The most familiar sheet of water, viewed from a new hilltop, yields a novel and unexpected pleasure. When we have traveled a few m...iles, we do not recognize the profiles even of the hills which overlook our native village, and perhaps no man is quite familiar with the horizon as seen from the hill nearest to his house, and can recall its outline distinctly when in the valley. We do not commonly know, beyond a short distance, which way the hills range which take in our houses and farms in their sweep. As if our birth had at first sundered things, and we had been thrust up through into nature like a wedge, and not till the wound heals and the scar disappears do we begin to discover where we are, and that nature is one and continuous everywhere. It is an important epoch when a man who has always lived on the east side of a mountain, and seen it in the west, travels round and sees it in the east. Yet the universe is a sphere whose centre is wherever there is intelligence. The sun is not so central as a man.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Gentlemen in England now abed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,... And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the history of human inquiry, philosophy has the place of the initial central sun, seminal and tumultuous; from time to time it... throws of some portion of itself to take station as a science, a planet, cool and well regulated, progressing steadily towards a distant final state.... Is it not possible that the next century may see the birth, through the joint efforts of philosophers, grammarians, and numerous other students of language, of a true and comprehensive science of language? Then we shall have rid ourselves of one more part of philosophy (there will still be plenty left) in the only way we ever can get rid of philosophy, by kicking it upstairs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Your letter of excuses has arrived. I receive the letter but do not admit the excuses except in courtesy, as when a man treads on ...your toes and begs your pardon--the pardon is granted, but the joint aches, especially if there is a corn upon it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Substantial pieces of goods [were] very offensive to her Ladyship's sight. They, for their clumsiness, were discarded, and in thei...r room were placed China images and all manner of Chinese figures: some that stood still and some that, by pulling a string, might be put into such insignificant shakings and motions as made the heads of the beholders giddy.... And thus was this noble ancient castle, which in its old form struck the imagination both with dignity and simplicity, filled with such trifling gewgaws that it was dangerous to move, lest some of the clockwork trumpery should be thrown down and put out of joint.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I stand on top of our back steps and breathe the rich air--... a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail. She jabs her wedge-head in a cup of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail, and will not scare.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
But whether a child is male or female, fathers are needed for their "otherness," to put a healthy wedge between mother and child, ...to be a haven from real or imagined maternal injustice or excessive hovering.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out... At every joint and motive of her body.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The soul and body are joint-sharers in every thing they get: A man cannot dress, but his ideas get cloath'd at the same time; and ...if he dresses like a gentleman, every one of them stands presented to his imagination, genteelized along with him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »