Daily Thoughts Part 19

_Lectures on Science and Superst.i.tion_.

1866.

A Charm of Birds. June 17.

Listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland on a bright forenoon in early summer. As you try to disentangle the medley of sounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the loud, harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch, and the metallic clinking of two or three sorts of t.i.tmice. But above the tree-tops, rising, hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting tender and low. Above the pastures outside the skylark sings--as he alone can sing; and close by from the hollies rings out the blackbird's tenor--rollicking, audacious, humorous, all but articulate. From the tree above him rises the treble of the thrush, pure as the song of angels; more pure, perhaps, in tone, though neither so varied nor so rich as the song of the nightingale. And there, in the next holly, is the nightingale himself; now croaking like a frog, now talking aside to his wife, and now bursting out into that song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man find sorrow, he himself surely finds none. . . . In Nature there is nothing melancholy.

_Prose Idylls_. 1866.

Notes of Character. June 18.

Without softness, without repose, and therefore without dignity.

_MS._

Our Blessed Dead. June 19.

Why should not those who are gone be actually nearer us, not farther from us, in the heavenly world, praying for us, and it may be influencing and guiding us in a hundred ways of which we, in our prison-house of mortality, cannot dream? Yes! Do not be afraid to believe that he whom you have lost is near you, and you near him, and both of you near G.o.d, who died on the cross for you.

_Letters and Memories_. 1871.

Silent Influence. June 20.

Violence is not strength, noisiness is not earnestness. Noise is a sign of want of faith, and violence is a sign of weakness.

By quiet, modest, silent, private influence we shall win. "Neither strive nor cry nor let your voice be heard in the streets," was good advice of old, and is still. I have seen many a movement succeed by it.

I have seen many a movement tried by the other method of striving and crying and making a noise in the streets, but I have never seen one succeed thereby, and never shall.

_Letters and Memories_. 1870.

Chivalry. June 21.

Some say that the age of chivalry is past. The age of chivalry is never past as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, "I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt." The age of chivalry is never past as long as men have faith enough in G.o.d to say, "G.o.d will help me to redress that wrong; or if not me, surely He will help those that come after me. For His eternal will is to overcome evil with good."

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1865.

Nature and Art. June 22.

When once you have learnt the beauty of little mossy banks, and tiny leaves, and flecks of cloud, with what a fulness the glories of Claude, or Ruysdael, or Berghem, will unfold themselves to you! You must know Nature or you cannot know Art. And when you do know Nature you will only prize Art for being like Nature.

_MS. Letter_. 1842.

Simple and Sincere. June 23.

There are those, and, thanks to Almighty G.o.d, they are to be numbered by tens of thousands, who will not perplex themselves with questionings; simple, genial hearts, who try to do what good they can in the world, and meddle not with matters too high for them; people whose religion is not abstruse but deep, not noisy but intense, not aggressive but laboriously useful; people who have the same habit of mind as the early Christians seem to have worn, ere yet Catholic truth had been defined in formulae, when the Apostles' Creed was symbol enough for the Church, and men were orthodox in heart rather than exact in head.

For such it is enough if a fellow-creature loves Him whom they love, and serves Him whom they serve. Personal affection and loyalty to the same unseen Being is to them a communion of saints both real and actual, in the genial warmth of which all minor differences of opinion vanish. . . .

_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_. 1854.

G.o.d's Words. June 24.

Do I mean, then, that this or any text has nothing to do with us? G.o.d forbid! I believe that every word of our Lord's has to do with us, and with every human being, for their meaning is infinite, eternal, and inexhaustible.

_MS. Letter_.

Taught by Failure. June 25.

So I am content to have failed. I have learned in the experiment priceless truths concerning myself, my fellow-men, and the city of G.o.d, which is eternal in the heavens, for ever coming down among men, and actualising itself more and more in every succeeding age. I only know that I know nothing, but with a hope that Christ, who is the Son of Man, will tell me piecemeal, if I be patient and watchful, what I am and what man is.

_Letters and Memories_. 1857.

Presentiments. June 26.

"I cannot deny," said Claude, "that such things as presentiments may be possible. However miraculous they may seem, are they so very much more so than the daily fact of memory? I can as little guess why we remember the past, as why we may not at times be able to foresee the future." . .

_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii.