Professor MacCunn for those from The Making of Character.
Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for those from the works of Bishop Westcott, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet; Tennyson's Poems; from the present Lord Tennyson's Life of his father; from the Mettle of the Pasture, by James Lane Allen; and from Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation of Amiel's Journal.
Messrs. Methuen & Co. for one from the Life of R. L. Stevenson.
Mr. Lloyd Osbourne for those from R. L. Stevenson's works.
Messrs. Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co. for those from Bishop Winnington Ingram's Under the Dome and Friends of the Master.
Dr. John Watson for those from his writings.
Permission was kindly given me before by Messrs. Macmillan to quote from the works of the late Archbishop Temple and of Matthew Arnold. By Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for quotations from Robert Browning. By Mr. C. Lewes for quotations from George Eliot; and from Lord Avebury and the Rev. Stopford Brooke for those from their works.
In my experience the reading of extracts often leads to the reading of the books from which they were taken, and I hope and believe many of these gleanings will serve as introductions.
CONSTANCE M. WHISHAW.
SUNNY BANK, ARNSIDE, CARNFORTH.
New Year's Day
JANUARY 1
"Here you stand at the parting of the ways; some road you are to take; and as you stand here, consider and know how it is that you intend to live. Carry no bad habits, no corrupting associations, no enmities and strifes into this New Year. Leave these behind, and let the Dead Past bury its Dead; leave them behind, and thank God that you are able to leave them."
EPHRAIM PEABODY.
"WOULD'ST shape a noble life? Then cast No backward glances toward the past, And though somewhat be lost and gone, Yet do thou act as one new-born; What each day needs, that shalt thou ask, Each day will set its proper task."
GOETHE.
"No aim is too high, no task too great, no sin too strong, no trial too hard for those who patiently and humbly rest upon God's grace: who wait on Him that He may renew their strength."
Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Disbelief, BISHOP PAGET.
Purpose
JANUARY 2
"You did not come into this world by chance, you were not born by accident. You all came charged with a mission to use your best efforts to extend the frontier of your Master's Kingdom by purifying your own hearts and leavening for good the hearts of all who come within the sphere of your influence. Your business here is not to enjoy yourselves in those fleeting pleasures which perish in the using; not to sip as many dainties as you can from the moments as they fly; not to gather as many flowers as you can pluck from the garden of this perishing earth; not even to rest in the enjoyment of those nobler delights which come from the exercise of the intellect in the investigation of the works of God and man; but rather to do your best to fit yourselves and others for the new heavens and new earth, which God has prepared for those who love Him."
Life Here and Hereafter, CANON MACCOLL.
"Do not despise your situation; in it you must act, suffer, and conquer. From every point on earth we are equally near to heaven and to the infinite."
Amiel's Journal.
A Noble Life
JANUARY 3
"A man's greatness lies not in wealth and station, as the vulgar believe, nor yet in his intellectual capacity, which is often associated with the meanest moral character, the most abject servility to those in high places, and arrogance to the poor and lowly; but a man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examination, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not do that which he thinks and says and does."
GEORGE LONG.
Character and Conduct · The Wunder Library — complete classics, free to read, with narration.