Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/78

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love and its hidden history.

I will love thee as the stars love,
In sanctity enfolden;
That tune in constellations
Their harps divine and golden;
Across the heavens greeting
Their sisters from afar;
The Pleiades to Mazzaroth, —
Star answering to star
With a love as high and holy,
And apart from all that's lowly,
Swaying to thee like the planets without jar.

I will love thee as the spirits love,
Who, free of earth and heaven,
Wreathe white and pale blue flowers
For the brows of the forgiven;
And are dear to one another
For the blessings they bestow
On the weary and the wasted,
In our wilderness of woe;
By thy good name with the angels,
And thy human heart's evangels,
Shall my love from holy silence to thee go.

Kind words always pay; they never blister on the tongue or lips; and we never heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though they do not cost much, yet they accomplish much. They help one's own good nature and good will. Soft words soften our own soul. Angry words are fuel to the flame of wrath, and make it burn more fiercely. Kind words make other people good-natured. Cold words freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words make them wrathful. There is such a rush of all other kind of words in our clay, that it seems desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain words, and idle words, and silly words, and hasty words, and spiteful words, and empty words, and profane words, and boisterous words, and war-like words. Kind words also produce their own image on men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe, and quiet, and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used. —Pascal.

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Let us now proceed to the recital of methods whereby to ascertain