Pomposity

“ Diplomatic frankness is a part of that elaborate and complicated system of self-control and coolness together with a mastery of all the outward expressions of different affections and passions, which notable diplomats have sought to achieve. It would not take an expert to advise against pomposity. Callières counsels, “Be genial. Avoid the sober, cold air. An air of mystery is not useful.” ”

“ It is part of the ambition of the male Corean to look wise, no matter whether he is or not as a matter of fact. And to assume the coveted air of wisdom what more is necessary than to put on a huge pair of round spectacles of Chinese origin with smoked glasses enclosed in a frame of gold or tortoiseshell, and with clasps over the ears? Oh how wise he looks! He does indeed! And you should see his pomposity as he rides his humble donkey through the streets of Seoul. ”

“ He made so imposing a figure in his new dress, and assumed such an air of pomposity, that it was no wonder the uninitiated should have been deceived, and have taken him for a lion of the very first nobility; nor can we be surprised that a poor cur, almost in a state of nudity, should, in the most abject manner, supplicate a trifle from "His Lordship;" that an ignorant cat, in passing, should take off his cap and make a profound bow; or a kitten, just behind, cross its paws as though it stood in the presence of a superior. ”

“ I think that the pomp itself, the lord and the lackeys, the fine house, and all her state struck as it were cold at my heart, dooming to failure the mad appeal which they could not smother. But there was more; for all these might have been, and yet not reached or infected her soul. But when I spoke to her in words that had for me a sweetness so potent as to win me from all hesitation and make as nothing the whole world beside, she did not understand. ”

“ The glare of pomp and pleasure is analogous to the motion of the blood; it absorbs all their affection and attention, they are torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their home as to a place of exile and condemnation. ”

“ Is bitterness and sorrow in its sum so small and scant a thing? Do we here breathe so divine an air that we should fear to face the passage of our breath? What have we here but hope and memory? What see we here but shadows? ”

“ Upon one such little step in the great staircase of human life how vast a sum of human happiness or misery depends! I thought of myself, then of Pompey, and then of the mysterious and inexplicable destiny which surrounded us. I thought of Pompey!—alas, I thought of love! ”

“ Pleasures of the heart cause anxiety, bitterness, rendings, and fears.
Pleasures of the mind produce a void, vanity, jealousy, coldness, and humiliations! Teach me that all must pass away ... that nothing is true, nothing is good, nothing is eternal, but Thou, Thou only, O my God! ”

“ I'll never more despair; Who could, with such sweet comforting as yours? How, like the voice that stilled the tempest air, Your mild philosophy its reasoning pours. Go you and build a temple to the skies, and make Your soul an alter-offering on the pile; Then, from its lightning-riven ruin, take Your crushed and bleeding self, and calmly smile. When loud, and fierce, and wild, a storm sweeps o'er your rest, Say that it soothes you—brings you peace again; Laugh while the hot steel quivers in your breast, And "make believe" you love the scorching pain. ”

“ I ask, "Holds earth or sin, or woe?"
My heart replies, "I do not know."
Nay! all we know, or feel, my heart,
Today is joy undimmed, complete;
In tears or pain we have no part;
The act of breathing is so sweet,
We care no higher joy to name. ”

“ Listen now to those consequences that spring from the attributes of Goodness, Passion, and Darkness. Contentment, the satisfaction that arises from joy, certainty, intelligence, and memory,—these are the consequences born of the attribute of Goodness. I shall now mention the consequences of Passion and Darkness. Desire, wrath, error, cupidity, stupefaction, fear, and fatigue, belong to the attribute of Passion. Cheerlessness, grief, discontent, vanity, pride, and wickedness, all belong to Darkness. ”

“ Passion flickered, waned, and, on a pause of doubt and misgiving, tenderness dawned—tenderness, pity, remorse, regret, a growing horror and anguish, a growing knowledge of Heaven forfeited, of Hell made sure, a crescent terror, and dismay unspeakable, and under it all tenderness deepening, deepening, deepening, like a flood pressing against a barrier that it must at last break down. ”

“ Thus comes the blush of love, the inspiration of song, and acting, the fire and energy of speech and oratory, the flames of lust and passion, the brutal vigor of the athlete and pugilist, the blaze of anger, and the sudden and awful courage and ferocity of those who, at other times, are poltroons and errant cowards. ”

“ Each laborious step which galls his wounded feet in rough and untrodden paths pours a drop of balm into his troubled soul, and the journey of many a weary day brings a nightly relief to his anguished heart. Will you dare call this enthusiasm, ye crowd of pompous declaimers? Enthusiasm! O God! thou seest my tears. Thou hast allotted us our portion of misery: must we also have brethren to persecute us, to deprive us of our consolation, of our trust in thee, and in thy love and mercy? ”

“ Stealing, rising, swelling, gathering, as it thrilled the ear, all the delights of harmony in a grand minor cadence that told of deliverance from bondage and homage to God for his wonderful aid, sweeping the awed heart with an ecstasy that was almost pain; breathing, hovering, soaring, they held the vast multitude in speechless wonder. ”

“ A shriek, a cry, a wail, a sob, a prayer—it came now unrestrained—hysteria was loosed in a mad ungovernable orgasm—men clutched at each other and cowered, hiding their faces with their hands—women dropped to their knees and, sobbing, screaming, prayed. Loud it rose, the turmoil of human souls aghast and quailing before a manifestation that seemed to fling them face to face, uncovered, naked, before the awful power and majesty and might of Heaven itself. ”

“ The coming and going of phantom forms, the tramping of many feet, a great marching to and fro, the sound of laughter and the noise of weeping, a mixing and mingling of gaiety and grief, of poverty and pomp, of sunshine and shadow, of life and death. But everywhere things seem topsy turvy. ”

“ Then, with a thousand sorrows forgotten in one hour,
In thy pure eyes and at thy feet I find at last my goal;
And life and hope and joy seem but a faint prevision
Of the flower that is thy body and the flame that is thy soul. ”

“ More pleasing seems than all the past hath been,
And every form, that Fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.
What potent spirit guides the raptured eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity ?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour ?
Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man—
Her dim horizon bounded to a span ”

“ Still slowly pass'd the melancholy day,
And still the stranger wist not where to stray,—
The world was sad! — the garden was a wild!—
And Man, the hermit, sigh'd—till Woman smil'd!
True! the sad power to generous hearts may bring
Delirious anguish on his fiery wing!
Barr'd from delight by Fate's untimely hand,
By wealthless lot, or pitiless command;
Or doom''d to gaze on beauties that adorn
The smile of triumph or the frown of scorn ”

“ How through thy fascinating arts
We discount Hope, O gracious wine!
And passing rich the poor man feels
As through his veins thy affluence steals.
Now, prithee, make us frisk and sing,
And plot full many a naughty plot
With damsels fair—nor shall we care
Whether school keeps or not!
And whilst thy charms hold out to burn
We shall not deign to go to bed,
But we shall paint creation red;
So, fill, sweet wine, this friend of mine,—
My lawyer friend, as aforesaid.
TO POMPEIUS VARUS
Pompey, what fortune gives you back
To the friends and the gods who love you? ”

“ Like the close of an Angel’s Psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life. ”

“ Shall bless with joy their own propitious clime !—
Come, Heavenly Powers ! primeval peace restore !
Love !—Mercy !—Wisdom !—rule for evermore!"
Part II.
In joyous youth, what soul hath never known
Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own?
Who hath not paused while Beauty's pensive eye
Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh?
Who hath not own'd, with rapture-smitten frame,
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
There be, perhaps, who barren hearts avow,
Cold as the rocks on Torneo's hoary brow ”

“ In their touching pathos we seem to hear the sob of natural sorrow for the loved and lost, “the fall of kisses on unanswering clay,” the throbbings of the human heart in the hour of its deepest emotion, when the parting pang unseals the founts of feeling in the soul. ”

“ By all our joys and griefs unmoved—
To think with soften'd breast and weep!
Oh! well such moments can repay,
For lingering hours of darker thought,
When hope has bent ‘neath sorrow's sway,
And feeling is with anguish fraught. ”

“ I guess that I'm done for, old chappie!
Done, whether she loves me or not,—
But don't look so deuced unhappy,—
Y'know it was I fired the shot.
Thanks, awfully. Give me the whiskey,—
There's a horrible pain in my head;
It's queer that my nerves should be frisky
When my heart is as heavy as lead.
I'm worthless; I own it! ”

“ How many very wantonly pleasant sports spring from the most decent and modest language of the works on love? Pleasure itself seeks to be heightened with pain; it is much sweeter when it smarts and has the skin rippled. The courtesan Flora said she never lay with Pompey but that she made him wear the prints of her teeth.— [Plutarch, Life of Pompey, c. i.] ”

“ The poet-artist in her that had struggled so long for the light was being born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance, for when the body is sick and the soul torn with suffering is temperament's own time. ”

“ Standing there in the full glare of the gas that shone down on his innocent, boyish face, he seemed to be singing from very love of it, so simply and easily, as if the truth and dignified beauty of the words were filling his soul and insisting on utterance. “In the days of thy youth, when the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh.” ”

“ I feel my strength decay,
The ties that bound my soul so fast
Melt like a dream away."
She sang to cheer his pensive mood
A deep and tuneful strain,
The changeless bliss of heaven how pure,
And earthly joys how vain. ”

“ Yet shriek'd, alas! in vain,
When heart from heart is rending
Ne'er to be join'd again.
Shall we behold, unheeding,
Life's holiest feelings crush'd?—
When woman's heart is bleeding,
Shall woman's voice be hush'd? ”

“ Why delude myself with phantoms? I will try to slay the muttering passions, to drive away the fits of ambition which rise to my brain; and perhaps by dint of subduing all that is rebellious in me, I shall come to follow piously the line marked out by my superiors. I will watch patiently amidst my flock, by the corner of my fire, among the Fathers and my weariness. ”

“ A sweet recoil of love and pity.
And what, if in a world of sin
(O sorrow and shame should this be true!)
Such giddiness of heart and brain
Comes seldom save from rage and pain,
So talks as it's most used to do. ”

“ Others portray the grief of the sorely anxious soul amid festivities, whose tumult is unable to drown the profound woe of the heart. Others, again, show the tears, premonitions and struggles of a broken heart, devoured by jealousy, sorrowing over its loss, but repressing the curse. ”

“ A whole atmosphere of consecrated suffering seems to float round these spots sacred to sorrow, the sorrow that humbly appeals, as it best knows how, to the love, wide enough to embrace and comfort all desolate, and yearning, and heavy-laden souls. ”

“ What harm could befall one so delicately constituted that the first rough shock of distress or calamity would, in all probability, snap the frail link between body and spirit and set free the immortal soul of joy? ”

“ It is impossible for me to express the several gestures, the strange ecstasies, the variety of postures, which these poor delivered people ran into, to express the joy of their souls at so unexpected a deliverance; grief and fear are easily described; sighs, tears, groans, and a very few motions of head and hands, make up the sum of its variety: but an excess of joy, a surprise of joy, has a thousand extravagances in it ”

“ Where'er the power of Ridicule displays
Her quaint-eyed visage, some incongruous form,
Some stubborn dissonance of things combined,
Strikes on her quick perception: whether Pomp,
Or Praise, or Beauty be dragg'd in and shewn
Where sordid fashions, where ignoble deeds,
Where foul Deformity is wont to dwell;
Or whether these with shrewd and wayward spite 520
Invade resplendent Pomp's imperious mien,
The charms of Beauty, or the boast of Praise.
Ask we for what fair end the Almighty Sire
In mortal bosoms stirs this gay contempt,
These grateful pangs of laughter ”

“ Present to grasp, and future still to find, The whole employ of body and of mind. All spread their charms, but charm not all alike; On different senses different objects strike; Hence different passions more or less inflame, As strong or weak, the organs of the frame; And hence once master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. As man, perhaps, the moment of his breath Receives the lurking principle of death ”

“ These sudden alternatives of joy and sadness, divine transports and grand melancholies, exquisite tenderness and womanly depressions, depict the poet, extreme in emotions, ceaselessly troubled with grief or merriment, feeling the slightest shock, more strong, more dainty in enjoyment and suffering than other men, capable of more intense and sweeter dreams, within whom is stirred an imaginary world of graceful or terrible beings, all impassioned like their author. ”