Potter

“ THE POTTER
Once a potter was journeying on his road with his goods and dozed off. The Tsar Iván Vasílgevich came driving by in his carriage and said, "Peace be to you!"
The potter looked up and said, "I thank you very much and wish you the same."
"Have you been asleep?"
"Yes, my lord. Do not fear a man who sings songs; but fear a man who slumbers!"
"You are a bold fellow, potter: I have seen very few such, and I like them. Coachman, slower! Potter, tell me, have you been long at your trade?" ”

“ Therefore, in less than an hour, he would know all, since the day was dying down quickly; smothered in a hot haze-like smoke. There was not a shadow anywhere; only a dull darkness growing momentarily as the dull darkness had grown upon her mind day by day. For all that she had the power; the potter might mould the clay, the palace folk might plot and plan, but she, the woman with the evil eye, was stronger than they! ”

“ Well, this is the course for us to take, to be like clay in the hands of the potter. Who is the potter? God our Father is the great potter, the head potter, and brother Brigham is one of His servants, to preside over this pottery here in the flesh; and his word is the word of God to this people, and to those that he has called to assist him in this great work. ”

“ The child dying of the potter's thumb-mark in the dust--that other in loving arms with the ice chilling even death's cold touch--George with the bullet piercing the friendship in his heart--Rose with her pure wisdom fearless and unashamed--these and many another remembrance seemed to blend sorrow and joy into peace, even as the moon-mist blent the world around him into vague beauty. ”

“ Lighter than it had been, however, because of the suggestion of a moon low down in the heat-haze. And there was the potter's lamp twinkling like a star above the domed shadow of the Hodinuggur mound. Queer old chap--queer start the whole thing--if one came to think of it. A crazy, irresponsible creator! as Dan had called him. Why not he as well as another? ”

“ Is not the power of the potter admirable in forming, out of tempered clay, such varieties of neat and curious vessels, that, after they are fashioned and past the furnace, look as if they were not of any kin to the matter they are formed of? ”

“ Nay, it is as if the clay should be in such a heat and passion with the potter as to tell him that he has no hands, or that he works as awkwardly as if he had none. "Shall the clay pretend to be wiser than the potter and therefore to advise him, or mightier than the potter and therefore to control him?" ”

“ O potter’s field, did I call you bare?
No garden on earth can be more fair!
For deathless love has a deathless bloom,
And the lily of faithfulness a flower,
And they grow beside each lowly tomb,
And balm it with fragrance every hour;
And with God, who forgiveth till seven times seven,
A potter’s field may be gate of heaven.
[201]
UNEXHAUSTED.
ARE all the songs sung, all the music played?
Are the keys quite worn out, and soundless quite,
Which since sweet fancy’s dawning day have made
Perpetual melody for man’s delight,
And charmed the dull day and the heavy night? ”

“ He made His voice to sound, and the deities came into being, and the gods sprang into existence after He had spoken with His mouth. He formed mankind and fashioned the gods. He is the great Master, the primeval Potter Who turned men and gods out of His hands, and He formed men and gods upon a potter's table.
"The heavens rest upon His head, and the earth supporteth His feet; heaven hideth His spirit, the earth hideth His form, and the underworld shutteth up the mystery of Him within it. ”

“ The spirits of the Saints will be gathered in one, that is, of all who are worthy; and those who are not just will be left where they will be scourged, tormented, and afflicted, until they can bring their spirits into subjection and be like clay in the hands of the potter, that the potter may have power to mould and fashion them into any kind of vessel, as he is directed by the Master Potter. ”

“ The modern potter is, if less patient, more fortunate in that the course has been marked out with more or less accuracy and, if the landmarks of science be heeded, a certain degree of success may be attained. ”

“ We should be like the clay in the hands of the potter. Bless your souls, that is just as true a figure as can be presented before a people, if they ever saw a potter work; but if they never saw one work, they do not know what course he takes, any more than a person knows about a mill that never saw one. ”

“ Then the king reflected: "Good heavens! I was taken in by this potter who seemed a prince. Let a cuffing be administered."
When this had been done, the potter said: "Your Majesty, do not treat me thus, but witness my adroitness in battle." "No, my friend," said the king, "you may be a treasure-house of all the virtues. Yet you must begone. You may have heard the stanza:
Handsome you are, and valorous;
You have a scholar's brain:
But in your family, my boy,
No elephants are slain."
"How was that?" asked the potter. ”

“ The aptitude of the potter’s clay for a display of skill, alike in modelling and in tracing on the surface imitative designs and ornamental patterns, renders the fictile ware of widely different eras a ready test of æsthetic feeling, as well as a trustworthy guide to the age and race of its artificers. ”

“ As the clay is in the potter's hand to be moulded and shaped as he pleases, so are you in my hand. This intimates, 1. That God has an incontestable sovereignty over us, is not debtor to us, may dispose of us as he thinks fit, and is not accountable to us, and that it would be as absurd for us to dispute this as for the clay to quarrel with the potter. 2. That it is a very easy thing with God to make what use he pleases of us and what changes he pleases with us, and that we cannot resist him. ”

“ There was an excellent old potter in France who used to put frogs and vipers into his dishes, to the admiration of mankind; we can surely put something nicer than that. Little by little, some higher art and imagination may manifest themselves among us; and feeble rays of science may dawn for us. Botany, though too dull to dispute the existence of flowers; and history, though too simple to question the nativity of men;—nay—even perhaps an uncalculating and uncovetous wisdom, as of rude Magi, presenting, at such nativity, gifts of gold and frankincense. ”

“ One knows well enough what antiquity has said of this shameful passion, and what the moderns have repeated. Hesiod is the first classic author who speaks of it.
"The potter is envious of the potter, the artisan of the artisan, the poor man even of the poor man, the musician of the musician (or if one would give another sense to the word Aoidos) the poet of the poet." ”

“ The short of the story is this, that you three men have been born under one asterism, one conjunction, and in one moment. You took birth in a king’s house; the second was an oilman’s (child) ; the third, the devotee, was born in a potter’s house. You still govern here, while the oilman’s son was the ruler of the infernal regions; but that potter, bringing his religious meditations to thorough perfection, has killed the oilman, turned him into a demon in a burning-ground and placed him hanging head-downwards on a siris-tree, and is intent on killing you. If you escape him, you will rule. ”

“ Clad in his own clothes, the prince was walking along one day when he saw a potter crying and laughing alternately with his wife and children. "O fool," said he, "what is the matter? If you laugh, why do you weep? If you weep, why do you laugh?"
"Do not bother me," said the potter. "What does it matter to you?"
"Pardon me," said the prince, "but I should like to know the reason."
"The reason is this, then," said the potter. "The king of this country has a daughter whom he is obliged to marry every day, because all her husbands die the first night of their stay with her. ”

“ His craft was not beyond that of a very clever potter, capable of kneading clay beings in the manner of pots, such as we men are now. What I say is not to slight him, because such work is still much beyond human power. ”

“ Yet some people who have it not are happy; for instance, the two hundred and odd millions of India--but then to them Birth and Death are alike the pivot on which the wheel of life spins.
So thought the potter of Hodinuggur. So had thought his fathers who lay buried in the dust beside him, and though the old man had no son to step on to the treadles when his feet slipped from them, the wheel span steadily, and the women of the village, as they rung the temper of the water-jars before they bought them, nodded their heads saying--'Fuzl is a good potter. Look you, it comes with a man's birth. ”

“ The story he left behind him, of his own struggles and sufferings in seeking and finding the arts of the potter, has been intensified by his admirers; they have added to its intrinsic interest by telling of his patience, his endurance, his suffering, and his final success—that which can be imparted by the glow of admiring souls, who see in him a hero such as they would themselves wish to be, but are not. ”

“ If man is relatively to God as an earthen vase, this vase owes neither thanks nor adoration to the potter who gave him so insignificant a form. If this power is displeased with his own vessel because he formed it badly, or because it is not fit for the uses he intended, the potter, if he is not an [Pg 109] irrational being, can only blame himself for the defects which appear. ”

“ Indeed, paradoxical as it may sound to say so, one may reasonably doubt whether there was ever actually any one single man on whom one could definitely lay one's finger, and say with confidence, Here we have the first potter. Pottery, no doubt, like most other things, grew by imperceptible degrees from wholly vague and rudimentary beginnings. ”

“ Why don't you write an ode or a sonnet or something, about pottering? It's the most glorious thing in the world. And this man is going to pay me to potter while he lays bricks. Noble, splendid creature! ”

“ And as the potter knows the use of every vessel he fashions, so the Lord knows the body of His creature, unto what point it will be steadfast in the good, and at what point it will fall into evil ways. ”

“ The potter addresses himself with energy to his task, and is no longer limited either to the imitative work of the Han dynasty, or to the more restrained, often delicate performances of the intervening age. ”

“ If we are only as the potter's clay Made to be fashioned as the artist wills, And broken into shards if we offend The eye of Him who made us, it is well; ”

“ That man or woman who will not learn the principle of subjection, and become like clay in the hands of the potter, will be led astray by these spirits; and if not by these spirits, something will come by and by with more power. ”

“ The vessel that is framed, and the potter that frames it, differ only in life: the body of the potter, whereby he executes his authority, is of no better a mould than the clay, the matter of his vessel. ”

“ The finger which first touches the brush first suffers; and the potter, who has in the course of his trade to dip his ware in a preparation of lead and flints in order to form the glaze, is in like manner, but still more severely, afflicted. ”

“ And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel. ”

“ It made me think of the way God evolved this beautiful world out of chaos at first. There is this difference, that the potter uses mechanical power, and he uses his hands, whereas God uses only His word and will. ”

“ Having reached the potter’s earth, he plants his heel upon it and turning successively to the East, South, and North, repeats the magic word “Syos” to each of those cardinal points. Turning to the East again, he utters a short prayer beginning, “Force eternal, innumerable power, true presence of things, I suppliantly beg your clemency.” Then with a trowel with a white handle he cuts the earth about his heel, and digs up enough of it for his purpose, repeating the while a “Te Deum” and “Gloria in excelsis.” ”

“ Life here, at Hodinuggur, was so simple, so confusing in its simplicity. To live and to die. Was that all?
He spent the remainder of the evening in writing to Mrs. Boynton, putting his heart into reserved, half-jesting hints at his own puzzles. And as he wrote, the potter, standing at the door of his hut, was listening to a murmur coming from the darkness within. ”

“ So does the potter sitting at his work and turning his wheel round with his feet, who is always painstaking with his task; and all his work is done by number. He moulds the clay with his arm, and his feet. [Literal translation of the Greek text written by a Hebrew and evidently colored by his own idiom.]
Οὕτω κεραμεὺς καθήμενος ἐν ἔργῳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ συστρέφων ἐν ποσὶν αὐτοῦ τροχόν, ὃς ἐν μερίμνῃ κεῖται διὰ παντὸς ἐπὶ τὸ ἔργον αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐναρίθμιος πᾶσα ἡ ἐργασία αὐτοῦ. ”

“ That the potter should be angry with his pots is certainly inconceivable; but when you once attempt to trace the supernatural in life, it undoubtedly follows that God is not only weak with the creatures he has made, but punishes the innocent for the guilty. ”

“ They’re jest like so many pots in a furnace—yer know I’ve been a potter in my time—almighty thin and almighty big; and when they’re sot up the heat makes ’em smoke a little, and then they collapse and tumble in, and they aint no whar. ”

“ Huzoor. The child dies because it does not drink milk properly; yet is it the potter's thumb in the beginning. Lo! many are born so in this place. The doctor-sahib who put the tikka on the arms for smallpox said Hodinuggur was too old for birth--that it was a graveyard. I know not. Only this is true; many are born with this; many die of it.'
'Die of the potter's thumb--what potter?'
Her broad face broadened still more into a smile. 'The Huzoor doth not understand! Lo! when the potter works on the clay, his hand slips sometimes in the moulding. ”

“ They had their way marked out before them, and if the Lord would not walk in that path they would not have anything to do with Him, and their conduct proved it. When men say: "O Lord, we are the clay, you are the potter! ”