Summary
“Small is it that thou canst trample the earth with its injuries under thy feet, as old Greek Zeno trained thee; thou canst love the earth while it injures thee, and even because it injures thee; for this a greater than Zeno was needed, and he, too, was sent. Knowest thou that ‘Worship of Sorrow?’ The temple thereof, opened some eighteen centuries ago, now lies in ruins, overgrown with jungle, the habitation of doleful creatures. Nevertheless, venture forward; in a low crypt, arched out of falling fragments, thou findest the altar still there, and its sacred lamp perennially burning.”
—Sartor Resartus.“I will tell you, scholar, I have heard a grave divine say that God has two dwellings; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.”
—Isaac Walton.Among the strongest of the fresh feelings excited by foreign travel,—those fresh feelings which are an actual reinforcement of life,—is that of welcome surprise at the sympathy the traveller is able to yield, as well as privileged to receive. We are all apt to lose faith in the general resemblance between human beings when we have remained too long amidst one set of circumstances,—all of us, nearly as weakly as the school girl who thinks that the girl of another school cannot comprehend her feelings; or the statesman who is surprised that the lower classes appear sometimes to understand their own interests; or the moralist who starts back from the antique page where he meets the reflection of his own convictions; or the clergyman who has one kind of truth for his study, and another for his pulpit.
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- Retrospect of Western Travel , pp. 255 - 269Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1838