Translators From England

"Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might be treated with scientific certitude. Meanwhile the indefiniteness remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one would imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure and the favorite love-stories in prose and verse. Here and there a cygnet is reared uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed kind. Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving heart-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centring in some long-recognizable deed."

"That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago, was certainly not the last of her kind. Many Theresas have been born who found for themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and sank unwept into oblivion."

"Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt, at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek martyrdom in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled from rugged Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great resolve. That child-pilgrimage was a fit beginning. Theresa's passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in the reform of a religious order."

"It is the glory of the heritage Thy life has left, that makes thy outcast age: Thy limbs shall lie dark, tombless on this sod, Because thou shinest in man's soul, a god, Who found and gave new passion and new joy That nought but Earth's destruction can destroy. Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone: 'Twas but in giving that thou couldst atone For too much wealth amid their poverty."

"With thy coming Melody was come. This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow, And that immeasurable life to know From which the fleshly self falls shrivelled, dead, A seed primeval that has forests bred."

"Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod Or thundered through the skies — aught else for share Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest Of the world's spring-tide in thy conscious breast? No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all its pain, Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain Where music's voice was silent; for thy fate Was human music's self incorporate: Thy senses' keenness and thy passionate strife Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of Life."

""Jubal," the face said, "I am thy loved Past, The soul that makes thee one from first to last. I am the angel of thy life and death, Thy outbreathed being drawing its last breath. Am I not thine alone, a dear dead bride Who blest thy lot above all men's beside?"

"I see a face of love, Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong: Yea — art thou come again to me, great Song?" The face bent over him like silver night In long-remembered summers; that calm light Of days which shine in firmaments of thought, That past unchangeable, from change still wrought."

"He said within his soul, "'This is the end: O'er all the earth to where the-heavens bend And hem men's travel, I have breathed my soul: I lie here now the remnant of that whole, The embers of a life, a lonely pain; As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain, So of my mighty years nought comes to me again"."

"But ere the laughter died from out the rear, Anger in front saw profanation near; Jubal was but a name in each man's faith For glorious power untouched by that slow death Which creeps with creeping time; this too, the spot, And this the day, it must be crime to blot, Even with scoffing at a madman's lie: Jubal was not a name to wed with mockery. Two rushed upon him: two, the most devout In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out, And beat him with their flutes. 'Twas little need; He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed, As if the scorn and howls were driving wind That urged his body, serving so the mind Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the screen Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen. The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky, While Jubal lonely laid him down to die."

"He rushed before them to the glittering space, And, with a strength that was but strong desire, Cried, "I am Jubal, I!.... I made the lyre!" The tones amid a lake of silence fell Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land To listening crowds in expectation spanned. Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake; They spread along the train from front to wake In one great storm of merriment, while he Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be..."

"No eye saw him, while with loving pride Each voice with each in praise of Jubal vied. Must he in conscious trance, dumb, helpless lie While all that ardent kindred passed him by? His flesh cried out to live with living men, And join that soul which to the inward ken Of all the hymning train was present there."

"Sudden and near the trumpet's notes out-spread, And soon his eyes could see the metal flower, Shining upturned, out on the morning pour Its incense audible; could see a train From out the street slow-winding on the plain With lyres and cymbals, flutes and psalteries, While men, youths, maids, in concert sang to these With various throat, or in succession poured, Or in full volume mingled. But one word Ruled each recurrent rise and answering fall, As when the multitudes adoring call On some great name divine, their common soul, The common need, love, joy, that knits them in one whole. The word was "Jubal!"... "Jubal" filled the air, And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there, Creator of the choir, the full-fraught strain That grateful rolled itself to him again. The aged man adust upon the bank — Whom no eye saw — at first with rapture drank The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart, Felt, this was his own being's greater part, The universal joy once born in him."

"No farther will I travel: once again My brethren I will see, and that fair plain Where I and song were born. There fresh-voiced youth Will pour my strains with all the early truth Which now abides not in my voice and hands, But only in the soul, the will that stands Helpless to move. My tribe remembering Will cry, "'Tis he!" and run to greet me, welcoming."

"New voices come to me where'er I roam, My heart too widens with its widening home: But song grows weaker, and the heart must break For lack of voice, or fingers that can wake The lyre's full answer; nay, its chords were all Too few to meet the growing spirit's call. The former songs seem little, yet no more Can soul, hand, voice, with interchanging lore Tell what the earth is saying unto me: The secret is too great, I hear confusedly."

"'Twas easy following where invention trod — All eyes can see when light flows out from God. And thus did Jubal to his race reveal Music their larger soul, where woe and weal Filling the resonant chords, the song, the dance, Moved with a wider-winged utterance."

""This wonder which my soul hath found, This heart of music in the might of sound, Shall forthwith be the share of all our race, And like the morning gladden common space: The song shall spread and swell as rivers do, And I will teach our youth with skill to woo This living lyre, to know its secret will; Its fine division of the good and ill. So shall men call me sire of harmony, And where great Song is, there my life shall be." Thus glorying as a god beneficent, Forth from his solitary joy he went To bless mankind."

"Such patience have the heroes who begin, Sailing the first toward lands which others win. Jubal must dare as great beginners dare, Strike form's first way in matter rude and bare, And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous choir Of the world's harvest, make one poor small lyre."

"Jubal sat lonely, all around was dim, Yet his face glowed with light revealed to him"

"Then, as the metal shapes more various grew, And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew, Each gave new tones, the revelations dim Of some external soul that spoke for him: The hollow vessel's clang, the clash, the boom, Like light that makes wide spiritual room And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought, To Jubal such enlarged passion brought, That love, hope, rage, and all experience, Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence Concords and discords, cadences and cries That seemed from some world-shrouded soul-to rise, Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage, Some living sea that burst the bounds of man's brief age."

"Each day he wrought and better than he planned, Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand. (The soul without still helps the soul within, And its deft magic ends what we begin.) Nay, in his dreams his hammer he would wield And seem to see a myriad types revealed, Then spring with wondering triumphant cry, And, lest the inspiring vision should go by, Would rush to labor with that plastic zeal Which all the passion of our life can steal For force to work with. Each day saw the birth Of various forms, which, flung upon the earth, Seemed harmless toys to cheat the exacting hour, But were as seeds instinct with hidden power."

"Jubal had a frame Fashioned to finer senses, which became A yearning for some hidden soul of things, Some outward touch complete on inner springs That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain, A want that did but stronger grow with gain Of all good else, as spirits might be sad For lack of speech to tell us they are glad."

"Lamech's sons were heroes of their race: Jubal, the eldest, bore upon his face The look of that calm river-god, the Nile, Mildly secure in power that needs not guile."

"While the arm is strong to strike and heave, Let soul and arm give shape that will abide..."

"There comes a night when all too late The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand, The eager thought behind closed portals stand, And the last wishes to the mute lips press Buried ere death in silent helplessness."

"When Cain was driven from Jehovah's land He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things, To feed the subtler sense of frames divine That lived on fragrance for their food and [wine]]: Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly, And could be pitiful and melancholy. He never had a doubt that such gods were; He looked within, and saw them mirrored there."

"Perhaps the wind Wails so in winter for the summers dead, And all sad sounds are nature's funeral cries For what has been and is not."

"Inclination snatches arguments To make indulgence seem judicious choice."

"Knightly love is blent with reverence As heavenly air is blent with heavenly blue."

"Sad as a wasted passion."

"Certain winds will make men's temper bad."

"His smile is sweetened by his gravity."

"A serious ape whom none take seriously, Obliged in this fool's world to earn his nuts By hard buffoonery."

"Creeds of terror."

"This is life to come, — Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, — be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty, Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense! So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world."

"So to live is heaven: To make undying music in the world, Breathing a beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man."

"O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's search To vaster issues."

"Fancy what a game at chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, in disgust at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deducted reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with the game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments. He thinks himself sagacious, perhaps, because he trusts no bond except that of self-interest; but the only self-interest he can safely rely on is what seems to be such to the mind he would use or govern. Can he ever be sure of knowing this?"

"So our lives glide on: the river ends we don't know where, and the sea begins, and then there is no more jumping ashore."

"[Christian] ... he felt very much like an uninitiated chess-player who sees that the pieces are in a peculiar position on the board, and might open the way for him to give checkmate, if he only knew how."

"We see human heroism broken into units and say, this unit did little – might as well not have been. But in this way we might break up a great army into units; in this way we might break the sunlight into fragments, and think that this and the other might be cheaply parted with. Let us rather raise a monument to the soldiers whose brave hearts only kept the ranks unbroken and met death – a monument to the faithful who were not famous, and who are precious as the continuity of the sunbeams is precious, though some of them fall unseen and on barrenness."

"[Mr Johnson] "You know what a Tory is – one who wants to drive the working men as he'd drive cattle.""

"We mortals sometimes cut a pitiable figure in our attempts at display. We may be sure of our own merits, yet fatally ignorant of the point of view from which we are regarded by our neighbour. Our fine patterns in tattooing may be far from throwing him into a swoon of admiration, though we turn ourselves all round to show them."

"Truth is the precious harvest of the earth. But once, when harvest waved upon a land, The noisome cankerworm and caterpillar, Locusts, and all the swarming foul-born broods, Fastened upon it with swift, greedy jaws, And turned the harvest into pestilence, Until men said, What profits it to sow?"

"But these things are often unknown to the world; for there is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman for ever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer – committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed in no human ear."

"Already handbills were in circulation; some presenting, in large print, the alternative of justice on the conspirators or ruin to the Republic; others in equally large print urging the observance of the law and the granting of the Appeal. Round these jutting islets of black capitals there were lakes of smaller characters setting forth arguments less necessary to be read: for it was an opinion entertained at that time (in the first flush of triumph at the discovery of printing), that there was no argument more widely convincing than question-begging phrases in large type."

"The law was sacred. Yes, but rebellion might be sacred too. It flashed upon her mind that the problem before her was essentially the same as that which had lain before Savonarola—the problem where the sacredness of obedience ended, and where the sacredness of rebellion began."

"An ass may bray a good while before he shakes the stars down."

"But veracity is a plant of paradise, and the seeds have never flourished beyond the walls."

"No radiant angel came across the gloom with a clear message for her. In those times, as now, there were human beings who never saw angels or heard perfectly clear messages. Such truth as came to them was brought confusedly in the voices and deeds of men not at all like the seraphs of unfailing wing and piercing vision—men who believed falsities as well as truths, and did the wrong as well as the right. The helping hands stretched out to them were the hands of men who stumbled and often saw dimly, so that these beings unvisited by angels had no other choice than to grasp that stumbling guidance along the path of reliance and action which is the path of life, or else to pause in loneliness and disbelief, which is no path, but the arrest of inaction and death."