Ester

“ But when the separation of East and West became wider, and the Latin-speaking Western Empire began to live with an intellectual life of its own, its deference to the East was all at once exchanged for the agitation of a number of questions entirely foreign to Eastern speculation. ”

“ Would you mind going down with me just to look at his face again?"
Oh, Ester would mind it dreadfully. She was actually afraid of death. She was afraid of the effect of such a scene upon this strange Abbie. She raised her head, shivering with pain and apprehension, and looked a volume of petition and remonstrance; but ere she spoke Abbie's hand rested lovingly on her arm, and her low sweet voice continued the pleading:
"You do not quite understand my mood, Ester. I am not unlike others; I have wept bitter tears this past night; I have groaned in agony of spirit; I have moaned in the very dust. ”

“ Oriental life and society, especially in the Southern nations, stand in violent contrast with the multitudinous detail, the secular stability, and the vast average of comfort of the Western nations. Life in the East is fierce, short, hazardous, and in extremes. ”

“ Western civilisation, or rather Western ideas, and education had brought the natives of the Eastern Empire to such a degree of culture and enlightenment that the subjugated ones realised that they had become the equal of their masters long before the dawn of the twenty-first century. ”

“ The West has witnessed more changes than has the East. The common impression, and one to which all Americans are bred, leaves paleface Western occupation to a modern day. Whenever one’s thought wanders to what is old in this country one inevitably sets his face towards the East. ”

“ Emigrants from Europe have brought the peculiarities of the nations and countries from whence they have originated, but are fast losing their national manners, and feelings, and, to use a provincial term, will soon become "westernized." ”

“ So we bridge the weeks between and reach the afternoon of a September day, bright and beautiful, as the month draws toward its closing; and Ester is sitting alone in her room in the low, easy chair by the open window, and in her lap lies an open letter, while she, with thoughtful, earnest eyes seems reading, not it, but the future, or else her own heart. ”

“ By new immigration we mean broadly all the aliens from southeastern Europe—the Italians, Hungarians, Slavs, Hebrews, Greeks, and Syrians—as distinguished from the northwestern Europeans—the English, Scotch, Welsh, Irish, French, Germans, and Scandinavians. ”

“ And Sadie, who had returned to the kingdom of spotless dresses and snowy cuffs, and, above all, to the dear books and the academy, caught at that moment the sound of the academy bell, and flitted away. Ester filled the oven with pies, then went to the side doorway to get a peep at the glowing world. It was the very perfection of a day—autumn meant to die in wondrous beauty that year. ”

“ On the one side, we see the Westerner haughty, unyielding and unwilling to conciliate; on the other we behold the Oriental willing to be trampled upon when it seems necessary, and to smile with apparent gratitude under the process ”

“ But why do I ask for any intelligence in you, any learning, you who are not endowed with any ability, with any knowledge of letters, who say “lights” for lamps, and “be transferred in the regions of the east” instead of “be transferred to the regions of the east,” as it should be? And what next? Are these “quarters” of yours really the four quarters of the world? What do you count as eastern? Thrace? It lies to the north, as I have said. Judea? It looks rather toward the south, for it is next to Egypt. And what do you count as western? ”

“ Of one thing I felt certain during my travels in Europe, that a genuine interest has been roused there in the philosophy and the arts of the East, from which the Western mind seeks fresh inspiration of truth and beauty. Once the East had her reputation of fabulous wealth, and the seekers were attracted from across the sea. ”

“ As is well known the East has its various sects and schools of philosophy, with subtle discriminations of qualities, essences, god-heads, devilhoods, etc., into which I do not propose to go, and which I should feel myself quite incompetent to deal with. Leaving all these aside, I will keep simply to these two rough Western terms, and try to consider further the question of the methods by which the Eastern student sets himself to obtain the cosmic state, or such higher order of consciousness as he does encompass. ”

“ Again the answer carries us back to the East. Nothing is more striking to a Western traveller than the dignified gravity of the superior Oriental races. In public they rarely smile, almost never laugh, and hardly ever express surprise. ”

“ Then, because of the lusty strength incidental to the vigorous youth of the junior members of our commonwealth, Western ideas and influences began to be felt in the East and to modify the conditions that existed in Eastern society. ”

“ Ester drew a heavy sigh as she thought of it all. This magic three weeks, which had glowed in beauty for her, such, as she told herself, her life would never see again, were just on the eve of departure; only two days now before she would carry that same restless, unhappy heart back among the clattering dishes in that pantry and dining-room at home. Ralph broke the little moment of silence which had fallen between them. "Foster, listen to the sweet tones of that distant clock. It is the last time that you, being a free man, will hear it strike five." ”

“ The fitting of Western thought to an Oriental race, while it must be chiefly left to the race itself, needs clearly the help of those who are conversant with the best aspects {327} of that Western thought and of its history. ”

“ The West had turned back towards the East, and, although the intent was hostile, the minds of the western men had been fecundated, their imagination fired by contact with the mother of all religions and all cultures. ”

“ Ester pared her last potato with a half troubled, half amused face. She was thoroughly tired of baking for that day, and felt like saying fiddlesticks to the little plum pies; and that white dress was torn cris-cross and every way, and ironing was always hateful; besides it did seem strange that when she wanted to do some great, nice thing, so much plum pies and torn dresses should step right into her path. ”

“ The crystalline product consists, largely of methysticin, the methyl ester of methysticinic acid. In addition to this there is about five percent of the free methysticinic acid present.
The resinous product consists of about five percent of free resinous acids, which acids can be separated into three different acids or groups of acids according to their solubility in the different alkalies. The remaining resinous product is composed of ester resins. On hydrolysis these esters yield three distinct acids, two resinous acids and methysticinic acid. ”

“ Are you quite happy as a Christian? Do you find your love growing stronger and your hopes brighter from day to day?"
Ester struggled with herself, tore bits of down from the edge of her fan, tried to regain her composure and her voice, but the tender, gentle, yet searching tone, seemed to have probed her very soul—and the eyes that at last were raised to meet his were melting into tears, and the voice which answered him quivered perceptibly. "No, Mr. Foster, I am not happy." ”

“ But instead of being matured and improved, as it was in the Western society, there is reason to think that in the East, under various influences which may partly be traced, it has gradually been reduced to dimensions and importance far inferior to those which originally belonged to it. ”

“ Clearly whatever might be his shortcomings, inability to talk was not one of them. And Ester, confused, bewildered, utterly thrown out of her prepared part in the entertainment, was more silent and awkward than she had ever known herself to be; provoked, too, with Abbie, with Ralph, with herself. "How could I have been such a simpleton?" she asked herself as seated opposite her cousin at table she had opportunity to watch the handsome face, with its changeful play of expression, and note the air of pleased attention with which even her Uncle Ralph listened to his ceaseless flow of words. ”

“ They expanded the knowledge--the experience--the ideas--of the whole body of those who visited the East and who survived the adventurous expedition; made them acquainted with civilizations at least more polished than their own; taught them many things which they could only learn in those days by actual sight, and sent them back to their homes throughout Europe, to be instructors and missionaries, who did much to prepare Western Christendom for the Renaissance or new birth of a later time. ”

“ Chairman and Gentlemen:—It is never too late to learn, and since I have been here I have learned that my ancient country, which has always been known as an Eastern country, has now turned to be a Western country. I do not regret to hear this, because Western countries have always been looked on as very powerful nations. ”

“ The above summary of the political, economic, social, and racial differences between East and West gives us a fair idea of the numerous cross-currents which complicate the relations of the two worlds and which hinder Westernization. ”

“ Europe was best described, to his mind, as an elaborate engine for dissociating the confined American from that indispensable knowledge, and was accordingly only rendered bearable by these occasional stations of relief, traps for the arrest of wandering western airs. ”

“ This is earth, and the flesh is weak; but now is my hour of exaltation—and while it is given me now to feel a faint overshadowing of the very glory which surrounds him, I want to go and look my last upon the dear clay which is to stay here on earth with me."
And Ester rose up, and wound her arm about the tiny frame which held this brave true heart, and without another spoken word the two went swiftly down the stairs, and entered the silent, solemn parlor. ”

“ For an instant the room darkened and whirled around her, then she staggered as if she would have fallen, then she reached forward and caught hold of the little red rocker, and sank into it, and leaning both elbows on the writing-table before her, buried her face in her hands. Afterward Ester called to mind the strange whirl of thoughts which thrilled her brain at that time. Life in all the various phases that she had thought it would wear for her, all the endless plans that she had made, all the things that she had meant to do and be, came and stared her in the face. ”

“ The potassium salts of the various resin acids formed by the saponification of the ester resins should yield a resinous mass syrupy or oily in consistency when acidified, if it consists entirely of the two groups of acids spoken of as the iron acids and the barium acids. Also the weight of the barium acids plus the weight of the iron acids should nearly equal the weight of the ester resins, if these are the only two acids, because the alcohol radicals constitute not more than two percent of the ester resins. ”

“ Every sunset which I witness inspires me with the desire to go to a West as distant and as fair as that into which the sun goes down. He appears to migrate westward daily, and tempt us to follow him. He is the Great Western Pioneer whom the nations follow. We dream all night of those mountain ridges in the horizon, though they may be of vapor only, which were last gilded by his rays. ”

“ The western nations of Europe, who now so immeasurably surpass their former savage progenitors, and stand at the summit of civilisation, owe little or none of their superiority to direct inheritance from the old Greeks, though they owe much to the written works of that wonderful people. ”

“ For everything that our present-day psychologist has to tell us—and here we refer not only to the systematic science but also in the wider sense to the physiognomic knowledge of men—relates to the present condition of the Western soul, and not, as hitherto gratuitously assumed, to “the human soul” at large. ”

“ "England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes, as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land, than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. ”

“ It is not merely breaking out of Europe in the search for something non-European. It would be much truer to call it putting Europe together again after it had been broken. It may almost be said of the Britons, considered as the most western of Europeans, that they have so completely forgotten their own history that they have forgotten even their own rights. ”

“ His home!—the Western giant smiles,
And twirls the spotty globe to find it;—
This little speck the British Isles? ”

“ The West has taken strength, thought, training, selected aptitudes out of the old treasures of the East,—as if out of a new Orient; while the East has itself been kept fresh, vital, alert, originative by the West, her blood quickened all the while, her youth through every age renewed. Who can say in a word, in a sentence, in a volume, what destinies have been variously wrought, with what new examples of growth and energy, while, upon this unexampled scale, community has passed beyond community across the vast reaches of this great continent! ”