night is, how majestic! even the humblest creature feels
lifted up into that eternal greatness. Then you think of the home-life
in the long winters as dreary; but it is not so. Over away there, at
Lahn, and other places on the Hallstadtersee, they do not see the sun
for five months; the wall of rock behind them shuts them from all light
of day; but they live together, they dance, they work. The young men
recite poems, and the old men tell tales of the mountains and the French
war, and they sing the homely songs of the _Schnader-huepfeln_. Then when
winter passes, when the sun comes up again over the wall of rocks, when
they go out into the light once more, what happiness it is! One old man
said to me, 'It is like being born again!' and another said, 'Where it
is always warm and light I doubt they forget to thank God for the
sunshine;' and quite a young child said, all of his own accord, 'The
primroses live in the dusk all the winter, like us, and then when the
sun comes up we and they run out together, and the Mother of Christ has
set the water and the little birds laughing.' I would rather have the
winter of Lahn than the winter of Belleville."

* * *

If the Venus de Medici could be animated into life women would only
remark that her waist was large.

* * *

Tedium is the most terrible and the most powerful foe love ever
encounters.

* * *

"Life is after all like baccarat or billiards," he said to himself. "It
is no use winning unless there be a _galerie_ to look on and applaud."

* * *

Time hung on his hands like a wearisome wallet of stones.

When all the habits of life are suddenly rent asunder, they are like a
rope cut in two. They may be knotted together clumsily, or they may be
thrown altogether aside and a new strand woven, but they will never be
the same thing again.

* * *

The greatness of a great race is a thing far higher than mere pride. Its
instincts are noble and supreme, its obligations are no less than its
privileges; it is a great light which streams backward through the
darkness of the ages, and if by that light you guide not your footsteps,
then are you thrice accursed, holding as you do that lamp of honour in
your hands.

* * *

Even to those who care nothing for Society, and dislike the stir and
noise of the world about them, there is still always a vague sense of