and this long swell, that now are here at work, have been ere
  now at home in the great inland sea of Europe, breathed on by
  soft, warm winds from fruit-groves, vineyards, and wide fields
  of flowers,—have sparkled in the many-colored lights, and felt
  the trivial oars and dallying fingers of the loiterers, on the
  long canals of Venice,—have quenched the ashes of the
  Dutchman's pipe, thrown overboard from his dull, laboring
  treckschuyt,—have wrought their patient tasks in the dim
  caverns of the Indian Archipelago,—have yielded to the little
  builders under water means and implements to rear their
  towering altar, dwelling, monument.

  "These little waves have crossed the ocean, tumbling like
  porpoises at play, and, taking on a savage nature in the Great
  Wilderness, have thundered in close ranks and countless numbers
  against man's floating fortress,—have stormed the breach and
  climbed up over the walls in the ship's riven side,—have
  followed, howling and hungry as mad wolves, the crowded
  raft,—have leaped upon it, snatching off, one by one, the
  weary, worn-out men and women,—have taken up and borne aloft,
  as if on hands and shoulders, the one chance human body that is
  brought in to land, and the long spur, from which man's dancing
  cordage wastes by degrees, find yields its place to long, green
  streamers, much like those that clung to this tall, taper tree
  when it stood in the Northern forest.

  "These waves have rolled their breasts about amid the wrecks
  and weeds of the hot stream that comes up many thousands of
  miles out of the Gulf of Mexico, as the great Mississippi goes
  down into it, and by-and-by these waves will move, all numb and
  chilled, among the mighty icebergs and ice-fields that must be
  brought down from the poles."

  * * * * *

  "She asked, 'Have you given up being a priest, Mr. Urston?'

  "'Yes!' he answered, in a single word, looking before him, as
  it were along his coming life, like a quoit-caster, to see how
  far the uttered word would strike; then, turning to her, and in
  a lower voice, added, 'I've left that, once and forever.'"

  * * * * *

  "He stood still with his grief; and, as Mr. Wellon pressed his
  honest, hard hand, he lifted to his pastor one of those
  childlike looks that only come out on the face of the true man,
  that has grown, as oaks grow, ring around ring, adding each
  after-age to the childhood that has never been lost, but has
  been kept innermost. This fisherman seemed like one of those
  that plied their trade, and were the Lord's disciples, at the
  Sea of Galilee, eighteen hundred years ago. The very flesh and
  blood inclosing such a nature keep a long youth through life.
  Witness the genius, (who is only the more thorough man,) poet,
  painter, sculptor, finder-out, or whatever; how fresh and fair
  such an one looks out from under his old age! Let him be
  Christian, too, and he shall look as if—shedding this
  outward—the inward being would walk forth a glorified one."

  * * * * *

  "As he mentioned his fruitless visits, a startling, most
  repulsive leer just showed itself in Ladford's face; but it
  disappeared as suddenly and wholly as a monster that has come
  up, horrid and hideous, to the surface of the sea, and then has
  sunk again, bodily, into the dark deep, and is gone, as if it
  had never come, except for the fear and loathing that it leaves
  behind. This face, after that look, had nothing repulsive in
  it, but was only the more subdued and sad."

  "It is one on which the tenderness of the deep heart of the
  Common Mother breaks itself; over which the broad, dark,
  silent wings of a dread mystery are stretched."

  * * * * *

  "Her voice had in it that tender touch which lays itself,
  warm and loving, on the heart."

  * * * * *

  "And then her voice began to drop down, as it were, from
  step to step,—and the steps seemed cold and damp, as it went
  down them lingeringly:—'or for
  trial,—disappointment,—whatever comes!'—and at the last, it
  seemed to have gone down into a sepulchral vault."