_Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim_
_Credebat libris_.—HOR. Sat., II. i. 30.
NOTHING is more dangerous than a mass of discontent which does not know
what remedy is to be sought. All sorts of cures will be tried, many of
them mere quackery, and their failure will make matters worse.
* * * * *
Whatever may be the meaning of the process of the world, however
disheartening some steps in its evolution may be, they are necessary, and
without them, perhaps, some evil could not thoroughly have been worked
out.
* * * * *
People often manifest a diseased desire to express their will. A theory
is adopted, not because the facts force it upon them, but because its
adoption shows their power. The larger, the freer the nature, the less
there is of this action of the will, the more the mind is led.
* * * * *
A mere dream, a vague hope may be more potent than certainty in a lesser
matter. The faintest vision of God is more determinative of life than a
gross earthly certainty.
* * * * *
The more nearly the performer on a musical instrument approaches
perfection, the larger is that part of his execution which is
unconscious. Consciousness arises with defect, or sense of something to
be overcome. How conscious we are when striving to think and work in
ill-health!
* * * * *
The highest education is that which teaches us to guide ourselves by
motives which are intangible, remote, incapable of direct and material
appreciation.
* * * * *
Weak minds find confirmation of their beliefs in the discovery of the
same beliefs in other people. They do not take the trouble to find out
how their neighbours obtained these beliefs. If they are current at the
time, the probability is that the coincidence is worthless as any
evidence of validity.
* * * * *
The certainty which comes of intelligent conviction is a tempered
certainty. Its possessor knows the difficulty of the path by which he
has reached it, and the reasons which on his way have appeared so potent
against it. Fanaticism is the accompaniment of conclusions which are not
the result of reason.
* * * * *
To understand a thing is to understand all its laws. The thing is then
nothing but law, and mere matter seems to disappear.
* * * * *
What is it which governs the selection of truths which make up religions?
Why are this and that chosen? Has not the selection a damaging effect
upon the great body of truth?
* * * * *
Every action should be an end in itself as well as a means. The end of
getting up in the morning, as Goethe says, is getting up.
* * * * *
We are always searching for something extraordinary which shall give life
its pleasure and value. The extraordinary must be contributed by our own
minds and feelings.
* * * * *
The real object in any human being of my love and worship is that which
is not in any table of virtues, nor can I in any way describe it: it is
something which perpetually escapes, which is not to be found in anything
said or done.
* * * * *
It is a common mistake to demand a definition of that which can have
none. We loosely cover a mass of phenomena which are diverse with a
single word. For example, we puzzle over a definition of life, but there
is no such thing as life in the sense of a single, distinct entity.
* * * * *
Religion has done harm by assigning an artificial urgency to insoluble
problems. We are all told that we must be certain on matters concerning
which the wisest man is ignorant. When we begin to reflect and to doubt,
the urgency unhappily remains and we are distressed.
* * * * *
I know a man who had to encounter three successive trials of all the
courage and inventive faculty in him. If he had failed in one he would
have been ruined. The odds were desperate against him in each, and
against ultimate victory were overwhelming. Nevertheless he made the
attempt and was triumphant almost by a miracle in each struggle. How
often calculation is folly and cowardice!
* * * * *
Before we can hear the Divine Voice we must shut out all other voices, so
that we may be able to listen, to discern its faintest whisper. The most
precious messages are those which are whispered.
* * * * *
A negative may be really positive. It depends on the extent of that
which the negative excludes. If I say of hydrogen that it is not oxygen,
nothing is gained. If I say it is not a fluid nor a solid, more is
gained. So in the determinations of Spirit, God, etc., although we use
negatives, the results may be of value.
* * * * *
True mental training is a discipline compelling us to _dwell_ on that
which is presented to us, to discover what unites it to other objects and
what differentiates it from them. To the untrained mind creation is a
blur. The moral effect on a child of teaching it to express distinction
by significant words is great.
* * * * *
‘Ought’ is a singular instance of the confusion wrought by words and of
their inefficiency. There is no single ‘ought’ and therefore no science
of the obligation it implies. ‘Ought’ in the phrase ‘you ought to speak
the truth’ refers to an instinct in us to report veraciously what we see.
‘Ought’ of self-sacrifice refers to love, and ‘ought’ of sobriety to the
subordination of desires, to a difference in their authority of which we
can give no account, excepting that we are creatures fashioned in a
certain way.
* * * * *
In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we
are inaccurate, say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense. When we
get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves. Never go
near these people.
* * * * *
What cardboard puppets are the creations of fiction compared with a
common man or woman intimately known!
* * * * *
How much of what I say is an echo; how little is myself! Sometimes it
seems as if my real self were nothing and that what stands for it were a
mere miscellany of odds and ends picked up here and there. What a Self
is the Jesus of the Gospels!
* * * * *
A cousin of mine had an evening class of poor girls. She was trying to
explain to them the words ‘liquid’ and ‘solid.’
‘You walked over the bridge; it was a hard road.’
‘Yes, teacher.’
‘If you had gone down by the side of the bridge you could not have walked
across there?’
‘No, teacher.’
‘If you were to try and were to put your feet on the water, where would
you go?’
‘To hell, teacher.’
The association of the question, ‘Where would you go?’ was too strong.
* * * * *
This sunset, which is common to the whole county, is more to me than
anything exclusively mine.
* * * * *
If emotion be profound, symbolism, as a means of expression, is
indispensable.
* * * * *
There would be no objection to ‘telling the truth’ about Burns, Byron,
and Shelley if it could be told. But it cannot be told. We are informed
that they did this or that, and the thing they did is to us what it would
be if done by ourselves.
* * * * *
We are most vain of that which is least ourselves, of that which is
acquired, put on, stuck in. It is not correct to say that a woman is
vain of her beauty.
* * * * *
Controversy is demoralising. Never suffer yourself to become an
advocate. Never rely on controversy to convince. Say what you have to
say and leave it. _Do_ it if you wish to persuade.
* * * * *
People are often unkind, not from malignity, but from ineptitude.
* * * * *
It is of the greatest importance continually to bear in mind that the
violation of a law personal to myself is as immoral as the violation of a
general law, and may be more mischievous.
* * * * *
To die is easy when we are in perfect health. On a fine spring morning,
out of doors, on the downs, mind and body sound and exhilarated, it would
be nothing to lie down on the turf and pass away.
* * * * *
What we want is wise counsel on particular occasions. Principles we can
get by the bushel anywhere. The reason why our friends are so useless is
that they will not take trouble. The selection and the application of
the principle are difficult.
* * * * *
It is terrible to live with a person who has a strong, narrow sense of
duty without further-reaching thought or love by which the rigidity of
duty may be softened.
* * * * *
By the third, which is neither ourselves nor the object, do we recognise
it. The third is the celestial light.
* * * * *
It is appalling to reflect that there are enormous masses of human energy
which can find no proper outlet. The consequence is mischief either
through expression in any direction and at any cost, or through
suppression. We want an organisation of energy, one of the noblest
offices of a true church.
* * * * *
The tyranny of the imagination is perhaps that which is most to be
dreaded. By strength of will we can prevent an act, but no strength of
will is able to prevent the invasion of self-created pictures. The only
remedies are health and indifference to them when they present
themselves. If we worry ourselves about them they become worse. If we
let them alone they fade and we forget them.
* * * * *
Thinking much upon insoluble problems is apt to breed superstition even
in the strongest minds. The failure of the reason weakens our reliance
on it, and the difference between the incomprehensible and the absurd is
very fine.
* * * * *
In this howling Bedlam of voices, it is of no use to talk or write—no
man, if he has anything to say, can be heard. He is reviewed to-day and
forgotten to-morrow. To soothe the pangs of a single sufferer, to drain
a poor man’s cottage and give him wholesome drinking water, are good
things done of which we can be sure.
* * * * *
Life is a matter of small virtues, but we have to bring them to
perfection. This may be done by great principles. The humblest act may
proceed from that which is beyond the stars.
* * * * *
What a vile antithesis is that between a man and his faults! If I love a
man, I do not love his faults, for they are abstractions, but I love the
man _in_ his faults. Are they not truly himself? He is often more
himself in his faults than in his virtues.
* * * * *
We should not talk as if we were responsible for the effect of what we
say. We are responsible for saying it, and for nothing more. A higher
power is responsible for the effect which is to follow from each cause.
* * * * *
_Wisdom for old age_.—Check the propensity to dwell on what you have
thought before. Try to get new ideas into your head. Beware of giving
trouble or asking for sympathy. Do everything yourself, which you have
been in the habit of doing, so long as you can move a muscle, and when
you cannot, secure, if possible, paid help: watch what the most devoted
of friends or relatives say of continued attendance on the sick: note the
relief when the sick man dies. Let not the thought sadden you that six
weeks after you are in your grave those to whom you are now dear will be
laughing and living just as if you had never existed. Why should they
not? Are you of such consequence that they should for ever wear mourning
for you? A slow march as you are carried to the churchyard, but when a
handful of earth has been thrown on your coffin, let everybody go home to
draw up the blinds and open the windows. So much dead already, all
passion, so many capacities for enjoyment, why care for this miserable
residuum, this poor empty _I_?
* * * * *
Clear vision is not often the cause of distress. It is rather the cloud
of imagination distorting what is before us and preventing distinct view.
Science, removing the heavens to an infinite distance, destroying
traditions, abolishing our little theologies, does not disturb our peace
so seriously as that vague dreaming in which there is no thinking.
* * * * *
Ah, it is not a quarrel which is so deadly! It is the strange
transformation of what were once thought to be charms and virtues. The
soft blue eyes are now simply silly; innocence is stupidity; docility is
incapacity of resolution; the sweet, even temper is absence of passion.
* * * * *
Is it true that less evidence is necessary to prove an event which is
probable than one that is improbable? The probability of an event is no
evidence that it actually happened. Its probability may be the reason
why we should examine the evidence more closely, because witnesses are
more likely, in the case of a probable event, to refrain from scrutiny
than in the case of one not probable. I sit at my window and see a
whitish object with four legs in a field. I am short-sighted, but I at
once say ‘a cow,’ and take no pains to ascertain whether it is a cow or
not. If I had seen a white object apparently with three legs only, I
should have gone out, inspected it closely, and should have called other
people to look at it.
* * * * *
I pray for a gift which perhaps would be miraculous: simply to be able to
see that field of waving grass as I should see it if association and the
‘film of custom’ did not obscure it.
* * * * *
Why do we admire intellect when it is united with even diabolic disregard
of moral laws? Partly because it stands out more prominently; partly
because it triumphs over obstacles; but mainly because we are all more or
less in sympathy with insurrection and the assertion of individuality.
* * * * *
As we move higher, personality becomes of less consequence. We do not
live in the ‘I,’ but in truths. Something of a metaphysical hint here.
* * * * *
Principles are dangerous tools for a fool. What awful mischief they have
done!
* * * * *
Never was there a time in which men were less governed by ideas. The
Church and the sects are neither Calvinist nor Arminian, orthodox nor
rational, and in politics an idea damns a measure at once.
* * * * *
We have no capitalised happiness, nothing on which to draw when temporary
sources fail.
* * * * *
A decided bent or twist, is not unsuitable in a man, but I do not care
for it in a woman. I love that equipoise in the faces of the Greek women
in the old statues and sculptures. It appears also in some pictures of
the Virgin.
* * * * *
The duty of the State as to toleration cannot be decided by an appeal to
rights. Everybody admits that government is sometimes justified in
suppressing what is honestly believed. But if government had not been
resisted we should have had no Christianity. The vindication of the
authority of the State is a vindication of persecution, and if we dispute
this authority we cannot logically disallow dangerous licence. There is
no way out of the difficulty so long as we generalise. Toleration is an
abstraction, nothing but a word. What we have to decide is, whether it
is wise or unwise to send to prison the people now before us who preach
bigamy, assassination of kings, or theological heresy.
* * * * *
When we struggle to see more than we possibly can see we undervalue what
we indubitably see.
* * * * *
There is but little thinking, or perhaps it is more correct to say but
little reflection, in the Bible. There is profound sympathy with a few
truths, but ideas are not sought for their own sake. Carlyle is
Biblical. It has been said scoffingly that he is no thinker. It is his
glory that he is not.
* * * * *
What we have toiled after painfully often lies unused. No opportunity
occurs for saying or doing a tithe of it. The hour demands its own
special wisdom.
* * * * *
When we really love we cannot believe that our love is mortal. We feel,
not only that it is immortal, but that it is eternal, in the sense in
which Spinoza uses the word. It is not the attraction of something
entirely limited and personal to that which is also limited and personal.
* * * * *
We think of rest as natural to bodies, and motion as something added.
But the new doctrine is that motion is primary. Nothing is at rest, and,
so far as we know, rest has never been. It is an astounding conception.
* * * * *
There is a certain distance at which each person whom we know is
naturally placed from us. It varies with each, and we must not attempt
to alter it. We may clasp him who is close, and we are not to pull
closer him who is more remote.
* * * * *
Many people would be much better if they would let themselves be as good
as they really are. They seem to take delight in making themselves less.
* * * * *
We are much misled by characters in fiction or on the stage, for they are
always more consistent than men and women in real life. Real men and
women are seldom controlled for twenty-four hours by the same motives or
principles. If my friend is mean to-day, let me not doubt his generosity
to-morrow. Let me joyously believe in it when the morrow comes.
* * * * *
What a pest is the re-appearance in us of discarded conclusions! It
would be of service if we could keep a register of those things which,
after careful examination, we have determined to be false.
* * * * *
Acting from the strongest motives, even if they are bad, is perhaps not
so dangerous as acting from none. The evils which arise through deeds
done from conspicuous motives attract attention, but the vast sum of
misery caused by mere idle, irresolute swaying hither and thither passes
unnoticed.
* * * * *
Pig-headedness is often a sign of weakness of will. The pig-headed
person knows he is weak, and to convince himself and others of his
resolution holds to any chance purpose with tenacity. The less
reasonable the purpose is, the more obstinately he clings to it, because,
by so doing, he shows as he thinks his strength of volition.
* * * * *
If we desire peace we must get beyond the notion of personality. Nothing
of any value is bound up with it: it is an illusion.
* * * * *
Intense feeling gives intellectual precision. The man who feels
profoundly the beauty of a cloud is the man who can describe it. But the
first effect of intense feeling is often to break up false precision.
The ideas of God, life, personality, right and wrong, are examples.
* * * * *
The blue sky is more beautiful because we know it is not painted opacity,
but transparent.
* * * * *
The slowness of the change in the sky is exquisite, the dying out of the
light in the clouds after sunset. The quiet abiding of the grey cloud as
darkness thickens is wonderful.
* * * * *
_June_—Sky and sea pure blue. The blue tint suffuses the distant
vessels. One large sailing ship with sails all set is so blue that it
differs only by a shade from sky and sea.
* * * * *
It is not true that guileless people are the most easily deceived. S. G.
is not sharp-witted, but she is transparent as a pool of rain on meadow
grass, and consequently it is impossible to deceive her, and ridiculous
to attempt it: her eyes forbid it. She does not infer insincerity: it is
automatically rejected.
* * * * *
_July_.—North-easterly wind, strong: hateful in the streets and even in
the house: dust everywhere. Inclined to shut the windows and stay
indoors, but went out for a long walk up to the flag-staff. A perfect
day for that view. The bay all shades of blue; here and there deep, and,
inshore, the blue is broken with pure white from the tops of the waves:
the yellow beach to the farthest point clasping the sea like an arm. So
beautiful that it gives pain: it is not possible to extend oneself to it.
* * * * *
Whether truth does or does not lie in the mean depends on the selection
of the extremes. A mechanical choice of the mean is stupidity.
* * * * *
The Athanasian Creed is not objectionable because of its damnatory
clauses. Neglect to observe the finest distinctions continually involves
damnation. The difference between a vice and a virtue may be a
hair-line. The true reason for rejecting the Creed is that it is
manufactured, that it is not a statement of what is seen and felt to be
true. There is nevertheless a certain dogmatic pride in it, a desire to
affirm as offensively as possible.
* * * * *
The peace which orthodox religion is said to bring is obtained by
clipping the Infinite and reducing it to a finite. The joy of
_inclusion_ is great but false.
* * * * *
‘And thy fats shall overflow with new wine’—Proverbs iii. 10, Revised
Version. Called on A. in London. I forget how it came about, but in
course of conversation he asked me if ‘fats’ were not a mistake for
‘vats.’ I told him it was not, turning up the word in the dictionary as
an equivalent to ‘vats.’ Called on his sister, who was staying three or
four miles away and had come up to town that afternoon from the country
where she lived. That very evening she asked me the same question her
brother had asked. She had not seen him, nor held any communication with
him on the subject, nor had it been suggested to them by any person or
book. Moreover, neither of them is a frequent reader of the Bible.
Yesterday I told the story to A. in his sister’s presence. She confirmed
it, and A., who is accustomed to scientific investigation, was quite
unable to account for it. If a jury were trying a prisoner charged with
murder, and an equally singular concurrence of circumstances were in
evidence against him, they would not hesitate to hang him.
* * * * *
If you are very short-sighted or half blind, it is safer in the twilight
to shut the eyes and depend entirely on the touch in moving about.
* * * * *
The books on the adjustment of astronomical instruments say that if there
is a slight error, it is better always to make allowance for it than to
attempt to correct it.
* * * * *
The sun, we say, is the cause of heat, but the heat _is_ the sun, here on
this window-ledge.
* * * * *
The contact of a _system_ of philosophy or religion with reality is that
of a tangent with a circle. It touches the circle at one point, but
instantly the circle edges away.
* * * * *
In every man there is something of the Universal Spirit, strangely
limited by that which is finite and personal, but still there.
Occasionally it makes itself known in a word, look, or gesture, and then
he becomes one with the stars and sea.
* * * * *
We cannot really understand a religion unless we have believed it.
* * * * *
We ought to cultivate strength of will by doing what we have once decided
to do. Subsequent reasons for not doing it may appear plausible, but it
will generally be better to adhere to our first resolution. The
advantage gained by change will not be equal to that derived from
persistence.
* * * * *
Never be afraid of being commonplace. Never turn aside from the truth
because it is commonplace.
* * * * *
A nightmare is not scattered while we are asleep. It disappears simply
by—_waking_.
* * * * *
_Cursed temperament_.—A long drought broke up. The grass had been burnt,
and the cattle were dying for want of water. In one week two inches of
rain fell.
_A._ ‘What a blessing this rain is!’
_B._ ‘Yes, but a reaction is sure to follow. I’ve noticed that after
weather like this we always have a spell of dry, northerly winds.’
* * * * *
The prompter which urges us on from one point to another, never
discouraged by failure to see in the present moment what it seemed to
possess when we pursued it, or rather, not permitting us to stop to find
out if there be any failure—this it is by which we live. When it departs
it is time to die.
* * * * *
_January_.—The wind is north-west after yesterday’s fog and rain from the
south. Suddenly and silently, just after sunset, the whole south-western
sky has blazed up, passing from glowing flame-colour on the horizon to
carmine on the zenith. Between the promontories of cloud are lakes and
gulfs of the tenderest green and blue. What magnificent pomp, fit to
celebrate the death of a god for the world’s salvation! But there is
nothing below to explain it. It must be a spectacle displayed for
celestial reasons altogether hidden.
* * * * *
Much misunderstanding would be prevented if we were to say exactly what
we believe and not modify it to suit, as we suppose, the person to whom
we speak.
* * * * *
Humour people sometimes in what you do, but not in the expression of your
convictions. Go a mile out of your way to please an obstinate friend,
but utter with precision what you believe. It is in the sharpness and
finish that its value lies.
* * * * *
Everybody in these civilised, intercommunicative days seems arrested:
everybody is a compromise. It is rare that we meet with a person who has
been let alone, whose own particular self has been developed free from
intrusion.
* * * * *
People believe the truth more readily if something difficult of belief or
incredible is mixed with it.
* * * * *
I want no more beliefs. What I want is active strength in those I have.
I know there is no ghost round the corner, but I dare not go.
* * * * *
There is always a point in our insistence or persuasion when it is most
effective, and generally it is much lower than we suppose. One degree
above it is waste and impediment.
* * * * *
Keep a watch upon your tongue when you are in particularly good health.
* * * * *
Early morning before sunrise: the valley was filled with mist; red clouds
in the sky. For a minute or two the mist took the colour, but fainter,
of the clouds. What patience is required in order to see! The sun had
not risen, the grass in the field was obviously green, but not without
intent fixture of the eyes upon it was the dark, twilight shade of green
recognised which was its peculiar meaning and beauty. To most of us,
perhaps not to artists, it is more difficult to look than to think.
* * * * *
The just judgment is not that of the judge who has no interest in it.
The most unjust judgments are due to indifference.
* * * * *
The sun is setting in crimson, delicate blue and green. I think of the
earth as a revolving ball. ‘This was the Creator’s design, or, if we
prefer so to speak, this was the law, that there should be a ball and
that it should turn on its axis. But just as surely was it the design or
law that there should be these colours, crimson, blue, and green, and
that I should be affected by them. This affection was rolled up in the
primal impulse which started the planet and is as necessary as its
revolution.
* * * * *
Zeal in proselytising is often due to an uneasy suspicion that we only
half-believe.
* * * * *
We should take pains to be polite to those whom we love. Politeness
preserves love, is a kind of sheath to it.
* * * * *
The hornbeam hedge is coming into leaf in patches although all parts of
each side face the same point of the compass. The leaves of some patches
are fully expanded, while in others they are only in bud. The dry,
brown, dead leaves of last year have remained through the winter and
early spring, but they are dropping off now that the new leaves begin to
shoot.
* * * * *
We ought not to expect every child to be religious. The religious temper
is an endowment like that for painting or poetry.
* * * * *
A. and B. meet on the road. B. is a retired official and has nothing to
do.
_B._ ‘Meant to have come to see you several times’ (has not called for
nine months), ‘but I have so many engagements.’ (Shows a basket.) ‘Look
here, just had to take some eggs to C. for my wife.’
* * * * *
‘If a man turns to Christ, nothing in him is to be left behind. Every
passion must be brought to Him to be transformed by Him. Otherwise the
man does not come, but only a part of him.’ [Said to me years ago by a
pious friend now dead.]
* * * * *
The real proportion between vice and virtue in a man is often misjudged
because the vice is before us continually, while the virtue does not
obtrude.
* * * * *
If you are to live in happiness and peace with the woman you love, you
must not permit the daily course of life to have its way unchecked.
There must be hours of removal to a distance when in silence you create
anew her ideal and proper form, when you think of her as sculptured in
white marble.
* * * * *
Blacksmiths forging one on this side of the anvil and the other on the
opposite side. Each keeps his own time, not regulating his stroke by
watching his mate.
* * * * *
There is in man an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you
like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground
round it into a swamp.
* * * * *
Went into the cathedral and heard morning service. Miracle of miracles!
Into the soul of a carpenter’s son more than eighteen centuries ago came
a thought, and it is returned to us to-day in majestic architecture,
music of voice and organ.
* * * * *
Disbelief in Christianity is not so much to be dreaded as its acceptance
with a complete denial of it in society and politics.
* * * * *
The love that has lasted for years; which has resisted all weakness and
defect; has been constant in all moods and circumstances better and
worse; has exacted nothing; has been content with silence; always soft
and easy as the circumambient air, a love with no reserve; what is there
in any relationship to person or thing worth a straw compared with it!
* * * * *
We ought to endeavour to give our dreams reality, but in Reality we
should preserve the dream.
* * * * *
If her unhappiness does not destroy my happiness, and if her happiness
does not make me happy, I do not love her.
* * * * *
There are problems which cannot be solved, for directly we have stated
them, as we suppose, they elude the statement and are outside. Who can
say what is the meaning of the question, ‘Does God exist?’
* * * * *
There is always a multitude of reasons both in favour of doing a thing
and against doing it. The art of debate lies in presenting them; the art
of life in neglecting ninety-nine hundredths of them.
* * * * *
How beautiful is a rapid rivulet trying to clear itself from stirred-up
mud.
* * * * *
The most foolish things we say are said from another person’s point of
view and not from our own.
* * * * *
On a siding at one of the stations on the Great Western Railway were a
number of old engines waiting to be broken up. There they stood,
uncleaned, their bright parts rusted and indistinguishable from the
others. Some were back to back and some front to front. There they
stood and saw the expresses rush past them with their new engines.
* * * * *
Went out this afternoon to call on C. and his wife. They are certainly
the most cultivated people I know. They travel a good deal, and each of
them can speak two or three languages besides English. They read the
best books, and do not read those which are bad. Some friends were
there, and I was entertained with intelligent criticism of literature,
music, and pictures, and learned much that was worth knowing. But I came
away unsatisfied, and rather dazed. On my way back—it was a singularly
warm, clear evening in February—I turned in to see an old lady who lives
near me. She was sitting wrapped up at her wide-open window, looking at
the light that was still left in the south-west. I said, of course, that
I hoped she would not take cold. ‘Oh no,’ she replied, ‘I often sit
here, and so long as I keep myself warm I come to no harm. I cannot read
by candlelight, and I am thankful that this room faces the south. I know
the stars much better than when I was young.’ I took the chair beside
her, and for ten minutes neither of us spoke, but I was not conscious for
an instant of the disagreeable feeling that silence must be broken, and
search be made for something with which to break it. If two persons are
friends in the best sense of the word, they are not uncomfortable if they
do not talk when they are together. Presently she told me that she had
received news that morning of the birth of a granddaughter. She was much
pleased. The mother already had two sons and desired a girl. I stayed
for about half an hour, and went home in debt to her for peace.
* * * * *
Bacon observes that whatever the mind seizes and dwells upon with
peculiar satisfaction is to be held in suspicion. Naturally so, because
it is nearly certain to be something merely personal to ourselves.
* * * * *
Excepting in one word, the betrayal of Jesus, the defection of Peter, the
examination before Pilate and Herod, and the crucifixion, are recorded,
as Spedding notices, without any vituperation. The excepted word, not
named by Spedding, is ‘blasphemously’ (Luke xxii. 65). {250}
* * * * *
Coleridge says that great minds are never wrong but in consequence of
being right, which is perfectly true; but it may be added that they are
also right through being wrong.
* * * * *
‘When he is moderate and regular in any of these things, out of a sense
of Christian sobriety and self-denial, that he may offer unto God a more
reasonable and holy life, then it is, that the smallest rule of this kind
is naturally the beginning of great piety. For the smallest rule in
these matters is of great benefit, as it teaches us some part of the
government of ourselves, as it keeps up a tenderness of mind, as it
presents God often to our thoughts, and brings a sense of religion into
the ordinary actions of our common life.’—(Law’s _Serious Call_.) Men
are restrained by fear of consequences, but it is Law’s rule which gives
strength and dignity. Living in a certain way because Perfection demands
it produces a result different from that obtained by living in the same
way through fear of injury to health.
* * * * *
Man is the revelation of the Infinite, and it does not become finite in
him. It remains the Infinite.
* * * * *
Luther says somewhere, ‘Do not anxiously search for the pillars which are
to keep the sky from falling.’ Many of us have been afraid all our lives
that the sky would fall, and have anxiously searched for the pillars.
There are none, and yet the sky will not fall.
* * * * *
Idolatry is the worship of that which is non-significant. The worship of
one God, as Coleridge says, may be idolatry.
* * * * *
What a man is conscious of, is not himself, but that which is not
himself. Without a belief in the existence of an external world, I could
not believe in my own existence.
* * * * *
The dialectic of Socrates is positive in so far as it shows the futility
of reasoning as a means of reaching the truth. If we wish to know
whether courage is knowledge, we must face imminent danger.
* * * * *
The omnipotence of God—that is to say, absolute omnipotence, a power
which knows no resistance—is an utterly inconceivable abstraction. Yet
much speculation is based on it.
* * * * *
There is a great reserve of incomprehensibility in all the few friends
for whom I really care. It is better that it should be so. What would a
comprehensible friend be worth? The impenetrable background gives the
beauty to that which is in front of it. The most unfathomable also of my
friends are those who are most sincere and luminous.
* * * * *
_Note on a picture_.—The sea-shore; low cliffs topped with grass; a small
cove; the open sea, calm, intensely blue; sky also deep blue, but towards
the horizon there are soft, white clouds. On a little sandy ridge sit a
brown fisher-boy and fisher-girl, immortal as the sea, cliffs, and clouds
which are a setting or frame for them.
* * * * *
The strength of the argument in favour of a philosophy or religion is
proportionate to the applicability of the philosophy or religion to life.
If in all situations we find it ready, it is true.
* * * * *
Bacon observes that ‘interpretations’ of Nature, that is to say real
generalisations elicited from facts by a just and methodical process,
‘cannot suddenly strike the understanding’ like ‘anticipations’ collected
from a few instances. I have often noticed that ‘striking’ is seldom a
sign of truth, and that those things which are most true, the Sermon on
the Mount and the Parables for example, do not ‘strike.’
* * * * *
We foolishly exaggerate ingratitude to us. Ought we to require of those
whom we have served, that they should be always confessing their
obligations to us? Why should we care about neglect? ‘Seek Him that
maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into
morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters
of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is
His name.’
* * * * *
The worship of the idol is often more passionate than that of God.
People prostrate themselves in ecstasy before the idol, and remain
unmoved in the presence of a starry night. A starry night does not
provoke hysterics. The adoration of the veritably divine is calm.
* * * * *
‘It is a sad thing,’ said she, ‘that so kind and good a man should be an
infidel.’ ‘It is a sad thing to me,’ said her terrible sister, ‘that an
infidel should be what you call kind and good.’
* * * * *
_Plus sapit vulgus_, _quia tantum_, _quantum opus est_, _sapit_. {254}
Quoted by Montaigne (_Of Presumption_) from Lactantius. Characteristic
of Montaigne and true, so far that a man can know nothing thoroughly
unless the knowledge be a necessity.
* * * * *
‘Certainty of knowledge,’ says Dr. Johnson in the _Idler_ (No. 84), ‘not
only excludes mistake, but fortifies veracity. . . . That which is fully
known cannot be falsified but with reluctance of understanding, and alarm
of conscience: of understanding, the lover of truth; of conscience, the
sentinel of virtue.’
At the present day we are chiefly taken up with that which is beyond our
grasp. Our literature is the newspapers, and nine-tenths of what we read
in them morning and evening we do not understand. Everybody is expected
to take sides in politics, but not one person in a thousand can give an
intelligible account of political questions. The difficulty of so doing
is much increased by the absence of systematic information. We get
leading articles and columns of telegrams, but seldom concise exposition
or carefully edited and connected history.
An object is of importance to us in inverse proportion to the square of
the distance, but men worry themselves about the news from China and will
not give five minutes’ thought in a week to their own souls or to those
of wife or child. It is pathetic to see how excited they become about
remote events which cannot affect their happiness one iota. Why should
we not occupy ourselves with that which is definite when there is so much
of it? Political problems confront us, but if they are too big for us,
let us avoid them by every means in our power. If we are in doubt we
ought not to vote. The question which we are incapable of settling will
be settled better by Time than by the intermeddling of ignorance.
In religion, and science also, we dare not say _I do not know_. We must
always be dabbling in matters on which we can come to no conclusion worth
a rotten nut. We busy ourselves with essays on the dates and composition
of the books of the Old Testament and cannot tell the story of Joshua or
Saul; we listen to lectures on radium, or the probable exhaustion of the
sun’s energy, and have never learned the laws of motion. Few people
estimate properly the evil of habitual intercourse with that which is
vague and indeterminate. The issues before us not being clearly cut and
comprehensible, the highest faculties of our minds are not exercised. We
lazily wander over the surface without coming to a definite conclusion.
Perhaps we pick up by chance some irrational notion, which we defend with
obstinacy, for we are more dogmatic concerning that which we cannot prove
than we are concerning a truth which is incontrovertible. The former is
our own personal property, the latter is common. One step further, and
by constantly affirming and denying when we have no demonstration, lying
becomes easy.
There is much which is called criticism that is poisonous, not because it
is mistaken, but because it invites people to assert beyond their
knowledge or capacity. A popular lecturer discusses the errors of Sir
Walter Scott, Charlotte Bronte, or George Eliot before an audience but
superficially acquainted with the works of these great authors and not
qualified to pass judgment upon them. He is considered ‘cheap’ if he
does not balance
‘His wit all see-saw between that and this,
Now high, now low, now master up, now miss.’
If we will be content with admiring, we are on much surer ground. It is
by admiration and not by criticism that we live, and the main purpose of
criticism should be to point out something to admire, which we should not
have noticed. One great advantage of studying Nature is that we are not
tempted to criticise her. We go to the Academy, and for a whole morning
contrast faults with merits. If the time so spent had been passed in the
fields with the clouds we should have gone home less conceited.
* * * * *
It is an awful thought that behind human speech, incapable by its very
nature of anything but approximate expression, and distorted by weakness
and wilfulness, lies the TRUTH as it is, exact without qualification.
* * * * *
The long apprenticeship has ended in little or nothing. What I was fifty
years ago I am now; certainly no better, with no greater self-control,
with no greater magnanimity. How much I might have gained had I taken
life as an art I cannot say.
* * * * *
I have been looking at a cabinet of flies. Hundreds of them, each
different, were arranged in order and named. Some I had to examine
through a microscope. Their beauty was marvellous, but more marvellous
was their variety. The differences, although the type was preserved,
seemed inexhaustible, and all reasons for them broke down. If a
particular modification is an advantage, why is it confined to one
species? Why this range of colour? Why these purely fantastic forms?
The only word we can say with certainty is that Nature is infinite and
tends to infinite expression. _Verum ego me satis clare ostendisse
puto_, _a summa Dei potentia sive infinita natura infinita infinitis
modis_, _hoc est_, _omnia necessario effluxisse_, _vel semper eadem
necessitate sequi_; _eodem modo_, _ac ex natura trianguli ab æterno et in
æternum sequitur ejus tres angulos æquari duobus rectis_. _Quare Dei
omnipotentia actu ab æterno fuit et in æternum in eadem actualitate
manebit_.
* * * * *
Johnson is religious through and through, but there are passages in the
_Rambler_ and _Idler_ dark as starless, moonless midnight. ‘None would
have recourse to an invisible power, but that all other subjects have
eluded their hopes . . . That misery does not make all virtuous,
experience too certainly informs us; but it is no less certain that of
what virtue there is, misery produces far the greatest part.’
* * * * *
There is seldom in life any occasion for great virtues, and we must not
be disappointed if it passes without great passion. We must expect to be
related to one another by nothing more than ordinary bonds and satisfied
if human beings give us pleasure without excitement.
* * * * *
I have good reason to believe that I am passing on life’s journey through
what almost all wayfarers therein have had to pass through, but nobody
has told me of it.
* * * * *
How wonderful is the withdrawal of heat! It silently departs, the iron
grows cold, but the heat spreads and lives!
‘Who knows, though he sees the snow-cold blossom shed,
If haply the heart that burned within the rose,
The spirit in sense, the life of life be dead?
If haply the wind that slays with storming snows
Be one with the wind that quickens?’
SWINBURNE, _A Reminiscence_.
* * * * *
With increase of reading we have fallen into a fireside, dilettante
culture of ideas as an intellectual pleasure. Amos and Isaiah do not
deal in ideas. Their strength lies in love and hatred, in the keenness
and depth of their division between right and wrong. They repeat the
work of God the Creator: chaotic sameness becomes diverse; the heavenly
firmament mounts on high; there is Light and there is Darkness.