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

True Rest.  October 11

What is true rest?  To rest from sin, from sorrow, from doubt, from care; this is true rest.  Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of all—knowing one’s duty and not being able to do it.  That is true rest; the rest of God who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are at perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the law which God has given them.  Perfect rest in perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits till the final consummation of all things.

    Water of Life Sermons.  1867.

God’s Image.  October 12

. . . “Honour all men.”  Every man should be honoured as God’s image, in the sense in which Novalis says—that we touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human body! . . .  The old Homeric Greeks, I think, felt that, and acted up to it, more than any nation.  The Patriarchs too seem to have had the same feeling. . . .

    Letters and Memories.  1843.

Woman’s Work.  October 13

Let woman never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and diviner one of self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life which lives in and for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord.

    Lecture on Thrift.  1869.

Self-Enjoyment.  October 14

“How do ye expect,” said Sandy, “ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at a’, as long as ye go on only looking to enjoy yersel—yersel?  Mony was the year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it was a’

“‘Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye,
There he sits singing the lang simmer day;
Lassies gae to him,
And kiss him, and woo him—
Na bird is so merry as Sandy Mackaye.’

An’ muckle good cam’ o’t.  Ye may fancy I’m talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle.  But I tell ye nay.  I’ve got that’s worth living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a’s wrong, and there’s na hope for us on earth, we be a’ sic liars—a’ liars, I think—I’m a great liar often mysel, especially when I’m praying.”

    Alton Locke, chap. vii.

Temptations of Temperament.  October 15

A man of intense sensibilities, and therefore capable, as is but too notorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues.

    Sermons on David.

The more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more noble and earnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if neglected, to go astray.

    Lecture on Thrift.  1869.

Egotism of Melancholy.  October 16

Morbid melancholy results from subjectivity of mind.  The self-contemplating mind, if it be a conscientious and feeling one, must be dissatisfied with what it sees within.  Then it begins unconsciously to flatter itself with the idea that it is not the “moi” but the “non moi,” the world around, which is evil.  Hence comes Manichæism, Asceticism, and that morbid tone of mind which is so accustomed to look for sorrow that it finds it even in joy—because it will not confess to itself that sorrow belongs to sin, and that sin belongs to self; and therefore it vents its dissatisfaction on God’s earth, and not on itself in repentance and humiliation.

The world looks dark.  Shall we therefore be dark too?  Is it not our business to bring it back to light and joy?

    MS. Letter.  1843.

Poetry of Doubt.  October 17

The “poetry of doubt” of these days, however pretty, would stand us in little stead if we were threatened by a second Armada.

    Miscellanies.  1859.

Work of the Physician.  October 18

The question which is forcing itself more and more on the minds of scientific men is not how many diseases are, but how few are not, the consequences of men’s ignorance, barbarism, folly, self-indulgence.  The medical man is felt more and more to be necessary in health as he is in sickness, to be the fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but of the social reformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and the first object of his science to be prevention, and not cure.

    National Sermons.  1851.

Love Many-sided.  October 19

There are many sides to love—admiration, reverence, gratitude, pity, affection; they are all different shapes of that one great spirit of love—the only feeling which will bind a man to do good, not once in a way but habitually.

    National Sermons.  1851.

The only Path to Light.  October 20

The path by which some come to see the Light, to find the Rock of Ages, is the simple path of honest self-knowledge, self-renunciation, self-restraint, in which every upward step towards right exposes some fresh depth of inward sinfulness, till the once proud man, crushed down by the sense of his own infinite meanness, becomes a little child once more, and casts himself simply on the generosity of Him who made him.  And then there may come to him the vision, dim, perhaps, and fitting ill into clumsy words, but clearer, surer, nearer to him than the ground on which he treads, or than the foot which treads it—the vision of an Everlasting Spiritual Substance, most Human and yet most Divine, who can endure; and who, standing beneath all things, can make their spiritual substance endure likewise, though all worlds and eons, birth and growth and death, matter and space and time, should melt indeed—

And like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind.

    Preface to Tauler’s Sermons.  1854.

Proverbs False and True.  October 21

There is no falser proverb than that devil’s beatitude, “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”  Say rather, “Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once at least, and if it falls out true, twice also.”

    Prose Idylls.  1857.

True Sisters of Mercy.  October 22

Ah! true Sisters of Mercy! whom the world sneers at as “old maids,” if you pour out on cats and dogs and parrots a little of the love that is yearning to spend itself on children of your own.  As long as such as you walk this lower world one needs no Butler’s Analogy to prove to us that there is another world, where such as you will have a fuller and a fairer (I dare not say a juster) portion.

    Two Years Ago, chap. xxv.  1856.

The Divine Fire.  October 23

Well spoke the old monks, peaceful, watching life’s turmoil,
“Eyes which look heavenward, weeping still we see:
God’s love with keen flame purges, like the lightning flash,
Gold which is purest, purer still must be.”

    Saint’s Tragedy, Act iii. Scene i.
    1847.

The Cross a Token.  October 24