their theories, their beliefs and disbeliefs, their likings and dislikings, their tastes and their principles, their souls, their minds, and their bodies—if, in despair, you at last, by way of a change, turn the conversation towards some one else, they become loftily silent. ”

“ Therefore we regard our craving with complacence, we feel the great aching of the Want, and we say, with conviction, “I know I exist, I know I am I, because I feel the divine discontent which is personal to me, and eternal, and present always in me.” ”

“ Could anything be more characteristic of human nature than just such inconsistencies? Suavity and trickery, harshness and integrity, a fiery temper and a gentle heart,—how often do we see the good and the bad dwelling together! ”

“ But the very same extravagances and showy paradoxes, when caught up by inferior spirits, presently lose their garb, not only of beauty, but of decency, and show themselves in the unpleasing bareness of error. ”

“ And that is what I want you to think about once in a while after you get out into the world and begin to be absorbed in whatever is going to absorb you—the sense of proportion, and the idea of interdependence. Avoid the blind spot. Think of the other fellow's point of view. Don't strain at life, for living and all that the term connotes is, after all, a natural, normal process. ”

“ He had entered by then the broad, human path of inconsistencies. ”

“ Then what cries of joy or disappointment broke forth at every instant! There seemed at once to come over that hardened, time-worn group of men all the changing fickleness of childhood,—the wayward vacillations of hope and despair, bright visions of sudden wealth, with gloomy thoughts of disappointment,—when, suddenly, one brought up from the bed of the stream something which he showed to his neighbor, then to another and another, till a knot had gathered close around him, among which I found myself. ”

“ These unintentional misdoings are the "sins" one repents of all one's life long: I have others stored away, the bitterest of small things done or undone in haste and repented of at so much leisure afterwards. ”

“ Such deliberate return towards suffering is no cowardice, but a triumph over weak flesh; and the awkward strife of diffidence may often prove a greater feat of arms than the supple fence of self-possession. ”

“ At first I went through the experience, more or less vivid, that always comes with youth—the countless moments of exultation, the unnumbered transports of despair. Sometimes I took my vehement energy of feeling for a resolute will, and over-estimated my powers ”

“ Every one has surely felt, some time or other in life, the insufferable annoyance of having his thoughts and reflections interfered with, and broken in upon by the vulgar impertinence and egotism of some "bore," who, mistaking your abstraction for attention and your despair for delight, inflicts upon you his whole life and adventures, when your own immediate destinies are perhaps vacillating in the scale. ”

“ Walk he ever so proudly, carry himself with what circumspectness he may, at the first breath of suspicion all are off—friends, relations, business acquaintances, the whole social fabric in toto. "Unclean!" is the cry. ”

“ Only the hopeless suppression of natural desires, the conflict through years of ardent youth with sordid circumstances, could have brought him to the pass he had now reached—one of desperation centred in self. ”

“ The fascination of that most claiming of problems, the interdependence of human beings, not only for things of the body but of the spirit, took him as he looked round the ring of faces, after staving off a too-attentive plum-pudding. ”

“ Is your heart constituted differently from every other human heart?—I have lately observed an inequality in your behaviour, that has whispered something flattering to my heart. Examine yourself—Have you felt no peculiar interest in what concerns me—would the idea of our separation affect you with no more than a slight and common emotion?—One more question propose to yourself, as a test—Could you see me form a new, and more fortunate, attachment, with indifference? ”

“ Alas, how apt is the spirit of discontent still to crop up when we compare our lot with that of others! Were we quite alone, or were there no case for comparison, we might be content enough; it is when we [306] think how much more our brother has than we, that we are most liable to murmur. ”

“ This is true of what we call a bizarre mixture of incongruent elements in mode of attire or in manners; for it is experience and the habits of social life which dispose our minds to regard them as foreign one to the other. Much of our mirthful gratification at exhibitions of the incongruous arises through a perception of the intrusion of something foreign into a situation. ”

“ This non-differentiation is the final deliverance. When it enters in the whole burden of absurd cares, anxieties, duties, motives, desires, fears, plans, purposes, preferences, etc., rolls off and lies like mere lumber on the ground. The winged spirit is free, and takes its flight. ”

“ Let us hope that the refinement, falsely so called, which is only another name for vanity, laziness, and selfishness, may soon give way to the true refinement of heart and mind which considers nothing too menial which will benefit others; nothing too common that will add to the happiness of our fellow-creatures. ”

“ Difference of manner may go for a great deal, but beyond and below the resentment caused by a prompt, decisive, and perhaps imperious tone, lies a deeply-rooted sense of wrong—logically or illogically arrived at. ”

“ Too much questioning and too little active responsibility lead, almost as often as too much sensualism does, to the edge of the slope, at the bottom of which lie pessimism and the nightmare or suicidal view of life. ”

“ But it surely does not require much penetration of feeling, to say the least, or sympathy of mind, to see that our position would very soon become unendurable, from the same general repugnance in all of us and from particular motives in each. ”

“ Such men found high and low stations equally unable to satisfy the wishes of a distempered mind, and were unable to shelter themselves in the closest retreat from disappointment, solicitude, and misery. ”

“ For if those actions, which are "despised among men," have arisen from pure and disinterested motives, it teaches us to extract a pleasure from those very motives, which human applause could never have bestowed. ”

“ Distinction may be joined with imperfection, as ignorance, or forgetfulness; and so it is in men:—and if this be called separation by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion would be that in the Supreme Mind there is distinction without imperfection; and then the question is, whence comes plurality of Persons? ”

“ If people would but look each other more in the face, we should have less cause to complain of the deception of the world; nothing so easy as physiognomy nor so useful.’ Somewhat in this latter strain I thought at the time of which I am speaking. ”

“ The peculiarity, or partial disparity, of our positions in life caused secrecy. Denied, by the presence of others, the pleasure of openly conversing of our love, at times we had recourse to furtive glances, or a secret and thrilling pressure of the hand or arm was all we could achieve. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who actually cares, in the long run, whether you are good, bad or indifferent? There is much talk and much strutting to and fro and much concealment of our past ills and shames, and much parading of our present luxuries and well beings. ”

“ The world, my world, is generously and munificently lax, and though the limits of respectable endurance may be as hard to find as the 'fourth dimension of space', or the authenticity of the 'Book of Jasher', still for decency's sake we submit there are limits of decorum ”

“ They are unlucky. These two kinds, together with the much larger band of the totally unimaginative, of those unfortunate beings in whose empty and unseeing gaze (as a great French writer has put it) "the whole universe vanishes into blank nothingness," miss, perhaps, the true task of us men whose day is short on this earth, the abode of conflicting opinions. ”

“ Who has not seen men, on such occasions, forget their pride, their miserable questions of rank and precedence, and meet with open arms and the mingled tears of gratitude and relief, persons, the view of whom under other circumstances, would have called forth only feelings of scornful comparison and reckless contempt? ”

“ 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 ”

“ In these pages, the scenes depicting the anguish of separation, the bliss of reunion, and the fortunes of prosperity and of adversity are all, in every detail, true to human nature, and I have not taken upon myself to make the slightest addition, or alteration, which might lead to the perversion of the truth. ”

“ Antagonistic in tastes and temperament, they had dragged on an unhappy existence in the old home, till both natures rebelled, and a separation ensued which not only disunited their lives but sent them to opposite sides of the globe never to return again, At least, that was the inference drawn from the peculiar circumstances attending the event. ”

“ The influences tending to create dissimilarity, which, in our day at least, are at work, without a moment's intermission, from the cradle to the grave, are incessantly neutralised in each successive generation. ”

“ You can hire skilful people, you know, for such occasions, and get through them without feeling disgraced—disgraced, Anne, I confess I did in my secret soul feel, for I was conscious that my miseries arose, for the most part, from my own defects. ”

“ They are so easily deceived by appearances! Do you know, that of late I have thought there was a great deal of confusion in the ordinary way of men's thinking? But I see clearly the cause of the errors into which they are perpetually falling. All the discord arises from having wills of their own. ”

“ Again; we hear the complaint that not only men, but circumstances change. Why knit myself, people will ask, to one who to-morrow may be whirled away from me by some eddy of circumstances, and so go on his way, while I see him no more? ”

“ Their minds were relieved from a load of conflicting and contending passions, and they communed with him as men relieved of a burden on their conscience, and reconciled to one whom they had greatly outraged. ”