Location

“ Location may mean only a single spot, and yet from this spot powerful influences may radiate. No one thinks of size when mention is made of Rome or Athens, of Jerusalem or Mecca, of Gibraltar or Port Arthur. ”

“ But as mankind has a natural love of locality, and as congenial minds will select similar locations, adapted to their ideas of beauty and comfort, the result is that spirit inhabitants unite and form cities and towns as on earth. ”

“ A great city, finding itself cramped for breathing space, has reached out a mighty hand to snatch land from the bottom of the lake. Thirty blocks in length, as large as an ordinary farm, this space promises to become, in the near future, a place of joy forever. ”

“ Happy they who are engaged in provinces of thought, so familiarly traversed and so thoroughly explored, that they see every where the footprints, the paths, the landmarks, and the remains of former travellers, and can never step wrong; but for myself, Gentlemen, I have felt like a navigator on a strange sea, who is out of sight of land, is surprised by night, and has to trust mainly to the rules and instruments of his science for reaching the port. ”

“ Leave the town a space, and take one of those roads which lead upward among the mountain valleys, and in a little half-hour the face of nature seems subtly to have changed, and her voice tells a different tale, while yet murmuring of the sea which is near. ”

“ Before, however, we turn to consider some of the physical aspects of mountains, I shall venture, speaking as I am here to a literary audience, and in a university town, to dwell for a few minutes on their place in literature—in the mirror that reflects in turn the mind of the passing ages. For geography is concerned with the interaction between man and nature in its widest sense. ”

“ You might travel thousands of miles, and yet the boundless plains, with almost unvarying rural features, would meet your gaze everywhere. You might look in every direction for miles and miles along the scene for some rare or novel object to break the interminable monotony of the vast outstretching country, but you would look in vain. ”

“ A land of paths, not of thoroughfares, with but one great city. A land, not far from the highroad between Europe and the East, yet secluded on its hilltops, where prophets and patriots dreamed in its safe caverns. ”

“ Ladies and gentlemen, twenty miles north of this old and highly civilized city, lies a tract fifty miles square of primitive forest, inhabited by savages. That tract of land is as beautiful as a dream of heaven. ”

“ There is a splendid city on the plain; there are temples and theatres on the hills; the commerce of the world seeks its port; the luxury of the Orient flows through its marble streets. You are there one day when the sea has receded: the plain is a pestilent marsh ”

“ Along these, huddled in the corners of the hills and the sea line, lie the cities and the larger towns. A great majority of mankind, swarming in these little spots, or scuttling to and fro along the valleys on those slender lines, fondly dream they are acquainted with the land in which they live. ”

“ You see in that one city, open to the constant changes arising from the innumerable relations of travel and commerce, two worlds of men: one busy, fitful, gay, and splendidly modern; the other silent, immovable, almost scornful, and in dwelling and dress, in manner and language, just the same as you might have observed them ages ago. ”

“ In our physical geography we shall read marvelous stories that outrival the romances of Dumas and Hugo. And geography as a whole will reveal herself as the cherishing mother of us all, providing us with food, and drink, and shelter, and raiment, giving us poetry, and song, and story, and weaving golden fancies for the fabric of our daily dreams. ”

“ The earth as the home of man is humanizing and unified; the earth viewed as a miscellany of facts is scattering and imaginatively inert. Geography is a topic that originally appeals to imagination—even to the romantic imagination. It shares in the wonder and glory that attach to adventure, travel, and exploration. ”

“ In addition to its vast importance in regard to social life, and the art of government, Geography unfolds to us the celestial phenomena, acquaints us [Pg 2] with the occupants of the land and ocean, and the vegetation, fruits, and peculiarities of the various quarters of the earth, a knowledge of which marks him who cultivates it as a man earnest in the great problem of life and happiness. ”

“ The further we receded from the object we beheld, the larger became the field of vision. My native city, with the interior of every house and every creature therein, lay open to my view in miniature. We mounted higher, and lo, the secrets of the earth, the depths of mines and inmost caverns of the hills, were bared before me. ”

“ But in respect of place, some things arise from nature as, whether a place is on the coast or at a distance from the sea, whether it is level or mountainous, whether it is smooth or rough, wholesome or pestilential, shady or sunny, these again are fortuitous circumstances,—whether a place is cultivated or uncultivated frequented or deserted, full of houses or naked, obscure or ennobled by the traces of mighty exploits, consecrated or profane. ”

“ I had no doubt that I was in the neighborhood of some town, but of its name, and the part of the country in which it was located, I was ignorant. I at length found that I was receding from the woods altogether, and entering a champaign country, in the midst of which I now perceived a town of considerable magnitude, the inhabitants of which were entirely silent, and the town itself presented the appearance of total solitude. ”

“ But we are now about to enter on another region—a region of marvels where all is enchanted ground—a region in which we seem to leave far behind us our grosser conceptions of matter, and to attain to a sphere of more refined and subtile existence. ”

“ Large.—With Locality large, one will have a great desire for travelling; and with Acquisitiveness and Inhabitiveness moderate or small, will be prompted to roam about regardless of expense, or of family considerations. In visiting strange places, he readily notices their peculiar localities, and will ever after recollect them. He will be excessively fond of studying geography, and works of travels ”

“ Speaking at the same time to the people, many of whom were fishermen and lived upon fish, He says, ‘What man of you will give his son a serpent, if he ask a fish?’ Therefore, when He said in the same discourse to His disciples, ‘Ye are the light of the world: a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid,’ it is probable that He pointed to a city within their view, situated upon the brow of a hill. ”

“ But I have not set out to present an all-round picture of the conditions of country life in any of the fictional districts I have chosen as the scene of my novels. The great majority of the inhabitants of any countryside are the people who work on the land and live by it, and these I have left out almost entirely ”

“ I saw them construct dwelling-places for the use of their families, and exhibit attachment for localities, so much so that, from moment to moment, I saw a world fade away, and a new world arise in its place, like the changing of the scenes in a fairy-play. ”

“ A mile or so farther on we enter upon a flat, marshy region, from which everything like an eminence looks quite blue in the distance, and which has but a detached building or two where once, before the fierce Lombard came, was a flourishing community of inhabitants. ”

“ True, Sir, but we are much indebted to the pencil for introducing rural scenes and scenery into our crowded cities, by which we are told, through the medium of the eye, that there are living beauties in nature which we may see. ”

“ Every town and village had, moreover, its protecting divinity, or guardian saint, under some fantastical name, or the name of some fantastical fanatic; and, even every man, every house, every plant, every brook, every day, and every hour, according to most of those systems, had their accompanying genius! ”

“ Area means an open space, a plat of ground, a spot or place. Arena is from the same etymon, altered in application. There, the area, the place or spot. "If we go there," to that place. Where, which, or what ("wha-icht area") place. Here, his (latin word for this,) area, this place. These words refer to place, state, or condition.
While is another spelling for wheel. "To while away our time," is to pass, spend, or wheel it away. ”

“ A town of logs of sound, A town of stones of sound, There I lead you To the town whose food you can hear, The town where people eat sounds, let us go, Where there are logs of sound, Logs of laughter, And streets of song... Enough of idly straining Strings with one's hand Enough of catching and clinging To the sounds, hungry-eared, To listen to them. ”

“ So silent, so lonely, so fair is this waving expanse with its guardian mountains, it might be some wild solitude, an American prairie or Asiatic steppe, but that in the midst thereof, on some billows of rolling land, we discern a city, sombre, quaint, and old,—a city of dreams and mysteries,—a city of the living and the dead. ”

“ As we see more, we become possessed of more certainties, and consequently gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider basis of analogy.
Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited, and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never seen them, must live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence. ”

“ In its brief and narrow course of a few hundred yards, the richest in literary associations of any region on earth, the weather-beaten, irregular fronts of its old stone houses look down affectionately, and perhaps pityingly, on hurrying journalists and anxious authors, as they have been doing for ages. ”

“ And this is so, whether we are moving in the region of nature, which is the region of God's wonders, or in the region of art, which is the region of man's wonders; and nowhere truer than in this sphere and region of language, which is about to claim us now. Oftentimes here we walk up and down in the midst of intellectual and moral marvels with a vacant eye and a careless mind ”

“ When you consider the immense extent of country through which this magnificent river flows, and the alluvial nature of the great belt of land which runs along the sea-coast, you are prepared to expect that here, if anywhere, a great mass of people would be congregated, and that town would succeed town, and village follow village, along the whole course of this great artery. ”

“ Other great cities have been called gradually into existence about some fine opportunity suggested by nature, at the junction of fertile valleys, or on a loving bend of a broad river, or in the inner recesses of a sea-harbour, where nature has pointed out, as it were, a spot favourable for life and growth. ”

“ Here, if only we do not go to work fancifully, but take the ground really as it is, then we shall have the decisive arena which moulded more or less the greatest of events. Accordingly I have hitherto actively employed my geological and agricultural eye to the suppressing of fancy and sensibility, in order to gain for myself an unbiassed and distinct notion of the locality. ”

“ The content of geography is, therefore, synonymous with the content of the experience of the child as related to his own interests and activities, in so far as they grow out of the earth as his home. Towns and cities begin with the ones nearest at hand. The concept of rivers has its rise in the one that flows past the child's home. ”

“ It is a recognized principle that our knowledge of geography has its foundation in our knowledge of the home. The natural connecting link between the immediate surroundings and the outside world is the present daily life of the home. ”

“ This principle holds as true of places as of persons. The things that touch us nearest interest us most. Geography should begin from the school-walls: “Which side of this room does the sun rise on?” “Does Church-lane run west or north?” ”

“ We have been thus particular in the description of this spot as it is the birth-place of two persons who will bear an important part in the tale we are about to relate, and partly, because we love this spot where we have whiled away many an hour of our boyish days. The peculiarities of one’s birth-place have much influence upon formation of the character and disposition. ”

“ We change. The valleys and the tiny towns, the unseen mites of men, the gleams or thread of roads, are prostrate, covering a little watching space before the shrine of this dominant and towering presence. ”

“ It is a name but little known to the ear of the outside world, but destined one day or other to fill its place in the long list of lands whose surface yields back to man, in manifold, the toil of his brain and hand. ”

“ We exaggerate the praises of local scenery. In every landscape, the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, and that is seen from the first hillock as well as from the top of the Alleghanies. ”

“ More suitable, therefore, to our fundamental thesis—that no less definite than the study of races and usages or languages, is that of the groupings of men—is the clearer outlook, the more panoramic view of a definite geographic region, such, for instance, as lies beneath us upon a mountain holiday. ”

“ She thought of the golden zones in which gentlemen were bred, and figured with so excellent a grace; zones in which wisdom and smooth words, white linen and slim hands, were the mark of the desired inhabitants; where low temptations were unknown, and honesty no virtue, but a thing as natural as breathing. ”

“ I rose to my feet and started in search of a village, and after a time came upon human habitations. I asked the people I met if they could tell me the way to my father's village or to that where my father-in-law lived. ”