THINGS THOUGHTFUL

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16583, 16 November 1921, Page 11

THINGS THOUGHTFUL

Tb© desire of appearing often irevorrts our* becoming bo. —La RocheioucnulA, SIMPLICITY. lie simple, be unaffected, be honest in your epeaking and writing. TSovcr use a long word where a short one will <Io. Call a spade a spade, not a wellknown oblong inatrument of manual husbandry; let home be home, not - a residence; a place a. place, not a locality ; and so of the rest. Elegance of language may not bo in the power ot all of üb, but simplicity and straightforwardness are.—Dean Alford, DAWN IN THE DESERT. Through all the jewelled spaces of the night The flaming orbs make music flB they sweep ; Seraphic voices call from height to height ; And praise triumphant fills the upper aeep. Now, through the deeper dark that heralds morn. There runs a chill and silence as of fears; The moon, serene, growß pale, forlorn; Stilled is the musio of the quiring spheres. Then on tbo world's dim rim a pearly haze. Dawn’s vanguaj-d legion b, coming from afar, On silver wings they cross the desert way s ; Light upward creeps and steals from star to star. Flashing alarm, that bids them, trembling, fade : Then Phmbus, rising, strikes Day's accolad*. —H.J.G. The sun is ever beautiful and noble, and brings a cheerfulness out of heaven itself into the humblest apartment, if we have but the spirit to welcome it.— Leigh Hunt.. A joy and a pain, a loss and a gain: There’s honey and maybe some gall. Yet still I declare, foul weather or fair, It 9 a mighty good world after all. —-Robert W. Service. Friendship is the shadow of the evening which with the setting sun of life.—La Fontaine, • RICH IN SPITE OF LOSSES. AVe can lose a great deal and yet be rich. Life's liest things can never be taken from us without our consent. What does it matter, then, how many lesser things we lose? It is a sign of the world’s growing better that there are bo many now who realise that thev can have God’s unchanging best, and who are indifferent to all else “ unspoiled men and women, aft indifferent to the fashion of tho world and the folly of the hour as the stars to tho impalpable mist of the clouds: men and women, who spoke the truth, and lived the right; to whom love and faith alid high hopes were more real than the crowns of which they had been despoiled and the kiugdoms from which they had been rejected.” The man who holds fast all that God asks him to hold can ill afford to waste time or feeling over other losses. THE PASSING OF YOUTH. We mind not how the tun in the midsky Is ka&wming on; but when the golden Strikes* the extreme of earth, and when the gulfs Of air and ocean ot>eu to receive him. Dampness and gloom invado us; then we think Ah! thus it is with Youth. Too fast his feet Run on for sight; hour follows hour, fair maid Succeeds fair maid; bright eyes busbar his couch ; Tho cheerful horn awakens him; tho feast, The revel, the entangling dance, allure. And Toioos mellower than the Muse’s Heave up his buoyant bosom on their A little while .and! then—Ah Youth! Youth ! Youth ! I/is ton not to my words—but stay with nio! When thou are gone, Lifo may go too; tho feich That rises is for thee ,and not for Life. —W. ,S. Landor. Are you m ear neat? Seize this very minute. , What you can do, or think you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Only engage, and then the mind grows heated ; and then the work’s completed. Goethe. What would a blind man give to see tho pleasant rivers and meadows and flowers and fountains; and this and many other like Blessings wo enjoyf daily?■*—lzuak Walton. THE COMMAND OF THE SEA. Surely, at this 4ay, with U 3 of Europe, the vantage of strength at sea (which is one of the principal dowries of this kingdom of Great Britain) is great; both because most of the kingdoms of .Europe are not merely inland, but girt with the sea most part of their compass; and because the wealth of both Indies seems, in great part, but an accessory to tho command of .the seas’.- Bacon. BE READY. Hast thou a cunning instrument ofplay ? *Tis well. But see thou keep it bright And tuned to primal chords, that so it may Be read.v day and night. For when He comes thou knowest not, who shall say:— '‘These virginals are apt ; and try a note And sit, and make sweet solace of de- j light That men shall stand to listen on the j And all the room w ith heavenly music 1 flout* —T. E. Brown. j *** i Fast forth my word into the everlasting, ever-growing universe; it is a seed grain that cannot die, unnoticed to-day it will be found flourishing as a banyan grove, perhaps, alas, as a hemlock forest, after a thousand years.— Carlyle. There is no ono to whom keeping your word is of so much importance as yourself. If the others find you unreliable they may gradually drop you out of their reckoning, but you must live with yourself the sort of self you have made. Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce. Or a trouble is what you make it. It isn’t the fact that you're hurt that j counts, But only—how do you take it? —Anon. In this world it not what wc tak© ap, but what we gi\e up, that makes us rich.