Part 11
"To begin with, how can life be worth living, to use the words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which is to be found in the mutual good-will of a friend? What can be more delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not some one to feel them even more acutely than yourself."
CICERO.
"Comradeship is one of the finest facts, and one of the strongest forces in life."
HUGH BLACK.
"... All I can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature, or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity."
CICERO.
Friendship
August 10
"Beware lest thy friend learn to tolerate one frailty of thine, and so an obstacle be raised to the progress of thy love."
THOREAU.
"That he had 'a genius for friendship' goes without saying, for he was rich in the humility, the patience and the powers of trust, which such a genius implies. Yet his love had, too, the rarer and more strenuous temper which requires 'the common aspiration,' is jealous for a friend's growth, and has the nerve to criticise. It is the measure of what he felt friendship to be, that he has defined religion in the terms of it."
_Of Henry Drummond_, GEORGE ADAM SMITH.
"All men have their frailties, and whoever looks for a friend without imperfection will never find what he seeks. We love ourselves notwithstanding our faults, and we ought to love our friends in like manner."
CYRUS.
Friendship
AUGUST 11
"... For instance, it often happens that friends need remonstrance and even reproof. When these are administered in a kindly spirit they ought to be taken in good part. But somehow or other there is truth in what my friend Terence says in his Andria: 'Compliance gets us friends, plain speaking hate.'
"Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result of it is resentment, which is poison to friendship; but compliance is really the cause of much more trouble, because by indulging his faults it lets a friend plunge into headlong ruin. But the man who is most to blame is he who resents plain speaking and allows flattery to egg him on to his ruin.... If we remonstrate, it should be without bitterness; if we reprove, there should be no word of insult.... But if a man's ears are so closed to plain speaking that he cannot bear to hear the truth from a friend, we may give him up in despair. This remark of Cato's, as so many of his did, shews great acuteness: 'There are people who owe more to bitter enemies than to apparently pleasant friends: the former often speak the truth, the latter never.' Besides, it is a strange paradox that the recipients of advice should feel no annoyance where they ought to feel it, and yet feel so much where they ought not. They are not at all vexed at having committed a fault, but very angry at being reproved for it."
CICERO.
"Men of character like to hear of their faults; the other class do not."
EMERSON.
"Before giving advice we must have secured its acceptance, or rather, have made it desired."
_Amiel's Journal._
Friendship
AUGUST 12
"The friendship of Jesus was not checked or foiled by the discovery of faults or blemishes in those whom He had taken into His life. Even in our ordinary human relations we do not know what we are engaging to do when we become the friend of another. 'For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health,' runs the marriage covenant. The covenant in all true friendship is the same. We pledge our friend faithfulness, with all that faithfulness includes. We know not what demands upon us this sacred compact may make in years to come. Misfortune may befall our friend, and he may require our aid in many ways. Instead of being a help he may become a burden. But friendship must not fail, whatever its cost may be. When we become the friend of another, we do not know what faults and follies in him closer acquaintance may disclose to our eyes. But here, again, ideal friendship must not fail."
_Personal Friendships of Jesus_, J. R. MILLER.
"For he that wrongs his friend Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about A silent court of justice in his breast, Himself the judge and jury, and himself The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned."
TENNYSON.
Friendship
AUGUST 13
"Treat your friends for what you know them to be. Regard no surfaces. Consider not what they did, but what they intended."
THOREAU.
"What makes us so changeable in our friendships, is our difficulty to discern the qualities of the soul, and the ease with which we detect those of the intellect."
"Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place."
RABBI HILLEL.
"Criticism often takes from the tree caterpillars and blossoms together."
Friendship
AUGUST 14
"There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is Truth ... the other is Tenderness."
EMERSON.
"The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust.... A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud."
EMERSON.
"People do not sufficiently remember that in every relation of life, as in the closest one of all, they ought to take one another 'for better for worse.' That, granting the tie of friendship, gratitude, esteem, be strong enough to have existed at all, it ought, either actively or passively, to exist for ever. And seeing we can at best know our neighbour, companion, or friend as little, as alas! we often find he knoweth of us, it behoveth us to trust him with the most patient fidelity, the tenderest forbearance; granting unto all his words and actions that we do not understand, the utmost limit of faith that common sense and Christian justice will allow. Nay, these failing, is there not left Christian charity? which being past believing and hoping, still endureth all things."
Friendship
AUGUST 15
"Mutual respect implies discretion and reserve even in love itself; it means preserving as much liberty as possible to those whose life we share. We must distrust our instinct of intervention, for the desire to make our own will prevail is often disguised under the mask of solicitude."
_Amiel's Journal._
"Everything that is mine, even to my life, I may give to one I love, but the secret of my friend is not mine to give."
PHILIP SIDNEY.
"When true friends part they should lock up one another's secrets and change the keys."
FELTHAM.
Friendship
AUGUST 16
"So true it is that nature abhors isolation, and ever leans upon something as a stay and support; and this is found in its most pleasing form in our closest friend."
CICERO.
"And great and numerous as are the blessings of friendship, this certainly is the sovereign one, that it gives us bright hopes for the future and forbids weakness and despair. In the face of a true friend a man sees as it were a second self. So that where his friend is he is; if his friend be rich, he is not poor; though he be weak, his friend's strength is his; and in his friend's life he enjoys a second life after his own is finished."
CICERO.
"In distress a friend Comes like a calm to the toss'd mariner."
EURIPIDES.
Friendship
AUGUST 17
"A man only understands what is akin to something already existing in himself."
_Amiel's Journal._
"There are some to whom we speak almost in a language of our own, with the confidence that all our broken hints are recognised with a thrill of kinship, and our half-uttered thoughts discerned and shared: some with whom we need not cramp our meaning into the dead form of an explicit accuracy, and with whom we can forecast that we shall walk together in undoubting sympathy even over tracks of taste and belief which we may never yet have touched."
_Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Disbelief_, Bishop PAGET.
"Talking with a friend is nothing else but thinking aloud."
ADDISON.
Friendship
AUGUST 18
"And though Aristotle does well to warn us that absence dissolves friendship, it is happily none the less true that friend may powerfully influence friend though the two be by no means constant associates. Even far removal in place, or in occupation, or in fortunes, cannot arrest influence. For once any man has true friends, he never again frames his decisions, even those that are most secret, as if he were alone in the world. He frames them habitually in the imagined company of his friends. In their visionary presence he thinks and acts; and by them, as visionary tribunal, he feels himself, even in his unspoken intentions and inmost feelings, to be judged. In this aspect friendship may become a supreme force both to encourage and restrain. For it is not simply what our friends expect of us that is the vital matter here. They are often more tolerant of our failings than is perhaps good for us. It is what in our best moments we believe that they expect of us. For it is then that they become to us, not of their own choice but of ours, a kind of second conscience, in whose presence our weaknesses and backslidings become 'that worst kind of sacrilege that tears down the invisible altar of trust.'"
_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.
Friendship
AUGUST 19
"Few things are more fatal to friendship than the stiffness which cannot take a step towards acknowledgment."
_Life of F. W. Crossley_, RENDEL HARRIS.
"Do not discharge in haste the arrow which can never return: it is easy to destroy happiness; most difficult to restore it."
HERDER.
"Discord harder is to end than to begin."
SPENSER.
"Think of this doctrine--that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
Friendship
AUGUST 20
"We should learn from Jesus that the essential quality in the heart of friendship is not the desire to have friends, but the desire to be a friend; not to get good and help from others, but to impart blessing to others. Many of the sighings for friendship which we have are merely selfish longings,--a desire for happiness, for pleasure, for the gratification of the heart, which friends would bring. If the desire were to be a friend, to do others good, to serve and to give help, it would be a far more Christlike longing, and would transform the life and character."
_Personal Friendships of Jesus_, J. R. MILLER.
"To love is better, nobler, more elevating, and more sure, than to be loved. To love is to have found that which lifts us above ourselves; which makes us capable of sacrifice; which unseals the forces of another world. He who is loved has gained the highest tribute of earth; he who loves has entered into the spirit of heaven. The love which comes to us must always be alloyed with the sad sense of our own unworthiness. The love which goes out from us is kept bright by the ideal to which it is directed."
Bishop WESTCOTT.
Friendship
AUGUST 21
"Friendships that have been renewed require more care than those that have never been broken off."
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
"Broken friendship may be soldered, but never made sound."
Spanish Proverb.
"A friend once won need never be lost, if we will be only trusty and true ourselves. Friends may part, not merely in body, but in spirit for a while. In the bustle of business and the accidents of life, they may lose sight of each other for years; and more, they may begin to differ in their success in life, in their opinions, in their habits, and there may be, for a time, coldness and estrangement between them, but not for ever if each will be trusty and true. For then they will be like two ships who set sail at morning from the same port, and ere night-fall lose sight of each other, and go each on its own course and at its own pace for many days, through many storms and seas, and yet meet again, and find themselves lying side by side in the same haven when their long voyage is past."
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
Friendship
AUGUST 22
"The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay or dislike, hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint and too numerous for removal. Those who are angry may be reconciled, those who have been injured may receive a recompense; but when the desire of pleasing, and willingness to be pleased, is silently diminished, the renovation of friendship is hopeless: as when the vital powers sink into languor, there is no longer any use for the physician."
_The Idler._
"... There is such a disaster, so to speak, as having to break off friendship.... In such cases friendships should be allowed to die out gradually by an intermission of intercourse. They should, as I have been told that Cato used to say, rather be unstitched than torn in twain.... For there can be nothing more discreditable than to be at open war with a man with whom you have been intimate.... Our first object then should be to prevent a breach; our second to secure that if it does occur, our friendship should seem to have died a natural rather than a violent death."
CICERO.
Friendship
AUGUST 23
"Friends--those relations that one makes for one's self."
DESCHAMPS.
"Some one asked Kingsley what was the secret of his strong joyous life; and he answered, 'I had a friend.'"
"The years have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons--none wiser than this: to spend in all things else, but of old friends to be most miserly."
LOWELL.
"The best wish for us all is, that when we grow old, as we must do, the fast friends of our age may be those we have loved in our youth."
MASON.
Jealousy
AUGUST 24
"Jealousy is a terrible thing. It resembles love, only it is precisely love's contrary. Instead of wishing for the welfare of the object loved, it desires the dependence of that object upon itself, and its own triumph. Love is the forgetfulness of self; jealousy is the most passionate form of egotism, the glorification of a despotic, exacting, and vain _ego_, which can neither forget nor subordinate itself. The contrast is perfect."
_Amiel's Journal._
"Jealousy is a secret avowal of inferiority."
MASSILLON.
Jealousy
AUGUST 25
"We are not jealous of what we give up, but of what is wrested from our unwilling hands. The first is always ours, the second never can be.
* * * * *
"Jealousy is not love, but it is the two-edged sword that parts true love from counterfeit. At its touch, the knowledge of what it is to love without reward, thrills heart and brain, sharp and clear, almost a vision of hell. Then if we are base, we die to love; but if we are noble, it is to ourselves we die.
* * * * *
"It is only what we surrender willingly that is ours always, as the wave never loses what it surrenders to the sea."
_Turkish Bonds_, MAY KENDALL.
Jealousy
AUGUST 26
"What state of mind can be so blest, As love that warms the gentle brest; Two souls in one; the same desire To grant the bliss, and to require? If in this heaven a hell we find, 'Tis all from thee, O Jealousie! Thou tyrant, tyrant of the mind.
"All other ills, tho' sharp they prove, Serve to refine a perfect love; In absence, or unkind disdain Sweet hope relieves the lover's pain; But O! no cure but death we find To sett us free From Jealousie, Thou tyrant, tyrant of the mind.
"False in thy glass all objects are, Some set too near, and some too far: Thou art the fire of endless might, The fire that burns and gives no light. All torments of the damned, we find In only thee, O Jealousie; Thou tyrant, tyrant of the mind."
DRYDEN.
Love and Remorse
AUGUST 27
"We should get a lesson in friendship's ministry. Too many wait until those they love are dead, and then bring their alabaster boxes of affection and break them. They keep silent about their love when words would mean so much, would give such cheer, encouragement, and hope, and then, when the friend lies in the coffin, their lips are unsealed and speak out their glowing tribute on ears that heed not the laggard praise. Many persons go through life, struggling bravely with difficulty, temptation, and hardship, carrying burdens too heavy for them, pouring out their love in unselfish serving of others, and yet are scarcely ever cheered by a word of approval or commendation, or by delicate tenderness of friendship; then, when they lie silent in death, a whole circle of admiring friends gathers to do them honour. Every one remembers a personal kindness received, a favour shown, some help given, and speaks of it in grateful words. Letters full of appreciation, commendation, and gratitude are written to sorrowing friends. Flowers are sent and piled about the coffin, enough to have strewn every hard path of the long years of struggle. How surprised some good men and women would be, after lives with scarcely a word of affection to cheer their hearts, were they to awake suddenly in the midst of their friends, a few hours after their death, and hear the testimonies that are falling from every tongue, the appreciation, the grateful words of love, the rememberings of kindness! They had never dreamed in life that they had so many friends, that so many had thought well of them, that they were helpful to so many."
_Personal Friendships of Jesus_, J. R. MILLER.
Love and Remorse
AUGUST 28
"When our indignation is borne in submissive silence, we are apt to feel twinges of doubt afterwards as to our own generosity, if not justice; how much more when the object of our anger has gone into everlasting silence, and we have seen his face for the last time in the meekness of death."
GEORGE ELIOT.
"All about us move, these common days, those who would be strengthened and comforted by the good cheer that we could give. Let us not reserve all the flowers for coffin-lids. Let us not keep our alabaster boxes sealed and unbroken till our loved ones are dead. Let us show kindness when kindness will do good. It will make sorrow all the harder to bear if we have to say beside our dead, 'I might have brightened the way a little, if only I had been kinder.'"
_Personal Friendships of Jesus_, J. R. MILLER.
"I like not only to be loved, but to be told I am loved. The realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave."
GEORGE ELIOT.
Love and Remorse
AUGUST 29
"Oh! do not let us wait to be just or pitiful or demonstrative towards those we love until they or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death! Life is short, and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!"
_Amiel's Journal._
"Too soon, too soon comes Death to show We love more deeply than we know! The rain that fell upon the height Too gently to be called delight, Within the dark vale reappears As a wild cataract of tears; And love in life should strive to see Sometimes what love in death would be!"
COVENTRY PATMORE.
Dissension
AUGUST 30
"Alas! how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love! Hearts that the world in vain had tried, And sorrow but more closely tied; That stood the storm when waves were rough, Yet in a sunny hour fall off, Like ships that have gone down at sea, When heaven was all tranquillity! A something, light as air--a look, A word unkind or wrongly taken-- Oh! love that tempests never shook, A breath, a touch like this has shaken; And ruder words will soon rush in To spread the breach that words begin; And eyes forget the gentle ray They wore in courtship's smiling day; And voices lose the tone that shed A tenderness round all they said; Till fast declining, one by one, The sweetnesses of love are gone, And hearts, so lately mingled, seem Like broken clouds--or like the stream That smiling left the mountain's brow, As though its waters ne'er could sever, Yet, ere it reach the plain below, Breaks into floods, that part for ever.
O you that have the charge of Love, Keep him in rosy bondage bound!"
_Lalla Rookh_, T. MOORE.
Love
AUGUST 31
"Love is the first and the last and the strongest bond in experience. It conquers distance, outlives all changes, bears the strain of the most diverse opinions."
_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.
"Say never, ye loved once! God is too near above, the Grave, beneath: And all our moments breathe Too quick in mysteries of life and death, For such a word. The eternities avenge Affections light of range; There comes no change to justify that change, Whatever comes,--Loved _once_."
E. B. BROWNING.
Unrequited Love
September 1
"It was the old problem, of love that may not even spend itself for those it loves. Some hold that the purpose of such privation--as bitter to the spirit as the loss of light, and warmth, and air to the body--is to teach men to love God, and not their fellow-men. Rather, it is to teach them to love human beings more, with love not separate from the love of God, but near to His own heart. Such love is never fruitless, though it may seem to be. Our longing to serve personally is often only longing for the personal reward of service; and love that serves in finite fashion often misses the mark. We hurt where we desire to heal: we bind a greater burden on the life whose load we only strive to lighten. God's cross is always a crown: our crowns are often crosses. The cup of water that we put to our friend's lips is from a poisoned spring. Only the cup that we give God to bear to him, is always pure and cool."
_Turkish Bonds_, MAY KENDALL.
Unrequited Love
SEPTEMBER 2
"Infancy? What if the rose-streak of morning Pale and depart in a passion of tears? Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning: Love once: e'en love's disappointment endears, A moment's success pays the failure of years."
R. BROWNING.
"It looks like a waste of life, that mowing down of our best years by a relentless passion which itself falls dead on the top of them. But it is not so. Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence which will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well. No one ever yet was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime 'let out all the length of the reins.'"
_Red Pottage_, MARY CHOLMONDELEY.
Bereavement
SEPTEMBER 3
"If we still love those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love?"
_The Newcomes_, THACKERAY.
"They that love beyond the World cannot be separated by it.
"Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship.
"If Absence be not Death, neither is it theirs.
"Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the Seas; they live in one another still.
"For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent.
"In this Divine Glass they see Face to Face; and their converse is Free as well as Pure.
"This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal."
WILLIAM PENN.
Bereavement
SEPTEMBER 4
"Parting and forgetting? What faithful heart can do these? Our great thoughts, our great affections, the Truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they cannot separate from our consciousness; shall follow it whithersoever that shall go; and are of their nature divine and immortal."
THACKERAY.