William Makepeace Thackeray born 1811.
Jane Austen died 1817.
Jean Antoine Watteau died 1721.
Learn to admire rightly: the great pleasure of life is that. Note
what great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits
admire basely and worship meanly.
--W.M. Thackeray.
Our thoughts are often more than we are, just as they are often
better than we are. And God sees us as we are altogether, and not in
separate feelings or actions, as our fellow men see us. We are
always doing each other injustice, and thinking better or worse of
each other than we deserve, because we only hear separate feelings
or actions. We don't see each other's whole nature.
--George Eliot.
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; and the desert shall
rejoice, and blossom as the rose.
--Isaiah 35. 1.
Eternal God, may I become more like thee. Give me the desire to
associate myself with people and places where the divine spirit is
supreme. May my soul breathe in the influence of all that is good and
true; and may I use my life for thy honor and praise. Amen.