A part of this passage appeared in The Best Loved Poems of the American People (1936) with the title "Friendship":
A Life for a Life (1859)
Context: Thus ended our little talk: yet it left a pleasant impression. True, the subject was strange enough; my sisters might have been shocked at it; and at my freedom in asking and giving opinions. But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
Somebody must have done a good deal of the winnowing business this afternoon; for in the course of it I gave him as much nonsense as any reasonable man could stand...
Works
The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak
Dinah Craik
John Halifax, Gentleman
Dinah CraikFamous Dinah Craik Quotes
“Immortality alone could teach this mortal how to die.”
"Looking Death in the Face", Miss Mulock's Poems (1866)
"April", in Poems (1859)
Context: Awakener, come!
Fiing wide the gate of an eternal year,
The April of that glad new heavens and earth
Which shall grow out of these, as spring-tide grows
Slow out of winter's breast.
Let Thy wide hand
Gather us all — with none left out (O God!
Leave Thou out none!) from the east and from the west.
Loose Thou our burdens: heal our sicknesses;
Give us one heart, one tongue, one faith, one love.
In Thy great Oneness made complete and strong —
To do Thy work throughout the happy world —
Thy world, All-merciful, Thy perfect world.
Ch 7
The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak (1875)
Dinah Craik Quotes about love
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 270
"April", in Poems (1859)
Context: Awakener, come!
Fiing wide the gate of an eternal year,
The April of that glad new heavens and earth
Which shall grow out of these, as spring-tide grows
Slow out of winter's breast.
Let Thy wide hand
Gather us all — with none left out (O God!
Leave Thou out none!) from the east and from the west.
Loose Thou our burdens: heal our sicknesses;
Give us one heart, one tongue, one faith, one love.
In Thy great Oneness made complete and strong —
To do Thy work throughout the happy world —
Thy world, All-merciful, Thy perfect world.
Dinah Craik Quotes about life
Source: John Halifax, Gentleman (1857), Chapter 36
Ch 12
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Context: A finished life — a life which has made the best of all the materials granted to it, and through which, be its web dark or bright, its pattern clear or clouded, can now be traced plainly the hand of the Great Designer; surely this is worth living for? And though at its end it may be somewhat lonely; though a servant's and not a daughter's arm may guide the failing step; though most likely it will be strangers only who come about the dying bed, close the eyes that no husband ever kissed, and draw the shroud kindly over the poor withered breast where no child's head has ever lain; still, such a life is not to be pitied, for it is a completed life. It has fulfilled its appointed course, and returns to the Giver of all breath, pure as He gave it. Nor will He forget it when He counteth up His jewels.
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8
Context: Do your neighbour good by all means in your power, moral as well as physical — by kindness, by patience, by unflinching resistance against every outward evil — by the silent preaching of your own contrary life. But if the only good you can do him is by talking at him, or about him — nay, even to him, if it be in a self-satisfied, super-virtuous style — such as I earnestly hope the present writer is not doing — you had much better leave him alone.
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Context: Nevertheless, taking life as a whole, believing that it consists not in what we have, but in our power of enjoying the same; that there are in it things nobler and dearer than ease, plenty, or freedom from care — nay, even than existence itself; surely it is not Quixotism, but common-sense and Christianity, to protest that love is better than outside show, labour than indolence, virtue than mere respectability
“Lo! all life this truth declares,
Laborare est orare;
And the whole earth rings with prayers.”
"Labour is Prayer"
Poems (1866)
Dinah Craik: Trending quotes
“When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action.”
Christian's Mistake (1865). p. 64
Context: When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us why.
Dinah Craik Quotes
“Meek — as the meek that shall inherit earth,
Pure — as the pure in heart that shall see God.”
Poems (1866), Our Father's Business
Context: This, this is Thou. No idle painter's dream
Of aureoled, imaginary Christ,
Laden with attributes that make not God;
But Jesus, son of Mary; lowly, wise,
Obedient, subject unto parents, mild,
Meek — as the meek that shall inherit earth,
Pure — as the pure in heart that shall see God.
“Happiness is not an end — it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence.”
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Context: Happiness is not an end — it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence. The Omnipotent Himself could never be supposed by any, save those who out of their own human selfishness construct the attributes of Divinity, to be absorbed throughout eternity in the contemplation of His own ineffable bliss, were it not identical with His ineffable goodness and love.
Ch 10
The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak (1875)
Context: Thus King Dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous. Whether he was happy — "as happy as a king" — is a question no human being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was his godmother's godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he liked, in that quiet little room in view of the Beautiful Mountains, which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. They were too far off, and the city lay so low. But there they were, all the time. No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains.
Ch 10
The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak (1875)
Context: Thus King Dolor's reign passed, year after year, long and prosperous. Whether he was happy — "as happy as a king" — is a question no human being can decide. But I think he was, because he had the power of making everybody about him happy, and did it too; also because he was his godmother's godson, and could shut himself up with her whenever he liked, in that quiet little room in view of the Beautiful Mountains, which nobody else ever saw or cared to see. They were too far off, and the city lay so low. But there they were, all the time. No change ever came to them; and I think, at any day throughout his long reign, the King would sooner have lost his crown than have lost sight of the Beautiful Mountains.
"April", in Poems (1859)
Context: p>The irrevocable Hand
That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut
The portals of our earthly destinies;
We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors
Close after us, for ever.Pause, my soul,
On these strange words — for ever — whose large sound
Breaks flood-like, drowning all the petty noise
Our human moans make on the shores of Time.
O Thou that openest, and no man shuts;
That shut'st, and no man opens — Thee we wait!</p
“Wist ye not
That I must be about my Father's business?”
Poems (1866), Our Father's Business
Context: O infinitely human, yet divine!
Half clinging childlike to the mother found,
Yet half repelling — as the soft eyes say,
"How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not
That I must be about my Father's business?"
“Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth.”
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8
Context: Let every one of us cultivate, in every word that issues from our mouth, absolute truth. I say cultivate, because to very few people — as may be noticed of most young children — does truth, this rigid, literal veracity, come by nature. To many, even who love it and prize it dearly in others, it comes only after the self-control, watchfulness, and bitter experience of years.
“O Thou that openest, and no man shuts;
That shut'st, and no man opens — Thee we wait!”
"April", in Poems (1859)
Context: p>The irrevocable Hand
That opes the year's fair gate, doth ope and shut
The portals of our earthly destinies;
We walk through blindfold, and the noiseless doors
Close after us, for ever.Pause, my soul,
On these strange words — for ever — whose large sound
Breaks flood-like, drowning all the petty noise
Our human moans make on the shores of Time.
O Thou that openest, and no man shuts;
That shut'st, and no man opens — Thee we wait!</p
"Magnus and Morna", in Thirty Years, Poems New and Old (1880)
Context: And all day long, so close and near,
As in a mystic dream I hear
Their gentle accents kind and dear —
The old familiar voices.
They have no sound that I can reach —
But silence sweeter is than speech;
“We too should be about our father's business —
O Christ, hear us!”
Poems (1866), Our Father's Business
Context: All that we know of Thee, or knowing not
Love only, waiting till the perfect time
When we shall know even as we are known —
O Thou Child Jesus, Thou dost seem to say
By the soft silence of these heavenly eyes
(That rose out of the depths of nothingness
Upon this limner's reverent soul and hand)
We too should be about our father's business —
O Christ, hear us!
Preface
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
Context: These "Thoughts," a portion of which originally appeared in "Chambers' Journal," are, I wish distinctly to state, only Thoughts. They do not pretend to solve any problems, to lay down any laws, to decide out of one life's experience and within the limits of one volume, any of those great questions which have puzzled generations, and will probably puzzle generations more. They lift the banner of no party; and assert the opinions of no clique. They do not even attempt an originality, which, in treating of a subject like the present, would be either dangerous or impossible.
In this book, therefore, many women will find simply the expression of what they have themselves, consciously or unconsciously, oftentimes thought; and the more deeply, perhaps, because it has never come to the surface in words or writing. Those who do the most, often talk — sometimes think — the least: yet thinkers, talkers, and doers, being in earnest, achieve their appointed end. The thinkers put wisdom into the mouth of the speakers, and both strive together to animate and counsel the doers. Thus all work harmoniously together; and verily
“Down in the deep, up in the sky,
I see them always, far or nigh,
And I shall see them till I die —”
"Magnus and Morna", in Thirty Years, Poems New and Old (1880)
Context: p>Down in the deep, up in the sky,
I see them always, far or nigh,
And I shall see them till I die —The old familiar faces.</p
"Plighted"
Poems (1866)
Context: Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty!
Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty:
Love given willingly, full and free,
Love for love's sake — as mine to thee.
Duty's a slave that keeps the keys,
But Love, the master, goes in and out
Of his goodly chambers with song and shout,
Just as he please — just as he please.
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Context: I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not.
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8
Context: Gossip, public, private, social — to fight against it either by word or pen seems, after all, like fighting with shadows. Everybody laughs at it, protests against it, blames and despises it; yet everybody does it, or at least encourages others in it: quite innocently, unconsciously, in such a small, harmless fashion — yet we do it. We must talk about something, and it is not all of us who can find a rational topic of conversation, or discuss it when found.
"A Flower of a Day"
Poems (1866)
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 11
Ch 10
The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak (1875)
“The only way to make people good, is to make them happy.”
Ch 11
A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858)
“There never was night that had no morn.”
"The Golden Gate", Mulock's Poems, New and Old (1888), this has sometimes been misquoted as There was never a night that had no morn.
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
"Outward Bound"; Poems Since 1860
Poems (1866)
“Oh, if I could live four weeks longer! but no matter, no matter!”
Last words, after suffering a heart attack, while in a period of preparation for her adopted daughter Dorothy's wedding. (12 October 1887)
“Two hands upon the breast,
And labour’s done;
Two pale feet crossed in rest,
The race is won.”
Now and Afterwards; there exists a similar Russian proverb: "Two hands upon the breast, and labour is past".
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8; Craik is sometimes credited with originating the proverb "Believe only half of what you see, and nothing that you hear" — but in this passage she appears to be merely quoting it
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 11
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
“Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another?”
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
"Magnus and Morna", in Thirty Years, Poems New and Old (1880)
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 10
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 8
Source: A Woman's Thoughts About Women (1858), Ch. 11
