More Pages from a Journal Part 16

We cannot really understand a religion unless we have believed it.

We ought to cultivate strength of will by doing what we have once decided to do. Subsequent reasons for not doing it may appear plausible, but it will generally be better to adhere to our first resolution. The advantage gained by change will not be equal to that derived from persistence.

Never be afraid of being commonplace. Never turn aside from the truth because it is commonplace.

A nightmare is not scattered while we are asleep. It disappears simply by--WAKING.

Cursed temperament.--A long drought broke up. The gra.s.s had been burnt, and the cattle were dying for want of water. In one week two inches of rain fell.

A. 'What a blessing this rain is!'

B. 'Yes, but a reaction is sure to follow. I've noticed that after weather like this we always have a spell of dry, northerly winds.'

The prompter which urges us on from one point to another, never discouraged by failure to see in the present moment what it seemed to possess when we pursued it, or rather, not permitting us to stop to find out if there be any failure--this it is by which we live.

When it departs it is time to die.

January.--The wind is north-west after yesterday's fog and rain from the south. Suddenly and silently, just after sunset, the whole south-western sky has blazed up, pa.s.sing from glowing flame-colour on the horizon to carmine on the zenith. Between the promontories of cloud are lakes and gulfs of the tenderest green and blue. What magnificent pomp, fit to celebrate the death of a G.o.d for the world's salvation! But there is nothing below to explain it. It must be a spectacle displayed for celestial reasons altogether hidden.

Much misunderstanding would be prevented if we were to say exactly what we believe and not modify it to suit, as we suppose, the person to whom we speak.

Humour people sometimes in what you do, but not in the expression of your convictions. Go a mile out of your way to please an obstinate friend, but utter with precision what you believe. It is in the sharpness and finish that its value lies.

Everybody in these civilised, intercommunicative days seems arrested: everybody is a compromise. It is rare that we meet with a person who has been let alone, whose own particular self has been developed free from intrusion.

People believe the truth more readily if something difficult of belief or incredible is mixed with it.

I want no more beliefs. What I want is active strength in those I have. I know there is no ghost round the corner, but I dare not go.

There is always a point in our insistence or persuasion when it is most effective, and generally it is much lower than we suppose. One degree above it is waste and impediment.

Keep a watch upon your tongue when you are in particularly good health.

Early morning before sunrise: the valley was filled with mist; red clouds in the sky. For a minute or two the mist took the colour, but fainter, of the clouds. What patience is required in order to see! The sun had not risen, the gra.s.s in the field was obviously green, but not without intent fixture of the eyes upon it was the dark, twilight shade of green recognised which was its peculiar meaning and beauty. To most of us, perhaps not to artists, it is more difficult to look than to think.

The just judgment is not that of the judge who has no interest in it. The most unjust judgments are due to indifference.

The sun is setting in crimson, delicate blue and green. I think of the earth as a revolving ball. 'This was the Creator's design, or, if we prefer so to speak, this was the law, that there should be a ball and that it should turn on its axis. But just as surely was it the design or law that there should be these colours, crimson, blue, and green, and that I should be affected by them. This affection was rolled up in the primal impulse which started the planet and is as necessary as its revolution.

Zeal in proselytising is often due to an uneasy suspicion that we only half-believe.

We should take pains to be polite to those whom we love. Politeness preserves love, is a kind of sheath to it.

The hornbeam hedge is coming into leaf in patches although all parts of each side face the same point of the compa.s.s. The leaves of some patches are fully expanded, while in others they are only in bud.

The dry, brown, dead leaves of last year have remained through the winter and early spring, but they are dropping off now that the new leaves begin to shoot.

We ought not to expect every child to be religious. The religious temper is an endowment like that for painting or poetry.

A. and B. meet on the road. B. is a retired official and has nothing to do.

B. 'Meant to have come to see you several times' (has not called for nine months), 'but I have so many engagements.' (Shows a basket.) 'Look here, just had to take some eggs to C. for my wife.'

'If a man turns to Christ, nothing in him is to be left behind.

Every pa.s.sion must be brought to Him to be transformed by Him.

Otherwise the man does not come, but only a part of him.' [Said to me years ago by a pious friend now dead.]

The real proportion between vice and virtue in a man is often misjudged because the vice is before us continually, while the virtue does not obtrude.

If you are to live in happiness and peace with the woman you love, you must not permit the daily course of life to have its way unchecked. There must be hours of removal to a distance when in silence you create anew her ideal and proper form, when you think of her as sculptured in white marble.

Blacksmiths forging one on this side of the anvil and the other on the opposite side. Each keeps his own time, not regulating his stroke by watching his mate.

There is in man an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground round it into a swamp.

Went into the cathedral and heard morning service. Miracle of miracles! Into the soul of a carpenter's son more than eighteen centuries ago came a thought, and it is returned to us to-day in majestic architecture, music of voice and organ.

Disbelief in Christianity is not so much to be dreaded as its acceptance with a complete denial of it in society and politics.

The love that has lasted for years; which has resisted all weakness and defect; has been constant in all moods and circ.u.mstances better and worse; has exacted nothing; has been content with silence; always soft and easy as the circ.u.mambient air, a love with no reserve; what is there in any relations.h.i.+p to person or thing worth a straw compared with it!