Downs

“ Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. ”

“ Few are alive who report, and few are alive who remember,
More of him now than a name carved somewhere on the sea.
"Where is he lying?" I ask, and the lights in the valley are nearer;
Down to the streets I go, down to the murmur of men.
Down to the roar of the sea in a ship may be well for another—
Down where he lies to-night, silent, and under the storms. ”

“ On, on, on—on through the heat and the crowd and the dust—on, or they will be trampled down, and lost—on, with throbbing brain and tottering limbs—on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow blurred, and a gurgling groan tells those behind they may close up another space. ”

“ Men fall, tossing their arms; some leap into the air, some plunge headlong, falling like logs of wood or lumps of lead. Some reel, stagger, and tumble; others lie down gently as to a night’s repose, unheeding the din, commotion, and uproar. ”

“ Thrown o'er the guilty ones of earth, Heaven's ire
Who braved ere-while.—How fearful, how sublime,
How terrible the sight!—widely they climb,
To rock and mountain top to 'scape their doom,
While rushing torrents, dome and palace hall,
The work of man with man himself, consume;
Nor these alone! Rock, cliff, and mountain grey,
God's handiwork, become with man, their prey! ”

“ Next shouts, scattered in the beginning, then louder, and coming not as a roar but as a wailing, rising, falling like the billows of the howling sea,—as if the thousands in the market-place groaned in sore agony. ”

“ Fatigue and distress, added to the extreme cold and despair of relief, put a period to the lives of great numbers. Those who were able to stand were obliged to huddle up close together, and breathe in each other’s faces to preserve them from freezing to death, while their comrades were dying around them all night. ”

“ A sudden rise in the road shows us the system of mountains, and all the summits, which have been just as near us all the year, but quite out of mind. But these alternations are not without their order, and we are parties to our various fortune. ”

“ But if you were in the rapids above the falls, would you not permit a strong hand to lift you out? Why should you look down into the gulf? Why not look up to heaven? That is 'always there' just as truly. ”

“ And going down feels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can't turn your head to see what's above you, and you can't get a fair squint at what's happening to your feet without bending down something painful. ”

“ Others will follow in its wake, and they will shake and undermine the ground on which you stand, until it trembles and yawns beneath your feet, and you will sink to depths great as the height to which you have risen. ”

“ Down—so as to be delivered from all ambition and emulation and envy. Down, and safe, thank God, from all pride, all high-mindedness, and all stout-heartedness. Down from the hard and cruel hills, and buried deep out of sight among those meadows where that herb grows which is called Heart’s-ease. Down, where the green pastures grow and the quiet waters flow. No, indeed; he that is down into this sweet bottom needs fear no fall. For there is nowhere here for a man to fall from. ”

“ Look! it has reached the outer ledge of rock. The men spring out of it, waving their hats, and shouting "Success;" and the men on board answer with a loud hurrah, while the women cannot keep back their tears. ”

“ The change that falls upon the dreary region, and on the whole mountain, as its red light fades, and the night comes on—and the unutterable solemnity and dreariness that reign around, who that has witnessed it, can ever forget! ”

“ We try, but slip backwards almost as much as we rise. What is to be done? Are we to sit down at the foot of the cliff, and say, 'We cannot climb, let us be content with the luscious herbage and sheltered ease below?' Yes! ”

“ Shrill and angry came the sound of the great horn over earth, her woods and valleys; and terrible was the sound of wailing and lamentation. They prayed to the mountains to fall upon them, and the sea to swallow them up ”

“ Twice or thrice, a door or niche broke the monotonous surface; and then it seemed a gap as wide as the whole church; and he felt on the brink of an abyss, and going to tumble headlong down, until he found the wall again.
Still up, up, up; and round and round; and up, up, up; higher, higher, higher up! ”

“ Up the slope the waves rushed, and down the slope they sank again, with that seemingly aimless and resultless rise and fall, which makes the sea so dreary and sad to those men and women who are not satisfied without some goal in view, some outcome of their labours ”

“ When I crept over the hill, broken with tears.
⁠When I crouched down on the grass, dumb in despair,
I heard the soft croon of the wind bend to my ears,
⁠I felt the light kiss of the wind touching my hair. ”

“ Every turn brought us to these great wrought openings, which, from the ground, appeared like delicate lacework, and which seemed to give one the feeling, as he went round and round, as if he were swinging and swaying in the network between heaven and earth ”

“ As in the ascent of the elevation, step by step, we can judge imperfectly of its height, until from the very summit we look down upon our place of starting, so with the wretched outcasts of society of whom we speak. ”

“ Headlong he dashes through briar and brake, through flood and fall, over mountain, valley, moor, and river indiscriminately; up and down precipice is alike to him, provided he gratifies the malevolence that seems to inspire him. ”

“ The coming and going of phantom forms, the tramping of many feet, a great marching to and fro, the sound of laughter and the noise of weeping, a mixing and mingling of gaiety and grief, of poverty and pomp, of sunshine and shadow, of life and death. But everywhere things seem topsy turvy. ”

“ Why not relegate the word mother to the limbo of the “archaic,” as a term too old-fashioned and too elastic to be tolerated in this precise and refined age?
“In climbing one ascends.” Very well. It is true that one way of ascending is by climbing; and there are as many ways of descending, plus one, as there are of ascending. If one has reached an altitude by climbing and if he declines to tumble and if he wishes to descend by reversing his method of ascending, why should he not be permitted to climb down—and to say so if it please him? ”

“ That in which you are now lying, must necessarily bring you to this point, for it appears that all these mighty fissures, these fractures of the globe's interior radiate from the vast cavern which we at this moment occupy. Rouse yourself, then, have courage and continue on your route. Walk if you can, if not, drag yourself along—slide, if nothing else is possible. The slope must be rather rapid—and you will find strong arms to receive you at the end of your journey. Make a start, like a good fellow. ”

“ Like a spring issuing from an elevated spot and diffusing its waters, according to the height, from ledge to ledge, until it finally reaches the low ground, so does the tendency of mind or of soul in a people, due to race, epoch, or environment, diffuse itself in different proportions, and by regular descent, over the different series of facts which compose its civilization. ”

“ You stretch yourself, and endeavor to rise. Which is you, and which the board floor? You rather think this must be you that has just got up, because it aches so down the grain, and its knots or eyes—yes, they are eyes—are so full of sand. ”

“ If you should rise straight into the air above your housetops, as though you were climbing the side of an unseen mountain, you would find at last that you had ascended to a height where the mountain would be capped with snow. ”

“ When it goes down we regain our human shapes. So we always have to look out for a resting-place near sunset, for should we happen to be flying up among the clouds when the sun goes down, we should be hurled to the depths below. ”

“ Instead of the music of the wind among the spruce-tops and the tinkling of the waterfalls, your ears will be filled with the oaths and groans of these poor, deluded, self-burdened men. Keep close to Nature's heart, yourself ”

“ With it are gone suddenly the very quarters and cardinal points of life’s chart, there is no longer any right hand or any left, any north or south, any rising of the sun or any going down, any forward or backward direction in his path, any heaven above, or any hell below. ”

“ Perhaps one is a little tired, but the climb, after all, was worth it, and one can think here, and listen to the cries of birds, and the sound of the wind in the grass. The lie of the land over which one has come taken a different aspect and falls into a pattern. ”

“ So ravaged and raw and red,
Turned to the wall — in fine,
Wishing that I was dead. . . .
What has happened since then,
Since I lay with my face to the wall,
The most despairing of men?
Listen! I'll tell you all. ”

“ Those at some distance from the falling man could afford to be romantic and piteous over his fate. Those in his dangerous neighborhood were too busy getting out of the way. "Man falling—stand from under!" ”

“ Why I can hardly tell which way the wind blows, when I'm out in the clearings, they are so thick, and so tall;—I couldn't at all, if it wasn't for the clouds, and I happen to know all the points of the compass, as it were, by heart. ”

“ I surveyed the conspiring waters rushing against the rocky ledge to overthrow it at one mad plunge, till, like toppling ambition, o'erleaping themselves, they fall on t'other side, expanding into foam ere they reach the deep channel where they creep submissively away. ”

“ The sempiternal lift, for one’s comings and goings, affects one at last as an almost intolerable symbol of the herded and driven state and of that malady of preference for gregarious ways, of insistence on gregarious ways only, by which the people about one seem ridden. ”

“ For all of it which has escaped the rocks is full of gullies; and that which is not a gully is a thicket of thorns; and whatever is above the thorns is a precipice; and the road above that is precipitous, and slopes both ways, exercising the mind of travellers, and calling for gymnastic exercises for safety. ”

“ Weary with a long walk, I climb to the summit of a rock, from which vantage ground I hope to obtain a better view while resting. In climbing I grasp the angle of a boulder over my head and immediately feel a pain thrilling through my nerves. From the sensation of touch I gather other knowledge, as I think that I have cut my finger on the sharp edge of a crystal. ”

“ Any ledge or obstacle will stop it, and it will exhibit no signs of discontent if this happens. It is not attracted by the pleasantness of the valley, as a sheep or cow might be, but propelled by the steepness of the hill at the place where it is. ”

“ Driving through such a country one is either going up, or going down, most of the time, and what might have been an easy pull up, and a slide down, resolved itself into a desperate struggle to get up, and a pull going down, on account of the mud. ”

“ Whereupon, lifting your eyes from the river, you would have seen the answer to your question—masses of men mounted and unmounted, who moved, or halted, or stood like an animal with a thousand legs controlled by one mind. ”

“ In these splendid scenes it is always very easy to put your foot through the scenery. You may sink up to your armpits; but you will sink up to your armpits in flowers. I do not deny that I myself am of a sort that sinks--except in the matter of spirits. ”

“ At every point so profitless, and all the points making so thin and short a line! The crested waves seem heaped together as they recede from the eye till they reach the horizon, where miles of storm are seen but as a line of spray. ”