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

Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.

    Saint’s Tragedy, Act iii. Scene i.
Out of the morning land,
Over the snow-drifts,
Beautiful Freya came,
Tripping to Scoring.
White were the moorlands,
And frozen before her;
Green were the moorlands,
And blooming behind her.
Out of her gold locks
Shaking the spring flowers,
Out of her garments
Shaking the south wind,
Around in the birches
Awaking the throstles,
Love and love-giving,
Came she to Scoring.
. . . . .

    The Longbeard’s Saga.  1852.

Virtue.  February 1

The first and last business of every human being, whatever his station, party, creed, capacities, tastes, duties, is morality; virtue, virtue, always virtue.  Nothing that man will ever invent will absolve him from the universal necessity of being good as God is good, righteous as God is righteous, holy as God is holy.

    Sermons on David.  1866.

Happiness.  February 2

God has not only made things beautiful; He has made things happy; whatever misery there is in the world there is no denying that.  Misery is the exception; happiness is the rule.  No rational man ever heard a bird sing without feeling that the bird was happy, and that if God made that bird He made it to be happy, and He takes pleasure in its happiness, though no human ear should ever hear its song, no human heart should ever share in its joy.

    All Saints’ Day Sermons.  1871.

A Dream of the Future.  February 3

God grant that the day may come when in front of the dwellings of the poor we may see real fountains—not like the drinking-fountains, useful as they are, which you see here and there about the streets, with a tiny dribble of water to a great deal of expensive stone, but real fountains, which shall leap, and sparkle, and plash, and gurgle, and fill the place with life and light and coolness; and sing in the people’s ears the sweetest of all earthly songs—save the song of a mother over her child—the song of “The Laughing Water.”

    The Air Mothers.  1872.

Bondage of Custom.  February 4

Strive all your life to free men from the bondage of custom and self, the two great elements of the world that lieth in wickedness.

    MS. Letter.  l842.

Henceforth let no man peering down
Through the dim glittering mine of future years
Say to himself, “Too much! this cannot be!”
To-day and custom wall up our horizon:
Before the hourly miracle of life
Blindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not.

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

The Childlike Mind.  February 5

There comes a time when we must narrow our sphere of thought much, that we may truly enlarge it! we must, artificialised as we have been, return to the rudiments of life, to children’s pleasures, that we may find easily, through their transparent simplicity, spiritual laws which we may apply to the more intricate spheres of art and science.

    MS. Letter.  1842.

Unselfish Prayer.  February 6

The Lord’s Prayer teaches that we are members of a family, when He tells us to pray not “My Father” but “Our Father;” not “my soul be saved,” but “Thy kingdom come;” not “give me” but “give us our daily bread;” not “forgive me,” but “forgive us our trespasses,” and that only as we forgive others; not “lead me not,” but “lead us not into temptation;” not “deliver me,” but “deliver us from evil.”  After that manner our Lord tells us to pray, and in proportion as we pray in that manner, just so far, and no farther, will God hear our prayers.

    National Sermons.  1850.

God is Light.  February 7

All the deep things of God are bright, for God is Light.  God’s arbitrary will and almighty power may seem dark by themselves though deep, but that is because they do not involve His moral character.  Join them with the fact that He is a God of mercy as well as justice; remember that His essence is love, and the thunder-cloud will blaze with dewy gold, full of soft rain and pure light.

    MS. Letter.  1844.

The Veil Lifted.  February 8

Science is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding great reward.  I can conceive few human states more enviable than that of the man to whom—panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life in the tropic forest—Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil and show him, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of, some law, or even mere hint of a law, explaining one fact: but explaining with it a thousand more, connecting them all with each other and with the mighty whole, till order and meaning shoots through some old chaos of scattered observations.  Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give nor poverty take away?  What it may lead to he knows not.  Of what use it may be he knows not.  But this he knows, that somewhere it must lead, of some use it will be.  For it is a truth.

    Lectures on Science and Superstition.
    1866.

All Science One.  February 9

Physical and spiritual science seem to the world to be distinct.  One sight of God as we shall some day see Him will show us that they are indissolubly and eternally the same.

    MS.

Passion and Reason.  February 10

Passion and reason in a healthy mind ought to be inseparable.  We need not be passionless because we reason correctly.  Strange to say, one’s feelings will often sharpen one’s knowledge of the truth, as they do one’s powers of action.

    MS.  1843.

Enthusiasm and Tact.  February 11

. . . People smile at the “enthusiasm of youth”—that enthusiasm which they themselves secretly look back at with a sigh, perhaps unconscious that it is partly their own fault that they ever lost it. . . .  Do not fear being considered an enthusiast.  What matter?  But pray for tact, the true tact which love alone can give, to prevent scandalising a weak brother.

    Letters and Memories.  1842.