| Things to Live For |
Chapter 8 |
Page 6 |
“Not unto every heart is God’s good gift
Of simple tenderness allowed; we meet
With love in many fashions when we lift
First to our lips life’s waters bitter sweet.
Love comes upon us with resistless power
Of curbless passion, and with headstrong will;
It plays around like April’s breeze and shower,
Or calmly flows, a rapid stream and still;
It comes with blessedness into the heart
That welcomes it aright, or–bitter fate!–
It rings the bosom with so fierce a smart,
That love, we cry, is crueler than hate.
And the, ah me, when love has ceased to bless,
Our hearts cry out for tenderness!
We long for tenderness like that which hung
About us lying on our mother’s breast
“In youth’s brief hottest love we see,
The reddest rose we grasp; but when it dies,
God grant that later blossoms, violets meek,
May spring for us beneath life’s autumn skies!
God grant that some dear loving one be near to bless
Our weary way with simple tenderness.”
Thoughtfulness is one of the truest and best tests of fine character. Thoughtlessness is rudeness, boorishness. It is selfishness, cold heartedness. It is unrefined. It is cruel and unkind. Thoughtfulness is refined. It is love working in all delicate ways. It is unselfishness which forgets itself, and thinks only of others. It is love which demands not to be served, to be honored, to be helped, but thinks continually of serving and honoring others. Thoughtlessness is “want of heart,” and he who has a gentle heart cannot but be thoughtful. Love is always thoughtful.
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