As Therese lived longer, she came to see her
littleness in contrast to God's greatness.
And after reading the lives of some great saints or their writings, I've felt something of their greatness and my own
littleness. And I have at times stood before masterpieces of art and have felt like a complete amateur.
In addition, in his short address to the Restaurant Frascati diners that evening, Sir William concluded that 'although man's intrinsic
littleness was increasingly borne in upon him by modern cosmogonic speculation, certain reassuring factors persistently emerged which went to show that, if relatively insignificant in the midst of immensities, this world of ours was undeniably unique in many of its manifestations.'
In the verb /Ndakakapinza/, 'I penetrated *'it'/her' the second /-ka-/ is a Class 12 object marker which defines
littleness and a sense of powerlessness.
When they asked why, Jesus revealed it was "because of the
littleness of your faith" (Matthew 17:19-20).
Gilbert Noon feels the "glamorous vast multiplicity" of Europe opposing the
littleness of England: "His tight and exclusive nationality seemed to break down in his heart" (MN 107).
For that too is the wrestling of men with the might of their Creator, in a great isolation from the world, without the amenities and consolations of life, a lonely struggle under a sense of over-matched
littleness, for no reward that could be adequate, but for the mere winning of a longitude." (Conrad 1912)
Ultimately, of course, hobbits are not given an origin because they stand in for the reader of the text--in both our
littleness and in our modernity, in contrast to the great actors of storied realms.
Let's leave all that
littleness, and look higher." Then, thinking of nothing else, he slowly sat down.
Similarly, the narrative describes cousin Sweet Fern, a "good little boy, who was always making particular inquiries about the precise height of giants and the
littleness of fairies" (59), as "good" precisely because he finds pleasure in quantifying Eustace's wild fancies.
Yiddish, a
littleness, a tiny light--oh little holy light!--dead, vanished.
In a similar vein, Schuon described Muhammad as "a synthesis combining human '
littleness' with the divine mystery." It is precisely this "reconciliation of opposites" that, in Schuon's view, qualifies Islam to be "the 'last Revelation'," since it serves to bring together all that went before it.