Me

“ When we speak of the ego, do we mean the self of to-day, or of yesterday, or of some years back—or possibly some years in the future when we shall have found the expression now unhappily denied us? Do we mean the self of boyhood, or even of babyhood? or do we mean that of maturity, or of old age? Do we mean the self indicated by the mind alone, or by the spirit, apart from the body? ”

“ He stood and gazed, then, with his arms folded on his chest, while the people walking to and fro passed and repassed him, and many a one commented as they went, and assigned him a history and a character from their own imagination. How seldom is it, in the busy world with which we mingle, that any of the conjectures regarding our thoughts, our feelings, our state of existence, are correct! ”

“ This allusion to Guy, unpleasant and shocking as it was, gave me a peculiar sensation that was not unlike that of relief, while at the same moment the glimpse of something, which I was fain to call a revelation, visited my mind and led me impetuously to say:
"I hope you are not thinking of sacrificing yourself for another less noble and less generous than yourself. ”

“ Day by day her beauty grew beneath my brush, startling me often with its spiritual force and significance till my mind grew feverish over its work, and I could scarcely refrain from rising at night to give a touch here or there to the floating golden hair or the piercing, tender eyes turned, ah, ever turned upon the inmost citadel of my heart with that look that slew my father before his time and made me, yes me, old in spirit even in the ardent years of my first manhood. ”

“ Sometimes the impassioned interest with which I am inspired by a conversation in which we have spoken of some great and noble question that relates to the moral existence of man, his destiny, his end, his duties and his affections; sometimes this interest elevates me above my strength, makes me discover in nature, in my own heart, bold truths, expressions full of life, that solitary reflection would not have given birth to. I then believe myself acted upon by a supernatural enthusiasm, and feel that what is speaking within me is greater than myself. ”

“ Oh, speak to my heart, and clear out from it everything that is not of Thee, and let me abide with Thee awhile! Not only speak, but make me understand, and turn my body and spirit and soul into feelings and actions, not words and thoughts alone. ”

“ When we look closely and deeply at the world about us,—whether at this ordered world of nature, moving steadily in its unbroken and majestic course, or at the external aspect of grandeur and loveliness, or at the drama in which all men are actors, as it is disclosed to insight and sympathy, or at the inner world of each one's personal experience,—do we not find ourselves in the perpetual presence of Goodness, Order, Beauty, Love? ”

“ Their persons, features, look, gait, gesture, familiar to our thoughts, vividly engraven. They address themselves to every one of us personally, in tones that thrill and chill, or that convulse us with merriment—and all for pleasure! They ask our sympathy, but they task it not. ”

“ Then I, thinking on these words, and, as it were, ashamed of myself, departed from them, and went, saying to myself, 'Since there is such bliss in those words which praise my lady, why has my speech been of other things?' And I proposed to take always for my subject, henceforward, the praise of this most gentle lady. And thinking much on this, I seemed to myself to have taken too lofty a subject for my power, so that I did not dare to begin. ”

“ Some sympathetic converse with our fellow-creatures: some converse that shall not be mere dead words, but the vehicle of living thoughts and feelings—converse in which the eyes and the face shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of meaning—converse which shall make us feel no longer alone, but shall draw us closer to another, and double our own emotions by adding another's to them. ”

“ And yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my life." ”

“ You have revealed me to myself. You have seen through me and explained me to myself!” ”

“ My affection is fascinated, or, I would rather say, won, by the most remarkable combination of beauty, grace, talent, gentleness, and utter unconsciousness of it all, that it has ever been my hap to meet with. And, instead of being hoodwinked, my judgment, my power of judging, seem newly roused and awakened by having so very fine a subject on which to exercise themselves. ”

“ I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. ”

“ In my efforts to free myself from the pressure of the too gloomy and powerful, which continued to rule within me, and seemed to me sometimes as strength, sometimes as weakness, I was thoroughly assisted by that open, social, stirring manner of life, which attracted me more and more, to which I accustomed myself, and which I at last learned to enjoy with perfect freedom. ”

“ Was I the same when I got up this morning? But if I'm not the same, the next question is, 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!" ”

“ The more I think about myself, the more—I say it in all modesty—the subject seems to grow. I should call myself many-sided, and in many respects unlike ordinary men. Take, for instance, the question of taste. ”

“ ‘Excuse me,’ returned I, ‘these people, however fallen, are still men, and that is a very good title to my affections. ”

“ In their company we have forgotten momentarily the anxieties, the ambitions, the frivolities that dazzle and distract us, that move in glittering, bewildering profusion on the surface of our lives, that belong to time and space. In such moments of heightened consciousness we are in harmony with ourselves, we see ourselves as a part of that pattern that Pater spoke of, the pattern whose threads pass out on either side of us. ”

“ Therefore we regard our craving with complacence, we feel the great aching of the Want, and we say, with conviction, “I know I exist, I know I am I, because I feel the divine discontent which is personal to me, and eternal, and present always in me.” ”

“ in fine, I bid him look into the lives of men, as though into a mirror, and from others to take an example for himself. ”

“ I go about in the world—free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to think of myself. ”

“ He feels as if he was removed to another planet. The language, the dress, the manners, every thing he beholds, dazzles and confounds him: till at length reflection and judgment resume their influence, and experience makes the contrast familiar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A chearful countenance infuses a sensible complacency and serenity into my mind; as an angry or sorrowful one throws a sudden damp upon me. Hatred, resentment, esteem, love, courage, mirth and melancholy; all these passions I feel more from communication than from my own natural temper and disposition. ”

“ But even now I am perhaps not speaking from myself, but from some Character in whose soul I now live. ”

“ I belong to myself. No one says, 'What's the matter?' 'Where are you going?' 'What makes you grave—or gay?' I sit and chat with my 'odd-fish.' I go to all kinds of meetings and discuss all kinds of 'isms, and have no tag-tail constantly asking 'Why?' 'Why?' or 'Tell me!' It's the little things that grind. ”

“ My heart was open as the Heaven to every human creature. The whole universe had nothing but delight, except when sometimes I thought, with a regretful sullenness, that you were destined to the busy scenes in which I longed to mingle, and I to a cloister's gloom, and the separation of a hard vow from all my fellow men. ”

“ When I listen to you, and hear in the tones of your voice more even than in your words that you are my friend, that you really care for me, that it will be a real joy to you to see me rise above myself, I feel that I can live and strive and be something more than a galvanized corpse. ”

“ The world seemed to me finer because you were in it, and goodness more real because you lived. ”

“ Mary. But then, if we ought to forget ourselves so much, how did the old Greek proverb 'Know thyself' come to be so highly esteemed?
L. My dear, it is the proverb of proverbs; Apollo's proverb, and the sun's;—but do you think you can know yourself by looking into yourself? Never. You can know what you are, only by looking out of yourself. Measure your own powers with those of others; compare your own interests with those of others; try to understand what you appear to them, as well as what they appear to you; and judge of yourselves, in all things, relatively and subordinately ”

“ "If you know you are yourself, you know that you are not somebody else; but do you know that you are yourself? ”

“ The presence of the beloved one always shortens time; but this hour passed amid peculiar reflections. I repeated to myself the good qualities which she had just unfolded so freely before me—her circumspect cheerfulness, her naïveté combined with self-consciousness, her hilarity with foresight—qualities which seem incompatible, but which nevertheless were found together in her, and gave a pleasing character to her outward appearance. ”

“ They met with cold words, and yet colder looks:
Each was changed in himself, and yet each thought
The other only changed, himself the same. ”

“ If you were in the same position of life as myself, I might come to you fearlessly, and ask, not for your hand at once, perhaps, but for your plighted faith, until such time as I could offer you a home of your own. ”

“ Where do you come from, O man, and where do you keep yourself, that we know not your features nor hear your voice? Have you wife or mother who awaits your return? Or children who set your torch in the corner and climb to your lap and embrace your neck? ”

“ He remembered that she was pretty, and, more, that she had a special grace in the intimacy of life. She had the secret of individuality which excites—and escapes. ”

“ Many of your amusements wouldn't appeal to me at all. But I understand all you say about the claims of the temperament, and, do you know, I believe I have got a temperament, too! I'm certain I'm dying to be amused. ”

“ I would give all I possess to get out of myself; but somehow, at the end, I find myself so vastly more interesting than nine tenths of the people I meet. ”

“ They tell me I am here to realize I know not what social end; but I feel that I, like each one of my fellows, am here to realize myself, to live. ”

“ I know myself now, and I feel within me A peace above all earthly dignities, A still and quiet conscience. ”

“ I am going to take the world into my confidence, and say, if I can, what I think and feel about the little bit of experience which I call my life, which seems to me such a strange and often so bewildering a thing. ”

“ "God, of Thy Goodness, give me Thyself;—only in Thee I have all"
IN this same time our Lord shewed me a spiritual [1] sight of His homely loving. ”

“ Some may have seen friends passing by, who gave them looks of sympathy or pity, and possibly more than one knew himself under eyes whose expression told of a feeling stronger than either of these—love itself. ”

“ You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since,—on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. ”