Dinah Maria Mulock (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!
O infinitely human, yet divine!
Half clinging childlike to the mother found,
Yet half repelling as the soft eyes say,
"How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not
That I must be about my Father's business?"
The only way to make people good, is to make them happy.
Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty!
Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty:
Love given willingly, full and free,
Love for love's sake as mine to thee.
Duty's a slave that keeps the keys,
But Love, the master, goes in and out
Of his goodly chambers with song and shout,
Just as he please just as he please.
There is no sorrow under heaven which is, or ought to be, endless. To believe or to make it so, is an insult to Heaven itself.
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.
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.
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.
Immortality alone could teach this mortal how to die.
"Get out o' Mr. Fletcher's road, ye idle, lounging, little "
"Vagabond," I think the woman (Sally Walkins, once my nurse,) was going to say, but she changed her mind.
And all day long, so close and near,
As in a mystic dream I hear
Their gentle accents kind and dear
The old familiar voices.
They have no sound that I can reach
But silence sweeter is than speech;
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.
We have not to construct human nature afresh, but to take it as we find it, and make the best of it.
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.
Sweet April-time O cruel April-time!
Year after year returning, with a brow
Of promise, and red lips with longing paled,
And backward-hidden hands that clutch the joys
Of vanished springs, like flowers.
Awakener, come!
Fiing wide the gate of an eternal year,
The April of that glad new heavens and earth
Which shall grow out of these, as spring-tide grows
Slow out of winter's breast.
Let Thy wide hand
Gather us all with none left out (O God!
Leave Thou out none!) from the east and from the west.
Loose Thou our burdens: heal our sicknesses;
Give us one heart, one tongue, one faith, one love.
In Thy great Oneness made complete and strong
To do Thy work throughout the happy world
Thy world, All-merciful, Thy perfect world.
What comfort there is in a cheerful spirit! how the heart leaps up to meet a sunshiny face, a merry tongue, an even temper, and a heart which either naturally, or, what is better, from conscientious principle, has learned to take all things on their bright side, believing that the Giver of life being all-perfect Love, the best offering we can make to Him is to enjoy to the full what He sends of good, and bear what He allows of evil!
Two hands upon the breast,
And labours done;
Two pale feet crossed in rest,
The race is won.
Nevertheless, taking life as a whole, believing that it consists not in what we have, but in our power of enjoying the same; that there are in it things nobler and dearer than ease, plenty, or freedom from care nay, even than existence itself; surely it is not Quixotism, but common-sense and Christianity, to protest that love is better than outside show, labour than indolence, virtue than mere respectability.