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Untitled Article
piety . " There is no happiness in violent changes , and abrupt transitions . Some people begin a year with one set of opinions , and end it with another . If either set had any root in them , there must have been a terrible breaking up of their
mental constitution in the interval . The wise grow wiser , not by sudden renunciations and adoptions , but by the progressive development of principles . Nature abhors a vacuum , and happiness abhors conversions . There is good enough in all to grow up into all goodness . There is truth enough in all to be cultivated into all truth . The true process is to select the right , and let the rest wither . So with persons ; make
sure of the friend , and let the acquaintance hang on or fall off , as the sun may shine , or the wind may blow . The best wish for a year is , that it should resemble its predecessor in the progressiveness of all that comes nearest to the heart . The happ iest stream of life has no cascades , but goes flowing on , — the surface ever widening , —the channel ever deepening , —the banks becoming more rich and majestic , till it meets and mingles with the everlasting sea .
The happiest years of a life are generally marked , each by some one strong excitement . As the reviewer pounces upon liis " book of the month , " so may the self-reviewer upon his event of the year . Or rather , it presents itself to his retrospective gaze , unobtrusivel y but all-absorbingly , like a mountain in his past road , still present with him , tlie sun on its summit , and the world at its feet . Such ., pre-eminently , is the commencement of the feelinc ; that makes a life ' s destiny ; the
first conscious sight of one iC Who seen , became a part of sight , And rose , where ' I turned mine eye , The morning star of memory , " and not only of memory , but of hope and happiness . That ever makes a year as ? icw as it is happy . Then there are
many subordinate pleasure marks , memorial pillars of past years , even to those who have not lost rich uncles whom they never knew , that died and left them large legacies . The first year of travel , and any year of it to those who can only take it as a rare luxury , is ever distinguished thereby . Thank heaven and James Watt , each in their order , this excitement is within
the compass of a reasonable wish for many thousands . Switzerland , Italy , Greece , and Egypt , —we will say nothing about them ; we write / or the many , and of the commonly attainable . Reader , may you see Scotland for the lirst time this year ; that
will make it a happy and new year for you . Go on either side , west or east , and yon shall be sure of its greeting you with a sensation . West ? There is Ben Lomond in the sunset , revealing to you the reason wh y poets sing of blue mountains . East ? There is Arthur ' s liun couchant amid the clouds , with
Untitled Article
4 New Year . 0
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1836, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2653/page/4/
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