The Harvest of a Quiet Eye by John Richard Vernon

Author:John Richard Vernon [Vernon, John Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-02-27T23:00:00+00:00

Can you fancy a more exquisite instance of the “art of putting things”? Can you not imagine yourself positively enjoying the wetting, even though no whit alive to the beauty of rain, as rain? So much depends on the manner in which a thing is put before you; so much depends on the lead which is given to your way of looking at it. Had a grumbling Christian been beside the lady instead of the at least pious-languaged Moslem, to mutter, and repine, and reiterate, “How very unfortunate” (whatever this word may mean) “we are!” would not a gloom and dulness obscure the memory of that ride, in her mind? Whereas the beautiful thought of the Arab, as it made the idea of the rain pleasant and lovely at the time, so it dwells with a rainbow brightness on all after-memories of that cloud.

But enough has been said as to the beauty of rain. It seems, after all, that much depends on our way of looking at the thing. If we regard rather the inconveniences that will sometimes attend it, we shall probably not even think of looking for the beauty that I have endeavoured to describe. But if our way is to look rather for what is pleasant than for what is disagreeable, in the common events of life; if we love nature in all her moods, and watch, with a lover’s eye, each sweet change in her face; especially if we regard God’s works as the language of God’s thoughts, and consider nothing as the offspring of chance, but all things as consequent on His ordering, who sees the sparrows fall, and by whom the very hairs of the head are all numbered—if this be our manner of regarding those dispensations which are above our control, I dare affirm that in nothing that the Great Maker expresses, shall we miss finding, not only use, but beauty. And if I have suggested to some minds any thoughts that may hereafter lead them to share my love for the beautiful rain, I rejoice that I have been to them the exponent of a beauty that they have missed hitherto; and I shall receive their gratitude when the soft showers come that water the earth. And if my meditations be read, unhappily for them, not during a dearth, but during a glut of rain, my pleasant labour will not have been in vain, if, though failing to make many admirers, I yet quiet some fretfulness, and correct some thoughtless repining. Some rain, as well as some days, must be dark and dreary. But, after all, it rather receives its tinge of pleasantness or gloom from the colour of our own mind at the time, than itself influences our thoughts. Let there be within us the clear shining of a contented mind, and the darkest clouds will never want for a rainbow. Yea, such a mind, predisposed to enjoy and admire all that the Creator sends, will need no mediation of an interpreter to bid it discern and gather in for itself the exceeding beauty of rain.

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