THINGS THOUGHTFUL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 3 January 1931, Page 10

THINGS THOUGHTFUL

DREAMS COME TRUE! Make my mortal dreams conic true With the work I fain would do; Clothe with life the weak intent, Let mo be the thing I meant. —Whittier. ROOKS BEFORE RICHES A taste for books is the pleasure and glory of my life. 1 would not exchange it for the riches of the Indies.—Gibbon. • » h • KNOW THYSELF There is a great gain to bo obtained by the practice of nightly self-scrutiny, lie who seeks to “know himself ’ must study day by day the details ol his moral health ; lie who desires to lay up “treasures in heaven” must allow no waste of his soul's wealth to pass unheeded.—F. P. Colibe. # * * » NOT ALL DAYS CAN RE BRIGHT Re still, sad heart! and cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun st-ill shining; Thy fate is Hie common fate of all, Into enclr life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary. —Longfellow. * * * * SCORN REVENGE The fairest action of our human life Is scorning to revenge, an injury; For who forgives without a lurther strife, His adversary’s heart to him doth tie: And ’Lis a firmer conquest, truly said, To win the heart than overflow the head. —Lady Elizabeth Carey. * • • • THE GREATEST JOY Our times of greatest, pleasure are when, we have won some higher peak of difficulty, trodden underfoot some evil, and felt' day by day so sure a growth of moral strength within us that we cannot conceive of an end of growth. —Stop ford Brooke. • • • • THE BEST SILENCE There arc three kinds of silence. Silence from words is good because inordinate. speaking lends to evil. Silence or resL from desires or passions is still better, because it promotes quietness ot spirit. But, the best of all is silence from unnecessary and wandering thoughts, because that is essential to internal recollect ion, and because it lays a foundation for a proper regulation and silence in oilier respects -—Molinos.

TO-DAY Let me to-dav no something that shall

(ake A little sadness from the world’s vast

store, And may I be so favoured as to make Of joy’s too scanty sum a little more. Lot'me not hurl by auv selfish deed, Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or

friend, Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy

need, Or sin by silence where .1 should defend. However meagre lie my worldly wealth. Let me give something that shall aid

my kind. A word of courage or a thought of

health, Dropped as 1 pass for troubled hearts to find. Let me. to-night look back across the

span Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say : Because of some good act to boast oi

mail, The world is better that I lived to-day. —Elia Wheeler Wilcox. * * * * A LIE WHICH IS PART A TRUTH A lie which is all a lie May he met and fought with outright, But a lie which is part a truth Is a harder matter to fight. —Tennyson. • * * * IF If I can stop one heart from breaking, 1 shall not live in vain ; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, 1 shall not live in vain. —E. Dickinson. HUMBLENESS To be humble is not to think meanly of one’s self. To ho humble is knowing your Character and abilities, to bo willing to lake a lower place, and perform a menial service.—Lyman Abbott. * * * *

IF YOU CHOOSE If you choose, you are free; if you choose, you will blame no one; you will charge no one. All will be at the same time according to your mind and the mind of God. —Epictetus. • » « *

LIFE'S TURNING HOUR There arc no times in life when opportunity, tin/chance to be and to do gathers so richly about the soul as when- it has to suffer. Then everything depends upon whether the man looks to the lower or the higher helps. . . • • If he looks lo God, the hour o! suftonng is the turning hour of life. —Phillips Brooks. * * * *

‘ALL’S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD” The. year’s at the spring, q’he day’s at the morn ; Morning’s at seven; The hillside’s dew pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in His heaven; All’s right with the world. —R. Browning.

MAKES THE HEART WARM Friendship is a word the very sight of which in print makes the heart warm. —Augustine Birrell. it * * *

THE LIVEABLENESS OF LIFE A happy man or woman is a bettei thing to find than a five-pound note. He or.she is a radiating focus of good-will, ami their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they could prove the forty-seventh proposition. They do a better tiling than that: they practically demonstrate the great, theorem of the livoableness of life. —Robert Louis Stevenson.

THE PERFECT WHOLE It was not anything she said, It was not anything she did, It was tbe movement of her bead, "The lifting of her lid ; Her little motions when she spoke, The presence of an upright soul, The living light that from her broke— It was the perfect whole. —J. If. Perkins. * * * * STRIVERS FAIL NOT Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame, . Build as thou wilt, and as they light is given; ... Then, if at last the airy structure fall, Dissolve, and vanish, take thyself no

shame — They fail and they alone who have not striven. —T. B. Aldrich. * * # *

FRIENDSHIPS NEED REPAIR If a mail does not make new friendships as lie advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.—Dr. Samuel Johnson.