Rebound

“ As the strength of stroke is increased the ball necessarily imbeds itself more firmly in the cushion, and the sudden rebound, together with the resistance from the rubber through indentation, throws it off with greater velocity and produces a more acute angle. ”

“ In seeking the answer it will be useful to ask ourselves another question. What should we have expected the drop to do? Well, to this I suppose most people would be inclined, arguing from analogy with a solid, to reply that it would be reasonable to expect the drop to flatten itself, and even very considerably flatten itself, and then, collecting itself together again, to rebound, perhaps as a column such as we have seen, but not to form this regular system of rays and arms and subordinate drops. ”

“ In Fig. 21 the end of this stage is reached, and now the arms continuing to come in, the liquid rises in the centre; this is, in fact, the beginning of the rebound of the drop from the plate. In the case before us the drops at the ends of the arms now break off (Fig. 25) , while the central mass rises in a column which just fails itself to break up into drops, and falls back into the middle of the circle of satellites which, it will be understood, may in some cases again be surrounded by a second circle of the still smaller and more numerous droplets that split off the ends of the rays in Fig. ”

“ So dawned the time of Sturm und Drang: storm and stress to-day rocks our little boat on the mad waters of the world-sea; there is within and without the sound of conflict, the burning of body and rending of soul; inspiration strives with doubt, and faith with vain questionings. The bright ideals of the past,—physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands,—all these in turn have waxed and waned, until even the last grows dim and overcast. ”

“ The hand of change rests on it all, unfelt, unseen; resting for awhile, as it were half reluctantly, before it grips and ends the thing for ever. One frost and the whole face of things will be bare, links snap, patience end, our fine foliage of pretences lie glowing in the mire. ”

“ A fall, and a rise—a rise that reverses the fall, a rise that transcends the glory from which he fell,—that is the Bible's notion of the history of the world, and I, for my part, believe it to be true, and feel it to be the one satisfactory explanation of what I see round about me and am conscious of within me. ”

“ Feb. 17.—I concur with my whole heart and soul in the desire for repose; and I fully believe that the gift of an interval of reflection is that which would be of all gifts the most precious to us all, which would restore the faculty of deliberation now almost lost in storms, and would afford the best hope both of the development of the soundest elements that are in motion amongst us, and of the mitigation or absorption of those which are more dangerous. ”

“ What if this moment of despair be but the beginning, or the fragment, of your whole life as this winning of the object that you now seek? Our theory maintains that, in fact, this is the case. That the fulfilment of the whole of a purpose may involve the defeat of a part of this very purpose, every experience of the beauty of tragedy, of the glory of courage, of the nobility of endurance, of the triumph over our own selves, empirically illustrates. ”

“ Each drop blends with that great wave of progress, the movement of the entire ocean of mind, which is commensurate with the magnitude of the mass to be moved. In due time, the final result of almighty love will be joyfully realized. ”

“ Upon all ordinary things, breakage comes as the climax of disaster; upon a select few, breakage comes as the climax of destiny. The fountain-pen that I hold in my hand—the pen with which, without so much as a change of nib, all my books have been written—will lie broken before me one of these days. ”

“ As we trace each one, back, step by step, through the genealogy of circumstances, we will see how logical has been the course of our joy and success, from sorrow and failure, and that what gives us most happiness to-day is inextricably connected with what once caused us sorrow. Many of the rivers of our greatest prosperity and growth have had their source and their trickling increase into volume among the dark, gloomy recesses of our failure. ”

“ After every storm, though the sky may be clearer, the earth upon which it fell has suffered some loss which is a loss for ever. Begin, then, by conciliation and forbearance. Look past the external, which may seem at times too exacting or imperative, and see only the true heart pulsing beneath—the true, brave heart, that would give to every muscle the strength of steel for your protection if danger threatened. Can you not be satisfied with knowing that you are loved—deeply, truly, tenderly? ”

“ But the change, though steadily and rapidly progressive, has nevertheless been gradual; and, like those who drift down the stream of a deep and smooth river, we are not aware of the progress we have made until we fix our eye on the now distant point from which we have been drifted. ”

“ The silent energy of the Divine purpose presses his fortunes onward with a motion slow and inevitable as that of a glacier. The steadfast flow circles unchecked round, or rises victorious over all hindrances. Efforts to ruin, to degrade, to kill—one and all fail. ”

“ To-day the scene is changed: a few stray waifs cling to the old spot and fossick out a living, lured ever by the hope that some day a good lead will be again struck and bygone glories and attendant prosperity again revived, and the hope is not all visionary. ”

“ Change, and the thing men call growth, was in the air. Perhaps in its own way revolution was in the air, the silent, the real revolution that grew with the growth of the towns. In the stirring, bustling town of Bidwell that quiet summer night something happened that startled men. ”

“ It is mournful to remember that we have seen this ploughing continue till the sun has touched the horizon and the night dews have begun to fall. Even then the long-suffering God has followed up his work—ploughing, ploughing, ploughing, ploughing, till darkness ended all. Do I address any aged ones whose lease must soon run out? ”

“ Surrender would at any time be made.
The precious ore has universal charms,
Enchains the will, or sets the world in arms!
THOUGH elegant your form, and smart your dress,
Your air, your language, ev'ry warmth express
Yet, if a banker, or a financier,
With handsome presents happen to appear,
At once is blessed the wealthy paramour,
While you a year may languish at the door. ”

“ That a constant, but almost imperceptible change is hourly taking place in the earth's surface, appears to be established; and independent of the extraordinary bouleversements, which have at intervals convulsed our globe, this gradual revolution has produced, and will produce again, a total alteration in the face of nature. ”

“ Apt to run Riot, and transgress the Goal:
And therefore I conclude, Whatever lies,
In Earth, or flits in Air, or fills the Skies,
All suffer Change; and we, that are of Soul
And Body mix'd, are Members of the whole. ”

“ Is it not indeed truly surprising to see this People, which, in the day of its greatest prosperity, and two centuries before its fall, had the fatal foreknowledge of that fall, affirm with the same certainty, now when its ruin is consummated, its approaching resurrection? ”

“ The study of expansion reveals to us the fact that expansion and contraction furnish the many elements of all human action, but that expansion is first, that expansion expresses joy, exhilaration, animation in life, and that contraction, aside from its co-ordination with expansion in causing control in intensity, expresses antagonism, hate, anger, pain. ”

“ Change rising above change—cycle growing out of cycle, in majestic progression—each new one ever widening, like the circles that wreathe from a spark of flame, enlarging as they ascend, finally to become lost in the empyrean! ”

“ So quickly does the curse of stagnation fall upon us. And in support of stagnation are always ranged the immense forces of Society, the prosperous, the well-to-do, the people who are content if to-morrow is exactly like to-day. ”

“ We are yet what we were when, for the first time, we awoke in this pool from the stunning consequences of our fall, and for the first time assembled here. Only one feeling still rules,—unanimity alone maintains her sway, and in this place only do all devote themselves to the same end. ”

“ When the year ended, and the world rolled on, none the worse for conflagration or deluge, green with the spring leafage and ripe with the works of man, dismay gave way to hope, mirth took the place of prayer, man regained their flown wits, and those who had so recklessly given away their wealth bethought themselves of taking legal measures for its recovery. ”

“ They threw themselves body and soul into the raging furnace. All minor distractions were burned out. Every self was fused and lost in one single molten flood, dashing madly against its barrier to whelm in rapturous victory or be broken in sore defeat. ”

“ On the morrow stood to challenge; in their strength
Renewed, indomitable; whereof they won,
From hourly wrestlings up to shut of lids,
Her ready secret: the abounding life
Returned for valiant labour: she and they
Defeated and victorious turn by turn;
By loss enriched, by overthrow restored.
Exchange of powers of this conflict came ”

“ The dawn of a new era must be plenarily accepted as a wonderful opportunity for reform. If viewed in any other spirit, the ix splendours of the morning will soon give way before the obstinate clouds hanging on the horizon. ”

“ And men fed upon them, and mighty they grew.
Ears giddy with custom that sound might not hear,
But it woke up the rest, like an earthquake near;
And that same night of the letter, some strange
Compulsion of soul brought a sense of change ”

“ The whole place became a sort of outward and visible sign of the New Life, New Era, which was opening out before him, and the old man at his side was nothing more than a relic, a piece of clinging wreckage. ”

“ The intervening period between fall and victory, between loss of innocency and gain of righteousness, is the period with which all human history is concerned: and there is often a corresponding period in the life-history of every fully developed individual, during which he gropes his way through darkness and longs for light. ”

“ Now, under the Restoration, the reaction set in, and the lower and earthly side of human nature—none the less human because it is at the bottom and not at the top—seemed determined to take its full revenge. ”

“ In this triumph, in this regeneration, each and all find their sufficient, nay more, their abundant reward, for much of what were otherwise but hard, dry drudgery—a drudgery performed in somewhat of the spirit in which the bravest or the most gifted performs what were else a menial office for a kinsman or a friend. ”

“ I wonder myself sometimes whether this old globe of ours is going to collapse suddenly and take us with her, or whether we will disappear through slow disastrous ages of fighting and crushing, with hunger and blight to help us to the end. ”

“ Take your stand by a stone and revile it; and what effect will you produce? If, then, a man listens like a stone, what profit is there to the reviler? But if the reviler has the weakness of the reviled as a point of vantage, then he does accomplish something. ”

“ We could not imagine, We had work enough trying to extricate the man before us, When the blow-out occurred, he was knocked senseless for a time, but then the black water and mud flowing in through the opening made by the outpouring air ran down over his face, and restored him to consciousness. ”

“ We feel this mystery whenever we watch how the moon grows from [Pg 155] a silver crescent into a radiant circle. A thing complete dulls an attention that looks on, whereas growth or the suggestion of growth has the stimulus of hope and faith. To culminate is to begin a decline. ”

“ It will be noted, in passing, that in this falling dream which is so familiar to you and me and all of us, we never strike bottom. To strike bottom would be destruction. Those of our arboreal ancestors who struck bottom died forthwith. ”

“ Time and change have done their worst. A few scattered ruins, seen dimly through the mist of years, are all that remain to point to the inquiring wanderer the site of the stupendous struggle of which the results are felt even after the expiration of eight hundred years. ”

“ Thus, in a moment, all my flattering expectations were at an end; and nothing remained from my interested conversion but the remembrance of having been made both a dupe and an apostate. It is easy to imagine what a sudden revolution was produced in my ideas, when every brilliant expectation of making a fortune terminated by seeing myself plunged in the completest misery. ”

“ Can there be progress which is not progression—which does not leave a past from which to start—on which to rest our foot when we spring forward? No wise man kicks the ladder from beneath him, or obliterates the traces of the road through which he has travelled, or pulls down the memorials he has built by the way side. ”

“ Each had marked out a particular line of destruction for himself to follow,—each one equally confident of achieving a mighty triumph in his way. The pathway of our life is strewn with the wrecks of fond hopes blighted and promises unfulfilled ”

“ So, in spite of strong wills and common-sense warning, we still, as ever, let our footsteps follow the alluring paths, and go boldly forth to meet a joy, ever careless of the following sorrow that may accompany it, until the hour of shunning is past. ”

“ The people bend their backs, and accept with a passive, ironic resignation.... "No need to borrow trouble." Ages and ages of misery have rolled over this stone, but in the end stones do wear down and become mud. ”

“ It is only at intervals that the clamour on the subject is loud and vehement. But it seems to us that, during the remissions, the feeling gathers strength, and that every successive burst is more violent than that which preceded it. ”