Toilers of the Sea - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0902550640 ISBN 13: 9780902550643

Synopsis

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1888. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIL A HAUNTKD HOUSE, WHOSE TENANT IS HAUNTED BY DREAMS. Gilliatt was a man of dreams; hence his daring, hence also his timidity. On many things he had ideas which were peculiarly his own. There was in his character perhaps something of the visionary and the trauscendentalist. Hallucinations may haunt the peasant, like Martin, no less than the king, like Henry IV. There are times when the Unknown reveals itself in startling ways to the spirit of man. A sudden rent in the veil of darkness will make manifest things hitherto unseen, and then close again upon the mysteries within. Sometimes such visions effect transfigurations. They convert a poor camel-driver into a Mahomet; a peasant girl tending her goats into a Joan of Arc. Solitude generates a certain amount of sublime exaltation. It is like the smoke arising from the burning bush. A mysterious lucidity of mind results, which converts the student into a seer, and the poet into a prophet: herein we find a key to the mysteries of Horeb, Kedron, Ombos; to the intoxication of Castalian laurels, the revelations of the month Busion. Hence, too, we have Peleia at Dodona, Phemonoe at Delphos, Trophonius in Lebadea, Ezekiel on the Chebar, and Jerome in the Thebais. More frequently this visionary state overwhelms and stupefies its victim. There is such a thing as a divine besottedness. The fakir bears about with him the burden of his vision, as the Cretin his goitre. Luther holding converse with devils in his garret at Wittenburg, Pascal shutting out the view of the infernal regions with the screen of his cabinet, the African Obi conversing with the white-faced God Bossum, are all phases of the same phenomenon, diversely interpreted by the minds in which they manifest themselves, according to their capacity and po...

About this title

About the Author

James Hogarth was educated at Edinburgh University, and was later undersecretary in the Scottish Office.
Graham Robb s many books include" Victor Hugo: A Biography," which won the 1997 Whitbread Biography Award."

Edition details

• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0902550640
• ISBN 13: 9780902550643
• Binding: Paperback