An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race.
Look at the high and the low, all the world over, and it’s the same story, – the lower class used up, body, soul and spirit, for the good of the upper.
I’ve lost everything in this world, and it’s clean gone, forever – and now I can’t lose heaven, too; no, I can’t get to be wicked, besides all.
If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning, – if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape, – how fast could you walk?
Obeying God never brings on public evils. I know it can’t. It’s always safest, all round, to do as He bids us.
It was like that hush of spirit which we feel amid the bright, mild woods of autumn, when the bright hectic flush is on the trees, and the last lingering flowers by the brook; and we joy in it all the more, because we know that soon it will all pass away. The.
No, no, no!” said Tom, holding her small hands, which were clenched with spasmodic violence. “No, ye poor, lost soul, that ye mustn’t do. The dear, blessed Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that he poured out for us when we was enemies. Lord, help us.
He had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that could not be repressed, – indubitable signs, which showed too plainly that the man could not become a thing.
When a heavy weight presses the soul to the lowest level at which endurance is possible, there is an instant and desperate effort of every physical and moral nerve to throw off the weight; and hence the heaviest anguish often precedes a return tide of joy and courage.
No tear dropped over that pillow; in such straits as these, the heart has no tears to give, – it drops only blood, bleeding itself away in silence.
Even so, beloved Eva! fair star of thy dwelling! Thou art passing away; but they that love thee dearest know it not.
If it were your Harry, mother, or your Willie, that were going to be torn from you by a brutal trader, tomorrow morning, – if you had seen the man, and heard that the papers were signed and delivered, and you had only from twelve o’clock till morning to make good your escape, – how fast could you walk? How many miles could you make in those few brief hours, with the darling at your bosom, – the little sleepy head on your shoulder, – the small, soft arms trustingly holding on to your neck?
But who, sir, makes the trader? Who is most to blame? The enlightened, cultivated, intelligent man, who supports the system of which the trader is the inevitable result, or the poor trader himself? You make the public statement that calls for his trade, that debauches and depraves him, till he feels no shame in it; and in what are you better than he?
But then his idea of a fugitive was only an idea of the letters that spell the word, – or at the most, the image of a little newspaper picture of a man with a stick and bundle with ‘Ran away from the subscriber’ under it. The magic of the real presence of distress, – the imploring human eye, frail, trembling human hand, the despairing appeal of helpless agony, – these he had never tried.
Marie always had a head-ache on hand for any conversation that did not exactly suit her.
I have looked in her face with solemn awe, when she would point up to the stars in the evening, and say to me, ‘See there, Auguste! the poorest, meanest soul on our place will be living, when all these stars are gone forever, – will live as long as God lives!
My dear cousin, can you be satisfied with such a way of spending your probation?
But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us.
It is a great mistake to suppose that a woman with no heart will be an easy creditor in the exchange of affection. There is not on earth a more merciless extractor of love from others than a thoroughly selfish woman; and the more unlovely she grows, the more jealously and scrupulously she extracts love, to the uttermost farthing.
He says that there can be no high civilization without enslavement of the masses, either nominal or real. There must, he says, be a lower class, given up to physical toil and confined to an animal nature; and a higher one thereby acquires leisure and wealth for a more expanded intelligence and improvement, and becomes the directing soul of the lower. So he reasons, because, as I said, he is born an aristocrat; – so I don’t believe, because I was born a democrat.