THINGS THOUGHTFUL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 21 February 1931, Page 11

THINGS THOUGHTFUL

HUMAN NATURE NOT BAD Great disappointment and exceeding viciousness may talk as they please of the badness of human nature. I say that human nature is a very good and kindly tiling, and capable of all sorts of virtues.—Leigh Hunt. * # * * LIKE KNOCKING AT A GATE To contradict and argue with a total stranger is like knocking at a gate to ascertain if there is anyone within.— Talleyrand. * # # * THE BEAST AND THE DEVIL IX M AN As there is much beast and some devil in man; so there is some angel and some God in him..--The beast and the devil may lie conquered, but in this life never destroyed.—Samuel Taylor Coleridge. » * » • YOUR PERSONAL DEFECTS A man’s personal defects will commonly have with the rest of the world precisely that importance which they have to himself. If he makes light of them, so will other men.—Emerson. # « * * O, FOR A MAN! O, for a man to arise in me, That the man that I am May cease to he.—Tennyson. * • # ’# CYNICISM Cynicism is intellectual dandyism without the coxcomb’s feathers; and it, seems (,« me that cynics are only happy in making the world as barren to others as they have made it for themselves.—George Meredith.

THE WORLD AND ITS PLEASURES

What if a body might have all the pleasures in the world for asking? Who would so unman himself as, by accepting them, to desert his soul, and become a perpetual slave to his senses? —Seneca.

HAVE COURAGE Sink not beneath imaginary sorrows! Call to your aid your courage and your wisdom ; Think on the sudden changes of human scenes; think on the various accidents of war; think on the mighty power of awful virtue; think on the Providence which guards the good.—Samuel Johnson. * # • * FATE’S ARCHITECTS All are architects of Fate. Working in these walls of Time, Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. , Build to-day, then, strong and sure, With,a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow finds its place. —Longfellow. • « • o'" EXPERIENCE Experience is what wc cut our wisdom teeth on.—Alice Hegan Rice. # * # # THE CRY OF THE RIGHTEOUS The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. " ' Many are the afflictions of the righteous; hut the Lord delivereth him out of them all.—Psalm. #** * # SINCERITY Sincerity, my children, is the cornerstone of life and peace.—Sheng Cheng. * * # # TRANSFORM YOUR FAILURES Your old failures, your old resolutions, your old hopes—these cannot be all waste; they can bo wonderfully transformed, but they cannot be thrown a way.—Phillips Brooks. * • * • WHEN A MAN TRAVELS As the Spanish proverb says, “He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him,” so it is in travelling—a man must carry knowledge with him if lie would bring home knowledge.—Johnson.

ROOM FOR A STAR No strip to sky is too narrow to hold a star.—Elizabeth Gibson. # tf * * BEARING UNHAPPINESS WITH COURAGE There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage. —Seneca. • • * * COURAGE NOT UNFEMININE There arc few things that would tend to make women happier in themselves, and more acceptable to those with whom they live, than courage. There are many women of the present day, sensible women in other things, whose panic terrors are a frequent source of discomfort to’themselves and those around them. Now, it is a great mistake to imagine Jihat harshness must go witli courage; and that the bloom of gentleness and sympathy must all be rubbed off by that vigour of mind which gives presence of mind, enables a person to be useful in peril, and makes the desire to assist overcome that sickliness .of sensibility which can only contemplate distress and difficulty.—Sir Arthur Helps. < ■» » • »

LONELY, SELFISH, AND SECRET ARE WE How lonely we arc in the world! How selfish anil secret everybody! You and your wife have pressed the samo pillow for forty years, and fancy yourselves united. Psha! Does she cry out when you have the gout, or do you lie awake when she has the toothache? And as for your wife: 0, philosophic reader, answer and say. Do you tell “her” all? Ah, sir—a distinct universe walks about under your hat and under mine. All things in nature are different to each. The woman we look at has not the same features, the dish we eat from has not the same taste to the ono and the other. You and I are but a pair of infinite isolations, with some fellow islands a little more or less near to us.—Thackeray. • • • * WORK V. IDLENESS All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of divineness. Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. . . Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil. Complain not. . . And who art tlmu that braggest of thy life of idleness; complacently showest thy bright gilt equipmentnges; sumptuous cushions; appliances for folding of the hands to mere sleep? Looking up, looking down, around, behind or before, diseernest thou any “idle” hero, saint, god, or even devil? Not a vestige of one. In the heavens, in the earth, in the waters under the earth, is none like unto thee. Thou art an original figure in this creation. One monster there is in the world, the idle man. —Carlyle.