The world grows terrible and white, And blinding white the breaking day, We walk bewildered in the light, For something is too large for sight, And something much too plain to say. The Child that was ere worlds begun (... We need but walk a little way ... We need but see a latch undone ...), The Child that played with moon and sun Is playing with a little hay. The house from which the heavens are fed, The old strange house that is our own, Where tricks of words are never said, And Mercy is as plain as bread, And Honour is as hard as stone. Go humbly; humble are the skies, And low and large and fierce the Star, So very near the Manger lies, That we may travel far. Hark! Laughter like a lion wakes To roar to the resounding plain, And the whole heaven shouts and shakes, For God Himself is born again; And we are little children walking Through the snow and rain. '_Daily News._' JANUARY 7th The idea of private property universal but private, the idea of families free but still families, of domesticity democratic but still domestic, of one man one house--this remains the real vision and magnet of mankind. The world may accept something more official and general, less human and intimate. But the world will be like a broken-hearted woman who makes a humdrum marriage because she may not make a happy one; Socialism may be the world's deliverance, but it is not the world's desire. '_What's Wrong with the World._' JANUARY 8th The dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink. '_George Bernard Shaw._' JANUARY 9th The thing from which England suffers just now more than from any other evil is not the assertion of falsehoods, but the endless and irrepressible repetition of half-truths. '_G. F Watts._' JANUARY 10th It is amusing to notice that many of the moderns, whether sceptics or mystics, have taken as their sign a certain eastern symbol, which is the very symbol of this ultimate nullity. When they wish to represent eternity, they represent it by a serpent with its tail in its mouth. There is a startling sarcasm in the image of that very unsatisfactory meal. The eternity of the material fatalists, the eternity of the eastern pessimists, the eternity of the supercilious theosophists and higher scientists of to-day is, indeed, very well presented by a serpent eating its tail--a degraded animal who destroys even himself. '_Orthodoxy._' JANUARY 11th Variability is one of the virtues of a woman. It obviates the crude requirements of polygamy. If you have one good wife you are sure to have a spiritual harem. '_Daily News._' JANUARY 12th