Daily Thoughts: selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife

    Letters and Memories.  1868.

Sensuality.  June 11

What is sensuality?  Not the enjoyment of holy glorious matter, but blindness to its meaning.

    MS.  1842.

The Journey’s End.  June 12

Let us live hard, work hard, go a good pace, get to our journey’s end as soon as possible—then let the post-horse get his shoulder out of the collar. . . . I have lived long enough to feel, like the old post-horse, very thankful as the end draws near. . . .  Long life is the last thing that I desire.  It may be that, as one grows older, one acquires more and more the painful consciousness of the difference between what ought to be done and what can be done, and sits down more quietly when one gets the wrong side of fifty, to let others start up to do for us things we cannot do for ourselves.  But it is the highest pleasure that a man can have who has (to his own exceeding comfort) turned down the hill at last, to believe that younger spirits will rise up after him, and catch the lamp of Truth, as in the old lamp-bearing race of Greece, out of his hand before it expires, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more even feet.

    Speech at Lotus Club, New York.  1874.

Punishment Inevitable.  June 13

It is a fact that God does punish here, in this life.  He does not, as false preachers say, give over this life to impunity and this world to the devil, and only resume the reigns of moral government and the right of retribution when men die and go into the next world.  Here in this life He punishes sin.  Slowly but surely God punishes.  If any of you doubt my words you have only to commit sin and then see whether your sin will find you out.

    Sermons on David.  1866.

The Problem Solved.  June l4

After all, the problem of life is not a difficult one, for it solves itself so very soon at best—by death.  Do what is right the best way you can, and wait to the end to know.

    MS. Letter.

But remember that though death may alter our place, it cannot alter our character—though it may alter our circumstances, it cannot alter ourselves.

    Discipline and other Sermons.

The Father’s Education.  June 15

Sin, αμαρτια, is the missing of a mark, the falling short of an ideal; . . . and that each miss brings a penalty, or rather is itself the penalty, is to me the best of news and gives me hope for myself and every human being past, present, and future, for it makes me look on them all as children under a paternal education, who are being taught to become aware of, and use their own powers in God’s house, the universe, and for God’s work in it; and, in proportion as they do that, they attain salvation, σωτηρια, literally health and wholeness of spirit, “soul,” which is, like health of body, its own reward.

    Letters and Memories.  1852.

Parent and Child.  June 16

Superstition is the child of fear, and fear is the child of ignorance.

    Lectures on Science and Superstition.
    1866.

A Charm of Birds.  June 17

Listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland on a bright forenoon in early summer.  As you try to disentangle the medley of sounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the loud, harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch, and the metallic clinking of two or three sorts of titmice.  But above the tree-tops, rising, hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting tender and low.  Above the pastures outside the skylark sings—as he alone can sing; and close by from the hollies rings out the blackbird’s tenor—rollicking, audacious, humorous, all but articulate.  From the tree above him rises the treble of the thrush, pure as the song of angels; more pure, perhaps, in tone, though neither so varied nor so rich as the song of the nightingale.  And there, in the next holly, is the nightingale himself; now croaking like a frog, now talking aside to his wife, and now bursting out into that song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man find sorrow, he himself surely finds none. . . . In Nature there is nothing melancholy.

    Prose Idylls.  1866.

Notes of Character.  June 18

Without softness, without repose, and therefore without dignity.

    MS.

Our Blessed Dead.  June 19

Why should not those who are gone be actually nearer us, not farther from us, in the heavenly world, praying for us, and it may be influencing and guiding us in a hundred ways of which we, in our prison-house of mortality, cannot dream?  Yes!  Do not be afraid to believe that he whom you have lost is near you, and you near him, and both of you near God, who died on the cross for you.

    Letters and Memories.  1871.

Silent Influence.  June 20

Violence is not strength, noisiness is not earnestness.  Noise is a sign of want of faith, and violence is a sign of weakness.

By quiet, modest, silent, private influence we shall win.  “Neither strive nor cry nor let your voice be heard in the streets,” was good advice of old, and is still.  I have seen many a movement succeed by it.  I have seen many a movement tried by the other method of striving and crying and making a noise in the streets, but I have never seen one succeed thereby, and never shall.

    Letters and Memories.  1870.

Chivalry.  June 21

Some say that the age of chivalry is past.  The age of chivalry is never past as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, “I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.”  The age of chivalry is never past as long as men have faith enough in God to say, “God will help me to redress that wrong; or if not me, surely He will help those that come after me.  For His eternal will is to overcome evil with good.”

    Water of Life Sermons.  1865.

Nature and Art.  June 22

When once you have learnt the beauty of little mossy banks, and tiny leaves, and flecks of cloud, with what a fulness the glories of Claude, or Ruysdael, or Berghem, will unfold themselves to you!  You must know Nature or you cannot know Art.  And when you do know Nature you will only prize Art for being like Nature.

    MS. Letter.  1842.

Simple and Sincere.  June 23

There are those, and, thanks to Almighty God, they are to be numbered by tens of thousands, who will not perplex themselves with questionings; simple, genial hearts, who try to do what good they can in the world, and meddle not with matters too high for them; people whose religion is not abstruse but deep, not noisy but intense, not aggressive but laboriously useful; people who have the same habit of mind as the early Christians seem to have worn, ere yet Catholic truth had been defined in formulæ, when the Apostles’ Creed was symbol enough for the Church, and men were orthodox in heart rather than exact in head.

For such it is enough if a fellow-creature loves Him whom they love, and serves Him whom they serve.  Personal affection and loyalty to the same unseen Being is to them a communion of saints both real and actual, in the genial warmth of which all minor differences of opinion vanish. . . .

    Preface to Tauler’s Sermons.  1854.

God’s Words.  June 24

Do I mean, then, that this or any text has nothing to do with us?  God forbid!  I believe that every word of our Lord’s has to do with us, and with every human being, for their meaning is infinite, eternal, and inexhaustible.

    MS. Letter.

Taught by Failure.  June 25

So I am content to have failed.  I have learned in the experiment priceless truths concerning myself, my fellow-men, and the city of God, which is eternal in the heavens, for ever coming down among men, and actualising itself more and more in every succeeding age.  I only know that I know nothing, but with a hope that Christ, who is the Son of Man, will tell me piecemeal, if I be patient and watchful, what I am and what man is.