As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
We fell out I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Oh, there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.
—Tennyson.
Oh, my dear friends,—you who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day,—if you only could know and see and feel that the time is short, how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do!—Phillips Brooks.
Refinement.—Refinement is the delicate aroma of Christianity.—Charlotte M. Yonge.
That alone can be called true refinement which elevates the soul of man, purifying the manners by improving the intellect.—Hosea Ballou.
Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God's refinement.—Beecher.
If refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind.—Hume.
Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.—De Quincey.