Slight

“ Is there not a language of looks, as well as of words? And is there not an expression here in nature's face, answering to the smile of a friend, or to the rosy cheeks and laughing eyes of childhood, telling of health and joy? ”

“ He felt their soft caress move over his legs ... linger on life-giving parts ... growing moist and warm. He was helpless in their domain, and was half blinded by their brilliant reflection that leapt from the shimmering sky. ”

“ They can judge with astounding correctness from a shadow on one's face, a catch in one's breath, a movement of one's hands, how their words or deeds are affecting us. We cannot conceal our feelings from them. ”

“ He stood and gazed, then, with his arms folded on his chest, while the people walking to and fro passed and repassed him, and many a one commented as they went, and assigned him a history and a character from their own imagination. How seldom is it, in the busy world with which we mingle, that any of the conjectures regarding our thoughts, our feelings, our state of existence, are correct! ”

“ Sometimes, indeed, the thought would cross the mind of the boy, as he looked on excited faces, and listened to animated conversation on the all-engrossing theme,—“How strange it is that so much more interest is taken in the things of this life than in what regards another! ”

“ Judging by my own sensations, however, the difference is not merely of degree, but of kind, for such accounts, with the reflections made upon them, have in them a certain tone and tinting of the mind through which they pass, so that we get, not nature, but man softening her. ”

“ Only by the minutest detail, by endless particularities which bear vividly all the character of the whole, and, as they spring up from a wonderful depth, give some feeling of that depth,—only in such a manner would it have been in some degree possible to give a representation of this remarkable personality; for the spring can be apprehended only while it is flowing. ”

“ To a mind naturally strong and capacious, enriched by much reading and the experience of many years, he added a manner of communicating his thoughts peculiarly his own—in which simplicity, beauty, and strength were equally conspicuous. ”

“ Often in the course of years an expressed sentiment, the particular sense of a phrase heard casually, would recall him to my mind so that I have fastened on to him many words heard on other men's lips and belonging to other men's less perfect, less pathetic moods. ”

“ Does the passionate imagination and deep feeling flashing in those dark eyes—the already hectic kindling of that cheek, look with pleasure to long years—a life of cold monotonous routine—of nightly vigils—fastings—of painful mortifications? ”

“ He had less thought, less ‘stuff of the conscience,’ less ‘to give us pause,’ in his impetuous oratory, but he had equal fancy—not the same vastness and profundity, but more richness and beauty, more warmth and tenderness. He is as rapid, as flowing, and endless, as the other is stately, abrupt, and concentrated. ”

“ Perhaps no where does a more beautiful treatise of the kind exist. The good sense and wisdom of the thoughts, the delicacy of the feelings, and the charm of the style, are, throughout, equally conspicuous. ”

“ To a babbling wanderer sent;
Like her ordinary cry,
Like—but oh how different!
Hears not also mortal Life?
Hear not we, unthinking Creatures!
Slaves of Folly, Love, or Strife,
Voices of two different Natures? ”

“ Must I not draw reflections of my ecstasy From thy radiant, ardent eyes? In thee alone do I wonder at myself. The earth in brighter tints appears, Heaven itself shines in more glowing light, Seen through the soul and action of my friend. ”

“ You are of a different world from that in which I live; and the flowers that are sweet to you, belong, I am afraid, to a Flora that I have no knowledge of. What, for instance, would you call pleasant things to talk about—if you were choosing a subject of conversation? ”

“ No," said he, with a glance of surprise: "who else should there be? And, dear boy, how good-looking you have growed!
There's bright eyes somewheres—eh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the thoughts on?" ”

“ The more I think about myself, the more—I say it in all modesty—the subject seems to grow. I should call myself many-sided, and in many respects unlike ordinary men. Take, for instance, the question of taste. ”

“ How much attention does it not require, how sleepless a feeling of interest, merely to perceive and understand the moods and wishes of those around us! An inert, sluggish nature, half ice, half rock, cannot do this. ”

“ What a miserable instrumentality is language! A tone of satiny flesh, a luminous shadow on a bare shoulder, a flickering light on floating silk, attract, recall, and retain the eye for a long time, and yet there is but a vague phrase with which to express the charm.... ”

“ Even the humorous concluding scenes have traits of special grace, retaining in less emphatic passages a stray lire or word of power, as it seems, so that we watch to the end for the traces where the nobler hand has glanced along, leaving its vestiges, as if accidentally or wastefully, in the rising of the style. ”

“ Hence beautiful allusions, surprising metaphors, and admirable sentiments, are always ready at hand; and while the fancy is full of images, collected from innumerable objects, and their different qualities, relations, and habitudes, it can at pleasure dress a common notion in a strange but becoming garb, by which, as before observed, the same thought will appear a new one, to the great delight and wonder of the hearer. ”

“ And we know that some have entered in and lived this light all the days of their lives. To many of us, alas! and in most of our moods, they seem to live in an unknown world—to speak in an unknown tongue. ”

“ We speak not from our own fixed impression, however deeply felt, but from what we have heard and observed everywhere, from the natural, incidental, unconscious remarks dropped from persons' mouths, and evidently showing what they thought and felt. ”

“ He had looked at her a moment—and he well knew how she had struck him, in respect to the beautiful world, as one of the beautiful, the most beautiful things. But what he had answered was: "You see too much—that's what may sometimes make you difficulties. ”

“ It is pleasing to turn from this excessive sentimentality of thought and speech to the practical and concise diction of our time. We have learned to express ourselves with equal force, but greater simplicity. ”

“ We see less of vivacity, less of fancy; more of tenderness, earnestness, even passion, and of the true imagination as distinguished from its subordinate fancy: the one prevalent and predominating trait, grace, alone distinctly remains. ”

“ But even if we are going too far in referring particular calls to particular emotions, we can, without a doubt, divide them into two broad categories—those which are pleasurable and those which are the reverse. ”

“ In his original poems, now and then, a happy line may perhaps be found, and now and then a short composition may give pleasure. But there is, in the whole, little either of the grace of wit, or the vigour of nature. ”

“ Above, below, and all round the literal and literary sense of the primitive phrase floats a secret life which is all but impossible to catch, and which is, nevertheless, more important than the external life of the words and of the images. ”

“ Melancholy in sooth are such representations, in the sense in which most people use the term, as a synonyme for any sentiment or feeling which bears the impress of right reflection,—of serious, yet serene emotion. ”

“ If aught unto the sight brief pleasure gives, 'T is but to snare the soul with treacherous lime. So, wouldst thou keep thy spirit free from cloud, A tranquil habit to thy latest day, Follow the few, and not the vulgar crowd. ”

“ At the same time, what we call a beautiful form is sometimes ready to sacrifice this pleasure of movement; and it does so just because it can command another kind of gratification—namely, an intellectual pleasure in the recognition of relations. ”

“ So Everyman put on the sad-coloured robe, and was preparing to set forward on his journey with the two beautiful women, when Good Deeds told him that three other people must go with them, their names being Discretion, Strength, and Beauty. ”

“ He may have caught fleeting glimpses of many fair faces often,—bright eyes may have flashed on him like starbeams,—the hues of a dazzling complexion may now and then have charmed him, or the seductive outlines of a graceful figure;—all these are as mere peeps into the infinite. ”

“ The volume of meanness encompassed by a word uttered, or by one withheld, is astonishing; and the amount of goodness and joy released by the simplest of words, is equally amazing. The weak have been made strong and the ill have been healed by a word. ”

“ Quietness, simplicity, and solemnity, would have been her objects, such as would neither invite criticism, call for observation, nor serve as a display for vanity and pomp. She would have been the last to desire to publish their intentions, or to call on her neighbors for congratulations or envy. ”

“ A day stripped so staringly bare would be for them appalling. So with ease, elegance, tributes of affection, social recognitions—some of us require amounts of these things which to others would appear a mass of lying and sophistication. ”

“ How far apart in the young man’s experience were theory and practice was manifested by the hot blush that sprang to his brow, the quick stare in which an acute eye might have read an ingenuous and provincial dismay. ”

“ Presently it begins to dawn upon us that there is something wonderful in the place of our conjunction, and we realise dimly,—very dimly, I am sure, and yet with a certain vague emotion of reverence,—where we are. ”

“ Slowly the spell of His Life deepens. Reach after reach of their nature is overtaken, thawed, subjugated, sanctified. Their manner softens, their words become more gentle, their conduct more unselfish. ”

“ But the young man's fancies only multiplied as he moved, not at all critical, but altogether nervous, from object to object. "I don't know what's the matter—but there is more here than meets the eye." ”

“ The usual noisy demonstrations of such sort of people in their good or ill luck—their dealings one with another, their vehemence, but goodness of heart, common-place remarks and unaffected manners, their naïve wit and humour—all this was excellently imitated. ”

“ Each sense seems to be perceptive of only one contrary, as Sight of white and black, Hearing of acute and grave, and Taste of bitter and sweet; but several contraries belong to the sense of Touch, as hot and cold, wet and dry, hard and soft, with others. ”

“ When, at last, that which we have always longed for, is arrived, and shines on us with glad rays out of that far celestial land, then to be coarse, then to be critical, and treat such a visitant with the jabber and suspicion of the streets, argues a vulgarity that seems to shut the doors of heaven. ”