‘If a man turns to Christ, nothing in him is to be left behind. Every passion must be brought to Him to be transformed by Him. Otherwise the man does not come, but only a part of him.’ [Said to me years ago by a pious friend now dead.] * * * * * The real proportion between vice and virtue in a man is often misjudged because the vice is before us continually, while the virtue does not obtrude. * * * * * If you are to live in happiness and peace with the woman you love, you must not permit the daily course of life to have its way unchecked. There must be hours of removal to a distance when in silence you create anew her ideal and proper form, when you think of her as sculptured in white marble. * * * * * Blacksmiths forging one on this side of the anvil and the other on the opposite side. Each keeps his own time, not regulating his stroke by watching his mate. * * * * * There is in man an upwelling spring of life, energy, love, whatever you like to call it. If a course is not cut for it, it turns the ground round it into a swamp. * * * * * Went into the cathedral and heard morning service. Miracle of miracles! Into the soul of a carpenter’s son more than eighteen centuries ago came a thought, and it is returned to us to-day in majestic architecture, music of voice and organ. * * * * * Disbelief in Christianity is not so much to be dreaded as its acceptance with a complete denial of it in society and politics. * * * * * The love that has lasted for years; which has resisted all weakness and defect; has been constant in all moods and circumstances better and worse; has exacted nothing; has been content with silence; always soft and easy as the circumambient air, a love with no reserve; what is there in any relationship to person or thing worth a straw compared with it! * * * * * We ought to endeavour to give our dreams reality, but in Reality we should preserve the dream. * * * * * If her unhappiness does not destroy my happiness, and if her happiness does not make me happy, I do not love her. * * * * * There are problems which cannot be solved, for directly we have stated them, as we suppose, they elude the statement and are outside. Who can say what is the meaning of the question, ‘Does God exist?’ * * * * * There is always a multitude of reasons both in favour of doing a thing and against doing it. The art of debate lies in presenting them; the art of life in neglecting ninety-nine hundredths of them. * * * * * How beautiful is a rapid rivulet trying to clear itself from stirred-up mud. * * * * *