Between a sign and the thing it signifies there is the fixed, determined relationship of cause and effect. We see this in the case... of the footprint in the sand, the tear on the eyelash, or the trademark of a commercial product. But no matter how closely tied a symbol is to the thing symbolized, the relation is variable, flexible, and free. It is in poetry, however, that the symbolic value of words reaches its apex. The cross has become the symbol of Christianity not because of its form but because the Christians, following St. Paul, at a definite moment in their history, decided to adopt the instrument of Christ's torture as their emblem. Similarly, the relation between a word and its meaning depends on its origin, its history, and its usage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sometimes we lodged at an inn in the woods, where trout-fishers from distant cities had arrived before us, and where, to our aston...ishment, the settlers dropped in at nightfall to have a chat and hear the news, though there was but one road, and no other house was visible,--as if they had come out of the earth. There we sometimes read old newspapers, who never before read new ones, and in the rustle of their leaves heard the dashing of the surf along the Atlantic shore, instead of the sough of the wind among the pines. But then walking had given us an appetite even for the least palatable and nutritious food.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be burie...d in the sand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The beach-grass is "two to four feet high, of a sea-green color," and it is said to be widely diffused over the world. In the Hebr...ides it is used for mats, pack-saddles, bags, hats, etc.: paper has been made of it at Dorchester in this State, and cattle eat it when tender. It has heads somewhat like rye, from six inches to a foot in length, and it is propagated both by roots and seeds. To express its love for sand, some botanists have called it Psamma arenaria, which is the Greek for sand, qualified by the Latin for sandy,--or sandy sand. As it is blown about by the wind, while it is held fast by its roots, it describes myriad circles in the sand as accurately as if they were made by compasses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The single road which runs lengthwise the Cape, now winding over the plain, now through the shrubbery, which scrapes the wheels of... the stage, was a mere cart-track in the sand, commonly without any fences to confine it, and continually changing from this side to that, to harder ground, or sometimes to avoid the tide. But the inhabitants travel in waste here and there pilgrim- wise and staff in hand, by narrow foot-paths, through which the sand flows out and reveals the nakedness of the land. We shuddered at the thought of living there and taking our afternoon walks over those barren swells, where we could overlook every step of our walk before taking it, and would have to pray for a fog or a snow-storm to conceal our destiny. The walker there must soon eat his heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Here in Wellfleet, this pure sand plateau, known to sailors as the Table-lands of Eastham, on account of its appearance, as seen f...rom the ocean ... stretched away northward from the southern boundary of the town, without a particle of vegetation,--as level almost as a table,--for two and a half or three miles, or as far as the eye could reach; slightly rising towards the ocean, then stooping to the beach, by as steep a slope as sand could lie on, and as regular as a military engineer could desire. It was like the escarped rampart of a stupendous fortress, whose glacis was the beach, and whose champaign the ocean. From its surface we overlooked the greater part of the Cape. In short, we were traversing a desert, with the view of an autumnal landscape of extraordinary brilliancy, a sort of Promised Land, on the one hand, and the ocean on the other. Yet, though the prospect was so extensive, and the country for the most part destitute of trees, a house was rarely visible,--we never saw one from the beach,--and the solitude was that of the ocean and the desert combined. A thousand men could not have seriously interrupted it, but would have been lost in the vastness of the scenery as their footsteps in the sand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are ... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and th...ink that you are in paradise.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Bible worship, though at its best it may achieve sublimity by keeping its head in the skies, may also make itself both ridiculous ...and dangerous by having its feet off the ground.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Lord, crack their teeth! Lord, crush these lions' jaws! So let them sink as water in the sand;... When deadly bow their aiming fury draws, Shiver the shaft ere past the shooter's hand. So make them melt as the dishoused snailLESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »