"Babylon," exclaimed Rolf, who had to look down again and again at this net of shimmering strings of beads, this skein of light, t...his endless flowerbed of electric blossoms ... this labyrinth of rectangular windows threaded by gleaming canals, which is repeated over and over again with no change,... half order as though on a chessboard, half confusion, as though the Milky Way had fallen down from the sky ... a mosaic of colored fragments, but mobile, yet at the same time lifeless and cold as glass, then again the Bengal lights of a stage witches' sabbath,... an orgy of discord, of harmony, an orgy of the everyday, technological and mercantile above all; you immediately think of the Arabian Nights.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
but as an Eagle His cloudless thunderbolted on thir heads.... So vertue giv'n for lost, Deprest, and overthrown, as seem'd, Like that self-begott'n bird In the Arabian woods embost, That no second knows nor third, And lay e're while a Holocaust, From out her ashie womb now teem'd Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most When most unactive deem'd, And though her body die, her fame survives, A secular bird ages of lives.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O animal excellence, Take pterodactyl flight... Fire-winged into the air And find your lair With cunning sense On some Arabian bight....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No word is oftener on the lips of men than Friendship, and indeed no thought is more familiar to their aspirations. All men are dr...eaming of it, and its drama, which is always a tragedy, is enacted daily. It is the secret of the universe. You may thread the town, you may wander the country, and none shall ever speak of it, yet thought is everywhere busy about it, and the idea of what is possible in this respect affects our behavior toward all new men and women, and a great many old ones. Nevertheless, I can remember only two or three essays on this subject in all literature. No wonder that the Mythology, and Arabian Nights, and Shakespeare, and Scott's novels entertain us,--we are poets and fablers and dramatists and novelists ourselves. We are continually acting a part in a more interesting drama than any written.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Soon after John's death I listened to a music-box, and if, at any time, that event had seemed inconsistent with the beauty and har...mony of the universe, it was then gently constrained into the placid course of nature by those steady notes, in mild and unoffended tone echoing far and wide under the heavens. But I find these things more strange than sad to me. What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder? We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful; for a great grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin on Arabian trees. Only Nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful if he is not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample rec...ompense for all. That is, if we are faithful;Mfor a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees.--Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and... not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The foreigner coming to these shores is more impressed at first by our sky-scrapers. They are new to him. He has not done anything... of the sort since he built the tower of Babel. The foreigner is shocked by them. In the daylight they are ugly. They are--well, too chimneyfied and too snaggy--like a mouth that needs attention from a dentist; like a cemetery that is all monuments and no gravestones. But at night, seen from the river where they are columns towering against the sky, all sparkling with light, they are fairylike; they are beauty more satisfactory to the soul than anything man has dreamed of since the Arabian nightsLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The foot of the heavenly ladder, which we have got to mount in order to reach the higher regions, has to be fixed firmly in every-...day life, so that everybody may be able to climb up it along with us. When people then find that they have got climbed up higher and higher into a marvelous, magical world, they will feel that that realm, too, belongs to their ordinary, every-day life, and is, merely, the wonderful and most glorious part thereof.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »