JANUARY FIRST

H

JANUARY

IGHER than the question of our duration is the question of our deserving. Immortality will come to such as are fit for it, and he who would be a great soul in future, must be a great soul now.

JANUARY SECOND

Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,

And we are never old.

Over the winter glaciers,

I see the summer glow,

And through the wild-piled snowdrift
The warm rose buds below.

WORSHIP

THE WORLD-SOUL

JANUARY THIRD

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

SELF-RELIANCE

for

If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburthen the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.

JANUARY FIFTH

SELF-RELIANCE

All power is of one kind, a sharing of the nature of the world. The mind that is parallel with the laws of nature will be in the current of events, and strong with their strength.

JANUARY SIXTH

The word unto the prophets spoken
Was writ on tables yet unbroken;
The word by seers or sibyls told
In groves of oak, or fanes of gold,
Still floats upon the morning wind,
Still whispers to the willing mind.
One accent of the Holy Ghost
The heedless world hath never lost.

JANUARY SEVENTH

POWER

THE PROBLEM

Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of trade.

PRUDENCE

JANUARY EIGHTH

Could we not deal with a few persons,

with one

person, after the unwritten statutes, and make an experiment of their efficacy? Could we not pay our friend the compliment of truth, of silence, of forbearing? Need we be so eager to seek him? If we are related, we shall meet.

JANUARY NINTH

CHARACTER

Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping, if it were not. God delights to isolate us every day, and hide from us the past and the future.

EXPERIENCE

JANUARY TENTH

If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunderstroke, I beseech you, by all angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning... by corruption and groans. Come out of the azure. Love the day. Do not leave the sky out of your landscape.

JANUARY ELEVENTH

BEHAVIOR

Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he do not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

WORSHIP

Life is too short to waste

The critic bite or cynic bark,
Quarrel, or reprimand;

'T will soon be dark;

Up! mind thine own aim, and

God speed the mark.

JANUARY THIRTEENTH

TO J. W.

That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps. He only is rightly immortal, to whom all things are immortal.

WORSHIP

JANUARY FOURTEENTH

We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence that is only measured by its works. Love is inexhaustible, and if its estate is wasted, its granary emptied, still cheers and enriches, and the man, though he sleep, seems to purify the air, and his house to adorn the landscape and strengthen the laws.

JANUARY FIFTEENTH

CHARACTER

No sane man at last distrusts himself. His existence is a perfect answer to all sentimental cavils. If he is, he is wanted, and has the precise properties that are required. That we are here, is proof we ought to be here.

CONSIDERATIONS BY THE WAY

JANUARY SIXTEENTH

The spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body.

THE POET

JANUARY SEVENTEENTH

The right use of Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature. Rude and invincible except by themselves are the elements. So let man be. Let him . . . show his lordship by manners and deeds on the scale of nature.

FATE

JANUARY EIGHTEENTH

Go where he will, the wise man is at home,
His hearth the earth;-his hall the azure dome;
Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road,
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed.

WOOD NOTES

JANUARY NINETEENTH

The genius of life is friendly to the noble, and in the dark brings them friends from far. Fear God, and where you go, men shall think they walk in hallowed cathedrals.

WORSHIP