Precept and Practice – JULY 29 – A dear Balm
What a blessing is a friend with a breast so trusty that thou mayest safely bury all thy secrets in it, whose conscience thou mayest fear less than thine own, who can relieve thy cares by his conversation, thy doubts by his counsels, thy sadness by his good humour, and whose very look gives comfort to thee.
(Seneca)
Friendship – a dear balm –
Whose coming is as light and music are
Mid dissonance and gloom :—a star
Which moves not mid the moving heavens alone;
A smile among dark frowns; a beloved light;
A solitude, a refuge, a delight.
(P. B. Shelley)
Friendship is the forest to which we flee from the city of toil.
(Eliz. Gibson)
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
Suffolk Vicar 