Midden

“ In like manner, the walls, which have sheltered soldiers, statesmen, preachers, teachers, workers in art and letters, illustrious men and women of all sorts and conditions, will take on the personality of these impressive presences. When we stand beneath the roof of that favorite personage in history, that spoiled child of romance, who happens to be dear to each one of us, we are brought into touch with him as with a living fellow-creature. ”

“ Like a spring issuing from an elevated spot and diffusing its waters, according to the height, from ledge to ledge, until it finally reaches the low ground, so does the tendency of mind or of soul in a people, due to race, epoch, or environment, diffuse itself in different proportions, and by regular descent, over the different series of facts which compose its civilization. ”

“ They saw, in vision, that a little nucleus here in the mountains would arise, and that the mountain of the Lord's house would be established above the hills, and that all nations should flock to the standard, as doves to their windows. ”

“ And if a person were to go from the lower to the middle region, would he not imagine that he is going up; and he who is standing in the middle and sees whence he has come, would imagine that he is already in the upper region, if he has never seen the true upper world? ”

“ And so, through a brilliant circle of equally holy acts, the beauty of which we have only briefly hinted at, the cradle and the grave, however far asunder they may chance to be, are bound in one continuous circle. ”

“ For the first, indeed, and most proximate circle is that which every one describes about his own mind as a centre, in which circle the body, and whatever is assumed for the sake of the body, are comprehended. ”

“ The first, most important, and most general conception is that of the division of the heaven into four quarters, which all of us that are capable of a general idea at all know as east, west, south, and north. ”

“ A hemisphere may divide the East and the West of this great city; but these are human beings as you are a human being, they are your brothers and your sisters. Consider for a moment this natural law of yours. ”

“ Distinguishing root and branch, the heart is the root of Heaven and the appearance, the revolution of the sun and moon, the order of the stars, is the branch. The books of the sages teach us to conform to the heart of Heaven and deal not with appearances. ”

“ Every place, like a bit of tapestry, has its right side and its wrong side; and both are true and real,—the wrong side with its rags and tags, and seams and knots, and thrums of worsted, and the right side with its pretty picture. ”

“ The sudden change from the soft, low, and comparatively tame, to the bold, stern, and high, serves admirably to show how much the character of a landscape may depend on the formation which composes it. ”

“ Already this square, unbeautiful room with its green-covered benches has altered in character. The greatest forces of the world, the greatest beauty of the world, have penetrated it through these interpretations of a master. ”

“ Well, then, if the palingenistic aspects of the successive transformations of the spiritualized globe have struck, stirred, roused you, then, my dear sir, the 'Globe' newspaper,—noble name which proclaims its mission,—the 'Globe' is an organ, a guide, who will explain to you with the coming of each day the conditions under which this vast political and moral change will be effected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ As the centre of a circle is not the point which shows the distance of one part from another but really that focus from which proceed the countless lines comprised within and constituting the complete circuit so the Lord is the centre as well as the circumference of the full circle of life. The Lord in His sanctified Self is present in the inner soul, aye, seated in the very heart of every created being. ”

“ There is the centrifugal, the irresponsible, the Ionian or Asiatic, tendency; flying from the centre, working with little forethought straight before it in the development of every thought and fancy; throwing itself forth in endless play of undirected imagination; delighting in colour and brightness, moral or physical; in beautiful material, in changeful form everywhere, in poetry, in music, in architecture and its subordinate crafts, in philosophy itself. ”

“ A beginning must be made somewhere, and corner by corner, department by department, space by space, all will be known and conquered. In the end, all must be explored, and whether one begin in the east or the west cannot matter much. ”

“ We used to be told in the nursery that if a man were to bore a hole through the centre of the earth and climb continually down and down, there would come a moment at the centre when he would seem to be climbing up and up. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The world revolves the portion of a circle; yet why that circle of a sun-centre, or that wider circle within which both suns and earths revolve, or what the centre which controls the entire system of immensity may be, he dares not affirm. Our lives are miracles, yet we are habituated to them, and name them chance. ”

“ The vast level, stretching thirty miles from east to west, thirty from north to south:—perhaps the reader may think little of its resources for the seeker after natural beauty, or its capacity to develope the imagination. ”

“ Now all these suns and stars, it is reasonable to believe, most probably have a centre. There must be order among them; and they most probably move round one thing, one place, one central sun, as it were, which is the very heart of all the worlds, and the whole universe. ”

“ In any circle, the nearer the points of the circumference are to the centre, the closer they will necessarily be to one another. As we draw nearer, each for himself, to our Centre, we shall feel that we have approximated to all those who stand round the same centre, and draw from it the same life. ”

“ A little gray about the temples, a tendency—growing upon him, alas!—to raise his hand to his ear when called upon to listen, show that he has already passed the meridian of life; but in his quick glance, and clear and rapid speech, youth still lingers, making of him a companion delightful to many and admirable to all. ”

“ Why need I travel to seek a site, and consult the points of the compass? My eyes are south windows, and out of these I command a southern prospect. The eye does the least drudgery of any of the senses. ”

“ The whole length of this land in sight was the very symbol of distortion. Pendent from an even line that stretches along the heavens was a ridge of mountains. 'Life hangs upon a little thread,' but what think you of mountains hanging upon a thread? ”

“ A very commonplace scene, indeed. But what scene was ever commonplace in the descending sunlight, when colour has awakened from its noonday sleep, and the long shadows awe us like a disclosed presence? ”

“ Outward in every direction reaches the broad earth, a crowded pageantry of color and form and sound and stir. Just at the center, the meeting point of all these energies, stands a man, thinking, feeling, willing. Upon him as a focus converge all rays of influence from the inclosing world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whereupon, lifting your eyes from the river, you would have seen the answer to your question—masses of men mounted and unmounted, who moved, or halted, or stood like an animal with a thousand legs controlled by one mind. ”

“ He replied, Hearken. Those twelve nations which possess the whole world, are twelve people.
164 And as thou hast beheld these mountains different, so are they. I will therefore open to thee the meaning and actions of every mountain.
165 But first, sir, said I, show me this; Seeing these mountains are so different, how have they agreed in the building of this tower; and been brought to one colour; and are no less bright than those that came out of the deep? ”

“ The heaven bendeth and inclineth toward the centre, but the earth goeth from the centre, whiles the world with continuall volubilitie and turning about it, driveth the huge and excessive globe thereof into the forme of a round ball. ”

“ At those dim barriers all real advance is inexorably stayed; into the recesses beyond them no secular lantern has ever peered; while even our most authoritative, our most convinced guides, can at best assure us as to its geography with hesitating, and often curiously conflicting voices. ”

“ To the North its hundred branches.
Whosoe'er a branch has taken,
Has obtained eternal welfare;
Who secures himself a tree-top,
He has gained the master magic;
Who the foliage has gathered,
Has delight that never ceases. ”

“ Our thoughts are instantly carried away by it to the regions of poetry; the soft influence of the ideal descends like dew upon our fancy; we are elevated above the region of the passions to heights where all is sunny and calm and pure. ”

“ In that old-fashioned reading class of District Number Three.
III.
We took a hand at History—its altars, spires and flames—
And uniformly mispronounced the most important names;
We wandered through Biography, and gave our fancy play,
And with some subjects fell in love—“good only for one day;”
In Romance and Philosophy we settled many a point,
And made what poems we assailed to creak at every joint;
And many authors that we love, you with me will agree,
Were first time introduced to us in District Number Three. ”

“ He told us another day that views are really crowds—crowds of trees and houses and hills—and are bound to resemble each other, like human crowds—and that the power they have over us is sometimes supernatural, for the same reason. ”

“ And in favour of the view that some such huge collection of sensibles is the upper side of the half-crown, is the fact that we do seem to have a strong propensity to believe that any particular sensible, which we directly apprehend in looking at the upper side of the half-crown, and of our direct apprehension of which the upper side is the source, is in the place in which the upper side is. ”

“ Those on the outside elbow their way to the middle. Those in the middle try to keep them out. The passers-by wonder what it's all about and stop to see. They in turn try to make their way to the middle. Many are disappointed and pass on. ”

“ This is the region of the science of religion, the region of the paradox, where the inconceivable is as certain as the inevitable ; where loss is not failure, but success, where, like Columbus, we sail west, confident of finding there our orient. ”

“ Reaching the summit, they proceed outside, and, standing on the back of heaven, its revolution carries them round, and they behold that supercelestial region which no poet here can ever sing of as it deserves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For that which is heavy has one place, and that which is middle another, and the light another. To one belongs the superior, to the other the inferior, and to the third the middle. Now in every spherical figure the inferior part is the middle ”

“ Conversation of French circles seems to me like gambols of a thistledown, or the rainbow changes in soap-bubbles. One laughs with tears in one’s eyes. One moment confounded with the absolute childhood of the simplicity, in the next one is a little afraid of the keen edge of the shrewdness. ”

“ There is a lack of harmony between oneself and the ground. You rock—the ground stands still; you stand still—the ground rocks, like an angry sergeant.
The senior major was on the corner, holding an animated conversation with a beautifully gowned young lady, to whom he bid a hasty adieu as Reggy hove in sight. ”