Character and Conduct Part 55

DECEMBER 1

"Beauty is far too much neglected. It never belongs to criticism; it ought by right to be always bound up with creation. What it is, is hard to define; but, whenever anything in nature or in the thoughts and doings of man awakens a n.o.ble desire of seeing more of it; kindles pure love of it; seems to open out before us an infinite of it which allures us into an endless pursuit; stimulates reverence, and makes the heart leap with joy--there is beauty, and with it always is imagination, the shaping power.

"The capacity for seeing beauty with the heart is one of the first necessities for such a life in a living world as I now urge upon you.

When you see it, you always see more and more of it. And the more you see it, the more love and reverence you will feel in your heart; and the less you will care to criticise, and the more you will care to create.

The world needs it now, and the glory of it, more almost than anything else, for nearly all the world has lost the power of seeing it. The monied men want it; the scientific men want it; the artists themselves have of late betrayed it; the business men want it. The middle-cla.s.s and the aristocracy are almost dest.i.tute of it; the working men abide in conditions in which its outward forms are absent. To give them the power to see all that is lovely in nature, in human thought, in art, and in the n.o.ble acts of men--that is a great part of your work, and you should realise it, and shape it day by day."

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

Nature

DECEMBER 2

"To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal, and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney, comes out of the din and craft of the street, and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself."

EMERSON.

"Nature is loved by what is best in us."

EMERSON.

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the gra.s.s under the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means waste of time."

Lord AVEBURY.

Nature

DECEMBER 3

"The un.o.btrusive influences of earth, sea, and sky do their work. They pa.s.s imperceptibly and unsought into the soul."

"... Outdoor sights Sweep gradual gospels in."

"Bid me work, but may no tie Keep me from the open sky" (Barnes).

_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.

"The cheerfulness of heart which springs up in us from the survey of Nature's works, is an admirable preparation for grat.i.tude. The mind has gone a great way towards praise and thanksgiving that is filled with such a secret gladness: a grateful reflection on the Supreme Cause who produces it, sanctifies the soul, and gives it its proper value. Such an habitual disposition of mind consecrates every field and wood, turns an ordinary walk into a morning or evening sacrifice, and will improve those transient gleams of joy, which naturally brighten up and refresh the soul on such occasions, into an inviolable and perpetual state of bliss and happiness."

ADDISON.

Holidays

DECEMBER 4

"There are only two rules for a successful holiday; the first is to earn it, the second is to have just enough holiday to make the prospect of work pleasant. Periods of rest we all need, but labour and not rest is the synonym of life. From these periods of rest we should return with a new appet.i.te for the duties of common life. If we return dissatisfied, enervated, without heart for work, we may be sure our holiday has been a failure. If we return with the feeling that it is good to plunge into the mid-stream of life again, we may know by this sign that we are morally braced and strengthened by our exodus. The wise man will never allow his holiday to be a time of mere idleness. He will turn again to the books that interest him, he will touch the fringe of some science for which his holiday gives him opportunity, or he will plunge into physical recreation, and shake off the evil humours of the body in active exercise. The failure of holidays lies very much in the fact that nothing of this sort is attempted. The holiday is simply a series of aimless days, and the natural result is _ennui_. The supreme purpose of a holiday should be to regain possession of ourselves. He who does this comes back from his holiday as from a sanctuary."

W. J. DAWSON.

Books

DECEMBER 5

"But what strange art, what magic can dispose The troubled mind to change its native woes?

Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see Others more wretched, more undone than we?

This, Books can do;--nor this alone, they give New views to life, and teach us how to live; They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise, Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise: Their aid they yield to all: they never shun The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone: Unlike the hard, the selfish and the proud, They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd; Nor tell to various people various things, But show to subjects, what they show to kings."

_The Library_, CRABBE.

Books

DECEMBER 6

"Narrowness may be met by recourse to the larger life revealed in Literature. There is no stronger plea for Biography, Drama, or Romance, or for any imaginative expansion of interests, than that founded upon the need for them as counteractives of the pitiable contractedness of outlook begotten of Division of Labour."

_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.

"When I consider what some books have done for the world, and what they are doing, how they keep up our hope, awaken new courage and faith, soothe pain, give an ideal life to those whose hours are cold and hard, bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create new worlds of beauty, bring down truth from heaven; I give eternal blessings for this gift, and thank G.o.d for books."

JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

Reading

DECEMBER 7

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew them over again they will not give us strength and nourishment."

LOCKE.

"In the course of our reading we should lay up in our minds a store of goodly thoughts in well-wrought words, which should be a living treasure of knowledge always with us, and from which, at various times, and amidst all the s.h.i.+fting of circ.u.mstances, we might be sure of drawing some comfort, guidance, and sympathy."

HELPS.

The Object of Education