“Do the work that’s nearest
Though it’s dull at whiles.”
“Comings and goings
No turmoil need bring;
His all thy future,
‘Do ye nexte thynge.’”
Duty never is a haphazard thing; it does not come to us in bundles from which we may choose what we like best. There are never a half dozen things either one of which we may fitly do at any particular time; there is some one definite and particular thing in the divine purpose for each moment. In writing music no composer strews the notes along the staff just as they happen to fall on this line or that space; he sets them in harmonious order and succession, so that they will make sweet music when played or sung. The builder does not fling the stones and the beams into the edifice without plan; every block and every piece of wood, stone or iron, and every brick, has its place and the building rises in graceful beauty.
The days are like the lines and spaces in the musical staff, and duties are the notes; each life is meant to be a perfect harmony, and in order to this each single duty has its own proper place. One thing done out of its time and place makes discord in the music of life, just as one note misplaces on the staff mars the harmony. Each life is a building, and the little acts are the materials used; the whole is congruous and beautiful only when every act is in its own true place. Everything is beautiful in its time, but out of time the loveliest acts lose much of their loveliness.
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