Holly
Berries
From
Dickens
Berries
From
Dickens ·
DeWolfe Fiske & Co
Boston · 1898 ·
[Pg 1]
First Day.
A good action is its own
reward.
The will to do well ... is the next
thing to having the power.
Forgiveness is a high quality,
an exalted virtue.
In love of home the love of
country has its rise.
Tears never yet wound up a clock or worked
a steam-engine.
[Pg 2]
Second Day.
Show me the man who says
anything against women,
as women, and I boldly declare,
he is not a man.
Natural affection and instinct are the
most beautiful
of the Almighty’s works.
It must be somewhere written that the
virtues of the mothers
shall occasionally be visited on the children,
as well as the sins of their fathers.
We can all do some good, if we will.
[Pg 3]
Third Day.
In the cause of friendship ...
brave all dangers.
Let us be among the few who do their duty.
Fortune will not bear chiding.
We must not reproach her, or she shuns us.
It is an undoubted fact that all remarkable
men have had
remarkable mothers.
Every man has his enemies.
[Pg 4]
Fourth Day.
For Heaven’s sake
let us
examine sacredly
whether there is any
wrong entrusted
to us to set right.
Surprises, like misfortunes,
rarely come alone.
What the poor are to the poor is little known
excepting to themselves and God.
An honest man is one of the few great works
that can be seen for nothing.
Thinking begets thinking.
[Pg 5]
Fifth Day.
It’s a world of sacred mysteries,
and the Creator only
knows what lies beneath the surface
of His lightest image.
There is hope for all who are softened
and penitent.
There is hope for all such.
What I want is frankness, confidence,
less conventionality,
and freer play of soul. We are so dreadfully
artificial.
[Pg 6]
Sixth Day.
Only time shall show us
whither each
traveler is bound.
Women, the tenderest and most
fragile of all
God’s creatures, were the oftenest
superior to sorrow, adversity and distress.
The consciousness that we possess the sympathy
and affection of one being,
when all others have deserted us, is a hold, a stay,
a comfort, in the deepest affliction,
which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
[Pg 7]
Seventh Day.
Cheerfulness and content are great
beautifiers, and
are famous preservers of good looks.
The sea has no appreciation of great men,
but knocks them about like small fry.
A joke is a very good thing ...
but when that joke is made at the expense of
feelings, I set my face against it.
There can be no confusion in following Him
and seeking no other footsteps.
[Pg 8]
Eighth Day.
There is no situation in life so bad
that it can’t be mended.
If the good deeds of human creatures
could be traced to their source, how beautifully
would even death appear;
for how much charity, mercy, and purified
affection would be seen to have
their own growth in dusty graves!
Use and necessity are good teachers—
the best of any.
Philosophers are only men in armour after all.
[Pg 9]
Ninth Day.
You must expect to go out, some
day, like the snuff of a
candle; a man can die but once.
Energy and determination have done
wonders many a time.
Ride on over all obstacles, and win
the race.
In journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier
to go down hill than up.
Let there be union among us.
[Pg 10]
Tenth Day.
Among men who have sound and
sterling qualities,
there is nothing so contagious
as pure openness of heart.
There is not an angel added to the Host
of Heaven but does its
blessed work on earth in those that
loved it here.
There is a providence in everything;
everything works for the best.
A man never knows what he can do till
he tries.
[Pg 11]
Eleventh Day.
Worldly goods are divided unequally,
and man must not repine.
Do as you would be
done by!
Forget and forgive!
But for some trouble and
sorrow we should
never know half the good
there is about us.
Gallantry in its true sense
is supposed to
enoble and dignify a man.
[Pg 12]
Twelfth Day.
We should all try to discharge
our duty.
Unless we learn to do our duty to those
in our employ, they
will never learn to do their duty to us.
Simplicity and plainness are the soul
of elegance.
There are dark shadows on the earth, but its
lights are stronger in contrast.
There is always something to be thankful for.
[Pg 13]
Thirteenth Day.
We all have some bright day—many of us,
let us hope, among a crowd of others,—
to which we revert with particular delight.
Be forever grateful unto all friends. Especially
unto them which brought you up by hand.
Dignity and even holiness too, sometimes,
are more questions
of coat and waist coat
than some
people imagine.
[Pg 14]
Fourteenth Day.
Vice takes up her abode in many
temples, and who can
say that a fair outside shall not
enshrine her?
Without strong affection and humanity of
heart and gratitude to that
Being whose code is Mercy, and whose great
attribute is Benevolence to all things
that breathe,
happiness can never be attained.
Unchanging love and truth will carry
us through all.
Don’t try the feelings of any.
[Pg 15]
Fifteenth Day.
There is a great end to gain,
and that I keep before me.
If your destiny leads you into public life
and public station, you
must expect to be subjected to temptations
which other people is free from.
There is no substitute for thorough-going
ardent, and sincere earnestness.
If our inclinations are but good and open-hearted,
let us gratify them
boldly, though they bring upon us loss
instead of profit.
[Pg 16]
Sixteenth Day.
There is no royal road to learning, and what
is life but learning.
Anxious people often magnify an evil and
make it worse.
Try not to associate
bodily defects with
mental, my good friend,
except for a solid reason.
What we have to do is to turn our faces in our
new direction, and keep straight on.
Be careful to develope your talents.
[Pg 17]
Seventeenth Day.
Nothing is past hope.
There is scarcely a sin in the world
that is in my eyes such a crying one
as ingratitude.
Truth and honesty, like precious stones,
are perhaps
most easily imitated at a distance.
Life is made of ever so many partings
welded together.
The best among us need deal lightly
with faults.
[Pg 18]
Eighteenth Day.
Monarchs imagine
attractions in the
lives of beggars.
No man who was not a true gentleman
at heart ever was, since the
world began, a true gentleman in manner.
All happiness has an end—hence the chief
pleasure of its next beginning.
You should feel the Dignity of Labour.
Nature often enshrines
gallant and noble
hearts in weak bosoms.
[Pg 19]
Nineteenth Day.
It is the duty of a man to be just
before he is generous.
It is difficult to offer aid to an independent
man.
Go in and win—an admirable thing to recommend
if you only know how to do it.
Dishonesty will stare honesty out of
countenance any day in the week, if there is
anything to be got by it.
The world is prone to misconstruction.
[Pg 20]
Twentieth Day.
There never were greed and
cunning in the world yet, that
did not do too much
and overreach themselves.
Be diligent, work for a steady independence,
and be happy.
It is not on earth that Heaven’s justice ends.
Women, after all, are the great props
and comforts of our existence.
Self-praise is no recommendation.
[Pg 21]
Twenty-first Day.
Every failure teaches
a man something,
if he will learn.
Mystery and disappointment
are not
absolutely
indispensable to the
growth of love,
but they are often very
powerful auxiliaries.
The envious man beholds
his neighbor’s
honours even in the sky.
A man can’t at all times be quite master
of himself.
[Pg 22]
Twenty-second Day.
May every blessing that a true and
earnest heart can call
down from the source of
all truth and sincerity cheer and
prosper you.
God bless home once more, and all
belonging to it.
Perhaps it’s a good thing to have an unsound
hobby ridden to death.
Be as rich as you honestly can. It’s your
duty. Not for your
sake, but for the sake of others.
[Pg 23]
Twenty-third Day.
Who that has a heart fails to
recognize the
silent presence of another?
Father Time is not always a
hard parent, and
though he tarries for none of
his children,
he often lays his hand lightly on
those who use him well.
Second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes,
come easily off and on.
It’s much easier to talk
than to bear.
[Pg 24]
Twenty-fourth Day.
Where’s the good of putting
things off?
Strike while the iron’s hot.
Money ... some people find their gratification
in storing it up,
and others in parting with it.
Only the wisdom that holds the clue to
all hearts and all mysteries
can surely know to what extent a man can
impose upon himself.
Every man came into this world for something.
[Pg 25]
Twenty-fifth Day.
Perfect coolness and self-possession
... are indispensable
accomplishments of a great mind.
The hill has not lifted its face to Heaven yet,
that perseverance will not
gain the summit of at last.
If you can’t get to be uncommon
through going straight, you’ll never get to do it
through being crooked.
[Pg 26]
Twenty-sixth Day.
Cheerful of spirit and guiltless
of affectation true practical
Christianity ever is.
Live at least, in peace, and trust in God
to help.
Reflect upon your present blessings—
of which every man has many—not on your
past misfortunes,
of which all men have some.
All other swindlers upon earth are nothing
to the self-swindlers.
[Pg 27]
Twenty-seventh Day.
There’s a moral in everything, if
we would
only avail ourselves of it.
It is the highest part of the highest creed
to forgive before
memory sleeps, and ever to remember how the
good overcame the evil.
There is nothing, no, nothing innocent or
good that dies and is forgotten.
It does not follow that the more talkative a
person becomes
the more agreeable he is.
[Pg 28]
Twenty-eighth Day.
Blustering assertion goes for proof half
over the world.
From rough outsides serene and gentle influences
often proceed.
A generous nature is not prone to strong
aversions, and is slow
to admit them even dispassionately.
[Pg 29]
Twenty-ninth Day.
Work: don’t make fine playing
speeches about
bread, but earn it.
If I do my duty, I do what I ought, and
do no more than all the rest.
Do not strive and struggle to enrich
yourselves or to get the better of each other.
People accustomed from infancy to lie on
down feathers,
have no idea how hard a paving-stone
is without trying it.
[Pg 30]
Thirtieth Day.
Memory, however sad, is the
best and purest
link between this world and a better.
It’s enough for a man to understand his
own business,
and not to interfere with other people’s.
It’s a world full of hearts, and a serious world
with all its folly.
[Pg 31]
Thirty-first Day.
Our judgments are so liable to be
influenced by many
considerations, which almost
without our knowing it, are unfair,
that it is necessary to keep a guard upon them.
There are chords in the human heart—
strange varying strings—
which are only struck by accident.
It is well for a man to respect his own vocation,
whatever it is;
and to think himself bound to uphold it, and
to claim for it the respect it deserves.
[Pg 32]
Transcriber’s note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. The following printer errors have been changed.
| CHANGED | FROM | TO |
| Page 12: | “always some thing to be” | “always something to be” |
| Page 19: | “Go in an win” | “Go in and win” |
| Page 26: | “An Uncommercial Traveller.” | “The Uncommercial Traveller.” |
| Page 31: | “what ever it is” | “whatever it is” |