Absurdists

"One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others."

""True love gives true love of the best: Then take," I cried, "my heart to thee!" The very heart from out my breast I plucked, I gave it willingly; Her very heart she gave to me — Then died the glory from the west.In the gray light I saw her face, And it was withered, old, and gray; The flowers were fading in their place, Were fading with the fading day."

"An island-farm — broad seas of corn Stirred by the wandering breath of morn — The happy spot where I was born."

"The light was faint, and soft the air That breathed around the place; And she was lithe, and tall, and fair, And with a wayward grace Her queenly head she bare."

"And she arose, and in that darkening room Stood lonely as a spirit of the night — Stood calm and fearless in the gathered night — And raised her eyes to heaven. There were tears Upon her face, but in her heart was peace. Peace that the world nor gives nor takes away!"

"Ye golden hours of Life's young spring, Of innocence, of love and truth! Bright, beyond all imagining, Thou fairy-dream of youth!I'd give all wealth that years have piled, The slow result of Life's decay, To be once more a little child For one bright summer-day."

"O bitter is it to abide In weariness alway: At dawn to sigh for eventide, At eventide for day. Thy noon hath fled: thy sun hath shone: The brightness of thy day is gone: What need to lag and linger on Till life be cold and gray?"

"All in the waning light she stood, The star of perfect womanhood."

"Our Second Experiment", the Professor announced, as Bruno returned to his place, still thoughtfully rubbing his elbows, "is the production of that seldom-seen-but-greatly-to-be-admired phenomenon, Black Light! You have seen White Light, Red Light, Green Light, and so on: but never, till this wonderful day, have any eyes but mine seen Black Light! This box", carefully lifting it upon the table, and covering it with a heap of blankets, "is quite full of it. The way I made it was this - I took a lighted candle into a dark cupboard and shut the door. Of course the cupboard was then full of Yellow Light. Then I took a bottle of Black ink, and poured it over the candle: and, to my delight, every atom of the Yellow Light turned Black! That was indeed the proudest moment of my life! Then I filled a box with it. And now - would anyone like to get under the blankets and see it?"Dead silence followed this appeal: but at last Bruno said "I'll get under, if it won't jingle my elbows."Satisfied on this point, Bruno crawled under the blankets, and, after a minute or two, crawled out again, very hot and dusty, and with his hair in the wildest confusion."What did you see in the box?" Sylvie eagerly enquired."I saw nuffin!" Bruno sadly replied. "It were too dark!""He has described the appearance of the thing exactly!" the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Black Light, and Nothing, look so extremely alike, at first sight, that I don't wonder he failed to distinguish them! We will now proceed to the Third Experiment."

"The dying crimson of the West That faintly tinged his haggard cheek, Fell on her as she stood, and shed A glory round the patient head."

"Not as in rest she bowed, But large hot tears were coursing down her cheek. And her low-panted sobs broke awefully Upon the sleeping echoes of the night."

"In her eyes is the living Hght Of a wanderer to earth From a far celestial height: Summers five are all the span — Summers five since Time began To veil in mists of human night A shining angel-birth.Does an angel look from her eyes? Will she suddenly spring away, And soar to her home in the skies? Beatrice! Blessing and blessed to be!"

"Those locks of jet are turned to gray, And she is strange and far away That might have been mine own to-day —That might have been mine own, my dear, Through many and many a happy year — That might have sat beside me here."

"You know what the issue is with this world? Everyone wants a magical solution to their problem, and everyone refuses to believe in magic."

"If doubtful whether to end with “yours faithfully”, or “yours truly”, or “your most truly”, &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach “yours affectionately”), refer to your correspondent’s last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!"

"Here is a golden Rule to begin with. Write legibly. The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened, if everybody obeyed this Rule! A great deal of the bad writing in the world comes simply from writing too quickly."

"God has given to Man an absolute right to take the lives of other animals, for any reasonable cause, such as the supply of food; but He has not given to Man the right to inflict pain, unless where necessary."

"If the Letter is to be in answer to another, begin by getting out that other letter and reading it through, in order to refresh your memory, as to what it is you have to answer, and as to your correspondent’s present address (otherwise you will be sending your letter to his regular address in London, though he has been careful in writing to give you his Torquay address in full)."

"Put the date in full. It is another aggravating thing, when you wish, years afterwards, to arrange a series of letters, to find them dated "Feb. 17", "Aug. 2", without any year to guide you as to which comes first. And never, never, dear Madam (N.B. this remark is addressed to ladies only: no man would ever do such a thing), put "Wednesday", simply, as the date!"

"I wasn't asleep! said Bruno, in a deeply-injured tone. "When I shuts mine eyes, it's to show that I'm awake!""

"Since I have possessed a "Wonderland Stamp Case", Life has been bright and peaceful, and I have used no other. I believe the Queen's laundress uses no other."

"The West is the fitting tomb for all the sorrow and the sighing, all the errors and the follies of the Past: for all its withered Hopes and all its buried Loves! From the East comes new strength, new ambition, new Hope, new Life, new Love! Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!""

"He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the bus: He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus: 'If this should stay to dine,' he said, 'There won't be much for us!'"

"Fading, with the Night, the memory of a dead love, and the withered leaves of a blighted hope, and the sickly repinings and moody regrets that numb the best energies of the soul: and rising, broadening, rolling upward like a living flood, the manly resolve, and the dauntless will, and the heavenward gaze of faith — the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen! "Look Eastward! Aye, look Eastward!""

"Less Bread! More Taxes!--and then all the people cheered again, and one man, who was more excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted (as well as I could make out) "Who roar for the Sub-Warden?" Everybody roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly appear: some were shouting "Bread!" and some "Taxes!", but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted."

"I suppose every child has a world of his own — and every man, too, for the matter of that. I wonder if that's the cause for all the misunderstanding there is in Life?"

"He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. 'At length I realise,' he said, 'The bitterness of Life!'"

"Some American writer has said “the snakes in this district may be divided into one species—the venomous”. The same principle applies here. Postage-Stamp-Cases may be divided into one species, the “Wonderland”. Imitations of it will soon appear, no doubt: but they cannot include the two Pictorial Surprises, which are copyright.You don't see why I call them 'Surprises'? Well, take the Case in your left hand, and regard it attentively. You see Alice nursing the Duchess's Baby ? (An entirely new combination, by the way : it doesn't occur in the book.) Now, with your right thumb and forefinger, lay hold of the little book, and suddenly pull it out. The Baby has turned into a Pig I If that doesn't surprise you, why, I suppose you wouldn't be surprised if your own Mother-in-law suddenly turned into a Gyroscope!"

"Say, what is the spell, when her fledgelings are cheeping, That lures the bird home to her nest? Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping, To cuddle and croon it to rest?"

"Blow, blow your trumpets till they crack, Ye little men of little souls! And bid them huddle at your back - Gold-sucking leeches, shoals on shoals!Fill all the air with hungry wails - "Reward us, ere we think or write! Without your Gold mere Knowledge fails To sate the swinish appetite!""

"The air is bright with hues of light And rich with laughter and with singing: Young hearts beat high in ecstasy, And banners wave, and bells are ringing: But silence falls with fading day, And there's an end to mirth and play. Ah, well-a-day!"

"Is all our Life, then, but a dream Seen faintly in the golden gleam Athwart Time's dark resistless stream?Bowed to the earth with bitter woe Or laughing at some raree-show We flutter idly to and fro.Man's little Day in haste we spend, And, from its merry noontide, send No glance to meet the silent end."

"A change came o'er my Vision - it was night: We clove a pathway through a frantic throng: The steeds, wild-plunging, filled us with affright: The chariots whirled along.Within a marble hall a river ran - A living tide, half muslin and half cloth: And here one mourned a broken wreath or fan, Yet swallowed down her wrath"

"A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile! And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar? And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?"

"I do not know if 'Alice in Wonderland' was an original story — I was, at least, no conscious imitator in writing it — but I do know that, since it came out, something like a dozen story-books have appeared, on identically the same pattern. The path I timidly explored believing myself to be 'the first that ever burst into that silent sea' — is now a beaten high-road: all the way-side flowers have long ago been trampled into the dust: and it would be courting disaster for me to attempt that style again."

"Yet what are all such gaieties to me Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds? x2+7x+53 =11/3."

"I NEVER loved a dear Gazelle – Nor anything that cost me much: High prices profit those who sell, but why should I be fond of such?"

"Finally my Hiawatha Tumbled all the tribe together, ('Grouped' is not the right expression), And, as happy chance would have it Did at last obtain a picture Where the faces all succeeded: Each came out a perfect likeness.Then they joined and all abused it, Unrestrainedly abused it, As the worst and ugliest picture They could possibly have dreamed of. 'Giving one such strange expressions - Sullen, stupid, pert expressions. Really any one would take us (Any one that did not know us) For the most unpleasant people!' (Hiawatha seemed to think so, Seemed to think it not unlikely.)"

"Then proudly smiled that old man To see the eager lad Rush madly for his pen and ink And for his blotting-pad – But, when he thought of publishing, His face grew stern and sad."

"There are certain things - as, a spider, a ghost, The income-tax, gout, an umbrella for three - That I hate, but the thing that I hate the most Is a thing they call the Sea."

"There is an insect that people avoid (Whence is derived the verb 'to flee'). Where have you been by it most annoyed? In lodgings by the Sea."

"'O gin I find anither ladye,' He said wi' sighs and tears, 'I wot my coortin' sall not be Anither thirty years:'For gin I find a ladye gay, Exactly to my taste, I'll pop the question, aye or nay, In twenty years at maist.'"

"I believe this thought, of the possibility of death — if calmly realised, and steadily faced would be one of the best possible tests as to our going to any scene of amusement being right or wrong. If the thought of sudden death acquires, for you, a special horror when imagined as happening in a theatre, then be very sure the theatre is harmful for you, however harmless it may be for others; and that you are incurring a deadly peril in going. Be sure the safest rule is that we should not dare to live in any scene in which we dare not die. But, once realise what the true object is in life — that it is not pleasure, not knowledge, not even fame itself, 'that last infirmity of noble minds' — but that it is the development of character, the rising to a higher, nobler, purer standard, the building-up of the perfect Man — and then, so long as we feel that this is going on, and will (we trust) go on for evermore, death has for us no terror; it is not a shadow, but a light; not an end, but a beginning!"

"Say, whence is the voice that, when anger is burning, Bids the whirl of the tempest to cease? That stirs the vexed soul with an aching — a yearning For the brotherly hand-grip of peace?"

"From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing;But he opened out the hinges, Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges, Till it looked all squares and oblongs, Like a complicated figure In the Second Book of Euclid."

"My father was a Brownie, Sir; My mother was a Fairy. The notion had occurred to her, The children would be happier, If they were taught to vary. The notion soon became a craze; And, when it once began, she Brought us all out in different ways - One was a Pixy, two were Fays, Another was a Banshee."

"Oh, when I was a little Ghost, A merry time had we! Each seated on his favourite post, We chumped and chawed the buttered toast They gave us for our tea."

"Who's the Knight-Mayor?" I cried. Instead Of answering my question, "Well, if you don't know THAT," he said, "Either you never go to bed, Or you've a grand digestion!"

"That narrow window, I expect, Serves but to let the dusk in - " "But please," said I, "to recollect 'Twas fashioned by an architect Who pinned his faith on Ruskin!"

"Now that's a thing I WILL NOT STAND, And so I tell you flat."