Left

“ Another year!—another deadly blow!
Another mighty Empire overthrown!
And we are left, or shall be left, alone; ”

“ We of the West, if we wish to understand it, must imagine ourselves as left with all our local loves and family memories unchanged, but the places affected by them intermingled and tumbled about by some almost inconceivable convulsion. We must imagine cities and landscapes to have turned on some unseen pivots, or been shifted about by some unseen machinery, so that our nearest was furthest and our remotest enemy our neighbour. ”

“ It was a fair exemplification of a tendency which is woven into the make of our being. Tell the average mortal that it is wrong to walk on the left side of the road, and in nine cases out of ten he will conclude that the proper thing must be to walk on the right side of the road; whereas in actual life, and in almost all opinions, moral, political, and religious, the proper thing is to walk neither on the left nor the right side, but somewhere about the middle. Say to the ship-master, You are to sail through a perilous strait; you will have the raging Scylla on one hand as you go. ”

“ On the left there are three—first, the group of the left center, by which I mean those who are being tempted; second, the group of the left, by which are meant those who have fallen before temptation; third, the group of the extreme left, or those who are tempters of others. ”

“ For how very improbable it is, in the first place, that in a great city there should be more than six score thousand persons, who, literally, did not discern between their right hand and their left hand! ”

“ I wandered from tree to tree, now turning to the right and then to the left, saying to myself, here there are no beaten paths, no restricted dwelling places; presidents, kings and oligarchies, have no power here. ”

“ Should the General raise his left hand as he has raised his right it would point to a quarter of the city that forms a haven for the oppressed and suppressed of foreign lands. In the cause of national or personal freedom they have found a refuge here, and the patriot who made it for them sits his steed, overlooking their district, while he listens through his left ear to vaudeville that caricatures the posterity of his protégés. ”

“ Our own left seems equally to mean the hand that is left after the right has been mentioned, or, in short, the other one. Many things which are lucky if seen on the right are fateful omens if seen to leftward. On the other hand, if you spill the salt, you propitiate destiny by tossing a pinch of it over the left shoulder. A murderer's left hand is said by good authorities to be an excellent thing to do magic with ”

“ There were so few of our men in the works it was lonesome after some of the men had moved to the left in the darkness and could not be seen any distance away by such as didn't know it was the plan of battle to go to the left; and not one of the enemy even after dawn could be seen for long intervals, dead or alive. ”

“ The fundamental distinction between the right side as representing your side and the left as the enemy’s side intervenes to differentiate between the application of the omen to the king or to the country on the one hand, and to the enemy or his country on the other. ”

“ Voices from the right, from the left, from above, from below, represent the conflicting religious opinions and warring political parties of this dawning Future, already hurtling against those of the dissolving Present. ”

“ There, it may be, a family, or possibly a tribe, dwelt, among whom left-handedness prevailed to an unusual extent, along with a degree of skill and dexterity, such as is frequently found to accompany the instinctive use of the left hand. ”

“ The right and left confusion explains nothing, for in those directions in which people are confused as between right and left they are as likely to take one as the other. How could that explain why a woman uses her right hand when she should use her left, and her left when she should use her right? ”

“ Those in the middle will march straight against them, and the other two divisions will surround them on the right and on the left. When the middle detachment begins to walk toward them, they will think that we are all there, and so they will leap forward. ”

“ In the sculptured hieroglyphics of Central America, and in the Mexican picture-writings, the human and other profiles are introduced in the large majority of examples looking to the left, as would be the natural result of the tracings of a right-handed draftsman. ”

“ But such an explanation would by no means satisfy the early mediaeval writers on vestments, and we are accordingly informed that as the left side typifies this present life and the right that which is to come, so the fringes on the left indicate those cares through which we must pass in this world, while their absence on the right symbolizes our freedom from care in the world to come. ”

“ In riding or walking the rule of the country is the same as in England—turn to the left. I have not yet gotten over the yearning to grab the lines from the driver when he turns to the left to avoid a passing carriage. ”

“ The darkness and depression from which that glorious peninsula is about to emerge are the fruits of long-continued dissensions and an iron despotism, which is at length broken by the impulses left behind him by a ruthless conqueror, who, under the appearance and the phrases of Liberty, contended only for himself. ”

“ The left hand is as a rule not on terms of confiding intimacy with the right, whether [30] it is scattering seeds of kindness or getting into mischief. In the mental realm the same trick of camouflage prevails. ”

“ Keep to the left, as the law directs, is an admonition on bridges and other thoroughfares in England which has often excited the surprise of Americans, very likely eliciting some such comment as "How stupid!" ”

“ Among the instinctively left-handed, those with whom the bias is slight readily yield to the influence of example and education, and so pass over to the majority. Only those in whom the propensity is too strong to yield to such influences remain. They are, therefore, exceptionally dexterous with their left hand; and are thus not only distinguished from the equally expert right-handed, but are, still more, an exception to the large majority in whom the bias is so slight, [Pg 87] and the dexterity so partial, that their practice is little more than a compliance with the usage of the majority. ”

“ THE reader has no doubt often wondered why people almost invariably use their right hand in preference to the left. Is it not remarkable that, through all time and in all lands, man has been a right-handed being? ”

“ As a general rule the left hand will show the inherent characteristics of the individual; the right hand shows the same characteristics modified by our surroundings or by the individual's personal efforts. ”

“ On the left is the bar; the right-hand being used as the office of a land-agent, is besieged by crowds of country-people, in whom, if language is to be trusted, the grievous wrongs of land-tenure are painfully portrayed—nothing but complaint, dogged determination, and resistance being heard on every side. ”

“ You might go some distance, and imagine you had come to a place whence there was no outlet for farther progress, and lo! turning to the right hand or the left, you would seldom fail to find these stepping-places to help you onwards. ”

“ The Extreme Left may or may not be Socialistic, but in its manifesto it is entirely within the truth, and describes with moderation a state of national suffering and penury which would render pardonable the greatest violence of language. ”

“ Now this manner ye must change, since ye are become men-at-arms, and if I bid you go to the right or the left, ye need think of nought but which is the right hand and which is the left; though forsooth I wot well that some of you be so perverse that even that debate may lead you into trouble and contention. ”

“ In reality, a strongly developed left-handedness is, equally with a strongly developed right-handedness, an indication of exceptional dexterity. Such skill as that of the left-handed slingers of the tribe of Benjamin is in no way exceptional. All truly left-handed, as well as all truly right-handed persons, are more likely to be dexterous than those who are unconscious of any strong impulse to the use of either hand. The bias, whether to the right or the left, is, I feel assured, the result of special organic aptitude. ”

“ That education has largely extended the preferential use of the right hand is undoubted. That it has even unduly tended to displace the left hand from the exercise of its manipulative function, I fully believe. But so far as appears, in the preference of one hand for the execution of many special operations, the choice seems, by general consent, without any concerted action, to have been that of the right. ”

“ They will resort to every measure that may rekindle the flame of war. Movements, newly-born and world-wide in their range, will exert their utmost effort for the advancement of their designs. The Movement of the Left will acquire great importance. ”

“ My dear, I have left one thing out. Here is the tidbit I have reserved for you. The love which we pictured must be extremely well hidden; I have seen not a trace of it. True, I have caught in drawing-rooms now and again a quick exchange of glances, but how colorless it all is! Love, as we imagined it, a world of wonders, of glorious dreams, of charming realities, of sorrows that waken sympathy, and smiles that make sunshine, does not exist. The bewitching words, the constant interchange of happiness, the misery of absence, the flood of joy at the presence of the beloved one—where are they? ”

“ From the left —Yes! Yes! Very goody Very good!
M Thiers—Be convinced that when a man has lived forty years— (Interruptions) in the midst of agitations and political vicissitudes and when he fulfils his duty and has the certainty of fulfilling it, nothing can shake him, not even outrage
M Le President Schneider—I just now demanded from the majority calm and silence so that one may hear I demand immediately from this side (pointing to the left) that the orator may not be interrupted
From the left—We applauded we did not interrupt! ”

“ As the Oriental thinks naturally to the left where we think to the right, the more you cultivate him the more strongly will he think in the opposite direction from you. Finis sweetness, sympathy, friendship. Now, my scholars in this great Government school are not boys, but men. ”

“ Turning constantly to the left did not bring them to the sea. Instead they walked a long distance only to find themselves in a poorer part of the town, with increasing crowds of children inclined to follow. ”

“ The truly left-handed, equally with the larger percentage of those who may be designated truly right-handed, are exceptionally dexterous; and to the former the idea that the instinctive impulse which influences their preference is a mere acquired habit, traceable mainly to some such bias as the mode of carrying in the nurse’s arms in infancy, is utterly untenable. ”

“ We begin in infancy with the difference between our right and left hands, and recognize things and places as lying to the right or left of us. But many of us hardly get beyond this rudimentary stage. It is almost incredible how helpless even educated people often are if asked to tell whether one place lies to the north or south of another. ”

“ Is there then no salvation left? We have fallen: Is it not possible to rise again? We have been blinded: May we not recover our sight? We have become crippled: Can we never walk upright? In a word, we are dead: May we not rise again? ”

“ I have lived in the midst of oppression and wrong, and I am saddened by every captured fugitive in the North; a blow has been struck at my freedom, in every hunted and down-trodden slave in the South; North and South have both been guilty, and they that sin must suffer. ”

“ East and west, north and south, they scatter; and where one lands, there he will stay for hours, if not days, drawn down into a little heap, looking lonely and miserable, and apparently impressed with the sole idea that he must keep himself before the world by his voice, or he will be lost and forgotten. ”

“ The far “honk” of the leader comes
Lonely and harsh and colorless.
The west dies down; and in its cup,
Shadow on shadow, pours the night;
The east glows with a mystic light;
The stars are keen; the moon comes up. ”

“ Never, before or since, have I been so attacked by indescribable suggestions of a "beyond region," of another scheme of life, another revolution not parallel to the human. And in the end our minds would succumb under the weight of the awful spell, and we should be drawn across the frontier into their world. ”

“ In the field and in the forest, by the sweet running brook, and upon the burning sands, in the mountain pass, and in the stony streets of the populous city, within the chancel rail of holy churches, and at the dark entrance to the Bastile—in all these places, and in a thousand more, the hand of the oppressed has been lifted against the oppressor, the right to be free that God gave to men has struggled with the power which might has given, and, alas! ”

“ The sinister pages in my Book of Life are but the fault of the black-haired generations from the sun-kissed lands which stream and riot in my blood. These I shall now cast aside and denounce, and I shall only remember the silver-souled men from the North, the men with the blue eyes of the North, the men with the purity and the good, clean, wise conscience of the North. ”

“ But threatening voices came from the North—the echoes of the sentiments of the civilised world repenting of its evil pierced their ears, and they found their feet were of clay, and that they were nodding to their fall in the midst of their power. ”

“ That fearful combatant on the highway, dear madam, is the North, and you are the distant foe. You may affect to smile, perhaps, at the valorous attitudes, the show of mettle in the bull, but you have no idea, as I had the honor to say before, how sturdy is our hatred of the slave-power and how ready we are to do battle with it. We paw in the valley, and are not afraid. ”