If The World 's A Vale Of

A Friend Is A Beloved Mystery; Dearest Always Because He Is Not Ourself, And Has Something In Him Which It Is Impossible For Us To Fathom. If It Were Not So, Friendship Would Lose Its Chief Zest.

When I Heard That There Were Artists, I Wished I Could Some Time Be One. If I Could Only Make A Rose Bloom On Paper, I Thought I Should Be Happy! Or If I Could At Last Succeed In Drawing The Outline Of Winter-stripped Boughs As I Saw Them Against The Sky, It Seemed To Me That I Should Be Willing To Spend Years In Trying.

These Blossoms, Gathered In Familiar Paths, With Dear Companions Now Passed Out Of Sight, Shall Not Be Laid Upon Their Graves. They Live, Since Love Is Deathless. Pleasure Now Nor Pride Is Theirs In Mortal Wise, But Hallowing Thoughts Will Meet The Offering, Of So Little Worth, Wanting The Benison Death Has Made Divine.

The First Real Unhappiness I Remember To Have Felt Was When Some One Told Me, One Day, That I Did Not Love God. I Insisted, Almost Tearfully, That I Did; But I Was Told That If I Did Truly Love Him I Should Always Be Good. I Knew I Was Not That, And The Feeling Of Sudden Orphanage Came Over Me Like A Bewildering Cloud.

We Were Not Meant To Mask Ourselves Before Our Fellow-beings, But To Be, Through Our Human Forms, True And Clear Utterances Of The Spirit Within. Since God Gave Us These Bodies, They Must Have Been Given Us As Guides To Him And Revealers Of Him.