R. M. Ballantyne Quotes
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To part is the lot of all mankind. The world is a scene of constant leave-taking, and the hands that grasp in cordial greeting today, are doomed ere long to unite for the last time, when the quivering lips pronounce the word - Farewell
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Well, there is a tide also in the affair of getting up in the morning, and its flood-point is the precise instant when you recover consciousness. At that moment every one, I believe, has moral courage to leap violently out of bed; but let that moment pass, and you sink supinely back, if not to sleep, at least into a desperate condition of unconquerable lethargy.
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From all these things I came at length to understand that things very opposite and dissimilar in themselves, when united, do make an agreeable whole; as, for example, we three on this our island, although most unlike in many things, when united, made a trio so harmonious that I question if there ever met before such an agreeable triumvirate. There was, indeed, no note of discord whatever in the symphony we played together on that sweet Coral Island; and I am now persuaded that this was owing to our having been all tuned to the same key—namely, that of love! Yes, we loved one another with much fervency while we lived on that island; and, for the matter of that, we love each other still.
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When a bad shot points a bad gun at you, your best plan is to stand still and take your chance. In such a case the chance is not a bad one.
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Dere is one cave,” remarked the guide, “not far off to here. P’raps we be safe if we git into ’im. But I ’fraid it not do, cause him be peepiled by fiends an’ dead man’s spirits.
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It is of no use mincing the matter; Dr John Marsh, after being regarded by his friends at home as hopelessly unimpressible—in short, an absolute woman-hater—had found his fate on a desolate isle of the Southern seas, he had fallen—nay, let us be just—had jumped over head and ears in love with Pauline Rigonda! Dr Marsh was no sentimental die-away noodle who, half-ashamed, half-proud of his condition, displays it to the semi-contemptuous world. No; after disbelieving for many years in the power of woman to subdue him, he suddenly and manfully gave in—sprang up high into the air, spiritually, and so to speak, turning a sharp somersault, went headlong down deep into the flood, without the slightest intention of ever again returning to the surface.
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They leaped and laughed and danced like insane men, and we had much ado to prevent them seizing us in their arms and rubbing noses with us.
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Fear is not cowardice. Acting in a wrong and contemptible manner because of our fear is cowardice.
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All truth is worth knowing and labouring after. No one can tell to what useful results the discovery of even the smallest portion of truth may lead.
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O Peterkin,” said I, in a tone of remonstrance, “how could you be so unkind as to waken me when I had just got to sleep? Shabby fellow!” “Just got to sleep, say you? You’ve been snoring like an apoplectic alderman for exactly two hours.
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Peterkin’s face was undergoing the most remarkable series of changes of expression, which, as I concluded, merged into a smile of beaming delight, as he said,—“Ralph, you’re a trump!
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I propose,” replied Jack, “that we shall undress ourselves, rub ourselves entirely over with charcoal and grease, so that they shall not recognise us, and dash in and carry the girl off by a coup de main. In which case it will, of course, be neck or nothing, and a tremendous race to the cave, where, if they follow us, we will keep them at bay with our rifles.” “Umph!
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We Circumvent the Natives. We arose on the following morning with the dawn of day, and began to make preparation for our departure.
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We were a very insufficient crew for such a vessel; and if any one had proposed to us to make such a voyage in it before we had been forced to go through so many hardships from necessity, we would have turned away with pity from the individual making such proposal as from a madman. I pondered this a good deal, and at last concluded that men do not know how much they are capable of doing till they try, and that we should never give way to despair in any undertaking, however difficult it may seem...
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A feathered arrow without a barb,” said he, “is a good weapon, but a barbed arrow without feathers is utterly useless.
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Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system... They ought to practice leaping off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man’s career with cool, cautious self-possession...
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How long I lay in this condition I know not, but I was suddenly awakened by a yell so appalling that my heart leaped as if into my throat, and my nerves thrilled with horror.
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I have always found, though I am unable to account for it, that daylight banishes many of the fears that are apt to assail us in the dark.
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I am not prone to indulge in effeminate demonstration, but I am not ashamed to confess that when I gazed on the weather-beaten though ruddy countenance of my old companion, and observed the eager glance of his bright blue eyes, I was quite overcome, and rushed violently into his arms.
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And so, reader, it was ultimately settled, and in the course of two weeks more we three were on our way to the land of the slave, the black savage, and the gorilla.
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Then it must be the monkey. That’s it. Roast monkey does not agree with you.
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I should not wonder, now, if you, Ralph, were to go home and write a book detailing our adventures in these parts, that at least half the sportsmen of England would be in Africa next year, and the race of gorillas would probably become extinct.
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I began my tale in the hope that I might produce something to interest the young (perchance, also, the old) in a most momentous case—the total abolition of the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer that God may make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut the chain of slavery, and set the black man free.
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I’m determined to shoot a gorilla, or prove him to be a myth.