| Making the Most of Life |
Chapter 13 |
Page 4 |
There is still another suggestion from this singular temple building. Every individual life has its quarries where are shaped the blocks which afterward are built into character, or which take form in acts. Schools are the quarries, where, through years of patient study, the materials for life are prepared, the mind is disciplined, habits are formed, knowledge is gained, and power is stored. Later, in active life, the temple rises without noise of hammer or axe. Homes are quarries where children are trained, where moral truth is lodged in the heart, where the elements of character are hewn out like fair stones, to appear in the life in after days, when it grows up among men.
Then there are the thought quarries back of what people see in every human life. Men must be silent thinkers before their words or deeds can have either great beauty or power. Extemporaneousness anywhere is of small value. Glib, easy talkers, who are always ready to speak on any subject, who require no time for preparation, may go on chattering for ever, but their talk is only chatter. The words that are worth hearing come out of thought quarries where they have been wrought ofttimes in struggle and anguish. Father Ryan, in one of the most exquisite of his poems, writes of the “Valley of Silence” where he prepares the songs he afterwards sings:–
“In the hush of the valley of silence
I dream all the songs that I sing;
And the music floats down the dim valley
‘Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge,
A message of peace they may bring.”
Page 4