October 2

. . . “For fear of flattering, these dreadfully sincere people go on side by side with those they love and admire, giving them all the time, the impression of utter indifference. Parents are so afraid of exciting pride and vanity in their children, by the expression of their love and approbation, that a child sometimes goes sad and discouraged by their side, and learns with surprise, in some chance way, that they are proud and fond of him. There are times when the open expression of a father’s love would be worth more than church or sermon to a boy; and his father cannot utter it - will not show it.”

Mrs H. B. STOWE

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. ‘She never knew how I loved her!’ ‘He never knew what he was to me!’ ‘I always meant to make more of our friendship!’ “I did not know what he was to me till he was gone!’ Such words are the poisoned arrows which cruel death shoots back at us from the door of the sepulchre.

“How much more we might make of our family life, of our friendships, if every secret thought of love blossomed into a deed! There are words, and looks, and little observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little attentions, which make it manifest, and there is scarce a family that might not be richer in heart-wealth for more of them.”

Mrs H. B. STOWE

April 26

“And so when time, sorrow, and the loveless winter of life have beautified our hearts, and we go up to the overthrown forms which are lying beneath the landslip of the grave, what have we left but an unavailing sorrow, a dumb repentance, and never-ending bitter tears? We have something better left still, a warmer, truer, lovelier love for every soul which we have not yet lost.”

J. P. RICHTER

“’If only I might have the consolation of suffering something for your sake; Oh! How different would I be to you now!’ This is what we all say when we bury someone whom we have tortured; but, on that very same evening of mourning, we go and dart the javelin deep into some other breast which is still warm. Oh! Weaklings that we are, strong only in resolves!”

J. P. RICHTER

April 25

“O the anguish of the thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their pleadings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred human soul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“’It’s poor work allays settin’ the dead above the livin’. We shall all on us be dead some time, I reckon, - it ’ud be better if folks ‘ud make much on us before hand, istid of beginnin’ when we’re gone.
“’It’s but little good you’ll do a’watering the last year’s crop.’”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

April 24

“It is a sad weakness in us, after all, that the thought of a man’s death hallows him anew to us; as if life were not sacred too – as if it were comparatively a light thing to fail in love and reverence to the brother who has to climb the whole toilsome steep with us, and all our tears and tenderness were due to the one who is spared that hard journey.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“He who has once stood beside the grave to look back on the companionship which has been for ever closed, feeling how impotent then are the wild love and the keen sorrow to give one instant’s pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness, will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart, which can only be discharged to the dust.”

RUSKIN

“When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]