Of Trifles. From Proverbial Philosophy

Yet once more, saith the fool, yet once, and is it not a little one?
Spare me this folly yet an hour, for what is one among so many?
And lie blindeth his conscience with lies, and stupifieth his heart with doubts; —
Whom shall I harm in this matter? and a little ill breedeth much good;
My thoughts, are they not mine own? and they leave no mark behind them;
And if God so pardoneth crime, how should these petty sins affect him? —
So he transgresseth yet again, and falleth by little and little,
Till the ground crumble beneath him, and he sinketh in the gulf despairing.
For there is nothing in the earth so small that it may not produce great things,
And no swerving from a right line, that may not lead eternally astray.
A landmark tree was once a seed; and the dust in the balance maketh a differeuce;
And the cairn is heaped high by each one flinging a pebble;
The dangerous bar in the harbour's mouth is only grains of sand;
And the shoal that hath wrecked a navy is the work of a colony of worms:
Yea, and a despicable gnat may madden the mighty elephant;
And the living rock is worn by the diligent flow of the brook.
Little art thou, O man, and in trifles thou contendest with thine equals.
For atoms must crowd upon atoms, ere crime groweth to be a giant.
What, is thy servant a dog? — not yet wilt thou grasp the dagger,
Not yet wilt thou laugh with the scoffers, not yet betray the innocent;
But, if thou nourish in thy heart the reveries of injury or passion,
And travel in mental heat the mazy labyrinths of guilt,
And then conceive it possihle, and then reflect on it as done,
And use, by little and little, thyself to regard thyself a villain.
Not long will crime be absent from the voice that doth invoke him to thy heart.
And bitterly wilt thou grieve, that the buds have ripened into poison.

A spark is a molecule of matter, yet may it kindle the world:
Vast is the mighty ocean, but drops have made it vast.
Despise not thou a small thing, either for evil or for good;
For a look may work thy ruin, or a word create thy wealth:
The walking this way or that, the casual stopping or hastening.
Hath saved life, and destroyed it, hath cast down and built up fortunes.
Commit thy trifles unto God, for to him is nothing trivial;
And it is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in a trifle.
All things are infinite in parts, and the moral is as the material.
Neither is anything vast, but it is compacted of atoms.
Thou art wise, and shalt find comfort, if thou study thy pleasure in trifles.
For slender joys, often repeated, fall as sunshine on the heart:
Thou art wise, if thou beat off petty troubles, nor suffer their stinging to fret thee;
Thrust not thine hand among the thorns, but with a leathern glove.
Regard nothing lightly which the wisdom of Providence hath ordered;
And therefore, consider all things that happen unto thee or unto others.
The warrior that stood against a host, may be pierced unto death by a needle;
And the saint that feareth not the fire, may perish the victim of a thought:
A mote in the gunner's eye is as bad as a spike in the gun;
And the cable of a furlong is lost through an ill-wrought inch.
The streams of small pleasures fill the lake of happiness:
And the deepest wretchedness of life is continuance of petty pains.
A fool observeth nothing, and seemeth wise unto himself.
A wise man heedeth all things, and in his own eyes is a fool:
He that wondereth at nothing hath no capabilities of bliss:
But he that scrutinizeth trifles hath a store of pleasure to his hand.
If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say, This is God's doing;
Is it not also his doing when an aphis creepeth on a rose-bud? —
If an avalanche roll from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of Providence:
Is not that will concerned when the sear leaves fall from the poplar? —
A thing is great or little only to a mortal's thinking.
But abstracted from the body, all things are alike important:
The Ancient of Days noteth in his book the idle converse of a creature,
And happy and wise is the man to whose thought existeth not a trifle.


Transcribed from the 25th edition "Proverbial Philosophy by Martin Farquhar Tupper" by Mick Puttock, August 2011 (Spelling, punctuation and grammer left mostly unchanged from the 25th edition)