More Pages from a Journal Part 14

A cousin of mine had an evening cla.s.s of poor girls. She was trying to explain to them the words 'liquid' and 'solid.'

'You walked over the bridge; it was a hard road.'

'Yes, teacher.'

'If you had gone down by the side of the bridge you could not have walked across there?'

'No, teacher.'

'If you were to try and were to put your feet on the water, where would you go?'

'To h.e.l.l, teacher.'

The a.s.sociation of the question, 'Where would you go?' was too strong.

This sunset, which is common to the whole county, is more to me than anything exclusively mine.

If emotion be profound, symbolism, as a means of expression, is indispensable.

There would be no objection to 'telling the truth' about Burns, Byron, and Sh.e.l.ley if it could be told. But it cannot be told. We are informed that they did this or that, and the thing they did is to us what it would be if done by ourselves.

We are most vain of that which is least ourselves, of that which is acquired, put on, stuck in. It is not correct to say that a woman is vain of her beauty.

Controversy is demoralising. Never suffer yourself to become an advocate. Never rely on controversy to convince. Say what you have to say and leave it. DO it if you wish to persuade.

People are often unkind, not from malignity, but from inept.i.tude.

It is of the greatest importance continually to bear in mind that the violation of a law personal to myself is as immoral as the violation of a general law, and may be more mischievous.

To die is easy when we are in perfect health. On a fine spring morning, out of doors, on the downs, mind and body sound and exhilarated, it would be nothing to lie down on the turf and pa.s.s away.

What we want is wise counsel on particular occasions. Principles we can get by the bushel anywhere. The reason why our friends are so useless is that they will not take trouble. The selection and the application of the principle are difficult.

It is terrible to live with a person who has a strong, narrow sense of duty without further-reaching thought or love by which the rigidity of duty may be softened.

By the third, which is neither ourselves nor the object, do we recognise it. The third is the celestial light.

It is appalling to reflect that there are enormous ma.s.ses of human energy which can find no proper outlet. The consequence is mischief either through expression in any direction and at any cost, or through suppression. We want an organisation of energy, one of the n.o.blest offices of a true church.

The tyranny of the imagination is perhaps that which is most to be dreaded. By strength of will we can prevent an act, but no strength of will is able to prevent the invasion of self-created pictures.

The only remedies are health and indifference to them when they present themselves. If we worry ourselves about them they become worse. If we let them alone they fade and we forget them.

Thinking much upon insoluble problems is apt to breed superst.i.tion even in the strongest minds. The failure of the reason weakens our reliance on it, and the difference between the incomprehensible and the absurd is very fine.

In this howling Bedlam of voices, it is of no use to talk or write-- no man, if he has anything to say, can be heard. He is reviewed to- day and forgotten to-morrow. To soothe the pangs of a single sufferer, to drain a poor man's cottage and give him wholesome drinking water, are good things done of which we can be sure.

Life is a matter of small virtues, but we have to bring them to perfection. This may be done by great principles. The humblest act may proceed from that which is beyond the stars.

What a vile ant.i.thesis is that between a man and his faults! If I love a man, I do not love his faults, for they are abstractions, but I love the man IN his faults. Are they not truly himself? He is often more himself in his faults than in his virtues.

We should not talk as if we were responsible for the effect of what we say. We are responsible for saying it, and for nothing more. A higher power is responsible for the effect which is to follow from each cause.

Wisdom for old age.--Check the propensity to dwell on what you have thought before. Try to get new ideas into your head. Beware of giving trouble or asking for sympathy. Do everything yourself, which you have been in the habit of doing, so long as you can move a muscle, and when you cannot, secure, if possible, paid help: watch what the most devoted of friends or relatives say of continued attendance on the sick: note the relief when the sick man dies.

Let not the thought sadden you that six weeks after you are in your grave those to whom you are now dear will be laughing and living just as if you had never existed. Why should they not? Are you of such consequence that they should for ever wear mourning for you? A slow march as you are carried to the churchyard, but when a handful of earth has been thrown on your coffin, let everybody go home to draw up the blinds and open the windows. So much dead already, all pa.s.sion, so many capacities for enjoyment, why care for this miserable residuum, this poor empty _I_?

Clear vision is not often the cause of distress. It is rather the cloud of imagination distorting what is before us and preventing distinct view. Science, removing the heavens to an infinite distance, destroying traditions, abolishing our little theologies, does not disturb our peace so seriously as that vague dreaming in which there is no thinking.

Ah, it is not a quarrel which is so deadly! It is the strange transformation of what were once thought to be charms and virtues.

The soft blue eyes are now simply silly; innocence is stupidity; docility is incapacity of resolution; the sweet, even temper is absence of pa.s.sion.

Is it true that less evidence is necessary to prove an event which is probable than one that is improbable? The probability of an event is no evidence that it actually happened. Its probability may be the reason why we should examine the evidence more closely, because witnesses are more likely, in the case of a probable event, to refrain from scrutiny than in the case of one not probable. I sit at my window and see a whitish object with four legs in a field.

I am short-sighted, but I at once say 'a cow,' and take no pains to ascertain whether it is a cow or not. If I had seen a white object apparently with three legs only, I should have gone out, inspected it closely, and should have called other people to look at it.

I pray for a gift which perhaps would be miraculous: simply to be able to see that field of waving gra.s.s as I should see it if a.s.sociation and the 'film of custom' did not obscure it.

Why do we admire intellect when it is united with even diabolic disregard of moral laws? Partly because it stands out more prominently; partly because it triumphs over obstacles; but mainly because we are all more or less in sympathy with insurrection and the a.s.sertion of individuality.

As we move higher, personality becomes of less consequence. We do not live in the 'I,' but in truths. Something of a metaphysical hint here.

Principles are dangerous tools for a fool. What awful mischief they have done!