Good morning! Does it get any prettier in Nebraska than a morning like this? No wind. That in itself - a miracle. The beautiful green cornfields with stunning sunsets...if you're don't get to picture this, you're truly missing out. My eyes are tired - I've just finished the longest book so far in my life. 546 pages. I wonder how many cups of coffee were involved? I should've kept track - that would've been funny. I actually felt a weight off my mind when I closed the book. Villette by Charlotte Bronte. Written in 1853. On a teacher in England. I am going to write more for you of what I underlined, hoping that you will be given some ideas to think about this week...hard to pick what to copy for you. I'm going to write out what she discussed on some having a life of ease in comparison with some having a life of continual hardships. I hope you understand why I picked the lines that I have....
Life being"easy" for some....
I will go further. I do believe there are some human beings so born, so reared, so guided from a soft cradle to a calm and late grave, that no excessive suffering penetrates their lot, and no tempestuous blackness overcasts their journey. And often, these are not pampered, selfish beings, but nature's elect, harmonious and benign; men and women mild with charity, kind agents of God's kind attributes.....This pair (two main characters on analyzation from another on their lives)...was blessed indeed, for years brought them, with great prosperity, great goodness; they imparted with open hand, yet wisely. Doubtless they knew crosses, disappointment, difficulties; but these were well borne...Once even there rose a cry in their halls, of Rachel weeping for her children...In short...like that of Jacob's favored son, with 'blessings of Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies under.' It was so, for God saw that it was good.......I think it is deemed good that you two should live in peace and be happy - not as angels, but as few are happy amongst mortals. Some lives are thus blessed: it is God's will: it is the attesting trace and lingering evidence of Eden. Some real life's do - for some certain days or years - actually anticipate the happiness of Heaven; and, I believe, if such perfect happiness is once felt by good people, its sweet effect is never wholly lost. Whatever trials follow, whatever pains of sickness or shades of death, the glory precedent still shines through, cheering the keen anguish, and tinging the deep cloud.
Life being hardships for others...
But it is not so for all...Other lives run from the first another course. Other travelers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and variable - breast adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of God; and I know that, amidst His boundless works, is somewhere stored the secret of this last fate's justice: I know that His treasures contain the proof as the promise of its mercy. What then? His will be done, as done it surely will be, whether we humble ourselves to resignation or not. Sufferer, faint not through terror of this burning evidence. Tired wayfarer, gird up thy loins, look upwards, march onward. Pilgrims and brother mourners, join in friendship company. Dark through the wilderness of this world stretches the way for most of us: equal and steady be our tread; be our cross our banner. For staff we have His promise, whose 'word is tried, whose way perfect:' for present hope His providence,' who gives the shield of salvation, whose gentleness makes great;' for final home His bosom, who 'dwells in the height of Heaven;' for crowning prize a glory, exceeding and eternal. Let us so run that we may obtain; let us endure hardness as good soldiers; let us finish our course, and keep the faith, reliant in the issue to come off more than conquerors: 'Art thou not from everlasting mine Holy One?
Happiness is the cure - a cheerful mind the preventative: cultivate both." (Advice to her from doctor friend). Her frustrated initial reaction and then her trying to pursue happiness:
No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise...To wonder sadly, did I say? NO: a new influence began to act upon my life, and sadness, for a certain space, was held at bay. Conceive a dell, deep-hollowed in forest secrecy; it lies in dimness and mist: its turf is dank, its herbage pale and humid. A storm or an axe makes a wide gap amongst the oak-trees; the breeze sweeps in; the sun looks down; the sad, cold dell becomes a deep cup of lustre; high summer pours her blue glory and her golden light out of that beauteous sky, which till now the starved hollow never saw. A new creed became mine - a belief in happiness.
Quotes by Charlotte Bronte:
A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.
Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.
I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.
I feel monotony and death to be almost the same.
I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward.
I'm just going to write because I cannot help it.
If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.
The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed.
The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter - in the eye.
You know full well as I do the value of sisters' affections: There is nothing like it in this world.
How am I to follow that? By thinking upon these ideas....she also described at the end of the book someone dear to her. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness by heart - I preferred him before all humanity. Can we be such an influence to others? Giving our affections, trying to continue learning, pursuing goodness - are we parenting in this way? With this example? Seeking friends with these traits? Continually trying to be all we are able to be - regardless of our "lot in life" - regardless of what we're given on Earth - the sweet taste of heaven now, or if we continually travel in winds...Are we seeking to live honorably as a soldier? So many thoughts in this book...tackle it....you'll be glad you did. Go, take on your day - make your epitaph tonight worth writing...on how you will use the minutes ahead of you that you can not have back when you call it a day. Thank you for coming in the store, for your encouragement, business, and notes. All matters. I hope I'm working when you come in - if not, know that I see you were there and thank you. Susan
Latin for this week:
Selige felicitatem - Choose happiness.
Hic habitat felicitas - Here dwells happiness.
