We cannot perceive the delicate touches by which the artist and sculptor daily cause to shine out the life and mind from the canvas or the marble, yet these imperceptible touches are perfection.
What great results arise from small things! The fall of an apple lead to the discovery of the laws of attraction and gravitation. In war, plans are conceived and matured upon which may depend on the fate, not of an individual, but of a nation,—of nations. The time arrives to put them in execution, and owing to some apparently trivial negligence,—to some unforeseen trifle—the plan, matured at the cost of so many sleepless nights and so much treasure, ends in disaster, and, it may be, in the ruin of a people. A complicated machine or Engine, of almost invaluable worth, by the fault of the smallest of its screws, the slightest inaccuracy of in the smallest cog of its most diminutive wheel—an imperceptible flaw—is rendered useless, or totally wrecked, carrying destruction to all around.
This we see the almost paramount importance of what are often termed trifles. Upon them is based our judgement of men and things,—Upon them, nearly, if not always, depends the success or failure—the happenings or misery of life. Their study is the true philosopher’s stone of man of the world, vive la bagatelle!
Past.—Present.—Future.
Words of mighty import but suggestive of things so immense that finite human reason is stunned at the contemplation. They contain everything—they are in themselves everything. Two of these words represent realities—or (if we may say so) at least abstract realities. These two words are Past and Future. The third—the Present—which at first sight appears most real—is on consideration a fraud—a deception. The past! Oh! the past is a reality indeed! A sad, stern reality. Our first emotion on seeing that word is naturally one of sorrow. The past is a vast picture—now painted in glowing tints—now sunk in blackest night—varying in scene and color, in light and shade for everyone: but in the very brightest there is a saddening tinge mingled with its shading; and those who can only see its darkness and gloom are indeed deserving of our compassion. But in even the darkest there are bright spots to be found, if we will only search for them; and but for ourselves there would be many more. We look back at the past, and therefore we imagine that it is something shaped of itself into its present aspect.—This is a mistake. We made the past as it is.—We painted the picture—and if it causes pain we alone are to blame. If dark and cheerless, why linger on it? Learn what it teaches, and cast it aside.—Remember, we are adding to it day by day,—and so on to the end. Turn from it, look boldly to the future, and determine to make the remainder of the picture all the more bright and cheerful, and you will forget its sadness and its gloom.
The present is only a name,—a combination of letters representing—nothing: and still it has a strange power of affecting is in various ways:—it cheers, it amuses, and anon it drowns us in despair—and all is deception—nothing real! The Present is sometimes and angel—often a friend: and even under the bright wigs of an angel there is concealed a shadowy horror that should deter us from drinking too deeply of the pleasures it offers. Shun the angel: shrink not from the fiend. It is only the brush moving over the blank sheet of the future and tracing the indelible panorama of the past.
But of greatest import to us now is the dim blank filed of the Future. Swiftly and steadily is the unstained page being filled in: thought, word, and act, are being stamped there for ever as the ponderous cylinder of time revolves. It is vain to attempt to pierce its hazy veil,—it is futile to endeavour to read what has not yet been written: but we may, and we ought, to picture to ourselves that future bright and happy as we would wish it to be.—The past is gone from us—unalterable. The future is in our hands now,—pliant and impressible as wax, and we are moulding it into form day by day. Will that form shed a cheering beam on our path, or will it cast around us a web of despondency? The end will reveal.
Look back—far back into the past; and, although strange, we will find our position is no anomaly. From our little island home, at different periods, have "The Wild Geese" winged their flight—some into voluntary exile—others driven over the wide world by the unsparing hand. They too, looked forward into the future and tried in vain to read the mysterious page; and we can look back and trace their chequered wandering, learning wisdom and gaining strength as we look on their trials, their struggles, and their end. Their dearest affections were surely snapped asunder; their home ties were severed, and they wandered over the world—fighting the battles and aiding the Councils of Strangers: but one grand memorial shines out from their various ways to cheer us on and stir us to emulation:—wherever they went, or in whatever duty engaged, they nobly upheld the unstained name, honor, and bravery of their race. Scattered far and wide are the graves of the "Wild geese": they lie wherever fields were fiercely fought; and the halo of light which memory and love sheds over their graves will be a beacon guiding us on through whatever scenes the future may have in store for us.
