Character and Conduct – 31 January – The Art of Being Quiet

ONE of the special needs of our day is more time for meditation and reflection.

Life Here and Hereafter, Canon MacCOLL.

WE are too busy, too encumbered, too much occupied, too active!   We read too much!   The one thing needful is to throw off all one’s load of cares, of preoccupations, of pedantry, and to become again young, simple, child-like, living happily and gratefully in the present hour.   We must know how to put occupation aside, which does not mean that we must be idle.   In an inaction which is meditative and attentive the wrinkles of the soul are smoothed away, and the soul itself spreads, unfolds, and springs afresh, and, like the trodden grass of the roadside or the bruised leaf of a plant, repairs its injuries, becomes new, spontaneous, true, and original.   Reverie, like the rain of night, restores colour and force to thoughts which have been blanched and wearied by the heat of the day.   With gentle fertilising power it awakens within us a thousand sleeping germs, and, as though in play, gathers round us materials for the future, and images for the use of talent.

Amiel’s Journal

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These quotes are from ‘Character and Conduct’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing the her readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.