Hope for a great sea-change timid to rebuke and too petty to forgive.
Subduing and subdued, the petty strife, Which clouds the colour of domestic life; The sober comfort, all the peace which springs From the large aggregate of little things; On these small cares of daughter, wife or friend, The almost sacred joys of home depend.
Music is of two kinds: one petty, poor, second-rate, never varying, its base the hundred or so phrasings which all musicians understand, a babbling which is more or less pleasant, the life that most composers live.
In an average day, you may well be confronted with some species of bullying or bigotry, or some ill-phrased appeal to the general will, or some petty abuse of authority. If you have a political loyalty, you may be offered a shady reason for agreeing to a lie or a half-truth that serves some short-term purpose. Everybody devises tactics for getting through such moments; try behaving "as if" they need not be tolerated and are not inevitable.
Very few worries can stand against the influence of a good long walk. . . How many petty annoyances have I thus walked away!
An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.
. . . maybe a damned good night's sleep will bring me back to a gentle sanity. But at the moment, I look about this room and, like myself, it's all in disarray: things fallen out of place, cluttered, jumbled, lost, knocked over and I can't put it straight, don't want to. Perhaps living through these petty days will get us ready for the dangerous ones.