Ditch

“ Left to walk your own road, the will-o'-wisps beguiled you, your short sight could not descry the pitfalls; the deadly tumult and press has whirled you hither and thither, regardless of your struggles and your shrieks; and here at last you lie; fallen flat into the ditch, drowning there and dying, unless the others that are still standing please to pick you up. ”

“ Once, as a slip of a girl out blackberrying, she had come upon a tipsy tramp in a ditch; a beast of a man who had met her innocent benevolence by stumbling to his feet, pursuing her as far as his feet would carry him. ”

“ One cannot get up a feeling of respect for the tortuous, treacherous, muddy, long and snake-like ditch. One takes off his hat to the Father of Waters, but feels like kicking, if he had a place to kick, this lengthy, nasty thing. ”

“ A man who is too dim-sighted to discern the road from the ditch, may feel which is which;—but if the ditch appears manifestly to him to be the 160 road, and the road to be the ditch, what shall become of him? ”

“ She seemed to be slipping away, and just now he thought of the man in the Forward Room in relation to that year in the Drift. She was not the first woman who had reached the end of endurance in this business. The laugh formed deep within him—the laugh of a man at the last ditch again. What a fool he had been to tell her what had happened—to forget the part that this particular devil had played in her life! ... He would go on to Wampli now—without a woman waiting. The laugh was twisting in his lips, and he had the sense that if it came it would slay the last hope. ”

“ The man had shrunk down, thoroughly quelled by the ferocity of the crowd and the impossibility of escape, but seeing this sudden change with no less rapidity than it occurred, he sprung upon his feet, determined to make one last effort for his life by dropping into the ditch, and, at the risk of being stifled, endeavouring to creep away in the darkness and confusion. ”

“ I have sometimes seen a ditch, the water of which, though really shallow, has appeared to careless observers to be very deep, for no other reason but because it was muddy. Believe me, my lord, experienced and penetrating observers are not so to be taken in. ”

“ I hold that one should think kindly of a ditch. The commonly imputed repulsiveness of such a waterway is more often wanting than present, and nearly all that I have seen have teemed with interesting life. What are the brooks, indeed, that turn a poet’s head, but Nature’s own ditches? ”

“ Some are reclining gracefully in a ditch; some are riding dolefully homeward with much more forehead than they started with in the morning; some, and these are the saddest of all, are standing forlorn in the middle of an empty meadow, gazing helplessly at the flying tail of the animal they bestrode only a short five minutes ago. ”

“ What was it to tread dirt for an hour or so on a summer's night? Wasn't he in the ditch when I found him?”
“I don't know, I'm sure,” said Nancy. “I know that you kept him there.”
“Well, I hope he'll keep out of the ditch after this. Working at ditches at night isn't good for his health. But you needn't be alarmed about him this time; I think he'll recover. ”

“ I don't think you will be troubled much with us around your ditch, after this. I went to the bridge last night because I thought you were nice, and a friend. I had a respect for you more than for any of the others. I might have come to think better of the ditch; but I've had all the ditch I want, and all the watchmen. Never, till I die, shall I forget how my father looked,” she passionately returned to the charge. “An old man like him! Why didn't you put me in and make me tread dirt for you? ”

“ At first I was very much afraid of jumping across the ditch, but I resolved once and for all—I've got to jump it. If the worst comes to the worst, I shall fall and bruise myself. Suppose I do? What then? Why do all the others jump it and don't care? One needn't be so very strong to jump! ”

“ Blind as I was, I tried to get out
As the carriage fell in the ditch,
And was caught in the wheels and killed. ”

“ I thought I saw you standing in a ditch and the rain was falling, and it was night. I ran to you, and you spoke the name they used to call you in the West. It was the ditch you helped me over. I had been thinking about it in the day, and was sorry because the sunflowers must be all dead. I had to send some money to my uncle. He lost his place on the street-car, but they have taken him back. He has five children and cannot afford to be idle. ”

“ And he that can’t live upon love deserves to die in a ditch. ”

“ No matter how tangled his legs may be, so the women assured us, a few mouthfuls of dillisk will set him right again; and no man with a pocketful of dillisk was ever known to go astray or spend the night in a ditch. ”

“ Because of this, ditching has long been regarded as one of the finest things in the world to urge young men to higher things. They have been known to work so hard to get away from ditch [Pg 148] ing that they have become multi-millionaires and ministers and school teachers and such like.
The land through which the slip furrow passes is dead level, and, having been loosened by ploughing and harrowing, about an acre of it was as soft as mortar and as sticky as a bad reputation. Some one had told me once that when ditching one should begin at the top of the drain and work down with the water. ”

“ The ditch, too, would itself serve as a shelter, as active men could have no difficulty in getting out of it, and could surround the house by creeping along the bottom of the ditch, and then openly attack all round at once, or crawl up unperceived by those who were upon the watch on the other side. ”

“ Two or three stout men were sent from a distance; and when they had once cut a clear descent from the ditch to the river, and had sunk the ditch to seven feet deep, and made the bottom even, and narrowed it to three feet, it was a curious thing to see how ready the neighbors became to unite their drains with it. It used to be said, that here—however it might be elsewhere—the winter was no time for digging; but that must have meant that no winter-digging would bring a spring crop; and that therefore it was useless. Now, the sound of the spade never ceased for the rest of the winter ”

“ Upon that he immediately called out to his people to stop, discovering, moreover, a great number of men concealed in a ditch, that was cast up for that purpose, so he marched back without the loss of one man ”

“ The poor little thing, I thought, would be sure to die of hunger, without me to help it; and at every turn in the forest I expected to see the figure of the old woman coming to meet me. Sighing and weeping, I travelled on: whenever I stopped to rest myself, and set the cage down upon the ground, the bird would sing his strange song, and then bitter feelings of regret would come upon me for the dear old cottage. So forgetful is our nature, I thought my first journey had not been half so miserable as that, and I craved to be again once more as I was then. ”

“ The people bend their backs, and accept with a passive, ironic resignation.... "No need to borrow trouble." Ages and ages of misery have rolled over this stone, but in the end stones do wear down and become mud. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He has now, I believe, pretty nearly run through every thing except the house, which is a handsome one, though that too may perhaps be encumbered with debts; knowledge he has scarcely acquired any; employment is insupportable to him; and so one cannot help seeing with concern how he is advancing towards his ruin.
— The every-day history of numbers, observed the stranger, and the common course of a paltry vanity, that leads men gaily into the arms of dishonour. ”

“ This resignation which makes each one among you, even the greatest, only an insignificant detail-worker upon the immense labor whose completion you contemplate at an infinite remove, and the very outlines of which you ignore,—this resignation is sublime, though supremely painful to the aspiring soul. The individual laborer for his part abstains from all hope of seeing the whole truth, and works for his generation and futurity. ”

“ To afford me repose, I was furnished with dried sugar-canes, and was ill supplied nightly with coarse flesh and water—the cheering delusions of hope no longer lightened my imagination, and I abandoned all human projects for ever. ”

“ Thou oughtest ever to have been on thy guard, and kept thy view from the mountains. So I thought to bring thee up; but it was not so to be. Thy humility, thy calmness, thy childlike feelings, have been all overturned by obstinacy, wildness, and overbearing."
"No," said the son; "I remember quite distinctly that it was a plant which first made known to me the misery of the whole earth; only then I understood the sighs and lamentations which are every where perceptible in all nature, if only one will listen. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Hitch mourned. “Ef I ever git back to Tickfall, I’s gwine git on de water-wagon, an’ cut out de booze. I’ll cut out prize-fightin’, cussin’, an’ trabelin’ aroun’. I’ll git me a good, easy job ’thout much work to do, an’ rest my bones till I die!” ”

“ Still, there was an air of such sweet resignation in every feature, such a dignity in the port of her person—still symmetrical, though it had lost something of its roundness—such a majesty in her still-brilliant eyes—that even the wretches who had determined on her destruction dared not meet the glance of her whom they so foully wronged. ”

“ How often does it happen, that when death first enters a family circle, and creates a breach; it is the signal of its speedy dissolution! one falls, then another, and another, until the central point of attraction is removed; and the individuals who are left, are by the force of circumstances, each made to feel themselves the centre of a new circle of interests, which in time will melt away as former ones have done. ”

“ I want to be myself—to get outside of this everlasting, profitable 'plan'—to let myself go, and lose myself for a while at least—to do the things that I want to do, just because I want to do them."
"My boy," said his mother, anxiously, "you are not going to do anything wrong or foolish? You know the falsehood of that old proverb about wild oats." ”

“ In this brief life of ours, it is sad to do almost anything for the last time, and I cannot conceal from you, although my face will so soon be turned towards my native land, and to all that makes it dear, that it is a sad consideration with me that in a very few moments from this time, this brilliant hall and all that it contains, will fade from my view—for ever more. ”

“ What a dislocation of comfort is comprised in that word 'moving.' Such a heap of little nasty things, after you think all is got into the cart: old dredging-boxes, worn-out brushes, gallipots, vials, things that it is impossible the most necessitous person can ever want, but which the women who preside on these occasions will not leave behind if it was to save your soul. ”

“ For once thou escapest with a whole skin, but see that thou leavest my land, for if ever thou settest foot on it again, thou may'st count on thy elevation to the gallows." The arch-thief took leave of his parents, once more went forth into the wide world, and no one has ever heard of him since. ”

“ In Diversion, as in many other Particulars, the upper Part of Life is distinguished from the Lower. Let the Great therefore answer for the Employment of their Time, to themselves, or to their spiritual Governors. ”

“ The return to nature you dream of is simply the fall downward into the dirt out of which a rational and spiritual manhood has grown. I feel and know this in spite of your handsome face and the fine ring of your voice.”
“Dirt. Dirt!” he mused. “Yes, I was in the dirt once, was born in it, the dirt of poverty and superstition and fears of laws here and hereafter. But I awoke at last, and shook it off, washed myself in knowledge and stood erect. I am a man now, with the eye of a king, conscious of my power. I look a lying hypocritical world in the face. ”

“ Still, it isn’t surprising you can’t account for me; in fact, it would be surprising if you could. Nobody pretends to do that. You must not be shocked if I can’t even account for myself. Do you know what a derelict is? A ship that has been abandoned but never wholly sinks. ”

“ One would think that if obliged to pronounce such a doom upon any, he would do it with tears—that he would retire into his closet, and throw ashes upon his head, and come forth in sackcloth, overwhelmed at the hard necessity which compelled the stern decree. ”

“ I smile at it, but I know very well that my visitor has wings and will not stay long. The resignation which comes from despair has a kind of melancholy sweetness. It looks at life as a man sees it from his death-bed, and judges it without bitterness and without vain regrets. ”

“ My dear Esther, I am a very unfortunate dog not to be more settled, but how can I be more settled? If you lived in an unfinished house, you couldn't settle down in it; if you were condemned to leave everything you undertook, unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to anything ”