Great Throughts Treasury

"God pity us indeed, for we are human, and do not always see the vision when it comes, the shining change, or, if we see it, do not follow it, because it is too hard, too strange, too new, too unbelievable, too difficult, warring too much with common, easy ways, and now I know this, standing in this light, who have been half alive these many years, brooding on my own sorrow, my own pain, saying "I am a barren bough. Expect nor fruit nor blossom from a barren bough.""

"He brings man's freedom in his hands, not as a coin that may be spent or lost but as a living fire within the heart, never quite quenched ? because he brings to all, the thought, the wish, the dream of brotherhood, never and never to be wholly lost, the water and the bread of the oppressed, the stay and succor of the resolute, the harness of the valiant and the brave, the new word that has changed the shaken world. And, though he die, his word shall grow like wheat and every time a child is born, in pain and love and freedom hardly won, born and gone forth to help and aid mankind, there will be women with a right to say "Gloria, gloria in excelsis deo! A child is born!""

"He knew that once you bested anybody like Mr. Scratch in fair fight, his power on you was gone. And he could see that Mr. Scratch knew it too."

"He shall not come to conquest, the conquest of kings, but in the bare stable he shall judge all things."

"He started off in a low voice, though you could hear every word. They say he could call on the harps of the blessed when he chose. And this was just as simple and easy as a man could talk. But he didn't start out by condemning or reviling. He was talking about the things that make a country a country, and a man a man."

"Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright as the blank windows set in glaring brick, when the wind strengthens from the sea--and night drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick; by the deserted paths, the vacant hills, one may see figures, twisted shades and lean, like the mad shapes that crawl on Indian screen, or paunchy smears you find on prison walls. Turn the knob gently! There's the Thumbless Man, still weaving glass and silk into a dream, although the wall shows through him--and the Khan journeys Cathay beside a paper stream. A Rabbit Woman chitters by the door-- Chilly the grave-smell comes from the turned sod-- come--lift the curtain--and be cold before the silence of the eight men who were God!"

"Honesty is as rare as a man without self-pity."

"How shall I tell what I saw? The towers are not all broken ? here and there one still stands, like a great tree in a forest, and the birds nest high. But the towers themselves look blind, for the gods are gone. I saw a fishhawk, catching fish in the river. I saw a little dance of white butterflies over a great heap of broken stones and columns. I went there and looked about me ? there was a carved stone with cut ? letters, broken in half. I can read letters but I could not understand these. They said UBTREAS. There was also the shattered image of a man or a god. It had been made of white stone and he wore his hair tied back like a woman's. His name was ASHING, as I read on the cracked half of a stone. I thought it wise to pray to ASHING, though I do not know that god."

"I am not tired. I am expectant as a runner is before a race, a child before a feast day, a woman at the gates of life and death, expectant for us all, for all of us who live and suffer on this little earth with such small brotherhood. Something begins. Something is full of change and sparkling stars. Something is loosed that changes all the world."

"I crawled. I could not speak or see save dimly. The ice glared like fire, a long bright Hell of choking cold, and each vein was a tautened wire, throbbing with torture ? and I crawled. My hands were wounds. So I attained the second Hell."

"I have been in the Place of the Gods and seen it! Now slay me, if it is the law ? but still I know they were men."

"I knew then that they had been men, neither gods nor demons. It is a great knowledge, hard to tell and believe. They were men ? they went a dark road, but they were men."

"I see that I've said something you don't like, something uncouth and bold and terrifying, and yet, I'll tell you this: It won't be till each one of us is willing, not you, not me, but every one of us, to hang upon a cross for every man who suffers, starves and dies, fight his sore battles as they were our own, and help him from the darkness and the mire, that there will be no crosses and no tyrants, no Herods and no slaves."

"I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse. I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea. You may bury my body in Sussex grass, you may bury my tongue at Champm‚dy. I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass. Bury my heart at Wounded Knee."

"I stumbled, slipped... and all was gone that I had gained. Once more I lay before the long bright Hell of ice. And still the light was far away. There was red mist before my eyes or I could tell you how I went across the swaying firmament, a glittering torture of cold stars, and how I fought in Titan wars... and died... and lived again upon the rack... and how the horses strain when their red task is nearly done. . . I only know that there was Pain, infinite and eternal Pain. And that I fell ? and rose again."

"I went fasting, as is the law. My body hurt but not my heart. When the dawn came, I was out of sight of the village. I prayed and purified myself, waiting for asign. The sign was an eagle. It flew east."

"I went north ? I did not try to hide myself. When a god or a demon saw me, then I would die, but meanwhile I was no longer afraid. My hunger for knowledge burned in me ? there was so much that I could not understand."

"Icarus, Icarus, though the end is piteous, yet forever, yea, forever we shall see thee rising thus, see the first supernal glory, not the ruin hideous."

"If the hunters think we do all things by chants and spells, they may believe so ? it does not hurt them. I was taught how to read in the old books and how to make the old writings ? that was hard and took a long time. Myknowledge made me happy ? it was like a fire in my heart. Most of all, I liked to hear of the Old Days and the storiesof the gods."

"If two New Hampshiremen aren't a match for the devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians."

"I'm waiting. ? For something new and strange, something I've dreamt about in some deep sleep, truer than any waking, heard about, long ago, so long ago, in sunshine and the summer grass of childhood, when the sky seems so near. I do not know its shape, its will, its purpose and yet all day its will has been upon me, more real than any voice I ever heard, more real than yours or mine or our dead child's, more real than all the voices there upstairs, brawling above their cups, more real than light. And there is light in it and fire and peace, newness of heart and strangeness like a sword, and all my body trembles under it, and yet I do not know."

"It is not given me to trace the lovely laughter of that face, like a clear brook most full of light, or olives swaying on a height, so silver they have wings, almost; like a great word once known and lost and meaning all things. Nor her voice a happy sound where larks rejoice, her body, that great loveliness, the tender fashion of her dress, I may not paint them."

"It should have been dark, for it was night, but it was not dark. Everywhere there were lights ? lines of light ? circles and blurs of light ? ten thousand torches would not have been the same. The sky itself was alight ? you could barely see the stars for the glow in the sky. I thought to myself "This is strong magic" and trembled. There was a roaring in my ears like the rushing of rivers. Then my eyes grew used to the light and my ears to the sound. I knew that I was seeing the city as it had been when the gods were alive."

"It was not when temptation came, swiftly and blastingly as flame, and seared me white with burning scars; when I stood up for age-long wars and held the very Fiend at grips; when all my mutinous body rose to range itself beside my foes, and, like a greyhound in the slips, the beast that dwells within me roared, lunging and straining at his cord. . . For all the blusterings of Hell, it was not then I slipped and fell; for all the storm, for all the hate, I kept my soul inviolate. But when the fight was fought and won, and there was Peace as still as Death on everything beneath the sun. Just as I started to draw breath, and yawn, and stretch, and pat myself, --The grass began to whisper things--And every tree became an elf, that grinned and chuckled counselings: birds, beasts, one thing alone they said, beating and dinning at my head. I could not fly. I could not shun it. Slimily twisting, slow and blind, it crept and crept into my mind. Whispered and shouted, sneered and laughed, screamed out until my brain was daft, one snaky word, "What if you'd done it?" And I began to think . . . Ah, well, what matter how I slipped and fell? Or you, you gutter-searcher, say! Tell where you found me yesterday!"

"Life is not lost by dying! Life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand, small, uncaring ways, the smooth appeasing compromises of time, which are King Herod and King Herod's men, always and always. Life can be lost without vision but not lost by death, lost by not caring, willing, going on beyond the ragged edge of fortitude to something more ? something no man has ever seen. You who love money, you who love yourself, you who love bitterness, and I who loved and lost and thought I could not love again, and all the people of this little town, rise up! The loves we had were not enough. Something is loosed to change the shaken world, and with it we must change!"

"Life was a storm to wander through. I took the wrong way. Good and well, at least my feet sought out not Hell!"

"My mind?s a map. A mad sea-captain drew it under a flowing moon until he knew it; winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs, and states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs. "Here there by tygers." "Here we buried Jim." Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim about their buried idol, drowned so cold he weeps away his eyes in salt and gold. A country like the dark side of the moon, a cider-apple country, harsh and boon, a country savage as a chestnut-rind, a land of hungry sorcerers. Your mind? --Your mind is water through an April night, a cherry-branch, plume feathery with its white, a lavender as fragrant as your words, a room where Peace and Honor talk like birds, sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth, flutters and beats about those lovely things. You are the soul, enchanted with its wings, the single voice that raises up the dead to shake the pride of angels. I have said."

"My people are the Hill People. They are the men. I go into the Dead Places but I am not slain. I take the metal from the Dead Places but I am not blasted. I travel upon the god-roads and am not afraid."

"Never have I been so much alone ? I tried to think of my knowledge, but it was a squirrel's heap of winter nuts. There was no strength in my knowledge any more and I felt small and naked as a new-hatched bird ? alone upon the great river, the servant of the gods."

"Nevertheless, we make a beginning. it is not for the metal alone we go to the Dead Places now ? there are the books and the writings. They are hard to learn. And the magic tools are broken ? but we can look at them and wonder. At least, we make a beginning. And, when I am chief priest we shall go beyond the great river. We shall go to the Place of the Gods ? the place newyork ? not one man but a company. We shall look for the images of the gods and find the god ASHING and the others ? the gods Lincoln and Biltmore and Moses. But they were men who built the city, not gods or demons. They were men. I remember the dead man's face. They were men who were here before us. We must build again."

"Now I tell what is very strong magic. I woke in the midst of the night. When I woke, the fire had gone out and I was cold. It seemed to me that all around me there were whisperings and voices. I closed my eyes to shut them out. Some will say that I slept again, but I do not think that I slept. I could feel the spirits drawing my spirit out of my body as a fish is drawn on a line."

"Oh dear and laughing, lost to me, hidden in grey Eternity, I shall attain, with burning feet, to you and to the mercy-seat! The ages crumble down like dust, dark roses, deviously thrust and scattered in sweet wine ? but I, I shall lift up to you my cry, and kiss your wet lips presently beneath the ever-living Tree. ."

"On the highest steeps of Space he will have his dwelling-place, in those far, terrific regions where the cold comes down like Death gleams the red glint of his pinions, smokes the vapor of his breath. Floating downward, very clear, still the echoes reach the ear of a little tune he whistles and a little song he sings, mounting, mounting still, triumphant, on his torn and broken wings!"

"Outcasts of war, misfits, rebellious souls, seekers of some vague kingdom in the stars ? They hide out in the hills and stir up trouble, call themselves prophets, too, and prophesy that something new is coming to the world, the Lord knows what! Well, it's a long time coming, and, meanwhile, we're the wheat between the stones."

"Perhaps 'tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence ? but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster."

"She is all peace, all quiet, all passionate desires, the eloquent thunder of new, glad suns, shouting aloud for joy, over fresh worlds and clean, trampling the air like stooping hawks, to the long wind of horns, flung from the bastions of Eternity... And she is the low lake, drowsy and gentle, and good words spoken from the tongues of friends, and calmness in the evening, and deep thoughts, falling like dreams from the stars' solemn mouths. All these."

"She stood there, and at once I knew the bitter thing that I must do. There could be no surrender now; though Sleep and Death were whispering low."

"Something begins, begins; starlit and sunlit, something walks abroad in flesh and spirit and fire. Something is loosed to change the shaken world."

"Sometimes signs are sent by bad spirits. I waited again on the flat rock, fasting, taking no food. I was very still ? I could feel the sky above me and the earth beneath. I waited till the sun was beginning to sink. Then three deer passed in the valley going east ? they did not mind me or see me. There was a white fawn with them ? a very great sign."

"Talking so quietly; when they hear the cars and the knock at the door, and they look at each other quickly and the woman goes to the door with a stiff face, smoothing her dress. "We are all good citizens here. We believe in the Perfect State.""

"The fire began to die on the hearth and the wind before morning to blow. The light was getting gray in the room when Dan'l Webster finished. And his words came back at the end to New Hampshire ground, and the one spot of land that each man loves and clings to. He painted a picture of that, and to each one of that jury he spoke of things long forgotten. For his voice could search the heart, and that was his gift and his strength. And to one, his voice was like the forest and its secrecy, and to another like the sea and the storms of the sea; and one heard the cry of his lost nation in it, and another saw a little harmless scene he hadn't remembered for years. But each saw something. And when Dan'l Webster finished he didn't know whether or not he'd saved Jabez Stone. But he knew he'd done a miracle. For the glitter was gone from the eyes of the judge and jury, and, for the moment, they were men again, and knew they were men."

"The iron ice stung like a goad, slashing the torn shoes from my feet, and all the air was bitter sleet. And all the land was cramped with snow, steel-strong and fierce and glimmering wan, like pale plains of obsidian.? And yet I strove ? and I was fire And ice ? and fire and ice were one in one vast hunger of desire."

"The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits, the dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates, the cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,"

"The north and the west and the south are good hunting ground, but it is forbidden to go east. It is forbidden to go to any of the Dead Places except to search for metal and then he who touches the metal must be a priest or the son of a priest. Afterwards, both the man and the metal must be purified. These are the rules and the laws; they are well made. It is forbidden to cross the great river and look upon the place that was the Place of the Gods ? this is most strictly forbidden. We do not even say its name though we know its name. It is there that spirits live, and demons ? it is there that there are the ashes of the Great Burning. These things are forbidden ? they have been forbidden since the beginning of time."

"The time is ? time. The place is anywhere. The voices speak to you across the air to say that once again a child is born. A child is born."

"Then he turned to Jabez Stone and showed him as he was ? an ordinary man who'd had hard luck and wanted to change it. And, because he'd wanted to change it, now he was going to be punished for all eternity. And yet there was good in Jabez Stone, and he showed that good. He was hard and mean, in some ways, but he was a man.There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing too. And he showed what the pride of it was till you couldn't help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it. And he wasn't pleading for any one person any more, though his voice rang like an organ. He was telling the story and the failures and the endless journey of mankind. They got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey. And no demon that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it ? it took a man to do that."

"There was no pain when I awoke, no pain at all. Rest, like a goad, spurred my eyes open ? and light broke upon them like a million swords: and she was there. There are no words. Heaven is for a moment's span. And ever."

"These I see, blazing through all eternity, a fire-winged sign, a glorious tree!"

"This in my heart I keep for goad! Somewhere, in Heaven she walks that road. Somewhere... in Heaven... she walks... that... road..."

"Was it not better so to lie? The fight was done. Even gods tire of fighting... My way was the wrong. Now I should drift and drift along to endless quiet, golden peace... and let the tortured body cease. And then a light winked like an eye. . . . And very many miles away a girl stood at a warm, lit door, holding a lamp. Ray upon ray it cloaked the snow with perfect light. And where she was there was no night nor could be, ever. God is sure, and in his hands are things secure."