Precept and Practice – AUGUST 26 – Books

Literature unfolds to us the deepest thoughts which can fill the great heart of humanity.   We may, if we choose, find a purer and more exquisite delight in wise reading than in anything else…..   Cicero said:  Other studies are for one time, or for one place, or for one mood;  but these studies are with us at home and abroad, in town and in country, by day and by night, in youth and in age, our consolation in days of sorrow, our exhilaration in days of peace….   Why need man be over-worried by the fussy or the foolish, the base or the contemptible, when in books, without travelling as far as Endor, we may summon to our bidding the mightiest spirits of the dead?…… At the price of a few pence, he may, as it were, hear Heaven’s Seraphim choir round the sapphire throne; and can he not be relieved from life’s worst enemies – vexatious, fretful, and lawless passions by communion with these kingly and radiant souls?

(Dean Farrar)

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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