| The Every Day of Life |
Chapter 13 |
Page 6 |
There are parents who make the same mistake with their children. They love them, but they do not reveal their love. They allow it to be taken for granted. After infancy passes they quietly drop out of their intercourse with their children all tenderness, all caresses, and marks of fondness. On the first intimidation of danger of any kind their love reveals itself in anxious solitude and prompt efforts to help; but in the daily life of the home there is no show of tenderness. The love is unquestioned, but like the vase of ointment unbroken, it gives out no perfume.
The home life may be free from all bitterness, all that is unloving or unkind, and yet it has sore lack. It is not in what we do that the secret of the want of happiness must be sought, but in what we do not do.
Mrs. Sangster writes:–
“It isn’t the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you’ve left undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flower you might have sent, dear,
Are you haunting ghosts to-night.
The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother’s way,
The bit of heart-some counsel,
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
That you had no time or thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.
The little act of kindness,
So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be angels,
Which every mortal finds –
They come in sight and silence,
Each chill, reproaching wraith –
They come in sight and silence,
When hope is faint and flagging,
And a blight has dropped on faith.”
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