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"Bear up, my dear friend," continued Tomlinson; "bear up against your present afflictions. What, to a man who fortifies himself by reason and by reflection on the shortness of life, are the little calamities of the body? What is imprisonment or persecution or cold or hunger? By the by, you did not forget to put the sandwiches into my coat-pocket!"
If ever he do anything beyond his own heart 'tis for a knighthood, and he is the first kneels for it without bidding. Truly defined, is a bold traitor, for he fortifies a castle against the king. Give him sea-room in never so small a vessel, and like a witch in a sieve, you would think he were going to make merry with the devil.
Suspected gatherings, the system of weakening your frontiers, threats of your enemies without, manoeuvres of your enemies within, all warns you to hasten the establishment of an order of things which assures and fortifies the citizens. If we deliberate, when we should swear, if our constitution may be again attacked, after having been already twice assailed, what remains for us to do?
The talented actor animates, nurses, consolidates, fortifies and clothes it, suggests the proper gestures and attitudes, infuses his own health and strength into this weakling, gives it blood and, so to speak, makes it live. The playwright contributes the soul, it is true; but, the soul being intangible, it is only a pitiable gift so far as the dramatic art is concerned."
Now, having got possession of this stately palace or castle, what doth he but makes it a garrison for himself, and strengthens and fortifies it with all sorts of provision, against the King Shaddai, or those that should endeavour the regaining of it to him and his obedience again.
It also "fortifies the stomach, comforts the bowels, reduces the gallstone to sand, the sand to mud, the mud to water water which can be passed out of the system by the usual channels." The Fountain of Saint Vulcan, anti-blepharous and amygdaloidal, was charged with such potent minerals that a single spoonful produced a diarrhoea more distressing to witness than cholera.
As resemblance, when conjoined with causation, fortifies our reasonings; so the want of it in any very great degree is able almost entirely to destroy them. Of this there is a remarkable instance in the universal carelessness and stupidity of men with regard to a future state, where they show as obstinate an incredulity, as they do a blind credulity on other occasions.
You touch there on the kernel of the social system, the secret that fortifies the individual and disciplines the million. I care not, for my part, if you are tedious so long as you are earnest. Be minute and detailed. Let the real Human Life, in its war with Circumstance, stand out. Never mind if one can read you but slowly, better chance of being less quickly forgotten. Patience, patience!
Thornton just now quoted refers to this characteristic. The overthrow at Lepanto, though they rallied from their consternation for a while, was a far more serious and permanent misfortune in its moral than in its material consequences. And, on any such national calamity, the fatalism of their creed, to which I have already referred, consecrates and fortifies their despair.
They act as if they had created the world, very long ago, in their youth, but decidedly it was a mistake, and they had well repented it. Let us nourish ourselves from other meat; strengthen our souls with cheering thoughts. What is truest for man is what best fortifies him. If mankind lives by confidence, it lives also by hope that form of confidence which turns toward the future.
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