A Journey to the Centre of the Earth

To bear with him means to obey

he studied, he consumed the midnight oil, he pored over heavy tomes, and digested huge quartos and folios in order to keep the knowledge acquired to himself

he was a perfect polyglot dictionary in himself

He was not usually so blind to the pleasure of a good dinner

Until I discover the meaning of this sentence I will neither eat nor sleep

There are words which are composed wholly of consonants, such as mm.rnlls, others which are nearly all vowels

Probably we shall find that the phrase is arranged according to some mathematical plan

Imagine my surprise when glancing at the back of the wearisome puzzle, the ink having gone through, I clearly made out Latin words

No living being should ever know.

To reveal it would be suicidal. He would not only rush, himself, to destruction, but drag me with him.

Neither you nor anybody else know anything about the real state of the earth's interior.

The very reason why you should go up. I want to cure you of a bad habit.

My flesh crawled as it became probable that he would discover the secret.

But in the cause of science men are expected to suffer.

The fact is, the castle is much later than the time of the heroic prince of Denmark.

The books of our library are therefore passed from hand to hand without returning to the library shelves perhaps for years.

Because Arne Saknussemm was persecuted for heresy, and in 1573 his works were publicly burnt at Copenhagen, by the hands of the common hangman.

He is like a farmer who has neither to plow, to sow, nor to harrow, only to collect his harvest.

This economy of motion was carried to the length of avarice.

He knew every inch of that part of the coast, and promised to take us the very shortest way.

the money was to be paid to him every Saturday night, failing which, his engagement was at an end.

He moves so little that it is impossible for him to become fatigued.

I had not the slightest reliance upon them, as a means of crossing a stormy arm of the sea. To ride over salt water upon the back of a little horse seemed to me absurd.

The favorable moment did not come until six o'clock in the evening. Then my uncle, myself, and guide, two boatmen and the four horses got into a very awkward flat-bottom boat.

in Iceland, during the months of June and July, the sun never sets.

The bedding was composed of dry hay thrown into two long red wooden boxes, ornamented with sentences painted in Icelandic.

If a road does really present itself by which to descend into the dark and subterraneous bowels of Mother Earth, if this thrice unhappy Saknussemm has really told the truth, we shall be most certainly lost in the midst of the labyrinth of subterraneous galleries of the volcano.

Because the monster has slept soundly since 1219, does it follow that he is never to wake?

At the approach of an eruption these spouts of vapor redouble their activity—to disappear altogether during the period of volcanic eruption; for the elastic fluids, no longer having the necessary tension, seek refuge in the interior of the crater, instead of escaping through the fissures of the earth.

When science has sent forth her fiat—it is only to hear and obey.

Iceland, being absolutely without sedimentary soil, is composed exclusively of volcanic tufa; that is to say, of an agglomeration of stones and of rocks of a porous texture.

All take their rise in the fierce action of interior fires, and to believe that the central mass did not remain in a state of liquid fire, white hot, was simply and purely madness.

This mental lecture delivered to myself while proceeding on a journey, did me good.

The stones on the mountain side, held together by no cement of soil, bound together by no roots or creeping herbs, gave way continually under our feet, and went rushing below into the plains, like a series of small avalanches.

The wind was driving it directly towards that side of Sneffels on which we were perched. This opaque veil standing up between us and the sun projected a deep shadow on the flanks of the mountain.

We were happily a little out of the direction of the wind, and therefore out of reach of danger. But for the precaution and knowledge of our guide, our dislocated bodies, our crushed and broken limbs, would have been cast to the wind, like dust from some unknown meteor.

I wholly forgot who I was, and where I was. I became intoxicated with a sense of lofty sublimity, without thought of the abysses into which my daring was soon about to plunge me.

Involuntarily, I compared this crater to an enormous loaded cannon; and the comparison completely terrified me.

Of the three openings which yawned beneath our steps, only one could have been followed by the adventurous Saknussemm. According to the words of the learned Icelander, it was only to be known by that one particular mentioned in the cryptograph, that the shadow of Scartaris fell upon it, just touching its mouth in the last days of the month of June.

We were, in fact, to consider the pointed peak as the stylus of an immense sun-dial, the shadow of which pointed on one given day, like the inexorable finger of fate, to the yawning chasm which led into the interior of the earth.

But if the heavens and the elements are capable of causing us much pain and sorrow, there are two sides to a medal. And there was reserved for Professor Hardwigg a brilliant and sudden surprise which was to compensate him for all his sufferings.

There is nothing more powerful than this attraction towards an abyss.

I had not taken lessons enough at the Frelser's-Kirk of Copenhagen in the art of looking down from lofty eminences without blinking!

My uncle was not fond of half measures, nor did he like anything in the way of hesitation.

we were approaching the regions of eternal night!

It was not even now quite dark, the light filtering down in a most extraordinary manner.

The deduction I draw from this is very simple. According to the most exact observations, the augmentation of the temperature of the interior of the earth is one degree for every hundred feet.

Either my calculation is correct, or there is no truth in figures.

The descent of this obscure and narrow gallery was very gradual and winding. Sometimes we gazed through a succession of arches, its course very like the aisles of a Gothic cathedral.

absolute solitude and complete security reigned supreme.

I would have bartered a diamond mine for a glass of pure spring water!

I have taken care of it at the bottom of my bottle as the apple of my eye. Twenty times, a hundred times, I have resisted the fearful desire to drink it. But—no—no, Harry, I saved it for you.

The whole singular history of the coal period was written on those dark and gloomy walls.

The earth had evidently been cast apart by some violent subterranean commotion.

What! Give up just as we are on the verge of success?

Never, never shall it be said that Professor Hardwigg retreated.

When Christopher Columbus asked of his men three days to discover the land of promise, his men ill, terrified, and hopeless, yet gave him three days—and the New World was discovered.

The nature of the rock makes this a mathematical certainty, and instinct agrees with logic to say that it is so.

Such a process, simple as it seemed, would most certainly not have entered our heads.

The water was scalding hot!

Well, then, let this water run. It will, of course, naturally follow in our track, and will serve to guide and refresh us.

facts, as usual, are very stubborn things, overruling all theories.

It is certain that the inanimate objects by which you are surrounded have a direct action on the brain.

How many persons condemned to the horrors of solitary confinement have gone mad—simply because the thinking faculties have lain dormant!

I was literally buried alive; with no other expectation before me but to die in all the slow horrible torture of hunger and thirst.

It is my opinion that if your calculations are correct we are no longer under Iceland.

We were compelled every quarter of an hour or thereabouts to sit down in order to rest our legs. Our calves ached.

The whole question rested on the solidity of the granite roof above us.

I began in the newly aroused ardor of my soul to speak enthusiastically to the Professor. Well, was I serious? The whole state in which we existed was a mystery—and it was impossible to know whether or not I was in earnest.

Lost! Lost!! LOST!!!

These thirty leagues of the crust of the earth weighed upon my shoulders like the globe on the shoulders of Atlas.

It were better to give way wholly to despair!

Insensate folly and madness to entertain even a shadow of hope!

This renewal of my youthful faith brought about a much greater amount of calm, and I was enabled to concentrate all my strength and intelligence on the terrible realities of my unprecedented situation.

The most important thing, then, to be done was to discover the bed of the Hansbach.

Lost in a vast labyrinth, the sinuosities of which spread in every direction, without guide, clue or compass, I knew it was a vain and useless task to attempt flight.

In this place nothing—the absolute obscurity made me blind in every sense.

I was perfectly ignorant of the matter.

Because I was alive, there was something left to do.

The sound must come along the gallery itself. The place I was in must possess some peculiar acoustic properties of its own.

Sound does not possess the property of traveling with such extreme rapidity.

All I had to do was to follow the direction whence the sound had reached me; and logically putting it, I must reach him if my strength did not fail.

I was first launched into a dark and gloomy void. I then struck against the projecting asperities of a vertical gallery, a perfect well.

let us take care never to separate; for surely we should risk never meeting again.

In truth, we were imprisoned—bound as it were, in a vast excavation.

Not to admire is all the art I know, To make man happy and to keep him so.

We were the only living creatures in this subterranean world!

Despite the great atmospheric pressure down here, you will notice that this inland sea rises and falls with as much regularity as the Atlantic itself.

It is almost impossible to believe that which I see. Who in his wildest dreams could have imagined that, beneath the crust of our earth, there could exist a real ocean, with ebbing and flowing tides, with its changes of winds, and even its storms!

Man, even in his highest flights of vivid and poetic imagination, never thought of such things!

But there is no proof like demonstration,

The fact was that my journey into the interior of the earth was rapidly changing all preconceived notions, and day by day preparing me for the marvelous.

The whole panorama of the world's life before the historic period, seemed to be born over again, and mine was the only human heart that beat in this unpeopled world!

the natural heat of the world increased unceasingly, and neutralized that of the great radiant Sun.

I saw clearly that it had required all the influence of my danger and suffering, to extract from him one scintillation of humane feeling.

I came down into the interior of the earth with an object, and that object I mean to attain. Don't talk to me about admiring scenery, or any other sentimental trash.

To fly is, therefore, the course to be suggested by ordinary prudence. But we have not come into that part of the world to be prudent.

What could be more ridiculous than to have taken an island for a marine monster? But kick as one may, one must yield to evidence, and I was finally convinced of my error.

We shall, however, see what we shall see.

It is the old story again of the mountain of adamant.

We have not as yet reached the end of our journey.

Once we reach the exact centre of this sphere, either we shall find a new road by which to ascend to the surface, or we shall simply turn round and go back by the way we came.

The wind carried the voice away.

His countenance presents the extraordinary appearance of an antediluvian man, a true contemporary of the Megatherium.

He was the greatest human enigma I ever had known.

I have an idea, my dear boy; it is none other than this simple fact; we shall not come out by the same opening as that by which we entered.

It was useless attempting to conceal from ourselves the fatal truth.

The terrible fatigues of our sea voyage, the fearful dangers we had passed through, had all, all, gone for nothing.

I will not yield, I will not retreat even one inch; and we shall see who shall triumph in this great contest—man or nature.

It is utterly useless to struggle against the impossible.

Everything is subordinate to some great law of nature.

On that spot, some three square miles in extent, was accumulated the whole history of animal life—scarcely one creature upon the comparatively modern soil of the upper and inhabited world had not there existed.

Fancy an enthusiastic lover of books carried suddenly into the very midst of the famous library of Alexandria burned by the sacrilegious Omar, and which some miracle had restored to its pristine splendor!

Human instincts succumbed to scientific pride and exultation.

There is the body; you can see it; you can touch it. It is not a skeleton, it is a complete and uninjured body, preserved with an anthropological object.

the continually cooling operation, through which the earth had to pass, produced fissures, landslips, and chasms, through which a large portion of the earth made its way.

The one thing wanting in these plants, these shrubs, these trees—was color! Forever deprived of the vivifying warmth of the sun, they were vapid and colorless.

It was enough to drive the most ingenious classifier of the upper regions out of his mind, and to upset all his received ideas about botany.

No human being could by any possibility have existed in that subterranean world! No generation of men could inhabit the lower caverns of the globe without taking note of those who peopled the surface, without communication with them.

This blade of a dagger you have so marvelously discovered, after being abandoned upon the sand for more than a hundred, two hundred, even three hundred years, has been indented by someone endeavoring to carve an inscription on these rocks.

Your name engraved at every important stage of your glorious journey leads the hopeful traveler direct to the great and mighty discovery to which you devoted such energy and courage.

What matter! It is not our duty to explain facts, but to make the best possible use of them.

all is for the best.

The thing is to make a start.

From this time forward, our reason, our judgment, our human ingenuity, have nothing to do with the course of events.

One chance in a thousand is always a chance, while death from hunger gave us not even the faintest glimpse of hope.

I had the courage to hold my tongue, to gnaw at my entrails like the Spartan boy.

While there is life there is hope.

as long as a man's heart beats, as long as a man's flesh quivers, I do not allow that a being gifted with thought and will can allow himself to despair.

Hunger, prolonged, is temporary madness! The brain is at work without its required food, and the most fantastic notions fill the mind.

Man's constitution is so peculiar that his health is purely a negative matter.

It is only when you suffer that you really understand.

a learned man, a philosopher, is nothing if not a philosopher, when he keeps his ideas calm and collected

It is perpetually undergoing the modifications caused by the decomposition of internal matter, the agitation consequent on the flowing of extensive liquid currents, the excessive action of magnetism which tends to shake it incessantly

In such circumstances you do not choose your own thoughts. They overcome you.

the most fortunate thing that could happen to us

We are compelled to breathe just as it does

The unexpected character of such a scene added a hundredfold to its marvelous beauties

we had entered the earth by one volcano, and we had come out by another.

The wondrous changes of this expedition had transported us to the most harmonious and beautiful of earthly lands.

No one would believe it—and when they saw him come back in safety they believed it all the less.

So much honor necessarily created for him many envious enemies.

For a learned man to be baffled by such an inexplicable phenomenon was very aggravating.

From that hour my uncle was the happiest of learned men, and I the happiest of ordinary mortals.