Attempt > Volume 1 and Select writings

THE ATTEMPT
151
j^racthiitg akut (Skrntjnnjj,
Everything seems at first sight a somewhat vague and comprehensive subject,
certainly not to be exhausted in the limits of an article such as this. It is a fascinating
subject, however, perhaps on account of its very vagueness, which allows a delightful
feeling of liberty to pervade our lucubrations and inspire our erratic pen. After all,
is there not something to he thought, felt, or said about everything in this earth of
ours, some meaning and definite purpose in every note that goes to make up the great
harmony, could we hut get at the pith and heart of it. The passing breeze that scarce
ruffles the surface of the lake and dallies softly among the water-lilies by the shore, is
not more slight, more unheeded, than the multitudinous trifles that make up the sum
of our daily existence; yet the floating down from the wing of the swan on the lake
will show the direction of the breeze 3 and each of these trifles in a life tends some¬
whither, has in it a purpose, an influence such as we cannot hope to trace or understand
to its fullest extent. It seems a small thing if we repeat a passing observation on
another, yet by so doing, we may break or make a friendship : it seems a small matter
if we turn to the right hand or to the left in our day’s walk, yet on the one path
happiness may he waiting for us, and on the other death. “ Solemn enough did we
think of it, which unhappily, and also happily, we do not very much! Thou there
canst begin 3 the beginning is for thee, and there 3 but where, and of what sort, and
for whom will the end he 'i ”
This being so, Everything may he, after all, a profitable field for thought, serious
or mirthful, as the case may he 3 and if the readers of “ The Attempt ” are not too
hard upon our beginnings, we may endeavour sometimes to give expression to our
fancies, only premising that, in the words of one of the wise men of the earth, “ truth
is a polygon,” and therefore he who would study her must be prepared to take no
one-sided view. Some grains of truth are to be found in almost every thing, place, or
person, in the world 3 hut so complex are the surrounding influences, the characteristics
of each, that to judge them reasonably and with genuine perceptiveness, we must
bring clear eyes and calm minds to the task. We must not mount, as many do,
spectacles of a certain hue, rose or green, which impart their own colour to every
object, so that the wearer announces, to the delusion of the world and her own soul,