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Nov. 3, 2009
That Thing We Never Seem to Get Enough of...
What's it called?
Oh yeah--TIME. Well, unfortunately, schoolwork decided something was lacking, so it taxed mine. I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while--I have begun Thoughts on Fiction part three, but it isn't finished yet. So in the mean time I'm going to be posting some favorite quotes and poems for your enjoyment, and hopefully edification as well. Here are two gems I stumbled across this morning.
Work
Henry van Dyke
Let me but do my work from day to day,
In field of forest, at the desk or loom,
In roaring market-place or tranquil room;
Let me but find it in my heart to say,
When vagrant wishes beckon me astray,
"This is my work; my blessing, not my doom;
Of all who live, I am the one by whom
This work can best be done in the right way."
Then shall I see it not too great, nor small,
To suit my spirit and to prove my powers;
Then shall I cheerful greet the laboring hours,
And cheerful turn, when the long shadows fall
Because I know for me my work is best.
Don't you love that? Poetry books are amazing to me, because every time I open one, it hands me something I hadn't ever noticed before. I'm going to learn this poem by heart and quote it to the feminists when they ask me why I slave in the house all day.
Worth Makes the Man
Alexander Pope, from An Essay on Man
Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made,
One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade;
The cobbler aproned, and the parson gowned;
The friar hooded, and the monarch crowned.
"What differ more," you cry, "Than crown and cowl!"
I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool.
You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk,
Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk,
Worth makes the man, and want of if the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunella.
In church we've been studying James chapter 2, in which there is much having to do with the sin of Partiality, or Respecting of Persons because of their wealth (or lack thereof). I think this is a good summary of it all--worth makes the man. "It is by his deeds," Proverbs says, "That a lad distinguishes himself, if his conduct is pure and right." Not by his clothes. Whew--isn't that nice to know? |
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Posted by
Nov. 4, 2009 - :-)
<3 Emma