Poor Henry, he's spending eternity wandering round and round a stately park and the fence is just too high for him to peep over an...d they're having tea just too far away for him to hear what the countess is saying.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The universe is so aptly fitted to our organization that the eye wanders and reposes at the same time. On every side there is some...thing to soothe and refresh this sense. Look up at the tree-tops, and see how finely Nature finishes off her work there. See how the pines spire without end higher and higher, and make a graceful fringe to the earth. And who shall count the finer cobwebs that soar and float away from their utmost post, and the myriad insects that dodge between them? Leaves are of more various forms than the alphabets of all languages put together; of the oaks alone there are hardly two alike, and each expresses its own character.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Far less brilliant, original, and versatile than the Greeks, the Romans were content to borrow most of their culture from them. Th...ey gave it their own practical bent, however, translating it into terms more suitable for universal use. They were able to transmit it to the barbaric West and thereby to lay the foundations of modern Europe. Then they systematized education, bequeathing the seven liberal arts to the Middle Ages. They adapted Greek philosophy to daily needs, applying it to government and recasting it into a philosophy of life available to men without high gifts. They developed the type of cultivated gentleman--the type of Cicero, Horace, and Pliny the Younger, who were less spontaneous and exciting than the Greeks but more moderate, urbane and sensible.... The practical sense of the Romans also led to some original contributions, notably their monumental architecture. While the Greeks stuck to their simple post and lintel, the Romans exploited the possibilities of the arch, the dome, and the vault to erect baths, palaces, amphitheaters, and government buildings.... Their architecture was more humanistic than the Greek in that it contributed much more to civic life.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Separating ourselves from the crowd, we walked up a narrow street, thence ascended by some wooden steps, called the Break-neck Sta...irs, into another steep, narrow, and zigzag street, blasted through the rock, which last led through a low, massive stone portal, called Prescott Gate, the principal thoroughfare into the Upper Town. This passage was defended by cannon, with a guard-house over it, a sentinel at his post, and other soldiers at hand ready to relieve him. I rubbed my eyes to be sure that I was in the Nineteenth Century, and was not entering one of those portals which sometimes adorn the frontispieces of new editions of old black-letter volumes. I thought it would be a good place to read Froissart's Chronicles. It was such a reminiscence of the Middle Ages as Scott's novels. Men apparently dwelt there for security! Peace be unto them! As if the inhabitants of New York were to go over to Castle William to live! What a place it must be to bring up children!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Three years ago, also, just a week after the authorities of Boston assembled to carry back a perfectly innocent man, and one whom ...they knew to be innocent, into slavery, the inhabitants of Concord caused the bells to be rung and the cannons to be fired, to celebrate their liberty,--and the courage and love of liberty of their ancestors who fought at the bridge. As if those three millions had fought for the right to be free themselves, but to hold in slavery three million others. Nowadays, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty-cap. I do not know but there are some who, if they were tied to a whipping-post, and could but get one hand free, would use it to ring the bells and fire the cannons to celebrate their liberty. So some of my townsmen took the liberty to ring and fire. That was the extent of their freedom; and when the sound of the bells died away, their liberty died away also; when the powder was all expended, their liberty went off with the smoke. The joke could be no broader if the inmates of the prisons were used to subscribe for all the powder to be used in such salutes, and hire the jailers to do the firing and ringing for them, while they enjoyed it through the grating.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People who live in the post-totalitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties a...re in power, and how these parties define and label themselves, is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the bank; and, as a necessary part ...of the machinery, they kept a bell, a big gun, and a fire-engine, at convenient places; and the houses were so arranged as to make the most of mankind, in lanes and fronting one another, so that every traveller had to run the gauntlet, and every man, woman, and child might get a lick at him.... For the most part I escaped wonderfully from these dangers, either by proceeding at once boldly and without deliberation to the goal, as is recommended to those who run the gauntlet, or by keeping my thoughts on high things, like Orpheus, who, "loudly singing the praises of the gods to his lyre, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and kept out of danger." Sometimes I bolted suddenly, and nobody could tell my whereabouts, for I did not stand much about gracefulness, and never hesitated at a gap in a fence. I was even accustomed to make an irruption into some houses, where I was well entertained, and after learning the kernels and the very last sieveful of news,--what had subsided, the prospects of war and peace, and whether the world was likely to hold together much longer,--I was let out through the rear avenues, and so escaped to the woods again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
...I remembered the rose bush that had reached a thorny branch out through the ragged fence, and caught my dress, detaining me whe...n I would have passed on. And again the symbolism of it all came over me. These memories and visions of the poor--they were the clutch of the thorns. Social workers have all felt it. It holds them to their work, because the thorns curve backward, and one cannot pull away.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes d...iscuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel--not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The art of cursing people seems to have lost its tang since the old days when a good malediction took four deep breaths to deliver... and sent the outfielders scurrying toward the fence to field.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »