Sortie

“ And so, dear brethren, I beseech you to remember that it depends on yourself whether departing shall be arrival, and exodus shall be entrance. One thing or other that last moment must be to us all—either a dragging us reluctant away from what we would fain cleave to, or a glad departure from a foreign land and entrance to our home. ”

“ Ah, bright and beauteous spirit,
'Tis dawn, and spent the night:
They'll find their dear ones waiting
Beside the gates of light.
Oh, they shall live forever—
Their battle lines are drawn,
O comrades, wait their coming,
Just near the gates of dawn. ”

“ I let myself be diverted by the spectacle of the daybreak, by the appearance of the sun, climbing like a flame up the sky, by the coming of the countrymen to their tasks, stretching themselves out on the ground or straightening themselves up to interrogate space, shielding their eyes with the hand, by the flight of birds who rose at the passing of the train, by the farms that filed past us, humming with activity like bee-hives. ”

“ And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free.
So when Time's veil shall fall asunder,
The soul may know
No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
Nor sink the weight of mystery under,
But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow. ”

“ Moon-touched, and tranquil and dear,—
I, alone, walk to and fro,—
Come to me here!
BEFORE THE DAWN In that one darkest hour, before the dawn is here,
Each soul of us goes sailing, close to the coast of Fear. ”

“ And this journey is unavoidable. Many journeys are a matter of choice. We can either take them or remain at home. But it is not so with the pilgrimage of death. "It is appointed unto men once to die." ”

“ The time of our departure is at hand, to make way for our children upon the theatre of life. May God speed them and theirs. May he who, at the distance of another century, shall stand here to celebrate this day, still look round upon a free, happy, and virtuous people. ”

“ The voyage which I was born to make in the end, and to which my desire has driven me, is towards a place in which everything we have known is forgotten, except those things which, as we know them, reminded us of an original joy. ”

“ But dark is the mist in the traveller’s eyes. (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) ‘Oh, traveller, see far down the gorge, The crimson light from my father’s forge. (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) “‘Oh, traveller, hear how the anvils ring.’ (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) But the traveller heard, ah, never a thing. (Fly away, my heart, fly away!) ‘Oh, traveller, loud do the bellows roar, And my father waits by the smithy door. ”

“ Some day the ride will be done, and the road end in the great shadows which no human eye can pierce. But that day will find us hand in hand, with no fear in our hearts, and ready for a longer, stranger, and even more beautiful journey. ”

“ Always a day's march behind, always watching hopefully for some sign of delay—for an encouraging freshness in the tracks that would show a lessening distance between the two parties, Luck and his Happy Family rode from dawn till dusk, from another dawn to another dusk. ”

“ A man once dived into your depths and brought up a horse collar and a hoop-skirt. Ah! what do we know of the beyond? We know that death comes, and we return no more to our world of trouble and care—but where do we go? Are there lands where no traveler has been? ”

“ As, in sailing upon the orb of this planet, a voyage towards the regions where the sun sets, conducts gradually to the quarter where we have been accustomed to behold it come forth at its rising; and, in like manner, a voyage towards the east, the birth-place in our imagination of the morning, leads finally to the quarter where the sun is last seen when he departs from our eyes; so the contemplative Soul, travelling in the direction of mortality, advances to the country of everlasting life ”

“ But the Place is waiting there; till the Hour shall show it,
And our footsteps, following Fate, find it and know it.
Where we shall worship the greatest of all the Gods in his pomp and power,—
I sometimes think that I shall not care to survive that hour! ”

“ From the hour when, weary with our journey, we ungird ourselves, and dropping the traveller’s staff, sit down by the way-side, we begin to look back over the road that we have traversed; for it is the way ahead that now is dark and misty, and so we turn and gaze into the depths of the past. ”

“ It is indeed a flight rather than a march; the reader is borne along as on the wings of a soaring poem, and sees the rising and decaying empires of history beneath him as a bird of passage marks the succession of cities and wilds and deserts as he keeps pace with the sun in his journey. ”

“ The excitement of the chase, while it is on, knows no bounds, but at the death it subsides, and you return to civilization to recall the event only when the time arrives that another pilgrimage to the happy hunting grounds is in order. ”

“ What is the benefit of our arrival and departure?
If our life is the basis of the cloth, where is the weft?
Present righteous men in the fiery chariot
Will be burnt down and they will become ashes, but where is the smoke? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The guide, as instructed, knocks at our doors in the morning, just before six o'clock. We hear the fatal words: "It makes fine weather, monsieur;" we awake, imprecating but still resolved; we call out a response of assent, still imprecating; nerve ourselves to rise,—struggle mentally to do so,—struggle more faintly,—yield imperceptibly,—forget for an instant to struggle at all,—and in another instant we are restfully back beyond recall in the land of dreams. ”

“ The opening of those heavenly gate for them startles and flutters our souls with strange mysterious thrills, unfelt before. The glimpse of glories, the sweep of voices, all startle and dazzle us, and the soul for many a day aches and longs with untold longings. ”

“ Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. 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. ”

“ At certain stages in our great journey we sit down and take a retrospect, going over, hand in hand with memory, the old road and carefully treading in the same footsteps, looking upon the same scenes, suffering the old pains and rejoicing in the same joys. ”

“ We would love to see the twilight linger, but all things must end, and we pursued our way down the winding shore road, already gray with the coming night. Before we said good-night the mister said, "I wonder what eternity will be like?" ”

“ Just as the traveller, after a long and painful journey, halts by the wayside, and looks with a certain degree of satisfaction at the distance he has covered, I shall feel a mournful pleasure in returning to the early and terrible events of my life. ”

“ I can see no wisdom or purpose in anything now but to get to one’s journey’s end as quickly and bravely as one can. And even then, even if we do call life a journey, and death the inn we shall reach at last in the evening when it’s over ”

“ During the entire journey I shall not take my eyes from the instruments for a moment; and in case of any emergency you can count upon us to aid you by all the means in our power. And now good-by, my boy, and mark my words: you will never regret the step you have taken, and I promise you that you will be back here, safe and sound, before nightfall! ”

“ In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, and a connected succession of persons and incidents, that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, “a lengthening chain” at each remove of our pilgrimage ”

“ And, suffering not one image to depart,
Find lengthening distance but endear you more.
Let fortune's will, through many a future day,
To distant realms this mortal frame convey,
Sport of each wind, and tost on every wave! ”

“ The sun goes on shining, and the stars pursue their appointed march, and by and by he—to descend from great things to small ones—also falls into some sort of progress, be it march, or shamble, or shuffle, or steady struggle onwards and upwards. ”

“ For one minute the feeling may arise 'is that all'—the next, the grandeur of the scene has won its way to the mind and taken captive the imagination. Sit for an hour and the feeling will grow, while to revisit it day after day for a week will intensify wonder and admiration at the marvellous scene. ”

“ The last look, the last word, the last smile, even the last shilling, have all a peculiarly melancholy import; but the last voyage, to one who has lived, as it were, on travelling—who has slept for weeks and months under the shadow of the forest trees, and dwelt among the wild romantic scenes of the wilderness—has a peculiar and thrilling interest. ”

“ It is a memorable day for us, because it marks 63 the close of a long period of doubt and uncertainty as to the possibility of undertaking the expedition, and because it marks the beginning of a new life—the entry into a new world, which is yet immeasurably old. ”

“ A retreat, my dear boys, signifies a withdrawal for a while from the cares of our life, the cares of this workaday world, in order to examine the state of our conscience, to reflect on the mysteries of holy religion and to understand better why we are here in this world. ”

“ I see destiny as a traveller sees a landscape by fitful flashes of lightning at night, great tracts of country suddenly displayed in all the blaze of noonday, but lost to sight the next moment forever! ”

“ Somebody else who had meant before now to have left for home, had been delayed till after sundown. Somebody else would go over the road by dark instead of by daylight. By dark,—though there should be broad, beating sunshine over the world again when the journey should be made. ”

“ It is a stage in the awakening of consciousness, that wishing to go; the next stage is intending to go, and the next, deciding to go and setting out—but independently of these wishes and intentions and decisions, we were really on the road, and going all the while. By our true wishes we divine our destiny. ”

“ RUTH. But you’ll have new sights and new people to take your mind off; while we’ll be here with the old, familiar place to remind us every minute of the day. It’s a shame you’re going—just at this time, in spring, when everything is getting so nice. ”

“ How sweet it is, when safely arrived in port, to recall the remembrance of past dangers and tempests! When victorious in the race, how pleasing to retrace, in imagination, our exertions, and to review those parts of the course most distinguished by the toils, the obstacles, and the difficulties which have rendered them celebrated. ”

“ These losses, however, are at the time partly relieved by the exhaustless delight of anticipating the long wished-for day of return. If, as poets say, life is a dream, I am sure in a voyage these are the visions which best serve to pass away the long night. ”

“ We dwelt much upon the anticipations of the future, being a more agreeable theme than the failure of the past. I confess to a hearty welcome for the new year—anxious, of course, that we may escape uninjured, and sufficiently early to pursue the object of our voyage. ”

“ Every turn brought us to these great wrought openings, which, from the ground, appeared like delicate lacework, and which seemed to give one the feeling, as he went round and round, as if he were swinging and swaying in the network between heaven and earth ”

“ Time was no object, and the days slid quietly into the river of years, distinguished one from another by name alone. An occasional birth or death was a big event, and the biggest event of all was the advent of a new resident. ”

“ May I offer you a place in my boat, or do you propose remaining here to assist at the festival and not starting till to-morrow morning? There are all kinds of spectacles to be seen, and when it is dark a grand illumination is to take place. ”

“ Who has not experienced the miseries inevitably consequent upon a summons to undertake a hasty journey? You receive an intimation from your place of business—wherever that may be, or whatever you may be—that it will be necessary to leave town without delay. ”