Mansion world

“ God has built for you a mansion that fears no fire or ruin ... covered with a roof which glitters in one fashion by day, and in another by night. Whence comes the breath which you draw; the light by which you perform the actions of your life? ”

“ The roads that conducted to it from the distant towns were tangled, intricate, mountainous, and beset by robbers. A few cottages, and a small convent, a quarter of a league up the verdant margin, were the nearest habitations; and, save by some occasional pilgrim or some bewildered traveller, the loneliness of the mansion was rarely invaded. It was precisely the spot which proffered rest to a man weary of the world, and indulged the memories which grow in rank luxuriance over the wrecks of passion. ”

“ As you start out on the first mansion world, one Morontia Companion is assigned to each company of one thousand ascending mortals, but you will encounter larger numbers as you progress through the seven mansion spheres. These beautiful and versatile beings are companionable associates and charming guides. They are free to accompany individuals or selected groups to any of the transition-culture spheres, including their satellite worlds. They are the excursion guides and leisure associates of all ascending mortals. ”

“ How little a while you can have any mansion or place of abode in this world. Now you have a dwelling amongst the living. You have a house or mansion of your own, or at least one that is at present for your use, and now you have a seat in the house of God; but how little a while will this continue! In a very little while, and the place that now knows you in this world will know you no more. The habitation you have here will be empty of you; you will be carried dead out of it, or shall die at a distance from it, and never enter into it any more, or into any other abode in this world. ”

“ Modern improvements have swept away, one by one, those old houses in all our cities to which time had given an aspect too much at variance with the tastes and requirements of a new generation. Even at the period in which our story opens—that is, in 1824—the house of which we are speaking already began to be pointed out as the Old Mansion—the name, par excellence, by which it was known in the city. ”

“ Even the material and morontia structures increase in perfection and grandeur as you advance in the mansonia career. As individuals and as groups you are permitted to make certain changes in the abodes assigned as headquarters for your sojourn on the different mansion worlds. Many of the activities of these spheres take place in the open enclosures of the variously designated circles, squares, and triangles. The majority of the mansion world structures are roofless, being enclosures of magnificent construction and exquisite embellishment. ”

“ This mansion, which our dear father (who hath found ruth) builded for us, is perfect in every attribute nor lacketh it any condition of comfort or completion. Howbeit I have found out by chance this day that there are yet three things which, were they set within these walls, of the house and grounds, would make our place beyond compare, and in the wide world there would be naught with it to pair. These three things are the Speaking-Bird an the Singing-Tree and the Golden- Water ”

“ Every man's proper mansion house and home, being the theatre of his hospitality, the seate of his selfe fruition, the comfortable part of his own life, the noblest of his son's inheritance, a kind of private princedom, nay the possession thereof an epitome of the whole world, may well deserve by these attributes, according to the degree of the master, to be delightfully adorned. ”

“ Or, speaking a little wider of the mark, the charming, rambling, low-gabled, many-staired, much-panelled mansion I speak of, would be a most delectable home for any person of taste who prefers an old house to a new. ”

“ I know one or two old mansions that have been converted into farm-houses, and their rear-guard of timber hewn down and sold. There is a broken-hearted look about them that reminds one of a carriage-horse degraded to go in a cart. It feels its degradation, loses flesh, gloss, and spirit.
I was one day walking with an old friend whom fate doomed to live abroad all his life, but whose heart was ever in his native land. We were strolling near an old mansion, in its park, when he stopped, looked at it, and said, "Ye gentlemen of England, that dwell at home at ease—and in what ease! ”

“ My home is desolate. Come under my roof and make it bright once more,—share my life with me,—or I shall give the halls of the old mansion to the bats and the owls, and wander forth alone without a hope or a friend! ”

“ As we approached the majestic facade, the moon, pirouetting with the clouds, suddenly lighted the mansion with a pale and fickle radiance. We paused for a moment under the lofty, silent trees, gazing at the house. ”

“ THE HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS.
The stately mansion riseth beneath the builder’s hand,
When our children sleep in dust that mansion still may stand;
But a nobler and more lasting dwelling to the saints is given,
In a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heaven.
The poor in spirit and the meek, the merciful and pure,
On them the Saviour blessings breathed, for ever to endure;
Those persecuted for His sake, from friends or kindred driven,
Share a house not made with hands, eternal in the Heaven. ”

“ But faces show something besides weariness,—'like father, like son,' you know. If your looks are to be trusted, there's an old mansion about a quarter of a mile farther on, whose door ought to open to you of its own accord—if it can open at all. ”

“ There is something dignified and solemn in the very bricks of the mansion, wearing as they do a more regular and sombre hue of red than the dusty-looking things of the present day; and when you once get into the spacious rooms, all floored and pannelled with oak, you feel a glow of veneration for olden times—though not for those times—that you cannot define, but which is nevertheless excessively pleasing. ”

“ The old mansion, with its tall smoky chimneys and projecting turrets, gleamed cheerily in the red sunlight that streamed down the long shady avenue, where myriads of gad-flies wheeled and revolved in the golden beams as they pierced and shot through the thickening foliage—thickening and expanding under the warm showers and warmer sun of April, the balmy month of fresh leaves and opening flowers, of fleecy clouds and bright blue skies. ”

“ It was a dismal home for youth, certainly, that great gaunt red-brick mansion, with its wide, ghastly oaken staircase, where in the twilight it would seem more natural to meet some phantasmal lady in a brocaded sacque, or some withered gentleman in powder and velvet, with silk stockings rolled over his knees, than to encounter any modem flesh-and-blood creature. ”

“ And while thro' this field of temptation I range,
Oh, break thou its charms and its snares.
And soon may I reach that blest mansion afar,
Where the toils of this journey are o'er;
Where the pale rising moon, and the mild evening star
Shall shed their weak lustre no more. ”

“ The mansion of her birth stood upon the seashore, the sound of the rushing waters was like the lullaby of her infancy, and the rugged rocks were associated in her ideas with those around her own loved home in England. Delighted that she had found a spot congenial to her feelings, her husband caused the building which you saw to be erected, and, adopting it as another home, she became tranquil and happy, lived beloved and respected and reared a family of children, some of whose descendants still reside upon the same spot. ”

“ As the little company came, one by one, to the mansions which were prepared for them, and their Guide beckoned to the happy inhabitant to enter in and take possession, there was a soft murmur of joy, half wonder and half recognition; as if the new and immortal dwelling were crowned with the beauty of surprise, lovelier and nobler than all the dreams of it had been ”

“ This spacious and once magnificent family residence was built by a grandee of the race early in the past century, at which epoch, land being of small comparative value, the garden and other grounds had formed quite an extensive domain. Although a portion of the ancestral heritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosure in the rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken heart might lie all day upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring boughs, and forget that a city had grown up around him. ”

“ One of the fairest pictures in the “chambers of mine imagery” is that of a large old-fashioned mansion, seated in the midst of a garden “too trim for nature, and too rude for art,” where a long avenue of cherry trees threw a pleasant shade across the lawn, while a rude swing, suspended between two of these sturdy old denizens of the soil, afforded a cool and delightful lounge to the studious and imaginative child. ”

“ The mansion, encompassed by a tuft of trees that flung their broad and ancient limbs above its roof, was of the best class of private dwellings, old and stately in its aspect, and exhibiting all the appendages that characterized the seat of a wealthy proprietor. ”

“ Too often, the rustic mansion, that should speak of decent poverty and seclusion, peaceful and comfortable, wears the most repulsive air of town confinement and squalid indigence; the house being built of substantial stone, three storeys high, or even four, the roof of massy slate ”

“ Not one of those gorgeous scenes, however, had moved me as I was moved when once again I beheld my boyhood's home—the stately mansion of my fathers. Half hidden, it rose majestically amid the noble elms that surrounded it; there lay the velvet-green sloping lawn in front—down which, as a boy, I had rolled in the summer and sledded in the winter—there the wild, night-dark ravine in the rear—fit haunt for elves and gnomes—that terminated amid jagged rocks and tangled trees, in a rushing, roaring brook of no mean dimensions, almost as large as many of the so-called rivers of the mother country. ”

“ Over the tumble-down gate-way, with a pigsty on one side and a dog-kennel on the other, hangs a coat of arms. The mansion--a square house with a steep shingle roof--stands, according to the unromantic custom of the country, with one side looking on to the farm-yard; and the drawing-room windows open exactly over an enormous dung heap which a party of women are in the very act of turning with pitch-forks, under the superintendence of a short stout man in a weather-beaten hunting-hat and shooting-coat with padded silk sleeves out of which the wadding is peeping at a hundred holes. ”

“ Sunshine was let into the long-closed rooms—the moldering curtains and carpets were replaced—an air of joy and luxury was given to the desolate mansion—only one room was left untouched and unseen save by the hand and eye of the master. ”

“ The low voice in which every one spoke when they met, the stealthy pace with which every one moved about the mansion, the stillness which pervaded the whole place, expressed the sense of awe that was felt by every bosom, and had something awful in itself. ”

“ So solitary also is the valley in which the mansion lies and so shut in with thick clustering trees, that one unacquainted with the locality might pass within fifty yards of it over and over again without observing a trace of it. When, however, we do discover the beautiful old structure, we are well repaid for what trouble we may have encountered. ”

“ The grand old mansion that he built and lived in has been a goodly residence in its day. Despite its somewhat faded majesty, there is an air of dignity about the ancestral abode that is not without its influence upon the visitor. It is a house that accords well with the style of its former lords; you see that it is worthy of the Badgers. The grounds about its solitary stateliness are like those of the 'old English gentlemen.' The mansion stands well in from the road ”

“ The Streets being so narrow, the rooms are all exceeding Dark, and never so humble a mansion but has half a dozen families living in it. In the Handsomest even all Ranks and Conditions are Mingled together pellmell. ”

“ Occasionally, in some obscure corner of the city, we come upon a rambling old mansion of quaint, picturesque architecture, once the home of refinement and wealth, where the great ones of the country lived in a state of ease, luxury, and almost feudal splendour. It is occupied now by hosts of coloured folk; swarms of black babies crowd the verandahs or climb and tumble about the steps and passages, while the dilapidated balconies are filled with lines of clothes to dry ”

“ This is a mansion, with its porches and porticoes and surrounding lawns and groves, which seems meet for a poet’s home; it stands in spacious and secluded grounds, shadowed by mighty oaks, and with that woodland character which birds and squirrels and rabbits, darting in the checkered sunshine, must always give. It is the home of culture and refinement, too, and as full of beauty within as without. ”

“ By those untravelled Dalesmen. With less pride,
Yet free from touch of envious discontent,
They saw a Mansion at his bidding rise,
Like a bright star, amid the lowly band
Of their rude Homesteads. Here the Warrior dwelt,
And in that Mansion Children of his own,
Or Kindred, gathered round him. As a Tree
That falls and disappears, the House is gone;
And, through improvidence, or want of love
For ancient worth and honourable things,
The spear and shield are vanished, which the Knight
Huns in his rustic Hall. ”

“ The mansion house, built with great taste and care by a planter who was never to occupy it, crowns a gentle slope; while in front is a native grove, or forest, of as weird-like and enchanting beauty as can well be found on this rounded earth. ”