Savant

“ Do you think the porter and the cook have no anecdotes, no experiences, no wonders for you? Every body knows as much as the savant. The walls of rude minds are scrawled all over with facts, with thoughts. They shall one day bring a lantern and read the inscriptions. ”

“ For thou at first producest for the holy Gods the noblest of all portions, immortality: Thereafter as a gift to men, O Savitar, thou openest existence, life succeeding life. 3. If we, men as we are, have sinned against the Gods through want of thought, in weakness, or through insolence, Absolve us from the guilt and make us free from sin, O Savitar, alike among both Gods and men. 4. None may impede that power of Savitar the God whereby he will maintain the universal world. What the fair-fingered God brings forth on earth's expanse or in the height of heaven, that work of his stands sure. ”

“ There remains your soul. In its infinite mercy, the Holy Office desires that your expiation be fulfilled in this life, and that you may be rescued from the fires of everlasting Hell. Therefore it urges you to cleanse yourself by a full and contrite avowal ere you go hence. Confess, then, my son, and save your soul.”
“Confess?” I echoed. “Confess to a falsehood? I have told you the truth of this matter. I tell you that in all the world there is none less prone to sacrilege than I that I am by nature and rearing devout and faithful. ”

“ In the pulpit, in authorship, in every mode of religious activity, we meet the cultivated, sincere, and reverent man. We feel the influence of his sympathetic mind and singular chasteness of spirit in hearty and symmetrical development. A culture like this, combined with a nature deeply religious, brings one into possession more or less completely of truths which make a direct appeal to the understanding. It has enabled Mr. Savage to enjoy a certain lordship in the realm of mind and mental life. ”

“ Nor shall he ever fall off from his duties. Thus, O daughter of a king have I fulfilled thy desire. Do thou now desist! Return! Do not take any future trouble!" Savitri said, "Thou hast restrained all creatures by thy decrees, and it is by thy decrees that thou takest them away, not according to thy will. Therefore it is, O god, O divine one, that people call thee Yama! Do thou listen to the words that I say! The eternal duty of the good towards all creatures is never to injure them in thought, word, and deed, but to bear them love and give them their due. ”

“ O beautiful damsel, I swear by my own self that if I find any evil to have befallen my father and mother, I will not live. If thou hast any regard for virtue, if thou wishest me to live, if it is thy duty to do what is agreeable to me, proceed thou to the hermitage!’ The beautiful Savitri then rose and tying up her hair, raised her husband in her arms. And Satyavan having risen, rubbed his limbs with his hands. ”

“ Of fair Savitri, men would give,—
And then he vanished in a flame.
"Adieu, great god!" She took the soul,
No bigger than the human thumb,
And running swift, soon reached her goal,
Where lay the body stark and dumb. ”

“ I tell you, Salvator, I have never honoured any master from the depths of my soul as I do you. What I am amazed at in your works is the sublime greatness of conception which is often revealed You grasp the deepest secrets of Nature: you comprehend the mysterious hieroglyphics of her rocks, of her trees, and of her waterfalls, you hear her sacred voice, you understand her language, and possess the power to write down what she has said to you. ”

“ The knowledge of life was indeed his chief attainment; and it is not without some satisfaction, that I can produce the suffrage of Savage in favour of human nature, of which he never appeared to entertain such odious ideas as some, who perhaps had neither his judgment nor experience, have published, either in ostentation of their sagacity, vindication of their crimes, or gratification of their malice. ”

“ With that exquisite instinct which characterizes all his thinking, he places, as if he were in apostolic succession, man’s greatest need in coming to himself and in making religion inseparable from personal thought and character. Mr. Savage holds this forth as man’s paramount task, to refuse which is alone to be faithless and hopeless and unforgiven. His idea of religion consists in nothing external or formal; nothing can avail with him but the culture of the soul and the quiet discharge of duty. ”

“ Streams! the wise Gods have thrice three habitations. Child of three Mothers, he is Lord in synods. Three are the holy Ladies of the Waters, thrice here from heaven supreme in our assembly. 6. Do thou, O Savitar, from heaven thrice hither, three times a day, send down thy blessings daily. Send us, O Bhaga, triple wealth and treasure; cause the two worlds to prosper us, Preserver! 7. Savitar thrice from heaven pours down abundance, and the fair-handed Kings Varuna, Mitra; And spacious Heaven and Earth, yea, and the Waters, solicit wealth that Savitar may send us. ”

“ For they understood, by the report of some of the king’s learned counsel, that your case well considered, ye had great wrong: to the which I could make, as me thought, no sufficient answer, but said, “That I doubt not your so doing was upon some greater consideration than my wit could understand.” “Is this,” quoth he, “the opinion of wise men?” “Yea, forsooth, my lord,” quoth I, “and almost of all other men.” “Well, then,” quoth he, "I see that their wisdoms perceive not the ground of the matter that moved me so to do. ”

“ The Sapient One arrays himself in every form: for quadruped and biped he hath brought forth good. Excellent Savitar hath looked on heaven's high vault, and shineth after the outgoing of the Dawn. 3. Even he, the God whose going-forth and majesty the other Deities have followed with their might, He who hath measured the terrestrial regions out by his great power, he is the Courser Savitar. ”

“ Words may be but a mask upon our thoughts; deeds are ever the expression of them. Bear thou that in mind, O Fenzileh.”
“Do I not bear in mind thine every word, O fount of wisdom?” she protested, and left him, as she often did, in doubt whether she fawned or sneered. ”

“ The witnesses which appeared against him were proved to be persons of characters which did not entitle them to much credit; a common strumpet, a woman by whom strumpets were entertained, and a man by whom they were supported; and the character of Savage was by several persons of distinction asserted to be that of a modest inoffensive man, not inclined to broils or to insolence, and who had, to that time, been only known for his misfortunes and his wit. ”

“ For before I quitted the monastery I saw brother Servilius in a dream after his decease, and he said that we were labouring to attain by the exercise of reason to an understanding of truth, whereas he and those who were in the same state as he were always resting in the pure joy of contemplation.
12. I also beg you to explain to me in how many ways the word wisdom is used; as God is wisdom, and a wise mind is wisdom (in which way it is said to be as light) ”

“ Send us this day, God Savitar, prosperity with progeny. Drive thou the evil dream away. 5. Savitar, God, send far away all sorrows and calamities, And send us only what is good. 6. Sinless in sight of Aditi through the God Savitar's influence, May we obtain all lovely things. 7. We with our hymns this day elect the general God, Lord of the good, Savitar whose decrees are true. 8. He who for ever vigilant precedes these Twain, the Day and Night, Is Savitar the thoughtful God. 9. He who gives glory unto all these living creatures with the song, And brings them forth, is Savitar. ”

“ The God moves by the upward path, the downward; with two bright Bays, adorable, he journeys. Savitar comes, the God from the far distance, and chases from us all distress and sorrow. 4. His chariot decked with pearl, of various colours, lofty, with golden pole, the God hath mounted, The many-rayed One, Savitar the holy, bound, bearing power and might, for darksome regions. 5. Drawing the gold-yoked car his Bays, white-footed, have manifested light to all the peoples. Held in the lap of Savitar, divine One, all men, all beings have their place for ever. ”

“ There are some persons who maintain, in opposition to the clear light of revelation, that there is but one Subsistence in the Divine Nature. This was the opinion of the Sabellians, a denomination which arose in the third century; and, certain persons, in modern times, have embraced the same. These contend that God here speaks to himself, as consulting with himself, to create man, and that, though the words be plural, yet the sense is singular, as if he had said, Let me make man. ”

“ Savage's Sufferings.
A LETTER to a Noble Lord in the behalf of Mr. Savage and Mr. Gregory.
My Lord,
I am persuaded, you will not refuse this Letter a reading, since the principal Subject of it is Mercy: I would not have took this Liberty with your Lordship, was I not throughly convinced that your Virtue is equal to your Wisdom, and that you are always ready to exert both in a proper Cause. I know, for I have experienced it, that you have a Heart which can commiserate the Misfortunes of Man, and that you are ever willing to lend a Hand to the sinking Wretch. ”

“ But, my dear child, bethink you of what he is, and of what I am. Were he a gentleman—my equal—my course would stand clearly defined. I should not have hesitated a moment. But this canaille! Ma foi! let me beg of you to come to your senses. The very thought is unworthy in you.”
“I understand you,” she answered him, very coldly. “You use a coward's arguments, and you have the effrontery to consider yourself a man of honour—a nobleman. I no longer marvel that there is a revolution in France.” ”

“ To take a parallel instance from a modern language: herr im himmel cannot be rendered the gentleman in the sky, although the ordinary meaning of herr is certainly gentleman, and of himmel sky. The question, in short, is not one of vocabularies and roots, but of our notion of what is reasonable or unreasonable in savage thought, of the extent to which savages are likely to use metaphorical language, the capacity they have attained for abstract thought: in one word, of our theory of the psychology of early man. ”

“ Even he whom Aditi the Goddess praises, rejoicing in God Savitar's incitement: Even he who praise the high imperial Rulers, Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman, sing in concert. 5. They who come emulous to our oblation, dispensing bounty, from the earth and heaven. May they and Ahibudhnya hear our calling: guard us Varutri with the Ekadhenus. 6. This may the Lord of Life, entreated, grant us,-the wealth which Savitar the God possesses. The mighty calls on Bhaga for protection, on Bhaga calls the weak to give him riches. ”

“ I answered miserably. “I am an anchorite, the guardian of a shrine; and my life that has been full of sin must be given henceforth to expiation. It is the will of Heaven.”
She smiled all undismayed, smiled confidently and tenderly.
“Presumptuous!” she gently chid me. “What know you of the will of Heaven? The will of Heaven is inscrutable. If you have sinned in the world, in the world must you atone by deeds that shall serve the world—God's world. In your hermitage you are become barren soil that will yield naught to yourself or any. ”

“ Faith, I am glad to deal with so sensible a man! Ye take it in the proper spirit. Ye see that what I ha' done I ha' but done in the way of my calling, that I am but a tool, and that what blame there be belongs to them which hired me to this deed. ”

“ I had lost faith in man and in God, and if I became a Muslim, a renegade, and a corsair, it was because there was no other gate by which I could escape the unutterable toil of the oar to which I had been chained. ”

“ An artificial and dead creation, it reveals to its examiner hardly one of the characters proper to religion." [9]
It seems to me that the entire series of our lectures proves the truth of M. Sabatier's contention. The religious phenomenon, studied as an inner fact, and apart from ecclesiastical or theological complications, has shown itself to consist everywhere, and at all its stages, in the consciousness which individuals have of an intercourse between themselves and higher powers with which they feel themselves to be related. ”

“ Do not, then, take the sin of others upon yourself, and do not make yourself out a master in matters in which you have been no more than a pupil. Confess the truth to me, because, as you see, I already know the whole affair. ”

“ For this, as for every other form of human temperament—that of the dunce, as well as of the genius—allowance must in truth be made. In that one of the lives of the English Poets, where the great moralist has gone nearest to making concessions to this fallacy of temperament, he utters this just warning. "No wise man will easily presume to say, had I been in Savage's condition I should have lived better than Savage." ”

“ The nature and disposition of the Savages, and of their severall Gods, Squanto and Tanto.
I HAUE had much conference with the Savages, about our only true God, and haue done my best to bring them to know and acknowledge him, but I feare me all the labour that way, will be lost, and no good will be done, except it be among the younger sort.
I find they haue two Gods, on they love: and the other they hate: the god they loue, they call Squanto, and to him they ascribe all their good fortunes. ”

“ Thus did He bring back piety from without, and made of it the inner inspiration which penetrates and transforms the whole life, a hidden flame, a ferment acting from the centre to the surface, the soul in the body, ever invisible and everywhere present. He thus founded the absolute autonomy of the religious and of the moral life which no longer are divided, but appear simply as the two sides of consciousness; the one interior and turned towards God, the other exterior and turned towards the world. ”