Precept and Practice – AUGUST 4 – Old friends

Surely there are few things on earth so altogether desirable as a rare and old friendship – issuing, not from glamour and ignorance, but from well-tried confidence and knowledge;  animating us, not with the heats and chills of fever, but with the quiet constant glow of vivid life;  providing us, now with fresh springs of energy, now with rest and healing waters after labour and deleat;  throwing back to us an image of ourselves which we recognise, and yet would fain live ue to;  taking us thankfully for what we are, and yet ever unconsciously reminding us of what we would be.

Restful in its very essence is a friendship like this, though constantly stirred through its depths by a silent spring of effort to attain more nearly its own ideal. 

(Shakespeare)

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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