Hans Bjelke Quotes in Journey to the Center of the Earth
As a true nephew of Professor Lidenbrock, and notwithstanding my mental preoccupation, I was interested in observing the mineralogical curiosities displayed in this vast cabinet of natural history, and, at the same time, was going over in my mind the whole geological history of Iceland.
I was on the summit of one of the twin peaks of Snäffel […]. I commanded a view of almost the whole island. […] I could have said that one of Helbesmer’s relievo maps lay before me. […] precipices seemed mere walls, lakes changed into ponds, and rivers were little streams. On my right there were glaciers without number, and innumerable peaks […].
[…] I forgot who I was, and where I was […]. I gave myself to the luxury of the heights […].
The stream ran murmuring softly at our feet. I compared it to some kindly genius, who was guiding us underground, and I caressed with my hand the warm Naiad whose songs accompanied our steps.
We were quite fit for this existence of troglodytes. I scarcely thought of sun, or stars, or moon, or trees, or houses, or towns, or any of those terrestrial superfluities which are necessary to sublunary beings. We were fossils now, and thought such useless marvels absurd.
How long this state of insensibility had lasted I cannot say, I had no longer any means of reckoning time. Never was solitude like mine, never was abandonment so absolute.
The whole fossil world lives again in my imagination. I go back in fancy to the biblical epoch of creation, long before the advent of man, when the imperfect earth was not fitted to sustain him. Then still further back, when no life existed. […] All life was concentrated in me, my heart alone beat in a depopulated world.
From that moment our reason, our judgment, our ingenuity went for nothing, we were to be the playthings of the elements.
Hans Bjelke Quotes in Journey to the Center of the Earth
As a true nephew of Professor Lidenbrock, and notwithstanding my mental preoccupation, I was interested in observing the mineralogical curiosities displayed in this vast cabinet of natural history, and, at the same time, was going over in my mind the whole geological history of Iceland.
I was on the summit of one of the twin peaks of Snäffel […]. I commanded a view of almost the whole island. […] I could have said that one of Helbesmer’s relievo maps lay before me. […] precipices seemed mere walls, lakes changed into ponds, and rivers were little streams. On my right there were glaciers without number, and innumerable peaks […].
[…] I forgot who I was, and where I was […]. I gave myself to the luxury of the heights […].
The stream ran murmuring softly at our feet. I compared it to some kindly genius, who was guiding us underground, and I caressed with my hand the warm Naiad whose songs accompanied our steps.
We were quite fit for this existence of troglodytes. I scarcely thought of sun, or stars, or moon, or trees, or houses, or towns, or any of those terrestrial superfluities which are necessary to sublunary beings. We were fossils now, and thought such useless marvels absurd.
How long this state of insensibility had lasted I cannot say, I had no longer any means of reckoning time. Never was solitude like mine, never was abandonment so absolute.
The whole fossil world lives again in my imagination. I go back in fancy to the biblical epoch of creation, long before the advent of man, when the imperfect earth was not fitted to sustain him. Then still further back, when no life existed. […] All life was concentrated in me, my heart alone beat in a depopulated world.
From that moment our reason, our judgment, our ingenuity went for nothing, we were to be the playthings of the elements.
