Character and Conduct – 30 November – Sense of the Beautiful

NO MAN receives the true culture of a man in whom the sensibility to the beautiful is not cherished;  and I know of no condition in life from which it should be excluded.   Of all luxuries this is cheapest and die most to hand;  and it seems to me to be the most important to those conditions where coarse labour tends to give a grossness to the mind.   From the diffusion of the sense of beauty in ancient Greece, and of the taste for music in modern Germany, we learn that the people at large may partake of refined gratifications which have hitherto been thought to be necessarily restricted to a few.

CHANNING

MUSIC – there is something very wonderful in music Words are wonderful enough, but music is mor wonderful.   It speaks not to our thoughts as words do, it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very core and root of our souls.   Music soothes us stirs, us up;  it puts noble feelings into us; it moves us to tears, we know not how;  it is a language by itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words;  just as divine, just as blessed.   Music has been called the speech of angels;  I will go farther, and call it de speech of God Himself.

The old Greeks, the wisest of all the heathen made a point of teaching their children music, because they said, it taught them not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty of order, the usefulness of rule, the divineness of law.

Good News of God Sermons, CHARLES KINA

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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 them here readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.