Now, with respect to this it will be first said, that nature herself has directed us in our choice, laying down the
selfsame thing when she has made some young, others old: the first of whom it becomes to obey, the latter to command; for no one when he is young is offended at his being under government, or thinks himself too good for it; more especially when he considers that he himself shall receive the same honours which he pays when he shall arrive at a proper age.
I see," he added; and, turning to Governor Bellingham, whispered, "This is the
selfsame child of whom we have held speech together; and behold here the unhappy woman, Hester Prynne, her mother!"
--I come again eternally to this identical and
selfsame life, in its greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all things,--
Brussels seemed a very pleasant place to me when I got out again into the street, and it appeared as if some cheerful, eventful, upward-tending career were even then opening to me, on that
selfsame mild, still April night.
Here are five thousand Jews in blue gabardines, sashes about their waists, slippers upon their feet, little skullcaps upon the backs of their heads, hair combed down on the forehead, and cut straight across the middle of it from side to side--the
selfsame fashion their Tangier ancestors have worn for I don't know how many bewildering centuries.
But one and the
selfsame substance, while retaining its identity, is yet capable of admitting contrary qualities.
Old lines about knights at table in the great banquet halls, and of those above the salt and below the salt, and of Vikings feasting fresh from sea and ripe for battle, came to me; and I knew that the old times were not dead and that we belonged to that
selfsame ancient breed.
Yet, had Alymer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the
selfsame texture with the celestial.
Teucer shook with anger and said to his brother, "Alas, see how heaven thwarts us in all we do; it has broken my bowstring and snatched the bow from my hand, though I strung it this
selfsame morning that it might serve me for many an arrow."
But unlike Captain Peleg --who cared not a rush for what are called serious things, and indeed deemed those
selfsame serious things the veriest of all trifles --Captain Bildad had not only been originally educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn --all that had not moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his vest.
Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art Pontifical, a ridge of pendent Rock Over the vext Abyss, following the track Of SATAN, to the
selfsame place where hee First lighted from his Wing, and landed safe From out of CHAOS to the outside bare Of this round World: with Pinns of Adamant And Chains they made all fast, too fast they made And durable; and now in little space The Confines met of Empyrean Heav'n And of this World, and on the left hand Hell With long reach interpos'd; three sev'ral wayes In sight, to each of these three places led.
It is a great task to transmute feeling and sensation into speech, written or spoken, that will, in turn, in him who reads or listens, transmute itself back into the
selfsame feeling and sensation.