Return

“ The return, the salvation, for which humanity looks, is the return of the little individual self to harmony and union with the great Self of the universe, but by no means its extinction or abandonment—rather the finding of its own true nature as never before. ”

“ And yet a little while, yet a few days of this fictitious liberty, and they will begin to hear imperious voices calling on them to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, will set its hand upon their shoulder and lead them back into the old paths. Once and again we have all made the experiment. ”

“ And whosoever taketh spoil, one day he shall be spoiled of the same. Every traveller, wheresoe’er he wander and however far, returneth; Excepting only the pathway of death, from which there is no return. ”

“ No return is required, and no condition made, save that you undertake to convince yourself, beyond the possibility of a doubt, and before proceeding to extremities, that no flicker of life survives to it. ”

“ We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return,—prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again,—if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man; then you are ready for a walk. ”

“ In my ‘Farewell and Return’ I suppose a young man to take leave of his native place, and to exchange farewells with his friends and acquaintance there—in short, with as many characters as I have fancied I could manage. ”

“ And, therefore, the Beginning, because unless It remained, there would not, where we strayed, be whither to return. But when we return from error, it is by knowing that we return. But that we may know, He teacheth us, because He is the Beginning and speaketh unto us. ”

“ Is anything human final, except one's twenty-ninth birthday? I choose it to be final for the present, and 'the subject then dropped,' as the papers say about debates in Congress. Let us have done now with this troublesome verb altogether, and conjugate our return to Oxford instead. ”

“ To return to nature is, in one sense, to find a new expression for emotions which have been repressed by existing conventions; or, in another, to return to some simpler social order which had not yet suffered from those conventions. ”

“ Only Wednesday came a letter from him: 'Return,' it pleaded. 'The business is most prosperous. A part is yours. Say good-by to this life of wandering, and return.'”
Still another sigh—almost a groan—from the little man. ”

“ To return after long years of painful absence to some place which has been the scene of our former joys, and whence the force of circumstance, and not choice, has driven us, is oppressive to the heart. ”

“ Two commands God gave in the beginning and is always giving to his creatures. He bids them go forth and return, and the lives of all beings are divided between the two. The history of every man is but another version of the words, “He went forth and he returned.” ”

“ I will ask its return, because I value it as a morsel of genuine history, a thing so rare as to be always valuable. ”

“ If they won't do that, ask 'em their names and make a note of it. If they won't leave their names, ask 'em to return and if they won't return—well—if they won't return, I guess you'll have to let it go at that. ”

“ And He departed from our eyes, that we might return into our heart, and there find Him. ”

“ What you receive as the natural rebound from your mode of life will be like in quality and proportionate in amount to that which you express in effort, for the law of returns, like the law of gravitation, is always on duty. ”

“ The Things that never can come back, are several —
Childhood — some forms of Hope — the Dead —
Though Joys — like Men — may sometimes make a Journey —
And still abide —
We do not mourn for Traveler, or Sailor,
Their Routes are fair —
But think enlarged of all that they will tell us
Returning here —
"Here!" ”

“ Should a Traveller, returning from a far Country, bring us an Account of Men, entirely different from any we were ever acquainted with; Men, who were entirely divested of Avarice, Ambition, or Revenge ”

“ But again and again, from various sides, I returned to the same conclusion that I could not have come into the world without any cause or reason or meaning; ”

“ Obviously I faced the possibility of not returning when first I considered going. Once faced and settled there really wasn’t any good reason to refer to it again. ”

“ He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his absence. He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. ”

“ Whether the glad flames sport amid the long dry grass of last year, or the plough turn up a deep layer of the exhaustless soil, or flocks of prairie-chickens fly up from every little valley, images of life, joy, and plenty belong to the scene. The summer flowers are not more cheerful than the spring blaze, the spring blackness of richness, or the spring whirr and flutter. The sky is alive with the return of migratory birds, swinging back and forth, as if hesitating where to choose, where all is good. ”

“ Verdict which accumulates From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned, Prayers of saints that inly burned,— Saying, What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent; ”

“ and every duty which is bidden to wait, returns with seven fresh duties at its back. ”

“ Something like; 'Blessed be God for the messengers of Paradise.' 'Blessed be His Name for Paradise in the meat and in the drink.' 'Thanksgiving for the old offering.' 'Thanksgiving for the appearance of the old altar,' 'Praise for the joy of the ancient garden.' 'Praise for the return of those that have been long absent.' And all that sort of thing. It is nothing but madness."
"Depend upon it," said the lady from the Midlands, "there's no real harm in it. They're Dissenters; some new sect, I dare say. You know some Dissenters are very queer in their ways." ”

“ When we reflect on the departure of one, whose face and figure still dwell in the minds of many of us, it would be wise to remember, that we ourselves are making for the same point of our journey, the concluding scene of this short existence, the end of our probation. ”

“ If by the aid of the powers which you are said to possess you can find such an envelope as I describe with its enclosure, you will have deserved well of your country, and earned any reward which it lies in our power to bestow. ”

“ Moreover, entrance and exit, descent and ascent, are characteristics of bodies and not of spirits—that is to say, sensible realities enter and come forth, but intellectual subtleties and mental realities, such as intelligence, love, knowledge, imagination and thought, do not enter, nor come forth, nor descend, but rather they have direct connection. ”

“ The years would pass; the memory of this hour would grow faint—and she would share the material serenity of an unblemished life. She had no love and no faith for any one. To give her your thought, your belief, was like whispering your confession over the edge of the world. ”

“ Thus it happened that in Eustacia's brain were juxtaposed the strangest assortment of ideas, from old time and from new. There was no middle distance in her perspective: romantic recollections of sunny afternoons on an esplanade, with military bands, officers, and gallants around, stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon. Every bizarre effect that could result from the random intertwining of watering-place glitter with the grand solemnity of a heath, was to be found in her. Seeing nothing of human life now, she imagined all the more of what she had seen. ”

“ If you promise to go straight back to that country and bring some more I will release you. That you must promise, and also that when I have finished those you shall bring more, that I may never be without them again. ”

“ And then Olwen told her dream, though she thought it was not a dream.
She said she woke up in the deep darkness, and she knew the life was fast going from her. She could not move so much as a finger, she tried to cry out, but no sound came from her lips. She felt that in another instant the whole world would fall from her—her heart was full of agony. And as the last breath was passing her lips, she heard a very faint, sweet sound, like the tinkling of a silver bell. ”

“ To Yeobright any possibility of this sort was a serious matter; and he almost felt troubled at the thought of it. Every pulse of loverlike feeling which had not been stilled during Eustacia’s lifetime had gone into the grave with her. His passion for her had occurred too far on in his manhood to leave fuel enough on hand for another fire of that sort, as may happen with more boyish loves. Even supposing him capable of loving again, that love would be a plant of slow and laboured growth, and in the end only small and sickly, like an autumn-hatched bird. ”

“ The same old woods, the same sky, the same night, but across the arch of the sky to-night, of all nights that ever shone on this world of snow and wrong and regret and exile, there is written in letters of fire, leaping like the stars, the words, "Russia is free! Russia is free!" The chains of the people are broken, and God has come to rule. ”

“ If we could only note the first coming into the mind of a thought that changes life and re-forms character—supposing that every act and every new departure has this subtle beginning—we might be less the sport of circumstances than we seem to be. ”

“ Such a reverse in man’s life awakens a better principle than curiosity: I could not help looking for some time at him as I sat in the remise:—the more I look’d at him, his croix, and his basket, the stronger they wove themselves into my brain.—I got out of the remise, and went towards him. ”

“ To-morrow had come; the mysterious and lying to-morrow that lures men, disdainful of love and faith, on and on through the poignant futilities of life to the fitting reward of a grave. He counted the strokes, and gazing at the grate seemed to wait for more. Then, as if called out, left the room, walking firmly.
When outside he heard footsteps in the hall and stood still. A bolt was shot—then another. They were locking up—shutting out his desire and his deception from the indignant criticism of a world full of noble gifts for those who proclaim themselves without stain and without reproach. ”

“ Do we begin again in our new existence to learn much by experience, or have we full powers? My soul, whither wilt thou emigrate? Where wilt thou lodge the first night after leaving this body? Will an angel soothe thy fluttering, for sadly flurried wilt thou be in entering upon eternity? ”

“ All—but the certitude immaterial and precious—the certitude of love and faith. He believed the shadow of it had been with him as long as he could remember; that invisible presence had ruled his life. And now the shadow had appeared and faded he could not extinguish his longing for the truth of its substance. His desire of it was naive; it was masterful like the material aspirations that are the groundwork of existence, but, unlike these, it was unconquerable. It was the subtle despotism of an idea that suffers no rivals, that is lonely, inconsolable, and dangerous. ”

“ To come back home after every stage of life’s journeying with a wider horizon—more in sympathy with men and nature, knowing ever more of the righteous and [73] eternal laws which govern them, and of the righteous and loving will which is above all, and around all, and beneath all, this must be the end and aim of all of us, or we shall be wandering about blind-fold, and spending time and labor and journey-money on that which profiteth nothing. ”

“ For if a man felt that his work of the body or the mind was going to be too much for his strength, then there would come to him of a sudden a warm glow and a thrilling all over him and he felt as strong as a giant, and happier than he had ever been in his life before, so that lawyer and hedger each rejoiced in the task that was before him, as if it were sport and play. ”

“ But people like me, who are not artists, are never sure about people they don't know. So it was not until now, when it happened to my friends, when it was my dear Chris and my dear Margaret who sat thus englobed in peace as in a crystal sphere, that I knew it was the most significant, as it was the loveliest, attitude in the world. It means that the woman has gathered the soul of the man into her soul and is keeping it warm in love and peace so that his body can rest quiet for a little time. That is a great thing for a woman to do. ”

“ By a transition, ordinary even in allegory, and appropriate to mythic symbol, but especially significant in the present case—the transition, I mean, from the giver to the gift—the giver, in very truth, being the gift, 'whence the soul receives reason; and reason is her being,' says our Milton. Reason is from God, and God is reason, 'mens ipsissima'. ”

“ Is he turning—good God in heaven—yes, it’s true—he really is turning, all the time turning—now his broadside swings round towards us, now his stern—he has turned—he is departing. He has not seen us, he has not seen us! ”