“Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.”
Opening lines, Ch. 1, "The River Bank"
Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908)
Context: The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Kenneth Grahame 83
British novelist 1859–1932Related quotes

“Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Make our pleasant earth below
Like the heaven above.”
"Little Things" (1845) as quoted in Our Woman Workers: Biographical Sketches of Women Eminent in the Universalist Church for Literary, Philanthropic and Christian Work (1881) by E. R. Hanson. These were the final words of the poem in the original publication, but later versions published anonymously by other authors appended various additions to this. It has also often appeared credited to Carney in a variant form:
Little deeds of kindness,
Little words of love,
Help to make earth happy
Like the heaven above.
“Long time he lay upon the sunny hill,
To his father's house below securely bound.”
Childhood (1983)

Evelyn Underhill Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 506
The Sparkling Stone (c. 1340)

“From the Divine, Eternal Spirit springs
Order and Rule and Rectitude of Things”
The True Grounds Of Eternal And Immutable Rectitude" St. 6
Miscellaneous Poems (1773)
Context: From the Divine, Eternal Spirit springs
Order and Rule and Rectitude of Things,
Thro' outward Nature, His Apparent Throne,
Visibly seen, intelligibly known, —
Proofs of a Boundless Pow'r, a Wisdom's Aid,
By Goodness us'd, Eternal and Unmade.