Precept and Practice – AUGUST 2 – Plain Dealing

It is not perfection that we look for in our fellow. creatures, but what is apparently rarer, a little plain dealing.

How they rise before us! – the sweet reproachful faces of those whom we could have loved devotedly if they had been willing to be straightforward with us;  whom we have lost, not by our own will, but by that paralysis of feeling which gradually invades the heart at the discovery of small insincerities.  Sincerity seems our only security against losing those who love us, the only cup in which those who are worth keeping will care to pledge us when youth is past. 

(Mary Cholmondeley – Red Pottage)

Learn never to smooth away, through fear of results, the difficulties of love by concealment or a subtle suppression of facts on feelings.   Reprove, explain, submit with all gentleness, and yet with all truth and openness.   The deadliest poison you can instil into the wine of life is a fearful reserve which creates suspicion, or a lie which will canker and kill your own love, and through that your friend’s.   The great blessings of this life are friendship and affection.   Be sure that the only irreparable Might of both is falseness.

(The Reverend F. W. Robertson)

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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