Chapter C: B. Newcomb

"I always loved 'At evening time it shall be light,' and I am sure it comes true to many a young troubled soul, which in its youthful zeal and impatience cannot help eating its heart out over its own and other people's failings and imperfections, and has not yet learnt the patience which comes from realising that in this world we see but the beginning of things."

Aspiration

NOVEMBER 2

"If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?"

THOREAU.

"The thing we long for,--That we are
For one transcendent moment!
Before the Present, poor and bare,
Can make its sneering comment!

* * * * *

Longing is God's fresh heavenward will
With our poor earthward striving;
We quench it that we may be still
Content with merely living;
But would we learn that heart's full scope
Which we are hourly wronging,
Our lives must climb from hope to hope
And realise our longing!

* * * * *

Ah! let us hope that to our praise
Good God not only reckons
The moments when we tread His ways,
But when the spirit beckons--
That some slight good is also wrought
Beyond self-satisfaction,
When we are simply good in thought,
Howe'er we fail in action."

LOWELL.

There shall never be one Lost Good

NOVEMBER 3

"Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name?
Builder and Maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands!
What, have fear of change from Thee Who art ever the same?
Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands?
There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.

All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist,
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist,
When eternity confirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that He heard it once; we shall hear it by-and-bye."

_Abt Vogler_, ROBERT BROWNING.

Struggling

NOVEMBER 4

"If what shone afar so grand
Turn to nothing in thy hand,
On again, the virtue lies
In the struggle, not the prize."

R. M. MILNES.

"One would like one's own failures to be one's friends' stepping stones.... I am trying to teach myself that if one _has_ been working, one has not necessarily been working to good purpose, and that one may waste strength and forces of all sorts, as well as time."

_Mrs. Ewing's Letters._

"Rise ... as children learn, be thou
Wiser for falling."

TENNYSON.

True Patience

NOVEMBER 5

"There are those who think it is Christian patience to sit down by the wayside to endure the storm, crying in themselves, 'God is hard on me, but I will bear His smiting'; but their endurance is only idleness which is ignoble, and hiding from the battle which is cowardice. Or they cry, 'I am the victim of Fate, but I will be patient'--as if any one could be a victim if God be love, or as if there were such a thing as blind fate, when the order of the world is to lead men into righteousness; when to be victor and not victim is the main word of that order. No, the severity of the battle is to force us into self-forgetfulness; and this lazy resignation, this wailing patience, is mere self-remembrance. The true patience is activity of faith and hope and righteousness in the cause of men for the sake of God's love of them; is in glad proclamation of the gospel; is in wielding the sword of the Truth of God against all that injures mankind."

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown overboard,
The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallowed in the flood--
Yet lives our Pilot still."

SHAKESPEARE.

The Appetite for Condolence

NOVEMBER 6

"It is right to exercise a great deal of self-restraint in speaking of our troubles, and not to let the appetite for condolence grow on us."

_Studies in the Christian Character_, Bishop PAGET.

"Carlyle says, 'My father had one virtue which I should try to imitate--he never spoke of what was disagreeable and past,' and my mother was the same; she turned her back at once upon the last months, which she put away for ever like a sealed volume."

_The Story of my Life_, AUGUSTUS HARE.

"Hacket's motto, 'Serve God and be cheerful.'"

"The Sharp Ferule of Calamity"

NOVEMBER 7

"It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are all God's scholars till we die."

_The Life of R. L. Stevenson_, GRAHAM BALFOUR.

"The best help is not to bear the troubles of others for them, but to inspire them with courage and energy to bear their burdens for themselves and meet the difficulties of life bravely."

Lord AVEBURY.

The Essentials of Happiness

NOVEMBER 8

"We weigh ourselves down with burdens of sorrow which are the results of our selfish thoughts and selfish desires; and every one of these burdens lessens our power to live righteously in ourselves, and to live usefully for others."

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"When you find yourself overpowered, as it were by melancholy, the best way is to go out, and do something kind to somebody or other."

_Letters of Spiritual Counsel_, KEBLE.

"The grand essentials of happiness are, something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."

CHALMERS.

"Happiness is easy when we have learnt to renounce."

MME. DE STAEL.

Unrest

NOVEMBER 9

"Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender."

_Amiel's Journal._

"What are the chief causes of _Unrest_? If you know yourself, you will answer Pride, Selfishness, Ambition. As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of personal mortifications and almost trivial disappointments which the intercourse of life has brought you? Great trials come at lengthened intervals, and we rise to breast them; but it is the petty friction of our everyday life with one another, the jar of business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will, the taking down of our conceit, which make inward peace impossible. Wounded vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness--these are the old, vulgar, universal sources of man's unrest."

_Pax Vobiscum_, HENRY DRUMMOND.

Rest

NOVEMBER 10

"Now, what is the first step towards the winning of that rest? It is the giving up of self-will and the receiving of God's will as our own--and what that means is clear. It is to make our life at one with God's character, with justice and purity, with truth and love, with mercy and joy. It is the surrender of our own pleasure and the making of God's desire for us the master of our life. That is the first step--a direction of the soul to God. The second has to do with mankind. It is the replacing of all self-love by the love of our fellow-men; a direction of the soul to God through man.

"These two ways are in reality one; and there is no other way, if we search the whole world over, in which we may attain rest. Simple as it sounds, it is the very last way many of us seek. We fight against this truth, and it has to be beaten into us by pain. Clear as it seems, it is a secret which is as difficult to discover as the Elixir of Life, but it is so difficult because we do not will to discover it."

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

The Duty of Happiness

NOVEMBER 11

"I cannot think but that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as the Happiness of Duty."

Lord AVEBURY.

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

DICKENS.

"Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It consists in giving and in serving others."

HENRY DRUMMOND.

Discontent

NOVEMBER 12

"He or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire,--all contentment--so long as he, or she, or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in mind or body, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasy or other."

BURTON.

"We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrong-doing makes us irritable, and our heart in its cunning quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamour within."

_Amiel's Journal._

"Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

Self-centred People

NOVEMBER 13

"It is self-centred people that are lonely--the richer the gift, the richer the giver. No one was ever the worse for giving."

F. F. MONTRESOR.

"Misanthropy is always traceable to some vicious experience or imperception--to some false reading in the lore of right and wrong, or it proceeds from positive defects in ourselves, from a departure from things simple and pure, whereby we forfeit happiness without losing the sense of the proper basis on which it rests; yet even thus perverted by the prejudices of the world, we still find a soothing pleasure in contemplating that happiness which belongs to simplicity and virtue."

ACTON.

"The largest and most comprehensive natures are generally the most cheerful, the most loving, the most hopeful, the most trustful. It is the wise man, of large vision, who is the quickest to discern the moral sunshine gleaming through the darkest cloud."

Contentment

NOVEMBER 14

"Contentment comes neither by culture nor by wishing; it is reconciliation with our lot, growing out of an inward superiority to our surroundings."

J. K. MCLEAN.

"If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you; and then to you nothing will be pure. You will spoil everything you touch, you will make misery for yourself out of everything which God sends you: you will be as wretched as you choose."

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

"Do not let your head run upon that which is none of your own, but pick out some of the best of your circumstances, and consider how eagerly you would wish for them, were they not in your possession."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

Contentment

NOVEMBER 15

"Man seeks pleasure and self--great unforeseen results follow. Man seeks God and others--and there follows pleasure."

ARNOLD TOYNBEE.

"The true felicity of life is to be free from perturbations; to understand our duties towards God and man; to enjoy the present without any serious dependence upon the future. Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have. The great blessings of mankind are within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and, like people in the dark, we fall foul upon the very thing we search for, without finding it. Tranquillity is the state of human perfection, it raises us as high as we can go, and makes every man his own supporter; whereas he that is borne up by anything else may fall. He that judges right and perseveres in it, enjoys a perpetual calm; he takes a true prospect of things; he observes an order, measure, a decorum in all his actions; he has a benevolence in his nature; and squares his life according to reason, and draws to himself love and admiration. Without a certain and unchangeable judgment, all the rest is but fluctuation. Liberty and serenity of mind must necessarily ensue upon the mastering of those things which either allure or affright us, when, instead of those flashy pleasures we shall find ourselves possessed of joys transporting and everlasting."

SENECA.

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself, nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principle."

EMERSON.

Discontent

NOVEMBER 16

"Discontent is want of self-reliance; it is infirmity of will."

EMERSON.

"To repel one's cross is to make it heavier."

_Amiel's Journal._

"She had that rare sense which discerns what is unalterable; and submits to it without murmuring."

GEORGE ELIOT.

"But for me,
What good I see, humbly I seek to do,
And live obedient to the Law, in trust
That what will come and shall come, must come well."

_The Light of Asia_, E. ARNOLD.

Magnifying Troubles

NOVEMBER 17

"Another weight is the cares of life. We keep so many which we might shake off, that it is more than pitiful. We encourage fears for our life, our future, our wealth, till all our days are harassed out of peace, till the very notion of trust in God is an absurdity. We waste life away in petty details, spending infinite trouble on transient things, magnifying the gnats of life into elephants, tormenting ourselves and others over household disturbances, children, servants, little losses, foolish presentiments, our state of health, our finances,--till every one around us is infected with our disease of fret and worry. This is indeed to weight our soul. Our life with God, our work for man, are dragged to earth."

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"I pack my troubles in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others."

SOUTHEY.

Bearing Trouble

NOVEMBER 18

"Once open the door to trouble, and its visits are three-fold; first, anticipation; second, in actual presence; third, in living it over again. Therefore never anticipate trouble, make as little of its presence as possible, forget it as soon as past."

"It is better to employ our minds in bearing the ills we have, than in providing against those which may never befall us."

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"Let us be of good cheer, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come."

LOWELL.

"If you want to be cheerful, jes' set yer mind on it an' do it. Can't none of us help what traits we start out in life with, but we kin help what we end up with. When things first got to goin' wrong with me, I says, 'Oh, Lord, whatever comes, keep me from gettin' sour.'... Since then I've made it a practice to put all my worries down in the bottom of my heart, then set on the lid an' smile."

_Lovey Mary_, ALICE HEGAN RICE.

The Secret of the Joy of Living

NOVEMBER 19

"We live not in our moments or our years--
The Present we fling from us like the rind
Of some sweet Future, which we after find
Bitter to taste, or bind that in with fears,
And water it beforehand with our tears--
Vain tears for that which never may arrive:
Meanwhile the joy whereby we ought to live,
Neglected or unheeded, disappears.
Wiser it were to welcome and make ours
Whate'er of good, tho' small, the present brings--
Kind greetings, sunshine, song of birds, and flowers,
With a child's pure delight in little things;
And of the griefs unborn to rest secure,
Knowing that mercy ever will endure."

Archbishop TRENCH.

"The secret of the joy of living is the proper appreciation of what we actually possess."

Causes of Thankfulness

NOVEMBER 20

"I sleep, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I walk in my neighbour's pleasant fields, and see the varieties of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights--that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God Himself. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns."

JEREMY TAYLOR.

"Where much is given, much shall be required. There are never privileges to enjoy without corresponding duties to fulfil in return."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

"Thou that hast given so much to me,
Give one thing more--a grateful heart."

GEORGE HERBERT.

Causes of Thankfulness

NOVEMBER 21

ON LEAVING A HOME FOR INCURABLES

"It didn't seem much to be able to walk away, to look back, to remember what we had seen; and yet how is it that we are not on our knees in gratitude and thankfulness for every active motion of the body, every word we speak, every intelligent experience and interest that passes through our minds?"

Miss THACKERAY.

"Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas, it was its continuance which should have taught us its value."

HANNAH MORE.

"O God, animate us to cheerfulness! May we have a joyful sense of our blessings, learn to look on the bright circumstances of our lot, and maintain a perpetual contentedness."

CHANNING.

Grumbling

NOVEMBER 22

"His eyes were bright with intelligence and trained powers of observation; and they were beautiful with kindliness, and with the well-bred habit of giving complete attention to other people and their affairs when he talked with them. He had a rare smile ... but the real beauty of such mouths as his comes from the lips being restrained into firm and sensitive lines, through years of self-control and fine sympathies.... Under-bred and ill-educated women are, as a general rule, much less good-looking than well-bred and highly-educated ones, especially in middle life; not because good features and pretty complexions belong to one class more than to another, but because nicer personal habits and stricter discipline of the mind do.... And if, into the bargain, a woman has nothing to talk about but her own and her neighbour's everyday affairs, and nothing to think about to keep her from continually talking, life, my dear child, is so full of little rubs, that constant chatter of this kind must almost certainly be constant grumbling. And constant grumbling makes an ugly under-lip, a forehead wrinkled with frowning, and dull eyes that see nothing but grievances."

_A Bad Habit_, Mrs. EWING.

Grumbling

NOVEMBER 23

"Cultivate the habit of never putting disagreeables into words, even if it be only the weather which is in question; also of never drawing other people's attention to words or things which will irritate them."

LUCY SOULSBY.

"A cucumber is bitter--Throw it away.--There are briars in the road--Turn aside from them.--This is enough. Do not add, And why were such things made in the world?"

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"Patience under adverse circumstances will often bring about favourable results, while complaint only accentuates and fixes the cause of complaint. Avoid mention of the disagreeable things that may come into your life. If you cannot be patient you can at least be silent. The secret of success lies not so much in knowing what to say as in what to avoid saying."

Grumbling

NOVEMBER 24

"If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have a headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you by all the angels to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which all the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruptions and groans."

EMERSON.

"Walk thy way greatly! So do thou endure
Thy small, thy narrow, dwarfed and cankered life,
That soothing Patience shall be half the cure
For ills that lesser souls keep sore with strife."