still, still what . 2
Still, — still, —
what shall I say?
There grows upon you a loss; yes, certainly I shall venture to call it a loss.
An increasing forgetfulness of that old restless instinct...
a lack of that (now and then) going to the edge of it all...
₁
“Still — still —”
“Still — what, Miss Naomi?”
“He is not like himself, sir. He denies it, but I can’t help thinking he is hiding something from me.”
The day wore on; the evening came.
I returned to my French novel... ₂
“Still — still what matters?”
the dust at every crossing ₃
- But you think not so; you care more for cabbage leaves than for spinning dreams in the air with restless head; and certainly, if we look at the thing from a business point of view, it may be more useful. Still, — still, — what shall I say? There grows upon you a loss; yes, certainly I shall venture to call it a loss. And increasing forgetfulness of that old restless instinct; a lower satisfaction with the present;—an absorbed thought of that on which you stand and which you eat: — a lack of that (now and then) going to the edge of it all; and staring, and rearing, and twisting, and wondering, and longing, — after what? beyond. Life’s purpose seems too much merged in the present; too much bounded by the evanescent and limited sphere in which you are living; in many that divine instinct dies out; they perceive no more those hints of how this state is still imperfect; of how there are other skins to be cast: of how there is a strange, unfathomed future beyond the buried chrysalis, — eyes fixed intently on the leaf, unconscious of, or unheeding, the wide wings that flash above them on the flower.
ex “Cast-Off Skins” in The Companion; A Monthly Magazine for Odd Fellows and their Families 4:4 (November 1868) : 222-224 (223)
U Minnesota copy/scan (via google books) : link
Ohio State U copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link - ex Wilkie Collins, “The Dead Alive” (Chapter 5, “The News from Narrabee”),
serialized in The Canadian Monthly and National Review 5:1 (January 1874) : 30
U California copy/scan (via google books) : link
and in (Boston edition, 1874; Harvard copy/scan via hathitrust) : linkWilkie Collins (1824-1889)
wikipedia : link - ex “From Twilight to Dawn : A Romance of the Frankfort Ghetto” Chapter 9, An Opportunity, in
The Maccabean 5:4 (Tisre 5664; October 1903) : 199-210 (201)
UCLA copy/scan (via google books) : linka fascinating exchange on the preceding page (200) —
“How know you I come from the city?” questioned Abraham.
“Know? I have been there and back these twenty years and know the dust at every crossing and I see Rhine mud on thy hose.”
“Good, but the peddlers have the news. Frankfort has none.”
“Sharp for a dullard, but there was talk of some disturbance. I had it through the Shammos (beadle), who had it from Isaac of Spiers.”
“Of no account. Nothing has happened.”published by the Federation of American Zionists.
see Biographical Note for Louis Lipsky (1963-1876), Louis Lipsky Papers, American Jewish Historical Society : P-672 : link