quote · Legacy record
As one familiar with the sonatas and the symphonies of Beethoven, while passing along the street in summer, gets, from out of the open window, a snatch of a song or a piece that is being played, catching a strain here and another there—and says to himself, "Ah, that is Beethoven. I recognize that: it is from such and such a movement of the Pastoral" or whatever it may be;—so men in life catch strains of God in the mother's disinterested and self-denying love, in the lover's glow, in the little child's innocent affections. Where did this thing come from? No plant ever brought out such fruit as this?
As one familiar with the sonatas and the symphonies of Beethoven, while passing along the street in summer, gets, from out of the open window, a snatch of a song or a piece that is being played, catching a strain here and another there—and says to himself, "Ah, that is Beethoven. I recognize that: it is from such and such a movement of the Pastoral" or whatever it may be;—so men in life catch strains of God in the mother's disinterested and self-denying love, in the lover's glow, in the little child's innocent affections. Where did this thing come from? No plant ever brought out such fruit as this?
Approximate author period: c. 1850 AD · industrial
Meaning not yet available
An individual explanation has not yet been added. We do not substitute a generic description for an interpretation of these particular words.
Begin with source-checked readings and explanations ↗Attribution & collection notes
- Author or tradition
- Henry Ward Beecher
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1850 AD · industrial
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1813 to 1887; Wikidata Q1607404, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1607404 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- The Optimist’s Good Morning (1911) (1911 AD)
Complete signed selection 162; printed byline: Henry Ward Beecher; Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911; printed copyright 1907
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.