Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/125

Rh  with which Mr. Forster received his dismissal. That a feeling which was not love prompted her to accept the suit of Mr. Maclean was evident to all her friends. It is probable that the authoress of "The Vow of the Peacock" expected her lover to treat her with extravagant chivalry; to refuse his congé, though given again and again; to listen to no reasoning away of his love, and to worship his mistress only the more passionately for the dark, clouds that had settled over her head. Whereas she was met by a man of honour who, while maintaining the completest faith in her innocence and remaining ready to marry her, was sufficiently master of himself to defer to her arguments when she showed cause why their engagement should be at an end.

 

 From Fraser's Magazine.

that is wise has been thought already; we must try, however, to think it again.

How shall you learn to know yourself? — Not by contemplation, but action. Strive to do your duty, and you will soon discover what stuff you are made of.

But what is your duty? — To fulfil the claims of the day.

The rational universe is to be considered as a great undying individual, which is incessantly producing that which it must, and thereby makes itself lord over even the accidental.

The longer I live the more it annoys me to see man, whose highest function consists in ruling nature, and in emancipating himself and those belonging to him from the encompassing necessity — when I see him, from some false preconceived notion, doing the very reverse of what he intended, and then miserably bungling about in the parts because the design of the whole is spoilt.

Let the active able man deserve and expect:

From the great — grace;

From the powerful — favour;

From the good and active — help;

From the multitude — liking;

From the individual — love.

Every one must think in his own way; for he will always discover some sort of truth or approximation to truth which helps him through his life. But he must not let himself drift along; he must exercise self-control; it beseems not man to allow himself to be ruled by mere instinct.

Unlimited activity of whatever kind must at last end in bankruptcy.

In the works of man, as in those of nature, it is the intention which is chiefly worth studying.

Men come to mistake themselves and others because they treat the means as an end, the consequence being that their very activity prevents their accomplishing anything, or perhaps effects the reverse of what was designed.

What we plan, what we undertake, should already be so clearly mapped out and so beautiful in its proportions that the world by interfering could only mar it. We should thus be in an advantageous position to adjust what might have got out of joint, and to replace what had been destroyed.

It is extremely difficult to correct and sift whole, half, and quarter errors, and to put what of truth they contain in its proper place.

Truth need not always be embodied; enough if it hover around like a spiritual essence, which gives one peace and fills the atmosphere with a solemn sweetness like harmonious music of bells.

"Blowing is not playing the flute; you must use your fingers."

Generalizations and great self-conceit are always preparing the most lamentable mishaps.

Botanists have a class of plants which they name Incompletæ; we might in the same sense speak of incomplete, imperfect men — those, namely, whose longing and struggling are not in proportion to their doing and performing.

The smallest man may be complete by confining his actions within the limits of his capacity and skill; but even fine gifts are obscured, ruined, and annihilated if the indispensable proportion be wanting. This mischief will often display itself in this new time; for who can hope to fulfil satisfactorily the claims of an age everyway full of exaggeration and also in rapidest movement?

Only persons of wise activity, who, having gauged their powers, use them with sense and moderation, may hope to become proficients in their knowledge of the universe.