Precept & Practice – MARCH 19 – Exactingness

Exactingness is untrained ideality;  and a vast deal of misery, social and domestic, comes, not of the faculty, but of its untrained exercise…..   An unhappy person can never make others happy.   The creators and governors of a home, who are themselves restless and inharmonious, cannot make harmony and peace.

This is the secret reason why many a pure, good, conscientious person is only a source of uneasiness in family life.   They are exacting, discontented, unhappy;  and spread the discontent and unhappiness about them…..   

That exacting nature which has no patience with one’s own inevitable frailties and errors has none for those of others;  and thus the great motive by which Christianity enforces tolerance of the faults of others, loses its hold. There are people who make no allowances either for themselves or anybody else, but are equally angry and disgusted with both.

Now it is important that those finely-strung natures in which ideality largely predominates should begin life by a religious care and restraint of this faculty.

H. Beecher Stowe (Little Foxes)

oooOOOooo

From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW