ON REFLECTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 73

ON REFLECTION.

Thought should ba the spar of action; reflection the result of both. All of us work, Most of us think, Some of us reflect.

Reflection is the lotus-laud of the leisured. Conscience — the literary conscience — whispers to me that if any of my readers are inclined to sharpen their critical faculties on my use of the word "shadows" last week, and urge that some of my "shadows" were really reflections . . ? I shall Temind them that essayists like poets, must have some little license accorded them. It is a tacit privilege of both to clothe what is sometimes an unwelcome, oftener still a distasteful moral, in such rose-coloured draperies as they can lay hands on in their literary property room. The poet, writing sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow, or dissecting the delights of his own latest .emotion, probably immortalises a very indifferent eyebrow, and a sentiment which was really no finer than our own ordinary experience — but that matters nothing. His art lies in making us see the beautiful in the commonplace; or shall we say lifting the commonplace into the beautiful. So, too, the essayist, who now, and always, claims her iittle privileges. It h?s seemed, to me that Talk is the eafety valve of youth, Thought the tonic of middle life, Reflection the fruit of maturity.

a thousand tongues may have spoken the message in trumpet tones to unheeding ears, a thousand lives have lived the lesson in high places removed from our ken, and your simple words Teach the ears, your quiet life bring home the lesson to one other waiting, listening 6oul that otherwise had stood alone, deaf and unheeding.

And her, since action experience — in other words, work — come first in those processes from which is evolved the power to reflect, here are a few reflections thereon : — Life is too short to wasta, 'Twill soon be dark, Up, mind thine own aim 1 , And God speed the mark.

— Emerson. No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him, . And hb who wants to have his task marked

out Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.

— Lowell Life passes, work is permanent. Iha-t which is done remains.

— Robertson, Men Ears certain work to do for their breadj and that is to be done strenuously ; other work for their delight, and that is to be done heartily; neither is -to be done by halves or shifts, but with a will, and what is not worth that effort is not to be done at all. — Rusfcin. Blessed be the man whose . work drives him. Something must drive men ; and if it is wholesome industry, they have no time for a thousand torments

dren, we were so mistakenly taught to consider the curse brought upon us by the founders of the race These are one or two of the reflections— -the drop of Attar of Roses, the grain of radium — ■ into which the toil, the failure, the undying hope, the unfailing effort of some of the greatest _mien have compressed their convictions" concerning work. - It may be that already we are justified in adding to them ourselves. It may " be that we are content to let" these great minds embody our thoughts, resting in. their greatness — a very peaceful thing to do. Here at any rate is a last~reflection On work which rarely enough occurs to the., average man and woman, impatient to see the result of their labour — a reflection which most of us need Carlyle to make for us.

"Effect? Influence? Utility? Let a man do his work; the fruit of it is the care of another than he.",

And so, enough of life, action, work. Let us com© to thought — the thoughts and reflections of other men in other words, tie heading, which is to mingle and mellow, uplift and refine, deepen and broaden our own ' crude thoughts. ', Emerson has truly said— ; " Long. prior, to the agje of reflection, is the thinking of the mind."

Kingeley has said of books — " Except a living man; -there is nothing more won» derful than a book. A message (it maybe) to us from the dead — poor human beings whom we never saw, ' who lived, perhaps, thousands of miles away, and yet these, on those 'ittle sheets of paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify us, teach

live for the sake of knowing.— lridin*

To the trinity of Life (action), Though^ and Reflection, 'one' might almost apply Goethe's " From the useful, through, the true, to. the beautiful." For Reflection is the quintessence — the little drop of exquisite Attar in which is . concentrated the fragrance of a thousand roses j the little grain of radium in which lies hidden the mysterious -vitality of we know notJ what unmeasured force. In reflections are* embodied the soul's ynartvrdoms.