More Pages from a Journal Part 15

Never was there a time in which men were less governed by ideas.

The Church and the sects are neither Calvinist nor Arminian, orthodox nor rational, and in politics an idea d.a.m.ns a measure at once.

We have no capitalised happiness, nothing on which to draw when temporary sources fail.

A decided bent or twist, is not unsuitable in a man, but I do not care for it in a woman. I love that equipoise in the faces of the Greek women in the old statues and sculptures. It appears also in some pictures of the Virgin.

The duty of the State as to toleration cannot be decided by an appeal to rights. Everybody admits that government is sometimes justified in suppressing what is honestly believed. But if government had not been resisted we should have had no Christianity.

The vindication of the authority of the State is a vindication of persecution, and if we dispute this authority we cannot logically disallow dangerous licence. There is no way out of the difficulty so long as we generalise. Toleration is an abstraction, nothing but a word. What we have to decide is, whether it is wise or unwise to send to prison the people now before us who preach bigamy, a.s.sa.s.sination of kings, or theological heresy.

When we struggle to see more than we possibly can see we undervalue what we indubitably see.

There is but little thinking, or perhaps it is more correct to say but little reflection, in the Bible. There is profound sympathy with a few truths, but ideas are not sought for their own sake.

Carlyle is Biblical. It has been said scoffingly that he is no thinker. It is his glory that he is not.

What we have toiled after painfully often lies unused. No opportunity occurs for saying or doing a t.i.the of it. The hour demands its own special wisdom.

When we really love we cannot believe that our love is mortal. We feel, not only that it is immortal, but that it is eternal, in the sense in which Spinoza uses the word. It is not the attraction of something entirely limited and personal to that which is also limited and personal.

We think of rest as natural to bodies, and motion as something added. But the new doctrine is that motion is primary. Nothing is at rest, and, so far as we know, rest has never been. It is an astounding conception.

There is a certain distance at which each person whom we know is naturally placed from us. It varies with each, and we must not attempt to alter it. We may clasp him who is close, and we are not to pull closer him who is more remote.

Many people would be much better if they would let themselves be as good as they really are. They seem to take delight in making themselves less.

We are much misled by characters in fiction or on the stage, for they are always more consistent than men and women in real life.

Real men and women are seldom controlled for twenty-four hours by the same motives or principles. If my friend is mean to-day, let me not doubt his generosity to-morrow. Let me joyously believe in it when the morrow comes.

What a pest is the re-appearance in us of discarded conclusions! It would be of service if we could keep a register of those things which, after careful examination, we have determined to be false.

Acting from the strongest motives, even if they are bad, is perhaps not so dangerous as acting from none. The evils which arise through deeds done from conspicuous motives attract attention, but the vast sum of misery caused by mere idle, irresolute swaying hither and thither pa.s.ses unnoticed.

Pig-headedness is often a sign of weakness of will. The pig-headed person knows he is weak, and to convince himself and others of his resolution holds to any chance purpose with tenacity. The less reasonable the purpose is, the more obstinately he clings to it, because, by so doing, he shows as he thinks his strength of volition.

If we desire peace we must get beyond the notion of personality.

Nothing of any value is bound up with it: it is an illusion.

Intense feeling gives intellectual precision. The man who feels profoundly the beauty of a cloud is the man who can describe it.

But the first effect of intense feeling is often to break up false precision. The ideas of G.o.d, life, personality, right and wrong, are examples.

The blue sky is more beautiful because we know it is not painted opacity, but transparent.

The slowness of the change in the sky is exquisite, the dying out of the light in the clouds after sunset. The quiet abiding of the grey cloud as darkness thickens is wonderful.

June--Sky and sea pure blue. The blue tint suffuses the distant vessels. One large sailing ship with sails all set is so blue that it differs only by a shade from sky and sea.

It is not true that guileless people are the most easily deceived.

S. G. is not sharp-witted, but she is transparent as a pool of rain on meadow gra.s.s, and consequently it is impossible to deceive her, and ridiculous to attempt it: her eyes forbid it. She does not infer insincerity: it is automatically rejected.

July.--North-easterly wind, strong: hateful in the streets and even in the house: dust everywhere. Inclined to shut the windows and stay indoors, but went out for a long walk up to the flag-staff. A perfect day for that view. The bay all shades of blue; here and there deep, and, insh.o.r.e, the blue is broken with pure white from the tops of the waves: the yellow beach to the farthest point clasping the sea like an arm. So beautiful that it gives pain: it is not possible to extend oneself to it.

Whether truth does or does not lie in the mean depends on the selection of the extremes. A mechanical choice of the mean is stupidity.

The Athanasian Creed is not objectionable because of its d.a.m.natory clauses. Neglect to observe the finest distinctions continually involves d.a.m.nation. The difference between a vice and a virtue may be a hair-line. The true reason for rejecting the Creed is that it is manufactured, that it is not a statement of what is seen and felt to be true. There is nevertheless a certain dogmatic pride in it, a desire to affirm as offensively as possible.

The peace which orthodox religion is said to bring is obtained by clipping the Infinite and reducing it to a finite. The joy of INCLUSION is great but false.

'And thy fats shall overflow with new wine'--Proverbs iii. 10, Revised Version. Called on A. in London. I forget how it came about, but in course of conversation he asked me if 'fats' were not a mistake for 'vats.' I told him it was not, turning up the word in the dictionary as an equivalent to 'vats.' Called on his sister, who was staying three or four miles away and had come up to town that afternoon from the country where she lived. That very evening she asked me the same question her brother had asked. She had not seen him, nor held any communication with him on the subject, nor had it been suggested to them by any person or book. Moreover, neither of them is a frequent reader of the Bible. Yesterday I told the story to A. in his sister's presence. She confirmed it, and A., who is accustomed to scientific investigation, was quite unable to account for it. If a jury were trying a prisoner charged with murder, and an equally singular concurrence of circ.u.mstances were in evidence against him, they would not hesitate to hang him.

If you are very short-sighted or half blind, it is safer in the twilight to shut the eyes and depend entirely on the touch in moving about.

The books on the adjustment of astronomical instruments say that if there is a slight error, it is better always to make allowance for it than to attempt to correct it.

The sun, we say, is the cause of heat, but the heat IS the sun, here on this window-ledge.

The contact of a SYSTEM of philosophy or religion with reality is that of a tangent with a circle. It touches the circle at one point, but instantly the circle edges away.

In every man there is something of the Universal Spirit, strangely limited by that which is finite and personal, but still there.

Occasionally it makes itself known in a word, look, or gesture, and then he becomes one with the stars and sea.