Noble mind

“ Those who visited him to stare at, or pity a fellow-creature so afflicted, remained, attached by his gentleness, his patience, his wonderful unselfishness. And some few, of noble mind, saw in him the grandest and most religious spectacle that men can look upon—a human soul which has not suffered itself to be conquered by adversity. ”

“ You have had many distinguished men here, and their themes have often been noble, but with which of those themes has not my art immemorial and perpetual associations? Is it not for ever identified with the noblest instincts and occupations of the human mind? ”

“ A more optimistic idea, however, is that noble thoughts lead to noble acts. Therefore, keep in your mind the kind of thoughts that you wish to see actualized in your character and the appropriate acts will follow of their own accord. ”

“ There was only one thought in her mind, to preserve Elsie from his anger—the worst had come to her now. Her present agony was too great for dread—the shame of the world—the most loathsome prison—nothing could bring such pangs as this wrenching away of hope and happiness.
She sat upright on the ground, folding her hands in her lap. Weaker women would have fainted, perhaps gone mad, but when the first dizzy whirl had left her senses, she could see and think clearly. ”

“ Full against it, an iceberg rises from the ocean, after the figure of a thunderhead, and of the color of a newly-blown rose of Damascus—a gorgeous spectacle. The waters have that dark violet, with a silvery surface, lucent like the face of a mirror, and a complexion in the deeps reminding one of the soft, dusky hues of a Claude Lorraine glass. The painter is busy with his colors, and all are silently opening mind and heart to the universal beauty. We move on over the lovely sea with a quiet gracefulness, in harmony with the visible scene and with our emotions. ”

“ Like cumulous clouds, icebergs are perpetually mimicking the human face. This fine crystal creature, by a change in our position, becomes a gigantic bust of poet or philosopher, leaning back and gazing with a fixed placidity into the skies. In the brilliant noon, portions of it glisten like a glassy waterfall. The cold, dead white, the subtle greens, the blues, shadows of the softest slate, all contrast with the flashing brightness in a way most exquisite to behold. True to all the forms of nature that swell to the sublime, an iceberg grows upon the mind astonishingly. ”

“ Mellen sat watching her while she greeted Mr. Rhodes, and listened patiently to his labored compliments.
"Is she stone—ice?" he thought. "Is there no touch of nature about her that she can be so calm?"
If the man could have read her mind, he might have pitied her even in the midst of his anger and fearful doubts. What she suffered in putting that terrible restraint upon herself was almost beyond the power of belief; but woman-like, having formed her resolution, not all the tortures of the rack could have driven her from it. ”

“ Helen often said to her father, when—as was his way—Mr. Cardross would get fits of uncertainty and downheartedness, and think he was killing his pupil with study, or wearying him, and risking his health by letting him do as much as his energetic mind, always dominant over the frail body, prompted him to do. "Only let him love his life, and put as much in it as he can, be it long or short, and then it will never be a sad life or a life thrown away." ”

“ Cardross said,
"There is one worse doubt which has occurred to me. Do you think, Dr. Hamilton, that the mind is as imperfect as the body? In short, is it not likely that the poor child may turn out to be an idiot?"
"I do not know; and it will be almost impossible to judge for months yet."
"But, idiot or not," cried Mr. Menteith—a regular old Tory, who clung with true conservative veneration to the noble race which he, his father, and grandfather had served faithfully for a century and more —-"idiot or not, the boy is undoubtedly Earl of Cairnforth." ”

“ I'll have no more confidences with her, that's certain. It is like breaking one's heart up in little pieces. I don't want to keep secrets, but forget them; and I will, too, in spite of her. She shan't make me eternally miserable with her pining and remorse."
Elsie paused before a mirror as these thoughts rose in her mind and half broke from her lips. She was threading out her curls and trying the effect as they floated, like golden thistledown, over the roses of her cheek. ”

“ If the bracelet had been given to a needy person for any reason, it would undoubtedly find its way to the hands of some pawnbroker—that was his thought. He reproached himself for indulging it—he called himself unworthy the love of any woman while he could harbor such suspicions, but they would not pass out of his mind—the treachery which had wrecked his youth had sown the seeds of suspicion too deeply in his soul to be easily eradicated. ”

“ But the distance between twenty and sixty—the life beginning and the life advancing toward its close— was frequently apparent; also between an active, original mind, requiring humanity for its study, and one whose whole bent was among the dry bones of ancient learning—the difference, in short, between learning and knowledge—the mere student and the man who only uses study as a means to the perfecting of his whole nature, his complete existence as a human being. ”

“ Where one’s mind’s eye is perpetually looking down in upon the poor remains of his late departed dinner, there is no possibility for the outer eye to sink into any true and honest slumber. The shut lid is a falsehood. It is not sleep. The live, wakeful eye is under it, looking up against the skinny veil. Occasionally the veil is lifted just to let the dark out; occasionally the dumb blackness falls in upon the retina like a stifling dust, and dims it, for a moment, to a doze. ”

“ In other words, if it is determined that the child shall be a male, every non-sexual organ and part of his body must be so differentiated and modified as to make a man of him, in both mind and body. On the other hand, if the child is to be a female, all of her non-sexual organs and parts must be so differentiated and modified as to make a woman of her, with all of the qualities, characteristics and traits that belong to woman.
Intellect, memory, will-power, force and motion—creative force—are necessary to convert a sexless embryo body into a male or female child. ”

“ But now his mind was disturbed and restless; he sat by the fireside, listening to the fierce wind that went howling round and round the Castle, as the wind can howl along the sometimes placid shores of Loch Beg.
"I hope they have reached the Manse in safety. Let me know, Malcolm, when the carriage returns. I will go to bed then. I wish they would have remained here; but the minister never will stay; he dislikes sleeping a single night from under his own roof. Is he not a good man, cousin—one of a thousand?" ”

“ Very soon the earl gathered round him, besides acquaintances, a knot of real friends, affectionate and true, who, in the charm of his cultivated mind, and the simplicity of his good heart, found ample amends for every thing that nature had denied him, the loss of which he bore so cheerfully and uncomplainingly. ”

“ Was it that she was conscious of deserving nothing more, or did the hungry yearning of her heart seize on this sweet aliment with thankfulness after the famine of her recent life?
He saw the tears spring into her eyes, and drew her closer to his side.
"Be careful of her for my sake, Elizabeth. She was given me in solemn charge at my mother's death-bed. She has been the sweetest solace of my barren life. Let no harm come near her—no evil thing taint the mind which I leave in your hands pure as snow. ”

“ Whatever thoughts lay hidden in that boy's mind—he was only ten years old, remember—they were certainly not thoughts of melancholy or despair. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and "the back is fitted to the burden," are phrases so common that we almost smile to repeat them or believe in them, and yet they are true. Any one whose enjoyments have been narrowed down by long sickness may prove their truth by recollecting how at last even the desire for impossible pleasures passes away. ”

“ Her son went off to his bed, fairly worn out with pleasurable excitement, and she staid with Lord Cairnforth, as he seemed to wish, for another half hour. They sat by the library fire, listening to the rain beating and the wind howling—not continuously, but coming and going in frantic blasts, which seemed like the voices of living creatures borne on its wings.
"Do you mind, Helen, it was just such a night as this when Mr. Menteith died, before I went to Edinburg? The sort of wind that, they say, is always sent to call away souls. ”

“ It is the nature of the noble and the good and the wise that they impart to us of their nobility and their goodness and their wisdom while they live, making it natural for us to breathe the air they breathe and giving us confidence in our own untested powers. ”

“ It was daily dinned into my cars that the little things of life were the noblest, and that all the great people I mooned about said the same. I usually retorted to the effect that I was well aware that it was noble, and that I could write as good an essay on it as any philosopher. It was all very well for great people to point out the greatness of the little, empty, humdrum life. ”

“ It is the human nobility and greatness that is the end, and that 'craves,' as the noble who is found wanting in it tells us, 'a noble cunning.' It is no single instrumentality that makes the apparatus of this culture and cure. ”

“ I thank you, but at the same time I congratulate you; for it is a trait in the nobleness in our human nature to be able thus to snatch ourselves from the vulgar pre-occupations of life, to contemplate the truth on those serene heights where it reveals itself to all who seek it with an upright heart. Cease not to love these noble studies, which touch upon all that is most exalted and most precious in us! ”

“ As to the world, I hope that I shall be endued by Heaven with that presence of mind, that serene dignity in misfortune, that constitutes the character of a true nobleman; a dignity far beyond that of coronets; a nobility arising from the just principles of philosophy, refined and exalted by those of christianity. ”

“ But that day when the philosopher, or the discoverer, or the great artist will be King, when there will be no recognised nobility but the nobility of the mind, is still far away. Perhaps it will never come. ”

“ One cannot be noble, he had come to perceive, at large; one must be noble to an end. To make human life, collectively and in detail, a thing more comprehensive, more beautiful, more generous and coherent than it is to-day seemed to him the fundamental intention of all nobility. ”

“ A noble ambition seems to linger in his soul and transfigure his countenance until we see the light of joy and nobleness shining there. What a contrast the dejected look of those who travel the paths of ease and self-indulgence affords! ”

“ Is there anything, after all, so grand as a pure and unsullied life—a fair picture, with no ugly shadows lurking in the background—a smooth poem, with no crooked, halting line to mar the verse—a noble book, with no unholy page—a simple story, such as our children may read? Can any greatness be greater? can any nobility be more truly noble? ”

“ The lesson of this book—of every book of biography or of history—is that men are noble and useful in proportion as they are true to that law of an enlightened conscience which represents to them the will and the voice of God. ”

“ COULD it have been the Soul of Man and none higher that gave spoken and written word to the noblest precepts of human nature? For the deeper you sound it the more noble it seems, in spite of all the wrong, injustice, sin, sorrow, pain, religion, atheism, and cynics in the world. ”

“ In that one maxim is concentrated whatever is noble in morality, sublime in religion, or unanswerable in truth. In that pursuit we have all scope for whatever is excellent in our hearts, and none for the petty passions which our nature is heir to. Thus engaged, whatever be our errors, there will be nobility, not weakness, in our remorse; whatever our failure, virtue, not selfishness, in our regret; and, in success, vanity itself will become holy and triumph eternal. ”

“ And is this a vulgar or degrading employment for a refined and intellectual being? to dwell upon the noblest theme which human intellect has ever grasped, to look onward from the perishable things of time to the full development of the eternal principles of truth and love? to forget the sufferings of frail humanity, and to live by faith amongst the ransomed spirits of the blest, in the presence of angels, and before the Saviour, ascribing honour, and glory, dominion, and power, to Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever? ”

“ What are the necessary characteristics of a truly noble soul? What are the chief obstacles that stand in the way of this extraordinary guidance of the spirit? And finally, is it possible in our day, and is it worth the trouble, to strive after this goal? ”

“ Come, now, and let us gently reason with the unjust, who is not intentionally in error. “Sweet sir,” we will say to him, “what think you of things esteemed noble and ignoble? Is not the noble that which subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man? and the ignoble that which subjects the man to the beast?” ”

“ A noble soul spreads even over a face in which the architectonic beauty is wanting an irresistible grace, and often even triumphs over the natural disfavor. All the movements which proceed from a noble soul are easy, sweet, and yet animated. ”

“ But can we, with all our boasted advantages of wealth, power, and knowledge, truly say that all our aims are as high, all our desires as pure, our words as true, and our deeds as noble, as those whose opinions we feel this tendency to contemn? ”

“ Let us praise the mechanism of the body to the utmost; let it be granted that the height and force of our intellect bespeaks a glorious intelligence; still our distinctive excellence and preeminence lies in moral and spiritual perfection.
There are those who think and speak as if manhood consisted in birth or titles, or in extent of power and authority. They are satisfied if they can only reckon among their ancestors some of the great and illustrious, or if noble blood but flow in their veins. ”