Precept & Practice – APRIL 29 – Trifles

There is nothing in the efforts of volition that has power to change the point of mental view;  these self-strivings do not lift you out of the level of your trial;  you remain imprisoned in the midst of it, wrestle with its miseries as you may; wanting the uplifting faith, by which you escape from it, and look down upon it.   It may be very absurd, nay very immoral, to be teased by trifles;  but alas while you remain in the dust, reason as you may, it will annoy you;  and there is no help for it, but to retire into a higher and grassier region, where the sultry road is visible from afar.   We must go in contemplation out of life, ere we can see how its troubles subside and are lost, like evanescent waves, in the deeps of eternity and the immensity of God.   A mind that can make this migration from the scene by which it is surrounded, is removed from all vain strife of will, and gains its tranquillity without an effort;  feels no wonders that he could ever be tempted from its pure repose,

James Martineau

Amid all that eager grasping at the sensations, the consciousness, of the present, he had come to see that, after all, the main point of economy in the conduct of that present, was the question – How will it look to me, at what shall I value it, this day next year?   – that, in a given day or month, one’s main concern was its impression for the memory.

Walter Pater (Marius, the Epicurean)

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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