April 30

“It is wonderful how men change to a changed heart. We ourselves, being ennobled, see noble things, and loving, find out love. Little touches of love, of goodness, of courage in men, which formerly, looking for perfection, we passed over, now attract us like flowers on a dusty highway. We take them as keys to the character, and door after door flies open to us. The man reveals the treasures of his heart. We find aspiration, penitence, tenderness, in those we thought grovelling, hard, and selfish. We trust men, we throw ourselves upon the good in them, and they become better now that they are not suspected of being evil. . . . Driven by our new principle to seek for good and not for eveil, and to find it in all, we take notice of ordinary men whom we have passed over, and it is with an exquisite surprise that we become conscious of the vast amount of daily sacrifice done by common men and women, by those whom we call ‘dull’, by those who have to fight a hard battle like the poor.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“How many an angel lies enthralled within rough human souls, needing only an Angelo to set him free. The first step in the art is faith in goodness; the second, love of goodness; the third, employment of the heavenly weapons – kindness, and influence, and prayer.”

KNOX LITTLE

April 29

“She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

“Pitiful she was
To all who suffered, measuring loss and woe
By the large measure of her own deep heart,
And by the vastness of its treasure. Thus,
Even through joy, she knew the secret pang
Of sorrow; and through riches – poverty,
And loss by gain.”

B. M.

“It seems to me it is the same with love and happiness as with sorrow – the more we know of it the better we can feel what other people’s lives are or might be, and so we shall only be more tender to them and wishful to help them.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

April 28

“Ask him to increase your powers of sympathy; to give you more quickness and depth of sympathy in little things as well as great. Opportunities of doing a kindness are often lost from mere want of thought. Half-a-dozen lines of kindness may bring sunshine into the whole day of some sick person. Think of the pleasure you might give to some one who is much shut up, and who has fewer pleasures than you have, by sharing with her some little comfort or enjoyment that you have learnt to look upon as a necessary of life, - the pleasant drive, the new book, flowers from the country, etc. Try to put yourself in another’s place. Ask, ‘What should I like myself, if I were hard-worked, or sick, or lonely?’ Cultivate the habit of sympathy.”

G. H. WILKINSON

“A few more smiles of silent sympathy, a few more tender words, a little more restraint in temper, may make all the difference between happiness and half-happiness to those I live with.”

STOPFORD BROOKE