Sash

“ He at last opened his eyes.
"Little Sasha!" said he; "little Sasha will keep his word."
"Grandfather," exclaimed Sasha, "I have kept it."
"It's a man—a brave looking man," said Gregor; "but he has the voice of my boy Sasha; and he has, yes, I know he has, his hand upon my heart."
Sasha could no longer restrain himself.
"And the boy is a freeman, grandfather," he exclaimed; "we are all free: here is the baron's deed, which says so, with the seal of the empire upon it. Look, grandfather, look!—do you understand, you are free!" ”

“ THE LITTLE ANGEL I
At times Sashka wished to give up what is called living: to cease to wash every morning in cold water, on which thin sheets of ice floated about; to go no more to the grammar school, and there to have to listen to every one scolding him; no more to experience the pain in the small of his back and indeed over his whole body when his mother made him kneel in the corner all the evening. ”

“ His eyes unblinkingly regarded the little angel, and under his steadfast gaze it seemed to grow larger and brighter, and its wings to tremble with a noiseless trepidation, and all the surroundings—the timber-built, soot-stained wall, the dirty table, Sashka—everything became fused into one level grey mass without light or shade. It seemed to the broken man that he heard a pitying voice from the world of wonders, wherein once he had dwelt, and whence he had been cast out forever. ”

“ This, coming from Sasha; completely unnerved me. "You are a zealot," I cried; "you judge human quality by your criterion of one's value to the Cause, as the Christians do from the standpoint of the Church. That has been your attitude towards me since your release. The years of struggle and travail I suffered for my growth mean nothing to you, because you are bound in the confines of your creed. With all your talk of the movement, you thrust back the outstretched hand of a man who comes to learn about your ideals. ”

“ Sasha stood beside her and said, looking at the church:
“God lives in the church. Men have lamps and candles, but God has little green and red and blue lamps like little eyes. At night God walks about the church, and with Him the Holy Mother of God and Saint Nikolay, thud, thud, thud!... And the watchman is terrified, terrified! ”

“ Will you?"
"Yes, grandfather, yes!" exclaimed Sasha eagerly.
"Promise me that you will say nothing to any living person; that you will obey me and remember all I say to you while I live, and be none the less faithful to the purpose when I am dead!"
Sasha promised everything at once. After a moment's silence Gregor took his hand from the boy's breast, and said:
"Yes, you truly mean it. The people of old used to say that if any one broke a promise made before this stone, the black heathen god would have power over him."
"Perhaps the bear was the black god," suggested Sasha. ”

“ Sasha sprang to his feet, seized the bridle, and gasped, "The robbers! the robbers!"
"Who are you?—and what does this mean?" asked the baron in a stern voice.
But Sasha was too much in earnest to feel afraid of the great lord. "I am Sasha, the son of Ivan, the son of Gregor," he replied; and then related as rapidly as he could all that he had seen and heard.
The baron looked at his pistols.
"Ha!" he cried, "the caps have been taken off! You may have done me good service, boy. Wait here: it is not enough to escape the rascals; we must capture them!" ”

“ II. Alexandrina, commonly called Sasha, his grand-daughter, aged seventeen; fair-haired, pink-cheeked, and rosy-lipped, showing her teeth too much in a smile, otherwise quite pretty. Being light-haired, with that kind of smile and a sparkle or two of steel in her eyes, some readers may begin to imagine for themselves that she will prove of mediocre intellect and stupendous will. ”

“ Sasha and the other living members of his family were free, and his ancestors also would have been free if they had not been dead. With the parchment signed and sealed in his pocket he took a carriage and post-horses and travelled day and night until he reached his native village. No one knew the stranger in his rich merchant's dress; his father and brothers were at work, and his mother had gone to see a neighbour:—old Gregor was alone in the house. ”

“ I wonder why it is that Sâkai never sleep the whole night through like Christians. I suppose it is their animal nature, and that, like the beasts, they are most awake by night. You know how they lie about in the warm ashes of the fireplaces till they are black as sweeps, and then how they jabber. It is always a marvel to me what they find to yarn about. Even we white men run short of our stock of small-talk unless something happens to keep things going, or unless we have a beggar like you to jaw to us. ”

“ Bear thou, O Sesha, properly and well this Earth so unsteady with her mountains and forests, her seas and towns and retreats, so that she may be steady.'
"Sesha said, 'O divine Lord of all creatures, O bestower of boons, O lord of the Earth, lord of every created thing, lord of the universe, I will, even as thou sayest hold the Earth steady. Therefore, O lord of all creatures, place her on my head.'
"Brahman said, 'O best of snakes, go underneath the Earth. She will herself give thee a crevice to pass through. ”

“ While she was gone, the disciples returned and quickly offered food to their Lord.
But His reply astonished them. He said: "I have food to eat that you do not know of. My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work!"
While they had been away, wearied and hungry as He was, He had brought a sinful soul to realize her sin, and to find in Him her Saviour!
And then He said to them: "Are there not four months before the harvest? But lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. ”

“ Often indeed does my spirit rise at the recollection of them, and often do I again wish myself the leader of a band of gallant spirits, such as once obeyed me, to roam with them wherever my inclination or the hope of booty prompted.
But the time is past. Life, Sahib, is dear to every one ”

“ I shall declare what those faults are, O lord of Sachi! Do thou listen to me. The Sun, Wind, the bearer of sacrificial oblations, O Vasava, and kine who are the mothers of all creatures, were created by the Self-born himself, for rescuing all the worlds, O Sakra! These are the deities of human beings. Listen all of ye to the conclusions of religion. Those wicked men and wicked women who pass urine facing the sun, live in great infamy for six and eighty years. That man, O Sakra, who cherishes no reverence for the wind, gets children that fall away prematurely from the womb of his spouse. ”

“ Nut stretches forth her arms towards thee; Sahu, the son of Rā, and Nut, the mother of the gods, the two great gods of the sky, they speak one to another saying: Take him in thy arms; I have brought in my arms the form of N. in the happy day when he is glorified, when his memory is recorded, when he is in the mouth of all generations.
Thou, raised one, thou hearest how thou art glorified throughout all thy house. ”

“ If a human soul in a need extreme where the weltering surges roll
Entreats for a token of sympathy, the touch of a stancher soul,
Hasten, O hasten to give of thy strength! let not the poor sufferer wait,
For the sand burns white and the waves leap fierce, and to-morrow it may be too late,—
Thou shalt haply see in the morning sun an outworn shell at thy gate! ”

“ Since then by abstinence ye praise the Lord in timbrel, I beg that by unanimity ye praise Him in chorus. The Truth also in person says, Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another (Mark ix. 50) . What is denoted by salt but wisdom, as Paul attests, who says, Let your speech be alway in grace, seasoned with salt (Col. iv. 6) ? Since, then, we know that you have salt through the teaching of the heavenly word, it remains that through the grace of charity you keep with all your hearts peace between yourselves. ”

“ Again they pass the night at the house of one of Enan's friends, Rabbi Judah, a ripe old sage and hospitable, who welcomes them cordially, feeds them bountifully, gives them spiced dishes, wine of the grape and the pomegranate, and then tells stories and proverbs "from the books of the Arabs."
A man said to a sage, "Thou braggest of thy wisdom, but it came from me." "Yes," replied the sage, "and it forgot its way back."—Who is the worst of men? He who is good in his own esteem.—Said a king to a sage, "Sweet would be a king's reign if it lasted forever." ”

“ The feeling shewn in your treatise will be grateful, as salt, to the palate of the soul. As bread cannot be eaten, according to Job, without salt, so the discourse which is not savoured with the inmost sentiments of God’s word will never wake, and never move, desire. ”

“ JUDITH (consciously) . Thanks. (She gives him his tea.) Won't you help yourself?
RICHARD. Thanks. (He puts a piece of toast on his own plate; and she pours out tea for herself.)
JUDITH (observing that he tastes nothing) . Don't you like it? You are not eating anything.
RICHARD. Neither are you.
JUDITH (nervously) . I never care much for my tea. Please don't mind me.
RICHARD (Looking dreamily round) . I am thinking. It is all so strange to me. I can see the beauty and peace of this home: I think I have never been more at rest in my life than at this moment ”

“ Thou openest wide the aperture of thy mouth in order to eat. Thou findest that the maid who keeps the garden is fair. She does whatever thou wantest of her.... Thou art recognised, thou art brought to trial, and owest thy preservation to being a Mohar. Thy girdle of the finest stuff, thou payest it as the price of a bad rag. Thou sleepest every evening with a rug of fur over thee. Thou sleepest a deep sleep, for thou art weary. A thief takes thy bow and thy sword from thy side ”

“ If the least line of conscience could be traced between those eyebrows, an Evangelical might cherish some faint hope of finding her a sheep in wolf's clothing - for her frock is recklessly pretty - but as the cloud vanishes it leaves her frontal sinus as smoothly free from conviction of sin as a kitten's. ”

“ It was on this occasion she rebuked me. “Is the spark of life in Caste-Brother and outcast, in Chow dog and Pariah? Then why should I not care for these?”
“But you are a Hindu, Caste is your religion?”
“That is man’s invention; where man has not invented, let me hear the voice of God calling me to have compassion on a fellow life.” ”

“ The mem, its mother, had the like face and hair. I used to see her in the verandah over the river, and driving above the steps. There were many sahibs came and went to the house, after their fashion, and she smiled and spoke to them all. There was one of them--so young, he might have been a son almost--who came often; and she smiled on him, too, as he played, like a boy, with the child. He was one of the sahibs who have eyes; so, after a time, he would nod to me and say 'Râm! Râm!' with a laugh as he passed above me, sitting here in the shadow, selling my garlands. ”

“ Shade of Huw Morus, supposing your shade haunts the place which you loved so well when alive—a Saxon, one of the seed of the Coiling Serpent, has come to this place to pay that respect to true genius, the Dawn Duw, which he is ever ready to pay. ”

“ The Sahib had lived a pure, straightforward life, and he was almost indignant with Nature and the Fates for placing a man like him on the horns of such a dilemma; but Nature has her freaks—and her revenges. ”

“ We beseech God to deal with us according to His bounty, and not His justice, and to grant that we may be of those who have turned their faces unto their Lord and severed themselves from all else.
265 I have seen, O Sháh, in the path of God what eye hath not seen nor ear heard. Mine acquaintances have repudiated Me, and My pathways have been straitened. The fount of well-being hath run dry, and the bower of ease hath withered. How numerous the tribulations which have rained, and will soon rain, upon Me! ”

“ It is, in fact, the best pebble that he hurled from his sling against his bête noire; for the old "shay" which went to pieces all at once was a symbol of Calvinistic theology. That theology was called an iron chain of logic, every link so perfectly forged that it could not be broken at any point. Even so was the "shay" built, unbreakable in every single part; but when the deacon finds himself sprawling and dumfounded in the road beside the wrecked masterpiece the poet concludes:
End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say. ”

“ In the nineteenth year let the Salt give thanks for Thy Body.—O blessed Babe it is the soul—that is the salt of the Body, and Faith—the salt of the soul whereby it is preserved; blessed be Thy preservation!
R., Glory to Thy Epiphany, O God and Man!
24. In the twentieth year let temporal wealth with us give thanks,—which men that are perfect have cast off and abandoned—because of the “Woe”; and have gone and loved—poverty because of its beatitude ”

“ Our days of the week were named by the old Saxons, who worshipped idols—the sun, moon, stars, earth, etc., and to their god’s, perpetual honor gave to each day a name from some principal deity. Thus we are idolaters, daily, though unconsciously. ”

“ The soul, therefore, should endeavour to tame the tongue, and while endeavouring should pray for assistance; the tongue, too, should beg for the taming of the tongue,—He being the tamer who said to His disciples: “It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you.” ”

“ Saxe said! Has any man ever been so loved, do you think? For the sake of bestowing upon him that healing doubt, she let him go, she put off death, she spent her last night on earth not fifty yards from him, in the hut of a savage, that she might have, before dawn, the means of committing the unpardonable sin. Note that she did not commit suicide until she had made it perfectly plausible—from the point of view of the Arab-Mandingo woman. ”