Character and Conduct Part 19

"All high happiness has in it some element of love; all love contains a desire for peace. One immediate effect of new happiness is to make us turn toward the past with a wish to straighten out its difficulties, heal its breaches and forgive its wrongs."

JAMES LANE ALLEN.

"As long as we love, we can forgive."

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"When it is our duty to do an act of justice it should be done promptly.

To delay is injustice."

LA BRUYeRE.

"His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong."

EMERSON (_said of Lincoln_).

The Unamiable

APRIL 27

"Of all mortals none are so awfully self-deluded as the unamiable. They do not, any more than others, sin for the sake of sinning, but it may be doubted whether, in the hour when all shall be uncovered to the eternal day, there will be revealed a lower depth than the h.e.l.l which they have made. They inflict torments with an unconsciousness almost worthy of spirits of light. The spirit sinks under the prospect of the retribution of the unamiable, if all that happens be indeed for eternity, if there be, indeed, a record of every chilling frown, of every querulous tone, of every bitter jest, of every insulting word, of all abuses of that tremendous power which mind has over mind. The throbbing pulse, the quivering nerves, the wrung hearts that surround the unamiable; what a cloud of witnesses is here! The terror of innocents who should know no fear, the vindictive emotions of dependents who dare not complain, the faintness of heart of lifelong companions, the anguish of those who love; what an array of judges is here! The unamiable, the domestic torturer, has heaped wrong upon wrong, woe upon woe, through the whole portion of time which was given into his power, till it would be rash to say that any others are more guilty than he."

HARRIET MARTINEAU.

Ill-Nature

APRIL 28

"HOW is ill-nature to be met and overcome? First, by humility: when a man knows his own weaknesses, why should he be angry with others for pointing them out? No doubt it is not very amiable of them to do so, but still, truth is on their side. Secondly, by reflection: after all we are what we are, and if we have been thinking too much of ourselves, it is only an opinion to be modified; the incivility of our neighbours leaves us what we were before. Above all, by pardon: there is only one way of not hating those who do us wrong, and that is by doing them good; anger is best conquered by kindness. Such a victory over feeling may not indeed affect those who have wronged us, but it is a valuable piece of self-discipline. It is vulgar to be angry on one's own account; we ought only to be angry for great causes. Besides, the poisoned dart can only be extracted from the wound by the balm of a silent and thoughtful charity. Why do we let human malignity embitter us? Why should ingrat.i.tude, jealousy--perfidy even--enrage us? There is no end to recriminations, complaints, or reprisals. The simplest plan is to blot everything out. Anger, rancour, bitterness, trouble the soul. Every man is a dispenser of justice; but there is one wrong that he is not bound to punish--that of which he himself is the victim. Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged."

_Amiel's Journal._

The Science of Social Life

APRIL 29

"Every man has his faults, his failings, peculiarities, eccentricities.

Every one of us finds himself crossed by such failings of others, from hour to hour. And if he were to resent them all, or even notice all, life would be intolerable. If for every outburst of hasty temper, and for every rudeness that wounds us in our daily path, we were to demand an apology, require an explanation, or resent it by retaliation, daily intercourse would be impossible. The very science of social life consists in that gliding tact which avoids contact with the sharp angularities of character, which does not argue about such things, does not seek to adjust or cure them all, but covers them, as if it did not see."

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON.

"If you would have a happy family life, remember two things,--in matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current."

The Science of Social Life

APRIL 30

"Much of the sorrow of life, however, springs from the acc.u.mulation, day by day and year by year, of little trials--a letter written in less than courteous terms, a wrangle at the breakfast table over some arrangement of the day, the rudeness of an acquaintance on the way to the city, an unfriendly act on the part of another firm, a cruel criticism needlessly reported by some meddler, a feline amenity at afternoon tea, the disobedience of one of your children, a social slight by one of your circle, a controversy too hotly conducted. The trials within this cla.s.s are innumerable, and consider, not one of them is inevitable, not one of them but might have been spared if we or our brother man had had a grain of kindliness. Our social insolences, our irritating manners, our censorious judgment, our venomous letters, our pinp.r.i.c.ks in conversation, are all forms of deliberate unkindness, and are all evidences of an ill-conditioned nature."

_The Homely Virtues_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.

"Let us think, too, how much forbearance must have been shown us that we were not even conscious of needing; how often, beyond doubt, we have wounded, or annoyed, or wearied those who were so skilful and considerate that we never suspected either our clumsiness or their pain."

_Studies in the Christian Character_, Bishop PAGET.

The Science of Social Life

MAY 1

"Then, to be able, when we live with our brother men, not to remember what we wish for ourselves, but only their wants, their joy and their sorrow; to think, not of our own desires, but how to minister to the great causes and the great conceptions which help mankind; to be eager to give pity to men, and forgiveness to their wrong; to desire with thirst to bind up the broken heart of man, and to realise our desire in act--this is to thirst for G.o.d as Love. For this is self-forgetfulness, and in the abysmal depths of His Being, as well as in every surface-form into which He throws Himself out of Himself, G.o.d is the absolute Self-forgetfulness."

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"If, in the paths of the world, Stones might have wounded thy feet, Toil or dejection have tried Thy spirit, of that we saw Nothing--to us thou wast still Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!

Therefore to thee it was given Many to save with thyself; And, at the end of thy day, O faithful shepherd! to come, Bringing thy sheep in thy hand."

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

The Science of Social Life

MAY 2

"If you would be loved as a companion, avoid unnecessary criticism upon those with whom you live. The number of people who have taken out judges' patents for themselves is very large in any society. Now it would be hard for a man to live with another who was always criticising his actions, even if it were kindly and just criticism. It would be like living between the gla.s.ses of a microscope. But these self-elected judges, like their prototypes, are very apt to have the persons they judge brought before them in the guise of culprits.

"Let not familiarity swallow up old courtesy. Many of us have a habit of saying to those with whom we live such things as we say about strangers behind their backs. There is no place, however, where real politeness is of more value than where we mostly think it would be superfluous. You may say more truth, or rather speak out more plainly to your a.s.sociates, but not less courteously than to strangers."

Sir ARTHUR HELPS.

"For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of n.o.ble mind."

TENNYSON.

Sympathy

MAY 3