Things Thoughtful

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 7 April 1945, Page 8

Things Thoughtful

REPOSE I have sought repose everywhere, and have found it in a little corner with a little book. —Longfellow.. THE LURE OF THE COUNTRY Before green apples blush, Before green nuts embrown, Why, ode day in the country Is worth a month in town. —Christina Rossetti. ***** LIFE-DEATH Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please. —Spenser. * * * OUR AIM Hope not sunshine every hour, Fear not clouds will always lower Happiness is but a name, Make content and easy thy aim. * —Burns. SERVICE, NOT SELF I hold every man a debtor to his profession, from the which as men of course do seek to receive countenance and profit, so ought they of duty to endeavour by way of amends to be a help and ornament thereunto.—Bacon MERRIMENT IS NOT SINFUL A man may live for the next world and yet be merry.—Sir Thomas More. LOVE-A TORMENT Love is a torment of the mind, A tempest everlasting; And Jove hath made it of a kind Not well, nor full nor fasting. —Samuel Daniel. * * * * THEY STAND SERENE They who wait no gifts from chance have conquered fate. » —Matthew Arnold. FRIENDSHIP* BASIS Absolute sincerity is the basis of lasting friendship.—Bishop Westcott. “THE ONLY PERFECT IVt AN” Man is his own star; and that soul that can Be honest is the only perfect man. —John Fletcher. * * * * TO A GREAT CHATTERER I like your silence—it the more shows off your wonder.—Shakespeare POWER IS TRUST All power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs and all must exist.—Benjamin Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) GOD’S WORK TO DO We are not here to play, to dream, to drift; We have God’s work to do, and loads to lift; Shun not the struggle—face it; ’tis God’s gift. —Goethe. EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE Everything is possible for him who possesses courage and activity, and to the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so. —Sir Walter Scott. * * * * THE CHEERY FIRESIDE With all its inconveniences, winter is a cheerful season to people who are in comfortable circumstances and have open fireplaces. A house without these is like a face without eyes, and that never smiles. —Oliver Wendell Holmes. CREEPING OLD AGE The good man feels old age more by the strength of his soul than by the weakness of.his body. —Sir Thomas Overbury. DIFFERENT MEN-DIFFERENT SPHERES Men have different spheres. It is for some to evolve great moral truths, as the heavens evolve stars, to guide the sailor on the sea and the traveller on the desert; and it is for some, like the sailor and the traveller, simply to be guided. —Henry Ward Beecher. * * * * THE HEAVEN ABOUT US Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God. —Elizabeth Barrett Browning. * ¥ * * COURTESY The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater ennoble it. —Bovee. * * ¥ * LITTLE SACRIFICES Courtesy lives by a multitude of little sacrifices, not by sacrifices of sufficient importance to impose any burdensome sense of obligation. These little sacrifices may be both of time and money, but more of time, and the money sacrifice should be just perceptible, never ostentatious. —P. G. Hamerton. * ¥■ * * LIFE’S MAKE-UP Life is made up of marble and mud. —Nathaniel Hawthorne. * A 4 J* * “BRIEF LIFE IS HERE OUR PORTION” So short is the way between the gates of birth and death that hardly shall a man choose the road he will follow, hardly shall he learn somewhat of his own soul, ere the ultimate darkness overtakes him. —Eugene Carriere. * * * * MAKERS OF THEIR OWN TROUBLES I believe in the happiness of mankind, and I believe that most of the trouble they get into is their own fault. Troubles of people’s own mak-ing-snobbery, hypocrisy, pretentiousness, fear of what people will think, and so forth—are at the root of their unhappiness. —Sacha Guitry, the playwright. ACQUISITION OF WISDOM Not by years, but by disposition is wisdom acquired. —Plautus * ¥• ¥ LOOK LONG AND BENEFIT No human capacity ever saw the whole of a thing, but we may see more and more of it the longer we look. —Ruskin. * ¥ * * POOR WILL CREATES DISCONTENT Discontent is the want of self-re-liance; it is infirmity of will. „ . —Emerson. * ¥ ¥ * EXPERIENCE FAR BETTER THAN WARNING One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. —Russell Lowell * * * * ONWARD! Ever onward. If God had intended that man should go backwards He would have given him an eye in the back of his head. —Victor Hugo * * ¥ * A LESSON TO BE LEARNED • Learn to see in another’s calamity the ills which you should avoid. —Publius.