, like a child that
has said its lesson or got to the end of a sermon, gives a self-satisfied
flirt of his tail, and goes in again to sleep.

_Prose Idylls_. 1866.

Tact of the Heart. March 3.

Random shots are dangerous and cruel, likely to hit the wrong person and
hurt his feelings unnecessarily. It is very easy to say a hard thing,
but not so easy to say it to the right person at the right time.

_MS._

Special Providences. March 4.

I believe not only in "special providences," but in the whole universe as
one infinite complexity of special providences.

_Letters and Memories_.

The grain of dust is a thought of God; God's power made it; God's wisdom
gave it whatsoever properties or qualities it may possess. God's
providence has put it in the place where it is now, and has ordained that
it should be in that place at that moment, by a train of causes and
effects which reaches back to the very creation of the universe. The
grain of dust can no more go from God's presence or flee from God's
Spirit than you or I can.

_Town Geology_. 1871.

Be Calm. March 5.

Strive daily and hourly to be calm; to stop yourself forcibly and recall
your mind to a sense of what you are, where you are going, and whither
you ought to be tending. This is most painful discipline, but most
wholesome.

_MS. Letter_. 1842.

Self-sacrifice and Personality. March 6.

What a strange mystery is that of mutual self-sacrifice! to exist for one
moment for another! the perfection of human bliss! And does not love
teach us two things? First, that self-sacrifice, the living for others,
is the law of our perfect being, and next, that by and in self-sacrifice
alone can we attain to the perfect apprehension of ourselves, our own
personality, our own duty, our own bliss. So that the mystics are
utterly wrong when they fancy that self-sacrifice can be attained by self-
annihilation. Self-sacrifice, instead of destroying the sense of
personality, perfects it.

_MS. Letter_. 1843.

Follow your Star. March 7.

I believe with Dante, "_se tu segui la tua Stella_," that He who ordained
my star will not lead me _into_ temptation but _through_ it. Without Him
all places and methods of life are equally dangerous, with Him all
equally safe.

_Letters and Memories_. 1848.

Reverence for Books. March 8.

This is the age of _books_. And we should reverence books. Consider!
except a living