Letters and Memories. 1842.
Vagueness of Mind. July 18.
By allowing vague inconsistent habits of mind, almost persuaded by every one you love, when you are capable by one decided act of leading them, you may be treading blindfold a terrible path to your own misery.
MS. Letter. 1842.
A Faith for Daily Life. July 19.
That is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and rare; but this is faith, to see God in what is most common and simple, to know God’s greatness not so much from disorder as from order, not so much from those strange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as from those common ones in which He fulfils His laws.
Town and Country Sermons.
Charms of Monotony. July 20.
I delight in that same monotony. It saves curiosity, anxiety, excitement, disappointment, and a host of bad passions. It gives a man the blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; that he has roots deep and wide struck down into all he sees, and that only the Being who can do nothing cruel or useless can tear them up. It is pleasant to look down on the same parish day after day, and say I know all that is beneath, and all beneath know me. It is pleasant to see the same trees year after year, the same birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs, the same banks covered by the same flowers.
Prose Idylls. 1857.