Flâneur

“ Thy wit and humour claim the passing sigh:
When, thro’ the hour, with unresisted skill,
I’ve seen thee mould each feature to thy will,—
When friends drew round thee with attentive ear,
Pleas’d with the raill’ry which they could not fear.
Oh! how I’ve heard thee, with concealing art,
Join in the song, tho’ sorrow rent thy heart;
How have I seen thee too, with venial guile,
O’er many an anguish force the faithless smile,—
Seen suffering Nature check each sigh, each fear,
To rob maternal fondness of a tear! ”

“ In the dusk and shadow he could hear the murmur of subdued voices and now and then a peal of girlish laughter, or the deeper sound of a man's mirth. Young, eager-eyed men and women went by, intent on love-making, their faces shining with youth and the happiness of the unburdened. ”

“ How often, when the rage and tumult of my senses had subsided, after the melting flow, have I, in a tender meditation, asked myself cooly the question, if it was in nature for any of its creatures to be so happy as I was? Or, what were all fears of the consequence, put in the scale of one night’s enjoyment, of any thing so transcendently the taste of my eyes and heart, as that delicious, fond, matchless youth. ”

“ The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, in indignations and enthusiasms, in judgments--and even in love. The manner in which, as in the features and character of a human face, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to look at their kind. ”

“ On life's fair picture of delight,
My heart's content would find it right.
But O, these waves and leaves,—
When happy stoic Nature grieves,
No human speech so beautiful
As their murmurs mine to lull. ”

“ One was, in turn, moved, ravished, transported; from tears the most abundant one passed to laughter the most irrepressible, from terror to gaiety the most natural and the most infectious; one passed, in a word, through all the windings of the human heart; one experienced all the sensations which leave a perfect remembrance. ”

“ If you wish for sincere, straightforward passion, if you wish for effusive demonstrations of affection, laughter, the laughter of great happiness, which differs from tears only in a very slight movement of the mouth, if you wish for the fascinating folly of youth illumined by bright eyes, so transparent that you can look to the very bottom of the soul, there are all of those to be seen this Sunday morning in a house that you know, a new house on the outskirts of the old faubourg. ”

“ I follow you about in your devious path from tea to dinner or dance, or I wait at the opera or theatre to watch for a new light in your face, to see your world written in a smile. You are dark, and winning, and strong. You are pagan in your love of sensuous, full things. You are grateful to the biting air as it touches your cheek and sends the blood leaping in glad life. ”

“ Shut your ears to praise, when it grows loud: set your face like a flint, when the world ridicules, and smile at its threats. Learn to master your heart, when it would burst forth into vehemence, or prolong a barren sorrow, or dissolve into unseasonable tenderness. ”

“ How transporting and ineffable are the joys of convalescence!—the calm of mind—the voluptuous langour—the unrebuked abandonment to mere pleasurable sensation—the delight that every natural object imparts, fill those hours with a dream-like, faint ecstasy, more dear to memory than tumultuous joy. ”

“ Let any, now perhaps staid with care, and grave with many sorrows, but who once indulged in the romance born of enthusiasm and ignorance—let them recall the visions in which their youth delighted, while they smile at their folly, or sigh over their sweetness. ”

“ Short and unstable are the joys of man!—How often does it happen that such ardent scenes of pleasure as we have been just endeavouring to describe are but like the gleam which precedes the storm—a prelude to direful woe! Oft has the tender parent or loving child, who but yesterday animated such a scene of festivity, to-day exhibited the most desponding spectacle which human nature can witness. ”

“ I smile when I find a child crying or the mother's death, which was hideous and is unspeakable, or the other bloody delights, dear things. I smile when the eyes of my friend suddenly come to life in the silky shadows, that they shine as though out of a haze, and they reveal their most inner secrets. ”

“ But, as in the East thoughts of health and diet always occupy an extraordinarily prominent place in the minds of all who have dwelt there for any length of time, that which chiefly struck the stranger was the apparently reckless indifference to fever displayed by those flaneurs who dawdled about under the trees on this treacherous soil, as though it were the harmless green grass of Hurlingham at home. ”

“ The men who rode before us, cheered by the happy omen, laughed and talked as they rode, or tried the paces of their horses, where the trees grew sparsely; and their jests and laughter coming pleasantly to our ears as we followed, warmed even madame's sad face to a semblance of happiness. ”

“ Here, where our faces are graven with anxieties that besette our waking and sleeping, it seemeth that most men have forgotten ye very fashion of laughter. Joy seemes killed out of them, as by a bitter frost, yet he hath ever kept ye clear peale of merriment in his voice and its flash in his eye and ye smile that showes his white teeth. ”

“ How the sighs are lost in laughter, and the laughter brings the tears,
As the thoughts of men go seeking back across the darkling years
Till they find the wayside stable that the star-led Wise Men found,
With the Shepherds, mute, adoring, and the glory shining round! ”

“ What this Age attempts to reach is not Wit in the first sense, of which even its theories are silent, but in the second,—namely, in the form of derision, and as exciting laughter;—laughter being a means pointed out by the instinct of Nature itself, for refreshing the mind exhausted by long-continued weariness, and in some measure enlivening its stagnation by the stirring emotion which it communicates. ”

“ Just cultivate a cast-iron smile of joy the whole day through; If they call you "Little Sunshine", wish that THEY'D no troubles, too — You may — grin. Rise up in the morning with the will that, smooth or rough, You'll grin. ”

“ I envy them not their more refined and more estranged feelings: let them look about the world, unencumbered by such ties and heartstrings, and let them laugh at those who, guided more by nature, cherish such feelings. ”

“ What a heavy, burnt-out heart must those people have, who in the face of the first day which ushers them into the procession of 364 other lowly, serious, wailing and weeping ones, can prefer the noisy, riotous pleasure of beasts to the still, tender and almost tearful joy of man! ”

“ Let the dull monotonous hum and soothing influences of those happy days of wonderment come back to your heart until your eyes half close and you begin redreaming your youthful dreams. Blessed dreams, that cause the muscles of your face to relax, while laughter comes to the lips, and compels you to forget the blistering ways you have trodden since those sun-bright days. Dream your dreams of tenderness and confidence, for the tendency of the city is to harden the heart and dull the sympathies. ”

“ There is laughter, there is conversation, in these rude homes, and the shadow of thoughts of privation to come falls not upon the simple feast: each one, with a cheerful heart, eats his share of the meagre reward of a day of painful toil. ”

“ But nothing so arrests our speech when we are tempted to betray hidden trouble as to find ourselves face to face with a kind of burnished, radiant happiness. Sensitive eyes not more quickly close before a blaze of sunlight than the shadowy soul shuts her gates upon the advancing Figure of Joy. ”

“ The sneer of contempt—the laugh of derision—is nowhere to be heard; neither is the pallid brow and sunken cheek, the fruit of late hours and forced excitement, to be seen. Content is in each heart—the glow of health upon each face. All appear eager to be happy, pleased with each other, and at ease with themselves. ”

“ Viewing all these wondrous odes together, the predominant quality which we trace in them is an extreme susceptibility to delight, close-linked with afterthought—pleasure with pang—or that poignant sense of ultimates, a sense delicious and harrowing, which clasps the joy in sadness, and feasts upon the very sadness in joy. ”

“ I can imagine no moment more propitious for the pleading of your cause, than one snatched from the confusion and excitement of such an hour, when the heart is made suggestive by strains of music and peals of laughter and sounds of gaiety and gladness everywhere. ”

“ The sight of a smiling countenance, in the same manner, elevates even the pensive into that gay and airy mood, which disposes him to sympathize with, and share the joy which it expresses; and he feels his heart, which with thought and care was before that shrunk and depressed, instantly expanded and elated. ”

“ The pulses of a busy throng,
⁠The rest of spirits over-wrought:
⁠Are these—is all beside them, naught?
Here, everywhere, and every day,
⁠The seeker finds right human stuff:
To laugh, to weep, to work, to play;
⁠Are joy and sorrow not enough? ”

“ Who is looking after you, guarding and advising you? Have you anyone who notes whether you are weary or tired, anyone whose joy it is to watch every passing emotion on your face, to awake smiles, and still tears? ”

“ But nought like the joy of dreaming how happy that someone will be; how eyes will be brightly gleaming and mouth smile happily. Joy past the power of rhyming to follow that parcel in thought; to hear, with gay laughter chiming, "Look what the postman has brought!" ”

“ Even those who sit in their sleighs and watch, and those who prefer walking to gliding have all the same happy look, a look that tells of content and happiness, of something more than the mere pleasure of the day. ”

“ Youths and maidens, you are in the heyday of vigorous, joyous life! Your delight is, like the springtime, rich in hope and promise. Your laugh rings true; your voices mingle in frolic glee, or in quiet tones of kind regard. ”

“ The listening multitude is charmed and captivated by the force of his Eloquence, and feels a pleasure which is not to be resisted. What here can you find to censure? The whole audience is either flushed with joy, or overwhelmed with grief;—it smiles, or weeps,—it loves, or hates,—it scorns or envies,—and, in short, is alternately seized with the various emotions of pity, shame, remorse, resentment, wonder, hope, and fear, according as it is influenced by the language, the sentiments, and the action of the speaker. ”

“ The laugh, or broad smile that half closes, or squints the eyes, engraves those fine ray-like, much-dreaded lines about the eye, known as crow’s feet. Remember that “laughter ages the face more than tears.” Smile more often with the eyes. ”

“ The silence of awe and of intense thankfulness, fell on the heart of every man, and more than all on his, who had so far recovered his first emotion as to gaze wonderingly and admiringly on the boyish figure at the helm, whose voice was utterly unknown, and whose features the fitful light, and the youth's steadfast gaze on his rowers, prevented his tracing with any certainty. ”

“ The subsequent clashings of the loud music, the feasts of garish colour, the undulations of the swaying forms, the bursts of applause, the laughter and gaiety, excited the young man to a fierce happiness that was almost intolerable. ”

“ The mocking glance, the curve of gentle irony were still there in eyes and mouth, but the nostrils quivered with excitement, with the spirit of adventure which never slept so soundly but that it awakened at a word. ”

“ What with the sound of voices, the merry laughter of the children and a host of smiling faces, the scene touches a happy chord in one's heart, and he mingles with it, lost in pleasant reverie, till the sounds fade away with the fading light. ”

“ When one closes the door after a conversation with him, or one of his books after the last page, the prevailing impression is the same: enhanced joy in life, enthusiasm, confidence in the world, an intensified feeling of pleasure which shows life in purer, kindlier, and more magnificent forms. ”

“ Who is there that does not with Pleasure survey an Epitome of the World in the Dramatic Poets? The Life, Humours, and Customs of Mankind represented in Comedy; in Tragedy the tumultuous Passions of the Great, the Turns of Fortune and wonderful Catastrophes, the Punishment of Villainy and Rewards of Virtue, and sometimes the Misfortunes of good Men? Who, I say, is not affected with Pleasure, whether he laughs or weeps with them? ”

“ Once sported in thy happy lays.
Sad is now thy plaintive strain,
Melancholy is thy mood—
Bring us back thy youth again!
For Cheerfulness befits the good.
Yet, if thou be sad—'tis well!
If we weep,—'tis not in vain! ”

“ Nothing smoothes matters more than getting them into a cheerful mood; and I have often watched the faces when a discussion or difference has occurred, and by just throwing in a remark when a passing smile appeared, to bring it out into a laugh, the scale has been turned and business settled. ”

“ Laughter should illuminate and not disfigure the visage, because it reveals the soul, and the soul should be beautiful, should resemble an outburst of frankness, of sincerity. [270] The charm of laughter lies, in a great measure, in the sincerity of the joy which renders us, for the time being, transparent to those about us. ”