Remember that the whim of today is the impulse of tomorrow,
the wish of next week,
the effort of next month,
the good or bad taste of next year,
the habit of your old age,
and the instinct of your descendants.
Learn to accept happiness with a reverent surprise and grace; un happiness, with a recognition of the inevitable, and resignation to the facts of fate.
Make my days happy, love; yet I entreat
Make not each happier than the last for me;
Lest heaven itself should dawn for me, complete
In joy, not the surprise I dreamed it would be;
But simply as the natural and sweet
Continuance of days spent here with thee.
O beloved, who from my sight
Art gone, how well I know that high and clear
Thy thoughts in that far home burn bright for me!
Well must thou know thou still to me art dear;
Yet thrills my heart in nameless agony
To cry to thee, "love, I hear, I see!"
Though through God's dark I cannot see or hear!
We are wont to be discouraged at the slow progress of civilization; ought not years and experience to teach us faster? That it advances so slowly is because the struggle is not between knowledge and ignorance, but between knowledge and feeling. We know more, but we also feel more; and what we feel influences us more than what we know.
How much ought we to let the Young Person know of the dark side of life? Ah I that is hard to tell; but something, surely, that the shock of sudden and too late knowledge may not kill or discourage. If you would not have the finest broadcloth shrink when it is wet, you must first carefully wet it yourself with a sponge.
The eager words come pouring out:
His eyes glow as he presses near;
She listens with her head downcast,
But well he knows she likes to hear.
A lover? No, a boy of ten,
Who tells his mother over and over
The story of Ulysses, which
He thinks she never heard before.
The frost is here, the chilling snow.
The freezing wind, the barren bough;
No brightness is without, within,
Save what ourselves can kindle now.
I touch the fire, I trim the lamp,
Yet that is not enough of cheer;
And yet - and yet - the world's aglow
With light, if thou but love me, dear!
And once my heart was like a gem
Set in a fair betrothal ring;
Content to light the happy darks
That shield love's shy self-wondering.
But now I think my heart is like
The lady fair who wears the ring,
Pressed closely to her lips at night
With love's mysterious wondering
That hers should be the precious thing.
It is strange that we do not realize the duty of being charming as well as virtuous. Most wives make the mistake of thinking they have done all that is necessary when they have made their husbands comfortable. And the worst mistake of all is when they insist on making him comfortable according to their own ideas of comfort. "Do eat this while it is hot," when perhaps he prefers it cold; and he dutifully scalds his mouth, rather than have a scene as to how he shall arrange his own breakfast.
There is danger that the soul which has felt strong emotion will cease to care for convictions; and yet no opinion is a perfectly safe one that has not been steeped in emotion. It must not be still damp with it, but it should have been at least sprinkled and then dried in the sun of reason. To feel intensely without being injured in one's intellectual integrity, that is the ideal; but most of us come out of our bath of emotion drowned instead of baptized.
Flushed in the morning light, she danced and sang;
While I forgot the murmuring poet's lay,
As through the room her sweeter wisdom rang:
"Mamma, mamma! Tomorrow is today!"
The test of charm is not how deeply you feel it, but how keenly you remember it.
The test of fascination is not how perfectly you remember it, but how much else you forget.
We speak of man's faith in God; but let us also remember God's faith in man. Temptation does not come from the devil; it is God's compliment to us. He believes us able to examine, to judge, to choose rightly. Shall we disappoint him?
God save us ever from those sudden moods
When all life narrows to a single point.
And when the poor heart seizes its desire,
Only to wake to deeper restlessness.
Freedom does not necessarily mean the ability to skip about. A bird is free to move where he will, even within reach of the sportsman's gun; but the apple blossom is also free, if, without canker within or blight from without, it can quietly, without stirring from the bough, turn into an apple.
Even if Nature were really the highest type of what is beautiful, we must remember that Nature has been corrupted for a series of generations, till it is next to impossible to say what ideally is Nature, and what is simply the result of an accumulation of ancestral and personal bad habits.
The variety of impressions that your brain receives, determines your health and sanity; the depth and permanence of separate impressions is what determines character. Beware of what remains with you.
We must be natural above all things. Of course; but if you are behind footlights, you must heighten your complexion artistically in order to appear natural; as the merchant, to cover all his expenses, must charge some advance on the mere cost of his particular merchandise.
If you are curious to measure the diameter of the circle you have been describing the past year, ask yourself, "What things do I care about now that I did not know of, or care about, a year ago?"
The loveliest strength is that of the diamond. Clear as dew, it is firm as adamant. Yet it is not obstinate; it can be cut, though only by another diamond, its peer. You can do nothing to it but improve it.
The air is crisp and sparkling; the liquid light upon the grass is frost dissolved in sunshine; as different from mere dew as the tenderness of a great heart is different from the mere sentiment of a weak
Mothers think up little things to amuse their children when they come home from school; kindergarten children bring home from school little things to amuse their mothers.
To be willing to be a performer is to be willing to take one's share of the drudgery of the world; to wish to be a performer is to have what those less cynical than Goethe justly call aspirations.
Work does not mean the dreary setting to rights of disorder that has been introduced into a perfect universe; it means merely helping to finish a world that was left incomplete.
Education is not putting up a lattice for frail things to lean upon, but developing the inward strength that makes lovely things shoot up of themselves.
Moods? That need not trouble you. The diamond has a hundred moods today, and will have a hundred different moods tomorrow; but it is transparent to the core. Many sided, it is single hearted.
He was not a hero, but he was a beautiful and much-needed illustration of the graceful recipient. Accept nothing you can get for yourself; return every favor you possibly can; but if a better fellow offers you what you can't get for yourself, or what he knows you cannot return - take it.
Dreaming of love and fame, sweetheart,
I dreamed that a sunbeam shone
For a wavering instant, and where it played
A hundred flowers had grown.
The sunshine flitting so soon away
Was a smile thou hadst given me;
And the flowers that bloomed in the world for aye
Were the songs I wrote for thee.
Waking to love and life, sweetheart,
I saw the flowers fade;
While still from the measureless heavens above
The flickering sunshine played;
The flowers fading from all men's sight
Were the songs they had heard from me;
And the light that illumined the world to them,
Was a single smile from thee!
There are only two sad things in life: to lose one's faith in one's self, or one's faith in another. Or, yes, one thing is sadder still: that another should lose his faith in you.
Long vistas of wide space that lead between
Gray boughs, etched keenly on the even sky;
Far finer than the multitudinous green
Of listless leaves that with the summer die.
Education is not teaching facts, but producing fine and strong impressions. If you want your boy to be patriotic, don't tell him so, but take him out to see some great pageant, like Lincoln's funeral or the Columbus processions.
Perhaps we shall be forgiven for having loved a little things we ought not to love much, if only we have loved most the things we ought to love a great deal.
A man is born knowing his weakness and having to struggle for his strength. A woman is born knowing her strength, and having to struggle with her weakness.
"Lead us not into temptation" does not mean that you are to retire from the world behind silk curtains. It merely means that you are not to draw aside the curtains behind which the temptation itself may be hidden,
One satisfied with what must be her lot, -
'Twas not a corner lot, - serenely meant
Never to wander from her humble cot.
Made beautiful by wise and sweet content.
And one, dissatisfied with all he had,
Roved from his place into the world's mad whirl.
What did he find? Well, it was not so bad: -
The fellow found that cottage and that girl.
There are two kinds of doubt: there is the doubt of a man on his knees before an idol, whether he ought not to spring to his feet in manly self dependence; - and there is the doubt of a man standing erect in the presence of a god, whether he ought not tr throw himself upon his knees.
Depict everything that exists? No; you may not. Literature implies choice, emphasis; it is Life in italics; we should not emphasize everything. Literature is life in bronze, in marble; you are not an artist if you mould your ideals in butter, and you are very much to be pitied if you enjoy moulding them in mud.
Literature is to Life what the sign board is to the highway: it may point the right road to town, or it may call attention to a particularly fine view, or it may very justly put up a "Danger" signal where the road is bad; but of what use are the Ibsen guide-posts which inform you that if you turn to the left and go a mile out of your way, and cut down the underbrush, you will find a stagnant pool where you will be very much surprised to find one?
Not that I grieved you; no remembered thorn,
Left in your heart, frets now my own repose;
I only wonder, left so soon forlorn,
Whether I could have found you one more rose,
Do not hope to reform the world by airing your opinions.
What you do, is of great importance to society.
What you say, is of great importance to your family and friends.
What you feel, is of great importance to yourself.
But what you think, is of very little importance to anybody.
Judge not by appearances. The hands of a clock frequently seem to be running away from twelve o'clock; but they are always secretly, quietly, and uninterruptedly going towards it again, and will always arrive exactly when they are expected. I do not demand the episodes of your career, but only the large general result.
So little made me glad when I was young:
Flowers, a sunset, books, a friend or two;
Gray skies with scanty sunshine piercing through-
How little made me glad for I was young.
So little makes me happy, now I'm old!
Your hand in mine, dear wife, here by the fire.
The children grown unto our hearts' desire -
How little keeps us happy when we're old!
And yet, between the little then and now.
What worlds of life, of thought, of feeling keen!
What spiritual depths and heights unseen,
Ah me! between the little then and now!
For little things seem mighty when we're young;
Then we rush onward through the changing years,
Testing the gamut of all smiles and tears,
Till mighty things seem little: we are old.
We are wont to speak of people who "inspire respect"; but remember that respect is always beautiful to show, whether it is inspired and deserved or not. If you are rude to me, it is because you are you, not because I am I.
Sleep visits not my eyelids; yet I rest
In a content more deep than any sleep;
Nay, wrapped in joy my vigil here I keep,
With trembling hands clasped to my eager breast.
For one I love, after long hours of pain,
Sleeps near me now; think you that I could sleep,
Though needless now the vigil that I keep,
With the dread lifted from my heart and brain?
Think you that I would sleep? - would be beguiled,
Cheated, of this my joy? Nay, let me fast
From sleep for long, glad hours, to hear at last
The low, soft breathing of my ailing child.
O but for one short hour
To have enough to do! -
Who could believe the idle rich
Would keep their wants so few?
I am tired of weeping here;
For God's sake, ease my brain
By letting me tire idle hands
With a wealth of work again I
But to the One who gives both sea and shore,
Who from the darkness light and gladness frees,
Rises the sweetest hymn for evermore,
Not from the lips of such glad souls as these; -
But from the bed where one all night has lain.
Stilling his moans to let his watchers sleep.
Who suddenly across his bed of pain
Sees the faint gray of early morning creep.
You meant to wound me? Then forgive,
O friend, that when the blow fell, I
Turned my face from you to the wall
To smile, instead of die.
You meant to gladden me? Dear friend,
Whose praise like jewels I have kept.
Forgive me, that for very joy
I bent my happy head, and wept.
Not truly humble is the violet.
That keeps its face quite upturned to the sun,
And would grow higher if it could; it cannot.
Better for our young friend the haughtiness
Of strong white lilies, that refuse to bloom
Near the dark earth they sprang from; eagerly
They push aside the lazy weeds that hide
The upper air, and keeping in their breasts
The fair white secret of their blossoming.
Rise to the heaven they worship.
Shall we be strong, then, like iron, that holds leaping flame in its embrace, and itself is not bent, or melted, or broken, save by fiercest blow or fearsome heat? Ah, but one would like to be a little more sensitive than that. Is there nothing that is both strong and tender?
"No longer war!" with noble zeal they said.
"Wise arbitration shall decide each feud."
And so they melted down their sinful lead,
With such new fervor were they all imbued.
Was it the love of man for fellow-man?
I fear me, not; but each had grown so skilled.
Building great guns, each knew, if war began,
And both should fire, both would soon be killed.
The artist does not imitate nature; he interprets it; and the spectator, to criticize, must be, not one who understands nature, but one who can interpret the interpretation.
There are two kinds of simplicity: the simplicity of the wild. flower, and the simplicity of the diamond. The nugget of gold, just from the mine, untouched by worldliness, mixed with alloy and dull with unuse, is not half so simple as the wedding-ring made from it, wrought with such care, fashioned so perfectly, worn with such happiness.
He paid ten cents one day, he said,
For a plant with flowers on it;
And then he wrote about those flowers
A fine ten-dollar sonnet.
I hastened to the florist's, bought
A plant, and plied my pen;
But my investment's quick return
Was my sonnet back again.
Art is to Nature what his uniform is to a general: he is just as much of a man in his usual outfit; but he is very much more of a general in his gold lace and buttons. The uniform does not alter the man, but it almost creates the general. Hence I am not afraid of Nature in the uniform of Art.
One waits for Opportunity; to be
Freed from his moorings, with the flood, he glides.
One waits for Inspiration; like the sea
That waits, but only waits for its own tides.
Hearts already glad
Beat quicker for the smiling of her lips;
Even as the summer air, that seemed overcharged
With fragrance, will grow even sweeter still
At sudden blossoming of one more rose.
"Lord, be merciful to me, a fool!"
Pathetic was this fine jest of the poet;
Yet be Thou still more merciful, Lord,
To him who is a fool and does not know it.
Stevenson pitied the man who had not once in his life made a fool of himself. The only thing not to be endured is that he should make a fool of himself twice. You may be foolish on April 1st, but let the 2nd of April find you in your right mind.
They say the rich are to blame,
With their idle, haughty ways;
Their world of manifold foolish wants,
Their proud, lazy days.
But it seems to me their wants
Are all too strangely few:
They cannot find for a girl like me
A single thing to do!
The same trait sometimes seems very different in a different temperament; as one woman wears violet perfume on her handkerchief, while another wears fresh violets.
Some people, if they get what they want, merely think that it is what they ought to have; if they don't get it, they are embittered. Providence can never please them; it can only disappoint.
The loveliest of all lovely things
Love even what is dull in spring;
The bluebird and the oriole
Seek the brown earth with flashing wing.
And flowers no longer bloom alone,
But crowd the gnarled old apple-bough; -
We were but dullards, love, indeed,
Did we not love each other now.
To be waked by meadowlarks! One longs to go out and hunt in the grass for the lovely liquid notes they have let fall; it seems as if they must sparkle where they dropped.
Light are the tendrils of the curling vine;
Faint the pale hint of flowers, later on
To round to perfect globes of purple wine;
All things are gentle, to be strong anon.
Soft is the air, thin, with a hint of rain;
The sunshine loiters; not with languorous glow.
But timid still, though tremulously fain
In a dull world its richer wealth to show.
It is the test of fine character, as of fine singing, that the person displaying it makes it seem, not a difficult thing well done, but the simplest thing in the world to do.
Ah, yes! I know my changeful heart's caprice:
When once again the little leaves appear,
Trembling with fresh delight at their release
From the mysterious prison of the year,
I, too, shall laugh, and say how fine it is
That the cold slavery of the snow is done;
For this is best, of all earth's mysteries:
That is the best which has but just begun.
For a bit of bright verse, the editor said,
He would give five dollars or more;
I wanted five dollars just then, so I fled
To my sanctum, and let genius soar.
I wrote the bright verse, and that editor rare
Sent his check in reply for my wit;
The result is, you see, the spring bonnet I wear;
And as for the verse, this is it.
We are really to aim at results only as a dog aims at catching the stick his master has thrown for him. He does not care for the stick; what he likes is the running.
Do not pride yourself on having kept entirely aloof from evil. That would be unfortunate for those you might have helped out of evil. If you are hungry, seek for a perfectly healthy oyster; but if you are well fed, do not hesitate to look at a diseased one: you may find a pearl.
What mock heroics in the morbid, sickly interviews between lovers in novels who meet continually to say to each other that they ought not, dare not, must not, cannot, shall not, will not, - but do, - love each other!
How do I miss thee? As the violets miss
The sun when clouds have hidden it. Dear one,
Wilt thou not tell me whether in heaven the sun
Misses the violet it cannot kiss?
When in the thoughtful twilight we, her friends.
Walk with her, and in spirit dimly feel
A strange, rare fragrance over the senses steal,
Let us speak softly of a Past that sends
Through the closed crevice of its silent door.
No bitterness in life's remembered hours;
But in the delicate breath of such fair flowers.
Only the sweetness of the days of yore.
Richly plain is her robe, but plainly rich;
Noble her mien, as one of royal birth;
A duchess or a queen, you know not which;
Her name, Simplicity, - but gowned by Worth.
Many people are willing to be martyrs, but not unless they can have the glory of their martyrdom. They are willing to bare their breast to the thorn, provided they can bare the thorn to the world.
The perfumes that women wear so extravagantly are a great mistake. Instead of reminding us sweetly of flowers, the flowers are beginning to remind us painfully of sachets and essences. I am so afraid that a day will come when I shall hate the smell of violets.
And then we talk about free-will! I am free to do as I please, granted; but I am not free as to what I may wish to do. I have inherited tastes from a very mixed set of ancestors, and I may find myself suddenly wishing to do something that I don't like wishing to do: one of the hardest paradoxes in life.
It is sometimes a compliment to be neglected. There are people to whom we are very polite, not because we crave their affection, but because we dread their touchiness.
Strange, that a man, a generation long,
Should do good deeds that mould his generous lips
To noble curves, and then should die and leave
His son the curves without the nobleness.
It is not denying yourself what is beautiful and dear, simply for the sake of self denial, that helps the soul; it is denying yourself what is harmful, or what another needs, that saves repression from its element of danger.
The Greeks made the tragedy of life to consist in our blind slavery to fate; that nothing could have averted it, was the keynote to their suffering. The modern makes the tragedy of life to consist in our ignorance or willfulness; that it might so easily have been avoided, is the keynote to our suffering.
I have a friend, I mean a foe,
Whom cordially I ought to hate;
But, somehow, I can never seem
To lay the feud between us straight.
When apple-boughs are full of bloom,
And Nature loves her fellow men.
With all the witchery of spring,
How can you hate a fellow then?
She is one who sometimes takes an unnecessarily heavy hammer to destroy a cobweb; but then, on the other hand, she is one who, in an emergency, can brush aside an iron-bolted gate as if it were a cobweb.
The white moon slips from the silent sea,
The sea slips from the shore;
And back to my happy, silent heart
Sweeps the flood of words once more.
But not till the waves have kissed the beach,
And the moon has kissed the sea,
And not until I, too, sweetheart,
Have kissed - been kissed by - thee.
Immortal type of the eternal spring is she; -
So young and fair? Nay, that she can be no more;
But who can tell of springtime which it be -
Spring that comes after summer, or before?
And once my heart was like a nest,
Where singing-birds have made their home,
Set where the apple-boughs in bloom
Fleck the blue air with flower-foam.
But now it is itself a bird,
And if it does not always sing,
The Heavenly Father knows what thoughts,
Too strangely sweet for uttering,
Stir faintly underneath its wing.
Those who praise
The beauty of the gem, admire most
The changefulness of its most restless rays;
Yet I feel no uneasiness or doubt;
Knowing full well, whenever I look down
Upon my breast, the jewel will be there.
Sweet Marguerite looked shyly from the grass
Of country fields, and softly whispered, "Here
I make my home, content; for I, alas!
Am not the rose the city holds so dear."
Just then, the queen, driving by chance that way,
Called to a page, "Bring me that marguerite!
I am so tired of roses!" From that day
The daisy had the whole world at her feet.
And one who cared less for the glorious sight
Than for the joy to come with that first ray,
Ran to his casement to greet there the light
That ushered in for him his wedding-day.
"If I had only known!" we cry sorrowfully. But what should we have done if we had known? Something different, certainly, but it might not have been anything wiser.
I know a flower that never need feel dread
Of being picked: the fairest flower of May,
It fears henceforth no stranger's dangerous tread.
Why? Oh, because I picked it yesterday.
Dante adored woman; Wordsworth commended her; Shakespeare loved her; Tolstoi planted her in sunshine and watered her with his tears, only to tear her up by the roots at last; Bums smiled at her; Moore succumbed to her; Henry James studies her; Maupassant thinks her wicked, but interesting; Bourget dissects her; Balzac understands her.
Some people think that they are good if they are doing good; others often think that they are doing good if they simply are good. Both are frequently mistaken.
Circumstantial evidence? Never trust to it. Would you condemn a man as a thief because he knew the way to the cake-box? But two people know the way to the cake-box: one is the naughty little boy who takes the cake out, and the other is the excellent housekeeper who puts the cake in.
We speak sometimes of a "dominant" trait, or passion, or mode of thought; but it is often probable in a mind of this sort that there are really no other traits or passions or modes of thought. What seems mastery of one thing may merely mean the monotony of the whole.
A golden moon fills all the sky;
And stirring at her feet
The white floods rise and leap to shore,
Bold lovers, brave and fleet.
But a swifter flood to feel her sway.
And rush in resistless tide.
Is the love that leaps from my heart to lips.
For her whom I walk beside.
A nice little saint, having a good time over other people's sins. You are not going to do anything out of the way yourself, but you want to be there all the same. You want to be in it, without being to blame for it.
A world of nerves, of jarring pain;
Discord and weariness; and then
With sudden sweetness dawns the reign
Of love and light again.
A world that seemed of peace the grave;
Then one with peace that plighted troth;
With naught between the two worlds, save
An hour's unconsciousness of both.
If ever the dread day should come again
When the whole country needs her boys in blue,
How could I bear, dear lad, among the men
Marching to war and danger, to see you?
My heart sinks as I watch them through the glass;
And yet I know one thing were worse to bear:
That underneath my window they should pass,
And I should look, and find you were not there!
Habit is the secret of success in life, and of failure. You may do almost anything once; it is the things you permit yourself to do twice that determine your destiny.
Some people's virtue is like that of the little boy who developed a great willingness to brush his hair nicely - when the opportunity offered to try a silver hair-brush not his own.
Woman's place in literature may yet come to be that of a superlative observer of the folly, the chivalry, the weakness, the nobility of men; as man's place has long been that of the cleverest, most subtle, most keen, most generous observer of the woman herself.
Before my window, lit but now with sun.
The wrinkled curtain of the wind-swept rain
Falls heavily; shadow and rose are one,
To me, behind the thin white window-pane.
The high school graduates exceptional scholars, who will frame wise laws for the community; the kindergarten trains a community that will need less the restraint of so much law.
The seeds of all most precious things
Are sown; we have naught else to do
But wait for golden summer noon
To bring the harvest that we woo.
Only to wait; the seed is sown;
The generous sky bends from above;
What were such golden leisure for,
But for the heart to rest - and love?
"You will reap what you sow," said the wise papa;
And the wise little boy who heard,
Said at once, "Then I'll plant some canary seed,
And perhaps I shall raise a bird!"
You need not bring her back again;
To tell the truth, you know,
I have no wish to be again
That child of long ago.
Of course I'm very old; but then.
If I wish to play, you see,
There's always close beside me now
Another little Me.
He's ten years old, and he's a boy,
A mischievous young elf;
But I like him every bit as well
As I used to like myself.
Unfailing her serene and perfect smile;
A tender light burns ever in her eyes.
Brightening at times, but never fading, while
She listens - so is Melancholy wise.
The personality of the artist should be lost in the charm of his work. You do not want to think how clever he is, but how charming it is; you must not ask, "Who did it?" but "Who is it?" when you look at a portrait.
And then when summer comes, with days
Full of a long and languid charm,
When even water lilies sleep
On waves without a thought of harm.
When underneath the shadiest tree
My hammock hangs in idlest state,
I were an idiot to get up
Out of that hammock just to hate.
Here is a college graduate who is narrow, bigoted, and unpleasant. "Behold the effect of college education!" exclaims the Philistine, without any cognizance of the fact that the man might have been still more narrow, bigoted, and unpleasant without his college education.
Never trust to circumstantial evidence. There are people who, without looking in the hayloft, would accept the evidence of a dose-shorn field of grass that it could not raise any hay.
And then the pretty bird whose restless feet
Danced in and out among the blossoms there,
For very joyousness sent rippling sweet
A carol of bright laughter through the air.
Flushing with joy, the apple-boughs swung high.
Responsive to the quiver of her wings;
As, light of heart beneath the summer sky.
Her voice ceased suddenly its twitterings,
To murmur back, "Thou foolish, dear old tree.
It is not I who bring the flowers to thee,
But thy most tempting flowers that bring me!"
There is a time when we think ourselves wondrous wise. Then comes a time when we fear we have been ridiculously foolish. Then, later still, a wise tolerance for our own folly, as well as for that of others.
Do not permit yourself futile regret. "If I had only known!" is the morbid complaint of a weak spirit; "I did not know," is the frank confession of a strong one.
Not long, alas I not long; the mother-heart
Knows well how quickly she will have to part
With all this wonder; she who tries each art
To lure him on; the first to coax and praise
Each added grace; then first in sore amaze
To mourn that he has lost his baby ways I
By no friend's footstep is it visited;
No flowers are there, not even a hardened wreath
Of immortelles; no marble at its head
Tells the cold secret of who sleeps beneath.
Though he has charmed a world with fire and soul.
His lowly grave is never visited.
Sad? Strange? Well, not so very, on the whole -
You see, this charming man is not yet dead.
A wonderful housewife is Mrs. O'More;
Every Saturday morning you'll see
A whirlwind of dust from her window and door.
Such a thorough sweeper is she.
No whirlwind of dust from window or door
Of her neighbor across the way;
That's because the neighbor of Mrs. O'More
Sweeps a little up every day.
Clouds fall in shadows, though not yet in rain;
The poplar shivers at the coming chill;
Until the blurring rain blots out the plain,
And thirsting roses drink their glowing fill.
A pearl may be flawlessly white, but it will never gleam with the thousand lights of a faceted diamond, which is just as pure and far more transparent.
Not as of old
The indolent aristocrats decreed
The king's son should be king; we will obey
Kings only, not kings' sons. He shall be king -
The people's servant and the nation's seer -
Who, far from being of our common clay,
Challenges all the loyalty we bring
Because among us he hath not his peer.
Mothers used to tell their children pretty stories at bedtime to make them forget the weary hours at school; but nowadays the children of the kindergarten entertain their mothers with the delightful story of all the pleasant things they have seen, or heard, or made, all day at school.
But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
Tis not the east! 'tis Juliet! I have won!
But, dearest lute, thy task is not yet done;
Still must thy sweet persuasion, for our sakes.
Its gentle effort kindly make to keep
Papa asleep!
The hot sun stooped, his eager thirst to slake;
I trembled for the trembling little lake.
I thought to see it shrivel in his clutch;
But lo! it bloomed with lilies at his touch.
Fear not, sweet saint, by joy to be undone;
Peace comes with joy, as lilies with the sun.
My heart was like a flower once,
That from its jewel-tinted cup
The generous fragrance of its joy
To all the world sent floating up.
But now 'tis like a humming-bird
That in the cup his bright wing dips.
And with most dainty selfishness
Himself the choicest honey sips.
With eager, thirsting, longing lips.
The sentimental temperament is not the poetic. The poet gazes at the moon; but the sentimentalist is satisfied with gazing at its reflection in the pond.
Her joys are bright - winged birds that from on high
Come singing down, and tempt the stream to try
And sing with them, as they flit singing by.
Her sorrows - she has none her heart will own;
The air is silent when the birds have flown.
But the poor stream still sings the song, alone.
Two things may be lukewarm: that which has not been cooked enough, and that which has been cooked a second time. Her warmth is the warmth of things warmed over.
She carries loveliest roses in her hands,
And lingers near each merriest scene a while;
Not drooping, but erect and strong she stands -
Sorrow, her name; I know her by her smile.
The Greek lived in constant dread of a Fate that might overthrow his best intentions; the modern lives ill constant dread of not having the best intentions.
The silence of a country landscape is sometimes much more disconcerting and unrestful than the mere noise of a town. The town is a word, harshly, abruptly spoken; country silence is not a word, but it is like the blank line drawn under a word to italicize it, with no letters or meaning of its own, but intensifying the effect beyond expression.
The mental, moral, and physical object of the Delsarte gymnastics, which unite thought with movement, is less that body and mind may learn expression, than that they may both be freed from repression.
And yet - and yet - remember this, my lute:
Though I would have you wake my lady fair,
And bring her to the balcony up there,
To shine for me, the evening's brightest star -
Remember this: I have no wish to wake
Her dear papa!
For if I
Should behold sorrow coming close to thee.
How could I bear it, love, how could I bear.
Day after day, with bitter pain to see
Thee suffer? And if fate should let me wear
The cross, how could I bear, love, as my share.
Day after day to see thee grieve for me?
Knowledge is not experience. Two people can make out an excellent menu for
dinner: one is the gentleman accustomed to eating good dinners, the other is the cook accustomed to preparing them. It is not enough to tell me that you have a dress-suit: you may still be a waiter at a restaurant.
She sleeps, my lady sleeps!
Let me steal softly through the dusky bowers.
And while the fragrance of the climbing flowers
In at her casement slowly, gently creeps,
Let me below her happy window stand,
And touch my lute with not too light a hand,
Because, you see, she sleeps!
I do not wish that she should sleep.
The soul under repression is like the closed piano that you see in some houses: there is a fine cloth over it, and the dust is kept out, and there are vases on it full of very pretty flowers; but if it were open, there might be music.
With quick pin-pricks the arrowy showers strike
The pale, hurt earth, yet leave no stain or scar.
Sunk to the hilt, the rain-swords are alike
Sheathed in the breast of earth they could not mar.
In the time of the New Ethics we shall not think or talk so much about virtue; we shall assume virtue as a matter of course; then, perhaps, we shall have more leisure to be delightful.
"I hate you!" shrieked the snake; with poisoned fang
He stabs his victim, heedless of his moans.
"I love you!" screamed the lion, as he sprang.
And slowly crunched his shuddering victim's bones.
Within her soul there is a sacred place
Forever set apart to holy thought;
There once a miracle divine was wrought,
And common things grew fair with heavenly grace.
All night I slept within my tent,
Pitched in those woods where geysers roar;
And every hour Old Faithful sent
His hoarse, fierce message to my door.
But never once, in slumber bound,
By all his screaming was I stirred;
At dawn, I started at a sound:
Roused by the twittering of a bird.
Rose-colored is the fragile, delicate flower
To ripen into fruit if so I choose;
But T am fain to keep this perfect hour
Rose-colored still, whatever fruit I lose.
Not with the daisy's foolish trustfulness,
But with the confidence of slow-won strength.
To the world's gaze it silently unfolds
The perfect flower of a royal soul,
Not innocent, and yet forever pure.
You say, "If only I had never met that man!" or "If only I had never met that woman!" or "If only I had never read that book!" But do not deceive yourself so lightly; you would have met some other man, some other woman, some other book, if in your temperament there is the seed to flourish in such soil. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
To the thinking and poetic mind something has been lost as well as gained, when the problem has been finally solved, the poem finished, the invention perfected, the picture sold.
The little boy who defined faith as "trying to believe something that you know isn't so," would undoubtedly define duty as "something nobody likes to do."
Talk about Zeuxis painting cherries so that the birds pecked at them; why, Helen sang "Ye Merry Birds" the other day so that the cat came and stationed herself before her, and looked wistfully up at her throat.
It is not true that repression is good for the soul. Self-control is good, but repression is dangerous. Even if a soul lives under repression, you can never know how much finer it would have been under sweeter influences. The night-blooming cereus is the :)nly flower absolutely injured by sunlight. Try to find a vent for every reasonable desire; but what you must not or cannot indulge, must be uprooted with all your strength and forgotten; not merely repressed and allowed to ferment.
Would it be
Harder to wake years hence to sense of thirst
Than to stand thirsty now? Aye, bear thy thirst
Patiently now, else future sands may drain
Thy heart's life-blood.
One rose before the dawn, and stole along
The dull shore, waiting for the light to be;
That he, before the tireless throng,
Might watch the sunrise on the splendid sea.
Some people talk beautifully about being willing to "renounce," when their problem is really, not to renounce something that belongs to them, but not to snatch after something that doesn't. How can you "renounce" a thing you never ought to have?
The asbestos fire-proof curtain at the theatres alarms more than it soothes. You are reminded not so much of your safety in case of fire, as of the possibility of a fire. Once, under the sudden suggestion, I lifted my eyes, and seeing a lady in one of the boxes, fancied for an instant that her beautiful gray hair was smoke!
He has the intuitions that do not require the verification of experience. He has lived all his life in Boston, but he knows Boston nature as if he had never been anywhere else, and human nature as if he had been everywhere else.
Try less to impress children with creeds and dogmas and sense of duty, and even principles, than to foster in them instincts and tastes which shall make any. outward prop to their morality and taste for virtue entirely unnecessary.
You are happy? Ah, but that is not enough! I must know what it is that makes you happy. During the Columbus celebrations, when the whole city was alive with enthusiasm and delight, a drunken man in the horse-car announced that he, too, meant to "enjoy" himself that week. It was easy to see in what he had learned to place his enjoyment.
"All evil souls to live in hell!" thus ran
The stern decree; but when Mephisto fell,
For the arch-fiend, arch-punishment; his ban
Must be that he shall like to live in hell.
Stretched on the rack, his proud soul seeks to slay
Proud pain with prouder utterance; and so
He has some slight reward: the critics say
His work is so much stronger now, you know!
One week of glorious rain!
And the streams run full again,
And the lakes that shriveled and curled
In the breath of the blinding sun,
Frail as their lilies are,
Unfurl again to the air,
Like cool and silvery leaves
Sparkling up to the light,
With their brown beds out of sight.
You want to know the world? Yes, of course; but did it ever occur to you that what we call learning to know the world, is in reality creating the world which the next generation will be in and want to know?
He cannot haste with eager eyes to see
Its coming; whether it be dull or fair -
This day that dawns - he knows not; it may be
It brings him suffering keener still to bear.
Ah, God! how great the gift that Thou hast given,
When those who only know the night is past,.
Send to thee, in thy far-off, silent heaven,
The gladdest thanks that day has dawned at last.
Dux femina facti. Which, being interpreted, means that a woman usually leads the facts, even if men lead in the ideas about the facts. Virgil wrote about Carthage, but it was Dido who built the Carthage that he wrote about.
Then harvests come; if mine is big,
I am too happy with my store;
If small, I'm too much occupied
With grubbing round to make it more.
In dim recesses of my mind,
I have no idle hour to spend
In hunting up the bitter foe
Who simply ought to be my friend.
They never should suspect, not they,
From anything he did or said,
While staying in the city there,
That he was country born and bred.
They'd find it hard, he guessed they would.
To make him wonder at the show;
He'd not admire a single thing.
But take good care no one should know
He was a country bumpkin.
He walked across the Brooklyn Bridge;
He saw the Park, and gravely went
To panorama, theatre,
And Greenwood, on grim pleasure bent.
He ordered at Delmonico's
Buckwheats and syrup - good ones, too -
But never once did he admire
Or praise a thing. And so we knew
He was a country bumpkin.
"I cannot lure them, for I cannot fly!"
With listless petals on the summer air,
The drooping flower breathed a quivering sigh.
For dainty butterflies that would not care.
Upon her breast a touch of velvet wings;
Even as on the air her sigh arose,
Had come to her the restless, fluttering things.
Lured by the loveliness of her repose.
Nature succeeds in securing what it is necessary to have done in the universe, by endowing each of us with a keen sense of our own importance, which is not meant to make us vain, but to make us valuable.
More restful even than rest,
The passionate sweetness that is everywhere;
Soft splendors in the west
Touch with the charm of coming changefulness
The yielding hills.
The brooding stillness of the delicate air,
Dreamier than the dreamiest depths of sleep.
Falls softly everywhere.
Still let me keep
One little hour longer tryst with thee,
Day of days!
Lean down to me,
In tender beauty of thy amethyst haze!
How did she know? He had not said
That he would come that day; he wrote
No single line; and yet she knew
Without a word, without a note.
The breezes knew it, and they told
Her heart, although they seemed so dumb;
So she put on her prettiest gown.
And then - he didn't come.
I wonder why toleration is always judged from the point of the tolerator? Of course it is very kind of you to tolerate me; but, as for me, I do not wish to be tolerated. If you will not love me, I insist upon your hating me.
You tell me that your boy was ruined at college; but before I blame for that his collegiate experience, I must be sure that he would not have been ruined anywhere else.
Has she found the Fountain of Youth?
Nay, her hair is white today;
But she is the Fountain of Youth:
Know her, and love her, forsooth,
And your own will never turn gray.
Though clear.
In the broad daylight, unrestrained and free
As breeze from heaven, naught between us lay
But the wide, shining, trackless fields of air
That gave no sign; the lonely vastness where
Love saw no clue to guide it or to stay
Its course - well might the lover in despair
Yield up his search - and yet Love found a way!
All art is great in proportion as it is divested of the artist's personality. A work of art must appeal to you as something that exists; not as a thing that has been done.
It makes the world a rare and gracious place
To dwell in, yet we need not greatly care
To keep forever in that laughing face
The radiance of a joy so debonair;
Because this lady in bewildering gowns
Is every bit as charming when she frowns.
The very air
Has grown heroic; a few crimson leaves
Have fallen here; but not to yield their breath
In pitiful sighing at so sad a fate;
But royally, as with spilt blood of kings.
We cannot educate our grandmother, we say; but there are grandmothers whom we can educate. The children of today are the grandmothers of the future: we can educate them.
And something of the rich
And brilliant glow of her own nature fell
On every one about her, till they stood
Transfigured in her eyes, with glory caught
From her own loveliness.
While I, who watch the clouds grow faint and far,
See the sun, too, slip softly from the flowers;
Turn in the twilight, light my room's inner star.
And with a book forget both sun and showers.
Tyrannical women are treated very differently from tyrannical men. Men who become tyrants are eventually stabbed; but women are immortalized. Caesar has a Brutus, Charles I a Cromwell, George III a Washington; but Laura has a Petrarch, Beatrice a Dante, Shakespeare's cruel inconnue his magnificent sonnets.
The harvests all are gathered in;
No longer need we hope or fear;
The best - the worst - has come to us,
In groaning barns or scanty ear.
No longer need we dread or hope; -
We know the best or worst of Fate;
Ah! love me quickly, sweetheart, now,
Lest later it should be too late I
Upon the vine
Rich, clinging clusters of the ripening grape
Hang silent in the sun;
But in each one
Beats with full throb the quickening purple wine,
Whose pulse shall round the perfect fruit to shape.
The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds it hard to answer.
The peace that wraps
Me here is not the warm and golden peace
Of summer afternoons, that lull the soul
To dreamy indolence; but strong white peace^
Peace that is conscious power in repose.
The place of woman has rightly been called a sphere: you cannot escape from her in literature or life. The farther you walk away from her, the nearer you are to meeting her on the other side. Leave her, you will find her waiting for you in the first novel you take up to divert your mind away from her.
The old, old story men would call our love;
One cannot think of any time so old
That some "I love you" was not gladly told
To some one listening gladly.
It is hard to say wherein genuine thoughtfulness for others consists. Regard for the next tenant would seem to imply great conscientiousness in the matter of driving tacks; but for myself, I love the tenant before me who has been utterly unprincipled in this respect; then I am at liberty myself to cover up his tracks or tacks with tack-holes of my own.
See to it that you don't let a real Oliver Twist be turned away from your door in neglect while you are indulging in the luxury of woe over the fictitious Oliver in the book.
People are mistaken who think they must be "in it" if they are to judge of anything. You lose your point of view unless you are a little away from anything. You must walk towards it, perhaps, to understand it thoroughly; but don't stay there.
And straightway in my heart there did arise
Things brave and sweet to meet yours; so enwrought
With yours, I knew not, in the swift surprise,
Which was the Teacher, which the humbly taught.
No life could be
More sweet than that past life of mine, I thought;
And when the changing years in fulness brought
Another life, enriched by love and thee,
That all my beautiful past should seem as nought, -
This is the miracle Love wrought for me!
The convent may often be a safe or a beautiful resource for a wounded or a penitent soul; but many make the mistake of entering it for happiness, before they know what happiness really is.
The squirrels are storing their nuts quite openly in little crevices along the rustic fence. How does each squirrel know his own nut? Or does any squirrel help himself later to any nut? And do they ever cheat each other - or never? How one would like to know!
Clear outlined form in statuesque repose:
What color needs such matchless form as this?
If I forget the fragrance of the rose,
Something is mine the loveliest rose must miss.
Alert and fine the keen-eared deer stands still,
Listening: no sound of sportsman or of gun;
Yet through the arrowed lake it cleaves its will
At its fawn's faint cry to the setting sun.
Some hearts fascinate because we watch them; others are more fascinating because we are admitted to them; as an artist said, "Norway is more interesting than Alaska, because you sail into it instead of along it."
And once my heart was like a nest,
High in the apple-branches hung,
Where in the early April dew
No happy birds have ever sung.
Now 'tis itself a wounded bird;
And though sometimes you hear it sing,
The Heavenly Father knows what pain
It tries to hide by uttering
The same sweet notes it used to sing.
Distrust circumstantial evidence. A boy's close cut head does not mean that his hair has not grown any; indeed, if it means anything, it probably means that it is now so short because it did grow so long.
It is not strange, we say that the wretched so often drown their misery in sin; but it is very singular how often the fortunate drown their happiness in it.
No fragrance floats on the autumnal air;
The white chrysanthemums and asters star
The frosty silence, but their leaves exhale
No passion of remembrance or regret.
The perfect calmness and the perfect strength
My senses wrap in an enchanted robe
Woven of frost and fire; as if my soul
Had tasted some elixir of rich wine,
Ripened beneath the haughtiest of suns,
Then cooled with flakes of snow.
Crisp is the air in glades white with the frost;
But in the gardens richer colors come:
Gladiolus and aster, though the lost
Came back as ghosts, in pale chrysanthemum.
Let me run fast the race that I may lose;
Better to lose the prize than lose the thrill.
Let me run fast; this is the rest I choose.
And I am only restless sitting still.
Proudly she carries high her queenly head;
Bravely her light laugh rings upon the air;
"Let music sound, and let us dance," she said -
But dance not with her, for she is Despair.
Training is always valuable. The untrained genius may do better things than the trained man of mediocrity; but that will not prevent the trained genius from doing better things than the untrained genius.
It seems to be a point for the Materialist that an unhealthy physical brain will make or keep the mind unhealthy. But it is a stronger point for the spiritual theory that a perfectly healthy physical brain cannot make or keep the mind healthy, if the mind has troubles of its own.
The chilling wind, that with resistless power
Flashed fear through quivering poplars at its will,
Creeps down the sheeted ivy on the tower.
Sobs on the grass, and now at last is still.
"I don't make the best of it," he used to say, "but I let other people make the best of it for me. Anyone who can give me anything to alleviate the situation is a welcome being. I am saved from unhappiness by not having any proper pride."
Some people's virtue is alarming; like that of the little boy who is so devotedly good all the morning that you know perfectly well he is planning mischief which will need forgiveness for the afternoon.
Be proud if you are able to inspire strong feeling; prouder, if you are able to feel strongly yourself; proudest, when you are able to resist, or rather to control, any feeling, however strong.
Yet I, who thought my heart could be so brave
To bear what I had wisdom to foresee.
Sob in despair, as this poor day that gave
Me nothing, sinks behind the western sea!
Love will find out a way through bolts and bars and parental interdiction; but Love itself would be baffled on the prairie, where the whole universe stretches in endless invitation.
The eager year
Is passing, with its triumphs and defeats.
Alike earth rests from labor and from joy;
Hushing each tiniest insect; wearing now
No careless ornament of flower or leaf;
Reaching her pleading arms up to the sky
In longing for its silent chrism of snow
In benediction.
Ah! but I love this snow upon the hills;
I love this frosty silence in the air;
I care not that the lark no longer trills;
I care for nothing but what still is there!
Not brooding over her lost violets,
High in her hands upon the leafless trees
She holds the woodbine, swaying in the wind,
A crimson rosary of remembered sins.
Not to the help some falling vine has found,
That, trailing listless on the frozen ground.
Clings suddenly to some high trellis there.
Lifting itself once more into the air,
With timid tendrils on the lattice wound.
Rather to help the drooping plant has won.
That, weary with the beating of the rains.
Feels, quickening in its own responsive veins,
The sudden shining of a distant sun.
Yet happier these, I said,
Than one who by experience made strong,
Learning to live without the precious dead,
Survive despair, outlive remorse and wrong,
Can say when new grief comes, with unbent head,
"Let me not mourn! I shall forget before long!"
Art is not meant to be merely natural. Art is Nature grown conscious of herself; it is Nature in a mirror. But you hold up a mirror, not merely to see what is there, but to see what is awry. The ability to see what is awry is what makes you a man instead of a beast; and the ability to set right what is awry is what makes you an artist in addition to being a man.
"Though thy sins
Have been as scarlet, they shall be like wool"
God's benediction calms my troubled heart.
Worn with its consciousness of frailty.
Even as upon the fading crimson leaves
Fall tenderly the first white flakes of snow.
When your child is restless, pride yourself not on forcing him to keep still, but on finding some reasonable thing for him to do in which his restlessness becomes an activity.
Work? I would gladly work
In the dull December light;
I only ask for work
When the days are long and bright.
When underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling,
I shall not envy them their wings,
If I get work in the spring.
Think not to know the secret of that room;
Closed is the door, even to herself; no more
She lingers there, though well our hearts are sure
It is no spot of shadowy, haunted gloom.
What ladylike trees the aspens are, with their little gold-colored, heart-shaped leaves, so slim and slender and dainty and prettily behaved! And to complete the simile, such a bundle of nerves! None of them lean; all are straight on the slope, and alert as young Indians, seeming less to cling to the little foothold given them, than spurning even the little that there is.
In winter? Well, in winter - ugh!
Who would add hate to winds that freeze?
All love and warmth that I can get
I need in such dull days as these.
No, no, dear foe, it is no use;
The struggling year is at an end;
I cannot hate you if I would,
And you must turn and be my friend.
The test of friendship is:
1. How much you have to say to each other,
2. How little you need to say to each other.
3. How much you enjoy differing with each other.
Ariel of my Fancy, come with me!
For gay and glad are the light-hearted throng,
Gay with glad words, and glad with gayer song.
I would the gayest of the glad ones be;
But airy wit comes, Ariel, from thee;
Sweet friend, in this my need, desert not me!
Something new about Christmas?
Why, what were half so sweet
As the old, old way of keeping
The day our glad hearts greet?
Then my little lad said slyly,
"Remember, if that's true.
That your old, old way, mamma, dear,
Was to give me something new!"
It may be that those people are happiest who have had no histories; but of that terrible thing, "experience," one may well doubt, at the end of any year, which is most terrible: to have had it, or not to have had it.
The cool and passionless North,
Wrapped in ermine of snow.
Exquisite laces of frost.
And silver bangles of rain;
With fine strong winds that blow
Through forests of cedar and pine,
With a glittering breath like wine.