Effervescence

“ But we beg Leave here to make a necessary Distinction between two Ideas, which are sometimes confounded together, and which is apt to lead People into this Error as much as any Thing.
It would be very proper in us, before we prejudice ourselves against any Art or Science, to be quite clear in the Objections which we raise against it; we should be certain that they are just, and founded upon good Grounds. Some People are apt to confound the Idea of raising the softer Passions, which have their Residence in our Nature, with the Idea of Effeminacy, which, as I said before, are quite distinct. ”

“ Is the word quite new to you, my lady Neforis?—It is born with us; but a firm will can elevate the least noble feeling, and the best that nature can bestow will deteriorate through self-indulgence. But, in the day of judgment, if I am not very much mistaken, it is not our acts but our feeling that will be weighed. ”

“ The Sphex has shown us how infallibly and with what transcendental art she acts when guided by the unconscious inspiration of her instinct; she is now going to show us how poor she is in resource, how limited in intelligence, how illogical even, in circumstances outside of her regular routine. By a strange inconsistency, characteristic of the instinctive faculties, profound wisdom is accompanied by an ignorance no less profound. ”

“ Do we not at times observe how words used in common speech, phrases or turns of expression betray a man's upbringing or character, his strain of thought and desire? It is not necessary to lay traps for men, to put it to them how they think on this point or that in order to discover where they stand and what they are. Listen and you will hear sooner or later the Sibboleth that declares the son of Ephraim. ”

“ Here, then, are confessedly adopted, as bases of classification, the most manifest characters of the emotions; as discerned subjectively, and objectively. The mode of diffusion of an emotion is one of its outside aspects; the institutions it generates form another of its outside aspects; and though the peculiarities of the emotion as a state of consciousness, seem to express its intrinsic and ultimate nature, yet such peculiarities as are perceptible by simple introspection, must also be classed as superficial peculiarities. ”

“ So the imagination of the young shepherd boy had not only disregarded the limits of his actual environment and escaped in fancy to the great world beyond, but so vividly had he realized that world through his imagination that his sympathies had been made broad to comprehend a monarch's need and his song potent to meet it. Experience alone gives comprehension. We are prone to think that experience is limited by our actual horizon. ”

“ When one day may bring under one’s pen a priest, a pauper, a prostitute, a philanthropist, each with a story to tell, and each requiring to be bullied, or cajoled, or bribed, or threatened, or tricked into telling it; then the end of that day’s work finds one looking out at the world with eyes that are very tired and as old as the world itself. ”

“ If we were to undertake to class all those who exhibit aberrations of conduct in various directions of life, who labor under hallucinations, and a wild imagination in regard to certain matters, whose credulity or whims provoke our mirth as much as our astonishment, as possessing a diseased mind, we should class among such some of the most singularly gifted and acute minds of the world. ”

“ Truth knows truth here with unerring certainty. Why, I tell you, Virgie, a man simply could not live two selves in this atmosphere of instinctive understanding. I found myself antagonizing myself and, in consequence, everybody else. The exterior reformation was a good beginning because it was in continual pride and vanity, consequently always fighting with the internal comfort of conceit, and that was the birth of conscience in me. ”

“ All poetry I ordain and proclaim to be composition in meter; the listeners of which are affected by passionate trepidation and compassionate perturbation and likewise tearful lamentation, since through discourse the soul suffers, as if its own, the felicity and infelicity of property and person of others. ”

“ The Lord requires not moderation in revenge, but complete self-effacement.
2. Secondly, we may notice that this requirement of self-effacement is of the nature of an ascetic prescription, as when our Lord said “If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.” The necessity for this self-mutilation—cutting off a hand, plucking out an eye—lay in the fact that these limbs, or faculties, or functions of our nature had been so utterly misused that before they could be again used legitimately they must be put under this stern discipline of effacement. ”

“ Now mother, when she heard that tune which father whistled so,
Would say, "There's something wrong to-day with Ephraim, I know;
He never tries to make believe he's happy that 'ere way
But that I'm certain as can be there's somethin' wrong to pay."
And so betimes, quite natural-like, to us observant youth
There seemed suggestion in that tune of deep, pathetic truth. ”

“ The result in each case was a highly wrought psychical condition, which, however alien to our instincts, must be regarded as an exaltation of the race above its common human needs—as a manifestation of fervid, highly-pitched emotional enthusiasm. ”

“ Seem, therefore, careless of advancement, and eager for pleasure; and [307] they may quietly submit to the growth of your early honours, when they are made to believe that your encreasing folly will render them the last. Use this caution now, and a time is not far distant, when you may shew yourself in these respects, according to the sentiments which direct your present questioning looks; if, indeed, such sentiments will then be yours. They are going through an ordeal. You must prepare yourself for trials of a different nature from those you found so galling at the Chateau de Phaffenberg. ”

“ For my part, I observe religiously all real Duties. The imaginary I decline or admit, as I like or dislike them. For in things to which I am not oblig’d, I think it equal Wisdom to reject what does not please me, or to accept what does. ”

“ We would react to a naïve obscenity with the same indignation felt toward a real obscenity, were it not for the fact that another factor saves us from this indignation and at the same time furnishes the more important part of the pleasure derived from the naïve. ”

“ That such an impression can be produced, no one can question who observes the conduct of men in their ordinary relations to each other. By whatever term we christen it—endeavouring to define either the cause or its effect—we all concur in admitting that decision of character, earnestness of manner, enthusiasm, a commanding aspect, a piercing eye, or a strong will, exercise a manifest control over common natures, whether they be acting separately or in masses. ”

“ Even the expression of approval or scorn from any one--a stranger or a servant--brings with it the responses of satisfaction or discomfort. Just as strongly marked are original tendencies which cause responses of approval and cause as a result of "relief from hunger, rescue from fear, gorgeous display, instinctive acts of strength, daring and victory," and responses of scorn "to the observation of empty-handedness, deformity, physical meanness, pusillanimity, and defect." ”

“ Not argument, then, but the element in argument, called persuasion, furnishes the study in composition which corresponds to direct appeal in interpretation. And just as truly as your intent to convince another mind of the truth of your author's thought [Pg 35] will often take care of all other elements in the problem of its vocal expression and result in convincing interpretation, so the intent to persuade another mind of the truth of your own thought will often take care of all other elements in the problem of verbal expression and result in moving composition. ”

“ But no matter how inadequate such a picture may seem to us to-day, and no matter how much it seems to lack the depth and sincerity of reality, it possessed for the people of the Middle Ages a mystic charm which had its influence. ”

“ I cannot find another word to express this perfide of theirs in all its compass. Our poor treulos, the faithless of the English, are innocent as babes beside it. Perfide means faithless with pleasure, with insolence and malice. ”

“ The arrangement of the milieu, the scrupulous devotion to realism that we noted in the opening lines of this study, the prodigious anxiety to give to every one of his personages such play of physiognomy, such expression, glance, and gesture as would best reveal their character and help us to know them better,—all these things combine and harmonize to produce an effect of remarkable power. ”

“ An intenser awareness of life, of the right to expression, and of satisfaction in constructive performances was stirring in them. If they desired enfranchisement, they wanted it chiefly for spiritual reasons. ”

“ But what dim feeling is it, really, which so excites their wrath, and which certainly must have some weighty ground? It is scarcely to be expected that we shall ever learn it from them; hence we must try to put speech into their mouths. ”

“ When temperament seeks restraint in technique, and policy, whether business or social, seeks freedom in service, then shall we have that balanced expression in art, in society, and in trade which should proceed from the American personality and distinguish American life. ”

“ These three precepts mean that outward show is insufficient, and therefore they bid us be true to our proper nature;—to show simplicity, to embrace plain dealing, to reduce selfishness, to moderate desire.
A variety of colours makes man's eye blind; a diversity of sounds makes man's ear deaf; a mixture of flavours makes man's palate dull. ”

“ The course of the disorder appears to be that the rationalisations, developed by the subject to explain his inferiority, become so intimately connected with the affective basis of his trouble that they attain a reality and effectiveness which greatly relieve, or even wholly remove, the painfulness of the conflict. ”

“ But the introspection, the self-examination, the craving for an inward moral sanction that will satisfy the conscience, and the choice of the particular sanction that does so, are as typical of the modern as they are alien to the classical mind. ”

“ The tone, the emphasis, with which the one personality is expressed, produces such an effect on the feelings, that it presents itself immediately as a real one, and is converted from an object of the imagination into an object of historical knowledge. ”

“ So it came to pass that in the first years of my boyhood I was perforce led to live to myself and in myself—and indeed to study my own being and inner consciousness, as opposed to external circumstances. ”

“ Two other shreds of paper, supposed to stand for boots, distinguish the effigy of a man from the effigy of a woman. Armed with one of these “substitutes for a person,” as they are called, you may set fortune at defiance. If a member of your family, for example, is ailing, or has suffered any evil whatever, or even is merely threatened by misfortune, all that you have to do is to send for one of these puppets, pass it all over his body while you recite an appropriate spell, and then burn the puppet. ”

“ He had suffered much during these five lonely years of his old age, though not one of his acquaintances up to this moment had ever detected a look upon his face or heard a sentence from his lips which could lead them so to think. ”

“ Because, not having been able to realize their Ideal, they have idealized their Real, and thus in the depths of their nature have won true "culture."
You know all beatitudes are based on something hard to do or to be. "Blessed are the meek": is it easy to be meek? "Blessed are the pure in heart": is that so very easy? "Blessed are they who mourn." "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst—who starve—after righteousness." So this new beatitude by its hardness only falls into line with all the rest. A third time and heartily I say it,—"Blessed be Drudgery!" ”

“ In this temperament we find repose or even gentleness, quiet reflection, tenacity of purpose. The feelings—love, or hate, or joy, or grief, or anger, or jealousy—are more or less deep and enduring. In this class also there are fine characters, especially (as in the unimpassioned) when the mental gifts are high and the training refined. In this class too are found perhaps the worst characters which degrade the human race. ”

“ This may serve to Reprove Those Liberties in Conversation that pass the Bounds of Good Nature, Honour, Honesty, and Respect. When they Exceed These Limits, they Degenerate into Scurrility, Scandal, and Reproach: for in All Cases, an Eye must be had to the Due Circumstances of Measure, Time, Place, Occasion, and Person. ”

“ Now for purposes of convenience we may speak of these three kinds of exuberance as we would speak of different individuals. But in reality they hardly ever exist alone. The physical variety is almost sure to induce the mental and spiritual varieties and to project itself into them. The mental kind looks before and after and warms body and soul with its radiant smile. ”

“ It must be stated frankly and fearlessly why, till human nature has changed greatly and till existing human institutions and sentiments have become mere matters of archæology, this poem, with all its exquisite beauties of diction, must appear to all righteous and sober-minded persons a perplexity and a scandal, that may be fruitful of morbid thought and vicious action in young persons of light fancy and loose principles. ”

“ With equal assurance may one appeal to the universal instinct which is gratified by the adaptation [Pg 87] of ends to means; to the innate human sense of the rightness of what is fitting; the constant pleasure in order, in appropriateness, in harmony. It is this instinct, this sense, this pleasure, which underlies the sensitiveness of the mind to what we call Elegance in composition. ”