Quotes by George Marsh

“GGibbie never thought about himself, therefore was there wide room for the entrance of the spirit. Does the questioning thought arise to any reader: How could a man be conscious of bliss without the thought of himself? I answer the doubt: When a man turns to look at himself, that moment the glow of the loftiest bliss begins to fade; the pulsing fire-flies throb paler in the passionate night; an unseen vapour steams up from the marsh and dims the star-crowded sky and the azure sea; and the next moment the very bliss itself looks as if it had never been more than a phosphorescent gleam -- the summer lightning of the brain. For then the man sees himself but in his own dim mirror, whereas ere he turned to look in that, he knew himself in the absolute clarity of God's present thought out-bodying him.””

“My seams gape wide so I'm tossed asideTo rot on a lonely shore,While the leaves and mould like a shroud unfold, For the last of my trails are o'er,But I float in dreams on Northland streams That never again I'll see,As I lie on the marge of the old portage With grief for company.When the sunset gilds the timbered hills That guard Timagami,And the moon beams play on far James Bay By the brink of the frozen sea,In phantom guise my spirit flies As the dream blades dip and swingWhere the waters flow from the Long Ago In the spell of the beck'ning spring.Do the cow-moose call on the MontrealWhen the first frost bites the air,And the mists unfold from the red and gold That the autumn ridges wear?When the white falls roar as they did of yore On the Lady Evelyn,Do the square-tail leap from the black pool deep Where the pictured rocks begin?Oh! the fur fleet sings on Temiscaming As the ashen paddles bend,And the crews carouse at Rupert's House At the sullen winter's end;But my days are done where the lean wolves run, And I ripple no more the path,Where the grey geese race 'cross the red moon's face From the white winds Arctic wrath.Tho' the death-fraught way from the Saguenay To the storied Nipigon,Once knew me well, now a crumbling shell I watch as the years roll on,And in memory's haze I live the days That forever are gone from me,As I rot on the marge of the old portage With grief for company.””

“Wherever modern Science has exploded a superstitious fable or even a picturesque error, she has replaced it with a grander and even more poetical truth.””

“To the natural philosopher, the descriptive poet, the painter, and the sculptor, as well as to the common observer, the power most important to cultivate, and, at the same time, hardest to acquire is that of seeing what is before him. Sight is a faculty; seeing, an art.””

“Orion never appreciated the wild places for what they are. Wild things need to be left free to preserve what makes them special. He saw everything in the world around him as a trophy to collect. As something to possess. Even me. I am wild, untamed, unattached, unfettered. To love me is to appreciate that. And I am fortunate indeed to have many who love me. Sometimes, to best tell your own story, you need it to be told by another. I am the protector of women and the friend of young girls. The helper of childbirth, she who soothes. I am the caretaker of the wild places, the mountains, marshes, the pastures and wetlands. I am Artemis, goddess of the wild hunt.””

“He held out his cup. As Rykker filled it for him, Bower Marsh said, "You have a great thirst for a small man." "Oh, I think that Tyrion is quite a large man," Maester Aemon said from the far end of the table. He spoke softly, yet the high officers of the Night's Watch all fell quiet, the better to hear what the ancient had to say. "I think he is a giant come among us, here at the end of the world."Tyrion answered gently, "I've been called many things, my lord, but giant is seldom one of them.””

“This exercise of the eye I desire to promote, and, next to moral and religious doctrine, I know no more important practical lesson in this earthly life of ours … than those relating to the employment of the sense of vision in the study of nature.””

“[...] one must have known the Levant to be able to conceive how readily persons intelligent and otherwise respectable will prefer a lie to the truth, when the slightest advantage is to be gained by the use of a falsehood.””

“Progress? Of course, this is progress; but, whether backward or forward, had better be decided sixty years hence. And, just what has happened to the obscure valley of Marsh Creek, is happening today, on a larger scale, all over the land. It is the same old story of grab and greed. Let us go on the "make" today, and "whack up" tomorrow; cheating each other as villainously as we may, and posterity be d”

“And then he looked at Damon Julian.The eyes dominated the face: cold, black, malevolent, implacable. Abner Marsh looked into those eyes a moment too long, and suddenly he felt dizzy. He heard men screaming somewhere, distantly, and his mouth was warm with the taste of blood. He saw all the masks that were called Damon Julian and Giles Lamont and Gilbert d'Aquin and Philip Caine and Sergei Alexov and a thousand other men fall away, and behind each one was another, older and more horrible, layer on layer of them each more bestial than the last, and at the bottom the thing had no charm, no smile, no fine words, no rich clothing or jewels, the thing had nothing of humanity, was nothing of humanity, had only the thirst, the fever, red, red, ancient and insatiable. It was primal and inhuman and it was strong. It lived and breathed and drank the stuff of fear, and it was old, oh so old, older than man and all his works, older than the forests and rivers, older than dreams.Abner Marsh blinked, and there across the table from him was an animal, a tall handsome animal in burgundy, and there was nothing the least bit human about it, and the lines of its face were the lines of terror, and its eyes-its eyes were red, not black at all, red, and lit from within, and red, burning, thirsting, red.””

“Le loro voci echeggiarono nella radura invasa dall'oscurità: «Udite le mie parole, siate testimoni del mio giuramento. Cala la notte, e la mia guardia ha inizio. Non si concluderà fino alla mia morte. Io non avrò moglie, non possiederò terra, non sarò padre di figli. Non porterò corona e non vorrò gloria. Io vivrò al mio posto, e al mio posto morirò. Io sono la spada nelle tenebre. Io sono la sentinella che veglia sul muro. Io sono il fuoco che arde contro il freddo, la luce che porta l'alba, il corno che risveglia i dormienti, lo scudo che veglia sui domini degli uomini. Io consacro la mia vita e il mio onore ai Guardiani della notte. Per questa notte e per tutte le notti a venire.» Attorno a loro, la Foresta stregata era immersa nel silenzio. «Vi siete inginocchiati ragazzi» intonò solennemente Bowen Marsh. «Ora alzatevi quali uomini dei Guardiani della Notte.»””