alis says--that we touch Heaven when we lay our
hand on a human body! . . . The old Homeric Greeks, I think, felt that,
and acted up to it, more than any nation. The Patriarchs too seem to
have had the same feeling. . . .

_Letters and Memories_. 1843.

Woman's Work. October 13.

Let woman never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower
and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and diviner one of
self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life which lives in
and for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord.

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

Self-Enjoyment. October 14.

"How do ye expect," said Sandy, "ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at
a', as long as ye go on only looking to enjoy yersel--_yersel_? Mony was
the year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it
was a'

"'Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye,
There he sits singing the lang simmer day;
Lassies gae to him,
And kiss him, and woo him--
Na bird is so merry as Sandy Mackaye.'

An' muckle good cam' o't. Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour,
disappointed auld carle. But I tell ye nay. I've got that's worth
living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and
there's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I
think--I'm a great liar often mysel, especially when I'm praying."

_Alton Locke_, chap. vii.

Temptations of Temperament. October 15.

A man of intense sensibilities, and therefore capable, as is but too
notorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues.

_Sermons on David_.

The more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more noble and
earnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if neglected, to go
astray.

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

Egotism of Melancholy. October 16.

Morbid melancholy results from subjectivity of mind. The
self-contemplating mind, if it be a conscientious and feeling one, must
be dissatisfied with what it sees within. Then it begins unconsciously
to flatter itself with the idea that it is not the "_moi_" but the "_non
moi_," the world around, which is evil. Hence comes Manichaeism,
Asceticism, and that morbid tone of mind which is so accustomed to look
for sorrow that it finds it even in joy--because it will not confess to
itself that sorrow belongs to _sin_, and that sin belongs to _self_; and
therefore it vents its dissatisfaction on God's earth,