WISDOM WHILE YOU WAIT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11103, 13 June 1914, Page 8

WISDOM WHILE YOU WAIT.

I ; ♦ It. is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top. Arnold Bennett/ * • • • • A few more smiles of silent sympathy, a few more tender words, a littlo more restraint on temper, may nmko all tho (Moroncu between happij ness and half-happiness to those I live j with.—Stopford -Brooke. urn « • * * j AFTER YOUR SORROW. You were Another woman ono year Your eves have poured an uiifam.il" iar rain.; Yon seemed to stretch your dtowning arin:> in vain To a blind power that did not care or know; Your right and wrong totter d to overthrow, And narrow peace con never come anain. Rut tho great, peace is nigh; your feet attain That garden where tho leaves of healing grow. Nothing to-dnv is common or unclean To your large pity; everything that OV ' OS Kims to vonr bosom and is cOmvorted : All sorrows are your sisters; your deep e.ves Plant a young hope where a despair has been, And earth is greener for the tears you shed. ----Frederick Langbndge. ■ • • * • Lifo is essentially change, and the good life must be essentially life; it is enough if it contain unchanged amid the change that aspiration after tho best life which is itself a chief source and spring of change. • * » » • Kach man's mind is an unknown land to himself, so that we need uot bo as such pains to frame a mechanism of adventure for getting to undiscovered countries. » # * • GOOD HABITS. A good habit k harder to form and easier to give u;> than a bad habit, and this is evidence to mo of the deep depravity of the human heart. A good habit requires self-denial, moral courage and manliness to acquire; rin evil habit is formed by just yielding to the feeling of pleasure, without thought, without principle, without cost. ••, » • •

; Argument is generally waste of time and trouble. It is better to present one's opinion and leave it to stick or not as it may happen. If sound, it will probably in the end stick, and the sticking is the ..main thing. #«. * * • THE CHOIR INVISIBLE. May I reach That purest heaven —be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardour—feed pure kive, Begot the smiles that have no cruelty—- . . . So shall I join the choir invisible. "Whoso music is the gladness of the world. —George Eliot. • • • • • We ought to be too proud to show anyono an unlovely side of our characters, especially those who aro nearest and dearest to us. • • • PATRIOTISM. No nation or nationality counts alonfc or paramount among the forces that hav£ shaped the world's elect, and shared in diffusing central light and warmth: among the children of mankind. To deride patriotism marks impoverished blood, but to extol it as an ideal or an impulse above truth and justice, at the cost of the general interests' of humanity, is far worse. Even when men admit as much as this, it is wonderful how easily a littlo angry shouting makes them oblivious of its sanctity. For in spito of fair words and noble and strenuous endeavour for peatie by rulers, statesmen and most of those who have the public ear in Europe, the scale of armament reveals, the unwelcome faet that we live in a military age.—Lord Morley. • « • * * The ablest men that ever were have had all an openness and frankness of dealing, and a name of certainty and veracity.—Bacon. Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great, Our time 'so brief—'tis clear if we refuse The means so limited, the tools so rude. To execute our purpose, life will fleet, And we shall fade, and leavo our task undone. ■•0 • • • "When the hour of trouble comes to the mind or the body, or when the hour of death comes, that cofties to high and low, then it is not what we have done for ourselves, but what we have done for others, that we think on most pleasantly.—Sir Walter Scott. # # ft # * A greater light puts out the lesser lightSo be it ever!*—such is God's high law— The self-same Sun that calls the flowers from earth Withers them soon, to give the fruit free birth.—Houghton. # • # « « • Injustice takes the heart out of a worker more quickly than anything. So don't pass over to-day because you happen to be in a good temper something that you will be down on tomorrow if yon happen to be in a bad one. • • # » • Selfishness' assumes many forms, and in every one of them may be fouiid the desire-to grasp some fancied, means of happiness, even at the expense of others. Many things innocently pleasurable in themselves when they come to us in a rightful and natural manner, turn into guilty and fraudulent possessions when sought and gained through the losses or pain of others.