a child when it is hurt, so the wounded spirit longs for utterance to ease its sorrow. Far from being a rebellious and unnatural desire, this longing to somehow unburden the soul in words is a merciful gift of God, who, even when he chastens, would fain temper the wind to the shorn lamb. See how the noblest souls have sought and found, not only a balm for sorrow, but sorrow's own deeper meaning in uttering their heart's profoundest cry. Think of that magnificent memorial poem in which Tennyson gathered up, as in a sacred urn, the fragments of his broken heart. Was his sorrow for Hallam the less, that he thus robbed it of its bitterest sting, the sting of helpless silence and hopeless brooding? Was Cicero less noble, less heroic, because, after the death of his beloved daughter Tullia, he wrote a treatise, on consolation to alleviate his sorrow? No; utterance sanctifies the grief whose pang it softens. God does not will that we should suffer in white-lipped silence. He never drives the barbed arrow into the human heart.—Zion's Herald.
(1313)
GRIEF, REVEALED
Clinton Dangerfield discounts in this poem the stoicism of the age that refuses to reveal its griefs and evils:
Sad hearts are out of date. We laugh and jest,
When we take wounds as well as when we strike.
One can not tell the conquerors on Love's field—
Victors and vanquished look so much alike!
But sometimes when the mask unguarded falls
One sees the actor's self behind the part,
And half holds those the wiser who, of old,
Washed, unashamed, with tears a broken heart. (Text.)
—The Delineator.
(1314)
GRIEVANCES
A man strikes me with a sword, and inflicts
a wound. Suppose, instead of binding
up the wound, I am showing it to everybody,
and, after it has been bound up, I am
taking off the bandage constantly and examining
the depth of the wound, and making
it fester—is there a person in the world
who would not call me a fool? However,
such a fool is he who, by dwelling upon little
injuries or insults, cause them to agitate and
influence his mind. How much better were
it to put a bandage on the wound and never
look at it again!
(1315)
I once said to a woman who had suddenly lost her best friend after years of the closest intimacy, without a quarrel or scene, and for no apparent reason, "every time he thinks of you he will be filled with remorse." She replied, "Remorse? Not at all. He is quite sure that all the fault lies on my side. In retrospect, he has created imaginary grievance." I indignantly protested, ready even to pity her the more. She smilingly silenced me by putting her finger on my lips, saying: "Do not pity me, I might have had grievances, but I have none; in spite of everything, mine is the better part." And she was right.
Grievances are like a double-edged sword that wounds on one side the heart it enters, on the other the heart that sends it forth, and the most unhappy heart always holds the weapon, for the point that pierces sinks into depths from whence it is difficult to draw it from the wound. In reality everybody is a victim to grievances; they that harbor as well as they who create them, and for this reason frank explanations are never resorted to. And the saddest thing of all is, that the causes are often so slight and the suffering so great, as in the case of the Neapolitan, who, having never read the works of Tasso and Ariosto, fought seventeen duels on their respective merits.—Dora Melegari, "Makers of Sorrow and Makers of Joy."
(1316)
GRIP
"He seems to have lost his grip," said one
man to another in talking of an acquaintance
who had not been long in the ranks of the
"middle-aged." They both felt that their
friend had talents; they longed to see him
apply them with judgment and success. The
term "grip" was an expressive one. Whatever
one's work may be, it can not be properly
done unless the worker has firm hold of
his tools. Lack of grip may often be resolved
into lack of incentive, and, therefore,
whoever imparts to his comrade a
sufficient motive for holding fast, is doing
him service of the most effectual kind.—Providence
Journal.
(1317)
Growing Old—See Old, How to Grow.
