A Full Life: The Works of Charlotte Mason

These Trifling Acts the Best Portion of a Good Man’s Life––Nameless as they are, the poet does not hesitate to rank these trifling acts as the ‘best portion of a good man’s life.’ But it is only out of the good man’s heart that these good issues come, because, as we have said, the feelings are not in themselves moral; they act upon that which is there, and the point brought before us is, that the influence of the feelings is, at the same time, powerful and indirect. Why should the recollection of Tintern Abbey cause a good man to do some little kind thing? We can only give the ultimate answer that ‘God has made us so,’ that a feeling of even unremembered pleasure prompts the good man to give forth out of the good treasure of his heart in kindness and in love. We have but to think of the outcome of feelings at the negative pole to convince us of the nice exactitude of the poet’s psychology. Suppose, that we are not exactly displeased, but unpleased, dull, not quickened by any feeling of pleasure: let us ask ourselves if; in this condition of our feelings, we are prompted to any outpouring of love and kindness upon our neighbours.