The following is from a chapter called “the education of our girls” and the author encourages a liberal education for all. Here the recommendation is to learn from nature the skills only a sensitive heart can acquire. I interpret this to mean that the soft and subtle as well as the turbulent motions of nature will be drawn into the spirit of the person that “shall lean her ear in many a secret place.” Learning the laws and impulses nature has to teach.

 “Nature,” begins by observing a three-year-old child whom she decides to choose for a student.

“Three years she grew in sun and shower;

Then nature said, ‘A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown;

This child I to myself will take,

She shall be mine, and I will make

A lady of my own.

“Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse; and with me

The girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,

Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

“She shall be sportive as the fawn

That wild with glee across the lawn

Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,

And hers the silence and the calm,

Of mute insensate things.

“The floating clouds their state shall lend

to her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

E’en in the motions of the storm

Grace that shall mold the maiden’s form

By silent sympathy.

“The stars of midnight shall be dear

to her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place,

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,

And beauty born of murmuring sound

Shall pass into her face.’”

I can't recall ever reading a more lovely bouquet of thought.

 From Our Home, by Charles E. Sargent, M.A.,

"Make the most of what there is good in institutions, in opinions, in communities, in individuals. It is very easy to do the reverse of this, to make the worst of what there is of evil, absurd, and erroneous. By so doing we shall have no difficulty in making estrangements more wide, and hatreds and strifes more abundant, and errors more extreme." Dean Stanley.

The following piece on the proud person is written with the contempt that people truly feel towards those who see themselves as more than they are. I’m in this essay, no doubt: but I rarely find anyone who doesn’t hold some or many of the following weaknesses. Read this slowly with true self-evaluation before you just dismiss it as a description of the other guy.

A proud man is a fool in fermentation that swells and boils over like a porridge-pot. He set out his feathers like an owl, to swell and seem bigger than he is. He is troubled with a tumor and inflammation of self-conceit, that renders every part of him stiff and uneasy. He has given himself sympathetic love-powder, that works upon him to foolish self-affection, and has transformed him into his own mistress.
He is his own gallant knight, and makes most passionate addresses to his own dear perfections. He commits idolatry to himself, and worships his own image; though there is no soul living of his church but himself, yet he believes as the church believes, and maintains his faith with the obstinacy of a fanatic. He is his own favorite, and advances himself, not only above his merit, but above all mankind; he give place to no man but himself, and that with very great distance to all others, whom he esteems not worthy to approach him.
He believes whatever he has, receives a value in just being his, as a horse in a nobleman’s stable will bear a greater price than in a common market.
He strives to look bigger than himself, as well as others; and is no better than his own parasite and flatterer.
A little flood will make a shallow torrent swell about its banks, and rage, and foam, and yield a roaring noise, while a deep, silent stream glides quietly on; so a vain-glorious, insolent, proud man swells with a little frail prosperity, grows big and loud, and overflows its bounds, and when he sinks, leaves mud and dirt behind him.
Now, we can naturally take no view of ourselves, unless we look downwards, to teach us what humble admirers we ought to be of our own value. The slighter and less solid his materials are, the more room they take up, and make him swell the bigger, as feathers and cotton will stuff cushions better than things of more close and solid parts. Butler.

“What would be the heart of an old weather-beaten hollow stump, if the leaves and blossoms of its youth were suddenly to spring up out of the mould around it, and to remind it how bright and blissful summer was in the years of its prime!

That which has died within us, is often the saddest portion of what Death has taken away, sad to all, sad above measure to those in whom no higher life has been awakened. The heavy thought is the thought of what we were, of what we hoped and purpost to have been, of what we ought to have been, of what but for ourselves we might have been, set by the side of what we are; as though we were haunted by the ghost of our own youth. This is a thought the crushing weight of which nothing but strength above our own can lighten.” Guesses at Truth. 

  I look often into faces that have let years go by without fruitage. Addiction and wayward living steal years so silently and swiftly, that when finally realized, it seems impossible that whole seasons have been lost. That being said, I’m sure there is not a person, when assessing the years, cannot find many that lay fallow.  

   “Everybody is impatient for the time when he shall be his own master. And if coming of age were to make one so, if years could indeed “Bring the philosophic mind,” it would be rightly a day of rejoicing to a whole household and neighborhood. But to often he, who is impatient to become his own master, when the outward checks are removed, merely becomes his own slave, the slave of a master in the insolent flush of youth, hasty, headstrong, wayward and tyrannical. Had he really become his own master, the first act of his dominion over himself would have been to put himself under the dominion of a higher Master and a wiser.” Guesses at Truth.

  “Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold, stir more than they can quiet, fly to the end without consideration of the means.”  Bacon.

  “In the morning of our days, when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty is fresh upon all the objects that surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how false and inaccurate the judgments we form of things.”  Burke.

Henry D. Thoreau lived a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust;” in an “economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy;” in “the poverty that enjoys true wealth.” His literary creed was stoical, like his personal tastes. Reading, in his view, was, or ought to be, “a noble, intellectual exercise.” He did not wish to be lulled asleep; nor would he suffer his life to be taken by newspapers and novels. Perhaps his taste was narrow. He believed in books that call for alertness, books that a man must “stand on tiptoe to read:” books that deal with high themes simply; books “solidly done,” not “cursed with a style.”

I like that and especially the line - books that a man must "stand on tiptoe to read." 

Great things are the aggregate of little’s; great results proceed from little causes. Human life is a succession of unimportant events; only here and there one can be called great in itself. A crushing sorrow, the loss of a fortune, physical and mental suffering, are the exceptions and not the rule of life. Experiences so small as scarcely to leave a trace behind, are the rule, producing in the consummation a life that is noble or ignoble, useful or useless, an honor or a disgrace.

A banker in the city of Paris, France, said to a boy who entered the bank:--
“What now, my son?”
“Want a boy here?” was the answer.
“Not just now,” the banker replied, engaging in further conversation with the lad, whose appearance favorably impressed him.
When the boy went out, the eyes of the banker followed him into the street, where he saw him stoop to pick up a pin and fasten it to the collar of his coat. The act revealed to the banker a quality indispensable to a successful financier; and he called the boy back, gave him a position, and in process of time, he became the most distinguished banker in Paris, Laffitte.” From “Leaders of Men.”

  "Hearts are linked to hearts by God. The friend on whose fidelity you count, whose success in life flushes your cheek with honest satisfaction, whose triumphant career you have traced and read with a heart throbbing almost as if it were a thing alive, for whose honor you would answer for as for your own; that friend given to you by circumstances over which you had no control, was God’s own gift.”

“I should like to like Schumann’s music better than I do; I dare say I could make myself like it better if I tried, but I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at once with no trying at all.” Samuel Butler. Here in lies the largest part of men’s dissatisfaction with life; we don’t like   having to try and make ourselves like things. Be it asparagus or algebra, prayer or Pilates, we don’t want to cultivate ourselves but would rather dine on spiced sauces and cheesecake.

This comes from an essay titled, “On Knowing What Gives Us Pleasure.” He considers the importance of putting a sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no greater sign of a fool than the thinking that he can tell at once and easily what it is that pleases him. To know this is not easy. Please understand me to mean pleasure that is life giving, love expanding, holy and just, found in God and in the vast abundance of good things He has provided in creation.

  Much of what we consider to be pleasure we learn from our ancestors and we adopt these without question. The reason this interests me is I see in the men and women I minister too, as well as myself, a contentment with less: less spiritual life, education, fullness, less of life in general, much less.

We adopt routines, accept things as they are and make little effort to change, and when we do seek change, we may pursue it as a blind man launching out in any direction hoping to stumble upon and find pleasure without sacrifice. I agreed with his advice about seeking methods to obtain pleasure --

“To those, however, who are desirous of knowing what gives them pleasure but do not quite know how to set about it I have no better advice to give than that they must take the same pains about acquiring this difficult art as about any other, and must acquire it in the same way--that is by attending to one thing at a time and not being in too great a hurry. Proficiency is not to be attained here, any more than elsewhere, by short cuts or by getting other people to do work that no other than oneself can do.”

  I think the Bible teaches us that life is strategic and deliberate, if we will find gold we will have to roll up our sleeves and dig because few are the nuggets found on the surface. In 2 Tim. 1:6 Paul stirs us by saying, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you…..” My library has many books, which inspire and encourage people to press in and take life in earnest. I’ve read much and even seen in a few movies that offer encouragement to expand our horizons, on whatever level. The Dead Poets Society comes to mind. Being a child of the sixties, it left its mark on me as well, to question, to think and look beyond the borders was the mantra of the time.

  I thank God for all the influences that have come into my life and inspired me to reach out for deeper meaning, deeper relationships and brought greater and lasting pleasures as well as interests that are meaningful and help keep life new and fresh.