7. My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

So was it when my life began,

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

8. I count as many as there are
Cinquefoils or violets in the grass,
So many saints and saviours,
So many high behaviours.

HOPE

HUMILITY
OF
SERVICE

9. At the gates of the forest the man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of great and DIGNITY small, wise and foolish.

10. Custom falls off his back with the first step he takes into these precincts. Here is a sanctity which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes.

11. The incommunicable trees begin to persuade us to live with them, and quit our life of solemn trifles.

12. One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach us more of man,

Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

13. O may the morn, so pure, so clear,

Its own sweet calm in us instil;
A guileless mind, a heart sincere,
Simplicity of word and will.

PURITY

14.

PATIENCE

15.

LARGEMINDEDNESS

16.

17.

Teach me your mood, O patient stars !
Who climb each night the ancient sky,
Leaving on space no shade, no scars,
No trace of age, no fear to die.

Ye stars, ye waters,

On my heart your mighty charm renew!
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my

soul becoming vast like you!

What need I of book or priest,
Or sibyl from the mummied East,
When every star is Bethlehem star?

Ye heavens-you remain
A world above man's head, to let him see
How boundless might his soul's horizons be,
How vast, yet of what clear transparency.

18. Long have I loved what I behold,

The night that calms, the day that cheers.

19. And yet the solitude of grove and mountain, midnight, sky, the sea and dawn, cannot make him blessed, who does not bring with him that sabbath of the heart, that elevation of the spirit, without which, idleness and storms and dangerous temptation attend every solitude.

SPIRITS ARE NOT FINELY TOUCHED BUT TO FINE ISSUES

BY THEIR
WORKS

1. We wish we were better; and we sit still and think there is something in the very wish. But there is no virtue in the wish; on the contrary, every good thought and desire that we do not endeavour to translate into action, is a sin.

YE SHALL

KNOW

THEM

2. For the simply conscientious no interval is visible or even conceivable between perceiving the best and executing it. No line for them is so straight as that from thought to action.

3. We are very apt to measure ourselves by our aspiration instead of our performance. But in truth the conduct of our lives is the only proof of the sincerity of our hearts.

4.

If our virtues
Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not.

5. What has he done? is the question which searches men, and transpierces every false reputation.

6. Every man is worth just so much as the things

are worth about which he busies himself. What is innocence worth, if it is only a picture and does not work to rescue ?

7. Whenever thou seest corruption by thy side, and dost not strive against it, thou betrayest thy duty.

8. It is, for instance, of no avail that thou worshippest Truth, if thou seest thy brother men ruled by Error, and dost not endeavour, so far as lies in thy power, to overcome that error.

9. Do noble things, not dream them all day long.

10. The doer, not the dreamer, breaks

The baleful spell,

Which binds with iron bands the earth
On which we dwell.

11. O dreamer, wake! thy brother man
Is still a slave;

And thousands go heart-crushed this morn

Unto the grave.

12. One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of inclination to duty, is worth all the mere good thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers, in which idle people indulge themselves.

13. Act! be merciful and gentle, honest; force thyself to abound in little services; try to do good to others; be true to the duty that thou knowest. That must be right, whatever else is uncertain.

DOUBT

AND DUTY

14. It is not possible to enter into the nature of the good by merely speculating about it. Act the good, and then thou shalt believe in it.

Spirits are not Finely Touched but to Fine Issues

Try to do thy

203

15. How can a man come to know himself? Never by thinking but by doing. duty and thou wilt know at once what thou art worth.

CHARACTER
BEGINS
AND
CULMINATES
IN

CONDUCT

16. There cannot be any goodness unless it is a practised goodness. Genius forms itself in solitude, but a character in struggling with the world.

17. The end of man is an action and not a thought, though it were of the noblest. The preference of a life of inactivity to one of action is an error, for happiness consists in action.

18. Happiness consists in living and energising, and the energy of the good man is good and pleasant in itself.

19. Happiness is a kind of energy; and an energy is evidently produced, and not like property merely possessed. Not what I have but what I do is my kingdom.

20. I count life just a stuff

To try the soul's strength on, educe the man.
Who keeps one end in view makes all things

serve.

21. Man is no star, but a quick coal

Of mortal fire;

Who blows it not, nor doth control
A faint desire,

Lets his own ashes choke his soul.

22. Sloth is like a beatitude of the soul, which com

forts it for all its losses and takes the place

of all its good.

SPURIOUS

REST

23. The repose of sloth is a secret charm of the soul,