Dinah Craik (1826 – 1887)
English novelist and poet.
All that we know of Thee, or knowing not
Love only, waiting till the perfect time
When we shall know even as we are known
O Thou Child Jesus, Thou dost seem to say
By the soft silence of these heavenly eyes
(That rose out of the depths of nothingness
Upon this limner's reverent soul and hand)
We too should be about our father's business
O Christ, hear us!
Society, in the aggregate, is no fool. It is astonishing what an amount of "eccentricity" it will stand from anybody who takes the bull by the horns, too fearless or too indifferent to think of consequences.
A vision without a task is but a dream.
A task without vision is but drudgery.
A vision with a task is the hope of the world.
Happiness is not an end it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence. The Omnipotent Himself could never be supposed by any, save those who out of their own human selfishness construct the attributes of Divinity, to be absorbed throughout eternity in the contemplation of His own ineffable bliss, were it not identical with His ineffable goodness and love.
"Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear," is a cynical saying, and yet less bitter than at first appears. It does not argue that human nature is false, but simply that it is human nature. How can any fallible human being with two eyes, two ears, one judgment, and one brain all more or less limited in their apprehensions of things external, and biased by a thousand internal impressions, purely individual how can we possibly decide on even the plainest actions of another, to say nothing of the words, which may have gone through half-a-dozen different translations and modifications, or the motives, which can only be known to the Omniscient Himself?
This, this is Thou. No idle painter's dream
Of aureoled, imaginary Christ,
Laden with attributes that make not God;
But Jesus, son of Mary; lowly, wise,
Obedient, subject unto parents, mild,
Meek as the meek that shall inherit earth,
Pure as the pure in heart that shall see God.
Thus ended our little talk: yet it left a pleasant impression. True, the subject was strange enough; my sisters might have been shocked at it; and at my freedom in asking and giving opinions. But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Somebody must have done a good deal of the winnowing business this afternoon; for in the course of it I gave him as much nonsense as any reasonable man could stand ...
Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people as may be noticed of most young children does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years.
No virtue ever was founded on a lie. The truth, then, at all risks and costs the truth from the beginning. Make a clean breast to whomsoever you need to make it, and then face the world.
There can be there ought to be no medium course; a love-affair is either sober earnest or contemptible folly, if not wickedness: to gossip about it is, in the first instance, intrusive, unkind, or dangerous; in the second, simply silly.
The irrevocable Hand
That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut
The portals of our earthly destinies;
We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors
Close after us, for ever.
Two hands upon the breast,
And labours done;
Two pale feet crossed in rest,
The race is won.
Autumn to winter, winter into spring,
Spring into summer, summer into fall,
So rolls the changing year, and so we change;
Motion so swift, we know not that we move.
I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not.