Lightheartedness

“ I ask, "Holds earth or sin, or woe?"
My heart replies, "I do not know."
Nay! all we know, or feel, my heart,
Today is joy undimmed, complete;
In tears or pain we have no part;
The act of breathing is so sweet,
We care no higher joy to name. ”

“ Hush thy heart in the humbleness of awe, that its mirror may reflect as serenely the shadow as the light. Vainly, for its moral, dost thou gaze on the landscape, if thy soul puts no check on the dull delight of the senses. ”

“ On life's fair picture of delight,
My heart's content would find it right.
But O, these waves and leaves,—
When happy stoic Nature grieves,
No human speech so beautiful
As their murmurs mine to lull. ”

“ Her heart was full of the aspirations of a healthy young being who sees life lying a rose-coloured dream stretched out before her, of a desire for a happiness at which she could only vaguely guess, for joy and gaiety, for poetry and for beauty. ”

“ Thine, a like heart? Thy very soul, the same?
Thou pleadest an eternal sorrow: we
Praise the still changing beauty of this earth.
Passionate good and evil, thou dost see:
Our eyes behold the dreams of death and birth.
We love the joys of men: we love the dawn,
Red with the sun, and with the pure dew pearled
Thy stern soul feels, after the sun withdrawn,
How much pain goes to perfecting the world.
Canst thou be right? Is thine the very truth? ”

“ I have a strange sensation at my heart, which your altered appearance translates into a precursor of happiness. My spirit seems to have burst from the trammels of earth, and to revel in an atmosphere where love and hope are fadeless. You do not smile, love! Does not your heart echo my joy? Does not the same happy presentiment pervade your heart, and gild the future in brilliant colors? ”

“ Breathing each varied grace, thy heart beguile;
Though Mirth and Pleasure kindle on her brow,
Though bright the gleams of love and laughter glow,
Yet thou each soft seductive glance distrust,
And feel that beauty is not always just. ”

“ Thy swiftness, slimness, shyness, simpleness,
That set the old folk sighing for the rare
Red rose of Joy thy careless days possess.
. . . And when at last, with sad, indifferent face,
I walk in narrow pathways patiently;
Forgetful of thy beauty, and thy truth,
Thy ringing laughter, thy rebellious grace . . .
When fair Love turns his face away from me . . . ”

“ Ye who seek My light, the sons of my light shall be, and earth shall not soil nor rob you of My glory, nor will your mind be darkened and dull. For I will beautify and quicken it with love and with joy, for the light of the mind is love. The light of life is love. Where love is, contentment and peace are. Where contentment is, there My smile is too. Where contentment reigneth, in satisfaction I dwell. Where contentment is, there the fountain of peace too is playing. ”

“ They bring comfort, but also they bring tears into the eyes and pain into the heart. The message of a tender soul—what does it bring but ineffable comfort to the heart? You do not feel that it is a message, you do not feel it to be a divinely beautiful thing. ”

“ The face of universal nature impresses the soul with secret influence, a delicious rapture, which gives a new charm to being, and the heart, intoxicated with its own sensations, expands with an unbounded warmth to all existence. ”

“ Live, toil, rise for his sake not less than your own. If you knew how this heart beats as I write to you, if you could conceive what comfort I take for him from my confidence in you, you would feel a new spirit—my spirit—my mother-spirit of love, and forethought, and vigilance, enter into you while you read. ”

“ There is an atmosphere of benevolence and cheerfulness breathing round, which penetrates to my very heart. I know not when I have felt so quietly—so entirely happy—so full of sympathy—so light-hearted—so inclined to shut out the world, and its cares and vanities, and "fleet the time as they did i' the golden age." ”

“ Her new style, which she has been cultivating for ten years, has made her look like an angel of light. Why, there's the very light of heaven in her eyes, and in her face there is nothing, I swear, but gentleness and purity and peace. ”

“ I answered myself; "beauty must have a heart! However profoundly hidden, it must be there! The deeper buried, the stronger and truer will it wake at last in its beautiful grave! To rouse that heart were a better gift to her than the happiest life! It would be to give her a nobler, a higher life!" ”

“ Only to feel this night's great heart, only to mark
The splendours and the glooms, brings back the patriarch,
Who on Chaldaean wastes found God through reverence.
Could we but live at will upon this perfect height,
Could we but always keep the passion of this peace,
Could we but face unshamed the look of this pure light,
Could we but win earth's heart, and give desire release:
Then were we all divine, and then were ours by right
These stars, these nightingales, these scents: then shame would cease. ”

“ Hath past, and left its shadow on thy brow,
And solemn thoughts are gently mellowing
The splendour of thy beauty’s summer now.
Thou art most fair! but thine is loveliness
That dwells not only on the lip, or eye;
Thy beauty, is thy pure heart’s holiness ”

“ Does his heart thrill with a deeper pleasure in doing good? Can his soul writhe in more bitter agony under the consciousness of evil or wrong? Is the sunshine more glorious, the air more quiet, the sounds of harmony more soothing, the perfume of flowers [Pg 113] more exquisite, or forms of beauty more soul-satisfying to his senses, than to hers? ”

“ Though thou hast surely strayed, Take heart of grace, Thy steps retrace, Poor wandering one! Poor wandering one! If such poor love as mine Can help thee find True peace of mind — Why, take it, it is thine! Take heart, fair days will shine ”

“ The fluid soul's upbreathed emotion,
Whose light shines clear as a star apart,—
A fairer light of sweeter fame
Than science knows to praise or blame,
Wherein the soul has open vision,
And feels the glow of His holy flame. ”

“ The lovely light carried a holy softness, solemn and inspiring, that recalled other days of goodness in a visionary way, as lovely things only half real, while the vigor of an almost born strife—a new day of work and effort—seemed but one heart-beat away, and it was easy imagining the soft light as being the forerunner of that day. ”

“ Well is it when our eyes are filled with His beauty and our hearts are occupied with Him. In the measure in which this is true of us we shall recognize the correlative truth that His great heart is occupied with us. ”

“ That lit our life when life was very fair,
And leaps our heart towards eyes and mouth and hair;
Oblivious of the undying love grown cold,
Or body sheeted in the churchyard mould.
We stretch out yearning hands and grasp—the air. ”

“ Is giving not a necessity? Is receiving not- pitying?"
O my soul, I understand the smiling of your melancholy: your over-abundance itself now stretches out longing hands!
Your fulness looks forth over raging seas, and seeks and waits: the longing of over-fulness looks forth from the smiling heaven of your eyes!
And verily, O my soul! Who could see your smiling and not melt into tears? The angels themselves melt into tears through the over-graciousness of your smiling. ”

“ And then can it be yet another of true love's sure signs to have a warm, sweet glow come around the heart, as it never did before, and to have something tell you that it will grow warmer and sweeter and brighter as long as you live? ”

“ If I can no longer see your dear face, I can still hear your gentle voice of comfort and feel you by my side; and although I cannot see the sun, I can still warm myself in its beams,--I can inhale the fragrance of the flowers that it calls into life,--enjoy the fruits that it ripens. I can hear the songs of the birds, and with them praise my Creator from the depths of my soul. How much he has left me! We will not be like thankless beggars, showing our gratitude for benefits by complaining that they are not great enough. I have seen the sunlight for sixty-eight years. ”

“ Alas! though truth may light bestow, Not always warmth the beams impart, Blest he who gains the boon to know, Nor buys the knowledge with the heart. For warmth and light a blessing both to be, Feel as the enthusiast—as the world-wise see. ”

“ His full, strongly-marked face, with its healthy colour, expressed, besides benevolent cheerfulness, a great deal of energetic character, and a decided, cultivated mind, which, separated from the great stream of life, had developed wonderfully in seclusion, framing a world of its own, where it found both peace and happiness. ”

“ Are there any here who, in the midst of outward abundance, are sorrowful of heart,—who go mourning on their way from some inward discomfort,—-Who long for serenity of spirit, and cheerful happiness, as the servant earnestly desireth the shadow? ”

“ As I look back to the opening vista of life, a sense of quiet happiness steals over me. It is like the reflection of that softest beam which a vernal morning wins from the sun while he yet lingers in his bed, when the mists catch a rose-tint as they steal away, and the dews and unopened buds praise the Lord. ”

“ To feel hands that we long to press to our burning hearts, touch ours with cool and pulseless tranquillity—to see eyes in whose light we live, throw on us a cold but smiling beam, that gives light, but not fertility, to the parched and thirsting soil of the heart—to hear the ordinary language of affectionate civility addressed to us in tones of the most delicious suavity—to seek in these expressions an ulterior meaning, and to find it not—— This—this is an agony which only those who have felt can conceive! ”

“ But then no veil of the flesh shall dim the vision; no imperfection of the mirror shall blur the image; for we shall see Him face to face—shall see Him as He is—the perfect truth, the perfect righteousness, the perfect purity, the perfect love, the perfect light. And we shall gaze with unblenching eye, and our visage shall be changed. Not now with transient gleams of radiance, as on the lawgiver of old, shall the light be reflected from us; but resting upon us with its own ineffable glory, the awful effluence—
"Shall flood our being round, and take our lives Into itself." ”

“ And even here, I learnt to reverence the human heart, for, in some foul place, some very nest of misery,—there, it would flourish in its best beauty, giving out even in such an atmosphere the sweets of love, and charity, and resignation. ”

“ There is for me a singular charm in confidences so vague, and yet so exact, made to an unknown individual, who appreciates the state of my heart with such infinite delicacy. I have been struck with what you tell me as to the happiness of loving even without hope, even as one loves God for God's sake, and of finding in the sole devotion to the adored object a pure and unutterable felicity. ”

“ The brightness in her life came from the angelic cheerfulness of her own soul, which would not yield to outward conditions. She had an infinite capacity for getting joy out of barren places.”—“I do not hope to know again a nature so blended in sweetness and strength. ”

“ If their eyes ever look into our eyes filled with the divine pity and sweetness of their all comprehendin' love and sympathy, we only know it by the sudden sunshiny light and warmth that fills our being. ”

“ So when the heart is open to Divine influences, they silently steal in and warm it up to a livelier appreciation of the beautiful and good; and a sense of yearning for something better than all this selfish toil and trouble thrills through its every energy, and a ray of light flashes through the mind giving it to comprehend somewhat of those better things and that better way for which the heart has yearned. ”

“ Ought one to be ashamed if that kind of generous enthusiasm, that intensity of admiration, that vividness of sympathy die out of one's heart? Is it possible to keep alive the warmth, the colour of youth, suffusing all the objects near it with a lively and rosy glow? ”

“ If he should but come—what a delight to indulge looking at him—to give vent to the flow of thoughts and feelings with such a mind—to be inspired, and foolish, and nonsensical, in a sublime sense, as well he could be—to hear the effusions of that great heart, great as the world. ”

“ Let manner be respected, as it should be, yet what is it in its best estate but the simple and thoughtful expression of a gentle heart and a noble mind? It cannot be put on like a cloak, but must grow out as foliage and bloom from the life. ”

“ He passed his hand over his face, and with an effort concentrated his looks and thoughts upon surrounding objects, saying to himself almost aloud: “How comforting is light! Were there no light from without to illumine objects for us, we should perish in gloom, in the shadows of night. And light is a gentle friend that watches by us, and, when we are sunk in sorrow, points out to us that the world is still here, that it calls, and beckons us, and requires of us duty and cheerfulness. ”

“ My heart was open as the Heaven to every human creature. The whole universe had nothing but delight, except when sometimes I thought, with a regretful sullenness, that you were destined to the busy scenes in which I longed to mingle, and I to a cloister's gloom, and the separation of a hard vow from all my fellow men. ”

“ 'Tis strange how the heart can create
Or colour from itself its fate;
We make ourselves our own distress,
We are ourselves our happiness. ”

“ The elegant form, the flexibility of motion, the gentle warmth, the cheeks crimsoned with the roses of delight, the brilliant eyes darting rays of love, or sparkling with the fire of genius, enlivened by the sallies of wit, or animated by the glow of passion, are the inheritance of those only who are in good health, and a moment is sufficient to destroy them. ”

“ When they have passed for the last time from behind that glittering row of lights with which we are all familiar, let them not pass away into gloom and darkness,—but let them pass into cheerfulness and light—into a contented and happy home. ”